In Medstar II, Jedi Healer, the book opens with the following scene:
This is a memory Barriss is having of a prior mission, and it's a scene I can't get out of my head. Why? Well, first cause it's an amazing scene, and I love Barriss Offee so much, but second because I can't help but contrast it to her actions in "Brain Invaders"
Now, let's be real. OOC, her actions are absolutely because the writers didn't think that hard about it, and they wanted a cool parallel to Order 66. But I'm more interested in looking at this through an in-character perspective here. Specifically, how much her actions in "Brain Invaders" must have haunted her later.
See, that passage from Jedi Healer is essentially proof that Barriss normally would be expected not to kill Lt. Trap. And that's something I think Barriss would have been all too aware of after the whole Ord Cestus mission wrapped up.
Her actions here make sense. I doubt anyone would truly fault her for what happened here— again, Lt. Trap did pull a blaster on her, and he's absolutely got the size advantage in that fight as well. It makes sense that she did what she did, especially when you consider the fact that she's been fighting in a war.
But would Barriss blame herself? Personally, I think so. After all, she'd know very well that she could've done better. She'd know that this didn't have to end how it did. And— if we're bringing The Wrong Jedi into this— it wouldn't surprise me if canon Barriss ended up resenting the people around her for not blaming her as well.
(She killed one of Ahsoka's men— someone who Ahsoka said was a friend! She panicked, and instead of using the Force to push Trap off her, she used it to grab her lightsaber and gut him! Why is everyone acting like she didn't do anything wrong?)
(Yes, I am absolutely fucking grasping at straws right now for my post order 66 Barriss fic, I know that, shushhhhhh. Trying to make canon actually work is DIFFICULT OKAY. CANON IS COMPLETE AND TOTAL BULLSHIT. BARRISS DESERVED BETTER.)
Warning for a character throwing up, mentioned past character death, and all the general angst that comes with time travelling back before you betrayed everyone you knew and loved
(Ao3 Link)
When Barriss first sees Ahsoka again, she throws up.
She can’t actually remember most of that interaction, right now. She remembers waking up in a room that hasn’t belonged to her in years, remembers walking out to see a Jedi Temple full of light, full of life, remembers thinking that this must be a dream. She remembers starting to walk to Master Luminara’s quarters, because if there’s one person she wants to see before she wakes up it’s her Master alive, alive and breathing and not frozen to death, her body a trap for any surviving Jedi. She remembers walking, and hearing the noises of a group of initiates, and turning and seeing Ahsoka’s montrals in a group of senior initiates, seeing Ahsoka, realizing— Force, Ahsoka isn’t even Skywalker’s padawan yet— and then Barriss came to in a refresher, hunched over and upheaving her lunch.
What did she even eat for lunch? Does she— or, well, past-her— have plans today? Did Padawan Offee know anything besides the basics of Soresu when Master Unduli took her on originally? If this is real, not the dream she thought it was, not the nightmare she’d feared it being, then have her sudden shields prompted suspicion? If this is real— and the fact that she just threw up is indicating that this probably isn’t a dream— then she has to keep her shields up. She knows that, but she also knows that for a while when she was a padawan her shields had been as leaky as Ahsoka’s got when Skywalker was missing, so her sudden shields could give her away easily. Provided that this truly isn’t any kind of dream or hallucination or vision, but she’s never been prone to visions, not like Ahsoka—
Force sithing hells. Ahsoka.
Her stomach rolls again dangerously, and Barriss hurries to lean back over, waits until her body is finally done. Forces back the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, partially caused by the exertion of her dry-heaving, partially caused by the emotional toll of seeing— of seeing her again.
Oh, Force. Oh karking hells, oh Force, Barriss has the sinking suspicion that this is truly, honestly, real. That she’s actually in the past. Actually been given another chance.
It’s disgusting and unhygienic, but Barriss rests her head against the porcelain basin. Closes her eyes. It’s all too much. Why is she, of all people, the one sent back? Karma? Penance?
Is this to be her punishment? Falling apart in the Temple’s refreshers, a place she’d thought she’d never get to see again? The light all around as she chokes on the Dark Side bubbling up within her, her very existence a betrayal to those she loved, then backstabbed? She knows, she knows that the Force does not punish, but…
Barriss is a traitor, and a liar, and a fool, and the Temple bombing hasn’t happened yet in this timeline, but that doesn’t absolve her, not even close. She led to the death of her fellow Jedi, she personally murdered troopers, just as she’d murdered Trap all those years ago, she framed her best friend because she’d spent years stewing in her fury regarding Ahsoka’s lack of anger after witnessing Barriss gut Trap—
And she’d been stupid enough to think that Ahsoka’s connections could protect her, that Skywalker’s bond with the Chancellor and her Grandmaster being on the Council would soften the blow, that—
A sharp knock on the door interrupts her thoughts. “Barriss? Padawan?”
Kark.
Her former Master’s voice is perfectly controlled, but Barriss can tell that she’s worried. Master Luminara would not have called her ‘Padawan’ if she was not worried. There was always a certain amount of affection in her former Master’s voice whenever she called Barriss that— when introducing her to others, it took the form of pride for the young woman Barriss was growing up to be, when concerned for her wellbeing, it encompassed the question of are you okay, and how can I help— and it’s audible to Barriss right now, just as it always was. There’s that affection in her Master’s voice, soothing the sharp edges of her panic, because Master Luminara loves her and trusts her and cares for her and surely she can help fix this and—
And Barriss had taken advantage of that when she turned her back on everything Master Luminara had ever stood for, and attacked the Jedi Temple. Attacked her home, the place that raised her, that loved her— the place that just hours prior, when she’d been in her cell, staring at Darth Vader standing outside her door— she would’ve done anything to return to.
And in the end, that’s what it truly comes down to, isn’t it? Barriss is a traitor, a betrayer, but— she regrets. She regrets, knows that she would do things differently if she could, and- and it seems she suddenly has an opportunity to do so, an opportunity staring her right in the face. She does not deserve it, but Force hells, since when did anyone get what they deserved?
So if she has the opportunity to make a change, then karking hell, by the Force, she has a moral obligation to herself to do so. To herself, if not to everyone else she wronged in her first life.
Barriss closes her eyes, and breathes in. Breathes out, and opens them, then pushes herself up, off the floor, and tries to smooth down her dress. She doesn’t look in the mirror— knows that she won’t be able to handle seeing Jedi Padawan Barriss Offee, age 14, staring back at her— and goes to open the door.
Master Luminara’s presence is nothing but light, and Barriss is in her younger self’s body, too young and too short and too clumsy, but despite that, for the first time in years, everything feels right.
"Brain Invaders" is one of my favorite clone wars episodes, mainly due to the fact that it's actually INCREDIBLY HORRIFYING and I am a terrible chaos gremlin who thrives off that kind of shit. Mind control! Betrayal! The irony of the clones saying that they're good at hunting/killing Jedi! Barriss dramatically telling Ahsoka to kill her! Tango Squad! Trap's GRUESOME DEATH OH GOD — Barriss, darling, love of my life... this is easily one of the most BRUTAL takedowns in the show, holy SHIT. And then that lingering shot of Trap's dead body, with the lightsaber wound that killed him still smoking?
Fuck, this episode is a lot. Poor Lieutenant Trap :'(
