Work Text:
Now:
“I’m going to need to owe you another favor, Barriss.” Ahsoka slumped, exhausted, against the doorframe of Barriss’s cell.
“Can you tell me what this one is about?” Barriss half-teased, half-pried, even as she let Ahsoka into her small cell at the Jedi Temple. “Or is this typical Mirror business - all secrets and questions?”
Earlier:
“Ahsoka? What’s wrong?” Barriss fretted at the sight of her friend, haggard and anxious.
“I’m going to need a favor, Barriss.” The pleading tone of Ahsoka’s voice matched the desperation in her eyes, and Barriss quickly let Ahsoka into her cell. If her best friend - a Mirror - needed a favor, it probably meant a private conversation. Finally some semblance of comfort seemed to return to Ahsoka’s posture as she stepped inside and the door slid closed behind her. “There’s something that doesn’t add up. More and more Mirrors are getting assigned to spy on the Separatists instead of domestic monitoring.”
“There is, as I am well aware, a war on,” Barriss reminded Ahsoka, even as she couldn’t help but let a certain hollowness seep into her words. She gestured for Ahsoka to sit on her humble cot, and joined her on the only piece of furniture big enough for both of them.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. But these orders are coming directly from the Chancellor. And their covers are getting blown. Again, slightly more often than you’d expect. Just enough so you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking. And I know I sound paranoid, but the Reflex Amendment, the centralization of the banks? The Enhanced Privacy Invasion Act was just a little too unsubtle to pass, I guess. Maybe if they’d named it something more patriotic it would have gotten through.” Ahsoka snorted derisively. “As Mirrors, we’re taught to notice when something looks out of place, and ask: who benefits? And every time, the answer seems to be Chancellor Palpatine.”
“You told me once that Jedi were meant to walk in the open, justice radiating from our lightsabers, and Mirrors were meant to get down into back alleys and behind closed doors, and reflect that light where we couldn’t walk. So tell me: where can I help you shine the light?” Barriss’s hand slipped over to squeeze Ahsoka’s comfortingly. Ahsoka, surprising herself, squeezed back.
“Let’s just say…I’m going to need a distraction. And a second set of eyes.”
Barriss nodded, lips pressed tight together. “I think I can help with both of those.”
Now:
“You remember the peace conference coming up?” Ahsoka asked as she flumped back onto the foot of Barriss’s bed. “I’ve heard rumors someone’s going to try something to disrupt it. Don’t know who yet. But I’ve lost too much for this peace to fall through now.”
“I will do whatever I can to help you,” Barriss vowed.
Earlier:
“Too much fear to be a Jedi, the boy has,” Yoda pronounced. “But – another path there is, if he would walk it.” He turned to Anakin. “A mother, you have?” The boy nodded, loose blond hair flapping. “The Republic’s protection, she would have, if joined the Mirrors you did.” It was as much to keep a Mirror - a Force-user with espionage training - from going rogue as it was to keep their family members from being used against them, but the boy didn’t need to know that. Not just yet, anyway.
Wide-eyed, Anakin nodded again.
Years passed and Anakin’s training progressed rapidly. He couldn’t tell his mother any of it, of course, but he was permitted irregularly scheduled holo-calls to talk to her. “Hey mom -” His brow furrowed with concern. “Mom, are you okay? Are they working you too hard at Philomena’s?”
Shmi coughed. “Just a little under the weather. Some sort of virus going around. Mena told me to take as much time as I needed to recover. And the local clinic helped treat it - they say I’ll be right as rain in a few days.”
Anakin relaxed, but only slightly. “As long as you’re taking care of yourself,” he allowed.
Shmi shrugged. “I really can’t complain. The hours are long but scrubbing dishes for money I get to keep beats slaving for Plutt. I certainly don’t think he would have been that invested in my recovery.”
It was then, Anakin decided, that he would do anything for the Republic.
Now:
“You’re too good to me, Barriss,” Ahsoka managed as Barriss crossed the room to sit next to Ahsoka as she sprawled back across the cot.
“Nonsense,” Barriss countered. “After all, what are girlfriends for?”
Earlier:
The two teenagers tiptoed through the maintenance corridor, carefully following the composite map of the Senate building’s floor plan and ventilation shafts. “Palpatine’s office should be right…here.” They turned down a smaller branch of the main trunk. “And that means,” Ahsoka announced, “that the nearest vent is…here.” She produced a handheld scanner - no traps on this side, luckily - then a small device that attached itself by magnet to the metal of the ventilation duct. Then it lit up, sounding all the world like a tiny lightsaber. And, indeed, Barriss realized as Ahsoka cut out and removed a small circle of metal with melted edges, that was, in fact, what it was. Then she covered the hole with a screen of fine black mesh - to keep anyone from noticing them, Barriss presumed.
“Now what,” Barriss whispered.
“We wait, and we watch,” Ahsoka whispered back. “I’d like both of us to be here during the likeliest times - evenings when most people have gone home, private meetings, that sort of thing. That way, even if one of us–”
“Don’t say any more,” Barriss replied, voice hushed, one finger pressed to Ahsoka’s lips. Another finger pointing down, Ahsoka realized, and as quickly as they could they dropped to the floor, faces pressed side-by-side to the makeshift viewing port.
They watched as Palpatine entered the formerly empty office, locked the door behind him, sealed the windows and drew the blinds, then went over to a closet, and pulled out a commonplace black cloak, and put it on. Elderly man gets chilly in his office, news at eleven, Ahsoka thought to herself. And then he produced a small but extremely powerful communicator from his pocket, set it on his desk, and started a holocall.
“Ah, Lord Sidious,” simpered a Neimoidian. Nute Gunray and General Grievous? Ahsoka and Barriss thought in unison.
“Wait,” Palpatine uttered as his eyes flicked up. He deactivated the communicator before hissing and sending a bolt of lightning from his fingers up at the ventilation shaft.
“How about that distraction?” Ahsoka gasped directly at Barriss’s face as she rolled them to (physical) safety (but blushing emotional peril). Wordlessly, Barriss reached into a pouch on her belt and pushed the button on a tiny transmitter, detonating a series of explosions around the Capitol complex. “Damn,” Ahsoka muttered. “That’s…impressive,” she muttered as guards began hammering on the chancellor’s door to see if he was safe and uninjured. “Let’s go.” I probably don’t want to know how or why you know how to do that, do I?
She hoisted herself up off of Barriss with her arms, like she had just finished a pushup, and Barriss’s mouth went dry at the sight of Ahsoka above her like that. If our lives and the fate of the Republic weren’t in grave danger, Barriss thought before a competing intrusive thought entered her head. Exactly: we could be dead tomorrow. “For luck,” she lied, and pulled Ahsoka back down into a quick kiss.
Ahsoka blinked down at her, a broad grin filling her features. “For luck,” she repeated, shell-shocked. “Come on.”
Now:
“I’m not exactly the best girlfriend,” Ahsoka admitted, and rolled over to place her hand on Barriss’s stomach. “I’m always gallivanting off on missions with little notice that I can’t even tell you about.”
“Being a Mirror is one of the things I love about you,” Barriss vowed, rolling over to face Ahsoka, before her voice took on a more playful note. “But since you mention it…since it can sometimes be hard to get a hold of you, what do you say about giving me a down payment on that favor you’re going to owe me?”
Earlier:
Ahsoka lay in the hospital bed, her numbness only partially because of the painkillers. Her mentor, Anakin Skywalker, was dead, killed by the death throes of Chancellor Palpatine, a secret Sith lord. Had died shielding her from the worst of the storm of Force lightning that had erupted from the old man’s corpse like pus from a wound long untended. She didn’t know much more than that, but since the guard at the foot of her bed seemed to be there more for her own benefit than to keep her from escaping, she supposed she wasn’t under arrest at least. Not like she had enough volition to do anything, let alone make a break for it.
“Ahsoka?” Barriss crossed the room to sit next to her bed. “They only just let me in to see you. I’m,” she paused and lowered her head to conceal the un-Jedi-like smile that filled her lips, “so glad to see you are well.”
“What happened?” Ahsoka managed through dry lips. “I…blacked out for a while.”
“The better part of two days,” Barriss clarified. “Senate security found me, barely conscious, you, unconscious, Anakin and the Chancellor dead. They ordered a full investigation, found proof of the Chancellor’s treachery. Bail Organa is the Acting Chancellor; the first thing he did was open a line of communication to the Separatists. Sounds like Palpatine was playing them as much as he was us. They’ve arranged a temporary ceasefire, and scheduled negotiations for something more durable in a year’s time. Until then…the Jedi, the Mirrors, the Senate…we’re all just trying to figure out how deep this goes.” She bent over and pressed a kiss to Ahsoka’s forehead. “Rest for now.” Barriss’s lips twisted into a teasing smile. “Because once you’re back on your feet…I’m calling in that favor you owe me.”