[SW Fanfiction] You do or You Don't [3/?]
Title: You do or You Don't (part III)
Summary: Barriss realizes that she has feelings for Ahsoka, and not the sort that can be ignored.
Word count: ~1900
Characters/pairings: (one-sided) Barriss/Ahsoka
Rating: PG-13 for imagery.
Notes: For no other reasons besides that I was bothered by the lack of Barriss/Ahsoka stories, and because I'd had the first half of this sitting around in my files for several months and I wanted to do something with it, I decided to expand this. I'm planning on two or three chapters following this.
Part One
Barriss’ dreams are unsettling, almost feverish in their bright delirium. First, she’s standing next to an ocean. The sun is setting, and she’s pretty sure that it’s not just disappearing into the horizon: no, it’s melting now, dripping into the ocean and turning the water into a waxy melt of reds and yellows and oranges. It casts a golden sheen as it dies, painting the sharp grey rocks that cut into her feet amber and bronze. The air is warm, though, entirely unlike the cold of space that, somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows awaits her upon waking, and because it feels so good on her skin she opts to not try to get off the rocks, even as they seem to grow determined to slice into her toes and heels.
It isn’t until the wind stirs the air around her and goose bumps start to prickle up along her arms and neck that she realizes she’s naked-
--and then she’d in a rain forest that’s also in the middle of Coruscant; she knows it is because she can see the distant outline of the Jedi Temple from over the trees. It’s hot here, not pleasantly warm, and the air is heavy and burdened with unforgiving moisture. Sweat drips down Barriss’ forehead and over her lips; she licks it away absentmindedly, overwhelmed by the bright colors of the flowers that grow here, deep in the long-forgotten heart of the forest. They seem to pulse before her, and the petals are curling and then unfolding in a hypnotic pattern, and she realizes that she can’t see the towers of the Temple anymore, so she just watches the plants as they grow bigger and start to throb faster and faster-
--until she’s in a desert, and even though she just arrived, she gets the idea that she’s been here for a very long time. An oasis glows ahead, and though her lips are cracked and dry and her body feels at once bloated and withered, she starts to run towards it. Barriss slips and falls, and the gritty sand digs into her palms and knees, but she can’t bring herself to care; she just pulls forwards and drags her limp body, until at last she feels a shallow stretch of water beneath her fingers, a prelude to the real thing. Then, she gains the strength to pull herself to her feet and walk into the pool. She doesn’t even need to pull off her robes.
Water soaks though her parched body, and Barriss laughs as she’s reminded what it’s like to be fully hydrated once more. She tosses back her hair, overcome by the sheer joy of it all, and she’s neither surprised nor disturbed by the realization that she isn’t the only one in the pond right now; not bothered at all that her jubilation should be witnessed, and she gladly accepts the proffered scarlet hand-
When Barriss wakes up, she doesn’t remember what she was dreaming about. Her thin shift is soaked through with sweat, though, as is the blanket that’s tangled around her. Despite that, she’s shivering, overcome with a sense of having lost something that she was very fond of, or at the very least, having left it behind in sleep -and really, that and loss are the same thing.
"Morning," Ahsoka announces from her bunk across the room, and Barriss sits up, tossing aside her sheet and nearly hitting her head on the low ceiling above her sleeping pallet. It's an innocent statement (if technically inaccurate; there is neither morning nor night in hyperspace, after all) but with it comes the memory of last night -or at least, the time that came before their sleep- and that brings with it the weight of the consequences of their actions.
Or rather, the consequences of her reaction to their actions. Showering together is innocent enough; she's done it before with Master Unduli when space was limited, and it was very official then, very businesslike. A necessity, and nothing more.
And really, it was a wise idea to shower together. It saved water and time, and it gave her the chance to examine Ahsoka's injuries. Nothing more than that; logically, there should be no consequences.
Barriss glances up at Ahsoka and meets her eyes, and then quickly looks away, feeling something that she can only classify as wrong. "Are you going into the 'fresher now, Ahsoka?"
"No, I've been in already. You really slept in." Ahsoka gives her a sidelong glance. "Are you feeling well?"
"I feel fine," she replies stiffly, clambering to her feet and, instantaneously, regretting her rudeness. "Tired, though. Aren't you?"
"Of course. We all are. Even Sky Guy looked warn-out when I talked to him. I woke up about an hour ago," she adds. "You looked like you could use some more sleep, so I didn't try to get you up."
"Thank you. Are you feeling well?"
"Yeah. I went to the Healers when I woke up. Ersatz reapplied your bandages. He said that you did a good job."
Barriss nods. Ersatz, the Clone trained as a Healer that headed the ship's med-bay, would be the one to treat Ahsoka. "Ersatz is a good Healer," she says. "One of the best non-Jedi that I've met."
"He is good," answers Ahsoka, straightening up her bed sheets, "but I like you better. By the way, Master Unduli was up and said to tell you that we'd be landing soon -actually, we'll be pulling out of hyperspace in five, I think."
"Thank you for telling me," she says automatically, her voice filling in for her momentarily useless mind as she grabs and analyzes Ahsoka's words. But I like you better? What in the name of the Force was Ahsoka playing at? In any other context... well, were the words said to anyone but her, from anyone but Ahsoka, then they would seem almost flirtatious.
Barriss shakes her head as she grabs her robes and steps into the cramped fresher. Leaning back against the wall, she closes her eyes and just thinks for a moment, running over the events of the night before, and running over the few things that have happened since this morning -more importantly, the few things she's felt since this morning.
The other 'night,' or what-have-you -it was nighttime by her inner clock, anyhow, just as her body tells her now that they're fast-approaching noon- was the first time that Barriss was ever in such close proximity to Ahsoka. Prior to that, they had shared cabins, of course, and fought alongside each other (which, Barriss privately thinks, was far more intimate on an emotional level than washing together was) but never had they viewed each other so blatantly, bumped against each other while -oh, Force; she's a Healer-in-training, it shouldn't be so embarrassing to think it- but well, while naked. Undressed; skin-to-skin.
And she had -well, she had felt awkward, uncomfortable, self-conscious, and nervous. And beyond that, Barriss knows that she had liked it. She enjoyed standing next to Ahsoka, her hair dripping water down to head-tails; enjoyed -through all of her jittery nerves- the feel of Ahsoka's hands against her back, and hers against Ahsoka.
More than that, there were other times, their first assignment together, the idea that they might not make it out alive -being trapped in a collapsed cavern, learning to trust each other because they had to. And later, Ahsoka's ice-cold hands against her back as they both narrowly avoided death by way of a parasitic invader: again, that feeling of intense trust, of being together even after she was pushed to the edge by the control of the brain-worms. Was it -that feeling, the attraction that's so hard to name -was it there then, and on the times since that they have interacted? Was it always there?
She swallows, forces herself to strip down, and then pull her day robes on. Ahsoka is a friend. She really is, regardless of the conflicts they might have working together, or how rocky their initial interactions were.
But a friendship, a purely platonic friendship, based on convenience and similarities in ages and interests, is all that is allowed between Jedi. And a platonic friendship is all that Ahsoka feels towards Barriss; she's certain of that. Ahsoka has never shown any attraction to any women before.
Although...
Barriss pauses as she tightens her belt. Ahsoka has never shown any attraction to anyone before, regardless of gender. And Barriss herself has never shown any of the attraction -the physical attraction- that she's ever felt towards the few people that she's met in passing on missions. It is something that, while not to be ashamed of (Barriss is well aware that Jedi are, contrary to popular belief, not forced to be celibate) shouldn't be shown in a time when it could distract attention from the mission at hand. It is, of course, entirely possible that Ahsoka is attracted to women.
From there, it means that it is possible that Ahsoka has feelings for her. She might simply refuse to show them.
"But she doesn't," Barriss says, shaping her thoughts aloud. "And whatever feelings I have-" and oh, Force, she's thinking at the moment that, yes, she is starting to become attracted to Ahsoka in a way both physical and emotional- "are my own issue, and I need to find a way to resolve them."
Vocalizing her thoughts calms her, lets her clear her mind out, and reach into the Force for stability. In turn, that lets her make some form of a plan.
Her emotions cannot -will not- become a distraction. Barriss will not allow them to. Likewise, they are not something that she can allow to fester within her until they become too great to ignore. They need to be resolved, if she wishes to keep her professional friendship with Ahsoka -and she does, she really, really does. Even if some part of her wants more than what she has now, she is professional enough to know that it cannot happen, and to allow it to would be entirely unbecoming of a Jedi. Such relations, when already based in friendship, would certainly lead to attachment.
She resolves to talk to her Master about this, once they have the privilege of privacy upon landing on Coruscant. And until then, she will do her best to minimize her interactions with Ahsoka. Every confrontation she has increases the risk of her letting something slip to Ahsoka. Separation is the only option.
Barriss steels her shoulders and walks out of the 'fresher, desperately hoping that the Force will be kind, let her newly-acknowledged feelings for Ahsoka not affect her behavior, nor her capability as a Jedi.
But the Force is silent and unyielding of its mysteries, and Barriss realizes that maybe, even with what advice Master Unduli has to offer- she is in this on her own, and maybe -a very far stretch, but still, a possibility- she, alone, will have what she needs to make it through her attraction to Ahsoka without destroying their war-forged friendship.