When You Come Home

-23-

Anakin's world stopped. He was fourteen, he was at the crash sight, his life was falling apart once again. The repressed memory suddenly roared into vivid detail, awoken from its forgotten slumber.

"Who are you?" Rex stood protectively beside a trembling Anakin, eyeing the man with the pale yellow eyes.

He approached slowly, as though Anakin was a wild beast, unpredictable and untameable. "I-I did it. I hit the car."

Anakin lurched forwards, overtaken by a blind, broken rage. Rex yanked him back by the shoulder, hanging onto him as he struggled.

"Let me," Anakin rasped, hands shaking in grief and anger and shock. "Let me have him."

Rex's grip was unfaltering, his gaze locked on the man in front of them. "Well? Do you have something to say?"

"Rex, please," Anakin clawed at Rex's arm, "please ...."

The man hesitated, glancing from Rex to Anakin. His mouth opened, but he shut it again. He shook his head.

A low noise — a guttural, predator growl — rumbled in Rex's throat before he snapped, "Then go. Don't ever come back."

Anakin's breathing was erratic, his palms sweaty as the world spun back into the present. The gun almost slipped from his hand. His heart pounded. His vision tunnelled. His gaze on the man in the chair was a shade off murderous.

"You," he snarled, stepping forwards only to be restrained by Ahsoka, "how could you? You kill her, come to me as though to apologize, then say nothing, and now, three years later, you have the audacity to gloat to my face. Do you know how long I have mourned her death, retraced every step, and repeated every sentence? How dare you?"

The man seemed unfazed, instead allowing a half smirk to flash perfect white teeth. "Oh, but you do not understand, young Jinn. You see —"

"I don't care what you have to say!" Anakin yelled straining against Ahsoka's hold, just as he had against Rex's. His shaking hand closed tighter around his gun. "You killed her! She's dead because of you!"

"No, no, hear me out," he chided Anakin, carefully standing and shifting his weight to the palms he placed flat on the table. "You are not the only one who lost something that day."

Anakin spluttered, disgusted, but the man continued without hesitation, "We were both tools, Anakin, tools for a greater purpose."

"I don't care!" Anakin shouted, jerking against Ahsoka, trying to raise his gun. "My mom, the only family who cared for me, is gone!"

"Jinn," he said placatingly, "I see you are angry, and you should be. Your life was changed that day. Mine was, too." He stepped out from behind the desk, reaching down to lift the edge of one of his trouser legs. He pulled it up, just past the knee, to reveal pale skin covered in a nasty, angry web of red scars, right from the ankle and up past his knee. "Both legs," he said calmly — too calmly —, "right to the hips. Third degree burns. They said I would have to amputate. I had to learn to walk again, abandoned by my benefactor. I was involved in the crash, too."

"But, but you walked right up to me!" Anakin blurted, fury mingling with bafflement. "There was no fire, no other car. Just my mom's!"

"Not in your memory, Jinn," he spat. "There was fire, oh was there fire. There was heat and pain and suffering and burning. There was fire. No, you met my brother, Savage Oppress. He was the speechless one, and, technically speaking, the driver."

Anakin was speechless, wriggling in Ahsoka's terrier grip. "Why are you telling me this? Do you expect sympathy?"

The man cocked his head a little, blinking as though deep in thought. "Oh, forgive me, young Jinn, young Anakin, if I can call you that —"