There were at least fifty members of the royal guard waiting in the hangar when they approached. Cailee had never seen such a display outside of military parades, even though she had never (until today) been able to go anywhere outside the palace without a contingent of soldiers surrounding her. She had certainly never had any member of the guard point a blaster at her before today—or at least in her general direction, given that she was sure they were aiming at Anakin. The guards he had left lying on the wet sidewalk must have managed to communicate with the palace after they'd flown off, to tell the palace they were coming. She was sure that did not bode well for the chances of Anakin leaving any future attackers alive.

"Fucking idiots," cursed the Jedi.

Under normal circumstances, Cailee probably would have had a rebuke ready for his foul language, out of reflex if nothing else. She didn't really care, no matter what her grandmother and the endless stream of governesses and tutors and handmaidens she had been subjected to over the years would have had to say about it. And under the present circumstances, she could only agree with the sentiment.

The rush of adrenaline that had been fueling her since the soldier had grabbed her had begun to fade, and now she just felt drained and hollow and terrified that these members of the royal guard would succeed where the others had failed. It was more frightening, in its way, than the explosion itself. That had happened so quickly that she hadn't had time to think and worry like she was now.

"Anakin, let's just go," she implored, squeezing his fingers tighter between hers and reaching across her body to pluck at his sleeve with her free hand.

He was surveying the hangar with a forbidding scowl that probably should have marred his beauty but instead, inexplicably and unfairly, made him look even more attractive. And undeniably dangerous. His expression softened when he turned to look at her, but his eyes did not.

"Go where? I can't just—Fuck!"

Anakin wrenched his hand from hers and turned his full attention back out the windscreen.

Before Cailee could react, he had somehow managed to fling the speeder sideways in a maneuver that made her empty stomach slosh uncomfortably inside her. She managed not to scream, but just barely. She had one brief moment to promise herself that she was never going to fly with this complete maniac ever again, before an eerie blue glow traveled across the surface of the speeder from the driver's side to hers, where it ultimately seemed to fizzle into nothingness. Cailee realized, with a deep drop in her gut that made her feel even queasier than before, that it was the result of blaster bolts hitting the vehicle. Anakin had placed himself between her and the gunfire.

They landed with a screech of metal against metal and a jolt that sent her careening sideways into the solid, unmoving wall of his body, then skidded several feet until they stopped.

"Stay here," barked Anakin in a tone that invited no argument, firmly but gently pushing her back across the speeder.

"Anakin! Anakin, wait!"

Cailee grasped for him—his hand, an arm, a bit of his tunic, any part of him at all—to try to keep him with her, desperate to keep him from being arrested or killed by the full platoon of soldiers waiting for him, but she had no chance of stopping him. He kicked the driver's door open and burst out of the speeder in one smooth movement, igniting his lightsaber at the same time.

Cailee clambered across the bench seat after him, her efforts hindered enormously by the long, tight skirt of the gown she was still wearing. The sound of blaster fire and a whir that she recognized as Anakin's lightsaber and the screams and cries of men in pain were thunderous in her ears, even though her hearing hadn't fully returned following the explosion at the dress shop. After several seconds and a few soft curses of her own, she managed to swing both of her legs around (painfully knocking her knee into the steering yoke in the process, but ignoring it) and stumble to her feet.

Her eyes were immediately drawn to Anakin, who was about thirty feet away and surrounded on three sides by members of the royal guard. Cailee likely would have panicked at him being in danger had he not, almost the very moment her eyes found him, used his lightsaber to deflect what had to be at least a dozen blaster bolts (that her eyes were able to follow) back into the bodies of the men who had shot them and raised his other hand to send another half dozen guards flying across the hangar, stopped only by the speeders and walls they crashed into.

Whether it was deliberate or an accident, Cailee didn't even want to hazard a guess, but either way suddenly a blaster bolt seemed to come directly towards her.

Before she even had time to register the danger, Anakin was suddenly there, seemingly having disappeared from across the hangar and reappeared right in front of her, his lightsaber so near her face that she could feel the heat against her skin. Whether he could have safely deflected the blaster bolt away from the crowd and instead chose to send it back directly into the barrel of the blaster it had come from, Cailee was willing to guess that, yes, he could have deflected it away harmlessly, and, yes, he had deliberately chosen to do otherwise.

He effortlessly spun the lightsaber in a circle that blocked or incinerated the shrapnel from the resulting explosion before it hit her or himself, but the men surrounding the dimwit who had taken the shot were not so lucky. As for the shooter, the man screamed and fell to the ground, clutching a bloodied arm to his chest—Cailee thought that maybe part of his hand was missing, but she averted her eyes from the gory sight too quickly to see the details.

Unfortunately, her gaze swept over any number of severed body parts and men lying on the ground (in various states of dismemberment) as she looked over the hangar. She did not resist at all when Anakin pushed her behind him. If anything, she was eager to hide behind his broad shoulders…. It was not lost on her, of course, that she was seeking shelter from the carnage behind the man who had caused said carnage, but despite how sick the sight of it made her, she also felt relief that Anakin was okay and a strange sort of pride at what he'd done.

She'd had a cat, once, who had deposited a decapitated mouse in her bed while she slept. Maybe she was just a bit cracked by the events of the day, but that is where her mind immediately went.

A hush had fallen over the soldiers, and there seemed to be a pause in the action. She would have liked to think it was because she had almost been hit by a stray (maybe) blaster bolt and that had made them cautious. However, she was sure it had little to do with her but rather, after witnessing the Jedi tear through half their numbers in a matter of seconds and apparently teleport to block a blaster bolt ten yards away, they had realized that it was better to stop fighting him unless they wanted to die.

"Release the princess, Jedi!" came a harsh voice from somewhere in the crowd.

Cailee peeked around Anakin's arm in time to see Commander Sindian, the head of the royal guard, push his way to the front.

"Release me?" she echoed incredulously. "He's protecting me!"

Commander Sindian shifted his flinty gaze from Anakin's face to hers, which prompted Anakin to let out a sound that she could only call a growl and shift to the side to hide her from view completely.

"Your Highness," the commander addressed her, though they couldn't see each other, "he removed you from the palace without authorization and has attacked the guards who tried to return you to safety."

"He had my authorization. And they attacked him, not the other way around."

"And between me and your soldiers," cut in Anakin, a hint of dark amusement coloring the razor-sharp edge of his voice, "I'm the only one who hasn't shot a gun at her."

Cailee had to fight the urge to smile, not because it was particularly funny but because she was fairly sure that the events of the day had driven her to the verge of hysteria. But Anakin really wasn't helping the situation (and hadn't been since the moment he had decided to burst out of the speeder instead of just taking her far, far away from the palace as she had asked), so instead of laughing she reached up to pinch his side in rebuke. Not that there was much in the way of loose skin or fat for her to grasp between her fingers.

When she moved to step back around him again, Anakin let her, although the threatening energy he was giving off towards the royal guard was so oppressive that it felt almost physically tangible. Having seen some of his physical feats up close and personally, she had no doubt that he could move back in front of her before any of their eyes could register the movement, if he wanted to.

"Commander Sindian, you have grievously misunderstood the situation." Although internally she was quaking and possibly on the verge of throwing up, Cailee lifted her chin and smoothly slipped into the supercilious tone she tended to reserve for unwanted suitors, lecherous old men, and social climbers who thought they could take advantage of her. "Your men have not only needlessly attacked Knight Skywalker, but they have also attacked me."

"Your Highness—"

"I didn't say you could speak!" she snapped, at once enjoying the way the commander's mouth snapped shut and the guards shifted uncomfortably but hating to put on such a show in front of Anakin, who had made perfectly clear how unimpressed he was by her position. "Now, Knight Skywalker is going to escort me to see the empress." She made a show of letting her gaze travel over the battlefield around them, trying not to actually see anything as she did. "I think we can all agree that it would be futile for you to try to stop us."

Cailee could feel Anakin behind her, looming like an angel of death. A shiver ran down her spine. Forget her cat; this was more like what she imagined it would feel like if she had an asharl panther at her back, untamable and breathtaking in its sheer ferocity. Except that a panther would probably be less vicious and rather more merciful to its prey than Anakin Skywalker seemed to be.

She narrowed her eyes at the commander. "Do you understand? Speak!"

Even from where she was standing a clear twenty feet away from the man, Cailee could see the muscles working around his clenched jaw and his Adam's apple bobbing up and down several times. Anakin moved to stand next to her, letting his arm hang loosely by his side so that his lightsaber was pointed at the floor. There was nothing overtly threatening about the gesture, except they all knew what the Jedi was capable of. As he had demonstrated twice within the span of a half hour, he was little more than pure, unbridled destruction somehow molded into the shape of a man.

Finally, after what seemed like every emotion ranging from fear to fury had passed over Sindian's face, he bit out, "I understand, Your Highness."

The crowd who had been intent on fighting him less than a minute before now parted without resistance. In fact, there was a veritable scramble to get out of their way… or, probably, specifically, out of Anakin's way. Cailee couldn't recall them ever seeming so desperate before to avoid her as she walked by, no matter how displeased she had ever been with any of them. No, that had to be because they were afraid that Anakin would lop their hands off if they accidentally brushed her arm in passing.

The Jedi in question had one hand on the small of her back and was making a show of twirling the hilt of his lightsaber between the fingers of his other hand while actively scanning the people around them, as if he were eagerly waiting for one of them to mess up so he could take his aggression out on them.

Cailee felt unadulterated relief when they passed out of the cavernous hangar and into the familiar, somewhat narrow corridor that lead to the stairs. Until Anakin spun around so quickly that she could feel the resulting breeze rustle her hair and pushed her back against the wall, caging her between his arms.

"What were you thinking?" he snarled, his face inches from hers.

The stone wall was cool against her back, but Anakin's glare was scorching. The air around them seemed to froth and roil with energy, although from a quick glance downward it didn't appear that there were any physical signs of what she was feeling, so maybe that was just her imagination running wild. Similarly, she may have been imagining the thin gold rim around his blue irises. But given that his eyes had been fully golden when the guards had attacked them on the street, she was fairly certain at least that much was real.

"I was thinking that you were going to get yourself killed!" she cried, although it sounded completely silly to say it out loud. "And, and leave me here! Alone!"

He scoffed. "I was never in danger! You put yourself in danger!"

"Yes, that's clear now," Cailee insisted stubbornly, "but I, I couldn't let them take you away."

"YOU ALMOST GOT YOURSELF KILLED!" he roared directly into her face, his eyes blazing as the lights around them flickered.

Cailee might very well have been driven insane, but she was not afraid of him. She rather wished that he wasn't angry with her and that he wouldn't pin her in like this, but she wasn't scared.

That was why it was absolutely mortifying when her eyes welled up with tears and her mouth and hands both started trembling completely outside of her control.

She wasn't afraid—she wasn't…. At least, not of him.

She was terrified that at least one of her guards had told the assassins her plans and almost led to her death—if Anakin hadn't been there, she certainly would have died in that shop. And that a group of soldiers had tried to kidnap her right off the street while she screamed and struggled and told them to stop. And that a platoon of them, under the direction of Commander Sindian himself, had shot at the speeder she was in and then conducted a full on battle where she could have been accidentally killed in the crossfire at any time. Where she would have been shot by one of them if, again, Anakin hadn't been there.

Cailee had no choice now but to agree with Anakin's assessment that at least several members of the royal guard were involved in the assassination attempts. It wasn't that she had ever disbelieved him, exactly, but until less than an hour ago she had not been able to let herself truly accept it. The members of the royal guard had been a constant presence in her life since her birth. She had known many of the men who served on her personal detail since she was a child. She had known Commander Sindian just as long, since before he had even been made commander, because he had been part of her father's personal detail up to the day her parents had been killed.

She hated to think that any of them, especially the ones she knew personally, could be part of a conspiracy to kill her.

She absolutely hated that the only person she felt like she could trust was a man who maimed and killed like it was nothing and whom she had only met less than a week ago.

She was afraid that him maiming and killing other men in defense of her actually satisfied her, that some part of her even liked that he did it for her, that it made her trust him more.

She was terrified.

In point of fact, she was overwhelmed and completely beyond the capacity to hold herself together, now that the dam had broken. It wasn't Anakin's fault.

Anakin, however, looked utterly horrified. "Princess," he started, then paused, clearly at a loss. He dropped one of his arms from the wall and stood up straight so that he was no longer leaning over her. "Don't, please. I'm sorry."

Cailee only meant to reassure him that she wasn't frightened of him, because she found that she couldn't speak, but somehow she went from reaching out to grab his retreating form to heaving full on sobs into his chest. His body was absolutely rigid, and she was sure that if she didn't have a death grip on his sleeve and her other arm wrapped around his waist that he would have beat a hasty retreat. Whatever emerged from her throat then was neither a sob nor a giggle, but a bastardized combination of both of them that came out like a hiccup, then another.

"I'm sorry," she managed to gasp out as she let go of him.

She wasn't even sure herself if she was apologizing for having not stayed in the speeder or for having cried on him or both.

"I'm sorry for scaring you," Anakin said in a much softer tone of voice than she'd ever heard him use before.

After a moment, Cailee identified the tone as contrition. His slumped shoulders and downcast eyes matched the guilt in his voice. Cailee breathed in sharply through her nose in surprise, then release the breath as a sigh.

"You don't scare me, Skywalker," she told him firmly. His eyes, which were completely blue again, flicked up to catch hers. "I just—someone from the royal guard really is trying to kill me. And you. I'm just… overwhelmed."

He studied her face for what seemed like a long time, before he apparently decided that she was being truthful and let the extra tension flow out of his body.

"That's understandable," he allowed with a twitch at the corner of his mouth that might have blossomed into a smile if he'd let it. "If I ask you to promise me again that you'll follow my orders, will you actually mean it this time?"

Cailee offered a tired but genuine smile. "I meant it last time. And I still mean it."

Anakin rolled his eyes.


The empress had seemed small to Anakin when he had seen her sitting on her golden throne in her enormous throne room wearing a crown. Now that he was seeing her sitting behind an enormous desk that seemed to take up most of her relatively austere office, she somehow seemed even smaller. She was a positively tiny woman, even smaller than Padmé and slightly shrunken with advanced old age. Unfortunately, neither her size nor the bright yellow dress she was wearing nor even the fact that she was sitting in an office with hideously mismatched chairs that clashed terribly with the rug and wallpaper (Anakin's was floral, Cailee's checkered) made her any less intimidating a figure.

"Will you do me the immense favor, General Skywalker," she began in a horrible, perfectly level tone once Cailee had finished talking, "of explaining exactly what you were thinking when you took the crown princess out of the palace without telling anyone?"

He was reminded of any number of times when Obi-Wan had asked him what he'd been thinking in just such a cool tone devoid of any emotion other than disappointment and, maybe, exasperation. It was probably his sheer amount of practice at being the subject of someone's unclouded disappointment that allowed him to meet her eyes with a proud gaze and a slightly lifted chin.

Well, that and also the unbridled power still thrumming through every cell of his body and the knowledge that, no matter her rank or the power she had over billions of people or what kind of accusing eyes she turned on him, he could murder her in an instant in at least five different ways without so much as twitching an eyebrow. And in any number of other ways if he even mildly exerted himself. He knew, in some dim corner of his mind that sounded disturbingly like Obi-Wan, that these weren't the types of things he should be thinking about, but it was difficult to take anything else seriously when the Force was broiling right there under his skin just begging him to use it.

Anakin blinked and forcibly turned his attention back to the empress. "I was thinking that she would be safest if her movements were not generally known to the palace guard. Or anyone else."

Empress Elissa's stern expression did not flicker. "We can all see how well that worked out."

"It worked out just fine," Anakin insisted, not bothering to color his tone with pretend deference. "We learned that information is definitely being leaked from the palace, if the assassins aren't part of the palace staff themselves."

"You can't know that with certainty!" the empress cried, her mask of perfect calmness slipping for the first time since he had met her.

Anakin really did understand and empathize with the empress's (and the princess's and the commander's) unwillingness to believe that anyone in the palace could have anything to do with trying to murder the princess. However, at this point, after he had been proven correct again and again beyond any shadow of doubt, he was starting to move beyond compassion and into frustration at the palace's general unwillingness to just let him do his job.

Anakin squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would help him focus and hold back the constant bombardment of the Force against his mental shields. He still hadn't managed to coil the excess power back up and stuff it back in the transparisteel box in his mind where he'd always kept it. It was taking every shred of self control he possessed to keep himself in check, and his anger definitely wasn't helping.

Force, he was such a failure. The only reason he was even here on Arkanis was because he had scared his wife so badly that she'd asked for a separation, and Anakin had distrusted his own ability to regulate his emotions so much that he'd begged and cajoled his way into this mission just to get away from the other Jedi. And no matter what the princess claimed, he was positive that he had frightened her as well—he'd manhandled her and yelled at her because he'd been afraid that she would die on his watch, and he'd channeled his fear into anger. Like he always did. And now he was struggling not to accidentally hurt the fucking Empress of the Regency Worlds just because he was annoyed with her.

Anakin let out a breath through his nose and opened his eyes. "I can tell you that the bomb was planted at the dress shop before we got there. It wasn't a missile or grenade from the outside."

Before he could continue, Empress Elissa interrupted, "How do you know?"

Anakin struggled to control the expression on his face.

"I spend most of my time fighting people who can move faster than human eyes can see, deflecting blaster bolts, and piloting ships through literal laser canon fire. I can sense when something is coming at me," he told her flatly. The empress's face took on a look that he couldn't readily identify, and Cailee turned in her seat to face him, though neither spoke. When it seemed apparent that neither of them would interrupt him, he continued, "Also I couldn't sense the bomb until the last second, so either someone knows about my abilities and made a bomb with no electronics to avoid me sensing it or this is the biggest coincidence I've ever seen."

Cailee and the empress maintained their silence after he had finished speaking. The empress was studying him with an expression that he might have called neutral or even bland, if not for the way her intelligent blue eyes were sparking with anger. Cailee was alternating between looking between Anakin and her grandmother and staring at her hands, which she was worrying in her lap, her fingers tapping out a pattern against her thighs.

After long seconds had passed, the empress eventually decided, "Well, it seems that we have no choice but to accept your analysis. What do you recommend we do about it?"

"You can start by making it clear that I am the only authority on matters of the princess's protection," he replied immediately, "and that I have free reign to investigate the assassination attempts and question anyone I need to question. I'd also suggest making it clear to Sindian and the royal guard that from now on I'm going to kill anyone who points a blaster at me, especially if the princess is next to me, which she will be, given that she'll be lucky if I let her out of arm's reach until this is over."

"Very well," agreed Empress Elissa, although based on her pursed lips he could guess that she was not pleased.

"And the princess can't attend the jubilee," he added.

He glanced over at Cailee with the most apologetic look he could muster. Her mouth tightened in an almost identical way to her grandmother's, but she nodded her acceptance nonetheless. Honestly, she looked too exhausted to argue even if she had wanted to.

Empress Elissa interrupted the moment between them by asking, "You are certain that there is no way to protect her if she attends?"

"Yes," Anakin replied immediately.

"Very well," the empress said again. Something like defeat passed across her wrinkled face.


Obi-Wan was not having a good day. As he had predicted, Senator Amidala had been irate when he hadn't been able to give her Anakin's new com frequency, and she had not believed for even a second that Anakin hadn't given it to Obi-Wan. He realized, with no small amount of frustration, that his own attempt to convince Padmé to stop seeking Anakin out had destroyed any credibility he may have had in her eyes. Her fury had dissolved into despondency almost as soon as it had appeared, and Obi-Wan had been banished from her room. He had spent the rest of the flight back to Coruscant worrying over both her health and also his own continued health if he couldn't figure out how to explain any of this to Anakin.

He had intended to escort the senator to the hospital himself, but he had barely taken one step onto the landing platform when the clone medic had informed him that he wasn't wanted. (The man had seemed a bit reluctant to deliver the message to his general, but based on the power of Padmé's glare even from thirty feet away, Obi-Wan didn't blame him for delivering it anyway.)

And now, instead of a normal meeting where he would report on the events of Scipio and the Council would discuss their next moves, he had walked into something entirely different. At the grim looks most of his fellow Masters were giving him and the absolutely furious expression on Mace's face, Obi-Wan could easily do the math.

"What has he done?" he asked, bypassing the normal greetings altogether.

Mace's frown somehow became even more severe than before, which was not a good sign. "He publicly attacked members of the Arkanis palace guard."

Obi-Wan's mouth dropped open of its own accord. "He what?"

"There is a hologram," broke in Plo Koon, likely to redirect them before Mace could work himself into a proper fury. "Multiple holograms, as I understand it, which have all become quite popular on the holonet. Perhaps we should watch them before we jump to any conclusions?"

Obi-Wan numbly found his chair as Saesee Tiin fiddled with the projector. Master Yoda caught his eye as he took his seat, and although Obi-Wan was desperate to see something of hope or encouragement in the Grandmaster's face, he was inscrutable.

The hologram began with a shaky view panning across a field of debris—pieces of stone, bits of flaming wood, dead bodies and severed limbs. There was no sound, but the image was enough. Obi-Wan would never understand the morbid fascination so many people had with death, to the point where they would even record it and strangers a galaxy away would view it. The hologram panned up to take in various first responders milling about or staring at the scene around them, illuminated by the flashing lights of their ships, and then, finally, to center of the destruction. A storefront near the middle of the block appeared to have exploded outwards in all directions, leaving an empty space surrounded by mangled masonry and timber from the damaged buildings on either side. The walls and roof were blazing furiously and in the process of collapsing inward.

Just when Obi-Wan was beginning to wonder what this could possibly have to do with Anakin attacking anyone, the picture abruptly turned to the left and shakily zoomed in on the center of the void where the ruined shop used to be.

A figure emerged from inside the void, moving slowly and deliberately across the uneven rubble. It stumbled once and recovered, then staggered painfully down the incline of broken stone towards the littered sidewalk, and Obi-Wan found himself leaning forward in his seat as if those extra few inches would help him see better. It was Anakin, and he was carrying someone bridal style out of the burning building.

Obi-Wan's heart hammered a heavy pattern against his breastbone. Had they been inside the building when it had blown up? How had they survived?

The members of the High Jedi Council watched in silence as Anakin continued determinedly across the street, speeding up now that he was on relatively even ground and seeming not to notice the various rescue and law enforcement personnel who were attempting to swarm him and bouncing comically off an invisible barrier.

Had he held up a barrier—a Force barrier capable of surviving an explosion—the entire time?

Obi-Wan felt like he might fall into a coma just imagining the amount of power and energy it would have taken to sustain such a thing under such circumstances.

The person filming the hologram zoomed in as close as they were likely able to show Anakin having a seemingly tender moment with the person he'd rescued, and then the view wavered uncontrollably for a moment, as if the person holding the recorder had dropped it, before it traveled back up to land firmly on the face of the crown princess of the Regency Worlds. Her face was covered in soot and half obscured by her hair, but Obi-Wan could tell immediately that it was her, even though he'd only studied her picture briefly when reviewing the mission dossier.

When the hologram zoomed back out, Anakin had collapsed bonelessly onto the hood of a speeder, his legs dangling off the front and one of his arms hanging limply off the side. His other arm was being held prisoner in the princess's lap, as the girl hovered slightly over him with a concerned expression on her face. His eyes were closed and he was taking great, deep breaths that inflated his entire belly, as if he had long been deprived of oxygen.

Then everything went to shit.

Truly, Anakin must have been exactly as exhausted as Obi-Wan assumed one would be after holding such a strong Force barrier for so long, because he didn't appear to have noticed the approaching soldiers until they were practically on top of him. He knew—he hoped—that his former Padawan would have tried to escape or at least to negotiate if he had noticed the danger in enough time. He also knew, as did the rest of the Council if the general reactions around him were anything to judge by, that as soon as one of the members of the royal guard seized the princess any hope of a peaceful resolution was over.

He hadn't expected Anakin to Force choke the man, though. And that was obviously what he was doing. The gesture Anakin was making may have been interpreted as something else if the Council were being particularly generous, but the way the soldier dropped the princess to grasp at his throat left no room for question.

Obi-Wan watched the rest of the recording in something of a disbelieving fog.

Why? Why would he do something like that?

It was clear that his actions until that point had been beyond heroic—impressive even, even to Obi-Wan, who had long since grown used to Anakin achieving impossible feats with seemingly more ease than most Jedi could deflect a simple blaster bolt. Obi-Wan was sure that even Master Windu wouldn't have been able to deny that he was proud of Anakin if it had ended there. Even the fight with the royal guard did not appear to be Anakin's fault, since they had snuck up on him when he was clearly given out from his earlier use of the Force and had compounded their error by trying to take away the person he was supposed to be protecting. (And Obi-Wan wasn't an idiot, so he didn't waste a moment thinking that Anakin wouldn't have made his mission personal when it involved a young, pretty damsel in distress.)

Using the dark side of the Force, though… Well, that was not something most members of the Council were going to abide or ignore or forgive, no matter why he'd done it or what incredible strength in the light side of the Force he may have displayed mere seconds prior.

That didn't mean Obi-Wan wouldn't at least try to defend him. He mentally and physically braced himself and lifted his eyes from the hologram, which had started back from the beginning, to survey his fellow High Council members. Yoda's ears had slightly drooped, but otherwise he looked as calm as ever. Mace was already glaring at Obi-Wan as if he expected the defense to come and was just waiting for what he'd say. Tinn looked unsurprised and unimpressed, whereas Ki-Adi-Mundi, Shaak Ti, and Kit Fisto looked surprised and impressed and also vaguely ill. Plo Koon caught his eye and offered a faint nod, and Obi-Wan was grateful that he had at least one ally.

The larger probem was that, whatever the Council decided to do, he was almost certain that Anakin was not going to accept it.