Every step Anakin took seemed to kill him, seemed numb and imaginary, as though his feet never really touched the floor. With every step he looked over at Obi-Wan's limp form and thought, No, not now, not yet.

At last, though Anakin could not have said exactly how, they found the other Jedi in a nearby hangar. Obi-Wan was rushed inside the waiting transport, Anakin following anxiously, unaware of the stares of the others.

He expected something to happen when Windu had laid Obi-Wan down upon the first empty bed they came to, but nothing had changed. Still as death, Obi-Wan lay there, and so Anakin stayed, even after the rest of the Jedi had come aboard and he felt the ship take off.

The whole experience had a nightmarish quality to it, something that was so horrible and confusing that it could not be real. One minute Obi-Wan had been walking beside him, and the next—Anakin shuddered, thinking of that supremely blank expression on Obi-Wan's face, as though there were nothing else in the universe or in all of existence that mattered anything to him.

"Anakin?"

As soon as he heard his voice Anakin turned to Obi-Wan, looking down at him with all fear and love in his face.

"I'm here," he said. "What happened to you?"

Obi-Wan's face was still very pale. He swallowed, and when he spoke his voice was faint.

"I'm—I'm so sorry, Anakin. It would have been kinder—to have never seen you again."

Anakin's hands were clammy and cold, but he took Obi-Wan's fingers in them anyway. Tears stung his eyes and his throat. "Don't say that, don't, it isn't true. Why would you say that to me?"

A great sigh came rolling out from Obi-Wan. He spoke quickly, as though he knew his time was short.

"I took the collar off—all those years ago—but the poison remained. I don't know what it was, or whether it was meant to do this to me. But my body is growing weaker with every day that I go on living, Anakin, with every little thing I do, with every breath I take. Some days I didn't have the strength even to get up in the morning.

"All this, what I've done today—with you—is more than I have done in several months past. And now…" A flicker of pain crossed his face, a shadow. "Now I think it's over. I have no energy; I have nothing in me. Everything I had left, I gave to you today."

Words floated past Anakin's conscious but didn't take hold. They floated in his mind, words like "poison" and "weak" and the unspoken one, "death." But they were for someone else, Anakin thought blindly. They were not for him, they did not belong to him. Weakness and death could not intrude upon him and Obi-Wan.

So why was Obi-Wan's face so pale?

They were true, weren't they?

They were true.

Anakin moved a hand to wipe his burning eye and found that his cheeks were already wet. "Why didn't you tell me?" he managed.

Maybe Obi-Wan didn't want to answer him; maybe he was too tired to reply. But there was no answer, and that simple fact made Anakin angrier than did the thought of Obi-Wan's death. Suddenly furious, he stepped away. "Why didn't you tell me?" he shouted again at the invalid. "Why did you let me think that you were coming back, that everything would be all right again? Why did you let me think I'd found you?"

His voice cracked, and he was fully in tears now.

"The Force can't take you away from me! This isn't fair! Not again—not again—"

He was sobbing, kneeling on the floor, and Obi-Wan's arms were around him, comforting him as they always had done. The words "not again—not again" came from his lips like a mantra.

"Don't say such things," Obi-Wan whispered to him. "You know what anger can do to a Jedi. Trust in the Force."

Anakin jerked out of the embrace as though he had been stung.

"Don't talk like that," Anakin commanded through his tears. "Any Jedi Master in the Temple can tell me the same thing. Talk to me, Obi-Wan."

A long, slow breath left Obi-Wan's lips; his eyes searched Anakin's face, as though looking for the words Anakin wanted to hear. There was so little time left—so little time…

"You—" Obi-Wan said, his crystalline eyes wet. "You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you."

Then his eyes moved downward, and, for the first time, he saw the crystal Anakin wore around his neck. He knew it was his, as surely as he knew he was dying. One trembling hand reached out to touch it…

His finger stroked the crystal's edge lovingly. Then, like a wilting plant, it fell and went limp, and there was no life within it.

Anakin burst into tears once again, burying his face in the rough blanket on the cot. Obi-Wan was dead—this time for real.

When Windu left the cockpit and entered the central room, Anakin was waiting with the rest, and his face gave no indication of his feelings, whatever they may have been.

"I've just spoken with the Chancellor," Windu announced. "She extends her deepest thanks. She's also informed me that the blockade has dispersed since Grievous' death." This news was met with little surprise from the Jedi in the room. "Anakin, may I speak with you in private?"

Anakin shrugged and stood. Together he and Windu moved into the side hall.

"Where is Obi-Wan?" Windu asked in a low voice. Anakin blinked.

"He's dead," he said, his voice utterly, suspiciously normal. "Poisoned. Still, two casualties for a mission of this magnitude isn't a bad number."

"Anakin, are you all right?" asked Windu, frowning.

Once more Anakin gave a little shrug. His blue eyes were sharp as ever, but they didn't seem to be focused quite right.

"You think I should be grieving," he said. "But, Master, I can't. I've already grieved once. To find something you've lost, even only for a short time, is a blessing from the Force."

"But you aren't happy either."

"No," said Anakin quietly.

Windu was almost frightened as he looked at his former student. It was like looking into a black hole, if such a thing were possible. In a harsher tone of voice than he had used in many years, he demanded, "Well? Say something!"

"I'm not happy. And I'm not sad. Maybe I'm nothing. Isn't that right? Isn't that what Jedi are supposed to be?"

Windu had no answer for him. Anakin was right, after all, in theory, but you only needed to look into his eyes to see that this wasn't the way things were supposed to be. No normal human had those eyes. For the first time in his life Windu, for an instant, questioned whether the Jedi way would not kill those who practiced it wholeheartedly. Was peace truly the opposite of emotion?

"Don't worry about me," Anakin said, sensing his thoughts. "No more suicide attempts." He actually smiled a little bit when he said that, a wry little smile, as if to say, 'Look at me, I'm not a droid. I am still capable of emotion.'

He walked out of the room to join the rest of the Jedi once again. As he passed, Windu cast out with the Force, searching for the secret of Anakin's behavior in his mind. A second later, he was hurled back so forcefully that he almost physically stumbled. The walls Anakin had thrown up were like fortress protections; there was no getting through them.

Anakin was confused.

He was waiting for the grief of last time, of seven years ago, when the pain had almost killed him. Not that he wanted it. He just didn't understand where it was.

He thought there was some way he was supposed to feel about this. The first time had been—excruciating, but it had been natural. This just felt…empty. No, that wasn't the right word, though it was close.

He had thrown up walls of protection to keep others outside, not to keep his own emotions from himself. Anakin was determined to find something within himself; this blankness scared him. So he closed his eyes, and breathed, and let the Force flow through him. When he was younger, he had to search for the Force, focus on it, concentrate like a child making a birthday wish. Now he had only to let it in; it was already constantly pushing at him.

Time passed by him, wind-like, but Anakin didn't feel it. They were less than an hour from Coruscant when he finally opened his eyes, understanding.

As a young, arrogant Padawan, he had believed that grief existed only through its outward signs. If there were no tears, no signs of anger, then there was no sadness, so he thought. Even to himself he had applied this dictum.

Now he was older. Now he was able to look deeper within himself, to see there what he didn't think existed. Somewhere within Anakin Skywalker, so deep that even he himself could not see it at first, was a deep black well of sorrow and aching. It was hidden behind fortress walls and Jedi proverbs and the cloak of maturity, but it was there still. It had only been so hard to see because it did not visibly manifest itself. This, Anakin recognized, was how a Jedi Master mourned.

Though everyone had slept on the ship, it was still with great relief that they reached the Temple, ready to pile into their beds. This, however, could not be done right away. Firstly, an announcement was made to the rest of the Temple, in which Master Yoda and Master Windu explained the events that had taken place and their expectation of the Jedi in this difficult recovery time. Anakin stood to the side, well out of the public eye, waiting for the second part of the evening.

He hadn't been up to the cremation chamber in years, not since ridding himself of the dark and childish clothes he'd once worn, but he went now, when darkness fell, along with the rest of the Council. Drin was there as well, but for his own Master.

The bodies were laid upon the stone table, one at a time. Anakin looked over at Drin as Ka'ela's body burned, and saw a very tense expression on his friend's face. A vague comforting thought through the Force was all it took to grab Drin's attention, and make him smile.

Then it was Obi-Wan's turn.

He was laid upon the table, his arms unnaturally stiff at his sides. A thought crossed Anakin's mind that it was better than if they had been crossed over his chest, as some cultures buried their dead. He might almost have laughed to see Obi-Wan like that.

His eyes were closed; that Anakin regretted. He would have liked to be able to see his Master's eyes again. But maybe it would only have made it worse, to see the blankness in them and know that there was no soul behind them.

Someone stepped forward with the torch, and Anakin almost cried out.

You took me when I was nothing, said his mind's voice.

You taught me and trained me.

You loved me and made me what I am.

And if I had been there to defend you, I never would have lost you that day.

I would have died to save you.

They took the Force from you.

They killed you.

But they can't erase you, or what you did, or what you meant—to me.

You were my father, Obi-Wan, my father and my brother and my friend.

I worshiped you.

I loved you.

His vision cleared; perplexed, he saw that the pyre remained unlit. Then he realized that he had been speaking out loud, and every Jedi in the room was looking at him, not with embarrassment or pity but with understanding, and something like awe.

The torch bent its flaming head down, valiantly staving off the darkness, and dipped into the pyre. With a loud sound like wind blowing the flames burst into being, and Anakin watched quietly as Obi-Wan burned.