After miles of running in the lush woods, they finally stopped. Out of breath and energy, they couldn't run anymore. The sun was beginning to set and they were too tired to go on too much further.

They found a small cave - no more than a couple meters wide and a few meters deep. It was a little cold and moist, but that came as a relief for their overheated bodies.

Athena couldn't decipher where on Earth they were - just somewhere with an American base and lots of woods.

The two collected some wood, using Kanan's lightsaber as an extremely efficient axe. One swipe and the skinny tree came down. He cut the main trunk into logs and they hauled the wood into the cave to keep it dry. Gray clouds loomed overhead.

After a few unsuccessful punches of tiny fire, Athena was furious enough to were a large flame shot out of her fist - igniting the pile of wood on fire.

She chuckled and looked to Kanan, "I guess my flames not working made them work. Ironic."

"Please remind me to never piss you off," Kanan joked.

Figuring they'd have to spend the night there, they collected piles of leaves to lie down - making make-shift beds for them to sleep on.

The work took a while, but it made it worth it. They got to rest for a moment.

It was dark now, rain drizzling from the clouds. The woods were giving off that familiar smell of Earth. It got cold. A frigid wind coming in from the North made it bone-chilling cold. The fire glowed a bright orange and yellow.

As Athena poked the crackling fire with her stick, her knees to her chest, she looked up to Kanan. His face mostly engulfed by the orange glow of the fire. He was silent. All she could hear was the rain beat down on the Earth and its plants. The deafening emptiness of the cave echoed in her head.

She glanced down to look at her shadow. It was dark again, smiling that familiar devilish smile - the smile feeling a little more welcoming and enticing than before. She could feel it sucking the warmth away from her body.

It got her thinking about this Abeloth person. Though that shadow had felt like her only friend many times in her life, being away from it gave her some perspective. It truly was an unwelcome guest tied to her body at every step - feeding her feelings of dread and despair at every moment.

"Do you think we could be Jalo's kids? Or at least relatives?" she didn't want to talk about it, but she had nothing else to say. "He- he knew our mother and he knew about us being siblings."

"I don't know," Kanan sighed. "I never knew a thing about my birth family before. It doesn't matter now."

She casted her eyes back down to the fire. The girl never knew nor really cared about her biological family prior to two weeks ago. Before that there was no hope. No hope of knowing her parents. But now...did she want the truth? Did she want the confirmation that that man was her father? The man that kidnapped them and hurt Ezra and Ahsoka?

Kanan saw the downcast eyes of the girl and spoke again. "I think you're gonna be the only biological family I'll care about. You are a great kid, Athena. I'm glad to have you as a relative. I know we haven't discussed the whole related thing much, but I want you to know that I still care about you."

"You're just saying that," she grumbled, she stabbed at the flames. "We almost got killed."

"You get used to it," Kanan chuckled. "Trust me, in our little crew, plans almost never go right. We're people. We make mistakes."

"I did nothing but drag you into trouble. You were able to hide from the Empire for so long and the second I come along, you get sucked back into the black hole that is my life." she grumbled. That shadow kept poking her. And poking. And poking. She furrowed her eyebrow as she poked the fire with a harsher stab.

"You're not a black hole-"

"Look at my shadow!" she cried out, gesturing to the pitch black ground behind her. "That's not right! Jalo was probably right, that Abeloth person is just going to make me her puppet! I'm meant for the dark! I'm meant to suck the life out of things! I was meant for nothing-" she didn't know why she was crying now. She could barely breathe between the sobs. "I'm meant for nothing but death! I do nothing but bring death and misery to everyone around me!"

"Hey, hey," he had his best comforting voice. This crying seemed to have come out of nowhere. Kanan moved from his seat on the ground, moving closer to the girl. He placed a hand on the sobbing girl's shoulder. "You're not- it's not like that."

"Yes it is!" she cried. "Every foster home! Every family! Nothing good ever happens when I'm near. That's why I was never adopted! Now you….now you get kidnapped with me and nearly killed. Away from your family. I took you from your family. I'm just a curse!"

"Hey, look at me. Look at me," he managed to get the girl to meet eyes for just a moment. Her red and puffy eyes flooded with tears. "They are not just my family. They're yours too. They're your family and we love you."

"I met you guys two weeks ago!" she sobbed. "You don't realize what- what-"

He pulled her into a hug. She couldn't stop crying. He could tell there was something deeper in her mind that she wasn't saying. Something was tearing her apart. Her tears stained his sweater, but he didn't care. This kid was hurt. She was hurt and she needed someone to let her know that she was loved.

As he gently held his hand on the back of her head, Kanan assured, "You are not a curse. You are a kid. A kid who deserves a family."

She couldn't even speak. It hurt so bad, like someone was stabbing her deep in her gut, twisting the knife with every sob.

"I know we've only known you for two weeks, but I know you deserve a family, Athena. Every kid does. You may have made mistakes in your past, you may have felt like a bad person, but that doesn't mean you don't deserve a loving family," he hushed. "You may not have felt like it before, but you are loved. I promise you, the Ghost crew is looking for you as much as they are for me."

"You- you don't want me to stay around," she cried. "I'll do nothing but bring a curse-"

"I don't care, Athena," Kanan said in a little sterner of a voice. "I wouldn't care if you were a curse sent straight from the Force. You are a child. You need love. You need someone in your life and by Force, we will be those people in your life. We will be that family."

"You should-"

He took her away from the hug, a hand on each shoulder as he made her look him in the eyes. "We're not going to leave you. We aren't going to send you away. You and me and the rest of the crew are family. We don't abandon each other. We won't abandon you."

She broke down. She could barely breathe. The tears flowed down her face in a harder stream. It had been so long since she had let those tears fall, let alone in front of another person.

Never had someone been so certain that they loved her like their own. Never had someone made such a convincing promise. A promise of security. Consistency. Family. Love.

He brought her into another hug and she clung onto him. It was like she was making sure he wasn't going to disappear on her once he made that promise. In the Force, Kanan sensed nothing but relief from the girl.

The rain outside was harder now. Thunder crackled every retreated sob she inhaled. Rain washed away the Earth as her tears raced down her face.

It was a while until the tears ceased. She still held onto him, however. Kanan didn't mind. The kid needed the hug. He couldn't even fathom what she felt, never feeling love until these last few days. No one from the beginning.

At least he had had Master Billaba and the Jedi Order when he was a child. At least the crew had memories of love from before. They had loved ones from life before this war. This kid had nothing before them. Nothing but herself.

Now she was going to be an enemy of the Empire. A new kid in the vast galaxy. She would need to start all over. Everything she knew was near obsolete. But, maybe that was good - she had only known hatefulness and loneliness anyhow. This was a new start. A new dawn.

Kanan leaned back so his back would rest against the cave wall; the cold moisture seeping through his shirt. The rain was softer now. Barely a sprinkle. The fire was crackling. It had a few more hours until it needed more fuel.

It was so quiet. So peaceful.

"My name isn't Athena," the girl mumbled.

"Hm?"

"My name is Abigail Foster," she said in almost a whisper. "I hate that name, so I just call myself Athena."

"Why do you hate that name?"

"Because it just reminds me how much people didn't care for me. The people who found me couldn't care less about me and were peeved that they even had to come up with a legal name for me. They chose Abigail since it was the first name on the list. Foster is for foster kid." she said as she sat up, leaning her back on the same wall as Kanan, keeping her eyes on the crackling fire as she wiped away her tears and snot. "I hate it. It makes me feel insignificant. Not worth turning the page in the baby name book. Kids would call me 'Little orphan Abbie'."

"I understand. I changed my name a long time ago from Caleb to Kanan. It was originally a way for me to hide from the Empire, but it also became a way for me to forget that I was ever a Jedi - trying to separate myself from my past," Kanan said. "I'll admit, it felt like I was a new person. Like I wasn't connected to my past - that Caleb Dume was dead. For a while, that was how I coped. To forget."

"But..?" she glanced over to him, hearing the hanging sensation in his voice, she could tell he wanted to say more.

"But I realized that my past doesn't define who I am. What happened to me happened, no matter how hard I'd try to forget, what happened happened. I can't change the past," Kanan said. "All I can do is accept the past and do what I can in the now. My name being Kanan rather than Caleb doesn't mean what happened to Caleb didn't happen to me."

She looked back to the fire. "So, do you regret changing your name?"

"Not at all," Kanan said. "Not only did it keep me under the Empire's radar, it helped me feel like I was in control in one aspect of my life. I shouldn't have tried to convince myself that I was a whole new person because of it, though."

"Hmm…" she picked up her stick again and began to poke at the fire again. "So, do you think I should still go under the last name of Foster? For the Rebellion?"

"Not if you don't want to," Kanan said. "I would completely understand if you didn't want to say you're Foster anymore. In fact, you aren't a foster kid anymore, are you?"

She chuckled with a smile on her face, retracting her stick from the pile of burning wood, "I guess not. Should I go under Dume then?"

"Dume is a very dangerous name now," Kanan advised. "It has been since the rise of the Empire."

She slumped her shoulders, sighing as she stared into the flames still.

"How about you go under the last name Jarrus?" Kanan suggested. "You are my sister. It would make sense if you had the same last name if you wanted to."

She looked at him, eyes wide. "That- go under your last name? That would- that would mean we're family…"

"Because we are, Athena," Kanan assured. "I understand if you don't want to, however. You've only known that I was your brother for a couple of weeks."

"No no," she shook her head, a small smile on her lips. "I want to." she paused for a moment, contemplating. "Athena Jarrus… feared enemy of the Empire! Little sister of Kanan Jarrus!"

Kanan chuckled, "It's got a nice ring to it. Lil' Jarrus. The little sister I found in some weird city on Earth."

"Cleveland," Athena said. "I was in Cleveland."

Kanan joked, "Athena Jarrus, the tiny terror from Cleveland!"

"Heart as cold as ice, fire twice as nice!" Athena joked making the flame flicker a little brighter.

"Cleveland's little thief who put's you into disbelief!" Kanan jokingly cheered.

Athena chuckled. After a moment, her smile faded as she gazed back down at the flames. Her voice was more of a mumble now.

"I'm technically not from Cleveland either," she admitted, seemingly ashamed. "I was found in New York City. Then when I was nine…"

Kanan raised an eyebrow. This kid seemed to be spilling everything now. "What happened when you were nine?"

"A lot," she turned back to the fire, poking at it again. Her knees curled up to her chest again. After a momentary pause, she spoke again. "My foster-mom committed suicide. They arrested me and charged me with her murder - despite the fact I was only nine and I didn't even do it. I was found not-guilty and moved to Cleveland. They figured it was better for me not to be in the town where it all happened, ya know? For my mental health and crap?"

"I understand." Kanan started. "It can be difficult being in the same place where something traumatic happened."

"You seem to know a lot about this stuff. You got a traumatic childhood too?" she stopped poking the fire and looked up to Kanan.

"Yes."

"Do you wanna share?"

He took a long pause. He figured if this kid could pour her heart out about her past trauma, he can at least say a little something. "...Order 66. It was the day they wiped out nearly all of the Jedi. I watched my Master die, sacrificing herself so I could live."

"That's rough, buddy." Athena had no clue how to respond.

Kanan raised an eyebrow at her.

"Okay, look, I'm sorry! Obviously only one of us inherited the whole 'ability to properly deal with other's emotions'!" she apologized.

That made Kanan chuckle. "It's fine. You're still a kid."

That put another small smile on her face. Someone saw her as a kid. Not a foster kid. Just a kid.

"Ya know, I don't care if Jalo is my dad or not," she chuckled. "You and Hera are my space-parents now."

"Space parents?" Kanan was amused.

"Yeah, Sabine said you two were basically the parents of the ship anyhow. So, that makes you two my space parents."

"Wow, Sabine told you that?" Kanan rolled his eyes.

"Is she wrong?" Athena remarked. "For the first couple days I was with you guys, I thought you and Hera were actually married. Sabine explained that technically you aren't, but you act like you are."

"Wow…" Kanan couldn't help but laugh. "You actually thought- ya know what? I can see it. Hera and I gotta look after that crew like a couple of parents."

"Okay, Space Dad," Athena joked.

She didn't know why she had opened up to this man so much just there. She had only known him for a couple of weeks, yet she felt compelled to let her walls down. Walls that she had been making for over a decade began to crumble around him, him and those rebels. They were becoming family to her.

A real family.

Whoever got my "Avatar: The Last Airbender" reference in this chapter gets a cookie.

Here is that cookie: 🍪