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Cal used to meditate nearly every day. Even in the midst of war, there was no better way to relax and center himself than closing his eyes and sinking willingly into the arms of the Force. Often his master was beside him, a strong, guiding presence. Around them moved the familiar senses of the clone troopers they lead. Further out, the plants and animals and native sentients of whatever planet they were currently stationed on. And even beyond that, distant and constant as the bright points of stars, the sense of thousands of fellow Jedi spread throughout the galaxy.
Then, even with death and violence all around him, Cal could always find a moment of peace. Feeling at one with the galaxy, feeling your true place, how small you are against all of that might have scared some people, made them feel insignificant, but not Cal. He liked knowing he was part of something bigger, being able to truly see what he was fighting for. Never ever feeling truly alone.
The Force feels different now. Now that he's off of Bracca and able to touch it again without fear of bringing an Inquisitor down on he and his friends (that ship has flown, and painfully, after all), it feels so empty, so dead. Nearly all of those Jedi lights have been snuffed out, and it's like he's staring at black sky. It feels wrong in a way that makes his skin crawl. He feels so very alone.
Sure, he sometimes catches another flicker. Always distant, always brief. Impossible to tell if it's the last spark of someone's life, a last explosive flash of desperation. Cal knows the Inquisitorius does its job well. Impossible, too, to track the source of such flickers with his limited abilities. Impossible to offer help.
The hardest part is knowing the Force itself hasn't actually changed. The energy field exists as it always has and always will as long as there is life in the galaxy. The Jedi were neither it's creators nor its sole users. It existed long before the earliest iteration of their order and still exists now – now that they're gone.
No, not gone entirely, Cal thinks fiercely. He lives. Cere lives. There are others out there, and they will find them. The Order will rise again.
The emptiness is still frightening, but it's not quite as bad now that he has Cere. She's not like his master, their relationship isn't the same, but he's so overwhelmingly relived to not be alone anymore, to have someone to show him the way. Often when he mediates now, he finds himself circling her presence like a moth to candlelight. Almost always, she reaches back to him, a soft brush of minds, a quiet reassurance.
It made him cry the first time, alone in the Stinger Mantis's crew quarters. It had been years since he'd connected with another person that way, and the shear relief was overwhelming. He'd loved his friends on Bracca – none of them had ever known how they'd kept him alive and sane, especially at first – but he could never connect with them like he could another Jedi.
Cere isn't always the warm and fuzzy type, but he knows she understands. After all, hasn't she been alone and hiding and afraid all these years too? Doesn't she reach for him just as often during the long days, the light brush against the back of his mind to check on him? She would hate to hear it, but in some ways he thinks this is what having a mother is like.
And the more she teaches him, the more the Force responds to his call, the stronger he feels, the more confident he becomes that they can really do this. The Force may be emptier now, the lack of Jedi aching like the silence in an empty room, but it won't be that way forever. The Jedi Order is coming back, and Cal and Cere are the start.