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Chapter Text

 There have been scattered reports of surviving Jedi through the years, but generally they’ve been reports of their delayed deaths at the hands of the Empire. Every single one has cut through Jack like a saber blade to the gut.

Which is why he can’t, he can’t, he can’t just ignore this one.

“Davey,” Jack says, skidding into the hold on socked feet. “There’s a Jedi master in Imperial custody, and he’s alive. We have to go, we have to rescue him.”

“What?” says Davey. He looks up from his project – a sweater, it looks like, probably for Race who keeps putting holes in his elbows.

“There was a Holonet broadcast just now,” Jack says, slightly frantic, “where the Empire was showing off a newly captured Jedi survivor. I knew him! And he wasn’t even – Davey, Davey, love, he wasn’t even dead!”

“Surely he’s dead now,” Davey says slowly.

“They specifically said they weren’t killing him,” says Jack. He knows, he knows this is a long shot, doesn’t need Davey to tell him, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth investigating. “He’s going to a high-security prison.”

“Then it’s a trap,” Davey replies flatly.

Jack drops to his knees in front of Davey, sitting back on his heels. “I know. But I have to go, David. If there’s even a fraction of a chance that I could save him – I can’t let that opportunity slip through my fingers.” He shakes his head. “There are so few of us left.”

Davey sets his project aside, reaching over to skim his fingertips along Jack’s hairline before cupping his cheek. “I know, darling, I just –“

“You don’t have to come with me,” Jack says. “But I can’t – I can’t. I have to go, I have to try. I’m not the last one.” Despite the direness of the situation, he can’t help a smile at that thought. “And he’s a Master, a real one. Charlie could learn from someone competent.”

“Oh, Jack,” Davey says softly. “Of course we’re coming with you. And I’m sure that Charlie wouldn’t like to hear you talking down about his teacher; for all that he gives you trouble he’s quite fond of you.”

“I don’t need you to follow me on stupid quests,” says Jack, shaking his head again. “If you or the boys got hurt –“

“Jack,” Davey says, firm. “If you think for a moment that our boys and I would ever let you do anything this potentially dangerous without backup, you’ve got another thing coming. We’re your family.”

Jack turns his head to press a kiss to Davey’s palm. “Thank you. Let’s make a plan.”

--

They try to leave the boys behind.

The boys are having none of that, which is how they end up on approach to the planet where they are pretty sure Roosevelt is being held with the entire crew in tow.

Jack is just about shaking, anticipation and anxiety cutting through to his bones. Albert and Race are at the helm, and Jack trusts them as pilots but he can’t help wishing Davey were driving. But Davey isn’t driving because Davey is sitting with Jack, holding one of his hands and running his free hand up and down Jack’s arm.

This is, primarily, because no matter how many times Jack has parroted Kloppman’s lectures about grounding and steadiness to Charlie, he is for shit at actually doing any of it himself when it comes to a tense situation.

On approach, Jack feels something… strange in the Force. More a mix of a few strange things, arguably. One is the distant presence of someone Jack is pretty sure is Roosevelt, though it’s been a while since they were in a room together, but it feels off in a way Jack can’t quite place.

The other strange thing is a familiar echo, but the person it reminds Jack of can’t be here.

She’s dead.

Jack shakes his head, trying to clear it. He leans forward over Albert’s shoulder. “Land up there.”

“You got it, boss,” says Albert, nodding. He directs the Ghost the way Jack indicates.

“There,” Jack repeats.

“Jack, there’s another ship ahead, are you sure?”

“Is it Imperial?”

Race leans close to his monitor. “No, it doesn’t read Imp.”

“Then land,” Jack says. He knows, in the Force, that this is where they need to be. Albert doesn’t need telling again. They set down near the other ship, in the shadows of a mountain.

Jack leads the way out of the Ghost, his lightsaber deactivated but in hand. He motions for the others to follow him as quietly as possible.

There’s a figure near the other ship. Probably human female, at a guess, looking at a holomap of the nearby prison facility being projected by an R2 unit. She deactivates the projection, reaching for something at her hip.

In an instant, the figure has turned and moved toward the Ghost, igniting a pair of green lightsabers.

Between her turn toward the setting sun and the green glow of her sabers, her face is illuminated, revealing –

“Shit, Kath, is that you?” Jack blurts.

“Francis?” Kath replies, falling short and dropping her arms to the side, deactivating her blades as she does.

“Kath,” Jack repeats. He runs forward, sweeping her into his arms. “I thought I felt you here, but – Kath, I thought you were dead?”

“I thought you were dead!” Kath says. She lets Jack lift her off of her feet just a little bit, which is much harder now that they’re of a height than when they were kids and Jack had a few inches on her. “Fran, are you here for Roosevelt?”

Jack sets Kath down, nodding slowly. “Yeah, of course we are.”

That’s when Kath cues back into the wider scene; he can feel her tense back up both from their physical proximity and in the Force. “Who’s we?”

“My people,” Jack says, waving vaguely back toward the crew. “My partner, Davey, and our team – Race, Albert, and Charlie.” He smiles softly at Kath. “Charlie’s almost as strong in the Force as you; I’ve really got my hands full.”

“You’re training him?” Kath has always been able to cut right to Jack’s core.

“I’m trying to,” Jack admits. “Whatever I can do so that we don’t completely lose the culture. But I’m – well, you know better than anybody I’m not exactly qualified. Be nice if we can get Roosevelt out, and he can learn from an actual Master.”

Kath hums, her brows pushing together a bit in the center. “Are you sure our culture needs saving?”

“You would say that,” says Jack. “But we were always more than just the Council, weren’t we?”

“I hope we were,” says Kath.

“Anyway, you’re here to save Roosevelt, too, yeah?”

“Of course I am,” Kath replies, rolling her eyes. “I’m not the Council.”

Kath left the Order before the end of the war, after a series of controversial decisions that had ended with a padawan – a padawan, like them – abandoned to the mercy of the Senate when she was framed for an attack on Coruscant.

(If they could do that to Tano, how could we ever trust them to defend us, Fran?)

“It’d be easier together, don’t you think?” Jack suggests, with a half-glance back at where Davey and the boys are standing on the ramp. Davey looks like he’s physically holding Albert and Charlie back from darting over to him and Kath, though it’s just an arm across both of their chests without much force behind it.

“I think so,” Kath agrees.

Jack fills her in on their plan. They’re going to go in through a smaller access point, one they’re not expecting to be particularly heavily guarded. From there, it should be up a few floors to the isolation cells, where they can break Roosevelt out without too much fuss and then hopefully get out the same way they came in.

Should be easy.

Ish.

The beginning of the plan is pretty successful. They were right that their entry point only has a few troopers guarding it, which lets Jack and Kath jump down and clear the way without too much fuss.

They’ve left Davey with Les and the Phantom, hidden closer than the Ghost for a quick getaway when the time comes without the bulk of the whole freighter.

While Charlie slices into the system to confirm Master Roosevelt’s location, Jack rocks back on his heels and studies Kath. She looks different than the last time he saw her – which is understandable, of course, since it’s been fifteen years and they’ve both grown into themselves.

Her hair is short now, cut bluntly just below her chin. She has two tight braids woven across the top of her head ending in little ponytails that are bound with a cord, instead of the complicated-looking six-strand braid she used to favor. Her shirt is cropped, baring the long-healed lightsaber scar on her left side, and she’s still wearing the modified chest, shoulder, and forearm armor plates that some of the Jedi had worn during the war.

There’s a long, tattered strip of fabric tied around her waist as a belt, in the same light, slightly textured beige fabric that Master Denton used to prefer for his robes. Jack is pretty sure the two of them reunited before the war ended.

He can’t help wondering if Kath was there when her master died.

“Right were we expected him to be,” Charlie reports, breaking Jack out of his own head.

“Perfect,” Jack says. “Spectre four, Spectre five, you guys stay here and keep our exit route clear, like we planned. Kath, Charlie, you’re with me.”

They separate.

As he gets closer to the cell they’re looking for, Jack is more and more certain that Master Roosevelt is here, but just as certain that something is very, very wrong.

Two stormtroopers guard Roosevelt’s cell, and Jack nods to Kath to take the lead.

“What are you doing here?” she says smoothly, one hand raised just above hip-level. “Aren’t you meant to be guarding the Jedi’s cell? He’s on the next level.”

“What are we doing here?” one of the troopers echoes dazedly. “The Jedi is on the next level.”

“You should go,” Kath insists.

“We should go,” the other trooper repeats. The two stormtroopers take off running down the hall, leaving the access panel free for Charlie to slice in.

Jack waves Charlie behind him and Kath when the door opens. The two of them lead the way in, deactivated lightsabers in hand.

Roosevelt is there, sitting against the wall in a prison jumpsuit.

“Master Roosevelt?” Jack says tentatively. Something is very, very wrong.

“Master, we’re here to rescue you,” Kath adds.

Roosevelt stands, shakes his head sadly, and walks over toward a metal box resting against the wall.

And then he walks through it.

Jack walks over, hesitant but determined to know what’s going on. He’s met with the horrifying sight of what was unmistakably once Master Roosevelt.

“He’s long gone,” Jack says hoarsely.

“Well, we always knew this was probably a trap,” Charlie says, practical as ever.

And then the door slams shut behind him. Jack instinctively tugs Charlie behind him with the Force as Kath ignites her sabers.

“Well, well, well,” says a black-robed figure, emerging from the shadows near the door, “if it isn’t the last of the Jedi. And you’re playing Master yourselves, how adorable.”

“Who are you?” Charlie spits, leaning around Jack. Jack elbows him square in the center of the chest.

“An Inquisitor, of course,” the Inquisitor says, igniting his blood red saber blade. “The last and only you’ll ever meet.”

Jack and Kath engage the Inquisitor, drawing his attention away as Charlie sneaks around to blow the door from the inside.

Once they get out, all a little the worse for wear from the blast, Kath tosses one of her lightsaber hilts to Charlie. “You know how to use this thing, kid?”

“I’m still learning,” Charlie admits, “but I think I’ll make it work.”

The three of them run into Race and Albert on the way out, very much not where they are supposed to be, and learn very quickly that their original escape plan is no longer an option.

A tinny, prerecorded voice announces that the prison’s self-destruct sequence has been initiated.

Still, they almost make it out.

The five of them make it to their new extraction point – a hangar on the main level, where Davey is already waiting for them.

They’re almost there, the kids are in the Phantom with Jack on their heels, when the Inquisitor catches up and Kath falls behind.

Jack doesn’t realize she isn’t with them anymore until he reaches the front of the Phantom, looking out its front window and catching a glimpse of her locked in combat with the Inquisitor.

“Roosevelt?” Davey asks softly.

Jack shakes his head. “Long gone. Look, Davey, I have to go back and help Kath. Get the kids out.”

“Jack –“

“We’ll find our way back to you, okay?”

“Jack!”

“Davey!” Jack says, putting his hands on Davey’s shoulders. “Roosevelt is dead, probably since the Republic fell. But I can’t leave Kath too, I can’t. We’ll find our way back.”

“The self-destruct is counting down,” Davey says, shaking his head. “If we don’t leave now, we’ll die.”

“Leave,” Jack repeats. “I’ll come back to you, Davey, you know I will. I always do.”

“You can’t promise that,” says Davey.

“You know I can’t leave you behind, Dave,” Jack says. On impulse, he leans up and presses his lips to Davey’s. “And in case I don’t make it back – I love you, David. And I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t give Davey time to respond, darting around the boys and out the back hatch of the Phantom.

“I thought you were going to leave me for a minute there,” Kath bites out, dragging herself to her feet after a nasty Force push from the Inquisitor.

“I am not losing you again,” Jack replies. He reignites his lightsaber. “And I’m not leaving you behind. We Jedi survivors have to stick together, yeah?”

Kath nods, moving to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Jack. “Yeah, we do.”

As they face down the Inquisitor together, the self-destruct count works down.

In the end, Jack is able to throw the Inquisitor back against a wall and scoop an arm around Kath’s waist to help her toward the open hangar door.

They almost make it out.

Chapter Text

When Jack comes to, he’s more than a little bit disoriented. Everything hurts: his right shoulder is killing him, he feels what he’s pretty sure are burns down every inch of exposed skin on his left side, his knee feels like it’s been twisted in a direction it isn’t supposed to go, and there’s some kind of gash across most of his face.

Oh, and despite the fact that he’s sure his eyes are wide open, he can’t see shit.

“Kath?” Jack says. Add one more to the list – his throat feels torn to ribbons. “Kath, where are you?”

“Fran?” Kath replies. Her voice is quiet and ragged, but it feels like a breath of fresh air. He’s so disoriented that she’s hard to pinpoint in the Force, so it is a pure relief to hear her speak and know that she survived, too. “Fran! Honey, your face – are you alright?”

“Kath, I love you, but that’s a stupid question,” Jack says bitterly.

Kath chuckles. “I’m sorry, I only mean – can you see anything?”

Jack shakes his head.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” Kath says as lightly as possible, given the circumstances. “I look a bit of a mess right now.” She brushes her fingertips along Jack’s temple, and he does his best not to recoil, though he can’t suppress the instinctive, sharp inhale at the contact. “I’ve never been much of a healer, but I’ll do my best.”

It stops hurting, which is good. He blinks a few times, but his vision doesn’t clear. It’s just a whole lot of nothing where Kath should be.

“Anything?” asks Kath.

“Well, it hurts less,” Jack replies.

“I’ll take it,” Kath says. “Can you stand?”

“Not sure,” admits Jack. “Can you?”

“Not sure. But we haven’t got much choice about it; this platform doesn’t feel very stable anymore,” says Kath. She slips her hand down Jack’s arm, tugging him up into a standing position. It isn’t precisely what Jack would call comfortable, but it could be worse. He’d walked on worse during the war.

“I’m trusting you to know where we’re going,” Jack tells her.

He feels a weak thread of amusement in the Force. “Well, that’s one of us.”

“Kati,” Jack says long-sufferingly, the old nickname rolling off his tongue just as easily as it had when they were kids.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” says Kath. “I know where we’re going.”

Jack sighs, leaning into Kath a little. She leans back, the two of them holding each other up as they walk. “Kath?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you see if my family got away?”

“Your family,” Kath echoes softly. “Yeah, their ship cleared the blast.”

“Good,” says Jack.

“You know, a family isn’t a very Jedi thing to have,” Kath says, almost teasing.

“What are you going to do, tell my Master?” Jack replies. He feels Kath’s sharp gasp of shock reverberate through the Force. “In all honesty, Kath, I feel like I’m doing Master Kloppman’s memory good.”

“Do you?” Kath says. It isn’t as judgmental as Jack would have expected.

“Well, first off, he was always saying that the Jedi Order’s insistence that attachment was somehow inherently a problem was shit,” Jack tells her. He remembers those conversations fondly. “When we were away from the temple, anyway.”

“I wonder what Master Denton thought of that,” says Kath. Their masters had been old friends; it’s unlikely Kloppman would have come to his conclusion without mentioning it to Denton once or twice.

“I guess there’s no knowing, now,” says Jack. He pauses, letting the thought settle over them for a moment. There’s a tinge of grief in the Force, and Jack isn’t entirely sure if it’s coming from Kath or from him. “And he – he used to tell me this thing, when I was struggling to pick up skills.”

“Fran, we need to sit for a minute, there’s a log here,” Kath says, a little out of breath. She guides him over, and the two of them flop ungracefully down onto the log. “What did Master Kloppman tell you?”

“When I would get fed up with practicing, feel like I wasn’t cut out for the Order, like I wasn’t enough in the Force,” Jack says softly, “he would sit down next to me and say, Fran, the Force isn’t about throwing things around with your mind or your lightsaber skills. We hone our connection to the Force so that in the moments when we reach blindly into the Universe saying please, someone, help me – someone can reach back. Our connections are what make us people, what keeps us alive.”

He turns his head toward where he knows Kath must be, even though he can’t see her. “I don’t know if I ever really understood it, before he died. I guess I thought he was just trying to make me feel better for being so useless. But after the Purge, I fell into the darkest days of my life – we all did, I’m sure. I was lost and alone and aimless and then –“ Jack smiles, even though he knows this is going to sound silly, “the Force, the Universe, brought me Davey. He had so much purpose, so much drive, and he had room in his life for a washed up ex-padawan in need of a mission. I reached out, and he reached back. Connection, even in the darkness. That’s the Force.”

“That’s so sappy,” says Kath, but her tone isn’t teasing at all. “And you love him, Francis?”

Jack’s breath catches in his throat. “I – yes. I waited entirely too long to tell him so, but yes.”

“Then let’s get you back to him,” Kath says. She pulls on his arm. “You up to keeping going?”

“I am,” says Jack. He’s feeling practically worn through, but the push to get back to his family is stronger.

“What about the rest of them, then?” Kath asks as they walk. “You called them family, too.”

“Racer – the tall one – is like us,” Jack says.

“Jedi?”

“No. A survivor.”

Kath hums, understanding.

“He needed somewhere, and we needed a mechanic,” Jack continues. “It was easy. He reminds Davey of his little brother, I think, but Davey doesn’t like to talk about that.”

“And the kids?” Kath presses. “The redhead, and your padawan?”

Jack wrinkles his nose. “Don’t – he’s not my padawan. I’m not qualified for that.”

“Neither was Skywalker, but –“

“See how well that worked out for Tano.”

“Francis Sullivan,” Kath says, coming to an abrupt halt. “You are one of the only Jedi left in the Galaxy. I tease because I know that you are more than right to pass on that legacy. Tell me about your kids.”

Jack smiles weakly. “Thanks, Kati.”

“Don’t mention it,” says Kath. “I wouldn’t want you thinking I’d gone soft.”

“We’re all just lost souls, really,” Jack says eventually as they start walking again. “Davey left his home planet not long after the Republic fell, I’m a Jedi, Race survived his village being wiped out, Albert’s a runaway and Charlie’s an orphan.”

“But you all reached out,” Kath says, soft, “and someone reached back.”

“Yeah,” Jack says fondly. “I don’t think I’d still be standing without them.”

“I’m glad you found them.”

“Have you been alone all this time?”

Kath shrugs, a little awkwardly because of the way they’re holding each other upright. “More or less.”

“You could stay with us,” Jack offers. His tone is gentle, a thread of hope woven through it in the Force.

“I’m on my own path, Fran,” Kath replies quietly. She squeezes him to her side. “Rest assured, though, if I ever need to reach out, it will be you I’m reaching toward.”

Jack startles, slightly, when she leans over and presses her dry lips to his temple.

“I’m glad to know you survived,” she says.

“I’m glad you survived, too,” he replies.

“I think we’re almost there.” Kath tugs him onward, and Jack tries not to stumble over some uneven ground.

He doesn’t need to see to know that she’s right; even now he can feel the distant echo of his family in the Force.

Charlie is the brightest, practically a beacon. His own Force-sensitivity makes him stand out, and his concern is washing over Jack even from here.

Near him is Albert – so close that Jack would guess they’re probably tangled up together somewhere, comforting each other.  Albert doesn’t stand out on his own in the Force in the same way as Jack’s apprentice, but his influence on Charlie is unmistakable.

Race’s frantic buzz is a little bit closer, bouncing around near –

Oh, Davey. Davey’s presence is quieter, but Jack knows Davey in the Force as well as he knows his own Force-damned name (both of them).

Jack stumbles when he catches a wave of Davey’s grief and worry through the Force.

“What’s wrong?”

“They think I’m dead,” Jack says, hoarse.

Kath squeezes him against her again. “But you aren’t.”

“Yeah,” says Jack. “Let’s keep going.”

They don’t have to announce themselves when they reach the clearing where the Ghost and Kath’s ship the Sun are parked. They stumble out of the tree line and Jack feels Charlie perk up immediately, at the same time Race shouts, “Holy Mother, it’s Jack!”

“Jack!” Charlie repeats. Les gives a whirling scream of excitement.

Albert, ever practical, shouts, “Davey! The fucker’s alive!”

And all of this is all the warning Jack gets before three of his favorite people slam into him for hugs from different directions.

The fourth, his very favorite, is hanging back.

“Davey?” Jack says, tentative.

“Is it really you, Jackie?” Davey asks.

“It’s me.”

The boys back off, just a bit. Even Kath finally lets Jack go.

He’s a little less than stable, but he stands there, arms open, looking in the direction he hopes is toward Davey.

“Darling, your face,” Davey says softly, shakily.

“Yeah, I know,” says Jack. “Ain’t like I was much of a looker before, to be fair.”

“Oh, Jack,” says Davey. He finally, finally comes close enough to pull Jack into his arms, one forearm resting against his collarbone so he can cup his cheek. He runs his thumb over Jack’s smarting cheekbone. “You’re alive. I don’t give a damn how you look.”

“Davey,” Jack says softly.

“I love you, too, you know,” Davey says.

Jack leans a little closer, trusting Davey to close the distance for the kiss.

“Really?” he breathes, once they separate again.

“Really,” Davey says.

“Well, great,” Jack replies, and Davey laughs.

There is a long way to go from here. For Jack and Davey, for the kids, for Kath. This mission went sideways, and it won’t be the last.

But, as Jack is led into the Ghost by the boys – one holding each hand – he feels more settled than he has for a long time.

Sometimes the Force is about reaching out into the Universe and saying someone, please, help me, and having the Universe reach back.

Sometimes, Jack thinks, the purest connection to the Force in the galaxy is through being loved and missed and cared for. And despite each of their pasts, despite their missteps and their secrets, this little family has found that in each other.

Jack is never taking that for granted again.