The Chosen One(s) | Anakin Skywalker x Reader

Chapter 40 - Marry Me

*A/N - I think you guys are really gonna like this chapter;)

Also I don't know anything about gunshot injuries so all of things I wrote are probably completely inaccurate so please just try to go along with it anyway lol. Also I'm going to make Anakin's recovery way faster than I'm sure would be possible. I'm gonna make up some inventive "medical engineering" to explain it lol but it's because I need him to be healthy for what comes next;);)*

Anakin's POV:

I've felt pain before. I know it all to well. We are well acquainted— familiar to the point it's almost comforting because it's all I've ever really known. To not feel pain at this point in my life almost feels disorienting.

My first nine standard years of my life were spent as a slave under the blistering heat of two suns on Tatooine. I was battered and beaten and bruised and burned as a little boy, and I suffered verbally abuse too. I saw things and experienced violence that no child should ever have to endure. I watched helplessly as my mother was tortured and whipped by our Master far worse than I ever was. I still hear her screams and pleas for him to stop when I close my eyes.

I watched my mother die in my arms, I saw her take her last breath. And after all that, I thought it couldn't get any worse. I'd experienced the most horrible thing, so nothing else could hurt me anymore. But I was wrong. Then came the war. And then came losing her too. The only other woman I've ever loved.

In my opinion, the emotional pain is arguably worse than the physical. That pain is temporary. It goes away. You get better. But emotional pain— it may fade, but it never truly disappears. You just get better at coping with its existence. You find a way to live through it because life goes on and you have to.

And while I still stand by this theory of emotional being worse than physical, I can't deny that right now what I'm feeling is excruciating beyond fathomable. I've been shot before— bullets and blasters have grazed my skin. I've been stabbed, kicked, punched, hit, poisoned, burned, sliced— you name it. Force, I had my fucking arm cauterized off!

But to be shot in your chest. That's something entirely different.

There is nothing to describe the burning sensation that follows. It feels like you're being shocked, vibrations and electricity shooting throughout your entire body. Some gunshot survivors report that they don't feel it— that adrenaline kicked in, that they were in shock. Some report they don't even remember being shot. They just wake up in the hospital bullet free with some pain at the incision site where they took it out to prove to them that it actually happened. But not me. Or maybe I do have the adrenaline coursing through me and the pain I'm feeling actually has been dulled. Either way, it's excruciating.

The worst part was before I went unconscious. When the bullet hit my chest, I fell backwards. My body hit the ground, the back of my head smacking against the concrete street where I was shot, adding to the injury toll. When I was laying there awake, bleeding out with a hole in my chest, I realized no one was around. I questioned if what I experienced was real, and then when I tried to get up and I realized I couldn't— I knew for sure. I didn't know what to do. My comlink had fallen from my pocket about five feet from where I lied. The uncertainty hurt. Not knowing if anyone would find me, if I was going to die. That hurt. The idea that I'd never see her again hurt the worst.

Being shot with the physical bullet wasn't as bad as the mental bullet. My mind was a wreck. I began to panick. I struggled to breathe. To keep consciousness. I tried to apply pressure to my chest, but it just kept bleeding. My hand was covered in blood. The pool of it surrounding me growing bigger and bigger by the second. I knew that couldn't be good. I questioned how much time I had. I began drowning in fear, trying to stay calm but realizing that was impossible. I thought about her. Every second with her. Every moment. Every mistake I made. Everything I wish I had done differently. How I'd never get to make it up to her. How I'd never get to tell her I loved her again.