fools, anakin skywalker (ongoing)

nineteen.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

     "I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO DOESN'T FEEL GREAT ABOUT THIS, RIGHT?" Artie worried aloud from her seat behind Obi-Wan, fingers wrung tightly together as black space enthralled their shuttle like a closing fist.

     "Hopefully Rex brought suitable reinforcements," Obi-Wan replied, arms folded over his chest and gaze never leaving the viewport, though there was nothing to see but the endless expanse of dark, wild space. "We have no idea what we could be getting ourselves into."

     "Both of you relax," Anakin said, voice inappropriately calm. "We're responding to a distress signal—no reason to overcomplicate it."

     "A distress signal you said the Jedi haven't used for two-thousand years," Artie argued, leaning over Obi-Wan's shoulder as she tried to get a better look at the navigation screen—nothing registered on the radar, even though Rex was supposed to be nearby. It only deepened Artie's worry; two years a Jedi and she'd never mastered that inner serenity the Masters always spoke of.

     "Which is where Rex comes in," Anakin kept on, not deterred in the slightest. "If it's trap put together by the Separatists, we'll blow up their fleet, or whatever else they've got. Easy."

     "You never worry enough," Artie mumbled and sat down with a huff.

     "And you worry enough for two people," Anakin retorted without looking back. Artie rolled her eyes. He'd been snippy all morning, ever since she'd deflected his marriage proposal for the second time within the year. It wasn't that she didn't want to marry him—she really did. More than almost anything she wanted to call Anakin Skywalker her husband, but the war simply wouldn't allow it. Soon after Geonosis, Anakin had been made a Jedi Knight, then a general of the Grand Army of the Republic, with Artie assuming the same command not long after. Foolish, maybe, to make an inexperienced desert girl a commanding officer, but Artie thought she must be doing something right—no one had taken away her legion yet. With both of them so involved in the fighting, Artie and Anakin were lucky if they saw each other more than twice a week, and the Council's narrowed eyes seemed to trail on them wherever they went. There had been no outward accusations of them breaking the Code, but it would be moronic to believe they were not suspected, and it was not Artie's fault Anakin couldn't see past what he wanted in the moment. Two people in the entire galaxy knew about them (but Artie was growing more suspicious of Obi-Wan by the day) and a wedding seemed almost . . . childish . . . for the time. Call it wishful thinking, but Artie hoped one day, when the war was over and she had quit the Order (it was a plan she'd formed long ago, in the dark of night, on a ship deep in the Outer Rim when she'd missed Anakin so desperately it drove her to rash decisions) all of their friends could attend a real ceremony. With marriage would come hope for children, a home away from the Order's chaos, and a lifetime ahead to do whatever they wanted. To be married then, with only bi-weekly reunions to hold onto, seemed a recipe for heartbreaking disaster.

     Though, considering his attitude right then, Artie hoped her caution wasn't driving Anakin away. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if that happened.

     "I still don't see Rex's ship," Obi-Wan said, warning mounting in his voice as he tapped the radar screen impatiently. "We're at the exact coordinates, aren't we?"

     "I'll comm him," Anakin declared, punching the transmission button on the control panel. "Rex, buddy," he called, "where are you? You near the rendezvous point yet?"