Angels Like You | (Out of Date)

chapter 5

She is not so easily hidden from the elder Jedi's curiosity. He senses discomfort welling somewhere deep within her.

"Just a bit singed," She jokes. "We ran into trouble on Dagobah but it's nothing we couldn't wrap up, right?"

Anakin nods. "Droids are no problem. We did not, however, anticipate meeting their resident doctor. He was kind enough to show me his work," He says, pointing to the slice that cuts across his face.

"A doctor?" Obi-Wan raises his brow. "I'm sure I'll hear about it in your debrief. Why don't you go to medical for an examination and then make your reports."

They nod and take off down the sand-colored hallway.

"Let the droids look at your wrists," Anakin says.

"There's no need," She objects, "I already told you that I'm fine."

"Circe," He pushes, looking down at her with dark, serious eyes. "I'm not asking."

She follows him into the medbay, rolling her eyes. The bay is blinding white, constantly sterilized by sanitization droids that hum from wall to wall. She waves a stitching droid over for him first, and then, begrudgingly, allows an evaluation droid to begin scanning her skin.

"Check her regular stats as well, please," Anakin says as the small silver robot turns her wrists over, "I want to be sure there were no effects to the rest of her body."

Circe's black eyes shimmer, amused. "They don't hurt anymore, Anakin. I can barely feel them."

They do hurt. The heat hasn't left her skin.

He sighs, twitching as the droid brings its thread closer to his eye. She watches him fervently, calming slowly as his wound begins to look cleaner and less painful. With a final layer of soothing ointment, she almost thinks he looks handsome. The cut slides up his smooth, curved face, breaking apart the plane of honey-colored skin. Something old and intense burns in her stomach as he stands to look at himself in the mirror, like the deep sound of a cello vibrating between her ribs.

"I look so good," He says, eyeing his reflection. "Don't I look so traveled? Like if you looked at me, you'd think, 'oh there's a story behind that scar,' and wouldn't you want to ask me about it?"

She smiles skeptically. "Sure, I would. Are you ready for debrief? And then, dinner?"

He nods, thanking the droids and leading the way out of the medbay.

She follows, looking at his hands by his side, and the broadness of his shoulders. She feels protective over him. The idea of someone else looking at him and noticing the things that she does—the curve of his chest under his shirt, or the way his jaw tightens when he's thinking—upsets her. She doesn't quite know why.

Circe doesn't know that she almost wants him, but she does. In an unspeakable, subconscious way that is easily hidden when one doesn't want to confront it. But deep, deep down, in the darkest, most hidden parts of her, she almost wants him.

And she has no idea that he almost wants her, too. He has since the day they first met.

The debrief goes quickly. All their new information and a summary of the mission gets logged neatly into the Order's database, marked cleanly with the date and any injuries sustained. Circe marks hers as a 'slight burn to the wrist' despite still feeling the feverish pain in her skin.

It will go away, as it always does. And pain is nothing to lose one's mind over. It's in the job description, and Circe would sooner quit than whine about a little burn.

They take dinner out from the dining hall, returning their old trays to the sanitation station before grabbing new ones to put their food on. Where most others sit at one of the many wooden tables in the hall, they take their food and drink and leave, headed for their rooms.

They decide to eat in Circe's room, since Anakin's is particularly messy after waking up late for the Dagobah mission.

Her room is dark and cluttered with things she's collected over the years. If it were anyone else's mess, the space would feel cramped, but there is a depth to it that Anakin can't explain.

A generation ago, a Jedi's room was expected to be kept spotless, with only a bed, a desk, a chair, and a few personal items intended to broaden the mind and soothe the spirit. It was necessary to keep a quaint room to practice non-attachment, but the Order has loosened its rules over the years, too preoccupied with war strategy to care what its people keep in their living spaces.

Circe keeps stacks of books, broken Kyber crystals given to her by mentors throughout the years, glowing slabs of salt rock that flare a deep sunset orange. Folded paper animals from her younger school days line her dresser, photos, ashy white candles, their wax dribbling down their sides into their holders.

Anakin sits in the chair beside her desk, where scrolls of Jedi myth and legend are spread hastily over the oak wood. A few jars of Tansy Nettle sit propagating beside them, their roots pearly and tangled in the water, vines blushing with new leaves.

"How did you break your cuffs?" He asks once more, gently moving the papers out of the way with his tray.

"I. Don't. Know," She answers. "I just did it. You were hurt and we needed a way out, so I broke them."

"But you've never done that before."

"We've never been restrained in a dark, wet chamber with a knife-happy lizard before!

He gives her an annoyed look. "I'm serious, Circe. This could be some new power you didn't know you had. Or maybe you've reached a new level of harmony with the Force."

"Maybe," She says doubtfully, "I can't explain it. I was restrained, and then it was like an instinct kicked in, and I was free. My body took over, not my mind."

"I bet I'm the one that triggered it," He says smugly.

"Oh, would you shut up," She says, pulling back.

He laughs, and the deep, warm, full melody of it eases her annoyance. "I'm kidding. I hope it happens again soon so we can learn more about it."

She smiles, before frowning slightly at the pain in her wrist. Melting her restraints seems to have hurt her worse than she thought.

Anakin's smile drops at the look on her face. "They still hurt?"

She nods. "It's more annoying than it is painful."

He moves closer to her, pulling the chair with him to the edge of her bed. The red marks are still there, fainter than earlier, but stark against her paper-white skin. He takes her hands into his, and she marvels at the roughness of his palms against hers.

"You should've had them looked at seriously, Circe," He lectures. "You give all this attention to my wounds but not a single thought to yours, and it's foolish! You could have broken all your ribs in battle, and you'd still pay more attention to a paper cut on my finger than your own injuries. How are you ever going survive doing this work if you can't look after your own wounds!? Not to mention how..."

She listens to the first part of his scolding, but somewhere in the middle, her mind goes adrift. Her wrists stop hurting. His hands are like cold water running over her burns, his palms seeming to pull the very heat out from under her skin.

She looks up at him and he is silenced, the same way the world seems to quiet before one slips into a dream. There is something there in her eyes, deeper and softer than charcoal, flecked with gold shards. Something that quivers between them, a shiver of a breath, that says more than words ever could.

His skin on hers is fresh and clear like snowmelt in the spring, and a sense of relief washes over her. The pain has gone, her discomfort has faded into nearly nothing, she realizes.

Just like magic.