A/N: Wow, this story has been a wild ride. We have possibly 2 chapters more on this one and I really wanted you to have an update tonight. Thanks for sticking around for this, even though it's been a little wait, I hope you still enjoy it. (Muse has been working a little slowly lately-so again I ask for patience as I try to get this thing finished.) In this chapter, something happens that causes a crash for Ezra. Have a great night, and please let me know what you thought. I always get super excited when I realize someone's commented that never has commented before. And then also, again and again, I am amazed at the people that come back to read this stuff of mine. Thank you so so so much!
Chapter 6
Days turned into a week, then one week turned into two. Ezra seemed to settle into a rhythm. He'd been on three missions; one where he led a fighter group as they attacked a small Imperial outpost, and two more that were just undercover missions with three-man teams to acquire supplies. The fact that he'd not had a solo mission since what Sabine had begun to think of as "the incident" was due to a confidential conversation she'd had with Hera. She hadn't admitted anything, but she'd managed to convince Hera that solo missions were not good for Ezra, in case he decided to disappear again. Force only knew how she'd worked it without a lot of questions from Hera, except that the Twi'lek had been anxious to do anything that would help Ezra after their misunderstanding.
Sabine watched over him quietly like a great brooding Krowneagle, sitting unseen but observing everything. Had it not been for Ezra's bad dreams, she would have thought he was fine. He took time to play with Caleb, do his regular tasks around the Ghost, meditate and practice katas, in addition to his missions. Still, he seemed so lonely…apart from everyone.
Before he'd crashed into such a deep depression, he'd spent only occasional nights in her bunk. Half the time, their schedules were so different that neither of them were on the Ghost at the exact same time except for a couple of times a week due to the frenetic pace of their missions. But now, he had pretty much moved into her bunk on a permanent basis. Sometimes though, she still found him either in the galley, slumped over a cup of caf or standing silently, watching over them in the night. On other nights, he was so exhausted he hardly moved as he slept.
The watching episodes were the worst. She'd figured out pretty quickly that his watching was some sort of sleepwalking episode; Ezra would be standing in the darkness, holding either his saber or his blaster in one hand as he stared out into the night. One time, he was in the cargo bay, then she found him right outside her door in the hallway. Another time, she'd been in an utter panic until she found him on top of the Ghost, standing there in the semi-darkness of the night cycle on the station. She would bring him around with her presence, clasping his free hand in her own and talking softly to him. Eventually he would awaken from the sleepwalking or trance or whatever it was and would allow her to guide him back to bed. They never spoke about it the next day. The first time, she'd been about to bring it up as they got dressed the next morning, but the wary, almost trapped look in his eye kept her from asking questions. She knew she just needed to be there for him—a steady presence was what he needed most.
What could they do about any of it anyway? she wondered. It wasn't like they could take him to an Imperial medcenter. They didn't have anyone who could deal with the problems he was wrestling with anyway, just some meddroids and a few old medics that patched up the soldiers as best as they could. If command knew any of what had happened, they'd ground Ezra, probably for good and she knew that would make things a hell of a lot worse.
No. They were doing all that could be done. She would just have to hope that losing Kanan was a pain that would heal with time. Hera wasn't doing great with it either, but raising Caleb forced her to look past her pain in a way that Ezra couldn't seem to. He still blamed himself for Kanan's death just as much as Hera blamed the Force for the loss, Sabine was sure of it.
She began to think about the developing closeness between them. It wasn't as if she was good at this relationship thing, but she'd begun to realize what Ezra meant to her. The cold panic she'd felt while waiting for him to reappear on base after the "incident" was never far from her mind. She hadn't told Ezra, but she'd put a tracker in his boot, so she'd be able to go after him if he took off again.
All her life, she had always thought herself a loner. Despite loving Ezra as she did, she was still surprised she'd taken to having him so close so quickly. When she was around, he made a great effort to be charming and attentive. (Thank the Force he'd gotten better at that since their teenage days!) He was quick to pick up on a bad day and give her the space she needed, as well.
She stopped drawing a moment as she realized what he meant to her. Before the war, before the Empire, she'd never given much thought to finding someone to love. She'd always assumed she would meet some warrior who would be strong and handsome and steal her heart like in one of the ancient poems of her people. She had just never thought it would be Ezra. Over the years, she and Ezra had built something as strong as durasteel, due to everything they'd been through together. She didn't know if it would be enough to hold them both together until the end of the war, but she was going to give it a good karking try.
He was meditating near her as she sketched; she was holding the pad on her knees as she reclined on the bed. She looked back down at her work and brought out the hues of black and blue in his dark hair. She'd drawn his black hair longer, like it had been when she first met him.
"What're you doing?" He asked, not opening his eyes.
"Hmm? What?" She asked, not looking up from her sketch.
"You feel different." He murmured.
"I thought you were meditating." She smiled at him when he opened his eyes and looked up at her.
"Yeah, then you started broadcasting something really strongly." He quirked an eyebrow. "Something like love."
"Nah. Must be your imagination, Master Jedi." She said as Ezra stood up and climbed into the bunk. She slid over to make room.
He saw the smirk on her lips and leaned in to kiss her. "Nope. That was definitely NOT my imagination." He pressed his forehead against her own, looking into her eyes for long moments. "Okay, Bean?"
"Y-yeah. I was just thinking how…nice this is. How I like having you here. And how much we've been through."
"I know I've been staying kinda close lately. Is that…that okay?" His forehead crinkled with worry. "I'm not…crowding you am I?"
"No, you're not, don't be a nerf." She smiled, trying to play it off. "It was either you move in here or I move in with you and Zeb, and I'm not sure Zeb would appreciate us…doing this." She gestured to the way Ezra had fit his body against her own in the bunk, and how he had one arm draped over her stomach as she laughed gently.
He nodded, intent on kissing her once again, but there was a sudden beep from both of their comms. "Spectres five and six. Please report to command. We might have a mission for you." Hera's voice came over the comm, tight with worry.
Ezra replied for both of them. "We're on our way, Spectre 2." He rolled out of bed and she followed. "Wonder what's up? She sounded stressed."
"I'm not sure," Sabine replied.
Ezra pulled on his boots, and fastened his saber to his belt. Sabine strapped on her Westars. Within three minutes, they were dressed and on their way to command.
Ezra watched Sabine sleep as the little freighter gave a shudder on its way into hyperspace. It was a long jump. He was sitting in one of the bunks; Sabine had crawled up with him and settled down for a nap, her head pillowed in his lap. He brushed a hand over her hair, then closed his eyes, trying to calm himself as he went over the mission parameters in his mind.
The mission was rescuing a "possible Jedi." Command had received a top-secret transmission through spies and informants that there was a Jedi trapped on Pangal, a mountainous planet known for its ores and precious metals. Her name was Mira Lenain; Ezra had checked her name in the holocron records and found a listing for a Jedi Master, which lent credence to the story. He also found that Pangal had a hidden Jedi temple, and the coordinates matched the coordinates in the message that they had received.
Skywalker was gone on another op, so Ezra had been the only Jedi left to verify her story and go on the mission. Sabine was the only Spectre on the trip. Two of the soldiers he didn't know, but the other one, Myrek Jex, was a pilot he'd flown with on several occasions. He was a solid soldier and ace pilot that would do well, no matter what they ran into. He was one of Hera's and had volunteered for the mission, which was to find the Jedi and bring her back to Rebellion leadership.
Ezra could feel nothing from the Force to hint as to what was going to happen. It was frustrating, but he tried once again to feel the tide pushing him one way or the other. It was maddeningly silent. Was this going to turn out badly? Could this be some trick of the Imperials? It was frustrating that he couldn't sense it.
He sighed heavily and tried to sleep instead. Years of meditation practice made it easy to relax the tension in his neck, shoulders and back, leaning against the bulkhead behind him. In a few deep breaths, he was asleep.
It was taking everything that Sabine had not to hover over Ezra. He'd been asleep earlier and had awoken in a panic after a bad dream. He hadn't shared it with her, but she had known it was bad when he woke up flailing and unsure of where he was. After he'd calmed, she'd suggested that they come out to see how close they were to Pangal.
"We're about thirty minutes out, Commander Bridger," the pilot, Myrek Jex, told them. He was one of Hera's trainees and had proved himself one of the better pilots on the base. "Any idea what we're going to find at these coordinates?"
"Maybe. It's in a valley between two mountains in the upper hempisphere of Pangal. I'll know what I'm looking for when I see it." Ezra said, examining a hologram of the planet.
"Yes, sir." Jex nodded. His co-pilot, Vosh, remained focused on hyperspace.
Ezra and Sabine went to check their equipment.
"Do you think it really is a Jedi Temple?" Sabine asked.
Ezra nodded, checking his blaster and strapping it on. "The Holocron hasn't been wrong. There's a temple at those coordinates."
"Have you had any feelings from the Force?" Sabine was strapping on her own Westars as she spoke.
"N-no." Ezra shook his head, wondering if the Jedi they were going to save would have known Kanan from the temple. What if…if she wanted to know what happened to his master? He swallowed hard.
There was a touch on his arm. "Hey. I'm with you. The whole time, Ezra."
"It's just that it's…gonna be hard." He managed. "Hard to go into a temple without…without Kanan. I'm not even sure I can get in on my own." He dropped his head and closed his eyes. "That's all."
"I'll be with you," she promised again, taking his hand.
Finding the temple and dodging the Imperial blockade around the planet proved to be easy. They used their forged credentials to pass into the planet's atmosphere and they were such a small shuttle that they weren't tracked after the initial identification.
Ezra had them set down about two klicks from the temple. Everyone but Jex suited up and they trekked up a path cut into the mountainside. The two soldiers, named Tanner and Vosh, followed Ezra and Sabine, blaster rifles at the ready.
It was fall and the forest was carpeted with yellow and orange leaves. It had been lightly raining, making the cool weather feel colder than it was. Rain ponchos covered all of them, darker green and brown colors blending into the trees that had not yet begun to turn their colors.
Jex had performed a scan before they left and it showed no Imperials in the area, but Ezra still had a bad feeling. He didn't sense anything specifically and so without evidence, he tried to shrug it off, but it still pulled at him. Something was not what it seemed, the Force seemed to whisper. With the way things had been recently, he was afraid to trust himself.
After about twenty minutes of walking, Ezra paused on the leafy trail to turn to them. "The temple is around the next corner."
"Want us to clear it first, Commander Bridger?" Vosh asked, wiping the rain from his face. As the youngest, he was quite energetic.
Ezra shook his head. "There's a Force user in there, so I'm going in first. What I want you to do is to keep us informed of any Imperial activity out here. If you see or hear anything, let us know immediately so we can pull back. Tanner, you're with us."
"Yes, sir, Commander." Tanner replied curtly.
As soon as they topped the rise and turned the corner, two columns carved out of the solid grey stone greeted them. They were a wet greyish brown where the rain had stained them. A set of concentric circles were carved into the moss-covered stone under their feet, leading to the doorway between the columns. At Ezra's approach they tried to glow, but the luminescence was intermittent and faint.
Ezra cast out his senses. There was a Force signature inside the temple, but it came and went: as murky as the glow from the path. It was almost like some sort of interference was blurring it out.
Ezra let his hand fall. "Someone's inside. Just one." Ezra glanced to Sabine, then to Tanner. "Let's go."
They approached the entrance head on. Ezra could feel the vergence under the place; it wasn't very strong…almost like it had been damaged or drained in some way. He hesitated for a moment, wishing that Kanan was there.
When they stepped inside the vestibule, Ezra paused again. The heavy metal doors, set into the stone in front of him had been broken open—they were warped and twisted on their huge hinges. Well, that was one problem averted. He'd wondered about opening the temple and if this temple had the same rules about two Jedi as the ones he had visited with Kanan. He was a Padawan without a Master this time.
"What happened?" Sabine went to one of the doors and ran her fingers over the twisted metal.
Ezra shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe…the Empire. Maybe they stole something from the temple." Was it Vader? Could he have been searching for something, maybe? Jedi holocrons? Lightsabers? His mind ran over and over the various possibilities as he pulled back the hood on his rain-proof poncho.
Sabine watched Ezra try to connect with the Force again. Then he shook his head. "I can't tell. Something happened here, but it was a while ago. The…the temple was damaged in some way." The faint glow beneath his feet blinked several times, then went out, leaving them in darkness.
He drew his saber to light the way inside.
The hallway further on had faint lighting set into the walls, and together with the light of Ezra's lightsaber, it led them further in.
The hall eventually opened into a wide room. There was a circular opening in the ceiling above a circular reflecting pool, filled with rainwater. The drops tinkled musically in the dark. Ezra's lightsaber cast a greenish light in the depths of the pool and he saw his face eerily reflected in the water.
"I wondered if you would really come."
Ezra startled, looking up and squinting to see where the voice was coming from. "Stay back," he whispered to Sabine and Tanner.
"Yes sir." Tanner nodded.
"Who are you?"
"Mira Lenain."
As Ezra approached, he could see a light-haired woman, kneeling in meditation. She was right in front of him, but in the Force she was fuzzy and indistinct. "So there ARE Jedi in the Rebellion," she lifted her face to his, and he could see that her eyes were some light shade, probably green but it was hard to tell in the green hue of his lightsaber. The woman matched her physical description in the holocron, however, so Ezra felt a bit more at ease.
"My name is Ezra Bridger." Ezra said, trying to get a handle on her Force signature.
She smiled and slowly got to her feet. He could tell that she was older than Kanan would have been now but not by much. "You're younger than I expected. I'm so very glad to meet you. I am Jedi Master Lenain. I want to join the Rebellion, if you'll take me there."
The Force was murmuring to him as she took his hand. There was a flash of something in his mind. It was a pressure-pushing, worming its way in.
Look, look deep, the Force seemed to whisper. Careful…
"I have a few questions…" Ezra began distractedly, still focusing on the whispering from the Force.
"As I do for you. Who was your Jedi Master? Perhaps I knew him."
Ezra hesitated. The green eyes of the woman were focused on him and he was finding it difficult to tear himself away.
"There's time for questions later." Sabine called warningly from across the room as she began to edge closer.
The blond woman's eyes cut to Sabine's, and there was a flash of something there like anger, but then her placid face centered on Ezra again. "Your Jedi Master. He was…"
"Kanan Jarrus." Ezra whispered, trying to raise his mental shields, but slipping. He felt confused. "Who are you again?"
"I am Mira Lenain." She smiled and her face seemed to change and was strangely compelling. Her voice held some eerie power which both intrigued and repulsed him. "Where is the Rebel base, Ezra Bridger?"
"You're not who you say you are…I sense…the dark side." Ezra narrowed his eyes at her and took a step back, but couldn't seem to gather the focus needed to raise his shields. The Force howled an alarm, but he couldn't seem to concentrate on it.
She had her claws deep, and she asked again. "It's somewhere cold? I can feel it from you. The Rebels are...somewhere cold. An ice planet?"
Sabine screamed, "No, Ezra!"
"Out of my head." Ezra pushed the darksider out of his head and back from him using the Force. She was thrown back clear to the wall, her hypnotizing spell broken for the moment.
There was a blaster shot that missed, fired by either Tanner or Sabine; Ezra didn't dare turn his head to see. He was watching the woman rise to her feet. She drew a lightsaber from her belt, and he saw with dismay it was red.
"Karking hells!" Sabine began to bark orders into her comm as she backed into the darkness of the hallway keeping her sights on them. Her mind was racing. This woman was a redblade. The whole thing was a set up. Her mind began planning escape strategies. The Imperials would not be far away.
Ezra heard none of this. He was focused on the opponent in front of him. She was ready, her saberstaff held horizontally in front of her, ready to block any attack. "You are very strong to resist," she began, a smile on her features. "But I can feel your heart, Jedi. There is much darkness there. Pain and anger. Rage at the loss of your master."
"You know nothing about me." Ezra let out a deep breath, trying to release his fear into the Force. Whatever abilities this darksider had, she could read him well. Kanan had told him once that some Jedi had the abilities to sense and ease the pain of others. He wondered if this woman had possessed this ability before her fall to the dark had twisted her.
Her eyes flashed. "I know enough. I know that the dark binds itself around your soul. It has claws in you, Ezra Bridger. Let go of the light. Embrace what you really are." She narrowed her eyes and dropped her head, watching him as he moved to circle her, looking for an opening. "You miss your Master because the light let him die. You wish to be stronger so you never have to lose anyone again. I offer that to you."
"You can offer me nothing." Ezra replied, but he felt strangely exposed. It was as if she had dug deep into the festering wound of his heart and opened it up to spread the infection to the rest of him.
The soldier next to Sabine took another shot at the darksider and was immediately felled by the reflected bolt.
Sabine dropped to her knees to see if she could help him.
"The light will take everything from you, as was done to me. The light allowed my Master and my Padawan to die…everyone I've ever known." Ezra felt the pain in her heart, and he sensed the sincerity of her words as he blocked her attacks. "It will take your family, Jedi. I was too late to save mine. Embrace the power to save your loved ones before it's too late."
Her sorrow threatened to drag him down into a dark well from which there was no return. "The dark side has lied to you." Ezra growled in fury, blocking her slashing attacks. His resolve was weakening as she chipped at him.
"No. It was the light side who lied, Jedi. You know the dark. You believe its truth. I feel it inside you."
Like a weary snake, his grief stirred and slithered inside him. She took advantage of his distraction to slash his forearm. The pain intensified his anger because she had gotten to him. If she made it past him, she would hurt Sabine and the rest of his team, and he wouldn't let that happen. No matter what the cost.
"Yes…that's it. Use the dark side to defeat me," she goaded. Ezra was horrified to see that her face had morphed. It had become monstrous and twisted with the dark inside of her, and as she lunged for him, he moved his saber into her path. It tore through her stomach and her stunned countenance showed her pain. Her counterstrike had caught him in the shoulder—a white-hot agony. He used the Force to throw her back. She fell in a heap, but then began clawing her way to her feet.
Ezra began to back up. "Go, Sabine! Get out!" He called behind him.
"No…Ezra. No. I'm not leaving you!" A shot streaked beside Ezra and hit the darksider in the chest. The evil woman went down for a second time. Sabine's shot was true, and this time, Lenain didn't regain her feet.
Ezra turned his head, catching Sabine's eyes in the semi-darkness for an instant before he approached the darksider and kicked away her saberstaff. The woman's eyes, now glowing a sick yellow, glared at him. "Fool-foolish Jedi." Blood sprayed from her lips as she coughed. "The dark side is stronger than you think. E-even now it ea-eats at you, Bridger. You are w-weak and w-will fall and take the ones you love with you."
"Shut up!" Ezra cried, not knowing how to reply. The self-loathing was an empty hole in his chest. She was right, he reluctantly thought.
The darksider reached for her saberstaff, and as it flew into her hand, Sabine put another two shots into her. "Karking bitch!" Sabine growled.
The darksider was dead. Ezra felt her twisted soul let go of life.
Ezra looked up and over to Sabine with a stricken expression. Sabine wrapped her arms around him, careful of the two lightsaber wounds, and began encouraging him toward the door.
"Tanner's hurt. I called Vosh and the ship." Sabine told him. The soldier was lying with his back propped against the wall, breathing heavily.
Just then they heard Vosh coming toward them at a run. The soldier helped Tanner up and together the four of them began to limp toward the opening of the temple.
When they reached it, they could see their small freighter landing out in front of the temple. There was barely enough room, but the ship squeezed in.
"TIEs, Commander Bridger." Vosh pointed off to the west, where sky was dark.
Ezra turned. It was raining harder now and he could see the dark shapes, far away, advancing like crows.
"Ezra, come on," Sabine said.
Ezra shook his head. "Wait." He closed his eyes, reached for the light side of the Force…and it wasn't there. Disconcerted, he tried again, holding his breath. Once more the light side slipped through his fingers like silk that he couldn't grasp hold of.
He stood there for several long moments, trying not to panic, trying to gather himself, but it wasn't working. He had to close off the secrets left in this temple. Finally, in frustration, he fisted both hands with a pulling down motion, as he tapped into the anger and sorrow he had let surface inside the temple. This time there was a low rumble. Chunks of rock began falling in front of the entrance as Ezra pulled down all he could of the stone surrounding the temple doors.
Then, with a great effort, he pushed the dark away from him. He wasn't entirely successful. He felt cold to the bone and sick to his stomach at the way the sticky dark energy clung to him.
"Holy karking banthashit," Vosh muttered, watching the dust settle.
"Come on." Sabine was looking into Ezra's face as she took his arm. Water streamed down his cheeks and she wanted to believe it was all rain, but at the agonized expression he wore, she wasn't sure. "They're coming."
"Yeah." He said in a hoarse voice, wiping his face and glancing at the coming dark shapes. "Okay."
Ezra slid into the co-pilot's seat. Sabine had taken the aft gun and he took the forward cannon. "You just fly us to the hyperspace coordinates. I'll get the rest."
Jex proved to be a good pilot. As they made their way into atmosphere, they were chased by at least five TIEs. Sabine took out two behind them; Ezra could hear her across ship's comms. "Ezra, you have two coming up—one on each side."
Ezra tried to connect with the light, but the cold wrapped back around him. It was obvious that he wasn't going to shake the dark side so easily this time. This was different than the holocron, or the time he'd connected with the fyrnocks. Instead of using valuable time to fight it, he gritted his teeth and used the dark side to target the TIEs and take them out, hating it the whole time.
There were no other TIEs except the one behind them that Sabine was now shooting at.
"Jumping to hyperspace." Jex called.
Ezra relaxed as soon as he saw the starlines. He was in pain, tired and sick. "I'll be…in the back," he muttered, leaving the cockpit unsteadily.
The rest of the trip back to Hoth was a quiet one. Sabine kept busy. She had the most experience treating wounds, so she attended to Tanner first, who was stable. They'd laid him in the other quarters. Vosh was by Tanner's side, but he moved away as Sabine came up.
The soldier's uniform had been removed and his shirt had been cut away to reveal a nasty wound. He'd taken the shot in the abdomen. It was bad, but a few days in a bacta tank and he would be alright. After giving Tanner a shot of painkiller, she bandaged his wound and left Vosh in charge.
With a worried heart, she entered the quarters where she'd left Ezra. He was wrapped in a blanket, shivering and his eyes were closed as if he were asleep.
"Ezra?"
He opened his eyes halfway.
"I need to take a look at your arm and shoulder," she said, setting the portable medkit beside him.
"Mmm…Okay." He pulled off his wet shirt with trembling hands, then offered her his forearm.
"This is going to hurt," she said as she began to clean the thick red swath of peeling burned skin. It had to be painful, but Ezra showed no discomfort. When she was satisfied, she slathered bacta on his skin with a gentle touch.
"I deserve it. I was too slow." He said simply, as she finished. He then turned slightly so that his shoulder was bared to her.
There were blackened areas of skin here. Apparently, the saber had been in contact with the wound longer. She found herself wondering if he was going to need a bacta tank as well to regenerate the damaged area. "Don't say that. None of us could have expected that she'd be…a darksider." The word felt thick and oily in her mouth.
Ezra finally winced, as she began to swab the burn with bacta.
"Are you okay, Cyare?" She asked, softly as she looked from the wound to his face which was tightly composed again, giving away nothing.
"Yeah," he said flatly. She finished up, placing a large pad soaked in bacta over the wounded spot on his shoulder, then bandaging it to keep it in place.
"Ezra…"
"Bean, I can't. Just…" His head fell and his eyes closed, his lashes dark against his pale skin. "Just give me some time."
She nodded and squeezed his hand, before taking the medkit back to the front of the ship.
Ezra was in his room resting after getting back from the base medcenter. He'd been treated by the medics and given pain medicine for the agonizing burns from the redblade's lightsaber. One wound was a third degree burn and the shoulder wound had been a fourth degree. Sabine had brought him back, somewhat sedated, and she and Zeb got him settled in bed.
Now, Hera and Zeb were in the galley with Sabine, who was headed into command to debrief.
"I told them I'd be there in a few minutes." Sabine said, finishing the cup of caf that Hera had made for her. "Medics said that Ezra will sleep for a while, possibly even all night. They said in the best of circumstances, he really should be in a bacta tank for a few hours, but they didn't have a spot. They plan to keep a close eye on him for the next couple of days and see how he's healing." She placed her cup in the sink and twisted her hands together. "It's not really the wounds I'm worried about." She glanced up at Zeb. "It's the woman; what she said to him…"
"You mean the Jedi?" Hera urged when Sabine paused.
"She knew about Ezra losing Kanan. She read him like a book and tried to get him to fall…to the dark side." She looked meaningfully to Zeb. "We…we have to figure a way to help him. He wouldn't talk to me afterward." She looked longingly at Ezra's door, then shifted her gaze to the door to the cargo bay. "I…gotta go."
"We'll be here when you get back," Zeb said, catching her in a hug. "We'll figure this out, kit."
"Thanks, Zeb." Sabine hugged him back, then headed out the door.
"We've gotta keep an eye on him, Hera." The Lasat watched her Sabine go, then turned to the Twi'lek as he scrubbed a paw over his face.
"There's something you're not telling me," Hera said.
"Ezra's been struggling more than we knew." Zeb's voice was soft and low. "He…he's been taking off after missions. Drinking and Force knows what else." He ran a paw over his face. "Hera, you need to reconsider letting Ezra train Caleb. He loves the boy. The bond they have…and his bond with Sabine…may be the only things keeping Ezra from coming apart."
Neither of them had noticed that the door to Sabine's quarters stood open. In the semi-darkness something moved.
She shook her head. "There's something you're not telling me."
Zeb ignored what she said and went on. "If he's shutting Sabine out now…we might be losing him."
"What…what do you mean?"
Zeb sighed heavily. "Hera, the kit's turning to stuff worse than hooch."
"Like…like what?"
He spoke in a whisper. "Like glitteryll. Maybe other stuff, I don't know."
Hera gasped. "What? No…"
The Lasat pressed on. "You can't let on that you know. Ezra's pulling away from all of us. If you confront him about this, he'll probably run again. So…just don't. I've been thinking about this, Hera. We have to figure out a way to hold him here, not push him away. I think…it might all lead to Caleb. You can't deny that Kanan's son needs Ezra. A brother doesn't make up for a lost father, but at least the boy will have someone who understands him. And Ezra will have him." Zeb sighed. "And maybe…if we don't kark it up, we can hold on tight to both of them."
"I can't let Ezra train him to be a Jedi. You don't know what you're asking me to do, Zeb."
"I think I do." Zeb looked at her. "Hera…have you ever asked yourself what Kanan might have wanted?"
"How can…how can you ask me that?" she asked him, horror in her eyes.
His head was down, and there were several moments of silence before he spoke. "Because I can't bear to lose anyone else." Zeb said in a voice gravelly with pain. "Hera…you have to…to understand…"
When his voice broke, she leaned into him, overcome with tears. He hugged her back just as fiercely and they remained that way, sharing their grief for one of the first times since losing Kanan.
"I don't know how…to find my way through without him, Zeb." Hera's voice was strangled with sorrow.
"We'll find a way." Zeb promised. "For all of them, Hera."
Neither of them noticed Ezra disappear back into Sabine's room.
When Sabine returned from debriefing, she was bone tired. The cold seemed to have seeped into her, and she looked forward to curling herself up in the bed with Ezra and sleeping as long as her exhausted body required.
The Ghost was quiet, except for the sound of Caleb laughing in his room. Apparently, Zeb was telling the little boy a story. Sabine heard the murmur of Hera's voice and another round of laughter. It felt good; Caleb had been too quiet lately, creeping around like a frightened lothcat-all eyes and tiptoes.
She shrugged off her jacket and stowed it in the closet. Then made her way to her room.
And Ezra wasn't there. She turned around and made her way to the fresher. "Ezra?" She knocked on the door, then opened it. It was empty. She began to frown.
She went to Caleb's door and knocked. "Hera?" She keyed the door and looked in. Hera and Caleb were on the floor, building a structure with his interlocking blocks while Zeb sat on the bunk.
"Sabine?" Hera could sense the stress in her voice.
"Ezra. Where's Ezra? He's not…not in my room." She could feel panic creeping up her spine.
"What do you mean?" Hera stood up abruptly. "We haven't heard a peep out of him."
"Did you check our room?" Zeb asked, standing and heading for the door. "Maybe…"
Sabine let out a sigh of relief. She hadn't expected him to be there, and so she hadn't checked. "Oh. That's probably it." They headed across to Zeb's quarters and her blood froze to see an empty room.
"Mama?" Caleb murmured as he looked up at Hera. She grabbed him in her arms, then stepped in the hallway. "Did you…"
Sabine answered, but was really speaking to herself. "No. Maybe I missed him. He was maybe meditating, or really still and I…" She flew to her room and slapped the panel. It hissed open to reveal an empty room.
"Where?" She murmured, turning in a circle. Then, with a rising sense of horror, she saw it.
Lying on the green blanket, directly in the middle of the bed was Ezra's lightsaber.