Chapter Text
Luke wasn’t that hard to find, but Ezra was keeping it to himself.
Ahch-to and planets with Jedi Temples on them were things Luke had been interested in for a long time, and Ezra only knew because he had been around his annoying ass for the last twenty years and he talked about it all constantly. He’d made maps. He’d charted courses. He’d talked about Force vergences and the Jedi of old. R2-D2 had shut down the second Luke left, but Ezra didn’t need the droid, not when he had the Force.
That was a skill Ezra was better at than Luke was. Hyperspace was a part of Ezra like blood in his veins.
So when Ezra showed up on Luke’s doorstep, Luke was not surprised, but he was also not impressed. Ezra was met with a dejected glare and an indignant huff. “Why are you here?”
“Hello to you too.”
“There’s a war on, don’t you need to fight it?” Luke gestured.
“We’d sure love some help,” said Ezra.
“From the guy who started it? Not your brightest decision.”
Ezra sighed. He hadn’t been there when the new Jedi Temple burned. He wasn’t always around, just popped in to say hi and throw milk cartons at children every once in awhile (how else would they learn?) but he’d picked the wrong week to be off-planet, and Luke had been alone. Ezra was making sure it didn’t happen again. “You didn’t start this war. You know not everything’s about you and your stupid family, right?”
Luke closed his eyes. They’d had this conversation before. Luke showed up after all the dirty work was done. Rebellions were messy, and other people’s hands were bloody so that Luke could keep his clean. Ezra included. Luke knew that. He had to know that sentiment also meant not everything was on him all the time.
“I still can’t help you.”
“Fine, but you’re insane if you think I’m letting you be alone here,” he said.
“Ezra—“
“Shut up and invite me inside.”
Luke stepped aside and opened the door a little wider, gesturing sarcastically. His hut was very small. Luke clearly wanted this to be a deterrent, but Ezra spent a lot of his life sleeping in worse places than this. He stepped inside and nodded, pretending to be impressed. Luke mentioned, “I don’t have an extra bed, you’ll have to find a different hut.”
Luke was sleeping on the stone slab with a blanket on top and a pillow made of rock. “You don’t have any bed,” Ezra commented. He looked up at Luke. “Not that that’s ever stopped us before.”
Luke rolled his eyes. Ezra smiled sweetly, making a pointed attempt to bat his eyelashes. Luke just grumbled, “If that’s the only reason you came here—“
“Oh, fuck off . Yeah, that’s the only reason I spent months sifting through your Jedi nonsense, deciphering your stupid maps and star charts, traveling to a bunch of different planets looking for you. For the sex .”
Okay, so maybe Luke was a little hard to find. But at least he was in the stupid galaxy.
Luke rolled his eyes. “Then why?”
“You know why.”
In all the years they’d known each other, Ezra didn’t think they’d ever actually said it out loud.
The two of them stared at each other for a long minute. Luke looked even older than he was, the stress of the last couple of weeks graying him faster. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He’d been sleeping on the galaxy’s saddest bed, so that probably hadn’t helped. Ezra knew he was capable of sleep and comfort, but he was in a downward spiral of not believing he deserved nice things right now, which meant Ezra was going to have to be just as stubborn in believing the opposite.
“Okay,” Luke said finally, losing the staring contest. A small concession, but progress in Ezra’s mind. “Fine. Just… be here, then. Cause I’m not going anywhere.”
Ezra nodded. “Neither am I.”
—
20 years ago
Who could possibly be here right now? A modified Sheathipede- class transport shuttle landing on what was essentially Luke’s doorstep could mean nothing good.
The person that waded out of it was a human man, probably no older than Luke was. He wore a brown leather bomber jacket with a New Republic military plaque rank on the front, too far away to make out, over a fitted tan shirt, He had dark curly hair and a slightly unkempt beard. Luke frowned as the other man approached him.
Reaching out to the Force, he could tell this man’s emotions were running high. He probably didn’t need the Force to tell him that, though, because the man started yelling in his direction before he was close enough to talk. “You’re Luke Skywalker, right?”
Luke couldn’t sense any malcontent from this person, mostly just anxiety. Still, he hesitated, folding his arms across his chest, wrapping himself in his cloak as the man continued his approach. “Who’s asking?”
“The rebell—ublic. Republic. New Republic. Whatever. I—your sister—uh,” he pulled out a datapad and handed it to him, finally close enough to speak at a normal volume. Luke took the datapad. It was information on Grand Admiral Thrawn from the days of the Empire. The same Grand Admiral that went missing during the Battle of Lothal, along with rebellion hero—
Ah.
Luke looked up from the words on the screen at who he now understood was Commander Ezra Bridger, back from the unknown.
And he brought Thrawn, apparently.
“Empire’s back. Princess, uh, Senator General whatever Organa said you’d be here. I… didn’t know she had a brother. Also, hi, I’m Ezra.”
Luke held up the datapad in acknowledgement. “Ezra Bridger. I gathered. Welcome back.”
Ezra laughed, a short burst of sound before he cut himself off a little abruptly, clearing his throat. “Thanks. Um, I was informed you might be able to… help. I guess.“
The Force was chaotic around Ezra Bridger. His Force signature could only be felt in random bursts of energy, uncontrolled and somewhat volatile. His mind, when Luke reached for it, wasn’t so much impenetrable as it was impossible to follow. He was endless sprawling hyperspace lanes extending into the unknown.
Luke looked at the datapad. The first page of it was a summary of what the New Republic already knew plus the opinions of several senators. The second page, however, was just a note from Leia.
Please help :) You’ll like Ezra. He’s like you.
He only pretended to read the rest.
“What do you need me to do?”
Ezra’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, his blue eyes sparkling like the star-flared swirl of hyperspace inside him. “I honestly… don’t even know,” he said. “I just got here.”
He smiled, but Luke could hear the defeat in his voice. While the rest of the galaxy had lived in relative peace these past nine years, the war hadn’t ended for Ezra. He’d been fighting it for such a long time.
“You certainly did,” Luke said, pretending for a moment Ezra had only meant the planet. If he could offer some respite, some sort of break for the man who hadn’t had one in several decades now, then that’s exactly what he would do. “Would you like to stay for tea?”
—
Now
Ezra stayed. And he stayed. And stayed. And Luke kept deliberately trying to piss him off. He just kept staying.
Luke Skywalker was an asshole, but Ezra had known that for a very long time, and was completely unfazed by it.
“Don’t you have places to be?” he asked one night, as Ezra took his plate to the sink. “People to see?”
“They’re sick of me,” Ezra said, voice light. He scrubbed at a particularly stubborn piece of food, then used the Force to grab Luke’s plate and pull it to himself.
“No they’re not.”
“Okay, fine, I have a long range communicator,” he said, setting the dishes down and leaning against the counter to face Luke. “Don’t worry, you can’t tell where the call’s coming from, and I haven’t told anyone where I am, just that I’m with you. And besides, even if I had, Hera Syndulla is not a snitch .”
He was also not 100% convinced that Hera didn’t have him microchipped like a pet tooka so she’d always know where he was.
But he wasn’t going to mention that to Luke.
“No, but she probably put some sort of tracking device on you the second you got back from Peridea,” Luke muttered.
Mostly because he didn’t have to.
“No one’s gonna find us. We’re perfectly removed from the rest of the galaxy so you can mope in peace.”
“ You could leave.”
“So could you.”
Ezra was already sick of this conversation, and it had only been a couple of days. They were both too annoyingly stubborn for anything to change.
So Ezra went on a walk. Ahch-to was a beautiful planet, if a little hilly. And cold. But it was full of life. They weren’t the only people on this planet. The caretakers of the temple—the Lanai— had welcomed Luke to his place of exile, and then Ezra when he found him later. They were always around, and Ezra hadn’t figured out their language yet, but if he was going to be here for the foreseeable future, he preferred to be able to talk to them. This was essentially their house and Luke and Ezra their long term guests, even if the Lanai didn’t see it that way.
A single caretaker was sweeping the concourse when Ezra found her. She nodded politely at Ezra, and continued her work. Ezra stepped across the stones, grabbing another broom and starting to clean the bricks as well.
The caretaker made several sounds that Ezra was pretty sure were protests, and she tried to take his broom from him, but he was faster and taller and moved it out of her reach. She put a hand on her hip and said something else in her language that Ezra didn’t need a translator for. “I want to help,” he said, and he mimed sweeping again. She said something else, pointing at herself, then pointed at Ezra and pointed back towards the direction he came from. Yeah, yeah, this wasn’t his job, he knew that. He just kept shaking his head, and pretending to sweep, repeating the word help .
They were at an impasse. One of them was going to have to give in. After a few long minutes, Ezra just decided to start sweeping and ignore her protests entirely. He gestured at the broom and made a sound that wasn’t a word in any language, trying to convey that he was helping . She threw her hands in the air, clearly exasperated, and then pointed at the corner across from the two of them. “Over there?” Ezra asked, pointing in confirmation. She nodded.
Progress. He won. He could help.
He cleaned his section of this concourse like it was life or death. He focused on it like it was the only thing that mattered. Because focusing on anything else felt like he was admitting defeat.
Luke and Ezra didn’t have a language barrier, but their conversations kept going in circles anyways. Luke insisting he didn’t need him here, Ezra refusing to let that be the answer. But he won with this Lanai woman whose name he still didn’t even know and didn’t yet have the words to ask. He’d win with Luke, too.
One of these days, Luke would let him help.
—
Then
“Can I help?” Luke asked, watching Ezra’s eyes glaze over as he stood at the sink in the Ghost ’s kitchen. Water slid off the plate he was rinsing as he seemed almost frozen in place. “Ezra?” Luke said, putting the Force behind his words, an attempt to reach into his mind and pull him out of it and into the physical world. It worked. Ezra blinked, no longer lost in space.
“Uh, towels are in that drawer,” he answered Luke’s original question, handing him the wet plate and nodding in the general direction of several drawers. Luke took the plate, but it took him a few tries to find the towels. He dried in silence, waiting for Ezra to hand him dishes. But Ezra stopped, staring at the wall again. Luke gave him a few seconds to come back, and was about to try and get his attention again when he turned his head and looked Luke directly in the eye. “Did you think I wouldn’t feel that?” he asked.
For a solid three seconds Luke had no idea what he was talking about, he hadn’t touched him. “What?” he asked, and then it clicked.
Ezra could feel it. When Luke reached into his mind, when he used the Force behind his words, Ezra could feel it. Of course he could. He was a Jedi also, just like Luke. Luke’s heart pumped a little faster, his cheeks warming.
“It was like you shook me, but… in my mind,” Ezra explained. “You mind tricked me.”
“Well…” Luke started, but then shut his mouth. That was pretty much exactly what he did. “I—“
“Please don’t do that.”
Luke’s chest felt tight, his stomach churning. He hadn’t even thought about it, or thought it through, and it wasn’t invasive, not like Luke saw anything in Ezra’s head that was personal. But still. “I’m sorry,” Luke said, finally able to stop stammering. “I won’t do it again.”
Ezra just nodded. “Just like… that’s my head. No offense, but I barely know you.”
Luke very much did not want to be having this conversation, mortified beyond belief. “I promise I wasn’t trying to pry or anything, but you’re right. I shouldn’t have assumed that was okay. I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s fine, just…” Ezra trailed off, swallowing whatever the rest of that sentence was going to be. “It’s fine.”
They finished dishes in silence after that.
The thing was that Luke didn’t think Ezra was okay. The only reason Luke had reached for his mind in the first place wasn’t to pry, but to pull him out of whatever trauma he was stuck in. He was having to push down his natural instinct to help in order to respect Ezra’s very reasonable boundaries.
He wondered what they might’ve been to each other if they’d met during the war, when they were both teenagers fighting it. Instead Luke had just been fumbling around in Ezra’s shoes, trying to glean Jedi knowledge and wisdom from the echoes he left behind. When Ezra said he barely knew Luke, it stung, because Luke knew Ezra. Or, at least, Luke knew the idea of Ezra, in mission reports and rebellion storytelling, the idealized image of a fallen hero which turned out to be just a facsimile of the real person standing beside him.
As much as Luke thought he was only trying to help him, he realized now that he’d been trying to fix him, a feat that was impossible not because he was broken beyond repair but because he was not broken at all. He was not a story Luke could just rewrite because he didn’t like the epilogue.
Still, it felt wrong not to do anything. It felt wrong to dance around problems just because they were uncomfortable. Ezra had already moved on from the conversation, ready to continue their awkward tiptoeing around each other, and Luke decided that wasn’t going to be all that this was.
“Do you meditate?”
Ezra was in the middle of walking out the door when he stopped, his back still to Luke. He turned a half step towards him. “I… sometimes. Haven’t in awhile.”
“Well, I have a routine, every morning. My dreams aren’t always pleasant. I don’t know how the Force is for you, how you see it, but for me it’s like… fire. Like a sun, burning, endlessly. And it doesn’t hurt, always, but it can. Sometimes it’s like I can feel… everything? And I don’t exactly know how to turn it off. I don’t think I should, even if I could, honestly. But meditating helps. I can focus on just what’s around me, just what I need to, and turn the rest of it down. This is a long winded way of asking you if you’d maybe like to join me. Sometime.”
Luke half-expected Ezra to turn and leave without saying anything. He tried not to use the Force to register Ezra’s emotions, but he seemed receptive to the idea, at least on the surface level. He turned another half step until he was facing Luke directly. “Okay. Sure.”
Relief washed over him, forcing a small smile onto his face. “Tomorrow morning?”
Ezra just nodded, disappearing into the next room.
Luke felt the breath return to his lungs, releasing as much of his anxiety to the Force as he could. It was a start. It was progress. It was something.
Morning was relative on long hyperspace journeys, and apparently Ezra was a lot like Luke when it came to sleeping regularly. The ship’s night cycle said it was probably closer to three AM. Ezra found Luke in the living area, where he’d set up a blanket on the floor. He liked meditating on ships, where he could feel the hum of the engines beneath him. Especially ships like the Ghost or the Falcon , where there was so much love poured into their upkeep and maintenance that it felt alive itself. Like he could feel Sabine working on it, fixing the things that needed it, making sure it sang.
Ezra sat down cross legged across from him. “Morning.”
“Good morning,” Luke responded. Ezra met his eyes only briefly before choosing a spot to look at on the blanket. He tugged at one of the strings.
“So. Do you do anything special for this?”
The question didn’t really make sense, but Luke more or less understood how to answer. He shook his head. “I just close my eyes and reach for the Force.”
“We’re in hyperspace,” said Ezra. Luke didn’t need the Force to tell he was nervous. And that it had something to do with hyperspace.
“Yes.”
He thought maybe Ezra would explain why he brought it up in the first place, but he kept it to himself, closing his eyes.
When Ezra dropped the walls he’d been hiding behind, even just a little, and let the Force flow, Luke was surprised. He hadn’t expected Ezra to open himself up like this, especially after he’d set a boundary with Luke just a few hours ago. When Ezra started to meditate, he let himself be vulnerable, and Luke wasn’t about to betray the sliver of trust he’d been granted.
There was a sense of calm between the two of them. Ezra was settling into the Force tentatively, but Luke didn’t pull him, just waited patiently for him to find his center first.
Luke saw the Force as a bright and brilliant star, and felt it as warmth. Where there was life there was fire, and inside him was an inferno, barely contained yet somehow something he could still control. Ezra was still warm in the Force, but Luke didn’t reach for him yet, not until Ezra would reach first.
He never did. Instead, the heat intensified to levels almost physically painful. It wasn’t comforting warmth, but burning, searing and hot. The kind of fire that turned blue and white, like too-distant stars, across the galaxy, into the unknown.
Like hyperspace , Luke realized, a little too late. Ezra’s mind was splintering, following stars and planets they passed as they traversed the hyperspace lane, leaving bits of himself spread out amongst the stars. If Luke didn’t do something quickly, he’d be lost forever.
But it hurt to reach for him now, his Force signature fracturing like glass, cutting him if he tried. Ezra was going to have to do it himself.
Luke opened his eyes. Physically, Ezra’s face was twisted, his brow furrowed in obvious distress, but his eyes were closed. Luke could see them darting back and forth at an almost inhuman speed behind his eyelids, but he stayed rooted to the ground, otherwise completely still. “Ezra,” he said.
The Force lashed out, and something behind Luke fell off the wall and crashed to the ground. He didn’t turn to see what it was, focusing only on Ezra. In the Force, he tried to send calm, to cool everything down, and it only helped marginally. With each breath of calm Luke pushed into the Force, Ezra seemed to pull away from him. Not intentionally, just that something else was tugging at him the other way. Like some sort of cosmic tug of war. Like with each passing second Ezra was becoming one with the Force, which was only a comforting thought after someone had already died.
Luke reached out to the sun that was the Force, taking its warmth and light and blanketing Ezra in it. This wasn’t heat, like the kind Ezra was emitting, but life. People. Animals, plants, trees. Everything that drank up the sun's warmth and flourished. “Come back,” he whispered. Don’t go, not yet.
It wasn’t easy, and it lasted a lot longer than Luke had even expected. Every time he thought he was making progress, Ezra would slip inexplicably further away. But Luke just sent warmth. Again, and again. He drew on the way he could feel the people who’d walked this ship before. The laughter that had always filled these rooms, even when things were bleak and hopeless. There were so many people on this ship who had thrived under the light from the sun, even when it was only reflected by twin moons. There was history here, Ezra ’ s history, untainted by the terrors and unforgiving nature of the unknown and hyperspace.
Ezra responded, and he kept responding, until finally Luke was close enough to touch. He wasn’t so splintered anymore, but Luke still didn’t pry. Ezra had asked him not to. He didn’t know why hyperspace had triggered this, what had happened to him that the Force could devour him this way. When a tear slipped down Ezra’s cheek, Luke didn’t move to wipe it away. He said his name.
Ezra gasped, blue eyes flying open, and Luke could see the swirl of hyperspace in them before it faded quickly. He flung his arms out like he’d been trapped, scrambling off of the blanket a meter or so away, taking gulping breaths. Had he not been breathing before? Luke kicked himself for not even thinking to check.
His own arm was outstretched in Ezra’s direction, but he quickly dropped it. It wasn’t like he was within touching range right now anyways. Ezra backed up against the table behind him, resting his head against it and still trying to catch his breath. The Force wasn’t pulling so strongly at him, wasn’t trying to take him away anymore.
When Luke finally let himself believe Ezra was no longer in immediate danger, the wave of exhaustion hit him. He pressed his hand to the ground behind him and rested his weight against it, letting his head loll and hang behind him, staring up at the ceiling.
He should get Hera. Ezra trusted Hera. He barely knew Luke. If it were Luke, he probably wouldn’t want Ezra witnessing him at his most vulnerable either. He turned and grabbed at the cushion of the couch to push himself up, standing on shaky legs. There were a lot less things on the wall than there were before, random tools and spare parts now on the ground instead of the shelves that had fallen off during the whole ordeal. Luke would pick those up later.
He took one step towards the cockpit. “Wait,” Ezra said. His voice was ragged and hollow, but it was enough to stop him in his tracks. Luke looked over at him, curled up with his knees pulled against his chest, his back resting against the table leg. “Stay. Please.”
He wouldn’t look at Luke when he said it. But he didn’t have to be told twice. He just nodded, and slumped onto the couch.
He didn’t exactly mean to, but when he closed his eyes again he couldn’t help himself. The exhaustion washed over him, and he fell promptly asleep.
—
Now
Ezra found Luke asleep on his sorry excuse for a bed in his hut. He didn’t look peaceful in his sleep, his face twisted in obvious discomfort. There was a blanket folded neatly at the edge of Luke’s stone slab, unused, and Ezra draped it over him.
He’d spent the majority of the day helping the Lanai with upkeep of this little village, and it had felt like progress. He’d connected with something. Now it was just time to connect with Luke.
Ezra sat down on the floor, closing his eyes. He’d come a long way meditating since the first time he tried it with Luke and had a Force-related trauma episode that Luke had had to save him from. Back when hyperspace reminded him of being ripped away by purrgil, taken away from his family and dumped on a planet all alone. Back when that fear bled into his waking moments, tearing him apart at the seams.
Now, the Force felt freer, more open, like the sprawling plains of Lothal. Here was calm, here was safe, and here was with Luke.
Luke, whose dreams were a stormcloud over his usual warmth in the Force. Luke, whose guilt was tangible, like the air before lightning struck, electrically charged. He still hadn’t told Ezra what had happened with his nephew, and behind Luke’s stormcloud was exactly that story. But Ezra didn’t pry. He just walked through his tall and gentle grassland and reminded Luke that life would still thrive and flourish, even when it rained.
When Luke woke, he did so quietly. There was no startled jump or immediate spring to action, reacting to a dream long gone. His eyes opened and met Ezra’s. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Luke didn’t move to sit up, he just reached out his hand and Ezra took it. “Talk to me. Please,” Ezra whispered. But Luke shook his head.
“It’s my burden to bear,” he said.
“It doesn’t have to be yours alone.”
His grip on Ezra’s hand slackened, falling limp to the bed. “Yes it does.”
What did you do when the galaxy’s last hope lost hope in himself? What happened when the light was all the way gone? Luke rolled over, his back to Ezra now.
He might have given up, but Ezra hadn’t.
Ahch-to was similar to Lothal in the way that both planets had a deep connection to the Force. There was no way Luke could ignore it forever. Especially if Ezra made Ahch-to love him the same way Lothal loved Ezra.
He made the uneven trek down the mountain, following the Force. The stronger the Force felt, the closer he was. It led him down towards the base of the mountain, where the rising water had given the rocks a permanent shine. The wind picked up, blowing mist from the oceans directly into his face, and he accepted that he would likely not be dry until he left this place. The pull converged on a deep pit, as physical as it was in the Force. It looked like a cooled volcano had spread its ashen tendrils all over the rocks, and in the middle was a black hole. Ezra took tentative steps towards it, placing each foot carefully, until he stood at the edge, overlooking nothingness. An empty abyss.
It wasn’t the dark side that Ezra felt, it didn’t have the undercurrent of evil, but it was still the Force, and it was still weaving its web for those who would wield it. Ezra closed his eyes and reached for it, plucking at the strings to see where it would lead. He was used to following its paths, to trusting it even when it didn’t make any sense, when amidst the chaos it was all he could feel.
The images he saw were nonsense, as usual. A planet of lightning. A cheering crowd. Large tanks full of mysterious brackish fluid and blurry figures inside that might’ve been people but might’ve been something else entirely. Ezra waded through this darkness without fear, and all he could truly glean from what the Force was showing him was that whatever this was, it didn’t have anything to do with him. There were no Loth-wolves, no world in between, no call of a purrgil. The Force wasn’t pulling him here, he realized. It wasn’t calling to him, it was simply allowing him to see a path that wasn’t his.
Decades ago, in the middle of the desert somewhere on Tatooine, Obi-Wan Kenobi had pushed him away. He wouldn’t learn for years the true reason why, but even back then he’d gotten the sense that Obi-Wan had seen something in the Force and he’d trusted him. Maybe Ezra was seeing something similar now. A path that wasn’t for him to walk, but to light someone else’s way.
Behind him he felt a new yet familiar presence approaching, grumpy but not unwelcome. Ezra opened his eyes to turn, finding Luke wrapped in his tattered-looking brown robes, hood covering his graying hair, a frown etched harshly on his face. The wind and rain splashed against the rocks loudly, and Ezra took the steps to meet him. “Find what you were looking for?” Luke asked.
Ezra didn’t know the answer to that question. “Of course not. You know how the Force is.”
“Useless?” Luke offered.
Ezra gave a helpless shrug. “Maybe. But this place is so… alive . I can’t help but listen anyway.”
At least the sea creatures that lived in the vast ocean agreed with him. Luke wrapped himself tighter into his robe. “I don’t think I need to hear what it has to say.”
A gust of wind chose that moment to blow Luke’s hood off his head, falling back against his shoulders. He made a face and grabbed for it, pulling it angrily over his head again. “I think the Force disagrees,” Ezra said with a little grin. Luke just rolled his eyes.
“What did it say to you?”
What did it say to him? Nothing coherent, obviously, but it did tell him a few things. Mainly that it wasn’t his turn to be the hero anymore. “I think it called me old,” he conceded.
He thought for a second that made Luke smile. Half of his face was shadowed by the hood, but he could’ve sworn he saw the other man’s lips quirk before he turned his head. “We are old.”
“Which means we’re wise now.”
“Right.”
Ezra held out his hand, palm up, an invitation. Luke hesitated, but took it. “I won’t let you get lost,” Ezra said, and Luke finally met his eyes, watery gaze holding as he gripped his hand. He closed his eyes first and Ezra followed.
The peace Ezra had found in the Force was slightly uprooted by Luke’s bright presence in it. Ezra had always had to adjust his own understanding of the Force whenever Luke was involved. He was brighter and more potent than most everything else Ezra could feel, and he’d had to work harder to feel things that weren’t Luke whenever he was around. It had been a challenge, but one that was worth it. Luke was a little blinding, sure, but he was mostly just warm.
But now, Luke’s usual brightness was somehow muted. Vignetted on the edges with shadow and pain. But Ezra had promised he wouldn’t let Luke get lost. Not forever.
The Force never gave straightforward answers. There were shadows, dust, and red smoke that tasted like salt, but nothing coherent, just images overlayed with feelings.
And then, a girl.
Her dark brown hair was pulled back, out of her grime-covered face, with a few pieces hanging loose around her cheeks. She wore tattered, light-colored clothing. She couldn’t have been any older than a teenager.
Ezra didn’t know her name, but he knew her. He saw in her eyes the pain of being left alone. He saw in her stance the overconfidence of an orphan hiding their fear. She looked at him for a long moment, unblinking, and then he was somewhere else.
Luke was beside him again, and he was back on Ahch-to. But Luke was now staring out into the middle distance, eyes open but glassy, unblinking and unmoving. He still held Ezra’s hand, but his grip had loosened. Ezra didn’t understand the girl, didn’t know if he ever would, but that was less important than the promise he made only moments ago to not let Luke get lost.
He reached out to the Force, pushing away the dark things Luke kept bringing to the surface. He saw flashes, heard screams, felt the guilt and pain that came with being completely helpless. He pushed calm, he pushed different memories, he wove together the real story, sourced from the Force itself.
Mostly.
The Force was never direct, and since Ezra wasn’t around the day Luke lost everything, he could only trust it to give a better account than the one tinged by Luke’s guilt and sorrow. It was still awful, but not teetering on the edge of darkness and corruption. There was still a way forward. There was still hope.
Ezra didn’t know how long they stood there, tangled in a memory Ezra still couldn’t fully see, slowly pulling Luke back from a cliff. It wasn’t a quiet break from the tendrils of the Force; Luke gasped and stumbled back a few steps, and Ezra wrapped his arms around him, catching him as they both fell to their knees.
For a moment Ezra thought Luke would push him away, but the other man leaned into him, his shoulder and cheek to Ezra’s chest, letting Ezra engulf him. Ezra buried his hands in Luke’s robes as he held him, the scent of the cold and damp air filling his nose. Luke’s breath was short, and Ezra rubbed his shoulder for warmth, pressing a soft kiss into his hair. For a second, Luke seemed to relax.
It didn’t last. Just as Ezra thought he made a breakthrough, Luke pushed himself to his feet, out of Ezra’s embrace. “I’m done,” he said, and Ezra’s heart sank. He reached up for his hand, but Luke turned so he couldn’t grab it.
“Luke—“
“The Force doesn’t need the Jedi anymore,” he said. “It doesn’t need me.”
“You are not the only Jedi.”
“Who else is there? You? You don’t even like the title.”
Now he was just exaggerating to piss Ezra off. They both knew that wasn’t true. Ezra pushed himself to his feet. His knees sure weren’t what they used to be, cracking slightly as he pulled himself to his full height, still a few inches shorter than Luke. “Just because we disagreed sometimes doesn’t mean I’m not—“ He cut himself off. Luke was rehashing old arguments just to avoid having this one, and Ezra wasn’t going to let him. “You know what I mean.”
But Luke only shrugged. Dismissive. Because he already knew his answer, and it proved his point. He brushed past Ezra, finding his way to the jagged path that would take him back up the mountain. The wind and the tide continued splashing against the rocks.
The Force continued to be quiet.
—
Then
When Luke woke from his brief overexertion nap, the Force was quiet in a way that felt uneasy, the kind of calm that only happened right before a thunderstorm, when you could smell the ozone in the air. He pushed himself up, blinking the Ghost back into focus. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but Ezra was no longer in the room.
He wanted to approach the situation delicately, but he also didn’t want to understate what had just happened. Not that Luke entirely understood what happened, but that was all the more reason to give Ezra as much grace as possible.
Soft murmuring echoed through the small hallways of the Ghost , leading him to the source—Ezra and Hera in the cockpit. Luke straightened his shoulders, lifting his chin, centering himself in the Force. Some of the tension released, but that was on Luke’s end. Ezra was still tightly wound.
Hyperspace swirled out the viewport, and Luke found himself a little mesmerized. Of all the aspects of the Force, Luke understood hyperspace the least. It was the intersection of science and mysticism that led to a beautiful yet terrifying method of traversing the stars. Luke understood the cosmic and the living Force, understood the cycle of life and death and the dangers of the dark side, but hyperspace was somehow all of those things and none of them at the same time.
Still, it didn’t take a deep understanding of hyperspace to see how all of that could be too much for any one person to handle. Maybe Luke would never know exactly what happened to Ezra for hyperspace to affect him the way it did, but he didn’t really need to. His only objective was to help.
Hera noticed him standing awkwardly at the doorway and smiled softly at him. “Hi, Luke.”
“Hello,” he said. “That was a much needed rest.”
He did his best not to look at Ezra when he said it, but he could feel the other man’s eyes on him anyway. Hera sucked air through her teeth and stood up, meeting Ezra’s eyes. She seemed to have a silent conversation with him for a moment before he nodded once. “I’ll make tea,” she declared, and shouldered her way towards the door.
Luke stepped into the cockpit to let her pass through, and took her spot facing Ezra.
Everything in his posture portrayed nonchalance, leaning back against his chair with his arms folded loosely across his chest, one leg propped up across his knee. The Force, however, told a different story. Ezra’s discomfort was palpable.
“Just… wanted to say thanks,” he said. “For not letting me get lost.”
All Luke did was hold the rope, essentially. Ezra’s the one who climbed out himself. “You’re welcome,” he said.
Ezra lowered his arms, fidgeting with the zipper on his jacket, up and down and up and down, looking everywhere but Luke. “It doesn’t usually—I’m not usually…” he heaved a sigh, trailing off, shifting his leg so one foot was on the chair, his knee curled up against his chest.
“I know,” Luke said. No one was ever usually having panic attacks. Ezra nodded, chewing on the inside of his bottom lip. He wasn’t really one for sitting still.
“Right. You’re good, though? You slept for like four hours,” he said. That seemed right, though it initially surprised Luke.
“I’m fine,” he said, eyes drifting to the hyperspace swirl out the viewport. They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, the tension between them an almost infuriating barrier. Luke didn’t want this to be all it was. They were about to be thrown back into a fight together, there had to be some level of trust. Right now Luke could not tell what Ezra truly thought of him. “So what’s your favorite food?”
Clearly, Ezra wasn’t expecting the question. Luke was barely expecting it himself, it just tumbled out of his mouth for something to say. But both of them were tired of the weight they carried, tired of conversations that reminded them of it. Ezra blinked at him. “What?”
“Food? I love ahrisa. My aunt used to make the best ahrisa and haroun bread, said it was a family recipe. Oh, and blue milk. My favorite. We had it with every meal,” he said. He hadn’t had ahrisa since Beru’s death. It felt like betrayal. “What’s yours?”
Ezra’s forehead was still scrunched in confusion. “Uh, waffles. Why?”
Luke shrugged. “Curious.” This was not a convincing enough answer for Ezra, who didn’t trust easily. He was just curious. Ezra wasn’t one of his students, he was his peer. And if Luke was being perfectly honest with himself, he just wanted to be his friend. They’d gotten off to a very unconventional start. “Have you had any? Since you got back?”
Something lifted in the air, and Luke swore there was a hint of amusement on Ezra’s face, or fondness. Something other than anxiety. He nodded. “Hera made them for me the first night I got back, after Zeb met up with us. A mini family reunion celebration, I guess.”
The bonds Ezra had with the members of his crew were what grounded him, not anything Luke could have done. The Jedi preached non-attachment, something easy enough to say but a much harder path to walk. Luke had had to let go of his anger and resentment towards his father in order to save them both. He’d had to let go of the idea of a family that wasn’t splintered, a dream that would never be possible for him, but it could be for others throughout the galaxy. Luke’s dedication was to the light, to the rebuilding of it, not to any one person, even to those he loved dearly.
But with Ezra, with what little he’d seen between just him and Hera, his attachments to his family were what was keeping him from falling endlessly through hyperspace. The Ghost was his lifeline, following the paths he laid out to make sure he wouldn’t get lost. It was easy to feel the warmth and love in this cockpit, the love Ezra had for the people who helped shape him. For a ship named for death, it was so full of life.
“I’m glad,” Luke said. In the darkest of times, at least there were waffles. Something to put a smile on Ezra’s face as he thought about it.
Hera appeared in the doorway with steaming tea, handing a small cup to both of them. Luke thanked her and brought it to his lips, blowing on it before taking his first sip. Ezra’s eyes drifted to the viewport, but right now he was in no danger of slipping away, not when his tea was still warm.
“We should be coming out of hyperspace soon, can you check the navicomputer for how much longer?” Hera asked, and Luke craned his neck to check the estimated arrival.
“Forty-three minutes,” Ezra answered quicker than Luke could, an almost automatic reply.
The navicomputer confirmed. Luke turned his head back to Hera. “What he said.”
Hera Syndulla was not the type to be fazed by manifestations of the Force that didn’t make sense, like Ezra’s uncanny ability to navigate hyperspace. She nodded her thanks, reaching over to ruffle Ezra’s hair. He didn’t look at her, just tilted his head into her touch, almost absently, as natural as breathing.
“Leia sent us the schematics for the Chimaera , as well as evidence of a vessel near orbit around Dathomir. We should have enough evidence for the Senate to mobilize,” she said. Luke could feel the disdain coming off of Ezra. He rolled his eyes.
“Even enough evidence for Xiono?”
Hera smiled and nodded. “Even for him.”
“That guy’s the worst,” Ezra muttered.
“I don’t know about the worst, I think I would call him aggressively mediocre,” Hera commented.
“Useless and an asshole, please, pick a struggle.”
With the tension in the room finally broken, the warmth of the Ghost flourished. Ezra looked more relaxed, more comfortable. His smile deepened as he and Hera took turns insulting the senator, the crinkles around his eyes more prominent as he laughed.
There was still so much Luke wanted to know about Ezra, but his desire was selfish, a desperate attempt to stop feeling so alone. He’d heard the whispers, witnessed the beginnings of his own mystification. They’d started calling him the last Jedi , and it wasn’t even true, not even close. He wanted to share the title, wanted to trade knowledge and stories with the person who held it before him. But sharing knowledge came with sharing a burden—the Jedi had been wiped out once. They were remnants of something they’d never fully be able to recreate. It was not fair to make Ezra bear that burden just so Luke could lighten the load.
So Ezra was not knowable, not to Luke, not yet, maybe not ever. For now, it would have to be enough to be given glimpses, to sip hot tea in the cockpit of the Ghost and watch. It felt lighter, the burden of the Jedi, in that moment. It felt better just to laugh along and smile.
—
Now
Ezra wasn’t used to going this long without seeing Luke smile. It was like he forgot how. Even their arguments lost any passion, the times when Luke was willing to even engage in conversation were getting fewer and farther between.
Not that Ezra expected this to be easy. Healing never was. But starting arguments and waiting around for Luke to change his mind clearly wasn’t having the desired effect.
They’d been at a stand-off for a few months now, carving out the lives of peaceful, off the grid loners. A daily routine was just wake up, read a book from hundreds of years ago, fish on a long pole and possibly fall and die, reflect on how shit the galaxy is, eat a sad dinner and sleep on a sad bed. At least, that’s what Luke was doing. Ezra was feeding the porgs and getting better at the Lanai language, though his human vocal cords struggled on the more bird-like sounds of it. Ezra decided a long time ago he could live anywhere if he had friends.
He occasionally did nice things for his friends. Even when his friends were depressed and wallowing in failure and not being very good friends back. Especially when they were not being good friends back.
The idea Ezra had was cooking Luke’s favorite meal for him, which posed several problems, the main one being that he could not get the ingredients for ahrisa or blue milk on this planet. The secondary problem was that Ezra was not a cook. Even after all these years, food was still just a necessity to him. Hera’s waffles were the first food that actually made him realize food could taste good, and he’d never really bothered to try liking anything else. But Luke liked ahrisa and blue milk.
The closest place he could get either of those things was Batuu, which was a day’s hyperspace trip. Meaning, Ezra would have to leave the planet. Would have to leave Luke. He left a note saying he’d be back soon, and headed for his A-Wing.
Life was much different on Batuu than on Ahch-to. There were certainly more people, more bustling life, a city rather than a mountainous commune. After months of serenity, with the only people being Luke, him, and the Lanai, the bustle of life here was jarring. Ezra took a minute to ground himself, reaching out to the Force to quiet the noise and focus on the task at hand. He let the conversations flow around him, many in languages Ezra didn’t know, but some in Basic. The First Order’s growing power, their presence in the Unknown Regions, their talk of attacking the New Republic. Only Leia’s Resistance was doing anything about it.
The First Order, the Empire, the Rebel Alliance, the Resistance. Same shit different day.
Ezra kept walking. It tugged at him. Was he doing enough? Should he leave Luke for good? Go back and see what the Resistance needed? He meant what he said when he told Luke he wasn’t the only reason this was happening, so shouldn’t he be trying to help fight against all the other ones?
“Can I get you anything?” an old Ithorian man asked, and Ezra realized he’d stopped in front of a milk stand. He’d found it. He looked down at the options. Blue milk and green milk.
“Where does the green milk come from?” Ezra asked.
“That crate,” the Ithorian said, pointing behind him. “I don’t ask too many questions. Are you gonna buy something or not?”
Ezra frowned at him. The merchants on Lothal used to be nicer, even when he was stealing from them. “Three of each,” he said, and paid. He grabbed a fourth of each when the merchant turned to get change. If you’re an asshole you deserve to get stolen from. Sometimes the rebellion’s rules never really left him.
The ingredients for ahrisa weren’t that hard to find either, various stands and shops he browsed through. He stuffed everything in his backpack, throwing it over his shoulder.
He had everything he needed to go back to Luke. Still, he hesitated. Did the galaxy need him more?
For the first time in several months, he called Hera.
He was starting to believe she actually did have a tracker on him. The speed at which she picked up his comm, her blue form appearing in his hand, seemed faster than long-range communication was possible.
“Hi, Ezra. Where are you?”
“Batuu.”
She raised an eyebrow, clearly not expecting an actual answer. “With Luke?”
“No.”
“But you do know where he is.”
Ezra thought it probably best to say nothing, though his silence was absolutely an answer. She nodded. “Are you coming home?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The First Order… I want to be where I can do the most good.”
“And you don’t know if that’s with Luke.”
Ezra sighed. “I have to make a choice. Luke or the galaxy.”
The little blue figure in his palm flickered for a moment. Hera folded her arms across her chest. She nodded. “And you’re sure that’s not the same choice?”
It only would be if Ezra could convince Luke, which he was massively failing at. Still, giving up on him felt like betrayal. It probably was. “I don’t know,” he said. He thought of Kanan, sacrificing his life, sacrificing a future with the woman he loved, for the greater good. For the galaxy. “Kanan made this choice, once. He picked the galaxy.”
“Oh, Ezra,” Hera said softly. “Kanan didn’t pick the galaxy. He picked you.”
The warmth in her voice was like she was here. Like Kanan was here too, their hands on his shoulders, always guiding him, even though he was well and grown.
He picked you .
He picked a future for Ezra, for Sabine, for Jacen, a child he was never told existed. A future for the galaxy itself. Maybe there was a way to choose both.
He reached out to the Force, and found that the milk cartons and ingredients in his bag were a little heavier without someone to share them with.
“Ezra? You okay?” Hera’s gentle voice brought him back to the present. He nodded.
“I have to go,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, dear. Be safe.”
“Always,” Ezra said, and she disappeared from his fingertips.
He couldn’t ever know the future, but choosing Luke meant choosing a better future. One blue milk at a time.
The trip home was long, but Ezra was able to meditate, even in hyperspace. Luke helped him remember how to ground himself by connecting to other people, he had to know one of those people Ezra connected to was him. He had to know Ezra wouldn’t give up on him, wouldn’t leave him.
Luke was in the process of building some sort of modified vaporator when he got back, and he didn’t even seem to register Ezra was behind him. Ezra watched him, and then loudly announced “What’s that?”
Luke jumped and dropped his wrench. He turned to pick it up, briefly glancing at Ezra before grabbing it off the ground. “Desalination vaporator,” he answered. “Didn’t think you were coming back.”
For a minute there, neither did Ezra. He held up his bag. “I got ingredients for ahrisa. And milk.”
It wasn’t easy to surprise Luke, but by the look on his face Ezra thought he might’ve managed it. He tried to play it off by frowning harder, but Ezra had seen the softening between his eyebrows. “You’re going to cook?”
Rude. Ezra feigned offense. “I’m an excellent cook.” A bold-faced lie. “But I would love some help.”
Luke’s face scrunched slightly as he turned back to the vaporator and Ezra knew he’d convinced him. “Fine. But only so you don’t ruin it.”
“I would never .”
Ezra did not, in fact, ruin anything. But that was only because Luke was standing behind him, breathing down his neck, telling him he folded the lentils into the batter wrong or put in the incorrect amount of spices. Ezra just flung flour over his shoulder, hitting him in the face, and added as many spices as he wanted. “Trust the process.”
Luke wiped flour off his face, flinging it off his fingers and back at Ezra. “You asked for my help.”
“Didn’t think you’d be so annoying about it,” he answered, pulling the dough out of the bowl, about to stick it over the flame to bake.
“What are you doing?” Luke demanded.
“What’s it look like?”
“You didn’t knead it or let it rise.”
“Doesn’t it just rise in the heat?”
Luke rolled his eyes, grabbing the dough and laying it out on the counter, starting to fold and push with his hands. Ezra had seen Kanan and Hera do this a few times, when they had enough flour to make fresh bread. It looked easy enough. He shouldered his way into taking over for Luke, and dug his palms into the dough, mimicking the movement Luke just did. Over and over.
“How long do I have to do this?” Ezra asked, turning his head slightly to look at Luke. Luke hadn’t bothered to move too far away from him, his chin hovering just over Ezra’s shoulder, his breath close enough to feel. When Ezra turned, their faces were only inches from each other. Luke’s eyes drifted to Ezra’s lips.
“Until I say so,” Luke responded, and Ezra turned back to what he was doing, kneading a little harder now. “Your technique is terrible.”
Ezra rolled his eyes, trying to change it, but there really wasn’t a whole lot he could do differently. Luke clicked his tongue in disappointment, sighing just a bit too dramatically, so Ezra stopped, turning his head over his shoulder to give him a look. For the first time in a long time, his expression wasn’t harsh or indifferent. The hard lines and edges of his face had softened, leaving a warmth in his eyes Ezra hadn’t seen since he got here. A warmth he’d missed.
“You’re insufferable,” he said, even as his face gravitated closer to Luke’s, slowly closing the already-small gap between them.
“You’re one to talk,” Luke responded, but there was no bite to his words. They were nearing an inevitability, Ezra could feel it in the air, but he didn’t move. He parted his lips, waiting for Luke to lean forwards. The setting sun streaming in through the window reflected off his pale blue eyes like a warm flame.
When Luke kissed him it was tentative, but Ezra breathed in, an attempt to pull him closer. It wasn’t passion, or need, or want, just an acknowledgment of the thing between them they’d never actually cared to define. Even though Luke’s lips were chapped, he still managed to be tender and soft. For a moment, his warmth in the Force came back, his signature a small fire deep in Ezra’s bones like he’d always been there.
It was not a long kiss, there was still bread to make. They broke apart at the same time, one breath of togetherness was all they seemed to need for now. Ezra opened his eyes, waiting for Luke to do the same. He always loved watching Luke process. He seemed to meditate on the kiss, like he was savoring it, his face serene and quiet, and lit up by the sun. Ezra reached his arm up to tuck a strand of Luke’s graying hair behind his ear, ghosting his thumb across Luke’s cheek.
Luke blinked his eyes open, meeting Ezra’s, and placed a hand on his shoulder, nodding. He squeezed his shoulder before dropping his hand, looking back over at the ahrisa on the counter. “We need to let it rise before we bake it.”
It was we now.
The ahrisa turned out better than Ezra could’ve done himself, and he very much enjoyed watching Luke drink the blue milk, the foam getting stuck in his beard. Ezra wasn’t very good with cooking, but he found that his favorite foods were the ones that were shared. It tasted better than being alone.
He had no idea if tonight’s good night would last, if Luke’s good mood would stick around for a few weeks or only a few hours. But he made Luke smile again. He reminded both of them that the galaxy wasn’t always saved by some grand gesture. There weren’t always Death Stars or purrgil. Sometimes there was just milk and bread. And sometimes it was enough.