Snips and Skyguy: Return of the One Shots

Hands

Usually cold, always lifeless, currently severed at the wrist and still smoking slightly whenever anyone tries to remove it, the metal arm rests limply on the bed rail of the cot in the Halls of Healing.

Ahsoka would like to fix it. She knows she can do it properly; she's done it before.

And Anakin trusts her to tamper with it—he lets her take pieces apart and put them back together whenever he can sense that she's anxious, just to give her something to do with her hands, other than pick the skin around her maroon-painted fingernails raw.

But it doesn't feel quite right to make that decision while he's not conscious, so she stays still, in the same seat she's occupied for the past two and a half days. It's just going on sixty-three hours. She's been counting.

Ironic as it is, the bionic hand may just be the most lifelike part of her master, at the moment. While it vibrates at a nearly-silent decibel, his slow breathing is somehow quieter.

She unclasps her hands from where they're practically tied in a knot, nearly tighter than the one in her stomach, on her lap. Obi-Wan told her that she could only stay here and wait for Anakin to wake up if she promised to eat, and to get up and move around, every now and then. The bag that had carried her half-eaten sandwich from lunch lies crumpled in the garbage in the corner of the room. She was going to throw the rest of the meal away, but she'd figured it couldn't hurt to save it for tomorrow. Who knew—maybe Anakin would be awake by then to eat the next meal with her.

She doesn't know why, but she reaches for his hand—the flesh one, carefully avoiding touching his ring finger (it's broken) as she folds all five of hers through the spaces between his.

She's held his hand like this before, but only the metal one when he's awake. She only ever holds the real one when he's like this and she doesn't know why.

She wants to cry, but she's too tired for that, and it won't wake him up any faster. She knows that he's going to be fine—he always is—but that doesn't stop the fear from crawling through her chest like a herd of banthas crossing a desert—slow and steady, and very, very, heavy. She always feels lighter the moment that he opens his eyes.

She rests her chin on top of their clasped hands, holding his up with her own as she leans her elbow on the mattress. And she doesn't know why, again, but she's slowly maneuvering his palm until she's holding it flat against her cheek, cupping her face. Just to see what it feels like.

(She doesn't know why she's doing a lot of things right now. She's tired and scared and all she wants is to go home to their quarters. But only together. She's tired of being alone.)

It feels safe. Because he makes her feel like everything is going to be okay. So she has to remember that for whenever he isn't.

And she knows that he will be, soon, but it doesn't make it hurt any less right now.

She allows herself to close her eyes.

The next time she opens them, he does too.

hi :)