Chapter Text
“When did Kanan teach you how to do that?”
Sabine’s shocked voice cut into Ezra’s thoughts, slicing through the mask of anger and fear he’d been channeling to control the AT-ST pilot. Lowering his hand, he said, “He didn’t.”
The two words, simple as they were, sent a swirl of anger and bitterness and pain through his chest. Kanan hadn’t been teaching him much of anything lately. He hadn’t been for six months now.
After Malachor…a lot had changed. Hera had taken on more responsibility in the Rebellion, and Ezra, Zeb, and Sabine had started running missions together. And Kasmir and Okadiah had been responsible for Kanan’s network.
Because Kanan…Kanan was the biggest change. He’d stepped away from everything. From all of them.
Because he blames me. Because I’m the reason he can’t see any more. I trusted the wrong person and it’s my fault—
Shoving aside the burning feelings in his chest, Ezra took a deep breath, refocusing on the situation. Just in time—the door behind them blew open with a burst of sparks and shards of metal.
As a group of troopers poured forth, Ezra took off, heading down the platform before him. He heard Zeb, Sabine, and Hondo firing at their pursuers, but didn’t look back to check on them. He knew they’d be fine.
His wrist com chimed, and Ezra called over his shoulder, “Get ready to jump!”
“Jump?” Hondo sounded startled, which was always fun to cause. “What does he mean, jump? Jump where?”
“Means our ride is here,” Zeb called in response, and sure enough, Ezra heard the familiar roar of engines. The Ghost cruised towards them, tracking down underneath the platform.
“Now!” Ezra shouted, and bolted for the edge, vaulting over the side. He dropped onto the roof of the Ghost , rolling into a perfect landing.
He heard the others jump after him, and silently counted the landings inside his head as they thumped down next to him. Zeb, Hondo, Chopper, and Sabine. They were all there. They’d made it, again.
And then, as Ezra straightened up, he sensed it.
A presence. A Dark one.
He’d sensed it on most of his recent missions, but he’d never been able to find the source. Ezra turned around regardless, staring at the prison as they zipped away. For a minute, he thought there was nothing again.
And then he saw the tiny dark figure standing on the platform where they’d been minutes earlier. And, despite the helmet, Ezra could tell they were staring directly at him.
A lurch went through his stomach, and his hand instinctively moved to his lightsaber— not that it would be much help. But somehow, it caused a reaction in the dark figure, who tilted their head to the side. Through the Force, Ezra sensed a ripple of curious amusement.
Well, that’s…concerning, he thought. But at this point, they were too far away for him or anyone else to do something about it. So instead, he just followed the others through the airlock and into the Ghost. I should probably do something about this, though. Maybe Kanan—no. No, I’ll figure this out on my own. I have to.
Before he stepped inside, Ezra cast one last look at the platform, towards the dark figure. But they were gone.
~~~
“Congratulations, Ezra,” Hera told him, feeling a flash of pride. For just a moment, Ezra’s face was lit up, and he almost seemed happy, like he’d been six months ago. Like he’d been before Malachor.
“Kanan will be proud of you,” she added, and held back a wince at the way Ezra’s smile fell.
“Yeah?” he said, a bitter twist in his tone. “Well, he has a funny way of showing it, considering he’s never around.”
Not waiting for a response, he turned and stalked off, heading after Sabine and Zeb. Hera watched him go with a pang. Part of her wanted to go after him, to talk to him. To tell him that Kanan was still there, they just had to give him time.
But she’d tried that before. And after six months, it was getting hard enough to convince herself it was true, let alone Ezra.
Pushing aside the thought and the ache that came with it, Hera returned her focus to Commander Sato. But it wasn’t long before she excused herself and headed out of the briefing and towards the edge of the camp.
She knew she’d find Kanan there—other than his room on the Ghost or the Yellow Submarine , it was where he could be found most often. Hera thought he was meditating—well. She hoped he was meditating. With any luck, it would help him come to peace with everything going on, and bring him back to them. To her.
When Kanan had returned from Malachor, Hera had known not everything was going to be the same as it had been when he’d left. His vision was totally gone, and the wound that had destroyed it was a bad one. It had taken four months for him to heal. Four long, agonizingly slow months, with bacta treatments every day and Kanan being confined to his bed for at least one and a half of those months. An infection in the second month had set him back quite a bit, but finally, finally, he’d been declared fit to be up and about on his own.
And then…nothing.
Through his entire illness, he’d been quiet. Not just quiet—Hera could tell he was pulling back from the others. When they talked to him, he responded, but he didn’t engage them the way he used to. Any of them.
It hurt, seeing him this way. And not only because he was turning his back on her— because it’s not true. He’s recovering from an incredibly traumatic injury, and that’s not something that happens overnight for anyone. We just have to be patient— but because it wasn’t Kanan. He’d never turned his back on any of them, and normally he never would.
But he’d lost his sight. And that was hard on all of them. And even now, after he was healed (or at least mostly healed. The medical droid, along with all the articles Hera had read while sitting next to his bed in the hospital room, had told them that it would take a while to be fully recovered, both physically and mentally, from such a traumatic injury.) he wasn’t there.
There was a part of Hera that wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, to scream at him to come back to them. His family needed him, and they missed him. She missed him.
But whenever she thought about doing that, she reminded herself of the same thing— he had waited for her. Patiently, and without pushing, for years. And while it had been different, Hera knew there were times where it had hurt him, too.
So she would wait, too. Force knew she couldn’t wait forever—she didn’t have that kind of patience, and felt absolutely no shame about that—but she’d give him as much time as she could.
He was sitting on the edge of the perimeter fence, kneeling in the meditation position he always took up. Hera saw a few dokma—the shelled creatures that Zeb had nicknamed “bogens”—crawling on the ground around him, but Kanan didn’t move.
Here goes nothing, Hera thought as she approached. “Kanan,” she called, and he lifted his head slightly at her voice. “I was hoping to see you at the briefing.”
He didn’t say anything immediately, but Hera waited, hoping for something, anything. Finally, he said, “I hear Ezra’s doing well.”
Good. That’s progress. “He has been stepping up,” Hera agreed, feeling a flash of pride. But it was tempered with sadness as she continued, “But…you know, he blames himself for what happened to you and Ahsoka.”
Kanan’s voice was firm and held some of his old confidence as he said, “Well, I don’t.”
He’s still Kanan. He still cares about Ezra, about all of us. And that was the thought that pushed her into her response. “I wish you would tell him that,” Hera murmured.
She turned to go, knowing that there was nothing else she could really say. But she saw the way his head turned, and the way his jaw moved, setting into a thoughtful determination. Hera knew this man, and more often than not she knew what he was thinking—or at least she used to. Hopefully, he was going to talk to Ezra.
With any luck, this would be a step in the right direction, and Kanan was about to make the right decision.
~~~
Kasmir was just about sick of Kanan. More specifically, he was sick of what a moron that kid could be.
Listen. He knew what Kanan had gone through. It made him sick to his stomach, and there were times when all he could think about was jumping into the Kasmiri and flying off to hunt down the horn-headed son of a mynock who’d dared to lay a hand on his kid.
So when Kanan had pulled back a little, been quiet and shaken? Sure, he got that. Going through something like that, it would be weirder if he didn’t do that.
However.
It had been six months.
SIX. MONTHS.
And the kid was showing no signs of returning to the rest of his family and his work. Kasmir and Okadiah had been covering for him with the network, which was okay. If Kanan needed to step away from that, Kasmir would be just fine with it as long as they found a worthy replacement.
But he was all but ignoring his family. And Kasmir was done with it.
He’d been done with it a week earlier when he’d finally snapped and gone to talk to Kanan. Which they hadn’t been doing much of lately, and if Kasmir was being honest, that stung a bit. But that was fine. He had thick skin, he could live with it.
The argument that had followed, on the other hand…that was a lot less fine.
He’d found Kanan heading into his room, quiet as he always was these days. Following them, Kasmir called out, “Hey, kid! Can I have a word?”
“What is it, Kasmir?”
That was all he said. But his tone was so quiet, almost resigned, and the set of his shoulders spoke more of irritation, and it wasn’t the normal irritation, and that alone pushed Kasmir to say what he’d been wanting to say for two months now.
“What is going on with you?” he demanded.
“Nothing is—”
“Oh, don’t give me that,” Kasmir scoffed. “I’ve known you for a long time, kid. You’ve never acted like this. Pushing everyone away, and acting like you don’t give a flying kark about any of them. And let me tell you, you’re doing a real good job of convincing them.”
That made Kanan turn, and FINALLY Kasmir saw some real emotion crossing his face—anger. “I do care, I—”
“Sure you do, Kanan,” Kasmir sneered. “Sure. Ignoring your crew, barely talking to Captain H—and don’t get me started on Ezra. He needs you, don’t you see—”
“I DON’T SEE ANYTHING!”
Kasmir almost never heard Kanan shout. Not like this, face twisted with anger under the mask Sabine had painted for him. Stepping forward, he jabbed a wavering finger into Kasmir’s chest. “That’s what you and everyone else seems to fail to grasp. I. Can’t. See. And I’m handling it the best way I can, and if you have a problem with that? Feel free to leave. I’ll be fine without you.”
Spinning on his heel, Kanan stalked into his room. The door hissed shut behind him, leaving Kasmir stunned and shaken in the hallway.
He’d left him be. Not that he had much of a choice—Kanan had been furious, and things would only have gotten messier if he’d pushed it. And they hadn’t talked since. It was almost scary to see him that way, and Kasmir had originally thought that he’d never seen the kid that way before.
But then, it hit him. He had seen Kanan like this before, years ago. The kid wasn’t really angry, he was terrified. And reluctantly, Kasmir understood that.
But the sooner the kid figured that out, on the other hand, the better. It won’t take too much longer, he told himself, glaring at the datapad holding the report he was supposed to be reading. At least it better not, the way things are going.
“Hey, Kasmir!”
Kasmir’s head shot up at the sound of a voice that was, with very few exceptions, one of the last voices in the galaxy he expected to hear right now. “What the—Vos?”
Quinlan Vos grinned at him, irrepressibly cheerful as always. At his side stood his wife, Asajj Ventress, regarding him with a far more coolly neutral expression. “Good to see you, Kasmir.”
“You, too—what are you actually doing here?” Kasmir asked, frowning. “Aren’t you supposed to be off on some sort of super secret quest Kanan won’t tell us about?”
Nodding, Vos said, “Oh, yes, I am. But things have been slow lately, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to address something I’ve been meaning to ask about for, oh, five months now.”
“That question being,” Ventress said, “where in the blazes is Kanan?”
“Exactly,” Vos said breezily. “The past two check-ins it’s been you and Okadiah, and you two have been incredibly cagey.”
“Which I respect,” Ventress said. “However, this is somewhat important, and I would like to know what exactly our boss has going on that’s more important than this. I can’t think of much that could be.”
“Unless he’s eloped,” Vos said. “Which would be great except that I missed the wedding, which he specifically promised to invite me to. Sort of.”
Unable to hold back a snort, Kasmir said, “Yeah, a wedding. At this point that’d be a blasted miracle.”
Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. But Kasmir couldn’t really find it in himself to feel bad as Vos’s eyebrows shot up.
“Kasmir, what’s going on ?” he asked, his tone slightly more serious.
Heaving a long sigh, Kasmir said, “Kanan wanted us to keep it under wraps—said your mission was more important, and you couldn’t afford distractions. But currently I think he’s an idiot, so I’ll tell you anyway.”
He recapped the mission to Malachor—losing Ahsoka, Kanan being blinded, and Ezra escaping with the holocron—and the past six months. Both Vos and Ventress listened intently, a scowl lurking across Ventress’s face.
“This is unbelievable,” Vos said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe that Kanan of all people would do this. Don’t get me wrong—I can’t imagine what he’s going through and how it’s impacted him, especially his role in the crew.”
“But ignoring Ezra?” Ventress said, her scowl deepening. “Pushing everyone away? That is idiot behavior. Vos, we must do something.”
“Like what, talk to him?” Kasmir said, letting out a humorless snort. “Good luck, he’s not super receptive right now.”
Lifting an eyebrow, Ventress said, “Actually, none of my ideas involved that. Vos?”
The Kiffar man was frowning thoughtfully. “Hmm…I have no idea what he’s going through…”
“...yeah, you said that,” Kasmir said slowly, shooting Ventress a “has he finally lost it?” look. She just shrugged, watching her husband without comment.
Slowly, a smile spread across Vos’s face. “I don’t know what he’s going through,” he said. “But I know someone who might. Let’s go grab Kanan, and we’ll take him there now. Kasmir, where is he?”
“Usually out meditating—but I think I saw him heading towards the Ghost, ” Kasmir said, nodding towards where the ship was settled, a few yards away. As Vos and Ventress immediately turned towards the vessel, Kasmir added, “It ain’t gonna be easy to convince him to go, though.”
“Who said we were convincing him?” Ventress called over her shoulder, not breaking her stride. Kasmir let out a snort and headed after them.
They’d almost made it to the Ghost ’s lowered ramp when Kanan saw Kanan. The kid was coming out of the ship, his posture tense, shoulders rigid.
“Well, hi, there, Kanan,” Vos said cheerily as they approached, and Kanan’s head jerked up.
“Vos?”
He sounded stunned, but before he could take another step, Ventress moved forward and slammed her fist into his jaw. Kanan crumpled to the ground, unmoving.
Shaking her hand, Ventress remarked, “There. All yours, Vos, darling.”
“Thanks, babe—ooooh, what have we here?” The second remark came as Vos bent down reaching for something that had slipped out of Kanan’s hand when he fell, glinting gold and red in the Atollon sunlight.
Before he reached it, Ventress reached forward and yanked him backwards by the back of the shirt with such force that he hit the ground with a groan. “OW! Ventress, what the—”
“Sith holocron,” Ventress said, plucking the pyramidal object from where it lay. “Though feel free to touch it and pass out for the next 36 hours if you’re still interested.”
Vos shuddered violently. “Ugh. Thanks for the save. Wait—where did Kanan get a Sith holocron?”
“Most likely the Sith planet he and Ezra visited,” Ventress commented. Her frown growing deeper, she said, “But Kanan wouldn’t leave something like that on the Ghost . And he couldn’t open it.”
“It’s OPEN?” Vos gave her a horrified look. “Uh, Ventress? That ain’t good.”
“Oh, I know,” Ventress said. “Kanan’s no Dark sider, and he’s far too cut off from the Force right now to even attempt it—you can tell in an instant.”
Kasmir’s stomach plunged. “Wait. So that means—you think Ezra opened it? That’s not good, is it?”
“It’s not great,” Ventress said.
Holding up a hand, Vos said, “But, it’s recoverable. I mean, we both came back from the Dark side. It’s just an emo phase but with more murder, really.”
“It’s so funny how not reassuring that is,” Kasmir said.
“Also not accurate,” Ventress said. “Alright, you two take Kanan. I have a few stops to make before I leave—you can take off without me.”
“We can take the Kasmiri ,” Kasmir decided. He was tired of sitting around and waiting for the kid to get his head on straight. It was time to do something. And by something, he apparently meant kidnap their Jedi and tell Okadiah to cover for him. (he owed Kasmir anyway after the stunt they’d pulled three months earlier.)
Yeah, this was probably a crazy plan. Luckily, that was his crew’s favorite kind.
~~~
Ezra was halfway to the Phantom, trying hard not to think about his conversation with Kanan, when he heard a voice call his name.
“Ezra!”
Turning, Ezra’s eyes widened at the sight of a familiar face. “What—Ventress? What are you doing here? Is Vos here?”
“No, he had a delivery to make,” Ventress said, striding forward to stand in front of him. “I stayed behind to speak with Okadiah, and then you.”
“Shouldn’t you be talking to Kanan?” Ezra said, pushing aside a pang at the name. “Or Hera, maybe?”
A thin half smile crossed Ventress’s face. “Oh, Kanan doesn’t need to talk to me. But I may stop and talk to Hera shortly. You’re first on the list, though.”
“Right.” Shifting, Ezra shot a glance at the ship behind him, where he could see Zeb, Sabine, and Rex waiting for him. “Uh—can it wait? I have a really important mission coming up, and—”
“I know you opened the Sith holocron.”
Ezra froze. “What? Wait, did Kanan talk to you? Because I told him—”
“I did not talk to Kanan,” Ventress said. “How I know is unimportant. What is important is that you know what you’re messing with. The Dark Side is not some toy to play with, Ezra.”
Bristling, Ezra said, “I don’t think it’s a toy. It’s helping me fight the Empire and protect my friends.”
“It will not give you what you want,” Ventress said. “And if you keep using it—”
“You and Kanan can’t tell me what to do any more,” Ezra snapped, his patience withering away. “I can do what I want, and I don’t care what you think about it. Just because you’re afraid of it—”
“This is not about what I think.” Ventress’s voice was icy cold but calm, sending a chill down Ezra’s spine. Stepping closer, she said, “You are meddling with a power you cannot hope to truly control. The more you use it, the greater it becomes. And before long, it will swallow you up.”
For a moment, Ezra was frozen, staring at Ventress. The former assassin simply looked back, her icy blue eyes steady. What if she’s right, what if—it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t choose my life for me, and neither does Kanan. “I gotta go,” he told her, turning towards the shuttle.
As he walked away, he heard Ventress say, “Think about what I said, Ezra. Don’t act in haste.”
Gritting his teeth, Ezra kept walking.
Sabine was waiting outside the Phantom , and lifted an eyebrow at him. “Was that Ventress?”
“Uh-huh,” Ezra said, heading on board. He heard Sabine follow behind him.
“I thought she was on some mission for Kanan. What was she doing here?”
Shrugging, Ezra forced a casual tone as he said, “Who knows?”
He could feel Sabine frowning at him, and she asked, “Well, what did she say?”
“Nothing that matters. Look—can we get going now?” Ezra knew he sounded impatient, and he saw Sabine’s frown deepen.
But all she did was shrug. “Fine. Let’s get moving.”
Ezra settled on one of the bench seats in the background, ignoring Zeb and Rex’s curious glances. Finally, I can focus on the mission. Forget about everything else.
At least, that was what he told himself. Pretending that he didn’t hear Kanan and Ventress’s voices echoing in his head.
Do you have any idea how dangerous this path is?
Before long, it will swallow you up.