Anakin was powerful. Anakin was young. These two facts could collide with the power and heat of a fusion furnace.

Obi-Wan had gone over and over in his mind what had happened with Master Yaddle. He could not see any way that he could have prevented it.

His Padawan had relied on his command of the Force and on his absolute conviction that he was taking the only possible path, and events had overtaken him. Obi-Wan had no doubt that Yaddle had seen her own death coming. She had decided it was necessary that she become one with the Force. She had done it to save countless lives, and she must have seen that Anakin's path was mapped out otherwise.

Obi-Wan didn't know how much Anakin blamed himself, but he knew that his apprentice was brooding over what had gone wrong. It was appropriate that he do so, but not appropriate for him to blame himself.

Yet how can I stop him from doing so, if I blame him myself?

Blame was not something a Jedi was supposed to feel. Obi-Wan knew he was wrong. He tried to look at what had happened in a measured way, but he kept circling back to the fact that in his heart, he believed that Anakin could have somehow prevented Yaddle's death.

He told himself that if Anakin had made mistakes, they came from a place that was pure. It was not in the Jedi code to second-guess another Jedi's decisions. But Obi-Wan knew his words of comfort had a hollow core, and he suspected that Anakin knew it, too.

The distance between them continued to grow. Yaddle's death had changed them both.

No, Obi-Wan corrected himself. The distance had been growing before that. Perhaps it has always been there. Perhaps I didn't want to see it.