Anderson can do a lot more than casually overhear what others are thinking -- psi-exam is closer to an invasive medical procedure, no matter how deft she is about it -- but she's not going to protest. Although her abilities are part of her identity and she wouldn't give them up, she's only ever been shunned or used as a tool because of them. Not since her parents has anyone accepted her wholeheartedly, and let her in. She's become accustomed to letting others assume whatever they wish about what she can do, and not correcting them; not because she doesn't want to tip her hand, but because nothing she can say ever improves her situation.
She listens instead, which is always her preferred activity, and here in a safe place away from the role she has to play, lets her reactions play out openly. Anderson had thought it had to be something major, yet it's somehow still surprising to hear that he's tied up in the 501st, and Jedi. Topics she'd always tried to stay far away from. She'd planned to ask later exactly what was happening to the other clones, but he's preempted her question.
"That's how you learned your mental shielding?" she asks reflexively, because that was also on her list.
She doesn't wait before she goes on, the question mostly rhetorical, and her voice slows, quiets. Anderson isn't ashamed of either her own feelings or anyone else's, but she carries an innate respect and a carefulness for them that means she measures her words. "It's not just blind loyalty. What's been done to them is the most horrifying thing I've ever felt in someone's mind. When there wasn't anything I could do about it, I told myself I could do more good in the position I was in, but when I felt how much you love them--"
She meets his eyes steadily. "There was something I could do, so I did it. I don't care about galactic politics."
no subject
She listens instead, which is always her preferred activity, and here in a safe place away from the role she has to play, lets her reactions play out openly. Anderson had thought it had to be something major, yet it's somehow still surprising to hear that he's tied up in the 501st, and Jedi. Topics she'd always tried to stay far away from. She'd planned to ask later exactly what was happening to the other clones, but he's preempted her question.
"That's how you learned your mental shielding?" she asks reflexively, because that was also on her list.
She doesn't wait before she goes on, the question mostly rhetorical, and her voice slows, quiets. Anderson isn't ashamed of either her own feelings or anyone else's, but she carries an innate respect and a carefulness for them that means she measures her words. "It's not just blind loyalty. What's been done to them is the most horrifying thing I've ever felt in someone's mind. When there wasn't anything I could do about it, I told myself I could do more good in the position I was in, but when I felt how much you love them--"
She meets his eyes steadily. "There was something I could do, so I did it. I don't care about galactic politics."