What is the one thing about yourself you don't want anyone ever to know?

Anakin is afraid.

He is afraid that one day he will be sent out on a mission only to return to find that the woman he loves is gone forever. That something might happen to her and he won't be there to save her. That she may find being without him for so long just too hard and ... find someone else. He is afraid to lose her and that fear gnaws away at him deep in the pit of his belly. he's seen her lying in pain in an alien place, dying and screaming his name

He is afraid that one day on a mission he'll be too slow, or too late, or too cocky, or just.plain.wrong and it will be Obi-Wan who pays the price. That he will lose his fatherbestfriendbrothermasterteacherfamily in the blink of an eye because he wasn't good enough. He is afraid that Obi-Wan will find out just how unworthy of his love and time and concern and friendship Anakin is and that Obi-Wan will turn away from him. flashes of memories of dreams of black sand and fire and pain

He is afraid of himself and the darkness he knows he holds inside himself. all things die, even stars burn out

He is afraid of his fear, and that makes him angry.

The fear fuels the anger and the anger fuels the fear and slowly they both grow and eat away at him, burning and freezing and leaving a deep, black, rotted hole where once there was a person.

He can feel it happening.

He wants it fears it needs it hates it is falling into it.

Betrayal

He lies on a black sand beach mere inches away from a molten river of lava. He is barely a shell of a man, his flesh and hair burned from his body, limbs cut away but for one metallic hand with which he stubbornly claws at the sand, refusing to let go, to die.

It's a sick joke. They all betrayed him. The Jedi. Obi-Wan. Padme. Palpatine. He'd even betrayed himself.

What did all the promises mean now of power and family and love and honor? It didn't matter who'd promised anything. It didn't matter he'd trusted them with his life. It didn't matter the things he'd given up to be what they'd wanted him to be.

Rage fills him with a fire more searing than that which had burnt away his flesh. It fills him and holds him and he holds it and uses it and hangs on. Barely.

He will not die here. He will not be the punchline to a sick and twisted joke.

Oh no.

He'll show them all.