For a long time, Anakin does not believe.
Well, at first he does. He sits silent and still on the ground long after Obi-Wan's breaths have shuddered to a halt, cradling his former master to his chest. He isn't crying anymore - he feels numb, empty. He hadn't been the one to hold Obi-Wan in his arms last time. That had been Ahsoka. It's a terribly selfish thought, but part of him wishes it wasn't him this time, either.
Coincidentally, it is Ahsoka who finds them there. Her expression is wary, her hands gentle, when she kneels before him and reaches out, perhaps to take Obi-Wan from his arms. He recoils, shields his master from her reach, and something in her eyes breaks.
"Master, he -" she hesitates, and looks at him as though he is a wounded animal. "He's gone."
Something in his chest shatters then, a sob tearing from his throat that he is powerless to prevent, even if he'd wanted to. Much of the next few hours is a blur. Later, they will tell him that he had screamed, fought against their efforts to take Obi-Wan, and at last, sobbed in Ahsoka's arms until he was nearly catatonic.
He wakes the next morning, somehow in his bed, and decides that it isn't true.
It is a trick, yet another lie on the council's part. Obi-Wan will return, just as he had before, having been on some absurd mission for the kriffing council that he'd had to leave Anakin out of. It will be as before. He isn't gone.
Anakin is calm during the funeral, so much so that it seems to alarm Ahsoka. She draws him aside afterward and tries to get him to open up.
"I'm alright, Snips," he says, and she stares at him.
"Master, your... your master just died, I know you probably aren't... I'm here for you -"
"He's not dead," Anakin says plainly, ignoring the hysteria suddenly welling in his stomach, threatening to spill forth. Ahsoka is staring at him again.
"Master -"
"He's not dead," Anakin says again, and shakes his head sharply. "Snips, you were there last time. You held him. We were so sure, and then he came back, and it's just like that. He's just undercover or something again. He'll come back. He always does."
In the end, no amount of reasoning can sway him, and she is forced to let him be. In the days that follow, he is encouraged by several Masters to see a mind healer, and staunchly refuses. Eventually, they leave him alone as well, though he doesn't miss the concerned glances and the way the Council watches him just a little more closely.
Months pass.
Obi-Wan doesn't return.
But he will. Anakin is sure of it -
Until he wakes up one year after that terrible day, and he knows.
Obi-Wan is gone. He isn't coming back. He isn't on some long undercover mission. The Council is not lying to him. He's been lying to himself. Obi-Wan is gone.
Anakin sobs into his pillow for an hour. When he goes to Ahsoka's room, his eyes are red and swollen. She looks at him with renewed alarm. "Anakin - Anakin, what happened, is it -"
His voice cracks. "Is he really gone, Ahsoka?"
Relief floods her gaze, and then sorrow, and finally, outright pity. It's enough to break the dam again, and Anakin begins to weep. For the time that he's wasted in denial, and for all that he has lost in the death of the best friend he could ever have asked for. For the months that he wasted simmering in rage at Obi-Wan's deception. Precious months. He couldn't have known it would be their last.
Ahsoka draws him against her, and abruptly, his knees give out. They sink to the floor together, his padawan's arms around him, and she holds all his broken pieces together as he shatters anew.