FicWad

Just as Padmé wasn't among the crowd of Senators and dignitaries who came out to greet Palpatine at the Chancellor's private landing platform at the Senate Offices, she is not among the even larger crowd - Senators, aides, staff members, droids, and guards all mixed up haphazardly with the inevitable HoloNet crews - on hand in the Great Rotunda when they all finally troop in. Anakin is having more and more trouble focusing, pushing down his fears, when something one of the HoloNet crews says - "There were Senators who actually fought against the droids down at the Embassy Mall and Hospital Plaza, near the Nicandra Building. The rest of the crew is still down there, interviewing civilians. Senators Giddean Danu and Fang Zar, Terr Taneel and Chi Eekway, and Mon Mothma and the rest of her crowd have already organized teams to start searching for the wounded." - catches his attention, so definitely deflating the building storm of paranoia that has been threatening to overwhelm him ever since Obi-Wan left to go back to the Temple that Palpatine finally seems to notice him. Mon Mothma and the rest of her crowd' - that has to be Bail Organa and Padmé! She's always going on about how those are two of the most honest politicians she's ever met. And Bail's got connections in the Temple, from Master Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Even Master Yoda approves of him. Anakin's relief is so sudden and so complete that not even the thought of Senators fighting on the Plaza can phase him. He is so reassured that it leaves him lightheaded enough to stumble once, just a little, which is when Palpatine finally looks at him, his expression mildly questioning. Anakin just shakes his head and grins, miming a yawn and shrugging expansively. Palpatine nods once, understandingly, and then his attention is gone again, focused almost solely on the crowd of HoloNet crews.

The sense of comfort Anakin has gained from his wife's abruptly entirely explicable absence is so great, though, that it takes a while for the fact that something else is wrong to filter through the haze of relief fogging his mind. However, eventually - even though he's glad that Palpatine didn't try to press him for an actual answer - it occurs to Anakin that the sudden lack of concern is puzzling. Palpatine has always been so concerned, so enormously attentive, that it's somewhat shocking to suddenly be so casually dismissed. The man's normally so observant that Anakin can't slip anything past him. The moment Palpatine had first laid eyes on Anakin again after the Battle of Geonosis, he'd known that something was wrong, and he wouldn't leave it alone until Anakin finally gave in and told him about what had happened to his mother, what he'd done to the Sand People. Granted, it hadn't really taken a lot of prodding on Palpatine's part to get the story out of him, but still . . . that is the normal pattern with them. Palpatine is always there, always knows when something is troubling Anakin, even when Anakin himself isn't always aware of the fact that he's upset, often helping him to sort out his thoughts enough to actually figure out what things are bothering him and why, and the kindly Chancellor always seems to know just how to cheer him up or to soothe his worries away, often managing to say just the perfect thing to help make Anakin's thoughts crystalize fully. Yet, so far today, Palpatine hasn't been nearly so observant or helpful. In fact, he hasn't been paying a whole lot of attention to Anakin at all, not since he got their broken fragment of Grievous' ship safely on the ground. And even before then, really, the most helpful comments he'd had to offer had been that clarification about someone else shooting at the ship and the plan to simply try to negotiate with Grievous. The rest of the time, he'd either been panicking and trying to get Obi-Wan killed or arguing with Anakin and -

Hey, wait a minute! Did he really order me to execute Dooku when he was defenseless?

Anakin is so rattled that he stumbles again, but before he can catch hold of this strangely fuzzy and out of focus impression - his head suddenly feels so stuffed full of cotton again that it's probably a miracle the thought managed to surface as far as it did before once more slipping away - Mas Amedda's hand lands on his shoulder, drawing his attention back to the waiting crowd of HoloNet reporters. "Jedi Skywalker, if you could come this way, please?"

Strangely disoriented and confused - so much so that it almost feels as if he's dozed off on his feet for a moment or two, though he's sure he's done no such thing - knowing that Obi-Wan has asked him to speak to the HoloNet reporters but dogged by a persistent troubling feeling that he's forgotten something, Anakin automatically follows Mas Amedda, trying not to frown as he's led up to a beaming Palpatine. For the next two hours or so, then, Anakin gets to stand by and have one or another of his arms or his shoulders clasped and his back thumped upon by Palpatine, the gestures sprinkled at odd points throughout the course of the politician's speechifying - almost as if he has some strange formula worked out, so many touches per exclamatory statements or so many pats on the back per x amount of minutes - and is forced to try harder and harder not to grow truly, deeply angry with the man for the way his stories somehow all seem to consistently downplay Obi-Wan's part in the rescue. Sometimes he cannot keep himself from interrupting with a pointed comment or two, but Palpatine seems oblivious to Anakin's displeasure. Anakin is, therefore, on the verge of shouting at Palpatine by the time the Chancellor finally draws to a rather long-winded conclusion and self-satisfactorily declares that he must go and speak to all of his good friends among the Senate.

As the HoloNet crews pounce on Anakin, eagerly asking for the details of Palpatine's rescue, Anakin immediately launches not into the quietly modest remarks he had already half planned to say for the HoloNet while they were technically in danger on the ship (being walked up to Grievous, actually), but instead into a passionate outpouring of praise for all of the many ways in which Obi-Wan has made this moment possible. He backtracks from the Chancellor's rescue all the way out to Cato Neimoidia and the beginning of their latest extended series of missions on the Outer Rim and he cannot - despite several immediate wheedling attempts to gloss all of that and tell them all about how it felt to defeat Dooku and successfully land Grievous' wrecked ship - be made to hurry along. In truth, though, Anakin more than makes it worth the while of the crews to sick with him. He has a true gift for storytelling, always has, and with a clear goal in mind - to vindicate his former Master's greatness and to convince all of these people once and for all just what a prodigiously wise and powerful and gracious and humorous and not only conscientious but truly just, truly virtuous, not to mention just downright gifted Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi really is - he turns on the charm and he weaves them a series of tales so entrancing that in the end they would have gladly hung upon every word even if he hadn't been the Hero With No Fear.

Anakin loves to brag on his Master - his former Master. He so rarely gets to do it! Obi-Wan is stubbornly self-effacing and obstinately self-deprecating and nothing Anakin has tried has ever even come close to succeeding in breaking Obi-Wan of either one of these thoroughly irritating tendencies towards selflessness. For some strange reason that Anakin has never been able to fathom, Obi-Wan is perfectly capable of calmly standing by and exuding serenity while bowing gracefully and graciously receiving thanks for his efforts on the behalf of the Jedi Order and the Republic as large, but Force forfend anyone should try to praise him, personally, because then he will stammer and blush and drag his heels and finally just dig in like a nerf because he simply does not know and will not learn how to let himself be praised. Obdurate man! Granted, Obi-Wan's not nearly so private or reclusive as he used to be, especially during their first few years together, but it would be next to impossible for him to be so, with as many HoloNet stories as he's been featured in since even before the beginning of the Clone Wars.

To be entirely honest, though, even though Obi-Wan's solitary and self-contained nature annoys Anakin sometimes, he also understands why Obi-Wan used to essentially behave like a hermit, especially in their first few years together. Given what he's learned of how well Obi-Wan avoided being a target of Temple gossip during his rather surprisingly (well, surprising to Anakin, in any case) continuously notorious time as a Padawan - by cleverly and purposefully placing himself so far within Master Qui-Gon's shadow during the brief periods of time that the two were actually in residence in the Temple that most managed to forget that Obi-Wan actually existed as a person separate from Qui-Gon Jinn - Anakin's not surprised that Obi-Wan didn't take very kindly to the instant notoriety that his slaying of the Sith on Naboo brought him within the Temple. Withdrawing as much as possible from public view by simply avoiding interaction with the larger Temple population to the point of actually shunning "unnecessary" proximity with others probably wasn't the best or the healthiest way of handling this newfound fame, but it did give Anakin a lot more time to work alone with his Master and get to know him well soon after they had become Master and Padawan (something that he's always been grateful for), and it had also helped to accustom Obi-Wan to the notions of public scrutiny and public fame gradually enough that he hadn't bolted like a frightened voorpak when the HoloNet crews began to actively pursue him for many of their most detailed features, something that Anakin believes has actually helped him in his quest to get Obi-Wan to loosen up more.

Obi-Wan and Anakin did go through a rough patch the year leading up to the start of the Clone Wars - something that Anakin knows was mainly his fault, as he was increasingly unable to hide or to even stop arguing about his inability to properly purge himself of his excessive compassion and passion - but Anakin has always adored his Master, and he would have words with anyone who would ever even think of trying to claim otherwise. He dreamed of Master Qui-Gon and his faithful human shadow in the days before their damaged ship landed on Tatooine, and though it had taken Anakin a little while to realize that Padmé, the beautiful young teenager with Qui-Gon when he came into Watto's shop, wasn't that shadow - though to be perfectly honest, it was more a matter of Anakin wanting to believe that Padmé was Qui-Gon's shadow so much that it had taken most of that first afternoon together with them for him to make himself face the disappointing fact that she just wasn't - and his eventual introduction to Obi-Wan hadn't gone anything like he'd hoped or planned, Anakin has never wavered in his devotion to Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Anakin had been positive, as soon as he'd clapped eyes upon Obi-Wan and seen the way he and Qui-Gon shone in each other's light like Tatooine's twin suns, that this was the beloved figure who'd shadowed Qui-Gon Jinn in his dreams. Even if he had first met Obi-Wan outsideo f Qui-Gon's presence, Anakin believes that it's entirely possible that he would have known Obi-Wan was Qui-Gon's shadow. The two Jedi felt like each other, in a strange way that Anakin had, at the time, not been able to fully explain to himself, not yet knowing (much less understanding) much about the Force or Force signatures. Regardless, Anakin is positive that he could feel the presence of Obi-Wan's Force signature resonating in the space surrounding Qui-Gon even before he knew what a Force signature was enough to know how to read one. The night before the Boonta Eve race, when he slept, Anakin could see what he later recognized as Obi-Wan's eyes smiling at him from the space behind Qui-Gon Jinn's right shoulder, and his heart had shifted within him so utterly that, when the time came, it was the lure of those smiling eyes, as much as the kindness in Master Qui-Gon's own clear cerulean gaze, that gave Anakin the courage to leave his mother.

When Obi-Wan had seemed to initially spurn Anakin's presence out of hand, it had hurt him so badly that he had crept off within the ship to find a quiet corner where he could curl up alone and cry, a corner in which he had instead ended up meeting R2-D2 and receiving comfort from an extremely distracted and sad Padmé, to whom he had offered the little piece of japor he had been carving in an attempt both to cheer her up and to thank her for the warm overcoat she'd wrapped around him. Because Obi-Wan has never liked to talk about this time and always wishes to downplay his own hurts whenever he is injured, Anakin would not learn until months after the fact (and then only accidentally) that Obi-Wan had actually been dealt a direct hit with a blaster bolt while evading the invading droid armies on Naboo - a lethal amount of energy he had managed to absorb into his body by using the Force to mute some of it and to expel all of the rest, though it had overtaxed his systems so severely that he had lost all but the most intermittent of contacts with the Force afterwards for several days, to the point where he still had not been fully recovered upon their return to Naboo and the confrontation with the Sith - and that the all too real pain of scrambled, burning nerve endings, combined with the strain of trying to hide the level of his hurt from Qui-Gon so that his Master would not worry about him, and the very real (however inexplicable) concern he felt regarding their mandate to resolve the Trade Federation's blockade of Naboo - an operation that evolved into a rescue mission in the face of out and out war - and the Council's lack of patience for Qui-Gon's eccentricities, not to mention Qui-Gon's troublesome tendency to take in strays, had conspired to make Obi-Wan far more snappish and obviously anxious than he ever would have normally behaved, otherwise.

Yet, despite their initially less than smooth relations, Anakin has never lost faith in the promise of his dreams, the promise of Qui-Gon's guiding hands and Obi-Wan's smiling eyes. And Anakin knows, as he has always known, that even if things had gone as the Force would have willed it, even if the Sith had not interfered and slain Qui-Gon on Naboo, he still would have been with Obi-Wan as well as with Qui-Gon, Jedi rules about one Padawan per one Master or not. After all, he had been learning the ways of the Jedi with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan in all of his dreams, even in the dreams he'd had after the High Council refused him and sent them all to Naboo with Padmé, and his dreams never lied. They might change somewhat, as present events continually affected and redirected the ever-narrowing paths of possibility for the future, but they weren't ever wholly wrong either.

He had said something about this to Obi-Wan once, when they had first returned to the Temple after the events on Naboo as Master and Padawan - a memory that Anakin holds near to his heart. That first night, Anakin had not been able to sleep in his new bed alone, and Obi-Wan had taken pity on him, allowing his pathetically trembling and chilled self to crawl into bed with him. He had woken in the middle of the night, though, confused, shivering, and frightened, alone in Obi-Wan's bed, to creep fearfully out into the suite of rooms they shared, terrified that he had somehow unknowingly done something to make Obi-Wan abandon him and desperately seeking to prove his fears wrong by finding his Master. Drawn to the bank of windows lining the shared space of the common room area, Anakin had looked out onto the terrace and immediately seen his Master, kneeling in meditation, the folds of his robes filled with shadow, folds of darkness in the eerie luminance of the never-night of the city-planet, unstirred by the chill breeze or the slow rise and fall of Obi-Wan measured breath. There were no stars to be seen from Coruscant, their shivery fire drowned out by the reflected glow of billions of artificial lights, but the quality of light around the Jedi Temple was incandescent, as pure as moonlight or starfire, untainted by the ruddy glow of artificiality. This pale glow had poured over his Master like moonlight, spilling over him like a wave of infinitely slow water, silvering the close-cropped hair that would soon grow out into a beautifully flaming red-gold corona, caressing the luminescent tracks in which tears ran ceaselessly from behind closed eyes, and pooling, finally, beneath him where he knelt, his body so still and face smoothed so blank that Anakin knew Obi-Wan was sunk so deep into the calm of meditation that he could not have been aware that he was crying.

Anakin had felt his heart breaking within him for love as he went out into the cold to join his grieving Master, and as Obi-Wan opened eyes washed colorlessly gray, their usually bright yet dark azure depths dull, their sparkle gone, Anakin had lifted fumbling hands up around his neck and then reached out to place a small, solid weight in Obi-Wan's right hand. Suspended from a thin black leather cord was a roughly polished gemstone about the size of a baby's two fists together, a deeply colored but unclouded translucent blue jewel that pulsed and burned with its own inner light, precisely the same shade as Obi-Wan's eyes normally were. A vibrant hue deeply saturated with light, a few naturally formed facets within the stone reflected green, gray, and even indigo spangles, but the overall color of the gem as rich a blue as the waters or the skies of Naboo. Just looking at it would inevitably make Anakin think of his Master, his presence a blazing light within the Force.

The rock was one of several that Anakin had stumbled across and collected their first day on Naboo. There had been half a dozen such translucent stones all in a clutch among the roots of a tree Anakin had sat down beneath while they were waiting for Jar Jar Binks to return from the Gungun city. He had taken all six, recruiting R2-D2 to help hide them so that no one else would see the stones and suspect what he was intending them for. The clever little astromech droid had cheerfully agreed to carry the three that Anakin carefully selected for their color - two the same clear, limpid blue of Qui-Gon Jinn's eyes, and the third the slightly more complex color of Obi-Wan's ultramarine eyes. The other three - one a rich indigo shade that was almost violet, one a green so dark that it appeared to be black unless held up to the light, and the last one an intense aquamarine hue that was almost green in certain angles - Anakin had carelessly sequestered in his pack, expecting he'd come up with a use for them later. The stones ranged in dimension from just a shade larger than the size of a baby's fist to a size near to what one of Qui-Gon's enormous hands would be if doubled into a fist. All were roughly spherical or ovoid and all were at least roughly polished, doubtlessly by the smoothing presence of moving water. Because he had not shared his find with anyone other than Artoo, Anakin had no idea what they were or what they were worth. He simply thought them all lovely to look at and somewhat conveniently colored.

Even if he had known what they were - exceedingly rare, enormously precious, exceptionally highly colored, and therefore even more immensely valuable Nubian starfire adamants, one of the most highly prized and expensive gemstones in the galaxy, even in its more common clear or ghostly pale hues - he still would have wanted to give at least two of them away, one to Qui-Gon and one to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan had told him that there would be a plaque for Qui-Gon in the Hall of Remembrance, and Anakin fully intended that the largest of the two jewels the color of Qui-Gon's eyes (the largest of the six stones, the one as big as one of Qui-Gon's fist) would go there, in memory of the man who had rescued him from slavery. He hadn't been able to make up his mind which of the other two blue stones to give to Obi-Wan, mostly because he couldn't decide if it was more fitting to give him the other Qui-Gon jewel or the gem the color of his own eyes. Anakin was planning on keeping the third blue stone for himself and had been wearing the two remaining ones - the second Qui-Gon stone more spherical and maybe just a hair smaller overall than the ovoid shape of the rock the color of Obi-Wan's eyes - on slender strips of differing lengths of leather (so that the stones couldn't knock together) so that he couldn't possibly lose track of either one while he finished making up his mind.

In that moment, Obi-Wan's dull, washed out eyes had made the decision for him.

Bleakness had bled toward confusion until Obi-Wan's forehead was creased by a slight frown and narrow slivers of bright blue fire crept out from within the grayness smothering the light in his eyes. "Padawan . . . ?"

"Master, I want you to have this. I want to thank you for taking me on as your Padawan, even though the Council didn't want you to. Please?"

His eyes by then only narrowly encircled by gray, Obi-Wan had looked down from Anakin's face to the jewel on the longer cord, still frowning. "Padawan, where did you get this?"

"On Naboo. There were several. I wanted to give one to Qui-Gon, but - "

Although he had remained in his meditative pose, hung upon his knees, Obi-Wan's right hand drifted out towards Anakin's face, tipping his bowed head back, his thumb brushing gently along Anakin's mouth to encourage the boy to release his bottom lip from the punishing pressure of his biting upper teeth. "His plaque will be ready soon."

"I know, Master. I thought I would set out the larger one there. I just - I wanted to give it to him myself."

"And you would like me to take this one?"

"Yes, Master," Anakin had smiled eagerly, delightedly, thinking that Obi-Wan would accept his gift, in spite of the odd emphasis the Order places on a lack of material possessions.

"Why?"

"Why, Master?"

"Yes, Padawan. Why? Why do you want me to have this? Why would you thank me for defying the Council in Qui-Gon's name? Why do you even wish to have me for your Master?" The anguish in Obi-Wan's voice had been unbearable, a sudden violent blow, grief and self-hatred and pain and insecurity rising from him in spiraling eddies, whirling out into the Force, slamming into Anakin and knocking the breath from his lungs in a painful gasp. "I almost didn't even become a Padawan myself. Why do you think I'm even capable of being your Master?"

"M-master?"

"Why?!" It had been a cry from the heart and it shattered something within both of them.

"Because you are Obi-Wan. Because you are my Obi-Wan. Because you are my Master and even before you and Qui-Gon came to Tatooine I dreamed of you, I dreamed of you both, Qui-Gon and his shadow, two beings, yes, but one whole entity, with me, teaching me. You are my Master and you have always been meant to be my Master. And I love you, Master Obi-Wan."

The fierceness of Anakin's reaction had called forth an equally intense reaction as Obi-Wan immediately burst into a storm of weeping - open grief, which he had not allowed himself to show in public (or private, so far as Anakin knew) for Qui-Gon's death. By the time Anakin had actually reached them at the generator core of the melting pit, Obi-Wan's face had been wet but his eyes had been dry, empty, where he knelt over his Master, his arms still cradling Qui-Gon's upper body - and flung himself bodily at his young Padawan, draping himself over him, cradling Anakin's small form and rocking him as though he were the one who needed to be comforted. Anakin had just held on to his Master as tight as he could, his arms locked around Obi-Wan's slight frame so tightly that his muscles ached, small hands clenching convulsively in the folds of Obi-Wan's robe, crying with him not only for the loss of Qui-Gon but also for the pain that the loss had caused Obi-Wan. Eventually, that overwhelming wave of grief receded and Obi-Wan's sobs had begun to subside. Anakin had slid down in Obi-Wan's lap and nestled his head against his Master's right shoulder, watching for a few moments while Obi-Wan contrived to one-handedly get the leather thong tied about his neck before finally adding a hand of his own to the task. Together, they'd gotten the stone securely hung around Obi-Wan's neck. Anakin had then shyly reached within his sleep-shirt to bring out the stone he was keeping, showing it to his Master and explaining how it was the smaller of the two Qui-Gon stones. Obi-Wan nodded and smiled, agreeing that the color did indeed perfectly match that of Qui-Gon Jinn's eyes, and then he had lifted Anakin up and carried him back inside, not only so that Anakin could get out the larger gem and show it to his Master but also to get Anakin in out of the night air, which felt so chill to a boy used to the heat of Tatooine.

The rest of the night they had spent talking. Obi-Wan had asked after every detail of Anakin's life on Tatooine with deliberate intensity, listening quietly as Anakin spoke joyfully of his mother, of being able to handle a machine, any machine, and to somehow simply know how to fix it, how to make it work better, more quickly, more efficiently, and of how this ability to instinctively understand how things worked and how to make them work better, regardless of the surrounding circumstances, and a similar gift that allowed him to feel how beings would react, even under the tremendous pressure of a life or death situation, let him be the first human ever not only to compete in but also to successfully win a Podrace. Anakin, in turn, had asked many questions about Qui-Gon, and soon after the two were giggling together over the hilarious stories Obi-Wan was sharing about his experiences with his Master, some even acted out, just a bit, and all told with such charming good grace, humor, and enthusiastic laughter that Obi-Wan hardly seemed the same person who had so recently been sobbing his heart out on Anakin's shoulder. Anakin couldn't have been more thrilled. It had been (and forever after remained) a joy to see his Master so relaxed and happy, and Anakin thought that if Obi-Wan were incredibly striking when smiling and deathly beautiful when telling a joke, voice and manner slyly, almost shyly, humorous, then that when he laughed the stars themselves would have gladly fallen out of their courses simply to listen to him. Even if Anakin hadn't already adored his young Master, it would have been incredibly easy to learn to love Obi-Wan just because of this, how he responded to Anakin's concern by opening up and freely sharing of himself, of his life as Qui-Gon's Padawan and as a youngling growing up in the Temple, answering all of Anakin's many questions without hesitation or holding back - though there were, of course, several stories that Anakin would have to hear elsewhere, given Obi-Wan's reticence to speak highly or even just truthfully of himself, of his own abilities and accomplishments.

Curled up together on the couch in the common room, heads tumbled together, they had laughed together, told stories, debated ideas, discussed and explained the many things they knew and enjoyed, and, in general caught up on years' worth of information about each other's lives, Obi-Wan somehow managing to explain more basic history - of the Galactic Republic itself as well as of the Jedi Order - and Jedi philosophy in those few hours than was normally spread out over years of classes in the crèche. A quick and eager learner, Anakin had asked many questions and soaked up every iota of information he could coax out of Obi-Wan. Desperate to keep his promise to his dying Master, thoroughly charmed by his Padawan's open and loving nature, and remembering all too well the pain, humiliation, and all too often low (sometimes to the point of being practically nonexistent) sense of self-worth, self-esteem, that he had suffered, both as a thirteen-year-old youngling and as a new Padawan, when Qui-Gon had initially rejected outright or else quietly but firmly rebuffed his every attempt to become close to the man Obi-Wan so desperately admired and wanted to be his Master, the newly Knighted Jedi had been all too willing to talk. Obi-Wan had even carefully explained both the purpose of and the actual powers held by the Jedi High Council, speaking about how Qui-Gon had often been in trouble and had been regarded by much of the Order as a rogue because he so frequently felt the need to challenge the Council Masters and how Obi-Wan had felt it was his duty to try to steer his Master free of such entanglements.

Anakin had understood: he knew that the Council didn't trust or approve of him and even though Obi-Wan never once so much as hinted at the notion that the Council and the Order itself might regard him, Qui-Gon's former Padawan, in the same light that they'd viewed Master Jinn, Anakin could tell that Obi-Wan was worried that the Council Masters might still change their minds about something and therefore keep Obi-Wan from fulfilling his promise to Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan desperately wanted to live up to the exacting standards of the Jedi Order, to honor his Master and prove himself worthy of being Anakin's Master, and although Anakin had been sure - with the kind of naive surety of a child whose entire being burned with and was consumed by love and the need for love - that the dark looks and anxious whispers that, thanks to the open suspicion and anxiety of the Council, were already following and cataloguing his every move, every thought, every word, and every mood would turn in time to acceptance and love, Anakin had also understood that Obi-Wan required the approval of the Council in a way that surpassed his own desire for his Master's approbation. He understood and he had accepted it, trusting that he would, in time, be able to bring his Master around enough so that Obi-Wan could understand how little he really needed the apparently only ever grudgingly given acceptance of a Council that - to Anakin's unclouded sight - was clearly not living up to the same unreasonably high standards they demanded of everyone else in the Order.

That hopeful acceptance would set the tone and course of their relationship. While the Council openly waited to be proven correct - to learn that Anakin was indeed a danger and that Obi-Wan was not capable of fulfilling his duties as the boy's Master, that Anakin couldn't be controlled, couldn't learn how to master his emotions, his desires, and that he would fall away to the Dark Side since Obi-Wan's own lack of control necessarily had to doom all of his efforts to teach Anakin the proper control befitting a Jedi - the two would grow steadily closer, Anakin's hope and Obi-Wan's determination more than enough motivation to drive the two to constantly seek to learn from and to challenge one another, breaking down the barriers between them. As their time together grew to encompass years, Anakin and Obi-Wan continued speaking together honestly, eagerly, even affectionately as allies, friends, and, increasingly, as equals, while they were in private. In public, Obi-Wan seemed to be a veritable walking handbook of rules and instructions on proper Jedi behavior and expected Jedi accomplishments and skills, a reserved, quiet, and oftentimes solemn young man whose reputation for dignity, severity, and ability as a Jedi grew steadily beyond dispute. If Obi-Wan ever gave in to tears again, no one observed him crying or saw signs of his weakness. Obi-Wan pushed himself, aggressively pursuing mastery over forms of lightsaber combat more suited to defense against another lightsaber for himself while swiftly and thoroughly bringing Anakin up to parr on the knowledge and training normally taught to younglings in the twelve years or so that they normally live in the crèche before being chosen as Padawan learners, at the same time also beginning Anakin's true Padawan training. Obi-Wan only rarely slept, though he often meditated, and Anakin doggedly strove to follow his Master's every instruction, though he knew that he frequently failed to obey as well as he should.

Obi-Wan's occasional public flashes of humor and rare, brief moments of unguarded affection faded all too quickly in their first years together, leaving Anakin filled with a painful, unquiet longing for more - despite Obi-Wan's soothingly supportive presence forever resonating along a training bond that never fully closed and in spite of his willingness to constantly reach out to Anakin through the Force, reassuring him in that place beyond word or touch - and moving him to set and to meet several unreasonably high expectations of his own. Yet, despite Obi-Wan's stubborn allegiance to the Council Masters - who continually selfishly monopolize Obi-Wan's time with their own wishes and demands instead of allowing him to focus on the true will of the Force, requiring him to do many things that Obi-Wan dislikes and would prefer not to do (such as flying, directing troops in action, and engaging in political games the complexities of which could make even a long-time career politician quail), regardless of how good he is at them - and his bewildering need to strive to adhere to the highest and most rigid standards of Jedi propriety, Anakin has never lost hold of his hope, has never let go of the simple trust and sincere devotion that continues to flourish between them in private, a growing faith in their ability to work and to grow together and to achieve any goal, no matter how lofty, that has gradually calmed and steadied Anakin even as it has drawn Obi-Wan out of the narrow, rigid shell of his unremittingly dedicated and unsmiling public persona. It is this faith, this love, that has kept him with Obi-Wan, even though he is no longer his Padawan and Obi-Wan himself has been elected a member of the High Council that has caused the two of them so much trouble over the years. Obi-Wan grounds and centers Anakin in a way that no one and nothing else can.

Although Anakin's heart feels as if it were being crushed whenever he tries to imagine his life without the soothing, encouraging presence of Padmé, his secret wife, in his heart he is increasingly sure that if even one of the most minor of events leading up to the disastrous chain reaction that culminated in the Battle of Geonosis had fallen out differently, not only would he have not won Padmé, but by now he would also have learned how to master himself wholly, even the rage and the fear that he so often courts in the midst of battle to help fuel him in his desperate feats of bravery. Anakin prefers not to think about such things, though. It hurts him in ways that he cannot explain even to himself to keep Padmé a secret from Obi-Wan, and the idea that he only ended up with her because of this horrible Sith-spawned war is agonizingly painful, almost as excruciating as the notion that his relationship with Padmé is the key stumbling block to true mastery of his emotions, of himself. Anakin is not deceitful by nature, but even he will deceive himself if the cost of honesty seems too high for him to bear alone. And he is quite sure that he would be alone, were he to ever face these truths head-on. It's easier to just not dwell on such things. Besides, the war usually keeps him so busy that he barely even has time to breathe, much less ponder such deep and morally confusing thoughts. So instead, Anakin keeps himself entirely preoccupied with the war, staying on his toes and keeping continually in motion, usually only pausing if he's found a way to steal a few brief, blissful moments to spend alone, in private, with his sweet wife, his one secret - Padmé, whose unwaveringly devoted adoration and unquestioning support never challenges him or pushes him to be anything more than just Anakin Skywalker, a human being and a loving husband - and in the meantime he strives to keep trust with Obi-Wan, even though he knows he has not kept faith.

Three images Anakin carries with him of his betrayals of his Master.

One: a braidless and newly Knighted Obi-Wan Kenobi, standing by as Qui-Gon Jinn's body burns, his eyes lost, desolate, dark and changeable in a way Anakin would have no words for until the day when he first saw a storm-cast sea. His voice is soft, refined, even melodious as he whispers to himself, almost inaudibly, as if trying to remind himself of something he once knew, "There is no death. There is only the Force." The serenity overlaying that voice is as thin and fragile and fine as a sheet of single molecule thickness ice stretched across an immeasurably deep chasm. While Anakin watches warily to see if the brittle ice-sculpture that has replaced the fiery young man he knew as Qui-Gon Jinn's Padawan will break and leave him here alone in this cold and alien place - which would be nothing less than what he deserves, for having crafted this figure of ice by so thoroughly betraying Qui-Gon's trust that the Sith was able to murder the Jedi Master - one hand comes up and tugs the hood further forward across Obi-Wan's face, hiding him and his painfully obvious emotions, and Anakin feels the badly broken pieces of his heart unforgivingly shift within him all at once. His shoulders bow and shake as the tears streaming down his face redouble. But then a cool hand falls upon a bowed shoulder, and that voice, the beautiful voice, is telling him, "He is one with the Force now, Anakin. You must let him go. If you would have me, then I will train you, just as Qui-Gon would have done. I will be your new Master. You will study with me, and you will become a Jedi Knight, I promise you."

Two: a broken doll with badly chafed wrists - from having been hung in chains from a post in the Geonosian execution arena - and cauterized wounds from the deep stabbing blows of a lightsaber piercing his left shoulder and deeply scoring his right thigh, Obi-Wan Kenobi floats helplessly in the suspension fluid behind the clear wall of the bacta tank, face half-hidden behind the ventilator mask, eyes visible only as narrow slits of pain. His Master's suffering is somehow much worse than the agony of Anakin's lost limb. After all, he earned the severing cut, there by his right elbow, with his foolish arrogance. Obi-Wan's hurts, though . . . those, Anakin caused, with his selfish distraction over Padmé's tumble and his foolhardy furious solo attack on Count Dooku. His Master has already forgiven him, he knows, but Anakin will never be able to forgive himself. Obi-Wan almost died under Dooku's red blade, and it would have been entirely Anakin Skywalker's fault if it had happened. So Anakin sits on the operating table, watching Obi-Wan, tears streaming down his face, while they work on attaching the durasteel appendage to his right arm. Let others think that he weeps for the pain or for the loss. He knows he cries for Obi-Wan.

Three: Obi-Wan, the elegantly graceful Master Kenobi, only the barest moment before moving in a blinding whirl to protect his supremely overconfident former Padawan, is hurtling through the air. The impression of Count Dooku's black boot heel connecting with his Master's - his former Master's - chin is burned forever into Anakin Skywalker's mind, an image that will doubtlessly haunt his dreams. The noise - oh, Force, Obi-Wan, your neck is so delicate, please, no! - echoes like a shot as the Jedi Master falls, accelerating unnaturally, dangerously, down the stairs, flying towards the floor and then skidding back across it into the further wall so hard that the hydrofoamed permacrete buckles, cracking with a sound like thunder, and collapses down over his bonelessly still body. And Anakin is howling denial, howling his rage, reaching for the Force heedless of the taint of the Dark Side upon it so that fire floods his veins, hotter than the flaming heart of a star, and cold rises up within him, chill to make the worst blizzard seem the balmiest of springs, all in a swirling rage that dwarfs all earthly storms, threatening to scour him, all that is Anakin Skywalker, away for but a moment's inattention. Seizing power in such a manner is not just folly - given the taint upon it, nowadays - it is suicidally dangerous. The Force is meant to be invited in measuredly, one part of it or another, to be surrendered to and slipped within smoothly, not be snatched out and guzzled down greedily, regardless of Dark or Light or of Unifying or Living aspects of its nature.

Anakin could care less, though, at the moment. His ears ring with echoes from Obi-Wan being struck, falling, and hitting that far wall so hard that a part of it breaks away and falls down over him. His eyes burn with the sight of Obi-Wan being hit, plummeting down the stairs (like a star being thrown down from heaven), skidding across the floor, and striking the wall with so much force that it shatters and slumps across him. The agony of his failure has reduced his heart to a pulverized mass of whirling sand, sand that he feels scouring him away from the inside out, and the only coherent thought in his head is that he must defeat Dooku, that he cannot allow this evil man to get away with this, that he must defeat him and destroy him utterly, and if he must burn himself out to do it, then it will be a small enough price to pay. If Obi-Wan has been killed because Anakin carelessly allowed himself to be knocked down, then Anakin Skywalker has no desire to live. He is in far too much pain to realize it, but as Anakin springs for Dooku his face is streaming with tears - tears that spring to his eyes again when he realizes what he has done, what he has almost become; tears that well up within him once more when he is finally free to sprint madly across the room and tear the fallen wall off of his former Master; and tears that rise and flood his eyes yet again, what seems like a very long time later, when he hears Obi-Wan's somewhat bemused voice quietly asking him, without so much as a hint of blame, his quiet tone a familiar benediction, "Um, have I missed something?"

Unfortunately, these three instances are not indicative of the only times in which Anakin has failed Obi-Wan or betrayed his teachings, failed his trust, nor are they even the absolute worst of all the times in which he failed his Master, though they are certainly amongst the most glaringly obvious examples. He can't even begin to count all of the ways in which he completely failed Obi-Wan because of the mission to Jabiim, both during and after the actual time they spent stationed on the planet. However, he still has . . . difficulties actually clearly remembering everything associated with that horribly bloody and utterly disastrous mission, not to mention its wrenchingly painful aftermath. The Battle of Jabiim had stretched across two months - the twelfth and thirteenth (standard Republic) months after the Battle of Geonosis first sparked the Clone Wars - and it wasn't until almost an entire month after Jabiim that Obi-Wan had been returned to him. Missing for a terrifyingly long stretch of time - after being caught up in the chaos surrounding the explosion of a Republic walker during a sudden Separatist attack fairly early on in the fighting on Jabiim - and presumed lost, the Republic and even the Jedi Order had finally declared Obi-Wan Kenobi dead, and no matter how desperately hard Anakin strove, there had seemingly been nothing that he could do to make anyone understand that his Master was still alive, that Obi-Wan had to still be alive, somewhere, because Anakin had not felt his death. The fragments of memories he has of that time are so painful that he cannot bring himself to think on them, overmuch, not even to punish himself for his failures. That entire terrible debacle stretches across two entire months - almost into three, from the initial declaration of war on Jabiim until Obi-Wan's reappearance, on Rilfor - most of which Anakin can barely even dare to try to recall, because of the gaping raw holes Obi-Wan's absence tore into his heart, his mind, his very soul.

In his most unflinchingly honest moments of absolute self-awareness, Anakin is certain that he was more than a little insane, during at least a part of that unspeakably horrendous time, when Obi-Wan was lost to him - actually captured by the Confederacy and transported to Asajj Ventress' stronghold on the remote world of Rattatak, locked away from the Force and wracked continuously with pain by a Sith torture mask. Knocked unconscious by the same powerful blast that so effectively allowed the Separatists to secretly steal Obi-Wan away, Anakin's body had been wracked by sympathetic pain, when the torture mask was placed upon his chained Master. Those who saw his reaction later described the terrible damage Anakin managed to inflict upon himself, especially with his powerful artificial hand - automatically trying to gouge and dig out the defilement of the terrible thing that he'd unconsciously recognized as a threat as it spread all throughout him, mind and body alike, though of course he could not have actually freed himself that way, because of the nature of the bond he shared with Obi-Wan, his mind and his very being having been so thoroughly entwined with his Master's, when the walker exploded, that it simply wasn't possible for Anakin to keep from feeling everything that Obi-Wan felt, just as if Anakin himself were experiencing it all - before his convulsing body could be restrained. He could no more have excised the violation that was the Sith torture mask from his awareness, thus, than he could have picked one drop of his blood away from all the other drops of blood coursing through his body and forced that one single drop and only that one drop out of his flesh. Especially not while unconscious.

Those who witnessed it later whispered, with a shocked kind of horrified awe, about how his unconscious and badly wounded body had clawed at itself and battered itself even bloodier, convulsing against the operating table they'd laid him out on for diagnosis, after retrieving his limp and battered form from the field of battle. If the situation had not been so thoroughly grim, it doubtlessly would have almost been laughable. Not even the hands of six men were enough to hold Anakin down, even though he was unconscious. The whisperers would agree, later, that it would have been easier to wrestle a full-grown Wookiee into submission than to hold him steady or keep him from injuring himself more than he already was. Finally, unable to do anything for him through more conventional means and genuinely afraid that they might actually lose him, if his heart rate and blood pressure kept rising, the med unit had brought in another Jedi, who, out of desperation, eventually resorted to drugging Anakin with a Force-inhibitor that effectively severed his ties with Obi-Wan - and the pain being inflicted upon him by Asajj Ventress.

After that, Anakin had awoken shattered, confused, empty and wrung out as a rag washed up on an unknown beach after being lost to a sea of storms. And cold. So very terribly incredibly cold. Before that moment, Anakin Skywalker couldn't have even conceived of being without the Force, and yet it and Obi-Wan were both just so completely and utterly gone that they might've been nothing more than something he had once dreamed of. It had hurt so much that at first he had been sure he was dying, not regaining consciousness. A lot of him did die, no matter what anyone else might say about how it was for the best, how there had been no other choice but to drug him, to cut off his connection to the Force - and Obi-Wan's pain - before it could cause him irreparable damage. Anakin had felt like a tangle of winter-killed blackened brambles inside - twisted, thorny, hurtful to himself. Sometimes people start running when they become utterly lost, but he couldn't even do that, tied down as he was. The world was hollow, he was hollow, and he quickly forgot what it had felt like to be whole. Being without the Force hurt him so much that he had raged against any hope of ever finding Obi-Wan or being himself, finding himself - Anakin Skywalker, Padawan apprentice of Obi-Wan Kenobi and a towering coleuses within the Force, so much so that the Jedi Order had acknowledged him as their foretold Chosen One - ever again, since he knew he would never have enough strength, without the Force, to make such a hope real.

Eventually, panicking as he remained unable to feel either the warmth of the Force or familiar pulsing bright presence of Obi-Wan, his body had flooded with adrenaline, and Anakin had torn himself almost effortlessly free of the restraints that had kept him from ripping his flesh apart, earlier, in his unconscious frenzy. Instinctively, he had curled in fiercely against himself, his knees to his chin and his fingers digging into the fragile skin of his scalp, his face, until it gave under the unremitting pressure and split open, spilling blood out into his hair and down onto the tangled and already sweat-dampened blankets of the flimsy cot they had tucked him away in. Those sheets had clung wetly, coldly, to his bare back, and although the heavy covers effectively trapped the heat of his body within that tangled cocoon, Anakin still felt chilled and clammy, still shivered, with shock and pain as well as the frigid cold, more alone than he had ever been in all the years of his life. His Master - Obi-Wan - he was just gone. Anakin couldn't feel him. He couldn't feel him and he couldn't feel the Force. The pain, the fear, the anger, that brought him . . . it would have been impossible to articulate it, to explain it. So he had risen from the cot - exploding up out of it like an demon cast forth from some unimaginable hell, blood-soaked and keening - and then, seizing up the cot in a fit of rage, thrown it violently against the nearest wall, before falling on it and viciously attacking the remaining wreckage, battering it into unrecognizable jagged pieces.

After that, there are more holes in his memory than there are actual remembrances, at least up until the time of Obi-Wan's return. If Anakin concentrates, hard, he can recall brief, flickering impressions of rapid movement, shouting, hands desperately trying to restrain him . . . and weight, and pressure, and a slight stinging pain, and then darkness. His next true, complete memory, though, is of waking in yet another cot, this time securely restrained by electrobinders - hands and feet alike - and recovered enough both to feel and to use the Force again . . . but with a blank, black, and apparently limitless wall between him and the place where Obi-Wan ought to have been, at the other end of their Master-Padawan bond. The bond was not broken. It had not truly been severed. It was simply . . . blocked. Yet, no matter how often (or in what way) he tried to explain, no matter how many times he repeated himself, Anakin had simply always been told, again and again, that Obi-Wan had fallen in battle, that he had been lost in the explosion, that he was gone now, dead, and Anakin must simply learn how to accept that and go on without him, to live his life without Obi-Wan. They just didn't understand - they couldn't have understood - the nature of the bond between Anakin and Obi-Wan or its very real strength. And no one believed anything he said because he was, after all, obviously just another grieving Padawan in pain and all but half-mad from losing his Master. Without Obi-Wan, Anakin was just another war orphan. Not even the clones - whose respect and admiration for him normally causes them to treat him with a fiercely loyal protectiveness - could help him. Without Obi-Wan, Anakin had been entirely alone and completely vulnerable, for the first time in his life, to the whims and fears - and resulting dictates - of the Jedi High Council.

As more and more days dragged by without sign or word of Obi-Wan, what little patience the Council had with Anakin - and his insistence that Obi-Wan was still alive somewhere, that he must have been taken prisoner and transported off the planet, and that the Order needed to let Anakin go search for him - ran out. He remembers that, quite distinctly. Threatened with recall to the Temple and a bout with the Soul Healers, if he did not stop trying to deny Obi-Wan's loss - and afraid that the Council was seriously considering "rehabilitating" him to break him of his far too stubborn will (not to mention his unshakeable devotion to Obi-Wan, so obviously greater than his loyalty to the Order and the Council) - in the end Anakin had been left with no other choice but to give in, at least until he could safely get away from Jabiim and the fearful scrutiny of the High Council. So when the Order placed Anakin with the other orphaned Padawans and told them that their new mission was to hold the Republic's remaining major base on Jabiim, he had to obey, though he would have much rather been off trying to find Obi-Wan. When the Chancellor had eventually ordered the evacuation of that same planet, withdrawing the clones troopers and the pitifully few remaining Jedi - most of them orphaned Padawans, like Anakin, only their Masters truly never would be coming back to them - and leaving the pitifully few remaining Jabiim loyalists entirely behind, in effect abandoning them to the Separatists, Anakin had also had no choice but to obey, no matter how personally repugnant and cowardly he found the order. And when the High Council had, after the abandonment of Jabiim, ordered him to attach himself to Master Ki-Adi-Mundi and allow that Jedi to teach him, as if he were Anakin's true Master and not Obi-Wan, Anakin had, once again, had no choice but to give in and obey.

These three things, Anakin remembers quite clearly, with a razor-edged sharpness to the memories that threatens to cut him, whenever he examines them too closely. It's all the things in between - what he did, both before and after he received his new orders from the Temple; what was happening, on Jabiim, when the orders came to leave; what he did, before the Order saddled him with Ki-Adi-Mundi, and how he survived it with his sanity intact, until the day came when he felt the familiar touch of Obi-Wan's mind again, along their bond - that are a lot less . . . clear to Anakin. He knows that the Jedi Knight who drugged him with the Force inhibitor did not survive the next battle against the Jabiim Separatists. He also knows that he came just as close to committing treason by knowingly disobeying an actual, binding order from the government of the Republic - and, thus, breaking all ties with Chancellor Palpatine - as he has ever come, when he received the word that, after all the trouble the Republic had gone through to try to keep Jabiim and all the devastating losses they had suffered there (especially in irreplaceable Jedi personnel) Jabiim was to be deserted and its remaining loyal population abandoned to the not so tender mercies of the Separatists, who would of course inevitably take over the planet as soon as the Republic troops had all gone.

Anakin also knows that a lot of people were killed during the mission he was sent on after Jabiim (the mission to Aargonar), and he's fairly certain that he killed quite a few of those people, though for reasons that he's frankly too frightened of to try to understand almost all of his impressions of Aargonar are all jumbled up with the horribly nightmarish memories of his mother's murder. Mostly, though, Anakin remembers feelings, emotions, not actual events. For example, he remembers a constant, uncomfortable wetness - and for a long time after the persistent rains and endless mud of Jabiim, Anakin had been unable to even look upon running water without feeling his stomach cramp up with pain and his blood take fire with rage - as well as feelings of pain and anger and that persistent feeling of lingering cold . . . and blood. Of course. Lots and lots of blood, given how many of the Jabiim people were fighting, both with and against the clones and Jedi who had been sent to keep the planet from falling to the Separatists. He still has nightmares, sometimes, about Jabiim - about mud dyed the color of blood and screaming - a terrible, shrieking, keening wail, streaming from him as he runs headlong into the thick of battle - and insane, outnumbered charges against the enemy, charges so utterly bereft of all sense that surely . . . Force, surely, they are not true memories, surely he would not have charged, all but alone and unprotected, into the thick of battle like that . . .

Obi-Wan would've had his head, for such recklessness . . . But of course, Obi-Wan was no longer there, with him, to watch his back and to keep him centered . . . So perhaps Anakin really did throw himself, suicidally alone, into battle again, the same day he woke to find Obi-Wan gone behind that black wall. Perhaps, some time later, he did run keening before a band of ragged orphaned Padawans, screaming for the blood of Alto Stratus, the traitor in charge of the coup that had brought the Separatists to the planet of Jabiim in force in the first place. Perhaps he did truly nothing else in the remainder of his time on Jabiim but to lay about him furiously with his lightsaber, slashing and striking with murderous intent, with all his strength, as if his heart would burst, otherwise, killing and killing and killing again, as though there would never be enough enemy to slake his thirst for revenge, for the loss of Obi-Wan. Perhaps . . . perhaps, in the end, it truly was not enough, nothing was enough, until finally there was nothing else to do but to turn upon those who remained, those who would have hampered his progress and kept him from carrying out his orders - however despicable - with the Force and tear the life from their bodies with nothing more than that, with the strength of his anger and the power of the Force. There is a face he sees, sometimes, in his nightmares, flushed blood-red and rapidly turning blue-black from lack of oxygen, choking upon nothing, while Anakin's blood-painted face simply looks on and laughs . . . and laughs . . . and laughs . . . until finally that terrible laughter turns to the shrieking cries of carrion birds and the image flies apart, shattering into thousands of frantically beating black wings.

Anakin also still dreams, sometimes, of standing alone on a field of battle - really, a swamp of destruction - screaming and cursing the fallen for their cowardice, their refusal to stand against him, to come against him. He dreams of stillness and silence and the shimmering heat-haze of a high noon sun that will never, ever be enough to dry out the viscous swamp of red mud spread out beneath it . . . and he dreams of the croaking and cawing of circling birds, flocking carrion eaters, already moving in to pick out the eyes and tear at the ragged wounds of the dead. Anakin dreams of a figure swathed heavily in black, a man in black robes, moving among the tumbled corpses and rubbing hideously warped and twisted hands gloatingly together, the rising shriek of his cackle disconcertingly like the sound of those birds as he calls out to Anakin in thanks for the handsome harvest he has brought him, hissingly admitting his pleasure and naming Anakin his rightful son and heir. And Anakin's horror is always such that he cannot contain it. Dark mist rises up before his eyes and the dinning voices of the dead fill his ears with noisy cries of sharp accusation. The bloody earth mocks him - sky and sun jeer alike - the wind derides him - the bloody mud burbles snickers - even the birds shriek laughter with the cackle of that evil, black-robed man - until finally, inevitably, Anakin flees, screaming . . . and wakes himself, screaming still, usually, nowadays, to find Obi-Wan running for or reaching out for him, his arms opened wide, automatically offering Anakin comfort, wordlessly promising to protect him against the horrors of his dreams.

So despite the entirely unsettling nature of the many gaps peppering his memories about that time, Anakin tries to avoid thinking of Jabiim, of Obi-Wan's far too long absence, and of his own response to those circumstances just as much as he possibly can. He hates those nightmares. He hates remembering that time, that feeling of complete helplessness, of utter powerlessness, when there had been absolutely nothing he could do, unable to convince anyone - save, of all people, for Padmé, whose unwavering determination that Obi-Wan was still alive, somewhere, and that he would find his way back to them, somehow, had been the only thing that kept Anakin sane and functional enough to remain with the Jedi Order, after the Council's unilateral decision to place him with Ki-Adi-Mundi - that Obi-Wan Kenobi was still alive, somewhere, despite the evidence to the contrary. The first time he felt the touch of Obi-Wan's mind again - after Jabiim and the shameful retreat to New Holstice and the horribly botched mission he had immediately been sent on, afterwards (no doubt just to keep him too busy to lodge any more requests for him to be allowed to search for Obi-Wan), to Aargonar - Anakin had broken down utterly, crying and laughing even as he ran for a ship - any ship, any means possible, whatsoever, that could get him closer to Obi-Wan - and for the city of Riflor, where he would eventually find and pick up both Obi-Wan and the ARC trooper Alpha, who had miraculously not only survived but escaped from the murderous grasp of Asajj Ventress completely by themselves, with no outside help at all.

Anakin has nightmares, too, about the state that Obi-Wan was in when he found him: the terrible wounds on his face and throat, from the Sith torture mask; the ligature marks, from the cruelly oversized and tightly bound chains he'd been held in; and the marks of systematic abuse - not just bruises and shallow cuts, but deep, serious burns and chunks of missing flesh and hair (she had shaved Obi-Wan bald, at one point, cutting off even his eyelashes, something that can still bring Anakin's blood to a quickly steaming boil). Despite the fact that Obi-Wan himself somehow found it within him not only to forgive Ventress for her cruelty but to actually pity her, to empathize with her, for the darkness, the unforgiving harshness, of her life, Anakin has never been able to find even so much as a shred of compassion within him for that despicable woman. He could forgive her anything else but what she has done to hurt his Master, his Obi-Wan. He blames her and hates her, even more than he despises himself, for the many ways in which he failed Obi-Wan and betrayed him - betrayed Obi-Wan and himself, betrayed their standing within and their dedication to the Jedi Order and the Jedi way of life - both during and after Jabiim. Anakin cannot bring himself to willingly look upon the memories he has of his Master, in the state he was in when he returned to Anakin, for fear of losing all control - not even to punish himself for his many and often spectacular failures of Obi-Wan.

In any case, even without touching upon that whole debacle, Anakin has easily brought Obi-Wan so much pain, so much suffering, that the absolute least he can do is praise him as he deserves for these HoloNet crews.

Besides which, in hindsight, what happened on Cato Neimoidia makes a hilarious story.

Which is precisely why Anakin is determined to tell the HoloNet crews all about it, whether they initially want to know about it all or not.

***