fandomhigh | Library, 1/24

Rory pushed open the doors, and led Anakin over to the blue section, focusing on the spines of the books.

"Professor Tick knows," she said quietly.

"Professor Tick knows what?" Anakin asked absently, scanning the books. He'd never seen the Jedi records in book form--at the temple it was mostly electronic, with some of the oldest still in Holocrons.

"About us," Rory said, studying the books.

Anakin's heart plummeted to somewhere near his stomach. He took a few deep breaths. "How?" he asked.

"You'll understand when you see your homework that I graded," Rory whispered, pulling a book off the shelf. "He's not going to tell anyone."

Anakin stared at Rory for a long moment without moving. "You wrote something about us on my homework?"

His hand smacked down, hard, against one of the bookshelves. "Rory!" He ran his hands through his hair and blew out a breath. "Have you told anyone else?"

Rory pulled another book off the shelf. "You can't act like that in here. You'll upset the books," she said, perhaps a bit too sharply.

"I'll upset the books," Anakin echoed. "Rory! Who else have you you told?"

He did take a step back from the shelves, though.

"Seriously. You have to lower your voice," Rory said. "You're going to upset the books, and there is a very good reason why we're wearing gloves."

She sighed. "Parker and Angela know, too."

Anakin squeezed his lips very tightly together to stop the rant that he could feel building. Don't upset the books.

"Parker and Angela know too?" He scrubbed his hands through his hair and paced back and forth for a moment.

"Rory," he sighed, gesturing at the books they were standing by. "I'm here to pull up the information showing that what we are doing isn't supposed to be happening. Isn't allowed to happen." He yanked at his braid. "I'm not naive enough to believe that this is the first time a Jedi has ever done something like this--the Order's been going for 25,000 years, after all--but it only works if there's a nice barrier of deniability." His hands clenched. "And when one us isn't denying it, this could lead to some serious problems for the other one of us."

He looked at her. "Why did you tell?"

Rory swallowed, and thought for a long moment.

"Because they knew anyway," she said, staring at the ground. "Half the school suspects. Parker and Angela knew something was going on with us before you ever told me not to mention it. And as it stands now, all they do know is that I can't tell them anything, but you and I are together."

"But it's a good thing that someone knows," she added, looking up and wringing her hands. "Because not only will they not tell a soul, but they'll squash rumors and cover for us. They both ran interference for us with Lee. And they've both covered for me."

If he wasn't so afraid he'd turn into a newt, Anakin would've leaned against something.

"Suspecting is okay," he said slowly. "Outright knowledge is something else."

He wasn't going near the topic of Lee. He sighed. "Nothing to be done about it," he said. "We deal with the galaxy as it is, not as we wish it would be." He raised an eyebrow. "And if you could stop writing things on my homework, that would probably be good, too."

"No, really? I don't feel bad about it enough, yet," Rory said quietly, thrusting the books at him. "Please, remind me again of stupid and careless I've been. Because I don't think I feel quite horrible or guilty enough yet."

"Hey," Anakin snapped. "I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I'm just trying to process the idea of other people knowing about this."

He took the books, walked over to a table and flipped one open.

"A Jedi shall not know hate. Nor anger. Nor love," he read to himself. In his head, he heard the echoes of Obi-Wan's lessons on the Code.

Then he looked at Rory.

Screw the Code. At least temporarily.

"It's okay," he said. "We'll deal. As long as no one at home hears about it, we're still fine, right?"

"Right," Rory said, still not looking at him.

She pretended to be fascinated by the spines of the books still on the shelves.

"You don't think we're fine?" Anakin asked, leaving the books and walking over to her. "Hey, look at me."

"Mm. We'll be fine," Rory said, looking over his shoulder. "But it's my fault if we aren't."

"Well, you said half the school already suspects," Anakin said, "Plus the rumors on the radio. I'm thinking we both need to work on our sneakiness."

He reached out to tilt her head up to look at him. "You think the books would mind if I tried to kiss you?" he asked. "Or, you know, tell on us?"

They were Jedi books, after all. They might not react very well.

Rory smiled hesitantly. "The library might tell Zero. But then again, the library could probably tell Zero this entire conversation. And it's been known to be inaccurate and difficult to interpret, anyway."

She glanced at the books. "These all seem pretty safe, from what I can tell."

"Books, where I come from, aren't sentient," Anakin said. He frowned. "Of course, we don't have books, we have datapads." He gave them a curious look, then stroked Rory's cheek.

"Maybe not a good idea, though." He walked back to the table to pick up his research materials. "Guess we should head back out, huh?"

"They aren't where I'm from either. But they are here," Rory sighed. "And there are scary things in here, so yes, we probably ought to get out of here. I've no desire to meet that dragon again, nice as he was."

Anakin looked around, startled. "There's a dragon around here? Like Lockheed?"

"Except like, a thousand times bigger," Rory said casually. "Much scarier. Also, there's a creepy monk who called all of us whores when we were in here together."

Anakin glared. "Someone in here called you a whore?"

Yeah, he missed the part about the giant dragon.

"He was weird. And scary. And he called Parker, Angela, Janet and Zero whores, too," Rory shrugged. "And apparently a girl lives in here too, somewhere, according to Xander."

Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

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Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

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Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB

Re: Sixth period - Special Collections - NFB