Once the troopers from O-Mer's squad and from the backup squad had set their feet back on the ground, Ahsoka dismissed them as she had done the others, pulling only O-Mer with her. She sent him over to wait with Jinx and turned to Rex.

"We have to get these three patched up," she said, turning to face him. "Can you head up to the command center and start getting a report on the past half an hour?"

"Shouldn't be a problem," he answered, but when Ahsoka started to walk away, he rested a hand on her shoulder. "You okay?" he asked lowly, making eye contact with her.

Ahsoka was tempted to brush off the question like she had been doing for the past few months, but this wasn't some friend being polite. This was Rex, genuinely caring and checking in on her. Instead of lying and smiling, she closed her eyes and let go of a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. She covered Rex's hand with her own, grateful for the support she had been lacking for far too long. Living on her own had taken a toll on her. 

"Enough to get the job done," she answered finally, meeting his eyes. "It's not over until we get back to Coruscant."

Rex understood perfectly. She was fine, but that didn't mean that everything was okay. They were fighters, and they would keep fighting until the day was over, but after that, she needed some recovery time. That's what soldiers did. "We just have to get everyone home."

Her eyes strayed away. "Maybe the Jedi," she murmured, "but this is home."

Not even the born and bred captain could stop himself from smiling. "I'll keep you updated," he said eventually, and they walked off reluctantly, each to their own task.

Ahsoka met the three troopers and the two Padawans waiting for her. She kneeled down in front of the clones and started inspecting their wounds for the first time. The man with the shrapnel in his leg was nasty, but the other two were manageable. 

"Caleb's back," Jinx announced, and Ahsoka waved all three of the Padawans next to her. 

"Come on," she told them, "we need to take care of this before anyone gets infected. Who's treated burns before?"

When Caleb and O-Mer raised their hands, Ahsoka went on. "And who's done stitches?"

Jinx put his hand up, but O-Mer lowered his. Caleb's remained in the air.

"O-Mer, go ahead and start on Cooper," she said, pointing to the trooper with the burns. "Caleb, take Danner. Jinx, over here, we'll take the shrapnel."

Ahsoka opened the medkit and pulled out a dose of anesthetic. With an antibiotic wipe, she disinfected a patch not far from the wound and administered the painkiller. Caleb did the same, while Jinx prepared the needle for stitching and O-Mer began wiping away the dirt from Cooper's burn. 

She held a hand close to the trooper, Kaiden's, leg, feeling for the debris that had pierced his skin. Thankfully, it was still in one piece, but it was in pretty deep and it wasn't far from the bone. Reaching over, Ahsoka grabbed a pair of tweezers and wiped them off quickly, just in case they had bacteria on them. Warning Kaiden beforehand, she grabbed the metal with a steady hand and pulled at the angle it had entered. Kaiden winced, but the painkiller did its job fairly well so he managed to stay still.

It was slow work because Ahsoka didn't want to break off the shrapnel inside his leg and have to do this more than once. It was a full thirty seconds before she was done, but another quick Force check told her she had been successful. Not wanting the anesthetic to wear off, she grabbed more wipes and started cleaning out the wound for Jinx to stitch. 

The troopers, to their credit, did not complain or panic once despite being treated by four teenagers who were definitely not medics or doctors. They didn't speak, so minimize the fidgeting, but it was not lost on them that this was a huge service for Jedi (and a civilian) to do. Commanders didn't usually do this kind of stuff. It was not lost on Ahsoka that these troopers were behaving much better than some of the other people she had treated recently.

When she had finished, she stood up with the scraps from her work and discarded them in a garbage chute nearby, along with some of the waste from the other patients. Walking back over, she checked on the other two. Caleb had started the stitching process before Jinx had and was almost done. O-Mer was already bandaging Cooper's burn and finished within seconds. 

"Nice work on the wrapping," she praised him. Turning to Cooper, she asked, "Has the anesthetic worn off yet?"

Cooper shook his head, answering, "Still feels numb to me."

O-Mer stood up. "If you take care of the medical kit, Ahsoka, I can walk him back to the bunks for the night."

She nodded in affirmation. "Do that, then check in with me once he's settled." Turning back to the soldier, Ahsoka smiled. "Good work today."

"Thank you, sir," he responded, grateful for the support. O-Mer slipped an arm under his shoulder and helped him hobble back to the clones' sleeping quarters. 

Ahsoka kneeled down next to Caleb and got a bandage out, so he could put away the other supplies while she finished the job. Caleb then started cleaning up the blood on the ground, to prevent it from staining. The Jedi helped escort the troopers to somewhere they could rest, and Ahsoka finished clearing their mess. Barely a word was exchanged, but the four of them managed to treat the three troopers in less than five minutes. 

Carrying the three medkits, Ahsoka wove her way through the medical wing, making every effort to stay out of the way of running medics and moving equipment. In passing, she tried to get a glimpse of the Jedi Masters, or of Anakin, but they were still undergoing vital tests, and for some of them, major treatment and surgery.

She walked towards the clones' quarters, knowing she would probably bump into the Padawans in that area. Sure enough, they came running down the hall, looking for her.

For a minute, the four of them just stood there, trying to catch their breath. Jinx was the first of them to speak. "We did it," he remarked, grinning.

"Almost," O-Mer corrected. "We still don't know how the Jedi Masters are doing. The medics are still treating them."

"It's better than we were twelve hours ago," Caleb argued. "We didn't even know what was happening, much less where they were. At least now we know they're alive."

O-Mer didn't look totally convinced, but a mischievous grin split across his face. "That will be a bit of a shock for the Council when they wake up. They got saved by the Jedi Gone Rogue." 

All three of the actual Jedi turned to stare at Ahsoka, but she smiled down at them. "Even more importantly, the people of Lokori were saved by the three of you."

"How is that more important than saving the Jedi?" Jinx asked, almost laughing. "All I did was fly a starfighter and blow things up, I think rescuing the Council is a little more important than that."

"You didn't see them."

Jinx turned to O-Mer, confused. When he saw the ghostly shade of his face, he fell silent.

"They didn't even trust us when we first shot down the guards," the Cerean said, almost fearful himself. "The strong people kept standing between us and the elderly and the children. They thought we had come to take them too. I thought it was just because we weren't Separatists at first, but..." he shook his head. "You should have seen their faces."

Quietly, Caleb ventured to ask, "What did it look like when they went home?"

That made him smile. "So many of them were crying, mostly in happiness, I think. Those who lived there offered to take those who lived in different villages home. The whole community started welcoming the slaves back, it was like one big reunion." O-Mer looked up at Ahsoka. "I know why you wanted to save them now. I'm sorry I doubted you before."

Somewhere in her, she found a smile. "I forgive you. No one should be a slave, not even a Separatist. Hopefully, Scarlet Haven will never be rebuilt and the people of Lokori can live in peace."

"If only we could do that for all of the systems," Caleb murmured wistfully. "I feel like a Jedi again."

Utter silence followed his statement, and it was not lost on Ahsoka. He was implying that there had been a time that he had not felt like a Jedi, and no one else was objecting. Add it to the list of things Sideous managed to ruin.

"I think it's time the four of us had an actual conversation," she suggested, and they walked off to find some privacy.

~

"I don't even remember when it started, but everything just started feeling different."

They were sitting in the bunks for Padawans, a place Ahsoka had once shared with Barriss. Caleb and Ahsoka were on one bed, and Jinx and O-Mer were on the other. 

Jinx stared at the ground. "I don't even know what caused it, really. It was probably Palpatine, but it's not like we ever noticed."

"It just seemed like we were fighting the same battles over and over again," O-Mer reflected, thinking back over his previous missions. "No one ever seemed to make any progress, especially after you left."

"We were fighting a worthless war," Jinx finished, folding his hands under his chin. "Compared to the good we did on Lokori, everything else was for nothing."

Ahsoka felt a string of words float back to her. It wasn't a pleasant memory, but it was a worthwhile one. 

"At the very end of my trial," she began, "Barriss Offee made a speech in front of the Senate. She told everyone, 'I did it, because I've come to realize what many people in the Republic have come to realize, that the Jedi are the ones responsible for this War. That we've so lost our way that we have become villains in this conflict, that we are the ones that should be put on trial, all of us. My attack on the Temple was an attack on what the Jedi have become: an army fighting for the Dark side, fallen from the Light that we once held so dear.'" She paused, letting the words hang in the air. 

Caleb drew his knees to his chest. "It sounds like she was right."

Ahsoka laughed once, shortly. "Barriss was wrong about a lot of things, but not about that. After Sideous, she's more right than she's ever been," she stared off into space. "And more than she ever will be."

The Padawans watched Ahsoka's face harden against the memory. O-Mer spoke quietly, "Do you still think about it often?"

She shook her head. "I try not to, but it normally ends up coming back every once in a while." After a moment's contemplation, she stared at each of them in turn, warning them, "If you ever see her again, run. Run the other way before she gets the chance to hurt you."

Her voice was so cold, so tight, so menacing, that they almost flinched as she spoke. Ahsoka wasn't the type of person to harden up without warning. At least, she hadn't been in the past.

Jinx finally scrounged up the courage to reply. "How did, how did she hurt you?"

"Other than physically?" she clarified. "Barriss is the reason I no longer believe in the Jedi like I used to. She dragged me away from the only life I had known without giving me a choice. Everything about the past year that's changed happened because of her, and I can't say all of it was good."

"If you didn't want to change, why did you choose to leave afterward, then?" Caleb asked, almost desperate. "They asked you to come back, didn't they?"

Ahsoka closed her eyes. "They asked me to come back after they had expelled me for crimes I didn't commit. They could have read my mind and known that I was innocent, but they chose to side with the Tarkin because it made them look better. I can't trust people who would do that."

Jinx looked skeptical. "The Jedi Council wouldn't do that, they're...Jedi are supposed to be peacemakers, and they're not the Republic, they wouldn't just believe someone for no good reason."

"Then why did they?" Ahsoka asked, rhetorically. She knew why. "Sideous had warped their minds, and bent them to his will."

"But he's dead, Ahsoka," Caleb argued. "They're not under his control anymore."

"I know he's dead," she stated stubbornly, wanting to add that she had been the one to kill him. "But if they couldn't stop him on their own, I can't bring myself to trust them, even now. The damage has been done."