Happy first Advent Week. Due to my tardiness in updating (and this being near the end of the story), I'll spare you the cliffhanger and give you the last chapter! ;)
"Karabast and Sith!" Ezra shouted as the shuttle rolled under a concussion of heat. The comlink fizzed and the walls crumpled in, pockets of air punching through the walls. Kanan had only one moment….
He clung to the Force, searching for her. The hellebore of Ryloth, a butterfly carved of steel, caged with emerald. Her life beamed strongly amidst the stars.
Achingly Kanan brushed her shoulder, knowing it would be the last time.
"Hold on!" Ezra warned, spinning the shuttle in a dizzying roll. Light flashed in the cockpit and Ezra hollered, flinging up his arms as a molten hunk shot towards the cockpit –
And ricocheted from an invisible shield, joining the circle of debris that had miraculously avoided the spacecraft. Dumbfounded, Kanan looked to Ezra. When had the kid grown so strong?
Wheezing a laugh, Ezra staggered to his master's side. "It… wasn't … wasn't me."
"Wasn't…." Kanan whispered. Clarification struck. Vader?
Invigorated with hope, Ezra sheepishly grinned. "I guess he's still alive."
Kanan didn't know what to think. Flabbergasted, he croaked, "What – "
His breath ran out. Hitching stagnantly, Kanan panicked. Air! His chest bucked, lungs pulling on cold, empty space. Ice numbed his fingers and Kanan looked dazedly at the holes punctured in the shuttle. Ezra's horror matched his own as he scrabbled at his pilot's suit, forgetting that in order to activate the oxygen, a pilot needed a helmet.
Huffing nostalgically, Kanan remembered a white hall in Imperial territory, with a single breather and the will to survive. Ezra choked, gagged on air that would not come, and smiled waveringly, his eyes bright with the same memory. Seconds later he was on his side, thrashing, clanging his fist on the steel floor in futile defiance. Limbs numb, Kanan sank down beside his padawan. His heart fluttered desperately. Starved. Listlessly Kanan drifted his fingers through Ezra's hair, finding the knotted braid.
Vader might have laid his claim, but this would always be his boy.
Fervor clammed Kanan's hands as Ezra's eyes closed, and he poured his life into his apprentice, dipping into a void of the Force he had never known. He envisioned the thready heartbeat strengthening; the blood flowing; the mind cooperating even as oxygen failed. Feeling his own mind shut down, Kanan closed his eyes against the gathering dark and pressed every ounce of his will into Ezra.
Force, let him live. I'm ready.
Black encompassed Kanan's vision, and under his fingertips Ezra's pulse thudded. Faintly the master smiled.
Even the snap of an airlock, and the lopsided galumph followed by a sworn "Karabast!" would not wake him.
6 Months Later….
"So you mean I'm really a Skywalker, not a Lars?" A dazed Luke scratched his head as Bail Organna fumbled through his explanation of the Skywalker heritage for the fifth encore. Ezra yawned.
"Even a bantha could have understood it by now," he whispered to Zeb.
"Pshaw! Tell me about it," the Lasat grumbled, stretching his arms above his head.
"When you boys are ready to confess, Minister Tua wants to know what happened to her astromech," Hera said direly.
Chopper chortled, while Ezra and Zeb innocently looked away.
"It… might have met up with an unfortunate Tie accident," Zeb guessed.
"Sabine could have painted it," Ezra fancied.
"Mm-hm." Hera folded her arms over her enlarged stomach, glaring down at her misfortunate crew. "Ezra, explanation. Now."
"Chopper did it!" Zeb exclaimed shamelessly.
"Yeah, it was Chopper!" Ezra agreed.
An exasperated droid blared his innocence, and Hera calmly patted his dome. "Garazeb Orrelius, what happened to the minister's astromech?"
"We turned it into a garbage disposal," Ezra confessed in a rush. Zeb's ears flattened.
"Well, we kinda blasted it first."
"By accident – but Sabine painted it."
"Why did I ask?" Sighing, Hera looked back towards the dented, mismatched plating of the Ghost. "Where is that scandalous cowboy…?"
Rubbing his stomach, where a new lightsaber scar matched the whiskers on his cheek, Ezra gazed fondly at the battered Ghost. The former Imperial shipyard had pulled the wreck out of the scrap heap, but it was Hera who had snapped, griped, and bullied the ship to its former capacities. The hull looked as pathetic as that piece of junk Zeb almost won from a scruffy pilot in a Sarlaac game, but the hyperdrive purred like a contented tooka.
Much had changed in six months. Lothal's scarred landscape was dotted with farms, with former prisoners returning to their homes. It was the only planet where the stormtroopers had surrendered after the Death Star's destruction marked the collapse of the Empire. Senator Bail Organa was negotiating plans for a New Republic, but so long as the remnants of Palpatine's reign lingered, many planets would remain trapped under the old rule.
Lothal might have been Force-void, its Jedi Temple as hollow as a tomb, but the people were free.
The victims of the bio-weapon attack – some Force-sensitive, but many more drained by the adverse pollen effects – had recovered after a vaccination was developed for frudal flowers. The Force connection remained nullified, but it was amusing to see Sabine appreciatively sniffing white flowers that had once flung her into a fit of sneezes.
Lothal itself had a new republic – governed by Maketh Tua and a lieutenant whom retired clone commander "Rex" had personally recommended. The health system, work force, and architecture was swiftly improving under Tua's fiery control. No one cared whether Agent Kallus had died under a blue or a red lightsaber.
Stormtroopers and civilians alike were building a new civilization.
No one cared who was Sith or Jedi.
Aimlessly Ezra gazed at the early evening stars, wondering if the Force-nullification kept him from sensing his father, or if Darth Vader was merely out of reach. Six months had passed since the Death Star's explosion. It was too long.
"Still looking for him?"
The step-thud of Kanan's limp snapped Ezra from his trance. Anxiety flickered and was gone as he looked over his shoulder.
There was an older shuffle in Kanan's steps, but his eyes were younger. Fulfilled. After the Death Star's explosion, something had changed. Ezra's memories of the event were fuzzed after he smacked his head on the shuttle console. From what he had heard, Darth Vader himself had usurped the Empire, destroying himself in his own ambition. Ezra knew better. A lone shuttle could not have escaped the explosion.
Someone stronger than the Emperor had protected him and Kanan.
As for the events of their rescue thereafter, Ezra had no recollection. He remembered trying to breathe, and later hollering while a medical droid prodded at his torn stomach. Zeb said that Hera had docked against the shuttle just in time, allowing Zeb and Sabine to drag their crewmates from the decrepit hull. Oxygen had saved Ezra's life.
Kanan had almost died.
Twice.
Once on the transport, again when he was immersed in a bacta tank. Hera had been shaken for weeks.
And yet – six months later, with a metal band clamped around his twisted leg and a right hand that was sutured and partially numb – Kanan was more vibrant than before Ezra had joined the rebellion. The furrow had eased in his brow, and his eyes were clear. Confidence replaced an uncertainty Ezra had never noticed until its absence. As Kanan's right hand slowly healed, so did his mind. He was a Jedi Master.
Ezra knew that he had changed, too. He wasn't the kid who trailed after a threaded family, chasing down impossible goals. He knew who he was, and he understood his future. He was a Jedi.
"Still looking for Vader?" Kanan repeated softly. There was a hesitancy whenever he spoke of Darth Vader; an unresolved question that Ezra didn't know how to answer.
There was no answer that Kanan would accept.
Ezra was seventeen, now. Different - even more so than after Raydonia - and yet nothing had changed. Master and padawan still relied on one another; trained flawlessly; had established an impenetrable bond in the Force. Ezra just couldn't understand why Kanan didn't think he had room for two fathers. Maybe it was the jealousy that Kanan would never admit; the guardian spirit that claimed Ezra as his padawan only.
It didn't seem fair, but there was no cure. Kanan and Vader would never meet on even grounds.
"Nah," Ezra said breezily, his eyes fixating on the stars. "That creepy lieutenant said he heard that Darth Vader's ghost was haunting his rumored daughter." A sister. Hah! That would be the day.
"Well, the skies are clear tonight," Kanan said, lowering himself with a grunt. He chewed his lip contemplatively before broaching, "Ahsoka wants me to begin Luke's training. She says you're ready."
Somberly he handed Ezra a worn cylinder. Ezra's breath caught and he glanced up in disbelief, fingers curling around the smooth metal.
"But… this is your lightsaber."
"New tradition," Kanan said with a shrug. He smiled crookedly. "You've finished your training. You're a Jedi Knight."
"A Knight?" Ezra exclaimed. "But what about you? I – I mean, isn't there some kind of ceremony? A test?"
"As far as I'm concerned, you've passed any test I could arrange," Kanan said somberly. "Ahsoka agreed: you're capable of continuing your own training."
"Oh." Studying his feet, Ezra fingered the saber's grooves. After years of depending of Kanan, he was finally flying on his own.
He didn't want to be alone.
"Hey." Mussing his former padawan's hair, Kanan chuckled. "I'm still here. The Force bond never breaks; even in death."
Ezra wondered if he was thinking of Master Billapa.
"So…." Kanan cleared his throat uncomfortably and nodded his chin towards a blossom of light pink and cerulean hair. "Zeb tells me you two haven't been speaking properly since she saw you in a bacta tank."
Choking, Ezra clapped his hands over his face. "Stop, just stop."
In truth, they had had one meaningful conversation – and that had involved a slap, a heated 'Are you finished with the Sith trash?', and a long, tangled kiss that ended with Sabine walking away coyly, remarking on Ezra's 'drunken nerf expression'.
"I just thought maybe it was time I talked with you about something." Kanan coughed against his fist and cast Hera a pathetic look. "Ah… you know the Fulcrum married us not five months ago…."
"I'm not sure I'm ready for that step yet, Kanan," Ezra admitted, picking the dirt under his nails. It was too soon; too many disasters in between. He wanted to know Sabine beyond crossfire and red lightsabers. They had time.
"That's… not what I meant." Again Kanan cleared his throat, and wilted under Hera's distant glare. "Ah… There's something I need to talk to you about. Um… maybe you've noticed there are certain feelings – not Jedi feelings, but emotional feelings – stronger than the Force… um…"
"Whoa, whoa!" Ezra shoved out his hands, nearly falling backwards. "I know where this is going! You don't have to say anything! Zeb told me the minute I admitted Sabine was hot!"
"Oh…." Relieved, Kanan spread his hands and then froze. "Wait, what?"
Desperately Ezra scrambled to his feet. "I know what happens, okay? Don't – don't talk about Hera. I – just don't!"
Behind them, Zeb burst out laughing. "I betcha wonder where the li'l lekku comes from, right?"
"Zeb, no!" Face crimson, Ezra clapped his hands over his ears and shouted at the top of his lungs, "I'm a Jedi and I swear I'm not going to kill him!"
"Hehe, and to think I'll be an uncle when you and Sabine manufacture a couple brats of your own!"
"That's it!" Lightsaber flaring, Ezra pounced after the hooting Lasat, shouting curses above the hysterical cackles.
Kanan rolled his eyes. "Aye-yu-yuy."
"That went well," Hera said, looking coolly to where Sabine was encouraging the squabble, half dizzy with laughter.
"When our kid's old enough, you're talking to him."
"If it isn't a she," Hera said primly.
"Then you're definitely managing the conversation!"
Hera's fingers walked up his shoulder, and Kanan's pulse thrummed. "Want to talk about it privately first?"
Looping an arm around the Twi'lek's waist, Kanan waved a scolding Chopper away. "Eh, let the boys fight. Just keep them out of the Ghost for a few hours."
He was a Jedi, he was married, and he was dang proud of it.
The Code was just a guideline for beginners, anyways.
Caleb Dume would have agreed.
.
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End
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Concluding Notes for the Never Alone Series:
The bio-weapon's effects on Lothal have devastating consequences. The Force on Lothal will remain stagnant for over forty years, and two centuries will pass before a Force-sensitive child is born on the planet.
The Lieutenant (a subtle OC referenced frequently under the simple title "the lieutenant") survives the Death Star, wins the betting pool for 'longest run under Darth Vader without a significant choking incident' and retires from his position during Lothal's early republic. He continues "non-lethal" jobs such as guarding transports and supply debots, and settles down to an ordinary, undisturbed life with a wife and nine kids.
"Cee-Ray" (the singing kitchen droid from "Carbon") is assigned to the Fulcrum's transport. Two days later the droid is mysteriously drowned in a water bucket.
Maketh Tua becomes the Grand Minister of Lothal and maintains a solid, peaceful community, governing into her old age.
Zare Leonis returns to his family safe and sound. It is discovered that he had an unusual allergic reaction to the frudal flowers, which is cured with the newly developed vaccination. He begins his training in Lothal's new training facilities, and is immediately offered a promotion for his invaluable help to the rebel "Dev Morgan".
Dhara is discovered to be one of the Emperor's Force-sensitives-in-training. She returns to Lothal for rehabilitation, and will be permitted to train as a Jedi five years later.
Kanan initiates Luke's training in the Force, but his war wounds impede his progress. After a year Luke continues his training under Master Yoda, and finishes under Ahsoka's tutelage after Yoda's death. He later trains two apprentices at the same time, helping to rebuild the Jedi Order.
According to the galactic media reports: "Luke Skywalker/Lars and Ezra Bridger/Skywalker refuse to mingle for unaccountable reasons." Luke is too snobby for Ezra's liking, and Ezra is too high-minded to understand vaporizers. They do not get along.
R2-D2's loyalty remains with Luke, and Ezra encourages Chopper to zap the blue droid whenever he feel antagonistic. (Hence, Luke usually makes his rounds to Lothal alone.)
Obi-wan and Kanan share many long conversations, from Vader's children to Ezra to the survival of future Jedi. Obi-wan encourages Kanan to train younglings in the Force, preparing them for advanced masters.
Kallus' death on Kessel is quietly logged into the Lothal records database and ignored. Accidents happen all the time when Sith lords are involved. Maketh Tua vindictively clears out Kallus' office and – with Chopper's help – hacks into his security files and liberates hundreds of prisoners who were illegally detained.
The mines of Kessel are not easily cleared – just as slave rings among the Hutts cannot be abolished – but constant political barrage on the part of Captain Stalin and numerous protesters eventually shut down the mines and bring a trickle of relief to the slaves.
Zeb returns to Lasan to rebuild his home world; a weary and war-torn soldier, tired of bloodshed, seeking peace and refuge. He eventually marries and brings his 'kits' to see their Uncle Ez and Aunt Saby. (He's a little worried about Kanan recruiting his youngsters, but Hera will not be denied her 'Aunt Hera' rights, and Zeb daren't refuse her orders.)
Chopper chooses to stay with Kanan and Hera, but he visits Lasan occasionally – if only to dump a jar of jam over Zeb's head. (He is teaching the children good manners.)
Kanan and Hera's first child is a girl – a mottled yellow and brown, thick-lekkued halfling named Depa. She is born on Lothal a few months after the bio-weapon, and is permanently affected by the atmosphere. She will never sense or harness the Force.
Their second child, Kaleb Syndulla Jarrus, is born with one long and one short lekku, and has no desire to become a Jedi. He pours his efforts into piloting alongside his mother, and is commended for his talents at a young age. Kanan orders him to train as a Jedi, as there are too few left to waste any Force-sensitives. Ezra coaches Kaleb for a few years in lightsaber and ground techniques, while Kanan ruthlessly trains him in the Force. In time, Kaleb will be a strong – if reluctant – Jedi pilot.
The Jarrus family move to Coruscant, where Kanan and the surviving Jedi rebuild the old Temple and begin a new order. Kanan's right hand heals enough that he can demonstrate lightsaber techniques, although he is not the fighter he used to be. His knee swells in cold weather and he limps around with a metal brace.
Hera instructs some of Coruscant's finest pilots, while an unusually helpful (if irritating) bipedal droid named C-3PO tutors Depa until she is old enough to accompany her daddy to the Jedi Temple. (Hera threatens to 'pull that golden scrapheap's plug' several times per evening, until Kanan is tempted to let Chopper sizzle C-3PO just for some peace of mind.)
War wounds catch up with Kanan eventually. At sixty-one he falls and doesn't get up. Ezra travels to Coruscant and personally lights his master's pyre. Hera lives for another sixty years and sees both her children married and have children of their own, but she is never quite the same without her Fearless Leader. Chopper is her steadfast companion until the end.
Darth Vader does survive the Death Star's explosion. He steals away Leia and endures a frustrating fatherhood filled with scruffy-dragged-off-a-smuggler's-vessel boyfriends, teenage daughters wielding red lightsabers, tearful breakdowns, 'Daddy-do-this' moments, opening jar lids, winning teddy bears in Jedi Sabaac, and manipulative female emotions.
He keeps an eye on Luke's progress, but has enough damage to mind with Leia's rabid tenacity. He just doesn't time to babysit another whiny brat. The boy was trained by Kanan, after all; he'd probably get his hand chopped off sooner or later.
Although Ezra is watched from afar, Darth Vader does not interfere. The grandkids, on the other hand….
Leia is found by Darth Vader and trained as the most diabolical Sith princess that ever fought in a dress and high heels. She captures a dashing scoundrel, Han Solo, who can't decide if he's a prisoner or lucky to have landed a hot date. Marriage is inevitable. Their eldest son (Jakon) absconds from his Sith training and becomes a leading member of Alderaan's senate, while the younger (Tal'c) becomes an eye-patched pirate who makes his fortune in the black market. Darth Vader hoards both his grandson's training. The only sign to Ezra that Vader might be alive is that a certain Alderaan senator keeps a lightsaber on his belt at all times. (He figures Kanan would be mortified by his muttered swear words, purple-verging-on-maroon saber blade, and that leather-garbed blaster fanatic who drops by on occasion, so Jakon had to have had a master who was once right-hand to the Emperor.)
Ezra and Sabine are married four years after the beginning of the New Republic. They relocate to Naboo on Sabine's suggestion, as 'the tranquil atmosphere would be calming after Ezra's limited experience with flourishing planets'. This marks the first time Ezra ever sees the sea.
Their son is born blue-eyed, and Ezra finally realizes Sabine's original hair color was orange (because it has to be – she wouldn't have banned him to the couch if he hadn't guessed right).
After the destruction of the Empire, Sabine is tentatively reunited with her parents – who are more welcoming and receiving of their rebel daughter after they greet little Isaac.
Ezra leaves on four quests to find Darth Vader. All end in failure. As far as he knows, either Darth Vader is dead or he does not want to be found.
Eventually Ezra is elevated to Jedi Master. He only trains two padawans of his own, since most of his life is consumed with babysitting Kaleb, Depa, Isaac, Luke's daughter Beryl, and one of Zeb's sharp-toothed daughters. He swears that if Ahsoka ever settles down, he gets to train the next baby Fulcrum.