Author's Note: This is the actual start of the story. The other two arcs of Season 4 are additions that I will reference and work on as I go. Go ahead and start here!

Obi-Wan sat down to meditate in his quarters after a week-long mission in the Outer Core, not necessarily tired but definitely glad to be back at the Temple. The clones could get quite loud and rambunctious, especially when he needed peace and quiet to meditate.

He crossed his legs and retreated into his mind into the Force. Almost instantly, his breathing slowed and his heartbeat returned to its resting rate. His mind cleared, and he saw himself seated on the large pillow that cushioned him from the hard floor. As he focused, he decided to dive into the Force flowing in and out of the Temple. He hadn't been home in a few days so it made sense to reconnect with his surroundings.

It was late in the night, and not many people were awake. Younglings, who were restless, moved about in their sleep. Their Force signatures were spontaneous and weak, but always present. Always new and innocent. Filled with innocence, slowly draining from them as they got older.

Padawans, who had already started to lose their innocence, were normally asleep at this hour save for the occasional night owl. They were tired due to lessons and missions and from their own adolescence. Obi-Wan forced himself to pass over the absence of a particular Padawan and moved through the rest of the Temple.

Jedi Knights were still up at the moment. Some of them had retired to their quarters early to prepare for the next day, but there were things to do at this hour, things that couldn't be done with Padawans and Younglings present. They were spaced throughout the Temple, each to their own task for the evening.

Jedi Masters were always up this late if they were well and not away on a mission. There were many tasks they would accomplish, much like the Knights, but there was no pattern, no framework, no telling what they did in their own time.

The biggest difference between Knights and Masters was the difference in the strengths of the signatures. Master Yoda, of course, has the strongest Force signature. At any given time, Obi-Wan, and anyone else for that matter, could tell the general direction of where Master Yoda was unless he concealed his presence. Younglings tended to get uneasy if they noticed a substantial absence of his calming signature though, so it did not happen all that often.

Obi-Wan felt all of this and more, but he knew that he had responsibility for the lack of a certain presence, a normally very strong and distinct presence. Anakin. Not only was he unable to be felt, but Obi-Wan suspected that he wasn't even in the Temple

He tried to feel where he was, but he could not feel Anakin within the walls of the building. Obi-Wan expanded his sight outside the Temple, very thinly, but enough to sense the Chosen One easily. He found his apprentice in the Senate Building, as he normally did.

Retreating from his meditation, Obi-Wan opened his eyes and looked out the window, which conveniently faced said building. Anakin, if not in the Temple or on a mission, could almost always be found in the legislative headquarters. He never said what he did there, but whether called or not he seemed to be there more and more often. Anakin had never said as much to prove it, but Obi-Wan thought he knew why he left so often. He was almost sure of it.

Ever since his and Anakin's talk by the fire on their mission recently, Obi-Wan had thought of it many times. His words rang in the Jedi Master's ear, over and over again.

...I miss her, okay? Is that what you wanted me to say? I still don't understand how she could have left the Order...She's a Jedi, she belongs with us! She's one of us...What choice did we give her? The moment there was any suspicions about her loyalty, the Council turned their back on her...How would you feel if I turned into a major disappointment?...You took me under your wing and practically raised me. I'm your Padawan, just like Ahsoka was mine. How well would you sleep knowing that I failed you?

Anakin's words that night stung him worse than anything he had heard before, and the feeling lingered in his gut. Obi-Wan couldn't decide what was the worst part: How he felt, or how Anakin felt.

Obi-Wan was on the Council, and he couldn't pretend that he was exempt from Anakin's accusations. He hadn't personally voted for Ahsoka's expulsion, but he did stand with the Council's decision. He agreed with Anakin in part, the Council did pretend that she was a stranger once she was accused. He had wanted so badly to help Anakin and Padme defend the Togruta, but the Council would have none of it. It was the reason he was present when the Council apologized to her afterward, but the damage had been done. He felt guilty for his actions against the Padawan, but he made himself to let go and move on.

Anakin, on the other hand, couldn't do the same. Before and since that night under the stars, his apprentice had made no mention of his own. Not a word, nor a phrase that even remotely pointed towards her. Obi-Wan wasn't fooled, though. He was doubtless that her absence was the cause of his excessive time in the Senate building. Anakin had taken every opportunity to get away from any and all Jedi, save perhaps from Obi-Wan, and his words were neutral and shallow if not empty. There were few in the Order that Anakin still conversed with, although he could not avoid talking to everyone completely. He still had a war to fight, the same as most everyone else in the Temple.

What was even scarier to the Jedi Master was the Chosen One's Force signature. While Ahsoka had been present, Anakin's signature was like a bonfire: dangerous and deadly, but controlled and warm. His presence brought excitement and strength to the room, as long as he maintained himself. Now, his fire had died down and no longer seemed as joyous as he remembered it, yet still hotter and more dangerous than before. Obi-Wan would not admit it, not even to himself, but he even sensed Darkness, slowly growing, slowly festering inside the Jedi Knight, and Obi-Wan was scared.

He ignored it and never told a soul what he felt. He told himself that it would pass, that it would die away over time, and yet it never did. Nearly nine months had passed, and the Darkness only grew in the Chosen One.

The last words of Anakin's end of the conversation always lingered in his master's head: How well would you sleep knowing I failed you? Obi-Wan had brushed off the question at the time, but he secretly wondered if Anakin felt that he had failed Ahsoka, not the other way around. It could be that Anakin felt betrayed and failed by his Padawan, but Obi-Wan knew about his mother, and how she died in his arms. To the Jedi Master, it was more likely that Anakin felt as if he hadn't done enough to 'save' Ahsoka, and that she had left because of him.

Obi-Wan stood up and walked to the window, and looked out over the city. Neither he, nor Anakin, nor any Jedi had heard from the lost Padawan since she walked away from the Temple, and from the Order. Obi-Wan never felt her firecracker presence when he felt through Coruscant, nor on any other planet he had visited recently. Maybe that's what Anakin did during his Senate visits. Maybe he was trying to find her...

Speaking of, Obi-Wan noticed, Anakin was almost back. His presence, however dull, had returned to the Temple, and Obi-Wan breathed a little easier. He really ought to try and keep him busy, so he wouldn't be at the Senate building so often. Obi-Wan lay down to rest and closed his eyes. He needs a mission, a fight, he thought. Something to keep him busy...

Anakin climbed up the stairs to the Temple resentfully. He hated these stairs now, and he hated how every time he was near them, he looked as far as he could down them, hoping to see the blue and white tips of montrals rising over them. He couldn't help it. He tried to not look, but he would hope against hope and look anyways, and see nothing. At least, not the one he was looking for. Not Ahsoka.

He got to the top, and looked, and didn't see her, the same way he hadn't seen her for nine months. He turned on his heel and walked into the building coldly. Whenever he was here (which was becoming less and less often), he took on the function of a ghost, more than anything else. He would speak with few and seemed to float intently between the doors and his quarters unless he was called elsewhere. He did not linger in one spot, or with one person, but said what needed to be said and continued on his way. Being a Jedi had begun to seem less of a lifestyle and more of a necessity, or a job. A task to be completed, and nothing more.

Soon, he arrived to his quarters without trouble. The halls of the Temple were more or less empty, which made it easier. The door shut behind him, and he sat on his bed and rested his forehead in his hands.

He had gone to deliver a message to the Senate and had picked up the newest intel from the Chancellor as well. He had tried to stop and see Padmé, but she wasn't in the Coruscant system, and wouldn't be for another month or two, according to her assistants, so instead, he spent time talking with the Chancellor.

Chancellor Palpatine had been very kind to Anakin recently, allowing him to stay and chat about the war and other things whenever he was allowed to drop by. He was also the only person besides his wife that he felt comfortable confiding in about his doubts about the Jedi, and his emotions about Ahsoka, although the topic itself hadn't come up in a while. He was the only one who shared Anakin's opinion that the Council had acted unfairly towards Ahsoka. Even Obi-Wan defended the Council when he tried to talk about it, and Anakin had decided to not involve Padmé in his views about the whole circumstance since she was the only other person willing to help during the trial.

He hadn't felt Ahsoka since she walked down the stairs and into the sunset. He had tried, so many times, but there was nothing to be felt. It was almost as if something or someone was using the Force to block her from him. Anakin felt almost vulnerable without his Padawan at his side, although he had become accustomed to the feeling. It was as if his right hand had been cut off (again), and he couldn't use it anymore. His apprentice, his partner, his friend was just...gone.

No. Not gone. Taken. Stolen. Expelled. Ahsoka had been expelled. Anakin clenched his fist. The Council gave her no choice but to leave.

But she did have a choice. He asked her to come back, but she still left.

Because you failed her, a voice rang out in his head. If you had just-

Just what? A stronger voice challenged the first. She left. She chose to leave. She should have been with you all this time. Where is she now? Why did she leave? Why did she leave me?

You didn't do all you could. If you had realized it was Offee earlier she wouldn't have needed the trial. She would have stayed.

She betrayed me. I needed her and she's gone. I still need her.

You shouldn't have failed her, then. Look at what you have done.

She failed me. She should have trusted me as I trusted her. She should have trusted me.

A small tear fell from the corner of Anakin's eye. He ignored it, pretended it never existed, and laid down to sleep.

She should have trusted me.

In his office, not far away from where Anakin slept, Sheev Palpatine, as he appeared to be, smiled sinisterly at his desk. The Chosen One's guilt was eating him alive. Soon, nothing would be left of the Jedi but the Darkness that he had planted in him.

It was so easy, warping Skywalker's mind to his advantage. All Palpatine had to do was suggest that he was in the right and that others were in the wrong, and his selfless instincts began to morph into selfish ones. He always blamed himself for what happened to others, as all noble Jedi do, but when Palpatine began to praise him and blame the Council, or Ahsoka, or anyone else, the Darkness grew some more, and some more. Soon, he would be his, and the Jedi Order would die.

The time had come, as he had foreseen. It was time to unleash one of his most cruel and brilliant moves thus far in the war. Skywalker was finally susceptible enough to fall into his place in Palpatine's plan. He had just sent the tip to the Council, with Skywalker himself, and no later than tomorrow morning Skywalker would be on his way to meet Palpatine's newest asset. True, she was also a liability, in ways, but there were ways to make her submit. Both she and Tyrannus would become disposable before long, and Anakin would rise as Palpatine's new apprentice. The galaxy would soon become his oyster.

Palpatine stood up and looked at the window facing the Temple. Somewhere in there, his future apprentice was falling asleep, and he would have another one of Palpatine's personalized nightmares. Just an extra push to make sure he was ready.

After all, he had a big day tomorrow.