Give Me Love

chapter forty three

You woke up back in the lab.

Head stinging, arm aching, you pushed yourself up and looked around dizzily.

The lights were on a lot lower than you remembered them being. The mattress beneath you softer. It smelled like rainwater and metal, and some sort of air vent was blasting cool air right on you, making you shiver underneath the--

Jedi robe?

It all came back to you; Anakin finding you in your room. Running through the rain with you in his arms. Hopping onto the transport ship with Rex, and letting him clean you of blood and tears.

You looked over-- he was still here. Slumped against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, face furrowed as if he was sleeping or just in a deep mediation.

He felt your heartbeat quicken and settle as you woke up and realized where you were, and cracked an eye open.

You were looking around with bleary eyes, bringing a fist up to rub then when you noticed the icepack tied to it, and let it fall limply.

"Hey." he said, already reaching for something next to him. "How are you feeling?"

"Dizzy."

Your head swam, swaying in place as you sat up further and pressed your good hand to your eyes.

Anakin caught your shoulder before you could fall off the bed, steadying you while handing you a water pouch.

"You lost a lot of blood," he'd already poked the straw through the hole for you, so all you had to do was bring it to your mouth and suck.

Cold water relieved the dryness in your mouth, and you drank deeply for a moment with your eyes closed. The only sound was the hum and rattle of the engines, and the slight crinkle the pouch made as you sucked it dry.

"Another?" he nudged your hand with it, and you swapped it for the empty one.

"Thank you."

You felt weird, suddenly, accepting so much help from him. For someone who was mad at you, he seemed awful gentle right now.

He noticed your squeamishness, and frowned. It had been too long since he'd seen you, and he needed to fix whatever was wrong. To get the old you back.

"Y/n," he sat forward, jumping right into it. "What you said back there..."

You'd said a lot of things you didn't want to remember.

"You can't possibly believe I hate you."

"You don't?"

No matter how hard he searched your face, he couldn't detect a hint of a lie in it. You truly believed it.

"Of course not. Why would you even think that?"

"Well..." so many reasons. They were all swirling around your brain, dredging up another headache, and you weren't sure how to get him to understand your side of things.

Anakin read the overwhelmed look on your face, and returned a hand to your knee.

"Take a breath. Tell it to me slowly. We have time to figure it out."

It was exactly what you needed to hear— being reminded you have time. For so long, you felt like yours was running out. Slipping between your fingers like sand. You'd almost reached the countdown on your fathers surgical table, and beneath the scalpel pressed into your neck at your mothers dinner.

But not anymore. He was here now, giving you the opportunity to explain yourself.

You inhaled, long and slow and a little shaky, and then blew it out. Squeezed the half-full water pouch in your hands.