"The first week you were gone wasn't a good one for me," Anakin said defensively.

"It was the first time I'd been here without you," he said softly, "except for the week you visited your grandparents. I didn't like it. I took a different way to work just to avoid the Perk."

"I would've broken speed limits to get there," he said.

Pause.

"Well, more."

"I don't feel like I lost a part of me any more," he replied. "You're just a little harder to touch."

He closed his eyes and extended his thoughts into the Force, then brushed up against the bright spot that was her. "But not impossible," he said with a shy smile. "Can you feel that?"

"Exactly," Anakin said, brushing against her again before pulling back. "So even when I'm not there, I can kind of be there. Or is that too creepy?"

"Kisses don't translate quite as well," he replied, "so you'll have to pretend I'm giving you one."

Anakin didn't reach out to catch it--the man had some pride--but he was dorkfacing like a pro. "I love you."

"Close your eyes," Anakin told her. "It's Tuesday nap time."

It was a way an insanely overprotective boyfriend who knew how Rory got when she was studying could make sure she was getting some sleep.

He felt Very Smart for naming it.

"You do," he said. "What would you like to hear about today? Star systems? Really, really boring species of bugs?"

"You do know I don't have many of these, right?" he asked.

"Very well," Anakin said. "Once upon a time there was a princess with the most beautiful blue eyes in the universe. There was also, as there so often is, a knight who was desperately in love with her."

"He didn't really see it if he was," Anakin said, smiling softly at her for a moment before continuing. "After a wonderful but entirely too brief time together, the knight had to continue on his quest in a faraway kingdom. But he never forgot the beautiful princess, though many years had passed. On one quest he found a flower that was the exact color of her eyes, and he carried it in his pocket for years."

His cheeks went pink. "He never told anyone about it."

"It wasn't quite as blue two years later, no," Anakin replied.