Even the Dark Side Can't Take Our Memories

Chapter 19 - Barriss's Story

"It was after we found Adonis, the clone; the deserter." Ahsoka nodded. Barriss took a deep breath; her leg was shaking violently, but her face was calm and resolute. Ahsoka did not calmingly place a hand on Barriss's leg as she once would have. "Master Luminara and I were chasing Ventress - you remember, Count Dooku's assassin - yet again, after she single-handedly took out seventeen clones. But it was as we were closing in when Master Luminara received the message that the knight Ti'Lana was in critical condition." Ti'Lana was Master Luminara's former Padawan, now a knight. Ahsoka remembered sparring with her once. "There was no one else close enough to get to Ti'Lana in time, and Master Luminara had to leave to help her. She... left me alone to capture Ventress." Barriss did not speak for a moment, looking down at her tightly clutched hands. Ahsoka didn't realize how fast and heavily her heart was beating until now.

"I closed in on Ventress, and we were fighting. I had never been in hand-to-hand combat with her alone, and I'd forgotten how skilled she was." Barriss paused for a moment, as if deciding whether or not she should continue. Somehow, Ahsoka knew she would. "Suddenly, I was on the ground, her lightsaber at my throat." Barriss's voice quavered, and Ahsoka couldn't help but gasp, her hand clutched tightly over her mouth. She didn't even think about how this display of concern revealed her denied love for Barriss to the Mirialan. Barriss bit down on her bottom lip, and forged on. "She told me that she would spare me if I helped her with an attack she was planning. At first, I thought I would try and trick her, but then she got to me... she discovered my weaknesses, and used them against me ruthlessly."

"What weaknesses?" Ahsoka meant to frame the question as if she were saying "which weaknesses?" but it came off more as if Ahsoka believed Barriss had no weaknesses at all. Barris shook her head solemnly, not looking up.

"All of them." When Ahsoka did not respond, she continued. "She told me she was planning an attack on the Jedi Temple, to feed the flames of distrust within our very organization. She told me, 'your worst enemy is yourself'. She must have meant it in more ways than one." Ahsoka couldn't help but feel a chill run up her spine as she pictured Barriss being painstakingly manipulated by her very opposite. But were Barriss and Ventress really as opposite as Ahsoka imagined? "She convinced me that I had to harness my... my love for you, to furnish my anger. That my emotions were what made me powerful. I know that that is not the Jedi way, but she convinced me the Jedi way was wrong. Which, as you know, I already believed to some extent, but she made me believe it entirely." Barriss flushed with what seemed to be embarrassment at the parts of this situation that truly were her own fault. "She said that... to truly reach our goal, I had to sever all of my ties to the Jedi organization. I already hadn't spoken with Master Luminara in weeks, but I still had you." Barriss did not lift her eyes as she prepared to continue her story.

"I knew that we had to have a plan to make sure the attack wasn't tied back to us. She told me that using you was the only way. You were the only one who wouldn't turn me in of your own free will, and by framing you I would truly be done with the Jedi. Feeding two Sarlaccs with one bounty hunter." Ahsoka nodded, even though none of what she was feeling deserved such a reaction. "Ahsoka, I need you to understand. I didn't want to hurt you, and I didn't want to lose you, but I knew I couldn't do this if we still relied on each other." Ahsoka had thought she was beginning to understand, but suddenly she felt a mass of pained confusion rise up in her throat.

"But wasn't I still more important?" Barriss finally looked up, her lips slightly parted.

"I don't know." Ahsoka tried to speak, but no sound came out. Even though all this time, it had felt like Barriss was the one begging for forgiveness, all Ahsoka could think about now was the world in which she could depend on the Mirialan - the most important person in her universe - falling away. Ahsoka was alone on a cliff of her own betrayal, floating in a void of nowhere that had once been filled with love.

Barriss's voice called her out of her illusion of pain. "Ahsoka... please. You don't understand. I never meant to-"

"It's not like she brainwashed you." Ahsoka finally found her voice, discovering it to be colder than she'd once known it to be. "You may have already betrayed yourself, but you didn't have to betray me too." Ahsoka stood up from the crate, her Bantha milk of peace left forgotten on the ground beside her. She shoved her way out the door. Even though Ahsoka did not look back, she could feel Barriss's eyes on her.

Ahsoka did not know where she was going, but suddenly all of her muscles felt tense and seized up. She flung her arms out to her side, and stomped on the ground, breathing hard. Before she could think too strongly about what she'd just learned or where she was going, Ahsoka's combat boots were pounding against the rough ground, the wind rushing through her ears. How could I have held hope for her? Ahsoka swerved between two chatting Twi'leks, not pausing to apologize. She abandoned me of her own accord. Ahsoka glared at the clone trooper tossing a coin to a food merchant, an unwelcome reminder of the past the very girl in her home had forced her to leave. She lost my forgiveness when she purposely lost me. Ahsoka did not stop running.