this is a disclaimer.
wires, coming out (of your skin)
Hard to tell if Sidious even realises he has made a mistake. He has made not one so far, in decades of planning. That sort of track record breeds overconfidence.
Anakin kneels in the antechamber of the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic's office and smoothes the hair off Obi-Wan's forehead, a mechanical gesture with his mechanical hand. The other one is digging into the side of his friend's body, holding him close, feeling the warmth running out of him. Distantly, he can hear the sounds of fighting; he can't be sure, but he thinks that Windu is the only one of the Council left alive.
Stop him, Obi-Wan said, hands clenching in Anakin's robes. Stop him, Ani...
Has Obi-Wan ever called him Ani before? Anakin honestly can't remember.
He remembers talking to Ahsoka once, before her reassignment... she'd made some kind of mistake, and he'd told her that it would take a hell of a lot for him to stop trusting her. Anakin trusts like he loves: with his whole heart, nothing held back, everything he is poured into that one emotion.
Obi-Wan's grey eyes look as empty as he feels.
It's true he's never truly trusted the Jedi Council. They were too afraid of him, and too strict with him. Too distanced from their own emotions to make allowances for his, let alone understand them – contact with his mother? But why? For what purpose? This love you have for her, this comfort she gives you, will lead to your fall, young Padawan.
Palpatine had trusted him despite his emotions. More, like Padmé, he seemed to trust Anakin because of his emotions: because they were, after all, what made him human.
And in return, Anakin had been prepared to put his trust in his friend above his duty to an Order that had never been entirely convinced it wanted him anyway.
But this. This butchery. Nothing that is born of such violence can ever be good, or true.
There is a sharp scream of rage from the other room; Windu is shouting something. The sounds cut through Anakin's stunned mind like a lightsabre, and he shakes his head, the cobwebs disappearing. There's rage there, yes, a burning anger like nothing else he's ever known, even on Tatooine when his mother died, and the bitter taste of betrayal in the back of his throat, but even more than that, there's concern: fear for Padmé, for the Order, for the entire Republic.
He could go in there, he thinks. Walk through the doors and slide his sabre between Palpatine's ribs with the same ease that Palpatine himself doubtless killed Obi-Wan –
But Anakin doesn't trust himself to do any such thing.
He lays Obi-Wan down on the floor, gently, and picks up his lightsabre, hefting it in his left hand.
"I'm sorry I have to leave you here like this," Anakin says quietly to his brother, and even thinks he hears his answer: no matter, Ani. Go! Save them!
Anakin steps away from his brother's body and starts to run.