Entry tags:

!closed, !complete, !completed gdoc, !log, anakin skywalker (maybevader), rey (force_awakens), ~2023 april

Who: Rey and Anakin Skywalker
What: Rey finds a very angry Anakin.
When: The night Anakin discovers Luna is gone.
Where: The woods.
Rating: FTB on some fighting.

Rey woke suddenly in the middle of the night in a start. She sat up in a fluid motion, her heart pounding - there was a disturbance in the Force.

"Anakin." She whispered his name before she left the bed quickly. Putting on her clothes, she told BB-8 to go to Xander's before taking off towards where sensed Anakin in turmoil.

–

Anakin hadn't been able to stay in the house long after he discovered that Luna and all her belongings were gone. He knew exactly what that meant. He always knew there was a chance she would be sent home, but he still held on to a bit of hope that she would remain in town. Seeing as the house felt far too empty without her presence, he'd grabbed his lightsaber and headed to the forest. It seemed like the safest place for him right now. No one around to hurt.

That was until he sensed Rey's presence.

"I don't want to hurt you, Rey…" he said, softly. At this point in time, he couldn't promise that he wouldn't try. He was angry and upset and not in control of his emotions. Or anything, really.

-

She could sense his feelings - she had had those feelings as well in her time back home before Madison. She could see in his face how he was feeling too and her heart ached for him. Something bad must have happened.

“I was going to say the same thing to you, Anakin.” Rey appeared from the darkness across from him. She didn’t have her lightsaber on yet, but it was in her hand. She offered him a sympathetic expression. “What happened?”


–

“Then I suggest leaving me here,” he said, his voice still soft. He truly did not want to hurt Rey. He didn’t want to cause her to try to hurt him, either, because that may end up with her being hurt as well. That was one of the reasons he had fled to the forest – there were very few people who went there, especially at this time of night.

He clung to his lightsaber, though he hadn’t turned it on, either. Not at the moment, at least. He was silent for a moment after Rey asked her question, and he shook his head slightly.

“Luna is gone,” he said. “Her belongings are gone as well. She was sent home. I knew I shouldn’t have become attached to her – I know attachments are forbidden and this is exactly why.” Yes, he was blaming himself for everything. He didn’t hold Luna’s returning home against her in the slightest. How could he, he knew she wouldn’t have purposely left him.

“Everyone I love leaves.”

–

She frowned. She did not have the same sort of upbringing with The Force as Anakin had and her knowledge of the Jedi and their ways was mostly whatever Luke and Leia had told her. She couldn’t believe attachments were truly forbidden. Her mind went to Ben - it had saved him in the end, even if it had also killed him… hadn’t it? Rey didn’t like to think of her relationship with Xander as forbidden either.

“I know the feeling… but it isn’t true. There are people who remain who care for you, Anakin and you can still hold Luna in your heart.” Rey placed her free hand over her heart. “We carry everyone who means anything to us with us.” She had to believe that… she’d lost so many.

–

“I loved Padme. She died. I allowed myself to love Luna, and she got sent home. She never saw me as potentially Darth Vader, she saw me as myself. Everyone else knows who I am, Rey. Who I am to become. They’re scared of me, even if just a little. Who knows what could provoke me?”

He did not blame anyone for this. Not in the slightest. Anakin was scared he would become Darth Vader, even here without Palpatine’s control.

“Losing her hurts more than I ever thought it would.” He had never been good with loss. He had never been able to deal with it well. Now was not an exception.

–

“They know me too Anakin.” Rey had also had loss in her life, but this felt more important at the moment. It was true that people knew Anakin and some no doubt worried about him and perhaps even feared him, but he couldn’t be the only one who had that here. But what she was about to tell Anakin she hadn’t shared with him before. “They will have seen me struggle with the darkness. They will have watched me almost give in several times… and they saw that even people who give into the Dark Side can change. Ben… Your grandson. He walked in your path for a long time. He - he even killed his father… but in the end gave his life for me. People can change, Anakin. You can change. We are not merely the stories they tell of us.” Rey had to believe that for her own sake too.

–

Anakin remained silent as he listened to Rey speak. He was glad she thought he could change – at least someone did. He wasn’t convinced, himself. “You are a strong person, Rey,” he said, finally. “I am not sure the same could be said for me. I find myself so angry all the time. Overreacting to everything. Though right now it does not seem like an overreaction.” Every time he lost someone, or felt like he was going to lose someone, he became so very angry at everything. Everyone.

He wanted to believe Rey was right. He wanted to believe he wasn’t going to become Darth Vader. But at this particular moment, it was quite hard to believe. Right now, he wanted to destroy. Because he felt destroyed himself.

He felt betrayed.

–

Rey felt like that a lot. Angry with the way life had turned out. Angry at the people that were taken away for no reason. She just didn’t know why she seemed a little more capable at dealing with those feelings than Anakin did… though she remembered their ‘son’ when the children had come and how quick to anger he had been.

“You are allowed to be angry, but you should not fester in it.” That was where the Dark Side lived, she had learned.

Making a decision, her lightsaber appeared, her yellow blade illuminating some of the darkness. “Take your ire out on me.” She felt confident she could handle it.

–

Oh, Anakin was very, very tempted. When he saw the yellow glow of her lightsaber, he wanted nothing more than to take her anger out on Rey. He knew he shouldn’t want to, he knew he shouldn’t take her up on her offer. As he was telling himself no, he shouldn’t, his own lightsaber’s blade appeared, glowing blue.

At least it wasn’t the red of a Sith lightsaber. He clung to the fact that he continued to keep a blue lightsaber. Not the red of his future self.

Though, if he really wasn’t to become his future self, why did he want to take everything out on Rey? Yes, she was Palpatine’s granddaughter, but she wasn’t Palpatine. She was completely different. “I feel I must warn you that I tend to cheat from time to time.”

He was about to give in.

–

Much like Anakin, Rey suffered from some hubris. She was confident that she could at least tak on Anakin’s wrath until he wore himself out. She wasn’t sure she could ‘best’ him, but she thought they could be even matches. Perhaps had he been Vadar, with years more under his belt it would be different. To Rey, this wasn’t Anakin giving in. This was Anakin channeling his rage because she wouldn’t allow him to hurt her too badly.

“Then perhaps I will learn to be a better fighter if you do.”

–

“We will have to see, won’t we?” If Rey wasn’t going to back down, then Anakin was going to take advantage of that. Certainly she knew what she was getting herself into. She knew who he was, who he was to become. If she wanted a fight, then he was going to give her a fight.

He just hoped, deep down, that he wouldn’t end up hurting her. If she hurt him, that was one thing. But for him to hurt her, especially to a point where there was no repairing it, then he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

More so than right now, living without Luna in his life. He would be okay as long as he didn’t truly hurt Rey. If he didn’t let his anger overcome him so much that he couldn’t stop himself.

He wasn’t going to let himself think of that right this moment, though. Right this moment, he wanted to get his anger out. Rey was willing to allow him to use his anger against her. So in one, quick movement, he started toward her.

–