Chapter Text
The freighter’s hull groaned as it shuddered its way out of hyperspace. For a split second—and not for the first time in the journey—Caleb wondered if the rust bucket might finally crack apart from the strain. He wasn’t the only one; he caught sight of a few parents tugging their children closer to their bodies, as if a tight grip on their threadbare shirts would protect them if they did start venting atmosphere. Caleb supposed he had no right to judge them. The last few months had taught him all he needed to know about futility.
He and his fellow passengers had spent the last five days stuffed in this cargo hold, wedged between spare equipment and the crates of supplies that the freighter was supposed to be hauling. It was dirty, grimy, and hot, but definitely not the most unpleasant place Caleb had found himself since… well, since. The crew hadn’t wanted to deal with the complication of corpses when they landed, so they’d had twice daily deliveries of water from the ship’s recycling system. Even better, Caleb had managed to shimmy himself into a corner when he’d first snuck aboard. It was nice to have walls to lean on during the long days of nothingness; it was even nicer to know that he couldn’t be outflanked.
As the freighter began its slow limp into Lothal’s upper atmosphere, Caleb closed his eyes and tried, once again, to reach into the Force. This is where you wanted me, he thought, a spark of desperation kindling inside him, now show me where to go.
He was greeted by the same sterile tundra of nothingness that had become painfully familiar to him during these exercises. Just brushing against it filled his entire being with a horrible, trembling crush of dread. And yet he couldn’t stop reaching. It had become a daily ritual for him, as masochistic as it was pointless. Wake up, reach into the Force, search desperately for that remembered warmth, and instead find bitter, aching cold. Death. Fear. A fabric torn with so many wounds that Caleb wasn’t even entirely sure where one fissure ended and the next began.
Even when he retreated back into the safe confines of his own mind, he never truly escaped it. No fortification of his shields could block out the rawness of the spot at the edge of his consciousness where his bond with his master had once fastened. He felt that absence keenly, and constantly. And he knew that he deserved to.
Only once since fleeing Kaller had Caleb felt the Force compel him in the way it once had almost daily: just a week ago, when he’d been drifting through yet another shadowport that Master Billaba would’ve been horrified to find him in. Nowadays, they were some of the only places that didn’t require Imperial chain codes. He’d been curled up beside a set of stairs, snatching a few moments of rest before he scoped out yet another set of passenger transports bound for various systems in the Outer Rim, when he’d overheard two merchants discussing the Archeon pass. Caleb had never heard of the route before, but it was easy to infer from the merchants’ tones that it was a dangerous, foolhardy way to travel. They’d scoffed in mutual derision at the smugglers who attempted it. What was out there worth risking your life for, anyway, one of them had remarked, except for the nothingness of Sith-forgotten backwaters like Oon or Lothal?
Lothal. As soon as Caleb heard the name, the Force had buzzed to life around him. It had felt like being thrown a lifeline—to have purpose again, a direction, after so many weeks of being lost. He’d tried to cling to the feeling, wrap it around himself to banish the cold, but the Force had abandoned him just as rapidly as it had reawakened. All it had left behind was that haunting vacuum of echoes and death.
He’d followed that brief touch of light all the way to this freighter, bound for Lothal with a cargo bay full of refugees and black market foodstuffs. Caleb hadn’t been able to find a secure place to open his holocron and check its star maps for a profile of Lothal, but he’d been able to eavesdrop enough tidbits from his fellow passengers to have a decent idea of where the Force had sent him. The merchants he’d overheard had been mostly right: Lothal was a tiny, insignificant backwater on the outermost edge of the Outer Rim, very nearly in Wild Space. No major hyperspace routes passed anywhere nearby, which was why their journey had involved multiple jumps and hours of slog in sublight. The two bright spots of that were obvious and relieving: Lothal’s non-strategic position meant that it had avoided invasion during the Clone Wars and had kept it sheltered from Imperial interest since. Deliberately or not, the Force had guided him towards a rare enclave that the Empire had yet to sully.
Caleb shifted uncomfortably on his aching feet. The ship’s trembling had only increased as Lothal’s gravity began to exert itself on the chassis. He swallowed down a wave of nervousness—not that the freighter would fail, but that the Force already had. But, no. Surely the Force had brought him to Lothal for a reason beyond the planet’s isolation. The Force didn’t send its servants to safety; it sent them to do… something. Caleb wasn’t even entirely sure what that something was. Service, he supposed. He could easily imagine what Master Billaba would say to him, if she could see him now. She’d scold him for getting bogged down in the specifics of things, for being too enamored with knowing, and tell him to open himself up to the wider flow of the Force. It would lead him in its own time, on its own path.
But Master Billaba was dead—one with the Force, although it hadn’t been until after her death that Caleb had realized that he’d never really understood what that part of the Code meant to begin with—and his unanswered questions hounded him, as his questions always had. Why? Why here, why Lothal, why now? He had been wandering aimlessly since his narrow escape from Kaller three months ago. Why had the Force not guided him then, when he’d been so sorely in need of it? When he had been in the immediate, crippling grip of his grief, his terror, his anger? When Grey and Styles and his other friends had been hunting him, and Caleb had reached out to the Force like a child reaches for their mother, desperate and pleading, and found only a stretch of cold that could have frozen his lungs immobile in his chest?
He clenched his fists against the familiar surge of hopelessness that threatened to unmoor him. After all, Master Kenobi’s final message hadn’t said CRY LIKE A CRÈCHELING. It had ordered him to STAY STRONG. Crying wouldn’t help him. Crying would get him killed. The only thing that would save him now was forward momentum. The Order was gone. His friends had betrayed them. And his master was dead. He had ran while she died for him, like a coward.
Maybe that was why the Force was so distant. Maybe it was a punishment, somehow. A lesson he still had to learn, even with all of his instructors murdered and gone.
The greatest teacher of all, the Force is, Master Yoda used to say. Instruct all of us, it does. Never finished, are its lessons.
The freighter groaned and jerked as its landing struts made contact with the planet’s surface. Caleb found it a welcome distraction from his melancholy, and the phantom of Grandmaster Yoda’s voice evaporated. He kept his balance easily as the ship settled into its new gravity, but a few of those around him stumbled, flailing out arms and widening their stances to compensate. He tucked his small bag of belongings closer to his chest as a stray elbow caught him in the stomach. Innocent jostling very quickly became an opportunity to swipe something out of your pockets. He’d learned that lesson early on, no Force-instruction needed.
The ship rocked again as the exit ramp lowered and knocked against the spaceport’s floor. The throng of travelers pressed forward, eager for their first taste of sunlight in days. Even Caleb couldn’t help but draw in a deep breath of non-recycled air—not quite fresh, since it was still thick with chemicals and exhaust fumes, but at least free of the stench of unwashed bodies. He let the wave of motion carry him down the ramp, out of the landing area, and into the bustling streets of Lothal’s Capitol City.
The Force will guide me, he thought, glancing around at the colorful stalls and hopeful vendors. Lothal spread out around him, vibrant and warm. The Force stayed silent.
But it will guide me. It must.
—
Caleb was hungry.
No, Caleb was starving.
It had been three weeks since he’d snuck his way onto Lothal, and if the Force had brought him here to offer a safe haven, it had been wrong. Drought and plague had made both food and work scarce. He hadn’t found any of the latter, and what little he’d scrounged up of the former had come from dumpsters and theft. The only thing he had found was a quiet alleyway just off one of the main streets in Capitol City where he could stay, which was good, because he spent a lot of his days sitting still, trying to conserve as much energy as possible.
He felt stupid. As soon as the name Lothal had brought him a familiar touch from the Force, he hadn’t stopped to consider anything. If he’d done his research, he would have known that Lothal would be a difficult place for an unknown teenager to survive. Kriff, even five minutes of simple deductive reasoning could have told him that a freighter carrying black market foodstuffs to a largely agricultural planet implied more than a few failed harvests.
Logic told him that he should sneak his way onto the next freighter bound for a planet on a decent hyperspace route. But even if he did, where exactly would he go? What would he do? He was—or, had been, was supposed to become—a Jedi. There was no life for him without the Force. The absence of it ached in him like pains from a phantom limb.
Please, he thought, casting his hopelessness into the Force’s silence. I did what you asked. I’m listening. What more do you want from me?
“Would you like some help?”
The voice startled Caleb enough that he jerked backwards, smacking the back of his head hard against the wall he was leaning against. He didn’t let the blow daze him—before the pain could even set in, he was scrabbling away from the alley mouth, heart pounding heavily in his chest.
Stupid, he told himself, forcing his body not to tremble. You let them sneak up on you. What would Grey say if he could see you now?
A wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm him when he remembered that Grey wouldn’t care if Caleb had let his guard down or not. Grey had wanted him dead. As far as Caleb knew, he still did. Always would.
“Easy,” the voice said, drawing Caleb back. “Is your head alright?”
Caleb blinked. Standing ahead of him, silhouetted in the sunlight that streamed in from the main street, was a human male. He was dressed in traditional Lothali robes, arms held up in a placating gesture. He took a cautious step forward, although didn’t come close enough for Caleb to make out much more of his face.
“I apologize,” the man said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Caleb had to clear his throat a few times before he could get his voice to work. “What do you want?”
“As I said, I’d like to help.”
“Help?” Caleb whispered, then winced. He hated how pathetic he sounded.
“Yes,” the man said, smiling with a warmth that Caleb couldn’t remember having directed his way since Master Billaba had last looked at him. “I’ve seen you here these past few weeks. You’re too young to be on your own.”
Caleb just stared at him. After a few seconds of silence, the man sighed and moved closer, kneeling when he got a few paces away and seemed to notice Caleb tensing up.
Now that the man was right in front of him, Caleb studied his face. He looked a lot like most of the Lothali humans that Caleb had seen since arriving on the planet. Dark brown skin, strong jaw. His hair was mostly black with subtle blue undertones that Caleb couldn’t remember noticing on a human before. The man’s beard was carefully maintained and his robes were clean. Not a street rat like him, for sure.
But it was the man’s eyes that drew Caleb in. They were remarkably blue, but that wasn’t it. They were kind. Honest, soft, and achingly kind.
“You must be hungry,” the man said, quiet, like he was afraid of startling him again.
Caleb nodded, slow and unsure. He’d met a lot of people in the past few months. Most ignored him. The ones that didn’t usually only paid attention to him long enough to chase him away from their stores or houses. But he’d met a few people who pretended to be friendly, only to turn around and demand something from him. Food, or credits, or… or other things. He didn’t sense that kind of attention from this man—nor did he look like those kinds of people—but the part of him that had grown used to living on guard bristled regardless.
He probed instinctively with the Force, trying to sense the man’s intentions, but he couldn’t press his senses past the vast, empty cold.
“It’s Harvest day,” the man continued, blind to Caleb’s inner debate. “My wife and I, we hold a Gathering. You’re welcome to join us.”
Caleb had no idea what a Harvest or a Gathering was, but from the man’s previous comments, he guessed that it involved food. His stomach reacted to the prospect, clenching painfully. He’d reached that point of hunger where he couldn’t stand without his head spinning, which was as inconvenient as it was dangerous. He weighed his options. One, tell the man to get lost and hope that this Harvest thing would draw an unlucky shopkeeper away from their stall long enough for him to swipe some food from their garbage. Or, Caleb could follow. Keep his guard up, of course, but maybe… maybe get some real food. Not dumpster scraps or a stolen jogan. Real, actual food.
His mouth watered. When he nodded again, he was pretty sure his stomach had made the decision without any input from his brain.
The man’s face split into a smile. Wide and soothing and genuine. Like Caleb had made his day just by allowing him to help.
He’d grown up around people like that. With the Jedi gone, he’d started to wonder if any of them remained.
“Wonderful.” The man stood, clapping his hands together before gesturing for Caleb to follow him. “It’s not far. Have you ever been to a Gathering before?”
Caleb shook his head, then grabbed his rucksack and pushed himself up to his feet. The world spun around him in a lazy whirl, and he staggered. The man reached towards him, as if to steady him, but quickly retracted his hand when Caleb jerked away. After a second or two, his vision cleared, and he nodded awkwardly at the man, hoping to convey that he was fine.
He didn’t look all that convinced, but he didn’t come any closer, for which Caleb was grateful. He expected the man to set off again, but instead he paused, studying Caleb’s face like he was a puzzle to solve. Caleb tried very hard not to twitch. That always seemed to make people suspicious, and suspicious people tended to spend a little too long wondering about him.
Master Kenobi’s words rattled in his head, as they so often did. AVOID DETECTION. STAY STRONG. TRUST IN THE FORCE. The least he could do was follow one of those instructions. With strength and the Force so often eluding him, stealth was the only one left.
Thankfully, the man didn’t seem suspicious. He clasped his hands together, robes hanging loosely from his wrists. “What’s your name, son?”
Caleb considered the question. Just because his hunger had dislodged some of his caution didn’t mean he was insane. Still, it had been so long since he’d actually heard his name spoken aloud…
“Caleb,” he said, and hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.
The man smiled that smile again—the kind, warming one. He reached out a hand to shake, and Caleb took it tentatively.
“It’s nice to meet you, Caleb,” he said, hand firm and steady in Caleb’s smaller one. “I’m Ephraim. Ephraim Bridger.”
—
Earlier that day, Caleb had wondered if there were more people bustling past his alley than usual, but he hadn’t had the energy to give it much thought past making the observation. And that uptick in traffic was nothing compared to the chaos that filled the Bridgers’ street.
Large, long tables had been set outside nearly every house, each full of food and art and other goods. People—all dressed in bright, colorful robes—milled about between them. Laughter drifted over the set-ups. Children raced around adults’ legs, chasing each other and clutching toys. Everyone seemed… happy. Tired, maybe. And stressed. Lothal’s struggles had taken their toll on its people. But here, now, they seemed happy.
Even on crowded transports, Caleb hadn’t been around this many sentients since before. Some of the Force’s oppressive cold seemed to ebb in the face of it. The veil lost some of its opacity, and Caleb felt like he could see through it for the first time. Not enough to figure out what was on the other side, but enough to know that there was something beyond it.
“I should warn you,” Ephraim said as he guided Caleb through the crowds, nodding at and sharing passing greetings with many of the people they encountered, “once my Mira gets a look at you, she’ll fuss. And once she starts fussing, there’s not anyone on this side of the galaxy that’ll be able to save you.”
Caleb guessed that he was supposed to laugh at that, but he couldn’t seem to dredge the sound up from his lungs. He coughed instead. Ephraim shot him a look that almost seemed sad, but he turned away before Caleb really had a chance to analyze it.
They continued to cut through the crowds until they approached a house on the street corner. Caleb probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it, had he passed it in any other context. It was a classic Capitol City style: tan-colored walls with rectangular, utilitarian windows. Simple canvas awnings hung over the windows and doorway to shelter them from the rain, stretched out on rudimentary metal frames. The only thing that brought a sense of eccentricity to its exterior was the mix of pots set outside the front door, each one overflowing with drought-resistant flowers and herbs.
“Mira,” Ephraim called, hand steady on Caleb’s shoulder as he maneuvered him closer to a woman standing by a long, food-laden table just outside the house’s threshold. “This is Caleb.”
“You found him!” The woman—Mira, apparently—came towards them with a delighted smile, just as warm and kind as her husband’s. “It’s nice to meet you, Caleb.”
Caleb studied her. She had the same blue eyes and skin tone as Ephraim, although Caleb couldn’t see whether or not her hair had the same unusual hue, too, since she had a vibrant purple and white cloth bound around her head. He’d noticed a lot of Lothali women wearing similar coverings, although he wasn’t sure why they did it. Her dress matched her head wrap, with a high neckline and sleeves that ran until just past her elbows. A lump was bound to her chest with wide strips of colorful cloth. Curious, Caleb stood on his toes, trying to peer over the fabric. Mira noticed, and her smile deepened. She gently leaned over to give him a better look.
And Caleb found that it wasn’t a lump at all, but a baby.
Caleb hadn’t seen many babies before. He’d seen his fair share of younglings during his crèche duties, but most children weren’t brought to the Temple until they were small toddlers. Two or three for humans, if Caleb remembered correctly. He knew that he’d been taken as an infant, which was also how he knew that the practice was abnormal. He’d been raised in a separate crèche from the toddlers until he was old enough to join them, but he didn’t have any memories of the transition.
He couldn’t see much of the Bridger baby. Its face was turned into its mother’s chest, leaving only the top of its head for Caleb to peer at. He could see that its skin was the same brown as its parents’ and that it also shared its father’s blue-hued hair, twisting in wispy little curls around its scalp and ears. A strange warmth buzzed to life at the periphery of Caleb’s mind—not the Force, necessarily, but not not the Force, either. It felt… fuzzy. Indistinct and sleepy. Despite himself, Caleb found the corners of his mouth twitching up. For the first time since Kaller, he felt a part of himself relaxing, settling into—
“This is our Ezra,” Mira said. Caleb pulled his gaze from the baby to find her beaming with pride. The warmth vanished as quickly as it had emerged, leaving him with a lingering sense of loneliness. “He’s sleeping right now, but I’m sure he’ll wake up later. You can meet him properly then.”
Caleb couldn’t help but wonder how the baby was managing to sleep through all the noise around him. He was having a hard time even focusing on the Bridgers through the bedlam. Honestly, his head was starting to pound from it.
“He’s small,” Caleb blurted, realizing that he was probably supposed to react, although he almost immediately cursed himself for deciding to say that, of all things.
But Mira and Ephraim just laughed. “You’d never believe it, with how often he’s hungry,” Mira said, smiling down at Ezra. “He’ll be up and wailing in a bit, which means we’d better get you fed first.”
Caleb flushed, a nervous realization settling over him. “I, uh, I don’t have any credits. I can’t pay you.”
Ephraim patted his shoulder good-naturedly. “That’s not the point of a Gathering, son.”
He darted his gaze between Mira, Ephraim, and the crowd for a few seconds, trying to decide whether or not this was a trick. His senses—both through the Force and otherwise—were still so skewed by his overwhelm that it was difficult to tell.
“It’s a bit loud out here, isn’t it?” Mira offered suddenly. Caleb wondered if he hadn’t done as good a job of hiding his headache as he’d thought he had. She inclined her head towards the house. “It’d be good to give Ezra a break. Would you like to get some food and eat inside with me?”
Caleb looked towards Ephraim reflexively, although he felt silly as soon as he did it. Why would he trust Ephraim any more than Mira? He’d only known either of them for half an hour.
Still, he felt a strange sense of relief when Ephraim nodded his head in agreement. “I’ll join you before I make my rounds with the neighbors.”
He gathered a plate of food—choosing indiscriminately, so hungry that he really didn’t care what he ate as long as he did—and dutifully followed the Bridgers into the house. As Ephraim shut the doors behind them, Caleb couldn’t stop himself from peering around curiously. The entry was very open, flowing into the living space and the kitchen without the interruption of any walls. To the right was a large, round holotable that seemed to double as a dining table. That was where Mira and Ephraim led him. They settled down on the far side of the table and Caleb sat across from them, grateful that nobody was between him and the exit. To the far left was the kitchen, and sandwiched in between was a simple sitting area. He spotted a hallway that must lead back into bedrooms, or maybe to an upstairs. Caleb couldn’t tell.
“I didn’t lock the door,” Ephraim said calmly. “If you want to leave, just press the button on the panel. It’ll open.”
Caleb felt a weird rush of embarrassment at the comment. Had he really become that jumpy? His face flushed, and he buried himself into his food to avoid making eye contact with either of the Bridgers. He forced himself to eat slowly, if only to savor the taste of real, warm, good food. He was only halfway through when his stomach started to cramp, unaccustomed to processing more than a couple of scraps at a time. That wasn’t going to stop him from finishing, though. He didn’t think the Bridgers would take too kindly to him squirreling his leftovers away in his rucksack, which meant finishing his plate was the best way to make use of the whole meal. He had no idea when he’d get a chance like this again.
As his hunger died, it felt like parts of him unwound. With less of his processing space overwhelmed by a primal drive for food, new thoughts started to form. And as they often did with him, those thoughts quickly became a river of questions.
Curiosity: the constant of Caleb Dume’s life. He’d thought more than once since Kaller that it had finally died with the rest of the Jedi, but now, in the warmth of the Bridgers’ presence, he found it surging within him again. Comforting, familiar, and irresistible.
“So what is the point?” he asked suddenly, looking up from his plate.
The Bridgers both seemed startled by his question, but not in a bad way. If anything, Ephraim looked pleased. He was probably just glad to find out that the street rat he’d picked up really was able to speak without being prompted.
Mira smiled indulgently at him. It reminded him so much of Master Billaba that he had to swallow down a sharp pang of grief. “The point of what?”
“Oh. Of a Gathering. You said the point wasn’t credits, so…”
“It’s community,” Ephraim said. “Bringing people together. Celebrating the Harvest.”
“Oh.”
“You must have had something like that on your planet,” Mira probed, brow furrowing a little. She rubbed a hand up and down Ezra through his cloth sling. Caleb wondered if she even knew she was doing it.
He shrugged, feeling foolish for drawing attention to the fact that he wasn’t from Lothal. It would’ve been easier to blend in that way. “I’m not really from anywhere,” he mumbled, then shoveled some more food into his mouth to avoid having to elaborate.
Ephraim leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table. “What about your parents? Could we contact them for you?”
“No,” he said. “I haven’t got any parents.”
Both of the Bridgers’ expressions crumpled into pity. “Are they gone?” Mira asked softly.
No, he thought. They’re probably still alive. Maybe. Possibly. But I wouldn’t know them if I saw them, and they certainly wouldn’t know me.
“Yeah,” he said, because that was a good lie. “I stayed at a school, before…”
“Before the Empire?”
Caleb nodded. Mira’s face pinched in sympathy.
“I know they shut down some of the Republic academies,” Mira said, shaking her head. “But turning the students out on the streets… It’s barbaric.”
“It’s the Empire,” Ephraim said, and for the first time, Caleb could hear steel in his voice. “That’s all they know.”
Caleb blinked. He’d tried to stay away from any and all conversations about the Empire, but he knew enough about the regime to know that saying those kinds of things would get you killed, and quickly. The Supreme-Chancellor-turned-Emperor was interested in order and power, not free debate.
“Why don’t you stay here?” Ephraim offered before Caleb could think up a response. “We’ve got an extra bedroom. It’ll be Ezra’s, one day, but we keep his crib in with us for now. In exchange, you can help us out around the house. I can even help you find some odd jobs around the city.”
Caleb froze. No. No. Bad idea. He didn’t survive on the kindness of strangers—something that he still wasn’t entirely sure even existed anymore. No, he survived on being invisible. On avoiding exactly the kind of situation he’d allowed himself to be lured into now.
His heart pounded in his chest. Suddenly, the spacious living area of the Bridgers’ house seemed constrictingly small. His hand twitched towards his rucksack, on the floor and leaning against his feet. Ephraim probably hadn’t been lying when he’d reassured Caleb that the door wasn’t locked. He’d grab his bag, bolt for the door, and find a new alley on the other side of the city by morning. Then, it’d be just like this entire evening had never even—
The bundle of cloth against Mira’s chest suddenly stirred. A sleepy noise drifted out from it, as if Ezra was entirely unaware of how tense the atmosphere around him had become. Mira tugged one of the strips down a bit, revealing the baby’s upper body as blinked himself awake. He zeroed in on Caleb almost immediately—and there it was again. The brush of something against his consciousness… A faint, soothing hum…
Ezra smiled, electric blue eyes oddly enraptured. He reached out a little hand towards Caleb, and if Caleb didn’t know any better, he’d think that Ezra was asking for him. And a strange part of Caleb—that part that should be dead, should have died on Kaller—desperately wanted to reach back.
“I think Ezra likes that idea,” Mira laughed, every ounce of her attention zeroed in on the baby’s face. “Is that right, my darling? Do you want Caleb to stick around with us for a while?”
Ezra babbled happily, blinking up at Caleb with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.
Suddenly Caleb found it difficult to remember all the reasons that he should run. He relaxed on instinct, even smiling a little at Ezra’s curious expression. The Bridgers were safe. The house was safe. Things were nice, here. Nice and safe and warm. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to stick around for a while? Not long. Not… Not forever. Just for now.
He looked up at the Bridgers and nodded.