***I'm baaack! And more evil than ever, so you'd better have some tissues ready! I hope you're not in a public place! Followers, I am SO sorry I haven't been on here in so long! I have work, college, AND my computer broke! I will be updating my two other stories as well! Enjoy this third one!***
Ezra looked in the mirror, shaking his head as tears fell off his chin. How wrong it had gone. How wrong it had all gone. And now one of their own was dead. That was what hurt worse than anything. It had been because of him. Because of him, a rebel was dead. Because of him, the Rebellion grieved. Shadow darkened his face further, and he couldn't bear to look in the mirror anymore. He sank to the ground, crawling over to the wall. He curled up and laid his head against it, letting himself freely weep.
Kanan's Force signature instantly responded.
Ezra would have to make this fast, faster than he had thought. Karabast. He swore, feeling his heart ache.
Kanan was sending out waves of calm and caring, but Ezra fiercely battered them away, driving desolation and pain towards him.
Leave me alone or you'll be sorry! Ezra threatened.
No! No way I'm leaving you alone, especially after what happened. Especially after how you're feeling.
I said leave me alone Kanan!
No! The Force has cut me a path anyway! Kanan paused. You're crying! Ezra…! The teen could hear his master's pity, worry, in his voice. He hated it.
"Leave me alone!" He screamed. Took a breath. He knew that he would have to make it fast now.
Ezra had always been a good pickpocket. He had really known what he would do ever since it happened, ever since they had been leaving the facility. More tears ran down his face as he pulled the syringe out of his back pocket. The fluid inside shone in the light. He was sobbing so bad that his chest hurt, and his hand was unsteady.
Ezra rolled up his sleeve, feeling his master coming closer to him.
I'm sorry Kanan. He allowed that at least to seep through the Force.
Kid whatever you're doing stop, for Force sake's kid, please. Ezra. I care too much about you to lose you. What in the Galaxies is going on? Kanan was panicked.
Ezra shut his mind. He couldn't take his master's pain as well as his own. It was too much.
His inner voice told him to do it. Kanan desperately tried to contact him, the Force screaming at him that Ezra was in danger, that he needed to get inside of his mind.
He pushed the needle through the skin of his arm, feeling the flesh bend and snap beneath the pressure. He pushed the end of the syringe down, feeling the gush of fluid into his arm.
The Force left him. Kanan couldn't track him now. Closing his eyes, he sighed painfully. A few more tears crept down his face and he sighed again. I'm gonna have to find another place. Even though the connection between master and padawan was lost, Ezra still knew that his master was close. Too close.
He opened the door, dropping the syringe to the ground. His arm bled slightly, a tear of blood running down to his wrist before it even began to clot. Not that it mattered. Not that anything would matter soon. Bedroom? No, Zeb would be sure to find him. Fresher? No, he had just gone in there. Cockpit? And be caught by Hera? Vents? They wouldn't be able to get to him. He decided to go to the supply closet. It was a walk-in with a space small enough for only him to fit into where two shelves didn't quite connect.
There would do.
Kanan would raise the alarm soon, and that would most likely lead to Chop being sent out to find him.
Ezra preferred that it was Chopper who found him first.
If this didn't work, Ezra would never be able to look at Kanan again. As he walked, he tried to think of a happy memory of Kanan, one where Kanan was genuinely happy. His mind drew a blank. If he wasn't yelling at one of them, he was worrying about the lives of everyone else in the Galaxy, or angry about deaths that imperialists had caused, or a neutral face when meditating. Had Kanan ever really been happy?
Lately the answer seemed to be no, with how many civilian loses they were facing. With how close they had gotten so many times. With the stress of the ship being attacked and almost scrapped, with Zeb losing a hand, with the one good lead they'd had in months from one good ally in this whole mess.
With Ezra killing his friend.
The boy's heart ached again, and he was sick to his stomach. It felt weird not being able to connect to the Force, but it didn't matter. The Force had never really helped him anyway. He sighed and almost started crying, but this time, instead of tears, his eyes went dead. He was numb inside. He wanted to be numb outside, too.
Ezra opened the door of the supply closet, turned around, and locked it behind him. It was never locked, so it would be a dead give away, but it wouldn't matter at that point. He looked around him then, at the mass of mops and boxes and med bay supplies and cooking supplies and spare parts. All scraps that somehow kept the ship together. All misfit, cast out things, that would most likely never be used again until the last thing wore out.
He fit right in.
The teen saw the space where only he fit, and lowered himself into it like it was his coffin. With a blank mind, with an empty chest, with deadweight limbs. He closed his eyes, and was assaulted with the picture of the dead boy, looking up into his eyes. He opened his again, wanting to be rid of the image. Death was contagious, and he had caught the disease.
He wasn't willing to fight it.
Ezra leaned his head against the durasteel wall, not wanting to close his eyes again. He shifted his leg until he had access to what he had always kept in his pocket: a sharpened piece of stone, forged by him one night on the streets as a kid, for protection. It felt heavy in his hand now. But not as heavy as his heart. He knew it worked, he'd had to use it a couple of times against robbers, before he had acquired actual weapons. Ezra pressed it to his inner left wrist, hissing and cringing in pain. His fist tightened, and a sob forced its way out between his teeth. But it was a sob of sorrow, of guilt, not of pain.
The rock plunged deeper.
He twisted it in an almost circle for good measure before pulling it out. He'd had cuts worse than that, he'd have to do better. Going for the artery in his arm this time, he started at the wound and then dragged it upward, trying his best to keep to where he remembered his vein to be. Switching hands, he did the same to his right.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." He said, although he wasn't sure who he was sorry to. Kanan, for doing this to him? To the Rebellion, for letting this happen? To the crew, for leaving? To himself? But he couldn't think of a reason to be sorry at himself. He was getting what he deserved, better even.
On that note, being in the supply closet he grabbed the first thing that he could get his hands on, some kind of chemical cleaning agent. He unscrewed the top and without thinking poured it on both wounds at the same time.
It was liquid fire.
Ezra let out a shriek of pain before stifling it, black spots finally starting to cloud his vision, dizziness from blood loss and pain taking his mind and bending it. His chest was hitching, his breath rattling in pain.
Jedi don't cry… oh, right. Ezra thought bitterly, letting his tears flow freely. Everything had been his fault. All from the start. And now, he was going to die on his own, alone, without anyone to love him, without deserving love, hiding away between two boxes. He had expected it in the street, but this was the same effect.
He briefly considered if this had been how much pain his parents felt when they died, if they had died as alone as he was. Ezra hoped to the Force that Kanan didn't find him first. He felt awful for doing it to him, but it was the only thing that made sense. It was the only thing he could do to help at this point. Dying would be the best he could do all of them.
They would finally stop needing to rescue him.
They would finally have some peace in his life.
They would finally forget about him.
More bitter tears slipped from his eyes. He didn't care that he was crying anymore, it wasn't like he would ever become a Jedi. It wasn't like he could disappoint them, let them down any more. Not after everything else.
He faded away more as the pain got worse. He nearly lost his stomach. The smell from the chemicals was burning his nose, and probably his skin. Ezra wondered just how much he had slipped from cohesion when the door opened.
"Chop…" He breathed. "If you tell Hera I'm gonna turn you… into scrap…" He realized how breathy he was.
"I'm not Chopper." Kanan said gently, out of view.
Ezra held his breath. "Noo," He groaned softly. "Leave… Force, leave, leave! Please, Kanan, I'm begging you, don't-" Kanan came over to the boy.
"Ezra what's goi-" Kanan stopped short. His mouth dropped open in horror as he stared at the still pooling blood, like he couldn't believe what was happening. "Ez-Ezra… what have you done!" Kanan could clearly see the look of misery and pain and guilt in his eyes before he shut them, turning his face to the wall and sobbing again.
"Kid…" Kanan couldn't process what was going on. "Ahh, Force…! Force, no! Kid, you didn't! How could you!" Kanan blurted. "Oh Force kid, Ezra…!" He had his hands to his hair, but only for a second. Shaking, he stooped, grabbing the boy in his arms.
Ezra lashed out at him weakly, still grasping the bloodied stone, and protested, groaning and squirming, but Kanan ignored it, ignored the sting in his arm and in his eyes. "Ezra, don't you dare die." He gently brought him to the ground, kneeling and putting him against his chest. "Oh Ezra don't do this to me. Don't leave me. Don't leave us, kid. Please. We need you here, we all do." He lifted Ezra's arms over his head, balancing them on his shoulder, pressing on them tightly. He couldn't stop the blood. It was too much to cover, too deep. "I won't lose you. Don't leave us. Please, Ezra, hang on, don't fall asleep. Stay with me."
"Say bye for me… say sorry for me."
"Ezra there's no saying goodbye. Not yet. This is not your fault. None of this was." Kanan was close to tears, close to angry at the people, the events, that had pushed him towards it. "Don't blame yourself for a second, for any of this."
Ezra was beginning to slip in and out of consciousness.
"No, no no no kid. You stay with me, you fight. You fight, kid. Come on, Ezra. Ezra! I need you! I need you. Stay! Damn it, Ezra, stay!"
His eyes rolled, then opened slightly. He opened his mouth but all that came out was a groan. "Am I really dying now…?" He asked weakly. Behind the relief, behind everything, there was fear. Despite the guilt, he didn't really want to die. Kanan wouldn't let that happen. He would think of something… but what.
"No, buddy. Shh, shh. Come on, just keep fighting. Keep fighting, kid. We're going to get through this together. I'm fighting for you, now come on, you gotta fight too."
Fight. That was what set it off.
Kanan gasped and he pulled out his saber.
Ezra looked at it through glassy eyes and confusion. "Nn, you gon' cut my arms off…?" He asked.
"No, I'm sorry…" Kanan ignited it, taking a deep breath. Without another moment's hesitation, he laid the saber on his forearm, above the wounds. Ezra gave a scream, pulling his arm away before it cauterized, his hand closing even tighter around the stone. Kanan took his arm and held it tightly before finishing the job.
"Ahh! Stop!" Ezra begged.
"I'm so sorry." Kanan said, white as a corpse. The Force was in turmoil. He grit his teeth, moving onto the next arm. He did this in one try. Ezra screamed again, still crying. This time, he wept into Kanan's chest.
Kanan deactivated his saber and put it back in his belt, cradling the boy to his chest. "Shh, shh. Come here Ezra. It's okay, it's over now, I'm sorry kid. Breathe. Breathe, Ezra. I'm so sorry. Shh, shh. Go to sleep." Go to sleep so I can cry.
"K-anan…" Ezra's voice was tinny, sounding like a child. Ezra cried a little harder.
Kanan kept rocking him and rubbing his back. As the seconds wore on, more tears threatened his eyes. "Shh, I'm right here. I'm here Ezra. I'm not leaving you, in fact I'm never leaving you again."
Ezra sobbed harder. "It hurts."
"I know kid. I'm so sorry, it won't hurt for much longer, I promise."
"He died, Kanan!" Ezra wailed. "He died right in my arms! He-! It-! They ki-! It's my fa-!"
"Shh, Ezra. Breathe. Breathe, kid. You're not even gasping." It pained Kanan that he couldn't reach Ezra through the Force, but he was still doing his best to calm his padawan down.
Ezra's sobs lessened slightly. "Everything!" He screamed.
"What?"
"Everything is my fa-ault! Zeb! Ship! The boy! Me, me, me!"
"No, no no no, don't you think like that Ezra." He scolded softly. "This was not your fault. It's the Empire. It was their fault. They had us all fooled. Ezra they were about to kill you. It's not your fault. It's not your fault, kid. Shh, shh, you need to sleep."
"No!" Ezra shouted. "No! Every time I close my eyes I see him! Every time! B-blaming me! E-everything!"
"Force forbid. This wasn't your fault. This wasn't your fault, kid." Kanan kept Ezra close to his chest to hide his own tears. How close to death his poor boy had come, how guilty he still felt.
Still felt…
"The Force inhibitor is wearing off, kid."
"No… ten minutes ago…"
"Because of how much blood you've lost, Ezra." His Force signature was very weak, but it was still coming back. Or maybe had completely returned, for how weak Ezra had become. Kanan pushed sleep and strength into the Force, as much as he could, and it hit his padawan dead on.
"Kanan… don't… leave me… I'm so sorry… for this… for everything."
"Come on kid, of course I forgive you. Sleep, come on, I'll be right here when you wake up. You won't die."
Ezra nodded, closing his eyes. The Force said that he was resting.
Kanan stood, picking his precious padawan up. He felt his heart hurt, and realized just how horrible he felt, how close to death Ezra had come.
Even though Jedi didn't cry, he stood in the middle of the closet and wept.
***Soooo... comments, death threats, suggestions? I hope it hurt your heart! Hey this one is on you, you followed me, I never said I wouldn't crush your heart and mind!***