Chapter 11: What was Forbidden
A dead silence rang around the room, which was broken only by the thumping of blood in Barriss' ears.
Barriss forced a chuckle out of her tightly clenching throat. "Well, I mean, I don't know," she said, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. "I wasn't on the Council so I didn't make the decision."
"No, that's not what I meant," Ahsoka shook her head, frustrated, waving her hand in irritation. "I meant..." She put her palms over her face and lowered her head. Barriss stared at her and then noticed the bob in her shoulders. She was crying.
"Ahsoka?" she asked, voice soft.
Ahsoka pulled her hands away, her eyes glittering, the tracks of tears visible on her cheeks, but her expression was pained and angry. "Why did you try so hard?" she asked, the anguish clear in her voice. "I was your best friend, Barriss, why did you try so hard to get me convicted and killed?!"
Barriss hoped her shaking wasn't visible. She swallowed, tried to compose herself, as her fingers scrabbled up to the door panel. "It's like I said...I panicked. When Letta called you in, I panicked and...I'm not proud of it but..." She chuckled. "Look, I can see you're tired and I am as well and we have a lot to do tomorrow and..." her fingers tapped at the door controls, but nothing happened. No reassuring whoosh of a door opening for her to run through. "And...and Ahsoka? Your door is locked."
"Yes, it is. I've locked it." Her expression was fierce. "You're not going until I've got the answer, because this question has been haunting me for far too long and I thought I could let it go, but I can't."
"I just panicked that's all!" Barriss wailed, desperate, flailing like a trapped animal hunting for the way out. "I'm sorry it was you that the Council picked, but, it wasn't my intention-"
Ahsoka shook her head firmly. "No. That's a lie. Yes, you might have panicked when Letta called to talk to me, that I can believe. But leaving the key card outside my chamber so I could break out? Leaving my lightsabres among a bunch of knocked out clones? Killing clones on my pathway out of the facility? Dressing up as Ventress and forcing me in front of the bombs, at the factory you gave me the location of? That's not the act of someone who's panicking. That's planned." Her eyes narrowed and locked on Barriss. "So...why?"
"I...I..." She pressed herself back against the door as if willpower could force it open. "All right, okay!" she said, turning her head away. "I was a coward, okay? No better than Letta. I thought I could handle it, the idea of being caught, but I couldn't. And when it all happened I...I did what I could to save my skin." She shook her head. "I'm disgusting and horrible, and you can hate me in peace now."
"No...that's not it either..." Ahsoka stood up from her bed and Barriss flinched back against the door. "You took the bombs and you had the conviction. You wouldn't have minded getting caught. I know you. You wouldn't have retreated from it. So why?"
"I...you're wrong!" Barriss closed her eyes, her hands clenched tight. "You don't know me at all! I've always been a coward, I always have, that's why-"
"Barriss! Why me?!"
"Because I loved you!"
She slowly opened her eyes into the silence and saw her hands, clenched tight in front of her chest and shaking. Slowly she moved her gaze up, travelling up Ahsoka's legs, and as she did so she begged the Force, begged a whole host of deities she'd read about but didn't believe in, to please make it that she'd shouted that in her head and not out loud, to please have only let it be in her head.
Her eyes alighted on Ahsoka's stunned expression, and all her hopes turned to ash.
"You...loved..." Ahsoka said all pain and anger drained away into just bewilderment.
And then, because there didn't seem much point in holding it back anymore, the whole dam burst and it all came flooding out.
"And I hated you," Barriss said, face crumbling as the tears flowed out of her eyes and her voice broke into a horrible, choking whine. "And I hated you because I loved you and I'm sorry I'm so sorry I'm sorry..." She put her hands over her face and she collapsed down the wall onto her knees, sobbing.
Ahsoka stared at her. "Barriss...I don't...I don't understand...what...?" Her voice was laced with confusion, and also a touch of fear.
"I didn't mean for it to happen…" Even to her own ears, her voice had a pathetic, undignified, keen to it but she couldn't compose herself enough to get rid of it. "It was after Geonosis, and I didn't understand what was happening. I thought, I thought it was just a passing thing, of gratitude for what you'd done. But by the time I realised what was happening it was too late." She let out a choked sob her hands scrunching into fists. "I tried to stop it, I tried to meditate to get rid of it, but it was always there and I couldn't stop seeing you no matter how much I wanted to, because, because every time I made myself promise to stop, to tell you we couldn't be friends anymore, you'd have that smile and that damn enthusiasm and I'd just, I'd just be pulled into it again."
She took her hands down, her eyes puffy, snot dribbling from her nose and she wrapped her arms around her stomach and her lip wobbled. "And I was so scared…" Her voice was barely above a whisper. "So scared that someone would find out that Luminara would find out and I'd be kicked out of the Order in shame, and then you would know and would despise me…"
"Oh, Barriss I wouldn't have, I promise I wouldn't have…" Ahsoka pleaded, her own voice dangerously close to breaking.
"Because I was the model Padawan, the perfect Jedi, everyone said so. But I couldn't be and I knew I couldn't be because I had this attachment, this great failure inside…"
Barriss shivered. "And that's when I started to resent you. I started to wonder, 'why couldn't you have just killed me?' 'Why couldn't you have killed me when I asked?' Then I would have been held up as a model, for everyone, for all Jedi of the nobility and sacrifice and dedication…instead of…instead of a…disgrace and a failure!" She dropped her head, hands falling between her legs.
Ahsoka stared at her, motionless, not sure what to say, not sure what she could say.
"And then I started to hate you." Barriss expression darkened, her voice turning into a hiss. She pressed a finger into her temple, pushing hard. "There was this little voice in my head, telling me that you knew what you were doing and you knew how I felt, and it amused you seeing me suffer. That you liked the idea of having a pet who would always come running when you snapped your fingers, no matter what."
"Barriss, no, I never!" Ahsoka's voice was cracking now.
Barriss looked miserable. "I know," she said quietly. "I didn't always believe it. I don't think you could have thoughts like that. But it was there and it ate away at me. So when it all happened…" She swallowed. "It was a panic what I did with Letta. Maybe if it had been anyone else, I would have let her speak, but I couldn't stand the thought of you knowing what I'd done. I've sometimes wondered if somehow Letta knew and called you in precisely to force me to panic, to make me do more, but I know…I know that's resentment speaking…"
She shook her head. "But then everyone thought you'd done it. And that little voice came back and told me this was the perfect opportunity. If I got you convicted…if you were gone then I wouldn't have to suffer anymore. I'd be the model Jedi again, I'd be pure again." She started crying again and put her hands over her eyes. "So I did it, I gave in." She let out a choked laugh. "See, I wasn't…l-lying when I said I was a coward… but even then I couldn't do it properly."
"You sure gave it a good go," Ahsoka said and then flinched from her own words. She'd meant it to try and cut through the roiling inside her and the tension in the room, but it had just come out harsh.
Barriss sat back and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. "Not really," she said. "I made such a mess of covering things up. Had the Council not been so frightened of being seen to be against the Senate, a half-competent Jedi could have worked it all out easily."
"I don't think that's—"
Barriss let out a bitter laugh. "What? Do you really think if you had told, say, Obi-Wan, 'oh it was Barriss who gave me the lead on the factory' he wouldn't have been able to work it out straight away? No, no. It was only the fact that you never thought to say because you would never believe I could do such a thing, and Skywalker's penchant for dashing heroism that led him to hunt down Ventress instead of asking questions that nearly made me get away with it." She pressed her chin onto her knees, too tired to keep crying now. "But I kept Ventress' lightsabres," she said, quietly. "Just to make sure there couldn't be any doubt."
Silence engulfed the room, broken only by the occasional sniff and hiccup from Barriss.
"Well there," Barriss said eventually, with a weak and wobbling smile. "Now you know the whole story and my shame. Now can you let me go, please?"
Ahsoka was silent for a time, her head down. "Barriss…don't you want to know my feelings?" Ahsoka said, at last, her voice neutral but wobbling, probably with the fury that was what Barriss deserved.
She knew she deserved it, but she couldn't stand it, couldn't bear to face it.
She pushed herself back into the wall and covered her face. "No! I don't want to know!" she screamed. "I don't want to know how much you hate me and despise me, however much closure that would give! So please, Ahsoka, please just let me leave with my humiliation and shame!"
She started sobbing again, and she heard Ahsoka walk towards her and rustle as she moved.
"I don't hate you Barriss…"
The words were soft and her hands gently pulled at Barriss' arms.
She raised her head up, and Ahsoka's face was in front of hers, wet eyes staring at her.
And Ahsoka closed her eyes and pressed her lips to Barriss'.
Barriss' eyes widened in shock.
She stared, her face closer to Ahsoka's than it had ever been, feeling the wetness on her own lips, feeling the taste of her, the scent, and unable to believe it was happening, certain this was a delusion of her crumbling sanity and she was actually huddled in the corner, cackling maniacally, as Ahsoka looked on.
But then the sensation continued and she realised it was real.
And she closed her eyes and relaxed into it and it was as if every part of her being sighed with release.
They parted from the kiss. Stared at one another for a long moment and then Ahsoka sat back and stood up. She smacked her lips a little, looking thoughtful. "You know," Ahsoka said, "the holodramas had made me think that would be a profound experience but it just kind of tasted…snotty." She gave Barriss a sheepish grin.
Barriss laughed a little and wiped at her mouth with her sleeve. "That's not fair, I've been crying," she complained. She stood up and moved towards Ahsoka, hesitating a little. But Ahsoka didn't move, allowing her forward. "Let's…try again…"
Barriss put her hands around Ahsoka's head and pulled her into the kiss. She feathered one hand down Ahsoka's back lekku and she let out a gasp, opening her mouth and deepening the kiss.
She broke off, putting a hand on Barriss' shoulder, breathing deeply. "Okay…that time I felt it." She sat back on her bed and Barriss continued to stand, fidgeting nervously, her heart thumping. Now that it had happened, a fantasy she'd locked and buried in a very distant part of her mind but which had occasionally still slipped out to torment her, she was suddenly at a loss as to what to do.
Perhaps because when she had imagined it, the rational part of her mind had always followed up with her getting, at best, slapped.
Ahsoka was looking down, thinking over something, her lekku twitching.
Having second thoughts, Barriss thought. Understandable I guess. I suppose she must have got caught up in the emotion and is now regretting it. She resigned herself to the reality. I guess…I guess I should—
She never completed the thought as Ahsoka, reaching a decision, slipped her thumb under the shoulder strap of her tunic and started to pull it off.
Barriss flushed instantly, eyes bugging, and she whirled around to face the door.
"A-Ahsoka!" she spluttered. "Wh-what are you—?"
"Oh, well, I figure if we're going to break the code, we might as well go the whole way."
"B-but w-we can't! It's it's n-not s-something—"
"Oh?" her voice was coy and teasing. "Are you saying you didn't ever imagine something like this?"
"N-no-I mean yes!" Her blush deepened. "I-I mean, I mean—"
She heard the flump of something soft falling to the floor and she went still.
"Barriss…" the voice was almost sing-song. "Turn around…"
And so she did.
Ahsoka sat on the edge of her bed, completely naked. Her head was turned to the side slightly, a blush darkening her cheeks and the pattern of her lekku, the right one of which trailed between her breasts. Her body was lithe, with the hint of her muscles that lay under her toned skin.
Beautiful.
Barriss' breath hitched and she felt a familiar warm and queasy sensation, one from long ago, worm and blossom through her body, making her breath short, making her squirm.
"Your turn," Ahsoka said, voice low.
"Y…yes…" Barriss breathed, mouth dry.
Ahsoka extended a finger, then drew it down and Barriss felt the zip at the back of her unitard slip down to the base of her spine, the unitard splitting as it went, and she felt the cool air of the ship breathe against her back.
There was, however, a problem with wearing a form-fitting unitard; it was a bastard to get out of quickly with anything resembling dignity, but after much pulling, tugging, hopping about on one foot, and swearing she managed it.
She stood naked in front of Ahsoka, one foot squirming in front of the other, an arm covering her breasts before she consciously pulled it away, allowing herself to be fully exposed. She blushed and looked down and to the side, her hair flopping in front of one eye.
Ahsoka traced her eyes over her, her lips parting and a shuddering breath emerging from them. She swallowed.
"Come…come over here," Ahsoka said, sliding herself back up her bed.
Barriss padded over to the bed and climbed onto it and crawled towards Ahsoka, and then over her and stopped when she was halfway up and straddled Ahsoka's hips.
Then they stayed in that position, awkwardly, as they both realised they hadn't the faintest clue what they should do next.
And the Force, perhaps disappointed in their decision, wasn't providing any hints.
"Um…" Barriss began, leg twitching slightly. "Wh-what should we…?"
"Well the…the kissing was nice," Ahsoka said. "Why don't we…carry on with that and see?"
"Oh. Okay."
Barriss leaned over and planted her hands on either side of Ahsoka's head. As she did so, Ahsoka ran a hand up her side, up to her breast and her thumb grazed her nipple.
Barriss went taut and let out a hitched gasp, as an intense sensation spiked through her body.
Ahsoka snatched her hand back as if scalded. "I'm sorry!" she said, a little panicked. "Did I hurt you?"
"N-no," Barriss groaned, squirming. "The opposite really. Uh, here, let me show you…"
She moved her hand to Ahsoka's breast and ran her thumb around the areola. A keening moan was ripped from Ahsoka's throat, as a wave of pleasure burst through her, her body twisting up and into the touch.
Barriss lowered herself so their foreheads touched, close enough for their hot breath to mingle. "You know…" she breathed. "I'm beginning to understand…why this stuff was forbidden…"
They looked at one another and then shared a giggle before they joined their lips and bodies.
They lay on the bed together, the covers pulled halfway up their bodies.
Barriss had found a lovely little nook between Ahsoka's lekku where she could rest her head, and Ahsoka had her arms wrapped around her body, the back of Ahsoka's head resting against the wall. They were both breathing deeply, flushed, sweat still lingering on their bodies. The lights were off, but both of their eyes had adjusted well enough to see.
Barriss let out a contended smile and raised her hands up to rest on Ahsoka's, feeling the warmth. Feeling the safety, again.
"Aren't you going to sleep?" Ahsoka asked.
Barriss shook her head. "No. If I did, I wouldn't be able to feel your arms around me."
Ahsoka snorted. "That is such a lame line."
Barriss giggled. "I know. But it's also true." She turned her head back, so she could just see Ahsoka, and ran a finger up to her cheek, which Ahsoka playfully caught between her teeth.
"So I guess this is us fully on the Dark Side now?" Barriss said.
"Yup," Ahsoka agreed, letting Barriss' finger drop. "We are now officially Darth Snips and Darth Puke." Barriss jabbed her elbow into Ahsoka's abdomen and she laughed. "All right, all right! Darth Corvus."
Barriss smiled slyly. "But which of us is the master and which is the apprentice?"
"Well, if I remember my Sith lore correctly, the apprentice is supposed to try to kill the master. So seeing as you've already attempted that, by default I think that makes you the apprentice."
Barriss nodded, considering it. "Well, I can't fault your logic…Master," she said dropping her voice low on the last word.
"Of course you can't, my young apprentice," Ahsoka said, putting on a sneering voice.
"Young? I'm a year older than you!" Barriss objected.
Ahsoka gave a length of Barriss' hair a playful tug. "Don't break character; I'm speaking metaphorically."
"Ow! Fine…" Barriss rolled herself out of Ahsoka's arms and to the floor, where she prostrated herself. "What is thy bidding, Master?"
Ahsoka fought to contain a laugh. "My feet are quite sore, so why don't you put your healing arts to good use and give them a massage?"
"Yes, Master." Barriss slipped onto the bed and peeled back part of the covers and took hold of Ahsoka's right foot. She felt a small thrill of delight at the shudder produced when she kissed her toe and then set to working her thumbs and fingers into the muscles on the foot.
Ahsoka let out a variety of hisses and moans. "Oh, that feels so good..." she breathed. "Painful, but in such a good way."
"I'm glad you admire my skills."
"It's so much better than the Temple droids..." She let out a very relaxed gasp as Barriss dug the ball of her thumb into her flexor digitorum. "I should have asked you to do this years ago."
"I think that would have got us both kicked out of the Order much sooner than we did," Barriss said dryly.
"You got kicked out, I resigned."
"Oh, is that what happened..." Barriss said, putting on a low and teasing voice, as she slipped one hand around to hold Ahsoka's ankle.
Ahsoka froze as Barriss looked up at her, a look of pure terror crossing her face. "No..." she pleaded, trying to pull her foot away. "Barriss, don't you dare, I forbid it!"
Barriss flashed her a wicked grin. "Sorry Master, but betrayal is the way of the Sith." And she flickered her nails along the middle of Ahsoka's foot.
Ahsoka exploded into shrieks and squeals of laughter, trying desperately to rip her foot away, to bat Barriss off. "Stop it!" she gasped. "Stop!"
"Do you surrender?" Barriss asked, fighting to hold back her own laughter. "Do you admit I'm the Master?"
"Yes, yes! I surrender, you win, you're the Master now!"
Barriss stopped and pushed herself up, grinning, as Ahsoka panted and glared at her. "I am so going to get you back for that," she growled.
"I know," Barriss replied, with a smile. She poked Ahsoka's nose. "That's what makes it fun. But I'm a kind Master, and I will complete the massage."
"Thank you."
"Thank you...?" Barriss wiggled her fingers, dangerously close to Ahsoka's exposed stomach.
"Thank you, Master," she squeaked.
Barriss laughed and slid back down and worked at her foot again. She'd removed most of the tension and was mostly just working through it to relax Ahsoka, before moving onto the other foot. But she frowned as she started to sense another tension working its way through Ahsoka, different from the tension brought on by tiredness or hard work, but something that was causing her body to tighten.
She was on the verge of asking what was wrong, when Ahsoka spoke, her voice quiet and nervous.
"Barriss? I...I have a confession to make."
"A confession?" Barriss took her hands from her foot and sat up. Ahsoka was leaning her head back against the wall and seemed to be biting at her lower lip. About a thousand different worries and fears exploded through Barriss' mind which, in some ways, was helpful as it prevent any one of them from forming a coherent pattern and allowing her to feel real terror. "What confession?"
"Do you...do you remember that night? When you came to my room? Before...before the bombing, before I left for Cato Nemodia?"
Barriss thought a moment, silently relieved that it was something from a while ago. "Yes...I remember..." she said, nodding. "Yes. I'd actually come down there to confess everything to you, about the bombing and...about how I felt. I just couldn't stand it anymore but..." She shook her head. "My nerve failed me."
Ahsoka nodded. "Well, you asked me a question." Her voice was nearly a whisper, and she swallowed. "About whether I had nightmares. And I told you I had nightmares imaging all the horrors the Separatists were committing across the galaxy." She paused and closed her eyes and her lip wobbled. "That was a lie."
Barriss perked up. She frowned, not quite sure she was understanding right. "That was...a lie...?" she asked.
"I mean, not exactly." Ahsoka sniffed. "I did have nightmares about what they did, but it wasn't what you were asking and I knew that and I also...it also wasn't what I had the real nightmares about, the really horrible ones."
"Ahsoka, what do you mean?"
"It was at Ahster-Zhen." Ahsoka continued talking as if she hadn't heard Barriss speak. Lost in her own world, in the recollection. "In the early years of the war, not long after I'd joined it. I was...Anakin and I were assigned to help deal with the Separatist invasion and I...he trusted me enough to give me command of a detachment. And I was so thrilled, so happy." Her voice shuddered, and she drew her knees up to her. "We were given intel, that there were Separatists hiding out in a village, that they were planning an attack and we were told to stop them. So I ordered us to attack the village." She sobbed. "I like to tell myself I thought it was all battle droids, but I think I knew it wasn't. But I was such a stupid girl, playing at being a hero in wartime and then it all happened. And it was all fire and noise and death and ash I walked through it and I...and no one could tell who the Separatists were and who they weren't..." The image flashed through her mind again, the image of the mother and child, that had haunted her for so long. "I didn't mean, I didn't mean, I didn't-"
Barriss moved up to her and pulled her into a tight embrace and Ahsoka sobbed into her chest and clung onto her like she was a life raft on the ocean, and could do nothing more than keep crying and hiccoughing 'I didn't mean' over and over and over again.
Barriss held her tight, tears stinging her own eyes and she felt it again. That old burning flame of hatred, hatred for the Jedi Council, hatred for the Order, hatred for Palpatine and Dooku and the whole monstrous lot of them for what they'd put them through. For what they'd forced them all to become.
"It's okay Ahsoka, it's okay..." she whispered, soothing, stroking her back lekku. "You were a child, we both were. We both thought it was a great adventure. We didn't know...and the people who should have known better didn't..." Didn't care? Didn't think? Didn't consider the damage they'd be doing? Because they'd never questioned themselves or what they knew to be right before so why should they this time?
But she kept that to herself. Ahsoka didn't need her bitterness and anger right now.
She rocked her a little in her arms, and that seemed to calm her down a bit. She stopped digging her fingers into Barriss' back and let them loose a little. She pulled her head back and looked up at Barriss, her eyes puffy. "I promise," she said, voice shattered into a million splinters. "I promise I learned from that and I never...I never made that mistake again, I promise, I promise..."
Barriss felt her tears start to drop as her heart wound tight. She'd never seen Ahsoka like this before, never once. Had never seen her seem so broken. She'd regressed so much and she got a glimpse of the wreck she must have been in the aftermath of what happened, with the realisation of what she had done.
"It's okay," she whispered and kissed her forehead. She settled her down into the bed and she lay beside her, holding both of her hands tightly. "It's okay Ahsoka. I don't judge you. I could never do that."
Ahsoka nodded a little. "I'm sorry Barriss..." she said after a moment. "If I'd just told you back then, then maybe you wouldn't have bombed the Temple. Maybe you wouldn't have felt so alone." Her face creased. "But I couldn't bear it. The thought of how you might have looked at me. I needed to keep being the hero. In my own eyes as much as everyone else's...as much as yours."
Barriss gave her an amused smile. "Well, maybe. But if you had done, we both would have stayed part of the Order and then we both would have been killed in the Purge."
That brought a small, choking, laugh out of her. A small laugh, but it was something.
"Thank you, Barriss..." she whispered, squeezing her hands.
"Thank you, Ahsoka..." Barriss whispered back.
They touched their foreheads together. And lying like that, they both slipped into sleep.
Well, after 46,284 words they finally kissed...
Christ that took a lot longer to get to than I thought it would. But this thing has expanded a fair bit from what I'd originally conceived, and it's still got some to go. There, anyway, is the explanation to the questions of 'why Ahsoka' and 'why did Barriss go from being a mastermind to an absolute idiot' having brooded on it at the end of Season 5. I think she genuinely loved Ahsoka, and, subconsciously, couldn't quite bring herself to go through with what she was doing.
After that heavy emotional stuff, I thought it would be good to have some fun and fluff (even if some of it, like the ticking sequence, is ridiculous). I think it's stayed on just the right side of the Teen rating, but apologies if it has crossed too far.
The line about Obi-Wan is a reference to GreySilhouette's story Fallen Legends. If you haven't checked it out, do: it's fantastic!
I hope Ahsoka's response didn't come too out of the blue - I've been trying to layer some hints into the previous chapters, without completely giving it away. Her feelings are...complicated and will be explored a bit more in the next chapter. The incident that was hinted at way back in Chapter 5 is also revealed. She makes a bad error, but then she is a child and thrust with a lot of responsibility, and it seemed like a way of explaining part of her personality; that she needs to be a hero to try and deal with some of the guilt she feels (which then has an adverse effect on pushing away Barriss and not giving her the emotional support she was looking for).
To clarify something with Barriss, as I'm not sure how well it comes across. One of the things about her character, or at least how I'm understanding it, is that her response to the war is to retreat into herself and to start idealizing things and treating the ideal as the reality (which Han-Lon-Mutai was hinting at). That's why she has such a strong reaction to the attachment she feels and believes it to be a hideous failing that will be found out and treated with shame and bottling it up, rather than having an honest conversation about it, which could have resolved her fears.
As ever, thank you for reading and I hope you've enjoyed it, and I will see you next time!