Returning to the Jedi Temple, Grim and Obi-Wan had to go to the Halls Of Healing.

Alma, the kind and soft spoken togrutan healer that had helped her and Master Kenobi when they returned had told Grim off for getting into a fight without a proper plan and ending up hurt again.

"Stop getting into so many unnecessary fights," Alma told Grim as she patched up the padawan. "Every time you do you end up hurt."

Grim was going to retort, but she bit it back and nodded. "Yes, Master Hart."

Making sure Grim was alright, Alma told her: "I'm going to go check on Master Kenobi now," and left her alone.

It had been several hours since Grim and Obi-Wan were allowed to leave the Halls of Healing.

Since then Grim had been sitting in her room, thinking about all that had happened.

In the span of only two years so much of her life had changed.

Grim had appeared in another universe and become a Jedi. Although Jedi were keepers of the peace with becoming a Jedi she had also become a soldier.

A commander.

She was just sixteen years old and yet she had gone through so much.

She fought in a war, a war that was created to break the Jedi. Grim knew this and yet she still chose to fight in it. She was the only one who had been given that choice.

She had seen death, and she had caused death.

Grim would never forget what she had done to Krell back on Umbara, as often as she tried to push the memory away. Sometimes at night she would still hear his final words.

"And you've seen it too, you're not a true Jedi either." ... "Yes, I can feel your anger, your fear, your hate. You keep playing pretend, little girl, but reality will catch up with you soon enough."

She wished she could push the memory back. And how she had replied.

Grim lifted her hand and grabbed Krell's neck with the Force. ... Krell lay on the floor dead.

"You know nothing about me," she had said coldly.

Grim had encountered Sith Lords and been tortured by them.

Maul was not the first Sith to have tortured her and that's what made it worse.

Nobody knew she had ever encountered Sidious. That she had fought against him and lost. That she had been tortured by him. And she didn't know who she could tell. Her fear kept asking "what if you make things worse?"

She was still only a kid and yet she fought a war, had been tortured, and witnessed and caused death.

It was so much, and it hurt.

And just as she couldn't push away the thoughts of Krell, and his death at her hand, she couldn't push away the torture she had received from Sidious. How she believed she would die. And how she had broken.

Sidious had broken her.

As her mind wandered into her memories of her encounters with Sidious she brought a hand up to the left side of her face and traced the scar there.

Scars.

Didn't Grim already have enough? Hadn't she already gone through enough?

She was too young to be carrying scars.

The scar on her face was not her first. She never looked, but she knew that she bore scars from Zygerria as well. It was something she and Obi-Wan shared. From the torture the two Jedi had endured on that mission.

Sixteen years old and she had been so badly broken. So many scars. And how much torture? Zygerria, Sidious, and now Maul. Would it ever end? And although there had been no torture on Umbara, the memory of her actions felt like that some nights.

She was too young to be holding in so many secrets.

The secrets that belonged to her, the secrets of the story she lived in, the secrets of her friends, of her enemies. So many secrets that seemed to be endless as she weaved a web of lies to avoid telling them.

And Grim knew she didn't have to keep these secrets inside but her fear held her back. She should speak up and talk to people, she knew it and yet she never did.

Grim was only sixteen and yet she already had been through so much, and she knew she still had so much left to do.

There was still so much more to go through, and she began to wonder if she even had the strength to face what the future held. Or if she would live through to see the end. Not that she was afraid of death - at least, not her own.

There was a knock on her door before she could think about anything else. It was a welcome distraction.

"Grim," came Obi-Wan's voice. "Can we talk?"

That, less so. She could guess it would be about Maul. How she had snuck along with him. She had hoped that them being tortured would have spared her the lecture. Maybe not.

"Sure," said Grim, not letting that show. "Come in Master," she told him, opening the door. Obi-Wan entered the room and then she asked him, "what do you want to talk with me about?"

"I wanted to check on you, are you alright?"

Oh, good. No lecture then.

"I'm fine, Master."

"I'm glad to hear it. You shouldn't be fighting Sith. You're only a padawan."

Never mind.

"So?" asked Grim. "I'm capable of it."

Not that she had ever won. Both her fights with Sidious had ended with her barely escaping the Sith and were it not for Obi-Wan she doubted she would have survived Dooku or even Maul for that matter.

"Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should," replied Obi-Wan. "Leave fighting Sith to the more experienced Jedi."

"You were a padawan when you fought Maul for the first time," Grim grumbled, crossing her arms. It was immature, sure, but she wasn't in the mood for a lecture. Not that she ever was.

"A fight that came at a high cost," he reminded her. "And though I may have won it seems it did not work, as Darth Maul has returned," Obi-Wan added. "Others actions are not an excuse for your own actions, either. Just because someone else did something does not mean you should."

Grim sighed, "I know that, Master."

"Then take responsibility for them."

"Yes, Obi-Wan," she said. Best not to argue. She didn't have the energy anyways.

He began to take notice of Grim's room. They no longer shared one, as Grim had decided she needed her own space. He saw the plants she kept on a few shelves that she used to personalize her room. On her desk was plenty of flimsi where it seems she kept notes.

There was also a holo-photo of an image from early in the war. Back when Anakin and Obi-Wan both wore armor, and during the short time the Jedi Master had grown out his mullet again (before Grim had begged him to cut his hair, for a reason he still could not quite understand). It was of him and Grim, along with Anakin and Ahsoka. The two padawans stood in the center. All four Jedi were smiling.

"I remember that day," Obi-Wan said absently, looking at the photo.

Grim was confused for a moment before seeing what he was looking at. She smiled. "Yes, me too. Things seemed simpler then." Her biggest problem then, had been trying to figure out what year it was. Something that seemed so silly now.

"I'm sorry that you got caught up with Maul," said Obi-Wan, looking back at his padawan.

"Don't be," she told him. "As always I chose to go along. It was my choice."

He smiled at her, a gentle one, with a hint of sadness that it was a choice Grim ever had to make.

She then hugged Obi-Wan, surprising him. A moment later he was hugging her back.

"Don't think for a minute I'll ever regret these choices I've made. Becoming a Jedi was the best choice of my life," she told him.

They stayed like that for a long moment, and for a while she could pretend it was early in the war again. When times were easier. Before Grim had these scars.

Then she slipped away from him, and walked over to her desk with her messy notes. She found her list of events and crossed out "Darth Maul's return - 20/19 BBY?"

Obi-Wan noticed. He didn't say anything. Although he now knew that she had known all along that Maul would return, but never thought to tell him. What else did she know that she refused to tell anybody about? He had a feeling there was a lot. And he wondered why, and wished he could help her.

Grim flipped the flimsi around and walked over to her bed, sitting down on the edge of it. Looking out at the wall, but not really seeing anything.

Obi-Wan felt an all too familiar grief roll off his padawan. It seemed once again she had lost herself in time.

"Grim, is everything alright?" Obi-Wan asked her.

She looked up at him, with the eyes of a child who had gone through too much too young. "Master, what am I supposed to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"There isn't much more time left now. Maul's return - at least if memory serves me right, happens near the beginning of the final year. I still have barely to practically no sense of time for this universe. I can't even read the calendar for Force sake! All I know is that I'm running out of time. I'm afraid the ending is getting closer.''

"You may not know how much time we have, but that's okay. There may be more time left than you realize. After all, a lot can change in a year."

Grim laughed sadly, "a lot can change in a moment."

Her life had before. It could again. Words not yet spoken echoed in her head distantly:

"Execute Order Sixty-Six."

She shut her eyes, and shook the words away. They never would be spoken.

"You can be that change," Obi-Wan reminded her. "And you don't have to face things alone. I'm here for you Grim."

"I know Obi-Wan."

"Then when will you let me help you?"

Grim was quiet. Her eyes drifted to the plants she had collected throughout her adventures as a padawan. A hand drifted to the scar on her face, the most visible of all of them. She closed her eyes. When would she finally let Obi-Wan help her? He was right, of course he was. Still she never let him help her.

After a moment longer she had her answer,

"Maybe when I'm no longer so afraid to admit I need it."

"You've admitted to it now."

"So I have, and yet I can't ask for it."

"You don't have to."

She smiled sadly and looked at Obi-Wan, "but you can't help me if you don't know what I do."

"That is true," agreed Obi-Wan. "But know you're not alone."

"I do know. That's what makes it hard."

Obi-Wan looked at her confused. "How come?"

"Because it gives me more to lose, and more to fear."

"Learn to let go of that fear, because it's hard to live a life where you have nothing to lose."

She laughed with an ache of grief. "I hate that you're right."

Because how hard will our lives be, if I fail and we lose everything?

Obi-Wan felt that grieving fear she held in her heart again. "There's still time, little one."

"Yes, but how much?"