Beginning Again

Chapter 3: Alderaan Kidnapping

Alexa POV

My limbs ached more than they had ever ached before as I flopped down backwards onto my bed, sending a ripple of pain through me followed by relief. At least I was off my feet now, but my shoulders and legs still hurt, no doubt they would keep hurting for awhile.

So it turned out that the punishment from Anakin was more training. Lots more.  Now that's not something I would normally complain about, but this was next level.  He'd pushed me harder than he ever had before, first I had to do push ups, followed by sit ups, then we did an hour of sparing with our lightsabers, an hour and a half of hand to hand combat training, and after all that he finished by telling me to run four laps around the outside of the temple.

I could still hear his voice in the back of my head:  "Come on Lex, you can do more than that!  You shouldn't be tired yet, after all that free time you had on your hands yesterday I'm sure you won't mind putting in some extra time for your training."  Even after I'd done the several hours of exercise that he had ordered me to do.  At least the weather outside was nice when I went for the run, it would have been worse if it was raining.

Apparently all the time I'd spent getting used to being a in the temple had made me go a bit soft around the edges.  When I was still running for my life this probably would have been easier since I was used to the constant moving around and having to sprint away at a moments notice.  Despite that, I'd rather be a padawan of course.  In my time with Anakin I've learnt that having friends to back you up is better than being on the run all the time, funnily enough.

That being said, at this point I'm really feeling the urge to slap that smug smirk that he always wore right off his face.  The only thing stopping me was that I might not be able to get up for awhile.  For now sleep was probably my best option.  Then I would go slap him.

Just as I was starting to doze off, however, I was woken to the sound of my comm going off.  With a groan and an eye roll I answered it.

"What do you want?"  I asked, annoyed with whoever it was that had decided to keep me from sleeping.

I automatically felt guilty when I heard a concerned Rendal answer.  "Sorry Alexa, if you're busy I can call back later.  Are you ok?"

"It's fine, what's wrong?"  I didn't want to go into details about how my teacher had tried to work me to death.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes I'm sure, just tell me why you called."

"Well I um...  Actually, hang on a minute."

I frowned as he hung up and waited to see what he was going to do.  Would he call me back or just leave me hanging here in suspense?  Eh to be honest I wouldn't be hanging for long, I was sure I'd fall asleep pretty quickly.  But before I managed to the door to my room slid open and Rendal walked in.

"You know you're meant to knock first, right?"  I asked with a yawn.

"Oh um, sorry."  He smiled sheepishly.  "Do you mind me being in here?"

"Of course not, now can you just tell me what all this is about?"  As selfish as it was I just wanted him to spit it out so that I could get to sleep already.

"I wanted to tell you that Jenifire heard there's been trouble on Alderaan and she thinks that you and Master Skywalker might be assigned to go investigate."  He explained.

"Oh great."

Anakin POV