fic: [take what i took and give it back to you] Rated PG-13: Anakin/OC
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. This story is purely a work of fan fiction, and I am not making any profit from it.
Author's note: Finally, something happens in the he!au! Woohoo! :)
Title from One Republic's "All This Time."
[take what i took and give it back to you]
Ryn comes to him at sunset, standing in the doorway of the shop with the evening light behind her. “I waited for you today,” she says without preamble.
Anakin blinks at her, still in that groggy place between feeling his hangover and getting drunk again. “What?”
“The year and a day is over,” Ryn says, her voice tight. “It’s over, and I waited, but you didn’t come, and I need to know - have you changed your heart?” She lifts her chin bravely. “Do you not love me any more?”
“What?” says Anakin squinting at her and trying to make sense of the situation. “No. I ...”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” demands his ex-wife, misunderstanding. “Why did you string me along? If you didn’t want me any more, why didn’t you say so?”
Anakin blinks at her stupidly. “I wanted to finish out the year,” he says hesitantly, hearing already the despair in his own voice.
“Why?” Ryn practically shouts at him, and Anakin flinches from the raw pain there.
“I ...” His throat is dry. “I wanted to keep this last year with you.” He has to swallow again to finish. “I couldn’t let you go. I’m sorry.” He forces himself to say the words: “You deserve better.”
“Yeah, I do,” Ryn says, giving no quarter. “I deserve an explanation. What the hell, Anakin?” She leans closer, her face tightening in exasperation as she scents his breath. “Why are you drunk?”
He backs away from her insistence, shaking his head. “I don’t ... Ryn, I ...”
She follows his retreat, stepping over the threshold to stay with him as he fumbles to evade her scrutiny. “You took a year of my life, Anakin. And now you say you’re not interested? I want to know why.” She pierces him with her clear green gaze, as direct as ever. “You owe me that much.”
Anakin nods numbly and lets her walk past him into the living quarters behind his shop. He knows she’s right, but what he feels he can’t put into words, twisted and ephemeral and full of holes that lose his meaning.
He’s forgotten that Ryn can read him anyway.
“You’re feeling guilty,” she points out, turning to face him with her arms folded tightly across her chest. “Because you’re leaving me? Or something else?”
“No,” Anakin mumbles. He can see in her face that this isn’t enough; he struggles with himself, the alcohol and his own defenses making this harder, and finally manages: “I’m not good for you.”
“Not good for me,” Ryn repeats dubiously. “Why not?”
The words come out mumbled and garbled, slurred with alcohol and fatigue, but he knows Ryn will hear them anyway. “Didn’t make you happy,” he admits resentfully. “Didn’t even know what was wrong.”
Ryn tilts her head to one side, studying him intently. “How could you? I was sworn to silence, and I kept that vow. What were you supposed to know?”
Anakin shakes his head helplessly, like a nerf trying to dislodge a persistent insect. “Should’ve seen you were miserable.”
“I wasn’t miserable.” But light dawns behind Ryn’s eyes, even as she says it. She’s too beautiful; it hurts to look at her, and yet he can’t make himself look away. “Anakin,” she says softly, moving closer to him, into his personal space. “Is that what this is about? Truly?”
He can’t speak. He nods jerkily, desperate eyes drinking her in because he can’t stop himself. Something loosens in his chest. “I can’t -”
She kisses him.
It’s like opening a floodgate. It’s like rain in the desert, after so long. It’s every clichéd metaphor of love and release and hope born again, alive and heady with possibility.
The way Ryn kisses him now is nothing like the girl he married, guilty and unsure of herself. Ten years have changed them both. The Ryn in his arms is a woman who knows everything she wants right now, and most of it is him.
“Marry me,” Ryn says breathlessly, tearing away from their kiss and gasping raggedly, searching his eyes. “Say yes. Marry me, Anakin.”
It’s all backward and nothing like the way he planned, but Anakin can’t say no to her now, maybe never again. “Anything you want,” he breathes, and reaches for her again.
: : :
Maybe an hour later, with the fog of homegrown whiskey wearing slowly off, Anakin rolls over in the sweaty sheets and cracks one eye at his naked ex-wife. “Where’d you leave the kids?”
Ryn, sober but plainly elated, gives him a lazily relaxed grin. “With Evinne.”
Something nags at him; Anakin has to pry himself out of his general sense of well-being to sort it out. “What’s she doing up here?”
“Mmm.” Ryn twists a little against the sheets, still clearly enjoying the lingering touch of orgasm. “I called her.”
“Huh?”
She rolls to one side, something like reproach shadowing her features even though he can sense her trying to hide it. “I was expecting you to propose today, remember? I thought we might want some time alone, to ... celebrate.”
She keeps her voice almost steady, but Anakin can feel her disappointment, sharp and more bitter now because she’s waited so long. It hits him like a hammer blow, lying tangled in the aftermath of love, that Ryn has been waiting for him for thirteen years. More than half her life. She had wanted that proposal, had dreamed of it in her understated way. She had said nothing, all that year ... but she had thought of this night, enough to make plans for them to be alone in each other’s arms. She’d been ready to say yes, to a question he’d been too cowardly to ask. And tonight, in the bitter end of hope, she had given in and asked him, in spite of everything. Given up her dream of being loved, to love him a little bit more.
And now she’d never get her proposal. Whatever she wanted ... it wasn’t this. No woman dreamed of showing up bereft and coaxing a drunk to marry her, to make their family whole again.
“Anakin?”
“I can’t marry you,” Anakin says, unable even to believe the words as he speaks them.
Ryn jerks to alertness, panic washing over her features. “What?” she says, her voice breaking. “But we just - I don’t - I don’t understand.”
You will. Anakin sits up and catches her hands, holding them carefully between his. “Can Evinne keep Jinn and Obi for another night?”
Ryn sits up, following him - her throat working, her eyes wide with hurt. “Probably,” she manages to say. She takes a shuddering breath, gathering herself. “I can ask.”
“Good,” Anakin says, still holding onto her. “Do that. And go back to the house for tonight.” He presses her hands together and kisses them gently. “Tomorrow. I’ll come to you tomorrow. Just trust me for one more day, Ryn, please.”
The hurt is still everywhere around them, but Ryn nods slowly. “But -”
“Sh.” He kisses her and almost loses his nerve. But after all this time ... Ryn deserves to be asked. To know she’s wanted, more than anything. “No buts. Not tonight. Trust me, just for one more day. I promise, I won’t fail you again.”
“You didn’t -”
Yes, I did. “Ryn,” he says instead, meeting her eyes. “This is important. Just go now. Please?”
She nods again and gets up, pulling her scattered clothes together. “I’ll ... see you tomorrow,” she says at the door, hesitantly.
It’s a question; Anakin can feel her uncertainty, hovering around her like an aura of betrayal.
“You will,” he tells her firmly. “That’s a promise, Ryn.”
She bites down on her lower lip, an old habit. “All right,” she says finally, and leaves him in peace.
Anakin begins to plan.