Soul of the Ghost

Mirror and Image

For the record, it was bad from the start. The objective? Do some recon for Commander Sato in the Outer Rim about rumors of a new Imperial weapon. The result? A Super Star Destroyer rushing out and chasing them willy-nilly until Hera pulled off another miracle and dropped off Imperial scanners long enough to make them land on a nearby system. Never ending plains of red grass, purple sky, and just enough atmospheric distortion to buy them some time. It was a frantic all-hands-on-deck frenzy to get the Ghost capable of flight and hyperspace to get the kriff out of here. Nobody slept for something like two days, Chopper giving curse-filled orders while Ezra was in the smallest confines of the ducts with Zeb hanging upside down handing out tools as Sabine looked up every manual she ever collected and Hera more black than green for all the work she was doing. Kanan, not the most mechanically inclined compared to the rest did what he could, but mostly he was kneeling in the cockpit, open to the Force, trying to buy them time as he simply willed himself to be good enough to sense when the Imperials found their location.

Kanan had been a Padawan for a grand total of six months before the Purge, most of that time hopping from one planet to another, thirteen and asking a hundred questions trying to soak up all the information he could, wanting to have all the information before making any decisions. He learned a lot about military command (which he later found out was not nearly enough), a lot about negotiations, reading people, using the Force to judge timing, trusting the moment. Very little time, however, was spent in training, because he was hopping from one battle to the next with his Master, a General, and he somehow a Commander at thirteen, a child warrior not unlike Ezra now. His lightsaber training was way behind, his skills unrefined, there was no finesse, like he could always feel with his Master, or the other Jedi. He had a lot to learn, and he looked forward to it.

But then...

And now...

Not for the first time, Kanan wished very badly that he had somehow completed his training, that he had the ability, the know-how, and the skills to do what was necessary instead of spending so much of his time convinced he didn't know what the kriff he was doing and trying to get by regardless because there was no one else to rely on. There were some days when his inadequacies hit him so hard he wanted to go back to the binge drinking, go back to the days when he was so lost, so focused on surviving, being invisible, and convinced that was somehow enough. There had been less pain, certainly, but less life, and it wasn't until meeting Hera that he realized how much of himself he'd lost. When the urges hit, the inadequacies became too strong, he knew to make a beeline right to Hera.

Right now, though, he couldn't afford to give in to self-doubt, he just had to make sure everyone had enough time to finish the repairs and get out.

"Kanan, any sign of the Impies?"

"No, Hera, not yet."

"Are we still good?"

"Yes, Zeb."

"Kanan, how long to we have?"

"I don't know Sabine."

"Kanan-"

"I'm doing the best I can!" he grunted, eyes snapping open to see Ezra's wide blue eyes. The former Padawan winced, realizing how sharp he'd been, and put a hand on the kid's shoulder. "Sorry," he said, standing up. "It's hard to concentrate with so many interruptions. I'll go out to the hull, maybe I'll have better luck there."

Ezra nodded slowly, still a little uncertain. Kanan couldn't blame the kid, after so many years out on the streets his social skills were even worse than Kanan's, and the boy sometimes didn't know how to react to parents that were sharp. Kanan squeezed, nodding in reassurance, and a slow smile spread on the kid's face. Small favors, Kanan would take what he could get at this rate. "Tell Hera where I am."

Ezra nodded again, more confident this time, and went back to whatever air duct he'd been in.

Kanan lowered the cargo ramp and touched the Force enough to leap up to the top of the ship. The red grass, waist high, undulated in a small but stiff breeze, and the purple sky was a myriad of shades as the sun slowly set to the north. Kanan knelt down, taking a deep breath of the air. The scent was spicy, prickling his nostrils and reminding him what it was like to not breathe recycled air of a ship. He focused on that scent, the feeling of life it gave, the hint of the Force, the Living Force, that filled so much of the galaxy. The purples were settling to dark blues, the clouds filling in and a hint of a storm was in the air. Kanan breathed it in, his brain slowly expanding, reaching further than inside the ship.

The Force was a beautiful thing when he touched it. He had nearly gone insane after the Purge, unworthy and unwilling to touch it and give away that a Jedi still lived. He had felt unworthy of the Force for years, for running when his Master told him to, for cowardly living when everyone else was dead. No training, no teacher, a small mountain of baggage and the desperate need to survive had taught him to be small, unspecial, to never stand out. The Force faded from his mind, survival overruling everything else, and for a little while he started to think he had lost his connection. Hera made him remember what the Force was like, but even then, it was small bursts, when there was no other recourse, no other way to survive. And then Ezra had come.

It wasn't until the Inquisitor, until the torture, that all his fears had come to the fore. All his insecurities had been laid bare by that creature, and he'd been forced to admit every failure, even if only to himself. All of his emotional baggage had been ripped out of him, one horrible memory and issue at a time, and he had been forced to face them, look at them, examine them. And as they were drawn out, as the pain and come and come and come, all that had been left was the Force. Everything faded away when he reached out and touched it, let it accept all his pain, his years of repression and forgive him without hesitation, accepting him as he was. He let it all in, allowed the Force inside him as he hadn't since the Purge, and it was eager to have him.

The Inquisitor had been impressed with his resistance to the torture, but in reality Kanan was hardly there for it, his mind and soul lost in the Force as he never had been before; it revealed secrets to him, nudged him here and there, fixed him in a way he didn't think could ever be fixed.

And then... Ezra had fallen... twisted and seemingly broken on the lower levels and so still, and he realized he had confronted his greatest fear – losing someone else – and there had been nothing left to fear after that. There was something out there more powerful than fear. The Force.

Since then, the Force had been... He wasn't sure what the word was. But he could do more, feel more. There was an ease there hadn't been before, and sometimes, very quietly, when he wanted to feel arrogant, he wondered if that trial hadn't made him a Jedi. The Force caressed him when he had that thought, and sometimes he thought he heard his Master's voice, soft-spoken as always, telling him not to worry so much, to trust himself and what he could do. He could hardly say he trusted himself, he was still just an in-name-only Padawan after all, and even with the Force emotional baggage like his didn't just go away; but he could admit he had made progress, and that was what counted. Master Kenobi or Skywalker he was not, and he certainly wasn't Ahsoka, but he had finally stopped comparing himself to others.

More of the Force opened up to him, he felt very small, and the planet very big, and there, high above, was the Star Destroyer. He could feel very little of it, not even ill intent, just the faintest hint of presence. This was more than he had ever felt before in the Force, and he focused even further, listening to birds miles away, tasting rain in the air, feeling the undulation of the clouds.

Then a shift.

Kriff.

"They're about to do something," Kanan said, realizing belatedly there was no one here to hear him. He stood up and grabbed his comm, repeating his message. "They're about to do something, I can't tell what. How are the repairs?"

"Ten minutes!" Hera said. "We just need ten minutes!"

"Weapon systems aren't online," Sabine said, "What do we do?"

"Scramble!" Kanan grunted. "Finish as fast as you can. Whatever they're planning, we have to hope it's land based, that will give us time."

"And if they decide to do an orbital bombardment?"

Kanan took a deep breath. The Force was with him, and he bowed to its will. "I'll buy us time." It wasn't really him saying it, though, as his feet planted and his lightsaber ignited. The Force was vibrating in his body, the being known as Kanan Jarrus was but a tiny corner in this vessel. All that was really left was his training, and Form III was built for this: defense; one against many, deflecting attacks and conserving energy, waiting for the opponent to tire himself. Energy was coming at him, he could sense it, and he lifted his lightsaber, deflecting the shot with a sweep of his sword, the energy going elsewhere. There was a rumble at his feet, far away at the edge of his perception, but his mind was on the next blaster shot, and the next. He was performing a kata, back in the Temple, learning the Form with his Master, her patient, melodic voice shifting him as much as her hands and feet did. Less energy when you do this, deflection for that, and Kanan was smiling at the memory, unhindered by the bitter end of that part of his life. He was a youngling again, in the classic Soresu stances, moving energy away from him. Time was nothing, it was just the Force using his body, and he using his skills.

"Kanan, what are you doing?"

Ezra's voice snapped him back to reality, his eyes bursting open and looking around, confused. What?

The young teen was grabbing at his arm. "The repairs are done, we gotta go, stop being amazing!"

"What...?"

And then he felt it, the energy the Force had been showing him to guide. He turned around and looked up to the sky. Was that...? An orbital bombardment? Oh, kriff...

He realized belatedly he was shaking, covered in sweat, exhausted by what he had done in the Force. Was it in him to deflect one more blast? He wasn't sure, but what else could he do? He grabbed Ezra and shoved him over the edge of the ship and braced himself, holding out a hand and begging the Force for help. His head was splitting in agony, concentrating was hard, and he struggled to keep calm as he realized the impossibility of what he was trying to do. If this didn't work...

He leapt off the ship, then used the Force to leap away, south, trying to get distance between him and the ship in case this went bad, the Force pushing him in that direction. He reached up to the sky, remembering the Form III, the sensation of the Temple, the voice of his Master. Please, just this once.

He knew something went bad almost immediately, the energy turned, like he had wanted, but like an errant pupil he hadn't put thought into where it would go, and then the world exploded in white.

Ahsoka, he thought as his world disappeared, take care of him. I'm sorry.


Ezra landed roughly in the red grass, but rolled to his feet as fast as he could and ran around the ship and up the ramp, running full tilt to the cockpit. Hera was there, grease and oil and fuel exhaust smearing her pale green skin. "Ezra! Where's Kanan?" she demanded.

"Did you see it?" he countered. "He was up there blocking orbital bombardment! Can all Jedi do that? Will I do that when I have enough training?" It had been an amazing sight. No, it had been an amazing feeling. He'd never felt Kanan so strongly in the Force, his presence was pulsing and throbbing, undulating and amazing to watch. The man went through simple kata forms, things he was trying to get Ezra to do with "efficiency and conservation, Form III is all about perseverance, not recklessness," and he made it look so easy, and Ezra was in unabashed awe as his simple motions made orbital cannon fire, miles above, drift just so, away from the freighter, away from the team. He couldn't even comprehend the amount of skill necessary to do that, and he wanted to learn it and learn it now!

"Ezra!" Hera shouted. "Where's Kanan?"

"Still outside, he's-"

"He's in bombad trouble," Zeb said, his large purple frame hulking into the cockpit. "Look!"

All eyes snapped to the view portal, watching as Kanan moved further and further away, lightsaber still ignited, and skidding to a halt and hands reaching up to the sky. Ezra could feel his presence again, but it wasn't half as strong as before, and the serene calmness was no longer there. Ezra felt... was that doubt? "Something's wrong," he started to say, but the white streak of light that was the orbital bombardment fell from above, and Ezra felt the power shift like before, but unlike before the shift faltered partway through, and everyone watched in acute horror as the orbital blast fell far too close to Kanan's position, bursting like all the others in a red and gold explosion of smoke, the shockwave rippling through the red fields and Ezra knew exactly which black spot flying through the air was his teacher's.

"Kanan!"

He couldn't believe it, he couldn't believe the one guy in all the galaxy who'd seen him as someone of worth, who had such faith in him that he thought Ezra deserved a better teacher, the man who acted like... Not like this, not a second time! He couldn't handle the idea of losing another parent, couldn't conceive the fact that someone in the family would do something so horrifically stupid! He reached out, trying to find his teacher, trying to feel if he was still alive. The worst hadn't happened, it really hadn't, it couldn't have, it-

"Chopper! Cut all power, turn everything off! Let them think the shelling work! Sabine, grab every bit of arsenal you have and detonate it around the hull, give us as many dings and scratches as you can! Zeb, open up the old smuggler holds, we have to hide! Ezra!"

"Kanan! Kanan! Hera, we have to-"

A greasy hand slapped him across the face, knocking him to his senses. "Ezra!" Hera shouted, and the young teen saw the ace pilot had wide, haggard eyes. "We need to hide or we can't help him!"

The logic was dim in Ezra's mind, but he was too numb to come up with a counterargument. He let himself be dragged by Zeb into the main cargo hold and into and old smuggler compartment. A smelly hand covered his mouth and he was wrapped in a tight embrace; only then did he realize his breathing was more like panting, and the tight embrace was more crushing as he strained against it, every instinct telling him to get to Kanan's side now!

"Calm him down!" someone hissed, but Ezra just knew that people were keeping him from Kanan and that was unacceptable! There were explosions, but that didn't matter. Kanan!

Something hard cracked along the back of his skull, and he fell forward. The blood rushing to his head abated, and he could finally hear words. "Now shut up or you'll give us all away," Zeb's gravelly voice was muttering. His ears were still pounding, and the panic was still high in his chest, but he tried to make himself relax, tried to think about all the times he hid from the Buckets on Lothal, how to be still even when his heart was in his throat, the constant mantra, I'm not here I'm not here I'm not here, and watching as the Buckets always turned away. I'm not here I'm not here I'm not here. He reached clumsily for the Force, remembering the sensation when he did his first mind trick, willing the two things together.

His mind slowly began to clear, the task he placed on himself taking over. He could hear Kanan in the back of his mind, a dozen lessons repeating over and over in his head. Focus. Focus... focus... focus...

An enormous hand squeezed his shoulder and he looked up to see Zeb still wrapped around him, eyes tense but not frenzied. The Lasat nodded once, and the waiting began.

Ezra knew all about waiting, of course; the streets were the definition of waiting, waiting for the right moment to take the food, waiting for the right moment to sneak past the Buckets, waiting for the danger to pass, waiting for the trouble to subside. He closed his eyes, settling in for the wait, evening out his breathing as Kanan told him so often to do.

Kanan...

Little to no sleep for two days, stress, and now being emotionally wrung out with worry and just waiting for the bombardment to stop... It didn't take much to push him to sleep.

It was morning when Zeb woke him. He was wrapped in warmth, body heat that wasn't his and a sense of security that was receding, making him reach out, hold onto that wonderful sense of safety. Mom... Dad...

Reality crashed into his head, though, and the truth woke him up more fully. Mom and Dad were dead, dead after hearing their son make a call across the galaxy. Now they were space knew where with an Imperial Super Star Destroy-

Kanan!

Ezra shot awake, jerking to his feet but banging his head on the latch of the smuggler compartment. He grunted, rubbing his forehead before angling better and getting out of the crawlspace. "Kanan!" he said, his head peaking above the floor to follow Zeb. "We have to get to Kanan!"

"Priorities, kid," the Lasat muttered.

"Priorities?" Ezra parroted, aghast. "What's more important than rescuing Kanan?"

"Making sure we'll stay alive long enough to help him," Hera said, coming in from somewhere. She looked terrible, like she hadn't slept at all the previous night. She probably hadn't, and Ezra found himself somehow guilty that he had. "Is Chopper online?"

"Yeah," Sabine said, brightly colored hair coming up from a different compartment. "He's with me in here. Says the storm's passed and the outside is a mess."

"And Kanan?" Ezra pressed, anxiety making his voice louder than it needed to be.

"Can't tell," she replied sadly, reaching for her helmet. "The planet's atmosphere makes life scans really difficult, remember? It's why we had two days to do repairs. Which we have to redo, now that I've unloaded all my explosives to make the orbital fire look convincing."

"But Kanan!"

"We need to scan to see if the Imperials are still here," Hera said tightly, "then we get Kanan."

That wasn't anywhere near good enough.


Hera rubbed her face again, booting up the systems one at a time. Chopper was already plugged in, helping along. The night had been terrible, listening to the lightning and the wind and the hail, every crash making her jump thinking it was a droid to check for survivors, every rumble another shot from the orbital cannon. She hadn't slept, curled into a ball and praying for the best and silently preparing for the worst. Even now, her mind was outside, wondering if she would find a body or just pieces. She couldn't let Ezra out there, child warrior or not, some things a child just shouldn't see. One glance at Zeb let her know that the oldest of their crew knew what she was thinking, and he disappeared into the freighter to keep the kids corralled.

"Chopper, is the Star Destroyer still overhead?"

Negative chirps replied, and Hera allowed herself a sigh of relief. Now to other concerns. She got out of the seat and crouched down, pulling open a floor panel and pulling out a medkit. A single shot from a Star Destroyer cannon was a package of destruction that ripped holes in planets surface, craters of impressive size. Everyone had watched as the incoming shot fell from the sky, streaking through the ozone and leaving an impressive contrail in a sea of contrails from the other shots. And there, on the ground, far from the Ghost, had been Kanan, swinging his lightsaber like he was teaching Ezra, and everyone watched as his actions were reflected on the shot miles above him, the streak shifting by noticeable degrees, affected by the Jedi's work. And then it exploded – for all intents and purposes – at Kanan's feet. The likelihood of her needing the medkit was close to nil, and for a moment she just started at it, wondering if she should give Ezra that much hope. But... Kanan had deflected orbital bombardment. He was a Jedi. She had seen what they could do during the Clone Wars. She had seen what he had done.

Kanan was... special. A Jedi so broken from Order 66, she'd found him as a drunk womanizer, working odd jobs to keep the alcohol flowing. But buried under all that bravado, deep within the reckless cowboy, was the heart of a Jedi, no matter how shattered. Still trying to do what was right in anything that was directly in front of him. He had revealed himself to save her life and they had been together ever since. He affected the broken warrior so strongly he believed it himself most times, happy and almost eager to cloak his thoughts in survival, getting money for fuel, simple smuggling. So he wouldn't have to think back on his loss. But she knew him better. He worried more than any of them about their crew, kept up the beleaguered act to keep everyone happy, and quietly did everything he could to keep things going.

She couldn't lose him.

Zeb was waiting for her outside the cockpit, his large hulking figure slouched forward in the narrow space and staring expectantly. "I don't want the kids to come with us," he rumbled, his gravely voice quiet. "Don't want them to see what's left of him."

Hera nodded, her lekku shifting behind her head. "I agree."

They moved down the hall to the main cargo hold and lowered the ramp. The boundless red fields had been turned to ash, pits of upturned earth and craters from the Star Destroyer's cannons leaving ragged, open wounds in the planet. And for about a hundred feet around the Ghost, there were only the nominal scorch marks of Sabine's ordinance; a rough circle free of injury, and their freighter in the center of it. Hera knew exactly how many megatons of power were packed in each shot of an orbital cannon. For Kanan to deflect them with the Force... She shivered. The Jedi were inspiring.

"So how do we find him?" Zeb asked, his violet frame an almost perfect match for the sky.

"You follow me," Ezra said, coming up from behind. His blue eyes were alight with something bright, determination, and he powered his way past, long strides taking him immediately to the edge of safety and then beyond, disappearing into a crater and never once missing a step.

"Ezra!" Hera said, jogging after him. "What are you doing?"

The boy turned around, nostrils flaring on his wide nose. "I can sense him," he said simply.

Hera worked to not let her heart thrill. Kanan... She shook her head, stomping down the emotion, knowing he wouldn't be in good shape when they found him and it may be finding him just to say goodbye. She couldn't feel hope, not for this, not until she knew...

Faith. She needed faith.

"Zeb, get a speeder and a stretcher," she said. "Catch up to us and then pick us up."

"Roger that," the Lasat said, lumbering back up the ramp.

Hera followed Ezra down into the crater, her footing significantly less sure than the young teen's, down to the center and then up the far side. The kid didn't bother moving around the wounds on the ground, only through them, making a straight line to where his master was. Hera wondered if either of them used that word, "master." She knew Kanan visibly recoiled when she first called him that, "Master Jedi," said he wasn't worthy of the title, hadn't had nearly enough training to bear the title.

"I was only a Padawan for six months," he had said. "I'm still a child to the Force, I don't have a lot of technique, skill. I'm not... I'm not strong in the Force, not strong enough to be even called a Jedi, let along a master..."

If this was what a child could do with the Force, Hera thought, she had a karapast hard time figuring out what a true master could do.

They were climbing up the second crater when Zeb caught up with the speeder, and the pair climbed on, Ezra in the middle and Hera in back. Ezra's eyes were only half focused, heavily lidded and barely responding to the world around him. Hera didn't have the sensitivity, but she could see power in those eyes, and Ezra pointed south, the direction they had been going. Zeb gunned the engine and they were off, hovering over the craters. Hera looked back, seeing the swath of destruction the Empire had wrought over just one freighter. Was this because of the rumored weapon? Or did they know Jedi were on the ship? Did that mean an Inquisitor? That dark creature on Lothal? She shuddered at the thought and turned around.

The speeder crested a shallow hill, and the craters faded away to other, lesser signs of damage, shallows of upturned earth from flying boulders, signs of a fire that the storm must have put out, a landing zone for all the rubble the cannon fire had created. The hill sloped down to a small stream, the water a dark purple contrast to the sky, speckled white from the rising sun.

"There," Ezra said, voice toneless, pointing upstream to a few of the thrown rocks and boulders. Zeb followed dutifully, and Hera felt her heartrate start to spike again, the realization of what she was about to walk up to hitting her over her lekku. She wanted Ezra behind her, to shield him from whatever they were about to see, to usher him back to the freighter now that they had found him. She felt the kid's body tense in front of her, heard a groan deep in his chest. "It hurts so much," he moaned, and Hera hugged him tightly.

"I know," she said. "I'm hurting, too."

"No... I mean... Kanan..."

"Got him!" Zeb said, and the bike skittered to the side to slid to a stop. There, behind one of the upturned boulders, was the body, and Hera's heart caught in her throat. He was... the body was blackened with earth and smoke, and she slid off the skid and darted over before she really realized what she was doing. She fell to her knees, green eyes drinking in the sight of him. Curled on his side, one foot in the water and an arm bent at an unnatural angle.

"Oh, love," she said, "Why'd you do it?"

She touched a shoulder, emotion threatening to overwhelm him, and she gently turned him on his back. His front was in even worse condition. His shoulder guard was mangled but it looked to have saved his arm from being only broken, instead of lobbed off wholesale, and his shirt was perforated with holes and bloody specks, the soil turning into shrapnel as it flew in every direction, littering his side and front, and an ugly looking gash ran from his hip to his knee, something colliding and nearly severing his leg. There was very little blood, which surprised Hera at first before she realized he had probably been killed almost instantly. Her eyes were blurry, her nose suddenly congested, and one gloved hand reached up to rub her face and the other placed a hand on the chest, where the heart was. Wait...

Her eyes snapped open, and she shoved her head to the Jedi's mouth, watching his chest and listening to his breathing. His breathing...

"He's alive!" she shouted. "Get me the medkit, we need to triage right away!" Training quickly took over, checking neck and spine, straightening him out, making sure airways were clear, trying to get his arm back in his socket. "Zeb!" She flipped on her comm, letting Sabine and Chopper listen as she started setting shoulders for the Lassat to yank.

"Got it." The giant Lasat crouched down, muttering in his native language, enormous fingers moving with unexpected gentleness before he gave a mighty wrench, and Hera watched the arm pop back into place. Ezra grunted, but Kanan outright screamed, his eyes snapping open and a baritone howl leaving his lips. His head fell back, panting, before the pain registered and he groaned, trying to curl away from the injuries.

"Easy, easy love, you're not ready to move yet," Hera said quickly, scissors cutting into his green sweater and cutting it open.

"Let me guess," he slurred, "This is somehow my fault."

It was such a Kanan line that Hera laughed, a watery sound in her throat before she patted his good shoulder. "It's enough of your fault that we're going to owe you for months," she said.

"Karapast, how are you still alive?" Zeb demanded.

Kanan grunted something unintelligible, eyes closing again, good hand reaching up for his chest. "Ribs," he said.

"I know," Hera answered. "Working on it. We can't bandage you yet until we get the shrapnel out, and that won't happen until we get Chopper. He's the only one with fine enough motor skills to do it."

Kanan made a face. "I'd rather have that gambler Calrissian operate."

"Okay, so clearly you're delusional," Hera quipped.

"Kanan?"

Ezra knelt by his teacher, bending over and into the Jedi's line of sight.

"Don't worry," Kanan said with a soft smile – more of a grimace, and a jolt of pain as Hera touched something sensitive. "Been through worse in the Clone Wars. Sometime I'll tell you about the Battle of-" He gasped, sucking in air fiercely and releasing it just as fast, coughing up bloody phlegm. He let out a low moan, face tight in a grimace as Hera tightened the tourniquet along the gash on his leg.

"Zeb, splints!"

"With what?" the Lassat growled frustratedly. "This planet is nothing but fields! No branches! And you didn't exactly bring splints when you grabbed the medkit!"

"Already on it!" Ezra shouted. They glanced over at the distinct snaphiss of Ezra's lightsaber as he cut out supports from the speeder.

"Smart kid," Zeb rumbled.

Kanan was still panting, face twisted in pain. "E... ez... ra," he gasped.

The teen swiftly ran over, somehow hearing the soft call, dropping the supports and Zeb quickly started setting them for Hera to tie.

"I'm here, Kanan," Ezra said softly, once more kneeling by the Jedi's head and leaning into his line of sight.

"Can't... focus..." Kanan panted. "Need... help."

"Anything! Ezra promised. "Anything."

"Heal...ing... trance..."

"I don't know how to do that! I don't even know what that is!"

"'s'okay..." Kanan gasped, sucking in another breath. "Just... gimme strength... Focus... focus on... light... green... water... air... warmth... things that... rebuild... then..." he coughed bloody phlegm again, and the pain seemed to almost send Kanan unconscious again.

"Then what!" Ezra shouted. "Kanan, stay with me and explain all this Jedi stuff!"

"Hang on, love," Hera hissed. "We'll be heading back to the Ghost in a minute."

"... then..." Kanan whispered, "then..." his eyes rolling back, "place... it..." But he was out of it, face tight in some strange cross of pure focus and absolute pain. "strength... give me... strength..."

Zeb growled. "Come on, Kanan! Stay with us!" then turned angry eyes to Ezra. "Kid! Do something!"

But Ezra didn't say a word, and Hera finally looked up from her patching and triaging, to see that Ezra was deeply focused, hands hovering over Kanan's head. Something of what the Jedi had said must have made sense to the Padawan. Else Ezra was doing nothing and stars only knew what would happen to Kanan.

She shook her head. Thinking that way was useless.

"Chopper," she spoke to the comm. "Be ready to use those grasping arms of yours," she ordered into her comm. "You'll be the one pulling shrapnel out. Sabine, start booting up the ships systems and fixing the error messages enough to get us flight-worthy; and get a secure line with Fulcrum. We'll need her expertise, as well as any medics that Commander Sato has available."

"Already on it," Sabine replied. "Systems are up and I'm analyzing the diagnostics now."

Hera and Zeb carefully lifted Kanan onto the stretcher once Hera was done wrapping the worst of the wounds. She was shocked at the lack of blood, shocked still that he was still alive, but Jedi were notoriously hard to kill and she counted her blessings. Instead she took a deep breath and lifted, Zeb taking most of the weight and carrying him over to the bike, Ezra following with lidded eyes and a hand hovering over Kanan's heart. The ride back was slow but blissfully smooth, Zeb at the controls and Hera stroking her hand through the Jedi's askew hair, picking out flecks of dirt and feeling the rough, thick texture in her fingers. Sabine and Chopper were both at the ramp, and Sabine sucked in a breath to see Kanan in the state he was in. It took a lot of careful maneuvering to finagle him up the ladder to the sleeping compartments and setting him up on his bunk. Chopper was spinning and whirly, arm extensions flailing wildly as he complained bitterly over the assignment he had, but in contradiction to his curses he immediately got to work.

What they really needed was a bacta tank, but those were far and few between. Hera left the tiny space, anxiety thrumming through her body as she made her way back to the cockpit, Zeb at her heels as she checked the engines. The Ghost hummed to her touch, and a dozen different messages and reports were still on the screen from Sabine's start, informing her of the damage of the Mandalorean's explosives. Almost all of it was superficial – Hera almost couldn't believe her luck, save that Sabine obviously know what she was doing.

She opened communications to see if they worked.


With Hera in the cockpit managing the ship and talking to anyone she could reach through the scrambling atmosphere, and Zeb rushing around to make last-minute repairs on her orders to get them off-planet and into lightspeed, Sabine took time to help Chopper with Kanan. As an artist, she had great dexterity within her fingers to get all the fine details. Early in her childhood she had experimented with miniatures, giving herself only a three centimeter square and seeing what she could put inside. Landscapes, portraits, whatever came to mind. She had never thought she'd be using the skills of her art like this. Using tweezers to pull out shrapnel embedded in the the front and side of a Jedi.

This was Kanan.

He shouldn't be like this. He needed to be strong and beleaguered, ready to take the blame for anything with a grumbling complaint on how it wasn't really his fault. Her eyes watered and she scrubbed the moisture away with a wrist, going back to working out a rock. She focused on all the wounds that were open. Chopper worked on the ones that had been cauterized with a lightsaber that still had debris lodged inside.

Why? Why Kanan? When Ketsu had left her for dead, focused more on the mission and the money, it was Kanan who had found her, pulled her to safety, kept her running long enough for Hera to pilot in for an amazing rescue. They had patched her up, listed out a bunch of options that they could do for her, and she had given her own. She would join them. Kanan hadn't asked for any compensation for saving her, he had simply done so and he and Hera were willing do to a lot to set her up for whatever she needed. Without asking for anything.

Sabine hadn't thought anyone like that was left in the galaxy.

So she had joined their crew without question.

A grunt caught her attention, and Sabine immediately looked to Kanan. But his face was still pained and focused, unconscious.

"I... can't..."

Sabine stiffened, having forgotten that Ezra was hovering over Kanan in some sort of deep Jedi-focus thing. She looked up in time to see Ezra's eyes roll back and she quickly shifted to catch him as he completely collapsed, covered in sweat.

"Ezra! Ezra!"

Chopper started spouting many expletives at that point and Hera was rushing back, demanding what was wrong.

"Ezra collapsed!" Sabine stood as much as she could, trying to pull up the Padawan's dead weight. "Chopper, stay focused on Kanan!" she shouted, hefting Ezra as best she could out into the hall. Hera helped her and they got the Padawan into his room and onto Zeb's bunk. Sabine's eyes were misting again and she rubbed her wrists furiously against them.

"Come on, kid," she growled through her tears. "Don't do this now!"

"Ezra!" Hera shouted. "Wake up!"

With a hissed breath Ezra blinked, then grunted, reaching up to grip his head. "Uhhhrrrr... What... ? Kanan!" He sat up swiftly, then fell forward, clutching his head. "Ahhhh..." Sabine dove forward and hugged him tight. It was all too much. Kanan down and she didn't dare think about whether he had a chance of living or not. Now Ezra was down and clearly hurt somehow. She didn't need this to happen to her family! Not after what happened to her first family! She couldn't lose anyone else. Not Kanan. Not Ezra.

"What happened?" Hera asked, gently pulling Sabine away to look Ezra in the eye.

"Tried to help him," Ezra slurred, holding his eyes tight and clutching at his head. "Healing trance... whatever that is. Gave him strength till I understood what he was doing. Then Kanan was... out of it and I just kept trying... Errrr, my head is splitting..."

Hera nodded. "Then meditate or something," she said. "That's what Kanan does when he overexerts himself. You'll be fine."

Ezra made a noise and curled to his side, tuning out the world. Sabine straightened, knowing she wasn't needed here anymore and moving back to the surgery. Zeb was at the door, towering over her before shaking his head. "Back to repairs," he said.

"But I was just in there helping Chopper!"

Zeb's face slacked with shock to realize he had been fixing the ship alone, then horror to realize Sabine had been helping with the ad-hock surgery, and then furious. "Some things a youngling shouldn't see," he said, voice sober and low.

"I'm not a youngling," Sabine countered.

"You are on this ship," Zeb countered, green eyes dark. His feet were planted, and no matter how fast Sabine was, there wasn't enough maneuvering room to dodge around the hulking Lasat. She gave a long colorful opinion of his arbitrary decision before pounding to her room and shutting the door. This was followed quickly be a brutal punch to the wall, a perfectly formed kick, and several more punches until her knuckles were raw and broken from her effort. Mandalorian energy spent, she slid to her knees, gazed at her hands but not really seeing them. Need won out over desire, however, and she got back to her feet and moved to the engine room to handle repairs. Her mind was filled with the first time she had met Kanan.

Of the various members of the crew, Sabine understood Kanan the least. Hera, Zeb, Ezra, they were easy to figure out, she could understand their point of view, but Kanan was so different. He shied away from fights even when they were laughably easy, yet his various (often changing) plans were breathtakingly nonstandard, off the wall and reckless. He was the last one to start trouble but the first one to finish it. He said the strangest things, and she never really knew his footing.

It wasn't until Hera had been hurt at Concord Dawn, the Mandalorians nearly killing her and Sabine wanting revenge while he insisted on finishing the mission for diplomacy, that it really came to a head. How did this guy expect to live as a karapast pacifist? And yet he snuck into the outpost and had an extended conversation with that damned Fenn Rau, talking to the slime that had hurt Hera so badly. But, like the Jedi of lore, he did the impossible and managed to get the passage. She couldn't understand how he did it.

She... she couldn't understand how he could take his pain – and as a Jedi he suffered more pain than anyone of the ship – and somehow still come out the other side of it. He never wallowed in it, he never let it consume him, and he had this distinct ability to take that pain and translate it to the pain of the galaxy, of the Empire, and use it to rally others to his cause. She wondered if it was a Jedi thing.

"I'm no one special," he had said, even after she found out who he was. "I'm just trying to get by. Like you. Like everyone else. The Empire has taken a lot from us, and will take a lot more if we let it. The question you need to ask yourself is: when will enough be enough? When will you get tired of having so much taken away from you that you have to draw the line? When will you lose enough that you have to fight to keep what's left? When you have that answer, come find us. We'll have a place for you."

She wanted to learn from him, learn to see the galaxy like he did, like he was teaching Ezra. Even if she didn't understand it. She wanted... She wanted her heart to be that big. Like Kanan. Like Hera.


Hera thought she was ready to collapse, but she promised herself she would once they were in hyperspace. After three engine checks, less than polite orders to Zeb and then Sabine, and finally no more error messages, she pulled the Ghost into the air, then the atmosphere, then – scanners constantly checking – out into space. The destroyer was nowhere in sight, and she carefully input the hyperspace coordinates and engaged the engine. Once the stars began to blur, she felt herself sag in her seat. She'd been up almost two and a half days straight, between the frantic repairs, the bombardment, and more frantic repairs. Chopper's surgery was still ongoing, and his blips and beeps indicated he wasn't happy with his work, covering his concern with being disgruntled over being saddled with the assignment to begin with.

Hera closed her burning eyes, reaching up and rubbing her forehead. Even her lekku hurt, and she breathed in deeply before exhaling everything out and repeating the process. Oh, she could fall asleep like this.

First thing's first.

She pulled herself back up to sitting and fired up the communication array again. Now that they were out of the atmosphere's distortion, she could contact the Rebel fleet.

To her surprise, Fulcrum was the one who answered.

"What happened to Kanan?" the Togruta demanded.

Hera blinked, surprised. "How did you...? He's been hurt," she said instead. "The coordinates Commander Sato gave us, there was a Super Star Destroyer there, and we had to land on the planet. There was orbital bombardment and..."

"And Kanan did something stupid," Ahsoka replied. "Just like my Master..." The small hologram turned, eyes filled with memory, before looking back to Hera. "What's his status?"

"Arm's dislocated – not anymore, Zeb popped it in place – but it's broken, too. Every rib on his right side is either cracked or bruised, there's a huge incision in his leg, and his body is littered with shrapnel. We pulled out everything we could, but we just don't have the resources. We need a bacta tank for all the damage he sustained. It's a miracle he didn't bleed out in seconds of the blast. Ezra tried to do some kind of Jedi thing, maybe you would know."

"Healing trance," Ahsoka replied, hand unconsciously going up to touch her chin. "My Master never had any skill for it, neither did I. Neither did Master Kenobi. I'm surprised he does."

"We'll be with the fleet in three hours," Hera said, unable to respond to the Jedi's knowledge. "Here's hoping the 2-1Bs can fix him without a bacta tank."

"I'll look into it," the former Jedi said. "More than Kanan could use it."


Ahsoka turned off the comm, crossing her arms and looking over to Commander Sato. His angular face was creased with worry. "What are you thinking?" she asked.

Sato blinked, eyes darting to the Togrutan and pursing his lips. "It is selfish," he admitted, "But I do not want to lose Jarrus. He is a valuable fighter and as a Jedi a powerful symbol of hope to the Rebellion."

Ahsoka smiled, softly. "Not every day you meet someone who rewrites impossible on a regular basis."

Sato shrugged his shoulders. "I remember the Clone Wars," he said. "The Jedi feats on the Holonet... and the younger generations, they do not understand the stories, think it is little more than exaggeration. Hokey religion."

"I know," Ahsoka said, hearing everything he didn't say. "Let's see what we can do to remedy that, shall we?" She opened up the galactic map, projecting it over the circular command table. "We need a bacta tank."

From there it was all discussion on where to procure one, who would go on such a mission, what sort of intel was needed for various facilities, the lists and questions went on and on. Debates, heated and old, flew. Ahsoka let it all wash over her, studying the map.

Kanan.

She had known all about him before meeting him, Hera keeping her up to date on everyone in the cell. A Jedi who had been a mere initiate when she had left the Temple for good. Hera often offered keen insights in frustrated moments, but Ahsoka hadn't met him until she had revealed herself. After his hellish time under the Inquisitor's hands with hours of Tarkin's torture and the Dark Side swamping him. The fact that he was upright and walking, despite the heavy exhaustion that lined his face, spoke to just how much of the Force he had been relying on at the time. There had been something in his bearing, in his quiet presence in the Force, that had made Ahsoka realize that Kanan had finally gone from an initiate with barely any Padawan training, to having gone through Trials and having become a Knight. He may not have the technique or finesse of a seasoned Jedi, even the deeper knowledge, but he was a Knight all the same.

He hadn't believed her when she'd told him. That was unsurprising given the scars he still carried from the Purge, and his own tendency towards self-doubt. Since then, however, he acted more like a Jedi – his priorities were more consistent, his plans more tailored to using the Force; he was more comfortable with himself. He had grown from Hera's taglong to her partner to the pseudo-leader of his cell, and he wore the mantle well.

Ahsoka, take care of him. I'm sorry.

The words had struck her hard yesterday, walking down the white hall of the Rebel flagship, Liberator, and it was everything she could do to finish her task before diving to the communications array to find out what had happened.

Ezra... could she take him as a Padawan? She hardly felt like a Jedi, not after how she left, not after the hurt she had gone through. Oh, she had come into her own, and she was proud of what she had become, but... she hadn't thought herself a Jedi for a very long time. And she'd never taught anyone before, not about the Force, not about its secrets and pulses and subtlety.

But... Kanan had asked, and she would do so.

She looked at the holomap, and felt a nudge from a thing greater than herself. "There," she said, pointing to a midrim planet. "We can get the bacta tank there."

"I don't know that system," Commander Sato said, frowning.

"There was a battle there during the Clone Wars," Ahsoka said. "Separatists attacked and a medical frigate crashed into the planet before help arrived. Its atmosphere was too dangerous to excavate the wreck, but there've been some small advances in technology in the last fifteen years. Some of the new breathers can filter the atmosphere and we can see if there are any remains of the ship – and the bacta tanks – there to recover. Space knows I don't relish stealing from a functioning medical station."

"Agreed," Sato said. "I'll see what intel we have on that planet."

Ahsoka kept herself busy waiting for the Ghost to come out of hyperspace, reading in the new squadron that had to look into the rumored weapon that had sent the crew of the Ghost into the dire straights they were in, calling Bail Organa to let him know what had happened, and so on. Sato had been right, Kanan being a Jedi was an incredible symbol – kept under their lekku for now, but too valuable to let bad things happen. Bail didn't have the right connections to get a bacta tank, as Ahsoka had feared, and so the backup plan for salvage was now their lead plan.

She sensed the crew exit hyperspace, and finished up with her latest meeting before going down to the ports and watch the light freighter dock. The Togruta closed her eyes and reached out with the Force. Kanan's presence was weak, but the Force seemed to concentrate around him, trying to favor its child. Ezra was there, too, his emotions readable even from this distance: the worry, the anxiety, the fear, and Ahsoka pursed her lips, knowing what she needed to do.

The younglings were the first out of the ship, ready to grab anyone to help, but Ahsoka was there already with a pair of 2-1B surgical droids, and the towering Orrelios moved them aside with a clawed hand, making way for Ahsoka and the medical droids to come in and take care of the injured Jedi. Hera came the other way, from the cockpit, and Ahsoka saw everything on her face before the two women went into Kanan's room.

The droids whisked him off to surgery, Hera answering all the questions, Chopper supplying anything she didn't know. A glance at the Lasat showed that he wanted to be alone, the Mandalorean as well, and so Ahsoka grabbed Ezra's shoulder.

The youngling looked up with wide blue eyes, face completely broken.

"Come with me," she said simply, and turned and left, expecting him to follow. The pair went deep into the starship and into an unused conference room. Ahsoka sat on the floor and motioned for Ezra to do the same. She waited.

The boy fidgeted, shifting every few seconds or so, eyes going everywhere, mind in only one place. "Why are we here?" he asked.

"To wait," she replied.

Ezra made a face, swaying back and forth, body filled with energy. Ahsoka by contrast was perfectly still, eying him through lidded eyes, deliberately irritating him, as Master Obi-Wan so often did with Master Anakin, as Anakin had so often done with her. The youngling threw his eyes at her several times, huffing first, then sighing, then making more aggressive noises, before the energy finally built up and he exploded.

"What are we doing?" he demanded. "We have to be with Kanan!"

"And what will we do there?" she asked, completely unflustered by his impatience, by his fear. "We would wait there just as we would wait here. Here there is quiet, and here we can concentrate."

"Concentrate on what?" the youngling hounded, "There's nothing to concentrate on! Kanan's hurt, and hurt badly!"

"And why does that bother you?" Ahsoka asked, eyes almost closed. "Why is there better than here?"

"Because it's closer to Kanan!"

"And what does proximity give you?"

"Piece of mind, Ahsoka!" Ezra was almost shouting now, his frustration completely overtaking him. He did not leave, however, Kanan had instilled enough discipline for that, and the Togruta wondered idly if he sighed for gaining that much ground as her Master had with her. Ezra stood, pacing about the conference room, trying to expel his energy. "I can be there if he needs me! I can't if I'm all the way over here!"

"What is distance to a Jedi?" she asked, voice still level, calm. The questions slowly wormed into Ezra's mind, making him frown at her, confused and curious but still so anxious. "A Master/Padawan bond," she explained, "transcends distance. The Force has connected you, and that connection is invisible, intangible, it binds you as the Force binds all living things. The Force will tell you when you need to go to him, the Force will tell you when it's time to move, the Force will tell you if you must let him go."

Ezra recoiled at the very thought, his presence spiked, passion burned in his signature.

Ahsoka stated the obvious. "I sense fear in you, Ezra Bridger."

"I'm not afraid."

"Your thoughts betray you," the Togruta said. "Your Master fills your mind, as does the image of your parents. I see you in front of a fire, learning the truth of their fate, and feel a warm embrace."

Ezra lost all color, and for a brief moment he stilled, shocked, before he tried to deny again. "I'm not afraid of anything!"

"I see a firm but gentle hand on your shoulder, a painfully honest confession of being unworthy to teach you, I see an Inquisitor striking Kanan down, over and over."

"Stop..."

"I see you flying away, leaving him behind, and at last realizing what you really feel."

"Stop...!"

"I see your face when you found him after the torture, I feel the pain you felt when you realized he could barely walk, and how close you he came to-"

"Stop it!"

The Force hummed with Ezra's emotion, the conference table shoving to one side and the seats skittering away. Ahsoka held up a hand, the push gliding past her as she asked the Force that she continue her lesson. "Fear," she said again, her voice still calm, Ezra looking out over what he had done in lost surprise. "You are afraid."

"Yes, yes, okay?! Yes!" Ezra said, his voice cracking and his eyes filling with tears. "I'm afraid! I don't want to lose him. I lost my parents, I lost Lothal, I don't want to lose him, too. He was the first one who ever saw me, on the streets, he was the first one after my parents that thought I could amount to anything, let alone a Jedi, he..."

"He is as your father," Ahsoka said. "Like Master Plo was for me. You are attached to him. He is family."

"Yes," Ezra said, slumping to the floor, cross-legged. "I don't want to lose him..."

"Nobody does," she said softly, finally allowing some warmth into her voice. "We're doing everything we can. The rest is up to him."

Ezra looked up, and the youngling was so lost. Ahsoka reached over and touched his shoulder, but he turned away from the touch. Ahsoka didn't need the Force to understand his reluctance. A life on the streets was hard for anyone, let alone a youngling, barriers needed to be created to just survive, distance from everyone in order to stay safe. There was an instinctual need to protect whatever one had; clothes, personal items, food, to clutch onto the things desperately before anything else was taken away. Kanan, the crew of the Ghost, they belonged to Ezra, and he would not let them go so easily. Each one had slowly transcended every barrier he erected, they got close to him, and he finally let them in. This was further compounded by seeing them all as family, by connecting to them on a level that objects couldn't compare to. And it was compounded further by him being a Force-sensitive child.

In this moment he was so like her Master that she smiled, and she leaned back and let him have his barrier. This would not be an easy road for him, and she could not force the change inside himself he needed to make, but she would not do be impotent, either.

"Fear is a dangerous emotion for a Jedi," she said. "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Your fear stems from your passion, and an emotion that strong naturally calls out to the Force. But Ezra, the Force does not respond well to such a call."

"... What do you mean?" the teen asked. His voice was broken, and his body listed to the side. Now that he had confessed his emotion it had drained all the energy inside of him.

She considered how to answer, wondered if he was ready to learn about the Dark Side yet. His training was only months long, there was only so much that could be covered but... she would spare him this truth for a little longer. She went in a different direction.

"Would you be able to let him go?" she asked instead. "Not here, necessarily," she added quickly when she saw his face, "But later. In the future. Kanan has already sacrificed himself once for the greater good, and it is the way of the Jedi to do so again. Could you accept that? Could you let him go?"

Ezra's visible shaking answered her question, and she reached out again. He didn't shy away from the touch this time, too lost in his own fear to process the intrusion, and Ahsoka took the liberty of wrapping an entire arm around his shoulders. He was cold after touching the Dark Side, would be cold for hours yet until he got his fear under control. "It is the hardest lesson for a Jedi to learn," she said softly. "Even my Master struggled with it. Even I struggle with it. There is a difference in how you love someone."

The youngling's face was hidden by his thick mop of hair, but his head turned slightly, listening. "You can love someone for yourself," she said, "Or you can love someone for them. To love someone for yourself is to love them for what they do for you, for how they make you feel, for them being in your life. It is a love that keeps you near them, you are attached and you see that person as 'yours,' and to lose what is yours is to receive an injury to your person. That kind of love, it revolves around you rather than the other person. To love someone for them, is to love them for who they are and what they do, it is to love them because of who they are as a person. You respect their decisions, even if and when it takes that person away from you. To lose them is to accept that it was time for them to go, and that the Force will take them."

Ezra was shaking again, bringing his knees up and burying his face in them. Ahsoka felt another nudge, and knew she had said enough. Any more and he would shut down completely.

For hours, she simply held him.

Sato contacted her when the surgery was done, and Ahsoka got up slowly, the boy asleep. Zeb was there, and he picked up the youngling easily and carried him off. She nodded to Sato, and gestured, asking the Force to undo the minor damage Ezra had wrought.

"Did he wake up at all?"

"No, but given his injuries that is no surprise. Nobody seems to understand how he survived."

"The Force," Ahsoka replied. "The Force prevented him from bleeding out, and he cauterized the worst of the damage that he could reach, and he went into a Healing Trance. What surprises me is that he was able to do any of that. Kanan always said he was never strong with the Force, but his presence has grown considerably over the last few months."

"Well, he is stable for now. The medical droids said he will be down for the count for quite a while. Recovery will be months without a bacta tank."

"All the more reason to find one. Zeb will be the one to talk to."

"The Lasat? Not Captain Syndulla?"

Ahsoka smiled. "She'll want the mission, too, but we should probably give her a minute, first."

Sato smiled then, soft and genuine and rare. "You saw it, too."

Ahsoka said nothing; she didn't need to.

Sato disappeared to read Zeb into the mission, and Ahsoka made her way to their makeshift medical bay. The 2-1B surgical droids were gone, but one Twi'lek was sitting by her partner's side. The C1 droid was there as well, for once quiet in a corner. Ahsoka approached slowly, softly, aware that this was a very intimate space for the two. Hera looked up slowly, her green eyes hollow from exhaustion, but she smiled.

"They said he's stable for now," she said.

"I heard."

"I guess the rumors are true," she said weakly, "That Jedi are notoriously hard to kill."

"We are a stubborn breed," Ahsoka said with a smile, looking down at the battered Kanan. The Force was not as strong now, letting its vessel heal on its own, moving to do other things. Ahsoka reached up, touching his forehead. "Even more so these days."

"Can – could – all Jedi do what he did? Block orbital bombardment like that?"

"It's hard to say," the Togruta answered. "When the Force needs us, we become but vessels for its will, and in those times we are capable of phenomenal feats. Master Obi-Wan often said that my master rewrote the definition of impossible every other day. When I look back, I did some amazing things during the War..." Protecting Senator Amidala from a bounty hunter, finding Master Plo when the Malevolence destroyed his ship, surviving all the times she fought Ventress, the Blue Shadow Virus, the Temple bombing... she shuddered. Some memories still hurt, even after all this time.

She looked over to Hera, still looking at her partner with such emotion on her face. She looked to Kanan, blanket up to his collarbone and a myriad of bandages peaking up underneath, brown hair askew and so long.

"Don't let him shrug this off," she said suddenly.

Hera looked up. "What?"

"Don't let him shrug this off," Ahsoka repeated. "Don't let him think what he did was nothing, don't let him say that he did what he had to do. He needs to value himself, and moments like this should be rewarded."

Hera smiled, gloved hand reaching out to touch her partner's. "I won't," she said. "None of us will."

Ahsoka nodded, and for a while the two women watched him sleep.


Hera watched the Rebel leader leave before turning back to Kanan. "She's not wrong, you know," she said. "You never give yourself much credit, even with training the kid. You've done some amazing things since I've known you, and I wonder sometimes if we don't always tell you that.

"You said once that I was the heart of this team. You said that if anything happened to me that we would all be lost. Well, I want you to know: if I'm the heart, then you, love, are the soul. The kids have no idea how lucky they are to have a mentor like you, a conscience and a signpost, someone to aspire to be."

Her eyes burned suddenly, and she scrubbed at them with rough gloves, determined to allow herself this moment. "You inspire so much in all of us," she said, voice watery. "We're more than we were because of you. I'm more that I was. I don't think I could have talked to my father before I knew you. You've made me a better person, and once in a while you should know that."

Kanan just lay there on the gurny, unmoving and unconscious, battered and a little broken. It was worse, seeing him like this, in a way. When he'd been captured by the Inquisitor, just missing, it was easier to trick oneself. Now she saw every injury, had treated every injury. She knew exactly how broken he was after that stunt, and she knew exactly what his chances were.

"I don't think I ever told you," she said. "None of us wanted to admit it, but I was going to leave you to the Inquisitor, to Moff Tarkin. I didn't want to, but Fulcrum said that the hope you had created with that broadcast, the hope of Ezra's voice, it couldn't be risked. I never hated keeping things from you guys more than that moment, because I had to tell the others that we were leaving you, and I had to make it my decision. Something broke inside me when I did that, I lost a piece of myself to give that order. And in the end it was moot because Ezra just swooped in and took the reins. I was so mad and so relieved at the same time. I yelled at Ezra, and he just said that we were family, and that we couldn't lose any more family, and I was never so proud of him as in that moment. He looked just like you. And that was when I realized..."

The words caught in her throat, and she blinked, realizing her cheeks were wet. Hera put her head in her hands, shoulders shaking as emotion swept over her.

Hera wasn't sure when the change happened, when he went from semi-wayward tagalong to competent help to partner to this, but he touched so many pieces of her life. He did small things, bringing her caff during a long trip, putting a hand on her shoulder to offer support, sometimes just sitting next to her, hunching over the dejarik table planning a strategy. He had been the one to get her to go on the mission to field test the new blade-wings, had pushed her into it to prevent her emotional loss of so many of Phoenix Squad making her do something stupid. He was the one who recommended her to be Phoenix Leader, who suggested diplomacy with the Mandaloreans. He even stuck around the Rebellion, even though war had hurt him so deeply. From womanizing cowboy to the Jedi that he had buried so deeply inside him, and somewhere along the way she stopped calling him "love" as an endearment and instead as...

She couldn't admit it yet, not when the Rebellion needed her so badly, not when there was so much still to do. But he needed to know, she needed to tell him, just once.

She looked back to the door, but no one was there. Chopper was powered down, cells recharging. Nobody was watching.

She took a breath, and stood up, leaning over, and placing her lips softly on his, letting herself feel this way, letting herself acknowledge this piece of her heart.

"Get well, soon, love," she said. "I'll see what we can do about making that happen even faster."


Zeb scowled at the holograms, eyes narrowed as he swiveled the image again to get another angle.

Since arriving at the fleet, Ahsoka had taken one look at Ezra and dragged him off to discuss ancient religions and Hera and Chopper were staying diligently at Kanan's side, giving a play-by-play of injuries, when they had occurred, how bad they were, what had been done to triage, etc, etc. Sabine had almost stayed with them till Zeb had pulled her aside and stated bluntly that they needed more explosive ordinances.

"Zeb," she hissed, glancing to the retreating figures of Hera and Kanan, "how can you think of explosives at a time like this?"

"Because we're going to need them," he said in a low menacing voice.

Sabine had blinked, eyes widening, then her smile was downright malicious. Mandolorians always did love the concepts of revenge. Granted, Zeb knew he was probably going to have to explain what he really had in mind, and she might not care for the more indirect nature of it, but it had her scampering away, muttering about a masterpiece. It would keep her busy.

With everyone appropriately scattered and occupied, Zeb had immediately gone to start investigating about bacta tanks, where to get them, what was needed to steal them, schematics of what parts were necessary and what could be salvaged or adapted from other supplies easier to find. Sato quickly learned what he was up to and brought him in to briefings and showing the intel they already had so far.

Tano was good. The target was an old Clone Wars MedStar frigate that had been stationed in orbit over a gaseous planet. The Old Republic had trusted that since it was a hospital ship, it would be left alone by the Sepratists, but some battle historical something-or-other had happened and the station had crashed into the gases below. The atmosphere of the planet was incredibly toxic, and even the most advanced filters of the time couldn't guarantee clean oxygen for any sort of extended time to salvage anything. There had been talk of sending droids down for the salvage, but the war had left the Republic strapped for credits and other things were more important, like just building more ships and growing more clones. It had been forgotten.

Which was perfect. Scans from recon were already coming back from scouts that Sato had sent out, and Zeb was studying the lay outs and likely places where bacta tanks would be, especially after the crash, and how to approach.

He scowled even harder.

He hadn't done this kind of planning since his time in the Honor Guard, and it was bringing back unhappy memories. There was a reason why he let Kanan do all the planning and didn't question too much. Going through this, trying to figure out how to best utilize the crew of the Ghost and their various abilities, knowing that there might be danger on planet and his positioning might lead to harm...

Zeb shook his head. He'd lost his people. He wouldn't lose his family to. He just needed to double check and triple check everything.

Which was part of the problem. For all that he teased Kanan relentlessly on how the plans kept changing, Kanan had an inspiring amount of trust in their ability to adapt and adjust accordingly. Zeb had that trust as well, but he wasn't sure he had it in him anymore to call the shots that might put them all in danger. It had been his biggest failure in the Honor Guard. His orders had lead to the death of everyone. When he'd been wandering alone after all that loss, he'd made sure that he only had to worry about himself. So that he wouldn't lead others to their deaths again.

Then Kanan had found him.

Zeb had been in the middle of a brawl that had ended up sending Imperials to break it up, and Zeb couldn't quite hold back his anger. He'd just kept pounding and pounding at the Stormtroopers, embarrassing them in that a whole squad couldn't even get one hit on him. But when reinforcements had arrived, he'd been in way over his head. Then there was suddenly cover fire, a distraction that had the Bucketheads turning and attempting to reorganize, which gave Zeb a chance to slip away. The two of them had led the Empire and a wild chase through the streets, and Zeb had laughed at the freedom of it. Laughed for the first time in years. He'd offered to be some muscle on any job that Kanan had in mind.

One month later, Hera had approached him, offering him a spot of work, and he'd happily agreed. He'd been with the crew ever since, relishing the chance to stick it to the Empire. Kanan was still in charge, since he had a better understanding of their abilities, Zeb being the new crewmate after all, and Zeb had never felt freer. All he had to worry about was being in position and trouncing Buckets as needed and wanted. He had been worried that on each mission, the closer he got to Hera and Kanan, that he might start feeling that heavy weight of worry. He would need to leave if that happened.

But to his delighted surprise, the two had proven capable beyond what he'd thought possible. Hera was a skilled pilot, getting them out of jams he'd thought impossible, and by usually staying on the ship where she had the most protection and the most skill, he hadn't needed to worry. And Kanan... Well, Kanan seemed to pull himself out of problems with an almost casual ease, being the quickest draw with a blaster that Zeb had ever found and sometimes just seeming to know what to change and when. It wasn't until after he'd come back to the Ghost with Sabine and she'd been part of the crew for a month or so when they'd been on a mission and Kanan was suddenly there, blaster firing, kicking, and both Sabine and Zeb had watched when Kanan had simply reached and a blaster had suddenly ripped from a Stormtrooper's hand and Kanan was firing, guns akimbo, to give them cover as they retreated.

Both Zeb and Sabine had had some very pointed questions. But Kanan had begrudgingly answered, eyes dark in memory in a way that Zeb understood with far too much clarity. Zeb had never questioned again after that. He had a good understanding of just what a Jedi could do, and knowing that Kanan could sense things even beyond what the Lasat could do, just took a weight off of his shoulders.

Then Kanan had been taken by the Inquisitor, and Zeb had been left questioning his place. The orders came to leave Kanan behind and it made his stomach churn. He had started looking into ways to get the Jedi back, but then Ezra just took charge. That had also made his stomach churn, because children shouldn't be leading fights, Jedi or not. But Ezra was connected to the Force and had a better chance of finding and getting Kanan.

Now though...

Now Zeb would take charge. He may not understand the Force, he may not have any clue of what Ezra could really do with it or how to plan with it, but he would use his tactical training, use his time in the Guard, use the skills he'd been neglecting for years, to get this mission done.

Because he wouldn't let the kids take the lead for this.

This would be his mission.

So he would make plans.

When the rest of the crew arrived, Zeb had everything laid out and ready. Hera recognized what they were about to do and immediately smiled, tension easing out around her eyes. Chopper let out quite a few grumbles and complaints and quickly hooked in to the computers, reviewing the plans.

"Uh," Ezra said, raising a brow and leaning forward, "what's this?"

"A MedStar medical frigate," Zeb replied.

"And?" Ezra added.

But Sabine was scowling. "You said we were going to get them back!"

"No," Zeb growled back. "I said we were going to need your explosives. And we will."

"But-"

"This frigate," Zeb growled right over her, "should have bacta tanks."

Both kid's eyes lit up.

"Now," Zeb continued, "it's crashed on a planet with air so toxic that it's only been in the last ten years or so that we've been able to get rebreathers that can process the gunk without having to go down with oxygen tanks. They're standard issue now for most ships. In fact, we already got some."

The kids smiled wide, now studying the holo closer.

"The crash looks severe," Sabine said, artistic eye already noting all sorts of details. "And it's in the side of a mountain, almost completely sideways. It'll be a miracle if we can get anything intact in there."

"Medical bays were always the most defended part of hospital ships after any armories," Hera explained. "That way survivors could be found if a frigate became nonfunctional."

"And as long as we have the tank itself, we can scrounge parts for interfacing or replacing circuit boards," Ezra added, leaning in. "But balance is really going to be difficult. Can we even land the Ghost?"

Zeb shook his head. "No, we can't. Hera will have to stay in orbit and offer support as needed. We should be able to land the Phantom here," a taloned finger pointed to a small bluff, a hundred meters up from the station itself that would be just wide enough for the Phantom to land and for them to exit. It would be incredibly tight. "We can rappel down from there into this opening here," he pointed to a caved in section of hull, likely from whatever historical whatsits caused the station to crash in the first place.

"Do we have schematics of the interior?" Sabine asked, already taking notes like the good student she was.

"Yeah, and if they're wrong, we have Chopper to plug in for the layouts."

The droid grumbled his ascent.

"All right," Hera nodded. "We have a lot to discuss. I'll get us into hyperspace and we can talk on the way. Chopper, are the coordinates input in the mainframe?"

Chopper growled back.

"Good. Let's get going, review our plans, then get some sleep. We haven't had a lot of rest and we're going to need all we can before we go excavating that wreck."


Author's Notes: So, while we have other Rebels fics up, this one is actually the first one we wrote. You can tell we don't have a firm handle on the characters yet, this fic was mostly about us getting to know them. You can already see our fan-gaze of Kanan and Hera, and the two of us are still kind of struggling with Zeb and Sabine, but for this two-parter we just play.

In terms of timeline, this takes place somewhere in the first half of season 2 - perhaps obviously because thoughts on being a Knight. We still weren't completely caught up on the season yet so the timing is a little sketchy. Still, enjoy watching us learn about the crew!

Next/Final chapter: If part 1 was about Kanan being awesome, then part 2 is about the crew (kids) rallying to try and undo the damage. Ezra, of course, doesn't take this well.