Obi-wan had always found Courascant beautiful at night, with the rainbow colored streaks of speeders flying past and the lights of businesses below, but he had to admit it looked even better from this vantage view.

He sighed and rested his elbows on the balcony rail. He was on one of the temples most remote balconies, forgotten many years ago.

Qui-gon had shown it to him. The secret of its location had been passed down; from Yoda to Dooku to Qui-gon to him, and one day he speculated Anakin would show Ahsoka this secret deck. It was high up, almost at the very top of the temple, thus making the wind from speeders whip his fluffy brown hair against his face gently.

He closed his eyes as another speeder passed, making him dizzy with its velocity. He sighed, he couldn't sleep, not tonight, and in the morning he would probably go on a mission, the council would call him down for another blood bath, or another meeting.

So many details, so many deaths…War was terrible, why did some say it could be glorious? There was no glory in winning. Because winning cost lives. Losing cost lives. Retreating, advancing, waiting, it all cost lives. Innocent lives. The cost wasn't worth it, any of it.

What's the use of all this death? He wondered tiredly. Why waste so many good lives? He sighed and stroked his beard. Jedi did not think these things; they did not brood in such a negative manner. It was unseemly; it was a path to depression, to the Dark Side. He was a council member for force sakes. He should be able to handle this.

Somehow, having lived through both, the thought scared Obi-wan only slightly. He shuddered with sudden cold; and leaned back to wrap his cloak tighter around himself. All day, someone had pestered him over his sudden lapse in speech. Obi-wan had no clue why.

He was naturally reclusive, had been since the day he was born. He considered himself an awfully muted person. Besides, Jedi did not feel love, hate. There was no emotion, and particularly not today. Not today, any other day, but not this one.

It had been a year since…Since Jabiim. And Rattatack. Since Ventress. He shivered again, with reason that had little to do with the cold. Keep your mind in the here and now, he ordered himself, as he had ordered the dozen or so people who inquired after him today.

"Are you sure you're alright, Obi?"

"Hey, how you feelin Kenobi?"

"Obi-wan, well, are you?"

"How are you coping, Obi-wan?"

"How are you doing, Obi?"

"Obi-wan, it's normal to feel…Lost on days like these,"

"Just called to check up on you. Are you feeling alright?"

He rolled his eyes affectionately. Did he appear as some still green Padawan to them? He was a grown man, and what was more he was a Jedi. He did not feel lost.

The emotions and memories bombarding his mind meant nothing; he paid them no heed. Nothing at all. The individual was nothing.

Besides, what did they know of this? What would any of them know about torture? And torture at Ventress's hands. Ventress, who was cruel, lusty, clever, imaginative…

Obi-wan stifled a whimper, closing his eyes. Peace. The force. The present moment. It's gone. It's over. He's moved on. He was not there with her anymore. He was alive. So take that, you she witch!

He surprised himself at the vehemence in his thought. He opened his eyes again and saw that his fists were balled at his side, inside of long sleeves of course, but still balled. His teeth were gritted. Already sweat prickled underneath his arms and along his collarbone.

Peace, you numbskull. Peace. He tried to hammer into his conscious, which went cheerily away with its torturous ministrations. Obi-wan's heart ached for release. Just like he had ached after…No!

Striking him out of his thoughts by means of physical power, a familiar force presence stepped out of the small hole in the wall behind him that once, he supposed, might have been painted in brilliant colors but was dull and chipped with age now. How vibrant things were in youth.

The very picture of youth himself, Anakin Skywalker, appeared. Obi-wan quickly wiped at the tears he hadn't been aware were falling down his cheek. His eyebrows comically, burying some of his inner tension in celebration of the present moment. It had been many months since he last saw his friend, his former apprentice.

Anakin had changed, as he always did. Anakin seemed surprised to see him there, and below his tightly veiled calm expression, Obi-wan felt the simmering of boiling emotion. Oh, dear, Anakin was wearing his heart on his sleeve again. What had he done to anger the council this time? Or was it Ahsoka?

"Oh. Obi-wan. I…I did not notice you there. It's good to see you again, master," stammering? That was never a good sign. Anakin was always poised, always confident, if not calmly confident in himself and his surroundings.

It was one of the perks Obi-wan had always admired about a man born into slavery. Anakin had always been proud of who he was, he knew who he was, even as a child he had.

"And you, Anakin. Iinsist you come sit," he pointed to the one bench still reasonably intact on the other side of the balcony. "You look exhausted," he ordered. He was rewarded with a dull grin. There were dark circles under Anakin's eyes.

So, he hadn't been sleeping, probably not eating either. Fine. First thing in the morning, Anakin had better believe he was getting four platefuls of whatever breakfast struck Obi-wan's fancy.

"Oh, are you hungry, Obi dear? You look so pale. Here, have a crumb," He shivered outwardly before quickly burying the emotion. There was no emotion.

He took Anakin by one elbow and steered him to the seat. "Master, you do realize I'm not your Padawan anymore, right? You can't…" Obi-wan had heard this so many times he had it memorized by heart, truly. It did not get any truer no matter how many times Anakin spouted it.

"Yes, but I am your friend, I am older, and I technically I am still a master and you are exhausted, so I'm doing it regardless," he interrupted calmly. Anakin rolled his eyes, but he was smiling feebly as Obi-wan forced him to sit.

"I'm fine," right, Obi-wan was just supposed to believe that. "I never said you weren't," he responded coolly, sitting himself. His knees creaked as he did so. And some joints seemed to slip out of place. He inhaled sharply.

War aged a man. Thankfully, this time, this night, Anakin had no teasing remarks to make about it. He simply grabbed Obi-wan's elbow and helped ease him down. At Obi-wan's quizzical glance he gave a small shrug. "My ankles are killing me too," he confessed. "Lucky you. I wish it were only my ankles," Obi-wan snorted.

They lapsed into cold silence. Obi-wan could feel the heat of Anakin's body next to him, a welcome respite from the chill around them. Their shoulders were touching just barely. Their breathing matching just exactly. The force binding around them, each trying to ease the other. He could hear Anakin's heart beat, and it was surprisingly steadying.

Anakin was examining him with intent eyes. "You look rather worse for wear," Obi-wan said at last, breaking the frigid silence. Anakin shrugged. "So do you," he pointed out. Obi-wan ignored this.

"What's troubling you?" He pressed. He had learned through hard experiences that Anakin did better with the direct approach, dancing in between the lines only frustrated him, and caused dispute. And right now, on this night, dispute with one of his best friends was the last thing he wanted.

"The same thing that's troubling you, Obi-wan. This is the night we brought you back from Ventress," Anakin snapped irritably. That was the consequence of being one of the direct approach. It made the truth harder to bear.

Obi-wan cleared his throat. Yes, well. That name, hardly spoken aloud the entire day, made him go stiff, and he lapsed into silence again. The present moment. The present moment. Suck it up, Kenobi, you're being ridiculous.

After a tense moment, Anakin exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry," he said at last, sincerity ringing the force. "It's just…Well, I had a dream. About that, and I started remembering and…Yeah. I haven't slept in awhile, if you can tell," he sighed, running a stressed hand through his hair. "I can tell," Obi-wan agreed quietly. He struggled to regain his composure.

"Weak, pathetic Jedi. Your Order will die one day, and in the ashes the Sith will take their rightful thrones," No, no, no. I will not remember that. You cannot hold that sway over me, Ventress. Get out of my mind, for force sakes.

"What sort of dreams?" he inquired; eager to get back to the world of gross matter. "Just…Dreams. Horrible dreams. Master, I…I mean…I want to apologize to you," Anakin said, so softly that Obi-wan had to strain to hear him. He recoiled, taken aback. Anakin so rarely apologized for anything, in Obi-wan's mind he never had too. There was nothing to apologize for.

"Apologize? For what?" he demanded, wondering what exactly Anakin had done and how much trouble Obi-wan was going to get in on his behalf because of it. "For…" Anakin wriggled uncomfortably, eyes downcast, wrung heart screaming in the force.

Obi-wan's concern blossomed into anxiety. Anakin would not act this way over some petty disagreement with the council. This went deeper, cut scars into something larger.

"Anakin- just spit it out. What?" Suspense was something he could not take, not when his emotions were working him over this way. Patience was not his foremost. Anakin was acting bizarrely, and this frightened Obi-wan more than it should have. He cared about Anakin more than he should have. They both knew it.

"Do you remember when…When we first found you, and you got really sick? You lapsed into a coma-like state. Do you remember that?" Anakin asked. Obi-wan scowled, reluctantly going through the few scattered memories he had of the short time out of Ventress's clutches.

He vaguely remembered feeling as if he were on fire. Remembered blurred images crossing his line of vision, remembered soft and low tones say something indescribable outside the heat and fuzziness of his body. Other than that, nothing.

"Not much," he admitted after a moment. A gust of wind moved their hair, made both shiver and press closer. "Besides a few images and a few voices. Why?" he asked. Anakin messed with his cybernetic fingers. "Do you remember saying anything?" He replied with a question.

Obi-wan was growing even more worried and immensely confused. "Nothing. Why are you asking me this, Anakin?" why was he asking Obi-wan to go into these memories on this day? There had to be a good reason. They never spoke of Jabiim or what happened before, after, during. Never.

"The doctors didn't think you were gonna make it. So, they let me in the room a lot. More than they did later," his mouth screwed into that disgusted line of displeasure Obi-wan knew so well. He felt a rueful tug at the corner of his lips.

Oh, Anakin.

"We were alone one night. You…You would wake up sometimes. The doctors said you could not but you did. I saw you. You did," he insisted, and he was speaking faster, almost panting, gasping for breath. Obi-wan heard his heart hammering against his ribs.

His own multiplied in speed. He had a very bad feeling about this.

"Mostly you would just stare in to space. Sometimes you would say things. Never to me, just…In the air. I don't know who you were talking too, but you'd say weird things…Then, one time, you looked at me," Obi-wan did not miss the shudder that wracked Anakin's body. He gulped.

"You looked at me for the first time. I was used to you talking, even opening your eyes sometimes, but never looking at me. I was half-asleep by then. I was tired, and just listening to you talk soothed me. But that look…Force, master, you looked…You looked like a crazed animal. Like…Like there was something seriously wrong with you," Anakin stopped fidgeting, staring instead into space. His deep blue eyes wavered, Obi-wan felt his breath hitch.

"Force, Obi-wan, don't ever look at me like that again. Ever. That scared me. It scared me more than anything in my life. I could not move I was so petrified. Don't ever look at me like that. Ever. Please," Obi-wan gripped his hand in his own, hard. Supplicated silently for him to cease, to oh force please stop, his heart was breaking, but Anakin went on.

"Then…Then…" Anakin leaned forward and dug his elbows into his knees, placing his chin on a fist thoughtfully, though they both saw his bottom lip quiver. Obi-wan's heart was thundering in his chest. He did not relinquish his hold.

"Then you spoke to me. It was the first time you had done so. You-" Anakin was about to break. Obi-wan could see it, and if he did then Obi-wan would too. Force, his emotions raged within him like a typhoon.

He was nearly gasping for breath; sweat itched along every inch of his body. He wanted to yell at Anakin just to tell him at the same time as beg him not to go on. He did not know why. He did not know what to do.

"You said my name. Quietly, like…Like I don't know. Just too quiet, too calm, it was as if you were insane. Then…Master, you told me to kill you," Obi-wan could not contain a gasp of shock. He had what? "You begged me to just kill you, calmly, like it was simple. You said all I had to do was tug out a wire. No one would know. No one would care. You told me to hurry up and do it before anyone came," Obi-wan did not know what to say.

"Anakin…" he began helplessly. "I…I could not do it. I cannot do it, master. I told you so, and you…You yelled at me. You told me I was a pathetic street-dog. The you just fell back asleep. Just like that," a moment of silence. Obi-wan was having a hard time breathing. He had told Anakin what? He had called him what?

Disbelief spun around inside him, he would never say something like that to Anakin, never…

But he had. He knew he had because death had been such an inviting idea for him in those days. And anger…he had been so angry at everyone and everything. Though, the last person he had expected to have taken it out on was Anakin.

He had believed he probably snapped at the nurses or doctors. Not Anakin. Never Anakin. Guilt and sorrow built within him. Anakin should not have had to live through that.

Shocking him further, tearing his heart out even further, Anakin suddenly dropped to one knee before him, head bowed. "Master. I…Forgive me. I couldn't kill you, not there, not like that. I…I just can't. I'm too much of a coward, and now you're still living with the pain. Please, I beg you, forgive me," he gasped, and Obi-wan heard rather than saw the tears on his face.

He sat there, numb with shock, almost exhausted with grief and guilt.

Anakin was kneeling; Anakin was bowing to him. No, no, no. This was not how this worked. Anakin should never bow to him. Obi-wan refused to let him bow. He refused to be thought of as higher than this person-this man-before him. If there was any apologizing to be done, it would be done with both standing, eyes parallel, they would do it as equals. Never on knees. Not to him. And another thing, coward?

Anakin Skywalker was no coward.

He dropped to his own knees, ignoring the pain, desperate to fix what was broken. "Don't you ever kneel to me," he growled as he took Anakin firmly by the shoulders. "Look at me, Anakin. Look at me," he then commanded. Hesitantly, his fear wrinkling the force, Anakin did as he bid.

Obi-wan knew he was thinking of those crazed eyes he had spoken of earlier. Force, what had he done? If Qui-gon had ever said such a thing to him when he was a Padawan…Force, he could not hardly imagine it. "I will not condemn you for sparing my life," Obi-wan hissed, staring Anakin straight in the eye, past the blur of tears.

"You…You don't hate me? You don't want to die?" Anakin stuttered out, tearfully. Obi-wan heart was breaking; he could feel it. He had made Anakin cry. The thought almost made him want to weep himself. Now, only now did he realize just how not alright he was. Just how much pain he was in, and not him alone. He was not the only one Ventress had tortured, it seemed.

"Anakin, of course I don't hate you. I could never hate you, no matter what you did. You could stab me in the back and I would not begrudge you the strike, Padawan," he gave Anakin a little shake, willing the force to show the genuine honesty in this statement.

"You don't want to die?" That…Was a harder question. Mainly because Obi-wan hadn't really thought about it since…Since that day a year ago. The day that landed on this day exactly.

He suspected most people did not sit down one afternoon and contemplate whether they wanted to die or not. Obi-wan, though, had a completely different reason than most people.

He did not want to think about it because he was afraid of the answer his heart would give him. After Qui-gon, Jabiim, Siri…Life seemed not dull, or meaningless but…Dimmer. He could not explain, could not admit these things to Anakin.

Anakin, who was staring up at him with tearful and desperate pupils. Anakin, who looked up to him, who needed him to be the strong one, the immovable one, Anakin who loved him deeply enough to feel guilty about not killing him. What sort of sick trickery was this?

Anakin never cried, never showed this much damned vulnerability until either they thought the other was dying or the day had been just so exceedingly devastating that the entire universe seemed to churn with its dark vileness. Why could peace never last longer than a day? Why was harmony so difficult to maintain?

Why did he still feel this way? Why this much at all? "I…" He had to face this, he had to answer this question, and answer it honestly. He was a well-versed liar, but not with Anakin.

Obi-wan inhaled deeply, and did not stop to think about it this time either. He let the force speak for him. "Not anymore," he whispered, and the words sent a shiver down his spine because he had. When he had said that to Anakin, he had been half deranged with pain and grief.

He had not been in his right mind, but like always, he could not lie to Anakin. He had told the truth. He had wanted to die. Anakin did not answer. "I did. Then. I wanted to die, though I was not in my right mind when I said that to you, but I was not lying. I don't want to die anymore. After all, who would lecture you if I died?" he asked. Joking saved them once again.

"You barve," Anakin mumbled, eyes shining with unfathomable relief, and pulled them into a tight embrace. Obi-wan did not pull away, only settled Anakin against his chest.

"I'm sorry I said that Anakin. I was not fully cognizant, and to tell you the truth, not sane either. Forgive me," he whispered against Anakin's ear. "I was never angry," Anakin mumbled in his shoulder, sniffling lightly.

"Forgive me anyway." Apologizing was his tactic, his job. Never Anakin. Modesty was something he had explicitly copyrighted for himself.

"Whatever. You're making me breakfast in the morning," Anakin mumbled his standard forgiveness. "Four plates, you look like you haven't eaten in days. Must I remind you of the most quintessential of tasks as well? And you will spend the rest of your day tomorrow sleeping. You do us no good as a walking corpse on the battlefield. Didn't I entrust Ahsoka to these things? She's fired," he harrumphed.

For force sakes, Anakin was a grown man now. Shouldn't he know these things? Obi-wan remembered teaching it to him, vividly.

Shouldn't you know by standard wisdom that burying emotions does not get rid of them?

Blasted Qui-gon, most dead people don't try to teach when their living Padawan's were almost forty years old, but he had to be different. "I do not need a youngling to look after me," Anakin growled. "Lying is not the Jedi Way. I suppose I'll have to watch after you then, to make sure you don't disobey my all-awesome instructions," was the boy smirking? Impudent scalawag. "I'd like that master," he was smirking.

Obi-wan's heart melted, he was slightly curious about it, he had thought Anakin tore it out earlier, but no, it was still there. It was still there. Ventress had not taken it, no one had. It was over, truly.

Obi-wan sighed. "You little delinquent," he hissed. "You've made me maternal," he growled. "You've made me emotional. We're even," Anakin replied, his voice slightly muffled. Obi-wan let out a breath through his nose.

Anakin always did this to him, particularly late at night and on days like this. It was something in the way Anakin looked at him that made him naturally protective, which softened the walls of Jedi reserve into something more fatherly.

I never can lie to him. It'll be the death of me.

"Anakin?" The wind stirred again, gently this time, the cold not as biting. "Thank you for my life," meant in many different ways, honestly. Anakin was the reason he was alive, that he yet loved, that life had not spiraled into something more terrible than he could imagine. Anakin w s the gift he had never deserved, the savior he had never asked for.

"My pleasure," he had no clue what Obi-wan meant, did he? He was so clueless sometimes. Anakin did not realize that Obi-wan had just told him he was his universe, his little brother, the only thing tying him to the Jedi, to life in general. It did not matter. They were Jedi yet.

But for today, the first time in a year, he was a Jedi at peace.