"Kark," Anakin muttered, pressing the heel of his hand against one eye. The other hand landed on Obi-Wan's shoulder, as if to anchor himself as he scrubbed at his face. "I'm doing my best not to make this weird for you, but you know you're not helping much," he said, voice unsteady.

"Sorry." Obi-Wan smiled at him.

Anakin laughed. "You don't sound very sorry." As he pulled his hand back, meaning to actually step away this time, he noticed something. Anakin ran his thumb over a smooth place where something synthetic and hard was set at the juncture between Obi-Wan's neck and shoulder. "What's that?"

"An implant." Obi-Wan tugged at the neck of his shirt a little, tilting his neck to show Anakin the small square of plastoid embedded at the base of his neck.

"No kidding." Anakin rolled his eyes. "Neural? What's it do?"

"It keeps me alive."

That was as surprising to hear as it was unpleasant. Anakin finally took his hand back, crossing his arms. "You're not... dying?" he asked, mind racing immediately to the implants chronically or terminally ill beings were often fitted with, to help them manage the pain.

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Nothing like that. It just helps me with some effects of nerve damage. Numbness, trouble with fine motor movements..."

"Seizures?" Anakin guessed.

Obi-Wan shrugged. "Occasionally."

Another hot wash of anger with Asajj Ventress's name on it burned through Anakin, but something else prompted him, and wouldn't quite let him give himself totally over to it. Opening himself to the Force showed him little - only a nonspecific thread of significance wound through the conversation. Pressing again on Obi-Wan's shields yielded nothing, as it had before. Anakin tried one more time, this time pressing much harder and watching carefully for a reaction.

Obi-Wan didn't seem to notice anything, and the Force was still whispering at Anakin.

"Would you let me to look at it?"

"Why?"

"I have some skill with healing," said Anakin. "And... I'd like to make sure, you know, that you're all right. If you'd let me."

Obi-Wan frowned at him, quizzical, as if wondering why this particular subject made Anakin hesitant. "The healers at the clinic looked it over when I first came to them, and they found no problem with it."

"You mean the healers didn't give it to you?"

"No, I've always had it."

Always, he said, as if that were a very long time. Anakin paused, trying to think before he spoke, his wariness ratcheted up to extreme levels. If the healers hadn't given Obi-Wan the implant to regulate the aftereffects of Ventress's torture... if he'd had the implant before he was ever treated... then who had given it to him? Obi-Wan didn't seem worried by the obviously occurring question, though, and that in and of itself was a little concerning.

Following the thread of his buzzing suspicion, Anakin tried, "Maybe it has something to do with your memory."

"It doesn't."

He sounded so sure. How could he be so sure? Anakin bit down on the thousand challenging things he could have said, and instead simply asked, "Please?"

Obi-Wan just stared at Anakin for a minute. Then he huffed, shrugged a little and said, "Well, I suppose, in the interests of due diligence... You really must tell me more of what I've forgotten, though. Here I am talking so much, and I'm the one who doesn't know anything."

If there was a criticism in that somewhere, Anakin supposed it was deserved. "Of course," he said, making his way to the living room. He sat down, choosing the rug instead of the available sofa, and crossed his legs beneath him before offering Obi-Wan an inviting hand. Giving Anakin a curious look, Obi-Wan nevertheless allowed himself to be guided down into a sitting position on the floor across from Anakin.

"I'll tell you what I can, but... are you sure you want it all back?"

The question was one that had occurred to Anakin the minute he stepped inside this well-tended little home. As strange as it seemed to ask, Anakin could feel the warm imprints of several other beings who'd been here recently, talked here, laughed here. He thought of his own tiny quarters back aboard the Resolute, and he wondered.

Obi-Wan snorted softly as he tilted his neck again for Anakin's inquiring hand. "Of course. What kind of a question is that?"

"I don't know." Anakin traced the indented print of the implant again with his fingers, and then let his hand hover just above Obi-Wan's skin as he gently probed it with the Force. "You don't seem... unhappy."

"Nor might a spider-roach, having no concept of a life larger than its own."

Anakin's mouth flattened into a thin line. "You're not a roach, Master. And I was just asking."

Obi-Wan sighed. "Tell me why you call me that. You're not a slave."

Busy following the paths of the implant's electronic pulses in the Force, Anakin only spared a slight smirk for the irony. "No, I'm not."

"You're military." Obi-Wan hooked a finger under Anakin's plastoid armor chest plate. "Am I military?"

"In a way. We fought in the war together, but not as regular officers in the Republic Military. We're assigned to the GAR, as part of a temporary special commission."

We're Jedi, Anakin could have said. He didn't.

The implant was strange; it was definitely neural, but he sensed a constant stream of input to Obi-Wan's brain and nervous system. Anakin was no expert, but the volume and direction of its activity seemed inconsistent with how Obi-Wan had described it as a counterbalance to occasional flare-ups of symptoms from his torture.

"So," insisted Obi-Wan, "why do you call me that? Is it a rank?"

Anakin grinned. "Yes, it's a rank. I was your apprentice, before you 'died'." He pulled back his hand to form false quotes around the word, and then rested his palms on his knees. "You were my master - taught me everything I know."

Another chance to explain, to say, Have you heard of the Jedi Order?

Anakin didn't know why he didn't want to - it wasn't as if it was a secret. Everyone in the galaxy knew that the Jedi were commanding the Republic's side of the war, commanding the clones who made up the bulk of the GAR. He was plainly dressed in his active duty robes, chest and shoulders decked out in plastoid armor, lightsaber at his belt. Anyone who'd seen some holonet coverage of the war in the last year and had a pulse would have instantly marked him as a Jedi. Unless Obi-Wan had forgotten everything about the political structure of the galaxy, too, Anakin couldn't think of any way he could still be in the dark about it.

And yet... for some reason his instincts warned against explicitly spelling it out to Obi-Wan himself.

"Oh." Obi-Wan was looking at him, reaching up to rub at the implant absently. "Then we've known each other a long time."

"A very long time." Anakin smiled, and Obi-Wan's answering smile was strangely shy. "I'd like to bring back an OEI mapper and take another look at that thing, if you don't mind," he said. "I really think it might be important for your memory, and if there's any possibility it's related-"

Obi-Wan was shaking his head. "You're mistaken. I told you, it's just for nerve damage."

"Still, if there's any chance of it having something to do with the amnesia, even if it's incidental, I have to explore it. You said you wanted your memory back."

"Of course I do. But Anakin, you know as well as I do that retrograde amnesia, if it doesn't naturally fade over time, is usually permanent and irreversible. It's been over a year, and I can't remember a single thing from before." Obi-Wan's earnest gaze was as familiar to Anakin as his own lightsaber - it was the same even, calm way Obi-Wan had always delivered hard news he knew Anakin didn't want to hear. "I really don't think this is going to help."

Reaching into the Force, Anakin couldn't agree with his master's pessimism. "If it doesn't, we can deal with that. I'm not losing you again, Obi-Wan, no matter what - I don't care if you never remember a thing. But if there's even a chance, it makes no sense not to make sure."

Another sigh lifted Obi-Wan's shoulders gently before curving them down in a slight slump. "If you insist. Just don't remove it without asking first. I need that thing."

"If you even think I would do that, you shouldn't be letting me anywhere near you." Anakin bridled, insulted. "I mean - we technically just met. I might be lying to you about everything, and you wouldn't even know."

"I know you wouldn't do that, Anakin." Obi-Wan rolled his eyes.

"Then why did you say it? You shouldn't let strange men you don't trust into your house, much less let them fiddle with your important medical equipment. There are plenty of people who know you and also hate you, you know. You should be more careful."

"Oh, are there? Am I such a disagreeable person, that I have scores of enemies?"

Anakin snorted. "No, I think that would be me, actually. I make the enemies - you just suffer the consequences."

The pained tone had crept into Anakin's last sentence without his consent, and he ducked his head. Obi-Wan softened, catching Anakin's gaze pointedly. "I trust you, Anakin."

"You have no reason to."

"Yes I do," said Obi-Wan, sounding as if he really knew. "I just can't remember it."

Anakin huffed a reluctant laugh, digging his hand through his hair roughly. Would Obi-Wan feel that way when he got his memories back? Anakin had been with him on Jabiim - been with him months before that in sullen silence, and been with him years before that in disrespect and rebellion. He had failed Obi-Wan, not just on Jabiim, but before that as a padawan.

"Also, your comm is beeping," Obi-Wan pointed out.

"Kaaaark." He'd set it on silent mode. Anakin fumbled it out of his belt and clicked it on. "Skywalker."

"Skywalker, Captain Rex informs me that you have not reported in after apprehending Consular Reeve. What is your status?"

"Reporting for duty, Master Plo." Sithspit, Anakin thought. "I thought I had found another lead in the market, but it turned out to be... not relevant to the mission."

"In that case, return to the Rotunda. Consular Reeve has been most helpful, and it would be wise to act on his information as soon as possible."

"Yes, Master. Skywalker out." Obi-Wan watched him with raised eyebrows as he clicked off his comm. "Sithspit."

"You have to go."

"I do," Anakin admitted. "But... I'll come back tonight? If I can, I mean. I'll bring the OEI scanner, and I can tell you more, then. If you want."

They stood up, and Obi-Wan was giving him that hesitant smile again. "I would like that."

"I'll definitely come, then. I don't know what time, but..."

"It's fine. I have to head to the clinic for a few hours, but anytime after dark I should be here."

"Okay. Good." Anakin was nodding. He knew he should be moving for the door, but couldn't quite look away from Obi-Wan's face just yet. "You'll be here? I mean - you won't-" He knew they'd had this conversation before, but-

"I won't disappear." Obi-Wan touched his arm again, like he wanted to do something more but wasn't sure how. "I"ll be here, Anakin. I promise."