Anakin, still sore from their latest mission, still going over the details again and again in his head, could not sleep. Probably because he couldn’t get his brain to turn off, but also because whenever he closed his eyes, he was haunted by images of his mother. In his dreams, she was alive and well. She was happy and whole and it was wonderful, until it wasn’t, and everything changed. Until it became a nightmare, his mother turning to glass, frozen in place, with that smile that should have comforted him, that should have soothed him, until it was cracking her crystal face, and the blood was pouring from her eyes and she was shattering into nothing. That was what he experienced almost every night as he lay himself down to sleep and what he dared not tell his master about.
Something told him that the Jedi would not understand his fear, his anxiety. He didn’t want to meditate and think about it. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to see her again, alive and full of joy, returned to him! But he couldn’t. The only thing he could do was maybe, just maybe confide in Obi-Wan. The two of them had issues communicating sometimes. Obi-Wan liked to correct him, and Anakin hated to be corrected, especially in front of others. Obi-Wan seemed to think Anakin knew how proud he was but Anakin, he needed to hear it. It had been that way since he was a child. They were so close and yet, there was a yawning void between them. Still, Obi-Wan always told Anakin that he could come to him with anything. So he rose, in his sleep clothes, and left his room, making his way to Obi-Wan’s apartment within the temple.
He steeled himself, and knocked to alert his master, before he worried his lip and let his gaze fall to the floor. Was Obi-Wan even awake? Would he want to talk? Anakin didn’t know. He would find out shortly, he supposed.
