Obi-Wan had survived the first two years of the war by thinking that, come what may, the Clone Wars couldn't possibly throw at him anything worse than the first battle of Geonosis, when he had felt the agony of almost two hundred of his brethren echo in the Force as they died in the space of a couple of hours.

Now, though, as he viciously fought his way through the purple mists of Umbara he realized how grievously mistaken he had been.

At least on Geonosis he had fought for a cause: if for nothing else, he had fought for the lives of the other Jedi, for Anakin's and Padmé's lives. Raised to be a peacekeeper, after Geonosis he had willingly fought in the war believing he was fighting for something worth dying and killing for. He had truly believed to be fighting for the freedom of the people of the Republic. For democracy. For, if the Sith were backing the Separatists, how could there be anything but tyranny on their side?

Now, back on the battlefield for the first time since Ahsoka's revelations, he was fully, agonizingly aware of how different the bitter truth was: after a lifetime of training and of silent, unyielding devotion, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master, was killing – murdering – in the name of the Sith.

It was in Darth Sidious' name that he sent his men to the slaughter every time he raised his lightsaber and shouted "Keep moving!", calling onto the Force to let his voice carry over the cacophony of screams and blasterfire and explosions.

It was in Darth Sidious' name that he swung his lightsaber and cut not through the metal limbs of a droid army but through the living flesh of the planets' natives, all pawns in a game bigger than any of them.

Had he not trained for all his life to resist Darkness, Obi-Wan was sure he would have now succumbed to it.

Fear and anger he was familiar with. He had fought against them for years and almost lost on Naboo; he had seen them countless times in Anakin's eyes. What he felt now, though, was something utterly alien and yet horribly familiar. Something that grew parasitically with every killing blow he dealt. He had never felt it with such intensity before, but he had a name for it and was honest enough to admit it to himself.

Hate.

The last step down the stairway to hell, a step he would not take.

Struggling not to think, struggling to kill the enemy that wasn't truly an enemy as painlessly as he could, struggling to smother the swelling darkness under the heels of his iron resolve, struggling not to die, because he couldn't let himself die, not as long as the Order needed him – not as long as Anakinneeded him, Force help us, Force help him, don't let him fall, don't let him fall, don't let me die in this war because I can't stand the idea of my death causing him to fall, and he would, oh I know he would – Obi-Wan pushed on.

"Watch out!" he shouted, the present moment crashing down on him as he reached out for the arm of one of his men, pulling him away from an incoming grenade and pushing him sideways with the Force, out of range from the explosion.

"Keep moving!" he yelled again, unable to turn to check on the man he had just saved, his saber tracing a blinding arc to protect himself and the men behind him from the hailstorm of green bolts. Another flare soared high into the purple sky, shattering the thick mist with smoldering red sparks, a desperate plea for help from Barriss Offee and the 501st.

"We need to reach that blasted base!"

"Scouts reported back, Sir!" Cody barked from somewhere beside him.

Obi-Wan ducked to avoid a blaster bolt aimed for his head and parried another with his saber, sending it back to the shooter who fell with a strangled cry. "What's the situation?"

"Not good, Sir. Umbarans are breaking into the base from the north and the west, the 501st won't hold out for long. We won't make it in time."

Obi-Wan gritted his teeth and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, taking advantage of the short respite. "We will, Cody. We will." The hilt of his lightsaber was heavy in his hand; he tightened his grip, using the sensation of the metal under his glove to ground himself to reality, and took a deep breath. "Men, cover me!" he shouted, and dived back into the slaughter, running to meet a small platoon that was marching towards them, his lightsaber spinning madly before him.

After the first wave of assailants retreated to regroup, Barriss realized that she wouldn't be able to hold out any longer. The despair, fatigue and shame that had haunted her every step in the last months, worms slowly eating at her sanity, were once again threatening to overwhelm her. She clipped her lightsaber back to her belt with shaky fingers and closed her eyes, trying to take advantage of the momentary respite to pull herself together.

"Scouts reported that the second wave will come soon," one of the men informed her. Barriss nodded and took a look around to gauge the situation. The odds didn't seem in their favor.

The outer perimeter had already been breached; Republic soldiers were now holding their ground behind a inner makeshift line of barricades. Once this was breached too, they would be forced to fall back inside the base main building and withstand a drawn-out siege.

In the sky above them the battle was going on, Umbaran fighters manned by both sides spinning and twirling in a maddening dance. Barriss had to admire how quickly the clones had learnt to pilot those foreign crafts: they were giving the Umbarans a hard time. Unfortunately, the ferocity of the airstrike meant that the men of the ground were left to fight without additional firepower from above.

Looking at the domed hangar beside her, Barriss was struck by an idea.

"I'm going to cover you from above," she said, grabbing a backpack full of fragmentation grenades from the improvised armory they had set into a gunship and jumped onto the top of the hangar.

From above, the battlefield looked even more horrifying than it had from below. Barriss' eyes were drawn to the uninterrupted trail of death Pong Krell had left in his wake when he had managed to break through their defenses with a small platoon. Barriss had been forced to let him pass: much as she hated the thought, she knew that Ahsoka had better odds at defeating him then she had.

Averting her gaze from the ghastly spectacle, Barriss swallowed back the bitter lump that had formed in her throat. In the long, black hours of her sleepless nights, the Dark had felt like a refuge, a welcoming place where she could mute every doubt, a warm womb of primal truth where she could look at herself with new eyes. Never, never had she thought that it would look like thisin the daylight. Not for the first time that day she swore to herself she would never Fall.

Flashes of blue, green and red light pierced in a haphazard pattern the thick mist, signaling that the fight has resumed. It was were still far beyond the perimeter wall, concentrated around the GAR's automated artillery that was relentlessly firing on the assailants, but Barriss knew that the Umbarans would gain ground fast.

When the first platoon made it past the wall, Barriss hurtled the first grenade towards them, directing it with the unerring accuracy of the Force. Maybe it was a coward's fight, but right now she didn't trust herself in the melee.

Besides, she had to buy time for Ahsoka. Were Krell to succeed in his mission, the Umbarans would suffer from it even more than the Republic would.

"Incoming!" one of the men bellowed in the voice they all shared and Barriss' head jerked upright in time to see an Umbaran gunship bursting up in flames not far from where she was; the subsequent explosion almost sent her tumbling down the dome. As she struggled to get back to her feet she realized that, before being hit, the gunship had managed to drop a small squad of local troopers that was now running towards the closest melee. Closing her eyes, she lifted another grenade and sent it through the mist; the Force shivered with death. Down below, her troopers cheered her. Repressing her nausea, she tapped her comlink as he started to beep.

"Offee here."

"The northern defenses are falling! They are about to get in."

Barriss felt her stomach sink. "Hold on. I'll be there in a moment," she said before cutting off the comm. The northern gate was nearer the entrance to the main building; if it fell before all her men were inside, they would be trapped without anywhere to go. "Retreat!" she yelled, turning back to the men she had been fighting with. "Fall back inside the base! Call for retreat!"

The men looked up at her with dismay, but she didn't have the time to give them more information. She slid down the dome of the hangar, her lightsaber snapping to life as she waved it to cover her flank and stop any stray bolt from hitting her backpack, still half-full of grenades. She darted through the battlefield, avoiding both the wounded and the dead, jumping over chunks of smoldering debris that had once belonged to starfighters or gunships and skirting around the gaping craters opened in the ground by the enemy bombers, until she reached the hangar closer to the northern entrance; she jumped on the roof and took in the situation.

The men had barricaded here too behind piles of crates and debris and were firing at will on the Umbarans as they came in waves through the gates. The makeshift wall was still holding, but Barriss knew it wouldn't last for more than a few minutes. Her first two grenades fell on the assailants; dust rose to envelop the dying men and their screams. Again, the clones cheered.

"Air support has arrived!" one of them joked.

"Men, you're covering your brothers' retreat!" she shouted. "We have to hold on until they're all inside the base."

Closing her eyes to avoid seeing the destruction she had to cause, Barriss lifted her arms and then slammed then down, guiding four more grenades to fall beyond the barrier behind which the clones were trying to stand their ground. More death, and useless. The Umbarans were just too many, and their reinforcements seemed to never end.

"We can't hold them!"

"We have to pull back!"

"They're encircling us!"

"Fall back!" Barriss yelled, jumping down the dome to fall among the clones, but she knew it was too late. The enemy was swarming the base from the abandoned western gate, cutting them out from shelter. She could only hope that the other squadrons had made it to the base.

"Looks like we're gonna die out here," one of the troopers said.

"Shut up," another man barked, looking at her with an apologetic stare, but Barriss merely shrugged.

"I don't disagree," she said, unclipping her lightsaber from her belt. The green blade snapped to life with an angry hiss. "We will make our last stand behind the gunships. If we are going to die, we will die together."

The men cheered her madly, the folly of battle easy to see on their drained, sweaty faces, and she couldn't find it in herself to blame them: it was either letting the frenzy take over, or go insane.

"Fall back, now!" she yelled.

Half-walking, half-turning to deflect as many blaster bolts as she could, Barriss fought dearly for every step between them and the makeshift inner barricade, made up of a circle of gunship and empty supply crates stacked inside and around them to fill the gaps; it was the last defense line, and Barriss saw with dismay that it had already been claimed by those of the eastern gate defenders that hadn't made it in time to the base, which could only mean that the Umbarans were overwhelmingly outnumbering them.

"Push on!" Barriss yelled, sweeping her blade in a vicious arc that killed two men in a single gesture; adrenaline and her battle cry helped her fight against the urge to weep. A blaster bolt she had not seen coming scorched her cheek, but she merely had the time to register the notion. The Umbarans kept coming in waves, and where one fell two more came to take his place, worse than battle droids, stronger, more cunning and, most of all, more terrible to kill.

Blasterfire intensified madly behind her, but Barriss didn't even have the time to turn and search for the cause, busy as she was trying to defend the clones from the hailstorm of bolts fired by the mobile artillery the Umbarans had managed to place somewhere they could not see beyond the wall of fog and smoke. No matter how fast her lightsaber twirled, she couldn't possibly parry all the bolts, and her troopers were falling around her like autumn leaves.

"Push on!" she shouted again, uselessly. "We must reach cover!"

"Look out!"

"What the -"

"General, behind you!"

The urgency in the trooper's voice made her turn just in time for the corner of her eye to catch something moving so fast she could only make out a light-colored shadow jump over the perimeter wall of the base and land on top of the abandoned inner line of defense.

"Hello there," Obi-Wan Kenobi said before turning and effortlessly throwing across the base two Umbarans foolish enough to think they could take him by surprise.

In the blink of an eye, a wave of clone troopers in white and yellow was flooding the base, coming in from the breached northern gate and breaking through the Umbaran lines.

"Men, regroup!" Barriss shouted, feeling a flicker of hope flood her heart. "General Kenobi is here! Reinforcements have arrived."

The word spread fast: soon the men who had already found cover inside the main building were back on the battlefield to join their reinforcements. The Umbarans, now outnumbered, began to retreat.

Then, just as Barriss finally reached Master Kenobi, the Force shook with death and fear.

"Ahsoka!"

Without ever stopping his Soresu flurry, Master Kenobi turned to look at her.

"I don't want to know what she's doing here, but for the love of the Force, go and find her."

When Rex turned Commander Tano on her back, what he saw made him curse under his breath; on a second glance, though, he realized that her wounds looked uglier than they actually were.

The lightsaber wound on her lek had left the skin charred and swollen; it was probably going to scar but – as far as Rex could tell from his virtually non-existent knowledge of Togruta physiology – it wasn't dangerous. Since lightsabers immediately cauterized the wounds they inflicted, if they didn't dismember or cut through a vital organ they rarely killed. The black blaster mark on the Commander's shoulder, on the other side, looked nasty enough. Luckily it wasn't bleeding much, and Rex could only hope that General Offee would patch it up in no time. What made him feel sick was rather the fact that it had been one of his brothers to give the kid that wound.

"What the hell just happened?"

Fives was kneeling beside Tup, and wearing the same shocked expression Rex felt on his own face; his stomach clenched as he saw Fives' fingers resting on their brother's throat.

"I set to stun," he protested grimly.

Fives grimaced, looking faintly ashamed of himself. "I'm sorry, Rex. I should've known." He shook his head, looking forlorn. It wasn't an expression one could see often on a Fett Clone. "This doesn't make any sense."

"Why would he do that?" Hardcase asked from behind them with a trembling voice. Rex turned towards him to assess his conditions. He had lost a good deal of blood and looked pale, but his eyes were vigil. Fives had patched him up as best as he could with a makeshift bandage on the wounded leg; Hardcase wasn't going to bleed out on them anytime soon, but he too needed a medic as soon as possible.

Rex shrugged. It wasn't like he had any answer to give. "How would I know?"

"Blast it." Fives slammed his fist on the floor in frustration. He turned his gaze from Tup to Rex, then shut his eyes as if to avoid looking at an unpleasant truth. "Is she alive?" he murmured. It was clear from his voice what answer he was expecting.

"Of course she is," Rex grunted. "The kid's tougher than that. But she needs these wounds patched up soon."

As if on cue, the door they had came through burst open, and General Offee came in running. She looked quite worse for wear, with her clothes filthy and torn from the battle and a swollen burn on her cheek; most of all, she looked pale and shaken. Used as he was to Skywalker's flippancy and Kenobi's unflappability, seeing how clearly the war was taking its tall on this Jedi was something quite alien to Rex.

She didn't look surprised to see Krell dead; it was clear she had come knowing what she was walking into. These strange Jedi powers had saved Rex' own life often enough for him to stop questioning them and just be grateful that they existed at all, but they made him still feel a little uneasy.

"How is she?" the General asked as she dropped to her friend's side.

"Hurt but alive," Rex said. "That's all I can tell. I'm no medical expert, ma'am."

"She's fine," she murmured absent-mindedly; her expert fingers were already prodding the wound in Ahsoka's shoulder, her mouth set in a tight line of concentration. "But she needs some bacta now if we want to limit the scarring." Lifting her gaze from Commander Tano, she looked around, quickly assessing the number of fallen men as she tapped her commlink. "Two wounded?"

"Yes, General. The Umbarans are all dead."

"Medical Unit."

"Here's General Offee," she said in the commlink. "I need three stretchers at this position ASAP. And a status report now."

"Stretchers are coming, ma'am. General Kenobi has broken the siege; we're mopping up the last of the Umbarans."

"Very well," Offee replied tiredly. "Thank you. Barriss out."

"General Kenobi is here?"

"Thank the Force, yes. We would never have made it without the 212nd."

"Is – is it done? Did we win?"

Rex felt a weight lift from his chest the moment Commander Tano started speaking. She was stirring, and her eyes were vigil, even if a little glazed.

"So it seems," General Offee said, smiling. "Take it easy, Ahsoka. You are hurt."

"Yeah." She grimaced. "No doubts about that."

Rex flinched as her eyes met his: there was no way he could mistake the anguish he saw there and the way her lips trembled as her gaze moved to Tup. Strangely, she didn't say anything out loud. Perhaps she didn't want to embarrass them in front of a General that was not theirs. Perhaps she was still too shaken and didn't want to think about one of her men shooting her down. Rex couldn't blame her.

"Hardcase. How are you?" she asked instead, turning towards their wounded brother. "And how is Tup?"

"I'm fine, kid. Leg hurts, but I'll be up and running in no time. Tup…"

"Tup's still out cold, but looks stable and breathing evenly," Fives said for him. "Commander, should we put him in binders?"

Rex froze; Commander Tano winced. General Offee looked at them wide-eyed. "Binders?"

Rex hesitated only for a moment. After all, he was the Captain of the 501st: his men's actions were his responsibility. But that moment of hesitation was enough for Commander Tano to anticipate him.

"Poor Tup took a hit to the head," she said, flashing him a sideways glance Rex could only describe as admonitory. "He killed Krell and then fired on me, he was clearly on shock. I don't hold it against him." She turned her gaze on Rex again. "Will he wake up soon?"

"No," he said, hoping he didn't look as confused as he felt. "I set stun on max power, he'll stay unconscious for a couple of hours."

"Plenty of time for Kix to fix him," she said, smiling unconvincingly. Rex had no idea of what was going on, but had since long learnt to just play along. Last thing he wanted was to get involved in the Jedi's internal business. Bracing against him for support, Ahsoka tried to sat up.

"Commander, stay–" he started to say, but stopped as he heard her whispering in his ear.

"Keep Tup sedated until I tell you otherwise. I'll explain later. Please trust me."

Before he could nod, the sound of approaching footsteps had them all turn towards the door, which opened after a few moments to let in General Kenobi with Waxer, Boil and three hoverstretchers of Umbaran design.

Kenobi too was still filthy from the battle, with his tunic so torn and charred it could hardly be called a tunic anymore and his trousers plastered with mud up to his knees. He looked just every bit as tired as General Offee, but he made a far better job at hiding it. Rex could tell he was holding on out of sheer will only because he knew him well.

When his eyes fell on Krell's body, Kenobi winced; again, the movement was so slight that Rex caught it only because he knew the man and his mannerisms, and anyway it was immediately replaced by a smirk.

"You know, Ahsoka, you should hope that the Council decides to Knight you for killing a Darksider in a duel. Otherwise, I am afraid that, after this last stunt you pulled, Anakin will have you grounded for the next fifty years."

Lifting her head up from Rex' shoulder, she grimaced. "So be it, because I didn't kill Krell. It was Tup."

Kenobi crossed the corridor, patently avoiding looking at the traitor, and knelt beside her. "You shouldn't have done that," he said softly. "I am not trying to underestimate your abilities, Ahsoka, but you can't always put your trust in the help of the Force when the odds are so against you. It will only get you killed."

"I know," she murmured. "But there was no other choice. I did what I had to."

Rex couldn't help thinking that such a speech was big coming from Kenobi. While she had always been very much like her Master, of late Ahsoka was starting to behave worryingly more like Kenobi then Skywalker, but Rex knew better than to voice the thought. Skywalker would probably kill for less; Kenobi, on his part, was known for judging his own remarkable recklessness with an amusing double standard.

"Well, I'd say we'd better get going," Kenobi said.

Getting up to his feet, Rex recovered his discarded blaster and helped Hardcase to a stretcher, while Waxer and Boil carried Tup to the other. When Commander Tano too had been settled on hers, Kenobi looked grimly at the dead.

"We shall give them a proper burial once the wounded are treated."

A sharp cry followed by a thud made them all flinch; Commander Tano tried to sat up on her stretcher and cried out in pain at the motion.

Turning towards the source of the noise, Rex saw General Offee standing as if petrified, a look of horror on her face and Ahsoka's lightsaber at her feet. She looked as if she was about to be sick.

"Barriss…" Ahsoka whispered.

"Why…" General Offee's voice was shaking so badly it was hard to make out what she was saying. "Why is my kyber in your lightsaber? And why does it feel so – so wrong?"

Perhaps it was petty of her, but Ahsoka couldn't help thinking that, since it had bothered to subvert the time-space continuum to bring her back to the past, the Force could also try and do something to make her job here a little easier instead than thwarting her every move. Things were already difficult enough as they were.

Back in the underground tunnel, only the presence of so many wounded in need of her help had persuaded Barriss to let the matter of her kyber drop until there was a better moment to speak. Still, she had plainly refused to give Obi-Wan her word that she wouldn't enquire further on the subject.

"It's my crystal, Master. The one I gathered as a child on Ilum. It's part of who I am as a Jedi. I am entitled to know the truth." Then, much to Obi-Wan's chagrin and Ahsoka's reluctant amusement, she had had the uncharacteristic cheek to throw the Code back in a High Councilor's face. "After all, there is no ignorance, there is knowledge. Knowledge is all I ask for."

Much as she disliked the whole situation, Ahsoka couldn't fault her friend: were she in Barriss' place, she would have felt the same. A kyber crystal was a Jedi's most intimate possession: the heart of the blade, the mirror of the soul. That another person could have a copy of one's crystal was unthinkable – or had been, before time-travel entered the realm of possibility.

Had this happened when Barriss was still a Padawan, a direct order from Obi-Wan would have been enough to make her drop the matter: she had always been a sticker for rules in a way Ahsoka never had. Now, though, with all her doubts and her fears, Barriss was a loose cannon, and Ahsoka wasn't going to risk setting her off, especially not with the dangerous knowledge she was after.

She had to wait for a couple of hours before Barriss and Obi-Wan came back to the quarters the Jedi had claimed for themselves. They had been treating those whose injures were life-threatening, but now that the planet was secure the fleet had managed to send down another squad of medics, and the Jedi had left the patients in their capable hands: just as the Jedi themselves did, clones preferred to take care of their own.

Ahsoka felt them coming from the moment they stepped out of the elevator, and braced herself for what promised to be a very unpleasant. She could only be grateful that, unlike how it had been when she had dropped Darth Vader on a completely oblivious Obi-Wan, Barriss was at least faintly aware of the darkness that had taken root inside her. Still, it was going to be painfully hard to tell her that in another life she had turned. There was no way of avoiding the unpleasant truth: Barriss had without doubt sensed the memory of her own darkness in the kyber.

Arranging her mending and stinging lek to find a more confortable position, Ahsoka waved the door open to let them in. They had showered and changed into fresh clothes before going to attend the wounded, but both their bodies bespoke of fatigue.

"You look tired," she said softly.

"Well, I could use a good night's rest," Obi-Wan said, trying to sound light.

"I am tired." Barriss' voice was flat, lifeless. "Ahsoka, please, I need to know." She shot a sideways glance at Obi-Wan; it was clear that she'd rather have this conversation with Ahsoka alone. Ahsoka had the suspicion that Obi-Wan had followed her back to avoid just that.

"And I promised I would tell you. Take a seat. Master Obi-Wan already knows everything," she added in a softer tone. Barriss froze for a moment, then nodded.

Obi-Wan waved one across the floor, grimacing; Ahsoka knew he disagreed with her choice to tell her the truth. Barriss crossed the room to take the plastoid chair at the terminal desk and dragged it to Ahsoka's bedside. She didn't make any noise; everything about her was quiet. Her Fall had been quiet too, quiet right until the moment her bomb had gone off. Ahsoka found herself wondering what had marked the point of no return for her. Just as every other day since she had discovered the truth, she wondered what Palpatine could have done to push Anakin over the edge; once again, she had no answer for the question tormenting her.

Obi-Wan, probably sensing her troubled thoughts, smoothed her sheets just like a crèche Master would have done with a youngling; the tenderness in the gesture made her smile. "How are you, Ahsoka?"

"I'm fine. Just a little bit dazed." She took a deep breath before turning her gaze towards Barriss; procrastinating would only make things worse. "I suppose you've checked the kyber in your lightsaber."

Barriss nodded curtly; she was so tense she was biting her nails, a bad habit of her early Padawan years that Ahsoka had seen resurfacing only once before, one time when Master Unduli had almost been killed during a mission. "It's my kyber. The right one. Without all the stains – the memoriesyours have. But it's the same crystal. Don't lie to me, Ahsoka, you know it's the same crystal."

"I wasn't going to deny it. It is your crystal. Or, to be precise, the crystal you owned in another life. I know it sounds absurd, but I come from the future of this other life. I took that crystal after it was taken from the you of that other life – a future you that will never be, because things have already changed."

It was a lot to take, and Ahsoka wasn't really certain that, were she in Barriss' shoes, she would have believed it. Predictably, Barriss didn't speak for a long minute. She simply shook her head, but not as if she didn't believe Ahsoka's words. It looked as if she didn't want to believe her.

"I… It can't be," she murmured at last.

"You know I'm not lying," Ahsoka said. "You felt it when you made contact with the crystal."

"No, it's not…" Barriss covered her face with her hands. Her voice came muffled from between her fingers. "Ahsoka, the darkness…"

"It wasn't all yours," Ahsoka said gently, reaching out to touch her wrist with her good arm. Barriss winced, then reached back for her, grasping her hand like an anchor, like she had done in Krell's quarters. "Only some of it. The worst part belonged to the man who took the crystal from you and to the one who used it after. It wasn't all yours."

Obi-Wan got up from his seat and circled Ahsoka's bed to stand behind Barriss; he put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently. Ahsoka felt the Force shiver around him; Barriss sighed as the waves of calm warmth he was emanating reached her.

"What did I do?" she murmured, slowly taking her hand off her face. Her eyes were red but dry.

"Nothing that you need to know," Ahsoka said. "I will tell you just this: in the end you came back, you fought it and win. A very few people could ever do that."

"You promised you would tell me!"

"I promised I would tell you the truth. This is the truth. What happened to another Barriss Offee in another life isn't the truth here."

"Keep your focus on the here and now," Obi-Wan said, coming to Ahsoka's help. "The future is dangerous enough as it is. There is no need to worry about one that will never come to pass."

"How do you know it won't?"

"The Barriss I knew back then…" Ahsoka spoke slowly; the memories were still painful even after all this time. "The Barriss who Fell. She didn't get help. I had no idea, I wasn't even there most of the time. She had no one to turn to. This isn't true for you now. I should have come to you sooner – I did it at first, but then so many things happened… I 'm mad at myself for forgetting, but you are not alone now. We are here and you'll be fine, I promise."

Barriss looked at her miserably. "I don't want to Fall," she murmured.

"And this is why you won't," Obi-Wan said, and even as his face remained calm and smiling his pain stained the Force. "No one ever Falls against their will."

Ahsoka swallowed. She knew exactly what he was talking about and what it must have cost him to say that loud.

But it was the right thing to say. Barriss nodded, her eyes closed, and started speaking softly. "Sometimes, I did wish to Fall. This war – I wanted to be a Healer, Master. I believe in the Code, I truly do, I strived to live by it every moment of my life. This war destroyed every certainty, every dream and ideal I had. Living like this… It's a struggle, with every breath. There were moments when I couldn't go on. It looked so easier to just let go of everything and let my pain and my anger guide my steps. I never… I never strayed, I swear. But I thought about it. A lot. And it felt good, but I knew it wasn't right. I tried not to."

"Seekers, not saints," Obi-Wan said gently after a moment of compassionate silence. Tentatively, Barriss smiled. It was a sad smile, but it was a smile nonetheless. Ahsoka couldn't picture the Barriss that had betrayed her smiling like this.

They remained quiet for a while, listening to the muffled noises of the hour preceding sleep. Around them, the clones who had survive the battle for Umbara were preparing to go to bed – taking a shower, washing their teeth, having a last chat or singing a last song for a fallen brother. Even through darkness, life went on. It had kept going on even under the Empire, after all.

Ahsoka thought again about Barriss' words and wondered whether it had been like this for Anakin too – whether it already was. Had Vader came into being because Anakin had just given in, because it was too difficult to just go on after everything that had happened? She had to suppress a shiver at the thought and instinctively turned to Obi-Wan, but he was avoiding her gaze; his face was even more guarded than usual, and this gave Ahsoka the certainty that he had been thinking the same things she had.

"What happened to make you come back from the future?"

The dejected expression was still on Barriss' face, but the inevitable curiosity was creeping in. It had to happen eventually.

"It's a very long story," Ahsoka said, "and not one I can tell in full. There are too many missing pieces and it involves people who did things that they might not do again, for the better or worse. I can give you a broad outline. But there are other people who need to hear this too, so I'm asking you to wait just a few more minutes."

Obi-Wan looked alarmed. "What do you mean, other people?"

"I was shot by one of the clones," she told him. "He shot Krell first and then turned his blaster against me. He said 'kill all Jedi' and fired." The tight line of Obi-Wan mouth said that he had understood what was going on. "Rex and Fives were there. We can't hide the truth from them."

Actually, Hardcase had been there too, but she didn't know him well enough. She couldn't know how he would react, while she had first-hand knowledge of how Rex and Fives would. She felt guilty in keeping him in the dark, but it was for the best.

"The truth… What are you talking about?" Barriss murmured, fear seeping into her voice.

"You want to tell the men?" Obi-Wan looked as if he thought she had gone mad. "They won't hide something like this from their brothers."

"They aren't stupid. They know there is something amiss in what happened to Tup. I know for sure that both Fives and Rex will understand the gravity of the situation. They already did once. Fives gave his life to get to the bottom of this plot, and Rex was the only one who believed him. It is thanks to him that I survived."

Barriss looked between them in stupefied astonishment, clearly completely at loss but aware that they were talking about something of the utmost importance. Obi-Wan was tense, but after what looked like a moment of internal deliberation he stiffly nodded.

"You are right, we can't hide something like this from the clones," he said at last. "They deserve to know. They are victims just as much as we are, if not more, and at least two of them have the right to have a voice in the matter."

Since they moment they returned to the base, Rex and Fives had never left Tup's side. True to his word to Commander Tano, Rex had kept his brother sedated in a secluded area of the medical base. He had thought it best not to inform Kix of this strange development and had just told him that they were going to quarantine themselves for the risk of exposure they had run by staying in an unknown biolab; when General Offee had assured him that she would take care of business, Kix had given his assent. Rex felt a little guilty for the deception, but he trusted the Commander to know what she was doing.

She came a couple of hours after they had been back, followed by General Kenobi and General Offee. The latter looked even worse than she had after the battle, which was saying something. He couldn't deny he was curious to know what had happened between her and Commander Tano, but definitely knew better than to stick his nose where it didn't belong, especially if that was Jedi business.

"How is he?" Commander Tano asked as she perched herself on a stool, grimacing as the movement made her wounds hurt. She looked at Tup with such pity and affection in her eyes that Rex felt immediately better for having done what she had asked. Whatever it was that was happening, he could have sworn she had their best interests at heart.

"The med-droid says he's stable," he said, then stood on attention a little awkwardly. "What's going on, Commander? What's wrong with him?"

The Commander looked between him and Fives, who was standing against the wall and toying nervously with his helmet. She looked determined, but there was a strange sadness in her, a somber demeanor that made her look far older than her sixteen standard years.

"Every clone in the GAR, every single one of you, has a biochip implanted in their brain, a dormant behavioral inhibitor meant to suppress your free will and creative thinking upon activation," she said without preamble. Rex felt his knees buckle under him. What? "Tup's chip malfunctioned, and that's why he fired on Krell and me."

Silence followed her pronouncement. Fives had stopped toying with his helmet and was holding it so tight Rex thought he would crush it. General Offee had brought her hands to her mouth and was staring at Ahsoka in horrified disbelief, while General Kenobi just looked grim. He probably knew already.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I'm not following. Why would a behavioral inhibitor cause Tup to fire on you?"

"It looks like this inhibitor chip is designed to ensure that the whole of the GAR would comply in the event that a particular contingency order is issued. Apparently, Tup acted as it were the case. I'm sure you heard him say–"

"Kill all Jedi," Rex said, stunned. "Order 66."

"What?" General Offee sounded utterly shocked. "The GAR has a 'kill all Jedi' contingency order?"

"Contingency orders must take into account every possible scenario, no matter how unlikely," Rex explained, almost apologetically. "We use the same list that was in use in the Old Republic, way before the Ruusan Reformation and the dismantling of the old army."

"And this is why no one objected to it," General Kenobi said. "Not the Senate, nor Chancellor or the Jedi, and all of us are targets of one order or another. Most of those orders have never been used, not once in twenty-five thousand years of Republic history, not even during the Mandalorian Wars or the Old Sith Wars."

"But why would we need a kill all Jedi order?"

"It wasn't meant to be used with all the army at once, of course. It's meant to be transmitted to a single squadron, battalion or legion led by renegade Jedi whose betrayal can be proven beyond doubt."

"We don't need a mind control chip to do that!" Fives protested. "I need no mind control to kill the likes of Krell."

"Often things aren't actually used the way they were meant to in the first place," Kenobi said bitterly. "Rex, Fives, you are among the finest soldiers the Republic has ever had. I have seen you obeying orders that would have other men mutiny. I know that, should Anakin or I ever give the order, you would even obey something as awful as Order 37."

"What is Order 37?" Commander Tano asked, sounding faintly worried at the thought of an order worse than Order 66.

"Capture of a single wanted individual through the mass arrest and threatened execution of an entire civilian population," Kenobi replied coldly. "I will be dead and rotting before I give such an order, but I am sure that you would obey us. Am I wrong, troopers?"

Fives and Rex replied in unison. "No, Sir."

Kenobi smiled, a chilling snarl with no joy.

"Now tell me, should the Senate or the Supreme Chancellor ask the 501st to execute Order 66, would you obey?"

Rex cleared his throat. "Sir, with all due respect… Why would they?"

"This is beyond the point. Should the order arrive, would you do it? Kill Anakin and Ahsoka with no second thought?"

Silence fell again in the room, broken only by the beeps of the machines Tup was connected to.

Rex looked down to the tip of his boots. He couldn't bear facing the Jedi, and especially not Ahsoka, for he knew what his answer was. It was Fives who answered for both of them.

"We wouldn't," he said. "Sorry, Sir, I know I should say that we would obey without hesitation, but we wouldn't do it. No matter why, unless they went all Krell on us, but I can't see General Skywalker or Commander Tano doing that. Or you, for that matters. Orders are orders, but the Senators or the Chancellor aren't here fighting with us. I would never kill someone who bled with us on the battlefield at the orders of some plump politician from the Core. We aren't battle droids."

"I wouldn't either," Rex said, less vehemently but with the same conviction. "You know that. Some of our brothers would, maybe, but not us. Not after everything we've been through."

"And this is why the Sith made sure this chip was implanted in every one of you," Commander Tano said. "So that, when the time comes and the order is issued, the chips will overwrite your training, your thoughts and your personality and make you obey."

Fives' helmet clattered to the ground. "No," he growled. Rex looked at General Offee: her eyes were wide and her lips were moving to form the word Sith, but no sound came out.

"I'm afraid yes," Ahsoka went on, merciless. "We were lucky enough to have the preview with Krell and not someone else."

Rex wasn't sure he was fully grasping the magnitude of what she was saying. There was only one thing he knew for sure.

"I want the blasted thing out of my head," he said.

General Offee winced, then shook her head. "It might kill you," she said shakily. "I need to see this chips for myself and study the best course of action."

Commander Tano cleared her throat. "Actually, there is no danger in removing the chips. At least, undamaged chips. It's a surgery a simple droid can perform."

Rex froze. "This isn't the first time this happens," he said flatly. It wasn't a question.

The Commander looked at him sheepishly. "Yes and no. Oh, sweet Force," she burst out, hiding her face in her hands before looking at him again. "I can't prove it, Rex, but I come from the future. That's why I know all these things. I've already seen them all happen once and I'm not going to let them happen again."

Ahsoka was fairly sure that the only reason why neither Rex nor Fives had ended up thinking that the three Jedi were all victims of collective hallucination was the fact that the neural scan Barriss had performed on Tup and on the two of them had proven her assertions right beyond any doubt.

Both of the clones' chips had been removed, and they were now sporting two matching scars on their temples. Tup would required a more sophisticated surgery to avoid complications; Barriss had said she would see to it as soon as she had a better idea of how the thing actually worked.

"The chip is meant to block and reroute some specific neural patterns," she explained when they met again late that night, after Rex and Fives had been cleared from the secluded medbay where their surgery had been performed, and she had had the time to go multiple times through the results of the tests she had performed. "I hate to say it, but it's some impressive work of bioengineering. I can't imagine how expensive this whole operation must have been."

"I'd love to know where the Sith got all this money," Obi-Wan said, stroking his beard. He looked murderous; Ahsoka couldn't find it in herself to blame him.

"I have no idea," she said meekly. "I wondered that too, but it wasn't the kind of information one could easily investigate under the Empire."

"We must get to the bottom of this problem," Obi-Wan said. "I don't like the idea of the Sith having unlimited funds at their disposal. But we must keep our focus on the here and now," he added, actually reprimanding himself.

"I concur," Barriss said dryly. "Especially because the here and now already looks troubled enough."

Rex cleared his voice. "Who knows about this?" he asked.

Ahsoka shrugged. "Right now, the people in this room."

"What? The Jedi Council doesn't know? The Supreme Chancellor?"

"The Supreme Chancellor is the last person that needs to know this," Obi-Wan said, his voice so cold Ahsoka felt a shiver creep down her spine. "A conspiracy of this scale must have its supporters in the highest spheres of political and economical power. The Senate must never know we know."

Apparently, Rex had no objection to this. Notwithstanding his theoretical loyalty to the Republic, Ahsoka knew he didn't hold its representatives in high esteem, save perhaps a few.

"The Council doesn't know?" Barriss looked between Obi-Wan and Ahsoka in bewilderment. "Anakin doesn't know?"

"General Skywalker doesn't know?" Rex echoed her.

"Rex, Barriss, you know Anakin," Ahsoka said, grimacing. "He isn't able to lay back and wait for things to happen; he couldn't play the long game for his life. Knowing this would made him go insane – or, more probably, would make him do something rash that would blow our cover."

"We will eventually have to tell the Council," Obi-Wan said, a little hurriedly; probably he didn't want to linger on the matter of Anakin.

"We can't," Ahsoka said. "We've already talked about that."

Barriss shook her head; she looked completely taken aback.

"I… Ahsoka, Master Kenobi, how can you hide something like this from the Council? We're talking about the survival of the Order!"

"I know. I know, believe me," Ahsoka murmured. "I've lived through Order 66 once and I'd rather die a thousand times than live through it again. But I can't tell the Council. First of all, I don't trust them to do the right thing – I'm sorry, Master, but it's the truth." She shot Obi-Wan an apologetic glance; he nodded tiredly. "I have my reasons. Besides, right now, with all of this going on, they would interrogate me until I told them everything I know. They can do that, and they would, but there are things they can't know. Things I can't let them know."

"Ahsoka, I understand not trusting the Council, but we're talking about the lives of almost ten thousand Jedi and three millions of clones! What can be worth risking it?"

Anakin, came the immediate answer, and she flinched, ashamed of herself beyond words. And yet she couldn't deny it. The Council would interrogate her, mind probe her, open her mind, rip her memories apart and find out about Darth Vader, and she couldn't let this happen.

Don't lose a thousand lives just to save one, Master Secura had once told her, when Anakin's life had been in jeopardy on Maridun.

Ahsoka knew that it wasn't just her attachment what had brought her to this decision: she was sure, with the bone-deep certainty of the Force, that the Daughter had brought her back to ensure that Anakin didn't fall. He was the Chosen One, Mortis had proven that beyond a doubt. After all, the Force had decided to bring back her, a no one whose only role in the grand scheme of things was that of Anakin Skywalker's apprentice. She couldn't let the fears of the Jedi Council destroy what the Force wanted her to do.

Still, there was a part of her that feared that, had Anakin been nothing more than a average Jedi Knight, she would have done just the same out of love – out of attachment.

"I have my reasons," she simply said.

"But the Council…"

"The Council will have to be involved, sooner or later," Obi-Wan intervened. "I agreed on keeping this a secret until we have a more definite plan."

"You don't have a plan?" Barriss looked completely taken aback. "What are you waiting for?"

"I haven't been back for long," Ahsoka said defensively. "And, since I can't tell the Council, I must play the part of the nice Padawan, go on missions and all this stuff. Besides, I thought we had more time. The malfunction of Tup's chip should have happened eleven months from now. Of course I was going to act on it sooner, I just didn't think it would come out like this."

"There was another matter that required our attention in the meantime," Obi-Wan said, a little awkwardly. He too had probably realized how they had concentrated their efforts on the single task of saving Anakin from himself, forgetting, even if only for a couple of weeks, what else there was at stake. "It was important."

"I think," Barriss said slowly, "that you haven't really realized how dire the situation is."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees.

"What do you mean?" Obi-Wan said.

"I mean that the chips are biological tissue implanted in living organisms. We aren't talking about a digital programming that can be shut down remotely. The chips have to be removed or deactivated one by one. Surgery leaves a scar and is easily detectable. We can't hope to perform it on two million and a half clones without anyone realizing it. I suppose that the Sith are keeping an eye on the army; they would realize a sabotage of this extent, and sooner rather than later."

"The chips can be deactivated with the Force," Ahsoka said. "I happened upon a strange report while I worked underground missions during the Empire. It looks like a survivor of Order 66, a Padawan, managed to escape pursuit by some Force-trained agents of the Emperor by activating the chips in the clone squad that was following him, so that they turned on their leader."

"Activating them is easy," Barriss said, "especially as if, like in this case, they had already been activated once. All you need to do is to solicit the brain with the Force, and just as the rest of the neural cells start sending impulses, the biochip turns on and starts its work. This is why, upon activation, it may cause the subject to undergo small seizure-like episodes. Deactivating the chips, on the other hand… You have to kill the cells, and you can't just do it on a large area as you do to activate them. You would destroy the clone's brain. You have to identify the chip in the Force – which is impossible. They have been designed so that a Jedi can't find them. Only a trained healer who knows where to look could do it. I wouldn't dare attempt it, and I've trained as a Healer for years. The Order has about a hundred Healers with various degrees of training. Vokara Che could treat ten, twelve troopers a day, but we only have one Vokara Che. Assuming that we could work every day with an average of six patient a day, it would take us about three years to treat the whole of the GAR." Her voice broke and she looked at them with anguish. "Do you understand what this means?"

Ahsoka felt as if she was going to be sick.

"Yes," she said. "This means we can't stop Order 66."

Author's note: please forgive me for taking so long to update. I'm terribly sorry.

The Padawan who turned the clones against the Inquisitors by activating their chips is Ferren Barr from the comic series Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith