added someone to the cast list because it's about time. I think you'll love who I chose for Satine...
❗️This is an extremely heavy chapter. Discretion is heavily advised
❗️ TW: graphic depictions of injuries/surgery, threatening, fighting, murder (don't worry!)
_________
~Miles' POV~
"You have a mere two seconds." I tauntingly stirred the honey into my mug of tea, anticipating the impending news that will cease the peeling anger that eats at my flesh. It will finally be over. "Spit. It. Out."
"It's done." The pathetic man dropped the bow from his mud-smeared hands on the wooden table beside me, as well as the remaining two arrows. Which means he got a first straight shot. "Your problems are now poof-" his hands demonstrated a disappearance, "gone."
As if a pool of warm water was coating over me, I laid back in my lounge chair allowing myself to sink into the cushions. My eyes closed as I sighed a breath I've been holding in all night. "Give me the details. Talk me to sleep."
"One instantly started screaming. I think she burst my eardrums-"
"Expected."
"The blonde looked like a standing corpse. Just frozen." Wickedly, I grinned. That says something about my psyche... and that therapy isn't working. "Got chased... hid, thankfully. And now, I want what was promised."
Everybody who has ever said that money doesn't buy you happiness, is the biggest fucking liar who's ever lived. Now I get y/n back. Now I get what was once mine. Now, Anakin is finally eradicated.
I reached into my pocket, pulling out a wad of hundreds. "Ten thousand. You've redeemed yourself, Mark." The paper made a satisfying smack in his palm. "Highly appreciated."
"I wouldn't count on that money coming so soon, Miles. If he doesn't splurge on a funeral."
Who would splurge on a funeral- "Come again?"
"The shot went between her ribs. And he screamed like a pussy."
Each follicle of hair stood erect on my skin, causing sharp pricks to rain down my body.
"Mark..."
He cracked my door open. "What?"
"Who'd you shoot."
"Y/n?" I sat still in the chair. Scanning the uneasy contortions of his face with a blank expression. My jaw clenched so hard I could feel the creaks in my teeth that were on the limits of shattering, like nails on a chalkboard. "You said to get rid of the problem..."
But I rest. "I did say that, didn't I?" I set the mug on the small table beside me. My locked knees shot me to stand on my own, giving my arms the spring to push my body up and on my feet. "Well feel free to leave. Thanks for the help."
"Sure." Mark spun his body before following his head with a spot.
In this moment, my conscious seemed to have evaporated into thin air. My impulses became screaming desires as I focused in on the sides of his throat, trying to detect the microscopic thump of his heartbeat.
My feet heel-toed in a dead silent pace to the door as his hand met the knob. "Oh, one more thing."
"Ye-"
A power rush swarmed into my shoulders when the vibrations of snapping bones ricocheted through my arms. I let the weight of his body crash to the tiled floor, separating my fingers to prolong the feeling on my palms. I rolled my head back in stretch, unironically, because I managed to veer his 180 degree look-back into a full 360 with just the snap of his neck.
"Poof," I wickedly grinned in both giddiness and mania. "Gone."
•
~Anakin's POV~
The slits between my eyelids peeled open, allowing the searing white light to seep into my sensitive corneas. A cold scent of staleness and antiseptic swept through my dry nose that ached from the chemicals. My tongue feels like sandpaper in my mouth, drought of moisture. A pitched beep sounded in my left ear that increased speed when my back lifted upward. Arms weaker than ever, my muscles shook as I hoist my body to a sit.
What the hell, I unclamped the oximeter from my finger, using the same hand to shield my face of the light.
"Still wanna kill me?" Maul stood firmly infront of me; the only black in this room of white. I couldn't jump back in surprise.
I just stared. Trying to regain my focus with my declining farsightedness, but I felt blinded. "Wha-"
"You, my friend, decided to raised hell in the lobby." He dragged a chair to the side of my... hospital bed? "They sedated you."
~
Flashback : A few hours ago
They're all so fucking oblivious. Half of Naboo sound asleep in their exaggeratedly puffed cotton linens and silk nightgowns, blissful to the scream of sirens hurling down the streets.
Skin ablaze, I sat upright in my seat, pushing down the threatening twists in my stomach. All I can see in those pathetic excuses of windows are paramedics bouncing off the walls of the tight enclosure... but not her. I can't see y/n at all, I don't know what's happening, or the state of her health. Is she breathing!? Is the heartbeat still there!?
This car is so small. The seatbelt is restraining me, and the smell of the leather seats makes me want to get violent.
I need to get the fuck out of here.
"Almost there, Kin. Hold on." Aayla's tight grip on the wheel stretched the thin skin over her knuckles white. Her eyes dead bolted to the road as her bumper was glued onto the back of the wailing truck. "Cmon. Cmon."
My breathing began to fill all spaces my chest, waging a war of sickness; I could feel the green plastered on my face.
Slowly but surely, we finally came to a halt, rolling the car painfully slow into a parking space. Hastily, I tore off the belt and released myself from the confinement of the car. Like a boulder, I breached through the thick doors of the hospital, uncaring of the boom it made on the wall when I opened it.
The glass cracked.
"Where is he." Each receptionist jumped back, some dropping clipboards and their own stethoscopes as they eyed my stomps to the desk.
"Sir-"
"Where is Doctor Rex!?" I felt every person's eyes plant on me. The dead silence of patients that sat in their sickly chairs, the nurses turning corners and fucking gawking at me, this receptionist staring at me as if she had seen a ghost. I pounded my fist on the table, "Damnit, where is he!"
"Sir, you're covered in blood..." Hearing that word come out of her mouth shot the bile I worked so hard to push down come right back up. Without tilting my head, my eyes dropped to my open palms; creased caked with it. I held up a finger, pausing myself before I spill my stomach contents. I notice now why the iron stench stuck with me. "I need a nurse!"
"I don't want a fucking nurse!" I panned to the army of people beginning to swarm me from all angles. My lip pulled to my nose, creating a closed snarl at each one of their threatening poses, as if they were waiting to jump on me. "Try it..."
"Anakin, that's enough." A pair of hard hands roughly nipped at both shoulders.
A common metaphor some use when one gets angry is seeing red. I would say that isn't true at all. Of course there's red on my hands, red on my clothes, probably on my face... a deep red. However, I'm not seeing it.
All I see is black. A hurling ball of darkness breaking free from every boiling crevice in my core.
What felt like eternity, was only a mere second before my body was swung around and sending my close fist into the side of Maul's jaw. In another short second, his back hit the floor. My arm kept pulling and swinging, pulling and swinging, pulling and swinging. My unaltered hand closed a fistful of his shirt to stop the squirming.
Then I was grabbed. Again.
"GET OFF ME." My arm was firmly pried back. Then my other arm until my unleashed body was being hulled away once more. Soon, I was the one on my back, being held down by multiple people. "I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU."
I tried to thrash, bite, kick, anything to get me free. Nothing was working. And when hands were then trapped into my hair, knawing at my scalp, I shut down.
All it took was a sharp, deep pain to the jugular to turn off the bright light of my reality.
~
Now I see the ice Maul filled in his hand, and the contusions that sprinkled red and purple along his cheeks. "Y/n... she-"
"Doctor Rex is leading her surgery. We're all in the lobby. Including her parents." Hearing Doctor Rex made my heart grow one size... wait parents? "Whenever you're ready, we can go."
•
~Ahsoka's POV~
I can't pinpoint the exact moment when y/n became my second life support. One who I'd be so lost without; it happened so fast. Finally I had someone who understood and loved me who wasn't conditioned to do so.
A map to the fucking face.
From the months I knew her, we began to mesh into one mind. Always on the same page with our actions, thoughts and behaviors. It was like looking in a mirror, but the other side was my better half. She taught me how to ground myself, when to not overthink the smallest grains of life, how to love myself in a way I never thought was possible.
We've made the funniest jokes, shared conversations ranging anywhere from what we ate that day to learning about our separate pasts to pick at each other's brains. Baby names, funny videos, crazy news, random panics that would sneak up on us from point zero. It all felt too good to be true. After months, how could two people get so close?
My harsh words were the last thing I said to her.
My thoughts rang true in that moment. I couldn't recognize her... after being oblivious to such an important part of her life. She had grown close to us both. As Anakin held her depleting body, she whispered breathlessly that she loved him. She loved him.
I had gotten the full picture from when she was planted in front of me, and the switch of her physical and mental state the minute my eyes traveled the path of the arrow. I saw it all. It took me to sit down in a hospital chair to realize she did in fact get shot. That it wasn't my anger manifesting a sick and twisted solution before me, it was real. Despairingly real.
The minute she collapsed, every bit of rage immediately dispersed from me. The minute their eyes met, and he cradled... I know Anakin more than anyone, and that was a raw reaction. A way I never knew was possible for him.
In all my life, I've never seen him so distraught.
I can still feel the stretch of my widened eyes of terror, witnessing Anakin's frenzied shots fly in different directions, popping dried bark off trees and sparking against rocks.
I froze. After everything Anakin taught me, I froze like a coward. My body ran on autopilot as Maul moved my fingers to each button on the phone. Piercing screams seeping through the other side of the call to the operator over was bone chilling. Before I knew it, the weight in my body changed as my feet left the ground. Eyes shielded by calloused hands, Maul carried me across the yard and into the car where we speedily raced to the hospital behind the others. Artey was close to follow, slamming into the backseat to hold my head flush against his shoulder. But I wasn't crying.
I've been glued in this stiff chair for hours, dissociated by my racing mind. Anakin, who was sedated the minute I walked in, was dragged out of the waiting room on a gurney-
"Ahsoka. Water." Artey stood infront of me. I felt the paper cup mesh with the pads of my fingers, but it had slipped out of my grasp. My weak hand sent the cup falling to the floor and splashing along the bottom of my pants. "Hey, it's alright. I'll get you another."
"... sorry."
The glass doors once again swung open allowing the freeze of wind to enter the room. A familiar perfume whipped through my nose as a woman hurriedly flew past all of us, heels snapping on the tiled floor.
"Satine Kryze... my daughter, she was brought in..."
"Yes ma'am, I called. Doctor Rex is the leading surgeon. They took her back. That's all I know." I listened in on their brief encounter.
From what I gathered; she immediately went under for emergency surgery. Doctor Rex, who had to pump Anakin's stomach, reset Poe's collarbone and has stuck me with many IV's after severe dehydration spells, now had y/n in his hands. A short wave of ease washed over me when I heard it. One more morsel of luck, and hopefully we'll hear more soon.
I stood carefully from my seat, motioning Artey to take it while I hesitantly stepped towards her. "Satine?"
Her head whipped to me to reveal blown bloodshot eyes and makeup that had creased in fine wrinkles. Somehow, she still looked so put together in shambles. I couldn't read her expression, other than a solid guess that she must feel just as confused as us all. But as a mother... I could never imagine the pain of being left in the dark.
She has a right to be absolutely furious, that her daughter was in the care of all of us and this tragedy happened. Yet, her features softened as she pulled me into a tight hug. "Oh 'Soka, are you alright!? Are you hurt!?"
"I'm okay." Her eyes moved past me to the girls, Poe and Artey all sat with wavering eyes. "We're all here for her..."
The door shot open again, much calmer to avoid the shatter of glass from the very large V-cut. This time an older man, in a very nice suit, profusely sweating.
Obiwan.
•
~Anakin's POV~
Still out of it, I was able to hoist myself up with the help of Maul. Each of my muscles are weaker than ever before, my legs that fought to hold the weight of those exhausted muscles, and the nausea has drastically gone down- but it's a new kind of hurt.
The minute I woke again, the guilt had taken over my mind. All of it. Y/n, to losing it in the lobby, I'm ashamed. Completely out of control.
I promised she'd be safe with me and I failed her.
My body automatically stretched with me as I walked the halls. Multiple medical personnel were once again sending lasers through me as I passed by. I was too tired to snarl, too tired to retaliate against the way they pinned my limbs down like some kind of clinically insane animal. For once in a long time, I had a sense of understanding that maybe it was a necessary precaution... because I nearly lit someone on fire. Nothing was 'too far' in that moment.
Oh, the things I would do for her.
I turned the corner to see each and every one of my family members sat in uncomfortable silence. My gaze shifted to the clock above their heads that checked 4am. Necks turned to me as Maul dragged me closer. As if I was a monster, none of them looked me in the eyes. They made contact with my disheveled body, knit brows and dried lips, but disconnected the second I returned it.
"Anakin... are you alright?"
I heard my name sound out from next to me. A hushed call, but still firm. I'm familiarized with the undertone of the voice. Very distinct, but not as much for me to pin the owner of it. But when I finally saw who was calling to me, annoyance rang through my ear like an alarm.
"Why are you here."
Kenobi opened his mouth as if to speak, but the words caught in his throat. With everyone continuing to stare into my soul, I flicked my eyes to my sister, in perfect condition minus the messy hair. She still looked angry, so so angry, but the energy felt subsided. As if it was coasting around me and directing straight to our old acquaintance, she has also been lit aflame.
Ahsoka's attention was turned away, back onto the man. I followed suit, awaiting my questioned to be answered, but something came instead.
Satine, loaded with a pile of papers she had to sign, came and took a place next to him. I assumed the sheets had included medical records, detection of any allergies, physical family history, and probably a shit ton of signatures.
What I didn't expect? Was Kenobi being handed the folder, writing down whatever Satine didn't and-
Wait.
My mouth hung open the minute the wires sparked, looking once more to Ahsoka that pierced me with a searing glare through her eyebrows. We could always communicate through just a simple flick of eyes, and when she panned back, it hit me like a fucking truck.
"You mother fucker-"
"For Kryze?" My head turned at the familiar voice. One that's course and strong spoken; you can tell the job has broken him in, and that he was good at it. "I don't believe my eyes. Skywalkers, I haven't seen you two in years."
"Doctor Rex," Ahsoka latched onto his white coat. Satine and Kenobi were soon to follow suit, standing with us. "Please tell me she's okay."
"The arrow was successful removed, Ahsoka," the airs density decreased as the whole room sighed. "She is stabilized. It missed her heart by a few inches, as well as her spine. Right between the two, actually. Her body is trying to recover."
My knees once more became weak once they had unstiffened from the chronic bellyache. I wanted to drop to them, fall to my palms and heavily thank the universe for allowing her to come back to me. I itched to run to her, and be the first person by her side the minute she opened those eyes so our souls would once again meet each other.
"I can't thank you enough, Doctor. For taking care of my baby." Satine had tears welling in her eyes from the news.
"There's more, Ms. Kryze." Rex took off his scrub cap, holding it with both hands. His posture straightened, alluding a sigh of troubled labor of his work. "Her lungs had filled with blood, which we had to drain. We believe that a lack of oxygen could have caused cerebral hypoxia, where she wasn't getting enough to her brain."
"W-what are you saying?" Ahsoka squinted, holding her head in bafflement.
"We have y/n on a ventilator, in a coma." I allowed my eyes to close, feeling the turn of gears in Satine's head. Heavy breathing snuck up on her, and began to cloud in an irregular heartbeat. "Whether there is brain damage is undetermined. This could take several weeks to monitor, but we are doing the best we can."
"Please don't tell me that, tell me you can save her. Please, tell me." Satine pleaded. "Tell me my baby girl is going to live..."
"She's is definitely a fighter..." I awaited an answer myself, but smartly and quickly, he knew how to respond. I'm well aware he cannot make promises, but it doesn't break my heart any less. "Immediate family is allowed inside the room. Other members can look from outside. Would you all like to see her?"
"Take me to her." I pleaded softly to my friend, heart beating out of my chest from anticipation. The one that has taken care of me and my family for years. The only doctor I have felt truly listens to me and my sister when I say somethings wrong. Whether that was wisdom teeth, the lake water in Ahsoka's stomach or my split head. He listens to me.
After flying up the elevator and rounding many corners, he guided us to stop behind a glass pane bordered by a warm light around the thin blinds. Y/n was on the other side, but I wasn't allowed to hold her yet. The separation made and still makes my teeth grind. I never liked being away from her.
Doctor Rex carefully opened the door, stepping to the side. The silent halls during early hours of the night made the sound of the ventilator able to be heard. He folded the blind open parallel to my eyes.
There she was. My angel.
She layed beautifully under an abundance of blankets, supported by an inclined bed and plush pillows beneath her brushed hair. An IV stuck in one of her arms with an oximeter trapping her finger. A tube carried inside her nose while her chest rose and fall with each pulse of air. Her eyelids were gentle closed and elicited a light pink shade. Her color had regained, casting a delicate glow on her plump face mixed with the warm light of the lamp beside her. She looked so peaceful.
I watched as her mother rushed the room and immediately crashed to her side. Satine had finally dropped every tear she held in at the sight of y/n, being followed by Kenobi who gently rubbed her shoulder (he will be dealt with later).
"I'm so sorry." I whispered to myself as I watched her hair being brushed from her face. My eyes welled fast, forcing a tear to drip down my face and my lip to quiver. As if the air was drawn out of me, my throat began to dry, sore from the strength it took to not breakdown again.
A small hand grabbed my wrist, turning me so they witnessed my swollen face, sniffling my stuffed nose and eyebrows pinned in to a sew. If I open my mouth, I'll bawl. If I release words, I'll stutter. If I try to speak, loud choppy breaths will sound instead. It wasn't long before I shook from rippling chills at the constriction of crying.
Ahsoka, dead eyed and exhausted, spoke to me for the first time in a grog that speared her vocal cords... "let's go home."