sith_happened | Office hours [all day]

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Office hours [all day]

Anakin hadn't slept in a couple of days.

Not that this was so terribly unusual for him since coming back from his galaxy, but today the shadows under his eyes were particularly noticeable.

He was flipping absently through a magazine that was six months old and fighting to stay awake.

The door was open.

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Rikku was so sick of being weak and crying and ... she dabbed at her eyes and tried to take a shaky breath.

"I don't know. He's not ... dead. He wasn't ever alive. He was a ... a dream. When the f-fayth were set free ... he just ... vanished. Like he'd never been there at all."

Anakin floated the box of tissues over for Rikku to reach more easily and stared up at her.

"And you miss him," he said. It wasn't a question.

Similar pain stared out of his own eyes.

It was almost stupid, how little she'd let herself think about that. How much she'd enjoyed goofing off with him there, just as energetic as she was, and just as likely to get into trouble. And then Auron would glare and ... Auron. Another stupid heartstab.

She nodded, fumbling for the tissues. "I m-miss all of them. So much. I'm so tired of ... of losing people. But she ... she needs him. She lost everything and she ... I think she gave up and ..."

She hiccuped. "I'm supposed to protect her. I said I would. I'm her Guardian. I promised."

"Sometimes promises can't be kept," Anakin whispered, "I promised Luke's mother..." he trailed off, then stood up, moved a chair over with a wave of his hand and sat down next to Rikku.

"The hardest lesson you'll ever learn in life is how to let go," he said, reaching for her hand. "I still haven't figured it out."

Rikku took his hand, closing her eyes. "What if she can't? If she ... if I could ... something awful for me wouldn't be so bad, not if it meant she ... could be with him again. I'd be okay, I'm stronger than she is, I ..."

"Would she forgive you for that?" Anakin asked. "Would she let you give up a part of what makes you you for her, or would that kind of guilt just make it worse?"

Rikku shook her head. "Why would she ever have to know? She's suffered so much already. I wouldn't burden her with that."

"She wouldn't try to figure out how he came back?" he pressed gently. "She'd just thank the Force and move on? Really?"

Rikku looked down, blushing. "I guess ... I'd hope I could lie convincingly enough that she'd believe it."

"Are souls ... all of that's real? I mean, he said some of the other things were just ... doing work for him, something about a contract, I ... I don't know."

"There is something inside of you that makes you you and no one else," Anakin said. "We refer to it as the soul." He smiled softly. "'Luminous beings are we,'" he recited, "'not this crude matter.'"

"I ... I like that. Luminous beings." Rikku considered, feeling somehow more calm. "So his soul - it's out there somewhere? Maybe ... maybe he's happy."

She looked at him oddly. "So what would Hades want with souls?"

Anakin nodded. "They all become part of the Force," he said softly. "They're still with you."

And if that hasn't kept him up most of this week, well, you're ignoring the circles under his eyes.

He frowned. "I don't know what Hades would want with souls. I can't imagine it's good news for the person who used to have it." Anakin's eyebrows went up. "He wanted your soul for that favor?"

Rikku closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to see if she could feel any of them out there. She couldn't, but they were, so it was okay.

"I ... he just said it was a 'shopping list.' I tried ... I tried to do it myself, because I didn't think anyone would let me, and I did it wrong and that's why things were bendy all week. Uh, and I'm sorry about that. There was a rip. He had to fix it. That's when he said I should have just asked."

Anakin blinked. "You ripped...what?" His face paled. "What separates them from us?" His eyes went hard. "You won't do that again."

It wasn't a request. Anakin had a bit of a vested interest in not having the them visit him.

Ever.

Rikku flinched, squeezing her eyes shut. "N-no, I won't. H-honest. I wasn't - I don't know what I ripped. It - he was supposed to m-move here from there, and instead I moved there and when I got back there was a h-hole. I'm s-sorry."

Anakin gave her hand a squeeze. "We make mistakes," he soothed. "But bringing people back...once they're gone, they're gone."

Except for Obi-Wan, but that hardly seemed like an example to use.

Rikku sighed. "It's our fault. What we did ... it made his world go away. We didn't know. I wish we had. We could have ... something."

"You made his world go away?" Anakin frowned. "With explosives or magic?"

Rikku looked up, eyes wide. "What? No, it wasn't like that! We'd never! We saved the world. We were totally the good guys! It's just ..."

She shook her head again. "It's just that his world wasn't real, and - and fixing what was wrong made all the unreal stuff go away, and - and he faded."

"We didn't know. Maybe we could have done something if we had. But ... he didn't die. He was just - someone stopped Summoning him, I guess."

Anakin nodded slowly. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I think he's gone."

It sounded so final when he said it. Rikku closed her eyes and nodded. "That's ... that's okay. I mean it's good, right? B-because ... that means I can stop trying, and not worry about ... if it's just over, and he's gone, I d-don't have to t-try to ..."

That's when her shoulders slumped and she started shaking again. Idiot. Crying all over his office like this.

Anakin reached over to wrap his arm around her shoulder. "It's all right," he soothed. "Keeping it all inside will just eat you alive."

Rikku leaned against him for a long moment before calming down, taking a deep breath, and straightening up. "I'm ... I'm okay. I cried a lot of this out last night, and ... I don't like being sad when I'm sad so I try to feel better even if I don't and ... and it'll all go away if I don't think about it, but lately it doesn't."

She blinked at him. "Whoa. That's what you mean, isn't it? The eating-alive?"

He nodded. "I have a bit of experience with it."

Rikku swallowed, hard. "That's ... kinda scary."

Then flailed a bit because that came out entirely wrong. "Not you, not the you-having-experience bit! I mean! I didn't know that ... I didn't realize that kinda thing wouldn't go away. That's kinda scary."

She looked down. "I spent two days not telling anybody about the hole and when I finally did it was like I could breathe again. You know?"

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