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Ezra stopped in his tracks, his eyes locking onto the man speaking to Master Billaba at the other end of the corridor.
Kenobi.
His face and voice and Force signature were burned into Ezra’s mind. He couldn’t forget the pain that had consumed his mind as the bond with his master had broken.
“Hey,” Caleb said, his voice cutting through the storm in Ezra’s mind. “Are you okay?”
Ezra didn’t respond. He couldn’t remember how, and he didn’t know what he could say, anyway. His mind, like his gaze, was fixated on Kenobi.
“Ezra.”
Ezra jumped as Caleb’s hand rested on his shoulder. He shrank closer to Caleb, his eyes never leaving the other Jedi.
“Oh,” Caleb said, realizing where Ezra was looking. “It’s okay. We can come back later.”
Ezra shook his head. He wasn’t going to run and hide. He could face the man who’d killed his master.
And then Kenobi looked back at him.
Ezra’s shoulders stiffened, his breath catching in his throat as the Jedi’s eyes met his. His hand closed tightly around Caleb’s as bitter fear and hatred swelled up in his chest, wrapping around his throat and pulling tight like a rope. There was a burning behind his eyes and something was tugging at his arm. He barely registered that he was moving until he realized that Caleb had pulled him into another corridor.
“Ezra,” Caleb said, kneeling down to his eye level. “Can you hear me?”
Ezra nodded slowly. He raised one hand and wiped it across his eyes. He stared down at the tears on his hand, everything else blurring away.
“Ezra.”
At the sound of his name, his head snapped up. As he met Caleb’s gaze, his eyes began burning again and a lump formed in his throat. His jaw trembled for a moment before the tears came again, harder this time, blurring his vision and streaming down his face.
“Hey,” Caleb said, pulling Ezra into a tight hug. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Ezra was shaking as he buried his face in Caleb’s shoulder. He could barely feel Caleb’s arms around him. There was only his anger, burning and twisting around inside of him.
“I hate him,” Ezra choked out. “I hate him!”
Caleb’s hand moved in slow, soothing circles on Ezra’s back.
“I know it’s hard to see Master Kenobi,” Caleb said. “It’s okay. No one expects you to –”
“N—not him,” Ezra said, his voice shaking. He realized too late that Caleb had still been speaking, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about the consequences for interrupting.
Ezra could sense Caleb’s confusion and clung to him even tighter, sheer terror of…something, he wasn’t sure what, flooding his mind.
“It’s okay,” Caleb said. “You can talk to me.”
“M—my master,” Ezra said, his voice breaking. “I – I hate him! H—he left me!”
“Oh, Ezra,” Caleb said softly, pulling away and resting a hand on each of Ezra’s shoulders. “He didn’t.”
“Yes, he did!” Ezra cried.
He knew what Caleb meant, and he didn’t care. All that matter was that Maul was gone, that Maul had locked him away and then he’d felt their bond splintering and snapping while he screamed and pleaded with his master not to break it. Maul had left him chained up in that cell and now he was gone, leaving behind a hole in Ezra’s mind where that bond had been for longer than he could remember.
He threw his arms around Caleb’s neck, sobbing into his shoulders once again. Through the haze of pain clouding his mind, he could vaguely sense Caleb’s hesitation and the faintest thread of anger, hidden so quickly that Ezra almost missed it. Even as he mentally shrank back, Ezra didn’t let go of Caleb. He couldn’t.
“He didn’t choose to leave you,” Caleb said.
For reasons he couldn’t even begin to understand, Ezra began to cry harder. He didn’t care if Maul didn’t abandon him on purpose. He was still gone, forever, and there was still an empty, echoing, screaming void in his mind where his connection to his former master had once been. Where his whole life had once been.
“It’s okay,” Caleb said softly.
“No,” Ezra sobbed, wrenching himself away from Caleb as his stomach tied itself in knots. Caleb shouldn’t be comforting him over this. He didn’t deserve it. It was stupid and childish and didn’t even make sense. “It’s not. I shouldn’t care. I should be glad he’s gone!”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed and Ezra’s heart skipped a beat as he wondered if Caleb was angry with him.
“Who told you that?” Caleb asked.
“N—no one,” Ezra said, his voice shaking. “B—but it’s true, right?”
“No,” Caleb said gently. “It’s not.”
“But he – he –”
Ezra’s voice broke off and he hugged his arms around himself, staring down at the floor in front of him. Maul had spent seven years hurting him, torturing him, twisting him into this broken, disgusting shell of a person. Even if he didn’t remember it, Maul had kidnapped him and killed his parents, and he was crying about the fact that he would never see Maul again.
“He raised you,” Caleb said, gently resting a hand on Ezra’s shoulder again. “I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it must be to lose the only life you’ve ever known, even if it was scary and painful. So much has had to change for you so fast, and whatever you feel about it isn’t wrong.”
Ezra took a step back, shrinking away from Caleb’s touch as his arms tightened around himself.
“He didn’t choose to leave you, Ezra,” Caleb said. “And it wasn’t your fault.”
“If I wasn’t bad, he wouldn’t have had to lock me up,” Ezra said, his voice shaking. “I – I could have done something.”
“What he did to you wasn’t your fault, either,” Caleb said. “It wasn’t because you were bad. It was because he wanted to hurt you. Nothing you did could have justified it.”
Ezra bit down on his lower lip as he tried to stop his tears from falling. He wanted to believe Caleb. He did. But he still heard Maul’s voice echoing in his mind, telling him he deserved this, that he was never going to amount to anything without discipline.
“I promise, it wasn’t your fault, Ezra,” Caleb said.
Still shaking, Ezra took a step forward. He hesitated for a moment before sliding his arms around Caleb’s neck again, terrified that he would just be pushed away in spite of Caleb’s words. Caleb pulled him close before standing up, lifting Ezra with him.
Ezra kept his face buried in Caleb’s shoulder, quietly crying as Caleb carried him back to his room.