(A/N)- A weekly update this time! What can I say, I was on a roll. I'll not keep you from it, let's just get right down to business.

Warning for a depiction of a panic attack and general trauma-related anxiety.

Disclaimer: Gee, I still don't own Star Wars. That's a bummer.

What We Choose To Fight For

Hera paced in tight circles across the shuttle floor. She was still sputtering, angry half-formed sentences overlapping each other, audible only to herself as she muttered, not wanting to break Kanan or Zeb's concentration as they listened for incoming communications.

It evidently wasn't helping, because Kanan gave a loud sigh from the cockpit and turned around in his seat.

"Calm down, Hera," he told her.

"How can I be calm at a time like this?!" she immediately demanded, her lekku curling tight at the ends. "Saw betrayed our trust, almost wrecked the mission by changing tactics halfway through, and now he's taken Ezra and Sabine off to who knows where!"

Kanan was out of his seat and grasping her arms, holding her firmly in place so she would stop pacing.

"He won't hurt them," he said firmly. "You know that."

Her instinctive retort came up against a wall in her throat, her anger halting. Her open mouth faltered and she bit her lip, eyes strained. Tension trembled inside her.

Her shoulders slumped a bit as she let out a breath.

"I'm not so convinced he won't..." she said quietly. "He's slipping, Kanan. He's become distrustful and paranoid, ruthless... The Alliance formally denouncing him only made him more fanatic." Her eyes squeezed closed and she shook her head, feeling helpless. "And he doesn't... he hasn't been around Ezra since Geonosis, he won't know how... He doesn't know what Ezra's sensitive to, how to calm him down."

Kanan's hand came up under her chin, tilting her head up softly.

"Sabine does," he reminded her. "She knows almost better than anyone. She'll protect him."

Hera shook with emotion, the edges of her eyes welling.

Kanan leaned forward, until the rough surface of the Jaig eyes mask was pressed against her forehead.

"Listen to me," he said. "They're going to be okay."

Hera sniffled a little but calmed, reaching up and rubbing a finger under her eyes. "Don't tell me you're not angry," she said.

"Oh I'm furious," Kanan assured her, stepping back lightly. "But until we have more information, or we hear from one of them, I'm willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt."

"Uh, speaking of..." Zeb piped up, alerting to and pointing down at a flashing light on the console.

Hera started making her way back up towards the cockpit. "Is that them?"

"Phoenix group secure frequency. Pretty safe bet," Zeb reported. He went ahead and opened the channel.

"Spectre 5 to decoy shuttle, can anyone hear me?"

Hera almost sagged with relief at the sound of Sabine's voice. "We read you Spectre 5," she replied, taking up the pilot's seat and sinking into it. "What's the situation?"

Sabine started talking very quickly, explaining everything in a long burst of words.

"Okay first of all, we're not hurt, we're all perfectly fine, so don't freak out and and try to come get us. At least not right away. Saw may actually be on to something big here. We're following up a lead about secret Imperial cargo being smuggled on a civilian cargo ship."

Hera exchanged a glance with Kanan and Zeb, then shifted a bit forward in her seat. "Where is this cargo ship, exactly?"

"Faos station," Sabine reported. "But it's not due to depart for a couple days. We're going to have to go dark for a little bit while we wait for it to finish being loaded."

Hera frowned in displeasure at that. "Any chance I can fly in and pull you out before then?"

A series of warbling binary sounded in the background.

"Uh Chopper says probably not a good idea, I had him check the manifests as soon as we landed and apparently the decoy transponder and burner shuttle Saw stole is for a ship from here," Sabine relayed. "He must've ambushed it sometime after its last departure. That ship isn't due back here for another week and a half, so if you turn up early—"

"I get it," Hera cut her off. She smeared a hand down her face.

"What about you coming to us?" asked Zeb. "There's gotta be plenty of ships you can snag."

"Surprisingly, no," Sabine said with dry disappointment. "There are like eight landing pads here and besides us only two are occupied." She sighed over the channel. "I'm sorry, Hera. It looks like we're stuck for the moment."

Zeb's ears twitched with irritation and he slouched back in his seat, sulking. Beside him, Hera glared at the console.

"Put Saw on," she ordered.

"Yeeeeeeaaaah, I don't think he wants to talk to you," Sabine drawled, the tone of her voice sending a picture to their minds of the girl looking reluctantly over her shoulder.

"Sabine, go put the comlink in his hand. Now," Hera repeated, her words biting and full of ice.

There was a bit of shuffling, some muttering voices, and then Sabine passed off the comlink.

"Sorry for borrowing your kids without permission, Captain," Saw apologized, not sounding nearly as sorry as he claimed. "But don't worry, they'll be safe with me."

Hera's teeth gnashed inside her head. "If you do anything to put them in danger—" she started to threaten.

"You're too overprotective, Syndulla," he cut her off. "Like I said, they'll be fine. They'll call you for a pickup once we're done with the mission." That seemed to be the extent to which he wanted to discuss things, because next he said, "Gerrera out."

The line clicked off and went silent.

Hera steamed in her seat, taking slow, constrained breaths, trembling with anger.

Zeb took over. "Well," he said, "there's no use sitting around in hyperspace. I'll find us a place we can park until we hear from Ezra and Sabine," he offered.

Hera nodded to grant him permission, and when Kanan's hand slipped onto her shoulder, she reached up and gripped it tightly, unable to stop the coiling worry wringing through her heart.

-SWR-

Ezra turned over restlessly.

The thin padding of the U-wing's retractable crew seats wasn't the most comfortable of beds, but Ezra had slept in worse places and at least the U-wing was quiet, so he'd figured he'd at least try.

Sleep eluded him, however, covered over by a dozen anxious thoughts and worries about their situation.

Two days since they had gone dark, and cut off communication with Hera.

One more day until the cargo ship departed for its mysterious destination.

Ezra rolled over onto his back, pressing the side of his arm over his eyes. Static crackled dully in the edges of his mind, and he missed the Ghost's soothing hum, missed the smell of Zeb's sweat and Sabine's paint.

As if on cue, he heard footsteps sounding their way across the hanger.

Ezra glanced over, watching Sabine step up into the hold through the open side door, a worn, weary smile on her face that warmed him, helping the static fade a little.

Sabine came to stand over him.

"Can't sleep either?" she guessed.

He only sighed in reply, and curled up into a sitting position, swinging his legs down over the edge of the seat and shaking his head.

Sabine's gaze turned soft with concern. She stepped closer.

"Is it about what happened this morning?" she asked.

The memory played in both their heads, unbidden. Ezra approaching Saw, hesitant and apprehensive, trying to argue that he wasn't going to be good for this infiltration.

"Do you want to find out what the Empire's hiding or not?" Saw had asked him, pointedly.

A frustrated sound had emanated from Ezra, who'd wrung his hands in his hair. "I don't know, okay? I don't know if I can handle this, I just..." His eyes had been strained, face flustered. "I know I'm a lot better now but I still... I just... I really just want to go home."

"Then leave!" Saw had snapped, unexpectedly loud. Sizzling anger burned in his eyes. "No one's stopping you! Just take one of the other ships and go! Walk out right when we're on the verge of discovering something that might actually matter!"

Ezra had frozen with a soft gasp and wide eyes and a look Sabine knew all too well—that of a kicked tooka flinching away from people it believed would hurt it.

She had jumped in immediately.

"Don't yell at him!" she'd scolded.

A mumbled apology and a guilty look were all she got in return, and Ezra had needed a long minute to calm down from the freezing panic that had stiffened his limbs, ringing like alarm bells in his head.

His sigh pulled them both out of the memory. Sabine stepped forward, silently sitting down next to him and putting a hand around his shoulder, letting him have space to sort out his thoughts.

He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke up...

"I know this isn't the same and that Saw isn't..." He almost immediately had to cut himself off, swallowing down something tight in his throat. He started again, his voice even lower, almost a whispering murmur. "When I was on Ilum, Maul would tell me I wasn't a prisoner, that I could leave whenever I wanted to," he explained. He shook his head, his eyes squeezing closed. "But whenever I actually tried to leave, he would immediately stop me. I had to be strong enough to beat him first, he said."

"That's awful," Sabine sympathized, quietly horrified.

Ezra pressed the heel of his palm into his left eye, smearing his hand across his temple. "I felt so manipulated. It would have been so much easier if he'd just outright said I was his prisoner."

Sabine tightened her fingers on his shoulder, squeezing him to her armpit comfortingly, protectively. "Is... that how you feel now?" she asked, somewhat hesitantly.

He shook his head again, weary and exhausted. "I don't know..." he said. He bit his lip for a moment, opening his eyes. "I do see a lot of Maul in Saw," he admitted quietly. "The desperation. The anger. The desire to lash out and hurt." He exhaled with a heavy shuddering, trembling from head to toe for a moment. "Let's... let's just say the past three days have been... difficult," he told her, gesturing vaguely at his own head.

"I hear ya," Sabine replied dryly. She rubbed his arm, whispering encouragingly into his ear. "It'll all be over tomorrow though."

He nodded. "One way or another," he agreed. "We'll either find what Saw was looking for or..." He stopped a moment, thinking. "...or I guess it'll be bust. I just hope Saw lets us go back home either way."

"You think he won't?" Sabine asked.

He shrugged. "I have an irrational fear, I guess."

She reached over, grabbing his wrist reassuringly with her other hand. "I'm with you all the way, Ezra," she promised.

He leaned his head into her temple, smiling softly for the first time.

"Thanks Sabine," he whispered. "I'm with you too."

She let a smile twitch at her lips and pulled him even closer, letting the tranquil feeling of comfort settle over them.

-SWR-

Her head pulled groggily out of darkness, colors taking shape as her eyes blinked open.

For a moment or two she wondered what had happened—her body seemed to ache all over and an insistent thought tugged at her like there was something important she'd forgotten.

Then in a rush it all came flooding back to her.

The mission. The Imperial prisoners. The kyber crystal. Heading down to the engine room to stop the ship. Saw stunning them, sending blue rings of energy slamming into their bodies to knock them out.

The initial rush of indignation was replaced quickly by fear, as she shifted and felt the metal binders press against her wrists.

A frantic thought began to take shape in her mind.

If he'd put binders on her then had he—?

She raised her head, searching frantically with her eyes. A small, slumped figure was right in front of her, orange jacket bright against the dull brown of the floor, hands bound like hers were behind his back. Ezra was on his side, curled up tightly, his knees almost pressed to his forehead, shaking in place.

Her head prickled with fear.

"Ezra?" she called.

The only response she got back was a small whimper and her heart squeezed inside her chest.

"Hey. Hey," she called, even more frantically, eyes wide. She leaned up on an elbow, trying to better see him. "Are you okay?" she wavered.

His pale lips unstuck, his eyes squeezed closed tightly, face blanched and clammy.

"I'm... I'm fine," he told her, voice shaking.

He clearly wasn't. Sabine could see the struggle on his face, how his body was trembling softly, and felt fury and protective instinct flood through her heart.

She raised her upper body off the floor, casting her gaze about angrily for the man who'd put them in this situation.

"Saw!" she snapped, spotting him standing close by, casually paying the two teens on the floor no heed. "Let us go this instant!" she demanded.

"I can't," he said, lowering his comlink and stowing it in his belt. He must've just been updating Edrio on their position. "You'd try and stop me," Saw was ranting, "and I've come too far to give up now." His eyes held a feverish, obsessive light. "I must learn the secrets of my enemy," he breathed.

He seemed to come to himself, his eyes growing present, looking down and noticing the curled-up Ezra suddenly.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked.

Sabine's teeth clenched inside her head. "You know what's wrong!" she yelled. "He hates being restrained! Let us go!" she demanded again.

A look of quiet horror and realization passed over Saw's face. "Right," he said, quickly bending down and fiddling with the cuffs on Ezra's wrists, loosing them. "Sorry, sorry!" he blurted.

Ezra's hands immediately came up to clench around his ears as soon as he was freed. Sabine waited for Saw to unlock her own cuffs before sitting up and flinging her arms around him, pulling him upright, whispering reassurances in his ear in a long unbroken stream.

"You're okay. You're okay, you're not there," she told him, squeezing him tightly, trying to anchor him. "You're safe. You're safe. I'm right here, Ezra. Just listen to my voice."

She heard him take a shaky, deliberate inhale.

-SWR-

Break the problem down.

It was advice given to him by a Jedi Master in his darkest hour, and Ezra clung to it now, letting the words reverberate in his head and drown out the echoes threatening to choke him.

Okay, he thought. Okay okay. Get your breathing under control. That's the first step. Just breathe.

He forced himself to take a slow breath.

Sabine's arms were tight around him, helping him to focus on where he was. Her voice was mumbling in his ear, driving away the fragments of Pryce that threatened on the edge of his hearing.

His head was clearer the next time he inhaled.

Slowly, he came back to himself, his conscious mind returning to the engine room floor of the cargo ship.

Force, I hate that, he thought to himself, feeling his mind calm at last. I hate that, I hate that.

Prickling agitation lingered around his mind, and there was still a tightness around his lungs, a tension he couldn't quite get rid of. But he was focused enough to shoot a glare over Sabine's shoulder at Saw.

"You betrayed us!" he accused.

"I'm doing what I have to," Saw defended, "to uncover the Empire's secret before it's too late! Don't you see?" Passion lit the depths of his eyes. "Geonosis was only the beginning! We need to stay the course, find out what's in those empty coordinates in the Tonnis sector!" His gestures were sharp and pointed as he spoke. "I know that's where we'll find this—this superweapon!"

Sabine looked like she wanted to say something, but stopped herself with a look at Ezra. His face was sober, eyes dulled, lost in thought.

After a moment he spoke up quietly.

"I want to stop the Empire as badly as you do," he said. "But we can't ignore the plight of the people in front of us." His eyes raised with soft conviction. "We have to help them."

"What point will that be if the Empire finishes their construction?!" Saw yelled.

"Because they're here now and they need us!" Ezra argued back, raising his voice a little. "You don't even know if this superweapon exists!"

An alert began to sound throughout the engine room, startling the three of them.

Saw was the first to recover. "Well, we're about to find out," he said, moving over to the power coupling display screen and bringing up a view from the outside cameras.

Ezra and Sabine glanced anxiously at each other before silently getting up and joining Saw at the display, Ezra noticing the presence of the kyber crystal from the other hold with a perturbed and suspicious frown. If Saw had brought it in here, he didn't have anything good planned for it.

They watched over his shoulder as hyperspace disappeared and a shadow fell across the cargo ship.

The shadow of a very normal, ordinary Star Destroyer.

Saw looked stricken, clenching a fist tight on the console as he stared at the traitorous sight.

"No..." he breathed. "No no no, that can't be it!"

Sabine narrowed her eyes into a glare. "There's nothing here," she said bitterly. Her expression flashed with anger. "You scared Ezra for no reason!"

Saw searched the display, a stung look of desperation on his face. "Is has to be here... It has to be..." he strained. "All this can't have been for nothing!"

Ezra felt a sinking disappointment. Not that he'd wanted Saw to be right, but to have come all this way only to find a dead end was... frustrating on a level he couldn't explain. And as he looked at Saw and the man's hands clenched on the console, a strange pity grew in his heart. He recognized that kind of single-minded, overriding obsession.

"Hey," he called, earnestly. "It's not for nothing. Okay? We can still save the prisoners."

Saw pulled back from the console, straightening up with a derisive snort. "Oh you are so infuriatingly like a Jedi sometimes," he bit. "Of all people, I thought you would understand how important this is. The Empire's about to destroy your world too." His eyes fell. "Just like they did Onderon..."

Sabine stepped forward, a retort on the tip of her tongue, but Ezra held her back, palm against her breast plate, stopping her before she could speak.

Softly, he said, "I do understand. There's almost nothing I wouldn't do to save Lothal." He continued, voice growing more fervent. "I know what it's like to have something bad happen to you and to the people you love and feel like—" His voice hitched a moment. "—like it was your fault." Flickers of Malachor were the most prominent memories that traced through his mind, his naive trust and stubbornness that had gotten Kanan blinded, started Maul's obsession with him. Ezra latched onto that as an anchorpoint for his argument. "Like you'd do anything, go to any lengths, to make up for it, make sure it doesn't happen again."

Even listen to the whispers of a Sith holocron, he thought, with a stab of quiet self-loathing.

Saw hadn't interrupted him, which Ezra took as a win. Maybe he was actually listening? He raised his head with a small shake.

"But that guilt and fear... it's poisonous. If you let it fester it'll overtake you, twist you into something dark, blind you to the truth."

"Don't lecture me," Saw snapped, and Ezra flinched slightly, seeing Maul in Saw's place for a moment. "I see more clearly now than ever."

Saw turned away, one hand on the console. Ezra struggled to get the tightness around his lungs under control, will away the irrational alarms ringing on the back of his spine.

"I am sorry about earlier," Saw said, sounding genuine in his apology for once. "I know what that's like too." He turned eerily somber. "To see ghosts in the gaps of your vision. Hear echos in your waking thoughts. The nightmares, the restlessness..."

He cast a sad look at Ezra.

"I hope you find the closure I can't."

Stirring, moving in a way that made the alarms in Ezra's head flare up with danger sense, Saw stepped back from the power coupling, raising something in both hands. His lightsaber, Ezra noticed.

"My ride's here," he said. "If you really want to stay and help those prisoners, do it quick."

He ignited the saber, feral look on his face.

"Because I'm not letting the Empire get their hands on this."

He stabbed it into the mechanisms on the side, and quivering sparks started rolling up the cables into the grounding block around the kyber crystal.

The next moment he blasted the regulator for the grounding block, and a familiar sonorous whine began to fill the room.

Sabine groaned. "You did not just—"

Saw grinned manically, looking satisfied with himself. "Whatever it takes, Sabine. That's what I'm willing to do." He held Ezra's lightsaber out to the boy. "Farewell, my friends! I hope we meet again."

Ezra's eyes were narrowed as he took his saber back. "Don't count on it," he withered.

The crackling sparks off the kyber crystal grew louder and louder as they swiftly parted ways.

-SWR-

They led the technicians through the airlock doors, emerging into the body of the other Imperial shuttle, Ezra and Sabine right in the midst of them and Chopper grumpily taking up the rear.

Excitement pinged around the crowd. Ezra could feel the elation and relief from the former prisoners reverberating in the Force, a cool, calming sensation that warmed in his heart, seemed to make their ordeal worthwhile.

There was a stirring from the cockpit and a sudden rush of worry. Ezra looked up and to his surprise it was Kanan who was rushing over first, almost tripping in his haste.

He righted himself with a wobble and flung arms around Ezra, gripping him tightly. Ezra gave a startled grunt, squished tight against his master's chest.

"Through the bond..." Kanan was saying. His voice wavered slightly, fear lining the notes. "I—I felt... felt your..."

He trailed off but Ezra understood, his arms coming up to return the hug, forehead leaning into Kanan's collar.

"I'm not hurt," he promised softly. "Sabine was there. She helped me out of it."

One arm loosened from around Ezra and beckoned to the girl, Kanan calling her over silently.

Sabine slipped in behind Ezra, one hand coming to rest softly on his shoulder, the other reaching around Kanan's chest.

The Jedi embraced them both tightly, like precious cargo he wouldn't let go of. Ezra felt the man's trembling emotions steady as he held them, felt them and knew they were okay.

Hera slipped softly in from the other side, her lekku nudging on Ezra's left. One arm around Kanan, one arm reaching across Ezra's back to land a hand behind Sabine's shoulder. Her grip was softer but there was no mistaking the relief that mirrored Kanan's.

"I'm so proud of you," she whispered. "And I'm so glad you're safe."

"Ditto," agreed Zeb, also coming up to the huddle. "C'mere ya sprogs."

He enveloped all four of them, burly arms washing them in his musty scent, and now they were laughing and groaning playfully and lightness was spreading through all of them.

"WHOP WEB WUB WEE?" Chopper demanded indignantly from somewhere around their legs.

Hera grinned, lifting her head slightly so she could see him. "Come on, Chopper," she said. "You can be in the hug too."

Chopper blew a raspberry and shoved forward, rolling over Sabine's foot as he forced himself into the midst of them, manipulators grabbing at their knees and shins.

Sabine's pained protest became a teasing threat, which turned into a back-and-forth about how Chopper knew all along the mission had been a bad idea, no one ever listened to him, more threats, and then the embrace dissolved naturally, the six of them stepping back.

Ezra looked to Kanan and Hera, the warmth in his heart dislodging all the static and echoes and whispers, and they looked back with parental affection, smiling in a way that made his chest ache.

"Let's go home," he said, and there was no disagreement.

They turned course back to Lothal.

(A/N)- As always, chapter notes.

1. I did like an hour and half's worth of research for a couple throwaway lines of dialogue in these past two chapters. I almost felt like Saw by the end of it, all, "Okay, where is this damn Death Star being built anyway?" Lol.

(As it turns out, the Maw Installation, near Kessel, also relatively near Eadu. So I used that as a reference point to basically just arbitrarily decide where Jalindi, Faos Station, and the Tonnis Sector were and plot them on the galaxy map.)

2. Ezra and Sabine spend a little more quality time with Uncle Saw in this version. I've been slowly bringing the timescales back into alignment. That's not gonna last long, some major alterations coming up soon, but for now we're basically parallel to canon.

3. Exploring some of Ezra's lingering Maul-related trauma and how Saw inadvertently pings all the wrong reminder buttons for Ezra in that regard. I rewatched the episode multiple times while writing this chapter and hnnnnnn the number of times Ezra flinches away from Saw just fit way too perfectly.

4. Ezra uses Compassion and Empathy and Relating To Your Trauma on Saw. It... doesn't work as well.

5. Skimmed a lot of Saw's Wookiepedia page for this and discovered Saw had also been electrically tortured (by the Separatists, in the Clone Wars show). Just from the description it sounded intense and very child-unfriendly. So yeah, no way he doesn't have PTSD too, and that probably feeds into his paranoia and obsessive behaviors. In the end he's just a man who's been hurt too much and lost too much to let go of his pain. Fits in really well with the theme of "How different survivors learn to cope" I thought. (Also another parallel to Maul.)

6. Spacefamily group hugs! The kids deserved it, honestly. I just wanted to end things super soft.

We're going back to Lothal for real this time, so keep your hats on 'cause it's gonna be an adventure! I'm looking forward to a lot of upcoming things, is all I'll say.