Disclaimer: I do not own The Clone Wars or these characters.

A/N: Requested by/volunteered for my friend dyingsighs on tumblr. I was originally going to do a couple of random one-shots, but then decided I'd rather make it more structured, so I decided on 3 chapters so I could better show their respective POVs at the same point in the timeline. This first one takes place during "Deception." I plan to have this fic complete within the next couple of days; the past few weeks have been a totally crazy kind of hectic.

Nothing cements the idea of my best friend is dead quite like a funeral pyre.

It was one thing for all the warmth and life to go out of them, leaving only a shell that contained nothing of them, however much it might look like them.

It was quite another for someone who had just yesterday been warm and solid and there and Master to suddenly be reduced to tiny particles of ash that could be scattered with the softest breath and never all recovered.

No, never recovered.

He had not expected to be this empty.

Anakin knew himself, and he knew he was more mature than many on the Council often gave him credit for (though if he was being honest with himself, a little less defiance and a little more control would probably go a long way to proving that), but even he was surprised.

It had been different when his mother died.

A hole in my soul where the suns used to be.

He had expected pain and rage. Red and black in his vision and the sapphire blade in motion, now too much an extension of himself as it exploded with the destructive force of the sorrow of one who loves too deeply to be allowed to carry such a weapon peacefully.

He had expected nights lying awake again, at the horror that was a blur, a blur of pain and rage and I killed children. Desperate nights, lonely nights desperately trying and failing to remember each one because surely he must owe them at least that much.

But this. This wasn't right.

Not that he expected it to feel right, as such. His mother's death had hardly felt right.

But this. This didn't even feel real.

What did they expect? The ones who were talking. The ones who worried. Tears and revenge? Loud and awkward and uncomfortable and demanding to be heard, demanding to be comforted, a typically-Anakin kind of grief?

Maybe if another hole had been ripped out of his heart, then yes.

But there couldn't be Anakin-shaped grief until there was an Obi-Wan-shaped hole.

And he couldn't feel it, not yet, even though, logically, he knew it must be there.

So he ignored the talks and whispers about how disturbing his behavior was and watched the pyre-stone sink beneath the floor of the funeral chamber, and knew that soon there would be nothing but ash. Ash that can scatter, lost forever and never recovered.

No, never recovered.

He dreamed of his Master's death for the first time in years on the third night in prison and he was not quite sure why now, of all times.

The realization struck him in the cafeteria on the fourth day, and he cursed himself for not making the connection sooner, even as the old ache crept back up into his lungs and squeezed. Squeezed so hard he feared his ribs would break from the pressure and the whole mission would be for naught. Even so, he was forced to tuck his face into the crook of an elbow and fake a coughing fit brought on by the horrible food, to give himself time to furiously blink the tears away.

Tears? He was stronger than that.

Wasn't he?

It was a pain he'd learned to live with – and then learned to live without. Learned to go about his business – about the joy and pain and endless days of living – free of guilt for not being sad enough. But he'd never be quite the same Obi-Wan that he was before Qui-Gon died.

Never quite as mischievous – not so much of a clever-boots, not anymore. Never quite as curious. Never quite as open, and much, much more polite.

It wasn't that he minded this Obi-Wan, the now one. But there were times when he remembered the little differences that had been stolen from him, the little joys and the simple fun that would never be recovered.

No, never recovered.

His stomach really did rebel against the toxic prison food this time with a sickening wave of what have I done?

He had been more than reluctant to take on this task, but, at the time, his thought process had leant more towards how it wasn't fair to Anakin to put him through this sort of emotional turmoil just to get a believable reaction.

He'd thought the worst that might happen would be a bit of a temporary loss of trust. It would be painful and awkward and he would probably be guilty for years to come about the whole business, but it would pass, and then everything would be the same.

Except that it wouldn't be the same, if the crucial cornerstone of Obi-Wan's everything wasn't the same.

That night he thought about what he'd lost, and he couldn't stop himself from shaking at what little (but not really little, no) pieces he might still lose.

He imagined a soldier who was less easygoing and friendly with his men.

A strategist and mechanic who was suddenly less creative and more conventional with the way he fixed things, be they engines or enemies.

A young man who was less inclined to stand up for himself against unfairly harsh criticism, who was less insistent that his voice be heard.

A boy whose sheer childlike delight in the wonder of flight was suddenly somehow less-than-perfect. Oh Force no not that anything but that.

What might he lose that might never be recovered?

No, never recovered?