OMFG! Anakin might do ~something~ *pearl clutch* (darkforcerising) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-08-11 09:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, anakin skywalker, obi-wan kenobi, padme amidala |
Who: Padme Amidala, Anakin Skywalker, and Obi-Wan Kenobi
What: Anakin wakes up from his accident
When: Backdated, August 3rd, 2014
Where: The hospital
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 -- hospital/accident/coma talk
Status: Complete
Thank god for small favors. The small favor she was thanking above for was that her pregnancy was far enough along that she was past the most risky time. The stress of learning Anakin had been in an accident would have caused something horrible to happen if she had still been in the early stages of her pregnancy. It had been a normal afternoon when the phone call came that Anakin was in the hospital and she immediately reached out to Obi-Wan for his help in getting her to the hospital and going with her to see what happened.
She thought his reckless nature was starting to dissipate, but it was evident that the opposite was happening. Riding his bike and landing up in the hospital wasn’t something she wanted to tell their children about. When they arrived at the hospital she tried to calmly fill out paperwork and then went to speak to a doctor about what was happening. There was a lot of waiting in the waiting rooms and hoping that she would be able to see Anakin soon.
Once that finally happened she broke down looking at his face while he rested in his coma. The process was repeated for a few days as she took time off work to be in his room and waiting for him to wake up. Imagining life without him wasn’t something she would allow herself to do and she passed the time reading to him from some of the pregnancy books she had and talking about their future together.
When Anakin finally did wake up Padme had been holding onto his hand and her head was resting on the edge of the bed as she took a nap. It was a bit of a pattern she had fallen into while she was visiting and she didn’t even realize that he was waking up at first.
This was not the first time Anakin had opened his eyes since the accident. Though it was the first time since the doctors had declared the swelling in his brain had receded and he could be taken off the medication keeping him under. All those other times were flashes of pinpoint light as doctors woke him to check his brain functions. Nothing came through but white and the sound of medical instruments pinging off to the side; and none of that coalesced into a cohesive narrative until now.
But even now the story Anakin understood was a brief timeline of events.
First there was darkness and his eyelids felt heavy, too heavy to fight and so he didn’t. But slowly that weight lifted, leaving him with the awareness of overly scratchy, sleepy eyes. Next, when the resistance to opening his eyes descended to a level he could overcome, there was light. Not the flash of a doctor’s instrument, but the steady incandescence of an overhead fixture.
He turned the page and moved onto the next chapter – avoiding the light, because it hurt. It was too bright, it demanded too much, such as the retraction of his retinas. He wasn’t even sure he had control over that part of his body so why the light was asking him such a feat, he did not know.
And in that dark retreat he became aware of other senses, of touch. There was pressure on his fingers, something was containing them and when he tried to move his fingers there was opposition to his attempt. But the pressure was warm and he realized his thumb was free to explore what was holding on to him.
It didn’t take him long to recognize Padmé soothing familiarity under the brush of his thumb and that was enough to drive him to face the light again.
He pushed through the grainy stickiness of his eyelids and blinked at the brightness.
The form of Padmé’s head was a fuzzy outline on the bed as his eyes tried to adjust to working again after so many hours of disuse.
After a few blinks and Padmé had yet to move, Anakin tried to say her name.
Try being the key word.
Sadly, his efforts really sound more like he’d swallowed a frog with a terrible cough itself and it was now stuck in the back of his throat. He wouldn’t even call what he attempted ‘words.’
Obi-Wan was not in the room when the first page of this new chapter was turned. He was in the hospital cafeteria, battling the stress one of the the better ways he knew how: with chocolate cake, and baskets of all the fried foods his doctor had warned him against since turning forty.
He was forty-five, today. It happened to be his birthday, but Obi-Wan had not realized it yet. Anakin was all could think about. There were Padmé and the twins, but all roads led back to Anakin, almost as if the path Obi-Wan tread in life was circular and he could not get away. Like a father he worried. Occasionally, Obi-Wan resented the boy for it. Right now, he was too exhausted. He was eating to keep up his strength. At least, that was what he told himself.
And then, Obi-Wan felt it, like a riptide in the Force. Anakin was awake. He put down his fork and started running.
The movement on her hand is what started to trigger her back into the waking world. But it was the noise of attempted speech that really jolted her awake. Her mind automatically registered Anakin’s voice and she sat up quickly and looked over at him with wide eyes. Was he really truly awake right now? Her eyes started to fill with tears as she moved over closer to him, “Ani? Ani, are you truly awake?” That was one of the most amazing moments and she was so incredibly happy that he had finally come out of his coma.
Her hand continued to hold onto his as she reached her free hand up to lightly touch his injured cheek. Him being awake felt like a weight was lifted off her shoulders and she wanted nothing more than to just enjoy the moment of having him back in the living world, but she knew it would only be a few moments until the nurses came in to check on him, “Oh Ani, I love you so much. Don’t you dare do that again.”
Seeing as the first attempt at speaking didn’t go exactly as planned, Anakin’s response was more along the lines of just a scratchy hum of positive confirmation that he was, indeed, awake.
The longer he kept his eyes open, the easier it was to endure the light. And the more in focus Padmé became. It was good to see her face, just as it always was, but the worry lining her tired eyes was concerning.
He tried swallowing to clear his throat so he could actually speak this time. And for the most part he succeeded. His voice was little more than a gravely whisper, but he managed actual words. “Do what?”
He honestly couldn’t remember what it was he was now not supposed to do again. He remembered dinner the night before the accident, and then it was like a black sheet was dropped over his mind until waking up now.
The closer to the room Obi-Wan drew, the Force had more to say to him about Anakin’s condition. It had been deathly silent for so long, but now the details came in a quick chatter, like they were attempting to make up for lost time, although that may have had something to do with the speed at which the man’s brain was racing. Only slightly faster than his legs. More or less, he felt as if he was lurching forward, which he did not like. One of the three of them would have to be capable of a clear head, but Anakin had a way of bringing out the most disastrous feelings and reactions. As always, Obi-Wan was concentrating a portion of his energy on stabilizing himself before entering the scene.
All while he was running.
“You were out riding your bike and you got into a major crash,” Padme explained to him with a slight frown. The doctors had mentioned that some memory loss was possible with head trauma like this, but she didn’t realize that he wouldn’t know what happened for him to end up here. Had he completely forgotten who he was and a worried look passed over her face as she moved her hand away from his cheek, “What do you remember? Do you know who I am?” Her heart was tight at the idea that he wouldn’t remember who she was and she prayed with everything she had that it wouldn’t be the case. She would never be able to handle it.
Anakin’s brow furrowed slightly. No bells rang familiar the events of the accident when Padmé explained what happened. There was still that obliterating blankness when he tried to think about it.
He knew what pop culture had told him about traumatic brain injuries – and for a second he worried his whole life had been erased from his memory. A kind of contradiction, because if that were the case, how could he remember what pop culture had taught him about amnesia?
But then he focused on Padmé again and his mouth formed a small smile. It would have been bigger if was he still not fighting through the groggy wash of chemicals slowly leaving his brain.
“You’re Padmé.” The thumb of his hand still held in hers brushed against the backside of her hand again. “I remember you.”
“Oh thank god,” she managed to breath out before her eyes start welling up with tears once again. Thank goodness she could blame this on the pregnancy hormones if she wanted to, but she knew if anyone else was in her shoes that they would be crying with joy as well. At least he remembered her, and that might be a bit selfish, but she was so glad they didn’t have to do the whole stupid romantic cliche of trying to jog his memory of her once again like that Channing Tatum movie.
She leaned forward and placed a kiss on his forehead and smiled down at him, “Anything else you remember?” She wasn’t sure if she should be asking him this sort of stuff, but the nurses would be in any moment and she just wanted to talk to him and hear that voice of his again. She also hoped Obi-Wan realized what was going on and made his way back up here, but if she didn’t see him in five minutes she would grab her phone to call him.
“Um.”
The question was a bit broad. Maybe too much for his slowly rebooting brain. Padmé’s first question had been specific enough, it lead him to finding the answer quickly. Now he had to think of other things he remembered, and hoped they assuaged Padmé’s worry.
So he said the first things that came to mind.
“My… favorite color is red and…” Everything came out slowly.
“I… met you last year… at, uh… the Farmers Market.” Part of being slow wasn’t because of the head injury, it was because he was just waking up.
“I was born… August third, nineteen-ninety- oh,” his eyes lit up a fraction at this realization. “That’s in four- or is it three days now?”
Movement to the side of the room drew his attention.
“Obi-Wan.”
“It’s today,” said the old man, stepping into the room, looking for all the world like he hadn’t been running at all. In reality, he’d been standing outside the door for long enough to steady his breath and assess the situation with his ears. Anakin was lucid, but it was clear that not everything was as it should be. “Happy Birthday.”
He turned to Padme. “How long has he been awake?”
“Not very long, it’s been about 10 minutes or so,” she commented before arching an eyebrow over at him, “Did you sense it?” That would make the most sense since she hadn’t been able to call him and alert him to Anakin being awake. And her days had blurred together a little and it took her a bit by surprise that it was already August third and his birthday.
“And this is definitely a good birthday present now that you’re awake,” she commented her eyes turning back to Anakin and a smile appeared on her face. She moved a little so Obi-Wan could come closer if he wanted and she heard footsteps approaching, which probably signaled doctors and nurses.
Anakin was taken aback by that. The last thing he remembered was Wednesday. That meant there were almost four days missing from his memory. And a cold, empty feeling stood in their place, like part of him was gone.
“I’ve been out four days?”
Obi-Wan did not come any closer, instead remaining just inside the door. He examined Anakin with his eyes and nodded soberly. “While I’m glad to hear that you remember your favorite color, I’d much rather hear that you recall what preceded the accident.”
Anakin tried to will those memories forward, the effort apparent in the lines on his forehead; but he had to admit defeat in the end. His mind remained steadfastly blank on the issue.
“I don’t know- I can’t remember. What happened?” And then a fragment of what Padmé said just moments before caught up with him. “Sense what?”
A worried look was on Padme’s face as he admitted to not remembering anything before the accident. It was definitely something the trauma had taken away. She wasn’t sure if he would ever get that that memory back . as much as she would like to know what happened it was going to be water under the bridge soon. And then when he asked about sensing she resisted the urge to roll her eyes, “Ya know, a disturbance in the Force or whatever.”
Anakin’s face spoke to his confusion. So he attempted a weak joke, “Did I wake up in a movie?”
Obi-Wan tilted his head ever so subtly. It was his eyes that flashed, the pupils widening and then narrowing. At last, he took a step further into the room, going so far as to close the door behind him. The doctors would be in soon enough. “Anakin, you hit your head very hard. Try to remember anything you can. Anything that seems important.”
Anakins’ reaction made her fear the worse. Had he completely forgotten his second life? Was that a blessing or a curse for him? She really wasn’t sure about that, but she tried to imagine trying to go through all those memories again and it would kill her. The happiness and then the absolute heartbreak. It was going to be strange having him around with no memory of this other life. She gently squeezed his hand and kept her worried eyes trained on him as Obi-wan told him to remember.
Anakin felt a little like he’d been put on the spot. He’d remembered his day of birth – that was big, wasn’t it?
“Uh.”
It seemed to him like Obi-Wan and Padmé were looking for a specific answer, without offering any other clue than that it should be important.
“The year is… two-thousand fourteen… The President is Obama?” When those answers didn’t get the relieved expressions he was hoping for he tried some more.
“Padmé, you’re pregnant. You’re due in…November. With twins- we’re having twins.” He smiled at that because the idea of impending fatherhood was both frightening and elating. He wanted to be a father even if it was the scariest thing he’d ever faced. And he’d crashed a plane before.
Obi-Wan exchanged a glance with Padme, but did not say anything. Instead, he paced a bit, pushing his hands into his pockets. The taste of chocolate was still in his mouth, reminding him of, if not happier, then blissfully ignorant times. Perhaps the boy’s brain still needed more time to heal… he said to himself.
The look spoke volumes and she didn’t need to say anything else. His dream memories were gone and she wasn’t sure if there was anything they could do about it and she wasn’t going to bring it up because she was already stressing him out. She let herself focus on the smile he had when he mentioned the babies and squeezed his hand, “I’m glad you remember that. Would hate for you to forget that small fact.” She didn’t get to say much else because that’s when the nurses and doctors stepped through the door to see an alert Anakin in front of them and swooped in to figure out how he was doing.