As always, thank you for all of the kind words! Sorry for the long delay - I hope the wait was worth it!

Night on Coruscant was never truly dark. Lights from passing speeders, lights from homes of the hundreds upon millions of inhabitants of the city-planet, polluted the darkness so much that even in the middle of the night, it was almost like day. Normally, Anakin pulled his curtains shut tight; sleep was so illusive at times that he did any little thing he could (short of taking meds without them being forced into him by a Healer or, he thought ruefully, a high-handed Padawan) to capture it.

Right now, though, the last thing he wanted was darkness. Standing on the balcony outside of his small apartment, arms crossed over his chest, he stared out at the bustling city-scape. Normally when he was on Coruscant, he spent the time with Padme. Tonight, though, she was in meetings and he was too drained to wait for her. Tomorrow, he promised himself. He would go see her tomorrow, and would see her every day until he was called back to the war.

It was like this every time. Each time he was recalled back to the Capital, he spirited away, eager to spend time with the woman who meant more to him than life itself. Each time, he drew out their time together as much as he could, wishing that he would not have to inevitably leave her.

Still, there was something inside of him that craved being out in the field. Too long in on place and he began to get antsy, began to feel uncomfortable in his own skin. Too long without action, and he always found himself getting into trouble of one kind or another. Sometimes Padme's presence helped, but even when they were together he sometimes felt like he was a thousand light-years away. He wasn't sure how to fix that. He didn't want to be at war, but the thought of being sedentary in the Temple was even worse.

He'd often entertained thoughts of what would happen when the war was over. When the war was over, he and Padme could reveal their relationship, and he could take what punishment came without fear that doing so would mean doom for the Republic. He might have to leave the Order, and as often as he fantasized about such a future, it also filled him with a kind of unnameable dread. Being a Jedi was all he'd ever wanted, but he was sure that being married to Padme, openly and without fear of reprisal, was something he wanted just as badly. He knew he could not have both, and that bothered him.

It bothered him, too, that he was still thinking about what had happened to his men. It didn't bother him that he felt compassion for them, but it bothered him that he didn't know for certain what happened. It bothered him that he was still shying away from the dark, that his finely-honed reflexes would not allow him to calm down. It bothered him that he had no idea what had happened in the dark recesses of the planet, and had no idea if his men were dead or alive.

He assumed dead, but he wasn't sure. They'd been taken alive, he knew that much. Even through the haze of pain and the confusion of the escape, he'd been able to sense them in the Force, still alive, even as he'd been hoisted out of the pit. Whether they remained so was a different question, and one he couldn't seem to put out of his mind.

Letting out a long breath, Anakin turned on his heel and stalked back into his apartment. It seemed so empty, so lacking any personal touches. It was the apartment he'd been assigned once he was Knighted, until that time he'd lived with Obi-Wan, and almost all of his things were still there. A Jedi did not have possessions, but they did tend to accumulate things over the course of their lives. Anakin, too, atypical of the Jedi ideal, had never quite been able to cast of the desire to own. Model starships, datapads, pieces of machinery, all found their way into his room at one point or another. He had never been on Coruscant, and not at Padme's, for long enough to move it all into his own living quarters.

He knew Obi-Wan didn't mind. Oh, the older man pretended that he minded, complained about tripping over this or that piece of detrius that he claimed Anakin should have gotten rid of ages ago, but it was always with that twinkle in his eye, that glimmering mirth that Obi-Wan hid from almost everyone. Everyone except Anakin, anyway.

He glanced at the chrono on the wall, trying to decide if it was too late to seek out his former Master, to try and have him help make some sense of the jumbled feelings floating through Anakin's mind. No, it was too late. Obi-Wan had experienced a lifetime of Anakin waking him up in the dead of night because of this premonition or that nightmare. No, he could handle this himself.

He found himself wandering the Temple, quiet at this time of night, winding up in the vaulted Archives. While never a very good student, Anakin did value knowledge, and he hoped to find something that might give him some insight as to what had happened. If anywhere in the galaxy had information about the below ground creatures, the Jedi Archives would. After all, didn't Jocasta Nu always say, "If something does not appear in our records, it does not exist"? Kamino had proven her wrong in that respect, but only because she was right and the Jedi had become complacent.

Pulling a face at the path his thoughts were taking, Anakin seated himself in front of one of the data terminals lining the hall. There was nobody else in the Archives that he could see, though he was sure if he went looking he could find Master Sinube dozing over some ancient text or other. Still, he preferred the solitude.

He started by pulling up the database entry on the planet, looking over topographical maps, lists of native flora and fauna, and found nothing. He continued deeper, pulling up charts of seismic activity, realizing as he read that the planet seemed to be somewhat seismically unstable, experiencing massive, planet-wide earthquakes every few dozen years. Furrowing his brow, Anakin realized that this was evidence that the tunnels he'd found were not simply isolated to the area he'd seen, that they perhaps encompassed the entire planet.

He knew planets like that existed, hollow planets, planets with oceans at their cores. Planets like Utapau, where he'd never been, but had to read about as a Padawan. It wasn't so out of the ordinary, really. But, unlike Utapau, where the residents clearly and obviously lived within the massive sinkholes that dotted the planet's surface, this planet did not seem to have any official record of anything living below the surface, nor did it have anything explicitly stating there were tunnels throughout the whole of the interior of the planet.

He decided to set aside the "official" record. Traveling the universe with Obi-Wan Kenobi, he'd picked up a few things. Specifically, if you wanted to learn about the planet, read its folklore. So that is what he found himself doing, after a few fits and starts to find exactly what he was looking for.

They were called dran'golium inthe native tongue, monster in Galactic Basic. Snatching children from their beds, leaving their own children in return, creeping up from the depths to sow havoc. There were no official reports, no holographs, just legend upon legend from ages ago. When he realized there was nothing more recent than the Russan Reformation, he tried again. Folklore and stories continued to be told in more modern times, of course, but now there was no mention of the dran'golium. Now they spoke of a plague.

Anakin was so wrapped up in the stories that he didn't sense Obi-Wan's presence behind him until the older man had laid a hand on his shoulder. Buried in a plague-text that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, Anakin jumped, flushing deep embarrassment when Obi-Wan laughed at him - outright laughed at him!

Soon enough, his former Master sobered. "I was surprised to find you here," he admitted ruefully. "Force knows I always assumed I'd have to drag you in here kicking and screaming." He pulled up a chair beside Anakin and peered at the terminal. "Sometimes," he said, "there are no answers."

Anakin shook his head vehemently. There were answers, he knew there were, there had to be, because he wanted there to be. "Before the texts change, they talk about the creatures bringing men down to serve as chattel. As... slaves." He spit the word out, always so ugly in his mouth. "My men are still alive, Obi-Wan." He was sure of it, like he'd been sure he'd become a Jedi, like he'd been sure he'd marry Padme, like he was sure he would bring the Republic to victory. His instincts were never, ever wrong.

"You can't be sure," Obi-Wan, always pragmatic, replied. "And besides, what can you do if they are?" It sounded like he already knew the answer.

Anakin bowed his head, a plan forming even as he spoke. "I go back there," he said, voice barely a growled whisper, "I go back there, and I save them."

Obi-Wan sighed. "Oh, Anakin." He put a hand on Anakin's knee, laid the other against Anakin's cheek. "When will you learn?"

"That I can't save everyone?" Anakin finished for him, sharply, frowning. "I led them down there, Master." The old honorific, retired except in times like these, times when he still felt like a little boy, despite how sure he was of his path. "If they're still alive, I owe it to them..."

Obi-Wan withdrew his gentle touch, hand moving to his beard. "And you would go alone?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Anakin swallowed. "If I had to."

Looking down at the floor, Obi-Wan seemed to make a decision. "Would you object to some company?" he asked, sounding surprised with himself.

Anakin's jaw dropped. "Master, you can't be serious." He hadn't even really thought it through, was acting, as he always did, on pure emotion.

"Anakin, whatever happened to your men is in danger of happening to the other inhabitants of that planet," Obi-Wan pointed out. "Perhaps it is up to the Jedi to make sure that does not happen."

"And the Council?" Anakin asked, still a little shocked at Obi-Wan's offer, at his willingness to follow Anakin on some crazy idealistic crusade.

Obi-Wan shrugged slightly. "Mace and Yoda happen to agree with me."

Anakin felt like he was going to leap out of his chair. "How'd you pull that off?" he asked, resisting the urge to kiss Obi-Wan, so glad he was that he was being given this chance. So often the Council chastised him for acting without thinking, for putting people before ideals, for disregarding the Code when his heart told him something different.

"I have my secrets," Obi-Wan replied, standing and holding out a hand to Anakin. "Come now," he said, "we have a mission to plan."