Chapter Text
He could still smell the burning flesh.
He had long since become used to the smells and sounds and the sheer terror that radiated through the Force when someone was cut down with a lightsaber, but he’d never been able to block them out enough to not notice them. Even now, hours later, the scent burned at the back of his nose and throat. He could still see the fear in the man’s eyes in the moment where he knew for certain that he was about to die.
Even though the ship was on autopilot, the Twelfth Brother was gripping the controls so tightly that his knuckles were nearly white. His eyes were unfocused as he stared through the viewport in front of him, looking toward the bright streaks of hyperspace, but not really seeing them. A small, insistent voice in the back of his mind told him to snap out of it, that he couldn’t drop his guard like this, but for the moment, he let himself ignore it. He could never show weakness like this in front of the others, but for now, he simply let it happen. Letting himself feel it helped him to remember.
The Twelfth Brother released his grip on the ship’s controls abruptly, as if he’d been burned. He sat back in his seat, pulling his knees up to his chest and hugging his arms around them, an old habit that he didn’t dare let himself fall back into unless he was truly alone. After six years, the others still saw him as a helpless child they could easily torment -- they’re right, a quiet voice in the back of his head reminded him -- and he didn’t want to give them anything else to reinforce that idea.
The Twelfth Brother -- no, no, no, that wasn’t his name, he didn’t have to think that here -- ran a hand through his short dark hair, sighing in frustration as he rested his forehead down on his knees. He drew in a long, deep breath, pushing away the shreds of his most recent mission that still clung to his mind like vines. He closed his eyes and mentally curled in on himself, sinking as far down into his own mind as he could.
He pictured it like a wall in his mind, with loose bricks. Behind one of those bricks, he’d hidden the things he wanted to keep safe from the others. My name is Ezra Bridger. My mother is Mira Bridger. My father is Ephraim Bridger. They fought for justice, for freedom, for the people who couldn’t fight for themselves. The Empire took me from them. Nothing else. There was nothing else that mattered. It wasn’t safe to think about these things often, but when he was alone, dispatched far away from the other Inquisitors, he could take that information out and hold onto it as tightly as he could until he inevitably had to hide it away again.
He hugged his arms even tighter around himself as he remembered the first night he’d spent in the cell after the Inquisitors had taken him from his parents. He’d spent that whole night and most of the day after it huddled against the wall, refusing to go near the bed and the restraints that lined it, crying until his eyes hurt and he could barely breathe.
Ezra cowered against the wall as the door opened, revealing the Mirialan who’d brought him there. When she tried to drag Ezra to his feet, he lunged forward and sank his teeth into her wrist. She let out a growl of disgust and anger as she slammed him against the wall, knocking his head back against the durasteel.
A loud, harsh beep cut through Ezra’s thoughts, pulling him back to the present before he was drawn too deep into the memory. Ezra glanced down at the ship’s controls. The sound had been an alert, telling him the ship was about to drop out of hyperspace.
Ezra slid his feet back to the floor and straightened his back. This happened far too often. He would get a brief chance to think about his parents or his old life, and all he could think about was the Inquisitors. He let out a small sigh and carefully hid those pieces of himself inside the wall in his mind.
He switched the ship back to manual control and began his descent toward Mustafar’s surface. As he reentered the atmosphere, he stared out at the viewport down at the lava below him. Once again, his hands tightened around the ship’s controls. Plunging the TIE fighter into the lava would be so easy…
It wasn’t the first time he’d had that thought, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. But he’d never tried. He’d never even seriously considered it. The thought would enter his head and be gone before he had the willpower to do anything more.
He set the TIE down on a landing platform outside a sprawling duracrete and metal building. For a moment, he closed his eyes, drawing in a long breath to clear his head and make sure all thoughts of his old life were still carefully hidden. Finally, once he’d decided he couldn’t delay this any longer, he stood up and climbed through the hatch at the top of the ship.
The air stung his eyes and burned in his throat and he couldn’t bring himself to care. After so many years on Mustafar, he’d become used to it. He resisted the urge to let his shoulders slump and hug his arms around himself as he walked toward the building’s entrance. In spite of the planet’s heat, a harsh, biting cold surrounded Ezra. It was a feeling he’d long since become familiar with; the cold of the dark side.
Ezra entered the facility and made his way through the dimly-lit corridors, keeping his hands at his sides and resisting the urge to trail a hand along the wall as he walked. He was alone now, but he still didn’t dare to do it. When he reached the briefing room, it was empty. He took his place in the corner and stood at attention, waiting.
He tried to keep his mind blank as the minutes dragged on, time passing slower and slower the longer he waited, but against his will his thoughts began to wander, thankfully never straying past the boundaries of what it was safe to think about.
The mission. Ezra couldn’t rid himself of the sight of the panic in the man’s eyes, the tears that clung to his lashes as he’d accepted that there was no way out. Ezra felt a bitter, slimy feeling rising in the back of his throat and quickly reigned his mind back in, refusing to let himself feel sympathy or regret. It just wasn’t safe. Not here, not where any one of the other Inquisitors could be close enough to know.
The door opened and Ezra’s back abruptly straightened. He didn’t even realize he’d fallen out of his rigid posture. Thankfully, the Grand Inquisitor either hadn't noticed or didn’t care. As the other Inquisitor entered the room, Ezra -- no, Twelfth Brother, that’s who you are, you have no name -- felt every muscle in his body tense and a cold sensation spread through his chest. Logically, he knew he’d done nothing wrong, but fear still gripped him as the Grand Inquisitor’s eyes locked onto him with that gaze that felt like he was looking right into the Twelfth Brother’s mind.
“Report,” the Grand Inquisitor said.
The Twelfth Brother swallowed nervously as he tried to find his voice. No matter how confident he was alone in the field, he seemed to shrink out of existence the moment he returned to this place and was forced to face one of the other Inquisitors.
“The mission was a success, Master,” the Twelfth Brother said, his voice flat and emotionless. He might have progressed far enough and passed enough of their tests to earn his own rank, but to him the others would always be “Master.” It was a not-so-subtle reminder of his true place in the hierarchy. “I eliminated the target and the witnesses --”
He cut himself off, biting back the next word he was about to say. His master didn’t need to hear anything more than what he’d already said. But he knew from the look the Grand Inquisitor gave him that he’d already heard the unspoken but that had almost followed.
The Twelfth Brother quickly dropped his gaze to the floor, trying to calm his frantic, panicked thoughts. He held onto a small sliver of hope that his master would just let this slide, but he knew that if he didn’t, panicking was only going to make things worse.
An unseen grip in the Force took hold of the Twelfth Brother, forcing his chin up until he was looking the Grand Inquisitor in the eye.
“Something else to say, boy?” the Pau’an asked. The Twelfth Brother tried not to shudder at how much the question sounded like a threat.
“I -- I don’t think he was a survivor,” the younger Inquisitor said. A sharp spike of fear cut through his chest as the Grand Inquisitor released him. He shouldn’t have said anything. He knew better.
“But he was Force sensitive?” It wasn’t really a question. Of course he was. The Twelfth Brother wouldn’t have been sent after him if he wasn’t.
“Yes.”
“Then it doesn’t matter,” the Grand Inquisitor said, his voice harsh and cold, as if he was scolding the younger man. “Force sensitives either serve the Empire or they are eliminated.”
His eyes moved quickly over the Twelfth Brother, as if he were searching for something.
“Surely I don’t need to teach you that lesson again.”
“No, Master,” the Twelfth Brother said quickly.
“Good,” the Grand Inquisitor said. “I’d hate to think you’d forgotten that.”
Fear coiled tightly in the Twelfth Brother’s chest. Once again, he tried to remind himself that he hadn't done anything wrong, but he knew that didn’t always matter.
“Return to your quarters,” the Grand Inquisitor said, abruptly dismissing him.
“Yes, Master.”
The Twelfth Brother left the room as quickly as he could without betraying the fear that pulsed under his heart. As he made his way through the corridors, he kept his back straight and his head up in an attempt to mask his fear.
Once he reached his quarters, he sat down on the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and running a hand through his hair as he let his shoulders slump. He couldn’t completely let himself go in here, but at least he could drop that rigid, overly-respectful posture when he was alone.
The room was little more than a cell, though at least there was no camera watching his every move like there had been on Arkanis. The door could even be locked from the inside and he could come and go as he pleased unless one of his masters locked him in. He was more than willing to take those small scraps of freedom and privacy. It was better than none at all.
That night he lay awake, staring up at the ceiling and periodically glancing toward the door. He couldn’t sense the presence of any of the other Inquisitors nearby, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was going to be left alone tonight. He’d made sure the door was locked, hoping that at least the sound of it unlocking would alert him if someone entered his cell while he slept. It happened less often here, but there had been more than enough nights on Arkanis where he’d been dragged from his bed while he slept, a training ‘saber being shoved into his hand as his only warning before an attack came.
The minutes dragged by, each one passing slower than the last, as the Twelfth Brother waited to see if sleep would come. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a peaceful night’s sleep. He only knew that it hadn't happened since before he and his parents had been arrested.
He bit down on his lower lip to pull himself out of those thoughts. He couldn’t think about his parents here, or his life before they were imprisoned. It wasn’t safe. But those thoughts wouldn’t leave him alone. No matter how deeply he shoved them down, they immediately rose back up to the surface as something pressed against the back of his mind.
No, he told himself. It’s not safe. It’s not…
The Twelfth Brother gasped and lunged to his feet, pain bursting through his chest, spreading out farther and growing stronger by the second. Ezra -- no, no, you have no name, no -- collapsed to the floor, throwing his hands out to break his fall and stop his head from slamming against the duracrete. Something was pounding through his chest and his head, the pain growing so strong his vision blurred until he couldn’t see.
“Mom,” he gasped, the word he hadn't spoken in years feeling like it was being pulled from his throat. “Dad.”
A surge of pain, stronger than anything he’d ever felt before, shot through him. Ezra reached out blindly, grabbing the thin blanket that lay on the bunk and shoving a corner of it between his teeth to muffle the scream that tore itself from his lungs.
As abruptly as it had started, the pain disappeared. Slowly, Ezra pulled the edge of the blanket from his mouth, still clutching at it in case the pain started again. He didn’t want any of the others to hear him screaming. He looked around the cell, blinking away the tears that stung at his eyes. He didn’t want to believe what he’d just felt. He wanted to let himself think it was just a cruel trick by one of his masters. But he knew it was real.
After surviving in that hellish prison for nearly nine years, his parents were dead.
Ezra -- he hurt too much to care that it wasn’t safe to even think of himself that way -- hugged his arms around himself, biting down on his lower lip in an attempt to muffle the sound of his crying. The hope that he might see them again one day, once he did well enough or passed enough tests or did something that gained him some shred of power in this place, had been what kept him alive in the first year since he’d been taken from them. That hope had quickly given way to rage and hatred for the Inquisitors, but it had still been there, waiting for him when it was safe for him to let himself feel it.
And now it was gone. Now they were gone.
Now, there was no reason for him to keep holding on.