Give Me Love

chapter four

You woke up the next morning, the events of the night before rushing back to you. Most notably, your little run in with Anakin.

You rolled over and groaned into your pillow, pulling the hood up further over your head. The embarrassment and regret stained your cheeks as you buried your face in the pillows. Maybe if you stayed here long enough trapped without oxygen, you'd suffocate.

A fantasy that would have to wait for a later date, you decided, and pushed yourself onto your elbows. Head pounding and stomach churning, you immediately regretted that decision. You definitely did not drink enough water last night.

With one look around your room, and you had your plans set for the day.

"There's droids for that, you know," Celesta had told you one day when you mentioned you were going to clean. You couldn't tell her that you sort of liked cleaning. It gave you something to do, it was an excuse to listen to music, and you liked the sense of satisfaction you got at taking care of your own place.

Plus, you liked to revel in the fact that no one could criticize you for any missed spots like your mother always did, because she wasn't here now, was she?

Halfway through cleaning, you paused to get a drink of water and text your friends how they were holding up this morning. It was still a little early, so you didn't question it when none of them answered. They were probably still passed out from a heavy night of drinking.

Usually you would get together on Saturday nights and have a girls night, but when no one texted by mid-afternoon, you thought they were all probably still reeling from the Core. So you settled for a private night in, catching up on your hair and face masks, shaving your whole body and dousing yourself in scented oils for no reason other than because you could, and ordered takeout.

The next day, still no one had reached out to you. Not even to answer the text you had sent the morning before. You had to admit it was a little odd, and your dumb brain with your past experience of your friends up and leaving you with no explanation took that and ran with it. You decided to go grocery shopping to get your mind off of all the reasons why the girls wouldn't be answering you.

They all had jobs that they might have to work on the weekends, you rationalized. Tori might have gotten called into the city greenhouse if one of the ancient elms got sick, Freya and Vera might have gotten a sudden modeling gig, Celesta often gets caught up in inspiration out of the blue and forgets to eat, drink, and sleep while she's designing, and Padmè and Sabè have politician duties that don't wait for weekends. They were simply busy, that's all.

Still, it didn't keep the fears from gnawing at your brain. You found you couldn't even really grocery shop because looking at food made you sick. Watching television wasn't distracting because you couldn't get into the shows, and even working out let your mind wander too much.

You collapsed onto your couch with a huff, wandering if you should look into getting a therapist. It had only been one day since your friends hadn't answered your texts, why were you worrying so much?

The night was spent twisting and turning in your sheets. The stress-nightmare that you had been anticipating did make an appearance, but you were up and ready for work the next day with a newfound vigor. The medbay always got your mind off things.

Today, just your luck, was slow. A few clones came in, one with shrapnel embedded in their shoulder and one with a broken nose from a fistfight. There were the usual blaster wounds that you were an expert at patching up. By the time lunch rolled around, no one had entered the medbay in an hour, and all of the medics sat around, impatient.

Rico let you have the rest of the day off, and your stomach dropped. That's exactly what you didn't want. But you thought maybe you could seek out some other people... ones who always managed to make you feel better...