Sorry it's been a while. I just couldn't get this how I wanted it! I think it's about there now though.

Guys, could I ask a favor? I love the comments, every single one, and I appreciate it so much when people take a moment to let me know they're reading. I don't have a problem with concrit either, but if you spot something wrong in the fic and you want to tell me about it, could you possibly tell me specifically what the problem is? I've had a few comments telling me there's an error in a chapter, but I have no clue where, so I can't fix it. By the time I post, I've already checked it as best I can for errors so if I missed one and it's spoiling your enjoyment of the story, by all means tell me, but give me more than that it exists. Tell me what it is. You can send me a PM on here, or come find me on tumblr (I have the same username) if that's easier.

Thanks for reading. Here, have some fic...

The Sith holocron wasn't heavy. Ezra held it in one hand, fingers loosely curved around its angular shape, and moved it up and down. It should be heavy. The secrets and knowledge contained within it felt as though they should have their own weight.

At the other side of the room, Kanan was meditating. Ezra should have been doing the same thing, but his mind was elsewhere today and he couldn't concentrate. That wasn't unusual, but today there was more too it.

"Hey, Kanan?" he said.

Kanan didn't bother to open his eyes. He turned his head just a little, to face in Ezra's direction, frowning like he already knew something was wrong. He probably did; he was more open to the Force than usual when he meditated, and he could probably sense it. Even if he wasn't sensing it through the Force, he would be able to hear it in Ezra's voice.

Ezra got to his feet and swallowed nervously. Against his will, his fingers gripped the holocron a little tighter as something inside him fought to keep possession of the thing. He needed to do this, he knew that, but it was going to be difficult. The knowledge within the holocron had helped him, and he wasn't ready to give it up. Not when there was still so much more that he could learn from it.

Maybe he could just keep it a little while longer. A week, or a month. Just long enough for him to learn a few more…

No.

He needed to stop. He had known from the start that it was evil, and he had opened it anyway. He had told himself that it would be just one time, and then he had done it again. And again. And every time he had, he had felt it tempt him further down the path to the dark side. One day, it would try to convince him to turn his back on the light side completely, and when the time came, he didn't know whether he was going to be able to say no.

There were things that it could offer him in return that would be very difficult to turn down.

Kanan looked genuinely worried now. "What is it?" he asked.

The holocron was closed now, but Ezra could still imagine the voice within it, whispering at the back of his mind. It spoke to him in moments of weakness. It reminded him of how he couldn't protect his friends and his family. It spoke of his failures; of the times when he had let them down in the past because he had been too weak. Unless he grew stronger, he would do it again. The dark side could help him.

It had taught him new ways to use the Force; things that Kanan had never even hinted were possible. As he had tried them, he had felt himself growing in strength, but he had felt a new kind of hopelessness growing within him too. It was different to the one that he had experienced when he had learned that he was going to lose his sight, and different to the one that he had felt after Malachor. It was an emptiness that longed to be filled.

He had felt his anger and his hatred growing every time he had tapped into them to increase his strength, and at night when he lay in bed surrounded by a darkness so complete that he could see nothing at all, they were eating him up inside.

But there was more than that. So much more.

The dark side could help him to see.

At first, the holocron had only hinted at the possibility. It had tempted him with little comments designed to grab at his attention, make him curious, and then it had waited for him to ask for more.

What it had eventually told him had repulsed him, made him shudder in horror. It had made him want to destroy the holocron just to keep it from telling him how to do what it spoke of, but he hadn't. As much as the stories it told him frightened and repelled him, they tempted him too.

It had preyed on his fears, and then told him that it could take them away.

"Ezra?"

Kanan was on his feet now too. Ezra could hear the worry in his voice, but there was a hint of frustration there too. He knew something was wrong, but he probably also suspected that if he had been able to see, he would be better able to understand what was happening.

He was right.

Ezra glanced down guiltily at the holocron in his hand. He wouldn't be holding it so blatantly if Kanan could see. He was using Kanan's blindness to his own advantage, and he didn't want to do that.

Even if it was only out of fear that people would do the same to him one day.

Ezra took a deep breath. He loosened his grip on the holocron slightly and moved it around in his hand, allowing it to roll over his palm and his fingers. He could do this. He could give up the holocron. He didn't want what it could give him; the price was too high.

"Ezra, if there's something you n…"

"Catch?" Ezra said. Without allowing himself any more time to think about it, or to talk himself out of it, he tossed the holocron in Kanan's direction.

Acting on instinct, as Ezra had known he would, Kanan used the Force to find the object, and snatched it out of the air. Ezra watched him anxiously. For a moment, Kanan didn't react, he simply held the holocron in his hand, fingers tracing the surface, trying to identify it.

Ezra could see the exact moment he worked it out. His eyes, closed until that point, opened wide. His face was painted with realization and horror, and the same emotions assaulted Ezra through the Force. His fingers stilled, then pulled away as though they didn't want to even touch the surface of the thing, leaving the holocron balanced in the center of his palm. For a moment, Ezra thought that he might drop it to the ground.

Kanan opened his mouth, beginning to speak.

Ezra took a step forward. "I… was hoping you could get rid of it for me," he said quickly, before Kanan could say anything. "Or keep it somewhere safe, somewhere I can't find it? I don't know, just… Just whatever you do, don't open it, okay?"

Kanan couldn't open it. To open it, you needed to be able to use the dark side. You needed to be able to think like a Sith. Ezra knew that by asking him not to do it, he had as good as admitted that he had.

He held his breath, waiting for a response.

Kanan's hand dropped to his side, his fingers tightening again around the holocron. "Thank you," he said. "For trusting me."

Ezra wrapped his arms tightly around his body and nodded. He hadn't had any choice but to trust Kanan; he needed the holocron gone. He needed it to be somewhere that he couldn't get to it. In the future, as his sight grew worse and eventually faded completely, maybe the price that had seemed too high at first would begin to feel worth it. Over time, the temptation to give in to the dark side would only grow stronger.

Even now, he feared he was never going to be free of it.

"What are you going to do?" he asked. His voice came out quiet and shaken.

Kanan turned away before he answered. "Make sure it's somewhere it can't hurt anybody," he said.

"And what…" Ezra began, but stopped. He had been going to ask what Kanan was going to do about him, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"I'll be back later," Kanan told him as he exited the room. "Stay here. Keep working on sensing with the Force. I think tonight would be a good time to go for that walk around the base that we talked about."

Relief mixed with a deep sense of loss as the door closed and both Kanan and the holocron disappeared from sight. Relief, because the holocron had been wrong; Kanan hadn't rejected him for his mistakes, but loss, because the holocron could have helped him, and now it was gone. No matter what he did or said, Kanan was never going to let him near it again. He hadn't wanted to use it, but he could have changed his mind. Now, that option was lost to him

And Kanan had chosen this moment, as he was still reeling from that loss, to drag him outside into the base.

It was the one lesson that Ezra had been resisting, putting off, making excuses every time Kanan suggested it. He didn't want to be out there. He didn't want people to see him struggling, and he didn't want to experience the panic that he knew he would the moment he found himself cast adrift with no familiar walls and surfaces to ground him. And until now, Kanan had been allowing him to resist. Kanan had been outside alone before. Only short trips along routes that he knew well, but he had done it. Ezra had never left the Ghost blindfolded. He had never even closed his eyes on unfamiliar ground.

Was Kanan punishing him? Forcing him to face his fears in retaliation for the holocron?

No. That was the holocron's words, imagined in the back of his mind. Kanan wouldn't do that, and Ezra knew it.

He pulled his blindfold from his pocket and tied it around his eyes, then reached out into the Force. Kanan wasn't punishing him. Far from it. He was answering the question that Ezra hadn't dared to ask. He was telling him that he wasn't giving up on him, that nothing had changed. That they were going to carry on as planned.

And while once, the idea of exploring the base without his sight had filled him with dread and fear, now he almost felt relieved.

He wondered how long that would last once they were actually out there…