For The Blood We Spill

Chapter 13 - Therapy

Author's Note: Please take note of the warnings, and take care of yourself everyone!

WARNING: Self-harm thoughts, suicidal thoughts/feelings, and general darkness!

~ Amina Gila

It doesn't get easier. Or at least it doesn't get easier as fast as Anakin had thought it might. More often than not, he still doesn't feel like getting up, especially since it's not like he has anything that he needs to do anyway. Even after Ahsoka considers volunteering to help out with refugees on Alderaan for one or two days a week, Anakin still can't muster up the energy to do anything. He can't even help himself anymore, so how can he possibly think that he can help someone else?

Three weeks have passed since they left the Order, and Ahsoka is gone to Alderaan – she'll be back tomorrow. Anakin can tell how much it's helping her to be able to do something to help others again, even if it's not normally the kind of thing that she's used to. She couldn't take sitting still, and she had been elated to go out and help. Anakin refused to take that away from her; he even encouraged her to go to help where she can even if that meant that he'll be alone at the apartment for a couple days in a row except at night when Padme isn't at the Senate.

It wasn't good. It wasn't good at all, not when Anakin keeps waking up from nightmares, and finds himself unable to sleep properly no matter how tired he actually feels. It's frustrating, or it would be if he could actually feel some emotion other than apathy or grief. He keeps second guessing himself and his decision to leave the Order. At least if he was a Jedi, he could be helping and doing something useful. Now, he's doing nothing but being a burden to everyone.

A part of him has been so tempted to send a message to Obi-Wan and tell him that he made a mistake in leaving. If he did, he knows that Obi-Wan would readily forgive him and encourage him to come back. Probably, that is. But it doesn't matter anyway, since he turned off his comm. He hasn't wanted to contact anyone, hasn't wanted to see the messages from Obi-Wan that he knows he'll undoubtedly be receiving.

Worse yet, he might be getting no messages at all. He might not have gotten a message from Obi-Wan telling him that he's leaving again, going back to the fronts. Anakin heard it on the news which he had left playing for no reason except to cover up the silence in the apartment with Ahsoka's absence and Padme being gone to the Senate.

He had heard that Obi-Wan was shipping out on another mission to an undisclosed location, one which must be classified, and for the rest of the day, all he could think was that he's not there. He's not with Obi-Wan, and it's true that they often didn't get the same missions, but Anakin could still go to Obi-Wan if it was needed. Now, he's not even a Jedi. He can't go to Obi-Wan's side when his former master inevitably needs a rescue. He – he's on Coruscant, and he'll never know, he'll never be told. Obi-Wan could – he could –

And it would be real this time, and it would be all Anakin's fault. He can't have that on his conscience; it would drive him to madness if merely feeling Obi-Wan's death and knowing he could have stopped it but was too selfish to try didn't kill him first.

The possibilities are endless, and he couldn't sleep, not when knowing that Obi-Wan is out there, probably in a battle. Is he alright? Is he injured? Will he really be okay without Anakin to cover for him? They've always done everything together for so many years that it feels so wrong for them to now be apart. He never really considered it, never gave it any thought. When he should have been thinking about Obi-Wan, he was only thinking about himself.

But –

But... he couldn't have stayed, could he?

He was – he was falling apart then, and he still is even now. He isn't really any better than he was when he first left the Order half a month ago. Three weeks. It feels like a lifetime ago. If he hadn't left, would he have even been in the right headspace to go on missions and do them properly? Or would he have only dragged Obi-Wan into unnecessary danger?