Author's Note: Sorry this chapter took so long; I've been banned for the past week from uploading anything, for the offense of miscategorizing something. It's not up to my usual standard, I'm afraid, but I've been really busy lately, so hopefully you'll be able to enjoy it anyway.

The next few weeks passed in almost exactly the same way, sans suicide attempt. In the mornings, Windu would inevitably find Anakin in the training room and assign him some inexplicable and generally boring set of maneuvers. Anakin had braced himself on the day afterward for a stream of platitudes and teachings on the value of life, but to his profound relief and gratitude, Windu kept silent on the subject.

In the afternoons, Anakin would train alone, stretching his limits farther than he'd thought they could ever reach. He could go all day, until every muscle in his body ached and he was ready to collapse on the floor. He would run through every movement that he knew, sometimes performing the same maneuver over and over for hours if he felt that he was not doing it correctly.

Throughout the day, Anakin would repeat to himself a thousand times that Obi-Wan was gone, and sometimes he almost believed it. The fragile prayer deep inside him had been shattered almost beyond repair at the words Windu had spoken; somehow the truth had not seemed real until the Jedi Master had put it so plainly. By the end of the day, there were times that Anakin had almost managed to accept Obi-Wan's departure.

But hope springs eternal in youth, and though Anakin was far older than his years, this blessing he still retained. He did his best to quash it, knowing that he could never truly escape his pain until it was gone. At times it seemed that Anakin had succeeded; but inevitably, each and every night, just before his eyes closed in sleep, his lips formed words that he had never meant to say.

"Please," he would whisper, desperate and pleading, "please, let Obi-Wan come back to me."

It was all the hope that Anakin allowed himself, and although this Anakin did not fully understand, it was also the only thing that kept him alive.

After about a month, at last the murmurs of sympathy seemed to die down. No more did voices hush for an instant when Anakin walked into a room, no longer did he see people looking at him in the halls with pitying eyes. For this he was thankful; their pity only drove the knife deeper. In a peculiar conundrum that only Anakin himself could begin to comprehend, he did not want to forget Obi-Wan—but neither did he want to remember.

It was for this reason that Anakin trained as hard as he did; his meditation time had shrunk to practically nothing now, but at almost any given hour of the day, he could be found in the enormous training room, lightsaber in hand.

Jump, kick, land, roll, thrust, parry, thrust, dodge, kick—

"Anakin?"

The sound jolted Anakin abruptly out of the rhythm of his battle—it was like being forced out a dream. Instead of finishing his kick, Anakin stumbled, caught off guard, then turned to the speaker when he had regained his balance, chagrined at his failure.

"Hey, Ferus," Anakin greeted his friend, breathing hard as he wiped a sweaty lock of hair out of his eyes. It had been getting longer lately, as Anakin hadn't bothered to cut it. "What are you doing down here?"

Ferus shrugged. "Siri's talking with the Council," he explained. "I didn't have anything better to do."

"Great." Anakin nodded toward the lightsaber at Ferus' belt. "Want to spar?"

Ferus hesitated for an instant—there was a hunger in Anakin's eyes, a need to defeat that Ferus didn't like. He nodded slowly.

"All right," he agreed, taking his lightsaber from his belt and activating it. As one, they assumed a starting stance—Anakin in Form V, unwilling to use any other Form except when necessary—and began.

The lightsabers clashed, blue against green. From the very first, it was obvious how the battle would go: Ferus remained on the defensive, attacking only when he saw an opening, while Anakin fought furiously, striking out at every blow. The walls of the training room faded away, as did the friend before him—all Anakin saw was a battlefield, and a foe.

Ferus's guard slipped, just for an instant, but Anakin saw his chance. He whirled and attacked; Ferus's lightsaber flew from his grip and fell to the ground. An unexpected kick to the chest sent him sprawling against the wall, and before he even had time to move, Anakin's lightsaber was at his throat.

Anakin was utterly still. His mind was still shaking itself back to normal, and as it did so, the realization struck him: one more second, and Ferus would have been dead.

His friend knew it as well. Both had felt the shudder in the Force, the rage buried deep within Anakin that had lashed out in the only way it could. Anakin was panting for breath, trembling at the power of the Dark Side that had struck through him. He deactivated the lightsaber and turned, walking quickly away, tormented by guilt. Ferus said nothing, and when Anakin turned again, his friend was gone.

There was an empty bench sitting against the wall; Anakin's knees gave way, and he sank down upon it. Tusken Raiders and gang members were one thing, but to try taking the life of one of his closest friends…

The Council had warned Obi-Wan against him, telling him more than once that the Dark Side had a hold on his Padawan. Anakin had been able to ignore these rumors thus far, but now he looked down at his right hand, still trembling, and wondered fearfully just how much of this dark power surged through his veins. Much, much more than he had thought, if he could forget himself so far as to attack Ferus Olin. In attempting to merely defeat his friend, he had given the Dark Side an opening to take him the rest of the way.

"Cursed," Anakin repeated in a whisper, his voice shaking. "I am cursed."

Windu's words came back to him—was this what the Master had meant? His mind working very slowly, Anakin recalled the rest of Windu's lecture.

"If you wish to become a Jedi Knight then you must detach yourself from the battle, or your battle will become a massacre!"

Was that the difference between battling your opponent and trying to defeat him? He no longer had Obi-Wan to protect him, so he would have to do it himself. A feeling of fearful helplessness washed over him—what if he failed?—but he had to do his best.

Anakin stood, rested his hand against the wall for a moment. It would mean the reinventing of everything he had learned in ten years, but as his battle with Ferus had quite clearly evidenced, it had to be done. But he did not dare fight anyone else, lest he repeat what had just happened. So he started with the most basic technique any Jedi Padawan can learn: running up a wall.

It had been years since Anakin had tried this, but as soon as he started running, muscle memory came into play and he flipped back onto his feet like he had never stopped practicing. But no sooner had he stopped moving than Anakin's heart sank—he knew, with utter certainty, that his goal had not been to perform the maneuver to the best of his ability, but rather to complete it with dire perfection.

Anakin took a deep breath and faced the wall again. As though an invisible shot had been fired, he took off, repeated the maneuver, but with no success. He landed feeling extremely unsatisfied; how could he learn what Windu wanted him to when he didn't even understand what it meant? His expression set, Anakin readied himself—this would take a while.

The next morning, Anakin was waiting for Windu when he came in the door of the training room. "Are you ready?" Windu asked him, and Anakin replied with a nod.

The Master resumed his regular place by the wall, and gave Anakin the usual list of maneuvers. Anakin listened with only half an ear—the rest of his brain was occupied with the thorny problem of detaching his mind from his battle. He repeated Windu's teaching like a frantic mantra—do not try to defeat your opponent, do not try to defeat your opponent—and so tense was he that, when Windu gave him the signal to begin, Anakin's muscles exploded into a whirlwind of movement.

Think about something else, he instructed himself immediately. His foot slipped, he misstepped, but he ignored the mistake and tried to draw his mind away entirely. Don't think, don't think, don't think—

"Stop!"

Windu's voice completely threw Anakin off. Feeling his heart sink into his stomach, he turned to face the Master. What had he done wrong now?

But to Anakin's complete shock, there was a faint, yet unmistakable smile on Windu's face.

"So you have finally understood," Windu said softly. "I think Obi-Wan would be very proud of you."

Anakin wanted to feel pleased, but all he could feel instead was a curious emptiness. He realized with a start that he had hardly thought of Obi-Wan at all today, so intensely had he been concentrating on Windu's teaching, and that realization filled him with guilt and sadness. Biting back the now-familiar lump in his throat, Anakin bowed and murmured a "Thank you, Master" before exiting the room quickly.

The farther away he got from the training room, the more his frustration grew. This was what Obi-Wan would have wanted, wasn't it? He would have been pleased that Anakin finally understood the difference, would have been proud of his Padawan for learning to fight as a Jedi should. But…why had Obi-Wan never taught it to Anakin himself, if it was so important?

Anakin continued walking, having no destination in mind but refusing to stop. He didn't like where his thoughts were taking him, couldn't bear the idea that Obi-Wan had been anything less than a perfect Master. Indeed, the idea that Obi-Wan was anything but a perfect Master seemed absolutely ludicrous. But if Obi-Wan would have been proud of me…?

The thought tormented him, teasing at his very soul. It felt like terrible disloyalty to even consider it, and yet somehow Anakin's mind refused to focus on anything else until he felt he would go mad; so it was that, with quick, almost guilty steps and a feeling of growing apprehension, Anakin made his way to the one place he had never thought to see again.

Obi-Wan's room was in no way outstanding from the thousand other Jedi apartments, for like the perfect Jedi he was, he had always strictly adhered to the rule of no personal possessions; but to Anakin, it was as though he had entered the inner sanctum of a temple. Obi-Wan was its god, and everything in this room, no matter how insignificant—a datapad, a boot halfway tucked under the bed, a cloak tossed carelessly over the back of a chair—was blessed and holy, because Obi-Wan had touched it. Anakin remembered all the times his Master had taken his hand, touched his forehead, embraced him, and felt that he had been blessed as well.

He walked slowly within the room, occasionally reaching out to touch some random object. This he did with the air of one who brushes his hand against a sacred relic, as though just that touch could grant some mystical power, or in this case, simply ease the weight on his heart. Obi-Wan would have laughed to see Anakin approach with such timidity the items which he had almost broken on several occasions before—but then, Obi-Wan was dead.

Slowly, he sat down on the sleep couch and laid his head upon the pillow, buried his face in it to remember Obi-Wan's scent, and as he did so, something tucked under the pillow crinkled noisily. Frowning slightly, Anakin reached underneath and pulled out a piece of flimsy precisely folded into three sections. Without a second thought, he opened it and read.

It was a letter, dated only a few months ago in a neat handwriting that Anakin knew all too well. But if Obi-Wan had written it, why had he never sent it?

The first two words answered that question.

Dear Qui-Gon—

Did you have any idea, when you commanded me to train the Chosen One, what it would mean to me? All the sleepless nights he has caused me can hardly be healthy; every day I am afraid that he will do something else stupid and heroic, like running through the thick of a battle to save one last clone trooper and end up in front of the Council for it, or worse, setting my couch on fire (again!). The name of Anakin Skywalker is synonymous, in my case, with white hairs and an early grave.

Anakin could almost hear the exasperated sighs, could almost see Obi-Wan's familiar gesture of running a hand over his face in frustration as he penned this letter to a man who could not answer. It was almost worth reading the hurtful words in front of him to receive that image.

He has upset my life, my career as a Jedi, all my plans for the future, everything! So here is the question I put to you: how is it that, no matter what he does to me, all he has to do is meet my gaze and grin to make me believe that I am the most blessed man that ever lived?

I remember none of my biological family, so I could not say exactly what my feelings are toward Anakin. But if a father feels that he would die in an instant to save his son, then Anakin is my son. If a man would leave everything he ever knew to follow his brother into the dangerous unknown, then Anakin is certainly my brother. As Master and Padawan, we are in no way related to each other, so we are not limited to only one sort of love. At times I comfort him, as would seem right, but I would be lying if I told you that there had never been a time that it was I who cried, and Anakin who held and reassured me. We are nothing to each other, and so we are everything.

There was more to the letter, but Anakin was unable to read it; tears were streaming down his face and at the last word, he began to sob. The tears, pent up for so long, would not be held back, and so Anakin cried, with loud, heaving sobs that wracked his body and seemed to rip through his soul. The precious letter crumpled in his hand, and he mouthed Obi-Wan's name over and over again, his eyes shut tightly.

We are nothing to each other, and so we are everything.

There was a dull roaring sound in Anakin's ears; it was like losing Obi-Wan all over again, but this time he remained conscious, and only felt the more pain for it. He buried his face deep in Obi-Wan's pillow again, in the place where Obi-Wan's head had once lain, and cried into it for a very long time.

Heal. Heal. You cannot survive like this. Heal. Be whole once again. Heal.

But to be whole was impossible, when half of him was missing. No, he could not heal. The best he could do was to close over the open wounds, blunt the pain as best he could, ignore all emotion so he felt no pain. Then maybe—maybe, he could survive.

Anakin forced himself to stand, very shakily. He felt vulnerable, dangerously off-balance, as though he had attempted to lean on something and found only air. He took a step—breathe—and another—breathe—until he was leaning against the door, his forehead pressed to the cool metal as he struggled to catch his breath. Obi-Wan was dead, he told himself—breathe—and the universe moved on. And on, and on, unchanging and steady, never ceasing no matter what trifling human affairs occurred. If only, Anakin thought with wistful bitterness, he could emulate such equanimity.

Steady, unchanging, he told himself as he straightened. If he did not let himself care, then he could not die of pain. Obi-Wan was dead, and life went on, to a point…

No, do not think that. Steady and unchanging, steady and unchanging, there is no passion, there is serenity.

It was so desperately against Anakin's own nature that to keep repeating it felt like killing a bit of himself, but he did it anyway, and it did grant him a fierce sort of respite. Detaching your mind could apply to anything, he decided—just don't care, don't dare to think at all. It was this cruel philosophy that allowed him, when he met Master Windu in the hall and learned that their first mission together would take place in two weeks, to nod and keep walking. Just keep walking, keep walking, keep walking, and do not dare to remember…

When he reached his room, Anakin threw the letter into the trash droid, and did not look at it again.