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It couldn’t. stop. pacing.
For two weeks now, it had been locked up in this room. This cell, even if no one on this ship would refer to it as such. Sure, this cell was more comfortable than the one it was used to staying in on Nur, but it was still a cell. Still a cage.
The crew of the Ghost had been kinder to it than anyone should be to a prisoner. They allowed it out of the cell sometimes and had provided it with a datapad for entertainment (all communications disabled, of course). They fed it. The only time that any of them laid a hand on it was when it attacked first, and even then, they went out of their way not to hurt it too badly. All of it seemed to be part of their plan to convince it that they cared.
And it was starting to wonder if they really did. There was never a crack in the façade, never anything to indicate that they saw it as an enemy. Either they were all brilliant actors, or they weren’t lying.
Then there was the holo. It couldn’t deny that it was the boy. And Sabine had confirmed that when she gave it that drawing of the loth-cat. But everything it had ever been taught screamed at it to reject the idea. It wasn’t someone’s friend. It wasn’t a member of this crew. It was a weapon, property of the Empire.
It was nothing.
No one could ever care about it the way these people pretended to.
It barely registered the knock on the door, sounding like something far away. Only when the door slid open did it stop moving and look up.
Kanan Jarrus stood just outside the door. Just a week ago, the weapon might have made a break for it, trying to force its way past the man. But the Jedi would stop it from escaping. It knew that now.
“Can I come in?”
It nodded, even though it didn’t understand why the Jedi was asking for permission. Maybe that was part of the act. Either way, it didn’t want to find out what would happen if it said no.
“I think I know how to help you remember,” the Jedi said as he stepped into the room.
The weapon crossed its arms, letting out a quiet huff. All the Jedi ever seemed to talk about was helping it remember. As far as it was concerned, there was nothing to remember. Even if the Jedi was telling the truth and it had been something (someone) once, none of that mattered. It wasn’t that person anymore.
The Jedi took another step toward it, and the weapon stood its ground. Jarrus extended his closed fist, his fingers opening to reveal something resting on his palm.
“A kyber crystal?” it asked, staring down at the small, shimmering sliver of rock. There was something about the crystal that made it want to reach out and touch it. It tucked its hands further under its arms, resisting the urge.
“It’s your kyber crystal,” Jarrus said.
The weapon shook its head. Its kyber crystal (or rather, the crystal in the lightsaber its masters allowed it to use – nothing actually belonged to it) glowed with a bright, blood red light. This one was paler, a faint blue glow surrounding it.
“Take it.”
As the Jedi spoke, that urge to reach for the crystal grew stronger. It couldn’t take its eyes off the stone. Without even realizing it, the weapon untucked one hand from beneath its arm, its fingers flexing slightly.
“I can’t.” Even as it said the words, it could feel the crystal's insistent pull. The kyber wanted to be near it. Terror seized its heart in a way that was painfully familiar, though it couldn’t remember ever feeling so afraid before.
Its hand was shaking, moving as if something else controlled it, as the weapon reached for the crystal. For a moment, its fingers hovered just an inch away from the crystal as it fought to pull its hand back. Before it could force itself to move, the crystal jumped toward it like a scrap of metal pulled toward a magnet.
The moment the crystal touched its skin, a flood of something crashed through the weapon’s mind. It gasped, only for that flood to grow stronger, pouring into its lungs, drowning it.
A tiny ball of glowing light slowly descending toward it.
It couldn’t breathe. A vice closed around its chest, squeezing and squeezing until it could feel its ribs creaking and groaning.
A Jedi you may yet be.
It was falling. Something heavy struck its knees as it gasped for breath, desperate for air that wouldn’t come.
A hand on its shoulder a warm smile a soft feeling of ComfortLoveConcernPride…
Its free hand curled into a fist, slamming against the side of its head. A distant voice called for it to stop but it couldn’t. It needed to hurt, needed to drive the visions out of its head.
What’s a kyber crystal?
It’s a lightsaber crystal.
It cried out as a hand closed tightly around its shoulder. The scream was barely audible, sounding more like a strangled yelp from a half-dead animal than a human voice. As the weapon opened its eyes, it found it was on its knees, face to face with the Jedi. Gasping for air, it pulled away, barely even noticing as its back hit the wall.
“Just breathe,” Jarrus said. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. Just breathe.”
It flinched, pressing its back hard against the wall. How was it supposed to breathe when its chest was being crushed so tight it could barely feel anything?
“G-get away,” it gasped. “Please. Please just –”
It squeezed its eyes shut, desperate to just make this room and the Jedi disappear. The edges of the kyber crystal dug into its palm as if to remind it of those flashes of something that had appeared in its mind. That sense of pride slithered around its head, infecting everything it touched. The feeling was so familiar, bearing the signature of the same Jedi that was holding it prisoner.
But it wasn’t possible. It wasn’t. No one had ever felt that way about it. No one ever would. Especially not a Jedi.
When it opened its eyes once more, a quiet whimper escaped its throat. It threw the crystal, sending it skittering across the floor. It couldn’t hold onto that thing for even one second longer.
“Ezra.” The Jedi’s voice was so gentle it made the weapon want to scream. He hesitated, and it could feel the man’s anxiety and concern pressing up against its mind. The Jedi’s feelings were so much…clearer than they’d been before, as if a heavy veil had been pulled away. “Do you remember?”
Its eyes locked onto the crystal, lying abandoned on the durasteel floor. An overwhelming sense of guilt rose up inside it. Why had it done that?
Slowly, each movement feeling like an impossible task, it shook its head. No, he shook his head. He shook his head because it was the answer he knew to be true, not the one someone else wanted him to give.
He didn’t remember. Not the way the Jedi wanted him to. He remembered the crystal settling into his hand, and the Jedi’s pride and love reaching out to him. But that was all. Nothing else of his former life remained.
“Am I – am I really him?” His voice broke and he could feel a distinctive, unmistakable wetness trailing down his cheeks. The last time he’d cried was just another thing he couldn’t remember.
“You are,” Kanan said. “You’re Ezra Bridger. My Padawan. My –” A tremor slipped into his voice just before he cut himself off. “You are not an Inquisitor or a weapon or some tool for the Empire to use. You’re a Jedi.”
Where the words would have repulsed and enraged him just minutes before, now he felt something warm flicker to life inside his chest. Tears continue to stream down his cheeks as he reached out, calling the kyber crystal back to his hand. As it rested on his palm, he held it close, practically cradling it against his chest. Now that he knew it was his, he could feel its song, vibrating within it, calling to him.
“You were there,” he said. “When I found it.”
“Yeah.” Kanan’s voice was still shaking, as if he was about to break apart at any second. “I was so proud of you.”
Slowly, Ezra looked up. He only managed to force himself to look at the Jedi for a few seconds before he flinched and looked away again. That powerful sense of familiarity hurt like a knife plunging into his gut.
“What happens now?” he asked.
Kanan’s hand rested on his shoulder, and this time, Ezra didn’t want to pull away. He never wanted to pull away again.
“Now, we can focus on being a family again,” Kanan said. The word made that flicker in Ezra’s chest grow even warmer. “On helping you heal.”
“What if I never remember?”
“We’ll do everything we can to help you remember,” Kanan said, his hand tightening around Ezra’s. “But if you don’t, what matters is that you’re safe. The Inquisitors are never going to hurt you again.”
The tears flowed freely down Ezra’s cheeks now. He knew Kanan couldn’t really promise that. And Kanan knew it too. But right now, he didn’t care.
He finally understood that this place was his home. And that was all that mattered.