we'll be scraping the sky with our fingertips (screaming this is the life, we were born for this)

by brahe

Summary:

He sits down in the short grass, feels the dampness of the dirt through the backs of his thighs when he folds his legs into and over one another. He pats the ground in front of him, looking at Ezra. “Have a seat.”
Ezra’s watching him, eyes wide and skeptical, and Kanan allows himself a soft smile. There is a gentle thrill thrumming through his veins at the prospect of sharing the Force with another sensitive being again, and a different, softer thrill at showing this to Ezra, showing him the Force, showing him the true strength, the true power he has. At getting to share this connection with him.
Ezra copies his pose and peers at Kanan. “You’re—happy,” he observes. “I—I can feel it.” He looks down at his hands, his tone surprised.
“Yes,” Kanan tells him. “I’m excited to share this with you. It’s…been a long time, for me, since I’ve done this.”

 

Or,
Kanan's life, in three parts.

Notes:

• For inconocible.

me showing up 1.5 years later with starbucks: hey

inconcible my love it is FINALLY done and i hope you love it as much as i loved writing this <3

so many thanks to deannie for her help & ideas and being a wonderful beta <3

this whole thing started with the scene in the summary—with wanting to write about the first time kanan and ezra meditate together; and then it just grew into a story about kanan and where he came from and a collection of moments that make him who he is, and the way we deal with grief and healing

the vibes: plans ; silhouette ; stay alive ; dawn

Chapter 1

 

 

It's early morning. The Temple is filled with windows and open vistas, and the dozens on the walls in the Crèche’s central chamber let in the synthetic light of Coruscant's late sunrise. It floods the worn wooden flooring of the room, highlights little motes of dust in the air.

Caleb sighs, a steady, relaxed sound. He's sitting in a patch of sunlight, his legs crossed and ankles tucked under him, his palms face-down, resting over his knees. His eyes are closed, and he's floating in a sort of pseudo-meditation. The Force here in the Temple sits at a constant thrum just below the surface, a well always waiting to be tapped, always readily accepting his reaches. It's filled with the signatures of the hundreds of Jedi that fill its halls, echoes with the signatures of the thousands of Jedi that have come before, and underneath it all is the signature of the Temple itself—deep and ancient, warm, familiar. 

 

This is his favorite way to start the day; his skin warmed in the sun, his signature drenched in the fullness of the Force presence, surrounded by so many sensitive beings, the true start of the day still just beyond the horizon. It's still and calm, a kind of peace he often seeks but rarely finds. In this almost-meditation, he feels connected to the Temple, to the other younglings and padawans, to the Jedi that share this home. He can feel Master Yoda’s cool, deep signature; Master Kenobi's warm and sad one, so close it's nearly wrapped up in the supernova of Master Skywalker. And—lately, there's a new one. Someone returned from the front lines, he supposes, though he's not sure. It calls to him, though, unlike the others. It's—comforting. Familiar, somehow. 

 

There's another signature now, too, showing up like a brilliant flame—though he knows who this is. He can feel Tai before she's fully in the room; she shines in the Force like a crystal, and her signature is a warm, typical press alongside his own. She comes to sit beside him, bumping their knees together when she matches his pose, and he squints open one eye to peer at her.

“I don't know why you always do this,” she tells him, giving him the same look she does every morning she comes to join him. Caleb huffs, amused. “It's like—you're going to have to meditate all the time as a padawan. Why do you want to do more of it now?”

Caleb returns to his pose, eyes closing again, though he's smiling. “It's—soothing,” he tells her. “It's like swimming in the Fountains or getting clean after hours of katas.” 

He lets his awareness drift back out again. The Force shimmers for him, rippling with a hundred rises and dips for each of the padawans, the Jedi, the younglings in the Temple. Caleb sighs, a happy, unburdening kind of sound. “It feels like home.”

———

He’s laying on the roof of the Temple, breathing hard, staring up at the sky. Master Billaba’s still laying next to him, her words ringing around in Caleb’s head. A padawan? He can hardly believe it! 

“Are you alright?” Master Billaba asks him, after a while. He pats himself down.

“I’m okay,” he tells her. “Are you?” 

She huffs a laugh. “Probably as fine as I’ll ever be,” she says, her laugh slowly turning into a loud and full sound, and Caleb can’t help but laugh along with her. 

He completely misses the arrival of Masters Windu and Kenobi until Kenobi calls, “What’s going on up here?”

Caleb and Master Billaba turn at the same time, looking up and back to the two Jedi, lightsabers at the ready.

Master Windu frowns. “Is it over?”

Caleb looks at Master Billaba. “Is anything?” she says, both weary and amused, the words spoken with a sigh and a little grin curling her lips. Master Windu huffs, sounding almost like a laugh. He deactivates his lightsaber, falling out of his ready stance, Master Kenobi following his lead.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” Master Windu says, offering a hand to Master Billaba. She takes it, standing up slow, and brushes her hands over her robes. “What happened?”

“It was a Kage Warrior,” she says. “He was—”

“I’m a padawan!” Caleb shouts, suddenly, as the truth of it hits him, and the three Jedi masters around him stop with the same suddenness, looking at him in various stages of alarm before his words sink in. 

Master Kenobi turns to Master Billaba with a knowing smile and a raised eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Master Windu looks him over, and raises his eyebrow at Master Billaba, too. “Aren’t you a little young to be a padawan, Caleb Dume?”
Caleb rubs the back of his neck. “Maybe,” he says. “But I was helpful! I helped! And we—” He turns to Master Billaba, who’s watching him with a fond sort of smile, like the one she gives him when he asks too many questions in class. He glances over to the edge of the roof. He frowns briefly. “Well, he jumped off the roof. But we stopped him from getting to the Central Spire!” 

Master Kenobi makes a humming sound. “An attack on the Temple, during such times…” he says, trailing off. He looks at Caleb. “Did he say anything?”

Caleb nods. “Oh, yeah, he wouldn’t shut up,” he says, which makes Master Billaba laugh, a sudden, sharp sound. She waves her hand when he looks at her.

“Sorry, padawan, go on.” 

Padawan. Caleb practically glows with it. Master Windu gives Master Billaba another sharp look, but she simply threads her arm through his, hooking her hand in the inside of his elbow, and lets her head rest on his shoulder. 

“Well, he said I was too indoctrinated—” here Caleb makes air quotes, repeating the word with distaste “—to understand, but he said the Jedi are the bad guys, we’re on the wrong side, we’re against freedom and self-determination—” more air quotes “—blah, blah, which, honestly, sounds kind of ridiculous to me, I mean, hasn’t he ever heard the Code? And besides, we’re all about freedom, right? We’re literally fighting a war now for the freedom of the galaxy, and—”

Master Billaba’s hand comes down on the top of his head, stopping him mid-sentence. “Breathe, child,” she tells him. He takes a deep breath, and she chuckles.

“We’ve always had our critics,” Master Kenobi says, sounding faintly amused before he frowns. “I would only expect things to worsen now.”

Master Windu sighs. “An attack on the Temple, though—” he says. His frown makes deep creases in his forehead. “This war is just one headache after another. Jedi aren’t meant for this.”

Master Billaba leans into him. “We’ll be alright, Master,” she tells him. Her face changes, then, a grin overcoming her features. “Or, should I say, Grand-master?”

Caleb jumps up onto his feet with a cheer at the same time Master Windu groans. Master Billaba’s laugh rings loud over the roof, Master Kenobi’s chuckles a quieter sound underneath it.

“Force, Depa, way to make me feel old,” Master Windu says. Master Kenobi brings his hand to his friend’s shoulder for a moment.

“You are old, old friend,” he says, which makes Master Billaba laugh again, resting her body on Master Windu’s side. Caleb watches them, opens himself to the Force to soak in their amusement, their easy joy. What they have—how they are both supportive and ribbing, both amused and serious—feels special. Unique. Caleb wants to soak it up like a sponge; wants to have that for himself someday. 

“Well, I suppose you would know all about that, Grand-master Kenobi,” Master Windu says with a sly grin, and Master Kenobi laughs again.

“Alright, fair, I walked into that one,” he says, and his signature bleeds with fondness, with affection, for his own padawan and grand-padawan. “You’re ready,” Master Kenobi murmurs, likely not meant to be heard, and Master Windu rests his hand on Master Kenobi’s back for a moment, before he turns to Caleb. He extends a hand, and when Caleb grabs it for a shake, Master Windu pulls him in, startling a woah! out of him, and catches him in the space between him and Master Billaba. His hand is big and warm on Caleb’s shoulder, Master Billaba’s like an echo of his when her hand lands on the back of his head. “Welcome to the family, kid.” 

———

Maybe an hour, a little longer, has passed since Master Billaba ushered Caleb to bed, tucking him in with a hand on his chest and a press of their foreheads. 

Caleb, usually one to fall asleep quickly, instead finds himself staring at the ceiling, shifting from one side to the other, struggling to keep his eyes closed. His frustration grows and grows and grows until he finds himself on his feet, halfway out of his door and into the hallway. Maybe Master Billaba can help.

Their rooms feel heavy with the dark, with their stillness. It feels almost forbidden, for him to be awake and moving around in this time, and he creeps slowly down the hall towards the living room.

The floor at end of the hall is illuminated by the flickering light of the vidscreen, and if he strains his ears he can hear the muffled sound of the voices that go with it. He can feel Master Billaba’s signature in the living room, bright enough to mean she's still awake, but steady and still with the late hour.

He gets close enough to the living room that he can see the vidscreen, showing some cooking show, and Master Billaba sitting on the sofa, her legs tucked up onto the cushion beside her and a mug, faintly steaming, in her hands. He wants to go to her, wants to soak in the comfort of her presence, but—he's not supposed to be awake. And he knows she won't be mad, knows those sorts of things don't matter, knows she would be happy to tuck him into her side, happy to help him, but—

“Caleb,” she calls, voice warm and soft. She turns to him, a fond smile on her face when she catches him lurking at the edge of the hallway’s shadow. He stills, for a moment, before holding his hands together in front of him, shoulders hunched. She frowns. “What's wrong, child?”

Caleb takes two steps forward, into the dim light of the living room. “Can't sleep,” he admits, quiet. “I didn't—I don't know what to do.”

Master Billaba hums. “Well, I'm glad you came to find me,” she says. She shifts on the sofa, and holds out one arm beside her. “Come and sit with me.”

Caleb hurries over to her, a soft, grateful smile on his face, his worries already soothed. He climbs up onto the couch beside Master Billaba, mindful of her tea as he moves to curl up at her side. Her arm comes down to wrap around him, tucking his head against her chest, her hand wide and warm where it rests over his spine. 

“There,” she says, fond, and moves her hand to run her fingers through his hair. Caleb catches the scent of her tea when she takes a sip from it, the familiar spice blend of rek like a warm blanket. He closes his eyes, lets go of the tension in his body. 

“Relax, my child,” Depa murmurs, rubbing her fingers over his scalp, the back of his head. The movement is as soothing as the sound of her heartbeat, the smell of her tea, the stillness of her signature. Sitting with her reminds him of his quiet mornings in the Crèche, quiet and peaceful and warm. He sighs, a small, soft sound, and he hears Master Billaba's chuckle reverberate in her chest. 

 

(He must have fallen asleep—has no doubt he did. The next thing he's aware of is his own bed, his head coming to rest on his pillow, and Master Billaba's warm hands on his shoulders, rubbing over the center of his chest as she tucks his blanket around him. 

“Go back to sleep, child,” she murmurs, and she moves her hand to brush his hair back, leaves her hand there to rub her thumb against his forehead. 

He falls back to sleep.)

———

Kaller is beautiful in the golden glow of sunset. Caleb had followed Master Billaba up a small, rocky mountain some hours before—he’d never climbed up rocks before, and there was some rich, natural joy in using his hands to pull himself up and over large boulders, in crawling up and back down big tumbling piles of ancient rocks. Master Billaba had smiled at him, laughing at the whoop he let out when they made it to the top, standing near the edge that overlooked the valley beyond. 

They spent the hours before sunset running through forms, lightsabers ignited, moving slowly side by side. It had felt like a mediation, of sorts. He and Master Billaba were open to one another, their training bond thrown wide, their twin feelings of peace and contentment echoing back and forth. 

Master Billaba is like an anchor, like a still ocean. Her signature is so warm, so familiar. She is his master, yes, and she is family, too, but she is more than that. She feels like home, even when they’re light years away from the Temple. 

Kaller’s double suns set in a spectacular blaze of yellows and oranges. Caleb takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the damp air full of the richness only mountain air has. The next time he opens his eyes, the sky is turning to a deep blue, stars blinking on in the hundreds.

Master Billaba releases a breath, and the hum of her lightsaber stops. Caleb shuts his down, too, and turns to look at her. There’s a soft sort of smile on her face. 

“Tell me what you’re feeling, child,” she says. Caleb rubs at his neck.

“I have—some questions.”

Master Billaba laughs. “Yes, I know,” she tells him, her voice fond. “That seems to be your natural state of mind. Tell me how you feel.”

Caleb looks out at the sky. There’s a low fog rolling in, collecting in the valley below where their men sit by a fire. Caleb can see the glow of it faintly flickering in the dark. 

“I feel—at peace,” he admits. It’s the truth. It’s been the truth for so long, now. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier,” he says, turning to look up at Master Billaba. She hums.

“An odd sentiment, considering we are at war,” she says, but that perpetual fond smile has curled into something stronger. She rests a hand on his shoulder, warm through Caleb’s robes.

Caleb shrugs. “I know,” he says. Their bond is still open, and he’s sure she can feel the contentedness that sits in him like it’s a part of him. “It’s—I know the war is terrible, and it’s brought untold suffering to the galaxy, but I—”

“You have found your place in it,” Master Billaba finishes for him. “In this war and the galaxy.”

Caleb bumps his shoulder against her stomach, smiling to himself. “Knew you’d understand.”

“Of course,” she murmurs. She brings her arm up around Caleb’s shoulders, holding him to her. “But remember, padawan, this universe is far from static.” Her Force signature shifts, then, run through with something like melancholy, or—apprehension. Caleb frowns. “You must not grow too too fond, too in love with life as it is now,” she tells him. 

“Yes, Master,” he agrees, distracted. He shifts to rest his chin on Master Billaba’s chest, peering up at her. “What’s wrong?”

She hums. She’s not looking at him—instead, her eyes are stuck on the sky, the swath of stars that make it much brighter than night on most other planets Caleb’s been to. She brings one hand to the back of his head, threading through his hair, moving up to rub a thumb over his forehead, back and forth.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Just—” Her deep breath shifts Caleb’s head. “A feeling, I suppose.”

There’s a chill growing in the air. Caleb tucks himself into her further. His movement seems to shake her from her thoughts, and she chuckles softly, shifting to wrap her robe around Caleb, bringing him into her in an embrace that’s tighter than Caleb had expected.

“A—bad feeling?” he asks, hesitant. He almost doesn’t want to know. Despite what she said, he has grown fond with life as it is. How could he not? He’s finally out in the galaxy, seeing it all for himself, with the best master in the Temple, and they’re making a difference. They’re making lives better.

“Ah—maybe,” Master Billaba tells him. Her signature has become cloudy. “I’m very grateful that you’re here with me,” she says quietly. She moves one hand, slides it over his forehead, down his nose, a faint smile passing over her when he scrunches it up. “For the time that we’ve had together.”

Caleb frowns again, deeper this time. “I—me, too, Master, but—what—”

Master Billaba wraps her arms back around his shoulders, holding him to her again. She twists her fingers in his padawan braid. Something sharper than apprehension—fear, maybe—creeps into Caleb. What can she sense? Why isn’t she telling him? Why did that sound so—final?

Master Billaba takes a deep breath, and like the sun breaking through a storm, all the bad things in her signature fade away. “But it’s nothing you need to worry about, child,” she says, dropping a kiss to his forehead. “I just want you to know I’m very proud of you, and I always will be.”

Caleb lets his head rest heavily against her chest, watching the sky over the sleeve of her robes. If she’s not worried about it, then he won’t be either. He lets his worry seep into the Force, replaces it with the simple joy of existing in this moment. “Thank you, Master.”

 

 

 

Notes:

i've aged kanan down in this by 3 or so years from canon; he's 14 in canon when order 66 happens but here he's more like 11ish

some of the dialogue is straight from the kanan comics, and some of it has been edited a bit

the bit at the end with depa's premonition was a bit of a parallel with kanan's bad vibes in this fic i wrote

Chapter 2

Kanan’s in the kitchen, trying to hold a mug and a data pad and two plates of waffles—his and Hera’s—in his hands with little success. He’s got the mug, still half full, looped around three fingers, and the data pad squished between the other two of his left hand; in his right hand, he’s trying to hold a plate between his first and second fingers, and the other between his third and fourth. Except—the second plate slips, too heavy for his grip, and it topples over towards the floor.

 

Only, it never hits the floor. He looks down, confused by the lack of a crash, and finds the plate—and waffle—suspended in the air.

It takes a moment for the realization to hit him, but once it does, panic slams into him right on its heels, and he barely hears the plate as it finally hits the floor.

 

He just—

He just caught—

He just used—used—used without even thinking—

 

He needs to leave.

 

In six months living on the Ghost, he’s really spread his stuff out, but he still has very little. Just enough that he can shove it all into the duffle he pulls out from under the bed.

Which is what he’s doing, when he hears the door slide open behind him, and Hera says, “What the hell are you doing?”

Kanan stops for a moment, lets his eyes close. Fuck. This is going to be so much harder than the others. He shouldn’t have let it go on this long.

He sets his shoulders, opens his eyes again to continue packing his few clothes into his bag. Panic and fear make him sloppy, make his tone almost snippy. “I’m leaving,” he says. “I have to leave.”

Hera’s silence speaks to her bewilderment. He hears her shift. “Hold on,” she says, “sorry, I thought I heard you say you were leaving.”

“Yeah,” Kanan tells her, turning towards the wall of cabinets by the foot of the bed. “I’m leaving.”

Hera scoffs. “Not in the middle of a job, you aren’t,” she tells him. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but—”

Kanan finally looks at her. She blinks at him—startled, maybe. Kanan shakes his head. “Hera. Look. I have to go. I have to. It’s not—it’s not safe.” 

“Right,” Hera says with an eye roll, “because everything we’ve done in the last six months has been super safe.”

Kanan opens the next cabinet, takes out the bundle of his snow jacket. Tucked in the bottom of the drawer is—

“Hera,” he says, sounding strained to his own ears. “Please. You don’t understand. It’s too dangerous. Too dangerous for me, and way too dangerous for you. I have to go.”

Hera hums. “What’s too dangerous?” 

She sounds closer—when Kanan risks a glance at her, she’s come into the room, standing arm’s reach from him, her arms crossed. 

“Hera —” Kanan says, and maybe he’s pleading now, but— “Listen to me. Please. I have to go. I’ve got too many things to hide, and I don’t—I can’t—”

He sits heavily onto the bed behind him, duffle bag almost packed at his feet. Hera comes in closer, her legs almost at his knees. He stares at her stomach, unfocused, as she speaks again, irritated. Frustrated. 

“You think you’re the only person with things to hide? That you’re the only person in the galaxy with secrets?”

“Hera,” he says, again, helpless, pleading. “Hera—” He reaches for her hands, catches them in his own, bringing them to rest on his knees, and maybe he's squeezing too hard, but—

“Fucking kriff, Hera, it hasn't been—it hasn't been like that in so long—I haven't—” 

The choked sob that punches its way out of him surprises himself as much as it does Hera. He stares at their hands, vision going blurry, as Hera sighs softly. She moves slowly, freeing only one of her hands, and the mattress dips when she sits down next to him. Right next to him—the heat of her body a long line against him, her chin solid and sharp, grounding, on his shoulder. 

“What hasn't?” she asks, and fuck, she's so— “I want to help you,” she says. Her thumb is warm where it rubs over the back of Kanan's hand, and all of this would easier if she wasn't so fucking incredible. “What's going on?”

Kanan shakes his head, a motion he struggles to stop once he's started. He's just—overwhelmed. Fucking terrified . He's never—never—slipped up like that since those horrible first few months after everything happened. He doesn't want to leave. He has to leave. His every breath puts Hera in danger, and he knows she can take care of herself, but if she knew, if she really knew—

Hera’s gentle sigh stirs the hair behind his ear. “Okay,” she says softly. She brings her free hand to Kanan's face, using her thumbs to wipe the tears he hadn't even realized he'd been crying from his cheeks. “Okay,” she says again. And then, “My father is a Clone Wars veteran.”

Kanan's neck hurts with how fast he turned to look at her. She's not looking at him, though—it's her turn to stare at their hands, their fingers twisted together. “He fought against the Separatists during the Invasion of Ryloth, and then he fought against the Republic, and then he fought against the Empire. The Empire,” she hisses, venom in her voice there and gone in an instant, replaced, suddenly, by an accent, “that killed my mother and took my brother from me. That destroyed my family and my planet.”

She takes a breath. Kanan squeezes her hand. “He's why I do this. My father. Why I fight, why I'm in this rebellion. He can't see past Ryloth, can't see that it's the whole galaxy that needs to be saved. The Empire has ruined so many lives, I can't even begin to count. But who am I if I do nothing?”

Who indeed, Kanan thinks. And he is, suddenly, so very tired of running. Tired of hiding. Tired of fear and hesitancy, of tyranny and oppression.

That's not the way he was raised.

“If you allow an injustice to persist, then you have welcomed the Dark Side,” he says, voice low, and he hardly realizes he's got Hera's hand in a death grip. “That's what Master Vos always said. And maybe I was a little young to really understand why we were fighting, but—but Force did I feel a part of something important. We were helping people, we were caught up in this war that came out of nowhere, and I really thought we were making things better—and then we were massacred for it.”

Hera draws a sharp breath. “Kanan—”

But he's already started now; he couldn't stop if he tried, couldn't stem the flood of memory, spilling out of his mouth.

“I was young, for a padawan,” he says, quiet. “But by then we all were. We had lost more Jedi in those few years of the war than we had in a century before that. The Temple was different, too, like it was mourning the loss itself.

“But kriff, when Master Billaba took me out for the first time it was like—like your first time under an open sky. And it feels weird to say that, but it was true, and we never really got the heavy combat missions, anyway, at least not on purpose.”

Depa’s face comes to him, then, golden and a little blurry on the edges with memory. It hurts, like it always does, the thought of her, of the empty space where she'd been ripped out of him. 

“I wonder, sometimes, if she knew something was coming. If she could feel it. I think she tried to warn me, right before, but I wasn't—”

Every thought of her aches, deep and weary, like a phantom limb, a life sentence. Every thought of her, of Styles and Big-Mouth and Stance, of every single other Jedi, every padawan—

“She told me to run and I listened to her,” he says, a whisper under the weight of it, under the guilt, the admission, the way he's never said any of this out loud, to another person. And he thought he'd cried himself dry over this, already, thought the years and years of tears had left him empty, void—but they spring up in him now like Kaller was only yesterday, like all of these wounds are fresh and bleeding, all of it welling until it's a flood.

“I killed my friends,” he says, sobs. “I had to.” He curls his free hand into a fist, shoulders shaking. “I had to, I had to, I had to.”

“Oh, love,” Hera says, low and sad and hurt, and she lets go of Kanan's hand to instead wrap her arms around his shoulders, to pull him down and into her until his head rests against her chest, until she's taking all his weight, his control over his body snapped like strings cut from a puppet as he sags against her and lets himself cry.

And later, when he's cried himself dry, again, and Hera's fingers are carding gently through his hair, he reaches to the Force, follows a thread of it to the drawer where he kept his coat, lets his signature curl around the holocron tucked away there, pulls it out slowly into the light.

He moves it closer until it hovers in the air before him, and he barely has to think for the corners to turn, for the mechanism to unlock. Hera is still beside him, around him, breathing steady, watching. There's so many things he could show her—Kenobi’s warning, a kata guide, a recorded lesson—but there's really only one thing that comes to mind.

 

Master Billaba's face appears, cast in holo blue. She's looking somewhere off to the side, a smile on her face, the audio catching the end of her laugh. “Of course you are,” she says, sounding both exasperated and fond, and fucking sith hells, the sound of her voice still cuts into him so deep. 

She turns towards the camera, then, and her smile turns into something softer, more familiar. Caleb hardly ever saw her without some form of that gentle smile directed his way. 

“Caleb,” she says, chiding, drawing out his name. 

His own voice comes through next, so horribly young. “What? ” he says. “It's just a holo,” he tells her. Kanan closes his eyes. “I don’t have a lot of you,” Caleb says. It’s something that haunts him, always.

He doesn't need to watch it to remember the way Depa laughs, indulgent as always, and reaches for him, pulling him to her side. “How's this, padawan? ”

“Bad! ” Caleb exclaims. “You can't even see anything now.”

The recording shakes, and there is two-thirds of Depa's face for a moment, and, for another moment, part of his own young face, before the holo is suddenly still, the camera now angled so it's tilted up, most of the top half of Caleb’s body in the shot, half of Depa's. 

“Well, now we're both in it,” she says, and then she's leaning towards Caleb, leaning into him, tucking her chin over the top of his head and resting her weight heavier and heavier on him until he's laughing, batting his hands at her, trying to wiggle away from her affection. 

“Noooo, stop it! ” he cries, but he's laughing, and there's a hand reaching for the camera, and when the recording stops, it's a shot of his own face, blurry and grinning, the shape of Depa bent over him, her eyes crinkled with her laugh. 

 

He's only watched this whole recording once, since everything that happened. He's started it, a few other times, only to end up with it shut off, the holocron tossed at the nearest wall in sadness that manifests like anger before it devolves into sobs. This time, he skips straight over the anger, and sobs, and he's just left with tears, silent and steadily falling down his face, and feeling—empty. Empty in the way he's been since she died, since their bond was so suddenly, viciously shattered. 

“Caleb,” Hera calls, her voice so achingly gentle, soft. She's still running her fingers through his hair when he turns his head to look up at her. His name feels strange, coming from her; strange, and new, but maybe—right. He’s glad she knows, now. Glad she knows all the ugly emotions of it, of where he came from; that she knows exactly who he is—what he is—and what she’s getting into, sticking by him.

She brings her other hand up to wipe at his cheek. “Thank you for telling me this. For showing me.” She smiles, a little thing that ticks up the side of her mouth for just a moment. “A lot of things from Gorse make more sense, now,” she tells him, and it startles an almost-laughing sound out of him that turns into more of a real laugh when Hera grins full-out. Kanan falls back into her arms, rests his weight against her, and sighs heavily. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, and squeezes her hand. It’s for this—this unburdening, this acceptance, this safety—and for everything else, too. 

She squeezes his hand back. He thinks she knows.

———

Kanan hates most when things go wrong at the end of a job. When the feeling of success has slowly started to trickle in, when he can start to taste the payday—and then, bam, they’re found out, or they’re being shot at, or something explodes, or their escape route is blocked—

 

Or, in this case, all of the above.

 

They’re in a hangar, and the Ghost is so close, it’s right there , but he’s stuck on the opposite side of the room, and Hera’s stuck in the middle, and there’s so much blaster fire he’s almost afraid to try to look for her.

“Spectre One,” his comm crackles, Hera’s voice coming in hushed. “What’s your position?”

Kanan takes a look around him. The Ghost is too far to make a run for it without cover, and there’s at least a dozen storm troopers starting to spread out, and what’s left of the Corellian freighter by the hangar bay door is still merrily burning away. Hm. Not ideal.

“Stuck,” Kanan tells Hera. He pops his head up from the crates he’s hiding behind quickly. There’s two troopers getting a little too close for comfort. “Very stuck.”

“Same here,” Hera says. There’s a pause, then— “I could probably make a run for it.” She cuts off, and Kanan can fill in the end of her sentence well enough himself.

“But you’ll need a distraction,” he says, and—really, it’s a foregone conclusion. It’s hardly even a thought. The list of things he’d do for her is frighteningly long, and getting shot at isn’t even slightly the most intense thing on it. “I got it.”

He’s maybe spoken too soon, because he’s not exactly sure what he can do for a distraction, besides jumping up and waving his arms around. He’s just got his blaster, and—

Oh. 

Hmm. 

“Spectre One—” she starts, hesitant, but she knows it’s the only option. He doesn’t hear her sigh, but he hears it in her tone when she speaks again. “Be careful.”

Kanan grins. “I’m always careful.”

“You are not—” Hera says. He imagines her rolling her eyes. 

“Don’t worry, Spectre Two,” he tells her. “Just be ready.”

“What are you going to do?”

Kanan’s hands are already reaching for the two pieces he’s started wearing on his belt again without him even thinking about it. They snap together perfectly, and he curls his right hand around it, the weight solid and familiar in his hand. 

He comms over one more time. “You’ll know it when you see it,” he says, before clipping the device to his belt.

Now or never, he thinks, waiting for the fear, the hesitancy, to come—only neither do. All he feels is calm. Steady.

Ready, in more ways than one.

 

The Force reaches out to greet him like an old friend. The hum of his lightsaber igniting echoes around the hangar, and blue lights up the grin on his face. 

 

—

 

They’re back on the Ghost, safely in hyperspace, mission complete, when Hera turns on him.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she nearly shouts, spinning to the side to glare at him in the co-pilot seat. “Your lightsaber? Are you crazy?”

Kanan shrugs. He’s wondering if the reality hasn’t hit him yet, or if he really is just—okay with it. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Hera sighs, a long, full-body sound, and rubs her hand over eyes. “It worked, he says,” she grumbles. “Are you aware of what that means? What you just did? The Empire is going to know you’re a Jedi—”

“Hera,” Kanan interrupts, and she looks over at him. “I’m tired of hiding,” he says, and it’s an echo of the feeling from the day he told her about all of this. He doesn’t realize how true it is, though, until he says it out loud. “I have the Force. I’m a Jedi. I’m just—tired of pretending I’m not.”

His lightsaber pieces feel heavy on his belt, and he can feel the phantom weight of it still in his hand. It had been so long since he’d used it anywhere outside his room on the ship, but he can’t deny the way it felt—good. Right. Standing on top of those crates, effortlessly dodging blaster bolts, lightsaber in hand—he felt more like a Jedi than he had since Kaller. He felt like himself. 

“We can’t fight the Empire if we’re constantly living in fear of it,” he tells her, and she sighs again, but this time it sounds resigned. Accepting.

“I just hope you know what you’re getting yourself into,” she says. “The size of the target you’ve just put on your back.” And ours, she doesn’t say, but he knows. That’s the only fear, really—but he’s been around long enough to believe her when she says that she can take care of herself. That they can take care of each other. 

She turns to look at him. Her voice is soft when she asks, “When did you start wearing it again?”

Kanan tilts his head back in the seat. “Maybe—a week or so after I told you,” he says. “I could feel it pulling at me stronger than usual, and I figured…maybe it’s time.”

There’s a crease between Hera’s brows, and she reaches over to rest her hand on his leg. “Are you really ready for that? Once it’s out there…”

Kanan turns his head to look at her, offers her a small, grateful smile. “I meant it,” he says, “that I’m tired of hiding. I’ve been hiding since I was 11 years old. That’s half my life, Hera.” He sighs, a deep sort of sound that holds his anger, his sadness. He shifts in the seat, taking his lightsaber pieces off his belt, fitting them together. He’d almost forgotten the rightness of holding it, of its weight in his hands. He turns it over on itself, watches the movement. “It hasn’t called out for me like that in a long time,” he admits, and, quieter, “I almost wondered if it even could, anymore. If I’d ever feel it again.” 

Hera doesn’t say anything, just squeezing her hand where it rests. Kanan opens himself to the Force, closes his eyes as his crystal sings. Relieved. 

“It feels right. This feels like the right time.” He looks at Hera, lays one of his hands over hers. “We’ll do it slow. I just—I’m ready. It’s time. We can do it.” 

She hums, turns her hand over to thread her fingers between his. “Then I’m with you,” she says, so firmly, so surely, Kanan can’t help but fall a little bit more in love with her. 

When he looks up from their hands, she’s got a sly little smile on her face, and he expects he’ll spend a lifetime falling a little bit more in love with her. “I have to admit,” she says, slow, “that was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Kanan throws his hands in air, dislodging Hera. “I know!” he cries. Hera’s laugh rings in the air around them. “It worked so much better than I thought! They had no idea what to do!”
Hera’s got her thinking face on behind her smile, and Kanan watches her, already prepared to agree with whatever she’s planning. “Actually…” she says, drawing it out. Kanan’s grinning when she says, “I think we can use that.”

———

It’s early morning on the ship. Kanan’s been an early riser his whole life, and while he can’t soak up the warmth of a sunrise in hyperspace, he still enjoys the peace and the stillness of being the only one awake.

He’s tucked into the booth, his second cup of tea cooling beside a plate with the crumbs from breakfast, and he’s got a datapad in hand, scrolling absentmindedly through the news. Hera keeps track of most things they need to care about—to do something about—which he’s grateful for, because sometimes it’s all a little too overwhelming for him. But his feed this morning is unusually light, full of mostly engineering news, upcoming art shows, and some new popular recipes.

He spends the most time looking at the recipes. It’s been a while since he tried something new, he thinks to himself, clicking on a vegetable stew video and watching it with the volume low, subtitles on. 

It’s some time later that the kitchen door slides open. Kanan looks up with a smile already curling his lips, expecting to see Hera’s sleepy yawn and answering smile—but instead, Sabine stands in the doorway.

Kanan sits up straighter, datapad already forgotten on the table. Something feels—wrong.

“Hey, kiddo,” he says slowly, quietly. He tracks her as she comes into the room in jerky movements. She’s looking around with wide eyes, shining in the light, and—all her hair is gone. “What’s going on?”

“I—” she starts, and Kanan watches her hand come up to her shoulder, searching for hair that’s been cut off, and curl in a fist instead. Her voice sounds far away. Lost. “I cut it off.”

Kanan frowns. “Yes?” he says, more of a prompt for her to continue. She walks further into the room, and Kanan slides towards the edge of the booth, closest to her. 

“I cut it off,” she repeats, this time turning to look at Kanan. She looks like a mess, really, if he’s honest. There’s heavy bags under her eyes, and her skin looks unusually washed out. Her shoulders are slumped like she’s curling in on herself. “I had to.”

Kanan makes a quiet humming sound, and, when Sabine steps closer, he reaches out for her, hooking an arm around her waist, urging her closer. She goes easily.

“Why?” Kanan asks, keeping his touch light, gentle. She’s only been with them a couple months, and she’s been slow to warm up, too caught up in her distress to really let them in. He doesn’t want to scare her off, but he’s itching to pull her into a hug. 

She shakes her head, and then she’s leaning against him, her forehead landing on his shoulder. “I’ve let down my family,” she murmurs, distraught. She takes a shaking breath. “I just wanted to do the right thing. I thought—” Her voice breaks, and Kanan moves his hand to rub over her back. “I just wanted to do the right thing.”

Kriff, she’s too young for a heaviness like this. Kanan makes a low soothing sound, and pulls away to slide back across the seat, making room beside him. “Come sit,” he says, guiding Sabine down next to him when she doesn’t move right away, but freezing, eyes wide, when she curls herself up next to him, her head against his chest. 

“Alright, this works,” Kanan murmurs, bringing his hands down on her back, holding her in a loose hug. A little louder, he adds, “You did do the right thing.”

Sabine shakes her head against him. “I don’t know,” she says, sounding small. Kanan rubs at her back again. “I just—why don’t they believe me? Why won’t they see it? I just wanted to do the right thing.”

Kanan hums, thoughtful. He wishes she would tell him more, but this is the most she’s said about it since she came aboard, and he doesn’t want to push. He understands the burden of a painful past. 

“I know you did the right thing,” he tells her softly. He brings a hand to thread through the now-short strands of her hair. “I know you did.”

Sabine shakes her head again, but the fists she’d been clenching in his shirt start to relax. She sniffles, muffled, and pushes her forehead against him as he fidgets with her hair. “Now I can’t braid it anymore,” she says, a different kind of sad, and it takes Kanan a moment to realize she’s talking about her hair. He frowns.

“Why not?”

She huffs, like the answer is obvious. “It’s too short,” she tells him. “I can’t even get any of it in a hairtie.”

Kanan shakes his head, and his fingers are already moving. “Maybe you can’t braid it anymore,” he says, “but I can.”

Sabine sits straight up, dislodging his hands. “You can?”

Kanan laughs at her, a light chuckle, and he gets his hands on her shoulders, pulling her back. “Come back here,” he says, and she lets herself be dragged back into place, her weight coming back to rest against him. “Yes, I can.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and Kanan starts a braid at the back of her neck. A crown braid, he thinks, is just the right thing. “I guess you do have long hair,” she says, after a while, and Kanan laughs again.

“That’s not why,” he says, and he debates, silently, in between heartbeats, about going into further detail, but—it’s an obvious choice. Sabine’s shared something with him, this morning, and it’s only fair he return in kind. Besides, if she’s ever going to fully open up to him, he might as well lead by example. “Where I grew up—” he pauses, clears his throat. “Where I grew up, everyone wore a braid when you started your apprenticeship,” he explains. “One of the first things your master teaches you is how to braid.” 

He’s watching his hands as he works. He’s got maybe a quarter of the braid done, and it’s been a long, long time since he’s braided anyone’s hair. It looks pretty good, for how out of practice he is. Master Billaba always said it would be muscle memory, though. He lets out a breath. 

“My master almost always wore her hair in braids, too, and so once she taught me my padawan braid, she taught me some of her braids, too, so I could help her sometimes. That’s how I learned the fancier ones.”

Those are some of his favorite memories of her. She’d sit on the floor in front of the sofa, Kanan sitting criss-crossed behind her on the cushion, and she’d talk him through each new design, going slow, repeating it over and over again until his braids looked just as clean and neat as hers. It had felt, then, like getting a little secret piece of her, and now, it’s one of the few ways he feels closest to her, to her memory. 

Sabine shifts beneath his hands, and he stills until she settles back down. She sounds hesitant when she says, “Padawan?”

Ah. Well, Kanan hadn’t meant to tell her the full story, but—so it goes. 

“Yeah,” Kanan tells her, almost a whisper. She tries to sit back, but Kanan puts a hand on her shoulder. “Wait,” he says, “I’m not done.” 

“Kanan,” she says, urgent, “wait, Kanan, I know what that means.”

Kanan hums. “Yeah, I figured you would.”

Sabine lets out a gusty breath. “I don’t—I don’t even know what to say to that.” She pauses. “And you won’t let me look at you—”

Kanan tugs lightly on her hair. “You wanted a braid, so let me finish,” he says, a little teasingly. “We can talk all about my tragic backstory in a minute.”

“Fucking kriff,” Sabine mutters, and then her voice goes a little softer, a little reverent. “A Jedi.”

“Not quite,” Kanan murmurs. “I never got that far.”

Sabine goes quiet, again, as he finishes the circle of the braid around her head. The color of her hair—a deep, rich brown—reminds him of Depa’s. He closes his eyes against a rush of feeling.

He twists the ends of the braids together in a technique Master Billaba showed him for closing braids without a tie. “There,” he says, “all done.”

Sabine sits back slowly, and he watches her run her fingers over the bumps and lines of the braid. There’s a few pieces that ended up too loose, and part of it on the left looks a little too flat, but—for the years and years it’s been, he’s pretty proud of it.

“Wow,” Sabine murmurs, then, louder, “I’m impressed.”

Kanan wiggles his fingers. “One of my many secret talents,” he tells her with a laugh. She grins, but then she’s shaking her head, and she’s got a serious look on her face when she looks at him again. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, and shrugs. “I know it doesn’t do anything to change what happened, but—I’m still sorry that happened to you.”

Kanan reaches for her, wraps his hand around hers, holds on tight. “Thank you,” he says, and means it completely. “And thank you for letting me do your hair.” Sabine gives him a small little smile. “It’s been a long time since I did that, and—it always makes me feel close to my master.”

Sabine watches him for a moment. “What was her name?”

Kanan lets his eyes close briefly, a sad sort of smile crossing his face. “Depa Billaba,” he says quietly, and he looks at Sabine. “She had hair like yours. Thick, dark brown. Hers was a lot longer, though, even before you cut yours. That’s part of why she always wore it in braids. I can—I can show you a picture of her, sometime, if you like.”

Sabine’s smile is a quietly brilliant, fond sort of thing. “I’d love that.” She pauses, stares at the mug of now-cold tea on the table for a while. “I—thanks for being patient with me,” she tells him. “I know I’ve been kind of…standoffish, when you—and everyone—have just been trying to help me.”

Kanan’s shaking his head before she even finishes. “Nah, none, of that, kiddo,” he says, and he reaches for her again, loops his arm around her shoulders to pull her into a hug, holding her against his side. “We’ve all been through a lot; everyone here gets it. We’re here to help you, okay? You’re ready when you’re ready.”

Sabine nods against him. “Yeah,” she murmurs, “okay. Thanks, Kanan.”

He presses his nose to the side of her head. “Anytime, kiddo.”

 

Chapter 3

 

It’s been an hour or so since Ezra fell asleep. Last night—his second aboard the Ghost as an official crew member—had been a rough night for him; he was up nearly the entire night cycle, and his Force signature, loud and unshielded as it is, had kept Kanan awake, too, unused as he is to the presence of another Force sensitive. 

Kanan stops in the hall outside Ezra’s door. Tonight, though, seems more settled already—Ezra’s signature has dropped off into a lull, faint with deep sleep. Kanan lets out a long sigh. It’s—strange, to have Ezra aboard. To have another Force signature so loud, so close. 

He steps close enough to the door to activate the opening trigger, the durasteel sliding open with a whoosh that sounds loud in the quiet of the ship. It’s dark in the room, and it takes a moment for Kanan’s eyes to adjust with the dim light from the night lighting from the hallway.

Ezra is tucked up small on the top bunk, little more than a lump under the blankets, fast asleep. Seeing him alleviates some of the pressure in Kanan’s chest, and he absentmindedly rubs a hand over his sternum as he watches Ezra’s slow, deep breaths. 

“Hey.”

Kanan turns, stepping back as he does, to see Sabine standing in the hall. She’s dressed in her pajamas and her hair is a mess, and he watches as a yawn takes over her face. One of her hands is curled around a mug covered in little doodles of flowers and stars, and the other rubs at her eyes. 

Kanan gives her a soft smile and makes his way down the hall towards her. “Hey, kiddo,” he says, keeping his voice low, the same timber as the sounds of the ship. Sabine gives him a tired smile, and, once he’s come close enough, she falls forward, her forehead landing against Kanan’s chest with a soft thump. He laughs, a low, rumbling kind of sound, and brings one hand up to the back of her head. “Trouble sleeping?”

Sabine shakes her head against him. “Yeah, ‘bit,” she tells him. She bumps her tea against his stomach. “So, tea.”

Kanan nods, though she can’t see it. The smell of rek tea floats up to him, bringing with it a memory, unbidden, of sleepless nights a lifetime ago. Kanan hums softly, and runs his fingers through Sabine’s hair. There’s some tangles in the back of it, and he works his fingers slowly through them. Sabine sighs deeply, and Kanan stifles another laugh.

“Okay, let’s get you back to bed, kiddo,” he says. He curls his hands around her shoulders to guide her weight back onto her own feet, and he keeps a hand on her back as he walks her down the hall to her room. 

Sabine’s room is always a riot of colors, though it’s much dimmer in the dark, the art on the walls turned more into shadowy shapes. There’s a mess of things on the floor by her desk, but the walk to the bed is clear. 

Kanan takes her mug when she sits heavily on the bed, and he huffs with a laugh when she mashes her face into her pillow with a sigh. “Yeah, okay,” he says softly, fondly, and he reaches to the foot of the bed for her blanket, tugging it up and around her.

He runs a hand over her shoulder when he’s done, feeling the way she’s relaxed into the bed. One brown eye peers up at him from a cocoon of sheets and blankets, squinted and fuzzy. “Thanks,” Sabine tells him, already mostly asleep. “Love you, g’ night.” 

Kanan pushes her hair back from her face, runs a thumb over her forehead. “Love you, too, kiddo.” 

 

—

 

Ezra might have found sleep on his third night, but Kanan finds it elusive. He makes his way to the kitchen, the smell of Sabine’s tea lingering on his tongue, guiding him to make one for himself.

He lets his mind drift while the kettle heats on the stove, leaning back against the counter. 

The Force roils around him; since the moment he saw Ezra running through the streets, he's felt it more strongly than he has in a long time, thoughts past and present and future twisting up into trepidation, a tentative thrill of excitement. 

He never expected he'd find another so strong in the Force, like this. It's been so long since he's been around another with Jedi-like sensitivity, and Ezra's thoughts are loud, his signature like a solar fire. He lets a little bit of his own signature reach for Ezra’s, lets Ezra seep into his mind. It’s new, and it’s old, this feeling—it’s the opposite of what he had all those years ago. He thinks of Master Billaba, her perpetually calming presence, and misses her a little more than usual. Aches with it just a little more. 

Hera comes into the room, then, the sound of the door hydraulics startling Kanan out of his thoughts, out of the Force. She's looking at him critically, the skin just above her nose wrinkled in thought. 

"You okay, love?" she asks, coming to the sink, taking two mugs from the drying rack on the counter beside it. Kanan shifts, coming back into his body, stretching out his joints as the kettle whistles on the stove. 

"Yeah," he tells her softly, watching her hands as she sets the cups down next to him. "Just—thinking." 

"Don't hurt yourself," Hera tells him, voice soft and teasing, bumping their hips together. Kanan snorts quietly, shaking his head. 

"It's just—" He stops, unsure where he's going, and stays silent as Hera pulls the tea leaves out from the cabinet, fills both mugs with water. 

“Here,” she murmurs, and Kanan accepts the one she offers him, steam dampening his face as the old, familiar, faintly aching smell of rek fills his nose. 

"Ezra," Kanan says, and Hera hums. "It's just—" 

"New?" she offers, after a moment, and Kanan shakes his head. 

“It’s new, it’s old, but it's also just—so much bigger than that," he tells her. "It's—it's nothing I ever thought I'd feel again," he admits, voice quiet. He turns to Hera, meets her soft gaze, and he's certain his eyes are glassy, his whole body heavy with memory. "It's him, and me, and all the things he makes me remember, and—Hera, I'm terrified." 

Hera reaches for his face, cupping his cheek with one hand, her palm warm from holding her tea. She runs her thumb over his cheekbone, and she radiates comfort, the kind Kanan always wants to sink into and never come out of. 

"Oh, my love," she murmurs. "We'll be alright." Kanan's eyelashes brush her fingertips when he lets his eyes close. "He'll be alright. We got him first." 

———

Ezra follows Kanan off the ship and into Lothal’s early dawn, yawning softly and rubbing at his eyes. Dew drops still cover the grass beyond the small clearing they're in, the air cool, and the sky is still the soft blues and pinks of pre-sunrise. 

Kanan turns his face to the sky for a moment, letting his eyes close briefly, and takes a deep, slow breath, stretching his feeling out to the trees in the far fields, the cats still sleeping in the caves out at the edges of the mountains, the low beat of Lothal’s signature. The sun warms him, seeping into his skin, bringing with it memories of the Crèche, of morning meditations with Master Billaba—but today, now, it doesn’t hurt beyond a bittersweet nostalgia for things passed.

"Kanan?" Ezra says, tentative, and Kanan turns to him. "What are you doing?" 

Kanan gives him a soft smile. "Waking up," he says. "Stretching." He sets down the water bottle and the fruit he’s brought for their morning snack, and gestures Ezra closer. "Come here, I'll show you." 

He sits down in the short grass, feels the dampness of the dirt through the backs of his thighs when he folds his legs into and over one another. He pats the ground in front of him, looking at Ezra. “Have a seat.”

Ezra’s watching him, eyes wide and skeptical, and Kanan allows himself a soft smile. There is a gentle thrill thrumming through his veins at the prospect of sharing the Force with another sensitive being again, and a different, softer thrill at showing this to Ezra, showing him the Force, showing him the true strength, the true power he has. At getting to share this connection with him. 

Ezra copies his pose and peers at Kanan. “You’re—happy,” he observes. “I—I can feel it.” He looks down at his hands, his tone surprised. 

“Yes,” Kanan tells him. “I’m excited to share this with you. It’s…been a long time, for me, since I’ve done this.”

Ezra makes a little humming sound, and his hesitancy fades away. He copies Kanan’s pose. “What is this, anyway?”

“Mediation,” Kanan says. He rests his palms over his knees, and lets his eyes close. “This is the best way to feel your connection with the Force.”

“Right,” Ezra says. Kanan peeks at him through one squinted eye. 

“Close your eyes, Ezra,” he prompts, and holds back his laugh when Ezra suddenly sits up straighter, quickly closing his eyes.

“Right, okay,” Ezra mutters. Kanan closes his eyes again, fond smile on his lips. 

“Relax, kiddo,” Kanan tells him. “That’s the whole point of this.” He takes a deep breath and hears Ezra copy him. “Open your mind to the things around you. To the Force. Feel the grass and soil beneath you; feel the slow, growing warmth of the sun on your skin; feel the stirring of the cats, the birds.”

“What’s it supposed to feel like?” Ezra asks him in a whisper. Kanan laughs, reaches blindly for Ezra’s knee. 

“It feels like connection,” Kanan says. He finds Ezra’s signature easily in the Force, tugs lightly against it. “It feels like—breathing. Like home.”

Ezra shifts his fingers under Kanan’s hand, moving two to loop over Kanan’s. Kanan listens as Ezra takes another deep breath, and then—all at once, Ezra appears before him, his signature changing in an instant from a distant star to a blazing supernova. He’s blinding, this close and this open, and it’s brilliant. He’s stronger than Kanan could have ever guessed, his signature throwing tendrils far enough to try and encircle the planet. Kanan finds himself wrapped up in it, by way of being this close, and it’s overwhelming, it’s exhilarating, it’s everything he hasn’t allowed himself to miss since his home was ripped away. 

He takes a breath and it catches in his throat, stutters out over a sob, tears falling freely down his cheeks as he lets himself feel this connection to Ezra, to the Force, such deep feelings of joy and sorrow crashing over him so heavily, so suddenly, that his body cannot possibly contain it.

And then, just as Ezra had appeared to him, he disappears, sucking light and warmth back into himself, and Kanan is gasping, reeling, falling forward and reaching for him before he realizes it, half stuck in the Force, half in memory—memory of Master Billaba, in one moment shining steady and bright in the back of his mind, and, in the next, snuffed out without warning, ripped from him suddenly, viciously.

“Kanan!” Ezra’s calling, shouting his name as he clutches at Kanan’s shoulders, catching him before they both tumble back into the grass, shaking him a little. “Kanan! Kriff, Kanan!”

Kanan scrambles for Ezra, curls fists into his loose shirt, meets his gaze, blinking heavily as the haze fades, as the memory fades. He comes back into his body in a series of sensations—the damp grass underneath him, the warm sun on his skin, Ezra’s fingers digging into his arms. 

Ezra’s face comes into focus before him, his eyes wide and his mouth curved in a frown. 

“What the hell was that?” Ezra asks. He sounds—afraid. He lets go of Kanan’s arms slowly, shifts so he’s sitting beside Kanan, their knees pressed together. 

Kanan rubs his hands over his face. “Sorry, kiddo,” he says quietly. “That was my fault. I didn’t—that was just…unexpected.”

“Sure, that’s one word for it,” Ezra scoffs, and Kanan watches him scrub a hand at his eyes. He hadn’t realized Ezra’d cried. “Kanan, I could feel it. You were—terrified. Devastated.”

“Yeah,” Kanan murmurs. He watches the sunrise for a moment. This was bound to happen, right? Training Ezra in the Force means Kanan dealing with everything that brings up—with the memories, the regrets, the guilt, the sorrow. This is why he thought Master Luminara would be better; someone more graceful. More—healed. A real master, not just a padawan that got away. 

Well I don’t want the best teacher, says Ezra’s voice in his memory, I want you.

He turns to Ezra to find the boy is already watching him, waiting. He sighs. “If we’re really going to do this—there’s some things you should probably know. About me, and about the Jedi, and the Empire, and—everything that’s happened.”

Ezra sits up a little straighter, leans in a little closer. Kanan brings a hand to his shoulder, looks at him. “Listen,” he says, serious. “It’s not a happy story. Okay? If it gets too much, you tell me.”

“I want to know,” Ezra tells him, quiet, confident. “If I’m going to be a Jedi, I should know the history.” He pauses for a moment, looking out at the sky, before his head tilts, landing on Kanan’s shoulder. “I don’t want you to feel like that again,” he murmurs. “And if telling me about it will help, then—I want to help.”

Kanan brings his arm up around Ezra’s shoulders, pulling him in tighter. “You’re already helping,” he says, low and soft, and meaning it down to his bones. “Just being here. You’re helping.” 

———

“Hey.”

Kanan looks up from staring into his tea to look at Ezra, standing in the doorway of the kitchen. He sits back in the booth, rests an arm over the back. “Hey, kiddo,” he says. “You okay?”

There’s been a low, somber note in Ezra’s signature since Kanan told him about the fall of the Jedi a couple weeks ago. He feels—weird about it, maybe. Ezra wanted to know, and Kanan agrees that he deserved to know, but he feels bad, maybe, about putting all that emotional weight on Ezra’s shoulders. About putting that chord of melancholy in his signature for so long. 

He understands, though, too. Once you know it—all of it—it feels like moving on is impossible. 

But it’s not. Kanan’s done it.

Ezra hums. He’s got one of Kanan’s t-shirts on over a pair of sweats, and Kanan’s heart hurts at how young he looks. Too young to know what he knows. To have seen what he’s seen for himself, here on Lothal. He shuffles over to the booth and slides himself across the seat until he can tuck himself into Kanan’s side, his head resting on Kanan’s chest.

Kanan smiles down at the top of his head, lets his arm fall from the back of the booth to curl around Ezra’s body. He feels Ezra’s weight rest more heavily against him, feels the heavy sigh that moves through him. He thinks back to a couple years ago, to sitting like this with Sabine, when she’d let him hold her until the weight on her shoulders had become easier to carry.

Some things, he notes with a kind of pride, a kind of sadness, seem to stay the same. 

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Ezra tells him, almost a whisper, like he’s afraid to admit it. “Like—it all already happened and I can’t do anything about it but it’s just so—so—”

“Yeah,” Kanan agrees in a murmur. He rubs his hand over Ezra’s arm. “It’s a lot.”

“And, kriff, you lived it,” Ezra says, muffled into Kanan’s shirt. “How do you handle it? How do you…?”

Kanan’s smile is a sad sort of thing. “How do I get up every day?” he finishes, and Ezra hums an agreement. “Years of practice, I guess,” Kanan tells him. “But—kiddo, it gets better. I promise it does.”

“But does it, really? The Empire is still in control, still hunting down the Jedi—”

Kanan holds Ezra tighter. “Ezra, listen to me,” he says, his voice gone heavy, serious. “What we’re doing every day is an effort to fight the Empire, to make the galaxy a better place, and that—that is the legacy of the Jedi. Everyone we lost lives on in the things we do. We remember them, and we mourn them, and we keep living our lives. Everything we do is an echo of the people we love.”

He feels Master Billaba’s ghost then more strongly than he can ever remember. He almost feels like, if he looks away from where he’s blinking at the ceiling, he’ll see her sitting on Ezra’s other side, that perpetual, soft, fond smile for him spread across her face—now for Ezra, too.

Grand-master, he thinks, remembering their conversation with Master Windu a lifetime ago, and he can’t help the wet laugh that makes its way from his throat. Fuck. Sometimes he wonders if she’d be proud of him, but—he knows. 

He knows.

“Besides,” Kanan says, shaking Ezra’s shoulders just a little. Neither comment on the way his voice is thick, sticking in his throat. “It wasn’t all bad.”

Ezra makes a disbelieving sound, and Kanan shakes his head. “Before all that, before the Empire and everything that happened,” he says. “Those are the days we should remember the most.”

Those perfect, golden days, filled with Master Billaba’s laugh and Master Yoda’s wisdom and the Temple that thrummed with life, with the Force, with the ghost of every Jedi that had come before.

Ezra huffs. “Well you didn’t tell me about those days,” he says, mock-offended, and Kanan sighs. 

“No, you’re right,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s easy to forget about them, in the weight of everything that happened after. Sometimes it makes it harder to remember them, to talk about them.”

The little cube that’s been sitting, unassuming, on the table next to his mug calls out to him, then, and he lets a nostalgic kind of smile take over his face. “But I can just show you, instead,” he says, reaching to the Force to twist the corners of the holocron. Ezra sits up, though he stays close, watching the holocron with rapt attention. 

“What is that?”

“It’s called a holocron,” Kanan says as it opens before them. “It’s kind of like a datapad, but—more. It has lectures and lightsaber form guides and all sorts of resources like that, but—” Kanan pauses, filtering through the files. There’s so many he wants to show Ezra—holos of the Temple, of Master Billaba, of the younglings he grew up with, of this whole life he lived what feels like so long ago—and, for a moment, it feels impossible to decide on which to start with. 

He comes to a stop on one and—of course. 

“Watch,” he murmurs to Ezra, and a holo pops up in the air. 

 

It’s him, holding the camera towards himself, chopping off part of his face in the process.

“This is Caleb Dume,” he says, and grins. “And this is my holocron! Can you believe it! Master Billaba gave it to me, because all padawans get one, and—I just can’t believe it! A padawan! ”

Kanan doesn’t really remember this day, but—but that’s what holos are for, right? So much has faded with time and trauma. He’s never been more grateful for these little videos than now, though, as he watches Ezra watch it, the blue light flickering over his face.

“Caleb?” Ezra repeats, turning to Kanan with an eyebrow raised.
Kanan nods. “Yeah, that’s me.” He thinks about explaining, but—the point of this is to linger in the good stuff. He’s sure Ezra can assume, anyway.

 

“Who are you talking to, child? ” comes a feminine voice from off camera, and Kanan lets it wash over him. It’s been years and years and years, but she still feels like home; her voice, her presence, almost—but not quite—as calming in a holo as it had been in person.

Caleb glances back at the camera. “Just doing an intro video for my holocron,” he says. The camera turns, and there is Master Billaba, her arms tucked into her sleeves, crossed in front of her. “That’s my master, Master Billaba,” Caleb says, then, louder, “Say hi, Master! ”

“Hello, padawan,” she says, and, now, Kanan can hear the indulgence, the fondness that coats her tone. 

“Master Billaba is the best,” Caleb says, quieter, like he doesn’t want her to overhear. “Some of the other younglings don’t think so, but I don’t care, because I know I’m right. She makes me tea and meditates with me every morning and doesn’t care that I ask a million questions. ”

The camera catches the way Depa’s face goes soft and fond as Caleb talks, and, Force, Kanan gets it now. He holds Ezra a little tighter.

“I also let you stay up far too late, child,” she laughs, coming in closer. “You’re always chatty when you’re ready to sleep.”

“Says you,” Caleb says, petulant the way only a child can be, and the camera shakes a little. When it’s turned back around, it’s a shot of Depa sitting against the headboard of Caleb’s mattress. 

“Come and sit with me,” she says, holding her hand out. Caleb doesn’t hesitate, the camera moving with him as he climbs across the bed to tuck into her side. “That’s better, hm? ” she says, and a few moments later, Caleb’s gone quiet, and now Depa’s holding the camera. “I’m very lucky to have you,” she says, a murmur, and then the video stops, the holo shutting down. 

 

Ezra sits against him, quiet for a while, and Kanan waits for him to speak, fidgeting with the hairs at the back of Ezra’s head. “She reminds me of you,” Ezra says, eventually, and—fuck. Kanan chokes a little. Out of all the things he’d expected Ezra to say, that had not even crossed his mind, and it hurts just as much as it fills him with pride. “Thank you for showing me,” Ezra adds, and fucking Force, Kanan loves this kid.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, resting his nose on the top of Ezra’s head for a moment. “There’s plenty more where that came from,” he says, shaking the heaviness from himself. “See for yourself.”

Ezra shifts. “Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Kanan laughs, jostling him a little. “Reach out, find the holocron in the Force. Control it. Ask it to show you something.”

Ezra hums. Kanan waits, watching him, waiting to see what video the holocron will choose for him.

Except, Ezra’s sitting up. “Actually—” he says, reaching for the holocron, holding it in his hands as the holo pops up with a recording screen. “I have a better idea.” 

Kanan watches with his voice stuck in his throat as Ezra points the camera at himself.

“This is Ezra Bridger,” he says, and his gaze flicks up to Kanan as he turns the camera around. He smiles. “And this is my master, Kanan Jarrus. Say hi, Master.”

The words hello, padawan sit too heavy on his tongue to come out. “You’re something special, kiddo,” he says instead, thick, his eyes burning, and, “I’m very lucky to have you.”

The holocron gets smushed between them when Kanan pulls Ezra in for a hug, but the mic still picks it up when Kanan says, low and full of fondness, “Thank you, padawan.”

 

 

———

 

 

Notes:

thank you for reading!! i just love them so much 😭

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of oh, all we have is each other