Anakin POV

I got up this morning, and Padme said she was going to the OB/GYN for her check up. We had less than two months for the twins to be here. Suddenly, I had no clue what I was doing. How was I going to be a father? It wasn't a clone that you could order around and expect them to say "yes sir". Kids talk back! What was I going to do with discipline, was I going to be a pushover, or would I snap and Darth Vader show up?

I signaled Obi-Wan at 07:12 in an almost panic attack.

"Kenobi here."

"I can't do this. I can't be a father. Vader will kill them when they do something bad, and otherwise I will let them get away with murder, and-"

"Anakin, what are you doing today?"

"Working with Master Nu, what else?"

"When's your lunch break?"

"1200-1300," I said.

"Go to work, and I will come get you."

At 1200, Obi-Wan shows up and we walk together through the Temple to the classrooms for the younglings. He leads me to Master Yoda's class, where he is teaching a group of fifteen students under the age of six. We watch the students learn how to block blaster fire without looking at the attacker, a floating ball. The younglings were good, and I could tell they were strong with the force. After a while, we walked away and went to get some food. I settled in my seat and dug into my food, hungry.

"So how are you?" Obi-Wan asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The sessions with Depa, the meditation with Yoda, the sparring with Windu, is it helping?"

"I'm exhausted. If the goal is to get me too tired to think about using the Dark Side, it is working."

Obi-Wan smiled. "The goal is to train you in the ways of the Force that are Light, so that when you are tempted to go to the Dark Side you have something to fall back on."

"Meh."

"Meh? What does that mean? It's sort of helping?"

"Yeah. It's not fun, but I guess its working."

Obi-Wan laughed, "Good."

"I can't stand the library," I confessed. "I would rather be destroying something, or blowing up Dooku or Grievous ships."

"Patience, Anakin. You will get back on the battlefield soon. You got to understand that nothing is worth putting you in a situation that would get you close to the Dark Side. Personally, I wish the Counsel would not put you in the library, since you do not have a quiet temperament, but we must trust their judgement."

"Well, I realized what I did wrong. I got so angry that Palpatine hurt you and Ahsoka, then I got so desperate to defeat him, I went to the Dark Side for power and fuel. Could I have defeated him in my own power?"

Obi-Wan looked thoughtful for a moment. "We will never know, but that is not the point. Why did you need to defeat him? We have let the other Sith get away. Why could you not take the loss?"

"I told you. I needed revenge. He ruined my life. You would think the way I got on Mustafar, choking my own wife, was the lowest I ever got, but you would be wrong. The lowest came after that. Waking up, asking for her and hearing she was… dead… by my hand. I still can't shake that. To find out it was a lie to make me more powerful, how can I forgive that?"

"I understand. I really do. I had a certain Padawan I loved like a brother. He found validation not in me, but in a disguised Sith Lord that I did not protect him from. When my Padawan fell in love, lost his mother, commited murder, and struggled with his emotions he ran to the Sith Lord, not me. Then during a war, I go on a mission to fight another Sith, and when I come back, I learned the Sith Lord had turned my beloved brother. I go to confront him, see him attack his wife, and then we fight. I have to leave him injured and alone. I spend the next eighteen years morning him realizing that I should have been a person he could tell anything to, but I became the enemy. How do I live with that?"

"How did you ever forgive me?"

"I go to Depa for Sessions, Windu for duels, Yoda for guidance, and Qui-Gon for support. I have been doing it since I died. And, just like you take medicine for Borderline, I take medicine for depression."

"You have never let on."

"Qui-Gon, Depa, Yoda, and Satine knows. You can tell Padme, if you want."

"I did this to you."

"No you did not do this to me! Anakin, I fell in love with a beautiful, intelligent woman when I am 18, but I walk away from her. My master got killed before my eyes when I was 25 years old. The love of my life got killed before me when I was 38. In the same year, Sidious seduced my apprentice to the Dark Side and his secret wife, who was my good friend, died in childbirth. I spent the next eighteen years in a barren wasteland trying to watch over a young child, but was hated by his family. Then the boy's family gets killed and he asks me to train him as a Jedi so I take him on a mission, but on that mission I get killed by my former apprentice the boy's child. A lot of things in my life get me depressed, so I go to counseling. "

"Okay," I said, holding my hand out in a placating gesture. "I'm sorry."

Obi-Wan breathed. "I'm sorry. Sometimes life happens. It's not Palpatine or the Sith, it's just life. I have to learn to live with the fact that I failed you, and it took me forever to not blame myself or you, but life. You are by far my best friend, and the closet thing I have to family. Jedi do not have family, but you, Padme, the babies, Qui-Gon, Shmi, Ahsoka, Rex, all of you are my family. When I was alone on Tatooine all those years, it was like I had lost my family. I know you know what that feels like, so I shouldn't complain."

I shook my head. "You can complain. I know I didn't act like it, but I hated myself for what I did to the Jedi. Well, to you. When Palpatine ordered the attack on the temple, I tried to let some of the younglings escape. Something inside me snapped and took over. Call it the Dark Side or Borderline, I did the unthinkable. I hate myself for it, and I am scarred the children will hate me too. I know that every gift with Padme is a gift from the Senate because I deserve judgement."

"What you just described sounds like someone who has an illness. The Senate saw that, Depa saw it, and the Council saw it. Actually, Palpatine saw it, he just took advantage of it. I know that you made errors and you became a monster, but the Anakin I fought on Mustafar was ill, and I should have seen that."

"What do we do if he shows up again?"

"I thought you gave Windu permission to knock you out and drag you to a hospital under guard."

"You would do that?"

"Anything for my son."