Each step carried Obi-Wan over a corpse. He was trembling, muscles locked in horror, as he worked his way toward the end of the hall. He couldn't make himself look down. He couldn't live with knowing who was dead.

Before, the temple had been a place of serenity and warmth. Now it was cold, empty, and stained with death. The Force itself was wounded there, like someone had ripped a hole in a tapestry with their bare hands.

The screams still echoed. He could feel them, the cries of fear and pain and desperation, ringing through the Force more clearly than if they had just been voiced. Images assaulted his mind. A Jedi, telling her padawan to run, don't look back, leave me, go, then turning around and taking five blaster shots to the chest. A young knight, pleading with one of the clone troopers. I'm not going to fight you Nines, wake up, it's me, Nines, please, wake up, it's me. Two Masters, guarding the crèche, their lifeless bodies falling and dooming the children inside, their last thoughts of the young ones who would die shortly after them. A newly chosen padawan, locked and hidden in a stranger's quarters, feeling the loss of his master and the death of ten thousand Jedi, falling on his own 'saber instead of entering a fruitless battle.

The Dark came in waves, growing stronger with each one, like the tide before a storm. He was breaking in it, breaking under the oppressive strength, and he could feel the few points of Light left in the universe flicker out, one after another.

Thousands of Jedi had already perished, but the carnage hadn't ended. No, now it had become a sick, nightmarish hunt. The clones were tracking the survivors, the ones who had escaped the initial massacre, and hardly five minutes went by without another death rippling through the Force.

His stilted journey to the end of the great hall was put to an abrupt end when his foot caught on a body. He fell, hands and knees slamming against the stone floor next to the corpse. Obi-Wan stared into its empty eyes, bile rising in his throat. Whoever they were, they had been young. Certainly not old enough to have completed more than their first year of knighthood.

There wasn't enough air. He was gasping desperately, fruitlessly, and death was clinging to his skin and sliding into his lungs, filling him until all he could take in was the smell of burned skin and scorched stone.

An aged green hand descended onto his shoulder. "Breathe, padawan. Good for you, air is."

Obi-Wan's hands formed claws against the ground, his head lowered. Breathe. He needed to breathe. Sith, he was shaking.

"Lost, all is not."

The realization that it was Yoda next to him gradually sank in. Only the Grandmaster still called him "padawan." Something that in a different situation would have been relief washed over him. Yoda was alive. That, at least, had not changed.

Gratefully seizing on the distraction, Obi-Wan inhaled and forced himself to speak. "Who did this? Who could have done such a thing?"

There was silence. Then, "Speak to you, I must."

Obi-Wan raised his head. The elder Jedi stared down at him, grief etched into his face. "Finish what you came here for, we should. Linger, we must not. Come, padawan."

Obi-Wan rose, guided by the hand on his shoulder. They walked through the temple, passing dead troopers and Jedi alike. This time he forced himself to look at each face, committing it to memory. He was alive, he owed it to the ones who were not to remember. It wasn't like anyone else in the galaxy would; even then Palpatine's minions were scrubbing the holonet of all mentions of the Jedi.

They made it to the temple library. Yoda stepped aside while Obi-Wan added his recording to the archives. Dazed, the young Master set it to broadcast on a loop. Never had he thought to be there, risking his life by sneaking into the Temple, his home, to place a warning for all other Jedi to stay away.

"Hidden the signal well, have you?"

Obi-Wan nodded, finishing and sliding the new recording into a slot amongst the others. "It… it should take the clones quite a while to find this." He turned toward the security tapes.

Yoda grabbed his arm, stopping him with an unreadable expression. "Find nothing but pain, you will, if into the security tapes, you go."

Obi-Wan didn't ask how anything could possibly add to his pain, great as it was. He closed his eyes. "I have to know who did this."

Yoda let go, but he could still sense the Grand Master's eyes on his back as he moved forward and called up the security tapes.

He watched the massacre in numbness, fast-forwarding to a point where he could see the Sith's face, and-

Oh.

Oh.

He stumbled back, shaking his head. "No," he rasped. "No, it can't be."

He wanted to deny it. He wanted to say it wasn't real, that it was just one more of Palpatine's machinations, but he could feel it in the Force, could see it in his memories, in the tiny things that he had dismissed at the time but now realized were so important.

Anakin.

It was Anakin. Anakin was the Sith. It was Anakin who had led the slaughter, it was Anakin who had murdered his way through the temple, Anakin who had Fallen, Anakin, his padawan, his brother…

A horrible, broken noise ripped itself from his chest.

Yoda had been right. This pain was far worse than what he had felt before.

Obi-Wan didn't remember much besides images after that: Yoda's expression as he denied Obi-Wan the chance to go after Palpatine instead of Anakin, Padme's hand pressed protectively to her stomach as she desperately denied what she knew to be true, the white armor stationed on every street of Coruscant, the holovid of the Senate cheering as Palpatine declared himself the emperor.

Then there was Mustafar. As long as he lived, that place would stick to the deepest parts of him. The fire-falls, burning their way through the planet, the volcanic gasses poisoning the air, the coldness of the Force, it would never go away, never wash out from his soul.

That duel was the worst of the Sith-hells. The ash from the flames thickened his lungs, but it was the sting of betrayal and guilt that crushed his chest and made it hard to breathe. How could he have not seen? He had sworn to look after Anakin, to train him and protect him, and yet he had managed to loose his padawan to the Dark. Anakin, the bright boy who had always been eager to learn, who had been sweet, kind, and so determined to do right.

When Obi-Wan left the planet, carrying Padme's prone form, his padawan's scream of "I hate you!" was still ringing through his head. Force, how had he failed so badly? If he had payed more attention to Anakin, hadn't dismissed the occasional outbursts of anger as temporary frustrations, had focused less on his own Council duties, everything would have been avoided. If he had tried a little more, if he had been less selfish and stupid, Anakin would have been comfortable enough to talk to him instead of feeling compelled to confide in Palpatine.

After placing Padme in the private med bay, Obi-Wan entered the coordinates for Naboo. He stared out at distant stars, unseeing, as the ship left Mustafar and entered hyper-space. He crossed his arms, digging his fingers into his ribs. It had been his fault.

Anakin had Fallen, and it was his fault.

The temple, strewn with bodies, flashed through his mind.

Obi-Wan jerked, lashing out at the pilot's chair. His foot connected, and the seat gave a violent crack before tumbling sideways. He stared at it for a moment, willing the images to leave his head.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi."

He whipped around, drawing his 'saber. Somehow, there was a stranger behind him, hidden by the shadows of the ship.

"Who are you?" he snarled. "How did you get on board?" He sank into a fighting stance. After all the events that had passed, he was not inclined to believe that a stowaway was benevolent.

The stranger raised a hand. "Peace. I am not here to cause you harm." The words pulsed through the air, reverberated in his bones.

"Who are you?" he repeated, stepping forward.

The stranger mirrored his actions, gliding into the light. It appeared to be a humanoid male, but its eyes were old, far older than any creature could ever be, and the Force stilled where it passed through the thing. Obi-Wan felt a ghost of air travel down his spine.

"You met me once, a long time ago. If all goes well, you will meet me again."

"That's not an answer."

"No. But it is all there is time for. I am weak, and cannot last here much longer. I fear the only advice I may give is this: keep a vow of silence. No one can know the truth, or my son will have the power to undue it all."

The creature glided forward and raised a hand. "Remember, if you succeed, you will be able to prevent everything."

Obi-Wan backpedaled. The Force was convulsing, strands of it waning and waxing with each step the stranger took, but he was too slow, too tired, and its palm landed on his forehead before he could escape.

He fell into black.

Obi-Wan woke slowly.

"Padawan!"

Something was wrong. He couldn't… there was something important happening, something bad…

"Are you okay? What happened? Open the door!"

Blearily, he realized that his Force-connection felt dull. Huh. Maybe Palpatine had found him. Obi-Wan thought he'd remember getting captured and drugged with a suppressant, but apparently not.

"Obi-Wan!

He flexed his limbs experimentally, relieved when it turned out they weren't chained down. Not captured, then.

Abruptly, the door to the room slammed open. "Padawan!"

His head jerked up, pupils dilating.

The Force encircled Obi-Wan's body, cradling his frozen form, whispering that what he was currently seeing was real, that it wasn't an illusion, that it was truly Qui-Gon Jinn standing in the doorway.

"Obi-Wan, what's wrong? Are you okay? Your life-signature flickered."

"…Master?"