Chapter 11

Reaching out

Kanan's pov

Ezra was gone... gone from this world...well in a world of his own making.

Flashback

Hera's cry ripped through my body like a wild fire making the Jedi knight in me, not the parent, check whether the boy I cared about so much was really gone. I found in my search a fading point of light, Ezra was still in there and I had to work fast to save this life, or I really would loose him to the force forever. I told Hera and Caleb as much as we raced into the Ghost medbay and hooked Ezra up to all sorts of machines.

I channeled what I could of my own force signature not wanting to overwhelm the child after what he had been through. The machines showed that his life signs were getting a little stronger but something in me knew that wouldn't be enough and at the moment I had no clue as to how to help Ezra,but I had to soon, I couldn't loose him again, I just couldn't, it would kill me too I just knew it.

Flashback ends

A few minutes later I realized that Ezra was breathing on his own, but by the messages that the machines were giving out, Ezra had slipped into a coma. Right now the rest of the crew was sorting out the slaves that they had saved, what ships they should go on to got back to their home planets, anything to help them not think of the youngest crew member. Some of the older ones slaves had decided to help out in the rebellion in any way that they could, some of the younger ones too but Fulcrum would not take those, she had told us that children shouldn't be part of this war and that was the problem, Ezra was a child, mixed up in this war and it was my fault for doing it to him.

I didn't leave Ezra's side, not even to see Caleb off when he left earlier that day. I feel Ezra's signature weaken again and I pushed my force signature into him, comforting and strengthening the boy's ties to life, but I knew it wasn't going to be enough, I had seen this before and I didn't want to see it again, I would have to do something else soon and I was starting to get a hint of a plan.

I hear noise outside the door to the medbay and in came all the crew minus Chopper. I ran down all of what I did, and what I knew was happening to the child we all cared about. The worst part was that the signs for waking up weren't good, it fifty/fifty whether Ezra would even live, but Jedi part of me knew there was a way out of this, a way to help him I just needed to see it. I wished my master was here, she would know the way to save Ezra, I knew she would.

"Can't you do some sort of Jedi mind trick to help him heal?" said Zeb in a gruff voice, not wanting to let any one know how worried he was.

Hearing him say that the plan I had been thinking of flared a little more. A memory of what I did with my master, a mediation trick that had bound me to her before we had gone to our first mission together, made itself known. I didn't need a deep connection as I had with my master but with the bond I had with Ezra was still there I just needed to strengthen the mind connection to pull this off. It could fail and kill Ezra but it might be his only hope of living.

"I could but Ezra is so weak right now, if I try something and it doesn't work it might make his condition worse, which of course is something we all don't want" I replied to him, eyes never leaving Ezra's sleeping form, wondering if he was strong enough to suffer through this.

"But if you don't do something, Ezra will die anyway, we all know it and you did promise Caleb that you would do all you could to save Ezra's life before he left with all the other slaves" said Hera taking Ezra's hand in her own.

Like earlier just speaking or thinking that name brought back the memory of that small child, who had done all he could to save the one friend who had risked his own life to save his own and how he had looked at Ezra when he had discovered Ezra would be staying here with me and not going to a medical center where he would be able to get the help he needed to recover, but as I told him at the time it was too dangerous for any of the ex - slaves to be seen in public and right now Ezra couldn't defend himself if he was found.

"You will take care of him? he saved my life, I just wanted to make sure he would be taken care of too" Caleb said holding Ezra's hand and taking my hand too.

I gave that hand a squeeze before I said "Caleb I will do everything in my power to make sure Ezra survives. Ezra is the closest thing I will ever have to a son of my own and I will never give up on him" which brought a smile to Caleb's face before he left.

I was brought out of that memory by Ezra moaning, his hands tightening, all but crushing Hera's and mine in the process. I look down at Ezra's face, it was full of pain. Then I realized that I had to risk it, Ezra meant to much to me, to all of us. Then I thought if I could bring his mind to the temple of light and to the place of a thousand water fountains, might make it happen easier for him to survive it because it was where we had both had felt at peace.

I just had to hope that this might keep him calm enough while his body heals and maybe then he might come out of his coma, but I also knew it might take more than that but at least it would be a start and that was something we all were hoping for. My face must have shown some of what I was thinking about because soon I was asked a question by a worried captain.

"Kanan what is it? do you have an idea about how to help Ezra" Hera asked, her hand brushing through Ezra's hair trying in hope to wake him up herself.

"I do, it might not work but it is worth a shot" I said in reply, readying myself to mediate, there was no telling what I would find in Ezra's mind right now, what darkness was in there and if Ezra would even be able to hear me at all.

"Do you want us to leave love?" asked Hera now, taking her hand off Ezra's head.

"No I need you here to monitor Ezra. If he starts to get worse you might need to stabilize him"I answered before closing my eyes and connecting to my broken padawan of a son.

Pushing my mind through the haziness of pain and fear, I found Ezra curled up in the corner of a room, which looked like the room he made for himself in that old tower, I guessed that this was a place he felt safe in, but looking at it again it had parts of the ghost there too. My room and the cockpit were there as well as the common room, but there wasn't any representation of Zeb or Sabine anywhere in sight, which meant to Ezra he felt safest with Hera and I, and Sabine, Zeb and Chopper were allowed but not trusted as much.

Ezra himself still looked bloody, broken and flickering like a ghost, but at least his breathing was better. His eyes were dull with pain, and I could see unshed tears in them like he wanted to cry but couldn't. His whole body was shutting down and I knew his mind would follow, I had to work fast, I had to get his focus on me and not on the pain that his body was going through.

"Ezra can you hear me?" I said gently, moving my hand to his ghostly face, rubbing my thumb over the tear tracks, wiping the tears away that had finally fallen.

Ezra looked up, his body slowly become more solid at my touch, then I saw a shaking hand reach up to cup my face too. His eyes widened with surprise and the body became completely solid as he realized that I was real and not something that he dreamed up. I opened my arms up and he collapsed into them, wrapping his small body around my frame as tight as he could get. I could tell he was cold and frightened. I held him as tight as I could calming and comforting the child as he became more aware that he was safe.

I gently picked him up and took him back into the temple of light, by making a doorway leading from this place to our shared place. From there I took him into the room with a thousand water fountains and lowered us into one of the warmer pools. I started to wash off the blood and clean the wounds, even though he was here in our shared mind space, that these wounds were only images of what his physical body was like on the outside, he could make them disappear by himself, but right now he was too weak to do much and I had to admit to myself that doing this for him felt good to me as it did to him too, as if I was washing away my pains too.

"K..K..Kanan...d..d..don't blame y..y..yourself f..f..for what h..h..happened. I..I..I h..had t..to help h..him, I..I thought t..that is w..what a j..jedi k..knight would do" Ezra said shakily, his voice so soft that if I hadn't been holding him I wouldn't have heard it.

"How could I not Ezra. Its my fault that I didn't get us away from the slavers in the first place. I should have just taken you as soon as the doors opened" I replied looking away from the boy in my lap.

I know it wasn't a very Jedi like way of thinking, to be so selfish about things like this but that is how I felt. I should have run with him everything in me at the time told me this but if I had then that would have made me a coward, just like when my own mater told me to run, to save myself, also if I had run with Ezra then Tug, Caleb and all the other slaves would still be in chains.

"But if you were brave then with your master and died because of it, you wouldn't have met me. We were made to get captured by D...Dale so that we could free the others and I found something, I hope you have seen it"Ezra said making me feel better about how he was looking and feeling, but also how I felt since our capture began.

"The light saber?" I asked, thinking of the broken message between us when Ezra was still a slave.

"Yeah, the light saber. do you know who it belonged too?"Ezra inquired.

"Yes I did see the saber. I must say in all the places on that world you had to be working where a light saber could be found and as for who owned it...it was my master's light saber"I replied, saying the last part quietly some part of me was still ashamed of what happened to her.

"Master I told you don't be ashamed of what happened and can you tell me the story of what happened to her and to you that day"Ezra asked.

"I will when you recover" I said smiling a little, knowing this might be the push Ezra needs to heal faster.

"But master" Ezra whined.

"No buts, you heal then I tell...that is the deal" I said leaving no chance for any childish come back from my padawan.

But after a blue eyed glare from Ezra, he just snuggled into my arms as I lifted us out of the pool and laid us down under a large tree that was nearby. Then I heard singing, it seemed to be coming from the tree itself, maybe this was a force tree or maybe it wasn't I didn't remember it being there before, and I knew Ezra wouldn't have put it here. I didn't know where it came from but I was glad it was here as it washed away the last of our pains.

An: so many of you thought I killed Ezra...I am not that bad or maybe I am, something that was in chapter 10 is going to come back and bite our blueberry in the butt in the near future, so reread that if you dare. see you then.