Chapter Text
When Ezra woke, the first thing he knew was pain.
That same gaping pain in his chest and head was still there; a howling, screaming void that threatened to tear apart everything it touched. On instinct, he reached for the bond he shared with his master, only for his very thoughts to screech to a halt as he remembered the source of the pain.
The bond was gone.
His master was gone.
Ezra tried to sit up, but he couldn’t move. Something was pinning him down, edges pressing into his skin as he struggled. A quiet moan escaped him as he forced his eyes open, blinking rapidly as his head started spinning. He turned his head, scanning his surroundings as best as he could from the strange angle.
He was lying down on a flat surface, a heavy strap over his chest and another over his legs. The moment he realized that he was restrained, Ezra’s heart started pounding. Swallowing down his terror, he tried to kick his way free of the strap across his legs, but it was so tight he could barely move.
“Easy,” a voice said. “It’s alright, kid. You’re safe.”
Ezra lifted his head, fighting back the churning in his stomach as his vision swam. A tall human man stood beside the stretcher Ezra was strapped to. His hair was even darker than Ezra’s, and a scar ran down the side of his face, just past his left eye. The white armor he wore was painted with yellow markings, and at the edge of his vision, Ezra spotted a helmet with similar patterns resting on the floor.
The man’s hand moved toward him and Ezra froze, terror coursing through him as memories of everything that usually happened to him when he was restrained flashed through his head. Needles sticking into his skin, a shock prod digging into his side, a hand grabbing his chin and forcing him to look into furious yellow eyes that he would never see again. But to his surprise, the man just removed the straps that held Ezra down.
“No one’s going to hurt you.” Ezra couldn’t sense whether the man was telling the truth or not. The only thing he could sense was the sheer agony of his master’s absence. “You passed out. You need medical attention and we’re bringing you somewhere you can get it.”
Bracing his hands on the stretcher, Ezra forced himself to sit up. The man reached toward him again and Ezra flinched, his arm jumping up automatically to cover his face.
“It’s okay,” the man said, taking a step back. “I was just trying to help.”
Ezra lowered his arm slowly, confusion momentarily piercing the haze of fear. Keeping his gaze fixed on the man, Ezra scooted closer to the end of the stretcher so he was farther away from the potential threat. He didn’t need medical attention. He needed his master. He needed his master but he was gone and Ezra would never see him again and he didn’t know where he was and –
“I’m Cody.” The sound of man’s voice jolted Ezra out of his spiraling thoughts. “You have a name?”
Ezra dropped his gaze to the floor, glaring down at the metal. He wouldn’t talk, no matter what they did to him.
“Fair enough,” the man – Cody – said. After a beat of silence, he spoke up again. “We’re bringing you to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The Healers there can patch you up a lot better than I can.”
It was only then that Ezra noticed the bandages wrapped around his wrists. They covered the cuts left by the shackles his master had put him in. Cody or the Jedi must have put them there while he was unconscious. A sharp pang stuck into his chest as he felt the echoes of Maul’s fingers digging into his arm and dragging him toward that room. He didn’t even remember what he’d done to deserve his punishment.
He’d been locked away while his master died, helpless to do anything to stop it, and he didn’t even know why.
Everything jolted sharply and Ezra flinched again before realizing seconds later that it was just the ship dropping out of hyperspace. He clenched his hands tightly around the edge of the stretcher as his heart leapt into his throat. Sheer terror twisted inside him like a venomous snake about to strike. Maul had told him about the Jedi, how they sought to destroy anyone who dared to wield real power. But they’d let him live, even after he’d passed out and made himself the perfect target, and so Ezra couldn’t help but wonder what worse fate they had in store for him.
At the sound of a door sliding open, Ezra jumped. He looked up and the bottom dropped out of his stomach as he laid eyes on the man who entered from the cockpit. It was the Jedi who’d found him on Dathomir. The Jedi who killed his master.
Ezra’s breath hitched as his eyes locked onto the man. His hands shook, desperate to wrap themselves around the Jedi’s throat and crush the life from him. But that gaping, empty, wrenching pain in his chest only grew stronger, sheer helplessness pressing down on him like it was trying to crush him into dust. Without his master, he was frozen, unable to do anything.
“We’re about to enter Coruscant’s atmosphere,” the Jedi told Cody. “I’ve already contacted the Temple about the situation.”
As the Jedi glanced at him, the rage burning in Ezra’s chest exploded, shattering the spell of helplessness and driving him into action. Ezra launched himself to his feet and lunged at the Jedi. He didn’t even know what he planned to do. All he knew was that he needed to hurt someone. Anyone.
The moment he took a step forward, he fell, that tearing pain driving him to his knees. He cried out as he squeezed his eyes shut, his head spinning as the pain spread through his body, swallowing him whole.
A low voice rumbled somewhere above him, but he couldn’t understand the words. Gasping for breath, he fought to stay upright until his world went sideways and he was pitched forward into darkness.
“Kid –”
Before Cody could say another word to the boy, he collapsed. Obi-Wan reached out, slowing the boy’s descent until he settled gently onto the floor.
“I don’t know what happened,” Cody said, crossing the short distance to stand beside the now unconscious boy. “He seemed alright. Just a little out of it.”
Obi-Wan grimaced as he looked down at the boy. He was certain it had something to do with him. The boy’s hatred, his pure, undiluted rage had been palpable from the moment Obi-Wan stepped through the door. It reminded him so much of Maul’s; the anger of someone who saw him not just as an enemy, but as the person who’d destroyed them.
He crouched down and picked the boy up, gently placing him back on the stretcher that he and Cody had used to transport him to the ship. Looking at the tiny form lying limp in front of him, Obi-Wan found himself absently wondering just how old the boy was. Chained in the corner of that cell, he’d seemed impossibly small, like the darkness that surrounded him was going to swallow him whole.
“The Healers will know what to do,” he said. Cody could patch himself or another person up decently, but he wasn’t a medic. And after the circumstances Obi-Wan had found him in, the boy would likely need the attention of the Mind Healers, too.
“What happens to him once they’re done with him?” Cody asked as he fastened the straps over the boy, leaving them just loose enough that he could move without falling off the stretcher.
“That’s up to the Council.”
“Do you think they’ll be willing to let him stay?” Even as he phrased it as a question, Cody sounded skeptical. “After what happened with Gen—” A moment of painful silence passed before he corrected himself. “With Skywalker?”
A sharp pang lanced through Obi-Wan’s chest at the sound of his former Padawan’s name spoken with such bitterness. Knowing it was warranted didn’t make it any easier to hear.
“They’re practical,” he said. “The boy hasn’t just touched the dark side.” He paused, watching the child’s chest rise and fall slowly as he tried to figure out how best to describe what he’d sensed when he found the boy. “He’s steeped in it. We can’t just hand him over to social services without evaluating him first. The Temple is the safest place for him right now.”
Obi-Wan held no doubt that Cody was right. Some members of the Council would surely be reluctant to take on another youngling so much older than they usually did after what happened with Anakin. But if his suspicions about the boy turned out to be true, they would have no choice but to do something.
When he found the boy locked away in that cell, Obi-Wan had wondered what possible reason Maul could have to keep a child prisoner. And then the boy bolted, stumbling to a halt when he saw Maul’s body. The boy’s scream and the sheer, heartrending agony that had poured from him as he dropped to his knees was enough to tell Obi-Wan that his initial assumption may have been wrong. This boy was more than just a prisoner.
And if the boy really was Maul’s apprentice, he needed help. Guidance. There was no telling what he was capable of otherwise.