Star Wars One-Shots

Trapped in Fleeting Moments - Part 3: Home Is Where Your Heart is

Author's Note: So before anyone wails about everyone having to part ways, I promise it's not going to be for long. U_U I'd have an author's note about my future head canons for the universe up here but that would be spoilers, so I'll have them at the end.

Also, the one nice thing about Anakin being a girl is that he's never too big to be cuddled. <3 XD

PS. This is for Day 7 of the Anakin Rarepair Week.

~ Tirana Sorki

Sneaking into a medical bay in Mos Espa is easier than Anika expected. Activating a medical droid and getting it to cooperate with them is a little more difficult, but they manage.

Something about being here, making this choice for the first time has more meaning than... anything. Even if the freedom of it is terrifying. She feels lost. She has no idea what she's going to do from here, but... she knows where to start at least. After that, she's just chasing a dream. Does she even know what she's doing? Maybe Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan will be able to help her. She... hopes so because she has no idea how to go from here, even if she knows what she wants to do. Actually doing it will be much harder. (What if Sidious finds her again? What will he do to her?)

She finally settles for advising Fox to go first, just in case Sidious will know when her slave chip is tampered with. (Has she ever been anything more to him than a slave? Did he even care? She cared, but she was rejected over and over. She doesn't want him to want her, so she doesn't know why this hurts so much.)

The droid scans Fox's head, eventually pulling up something on the viewing screen. There's... something in the middle of his brain that doesn't belong there.

"It appears to be a brain tumor, of both organic and inorganic matter," the medical droid reports.

"Something implanted?" Anika asks, tensing.

The Kaminoans must've done it. They did it to all the clones, didn't they?

"It appears so, but the tumor is not impeding his function," the droid answers.

"Can you get it out?" Fox inquires.

"It would be a risky operation," the droid reports, "I should be able to remove it without complications, but there the slightest miscalculation could result in severe brain bleeding."

Very comforting.

Fox exchanges a wary glance with Anika, almost as though asking her what to do. As if she would know.

Fear tightens inside of her. She doesn't want something to happen to him. Doesn't want to risk him getting hurt, but leaving something in his head that can somehow influence his actions... is hardly ideal, either. "I... don't think it will go wrong." Not that she can sense in the Force, but... "This is your choice, Fox. You don't have to do it." He's probably as terrified of making his own choices as she is, but he deserves the chance to have that. It's not like she has any more of an idea what he should do.

"Take it out," he decides, finally.

"Very well," the droid agrees.

Anika circles around next to her bed, squeezing his hand tightly, heart hammering as the droid sedates him. If something goes wrong... She knows how it could end, but she doesn't think it will. Doesn't stop the fear, or how she tightly holds Fox's hand until the droid shoos her away from the bed, though.

She watches from the sidelines until the operation is finished.

"It appears to be a chip of some kind," the droid observes, holding the thing up. It's disturbing to see something that was just inside Fox's brain. "It appears to have been implanted in the earliest stages of development."