Ass Cover: They belong to Lucasfilm, and the Bearded One. I'm just borrowing them for a spell. Cuz I just finished one of these lovely little works, and I wonder why it's always Anakin lusting after Obi-Wan and never the other way around. So… yeah. Here I go. Be wary. Put this after A Master's Secret.

A Master's Forgiveness

"I love you Anakin."

I am crying, my tears dropping onto his cheeks even as he speaks and his body grows cold in my arms.

I have taken his life twice now, once when he gave it to save me from the growing darkness, and now I have physically taken it to save us all.

"Anakin," he whispers, his hands gripping my own as best they can. I am aware of my children staring at us. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't want to, Master," I tell him. A tear slides down the side of his face.

"I loved you so much, and I…" his voice falters and he gasps for breath. His eyes remain on mine. "I'm sorry," he repeats. "I love…"

He does not get to finish that sentence, but it does not matter. I hug his body tightly to mine, my cheek against his cooling one. I cannot stop crying, though this is the man who took the life of my wife and my Master.

"Father, we have to leave," Luke says, helping Leia to her feet. She looks at me with total disgust. I understand that—her father is kneeling on the ground crying over a man who meant to kill her and her brother, and who DID kill her mother. I understand her, yes, but she could never understand me.

Through the force, I know that the Republic will be rebuilt. I can feel it.

I get to my feet and lift Obi-Wan up into my arms. I toss his lightsabre aside—he does not need it, and I do not want it.

"You should leave him," Luke says. "He is a Sith."

This angers me. "He was my master once. He saved me from the Dark Side, as I, in turn, have redeemed his soul. I do not expect you to understand that, but I will not leave him here."

"You should."

"Luke, I will not. He will have a pyre, as all Jedi who die, as his master did before him."

"Master Windu had no pyre." Luke says. He really is a sensible boy, but, like his sister, he does not understand.

"Master Windu was absorbed into the force. He left no body." I tell him. I know that this happened before he could remember. The things they teach in the temple classrooms…

I carried Obi-Wan with me back to our ship. I took him back to the temple, the place that had been his home before he had forsaken the Jedi order.

He deserved to be given the funeral of the Jedi. In the end, he was a Jedi, sacrificing himself for the good of the Republic, even though he had worked so to destroy it for so long.

One thing that was often neglected in temple teachings was forgiveness. I was not raised in the temple, but on a desert world in the outer rim. My mother taught me forgiveness.

And it is forgiveness that Obi-Wan deserved.