Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars.

Warnings: Slash. You have been warned. Don't like don't read.

Obi-Wan's heart was-for the lack of a better word-breaking.

Standing on his precarious lava skiff, bracing himself for support and surrounded by molten rock, the only thing that was going through his mind was that it wasn't supposed to be this way. His padawan-his padawan-wasn't supposed to have killed countless younglings and Jedi in a heartless act of insurrection. Anakin was the Chosen One, Qui-Gon had said so, and he had hardly ever known his former Master to be wrong. His soul ached at the thought of how many countless times he had sent his young padawan to speak with Chancellor Palpatine unaccompanied, how he had ignored the obvious unrest that had begun to fester in Anakin's facial expressions and words. He hadn't trained him for this….hadn't brought him up to become the one who would lead the fall of the Jedi. Blocking another viscious swing from his opponent's light saber, Obi-Wan tried to reign in the despair that was threatening to overcome his concentration. Anikin's face was a mask of vicious focus, his eyes devoid of anything that might herald the presence of the loyal Jedi that had once been.

"I have failed you Anakin, I have failed you!" he shouted as they were thrust away from each other by a volcanic rock that jutted out of the water like an ominous spear.

"I should have known the Jedi were planning to take over!" was the furious response.

"Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil!" Obi-Wan fumed. "Why can't you see that?! He played on the fears he knew you had!" The dark, fevered light in his apprentice's eyes faded for a moment, and Anakin teetered on his droid collector as his focus was thrown. Seeing his opportunity, the older Jedi pressed him further. "Think! You told him everything about yourself! Your dreams, your worries-" he threw his saber up to block a vicious upspray of lava. "-He knows everything about you, and he'll tell you anything to convince you that he's on your side but he is not!"

"You're lying!"

"I've known you since you were a little boy!" the older Jedi cried. "I practically raised you! I love you like a brother, you know me! Why in the world would I fall victim to something like this fabricated overthrow that Palpatine has poisoned your mind with?!"

"He's the only one who can help me save Padme!" Anakin said, his voice cracking as his mood shifted into hysterics. Slowly, his light saber was beginning to lower itself as his resolve waned. "Together, we're going to find a way to help people not to die, so there won't be anymore suffering and pain!"

"Oh, Anakin" Obi-wan said tiredly. "There's never been anyone who could avoid death in the end. Palpatine fears death, just as you do. I have told you and Yoda has told you, the people who leave us are absorbed into the Force, they are never truly gone. Someday, I'll die too, and so will you. We can't stop it, it's a natural process."

As he spoke, his skiff bumped into the blackened edge of a high lava bend slope. Quickly, he threw himself away from the stifling hot waters and brought up his light saber in preparation for defense. The attack never came. Anakin remained standing on the droid collector, his face blank and devoid of emotion. Around him, the fires of Mustafar raged, throwing a strange and unearthly halo about his deceptively thin frame. Then, as if waking from a terrible dream, the young man's face crumbled into an expression of utter agony. His light saber fell out of his hand and onto the bank, sheathing itself automatically. Anakin's lifted his hands in front of him, palms facing his visage, the look on his face practically suggesting that they were drenched in blood. Summoning the Force, Obi-Wan curled his fingers subtly, watching as his Palawan's former light saber flew into his outstretched palm. Tucking the item into the holster in his tunic, he returned his gaze to the conflicted individual before him.

"It's too late" Anakin muttered, almost to himself. "What I've done…it can't be forgiven. Nobody in their right mind would let me within arm's reach of a light saber ever again."

Obi-Wan stepped forward cautiously, aware that even though the younger man was disarmed, he was no less dangerous.

"You have committed terrible crimes against the People and the Jedi alike" he said tonelessly. "Yoda himself has ordered your death."

"Then do it" Anakin said harshly, meeting his eyes for the first time. "Kill me. I welcome it."

"It is against the Jedi Code to kill an unarmed individual" Obi-Wan murmured, raising his hand once more.

Anakin's eyes rolled back into his head as the Sleep Command his former Master had enacted took its full effect. Obi-Wan barely managed to catch him before he fell backwards into the fiery inferno that was a river of lava. Summoning what strength he had left, he dragged the young man's prone form onto the rocky bank, taking a moment to ensure that he would stay asleep while he fetched the still-unconscious Padme from the landing platform and transferred her to the star skiff's medical suite via Med Unit. He then used the same Med Unit to get Anakin, and placed him in the small but functional holding cell just off the cockpit. Once he was sure that everything was as secure as it could be, he instructed C-3PO to take off, but to only fly as far as to be away from any planetary sensors. Soon, Mustafar was nothing but a distant speck on the radar, disappearing as the plant exceeded the navigational proximity detector's maximum scope.

Only then did Obi-Wan sit back and put his head in his hands, taking a deep breath and centering himself in order to determine the best course of action. Padme needed immediate medical attention that neither the medical droid aboard the ship nor he could provide. Anakin needed help and healing of a kind that he wasn't sure he could accomplish on his own, if it was possible at all. Still, he was almost sure that Yoda would want to put Anakin in a cell and throw away the key. Part of him whispered that he deserved it, that his actions had led him to this point, and it was time for the young man to learn the consequences of his actions without his Master shielding him from the woes of the world. Still, yet another, more traitorous part of himself whispered that Anakin was tortured and hurting. He was deceived and manipulated and what he needed was peace, friendship, and perhaps some time away from the life of the Jedi.

"To bring criminals to justice, the responsibility of a Jedi is" Yoda's voice whispered in his mind.

"Oh, Qui-Gon" Obi-Wan murmured. "What would you do if you were here?" R2-D2 beeped something that sounded vaguely sympathetic, but the weary Jedi Master didn't deign to acknowledge the little droid. His resolve strengthening, he busied himself inserting coordinates that would coincide with what he was planning. "3PO, plot a course to Vortex" he said roughly. "We need another ship."

"Are you sure about this, Master Kenobi?" the protical droid commented. "Miss Padme appears to be in very poor condition."

"I want you and R2 to fly Padme to the Polis Massa base to meet with Master Yoda. I will take Anakin elsewhere in a ship provided by the Vors." He paused, a thought swiftly occurring to him. Turning back to the consul, he typed out a swift message, transferred it to R2D2's memory file. "Give that to Senator Organa, and Organa only."

"Oh Master Kenobi" C3PO said in his querulous voice as he prepped the hyper drive. "I do hope you know what you're doing."

Swiveling in his seat to face the vortex of stars before him, Obi-Wan set his mouth in a grim line.

"So do I 3PO….so do I…."

Author's Notes: So, I've had this plot bunny running around my head for a long time, and I decided to let chapter one out in order to gauge the reception. I really, really need your feedback on this. Please let me know what you think of the plot, and if you want it to continue.