The walk down the empty, ill-lit corridor towards his former-padawan's quarters is the longest walk of Obi Wan Kenobi's life. He can feel Anakin's restless presence reverberating through the hallways of the temple; The young man is clearly not only awake, but extremely agitated.

Halting in front of the door, he wonders for a moment at what he is about to do. He never thought it would come to this. His nerves are prickling, his heart rate varying strangely. Suddenly, he is besieged by vertigo: He sways on his feet, swallowing, swallowing again, waiting for his head to clear, stopping. He really ought to turn back, to seek the advice of the Council in this... But, no. The Force has brought him to this place and time, this conversation. He knocks once, hard, and waits.

"Master?" Anakin emerges, looking benumbed and pale, but too keyed-up to sleep. His hair is dull, his eyes blinking rapidly and too often, the muscles of this throat and jaw quivering feverishly.

"Good morning, Anakin."

"It's a little bit early for... What is it?"

"Can I come in? We need to talk."

"Yeah," says Anakin, vaguely. He half-stumbles backwards into the room, and begins hastily to clear the debris associated with his habitation (sundry datapads and droid components) from a couple of chairs. "You can... sit..." he mutters. And Obi Wan does.

Master and apprentice, once inseparable, regard each other obscurely, as if for the first time. The silence stretches into awkwardness, and then beyond awkwardness into surrealness. Anakin is the first to speak, reaching as he does so across their psychic bond and giving it a hesitant tug, as if to make sure it still exists. Obi Wan flinches at this mental touch, before returning it stiffly. It has been months since either of them has so much as acknowledged the shimmering thread which links their souls together.

"Before you start, I want to apologize, Master, for my... recent behavior," Anakin says, failing to meet the older man's eye. He pauses, fidgeting in his seat, and continues in that impossible Anakin-way, somehow managing to sound both contrite and bitter at the same time: "I know I've been difficult lately. I was going to say this when I saw you off to Utapau, but now that you're here I might as well-"

"I won't be going to Utapau."

"What? Why not?" asks Anakin, his blue gaze lifting in surprise.

"I realized I would be needed here."

"Then the Council is sending me after all!" he snarls, his expression suddenly darkening. "Why wasn't I called before them? Why would they insult me by sending you to my quarters to-"

"No. This has nothing to do with the Council. I am not here as their agent. I am here as your friend. And neither of us will be going to Utapau," says Obi Wan, a measure more harshly than he means to. He gropes for his patience, but Anakin's abrupt crackle of fury has riven the air between them, causing his own emotions to burn uncomfortably hot. When did his padawan become such a stranger to him? When did the charming boy he trained become so hostile, defensive, paranoid, and quick to anger? For a moment, the specter of his own grief (a grief he has yet to experience, caused by things which have yet to occur) tears at him.

And then, all at once, the enormity of his task, the realization that the future he has glimpsed might actually come to pass, closes around his mind, smothering him. He regards Anakin, his dark-gold hair and star-tanned skin, and suddenly his youth and beauty appear monstrous. Everything Obi Wan has, everything he has ever known, is threatened by this fractious boy. And he wants to seize him by the shoulders and shake him, shake some sense into him, and shout in his face, How could you? I loved you! again and again until his voice fails him and they both collapse, weeping. But instead:

"Is there something you want to tell me, Anakin?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is there anything... troubling you? Anything I might be able to help you with?"

"Not at all, Master. Aside from the usual... tensions between myself and certain members of the Council-"

"Stars and stones, Anakin! Don't lie to me!" Obi Wan seldom raises his voice. This means the situation is extremely serious.

"What's wrong, Master?" Anakin frowns. He leans in, pulling urgently at their bond, raking through its silky strands in search of answers. "You are... in pain." He draws a marked breath, releasing it in a frantic tumble of words: "Because of me, somehow! You are in pain because of me...? Master, I don't understand-"

"Listen! Listen to me for once!" Obi Wan snaps. "I do not know how or why, but I have reason to believe that you may be in danger of- of..." But he cannot make his lips form the words falling to the Dark Side. He turns away, swallowing down tears again. Remembering Qui Gon's instructions, remembering what he must do, he grasps at their bond and begins nervously, haltingly, to stroke Anakin's mind as he hasn't done since the latter was a little boy. He is terribly out of practice- not that he was ever very good at this sort of thing to begin with. He admonishes himself to focus, reaching out again, in what he hopes is a comforting manner. He allows the outer layers of shielding to fall away from his mind, silently inviting Anakin to do the same, and the young man inclines his head in disbelief, before eagerly obliging him. There is no time to waste wondering where he went wrong, whether he loved Anakin too much, or not enough. He has vacillated about this for years, and now the choice is made for him. He must subdue his inhibitions, move past his doubts, and offer himself wholly to this- this monster god spirit man child before it is too late.

"I have allowed matters to get out of hand," Obi Wan sighs, sounding far more composed than he feels. "I knew you were having difficulties, but I never confronted you about them. You are an adult now, after all. Had you approached me, I would of course have done everything in my power to help you. But I thought it appropriate-"

And then it strikes him like a blaster bolt, full in the chest. Of course. It's her. Somehow, it's all about her. The Force prods sharply at him, confirming this insight, urging him in this direction. He should have known. He feels a bit like laughing, and a lot like crying, but he is far too sensible to do either. Of all the things in the galaxy-!

"Anakin," he says, carefully. "I know about you and Senator Amidala."

And at this, his former-padawan's mind, so brittle with fear, splinters.

Anakin is on his feet now, retreating, muscles ready, but there is nowhere to go in his narrow quarters. His eyes are huge with terror, his lips working madly. "You- How-?!"

Obi Wan has to physically brace himself against the deluge of panic which comes crashing over their newly reopened bond. "Anakin, please-" he ventures. How readily the boy's dazzling features turn demented and horrible! Can it really be that he's never noticed it before?

"N-No! You won't lecture me about this! I won't have it!"

"I only want to help you-"

"I don't-!" He is shouting now, but stammeringly, abortively, practically choking on his own wildly escalating voice. "I don't need your help-! I don't want-! There is nothing you can-!"

"Stop it! It's hardly dawn! You'll wake the whole Order!"

"M-might as well now!" he laughs hysterically, his cheeks flushed-red and sparkling with tears. "I suppose you've already told them? Or are you going to drag me in front of them first, so that you can humiliate me, on top of everything else?!"

"I haven't told the Council, and I don't plan to."

"That's not-! I don't believe you!" he practically shrieks.

"I have known, or at least suspected, for quite some time, and I haven't said a word to anyone."

A tirade dies in Anakin's throat. "What?" he rasps incredulously. "How long?!"

"For over a year now. You never hid it very well."

"Oh," he says, crumpling back into his chair. He turns his whole body away, carrying himself gingerly, as though he's just been beaten. Several seconds pass in edgy stillness before he speaks again, quietly, without meeting Obi Wan's eye. "But why haven't you...? I've violated the code, and..."

"And we are at war! There are far greater things at stake than your affair with Senator Amidala!"

"It's not an affair! We are married."

"Married?! What do you mean you're married?"

"We held a secret ceremony just after Geonosis. It wasn't legal, exactly, but spiritually-" he gestures vaguely with his mechanical hand. "In any case,we are about to have a child."

"A child!" says Obi Wan, rubbing his beard. "That does complicate matters somewhat."

"You're telling me it does!"

"Listen," he breathes, sending all the warmth and reassurance he can reasonably muster across their bond. "I am going to help you through this. We are not going to lose our heads. We are going to find a solution which is fair to everyone. We are Jedi. That is what we do."

Devastated, Anakin drags both hands through his tangled hair. "All this time-!" he moans. "All this time, I could have told you, and you would have helped me?!" His force-presence is purling and roiling. "But I thought-"

"You thought I'd just automatically report you to the Council? Without regard to the circumstances? Without considering your feelings? Or Senator Amidala's? Is that what you thought? I'm not a droid, Anakin."

"Oh, no?" he says, smiling even as tears continue to stream down his face. "I sometimes wonder..."

And for a moment, Obi Wan thinks they are out of the asteroid belt. But he is gravely mistaken.

Without warning, Anakin's heavier body is slammed against his own with bruising force, sobbing convulsively, and grasping at him as though drowning. "There's nothing-! None of it matters-! She's dying!"

"What are you... talking about?" Obi Wan gasps, the crushing pressure on his abdomen rendering speech difficult.

"A portentous dream. Like the one about my mother. Every night, the same! I haven't slept for days because of it! Padmé, s-she dies in childbirth," he chokes.

"Oh, Anakin," Obi Wan sighs, wrapping his arms around the young man.

"And now here you are, being so good to me. And that almost makes it w-worse. Because you're g-going to hate me!"

"Hate you? I could never hate you."

"Oh, but you will. Because of what I'm considering doing."

Obi Wan stiffens. The Force seems to whirl or pivot around them, and all of a sudden, he can feel the dark element thrumming in that heart which is pressed so close against his own. With silent, creeping horror, he realizes that Anakin's fall has already begun.

"Explain," he demands, pulling away from the strangling embrace. He struggles, with mixed-success, to keep his voice steady. "Explain everything to me, right now."

"Master, I can't-!"

"Right now, Anakin."

The boy regards him soberly, making an effort to arrest his miserable weeping before speaking again. "Alright. But you have to promise me something first, Master. You have to promise you won't hate me."

"There is nothing you could do to make me hate you," Obi Wan avers. But even as he is saying this, he is beginning to doubt whether it is true.

Anakin sighs ruefully. Then, at last: "Chancellor Palpatine... is a Dark Lord of the Sith."

"What?!"

"He all but told me so. He offered me-" he begins to rock back and forth, utterly tormented. "A way to save Padmé. By using the- the Dark Side of the Force."

Obi Wan brings a hand to his face in abject woe. "Anakin," he whispers, "please tell me you aren't actually thinking of-"

"But I am!" he cries. "I have to save her! And the Jedi can't help me, or won't! I sought Master Yoda's guidance and he told me... He told me to let her die! And the Chancellor, he- He may be a Sith Lord, but I'm starting to think he might be right about the Council!"

"Do you hear yourself, Anakin? What in the nine hells-?"

"I know it's wrong, Master, but I- I don't care! I can't live without her! And only he can save her-"

"How do you know?!" Obi Wan practically yells, "What if he is lying to you? What if you give yourself to the Dark Side and she dies all the same! It will have been for nothing!"

"N-no!" Anakin is back at full volume. "That won't happen! I won't let it!"

"It will happen."

"How do you know-?"

"Because I've seen it." Obi Wan's voice is a broken string. "I've seen the future. I've seen you. And you are..." a monster "alone."

"Then she is- what? -destined to die? I can't accept that. I have to do something-!"

"I may know of... a way."

Anakin stops cold. "If the Jedi had a way," he grinds out, "why wouldn't Master Yoda have shown me when I went to him?"

"Because... it is forbidden."

"And yet you are willing to show me?"

"Yes." Obi Wan slumps his shoulders, physically and spiritually exhausted. "There are methods of attaining power which do not require... any sort of capitulation to the Sith. What I am suggesting is beyond dangerous, but-"

"Are you saying..." Anakin is leaning in again, and psychically nudging him. "Are you saying there is way we could become as powerful in the Light Side... as he is in the Dark Side?"

"Yes..."

"And the Council forbids it? Then they really are fools," the boy laughs, bitterly. And the very next instant, he is earnest and hopeful. "But you're not a fool, Master. You are truly willing to defy them? F-for me?"

"I have come to see... the folly of obeying them implicitly."

Not a moment ago, Anakin was a sobbing wreck. Now he is restless, elated, practically glowing. "You truly are my master," he says reverently, with a flush that makes his eyes seem, momentarily, even bluer. "I'm so sorry. I thought the worst of you. Please forgive me."

"Of course," says Obi Wan, smiling weakly. His former-padawan has violated the code to be sure, but he has done nothing which cannot be forgiven. Not yet.

"These past few months I've been... so confused," Anakin frowns. "The Council ordered me to spy on the Chancellor, and the Chancellor wanted me to spy on the Council, and I didn't know who to obey. It was impossible!"

"The Chancellor asked you to-?"

"Yes! Oh, but none of that matters now!" Anakin cants his whole body forward in obvious relief. "Because it is you I am meant to follow," he pronounces, in a cosmic hush.

"Anakin-"

"Not the Council or the Chancellor. It is you. It always has been. I see that now. I was just a little boy when first I pledged myself to your teachings. I didn't appreciate what it meant back then. But now..." He forsakes his chair, kneeling on the floor before Obi Wan, as if expecting to be knighted-anew by the latter's blade. "Now I pledge myself to you again. And truly this time." He is freshly weeping, but with joy. "Oh, Master. I am so glad! I am so glad it is you, and not him."