…Disclaimer: We don't own Star Wars. We are not George Lucas…

…Acknowledgments: Co-written with Seylin. Inspired by George Lucas' film, Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. The chapter title is a song by VAST -- I Need To Say Goodbye…

…Warnings: Slash (Obi-WanxAnakin, implied Qui-GonxObi-Wan)…

…Rating: R/NC-17 (Please view Seylin's page for a link to the full version.)…

…Summary: Anakin's black and white world of the Jedi way has been stripped away by Palpatine's corruption. After the battle on Mustafar, Obi-Wan and Yoda are determined to get it back for him. But, with Padmé gone, will Anakin be willing to hear them out at all? The Jedi will need help, if they plan to save their Chosen One, and Senator Amidala has left them with exactly the help they need…

...Archive: Yes, please just ask first...

…Author's Notes: Hey, Aubrey here. First, I'm quite aware of the lack of reviews, but the substantial level of views has my hope for this story's publicity still hoisted. As for the review we did get for it, I'd just like to announce now that this story is complete. I'm just lazy, and am uploading it more slowly than it actually could be. Thank you! …

Monochrome Shatter
Chapter 2: I Need To Say Goodbye

Anakin swallowed harshly, as the funeral procession moved slowly toward the tower he was in. There was Padmé...and Jar Jar, the current Queen of Naboo, and so many others...all there to mourn a woman that he would miss most of all. Despite all he tried to do to stop it...despite the darkness clogging his heart, his mechanical hand clenched against the arm rest, as did his stomach muscles.

He made the Force move him closer still to the window, and felt a single, hot tear drip down his cheek, as he watched the love of his life move past in her bed with all its flowers...he couldn't believe that after all he'd done for her, he still hadn't been able to save her...after all he'd tried to protect her from his nightmares, from his visions, she was still gone...

The music slowly came to an end and the people dispersed wiping their tears away. Yoda stayed quiet behind Anakin waiting patiently.

He'd have to make him move eventually, though, because Anakin didn't plan to do so on his own anytime soon. Not to go back to a hospital bed, anyway. No, if he was going to leave this room, where he could see Padmé's burial site, it would only be to go home. Yoda nodded to the droids a few moments later. One came up behind Anakin and pulled him away from the window.

"Healing tomorrow you being," Yoda stated as they headed back to his room. Anakin didn't respond at all, to that bit of information. He just stared numbly down at the wet spots on his pants, where his increasingly rapidly falling tears were landing. He couldn't remember ever letting anyone see him like this before...not even Padmé, or Obi-Wan, or Palpatine. Even in front of R2-D2, or C-3P0 he'd never let himself go to quite this extent. Maybe with his mother...but not that he could remember. He didn't care now, though. This was different. This was the end of an era. The end of Padmé...the end of the relationship he'd treasured so much with her...

The droids returned him to his bed, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. After they were finished they turned to leave.

"The baby Leia was taken but what will happen to the boy?" One questioned the other not truly realizing what it was saying in front of Anakin.

"Baby Luke will be taken care of by Master Obi-Wan Kenobi," the other replied as they left the room. Yoda left the guards posted by the doors should anyone try anything.

"What are you talking about?" Anakin demanded of them. "Who's 'baby Luke'?" He was only met with silence as they had already left, the door slid closed.

Well...fine. He'd just ask Yoda, or Obi-Wan, next time one of them came. That would settle that. Stupid droids...thinking they could keep something from him. He wasn't stupid, even if he had made a few mistakes.

Obi-Wan turned the child back over to the droids care. He went and spoke with Yoda before heading home for a few hours rest. Tomorrow the real work would begin. Work was one way of putting it. Slavery seemed more accurate. Especially since Anakin seemed a bit hell-bent against accepting their help...

Yoda went to see Anakin in the morning while Obi-Wan went to help restore the city, mainly the temple since it had been burned.

"Remind me why this is such a big deal." The dark side in him hadn't subsided at all since the day before. Far from it, if anything, Padmé's funeral had made him bitterer, and made it grow.

"Good there still is in you, believe that many do," Yoda answered.

"That doesn't answer my question," he pointed out. "At all. I didn't ask if there was good in me or not, I asked why you're trying so hard to find it."

"Asked of us it was," the old master replied.

"By whom?" He felt these things were his right to know. After all he'd done, he really didn't deserve to be healed...who could possibly care about him enough, to try so hard to make sure he was?

"One who loved you dearly did. As one's who still love you do wish."

"And, yet, you're still not giving me names." He was a Sith Lord! He was a murderer! He'd been a murderer since that Tusken camp. Then again with Dooku, and then all those kills that Palpatine had sent him on. Why wasn't anyone grasping this? He wasn't worthy of entering the light of the Force again!

"Know you not who loved you so dearly?" The old alien asked surprised.

"Only Padmé." He shook his head a little. "But, I doubt she did, by the end."

"Wrong you are. Last wish of hers it was."

"But...I made her CRY..." He protested, shaking his head a little. "How could she still love me, after that?"

"Taken not was her love. Broke her heart you did, but not her love." Anakin wasn't entirely sure he believed Yoda...but, the old man wasn't going to give up. So, whatever. If he wanted to fight a losing battle over a lie, that was his problem.

Yoda closed his eyes in concentration and started to wield Anakin's mind to sleep so he could start the healing.

"Master," he spoke up, before Yoda had a chance to do too much. "Who's Luke?" Yoda opened his eyes and looked at him.

"Place not mine to tell, ask his caretaker you shall," he answered and increased the Force to make him sleep. He smiled when he felt Anakin's mind fell into slumber.

Well...that was great. Now he really did have to see Obi-Wan again...damnit...he'd wanted to stay annoyed, and avoid him too!

5 hours later

Obi-Wan came to relieve Yoda from his work. The old master would be taking care of the healing while it would be his job to answer any questions Anakin had. It was time he knew the truth.

The entire truth, starting with the first question he asked, as soon as he was awake enough to be able to recognize, through the Force, who was in the room with him. He didn't plan to look.

"Who's Luke?"

"Are you sure you are ready to know?" Obi-Wan questioned sitting in the chair Yoda had left.

"Why wouldn't I be ready?" What was with this? He wasn't going to start crying, over whatever Obi-Wan told him. Probably...

"He is Luke Skywalker... your son."

"I thought I had a daughter?" Finally, he spared Obi-Wan a frown.

"You do, Leia. But you also have a son, who has been entrusted to my care. They are twins," he told him.

"Twins?" He blinked, and sat up quickly, turning to stare at him. "I have twins, and you just forgot to mention it?"

"I did not forget. It would be very hard to do. You had enough to deal with yesterday," Obi-Wan replied.

"You're not giving him away too, are you?"

"'Who has been entrusted to my care,'" he repeated.

"I can't tell with you." He raised an eyebrow. "Why are other people intrusting the care of my children to other people without my consent?"

"Yesterday when it was asked you were in no shape to much such a decision. I promised Padmé I would watch over them and I shall hold to that promise."

"I'm in no different shape now, Obi-Wan."

"You are calmer and thinking more logical today," the other told him.

"Or, that's what I you to think." Treachery was the way of the Sith, after all. What made Obi-Wan think he could get over all he'd done, all he'd learned, over night?

"It does not change how your mind feels to my senses." Anakin fell silent, and stared at the ceiling again, for some time, before he just sighed. Maybe he was feeling calmer...He didn't have any uncontrollable desire to smack anyone today...

"I'm a murderer, Obi-Wan," he stated, in an oddly finalized tone, for someone so deeply immersed in the dark side. "You and Yoda can't change that. Why do you keep trying?"

"Because those things can be forgiven by others. It may take much time but someday you will be forgiven. What we are trying to help you do is forgive yourself," Obi-Wan replied.

"I. Can't," he stated stubbornly. "I killed children. And for what? I couldn't save Padmé, no matter how hard I tried!" So, in a way, he'd killed her too.

"Maybe in time you will. Is there anything else you would like to ask?"

"No." He turned his gaze back to a particularly boring ceiling tile. "Wait...yes. When can I go home?"

"I don't see that happening anytime soon. But when you are allowed to leave you will be coming with me. Master Yoda, in his wisdom, has put you under my care," Obi-Wan answered, he still half resented Yoda for doing that but he also understood his reasons.

"So, you're telling me I can't go home," he translated dryly. "I'm not your padawan anymore, Obi-Wan. Get over it. I'm not a child."
"Not until your healed," Obi-Wan said.

"That'd go a lot faster if you'd...I don't know, let the droids do their job, and give me

prosthetics?" It would take forever for his burned stumps of limbs to heal over…he wanted to go home!

"It was not my decision. Master Yoda thought it would be better to begin healing you mind first."

"And I need to be lacking legs and an arm to do that because...?"

"He doesn't want you to try and run away I guess, he hasn't even shared his reasons with me." Obi-Wan shrugged.

"Well, great." He shifted uncomfortably on the bed, trying to get the saber-burned areas of his skin off of the sheets. "I'm not the padawan you trained," he stated, after several minutes of this squirming. "And, that's not just me trying to be grown up. I've changed, and you know it's true."

"I do but why you are telling me this I do not."

"Because you're trying to fix me." He'd thought that was fairly obvious. "And, I don't think you can."

"It doesn't hurt to try. Now, if you don't have anymore questions I must go and see Luke," Obi-Wan said standing.

"Fine." He just shrugged, and rolled over, taking a turn staring at the wall, instead of the ceiling.

"I will see you tomorrow Anakin." Obi-Wan went to the door and looked back at him for a moment before leaving.

Once again, he got no farewell. But, despite all the anger and confusion still coursing through him, all the darkness that he was doing nothing to help dispel, his eyes seemed to have lost a bit more of that hard, yellow glare. He still thought Obi-Wan and Yoda were trying in vain, though. They couldn't bring back the people he'd slaughtered--Jedi, Tusken, Separatist, or anything else. They couldn't bring Padmé back...They couldn't undo anything he'd done. Even a Sith has guilt, and Anakin was currently drowning in it. Anyone within a thirty food radius, who had any ability with the Force at all would be able to feel it, too.

In his crib Luke cried, as much as anyone tried to get him to stop he wouldn't.

The next day, Anakin had a new question for Obi-Wan to answer. Well, more of a request, than a question. Almost an order.

"Can I meet him?"

"Do you feel you are ready enough to meet him?" Obi-Wan questioned not needing to ask who he meant as he knew it was Luke.

"No." He shook his head matter of factly. "But, I want to anyway."

"Then no you may not," Obi-Wan answered. Anakin took a deep breath, and with a huge blow to his pride, he asked,

"Please? I...really owe him an apology."

"When you are ready you may meet your son but not until then," Obi-Wan told him.

"It's my fault his mother and sister are gone." He pointed out, biting his lip lightly. "Doesn't he deserve for me to at least apologize to him?"

"He does," Obi-Wan agreed. "But not until you are ready."

"Uh huh." He rolled his eyes. Yeah, that was really likely. Luke was as much Padmé's son, as he was his. And, Anakin knew that every time he looked at him, he would only think of her.

For the next two months that was the way things went. Yoda would come and perform his healing for five hours and then Obi-Wan would come to answer any questions he had. Each time Anakin asked Obi-Wan if he could see his son and each time Obi-Wan asked if he were ready. After each day of being told 'no' he decided to say 'yes' the next day even if he didn't mean it, but then the next day would come and he would once again say 'no'.

Obi-Wan had moved into a larger spaced home, this one had three bedrooms. One for himself, Luke's nursery and once he came, Anakin's room, none of which had doors though. A month after his birth Obi-Wan had been allowed to take Luke home. He found himself growing attached to the baby, he lifted his spirits everyday after he went to see Anakin.

And, he needed his spirits lifted, considering, yes, Anakin was still being a sulky, angsty brat about the whole thing. He felt rather justified, but that was still how it was. And, that was how it continued to be, until finally, one day, almost four months later, Anakin decided to change his tune. He knew he'd be lying through his teeth, but he still felt the need to see his son, so, when his former teacher came that day, he actually glanced over at him, and murmured out three words.

"I'm ready, Obi-Wan." It was blatantly incorrect, of course. He was neither physically, nor emotionally, nor mentally prepared to meet his son. But, he was going to anyway. And, why was he going to do this? Not for himself, not for Obi-Wan, or Yoda, or even Luke. He was doing this because he didn't want to give Padmé anything else to be ashamed with him over. And, he knew that running away from a problem would be at the top of her list.

Obi-Wan stared at him for a moment and Anakin could feel him probing gently at the outer reaches of his mind. After a few moments he stopped and looked into Anakin's eyes.

"Alright, but if you change your mind before I actually bring him in you will tell me, understood?"

"Yes." He almost said 'yes, Master', but he stopped himself. Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn't his master. Obi-Wan was a Jedi, and Anakin knew full well that he could never be a Jedi Knight again, even if the order was re-established. Palpatine wasn't his master either, anymore. He'd left him to die, and he knew that the old man had known. Anakin Skywalker, as far as he was concerned, served no master. He served liberty, and the policies he followed. No one else. So, it would take an awful lot for him to ever call Obi-Wan 'Master' again. Obi-Wan nodded.

"I will be back later then," he said.

"Alright," he agreed. He wondered if his eyes were still yellow (which they were), would that scare his son? He'd seen them only once like that, reflected in the side of a shiny building. But, he'd seen them on Palpatine as well. They were the eyes of those tainted by the dark side. Evil, and gold and red. Blood thirsty eyes. Would his son be able to feel the Force? Feel the darkness within him? Anxieties swirled around helplessly in his head, as he waited for Obi-Wan to return with his little boy. Padmé's little boy...

…To be continued…

Next: I'm Living on Shattered Faith