Chapter Text
Ezra never did give up.
After he woke up with a haunting scream, one which Kanan would never forget, he stayed awake, thank the Force. He was loopy, and his memory came back in bits and pieces, but even without every detail Kanan knew he had gone through too much. But even now, that didn’t stop Ezra from cracking jokes about it all.
“Wait, so you’re telling me you saw my ingenious sign and you didn’t jump right in the water to find me? What if I had drowned!”
“Calm down kid,” Zeb replied. “We had other problems going on,” he teased.
“Yeah, and it wasn’t that ingenious,” Sabine added in.
“I’m unappreciated in my time,” Ezra said back, rolling his head on his pillow and throwing his arm up to his forehead.
With a swoosh, the door opened and the doctor stepped in. “Ah, I see you’re all here,” he said, and looked to Ezra and then back at the crew. “If you wouldn’t mind, I need to run a few tests in private.”
Kanan gave a quick glance to Ezra, suspicion rising. These private tests had been going on for a while, with no change in when Ezra would be released from the med bay.
“See ya later kid,” Zeb said, and he and Sabine left. Hera was on her way to follow them, but turned at the last second.
“Kanan?” she asked, but he kept his eye contact on his padawan, who wasn’t meeting his gaze.
The door closed, and Hera stayed in the room.
“What’s going on kid?” he asked, and finally Ezra looked him in the eyes, biting his lip. He glanced at the doctor, who sighed.
“You can’t hide it forever.” The doctor pulled out his data pad, clicked it a few times, and then approached Ezra. Kanan watched as his padawan moved the blanket that was covering the majority of his body. “Try again,” he continued, pulling out a device and scanning Ezra’s legs.
Ezra made his concentrated face, and Kanan felt Hera appear beside him. But he couldn’t take his eyes off of the doctor and Ezra interacting, and the pieces all fell into place.
“You can’t move your legs, can you?” Kanan asked. Hera’s hand went to cover her mouth.
“I can!” Ezra defended. “Just… not well.” Following his gaze, Kanan looked at Ezra’s feet. His right foot was wiggling his toes, but his left foot was still.
“Well, that is an improvement,” the doctor noted, turning the scanner off and putting away the data pad. “There seems to be some nerve damage that’s permanent, but you being able to move your toes now is a good sign. I think your right leg will recover to about 95 percent of full functionally. Your left leg, on the other hand, might cap at around 80 percent.”
“Ezra, why didn’t you tell us?”
“I’m sorry Hera. I… I didn’t want to worry you guys anymore.”
“Kid, we’re always gonna be worried about you.”
“I know, I know,” Ezra admitted. “But you guys all looked like shit when I came too. I was worried.”
“Language,” Kanan said, to which Ezra gave a shrug.
“Am I wrong though?”
“No,” Hera chimed in. It’s sweet of you to worry so much about us, Ezra. But just know you can always tell us if there’s a problem. We don’t want to be in the dark about anything.” Ezra just gave a small nod.
“We’re gonna get through this. Together.” Kanan smiled, and Ezra smiled back.
And they did.
There are still some days that, when Ezra ran off in excitement, Kanan could see the slight limp in his left leg. It always gave him a quick sucker punch to the gut in guilt. But, as Hera had told him multiple times before, and continues to tell him, it was a miracle Ezra could walk at all, and he should feel hope, not guilt.
And most days, he does.
Because despite everything, they made it through hell and back. And these days, all they had was hope, and each other.