fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, April 25, 2013, 2nd period]

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ethics

Ethics [Thursday, April 25, 2013, 2nd period]

"Welcome to our final class together," Anakin said as he passed out the exams. "I hope you've learned something about yourselves in our time together so that when you're faced with a tough situation, you can make a choice you can live with."

That's what passed for as touchy-feely from Anakin, folks. Sorry. "There are no right and wrong answers on this exam, but I do want you to explain your answer. Don't answer what you think I want to hear--answer how you'd honestly react."

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". . . now I wonder if that goes with the name, too."

Yes, because the tendency to be exasperating did.

Anakin laughed. "It might. You're the only other Anakin I know personally. It was apparently a fairly common baby name for a while..."

"Why couldn't that have lasted a while longer?" Anakin asked, a distinctly whining note in his voice. "I'm the only other one I know of."

That was likely to change in a couple of years. Not that he'd know about it when it did.

"Could have been worse," Anakin said. "You could have been named Obi-Wan. Now there's a name that dates you."

"Okay, good point," Anakin conceded, laughing (just a bit). "Were there a lot of those, too?"

"Less than Anakins," Anakin said, "though there were at least a billion younglings all over the galaxy playing Skywalker and Kenobi at any given moment during the Clone Wars."

Anakin considered that, and his eyes widened. "From what Valin and Sannah were saying, there must be a lot of kids pretending to be me, then."

He looked more disturbed by that than anything, but he was a tiny bit pleased, to tell the truth.

Anakin smiled. "Probably."

"When did that happen?" Anakin asked. "It wasn't that long ago that I was the one pretending to be Uncle Luke."

"Probably when you were sent out on missions on your own," Anakin said.

Anakin blinked, ran a hand through his hair, and sighed. "This whole growing up thing is weird."

"You're handling it better than most," Anakin replied with a tiny smile.

Anakin's answering smile was small, and a tiny bit forced. "I'm not sure I had much of a choice, really."

What with the high-profile family and all.

Anakin reached out and tousled his grandson's hair. "There's always a choice. You chose the right one."

He'd say he was too old for this kind of thing afterward, but it had been a rough few weeks crammed into the space of a few days, so -- well, there was Anakin, trying to hug his grandfather.

Surprise, quickly quelled, flared in the Force, and then Anakin was hugging him back tightly. "It'll get better," he murmured.

"It has to, right?" For the moment, Anakin was -- and sounded like -- a kid who was tired of messing up, tired of the weight of (often self-imposed) expectations on his shoulders, and tired of this whole kriffing war. It was, maybe, the second time he'd ever let himself be this vulnerable about it.

Anakin answered the emotions rather than the question. "You need to take a break, Anakin," he said quietly, still hugging the kid, "not feel guilty about being back here."

He remembered his time with Jaina during the same war.

"But there are people --" Tahiri mostly, at the moment -- "counting on me," Anakin protested. Albeit weakly.

He'd never admit that he was almostsortofmaybe clinging just a bit.

"And they need you at your best, young one," Anakin said gently, "not as spun up as you are right now. It's all right to breathe before reacting."

He knew better than to suggest one of his relatives stop to think.

Because that wasn't really a thing they did, anyway.

Anakin looked like he couldn't decide whether to put up an argument or just give in, though his mulish expression suggested that if anything, he'd at least argue the point inside his head.

"Because we barely get enough time as it is to do that?"

"Exactly," Anakin said quietly. "This isn't my first war. This isn't even my first time with your war. What time here gives you is a chance to regroup and think if you'll take advantage of it. It's a buffer against our natural recklessness."

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Ethics [Thursday, April 25, 2013, 2nd period]

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