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Chapter Text

"I have to admit that I'm impressed, Akuna." Commander Lank Denvik pronounced as he set out two etched crystal glasses on his imposing black desk. He produced an expensive bottle of Alderaanian spiced brandy from one of the desk's cabinets before he continued, "I know that you reassured me of your ability to produce a Jedi for our ally but given Kestis' record, I was not expecting you to be successful. As a matter of fact, I feared that I was going to lose my best asset on this job. You might have experience but Kestis has escaped the Empire's best, including two Inquisitors, on numerous occasions."

Bode chuckled darkly before accepting a proffered glass that contained a great deal more than the standard two finger pour that galactic etiquette would dictate when savoring such expensive liquor. "If I might be so bold as to point out your preference for frequenting the casino worlds—"

"You may." Denvik nodded, sinking comfortably into his large and luxurious black bantha hide chair.

"When you're betting, who do you put your money on?"

The balding man eyed him warily over his glass for a moment, as though trying to determine if Bode had an ulterior motive in asking such a benign question. After a long draw off his drink, he settled back in his seat before he answered.

"It depends on the game and certainly the odds." Denvik's answer was non-committal at best.

Obviously there was a good reason that the man was still working for the Empire and hadn't given up the strict—albeit stable—life of a Commander for the Imperial Security Bureau. He had no idea how to play the game.

Kicking his feet up on the edge of the Commander's desk, something he knew aggravated the man to no end although Denvik had yet to break him of the habit, Bode smiled over his own glass. "Let me give you a bit of advice, Commander. The next time you hit up one of the casinos, forget about the odds and where the house expects the chips to fall. Go all in on the underdog and you'll come out on top every time."

"Perhaps you should join me on my next shore leave." Denvik mused dryly. "Consider it a bonus for a job well done. With the deposit delivered by Senator Sejan himself on delivery of the Jedi in addition to the funds to be wired after our show is over, I think it is fair to say that you've earned it."

For a moment, Bode pretended to weigh the offer, as if he actually wanted to travel anywhere in the Galaxy with the ISB Commander who had him by the balls. After just enough time passed, he opened his mouth to respond but the Imperial broadcast sprang to life on the holoprojector between them before Bode could propose a different type of shore leave. He covered up his sigh by taking another long drink of the strong brandy.

His proposal would have to wait for another time.

The crisp projection showed not just one, but six individuals, being marched out into the chambers of the Imperial Senate. All wore heavy black duraweave bags over their heads. Bode's eyes narrowed as he studied the image and then his eyes flashed up to Denvik's expression, carefully examining the man's reaction to the scene laid out before them. Given their risky line of work, bypassing Darth Vader and his Inquisitorious, they were generally privy to outstanding bounties captured and dealt with through underground networks established by other greedy Imperials looking to garner favor with the Emperor or earn a few extra credits under the table.

By the look on Denvik's face, he was as surprised as Bode was.

Bode couldn't help but add one more item to the list of reasons that Denvik remained in his miserable line of work: the man had a terrible sabacc face.

Next to the holoprojector, a red light began to blink slowly, accompanied by a low pulsing tone. From being present in Denvik's office a multitude of times when messages of high import were being transmitted, Bode knew that red only meant one thing—Coruscant was calling and the person on the other end of that comm would not be kept waiting. In that regard, it worked to Bode's advantage to be Denvik's dog, sniffing out the bounties and eliminating his problems so the man could live far more comfortably than most Imperial Commanders; he was always present when all hell broke loose. Having access to that kind of knowledge gave Bode bargaining power should the tables ever turn and he found himself on the wrong side of the Empire's blaster.

The image of the Emperor as he began his speech faded away, his holoimage replaced by surveillance footage of four individuals wielding lightsabers or brazenly demonstrating what Bode could only assume was some sort of gift in the Force, right there in the crypts of the Jedi Temple. The surveillance records were shown from multiple angles, producing incredibly clear images of the idiots dumb enough to raid the Jedi Temple, likely convinced that they were going to rescue Cal Kestis from his certain death.

"I suppose that explains the—" Bode started but then felt a rush of ice through his veins as yet another recording played.

The footage continued on, this time showing a stormtrooper that appeared to be willingly allowing himself to be carried onto the craft by the four Force wielding fools, and Bode knew without a doubt that it was no conscript or willing servant of the Empire hidden beneath the scuffed and dirty white helmet. It was Kestis. That accounted for five of the hooded individuals being paraded before the Senate, all of them likely to be some sorry failure or low level stormtroopers that failed their Emperor on that fated day, but there were six to be executed. A mere moment later, Bode realized that the sixth to be executed must have been their renegade pilot, at least, it would have been the pilot if they hadn't made a successful getaway—no small feat given Coruscant's congested and well patrolled skies.

Before Denvik could question the meaning of the footage, Bode was already at his feet with his blasters drawn. Two quick shots to center of mass later and Denvik was dead, not a word uttered about Bode's apparent failure as the highly classified footage continued on the display between he and Denvik's corpse, whose lifeless hands was far too close to his panic button that would summon every sentry and security droid, every purge trooper, stormtrooper, and officer in the building to his command center within mere moments. Denvik's death had been perfectly timed for one other reason as well: the final screen of intelligence that flashed to life on the holoprojector—an active bounty in the sum of 1.5 million credits for the rogue Jedi, a known traitor and terrorist of the Galactic Empire, Bode Akuna.

Although he shouldn't have wasted the time, Bode quickly scanned over the information presented, feeling his lips turn up into a snarl at how impeccably accurate it was. A former Jedi spy, Akuna was wanted for acting directly against Emperor Palpatine's decree that any known whereabouts of surviving Jedi or Force-sensitive beings must be reported to local authorities promptly so that the threat can be dealt with according to Imperial procedure. It went on to say that his capture of Cal Kestis, followed by Bode's decision to release the terrorists into the hands of an unnamed benefactor, was in direct violation of multiple Imperial laws, including profiteering without permission of the Emperor.

However, the bounty hadn't gotten everything correct.

Amongst his crimes included failure to self-report a previous affiliation with the treasonous Jedi in exchange for amnesty with cooperation (something that he'd done when he agreed to act as Denvik's designated lackey), murder of Senator Deho Sejan (an interesting development given that he was breathing when Bode left Kestis in his custody), and allegations that Bode himself was responsible for constructing a team of six Force-sensitive beings that attempted—and failed—to liberate Kestis from the Jedi Temple. Naturally all of the damages incurred about the city and throughout the Temple as well as an impressively high number of Imperial casualties during the so-called attempted escape were included on his rap sheet as well.

Working for as long as he had as an underpaid bounty hunter under the banner of the Empire, Bode highly doubted that anybody privy to the information that was undoubtedly being published to bounty pucks in every sector across the Galaxy would believe that Kestis was actually one of the men beneath those black hoods. If the Empire still had the red-headed Jedi turned rebel in their captivity, they would have been certain that every soul controlled by the Empire bore witness as he lost his head, only for his expressionless and lifeless face to be hauled up by those recognizable red locks for all the Galaxy to see what happened to those who defied the Galactic Empire.

It took a minute for Bode to realize that he'd wasted far too much time lingering to read his crimes, time that he did not have. Denvik's office might have been well sealed and protected, accessible to only a handful of people on base under standard operating procedures, but Imperial surveillance was everywhere. Bode had just handed the Empire footage of Denvik's point-blank execution by his hand, one more crime to add to the list. This was no time to berate himself for his rash decisions, though, and attempting to find a way to cover up his misdeeds would be fruitless now that the Empire associated him with six Force wielding terrorists that were still somewhere out there in the Galaxy.

Rushing to the other side of the desk, he patted down Denvik's body for every credit, weapon, and credential he could find on the corpse. He then turned his attention to the man's desk, rapidly tearing through the drawers and cabinets until his pockets were as full as they were going to get. As an afterthought, he snatched up the portable holoprojector and tucked it in a utility pocket on his thigh. All of the Intel he needed would be embedded into the device and he would need all the help he could get in the coming days. Bode knew he had a handful of days at best before half the Galaxy realized that he could be their ticket to an easy life.

After he made sure there was nothing else that Denvik's sparse office had to offer for him, Bode ran down the corridor that led to the officer's quarters. When he stepped inside the surprisingly homey space for an Imperial base stationed on an icy asteroid, he found his daughter, Kata, sitting in her hammock and looking out at the stars. She was singing quietly, a tune that was sad and mournful, although Bode often called it a lullaby on the rare occasions that he got to sing her to sleep.

Hearing his daughter sing the song to herself, it caused the ache that long lived in his chest to thrum even stronger than before in the face of the fight currently stretched out before him.

Now wasn't the time to think about it.

"Hey sweetie." He said, scooping her up into his arms and grabbing her backpack that felt suspiciously empty despite his repeated warnings to her to always have it packed just in case. "I know that I said daddy would be busy tonight but there's been a change in plan. How do you feel about going on a trip?"

Kata smiled widely, an expression he wished he could return. "Okay! I just need—"

"We'll get it somewhere on the way, yeah?" He cut her off, wasting no time before leaving behind their generous quarters and what little stability and safety it offered.

"But Papa! My Mookie doll!" She cried, squirming in his arms.

Bode didn't pause as he strode quickly down the corridor that would provide the quickest route to the landing pads and his borrowed X-Wing with a newly installed Imperial transponder that allowed him to portray the role of both friend and foe to Imperial and rebel alike.

"Mookie!" Kata yelled again, tears springing to her eyes.

Left with no choice, he clapped his hand over her mouth to silence her. There was no time for them, no time for collecting relics of the past whether it be Kata's Mookie doll or the only image of his dearly departed Tayala he had left in the Galaxy. If Bode was going to hold onto the last thing precious to him after the Empire had robbed him of so much, his only option was to run and run now. As he ran through the corridors, each nearly identical to the other by design, his mind was already racing with possibilities.

Cal Kestis and those sorry bastards that freed him were still out there, somewhere in the Galaxy, their choice of refuge obviously sufficient enough to allow the Empire to successfully pull off their celebrated execution. All he needed to do was find just one of them, break them, and not only would he have Kestis but he'd have an entire team of brazen Imperial terrorists. It wouldn't ever be enough to save his neck with the Emperor but greedy Imperials like Denvik were a dime a dozen and Bode knew the kinds of places that men like him frequented. If he was going to live life on the run, he decided he could put that travel to good use by hunting down Kestis and his five friends that helped him escape the executioner's axe.

Although some might have been daunted by the litany of allegations he was facing, Bode began to think of his new situation like any other job he'd taken on in the past, except he already had the upper hand. The target was known to him, the list of buyers interested in his bounty would be plentiful, and his reward would be protection rendered by the Empire that nearly succeeded in rendering his kind extinct. A weaker man might have thought the odds of success impossible but Bode never played by the rules of the house.

It was just as he told Denvik: go all in on the underdog and you'll come out on top every time.

Bode would survive this.

Cal Kestis would not.

Just as Bode predicted, he had exactly one week before he was widely known as a marked man. Even on the most desolate of planets, his likeness could be found at every turn, whether it was plastered on one of many wanted posters or projected from a bounty puck. The images seemed to both terrify and mystify Kata, often leading her into a long line of questions, none of which he had the answers to. Bode wasn't sure when she'd reached the point that she could read so effortlessly or how he missed that she inherited her mother's unrelenting curiosity, but both of those discoveries were incredibly unwelcome, and did little to help his irritable mood.

The cramped confines of his X-Wing certainly didn't help, either.

Two weeks into his search for Cal Kestis, he crossed paths with a former colleague and full-time bounty hunter that quickly forgot they were friends. His buddy had always been a quick draw for a Trandoshan but Bode was always faster. After picking up some spare credits and a comlink off the Trandoshan's corpse, he plucked off the reptilian man's headphones as an afterthought.

Kata's questions came less frequently after that.

Relying on his training as a Jedi to fade into obscurity and his aggressiveness learned as an Imperial agent to rough a few guys up when they thought that they'd make some quick credits off of his body, Bode scoured the Galaxy for months, rarely taking any time to truly lie low. For every resource that remembered that Bode was an ally, ten knew that he was a trophy, but all of them had the same parting advice for him in his quest for Cal Kestis: forget about the Jedi and disappear before he's the next execution broadcast across the Galaxy.

The longer Bode searched for Kestis, the more he came to realize that his initial assumption that even the dumbest of Imperials would realize that Kestis lived was an incorrect theory; the brazen Jedi was already forgotten, old news in a Galaxy where a new enemy was named on a near-daily basis. One of the final allies that Bode dared to encounter, a bounty hunter by the name of Boba Fett, seemed to be the only other person in the Galaxy who arrived at the same conclusion—whether or not Fett realized Kestis survived before or after he encountered the Jedi on an outer rim planet called Koboh, Bode was not sure. Fett was cashing in on a different bounty at the time and decided to let sleeping dogs lie, a gross miscalculation in profit on the hunter's part, but it was the last time that anybody had heard or seen evidence that Kestis had indeed survived his date with destiny.

Time continued to pass, more fallen friends and enemies funding Bode's travels and fueling his hatred, even as Kata grew obnoxiously restless. Each time she asked when they were going to go home, he wanted to laugh and ask her what home, because the only place she'd called home since she was five was an ISB base. The only home she knew now was a modified jump seat meant to harbor an astromech. If he couldn't find his quarry, she'd be calling the raging seas of Nur home—something that might happen if he didn't find the bargaining chip that would buy him his freedom.

Bode also knew that his daughter deserved better.

Just over one year of searching for Cal Kestis turned up nothing except a planet heavily occupied by the Empire without any obvious resources to tap. With no leads, no hope, and a daughter that found herself on the wrong side of his temper too many times during his fruitless search, Bode decided it was time to settle down for a few months. Much of the outer rim remained untouched by the Empire, something he knew would not last forever, but all he needed was a little bit of time and a planet that allowed him the luxury of anonymity.

When he stopped on a planet called Lothal to fuel up and scout the surrounding system, he found that it could be a place to call home temporarily. There was an Imperial presence on the planet, although slight by comparison to many of the other planets he'd visited with Kata over the past year, but the Empire was obsessed with a growing rebel movement and named rebel suspects which all but promised Bode the anonymity he needed.

Kata was placated by the wide open fields, wild loth cats, and meals that consisted of more than tasteless protein paste and expired ration bars. Most days, she seemed content to keep herself busy with her datapad, those damned headphones he'd taken off his long-dead Trandoshan friend turned up so blasted loud that Bode could barely hear himself think. She rarely said anything to him or acknowledged his presence.

Bode started to wonder if he lost his little girl in his crusade to find Cal Kestis.

With nothing but time on his hands and a daughter who seemed to want nothing to do with him, Bode returned to obsessing over his mission to find the man who cost him everything. As the weeks and months began to blur together, he started to realize that he'd been chasing one man across the Galaxy when there were five other suspects at large. He began sleeping less at night, using the abundance of Imperial access codes collected during his time with Denvik and the ISB to access the Empire's database for his comrades, yet another search that turned up nearly nothing.

One of the women, Bode vaguely recognized from the days of the Clone War, but the Imperial databanks listed her as deceased. Quinlan Vos, a man that Bode knew well from his time with the Jedi, was unaccounted for but searching for him would only prove to be frustrating. The woman shown on surveillance that appeared to wield the magick of the fallen Nightsisters, a woman who was seemingly quite close to Kestis, was no more than an image to Imperial intelligence—not really a surprise considering that the Nightsisters were allegedly wiped out before the end of the Clone War.

That left the man who seemed unremarkable until he wasn't on the surveillance footage, a man who looked to be in his early twenties at best, wielding a blaster until circumstances forced him to a proper Jedi's weapon of choice. The kid was clumsy with the thing but he obviously understood the mechanics of it, leading Bode to believe that he was likely no more than a youngling when he survived the purge, which meant if the kid could be located that he would be subdued easily.

And Bode had no doubts that he could be located.

Where four of his six marks might as well have died on the day the Empire declared it so, the kid and his Twi'lek traveling companion were everywhere, their appearances in Imperial surveillance increasing in frequency on a near weekly basis. The kid might not have had a name but the same couldn't be said for his little girlfriend, her clan markings tattooed on those pretty little green lekku for all of the Galaxy to see. While the Empire had difficulty tracking their ship, a rather benign looking Corellian light freighter, Bode knew that he wouldn't need a transponder ID or a signal to find his bounty.

As luck would have it, Hera Syndulla seemed to have a bad habit of picking up strays, new faces showing up in the files listed under her associates each time their crew struck another Imperial compound. Bode didn't fail to notice that where Hera went, her Jedi followed, and although the gifted pilot might not have realized it, her Jedi wasn't an asset—he was a liability.

It was a lesson that Bode would be all too happy to teach her.

After years of waiting to exact his revenge and to get his life back, Bode didn't just have a lead—he also had the bait. With purpose in his stride, he crossed the small, festering dwellings that he'd reluctantly come to accept as home while he continued his search for Cal Kestis on the ground. He plucked the headphones from Kata's head without warning, earning a patently preteen glare from his daughter, her lips pressed into a thin scowl as she silently waited for an explanation.

Bode smiled, a warm and genuine smile—perhaps his first since their hurried escape from Nova Garon—and he felt his heart swell in his chest. They would have safety again and a better life than this musty and moldy excuse for a house in the middle of nowhere. He knelt in front of his daughter and put his hands over hers.

"I did it, Kata. I found the bad people."

Kata tilted her head, curiosity obviously piqued. "Does that mean you're going to go catch them now?"

"I am." He nodded and gave a gentle squeeze of her hand. "But I need your help to do it."

Chapter Text

Kanan Jarrus was having a very bad day.

To be fair, not a single soul aboard the Ghost was particularly enjoying themselves, save for Hera's homicidal astromech who was all too happy when she asked him to interface with the aft guns. For one of the few times in his life, Kanan found himself thankful for the little mechanical menace, seeing as the trial by fire they'd found themselves in would not have been his strategy of choice for a team building exercise with their newest recruits. Zeb had only been with them for a couple of months now and the extent of his experience aboard the Ghost until today was nothing more than routine ops, missions that were admittedly easier with a hulking Lasat to act as the crew's muscle, and Sabine—

—well, Sabine needed to quit running her mouth and strap in like Kanan told her to.

Twice.

"Since when did the Empire start chasing bounty hunters? There's no way he had a chance to call in his quarry before we gave chase!" Hera questioned, her tone as frustrated as much as she ever allowed it to get in tense situations like these.

Usually, the woman that he'd come to know and love lived for these kinds of scenarios. A good dogfight with the Empire where the odds were against her usually meant it would be a great night for Kanan. Somehow, he knew that he wouldn't be so lucky tonight.

Just like he knew that the Force had been whispering a warning to him that something was coming, another person that was integral to their crew, somebody like him that would need their help.

Kanan hated always being right.

"Maybe the Empire already knows what kind of trade he deals in and have his transponder ID on a tracker." He replied, hands gripping the arms of his seat until his knuckles were blanched white as Hera dodged another barrage of shots from the six TIE fighters on their tail. "You know as well as I do what they'd give to get their hands on those kinds of bounties…and what will happen to her if they get to him."

"Nothing good." Hera agreed. "But if we're going to get to them before the Empire does, we have to take out some of these TIE fighters."

"I already told you I should be up there manning the guns. It's how we've always done things."

"And I told you that I need you down here to handle the torpedoes in case I can't get around one of these asteroids." Hera countered, using her Captain's voice, an authoritative timbre of her beautiful voice that meant she was not willing to entertain his opinion nor would she tolerate an argument.

Kanan knew better than to try.

"Maybe you should let me try shooting them down." A small voice came from behind them. "I am a Mandalorian, y'know. Weapons are our religion."

"Absolutely not." Hera thankfully answered before he could. "We'll talk about letting you learn how to use the guns later but right now is not a good time."

Whatever their latest crew member had to say to Hera's refusal of her help was mostly inaudible outside of the insanely profane words that laced the muttered response.

That was most definitely another problem for later, if they even made it to later.

"Zeb, if—" Kanan started to call over the comms through gritted teeth as Hera pulled another one of her fancy maneuvers, taking the Ghost to port until her ship was nearly on its side, slipping in between two large asteroids that would hopefully deter the TIE fighters on their tail. Once they were on the other side of the asteroids and he felt like his breakfast would stay down, he attempted to address the Lasat again.

"You might not realize this, pal, but you can actually aim those guns at the Imps on our tail instead of shooting at nothing."

"'ave you ever tried shooting at a moving target when you've got a maniac piloting your ship?" Zeb snarled back through the comms. "Ain't a targeting system in the Galaxy advanced enough to take out a moving target when your Captain is trying to kill you."

It was probably for the best that Zeb was safely crammed into the dorsal turret because if looks could kill, Hera's expression would have sent him straight out the airlock and then their search for reliable muscle would start all over again.

"If you think you can do a better job of outflying the Empire, you're welcome to try." Hera replied coolly, pulling another gut-wrenching 360 degree turn that was entirely unnecessary in the temporarily clear airspace.

Behind him, Kanan heard a small thud and some more of the foul language that shouldn't be coming out of the mouth of a thirteen year old kid.

"Didn't I tell you to strap in?" He snapped at Sabine, jerking around to see her climbing back up into her seat. "You're going to bust your head open and Hera will not be happy if you bleed all over her cockpit."

In all actuality, Kanan was pretty sure that Hera wouldn't complain about anything Sabine did, seeing that the girl decided to customize the seat she laid claim to as her own, dousing it in paint without asking permission. Although it took the atmospheric scrubbers a full week to eliminate the final traces of paint fumes from the cockpit, Hera wasn't the least bit upset with the girl. She merely dismissed the girl's decision to deface the Ghost without asking as a sign that the skittish, near-feral Mandalorian was finally starting to feel safe with them.

Given the way that Sabine was glaring at him through the thick mess of hair dyed in the colors of a blazing fire that hung over her face, Kanan was fairly certain that the only thing Sabine felt for him was disdain.

Sighing heavily, he pushed himself up out of his seat and took two steps toward her, his hands on his hips. Skittish or not, the girl was going to get herself hurt if she wouldn't listen to reason.

"Look kid, I'm not going to ask you again. If you aren't strapped in, you're going to get hurt. Either you can do it yourself or I'm going to do it for you. I promise that it's going to take Zeb to get you out of that harness if I have to do it."

"Kanan!" Hera cried out behind him. "I need you up here now! We aren't going to get around this—"

A shot suddenly rocked the Ghost, sending multiple alarms blaring to life all at once, and he turned just in time to see what had his unshakable Captain so panicked. They were on a collision course with a large asteroid, one that he should have been in his seat to fire off one of their precious few proton torpedoes to blow the thing apart instead of dealing with a mouthy teenager. Using a torpedo wouldn't work now, they were too close to their target and the explosion meant to wipe out the rock would take the Ghost down with it. He gripped the back of his seat and hers, already anticipating the words Hera called out to everybody aboard.

"Hold on!"

After years of flying at Hera's side, one would have thought that Kanan had grown accustomed to her unpredictable and oft-wild maneuvers, but that wasn't the case. He closed his eyes tight, afraid to watch as the asteroid drew nearer and nearer to the viewport, and he kept them squeezed shut until he felt the Ghost abruptly bank upward in a sharp spiral, their speed propelled by the sound of at least three of the TIE fighters they couldn't shake finally meeting their end. Unfortunately for Kanan, his grip on the back of their seats wasn't enough to save him from sailing backward with the force of Hera's evasive maneuver, sending him sailing headfirst into the closed hatch of the cockpit.

The last thing he heard before consciousness slipped away from him was the voice of one sarcastic teenager dryly remarking that maybe he should have strapped in.

When Kanan came to, the first thing he noticed outside of his throbbing headache was that the ship wasn't moving. The bright light that shone in through the viewport felt like a violent act of assault, his first attempt to open his eyes causing him to recoil and groan loudly. Every part of his body ached more than it should from just being tossed around the Ghost, something that he knew from experience given that he was guilty of not putting his ass in a seat on more than one occasion when Hera was trying to outfly the Empire. The thought of Hera combined with the stillness of the ship and the lack of sarcastic commentary from Sabine made him rapidly shoot up, eyes wide open as he looked for the two of them.

"Hera?" he called out, eyes fluttering open despite the unnecessarily harsh light.

As his vision came into focus, he found himself staring into the barrel of a blaster, and on the other side of that blaster was the bastard that they were chasing down before he blacked out. Kanan moved to raise his hands in a false surrender, fully prepared to pummel the man who thought it was acceptable to rip a little girl away from her family for a few credits, but he found that his arms were bound behind his back by heavy steel binders that cut into his flesh with the slightest movement.

What the fuck had happened and who the hell was this guy?

Those were questions that he'd get the answers to later, after he returned the favor to this sorry son of a bantha that didn't know what Kanan was—or at least what he was somewhat reluctantly trying to be again.

"Where the hell is my crew?" He snarled, unbothered by the blaster that was mere millimeters from the crease between his eyebrows. After all, trying to draw on his abilities as a Jedi would not come easily if he allowed himself to acknowledge an emotion like fear.

The dark haired man huffed as though amused, his smug expression just begging Kanan's fists to wipe it off of the man's face.

Okay, so anger was going to be a little more difficult to rein in.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you've never been on the wrong end of a blaster before." He finally spoke, crouching in front of Kanan while maintaining the steady aim of his weapon. "You see, when the blaster is aimed at you, it means that you don't get to ask the questions. The way this works is I ask you questions and you give me the answers. So long as you provide me with the information I need, you and your crew get the privilege of breathing and eventually, I'll leave you in peace."

"And if I kick your ass into next Taungsday?" Kanan questioned, his eyes narrowed as he studied the bounty hunter. The man had already made clear what—or who—he was looking for during their first encounter, only he wasn't exactly expecting a sneak attack from a teenage girl who liked explosives a little too much.

He chuckled darkly. "Maybe you didn't hear me the first time but unfortunately for you, I don't like repeating myself."

Before Kanan had time to react, the man altered the aim of his blaster and sent a glancing blow off Kanan's pauldron that made it clear he wasn't interested in playing games. Kanan clenched his jaw, unwilling to give the man any satisfaction from the relatively minor discomfort of his heavy beskar pauldron jarring against his shoulder from the force of the blaster shot.

"Look, I don't know who the hell you are but we're not after you. We were after the girl." Kanan ground out. "But the girl, she isn't really in danger, is she? The kid was just bait to get our attention."

"Name's Bode." He interrupted Kanan. "Not that it matters. As for the girl, she's none of your concern and definitely not your biggest problem right now. If you look at that monitor right over there, you can see that your crew is alive and contained, but I can't promise that they'll stay that way if you don't start cooperating. You have connections, ties to an old friend of mine that I'd like to catch up with. Get me in touch with him and we can put this whole thing behind us."

Kanan eyed him warily. "I already told you that we clearly don't run in the same social circles."

"Oh, but we do." Bode replied haughtily. "You give me Cal Kestis and you get your crew back in return."

"He's dead, you imbecile." Kanan snorted derisively. "Or did you miss that event of the century while you were busy ripping kids away from their parents so you could line your pockets?"

Bode smiled, the twist of his mouth both vicious and lethal.

"You say that but—" he paused to produce a palm-sized circular device from a pocket in the side of his pants. He depressed a button on the side and years-old surveillance images from within the bowels of the Jedi Temple sprang to life between them. The damning images clearly showed Kanan wielding his Master Billaba's lightsaber and then a few button clicks later, he watched as he once again took sloppy hacks with half of a different lightsaber, the other half in its owner's weak grip who was standing behind Kanan, just outside the Temple as they tried to fight their way out.

"It looks to me like you and Cal go back a ways, but given your ages I'd be willing to wager that it's more than just a few years. So I'll give you one last chance. You give me Kestis or you start losing crew members, starting with your Twi'lek friend. Hera, right? She's the one who got you off of Coruscant, isn't she? I have to admit, she's one hell of a pilot, but between you and me? She's pretty easy on the eyes, too."

Kanan drew on every ounce of self-restraint that he never once cared to use in that moment, knowing that if he responded the way that he wanted to that it could endanger Hera. He also desperately needed to draw on that control if he was ever going to be able to ask the Force to consider lending him a hand with this mess—something that was taking too damn long.

"I definitely didn't know the guy before Coruscant. If I did, I would have left him in that cell to rot. The whole thing was a job and nothing more. We got the guy out and we dropped him off. I haven't seen the sorry son of a gundark since."

But there wasn't much that he wouldn't give to see the bastard right now. The rigged up messaging system that the two of them established to keep in contact for reasons that Kanan still didn't understand was either malfunctioning or Kestis was too busy buried between his girlfriend's thighs to answer Kanan's comms. Cal's lack of response was the perfect reason for Kanan to never offer up advice to his so-called friend ever again.

After Coruscant and the execution of the six hooded Imps used as examples to strike fear into hearts of anybody in the Galaxy that so much as considered defying the Empire, Cal was smart enough to let the Empire's narrative stick. There had been a few times that Cal confided in Kanan that he felt like he had given up on the Galaxy and it was his responsibility to be out there fighting but he'd always managed to talk sense into Cal. When his friend's stubborn restlessness reached a level that was beyond Kanan's ability to tamp down, Merrin had her ways—methods Kanan wanted to know nothing about—of talking sense into the stubborn idiot.

Now Kanan found himself wishing that he hadn't told Cal to stay on whatever well-hidden planet he picked to call home. This man was looking for him but Kanan knew that together, especially with Merrin's assist, they could handle this problem head on, probably in a matter of minutes. Now?

Kanan wasn't sure that he'd be able to fight his way out of this alone.

"Alright then," Bode shrugged. "I'll offer you a different deal. We'll backtrack to where you dropped him off and maybe it will help jog your memory or help draw Kestis out. In exchange, my offer will still stand—you and your crew leave in peace and we'll never cross paths again. You give me a location right now and I'll even let your pretty pilot out of the cargo bay so she can get us there."

Kanan clammed up, the gears in his head turning rapidly. To tell Bode about Jedha would put the entire Hidden Path at risk. Although the desert moon was overrun with more Imperials than ever before, it was still a major hub for the Path, the desert—along with its vicious fauna—offered plenty of safe hiding places that were never associated with the Jedi for those seeking shelter from the Empire. So long as some brainless stormtrooper didn't happen to stumble into the underground network of caverns and tunnels, Jedha would continue to be a safe haven for those who needed it.

To give up Jedha would also be putting Kanan's least favorite drunk dickhead, Quinlan Vos, in danger as well, since the man was still running Force-sensitives across the Galaxy on a near non-stop basis. Sure, there was something different about Vos, a quality to his personality much more complex and vastly darker than Kanan remembered any other Jedi Master possessing, but it always seemed to work to Vos' advantage. The man could walk in front of Imperials and bounty hunters without garnering any sort of attention, as though the Order somehow prepared the man for a life lived in the dark, but now wasn't the time to contemplate that. The deserts of Jedha were severely lacking in the seedy nightlife he'd need to blend in which meant that Vos' life could be in danger if he happened to be in the right place at the wrong time should Kanan break down and utter the truth.

The sound of a blaster being charged drew Kanan out of himself.

"I think we both know you're not as stupid as you're pretending to be." Bode spoke evenly. "The longer you take to respond, the more obvious it is that your answer will be a lie."

"I've moved a lot of people around the Galaxy. You'll have to forgive me if it—" Kanan's smooth explanation was cut off with a sharp cry as Bode fired his blaster into the top of his right bicep, searing away the flesh and taking a large chunk of his shirt with the point-blank bolt that Kanan knew was well-aimed with the intent to inflict pain rather than deliver a direct and potentially crippling blow.

In spite of the burning ache of his flesh now fused with some of the fibers of his sweater and undertunic, he adjusted his knee, fully prepared to kick Bode straight in the junk and pray it was enough time for him to find just enough focus to draw on the Force. Kanan had to find a way to get himself and his crew out of this mess before somebody got hurt, that is if Bode hadn't already harmed any of them, especially with footage that showed three unmoving people that he considered himself responsible for protecting.

It was his fault they were in this position.

Kanan was so sure that he felt a tug in the Force, that it was whispering its will when the little girl rushed to he and Hera, begging for their aid. Even before she found them outside of that cantina, he felt as though something was coming, a new member of their crew—perhaps somebody that needed his guidance, although he was hardly qualified for such a thing. Now he wondered if he'd simply been delusional this entire time, his desire to be something that his Master would have been proud of allowing him to be blind to the fact that what he thought to be a vision was nothing more than an aspersion.

If he was truly ready to accept what he was and to assume that role once again, if he'd really opened himself up to the Force, he would have seen this coming and they wouldn't be in this position.

"What's this?" Bode questioned while Kanan was feeling sorry for himself, the man poking his finger through the hole in Kanan's sweater created by his blaster, carelessly poking at the raw flesh before tearing the sleeve away completely. A sadistic grin brightened his daunting expression as he examined the length of Kanan's arm, his head tilted in a way that made it appear as though he was admiring the tattoos forever ingrained in Kanan's flesh.

"You're married to her." He said, clearly delighted by the discovery. "Do you have kids? Some unnatural freak that you have hidden somewhere away from the Empire, maybe with Kestis?"

Rather than dignifying Bode's disgusting sentiment with words, Kanan merely spat in his face.

There was nothing more that Kanan wanted in the Galaxy than to have kids with Hera after they saw the fall of the Empire but he was pretty sure that thanks to this bastard, he wasn't going to live long enough to have that chance.

For Hera, the nagging pain that Humans often referred to as a headache generally manifested in a Twi'lek's lekku, something that she was prone to on a frequent basis thanks to a combination of the long hours she put in for the Rebellion, her choice of headgear, and her horrifically inconsistent sleep schedule. Although she'd heard of some Twi'leks suffering head injuries that caused them to have pain solely isolated to their head much like a Human headache, but she hadn't ever experienced such a thing. To say that it wasn't a pleasant feeling was putting it lightly but the pulsing pain in her temple combined with the cramping and tension in her lekku was nearly unbearable. The air of a nearby vent drew her attention to something that felt sticky along the side of her forehead and temple and she realized that she must have struck her head against the yoke during their landing, contributing to her current condition.

When she tried to lift her hand to massage the throbbing in her right temple, she realized that her arms were bound behind her back. After that, her memory of everything that happened after the near-miss with the asteroid came rushing back to her, only serving to intensify the pain in her head.

Kanan had gone down hard with her last ditch effort to avoid the asteroid in their path that promised the end of the Ghost and her crew and when he was knocked unconscious, it had Sabine rapidly fumbling with the buckles on her seat to strap herself tight in while simultaneously firing off sarcastic commentary. With Kanan slumped against the hatch, Zeb couldn't have bypassed the proximity monitors although he offered to open the doors the hard way, but Hera didn't want to risk him abandoning the guns as they broke atmosphere over the unknown planet below in hot pursuit of the bounty hunter since they were finally free from the Imperials.

Things became…fuzzy after that. Something fired off beneath her ship, not like an explosion from a detonator but it was more like a device designed to send an electromagnetic pulse targeted at the systems aboard her ship. She knew that kind of tech existed in the Galaxy but she wasn't sure how it had made it aboard her ship or when it would have even been possible. The encounter they had with the bounty hunter was in close quarters and several klicks away from the spaceport which ruled him out as a suspect. Nothing on her sensors picked up anything being deployed from his ship any time during their chase, even if she was mildly distracted by the fleet of TIE fighters riding her six, and the Empire hadn't resorted to using that kind of tech to rope in rogue ships.

Why would they resort to such crude tech like that when the Imperial regime had innumerable Star Destroyers with tractor beams and high powered turbo lasers at their disposal?

After a landing that was vastly more exciting than she would have preferred, Hera remembered striking her head but she knew that she didn't lose consciousness because she'd seen the bounty hunter's X-Wing land just outside the viewport, and when he disembarked there were no other associates. Zeb had spotted him too, his booming voice warning Hera of the man as he approached her ship, and she opened the door to the cargo bay with every intention of baiting him in to put an end to this nightmare. After all, the young girl that came to them seeking aid was following behind him, eerily subdued in comparison to her frantic and desperate behavior when she approached them on Onderon, apparently doing everything she was told to do. In a way, the girl's timid body language reminded Hera of Sabine, who was maybe a year or two older than the dark-haired little girl whose life hung in the balance if they couldn't pry her away from the grips of the bounty hunter.

Hera was already in the cargo bay when the man boarded the ship and Zeb hid just beyond the hatch, ready to tear him apart, but she’d told Sabine to stay with Kanan in the cockpit, giving her strict instructions not to leave even after she got Kanan to wake up with one of their precious few stim shots. As she and Kanan were quickly discovering together, Sabine was very poor at following instructions, the girl obviously convinced that being a Mandalorian was synonymous with being invincible. Unfortunately, she wasn't, and when she appeared in the cargo bay behind Hera wearing her helmet and wielding two blasters, she was the first to go down in a hail of blaster fire that was fortunately set to stun. Zeb caught two of the stray bolts meant for Sabine and after that—

Hera could only assume that she went down a few moments later. Had she even gotten a single shot in?

Sabine was still too thin and too frail, malnourished from who knows how many months on the street and hiding from whoever it was that she was running from. The injuries sustained from her impromptu assault would have most certainly left insults behind beneath the sharp edges of her brightly painted beskar armor that wouldn’t be so concerning in a healthier member of Hera’s crew. The girl had only been with them for two weeks and Hera hadn't had any time to get Sabine to open up and she wasn't exactly a fan of talking to Kanan, unless it was talking back. Their dynamic was confusing to say the least, especially since it was Kanan who coaxed her aboard the Ghost from the filthy streets of Manda, bleeding and broken after being left for dead beneath a pile of rubble. Hera wasn't sure if Sabine was wary of Kanan because of a conversation she might have overheard about Kanan's background or if he made a misstep that triggered some sort of traumatic memory in the young girl's mind.

Whatever the reason, their current predicament certainly wasn't going to improve the girl's willingness to open up or help her heal from her past traumas, alas that was a problem for another time.

Although their current situation was hardly anything she should be thankful for, Hera was comforted that the girl was at least bound to the pipe next to her, allowing her to watch the even rise and fall of Sabine's chest. When Sabine came to, she could attempt to provide as much comfort and reassurance as possible, although words would do little to address physical wounds. Hera only wished that she could get the helmet off Sabine's head to assess the girl for any signs of a head injury but wishing wouldn't get her anywhere right now.

All she could do was wait.

Her eyes trailed across the cargo bay to where Zeb was slumped against the wall, some sort of silver button protruding through his thick, purple pelt. When she hissed his name, he didn't stir in the slightest but just like Sabine, he was still breathing. More than anything, Hera wanted Zeb to come around quickly since he might be strong enough to tear through the support beam he was bound to since there was no chance that she or Sabine would be capable of a similar feat.

When she shifted her gaze to the spot next to Zeb, she felt her heart sink.

Where she wanted to see Kanan, there was only empty space.

Hera wasn't sure if she should be relieved or terrified that Kanan wasn't there with them. If he was somewhere in the ship, free from the bounty hunter's notice, it meant that they had a chance of getting out of this relatively unharmed. If he was still down in the cockpit when the bounty hunter advanced through her ship, he would have been an easy target and if the bounty hunter had any idea what he was or who he used to be…

No.

Hera refused to let herself entertain that thought.

The familiar sound of old casters on durasteel decking drew Hera's eyes upward to the catwalk that overlooked the cargo bay. Out of the shadows, her first best friend and usually cantankerous droid made his observations quietly, training his photoreceptors on her. For once in his programming, he was actually silent, but she could tell by the way that his receiver moved about atop his battered orange dome that he was transmitting information to somebody, probably both images and coordinates just like she programmed him to in an event like this. Her droid might cause slightly more than his fair share of trouble, and she may have often found herself in the middle of one too many fights between Chopper and Kanan before Zeb came aboard and the Lasat unburdened Kanan from being the sole recipient of the grumpy old astromech's more aggressive characteristics, but there was a reason Hera trusted him with her life and her secrets.

Beneath all of his less appealing behaviors, her droid was fiercely protective of his family—their crew.

Now it was up to Fulcrum or whomever was on the receiving end of Chopper's transmission to get them the help they needed.

In the meantime, Hera had to figure out how to keep her crew alive.

Chapter Text

"We have another transmission incoming."

Cal looked up from the console where he was examining the datapads spread out before him, all bearing messages that coincided with multiple distress signals that were sent out in rapid succession from Hera or somebody within her crew and he felt his face fall as Cere strode in his direction with yet another datapad. He reached up to rub the back of his neck, trying to massage out the growing tension that was starting to spread down into his shoulders after hours spent examining images and coordinates, trying to make sense of it all. When Brother Armias initially received the communication from Hera, she indicated that they were approached by a bounty hunter seeking him out, but when it was revealed that the man demanding his presence was none other than Bode Akuna—the man who sold him out to the Empire after somehow gaining the trust of Saw Guerra—Cal knew that his friends were in serious trouble.

From the number of messages that they'd received since that initial communication, it was evident that Hera and her crew figured out for themselves that Bode was more of a threat than they initially realized which was saying something since they obviously didn't consider him dangerous in spite of the fact that he'd managed to subdue their crew for at least a brief period of time, in the hours before the initial transmission warning Cal that he was searching for him. He shook his head. He knew that even if they thought a fight against their foe would be insurmountable, they would have still pursued the man, especially if he had a young woman that he was threatening to hand over to the Empire.

Trying to piece it all together was nothing more than a bunch of what ifs and maybes and it could have beens, and none of those things were going to help Kanan and Hera.

Letting go of the burning pit of anger he felt in his gut for Akuna, for Kanan and Hera trying to chase him down, for himself, Cal turned back to the data spread out before him. If he was going to help them now, he needed facts, not feelings.

A soft but sharp inhale from his treasured teacher and the woman who Knighted him drew Cal's attention away from his thoughts and he glanced up in her direction.

"That bad, huh?" He asked, although he already knew the answer. Another version of himself, the younger and more hopeful boy that he used to be for a brief period since the Purge, would have made a joke about Cere's reaction being related to the crew of the Ghost finally liberating themselves and how long it had taken them.

That was the old Cal, a boy that was drowned by the heavy hand of the Empire, and he was beyond saving.

Kanan and Hera were not.

At least, not yet.

Cere seemed to hesitate for a moment before placing the datapad down in front of Cal. When he saw the images of Hera and their slowly-growing crew chained to the pipes and framework within the Ghost's cargo bay, he felt his heart sink. This time, it was quite clear who sent this particular distress signal by the accompanying text once it had been decrypted.

When are you planning to show up and deal with this meatbag, asshole?

For a second, Cal felt the unbidden urge to laugh at the absurdity of the message, the only difference in the text that indicated the sender as being Chopper rather than Kanan was the word meatbag. If Kanan only knew that it took the word meatbag for him to finally discern that the sender of the distress signals aboard the Ghost, he might actually follow through on his previously empty threats to stop sending messages to Cal. Naturally, he found himself positively longing for the opportunity to tell Kanan that he was more like Hera's so-called mechanical menace than he realized. Kanan would not be pleased—that is, if he ever found out. His urge to burst into laughter passed at the thought as his eyes darted back to the screen and his fists clenched at his sides when he saw that Kanan was being kept separated from the rest of the crew, a sure sign that Bode could sense what he was—or had figured out that the two benign looking pieces of chromium along his belt could be easily twisted together to create something significantly damning.

The longer Cal stood there examining images, the more likely it was that by the time he could make it across the Galaxy that his friends would already be dead or turned over to the Empire. Hera, Kanan—hell, even Chopper—the three of them alone would make Bode a very rich man while threatening the steadily growing Rebellion. Cal knew that he couldn't hide any longer, no matter how much of a risk it was to show his face after years spent in hiding. If his friends were going to survive, it was time for him to go.

Soft fingertips brushed against his hand, the light touch causing his hand to unclench just enough so that Merrin's fingers could intertwine with his. Despite the fact that Cal felt his heart swell and his soul soothed countless years ago when she first wrapped her hands around his, he would never stop finding himself silently awed by the way that Merrin could ease his pain by simply taking his hand in hers, even in the most dire of circumstances. These days, more often than he'd care to admit, her touch would come with the blunt observation that he was brooding but when he lifted his eyes to meet hers, he could see the same deep lines of intensity etched into her beautiful face.

It was obvious that Merrin wanted to fight. He had a feeling that if it had been up to her, they would have left within minutes of Brother Armias' notification. She seemed to have grown close to Hera in their brief time together during the mission to Coruscant, and although the two women rarely crossed paths or spoke (to his knowledge) these days, those precious instances always seemed to always leave Merrin in a good mood. That considered, Cal shouldn't have been surprised that Merrin wasn't trying to keep him from joining the fray.

Instead, his declaration that they had to go led to Cal struggling to overcome the will of the proud owner of the barely touched Stinger Mantis II, two troubled Anchorite leaders, and two Jedi Masters.

"Kid, I know a trap when I see one and this is definitely a trap." Greez said, waving his four arms in agitation, the glint of his gold prosthetic catching the light in a near-blinking fashion that lent to the urgency of the Latero's gravely declaration. "They can handle themselves. Especially with the big guy on board."

"Are you aware of another big guy they have recruited to their cause since we last heard of their crew?" Merrin questioned flatly. "Because the big guy that we are familiar with appears to be unconscious and secured to a beam made from durasteel and doonium."

"Besides, Hera wouldn't have felt the need to pass the message along if she didn't anticipate that this encounter posed a significant threat to their safety or mine." Cal pointed out on the heels of Merrin's statement. "They obviously recognized the risk or she wouldn't have chanced sending a message, let alone this many."

He held up the datapad that showed all of them, minus Kanan, all trapped in the cargo bay.

"They need help and they need help now."

Master Cordova offered a gentle and understanding smile. "The Galaxy thinks you've been executed and that's allowed you to help with the Hidden Path and preserved your life. I agree that they need to be rescued but Quinlan can—"

Cal interrupted the soft-spoken and kind Jedi Master, by banging his fist against the table in frustration. He instantly recoiled at his own action and frustrations, offering a fleeting but apologetic glance at Master Cordova before continuing on in his increasingly heated argument. Was it really so hard for all of them to see the bigger picture?

"They're in this position because of me. Bode is using them to get to me. Sending Vos isn't going to do anything except raise the body count until Bode gets what he wants, which is me."

"And what of the Path?" Brother Armias questioned. "If you depart on this mission and the Empire's attempts to navigate the Abyss are successful, who will protect our charges?"

Merrin spoke before Cal could answer. "Vos and my sister will remain behind. They can assist Cere and Master Cordova in protecting our people. Cal and I will face Bode alone."

"We formed contingency plans to defend our home for a reason." Sister Taske weighed in. "There are trained Force wielders, both remote and recent, that can assist us if it is necessary. It is clear that the Force has called Master Kestis to a new purpose for now. Who are we to stand in the way of that?"

Okay, maybe at least somebody is on my side, Cal errantly thought.

Vos made a sound of derision that would normally be considered unbecoming of a Jedi Master but they'd all long grown accustomed to his form of communication—and his blatant sarcasm. "It doesn't matter if it's the Force pushing Cal off Tanalorr or Bode pulling his ass out into the open. Those two," he paused to wave his hands between images of Kanan and Hera that floated on the holoprojector at the center of the table, "have a house waiting for them when they're done with this fight. Normally I wouldn't give a shit about filling a vacancy but this one is personal. That kid and his girl pulled us together and reminded us what it meant to hope. We owe it to them to make sure they get to come home when the time comes."

As always, the most that Asajj had to contribute to their Council's discussion was a quiet sound of disgust to Quinlan's words as she examined her cuticles, pretending to be uninterested. No matter how blase Asajj pretended to be, Cal knew that when the time came that she would always do the right thing—he'd seen scars that scattered across her bone white flesh like the bolts of Force lightning that took her life once before, prior to Merrin's discovery that Tanalorr's strength in the Force sustained her Nightsister magick and still somewhat creepy ability to raise the dead—but those scars were proof that there was good in her.

They'd all collectively learned that it was prudent not to point out the obvious lest they set off the short fuse that belonged to the least reasonable member of the Council.

Cere released a heavy sigh, something that Cal knew to be an action associated with concession. Rather than giving her blessing in words, she simply nodded. He watched as she turned to another console stacked with datapads and specialized comm equipment, obviously gathering things that she knew he would need on his journey. There was the slightest slump to the woman's usually broad and proud posture and he made a mental note to pull Cere aside before they departed to promise her that he would make it back—and that maybe this meant that their family would be growing, that Hera would finally fold to Cal's pleadings for them to come to Tanalorr.

Cal's gaze shifted over to Master Cordova who seemed to be studying him with a sort of reverence in his gaze.

"You know, I remember years ago when I discovered that BD chose a remarkable boy to continue my quest in following the path of the Zeffo. That boy went on to do great things and grew into a brave and incredibly brazen young man that forged his own path in the Force against all odds and, perhaps, common sense. It is clear to me that I am in no position to question the judgment of our small friend now." He smiled gently, glancing over to the small explorer droid perched on Cal's shoulder.

BD shifted back and forth happily, offering an exuberant trill in response to Master Cordova's praise.

"May the Force be with you." Master Cordova offered along with a short bow and his arms crossed over his chest, an Anchorite gesture of blessings in the Force. He motioned to BD-1.

"Come, my friend. You will need some data updates to assist our friends in their journey."

BD-1 jumped down from Cal's shoulder and skittered across the floor at the Jedi Master's beckoning. His low whistles and excitable shifting back and forth on his feet were a clear indication that BD was extremely pleased with himself for being so vital in such a dangerous mission. Of course, that didn't stop him from scanning any of the datapads on the console to store into his seemingly limitless memory in between Master Cordova's offerings of small data discs that were guaranteed to be encrypted in a code that could only be cracked by BD.

Greez scowled at the Jedi Master's backs and then turned to face Cal and Merrin. "That ship is practically brand new and she hasn't seen any action. Do you have any idea how hard it is to break in a new ship? And don't think I've forgotten what condition you left the Mantis in on Coruscant, BD has shown me the pictures more than once. I swear to your Force and on my great grandmother's grave that if you so much as get a single oil stain on the potolli weave, you'll be looking up that fancy Fulcrum running of all of this to buy me a Mantis III."

Behind him, BD-1 chirped indignantly at the Latero, making it clear that he knew Greez was referring to him. Thankfully, Master Cordova had more than enough data for BD to scan and upload, heading off any further confrontation between the two.

Cal wasn't sure that he could handle the two of them bickering right now.

Asajj, never one to say much unless it was to the detriment of Cal's dignity or somebody's sanity, had remained silent throughout the duration of the conversation save for her sound of revulsion to Vos' words and she had nothing to add once it was decided that Cal and Merrin would venture of Tanalorr to rescue their friends.

Although she had nothing to add to the argument, Cal could swear that he saw an inexplicable softness that graced her sharp features while she examined the images, something that could almost be likened to fondness for the people that should have been strangers to her. As he understood it, Asajj never remembered anything that occurred in the brief periods of being drawn out of her sleep by Merrin's magick, only the life she lived before and being returned to her sisters by Vos on Dathomir after she fell at Dooku's hand.

The oddity of the older Nightsister's generally blank or disinterested expression being so closely focused on the images before them must have been something that Merrin noticed as well because Cal caught her studying Asajj closely.

"You recognize these people." As always, Merrin's words were less of a question and more of a statement.

"I recognize that they're probably going to die." Asajj answered bluntly. "Akuna is a bastard but he's good at what he does. There's a reason that he's still alive."

Cal felt his brow pinch together. "Wait, what? You know him?"

"I'm not the only one." She replied, jerking her head in Vos' direction. "Those two go way back. They're practically best friends."

Vos scoffed. "I'm almost disappointed that I don't get to join you. Nothing would bring me greater joy than shutting that man's trap for good."

"How do you know him?" Cal asked, hoping that Vos would provide information that was actually helpful rather than just another flat declaration of disappointment that he couldn't be the one to take on Bode.

"We were both spies during the Clone War and before. The Order trained us to infiltrate the syndicates and the slavers, how to blend in with the Galaxy's biggest sleemos, and set us up in situations where we were nearly best friends with the Hutts. That man is dangerous but he has weaknesses just like anybody else. You focus on getting to him and I'll come up with a plan from here how you can take him down without anybody getting hurt in the meantime. Well, anybody except him…unless you want to bring him back as a gift for me saving your ass. Again."

"And if I don't get to them quickly enough?" Cal questioned hesitantly.

"He's being sloppy if a droid is wheeling around that ship and transmitting messages. Whatever happened that he's so desperate to find you, it might have pushed him over the edge, but he knows that he needs something to bargain with. I can't promise that any of them will be in pristine condition by the time you make it to those coordinates but he's not going to kill them unless he's provoked. He obviously knows they're the only way to get to you.

"This is going to sound counterintuitive to springing a trap on him to take him down quickly but we need to send a message that his threats have been heard loud and clear. If he knows that you're out there somewhere, the less likely he is to do any lasting damage to the kid and his crew." Vos explained. "Don't be too specific. Just send a short holo telling him if he wants you, he's got you. No coordinates, nothing traceable. It should buy them some time."

Merrin nodded slightly in agreement. "We have to do what we can to save them."

"I will summon assistance to stock the Mantis II with supplies for your journey." Brother Armias spoke up from the end of the table, his voice gentle despite his voiced concerns regarding Cal's departure. "May the Force be with you, Master Kestis."

Cal offered a weak smile and looked down to the equipment Cere laid out before him.

Three years ago, he'd said those same words to Kanan who responded maybe because somebody needs to take some from you, but Cal found himself hoping that his faith in the Force after years spent in hiding was still as strong as it was on the day he decided to undertake his foolish mission to Coruscant. It was going to take every last bit of the Force he could draw on to make it across the Galaxy in time to free his friends and take care of Bode without anybody else getting hurt for his foolish actions.

"Are you ready to go start a fight, Jedi?" Merrin asked, giving a soft squeeze of his hand.

The slightest smile pulled at his lips and he gripped her hand tightly in response, allowing the love of his life to ground and center him.

"You know I am, Nightsister."

"Interesting."

Ezra Bridger ducked behind one of the large boulders that surrounded the landing pad where he liked to watch the ships come in from the Koboh Abyss.

Two years ago, the U-Wing parked on the far end of the landing pad had picked his family up from Lothal and passed them off through an airlock to another ship waiting in the middle of nowhere, and then they were taken to another ship that brought them the rest of the way through the Abyss to this place that promised refuge from the Empire. Not a single day had passed since their arrival on Tanalorr that Ezra didn't fantasize about stealing a ship and going back home. In the past weeks since the U-Wing that picked them up on Lothal arrived and had remained stationary, his quiet obsession to steal a ship had only increased, causing him to disappear during his classes or sneak out at night to come to the landing pad and study the U-Wing.

Today, however, it wasn't the U-Wing that had his attention.

The ship he'd heard referred to as the Mantis II was being loaded by the creepy Anchorites with large crates of supplies, all labeled to identify medical supplies, non-perishables, and perishables—there was even a huge supply of his favorite jogan fruit jam. According to the kids in his class, the Mantis II hadn't ever gone anywhere once it arrived on Tanalorr, but the grumpy Latero named Greez was constantly running diagnostics on it and keeping the ship up like it made routine runs off world. His constant presence made it impossible to ever get even a slight glimpse inside the ship—

—except right now, Greez was nowhere to be seen.

And his favorite jogan fruit jam was being loaded onto the ship.

Good enough for him.

Sure, Tanalorr was pretty and his parents were safe, but this place wasn't Lothal.

There were no Loth cats for him to play with and yeah, the boglings were cute, but it just wasn't the same as the temperamental felines he was used to. More than anything, Ezra wanted to go home. It was his fault that his family had to be carted off to this stupid planet in the first place. His gifts—which didn't feel like gifts at all—had driven his parents into hiding from the Empire. If it wasn't for that creepy, gray Imperial guy's ability to sense Ezra, the Empire wouldn't have realized that it was his parents broadcasting messages to the rest of the rebels. They were on Tanalorr because of him. His family had to leave Lothal because of him.

He hated this place.

The Mantis II probably wasn't going to Lothal but anywhere that wasn't Tanalorr was fine by him, and since the kids in his class said that it never left, it was probably just delivering supplies and be back in a few hours. After wishing for years that he could leave this stupid place, he finally had his ride off Tanalorr, and he'd be back in time for dinner. It was the perfect plan.

Nobody would even notice he was gone.

Probably.

Ezra crept around the landing pad, keeping his back pressed firmly against the boulders until the Mantis II's ramp was only a few feet away. He watched as an Anchorite appeared at the top of the ramp and began their descent toward the half empty hovercart and then he made his move. The only good thing about having the Force was that he could move faster than most and he was exceptionally good at sneaking around—something his teachers here on Tanalorr did not appreciate in the least.

Once he was aboard the ship, he didn't waste any time to admire the interior because that was something he could do later when grumpy Greez was distracted. Instead, he ran for the aft of the ship and traced the vents in the floor from the engine until he found one that didn't run straight from the hyperdrive, a hiding place guaranteed to roast him like a ronto, and he focused on the vent like his teachers taught him and tugged the grate from the floor without touching it.

Maybe his gifts were okay, sometimes.

He dropped into the cramped duct work and pulled the grate back into place. It wasn't a moment too soon. The second he slipped out of sight beneath the shiny decking of the ship, he heard footsteps directly overhead that indicated the Anchorite had returned with more supplies.

Or so he thought.

"It is strange. This ship feels like home and yet it does not."

Ezra's eyes went wide at the sound of the accented voice just above him, the one that belonged to the witch. He felt his heart start to beat hard in his chest and his mind started to race with all of the stories he heard from his friends. There was a rumor that she once turned a kid into an oggdo bogdo just because she was bored but when his family asked her to undo the spell, she refused to do so because she thought that the kid was a pain and that he was better suited in that form. The exact same thing would happen to Ezra if she found him on the ship—her classes were the worst and no matter how hard he tried to pay attention during her lessons, he found himself always wondering what animal she would turn him into because he was constantly causing some sort of trouble.

He realized that the cart of supplies hadn't been fully loaded, which meant that maybe there was still time for him to—

"BD, go ahead and fire up the engines. That's the last of the supplies."

Doing his best not to make a sound, Ezra buried his face in his palms. All he wanted to do was get off of this stupid rock for a while if he couldn't go home. A trip with a grumpy Latero was one thing but Master Kestis and his creepy witch girlfriend?

At first, he thought that this wasn’t the worst idea that he could have ever come up with but then he realized that the entire Galaxy thought that Master Kestis was dead. Everybody that came to Tanalorr was always awed by his presence. That meant wherever they were going probably wouldn’t be infested by the Empire but that they were definitely leaving to go on more than just a little supply run. In order for Master Kestis to leave, they had to be doing something important.

So much for being home by dinner.

Ezra squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, trying to keep his heart from beating out of its chest. Wherever they were going, it would be fine. All he had to do was make sure that the creepy witch didn't find him and he would be fine. This would be easy.

He was quiet and quick enough that he wouldn't get caught. When they got back to stupid Tanalorr, he'd still just be a ten year old kid and not an over-sized ugly frog with an exceptionally large tongue. He would definitely. be. fine.

After all, witches had to sleep sometime…didn't they?

Merrin did not like the sense of unease that she felt as she settled into the co-pilot seat next to Cal. There was something about this scenario that didn't sit well with her, like there was a missing piece of the puzzle that kept both her and Cal from being able to see the bigger picture. As the swirling pinks and purples of the Koboh Abyss surrounded them, the shining iridescent material known as Koboh matter creating a dangerous maze that Cal worked through easily, Merrin knew that it was too late to turn back now—not that doing so had ever been an option.

"I know that Bode provided coordinates for a rendezvous but how can we be certain that we are not chasing a moving target?" She asked, examining the navigation controls in front of her as they neared the end of the abyss.

Cal cleared his throat slightly before he provided his answer, his words mumbled and his face mildly flushed as he did so. "I can find them."

Rather than using words to ask Cal to explain exactly how he could find them, she merely arched an eyebrow, knowing it would be sufficient to drag an answer out of her beloved.

With a heavy sigh, Cal slouched slightly over the Mantis' controls. "BD might have sliced into Chopper during all of that time we were stuck jumping hyperspace lanes for weeks after Coruscant. I think we were all so exhausted that nobody realized it until after we went our separate ways. Kanan might have sent a message threatening to remove…vital organs from my body if I didn't find a way to fix Hera's droid since he was…well, that part doesn't matter. So I talked him through how to reverse BD's slice. Trust me when I say it was absolutely necessary communication and that you would have been really unhappy if I didn't answer him."

Beside her, BD trilled something that sounded nearly like a Human chuckle. She couldn't help but feel a slight swell of pride for the little droid being a menace in his own manner, but even more so she was pleased with the droid's unapologetic amusement for his actions.

Merrin crossed her arms as she replied to Cal in a mocking tone. "But I thought you did not stay in contact with Kanan."

"Hey." Cal shot back, turning to glance at her as they dropped out of the abyss. "I certainly haven't heard you complaining about the results."

"Cal Kestis, are you telling me that you discussed our sexual activities with your friend?"

Her Jedi need not provide an answer to that question, given that the shade of red that bloomed in his flesh, reaching beyond his collar and disappearing beneath his shirt, was so severe that one might have mistaken him for a Zeltron. Still, it amused her that he was still so easily embarrassed after all of these years.

"I would very much like to know what he explained to you that would result in a lack of complaints from me."

Again, Cal cleared his throat and looked over at BD as he pulled up the navicomputer. "BD, are the coordinates from Chopper still accurate?"

BD tittered an affirmative.

"And you've got a lock on the Ghost?"

Again, the little droid trilled, this time more excitedly as he hopped from one foot to the other.

Temporarily distracted from the line of questioning she was leading Cal through, Merrin granted BD with a slight expression of approval. "Hera's droid interfaces with the Ghost, so when BD sliced into Chopper he somehow gained access to the ship itself?"

Cal nodded. "And since BD's slice didn't contain any sort of pertinent intelligence, any memory wipes that Hera performs on Chopper to maintain secrecy of their travels never eliminated BD's ability to to send or receive messages through the ship's communications system…or Chopper, if he hasn't interfaced with the ship yet after a wipe."

Merrin smirked slightly. "So you used BD to discuss our activities through Hera's droid? If that is the case, perhaps he still has logs of these messages that you and Kanan rarely shared."

"I doubt that BD holds onto anything like that." Cal answered a little too quickly. "He needs the storage space for his scans. Right, little Buddy?"

BD's answered with a low chirp that was obvious but not, the droid seeming to turn his attention in on his own programming, much in the way a person would focus on their own thoughts.

After a quick examination of Koboh's skies to see that the Empire had yet to send another Star Destroyer after she and Vos dealt with the last one, Merrin looked up at Cal, her gaze plainly stating that she was well aware that BD was still holding onto every last message shared with Kanan. Her Jedi was sentimental like that, regardless of what he would have discussed with his friend. She couldn't blame him; after all, she spent years finding various reasons to wake her sleeping sister even when Merrin knew that she would always have to return Asajj back to Dathomir in the end.

For a few days, though, it made the Galaxy feel a little less lonely to know that she had her sister at her side. That feeling of loneliness was further squashed when she discovered the effect Tanalorr had on her sister, knowing that she was no longer the sole surviving Nightsister of Dathomir.

She imagined it felt the same way for Cal to know that there was another like him out in the Galaxy, somebody else that had been just a child when their lives were turned upside down. Kanan wasn't just a friend for Cal—he was a brother.

A low tone that indicated the navicomputer had finished its course calculations pulled Merrin away from her thoughts and she looked up to Cal.  

Whatever the navicomputer showed drew the corners of Cal's mouth down into a frown and his previously flushed skin had blanched, returning to its normal pale shade, or perhaps something a little more…colorless.

"What is it, my Jedi?"

"Fifteen days." His answer sounded mournful, as though he was already grieving the loss of his friends. "Fifteen days is the shortest route to get to them, assuming that they don't move. They’re quite literally on the other side of the Galaxy."

Reaching out, Merrin took his hand in hers. "Then we should not waste one more moment. It is as Vos said, Bode wants you. So long as he knows that you are coming to him, it does not matter how long it takes. Our friends are stronger than you give them credit for. They will survive this and so will we."

After drawing in a deep breath and releasing it slowly, Cal nodded and then engaged the hyperdrive. "I suppose that fifteen days gives us enough time to come up with a backup plan to end this as peacefully as possible since I know what Vos' plan will involve."

Merrin did not respond to that.

This man, Bode Akuna, had already harmed her friends and threatened to harm a young girl. She had no intentions of a peaceful ending for him, nor did he deserve one.

Chapter Text

The sickly color of grayish green that surrounded the Captain's sunken eyes reminded Bode of rotting blackvines and yet the moment her crusted eyelashes fluttered open, defiance burned in her emerald eyes brilliantly in a way that nearly panged him with jealousy. Any sort of resilience was a rarity in the Galaxy, something that he could only liken to a flawless and priceless gemstone lying atop the rubble of a long destroyed civilization that allowed for notions as foolish as hoping or dreaming. Knowing her history, or at least a great deal of it given her father's notoriety, Bode knew that Hera Syndulla had no reason to hope, and yet here she was in front of him, unwavering hope shining in her brazen gaze.

The transient notion that he wished he could lean into the blind dreams of a better future for all disappeared when the bitter taste of his past found its way to his tongue, tasting like the bile at the back of his throat. Nobody survived the Empire and it was only a matter of time before the Twi'lek woman and the imbeciles that called her Captain would realize that.

If he had his way, she'd be making that discovery sooner rather than later.

"Good morning, Captain." He greeted her with a wry grin as he knelt before her. "I don't suppose you're feeling more talkative today?"

"What do you want?" She spat back at him with the same vitriol as her Jedi counterpart.

Bode was getting fed up with the both of them and fast. "I'm getting tired of playing this game and you don't strike me as the type that's forgetful. We've been through this once and it's the last time I'm going to remind any of you, I'm looking for a friend of yours and if you can't give him to me, somebody is going to pay for it. But—"

He paused to pull out the puck-sized holoprojector and flipped the screen on, showing the footage of the Phantom taking to the skies with Cal aboard. A swell of satisfaction bloomed in his chest when he saw her fierce expression falter momentarily. Satisfied that there would be no further denial of her affiliation with Cal Kestis now, especially since Bode had seen the excursion craft mounted aft on her rather impressive ship, he put the puck away and continued.

"You give me Cal Kestis, your crew goes free."

"Where is the girl?"

Not exactly the reply he was hoping for.

There was no helping the incredulous laugh that escaped his lips in response to the absurdity of her question. "The lives of your crew are hanging in the balance by a rapidly fraying thread and you're asking about a girl that means nothing to you?"

The Twi'lek drew on what little strength she seemed to be able to muster to force herself into a more upright position despite her bound hands, shoulders broadening with the sort of authority that no doubt would make any member of her crew shrink in response.

"Life is not meaningless. Only an Imperial would think that."

Bode felt his hands flex and then clench tightly at his side, anger causing that ever-present feeling of fire in his veins to burn hotter. In spite of the fact that he knew it was against the sociocultural norms of the Twi'lek people, Bode reached out with one hand and ran a single finger roughly down the pattern that danced over her pale green flesh, the markings of her clan. They were identical to the tattoos that ran down Jarrus' arms.

"And tell me Captain, since you seem to know the Empire so well, do you know the Imperial laws regarding interspecies marriage?" He questioned.

"You keep yer hands off 'er you filthy son of a—" The Lasat started behind him, the strong timbre of his voice sounding no worse for the wear. It was a true testament to the strength of the nearly extinct race.

For a fleeting moment, he allowed his attention to turn toward the Lasat so as to interrupt him before he could finish his statement. "Watch your language, my friend. There is a youngling present and I suspect she's more alert than she's letting on."

"It doesn't matter what the Empire thinks because they will fall." The rebellious Captain's steady tone drew Bode's eyes back toward her. "You will fall."

Bode smiled proudly at her and then shook his head with pure wonder. "I have to give it to you, when they said your father was dangerous, they had no idea what else they had coming to them. He might have given the Separatists a dose of hell they couldn't handle during the Clone War and I've heard that he's done his best to feed it to the Empire, but you—you're taking that fight to the Empire in a way that Cham Syndulla wouldn't even dream of."

Apparently there was something that could shake the fair Captain after all.

"How?" Her voice was little more than a whisper.

"It wasn't hard to figure out, what? With these lovely tattoos as a clue. Once I got your husband to shut his trap and answer my questions, I had enough information to confirm my suspicions aboard your ship." Bode extended his hand to reach beneath her chin and tip her head up so he could glare straight into her eyes, wanting to be sure that she could see that his threat was not idle. He was grossly distorting his talks with the Jedi but the Twi'lek would never know that and her reaction was a welcome distraction after the tedium of the past couple days.

"Do you have any idea how much you would fetch on the market?"

A sudden and sharp pain in his stomach sent him staggering backwards, the pain of it so severe that the air left his lungs, leaving him gasping and coughing for even the most shallow of breaths. One unbelievably powerful pair of prehensile purple feet wrapped around his well-muscled shoulders and held on with formidable strength. Bode struggled in the grasp of the Lasat, jerking his arms and kicking his legs to gain purchase on the deck and force himself backward, but the surprise strike from the Twi'lek had put him into a position of disadvantage.

"Kanan!" The woman called out, her tone loud and frantic, reeking of desperation and foolish hope that somebody would save them from the hell they put themselves in. "Kanan! We're down here!"

Bode almost laughed despite the workout the Lasat was giving him. It wasn't anything he couldn't overcome. As much as he wanted to watch the expression on her face twist into one of sickened realization when Jarrus didn't respond, he couldn't risk the consequences of her cries. With a little creativity and a whole lot of muscle, he pulled one of his blasters from the holster strapped over his shoulders and managed to aim it in Hera's general direction.

"Give it up, Lasat, or your Captain will be taking the kind of nap she won't wake up from." He threatened, still struggling against the man's monstrous feet.

"Don't you dare stop fighting him, Zeb. That's an order!" The Captain barked back, obviously unafraid of Bode's blaster that wavered at her from across the cargo bay.

What was it with these idiots and their refusal to cower when they were looking at the wrong end of a blaster?

Unwilling to entertain the hulking Lasat's malodorous feet or the defiant Twi'lek woman's hopes any longer, Bode thrashed in his captor's arms until the back of his head found purchase against his foe, the sickly crack of bone against bone temporarily stunning the beast. It was more than enough time for Bone to scramble away and jump to his feet. He pulled a small control from his pocket, the rig no bigger than the size of a credit, and pressed the single button it held. The action sent electricity coruscating along the Lasat's purple fur unfortunately creating a rather unpleasant, but necessary, smell.

It took less than five seconds to fully subdue the mangy monstrosity of a man.

With his blaster still trained on the Twi'lek Captain, who was no doubt a leader in the building revolution, Bode flipped the setting on his blaster from stun to kill. Nobody in the Empire would ever know that he had one of the highly wanted figureheads of a Rebellion that would never flourish in this Galaxy in his possession, nor would they bother to ask when he produced Cal Kestis as their price for his safety.

Not once, save for spouting orders to the now napping Lasat, had the Twi'lek stopped in her near-desperate cries for her partner to come to their aid. It seemed that she really was terminally infected with hope.

"You are daddy's little girl, aren't you? Fighting until the very end." He chuckled darkly. "I'd say that I would send him my regards but I think I'd rather send him your body."

"Papa, no!" A small voice echoed off the cargo bay walls, threatening to exterminate the raging fires that threatened to burn down everything in its path. With just two words that sounded as desperate as the cries of the woman at his feet, his little girl extinguished the blaze completely.

"Papa, please."

Without lifting his eyes away from the unflinching Twi'lek woman, he pulled his finger away from the trigger. He felt his face twist into something of a bittersweet expression as he tucked his blaster back into place. "You're lucky I'm a father who knows what it means to be willing to sacrifice anything for my little girl or yours would be days away from dealing with the fallout of your bad decisions."

Bode didn't bother with listening to her response if she had one. Instead, he crossed the cargo bay to the ladder and scaled it to meet Kata where she stood. He silently placed a hand on the back of her shoulders and guided her out of the room and toward the cozy living space that his bait had obviously worked hard to create. The next time he might have an unpleasant chore to address, he would need to make sure that his little girl was asleep or otherwise sufficiently occupied.

Kata didn't know any better and it might be years before she realized it, but this was the only way.

Sabine felt like she had a building dropped on her, which was saying something since she'd actually had a building dropped on her before. At the time, she was pretty sure she was going to die until a man with a big blaster, a big mouth, but kind looking eyes managed to pull her out of the burning remains of the cantina that was unfortunate enough to find itself at the center of her disagreement with Ketsu. There wasn’t much that she remembered about that day after their explosive argument but it never stopped her from wondering how Kanan managed to find her amongst the debris of the decimated building.

She didn't really think that he'd tell her if she asked and she didn't like him enough to actually start a conversation with the obnoxious man.

It wasn't that he was necessarily easy to hate, she just wasn't used to somebody caring enough to tell her to do things like strap in or eat or sleep or at least wear a face mask if you're going to deface Hera's ship so you're not breathing paint fumes all night. Sabine knew better than to let herself get used to it—at some point, he'd either stop caring or she'd wear out her welcome. That's how it worked with everybody in her life and being a thirteen year old Mandalorian, she was already well accustomed to the losing people. There was also the Galactic harsh reality that everybody was expendable, even the people you're supposed to love and care for, so what was the point in trying to hold onto somebody? 

Shifting slightly against the cold, hard decking beneath her in an effort to straighten her spine against the durasteel pipe she was chained to, Sabine groaned softly before she could think better of the quiet vocalization.

The whole thing about not wanting somebody to care about her was that she didn't want to alert Hera or Zeb to the fact that she was in pain or otherwise uncomfortable. She'd already endured hours of Hera's concerned gazes in her direction alternating with whispered questions to make sure that she was alright, the last thing Sabine needed was for those motherly behaviors in the Twi'lek woman to intensify or multiply. It was already bordering on unbearable as it stood.

Hera was not her mother.

In more than one way.

Out of the corner of her eye, she checked on Hera and felt a slight sense of relief at the realization that she seemed to be sleeping—actually sleeping and not just stunned silent by the asshole bounty hunter that had apparently hijacked the Ghost. She slid her glance over to Zeb and saw that he was still fully out, the modified shock generator device that shone through his thick, purple pelt helping to assist with his incredibly prolonged nap, although Sabine didn't really need to see him to know that he was asleep. His snoring was strong enough to rattle the bones of the dead on Mandalore.

She hated herself just a little bit when she realized that she wasn't looking to see if Zeb was asleep, she was checking on him, just like she checked on Hera.

If they survived this mess, it would probably be sooner rather than later before she ditched Sabine. In the couple weeks since she'd been aboard the ship, she'd heard the hushed conversations between Hera and Kanan, quiet arguments about their decision to bring a child aboard and what they were going to do with her. There was a good reason that she barely talked to any of them and she didn't give a gundark's ass what happened to the Lasat with good jokes, the Twi'lek with the kind of aviation skills that the Empire would literally kill for, or the man with a loud mouth and kind eyes who apparently rushed into burning buildings for complete strangers.

Karabast.

A shifting noise in the corner drew Sabine's attention and she turned her head quickly, the night vision equipped in her helmet allowing her to see the girl they encountered when they were picking up supplies on Onderon, even if she was trying to conceal herself in the shadows.

"I can see you, y'know." She made sure to let her annoyance ring through her tone. "There's no point in you hiding in the corner and you certainly have nothing to be afraid of."

Shyly, the girl stepped out of the shadows and into the light. She was long limbed with cherubic cheeks and wide, dark eyes. Her black hair barely brushed her shoulders that were clothed in a muted and utilitarian tunic. Nothing about the girl's appearance gave away her father's potential affiliation or even where she was from. Using the changes she experienced in her own body as she examined their little stalker, Sabine determined that the girl couldn't be more than a year younger than her. Even then, she was taller than Sabine by at least an inch. Height wasn't anything that Sabine really found intimidating until then, when she was chained to a pole and at the mercy of a possibly sadistic, probably twelve year old girl.

It was amazing what being imprisoned did to one's sense of security.

After a moment's hesitation, she moved toward Sabine and reached out to pull the helmet off of her head. "You need to drink," the girl spoke in a small voice. "You're the only one who hasn't eaten or drank anything. I'm looking after you're friends. They're doing okay."

If Sabine hadn't been so damn thirsty, she might have laughed at the notion of the girl looking after Hera and Zeb.

Oh, she'd done that alright.

The girl marched them all right into a trap and now she was actively watching them dwindle away until nothing was left, she was surveilling the situation from afar while the man who Sabine determined to be her father was torturing and starving them into submission, and she would pay for her complicit behavior even though she was pretending to be an innocent bystander.

It didn't take a genius to see that the increased metabolic rate Twi'leks possessed was already wearing on Hera in ways that a Human might not have suffered for several more days—her lekku were limp and chapped, draped over her shoulders and her green skin looked gray. Hera was definitely not okay.

None of this was okay.

Water dripped down Sabine's chin as she emptied the proffered cup that she could not control and yet she could not stop herself from drinking thirstily from. When the cup was finally emptied, she leveled her allegedly benevolent captor in a harsh gaze, trying hard not to think about how weak she was.

"This was your plan the whole time, wasn't it?" She finally questioned, her voice thick with venom. "It was a con. You weren't scared of being turned over to the Empire. You were trying to get to my crew."

Sabine had to ignore the sudden urge to glance over her shoulder to make sure that Hera didn't hear that part. The last thing she wanted was the Twi'lek woman realizing that she actually had some sort of attachment to them, lest Hera's attentions become even more unbearable. It wouldn't do well for intimidating their smaller and far more malleable captor if Sabine turned her eyes away now.

The girl looked away instead and then shook her head gently, setting the little curls that framed her face to swaying gently. "I don't know. I was just doing what my Papa told me to. I was safe, mostly anyway, and then Papa said we weren't. I don't know what happened."

"What are you talking about?" Sabine sneered at her.

"I—the place we lived in, I thought it was safe, but my Papa said that we had to go. We've been moving around for a long time and some bad people have tried to hurt us but then I thought things were okay for a while. My Papa, I guess he was worried that somebody might find us because we had to move to a new system again and that's when he found your friends. He told me that they were dangerous people and if we turned them over to the Empire, we could go back to the place we were living before, where it was safe. He's so angry that I thought if I just did what he said and we could go back there that he'd…" her words dwindled off, leaving the allusion that her father would go back to being the man she used to know unspoken.

Sabine felt her stomach start to churn and she wasn't sure if it was the girl's words, the way that she'd so greedily drank that damn cup of water, or a mixture of both. She didn't like that she understood the notion of doing whatever she needed to in a bid to feel safe, even if she didn't necessarily enjoy what that feeling of safety cost her. A quick study of the girl's body language was confirmation enough for any moron that she wasn't lying, even if Sabine could tell by the wavering of her words alone.

"I'm Sabine." She offered to the girl, her mind racing with possibilities already. "What's your name?

For a moment, the girl seemed to weigh the possible outcomes of sharing her name with Sabine, but then her grip tightened around the empty cup. "Kata."

"Kata," Sabine echoed. "Well, Kata. I promise you, we will find a way out of this and we can make sure that you're safe no matter what, okay?"

Although she wanted to convince herself that her motivations were purely selfish and that she didn't care about her so-called crew or the girl, Sabine knew that the damn do-gooders had rubbed off on her. She had to figure out a way to keep Kata and her crew safe and more importantly, she really had to make sure that the day she left the Ghost, it was because another set of people turned their backs on her and not because her corpse was smelling up the ship. The only thing she needed to do was convince Kata that listening to her Papa wasn't the safest thing to d, and to do that, she had to earn the girl's trust.

That was the only reason that she volunteered her name in exchange for Kata's.

At least, that's what Sabine was going to keep telling herself.

From the end of the corridor, Merrin smiled faintly at Cal's back as she watched her Jedi's broad shoulders rise and fall with each steady but deep breath that he drew.

Cal always claimed that meditating was not just a Jedi's excuse for a really long nap, but it never stopped him from looking just as relaxed as one indulging in a little tooka's rest, his face placid and body still. In a way, she envied his ability to slip in and out of that state so easily, but she had no desire to learn how to do it herself. She'd leave the napping to her Jedi as she'd developed the unfortunate habit of watching him and mapping the constellations in his freckles with an even worse habit of forgetting that meditation did nothing to alter his awareness of her.

When he chuckled softly, she scowled.

Sithspit.

"Watching me again, Nightsister?"

"It is a pretty view, particularly when you are on your knees. What do you expect, Jedi?" She replied smugly, enjoying the way that his face flushed red.

It wasn't the same deep red that overwhelmed his pale skin like when he'd spent too much time in the sun, or the stunning coppery shade of Cal's hair. This red was her favorite color, a deeper hue that reminded her of three hearts beating in unison, of the blood that rushed through his veins, of all things alive. He was there with her and alive and—

Merrin sucked in a deep breath and tried to stop her mind from going down that bogling hole.

Again.

Cal smiled faintly, his gaze making it clear that he was well aware of her answer before even asking his question. "Don't suppose I should ask you what's on your mind before I stand up?"

When she shook her head no and made it clear that her teasing was empty for the most part, he rose to his feet and closed the distance between them. The floor beneath their feet seemed to rattle a little more than it should have in response to her Jedi's light steps, or perhaps it was some of the pipes that ran beneath the deck and along the ceiling of the engine room below that was shaking, it was so hard to tell. After a few seconds it stopped and she shifted her gaze to meet Cal's once more.

"Is a new ship supposed to do these things?" She asked, genuinely concerned that this was a complication that she hadn't pondered the possibility of.

"Greez did tell me that I had no clue how to break in a new ship." He pointed out warily, looking down at the floor with his brows drawn together. "I doubt it's actually going to fall apart like he said it would. If anything, he'll actually have something to do besides putting another layer of protectant on the potolli weave when we get home."

Merrin had no response to that.

"Don't suppose you're going to tell me what's on your mind?"

She couldn't find the words to express what exactly was on her mind in a succinct manner, especially not with the insistent image of how he looked in the wake of Coruscant lingering behind her eyelids, or the way the persistent memories of everything that happened after—those long weeks that followed after they returned to Jedha when he was so lost to the nightmares that swallowed him up whole that she wondered if she'd ever really get him back from the Jedi Temple—were viciously tearing through her hearts with the subtlety of a rancor. She didn't want to think about Hera, the woman that she shared an unbreakable and impossible bond with, who was probably struggling to keep it together for her crew although she looked like she was fighting Kanan for being in the worst shape physically, who would likely die with reassurances for the broken souls on her ship carried on her final breath. It was that dark and twisted notion in particular that drove Merrin to finally speak her mind.

"What do you plan to do, Cal? When we find this man? If he has negated Hera, Kanan, and their crew, what is to say he's not capable of the same with us?" She asked, sounding more agitated than she intended to let on.

It became instantly obvious that Cal fully understood her concerns. He reached out to her but stopped himself short of wrapping his arms around her, choosing to close his hands around her forearms instead. Merrin found herself simultaneously loving and hating that he knew when she needed him close or which version of close she was seeking from him. She was even more torn over whether or not she was thankful that he didn't have any sense of self-preservation whatsoever—then again, if he did, she would still be on Dathomir, so she decided not to overthink it.

"Nothing is going to happen to them, Mer. Or us." He uttered his promise quietly as his thumbs stroked across her unusually exposed skin gently. "Our friends may be down but they're not out. There's still a chance that they find a way to take care of Bode by the time we get there. We can all take a trip to Tanalorr for a bit…make sure that they're recovered before Hera finds another Imperial Factory to destroy instead of finally moving into their house."

Rather than answering with words, she merely looked at him with an arch to her brow.

"Okay, fine. Maybe they'll take care of Bode when we take care of them." He corrected himself.

Frowning, she leaned into his chest, just wanting to feel warm. The thought of the pictures of the defeated crew of the Ghost had prickled her skin and caused it to feel as though ice was rushing through her veins at the very thought of what it would take for one man to do all of that. The mental image of Cal in those weeks after Coruscant quickly floated back to the surface of her thoughts and pushed her under further, leaving her to feel as though she was drowning on dry land. When Cal's arms wrapped around her, it was already too late and she was too far gone, lost down the bogling hole to all of the dreads that overwhelmed her while her Jedi was peacefully meditating.

Together, Merrin and Hera dared to have hope in the face of the worst and it brought Cal back to her.

Nobody in this Galaxy had that kind of luck twice.

Chapter Text

Quinlan Vos had finally decided that he wasn't going to be surprised about the past catching up to him anymore. He didn't care if Obi Wan sprang up from some trapdoor in the Temple here on Tanalorr or Yoda randomly dropped by with a fruit basket and a thank you card for his continued service to the Galaxy, he simply wasn't going to be caught off guard by finding another surviving Jedi ever again.

He was, however, allowing himself the incredibly indulgent notion that some surviving Jedi would have been smarter to stay off of his radar as long as possible for both of their sakes. After all, it they'd survived this long, why ruin that track record over petty things like past disagreements that he definitely wasn't going to let go of anytime soon. Besides, Quinlan actually treasured the idea of carrying that bitterness all the way back to the Cosmic Force with him when he died so he could throw it in the faces of a couple sorry bastards.

After a minute, Quinlan decided that he actually wouldn't mind one of his fellow Jedi Masters randomly dropping by. What he wouldn't give to see the looks of shock on their faces over what he'd done with the highly specialized training they'd given him, the hours of tedious instruction on how he could focus on the midichlorians moving through his bloodstream and use them to eliminate toxins from his body and how, in the wake of the Purge, he mastered doing the exact reverse, making even the weakest of liquors last longer in his bloodstream. If any of them had been buried in an actual grave, Quinlan was pretty sure they'd spent the past handful of years rolling around in them. And if they were somewhere out there in the Force, judging him for some of his less brilliant decisions, they sure weren't offering up any guidance to the alternative, so he didn't care. It was a coping mechanism that got him through some very dark years in the wake of the Purge when he could have easily surrendered himself to the will of the Empire and the alluring draw of the Dark Side.

Instead, he drank. He drank and he did his best to seek purpose after the Purge, somehow managing to find it in flying whiny brats and their families through the Galaxy in an attempt to save them from the Empire. Rather than constantly moping, he actively tried to feel good about doing something, but in the end all he ever felt was empty, even after another successful job done. One would have thought that having screaming infants or squealing younglings aboard that he would have been annoyed by all the noise but instead, his ship always felt too quiet, even with the calamity surrounding him. There was no escaping the silence, nor that soft, rasping whisper at the back of his mind that always seemed to be calling out to him although he knew that she was gone.

When his ship was empty and even the air around him worked in conjunction with the quiet to make everything so stiflingly still was when the booze that was a little more expensive than what his budget could afford came out. Every time he blacked out, he thought of her, could feel the reach of her arms around him, and the brush of her lips against his. More times than he could count, he was disappointed to have woken up from those blackout spells, but managed to pull himself together so he could go help somebody else in the Galaxy, trying to convince himself if he did enough good that he'd finally forget her.

The first time that she came back into his life, he truly believed that he had drank himself into a stupor again, but when he woke up next to her and she was breathing and warm and alive in his arms, he refused to question it. In his heart, he knew that it couldn't have been real, that there was something more going on than what lay on the surface, but he drank those thoughts into submission and drugged himself with her touch. It worked until the moment that he watched the electrostaff of a purge trooper driven through her chest before his eyes, a wound that was magicked closed without even taking Asajj’s breath away on the process. He drank himself to the point of being barely functional over the following few weeks, up until the day that he held her in his arms for a second time as she drew her lasts breaths and he had to surrender her to the dark, living waters and her awaiting sisters.

After that, he lost a couple years in a blur of liquor while still playing the part of Force-sensitive chauffeur, until Cal finally talked him into making one trip through the Abyss where he discovered that Asajj was alive.

Again.

Allegedly.

It took countless hours of Cal and Merrin trying to convince him that something about Tanalorr did something for Merrin's magick. Even Asajj aiming for the family jewels with her knee and just narrowly missing hadn't been enough to convince them that this wasn't just another cruel trick, that she wouldn't be ripped away from him once again. Quinlan knew that he somehow managed to survive losing her twice but there was no way he'd come back from losing her a third time.

When all their efforts failed, it was Eno Cordova, a Jedi Master Quinlan knew from his days in the Temple, that told him of the strength of the Force in the planet and explained that any outsiders knowledge of how the Nightsisters of Dathomir drew on their strength was truly a mystery as their people rejected travelers by rather violent means. Cordova went on to explain that he had a theory regarding Asajj's resurrection and continued survival had less to do with the magick that burned at the core of Dathomir and might have been Tanalorr's strength in the Force and the purity in Merrin's hearts. In turn for the reassurance that actually comforted him, if only a little, Quinlan promised the sage Jedi Master that he wouldn't tell Merrin that Cordova considered her hearts to be pure.

They jointly decided that it was safe for the both of them that way.

"I'd tell you that you're brooding but another Nightsister has already trademarked that line." Asajj deadpanned, slicing into his reminiscence. "Instead, I'll tell you that you look like an idiot just standing there staring at basically nothing."

Quinlan smiled. Now that he had the woman attached to that voice that always called to him back in his life, again, he still found it humorous that sometimes the notion struck him that it might not be so bad to drink it away on occasion. Especially times like right now. Instead of dignifying her mostly well-meaning taunts, he merely grunted back at her in response.

"You can watch that little blip all that you want. It's not going to make them move any faster…if there's even one left. Shouldn't they be out of range by now or is the kid as bad of a pilot as you are?"

Pulling his eyes away from the impressive security console that Cal and Cordova assembled to track the movements of ships that lie beyond the abyss or incoming refugees, he glanced up at Asajj with a scowl and then looked back down at the signals coming from the network of satellites, watching as the Mantis II's signal grew more faint. The technology was remarkable, built from nothing more than a standard set of repurposed probes and antennas that were coated in priorite and further disguised in the Koboh matter. The system had proven time and time again that it could withstand the Empire's constant attempts at probing what might lie beyond the astral body and the abyss' insistence on attempting to consume everything that it was fed. Withholding a sigh, he pulled his gaze away from the trackers once again because he couldn't stand seeing the fainting signal, and he looked up to see the woman he loved crossing the room from the doorway.

Asajj's hair was longer than it used to be, the ends of it brushing just at her shoulders and almost constantly covering at least one of the blue eyes that he could get lost in—when they aren't shooting daggers at him, of course. Even if they were staring back at him with the lethality that made him fall in love with her, Quinlan knew there were far worse ways to go. The strangest change in her of all, though, was the other effect that Tanalorr had taken on her body. When he first found her those three years ago, she didn't look as though she'd aged by even a day from the first time they met. Now, there were the faintest crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the only place that anybody could ever tell if she was pleased or smiling because she nearly never let it reach any other feature in her beautiful face.

Actually, come to think of it, he was probably the only person who could ever tell if Asajj was smiling.

Right then, however, she was definitely not smiling. Instead, she was wordlessly hurling every insult in the book at him, all of it made clear by the way that her icy glare was penetrating him like a blaster bolt to the heart. He didn't dare tell her that even like that, she still took his breath away. Some miniscule part of Asajj might have gone soft during her time on Tanalorr but she hadn't gone that soft and Cal needed him breathing if he was going to survive this fight against Bode.

"I'm not tracking them, I'm watching for any anomalies. I know Bode and I know what he's capable of. If he's subdued Hera's crew, he may have a means of finding his way along the Path," Quinlan lied through his teeth. After a brief second he tacked on, "Besides, I'm thinking, woman," he grumbled, not bothering to budge from his position over the console where he was most definitely watching the blip even now that he was caught red handed.

Asajj snorted. "Trust me, I'm aware. Why do you think I'm here? I'd know that sound of busted gears trying to grind together anywhere."

Quinlan sighed heavily. "I told the kid I would come up with a plan and I'm trying to."

"What? All that liquor you took a shining to for a few years making it hard for the couple brain cells you have left to arrange a meeting regarding strategy? And here I thought that your fancy Jedi training prepared you for these kinds of things," she taunted as she sauntered over to his side with a dangerously hypnotic sway of her full hips that he couldn't quite tear his eyes away from.

That was something he definitely shouldn't let himself get distracted by, and yet—

"For the love of the Force, you have got to stop thinking, you're giving me a migraine," she uttered in the scant space between their bodies. Obviously she knew him too well and that he was already formulating an argument that she couldn't actually hear him think because she effectively shut up him with a brief but deliciously bruising kiss. The taste she allowed him was far too fleeting and the sweet near-distraction already had his body longing for just a little bit more.

"I need to come up with a plan," he halfheartedly argued even though his right hand had already found its way to her ass where he was enthusiastically appreciating the ample fullness of it.

There was one other time that Asajj smiled, a light curl of her full lips on the right side of her mouth that reached her crystalline gaze, the look decidedly wicked no matter what the context that it rarely occurred. This smile wasn't an indication of happiness but akin to something more aptly described by a predator about to consume her prey. And fuck if he didn't fall for it, for her, every time.

"By all means, don't let me distract you then, genius," she whispered and then dropped to her knees before him.

Normally with all of the sanctimonious Anchorites roaming the place, Quinlan wouldn't have dared dream about letting Asajj do what she was about to, but with Cal and Merrin's absence, they were all scurrying about the planet using six people to replace the job of two mildly overpowered, in his opinion, beings. That, coupled with the facts that the console was high enough that anybody that might come barging in wouldn't see anything and he was already half-hard made up his mind. Even if he wasn’t just letting his dick make what would probably be another bad decision, Asajj’s plan seemed sound, especially given the fact that she might knock some of the rust off the gears in his head and he would have a moment of clarity in the wake of what she could do to him. If anything, she’d make coming up with a plan easier. He could even watch the blip of the Mantis II on the radar as it faded out of range while she helped him focus.

He was pretty sure he could multi-task like that, anyway.

Maybe.

It didn't take long for Asajj to have his belt unbuckled and pants unfastened, her deft fingers already working on the zipper. The distinct sound of it being dragged downward echoed off of the too empty room just loudly enough that his sudden and incredibly unwelcome guests could definitely hear it. Immediately, Quinlan threw one hand over Asajj's to stop her.

"Master Vos!" the dark-skinned woman that he knew to be Mira Bridger, draped in a brilliant purple hijab that brought an unusual intensity to the woman's gentle violet eyes, had burst into the room with her husband in tow. Surprisingly, she was pushing past several Anchorites, but then again a woman on a mission was not one to be trifled with.

Quinlan learned that a long time ago.

For a moment, it seemed that she realized what was going on and she paused but it didn't last long. She righted her face and continued. "I was told that you were unavailable but we need—"

Asajj groaned and grumbled beneath the console, and Quinlan couldn't see her but he presumed she hit her head doing something because there was a very audible thud against the console's base, punctuated with an impressive string of incredibly vulgar cursing that made even him blush. She started to crawl out from the space in between the con and his legs, but he pushed her back down like the set of parents staring at him with wild-eyed bewilderment wasn't aware that his pants were hanging open—basics still intact, thank Force—and that somebody else was most certainly guilty of causing his current predicament.

"Get your hands off me, idiot," Asajj shoved him away before rising up from her knees to face the two of them with a scowl. Her hair was mildly mussed from crawling beneath the thing and it didn't really take much willpower for him to keep him hands to himself and refrain from straightening it out for her. He very much wanted to keep his hands because he would be using them later.

Hopefully.

"Well?" she prompted irritably, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared down the quiet and kind couple from Lothal down. "What is it? What did your brat do now?"

Quinlan couldn't really bemoan or contradict Asajj's referral to Ezra Bridger as a brat. The kid wasn't exactly known for his good behavior among the Guardians or the teachers. He had a penchant for scaling things, crawling into places that only Kestis could get into, and finding trouble on an entirely peaceful plan—

"Fuck."

"Yes." Ephraim, his father, nodded. "Not the word I would have used, but yes."

Beside him, Asajj looked between the two of them and growled in frustration. "Can somebody elaborate what's going on, preferably with more than two words?"

Mira, her concern about her son clearly winning out over her dismay at the other situation that she had to unfortunately bear witness to, drew in a deep breath. "We received notification that Ezra was missing for the better part of his classes yesterday afternoon. Sometimes he likes to go exploring and so we decided to wait and see if he comes home because he's almost always home by dinner, but sometimes he'll stay out longer and sneak back in after we've retired for the evening. When we found his food still sitting on the counter and his bed empty, we began searching because it's not like him not to come home. We've spent much of the day checking all of the normal places and Ephraim just returned from inspecting the more unusual areas that he likes to hide in when he gets homesick. When we went to the Leonis home, his parents told us that Ezra wasn't there but that if he we couldn't find him that we should come to you because they saw a ship that left around the same time that Ezra went missing—"

"Fuck." Quinlan repeated, bringing his palms up to run them over his face. "This isn't good."

Ephraim's voice only grew more panicked. "What? They're coming back, right? They'll be back when they bring in the new families?"

"Fuck."

Asajj elbowed him harshly in the side. "I think what my lesser half is trying to say is that your kid just volunteered himself for something a little less routine. But hey, look on the bright side, if he comes back breathing maybe he'll finally stop crawling into holes that he doesn't belong in."

Quinlan hung his head between his shoulders, his mind now working to think of ways to do three different types of damage control as the fallout of Asajj's less than gentle blow being dealt drew a well-deserved sound of dismay. First. he was going to have to assure them that everything was going to be okay—he had no fucking clue if that was true, though. Second, he still had to come up with dealing with Bode, and third—

"Looks like we're going on that little trip after all, lover," Asajj smirked beside him, a glimmer of mischief shining in her brilliant blue eyes.

Fuck.

Ezra's stomach rumbled so loudly that he was almost positive that it would shake the pipes and make the scary witch question what was wrong with the ship again. He could tell by what little light he could see that it was the night cycle, at least he thought it looked like the night cycle. Then again, he'd only climbed out of the ductwork twice when the lights were dimmed that way, and both times it was a frantic trip toward the 'fresher. Now he wished that he would have thought to grab some snacks. He had eaten his lunch and the snacks that his mom packed him maybe an hour after they took off, or something probably close to an hour, and he hadn't had anything to eat since. Carefully, he inched forward and looked up through the grate that he used to come and go again, checking the lighting and what little bit he could see of the engine room.

Everything was still quiet.

Except his stomach.

There was plenty of food on the ship, including his favorite jogan fruit jam. If he made it to the 'fresher on two separate occasions without being caught and with the creepy witch accusing Master Kestis of not activating the vaccum when he was finished using the 'fresher, surely he would be able to sneak a little bit of food. Maybe he could have gotten away with avoiding Merrin all along by sticking to the ductwork in the Temple and avoiding his least favorite teacher ever. If Merrin was as terrifying or as powerful as everybody on Tanalorr said she was, wouldn't she have found him by now?

Then again—if she wasn't as terrifying or as powerful as everybody on Tanalorr said she was, would there really be all of the rumors about how cruel and twisted she was?

Literally everybody Ezra knew on Tanalorr knew to avoid Merrin like the plague. The other woman that looked like her was terrifying enough with the way that she always looked angry, but she never actually caused anybody harm. All of the kids in his classes knew that Merrin was different though, that she was a real witch, not somebody who just looked like one of the legendary witches of Dathomir. Jai told him that one boy in their class actually unmade a girl that was caught cheating during one of her classes. Zare backed it up and then went on to say when her parents asked if she could bring them back from wherever she sent them that she refused to and said the girl would find her way back as long as she bothered studying her homework the night before.

As if all of that wasn't scary enough, everybody knew about the dagger that she always wore at the small of her back, one that turned into a glowing green spear. The thing was scary enough on its own but the fact that she could throw it so hard that somebody once saw it go straight through six dummies made from ferrocrete wearing stormtrooper armor was downright horrifying. Ezra didn't see it himself but he knew that wasn't a lie; he watched her and Master Kestis spar sometimes, when he was pretty sure that they didn't know he was watching, and it was pretty obvious that a Jedi was no match for a witch. Every time they fought, Master Kestis always ended up pinned on the ground underneath her, sometimes with her knife to his neck and sometimes just with his arms tied down in green tendrils at his sides.

Master Kestis always seemed to think it was funny but he was pretty sure that Master Kestis was already crazy for doing something as gross as kissing a witch, let alone fighting one.

She probably had him under some kind of spell.

Trying his best not to think about Merrin, Ezra peeked out from his great one final time to make sure that there really was nobody awake on the ship, when his stomach growled more fiercely than before. He whined a little at how painfully hungry he was and then clamped his hand over his mouth. He didn't mean to make that noise, he shouldn't have been that loud. Neither one of them had complained about the shaking pipes before and he'd overheard them saying that it had something to do with the Mantis II being a new ship. Even when he'd run into a bunch of wires and sensors while trying to find other grates to slip out of and knocked a few of them loose, nothing happened to the ship except for a brief flickering of lights, and they only made a comment that grumpy Greez was definitely going to have a lot of work on his hands to do when they got back to Tanalorr. But his whining? There was no way that they would think that kind of sound was just a leaky pipe or something.

Ezra strained to listen for the heavy overhead steps to indicate that he had been detected but nothing came, except another painfully loud complaint from his stomach. He'd done his due diligence and he was starving. Each one of his teachers on Tanalorr knew that he was nearly impossible to catch and being on a ship didn't make it any different. He would just slip out of his grate, use the 'fresher, fill up his bag with some food and—

Suddenly, the grate above him was set alight in blinding green, the heavy piece lifted from overhead by wisps of emerald smoke that moved like deadly fingers. A hand that looked like it belonged on a corpse instead of a living and breathing person darted down into the vent and roughly yanked him out of it.

"I told you we had a rodent milling about the ship, Cal Kestis," Merrin said bluntly, glaring into Ezra's bewildered expression with hard, brown eyes.

Unsure of whether or not he should try to run away before she could unmake him or if she'd just turn him into an Oggdo Bogdo if he made an attempt, Ezra hung limply in her grasp. He looked at her with wide, terrified eyes and then over to Master Kestis who looked more panicked than angry. Somehow, Ezra thought that was even worse because it meant that Jedi really were weaker than angry witches and Master Kestis knew that there was nothing to do to save Ezra from the evil witch Merrin now.

His parents were definitely going to ground him for this when he got home—

—if Merrin ever agreed to unmake him, that is.

"I told you to check the ship, Cal," Merrin muttered, pacing back and forth in front of the curved couch in the large lounge of the Mantis II where he sat with Tanalorr's most wanted. "Did I not tell you to check the ship? This one is nothing but trouble and you know it!"

"Hey!" Ezra spouted defensively, "I'm not troub—"

"Shut up!" Both Cal and Merrin said simultaneously.

Cal took a deep breath and stood up to step around the table and stop Merrin from pacing, placing his hands on her arms. "You know, maybe if you had been just a little bit more clear on what I was supposed to be looking for, Merrin, this wouldn't have happened."

Merrin snorted. "Everybody on Tanalorr knows that this one is always up to no good. I did not think I needed to explain myself."

For a second Cal opened his mouth, prepared to argue that he'd explained to her, several times over, that he wasn't a telepath, but then he closed it again. His shoulders sagged slightly and he looked down at the ground.

"I'm distracted, Mer. We both are. I just wish you would have said Cal Kestis, go check the ventilation shafts for a child," he said in his admittedly poor job, but best attempt at imitating her accent.

"I'm not a child!" the ten year old boy proclaimed from his spot on the couch.

"Shut. Up."

The fact that they continued to answer in unison, and with an identically escalating degree of frustration, fleetingly made Cal smile. It didn't take long for him to remember that they did, indeed, have a child on board, and they were flying directly into a trap. That rapid recollection quickly wiped the smile from his face.

"What are we going to do, Mer?" he asked quietly. "We can't take him back to Tanalorr. We don't have time. They don't have time."

"And there is no time to reach out to the Hidden Path for a contact or to make a stop."

"Wait!" Ezra proclaimed, a little too excited for a boy caught by the witch of Dathomir and Tanalorr. "Wait! You guys really are going on a secret mission! Cool!"

Cal groaned, throwing his head back. Of course this kid would think it was cool. And why wouldn't he? Cal was ten year old when he thought that running off with his lightsaber to tear into a bunch of droids with blasters and guns and shields and grenades was cool. He thought it would be cool to fight at the sides of a bunch of men who shared the same faces…and maybe, in a way, some of it was cool—

—until it wasn't.

Merrin looked at the boy, a wicked arch to her brow before she smacked Cal hard against his chest for no apparent reason.

He recoiled and looked at her in question, his face plainly asking what the hell he did, and his Nightsister obviously understood the unasked question.

"Remember this day, Cal Kestis, before you ever think about asking me for a child, because all of them will turn out exactly like this one."

With that, she stormed off.

Scowling at her back, he was about to protest that a kid that wasn't theirs couldn't possibly be an indicator of what their theoretical kid might turn out like…and then he thought about the kid they were dealing with.

Ezra was constantly scaling the sides of mountains on ledges that were almost too difficult for Cal himself to get a good hold on, crawling through the tiniest cracks of the Temple that Cal himself he hadn't gotten around to repairing—and finding some admittedly pretty cool stuff. Most of all, the kid was an expert at concealing himself in the duct work of the newer buildings on Tanalorr to avoid his least favorite subjects.

Sithspit.

Merrin, unfortunately, was right.

Like always.

Any kid they might possibly have in the future was going to turn out exactly like the one they were stuck with now.

Suddenly, the argument he was formulating in his mind about their kids not turning out like Ezra morphed into a statement that he'd rather have a kid that scaled dangerously high mountains than a kid that could just poof out of existence but couldn't figure out how to poof themselves back. That would rub her the wrong way in all the right ways but Cal thought better of it, knowing he had enough trouble on his hands right now.

With a heavy sigh of defeat in defeat, Cal walked back around the table to sit next to Ezra. He reached out to place a hand on the kids shoulder, trying to gently draw his attention since he knew the kid was walking a fine line between completely and utterly terrified and overwhelmingly enthusiastic about flying into the unknown.

"What are you doing here, kid?" he asked gently. "You should be at home with your family."

The boy averted his eyes, looking down at his swinging legs that were too short to reach the decking from his seat on the couch. "That place is not home. I hate it there. It's just a bunch of stupid classes and stupid kids and…it's not home. If I wasn't the way that I am, then my parents wouldn't have had to leave Lothal. We could be home and they would be happy and I would—"

Cal frowned, realizing that longing for the place that he once knew as home. "Your family is safe there and so are you."

"Yeah, well, they would have been safe without me. They should have just let the Empire take me!" Ezra snapped back, jerking out of Cal's reassuring grasp. "The work my parents did on Lothal was important and it's my fault they had to leave it behind!"

For a long moment, Cal was quiet as he studied the boy. When he finally broke the silence, he offered a faint but sad smile, realizing that he had more in common than he could have imagined. He grasped the boy's shoulder and squeezed reassuringly before letting his hand fall away. " You know, I had a place I called home once, too. I know what it means to miss that place, to wish that things had turned out differently. I even tried going back there, thinking there was a way that I could try to get it back from the Empire, and I learned the hard way that home isn't a place. It's something we find in the people we love."

"Home is Lothal." The kid sniffed, his words now broken, but no less insistent.

"Do you think your parents think that?" Cal asked. "That if they had to choose between you and Lothal that they'd pick a planet?"

A thick mop of blue-black hair swayed with the shake of the kid's head, even if he didn't answer with words.

"Exactly," he said, once again placing his hand on Ezra's shoulder. "I want you to remember that. Keep that thought in the back of your head and don't let go of it until I tell you to. Starting right now."

"How long are you going to make me think of it?" Ezra mumbled, his words barely audible over the rumble of the boy's stomach.

Cal weighed his possible answers and settled on speaking the truth. "This thing that you do might be obnoxious to the Guardians and mentors on Tanalorr but it could get you killed here. It's too late for us to turn around and there's no way that I can promise that you're going to be safe if you won't do what I say. So you have to keep it in your head until I tell you that it's safe to stop remembering that. Your parents probably already miss you and I know that they want you to come home. I want to get you home to them in one piece, okay?"

Ezra barely looked swayed by his words.

Resorting to the last convincing argument he could think of, Cal lowered his voice to a whisper. "Look, if you can't do what I tell you to and you step out of line even one time, I can't promise that Merrin isn't going to practice her rituals on you."

"I heard that Jedi," Merrin's voice called over the comm, echoing through the lounge.

With that, Ezra shivered and then shrank, eyes darting all around the ceiling for any sign of the witch even though she was clearly still in the cockpit. "Is she really as scary as she seems?" he whispered.

There was no helping the way that he smiled and definitely no way of controlling how dreamy he sounded when he answered Ezra's question.

"Yeah kid, she is."

Another grumble interrupted Cal's transient fixation on his love for the utterly terrifying woman in the cockpit and he nudged Ezra gently. "Come on. Let's get you something to eat while I give you a list of rules that you're going to follow so that we can get you home in one piece…and as a Human rather than a gross Oggdo Bogdo."

For the first time since his and Merrin's unpleasant discovery, their little stowaway didn't argue.

Chapter Text

Bode glanced at the chronometer built into the console of the cockpit and cursed to himself.

It had been just over ten hours since he last checked in on the cargo bay's occupants and if he was going to keep them alive long enough to work Kestis' location out of them, he knew that they needed to be attended to. The tedium of tending to his bait had been more taxing on his patience than he anticipated; these people clearly didn't understand what it meant to truly be held hostage, to be trapped in an eternal chokehold and gasping for a deep enough breath when one would assuredly never come. If they had any idea how lucky they truly were, they'd stop struggling with the kindnesses and courtesies he allowed them, humane things like using the 'fresher or choking down a tube of flavorless protein paste, and start giving him answers.

They really had no idea what the cruelties of true imprisonment were.

If not for the fact that he didn't wish to deal with the odor, he'd consider allowing them to wither away in their own waste for a few days, let them suffer just an iota of the things he'd been put through in order to prove his loyalties to Denvik after he lost his wife to the Inquisitors, when he was seeking safe harbor amongst those who very much wanted him dead. As it stood though, the Lasat smelled foul enough for the four of them combined, and Bode decided against demonstrating the harsh reality of what it truly meant to be prisoners in the cell of their own creation. The fact that he didn't want to deal with Kata asking more questions about the ship's occupants or starting to think that what he was doing was wrong also heavily motivated him to treat these fools at least somewhat humanely, no matter how much he was starting to wish that he didn't have to.

A quick glance into the Captain's quarters where Kata slept and spent most of her time told him that she was fast asleep, wrapped in a light blanket and framed in the soft pink curtains that decorated each end of the Twi'lek woman's bed. It was a surprisingly feminine touch, some bit of home that the Captain carried with her from Ryloth, he supposed, maybe the colors of her dead mother's clan that reminded her what she was fighting for. Whatever the reason, the warmth of the room offered a peaceful place for Kata to rest and play away from the fools aboard the vessel, and Bode would eventually thank the woman for it.

Possibly.

Next, he stopped in the galley where he had found a rather potent bottle of brandy a couple days earlier, the label on it written in a language that was unfamiliar to him. The stuff reminded him of the expensive crap that Denvik preferred to consume, something that made his stomach turn every time he took a swig of the swill. Still, it was stronger than the Arkanian Ale that was stocked at the back of the conservator, and it seemed to be the only other alcohol aboard the vessel. If he was going to keep from beating his prisoners into a pulp when they misbehaved, a finger or two of the crap was a necessary step in this little routine, the effect of it just enough to take the edge out of the rage that ebbed through his veins without fully impairing him.

He lingered for a few minutes in the Galaxy while the liquor did its job, shuffling through the various spices that were obviously collected from around the Galaxy, foods with long shelf stability, and caf that he knew was vastly more expensive than a crew of so-called rebels could afford with the most profitable of jobs. When he felt the slightest iota of patience beginning to relax his constantly tense muscles, he finally rinsed out his glass. For a moment, he considered retrieving the glass and pouring just a little bit more, wondering if he was starting to become more tolerant to the stuff, uncertain that the single glass was enough to deal with any of them them right now. His nights had been long and sleepless and although the bottle beckoned to him, he knew that he couldn't risk it, especially when it came to dealing with the Lasat that easily met him in brute strength.

Maybe after he dealt with the beast, he would return to the galley for another drink before dealing with the ladies, so long as the hulking man didn't cause enough ruckus to wake Kata.

Keeping his tread light, Bode headed for the door that would lead him to the catwalk that overlooked the cargo bay and activated the door's manual override, a precaution he'd taken only to maintain a more calm environment for Kata should his hosts decide to disrupt the silence aboard the vessel. Otherwise, the measure was completely unnecessary, thanks to The ship's cockpit having an excellent surveillance system that allowed him to watch the crew for any signs of misbehavior. Bode had done so carefully, part of the reason that his nights had been so sleepless, his years of looking over his back heavily contributing to a need to ensure that none of them had found a way to break free from their constraints and threaten the trap he constructed for Kestis.

Nothing could come between the safety that this would promise Kata and anybody who tried would swiftly become an example for their crew mates.

Less than fifteen minutes earlier, he'd started his routine by examining the monitors closely, watching for any blips in the footage that the system might have been tampered with, but when he found one, he set about his business. Satisfied by the images before he suffered his beverage, he activated the atch and stepped into the cargo bay without glancing downward, feeling no need to ensure they were all where they belonged since he'd done so earlier.

That, he quickly discovered, was a mistake.

Bode's senses were rapidly assaulted with a muted explosion, the brilliance of it whiting out his vision completely and causing him to stagger and sway on the narrow catwalk until he hit the railing hard, the bulk of his weight causing him to topple over and land flat on his back on the cargo bay floor. The force of it knocked the wind from his lungs, but he knew better than to let the unforseen assault slow him for even a moment, and he began blindly swinging his arms at his unseen assailant. He came into contact with nothing. The sound of another metallic clank had him quickly rolling to his side on ribs that were most certainly fractured and burying his head between his arms, certain that it was nothing more than another flash bang, meant to further blind him to any oncoming attacks.

Nobody on this crew would be stupid enough to use actual explosives with their friends in such close proximity—or on their getaway vehicle.

His suspicion seemed to be proved correct when the second explosion caused him no harm, the sound merely a nuisance that did a poor job of masking a violent, wrenching noise. It was the sound of metal groaning and protesting formidable strength, the kind of strength that could only be coming from the Lasat. Bode quickly reached for the pocket that he kept the remote for the shock generator that was embedded in the Lasat's flesh but it wasn't there.

Scrambling to his feet, after the threat of another visual assault from the flashbang disippated, Bode whipped out both blasters and spun on his heel, expecting to find himself facing the Captain, but instead he was starting down the petite Mandalorian in the absurdly bright armor. He laughed to himself at the sight of the poor, pathetic creature, as spirited as a Mandalorian should be, and well equipped with explosives that he didn't want to risk playing with. Without looking in the Lasat's direction, he fired off one stun round and then a second to be safe; it wouldn't be enough to fully subdue the man but it would be enough to quiet him down and reduce his efforts until Bode could be properly deal with him. After that, he turned his attention on the Mandalorian before him.

"I'm impressed. How long have you been able to slip out of those binders?" he asked smugly, blasters trained on his much smaller assailant.

"Long enough," she answered vaguely before charging at him head first, another contraption gripped tightly in her hand.

"Sabine, no!" the Twi'lek called out desperately but Bode didn't dare tear his attention away from the girl.

"So you do have a name," he smirked, easily taking hold of her arm tightly to prevent her from lashing out any further. "Why don't you hand that over to me before one of us gets hurt?"

"Not on your life, banthashit for brains," she seethed and slammed the device to the ground.

An explosion of bright orange erupted around him and the petite Mandalorian easily tore her way out of his grasp. Bode fired off round after round into the heavy orange cloud that enveloped him. He coughed when he realized that it was a bomb made of paint, while the fumes were not at all good for his already burning lungs, the weapon was far from lethal. Still, with the decreased airflow of the cargo bay, it was taking too long for the mess to clear up and he had a Mandalorian to hunt.

Years spent hiding who he was and what he'd once been were now forgotten as he stretched out to everything that surrounded him, allowing his ship to flood his senses in a way that he refused to let the world invade his mind for years. Bode could feel Kata, awake but still and definitely scared, the unconscious Jedi bound up in his cabin stubbornly clinging to life despite the beatings he'd taken, the waning light of the defiant Twi'lek woman that called herself Captain, the weakness that caused the Lasat's muscles to twitch rather than forcefully contract, and his pint sized predator just mere feet away. All it took was two large steps for him to make contact with the Mandalorian, his hand closing around her throat.

Bode easily lifted her from the ground, and he felt a small thrill of satisfaction at the way she struggled against his grips, her limbs wildly flailing but not quite long enough to make contact.

"I have to admit that I never questioned if you were truly a Mandalorian with all of that beskar but I couldn't quite figure out why you were running with this crew until now. But seeing you fight, it all makes sense—you're not a warrior, you're a nuisance," he chuckled darkly and then hurled her across the far side of the cargo bay. It was almost as easy as throwing a grav ball but the sound of beskar meeting durasteel was far more gratifying than any game given the Mandalorian's obvious lack of appreciation for his efforts in attempting to provide them even an ounce of graciousness.

When the heavy cloud of orange dissipated, he stalked toward the prone figure, not at all convinced that his downed opponent was truly out. Blasters did little against beskar, but that was something he could easily remedy. Rather than moving in for another attack, Bode ripped the helmet from his assailant's head instead, and then suddenly it was as if the heavy fumes of the paint combined with the force of his fall struck him all at once.

A youngling. The Mandalorian was just a youngling. He knew that from when he first took over the ship. How could he have forgotten that this girl wasn't a warrior at all? She may have been a Mandalorian but she was somebody's little girl, just a kid, and one that looked to be barely older than Kata.

Bode stumbled backward, his eyes widened in horror at the realization knocked the wind from his chest more effectively than the fall from the catwalk into the cargo bay.

What had he done? What was he doing? The girl on the floor in front of him looked nothing like Kata, but somehow all he could see was his daughter, lying limp with her limbs twisted in nearly unnatural positions, unmoving and unresponsive. He wanted Kestis, he needed Kestis, but for the first time he found himself wondering if the cost of capturing the man who took everything away from him was too damn high.

It took the sound of metal once again protesting against the Lasat's strength once again to let him shake free of the intrusive images and thoughts. He quickly patted himself down once again, looking once again for the remote to fully subdue the beast, when his eyes landed on something bright and shining in the girl's lightly unfurled fingers. Much to the Twi'lek's verbalized dismay at his rapid advance toward the girl, toward Sabine, Bode went only for the control in her hand and exercised little restraint in depressing the button to silency the mangy man and his effort to break free from his constraints.

The dose he delivered would be enough to subdue the Lasat for several hours, perhaps even a day if he was lucky.

Once the cargo bay had gone mostly quiet, horrified silence falling over the Captain, and the Lasat now fully dealt with, Bode bent over to grab the girl by her armor and begin dragging her across the cargo bay.

"Let her go!" Hera finally snapped at him, her voice hoarse. "She's just a kid, she's a girl. You say that you're a father and that you understand what it means to have a daughter, then surely you have to realize that Sabine is somebody's little girl too!"

Bode tried his best to ignore the Twi'lek woman's imploration as he returned Sabine to the spot she belonged in, this time binding her hands and her feet to the pipe, leaving her at an awkward angle on her side. He swallowed back a thick lump in his throat, forcing down the emotion that the vision of her limp body stirred within him. This…the girl's injuries, this wasn't his fault.

She attacked him.

Righting himself, Bode cleared his throat before looking at the Captain whose eyes were widened in terror, the woman struggling against her own restraints in a way that he was positively certain had to have her bound wrists bleeding. She was by far the most fragile of his four captives and undoubtedly the one who would not last long, no matter what kind of effort he was willing to put forth. To be honest, he was fine with that, knowing that her death would be sufficient enough to serve Jarrus' pain and force the man to cough up Kestis if none of them could figure out how to cooperate before then.

It wasn't a situation he preferred, knowing that only the Captain would have the codes necessary to fire up the engines and program the navicomputers, but he was starting to realize that her death may be the only motivator to get the rest of the crew talking.

"She's a girl," the Captain repeated, her words breaking. "At least bring me some supplies. Let me attend to her. I won't try anything…just let me check her over."

"My daughter is just a girl," Bode replied evenly, averting his gaze from the woman as well as the girl, instead deciding to focus on his feet. "My daughter was safe and somewhere that the Empire wouldn't ever find her until you and Jarrus decided to rip that away from her."

"You're right!" she snapped. "It was Kanan and I. We did this. We're the ones responsible. So let me help her, let me help her and then let her go."

"You want to help her? Then help me. Help me protect my daughter," he said coldly, turning his narrowed eyes on the Captain. "You give me Kestis so I can promise my little girl that she'll always be safe, and I'll let you take care of this kid that you decided to drag into a war she doesn't belong in."

Hera's mouth opened like she was going to provide the answer that he was seeking, finally, and Bode wanted her to. More than anything, he wanted the answer to his question—not just for Kata's safety but because he hated the way that his insides twisted at the knowledge that he'd unleashed his fury on a kid—but the answer never came. If the Twi'lek woman hadn't been so obviously dehydrated, he suspected that there might have been tears sliding down her cheek, instead her expression was that of a woman who knew that she'd already lost and that the price of that loss was the lives of not one, but two, innocent girls.

For that, Bode refused to feel pity or shame.

This was not his fault.

Asajj scowled at Quinlan as he thumped his fingers against the screen of the navicomputer for a third time in as many minutes, as if that was somehow going to work althought the first two times did nothing. For a long moment, she highly considered allowing him to keep being an idiot, just to satisfy her sheer curiosity at how long it would take him to realize how stupid he really was. Unfortunately, she remembered that they had a job to do and some idiot kid—or kids—to save from themselves. Most importantly, there was the bigger problem they faced and that was the fact that the Galaxy was far too people-y for her tastes, so she wanted to get this over with and get back to Tanalorr where 95% of the planet was blissfully unpopulated.

"You do realize that's not going to do anything to get their transponder signal to respond, right?" she asked in a tone oozing with condescension. "Unless this is a new Jedi trick you learned from that old fool, Cordova?"

Quinlan looked at her, finding just enough of a spine in his body to have the gall to roll his eyes at her question. "We're out of the abyss and we're not relying on the network anymore. The Mantis II should be showing up on our trackers like any of the others who move refugees. There's just…nothing. We don't even have comms."

"Yes, you already said that part," Asajj replied with an increasing amount of irritation in her tone. "We already know where they were. I fail to see a problem here."

"We had a set of coordinates, woman. The only possible way to know if we should still be moving in that direction is through direct communication or being able to track the Mantis II. Anything else they were working off of was stuff that Cordova loaded onto Cal's busted droid—"

She groaned, throwing her head back in a manner that would make it undoubtedly clear that she didn't need to hear the conversation that he had with himself again. "You have got to be kidding me. You're telling me that we're out here and have no idea where we're going?"

"I have an idea," he muttered, the defensive tone in his voice making it completely clear that he had absolutely no idea where they were going. "We have coordinates, remember?"

"And you wonder why I call you idiot," she sighed. "So what's your plan now, genius? Turn around and see if we pick up a signal from the system?"

Frowning, Quinlan shook his head. "I already sent word. Armias is trying to tap into the system and de-encrypt the codes since Cal took the original set of information plus what Cordova uploaded on the droid when he and Merrin hauled ass on the Mantis, but—"

"But that's going to take time and time isn't exactly something we have on our side," Asajj surmised. "So now what?"

Quinlan drummed his fingertips against the console, his expression dark and dread-filled as the so-called busted gears in his brain tried to turn. After too many minutes that they didn't have of silence he finally straightened up. "The cabinet over the sink in the galley. There's a bounty puck in there. Grab it. I need the datapad that's with it too."

"Bounty hunting?" Asajj asked with an arched brow. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we're not exactly hurting for resources, lover."

"No," Quinlan replied, rising from his seat to go after the requested materials for himself. "Bode is after Kestis for a reason. If he's the one that was responsible for turning the kid over to the Empire, he was answering to the Empire or somebody close to them, otherwise the bastard wouldn't have bothered with hunting another Jedi."

"That means that somebody knows he fucked up," she mumbled, starting to get where her mostly-stupid Jedi was going with this hovertrain of thought.

"A mess that big has to come with a fat payout," Quinlan confirmed. "I know some people, a few contacts left over from the Clone War, some cantinas that we can hit up if we follow that general trajectory. Fortunately, he and I had a talent for easily blending into places where we didn't necessarily belong which means that I know which social circles to call on to figure out where he might be lying low or wherever he might have tried to hide out along the way. We stop, make a few friends, bash in a few heads, and we'll get the information we need to find our friends."

"Your friends."

"Whatever, woman. Don't argue with me," he said, flipping through the screen on his datapad.

"And if your idiot plan doesn't work out?" Asajj questioned. "We turn around, head back, and hope for the best?"

A shit eating grin spread over Quinlan's face as he lifted up the datapad to reveal a picture of one Bode Akuna, sporting a seven figure bounty on his head that would take any hunter out of the game and place them straight into a life of luxury. He tapped his puck to the datapad and the broad shouldered man's hologram appeared over the puck.

Asajj crossed her arms over her chest, thoroughly unimpressed by the fact that the man had a bounty. "There's two massive flaws in your plan. One, that says he's been wanted for three years. Two, you're assuming that these contacts he had would be willing to sell him out or turn him over to the Empire. What's to say that they won't do the same with you?"

Quinlan grinned and gave her a wink. "That's what I have you for, isn't it?"

Although she didn't let her satisfaction with his words reflect in her expression, she gave a half shrug in response. "I guess you're not as much of an idiot as I thought you were after all."

Hera hadn't meant to fall asleep.

She knew that it had been a while since the incident with Bode and Sabine, long enough that he finally came to escort both she and Zeb by blaster point to the facilities and allow them just enough nutrition and drink to keep them alive, but Sabine still hadn't stirred. Once they were settled back in the cargo bay, she tried to petition the man once again, having seen in his face and sensed through his pheromones that he was horrified over his actions, but he wouldn't give. He wouldn't even look at the crumpled girl on the floor.

For a fleeting moment, she wanted to scream that if she knew where Cal Kestis was that she'd give him up in an instant, but she'd already told Bode once that she didn't know where he was and that was the truth. The cold man eschewed her answer, said that Kanan had already tried that pathetic excuse, and that it hadn't worked for him either. She spent too many of the silently passing hours trying not to consider exactly what Bode meant when he said that it didn't work for Kanan, either. Hera couldn't let herself think about that right now.

Not with Sabine taking so long to wake up.

In the absence of being able to fully assess Sabine's injuries, all Hera could do was watch the steady rise and fall of her chest, to ensure that she was breathing, and that her skin didn't grow any more pale. It must have been the deep and even pattern of Sabine's breaths along with being deprived of the nutrients that Hera's body needed to survive that lulled her into a dreamless sleep. A sharp poke in her shoulder was what woke her, but she found herself struggling to open her eyes or even lift her head until it happened again, and when she looked up expecting to see the cruel man who would sooner let a girl die than allow her basic first aid, she found Kata looking back at her instead.

When she started to say the girl's name, Kata quickly pressed a finger against Hera's, hushing her quietly.

"I brought supplies," she whispered. "Your friend, he showed me where to find them."

Hera's brow furrowed in confusion. "My friend? Kanan?" she asked, voice breaking from both her dry throat and the effort at trying to speak as softly as Kata seemed to naturally.

"Your other friend," Kata smiled faintly and pointed up to the dark corner of the cargo bay where Chopper must have ambled in at some point. "He's nice. I like him."

There was no helping the faint smile that pulled at one corner of her mouth. What she wouldn't give to hear Kanan protest that right now. "He is," Hera nodded. "You're going to help her?"

Kata seemed to hesitate for a moment but then she shook her head. Instead, she moved behind Hera and there was the distinct sound of a key being inserted into the heavy metal of the binders that kept her affixed to the pole digging into her back. The girl seemed to hold her breath for a moment and then shifted back into Hera's view.

"Promise me that you won't run," she pleaded softly. "You have to promise me. I like her and I know that she needs help. If Papa finds out that I…"

"I promise," Hera said without reservation and she meant it. As much as she wanted to know where Kanan was, to know if he was okay, Sabine needed her more right now. "I won't leave Kata. I just want to make sure that Sabine isn't hurt so bad that something worse will happen."

Either satisfied by Hera's words or just as concerned that somebody her age could possibly die, Kata moved behind her once again and fully removed the binders. She pushed the med kit in Hera's direction.

"Your friend, I think there's something in there for you. When I opened the kit, he kept pointing at it and then showing me a picture of you," Kata said. "He's kind of hard to understand."

"That might not be such a bad thing," she replied gently, still doing her best to smile, so as not to spook the bashful girl. "He can be a little grumpy sometimes."

When Hera flipped open the medkit, the few stims they had in reserve for emergency use only were untouched, and so were their bacta impregnated bandages, pain medications. She took stock of everything, feeling her heart sink as she noticed that the med-kit hadn't been opened until now, knowing what it might mean for Kanan. Kata's finger came into view and pointed at a various assortment of concentrated electrolytes, helping distract Hera.

There were three envelopes that were specifically developed for Twi'lek physiology, and while they wouldn't hurt anybody else who consumed them, she could feel the way that her body craved the overly sugary mixture just glimpsing at them. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that she probably needed all three packets and then some but she pulled only one out and reached for the cup of water that Kata usually brought down for her.

"Looks like you understand him pretty well," she praised the girl softly as she emptied the contents of the pouch into her water to let it dissolve. Even with the little bits of aid that the girl had been providing for them in addition to her father's alleged benevloences, Hera still found that she was incredibly weak, but Kata seemed to be incredibly cognizant of this, and was right there to help her shift toward Sabine's side.

"Her head is okay," Kata mumbled, moving to shift Sabine's head into her lap. "I already checked. There's no bumps or anything, but she wouldn't wake up for me."

Hera pressed her lips together in deep thought. Their family had a medic full time in their home when she was growing up during the Clone War and she remembered watching them work on occasion but no specific instance of illness or injury sprang to her mind that could cause somebody to lose consciousness without having any obvious head injuries or massive internal injuries or hemorrhage. The heavy layers beskar that Sabine wore made it difficult to truly assess for any injuries beneath it, and moving the armor was too much of a risk, as Hera suspected that their captor would be much more observant moving forward. No matter how badly she wanted to check for broken ribs or worse, Hera wasn't willing to risk making things worse.

There was only one thing for her to try.

Pulling out one of the stims, she uncapped the needle and jammed it into the exposed bit of Sabine's arm, and then waited, holding her breath until her heart was pounding rapidly in her ears. What felt like forever was likely less than a minute, but Sabine's eyes fluttered briefly and then squeezed closed, before finally starting to slowly open more fully. Her eyes seemed almost glazed over, her gaze focused on nothing at all, and although her breathing became a little more shallow she otherwise said nothing. Several more minutes passed before that fiery spark that forever lived in the girl's gaze finally began to return and she appeared to remember what happened. When she jerked against the restraints around her ankles and wrists, she gave a loud yelp of pain, but it wasn't enough to make her stop struggling.

Hera slapped her hand over Sabine's mouth and winced, waiting for Bode to make an appearance and find the three of them working together, something that would most certainly turn out detrimental for all parties involved. She noticed the way that Kata remained at her head, gently stroking her short fingers through Sabine's colorful hair, trying to quiet her with soothing whispers of her name and gentle greetings.

"It's okay," Hera assured Sabine along with Kata's friendly gestures. "It's just me and Kata. She brought some supplies to help us again."

Still, Sabine continued to struggle and Hera drew in a deep breath, certain that it was her fear as much as the pain somewhere in her body that drove her resistance to listening even more than usual. It probably didn't help that Hera hadn't accounted for how petite Sabine was in comparison to the rest of her crew, that she likely hadn't needed such a large dosage of the stimulant injection, and she inwardly cursed herself for not thinking of that beforehand. The rush of adrenaline was assuredly making Sabine's combativeness even worse.

All Hera could do was keep her hand securely over Sabine's mouth to dampen her protests until the stubborn girl finally stopped struggling. When Sabine finally went still, her eyes still wide open, Hera pulled her hand away and lifted the mixture of electrolytes and water meant for her to Sabine's lips. "Drink," she murmured gently. "I'll have Kata pull out a couple of pain tabs. I gave you a stim. It should help with at least a little but it's not going to fix any broken bones."

Sabine gulped the mixture readily and consumed the pain medication without argument, a true test to just how much the girl was hurting, something that made Hera's heart ache. Even when Kanan had saved her from the burning rubble of the cantina where they found her, Sabine wouldn't let her pain get in the way of her Mandalorian pride, but now it was completely decimated in the way of Bode's cruelties.

"I can get you some more water, Hera," Kata offered in a whisper, already starting to rise to her feet. "You need to drink too."

Hera shook her head fervently. "No. Don't risk it. I'll be okay and so will Sabine, thanks to you. Your father will bring water and nutrients in a few hours. When you can come again, only when it's safe, bring some more pain tablets for Sabine, okay? She's going to need them for a couple of days."

Kata nodded and quickly gathered up the evidence of her crime. She looked sad when she lifted the heavy binders from the ground and looked at Hera with rancor tears rimming her eyes. "I'll bring them," she finally replied in a wavering voice. "But what about you? Somebody has to take care of you. I know I can get more water without—"

"You can bring back a packet for me when you visit again," she murmured. "It's okay."

None of this was okay.

"She gets grumpy if you don't listen to her," Zeb rasped hoarsely from across the cargo bay. "I learned that the 'ard way, kiddo. Hera doesn't lie."

A small smile seemed to temporarily brighten Kata's expression and she turned to Hera as though to question the veracity of Zeb's statement.

"It's true. I won't tolerate orders not being followed on my ship," she nodded, doing her best to put on a look of authority, even as she assumed the position of prisoner on her own craft. "Make sure they're tight, okay?"

Kata nodded and dutifully did as she was told. When she backed away, there was still a pitiful look about her but for a moment, Hera noticed that pretending as though this was all make-believe seemed to settle the girl's heavy heart. Hera couldn't help but want to reach out to the girl with her now-bound hands and give her a hug, to promise her that everything would be okay when she couldn't begin to offer those kinds of promises. Instead, she did the only thing she could think of—she continued to play along as if all of this was simply a game.

"You follow orders better than these two ever have," she said, forcing joviality into her tone. "I'd say you're good enough to join the crew."

"Really?" Kata asked, somehow still so quiet even though excitement shone through her watery eyes. "You mean that?"

"It's like Zeb said, I don't lie," she nodded. "Now go on, take that with you and find a safe place for it in case I need it later. Captain's orders."

Like a committed little member of her crew, Kata did exactly as she was told and Hera watched while she ascended the ladder with such light steps that even Zeb's ears seemed to twitch as though he had to strain to hear her. There were no sounds out of the ordinary as she disappeared into the darkened hatch, save for the soft ambling of Chopper's casters. Still, Hera waited for a few minutes to sink back against the hard pipe and close her eyes, letting out a heavy sigh of relief that the girl hadn't been caught.

"You didn't ask her about Kanan," Zeb pointed out, still keeping his voice low.

Hera wanted to acknowledge the question and explain herself, but she felt drained, doing what little bit of triaging she could manage of Sabine's injuries having exhausted her completely. She knew that she was fading and quickly, but Sabine needed the fluids and electrolytes more than she did. There was still a chance that both Sabine and Zeb could make it out of this nightmare alive—after all, they had nothing to do with Cal being freed from Coruscant. The same couldn't be said for her or Kanan.

Maybe that's why she put off asking about Kanan any time she was given an opportunity to do so, why she was trying her best not to think about him, knowing that if she really let herself fixate on the man she loved that she would lose her focus on the two innocent people that they'd unwittingly dragged into this mess. Her throat was too dry to swallow down the ever-present lump that kept her from being able to draw a deep breath and she was far too dehydrated to worry about falling in part before her charges. So Hera used the last of her strength to put on a brave face, look between Sabine and Zeb, and to do the one thing that Zeb swore she never did.

She lied.

"He's okay," Hera promised them both quietly. "I know he is."

Chapter Text

"Still nothing?" Merrin asked, standing over Cal as he worked his way through the assortment of wires beneath the con.

"Mer, it's your job to tell me if there's still nothing," he said, his words poorly enunciated due to the vibroblade that he held between his teeth. "I can't see the con and do this at the same time."

"Fine," she muttered, staring at the blank navicomputer for only a second before turning her attention back to him. "There is still nothing. Now what?"

He sighed softly and pulled the tool from between his lips. "It's not like we scrapped ships like this on Bracca, Mer. I barely got the panel off but the one thing I can tell you so far is that these wires are all new, they've never been messed with. This ship might look like the Mantis, but it looks like the Mantis II just came off the line. Nothing is labeled, they're all bound together, I have to figure out where they're all running. You have to give me time to work."

"Time is a luxury that we do not have," Merrin reminded him, feeling her hearts flutter out of sync—and not in a good way. Her toe tapped impatiently against the decking below her and she dug her fingernails into her arms, doing her best to tamp down the anxiety rising up in her, but it was to no avail. She started to pace back and forth between the cockpit and the lounge, eyes fixed on her feet instead of the holotable that seemed to be flickering with the same issues that the con was having. She counted the steps between her two destinations, doing her best to distract herself.

Either unable to focus with her inability to hold still or needing a break due to his own frustration, Cal abandoned his position beneath the console and strode across the small space to close the distance between them. His hands gripped her biceps gently and he murmured her name, the tone of his voice coaxing her to look up from the deck and into his enchanting green eyes.

"We still have a signal to follow," he murmured. "BD is still picking up the signal from Chopper and once I can get this wiring worked out, we can see what else he's been sending with the size of the packages that he's trying to send over with the broadcast."

"Can BD tell us how much longer it will be until we arrive?" she questioned although she already knew the answer.

"No," he sighed softly, shoulders hunching over ever so slightly. "But at least we have a signal."

Merrin nodded but said nothing. She wished that she could be satisfied that by the knowledge that they had a signal, and that those coordinates hadn't changed from their initially plotted course. Unfortunately, she'd picked up just enough knowledge to be dangerous from helping Cal from her new position in the co-pilot's seat and she knew that having a malfunctioning navicomputer meant that the Mantis II wouldn't simply just drop from real space once they hit those coordinates. Their navigational systems had to be functioning so the ship knew what vector to follow and when drops to realspace was necessary to shift to a different trade route or hyperspace lane.

"How does a new ship have so many problems?" she finally asked in frustration. "This cannot be a simple matter of breaking in a new ship. Would Greez not have warned you of such things?"

Cal rubbed the back of his neck as he considered the question. "I don't know. It's not like he exactly endorsed this trip and he was busy obsessing over the potolli weave when he sent us off."

Unhappy with the sense of defeat she fell, Merrin looked back down at her feet. "Go, my Jedi. Work on the wiring so that we can see how much time we have left and BD can download those packages to the holotable."

"You know, some caf might be good," he smiled faintly.

"And you know where the caf maker is," she bit back, unhappy with his poor attempt of distracting her. "You had better make it strong, Cal Kestis. I do not want that watered down stuff you prefer."

With a slight chuckle, Cal shook his head and began to stride back toward the galley, his work temporarily abandoned.

Merrin watched as he went, allowing herself to admire the way that his red sleeveless shirt clung to his sweat dampened back for a moment, before she turned to walk back toward the cockpit to re-examine the navicomputer for any changes. Just before she stepped over the threshold into the generously sized cockpit, she noticed that there was a change in the pitch of the way the decking echoed beneath her footsteps, a dullness where it had sounded more tinny only a few minutes earlier. Her brows pinched together and she turned on her path, following the same line of the too-shiny durasteel beneath her feet, listening carefully with each step. When she turned on her heel and retraced her steps, the fullness beneath her light footsteps had advanced by two panels back toward the galley.

Emerald flames sparked at her fingertips and she moved her hands, rolling them around gently as she drew on the power of her fallen family and the Force, methodically disassembling the pattern they created until it revealed a small vent beneath the flooring. Two wide blue eyes stared up at her through the slats of that vent and she snarled, letting the tiles unceremoniously drop to the ground with a loud clatter as her hands darted down to yank the grate from the housing of the ventilation shaft. None too gently, she grabbed a large handful of Ezra's shirt and dragged him up and out of the floor, her eyes brimming with the green ichor that burned at the core of Dathomir.

"You were made aware of the consequences for defying me," she uttered, her tone taking on an edge of anger and menace. Merrin realized that she was only partially leaning into the stereotype of her people, that her concern for Hera and the crew of the Ghost had her so tightly wound that she truly wanted to put the fear of Dathomir into their unwanted rodent.

"Mer," Cal sighed, coming up to her side. "You have to put him down."

"I have to do no such thing, Jedi. He was told what would happen if he was found outside of his quarters during the evening hours. The console may be malfunctioning but access to the airlock is not necessary for me to deal with this pest."

"I needed a drink?" Ezra's excuse was almost as poor as Cal's attempt at distracting her.

"Nydaks and Rancors require water," she said flatly. "Both creatures are better behaved than you."

Ezra tried to squirm in her grasp, but it was to no avail. "You're not actually going to let her do this, are you??"

Cal crossed his arms over his chest, arching one eyebrow at their unfortunate problem. "You were warned what would happen when I gave you the rules."

"Yeah, but I didn't think you would really let it happen!" Ezra cried, wriggling even more. "Please don't let her turn me into an Oggdo Bogdo!"

Merrin scoffed. "Oggdo Bogdos are endearing creatures. I would not insult them by doing that to their kind. What I have in mind for you is much, much worse."

Cal grabbed Ezra by one of his flailing arms and silently relayed his message that the kid seemed terrified enough that he might actually behave. Disappointed that she didn't get to toy with the child for just a little bit longer but still cognizant that they did not have time to waste with the brat, she unceremoniously dropped him, assuming that Cal had a strong enough grasp on the child. If he did not, he could use his Force to stop the kid from being injured.

She might have hoped that Cal did neither just so the petulant brat would stop causing them more problems when they already had an abundance of them, but she could not be so lucky.

While Cal guided Ezra back to the galley, she went about reassembling the panels of the deck with a casual wave of her hand. Of course the man she loved gave the boy his drink before sending him off back to his cabin. They both knew there was no point in attempting to lock his door from the outside since his preferred method of exploration appeared to be strictly limited to ventilation shafts and tiny holes that no normal sentient should be able to fit inside.

Merrin poured herself a mug of caf and took a sip of the hot liquid, nodding to herself in approval that Cal seemed to finally understand how to create a proper brew. When Cal returned to the galley, she was still savoring the warm drink as her Jedi placed his arms around her, and caged her against the counter top. As he leaned in to kiss her, she considered pushing him away, but she knew that was a kind of strength she did not possess.

Cal stopped short of her lips. "Remember this day, Nightsister, if you ever ask me to have children because they will all be terrified of you."

She smiled and gave a slight shrug. "As they should be."

The moment felt normal, like they were back at their home on Tanalorr, enjoying one of those quiet moments that would always lead to their bedroom with a pile of clothes in their wake. It was like a breath of fresh air compared to the heaviness of what they were facing and the impossible odds they were up against. Merrin sat her cup aside and wrapped her arms tightly around him, wanting nothing more than to draw on the strength of the love they had for each other.

It didn't take long for Cal to break the small spell of comfort that had fallen over them.

"Is this what it felt like?" he mumbled into her hair. "When you were coming to save me, I mean. Just this constant ache in your chest and this feeling like…like you can't get enough air, like everything in the Galaxy is bearing down on you."

Merrin's expression shifted into one of pain and she was glad that he couldn't see it with her face buried against his chest. Although she never spoke of such things, her Jedi somehow put into words a memory that she would never be able to forget, he described the nightmares that still haunted her three years later when she never uttered a word of what disturbed her in the night. All that she could do was nod.

Cal brushed his lips against the top of her head. "Trust me when I say that it was vastly easier on my side of things and I wish I hadn't ever put you through any of it."

They both knew that he was lying on both accounts. Pain was pain, no matter where or how it was experienced, and they both were intimately familiar with the agony that those days brought.

"It does not matter now," she mustered quietly. "We have each other. That is what matters."

"I know," he mumbled, still holding her tightly. "I just…I wish I knew if we will still have each other after this. If we'll still have our reluctant and really messed up family after this is over, or if there's always going to be a price that somebody has to pay for my decision to do something a foolish as take my fight to Coruscant. They're in this mess because of me."

"And we will get them out of this mess."

Rough fingertips slid along her jawline and then beneath her chin, forcing her to look up and meet his gaze. "Tell me that you really believe that, Merrin. Please tell me that you think we'll get through this, all of us."

Despite Cal's earnest request, Merrin said nothing.

She could not bring herself to lie to her Jedi.

When her Papa didn't make her sit down for dinner or take a shower, Kata spent most of her time in the room that wasn't really hers. She knew that he told her that these people were all bad and if she helped him stop them that they would be safe again, but they didn't seem like bad people at all. Maybe she didn't know many bad people outside of the person who killed her mama, and everybody who lived on Nova Garon, but there was something different about the people who lived on this ship. Kata didn't know how to explain it, and she wouldn't dare try to tell her father, but she could feel that they were good.

Sabine was friendly and almost felt like someone who could be a big sister. Hera reminded Kata of her mama in a way and the ship's Captain even made her a part of the crew. The man called Zeb was funny and nice, and she'd never seen anybody like him before, but his fur was her favorite color. More than once, she thought about pulling out the shiny silver button from his chest, the one Papa used to hurt Zeb, but she was afraid she might do injure him if she did.

There was only one person that Kata hadn't met on the ship and it was the man her papa seemed to hate the most.

She knew that she shouldn't sneak into the cabin where her papa threw the man, keeping him out of sight, but if the other people on the ship were so nice and he wanted to help her when she lied for her papa, she needed to know if the man was like the other people on the ship. With the help of Hera's friend—Chopper, she now knew that he had a name—Kata slipped into the room where he was being kept when she could sense that her father was asleep. There was a funny smell to the room, something that reminded her of a rotten scazz burger, and she squinted her eyes through the dark of the cabin. She knew that he was alive because she could feel him but there was something else that overwhelmed her, the same kind of pain that her papa felt after her mama had died.

"Back again so soon?" a deep voice rasped from the far corner of the room. "My answer hasn't changed."

Clutching the medkit and a cup of water against her chest, Kata crept into the room, forcing herself to ignore the fear that gripped her. "I…" she started to say and then stopped, realizing that she didn't know what to say, not really. Instead, she worked on closing the distance between her and the man she had yet to really meet, hoping that her instincts were right.

"You're not who I was expecting," he rumbled, looking up at her through one eye. "I hope you do a better job of pulling your punches than your dad, kid."

Kata's heart sank. She didn't want him to think she would hurt him. Before she could try to put that sentiment into words, Chopper rolled up beside her and warbled something off that he clearly understood, something that made the wary look on the man's face shift.

Swallowing hard, she held out the cup of water and the medkit for him to see. "I wanted to help you."

Chopper whomped another response and a holo of appeared in front of Kata, one of her helping the rest of the ship's crew. The way that the man drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the ship's Captain made her feel sad and curious all at the same time, but she pushed it aside for the moment, dropping to her knees and opening the medkit to examine its contents.

Initially, she considered giving him a packet like the one that Hera was going to drink for herself before she gave it to Sabine but this man looked like he needed something stronger. Remembering how Hera helped her new friend, Kata pulled out one of the syringes and uncapped it, doing her best not to flinch at the sight of the needle. She hated getting shots and she'd never given one, but she was about to learn anyway. Although she wanted to close her eyes, she kept them wide open as she picked a spot on his one bare arm, and stabbed the needle into his skin. Thankfully, the cartridge did the rest of the job for her. As she withdrew the needle from his skin, Kata knew that whatever she grew up to be, medic would never be on her list of potential professions.

After a minute or two, he already looked better, somehow using his feet to scoot himself up against the wall even with both his hands and feet in tight binders.

"Thanks, kid," he said, sounding almost gentle. "My friends?"

"They're still okay," she answered, picking up the cup of water and a couple of pain tabs for him. There weren't many in the med kit but he looked like he needed them just as much as Sabine had, especially now that she could see that one of his eyes were swollen shut and that he had cuts and scrapes and bruises all over his body. "You need these."

He didn't argue, letting her drop the medicine on his tongue and then drinking the water she brought him so quickly that she considered filling the cup again. When she remembered what Hera said about not taking the risk of waking her father, Kata decided against it, and she shuffled through the medkit some more to look for the few bacta wipes that were in there. Those were what her mama used when she had a bad scrape on her knee from falling down when she was younger and she knew that they could help the man now.

"No, it's okay," he mumbled, leaning his head back against the wall he propped himself up on. "Save those for the others. What happened to them?"

Kata looked down at the ground. "Sabine was trying to get away from him or help the others and Papa hurt her. I don't think he meant to because he was acting weird after it happened. He was going to hurt Hera but he changed his mind…she doesn't look very good though. I tried to give her water last night and she was going to drink it with one of these," she paused to point at the packet in the medkit, "but then she gave it to Sabine instead."

"Is she awake?" he asked, his eyes going wide. "Will she still wake up for you?"

Immediately, Kata nodded. "I brought her extra water tonight. She tried to make me give it to Zeb or Sabine but they wouldn't let her. She wouldn't drink those, though. She told me we needed to save them."

He looked sad, Kata thought, and she didn't know how he could be as bad as her Papa thought he was when the news that Hera wouldn't let her use anything from the medkit seemed to affect him so much. "I'm going to keep taking care of her, though. I promise."

Silence lingered between them for a while and Kata started to wonder if she should leave when he finally spoke up again.

"Do you have a name?"

She smiled just faintly, even though she didn't really feel it. "Kata."

"Kata," he echoed, his voice as quiet as hers. "I'm Kanan."

"I know. Sabine asked me about you when Hera was sleeping. It's weird because I can tell that she wants to ask a question when I'm there, I can feel that she's hurting but not like the kind of pain that comes from falling down, but she never says anything," Kata explained. For a moment, she hesitated before she went on to ask the question that she suspected she already knew the answer to. "What is she to you?"

Kanan smiled wide, causing the split in his lower lip to start bleeding, crimson dripping down his chin. "Hera? She's my everything."

Kata felt a smile brighten her face, one that might have matched Kanan's, with the discovery that she was right. "That's how my papa felt about my mama. He used to be happier but when Mama died, he changed. He wasn't mean and he wasn't a bad guy before. I keep thinking that he'll figure out that what he's doing is wrong but I'm afraid—"

"I can help, Kata," he interrupted her. "If you can help me get out of these binders, I can help make this right."

She froze up, feeling like she drank too much of a jogan fruit slush, her head spinning a little and her blood feeling like it turned to ice water. A little shiver even went through her body and she shook her head fervently. "I can't," she whispered, unable to hide the panic in her voice. "Papa will know it was me if I did and…"

Why was she afraid that if her papa found out that she was helping these people that he said was bad that she would end up tied to a pipe or a pole, just like he did to them? Her papa wasn't a bad guy, he was hurting and angry and people couldn't really live their entire lives that way—could they? At some point, the pain would stop and he would realize that what he was doing was wrong, and then he'd let these people go.

"Hey, it's okay kiddo," Kanan murmured, something about his words making her feel less cold. "You're helping us the best that you can and you didn't have to. Can you do me one favor though?"

Kata tilted her head, willing to consider his request but not quite comfortable with answering his question until she knew what the favor was.

"I need you to make Hera drink those packets. Her body is different than ours and she looks like that because she needs more food and water than the rest of us. She's going to tell you no but I need you to tell her that I said to do it. Can you do that for me?"

She looked down at the medkit and the envelopes with initials on all of them that she thought might have been a label for each crew member's name. "All of them? They won't hurt her?"

Kanan shook his head. "No, she'll be okay." He paused for a second and then a small smile turned up one corner of his mouth. "On second thought, when you go to help them again, pour two of the ones with the H into her water before you bring it down to her. She won't be able to argue with you that way."

Kata giggled quietly, liking the man's idea, and she nodded. "I can do that."

"Thanks, kiddo. I promise that everything will be okay. We'll all get this figured out," he assured her, his smile still wide enough to aggravate his busted lip.

Before she came into the man's quarters, she wasn't really sure if she believed that everything would be okay, but there was something about him that made her feel safe. Kata trusted him in a way that she hadn't trusted anybody since her mama died. She nodded in agreement with his words and turned to the medkit, ready to close it up before she remembered his split lip and the blood on his chin. Kata shuffled through the contents until she found the smallest bacta wipe that she could.

"You have to let me do this since I'm going to make Hera drink those packets," she said matter-of-factly.

Kanan nodded, his smile diminishing only slightly, although she could see warmth in the eye that wasn't swollen shut.

Kata dabbed at the spot on his lip but decided against wiping away the blood so her papa wouldn't suspect anything. After his lip was cleaned up, she closed up the medkit and picked up the cup. "I'll keep taking care of the others but I'll come back tomorrow to check on you, too."

"Don't get yourself hurt, kid," he replied gently. "It isn't worth it."

She smiled, rubbing a hand over Chopper's orange dome. "I won't. I have a friend to tell me if everything is clear. Papa thinks that he's just an old, busted droid that sits in Hera's room. He doesn't know that Chopper works."

His expression looked mildly impressed until Chopper said something that turned his expression sour. "It's a good thing that he likes you more than he likes me. Otherwise, we'd have a real problem on our hands."

Though she wanted to laugh at the notion of Chopper disliking anybody, other than her papa, anyway, Kata kept quiet. "Everything will be alright, I promise," she chose to say instead, echoing Kanan's words to her.

As she left Kanan alone in his room, Chopper following on her heels, Kata began considering how she could make sure that their promises to each other that things would turn out safe were true. She had some ideas but she would have to make sure that her papa was asleep, really asleep to make them happen, which meant that she'd need to see what else was in the medkit that might be able to help her make any of those ideas happen.

"Chopper, do you know how to unlock Hera's datapad?" she whispered to the droid once they were back in Hera's room.

The droid moved his dented and chipped orange dome in a manner that mimicked a person nodding.

Kata grinned with satisfaction as she lifted the datapad from the charger it laid on. "Good. I need to do some research. I think I know how to help our crew."

"You need to slow down!" Asajj seethed behind Quinlan. A scowl twisted her face when her irritation seemed to only make him run faster. She wasn't really sure when she'd gotten slower than him, but she most certainly wasn't liking it at all. "Dammit, Quin!"

That was enough to finally make him slow down enough to allow her to catch up. What seemed like an easy jog most definitely felt like a sprint to her.

"Look, we wouldn't be hauling ass out of here if you could have at least waited one damn minute before you decided to start swinging your saber. We're never going to get any intel on the situation or figure out where they fell off the grid if you kill first and ask questions second," he lectured her in a rumble.

"Oh my. You've gone soft in your old age, haven't you?" she mocked, throwing her hand over her chest. "Is it too late to ask for an exchange?"

Rather than receiving a barrage of denials as she expected, Asajj watched with her brow pinched together as Quinlan studied a long, deep scar in the ferrocrete of a building, the edges of it dark. It was a mark she recognized easily as being made by a lightsaber. In spite of her idiot telling her to stop swinging first and asking questions later, she still palmed the hilt of her lightsaber, turning to watch over their backs as Quinlan reached out for the mark.

For Force-sensitives who weren't gifted in psychometry, focusing in on the memories contained within objects and their memories was a process that always took for-fucking-ever, but for the two morons with that particular gift, they always seemed like it was a quick thing. For all Quinlan knew, it was a mark made by somebody who didn't—

"He was here," Quinlan rasped. "They came after the kid and him. Bode came here looking for Bossk. Not exactly the first person I'd expect trust from if I'm trying to dodge the Empire with that high of a bounty on my head."

"I thought your Council taught you two how to infiltrate syndicates and blend in or something. I guess intelligence wasn't a requirement to apply for that particular line of work within the Jedi," she said derisively.

"Obviously not," he grinned, tugging her close to kiss her briefly. "Think of it this way, if I had been smart, I wouldn't have ever considered taking the job to track you down so we could go after Dooku together."

"Pity you weren't smarter," she remarked dryly. "So now what?"

"We're headed to Ord Mantell. There's a cantina there that gets the patronage of a few smugglers every once in a while. He told the kid that's where they were going," he said, hand still wrapped around her wrist to tug her toward the U-Wing.

Even with the brief pause in their escape, Asajj still felt inexplicably winded, but now wasn't the time to bring it up.

They had a bigger problem on their hands and a long way to go before there would be time to rest.

Chapter Text

If time was a blur before, it was like moving through hyperspace now. Hera knew from the quiet that hung over her ship that the Ghost was not moving, that they were grounded on some unknown planet or rock, but somehow it still felt like they were set on a course with no destination. Her head swam with thoughts as she faded in and out of dreamless sleep and periods of something that felt like fitful delirium. Tonight, or today, whatever it was—was more of the latter, the visions that swam behind her eyelids leaving her to restlessly jerk against the binders that cruelly cut into her wrists. At least once, she'd woken herself up calling out Kanan's name, frantically pulling against her restraints until she remembered where she was, and that Kanan was not with them.

The ends of her lekku ached and the tips were bleeding from where they'd scraped against the floor in her bouts of fitful sleep. Her lips were chapped, her eyes were dry, and her voice was no more than a rasp. Kata had already forced two of the electrolyte packets into Hera's system and then insisted that she used the other packets in the med-kit. They were marginally helpful, giving her body just enough to keep her going, to keep her more alert when their captor shoved her up the ladder to the facilities and then put her on a timer to choke down food and only a marginal amount of water.

While her body required more than Zeb or Sabine's to thrive, they were all stable on what little they'd been given. Sabine was more alert, aware of her surroundings, and able to pick up on movement about the ship when Hera could not. The teenage girl was also obviously concerned with how she was doing, checking on Hera at frequent intervals, in her own teenage way. Zeb was a little less obvious, coaxing Kata into giving Hera his water or what little bit of food she found a way to sneak down, something that Hera wasn't exactly thrilled with.

This was something Zeb signed up for when he said he wanted to fight the Empire though, and Hera told herself he understood the risks of their fight as much as he comprehended what could happen with his frequent redirection Kata’s efforts toward helping her instead.

The same could not be said for the newest members of her crew. Sabine was a girl and shouldn't have been here at all. Kanan argued that she would be safer on the Path but Hera was worried that she would take off on her own and had insisted that they'd be able to look after her more closely.

Now, too little and far too late, she was realizing anything happened to either one of them, it would be their blood on her hands, and that was something she was not prepared to live with.

Hera knew what the price of war would be; she'd paid the cost three times over between her brother, her mother, and the father that wanted nothing to do with her. When she started picking up crew, she slowly started to realize that the price of starting a war would be far more expensive than the costs of being an innocent bystander in the destruction of lives and lands. The first time she recognized what kind of investment this fight was going to take was when she and Kanan become more than just crew. From there, it slowly developed into an intense fear when they went after Cal on Coruscant. Her nights should have been less fitful when they all made it out safely, but the dreams of that near-loss haunted her for months, even years, after that mission.

Even now, it would find its way back into her dreams, except two new faces joined the face of the man she loved and the battered orange dome with photoreceptors that had a knack for finding trouble, and she was starting to think that the price of this war was already too much. If they couldn't hold their own against a single Jedi—at least, that's what she thought he might be after watching him fling Sabine across the cargo bay—how could they possibly fight an Empire?

Her eyes darted back and forth between Sabine and Zeb, both fast asleep instead of watching her for a change, and she mouthed a silent apology for dragging them into this fight.

"What?" a small whisper came from the dark corner of the cargo bay.

Unusually skittish after Bode's cruel misdeeds, Hera jumped more than she should have at the sound of Kata's voice and she winced at the way the binders at her back dug into her flesh. Rather than answering in words for fear of letting her pain show, she just shook her head at the girl instead.

Kata was unusually perceptive for a girl of just eleven years, something that made Hera wonder if that was the reason why Bode was going to such extremes, but that didn't make sense—if he was trying to avoid attention, why would he be hunting Cal, especially through—

The gentle and soothing touch of Kata's hand against her cheek, drew Hera out of her rapidly spiraling thoughts.

"We have about an hour, I think," she whispered, keeping her voice soft enough so only Hera could hear.

Hera started to question what she meant but Kata was behind her and releasing her binders before any words would come out. When the girl appeared back into view, she pressed several bacta patches into Hera's hand, along with a couple of stim shots. She looked down at them with her brows furrowed and then back up at Kata.

"Chopper helped me make some special tea for Papa to sleep tonight. He said it should last an hour but you have to be careful because Papa is in the room next to Kanan's," the girl went on to explain. "There's water and electrolytes by the door. I can watch from the hatch in case I hear anything. Chopper did something with the door to Papa's room, too. We'll be okay, but Kanan needs you to help him. I don't know what to do for him, not like you do."

After a moment's hesitation, Hera rose on legs that didn't wobble beneath her, the muscles that had been weak for days fully energized at the small thrill of seeing Kanan with her own eyes, to touch him and promise him that this would all be okay. It took a bit of nudging on Kata's part to get Hera's weakened body up the ladder, but after that, hope fully took over, allowing Hera to tread quietly through the corridor until she came to the hatch of Kanan's cabin. Her heart sunk at the odor wafting from beyond his door, the smell of festering wounds had been seared into her memory from the days and weeks at a time hiding underground during the Clone War.

Still, Kanan needed her, and if the little bit that Kata had left behind for her as well as the things in her hand could fix what damage Bode had done to him, she had to be strong for the both of them.

When the door opened, Kanan shifted slightly, only the tips of his bare feet alight in the dark of the cabin. "Back again so soon?" he slurred. "You mus' miss me."

Hera swallowed hard, sure that she'd be fighting tears if she weren't so dehydrated. "I do. Like you wouldn't believe."

Kanan's head jerked up at the sound of her voice and he drew in a deep breath as though he was preparing to bellow her name but she rushed forward and clapped her hand over his mouth instead. His lips were wet and sticky, a trickle of blood leading down from his lips into what used to be his neatly trimmed goatee; now his face looked like an overgrown forest, the scruff taking over so much more of his face than she could have ever imagined. In spite of what felt like a busted lip and several abrasions, he was still grinning like an idiot beneath her palm, something that fractured her own expression with a bittersweet smile.

He might not have looked like it, but this was definitely her Kanan.

"For once in your life, you're going to have to stay quiet, love," she murmured softly against his ear before pressing a kiss against his temple. "Let me take care of you."

When she pulled back to look him over, she could see that his right eye was swollen shut, matted with blood and pus. As much as she wanted to attend to that particular wound, not wanting his beautiful eyes of sea glass obscured, she knew that it would be too obvious. Instead, she started with a stim shot, and then began working her hands over the exposed parts of his skin until she found the wound that she could smell outside of the door—it was worse than the ones on her wrists, Kanan's Force-enhanced strength doing him more harm than help when it came to trying to struggle out of his binders. Hera frowned when she noted that the cuffs were thicker than the ones Bode used on her and then a moment later, she realized that he had Kanan in stuncuffs—and why wouldn't he? Kanan would have easily been able to work his way out of the cuffs he kept the rest of their crew in.

The wounds on Kanan's wrists weren't simply from struggling against the cuffs, they were festering burns.

"No more of that," she sighed softly, tearing open the first bacta patch and carefully working it into the scant space between his skin and the binders until she could run it along the wound.

"Still bossy when you look like that," he rasped, looking at her with his good eye and a crooked smile. "Now I know it's not a dream."

Hera bit back the comment that this was far from a dream; it was one of their worst nightmares realized. Instead, she moved to cup his face gently, and then pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose.

"So much better than bacta," he sighed, sounding absurdly contented for a man in his current predicament.

With a slight smile, Hera continued downward until the overgrown coarse hairs over his lips prickled against hers, and then lower until their mouths met in a gentle kiss. She pulled away for only a moment to dab at his busted lip but no further, leaving the trail of blood to hopefully throw off their captor, before she kissed him again.

"I love you, Kanan," she murmured, her forehead resting against his. "You just have to hang on. We'll get out of this."

"Same could be said for you," he rumbled in response. "You've always been a sight for sore eyes but now that I actually have a sore eye, it's more than just a saying. You have to let Kata take care of you. I know you're too stubborn to say it but your girls look pretty pissed off."

"I'll be okay," Hera reassured him, doing her best to make it convincing by reaching up to reposition one of the girls over her shoulder, something that she couldn't do without wincing from the pain. Even getting up and down the ladder felt like a chore in the past couple of days but now that she was taking care of Kanan, she realized how poorly she was actually doing, feeling as though she could sleep for a week from doing something that required almost no exertion. She heard a quiet warble outside Kanan's door and she frowned. They didn't have enough time to begin with and now it seemed that their time would be cut short.

Or maybe time passed more quickly than she wanted it to.

"Let Kata take care of you," she said one last time, pressing her lips against his in a lingering kiss. Before she could pull away, she felt an invisible tug against her waist, keeping her close.

"Hera, wait," he murmured, protesting her departure. "I lied to you about growing our crew. I mean, I didn't because I knew something was coming but what I meant was," he paused to pull in a deep breath before continuing, "When I said I wanted to grow our crew, I meant that if we survive this and the whole fight with the Empire, I want to add to our crew but not with another stray."

A small smile graced her lips as she took him in, tempting fate with just another few seconds of cupping his face in her hands, allowing him to tighten his hold on her and surround her with warmth, and she nodded her head against his.

"We can grow our crew, Kanan," she promised him in a whisper, a single tear slipping down her cheek. "We'll make it through this and when we know that our crew will be safe, we can grow our crew as much as you want."

From the look on Kanan's face, if her kisses were medicine, her words were the cure.

They separated slowly, Hera doing her best to edge backward toward the door without losing her balance but when it became clear that her coordination was severely lacking in her state of dehydration and malnourishment, she turned away from him. After one last glimpse at the man she loved, she promised herself she'd do everything in her power to keep her promise to Kanan.

All they needed to do was make it out of this alive.

Cal knew better than to actually believe that Merrin was asleep, but he could sense that her mind was quieted at least slightly, which was the closest that either one of them had come to sleep since leaving Tanalorr. He wasn't sure exactly how long they'd been gone from the place they'd come to know as home for so long, his distraction as they departed the peaceful world causing him to rely heavily on the now absent display of the navicomputers, without once glancing at the chronometer until he didn't have a choice. Even after a full twenty-eight hours fiddling with every wire he could find, the computers still weren't springing to life, and there seemed to be no way to reset them. He wasn't sure what else he could do, other than ask BD-1 to display the beacon based on the Ghost's location to ensure that it was still there.

Sighing heavily, he reached up to scrub his hands over his face. As if the nightmares that lingered in the years after Coruscant—and before that, the Purge—hadn't been enough, now he was having nightmares about losing not only his best friend, but a ten year old boy. The thought of having to return to Tanalorr to tell his parents that their son was hung over him like a heavy reminder that he had to fix these computers so he could save Kanan, do something about Bode, and get Ezra home safely.

Sleep was most definitely not going to happen, not now, and maybe not ever again.

Behind him, he registered the sound of a sharp clang and a not-so-quiet ouch, but it wasn't that particular change in the silence of the ship that otherwise engulfed him—it was the brief flicker of the navicomputer, on and then off—that caught Cal's attention. He clambered to his feet and ran back toward the galley, to the panel that he knew Ezra preferred to sneak in and out of, the one Merrin threatened to seal permanently shut.

"What did you do?" Cal asked, not making a move to lift the panel. "Just now, what did you do?"

"I…um, I hit my head?" Ezra answered, his words sounding more like a question and breaking with fear as his bright azure eyes danced around the grate above him.

Merrin really was terrifying and that was fine usually, but right now, he needed the kid to be just a little more eloquent.

Cal knelt on the ground. "No, Ezra. I need you to look around you. Are there any wires or cables or anything? Stuff you've gotten caught up in when you're crawling through the ductwork?"

"Oh!" Ezra said, eyes widening. "Yeah. They're a pain to get around. I've gotten tangled in them a couple of times."

"What about just now? Before you hit your head?" Cal pressed, doing his best to keep his patience with the kids.

"That's how I hit my head," he grumbled, as if the answer should somehow be obvious to Cal.

Realization hit Cal like a ton of duracrete bricks. "Merrin! he yelled out, not at all trying to conceal the frantic nature of his tone.

"No!" Ezra exclaimed, scrambling backward until he clearly found the tangle of wires that he'd been caught up in moments earlier. "Not her! She'll hurt me—"

"Trust me kid, this may keep her from hurting you," Cal explained calmly, waving BD in his direction. He pulled the grate aside and then let BD hop into the ductwork with Ezra as one very disheveled Merrin appeared with a burst of green flames.

"I was almost asleep, Jedi," she grumbled, crossing her arms. "This better mean that I finally get to deal with that one for good."

"I told you!" Ezra yelled up from the vent, where he was well-hidden from sight.

"No," Cal said slowly. "That one might actually be the answer to our problems. There's some wiring down there that he's gotten caught on. I sent BD down with him but I need you up front to see if the navicomputers come back on as we're working."

Merrin arched a brow at him, tapping her toe expectantly. "If a tangle of wire that became dislodged because of his poor behavior caused the problem, does that not indicate that punishment is justified?"

Cal frowned, looking up at her pleadingly but otherwise saying nothing.

"Fine, Jedi. But you are sleeping once this is fixed. I cannot handle those akk dog eyes you make at me, especially when you think they'll actually work," she muttered and moved toward the front of the cockpit. "And you will make me some caf if you expect this to take more than five minutes."

Thankful to have the first of their two problems out of the way, Cal spread out on his back and did his best to slide as much of his head into the vent as he could, which wasn't nearly enough to see what was going on. It was fine. He had BD down there and a ten year old who knew how to cause problems. Either they'd get the navicomputer fixed, the ship would blow up, or something equally catastrophic would happen. It was the best odds they had on this trip yet as far as he was concerned.

"Woman!" Quinlan groaned as they rushed back aboard the U-Wing. "He was an actual contact for the Path, not just a random Imperial. I know that violence isn't encouraged on Tanalorr but maybe stop trying to make up for lost time while we're looking for these fools."

Asajj didn't answer him, not that he'd expected her to. She'd been more quiet than usual in the past couple days, except for when she was gleefully engaging in violence, even when she shouldn't have been. For some reason, she didn't even seem interested in reminding him that he was an idiot, even when most of his contacts didn't have much in the way of intel to offer.

Ord Mantell had been a bust for the most part, outside of another echo, another sloppy hack of a blade drawn along the corridors of what was rumored to once be an Imperial Command Center before one of the larger and more imposing pre-fabricated buildings were brought in to lord over the city. That particular echo led them farther away from the core, pushing them toward the outer rim, far from their home on the opposite side of the Galaxy, but it seemed to be getting them somewhere because Quinlan glanced down at the con to see that he was getting intermittent signals from the Mantis II, which meant that they had to be closing in on Cal and Merrin's location.

Without definitive coordinates to program for the Mantis II, Quinlan programmed in the information that would set them bound for Bardotta, the planet that his one useful contact had to offer up before Asajj cut his answer short in the most literal fashion possible. Once he confirmed the coordinates and made the jump to hyperspace, he pushed himself up out of his seat and he stalked back toward the galley, in search for his beautiful but mildly overzealous and murderous lover. He expected to find her over the caf machine or possibly drinking his Tevraki whiskey straight from the bottle, but she wasn't. Instead, she was standing in front of the cracked mirror, just beyond the open hatch of the 'fresher, examining something on her face.

It wasn't until he closed the distance between them that he realized exactly what she was staring at so intently.

Little streaks of lightning had started to paint themselves over her exposed flesh, running from the tips of her fingers, along her arms, all the way up her neck and jawline until the bolts disappeared beneath her blond hair. Something about her expression told Quinlan that this wasn't the first time she noticed them, or if not the scars, maybe just the fact that she had already noticed something was off within herself. After their first stop to Onderon, she seemed more tired than usual and he chalked it up to the hours spent teaching brats, even if they made time to spar with each other (in more ways than one), never going easy on each other. Sparring for the hell of it was so much different than a life constantly lived on the run, so it was easy to be in denial of the thing that was now punching him in the gut as he looked her over.

"No," he finally choked out. "No, no, no. Dammit! Asajj, why didn't you say anything?"

Asajj sounded blasé as she turned to look at him, even though he could see the shimmer of fear in her eyes. "It's fine. My sister will bring me back, like usual, and we'll head back to Tanalorr and the nauseatingly clear sky and we'll live peacefully ever after with no murder or violence allowed. Whatever."

Quinlan hesitated for a moment, trying to remember that he was getting a faint signal from the Mantis II and Merrin really could fix this. It didn't take long for reality to remind him that it took more than a casual wave of Merrin's hand to fix Asajj. They needed to be on Dathomir, with Merrin, which meant that they needed to know exactly where they were going and that they could get there and back to Dathomir quickly enough to stop all of this.

All he had was a faint signal from the Mantis II and stories of what Asajj turned into when her time ran out.

"What if we don't find them, Asajj?"

With a shrug that betrayed the heaviness that Quinlan could sense within her beating hearts, she reached up to cup his face lovingly in her hands, something almost as disturbing as the bolts that streaked her perfect bone-white flesh. "Then I'll die again," she answered matter-of-factly. "You'll get over it or you'll get drunk, the same way you did the last two times that I died."

No amount of bluntness to her words could conceal the fear in Asajj's eyes.

Neither one of them were ready for her to die again, especially when they weren't certain if she would ever breathe again.

Chapter Text

Darkness surrounded Bode.

In truth, he found that he often preferred it that way, but the void he'd been plunged into was not the familiar friend that often settled his restless soul. This thing, this abomination, was not the cool, comforting, quiet absence of light that he reveled in—it was stifling, a thick rope that had been wrapped around his neck since the day he took Denvik's life and ran with his daughter. It was a fraying thing that cruelly teased him with the possibility of a freedom he once knew in his past, only for that same weak braid to form a tighter rope, and for that elusive future to escape his grasp and leave him gasping for the most shallow of breaths instead.

How many days had it been since he pinned down the crew of this ship, starved them all, and beat the ones that deserved it? What kind of fool was he to believe that it would actually produce Kestis when all he had was a single transmission sent via poorly encrypted text, something that could have been sent by anybody? Even if he were foolish enough to believe it was Kestis who dispatched the message, it was one received well over a week ago and he still had nothing to show for it. Bode's hands were still empty, his flesh free from Kestis' blood. What if he'd been a fool this entire time, sitting in a trap he baited for Kestis, not realizing that he was the prey rather than the predator? He knew he'd gotten sloppy a time or ten in the past few years, that he'd let his desperation get the best of him in his bid to restore the life he used to know, but Bode hadn't ever felt so out of control—or so blind—in his life.

What had he become?

The Twi'lek and the Jedi owed him for their part in liberating Kestis and he didn't feel guilt for how he'd treated them. But the Lasat and the Mandalorian girl? They were different, innocent, as free from blame as his precious Kata and Tayala, but still, he continued to punish them all the same. Perhaps he'd spent years playing the role of Denvik's lapdog to keep Kata safe but he was not an Imperial. He was not the kind of mad who preyed on and ended innocent life in a bid to bring in his true target. He wasn't another cog in the Imperial machine and it wasn't too late for him to take a step back and reclaim that little piece of his soul that hadn't been cruelly ripped away from him on the day his Tayala died. Bode could let the two innocents go, all he needed to do was give them a sound reason not to return or attempt a rescue of their so-called friends.

The innocents didn't need to be harmed.

Overwhelmed by the sudden idea of trying to make this work, of the need to break free from the darkness that engulfed him, he began to pace in his cabin. The Lasat would assuredly present the most difficult barrier to his plan, the man likely stubborn and true to a Captain he owed no true allegiance to, but then again, he still wore the electrodart Bode used to keep him subdued. Bode knew that the charge on the crude weapon would run out quickly and he'd have a fight on his hands that proved to be near impossible in their initial encounter. Perhaps it was best to use the last of that charge to dispatch the hairy beast to the very brink and then shove him along with the Mandalorian girl off the ship and leave them aboard this nearly uninhabited rock. It would be a lot easier to move the ship out of their reach than try to make sure that they didn't return.

Better yet, there was the small excursion craft that he could haul the innocents aboard and then send it hurdling toward an unknown destination. They'd have no means of finding their way back, especially if he detached any means of recall to the cramped, smaller ship, leaving the duo only with the ability to move forward. The innocent pair could simply move on with their lives and forget what was left in their wake.

Since when have you been able to forget?

"That's different," he growled in reply to himself through the suffocating darkness, his fists clenching at his side. "She was different."

Just like Kata would never forget her mother, Bode would never forget the woman who saved him from the darkness before.

The stubborn Twi'lek Captain and Kanan? They couldn't mean anything to the innocents in the cargo bay, certainly not more than their lives. They would be forgotten, especially when Bode set the two free, and all it would take was a warm bed and a full belly. Their physical wounds would take longer to heal than whatever emotional attachment or loyalty they felt to the Jedi and the Captain to soothe over, especially once granted the ability to travel about the Galaxy in a craft that was clearly inconspicuous to the Empire.

It didn't matter what they were to the Lasat and the Mandalorian, they weren't a mother or a wife, they weren't family.

Their darkness was different from his and they would forget it, Bode knew they would.

They just needed a chance.

As for Kanan and Hera? They would pay for their sins with their blood, and Bode would make good use of the Twi'lek's freighter once he dumped their bodies. Their deaths would not bring him the same kind of gratification that Kestis' would have, but it was the beginning of amends from the Galaxy for all it had claimed from Bode, and if Kestis was really out there? Perhaps the ship that belonged to his formerly-breathing friends would still lure him in.

With his mind made up, Bode opened the door to his cabin to go examine the excursion craft when Kata's door opened across the corridor at the same time. He watched as his daughter went stiff and she started to skulk back into the warmth of her room, an expression of guilt awash over her cherubic face. Somewhere, deep in what remained of his soul, Bode felt the dagger that he was trying to free from his flesh twist and gnarl at his ragged heart.

He forced a fatherly smile onto his face anyway.

"Hey kiddo," he said gently, taking two large steps forward and placing his hand on her shoulder. "Couldn't sleep?"

"I just wanted a drink," she mumbled, looking down at the ground rather than letting her eyes meet his.

Bode tried not to frown at the way she felt beneath his grasp, like she wanted to turn and run away from him before she could end up like one of the people down in the cargo bay, as though he might somehow turn on her. Even if he hadn't been successful in keeping his expression schooled into one of paternal warmth, it's not like she would have known anyway, seeing as she still refused to look at him. He gave her a gentle squeeze and pulled the empty cup from her hand.

"How about you climb back into bed and I'll go get you a drink, okay?" he offered gently.

Relinquishing the cup to his grasp, Kata nodded and then scampered back across the room and up the short ladder into her bed. When she laid down, it was with her back turned to him.

He wasn't sure if he should take it as a sign of trust that she felt comfortable facing away from him or as another slap in the face that she didn't want to see him. Unwilling to lend consideration to either option for long, he pushed the thought out of his mind. Kata would see that he wasn't the monster that she thought he was when he let the Lasat and the girl go. She'd see that he was still her Papa.

That he would always be her Papa.

If he dealt with the other two aboard the ship while she wasn't looking, maybe he could even convince her that he'd let them go as well, and perhaps he'd earn back a little bit of his little girl's love.

Bode looked down at the cup in his hand and felt his expression twist up into an unwitting snarl, images flashing through his mind, scene that involved his little girl, and his eyes rose to the securely closed cabin where he'd lovingly tucked her away from this disaster. His gaze turned cold as he focused on the now securely closed doors, more memories that didn't belong to him wandering uninvited through his mind, all of them indicating that he was trying to fight a battle that he'd already lost. 

How could he possibly get his little girl back when she was already as irretrievably gone as her mother?

Kata shifted back and forth in the bed that didn't belong to her, tossing and turning every ten minutes while she waited for her papa to return with the cup of water he promised her. Her hand closed tightly over the last two packets of electrolyte replacement that Kanan made Kata promise to give Her a tonight, and she felt tears sting at her eyes. She knew how bad Hera looked last night, how the woman barely even woke up for her when Kata lifted the glass of water to her lips. If she had to wait any longer for her father to come back, she was afraid that Hera would become just another ghost star.

It took a lot of patience, something that her father insisted she never had much of, to allow a full three hours to pass on the ship's chronometer, carrying the ship and its occupants late into the night. Usually by now, she'd be done checking on her crew rather than starting her rounds, but there wasn't much she could do while her father was mulling about the ship. Almost two hours ago, after something that sounded like a bit of a struggle between Kanan and her father—something that happened every night—the ship had finally gone quiet.

After allowing as much time pass as she could possibly dare, she motioned to Chopper for the astromech to bypass the overrides on the door, allowing her to open it manually—quietly—instead of on the proximity sensors. She glanced out into the corridor and just as she suspected, it was dark and quiet. She crept down the hallway and toward the galley for one large cup of water and poured both pouches of the electrolytes into the cup. When she turned to reach for another cup, she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye that made her heart sink. On the galley table, the medkit was flipped over and the scant contents that remained inside it crushed beneath the print of a heavy boot on the floor. Kata approached it much like one would approach a poisonous creature, pressing her lips into a tight, thin, line as she closed the distance between the benign appearing box of fleximetal, recoiled as though it was poised to strike out. She glanced over her shoulder to see that the corridor was still empty and squeezed her eyes closed.

Please let something be left. Please let anything be left, she repeated in her head, over and over again.

Her fingers trembled as she turned the kit over quietly.

Empty.

Everything that had been in there; the bandages, the stims, the bacta, all of it was gone. Kata tried to tell herself that maybe her papa needed it after whatever happened between he and Kanan earlier but she knew that wasn't the truth. Fire burned at the back of her throat when she remembered the last two packets of electrolytes in the cup on the counter and she rushed back to it, as though the cup might disappear if she didn't hold tight to it. Just as her fingers closed around the cup, her eyes captured a small glint beneath the counter top, short and cylindrical and she dropped to her knees with the cup bearing the electrolytes in a tight hold.

It was a single stim shot, still intact.

Drawing in a deep breath, she closed her fingers around the stim and jammed it into her pocket. Kata didn't have to question who she would use it on if her hand was forced, if it came down to more than one party needing the lifesaving injection, Kanan had made his instructions clear. She just hoped that it wouldn't come to that.

Maybe for tonight, the electrolytes would be enough, and the promise that Chopper kept making her that things were going to be okay soon would actually turn out to be more than a bunch of empty binary.

Knowing that now was not the time for wallowing, Kata left the galley and crept through the ship until she came to the cargo bay. Like the nights before, none of her crew seemed to stir when she made her way down the ladder, all of them starved to the point of physical exhaustion. Still, she concealed herself in the shadows as she looked them all over. Although she knew she should have spent more time looking over Sabine and Zeb, she couldn't help how her eyes rapidly went straight to Hera's chest. She held her breath as she watched and waited for Hera to inhale or exhale, for any sign of life at all, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the woman was still breathing.

Kata wanted to believe it was her imagination, the way that the Twi'lek woman's breaths seemed to have grown more shallow with each passing day, but she could tell by the way that all color had faded out of the woman's body, leaving her a sickly gray hue all over, that her overactive imagination had nothing to do with her cautious assessment. It didn't matter. She had to keep telling herself that. Tonight, Hera was still breathing, and that was all that mattered. It was more than enough to coax Kata across the cargo bay and toward the woman's slumped over figure.

The woman would need every ounce of the electrolytes in the cup and there was no doubt that she'd need at least another cup of water after that. Not one drop could be spilled, especially with their supplies exhausted. With that in mind, Kata set the cup aside and used the spare set of keys she snuck from her father's room to unfasten the binders behind Hera's back before whispering her name.

Hera didn't move.

Frowning, Kata reached into her pocket and closed her eyes. It felt like she was condemning the woman to die, using their last stim shot so quickly, but something deep inside Kata told her that she needed to use it now. Somehow she knew that waiting until she knew she needed to use it would mean that she'd waited too long to use it.

Even after the contents of the syringe had been emptied, the woman didn't come to the same gasping start that Kata had seen out of Kanan when she'd administered one to him, nor did she jolt to a state of acute alertness the way Sabine had when she used it on the girl after she tried to sneak up on her papa. Instead, Hera barely shuddered beneath Kata's fingertips as the medication began to course through her body, her respirations becoming deeper but simultaneously more labored, like it hurt for her to breathe.

"Hera," Kata murmured, feeling tears begin to line the corners of her eyes. "Hera, I brought you something to drink. You have to drink."

Kata wasn't really sure when the stubborn Twi'lek Captain had stopped arguing with her, but she took the cup readily, the stim shot having given her enough strength to lift the cup to her chapped and cracked lips so she could drink thirstily. With wide eyes, she watched as Hera drank, making sure that not one drop escaped her lips, although Kata wasn't exactly sure what she would do if the liquid would have started dripping down the woman's chin. It's not like there was any way to save those last, precious bits of the electrolyte replacement.

When the cup was empty, Kata took the cup from Hera's hand before it could clatter to the ground and she quietly set it aside. With hands that still trembled, she reached out to wipe the crusted tears that matted Hera's eyelashes away and then skimmed her hands over the woman's limp lekku. The woman looked nothing like her mother but there was something about the woman's heart that reminded Kata of her mama, and that caused her to lurch forward into Hera's arms and wrap her arms around the Twi'lek and take hold of her tightly.

"I'm sorry," Kata sniffled into Hera's shirt, no longer able to deny the tears that had been threatening since the moment that her father found her sneaking out of the cabin. "Hera, I'm sorry. I tried. I let you down."

Kata was sure that Hera had to be using the last of her strength to gather her up into a surprisingly tight embrace. "You're doing your best," she whispered in broken words. "I'll be okay."

"No," she replied, shaking her head fervently and then pulling away just enough to look at Hera. "It's…I think we need to find a way to get you out of here. The supplies, they're all gone, and not just the electrolytes. I…I think my dad knows."

Heavy footfall at the top of the cargo bay sent a shock wave of fear shooting up Kata's spine and her tear-filled eyes turned up to find her father standing there in the shadows of the catwalk, still gripping the cup she'd given him earlier in the night.

"Yes, Kata," her papa said, his voice cold and detached and scary. "I know."

As though acting out of direct spite to her weakness, Hera's arms tightened around Kata even more, the woman's desperate hold on her making her feel safe in a way that her mother used to.

Kata held onto Hera just as tightly in return.

Kanan exhaled sharply as his back hit the floor of the cargo bay hard, the force of it knocking the wind from his lungs so viciously that he was certain the insult had to be accompanied by at least a dozen broken ribs. If not for the fact that the oaf of a man who so violently threw him from the catwalk hadn't unbound his hands prior to dispatching Kanan to the floor, he was fairly certain that both of his shoulders would have been dislocated—or worse.

Unlike their other encounters that Kanan had come to cherish, though, Bode seemed to be looking for a fair fight this time. That was something of a joke since the broad shouldered and well muscled bastard had already beaten him within in a inch of his life more than a couple of times, and followed it up by starving him to the point that a weak wind could probably take him out. If he wanted to make it out of tonight's spat alive, Kanan knew that he should probably keep his mouth shut—

—then again, he hadn't bothered with using common sense at any other time in his life, so Kanan didn't see any point in starting now.

"M'legs still work, y'know?" he muttered, weakly pulling himself up to his knees. "I would have just gone down the ladder."

Proving true to Kanan's previous assessment of the man being a show-off, using all of that witless brawn as part of his intimidation act, he leapt from the catwalk and landed in front of Kanan before looking up at him with dark, narrowed eyes. His heavy brows made it clear that anger was boiling in his blood and that somebody wasn't going to be walking away from this little fight.

Kanan was relatively sure that he was that somebody, but it didn't do anything to keep him from running his mouth a little more. "Seems like you've got something on your mind, big guy."

"Shut. up," Bode exhaled, his nostrils flaring. "You think I haven't noticed?"

Foolishly choosing to follow the man's first command rather than answering his question, Kanan finally managed to drag himself to his feet and swayed a little, watching as the one large man became two in his wavering gaze.

"Answer me!" he yelled, bits of spittle flying from his mouth.

"Sorry, you said shut up first, so I wasn't sure what you were wanting," he retorted, one corner of his mouth pulling up in a cocky grin. "What was the question?"

Bode growled, taking two large and menacing steps forward. "These wounds haven't been healing themselves. Your crew isn't still breathing on luck alone," he uttered menacingly, his fists flexing and clenching at his side. "You, your Captain, you brought this on yourselves—but the Lasat and the girl? I was going to let them go free until I realized what you were doing tonight."

"And what's that? Surviving?"

"Using my daughter against me!" Bode snapped, his hand jutting out where the dark-haired little girl was now bound to pole right next to Hera, tears streaming down her round face. "What did you do to her? What did you say to her?"

Kanan’s posture wobbled slightly, the mere act of turning his head enough to set the cargo bay spinning around him and leave it feeling as though the floor were moving beneath him. When he realized that what he was seeing wasn't some figment of his imagination, he felt a slight surge of energy through his tired and sore muscles, his broken body, an energy that Kanan hadn't called on in some time—at least not fully and most definitely not intentionally.

"That's your kid, man," he said under his breath, daring to take a step toward Bode, even as he kept his hands raised in a gesture of surrender. "She didn't do this, you did. Let her go. Let her go, let the others go, and we'll finish this—you and I. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"I wanted Kestis," Bode replied, his voice still menacingly low. "All you had to do was hand over Kestis and instead, you turned my kid against me."

"Papa, please!" Kata cried, struggling against the pole. "I wanted to help them! They didn't make me do it!"

The little girl's pleas fell on deaf ears and Kanan found himself sure that the little girl's pleas probably hadn't ever worked on the man. For her sake, Kanan wasn't going to test his theory. "You're right. I did it. Kids are easy enough to manipulate, you know that," he answered in a hushed voice, allowing a bitter smile to cross his lips. "They did it with us, didn't they?"

Bode looked unimpressed with Kanan's attempt to relate to the man through the place that they used to call home, the single commonality they shared. He reached into his pockets to pull out a couple of stim shots along with a few packages that were too difficult to read through Kanan's one good eye. He assumed it was the remainder of what used to be their woefully under-stocked medkit.

"You've made quiet the medic out of my little girl," he huffed, glancing over in Hera's direction. "I have to admit that I was impressed for a few days, how your pilot was so stubbornly hanging on. Our training makes it a little harder to put us down, even the young and unskilled ones. But your Twi'lek? I'd intended to put her down without trying."

"You should have started with me," Kanan snarked back at him, beginning to roll out the tense and tender muscles in his shoulders and neck. "She's a hell of a lot stronger than I am."

"Maybe," Bode smirked, giving a slight nod. Kanan couldn't help but think there was something but a little bit nostalgic in the man's gaze. "The good ones always are, aren't they?"

Kanan dared another step closer to him, hoping that maybe there was another way of ending this rather than coming to what he knew would be woefully inadequate blows. "Let them go. The girls. They're no threat to you."

Whatever bit of fondness that Bode held onto, a warmth trapped in a past that he'd probably never get back, faded at Kanan's urging. His finger jutted out at Hera, rage once again contorting his features. "She flew that fool Kestis off Coruscant," he pointed then at Sabine, who seemed to be working something at the small of her back, just out of Bode's sight, "and she made the mistake of trying to blindside me."

Finally, his finger came to the little girl, his very likeness, rancor tears still welled up in her eyes. "And she turned against her own father by trying to heal your wounds until help could arrive."

Bode's gaze turned back to Kanan's and he spoke again, lethality lacing his every word as he continued. "Try to teach my daughter how to heal this."

What came next was the kind of thing that Kanan had only heard of in the creche, stories that younglings used to scare each other when they should be sleeping before their alarms would wake them too early for the intense training that was being altered as the days passed to prepare them to fight as child soldiers. His ears registered the struggling, choked breaths that barely escaped Hera's throat only moments before he saw the way Bode's fist had formed into a tight grip around nothing. Kanan didn't need to see Hera fighting for each breath, he could feel it searing in his chest, sense the acceleration of her heart rate as his own. His awareness narrowed to a pinpoint, focused solely on the energy shared between he and Hera, their joined souls and shared pain, followed by a blinding and brilliant light followed unlike one he'd allowed himself to acknowledge for years.

Uninvited and unencumbered by his distress, the Force found Kanan there in the darkness and flooded his aching and malnourished muscles. Without thought, he reached for the two pieces of benign looking metal at his waist and brought them together. The dampened song of his kyber crystal croscendoed as emitter met hilt and then the cargo bay was bathed in a brilliant blue light, drawing Bode's attention away from Hera while simultaneously silencing her distress.

Bode chuckled darkly, flipping back the corner of one utility pocket to reveal his own concealed and forbidden weapon in the age of the Empire. "Tell me, youngling, did you ever have enough time to learn how to use that before they murdered the Jedi?"

"Why don't you fight me and you'll find out?" Kanan questioned, his voice vastly steadier than he felt with his weapon raised in the initial defensive stance of Soresu.

"Kanan, no!" Hera rasped, her beautiful voice just barely audible over the hum of his saber.

"You're obviously in over your head if your girl is telling you to back down, kid," Bode sneered, his expression smug.

"I've fought enough Imperials to know that you're all a lot of talk," Kanan bit back, charging forward, forgetting any and all lessons about form and function and whatever else his Master Billaba taught him. All he needed to do was catch the man off guard, if only a little, and the Force was with him—or so he thought. "And I'm not a kid."

One moment too late, he registered that Bode hadn't bothered with igniting his lightsaber. Instead, the man surged forward, placing all of his power—and probably more than just a little bit of his Force-enhanced strength—behind his fist as it made jarring contact with Kanan's nose. His vision whited out almost immediately, sending him stumbling backwards and his lightsaber skittering to the ground behind him, the insistent thrum of his kyber crystal effectively extinguished in one jolting action. Kanan began swinging his arms in what should have been Bode's direction, hoping against hopes to land a blow while he struggled against the staggering and white hot pain behind his nose, leaving him blind to any oncoming onslaught. Without his sight to know that Hera was okay, his ears were peeled for her warning cries or the sound that Bode might have once again turned his cruel intentions to the woman he loved.

It would have been laughable, if Kanan could laugh, that he was thankful for the sensation of the man's fists as they began to pound him down into the deck of the cargo bay. Here he was, taking the beating of his life from a man who was throwing a borderline tantrum as he insisted that he was not the Empire, and Kanan was glad that he was having the stuffing beat out of him. He would take as many punches as Bode wanted to throw, so long as it meant that Hera—and the rest of the crew—was safe.

Each strike began to whittle away at Kanan's consciousness, black edging in at the brilliant white that had unexpectedly taken his vision in that moment the initial blow landed. He fell limply against the cold decking but then tried to push himself up, afraid that even a moment's reprieve from the pain was one moment too many Bode would have to turn his cruelties to Hera instead.

"Stop!" Kanan heard Kata cry out. "Hurting them isn't going to bring her back, Papa! I want her back too, but this isn't going to bring her back!"

Paralyzed by pain and weakness and terror that he was hours away, at best, from knowing the same kind of emptiness, that given the chance his soul might chase the same kind of darkness, all Kanan could do was lie there and listen as Bode answered his daughter's frantic cries.

"Oh Kata," the man sighed, sounding as defeated as Kanan felt. "This was never about trying to get your mama back. All I ever wanted was to keep you safe."

Kanan fought frantically to hold onto consciousness, listening to the girl's soft weeping, needing to know that Hera was safe. The last sound thing he heard before his injuries claimed him was the sound of several objects hitting the ground and the distinct noise of binders being removed.

"There's not much there, Kata," Bode's voice sliced through the encroaching darkness, his tone matter-of-fact. "You should be able to save one of them if you use what's left wisely. But I want you to remember the one that you lose, not the one you save. When you do, you'll understand that sometimes life forces us to make choices that we don't like to save the person that we care for the most."

With his last ounce of strength, he wished for only two things: that Kata would keep her promise to keep Hera safe, and that Cal would save him a piece of the bastard for him in case Kanan ever regained consciousness.

If Cal had been in a more jovial mood, he might have chuckled at the way that Ezra had situated himself in between the diminutive space between the con and the port side of the ship, a spot that he would have previously thought too small to be occupied by even BD. Cal wished he could muster even an ounce of laughter or the ability to appreciate the little troublemaker's creativity for finding places that he didn't belong, but it was all he could do to breathe as he was all but pummeled by innumerable profanity laden transmissions came in from Hera's droid with images that he was pretty sure that Ezra shouldn't be seeing. For half of a heartbeat, Cal considered covering the kid's eyes, although he wasn't certain if he was trying to protect the boy's youthful innocence from the colorful binary that frequently flashed over the con or the images of Kanan and his crew declining at a rate that didn't initially make sense until Cal recalled that the nimble boy next to him had made it impossible for them to receive the messages as they were coming—for that reason alone, he didn't attempt to dissuade the boy from the corner he tucked himself into.

Cal couldn't risk them losing signal again and it would be just his luck that all it took was Ezra moving the wrong way for shit to go sideways once again. "Will you just close your eyes or something?"

Before Ezra could answer, he was cut off by the cockpit's other, and far more terrifying, occupant.

"He will pay for this," Merrin rasped from Cal's opposite side, the threat causing Ezra to press himself more tightly against the console.

Unable to stand another moment of watching the accelerated deterioration of his friends, Cal looked to BD. "Show me the latest message, buddy."

Show me that they're still okay.

By the navicomputer's calculations as well as BD's confirmation that the Ghost still hadn't moved from its previous location, they had just under two standard days before they would make rendezvous. It was two days too long.

He could barely stomach what BD reported to be the most recent image before he glanced over at Merrin. "I guess its safe to say that the message we sent wasn't enough of a deterrent for him."

Merrin crossed her arms, studying the images that Cal could not bear, and he knew from the glimmer of emerald behind her deep brown eyes that she was quite literally using Bode's cruelties to fuel her fire. "I will refrain from mentioning that the message might have been more effective if this monster might have seen your likeness rather than answered in vague text."

"Don't you have to refrain from saying something in order to refrain from saying something?" Ezra questioned slowly.

Obviously the kid had some false sense of security with Cal firmly planted in between him and Merrin.

It took little more than a baring of her teeth for the brazen boy to shrink within himself.

"So what? I send him a message now and tell him that he gives them a little bit of TLC, finds a stocked medkit somewhere to treat their wounds, and he gets me?" Cal asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "Throw in a massage and I'll just hand myself over with no questions asked?"

Merrin shook her head and opened her mouth as though she was prepared to give one of her laconic answers but then she clamped her jaw shut once again. The tips of her fingers pressed into her pale arms, leaving little purple marks in their wake as she seemed to process his sarcastic proposition. "It's you he wants," she finally spoke up, her words laced with an odd combination of menace and misery. "Perhaps seeing you will not move him to restore them to a state of well-being but prevent him from removing them from this plane of existence permanently before we can get to them."

Cal pondered her words and glanced down at the navicomputers that he knew hadn't changed significantly in the past two minutes. "And when we get there?"

He glanced up to see that one thick black brow had arched on her forehead, both silently indicating that she was not in the joking mood and that Cal was already well aware of what fate awaited the man if Merrin was given the opportunity to deal him retribution for his actions.

"That girl," he sighed softly, trying to convince himself that he didn't want the same vengeance that his beloved was obviously craving. "Merrin, that has to be his daughter. Look at them."

"Should that mean something to me?" she questioned coolly.

Ezra's voice was tremulous as he spoke up. "She's helping them," he said, pointing to some of the holos that Chopper had sent. "You can tell she's helping them. You're not—I mean, you can't do anything to her."

"If you are insinuating that I would cause harm to a child, you have failed to realize that you are still breathing," Merrin cut him off him, making no attempts at mincing her menacing words to a juvenile.

"Wait, you're not going to hurt me?" the boy blurted out, his tone so relieved that he'd seemingly forgotten that there was a ship full of people who were badly hurt right there before him. "I thought you were going to—"

"Can we please focus on the actual problem first?" Cal interrupted the pair. "If we're sending this message, we need to do it now so he knows that we're coming sooner rather than later."

"But wouldn't you want it later rather than sooner?" Ezra questioned.

"Shut up," the pair of them answered simultaneously before Merrin apparently registered the boy's question.

"Wait, what?"

He drew in a deep breath before continuing, visibly shaking under Merrin's critical eye. "I just…he already knows he did something wrong. If he thinks that you're going to be there in two days and he knows that you've somehow figured out that your friends are alive but hurt badly, what's to stop him from doing worse in the mean time?"

"Continue," Merrin said warily. "Preferably in a manner that makes sense."

"I'm just saying, if I know Brother Armias is going to make me clean up the nekko pens for something I did wrong but he doesn't tell me when the punishment starts, I usually know that it means I might get out of it if I stop causing problems for a couple of days because Brother Armias wants to watch me clean up nekko poop about as much as I want to be there. I did something to get his attention and he wants me to know it but he doesn't really want to deal with me yet because he has other things to do. This guy, if he thinks that he has two days to trash your friends, he's going to kill them before you get there because he’s obviously hurt them a lot already and they look like nekko poop. If you tell him you won’t be there a little longer, like four day, he still might make you clean up the nekko pens after you get there. But he also might stop hurting them long enough for you to get there…y’know, like behave himself," Ezra rambled on, kicking his foot nervously against the deck. "He needs something to do with his time, right? He has to have some sort of reason that he's kept them around?"

"Your logic is disturbing, child," Merrin remarked.

Cal huffed slightly. "Definitely disturbing but also not flawed."

He turned to BD, ready to ask his droid to record a message to send off to the Ghost's mainframe computers, when a resonant chiming from the con disrupted him. He turned his brow down at the con to see an incoming message from the Banshee's Bastard and he scrambled to accept the incoming transmission.

"Vos?" Cal answered tentatively, not entirely sure that he could handle any other news from the Galaxy now that the computers were back up and running. "Is that you?"

Who the hell else would it be? The gruff Jedi Master grumbled, his irritation plain as his voice echoed off the walls of the cockpit. Where in the fuck are you going, kid? You're off course.

At that, Cal's eyes widened and he looked to Merrin before leaping out of his seat to pull up the holotable in order to examine their course. "How in the hell would you know where we are? The Path's signal can't track us this—"

Story time later, Kestis. Drop to realspace and reset your projections unless you want to fuck this all up?

Cal rushed back to the cockpit and took the pilot's seat, practically pinning Ezra against the wall. He gave the con a once over before nodding to Merrin to make the drop to realspace. This time, BD and Merrin ran back to the holotable and he got his telltale sign that Vos hadn't been lying that they were off course.

"Sithspit," Merrin cursed, the word never more than a mutter, although it always left her lips in a resounding way.

There was some kind of scuffling noise or something from the Bastard's comms, a scratching noise or static, but then it was answered by Vos.

I'm getting to that part, woman!

Merrin rushed back into the cockpit, her eyes wide. "Tell me that is not my sister."

Who the hell else would I be talking to? I certainly don't have conversations with myself.

"Get her back to Tanalorr, now. My magick—"

Yeah, yeah, she's fine. I don't know what the big deal is. The scars are there but she's as much of a pain in the ass as she's ever been. Never pegged you for the over-dramatic type.

The expression on Merrin's face was dubious at best as she locked eyes with Cal.

From his side, he could practically sense Ezra making an attempt to become one with the bulkhead. "As if it wasn't bad enough that one of them was here but now we have both of them?" After that, he snickered, mischief brightening his expression. "The bad guy should totally be worried."

Obviously you found your problem.

"Hey! I am not a problem!" Ezra protested, all the sudden indignant.

The kid was capable of more moods in ten minutes than he thought he'd ever be able to muster in a lifetime, Cal could say that much for the boy. That was a wonder for another time though. "Wait, is that the only reason you came after us? Because of the kid?"

Originally. Would have been a real shame if you got out there across the Galaxy and lost the little shit.

There was more of the interference that Cal picked up on earlier, something that Vos kept responding too, and Cal could shake the feeling that it sounded familiar somehow but he quickly dismissed it. "I'll keep that in mind. How the hell do you know that we're two days off course?"

I already told you story time comes later, Kestis. Either plug in the coordinates that I'm sending, we end this, and head home before the Empire finds your wayward ass or—

More interference.

—yeah. What she said.

By the time that Cal could look up, Merrin had already programmed the coordinates that Vos was sending, something about the new information sending a hungry gleam into her eye. He looked down at the con and saw that the reprogrammed coordinates placed them within just a few hours of the Ghost. Cal shook his head in astonishment, well aware how how the Mantis II's navicomputer could have gotten so far off course, especially with how he was blindly trying to utilize the con to bring the visual systems back online, but somewhat confounded by how BD's course was disrupted.

Only then, did he recall that BD had interfaced with the ship shortly after Ezra had sent their trip spiraling into chaos, trying to help with bring all of the systems back online while trying not to disrupt their trip.

They'd never counted on having to take the Mantis II anywhere, let alone needing to rely on BD's ability to interface with the computers and override the mainframe in many of the same way that Chopper did with the Ghost. Unfortunately, Cal hadn't ever gotten around to testing the calibration on nor making any of the necessary adjustments for BD to resist the mainframe's command prompts since he realized years ago that he'd effectively been taken out of the fight. He mentally wanted to kick himself but there were better ways to use their newfound wealth of time.

With a weak smile, he glanced over at Ezra and then reached up to ruffle the boy's hair. "Why don't you explain your plan for making the bad guy behave himself to Master Vos and I? It's time for someone to start wondering when he's going to be in trouble."

Chapter Text

Kata couldn't stop fidgeting with the two stims shots in her hand.

The injections were all that was left of the scant supplies that her papa coldly tossed to the ground and then left her locked in the cargo bay with the very same people that he'd insisted were bad only a few weeks earlier. It hadn't taken her long to use the bacta impregnated wipes and bandages on Kanan since Hera didn't have any real physical injuries to attend to, but she didn't know who she was supposed to use the stim shots on. Her understanding of how they worked was limited and she didn't know if giving one to Hera would make any difference in her condition since Kanan had been more worried about her getting all of the electrolyte packets. Something told her that Kanan would benefit more from the injections but she didn't want to be wrong and risk Hera dying because she made the wrong choice.

Her papa told her that she had enough supplies to keep only one of them alive but Kata was determined to prove him wrong.

In the hours since she tended to Kanan's wounds, he'd woken up just one time and found just enough strength to inch his way across the cargo bay where reached out for Hera. After that, he lost consciousness again, with his hand tightly gripping Hera's outstretched leg. Not wanting to come in between them, Kata situated herself carefully at Hera's feet, where she sat now, looking anxiously between the pair and then back down at the stims in her hand.

Maybe if she used the stims on Kanan, there would be some way that he could help all of them. He had a lightsaber and if that meant what she thought it did, wasn't there something special he'd be able to do to save their crew?

Then again, he'd woken up once without the stims and managed to find enough strength to move to Hera's side when Kata was sure that most normal people wouldn't be able to do that after the beating he took. Should she really use them on Kanan if all he needed was a little more time? She wasn't even sure that there was something he could do if she used them. The lightsaber he had could have been just another weapon to him and he might not be special at all.

Kata felt her eyes start to sting in frustration but she refused to let the tears fall. She needed to be strong right now since the rest of the crew wasn't and there was no time for tears.

Her papa told her that only one of them would live but he was wrong.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Sabine shifting against the pole she was propped up against, weakly moving herself into a more upright position. Kata glanced over at her but Sabine didn't seem to be paying her any mind or even notice the dilemma that Kata had found herself in. Instead, her large brown eyes were fixed on Kanan, studying him as though she was seeing him for the first time.

Kata looked back down at her hands and the two stims.

"He's a Jedi, right?" Kata asked, her voice barely a whisper. "If I help him then he could save us all, couldn't he?"

Sabine's voice was weak when she replied, the girl having been mostly silent for days, always playing the role of quiet observer rather than vocal captive.

"I don't know."

Kata frowned and then looked up at Sabine. "I should know. My papa is a Jedi, too. Or at least he used to be. That's why my mama is gone. The Empire, they were looking for my papa but they found her instead. I was with him at the market and she called and told us not to come home…and then she was gone. She didn't even say goodbye or that she loved us. I don't think she had the chance.

After that, we didn't go home, just like she said. Now when I think about the day I lost my mama, it feels like I lost my papa at the same time."

Silence lingered between them, drawn out for what felt like too long, and then Sabine finally spoke again.

"You're like him, aren't you? That's what he meant when he said that he just wanted to keep you safe?" Sabine asked.

After a moment's hesitation, she nodded. "For a long time after she died, he worked for some bad people and he'd leave me alone with them a lot, but he always reminded me not to tell them about my secret. I used to think it was because he was afraid they'd hurt me like they hurt Mama. Now I think it was just because he was safe there, too.

The bad people, they always used to talk about how the Jedi were traitors and evil, but my mama used to tell me that they were good and wanted to help the Galaxy. I want to believe the stories she told me but Papa was a Jedi and—"

"They're not bad," Sabine interrupted Kata, her voice stronger with the assertion, her tone more insistent. "Kanan, he—I didn't know what he was, not until all of this. Don't get me wrong, he's a total downer and he does stupid stuff like telling me to strap in when we're in the cockpit or wants me to wear respirators when I'm using my paints, but he's not bad. I don't know what he's capable of but I know that he pulled me out of a burning building and I never understood how he did it, at least not until now."

Looking back over at Kanan, Kata squeezed the stims in her hand. "If that's what people like me should be like, I want to be a Jedi like him. I want to help people like that. Like the way he helped you."

"I'm pretty sure that he owes you a couple of Jedi lessons after all of this is over. At least a couple," Sabine remarked with a bit of a snort.

Kata couldn't keep a small smile from breaking her sullen expression, and she was irritated with herself for showing excitement at the idea of learning how to use her gifts show like that, especially considering that they could all die. She felt like a stupid little girl with dreams that were too big but that still didn't stop herself from answering Sabine's statement with too much hope in her voice.

"Really?"

At her other side, she heard Kanan weakly mutter a response. With his face still smashed into the deck, his words were barely audible, but she heard them all the same.

"I think I could do that."

She looked over at him and her smile grew just a little bit wider, but she didn't know if it was because he was awake again or because he agreed to teach her. All that she knew was that something felt right about being stranded in the cargo bay with her crew, like she was exactly where she belonged, even if it was absolutely the worst place to be right now.

Relieved by the fact that Kanan seemed to be okay, Kata placed the stims on the ground where they'd be within reach and laid down, curling up on her side but refusing to take her eyes off of Hera. She was tired but she would not let her crew, these people that felt like a new family, down. When Kanan was fully awake, he'd be able to tell her what to do, and maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.

Merrin was not pleased in the least with Cal's decision to keep Ezra with them as they disembarked the Mantis II to rendezvous with Vos and her sister. Although they'd taken the precaution to meet on one of the moons of Codia I rather than a location within scanning range of the Ghost on the planet below, she didn't trust the troublesome youngling not to cause complications. Much to her displeasure, Cal disputed her proposition of managing his meddlesome habits with a harmless ritual, but her vague threats coupled with the rumors that ran rampant among Tanalorr's youth seemed to still be effective in controlling their pesky problem.

For now.

Ezra's wide blue eyes were fixed on her fingers that she'd wrapped tightly around his upper arm. "What are all of those black markings for?"

"They represent the number of younglings that have met unfortunate fates by my hand," she answered flatly, dragging him down the ramp.

The boy audibly gulped but tried to show a brave face. "I-I guess that's not very many."

"You are assuming that the tattoos I have earned are all visible. They are not."

Cal glanced back at her with one of his looks that told her to lay off the poor kid and that he was scared enough but she believed no such thing. Her Jedi was foolish to think that the boy could be deterred from his mischief by threats alone.

She was already planning to remind Cal that she was right when they found themselves fighting two enemies at once.

"Um…Mer?"

The concerned tone of Cal's voice drew Merrin away from planning her petty admonishments and toward whatever had caught him off guard. She followed Cal's startled gaze until her eyes landed on Vos, who wore his patent expression of constant irritation, and then her sister at his side who was clearly more of a threat than the boy she was holding onto.

Quickly releasing her grip on Ezra, Merrin readied herself to draw on a ritual to contain her sister before she could lash out. "Vos, you need to step away from her. Slowly."

His brow furrowed in response to her instructions and he glanced over to his side. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"What is she talking ab—" Cal started and then faltered momentarily before he found his voice again. "Are you blind?"

Ezra darted behind Cal where he remained still, probably for the first time in his life, looking more terrified by Asajj than he'd ever appeared for Merrin.

That was something of a disappointment.

"Is that a zombie?" he asked in a loud whisper.

"That's exactly what that is," Cal confirmed, his body tense.

If not for the fact that she was more concerned with the condition of her sister whose posture was mildly hunched, icy blue eyes sunken and lifeless, alabaster skin had gone gray with bolts of lightning marring every visible inch of her flesh, and muscles atrophied, Merrin might have been amused that Cal was still so traumatized by their first encounter on Dathomir. As it stood, however, she was focused on her sister who was not completely gone yet, but she was close; Merrin had learned that the hard way more than one time since accidentally resurrecting her sister after the slaughter of her people.

"Vos, you must move," she repeated, raising her hands as wisps of emerald began to emanate from the tips of her fingers. "We cannot afford to lose any more members of our crew if we are to rescue Hera and Kanan."

At Vos' side, Asajj seemed to respond to Merrin's warnings, but there were no words discernible to her. The sounds her sister made were guttural, identical to the stolen voices of her fallen family on Dathomir.

"I don't know what the hell she's talking about. Why don't you ask her?" Vos questioned, his attention turned to Asajj rather than directed at Merrin, frustration oozing from his words.

Merrin felt her expression twist in confusion as her sister's deadened gaze turned to Vos, the two of them seemingly in an argument. The magick faded from her fingertips as she looked between the pair, overcome by bewilderment. "Vos?"

"What?" he growled. "Aren't we supposed to be planning a rescue?"

Cal, whose skin was more pale than usual, finally spoke up. "Maybe you've never had the pleasure of being chased down by a pack of resurrected Nightsisters, but I'm pretty sure just that one would be a handful."

Vos made a sound of derision. "You act like I haven't been putting up with her for years."

"Not when she's dead," Ezra blurted out and then slapped a hand over his mouth.

"Dea—" Vos turned to examine Asajj and then waved his hand dismissively. "She might be a little rough right now but it's not like she's decaying or something. You're all acting like she just crawled out of the ground. She's fine. A little mouthier than usual."

"Cal is correct," Merrin replied to his denial. "My sister is gone. Again."

"What? No she isn't. You're both blind if you think she's dead," he argued.

Asajj made yet another intelligible response, a spark of anger appearing in her otherwise dulled gaze, her thin arms waving about.

"Didn't I just say that, woman?" he argued with her, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "I'm not the one trying to remind them why we're on this fucking moon."

Her sister responded with a gesture that was recognizably crude and then turned her attention back in their direction.

"Wait…she listens to you when she is like this?" Merrin questioned. "And you understand her?"

"When has she not listened to me?" he answered smugly, only for him to begin gasping a moment later, clutching feverishly at his neck as his feet began to lift away from the ground. "Joking," he choked out, "I was joking. Put me down, Asajj."

Seemingly appeased by his apology, her sister dropped an arm and Vos gracelessly fell to the ground, coughing and sputtering.

"This is disturbing and I am not disappointed that there's no time to question it," Merrin finally replied, letting her arms drop to her side.

"I'm questioning it!" Ezra declared from his spot behind Cal. "Does he have a zombie girlfriend because that is so much more creepy than a witch girlfriend."

"Joke's on you loser, because mine is a zombie witch," Vos answered sarcastically, clearly still unconvinced that there was anything wrong with Asajj.

"Did you really just call a ten year old a loser?" Cal chided Vos.

Asajj's arms flailed about, making yet another rude gesture as she carried on in the words that only Vos could understand. In this instance, however, her body language was more than enough for Merrin to comprehend exactly what her sister was saying and the feeling was surprisingly mutual.

"She is correct. I think," Merrin interjected. "We need a plan to dispatch this fool without anybody aboard the Ghost being harmed further. Cal's message might have bought time for them but it is quickly running out and we are wasting it."

"Why can't we just go down there and beat the shit out of the guy? He's had it coming for at least twenty years." Vos remarked flatly. "I'd be happy to handle him if you can't."

"If he was able to subdue Hera's team so effectively, it will require more than one of us to subdue him," she replied. "There's also the fact that they are still in the ship's cargo hold from the last transmission we received. Simply engaging him with no strategy could result in their demise."

Vos frowned. "So what? You want to knock on the door and politely ask him to come outside and play?"

"We could try moving them out of the ship first," Cal suggested. "If we do it without getting his attention, we can get them to safety before we confront him."

"He has devices that he used to cause harm, does he not?" Merrin questioned. "Removing them from the ship does not guarantee that he still cannot hurt them from afar."

"Actually, I have a plan for getting rid of any of those," Cal grinned, reaching behind him to blindly ruffle Ezra's hair. "We happen to have the perfect way of sneaking in the proverbial back door."

A string of noises that sounded a lot like a combination of displeasure and resignation came from her sister and although Merrin didn't really understand exactly what her sister was saying, somehow she knew that they shared the same sentiment.

"I do not like it either," she agreed, looking straight into Asajj's deadened gaze. "But what other choice do we have?"

When Ezra said that he thought it was cool that Merrin and Cal were going on a secret mission, he wasn't exactly volunteering to get involved with the mission, especially when it sounded like the bad guy was really bad—the kind of bad that required lightsabers and zombie witches, not the kind of bad that got in trouble for skipping class. He remained shrunken behind a bush full of large gray leaves that smelled like the dirty socks that his mother liked to chide him for stuffing into their sofa when he didn't feel like taking them to his room.

If he actually made it home after this, he was definitely going to start listening to his parents.

Probably.

"Alright, get up here kid," Cal called for him quietly after expertly removing a panel from the side of the ship.

Unfortunately, Cal figured out way too quickly that Ezra wasn't going to budge and he crossed the scant space between the ship and Ezra's smelly sock bush to kneel next to him.

"Scared?" he asked, putting his hand on Ezra's arm.

"No," Ezra scowled indignantly and then sighed not even a second later. "Yes. What if he catches me?"

Cal chuckled and shook his head. "You managed to sneak past a Jedi and a Nightsister for a couple days. You really think this guy will catch you in just a few minutes?"

Ezra looked down at the ground and kicked at the ground. "But if I mess up, somebody will get hurt. Even Merrin said so…and the creepy zombie witch, I think."

"It's a risk, yes," Cal acknowledged and then squeezed his shoulder. "But I know you can do this, Ezra. I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't believe in you."

He looked back at Cal dubiously. "You're only saying that because you can't fit in there yourself."

Cal smirked slightly. "You know, when I was your age, I was really good at my classes. I could pass any test that they gave me, and perform any task they wanted me to. I was sure that I knew everything and there was nothing worthwhile for them to teach me. It didn't take long for my teachers to figure it out, though, so they gave me a Master that challenged me. I went from knowing everything to always being worried about disappointing my Master. When it was time for me to try something new, to hone my skills as a Jedi in training, I went from always being sure that I knew everything to always being afraid to fail."

"So what did you do?" he asked, pulling his eyes from the ground to look at Cal.

"I followed the first lesson they taught us as Jedi, the first thing you learned when you stayed in class for more than five minutes, before you decided that you didn't belong on Tanalorr and that anybody who said differently was wrong."

Ezra felt his cheeks warm a little bit but then mumbled, "Trust in the Force?"

"Exactly," Cal said, ruffling his hair. "You have a gift for sneaking around and it's not just because you're small. Use your instincts and let them guide you in there, you'll know if there's danger as long as you listen to the Force. All you have to do is get rid of any of those devices and help out who you can, okay? I know you can do this, Ezra."

After taking a deep breath, he nodded. "Okay. I got this."

Cal smiled and guided him to the panel removed from the side of the ship that revealed the entrance to the ductwork. "You've got this," he echoed.

Fear started to creep up his spine again but Ezra forced it back down as he climbed into the ship's guts and began to work his way through the narrow ventilation duct. He felt his arms trembling beneath him as he scampered along and he realized that he was holding his breath. In one of those classes that he stayed in for longer than five minutes, he learned the importance of breathing, of focusing when he drew on the Force, and so he stopped to draw in a deep breath. He began to get a sense of wait laid in wait above him, of life, both vibrant and weak, and they were all depending on him.

That knowledge pulled him forward.

Following his sense of the people above him, he came to a vertical shaft. The grate he needed was just beyond his reach and the vent free from any sturdy handholds which wasn't a problem for him, but anybody that he might be able to get out could alert the bad guy to what they were doing.

He couldn't think about that yet.

One thing at a time.

Once he made it to the grate, he pushed it open, the hinges thankfully well oiled and quiet. When he looked down he found himself staring into the wide green eyes of a very angry looking Lasat.

"Um…hi," he whispered nervously.

The Lasat merely raised a brow in response.

Ezra pointed at the silver button on his chest. "I'm here to help," he hissed. "I just need to figure out how to get that…that…thing. If that's okay."

Whatever anger had been in the Lasat's gaze faded and he nodded, almost eagerly, Ezra thought. He reached out with a shaking hand, trying to focus on the device, but he'd always skipped this part of class because he wasn't any good at it. His hands were grasping at the air helplessly, the darn thing not moving, and he felt himself growing more frustrated. Ezra squeezed his eyes shut, trying to trust in the Force just like Cal said, but it wasn't doing him any good.

"This might sting," a small voice whispered, disrupting his concentration, and Ezra's eyes snapped open to see a girl his age with pretty brown eyes standing next to the Lasat. Her hand closed around the silver button and pulled back quickly, liberating it from the Lasat's skin. She looked down at it and then finally up at Ezra.

"Why do you want it?" she asked warily.

"Top secret?" Ezra replied and then glanced down at the big guy. "Any of your other friends loose?"

Wordlessly, another young girl across the bay wearing colorful armor pulled her arms from behind her back, a set of binders clattering to the floor. He noticed the bruised and bloodied skin around her wrists, surely from where she'd wriggled out of the things, and he tried not to frown as he waved her over. "If the two of you can get up here, I can get you out of here now."

Both of the girls seemed to hesitate, looking back at the green Twi'lek that slumped against a wall and a brown haired man who was propped up next to her. He didn't look quite as bad as she did, but he definitely didn't look good, either.

"We can't leave them behind. Hera isn't doing well," the brown haired girl whispered, wringing her hands. "We have to get her out of here first. She needs help."

"Kata," the man next to the Twi'lek spoke gently, his tone so reassuring that even Ezra felt his nerves soothed. "She'll be okay. Go with him. We have friends here that can help us now."

Still, she seemed to linger until the Lasat propped his knee up, turning himself into a step-ladder of sorts. "C'mon, you two. Up you go. I think we both know what the Captain would say if she were awake."

The girl in the colorful armor went first, easily slipping past Ezra and working down the shaft with surprising silence. He was temporarily awed by her skill but then he remembered that there was still the other girl—Kata, the man had called her—and he turned her attention back to her.

She reached up from her cautious perch on the Lasat's shoulders, letting Ezra help her up and into the shaft, but she paused at the grate and looked back into the cargo bay, her eyes focused on the man.

"Don't forget that you owe me lessons," she said, her eyes full of worry.

Ezra thought maybe it was her way of telling him not to die.

"I won't, I promise," the man assured her, before nodding his head in Ezra's direction, a silent instruction that she took to keep moving. Ezra held onto her tightly while the other girl reached up from below, helping Kata work her way down quietly. Once the two disappeared from sight, he poked his head back out through the grate one last time, looking down at the big guy.

He held his breath for a moment, stretching out and trying to sense the life around them, doing his best not to fixate on the woman fading across the cargo bay. When he found no threat coming their way, he smiled nervously down at the Lasat.

"Do me a favor," he whispered. "There will be a signal. When you get it, I need you to make as much noise as you can. Break the ship apart if you have to. We've got help outside for the rest of you but we need a distraction so they can do their thing."

The Lasat grinned wickedly. "Oh, I'll give 'im a distraction alright. You just let me know when."

Ezra was only a little freaked out by the Lasat's low growl of a threat but he found himself somewhat reluctant to slide back down the shaft and work his way out of the ship. If he got the two girls out of there, maybe he could just drop down into the bay and free the other three people before things got messy. Cal believed in him and the woman obviously needed help—what if they didn't get to her in time?

Then again, they had a plan and the longer he lingered, the more likely it was that the Twi'lek woman would run out of time. He'd done what Cal asked him to do and also gotten two of the girls out. He looked down at the button he'd taken from Kata before lowering her down and held it out for the Lasat to see.

"Anymore of these down there?"

It was something he probably should have asked before he helped the girls out.

"That's the only one," he replied before his expression turned into one that Ezra found vaguely threatening. "Now scram, kid. We want to get outta here, too."

Feeling pleased with himself after doing something that would please the Masters and mentors back on Tanalorr for a change, he quickly backed himself out of the ductwork and scurried out of the panel that Cal opened. When he landed lightly on the dry, rocky ground with patches of grass that looked like they had been dead for years, he turned his gaze to where Cal was supposed to be waiting for him.

Ezra scowled when he saw the two girls already next to Cal, Merrin, Master Vos, and the really creepy and really dead looking Nightsister that was supposed to be Asajj. Kata seemed to be frantically explaining something to them, and whatever it was had the four of them—er, three since Asajj wasn't actually using words?—discussing what sounded to be their next moves.

Shouldn't they be waiting for him? Didn't he just prove that he could do more than sneak through the ventilation?

Yeah, maybe he was scared before, but now that he knew what he was capable of, he wanted to do more.

When he caught back up to the group, he could hear Cal reassuring the girls that everything would be okay. He offered his arm to BD-1 to let the little droid scurry up to what seemed to be his favorite place, perched on Cal's shoulder, before Cal turned to look at Ezra.

"Alright, kiddo. You did good. Now go get them back to the ship and lock it up. Keep an eye on the girls and help them, okay?"

"What? Wait!" Ezra protested. "That's not fair! You just made me climb in there and get the two of them out and now you're going to make me babysit?! I can help you!"

"I'm pretty sure we're both older than you," the girl in the colorful armor pointed out, her attitude clearly unaffected by whatever she'd gone through, even though she was leaning on Kata to keep herself upright.

Ezra could have sworn that Merrin's eyes began to swirl with the green lights that came from her fingertips as she stared him down. "I will do every bad thing that you've ever heard me capable of if you do not get those girls on the ship and take care of them. Get them some food and water and then you will attend to their wounds."

With his shoulders sagging, Ezra jerked his head toward the Mantis II and began leading the girls toward the safety of the stupid ship.

"Bandage their wounds," he muttered to himself, under his breath. Merrin was acting like he was a freaking medic or something—that was his mom, not him! For now, he didn't have any choice but to do what the creepy witch told him to do, but the second that he had the girls settled and locked away in one of the Mantis' cabins, he made up his mind that he'd rejoin the others and fight by their side.

Maybe they didn't realize it right now, but they needed him, and after saving the girls so easily, he wasn't afraid to help.

That's what Cal got for reminding him that he could trust in the Force.

Bode hadn't planned on sleeping with Kata locked away in the cargo bay and Kestis sending a holo to report he would make the rendezvous in four days time. He'd successfully spent thirty-six hours pacing the ship, using the surveillance in the cockpit to check-in on his daughter who was too young to recognize the real enemy, and the Twi'lek Captain who couldn't possibly last much longer without intervention. Fortunately for Bode, he'd discovered some additional supplies that had been stored in a small closet in the lounge, including an IV kit and some fluids that he could use to keep the Twi'lek cruelly alive if only for one more day so she could simultaneously continue to suffer slowly while helplessly watching her husband and crew die.

She didn't deserve to peacefully fade from this life.

None of them did.

Tayala hadn't.

After the long hours spent fighting his physiological need to sleep, Bode finally lost the battle, drifting off into a rest that could only be described as hell. Images of his daughter, older and aligned with the enemy, flitted through his mind as they all gathered to battle him to a bitter end. Tayala's disembodied voice haunted him, asking him what he had done to their beautiful baby girl, and accused him of running like a coward to let her die cold and alone. Denvik cruelly laughed from afar as Bode lay on the ground, surrounded by a platoon of purge troopers, beating him to death with their deadly electrobatons.

Finally, almost blissfully, the sound of a violent crushing noise and vibrations that shook the very core of the ship pulled him from his nightmares. A bellowing voice that he could only assume belonged to the Lasat jolted him into alertness and he jumped to his feet, fully awake and reminded of where he really was. The visions that haunted them, they were just dreams. In just a couple more days, Kestis would be his and he would gain favor with a new and more corrupt member of the Empire that would protect him and his rebellious daughter. Their life would go back to normal.

His daughter would finally have proof that he'd only done this to protect her.

Certain that the Lasat's carrying on and what sounded like a desperate attempt to escape his restraints was likely a result of Hera dying painlessly despite his original plan, Bode turned toward the cockpit and the quickest route to his captives.

Much to his surprise, the orange domed astromech that was so damaged and covered in detritus, a droid that he was certain was dead and no more than a decoration in the corner of the Captain's quarters that sat in the was powered up, making a sound akin to maniacal laughter as an electroprod sprang from his chassis. The antique droid surged forward unexpectedly, his prod making contact with Bode's leg and sending a painful dose of electricity coursing through his body, causing him to stagger back into the wall of the corridor.

Bode's binary was rusty but he was certain that the droid was actually threatening his life and calling him some nearly unspeakable names as the thing wheeled back into the cockpit and produced a computer probe that locked into the console, the hatch to the cockpit slamming shut as a result. He slammed his fist against the cockpit doors in a fit of rage frustration before he reached out into the air before him, bending the Force to his will in order to pry open the doors that were most certainly customized with abnormally thick durasteel that would prevent unwanted infiltrators from overthrowing the ship's crew.

A low hum coming from below his feet broke his concentration and he growled, realizing that the droid was opening the ship's ramp.

These events were too perfectly coordinated to be coincidental or a random complication in his wait for Kestis and a return to normality.

This was a rescue.

It took only a minute for him to rush through the back of the galley and drop down the ladder that led to the catwalk that overlooked the cargo hold. He was just in time to see that the Lasat had done an impressive job of bending the support beam behind him, successfully destroying the central chain of the stuncuffs around his wrists. The foul smell of burnt fur and charred flesh arrested Bode's nostrils but the Lasat seemed unphased by the injury, standing to his full and impressive height. He pounded his fist into the opposite palm as he eyed Bode with a hunger for vengeance.

Bode quickly reached into his pocket for the receiver to activate the electrodart on the Lasat's chest but when he pressed the button, nothing happened. He jammed his thumb against it repeatedly, trying to get the damned thing to work, when the Lasat chuckled darkly.

"Notice anything missin', mate?"

His eyes shifted quickly to the Lasat's chest, free from the electrodart, the opened ramp, and finally Kanan and Hera who were still unmoving, both of them appearing closer to death than life—if Hera was still alive at all. Even if the Lasat tried to make a run for it, he'd never be able to liberate the pair before Bode could subdue him again. With his mind made up, he turned to the hatch that would lead him toward the ladder that would quickly give him access the cockpit where he had another electrodart rigged to a blaster that would bring down the beast before he could make it too far, only for the hatch to slam closed in his face.

On the other side of the now sealed hatch was more of that menacing mechanical laughter.

You're fucked now, the droid pronounced, his binary echoing through overhead comms and echoing off the cargo hold's walls.

A near-primal sound came from deep in his chest as Bode whipped around, reaching for the twin blasters in the holster that hugged his torso. He aimed them both at the Twi'lek, flipped them to kill, and fired.

The dual shots landed on an empty deck, where his unaware target had just been lying, replaced by nothing more than a haze of emerald smoke. Before he could process exactly what was happening, Kanan was enveloped in an explosion of fire and fury, allowing Bode just a glimpse of a woman with skin the color of bone and glowing green eyes, before they were both gone a heartbeat later. The Lasat made for the ramp under his own power, looking as though this entire ordeal had barely had an impact on his physical well-being.

Bode snarled and jumped over the railing of the catwalk to give chase to the animal only to pull up short just outside of the ship. Clearly waiting for him was a dark skinned man with long dreadlocks and a golden tattoo across his face. The bastard wore the same smug grin that he always wore back in their days as spies for the Jedi Council. His brilliant green lightsaber was held in a menacing position behind his back, the Jedi Master obviously ready to strike, but clearly waiting for Bode to make the first move.

"Quinlan Vos," he spat, the name bitter on his tongue, even after all of these years.

The Kiffar man smiled wider. "Bode Akuna," he returned the greeting, sounding almost cheerful. "You know, I've always had a list of people that I wish had survived the purge. I'm sure you're surprised that your name wasn't on it."

Smiling darkly, Bode holstered one of his blasters and reached behind his back to pull out his own lightsaber. He ignited blade as he took a single step forward, the deadly crimson of his weapon casting its deadly glow across the barren wasteland of the canyon where he'd been awaiting this fight, albeit with a different Jedi.

While his quarry remained mainly with Kestis, Bode wasn't disappointed by this turn in events.

Quinlan Vos would die today, choking on the blade of Bode's lightsaber, a fate the man had coming to him for a long, long time.

Chapter Text

Quinlan felt himself grinning, his expression a combination of his characteristic smug self and something much less friendly. Bode Akuna had been the bane of his existence prior to the Purge; a spy for the Jedi Council because he possessed a trace of psychometry that would help him complete some of the Council's seedier tasks where the trail would run cold for most other Jedi.

Unlike Quinlan, Akuna's skill was barely of use and the man generally made things vastly more complicated rather than dispatching the syndicates or slavers they were trying to deal with in the years before the Clone Wars started.

The one other thing that he found unsettling about the man—and the Council's decision to place him amongst the Jedi spies who used their gifts for tasks that didn't always involve peacekeeping—what that he was a strong empath. More often than not, Akuna relied on his unnerving ability to read people and twisted their emotions to his advantage, turning up the charm and preying on the grief, guilt, anger, love, and passion of random people who may have simply gotten caught in the middle of a quarrel. It hadn't always been that way of course, but in the few instances that the two men were ordered to work together on a mission, Quinlan could see that being tasked with infiltrating the darkest corners of the Galaxy was changing the man and how using his abilities to manipulate sentients, innocent or not, needed to be stopped—something that fell on deaf ears within the Jedi Council.

If he knew without a doubt that any of those Council members had survived and were hiding somewhere in the Galaxy, Quinlan would search day and night, planet to planet, if only to drop Akuna's rotting corpse on their doorstep. It would be the ultimate I told you so.

Then again, hadn't the Council tried to make a monster out of him, too? Sending him on a mission to assassinate Dooku, partnering him with Asajj who was vastly more equipped to deal with emotions and finding balance within that gray area of the Force wasn't exactly one of their wisest decisions. Well, minus the part where they elected to involve Asajj in his mission.

That was, hands down, the most brilliant thing the Council could have ever done, even if Asajj would disagree occasionally.

Probably most of the time.

"So," he started, the two men circling each other, each waiting for the other to make the first strike, "exactly how did you find them? You and I both know that you couldn't read a book with your psychometric abilities and from the Bounty Hunters I talked to, you weren't great at that job either. A little obvious, actually, if you ask me, what with all of those hints you left behind."

Akuna bared his teeth, bringing his lightsaber up with a completely unnecessary flourish. "It's easy enough to find a poorly trained Padawan when he insists upon running around with a green Twi'lek that doesn't know any better than to avoid a fight with the Empire."

"That's fair," Quinlan shrugged, as though Akuna wasn't within easy striking distance now, his body language more suggestive of two old friends catching up over drinks. "I gotta admit, I've always thought using that whole empath thing to your advantage was disgusting back in our days with the Council—but using it with a kid, with your daughter? You're one sick fuck, Akuna."

Okay, so maybe the discussion was more like two arch nemesis playing a heated game of sabacc where all they had to wager was their lives.

Details.

It didn't surprise Quinlan in the least that Akuna was the one to flip the proverbial table in a fit of rage first.

The man was just too easy, set off by one little insult to the point that he surged forward with weapons blazing, both the fire of a blaster and a red blade swiping at Quinlan simultaneously. He dropped to the ground just in time to avoid the bolt from Akuna's blaster but it didn't stop him from feeling the heat of the red blade as it narrowly missed the side of his face. He swept his leg out in an effort to knock the man off of his feet, an ineffective move since the coward jumped back as quickly as he'd lurched forward.

No sooner than Quinlan was back on his feet, Akuna fired off several rounds from his blaster, each of them easily deflected. Sure to wear an expression of boredom, he advanced on Akuna, even having the nerve to grip his lightsaber behind his back, favoring Form V over a more practical Form I to defend against Akuna's ridiculous reliance on two weapons.

Subpar Jedi.

"You know how I tracked you down?" Quinlan continued to taunt him, unable to help himself. "It's because you're obvious. Pathetic. Sloppy. Every corner of the Galaxy I dropped by reeked of your desperation. You didn't just happen to find Kanan and Hera because you were smart enough to follow the trail; you got lucky, just like always. If you were half the Jedi you were supposed to be, if you were ever half the Jedi that you should have been, you would have found all of us years ago. How long were you hiding out before you happened to stumble upon a little bit of intel that just happened to put you in the right place at the right time?"

"You're one to talk about hiding," he sneered, firing his blaster again. "You're a coward. Kestis is a coward. You take the fight to the Empire's doorstep and take out a bunch of new recruits, fresh out of the academy, maybe a few seasoned troopers, and then you just disappear? Exactly what did that accomplish for the Galaxy? You know what the Empire is capable of and you, the big, mighty Jedi, could fight this and instead you're in hiding. Or maybe you just don't want to accept the reality that the Republic is gone and that there's a new power in place, one that offers safety for our survivors if you know where to look—or it did, before you stole it from me."

Quinlan felt his brow pinch together but put a pause in answering his curiosity, deciding that Akuna's blaster needed to go before he was nursing a wound—and his pride. With the Force lengthening his stride and surging through his muscles, he propelled himself into the air, performing a neat tuck to land on the opposite side of Akuna. Yanking through the Force, he ripped the blaster from the man's grip to disarm him and with a clean slice of his lightsaber, before tossing it aside.

"I can see why Kenobi always hated these things," he quipped with a wink and then lashed out in a fury of swipes that Akuna parried, each meeting of their blades drawing a grunt of effort out of the pathetic excuse of a man. "Sounds to me like the Empire doesn't offer much in the way of protection if you're on the run...especially with how much they're willing to pay for you, man. You probably should have thought that decision out before you got yourself involved with them."

Akuna cursed and threw his hands up, his rage fueling his power, and Quinlan felt himself sailing into the now unoccupied cargo bay of the Ghost. His back hit durasteel, knocking the wind out of him and he slid to the ground temporarily, wincing as his hand clutched his side.

"Still fighting dirty, I see," Quinlan grumbled before forcing himself back to his feet.

A blaster bolt landed just beside his head, filling his nostrils with the odor of charred hair. Quinlan's gaze darkened as he reached up to run a hand through his hair and felt the burnt 'lock, barely hanging on by a couple of hairs. With a scowl, he reignited his lightsaber that he'd managed to hold onto despite Akuna's unexpected onslaught through the Force. Apparently the man had learned some new tricks in his time with the Empire, doing whatever it was that he did.

"Hey, if you're aiming for something, try actually going for my head instead of my hair. It takes effort to keep this up. Can't believe you took one of my 'locks," he snarked, whipping his blade around in preparation to deflect another flurry of blaster bolts.

This time, he had no intention of trying to aim them away from Akuna.

"You took everything from me," Akuna sneered in response, walking almost calmly toward Quinlan, leaving him to stare down the barrel and up at the man that he always despised. "I had safety. My daughter had safety. If you would have just minded your own business and—"

"And what?" Quinlan cut him off. "Let you sell out one of the few of us left to the Empire so you could have your so-called safety? It was only a matter of time that whatever Imperial was stupid enough to work with you would have cashed in on the great Jedi bounty and retired on a tropical planet with one of those drinks that has the little umbrellas and a couple of hot women to keep them company."

"You wanna know whose fault it is that I found safety with the Empire? How I survived the Purge?" Akuna asked with a dark chuckle. "I aligned myself with Denvik."

Quinlan felt his eyes narrow, his grip reflexively tightening around his lightsaber. "You were working against us all along."

Akuna shook his head. "I was working for myself. When the council pulled me away from the syndicate work because of your concerns, they assigned me to spying for Denvik to feed them intel and try to put the Jedi one step ahead. Of course I sent them information like they requested...but trading a little intelligence of my own put me in a good position to keep breathing when the rest of the Order was eliminated."

It was Quinlan's turn to let anger thrum through his veins. He pushed himself away from the wall and straight at Akuna, extinguishing his lightsaber and electing to use his fists instead, the sickening crack of knuckle meeting bone echoing off of the cargo bay walls. He struck the man again and again, droplets of blood littering the scant space between them, from where exactly, Quinlan didn't give a damn. All he felt was overwhelming rage, at himself for relying on the Council to understand that Akuna was a threat, at Akuna for turning on the Jedi—his family—and at himself for wasting more than a couple minutes pushing Akuna's buttons when he'd been waiting years for this opportunity.

Maybe he knew better than to draw on the darkness when fighting like this, but right then, Quinlan wasn’t concerned with being the master of his emotions and there wasn’t a member in the Jedi Council still breathing to stop him acting on his the rage that Akuna so easily stirred within him.

Maybe he’s find time to feel remorse for his actions when Bode Akuna was no longer breathing, but Quinlan doubted he’d feel anything but relief  

Merrin knew from the first set of images they received that they would not be walking into a good situation, something that she'd prepared herself for. With great reluctance, she allowed the thought that one of their friends might be lost before they were found, and forced herself to accept the fact that she could not bring back the dead—at least not usually. Once she'd acknowledged the possibility of a potential loss, she busied herself with something more productive than dread and began sorting through the medical supplies that the Anchorites had loaded onto the Mantis II before their departure from Tanalorr. Using a lot of knowledge gained from Mira Bridger along with a few lessons that Hera personally taught her after they rescued Cal from the Jedi Temple, she found her mobile medbay pleasing and even felt some confidence in the setup. After multiple examinations and adjustments in her creation, she decided that it would be enough to help the sickest of their friends until they could return to Tanalorr and a proper medic.

At least, she hoped it would be.

Although she thought she'd prepared herself for nearly every scenario, including loss of life, not once had she considered that she might be working furiously to save one of her friends that was clearly on the brink of leaving this life while babysitting a bunch of reckless children.

The sound of Asajj carrying on in her hisses and growls as her nearly-dead sister pried herself from the strands of emerald tethering her to the deck next to the holotable was grating on her nerves and wearing away at the patience that she was already lacking. Somehow her sister was severing her tethers at a rate just quick enough that Merrin had to keep leaving Hera's side to re-materialize more to prevent Asajj from further complicating an already bad situation.

"You should let her fight," Cal called from the acceleration couch where he stood over Kanan with a glass of water in hand. "It would catch him off guard."

"Yes, that is an excellent idea, Cal. I will let my sister go and when she turns on us, you can explain to Vos why I cannot resurrect her after you panic and take off her head," she snapped back, not feeling the least bit guilty for the harsh tone of her voice. "And you," she said, turning her narrowed eyes on Kanan, "lay off the stims. Your heart will explode and I do not want to have to explain to Hera why you are dead when we pulled you off the ship alive."

"It's fine. A few stims never hurt anybody," Kanan grunted, much to the violent protestations of BD-1.

Of course, Cal would support the foolish man, too. "I mean, I've done more than that before and I'm perfectly fine."

"That is debatable, Jedi."

Next to her, the young girl that introduced herself as Kata, was pulling her back into the medbay and rambling off some more of her nonsense that Merrin was having a hard time making sense of in between babysitting the two idiot Jedi, her wily sister, the girl that Kata referred to as Sabine who was—

"You. Children are not allowed to have explosives on this ship. You will dismantle them and lie back down or I will take them away and you will find yourself in a similar position as my sister," Merrin growled at the girl.

Given the glare she got in return with an impressive amount of foul words muttered under Sabine's breath, she deemed that the child was a teenager. Perhaps later, she might find it amusing that Hera was harboring a teenager who could apparently construct explosives from their raw materials, but right now she was busy attempting to keep Hera alive. So long as everybody would let her.

Without paying Kata's frantic ramblings any attention, she ran back out into the corridor to check in on her sister who was most certainly coming up with a method to remove herself from the prison that Merrin created for her, much to her frustration. She threw up her hands and brought them down in an explosion of emerald, leaving Asajj tethered under hundreds of taut emerald strings.

The way things were unfolding, they would probably last about three minutes.

After conjuring up another set of tethers to keep Asajj busy, she rushed back to Hera and studied the small cuff around her arms that showed vital signs reflecting what Merrin already knew. She was losing her friend and if she couldn't get everybody to leave her alone or behave themselves, Hera would have no chance at all.

"Papa didn't hurt her!" Kata proclaimed, grabbing onto Merrin's arm again. "I mean, he did, but not like he hurt Kanan. He did this thing, he made it so she couldn't breathe or something but he wasn't touching her. She was bad before that, though! Kanan, he wanted me to give her these packets that were in the medkit. He told me to make sure she was drinking and to give all of them to her, even the ones meant for Humans. She's different than us! She has to drink more and she didn't eat enough, and that's why she's so bad."

Merrin shook her head, refusing to listen to a child's medical advice. There was surely more than a simple case of starvation and dehydration here. There had to be damage that she was not seeing. If she could not breathe, the lack of oxygen could have done some sort of internal damage, and the simple mask providing supplemental oxygen for her would most certainly do nothing to reverse that sort of trauma.

"BD, if that idiot Jedi has not wasted all of your stims, I need them over here, now," she called out to the droid, finally arriving at a decision that she had to try something rather than just sit there and watch Hera die.

"Don't!" Kanan called out, the sound of unsteady feet tromping down the corridor punctuating his desperate cry. "Kata's right. She needs fluids and nutrients. If you give her a stim, you're just going to finish what he started. Her body couldn't handle that right kind of adrenaline right now. It would kill her, Merrin. You have to trust me."

Pursing her lips, she looked down at BD who was waiting expectantly at her feet and she jerked her head back in the direction of the cot set up next to Cal's workbench. "Go. Watch the colorful one. Make sure she does not try to blow up our ship."

Chirping his agreement, BD dutifully activated his thrusters and landed on the cot next to Sabine, fixing her in his photoreceptors—and of course, scanning her collection of materials that, when assembled, would most definitely result in the need for a Mantis III.

Only after she placed two lines in Hera's arm, something that was vastly difficult given how incredibly frail her entire body seemed to be, including her veins, did she look up to see that Cal was hovering in the doorway of the medbay over Kanan's shoulder. She felt her face twist into a look of disbelief.

"What are you doing, Cal Kestis? You cannot leave Vos out there to deal with Bode alone. He will kill him!" she nearly yelled at him, frustration rising up in her from the complete chaos that seemed to have engulfed the ship as well as her inability to keep it under control.

Cal looked between those gathered in and around the makeshift medbay, the ones that she was already doing a perfectly fine job of keeping track of, and then back to her. There was a sudden look of urgency in his gaze as he ran, from the doorway. Afraid that her sister might have escaped, Merrin gave chance, only to see him rush into the cockpit in a seemingly frantic search before he came back toward her, smacking the controls to open each hatch of the cabins as he did. When she saw that Asajj was thankfully preoccupied, she left Cal to whatever it was that he was doing to turn her attention back to Hera, who could not wait much longer for her to deal with all of these distractions.

"What part of go, did you not understand, Cal?" she questioned in exasperation when she heard him come tromping back to the door of the engine room.

With a wide-eyed gaze and skin that had gone even more pale than usual, Cal said the one and only thing that could make an already bad situation worse.

"Merrin, where's Ezra?"

Sithspit.

Chapter Text

Cal rushed from the engine room to find the Lasat, Zeb, in the galley and eating anything he could find in the conservator. For all of the time that Bode had tortured them into submission and whatever the big guy had suffered, he looked the least affected by all of it. As a matter of fact, he looked strong to Cal, formidable, even. He couldn't help but wonder if it was because every time he saw an image of the man, even when he was bound in the cargo bay of the Ghost, he was reminded of his unshakable Master Tapal.

Now, being in his presence, Cal felt more than ever like his Master Tapal was back at his side. In some ways, it gave him strength. In others, it threatened to take Cal back to even darker days, but he couldn't let his mind go there right now.

Preferably not ever.

If they made it out of this alive, he couldn't help but think that he wanted the opportunity to talk more with the man, to ask how he seemed so unphased by all that he'd been through and maybe share stories of his Master Tapal. There was no explaining his unbidden urge to even thank Zeb for his presence, and the soothing comfort that it brought Cal, which would probably seem pretty weird to Zeb since the man had nothing to do with his Master becoming a Jedi. 

"Um," he started but then fell silent when large yellow eyes met his. Cal had to clear his throat again, swallowing down the lump that had been there since the Lasat boarded the Mantis II.

He tried to speak once again, hoping that his voice didn't waver or break. "You good to help?"

Zeb gave a grin and a flick of his ear that said he was looking for a fight but that wasn't what Cal needed from him.

"There's a kid that snuck onto the ship when we left home, he's ten...he's one of us. I mean, Force-sensitive. I had—"

"Yeah, I know who you're talking about. What about 'im?" Zeb asked, rising to his full height and stretching his arms above him—well as much as he could since the ceiling of the Mantis II was about two feet too low for the Lasat to really work any kinks out of his body.

"I had the incredibly stupid idea to ask him to help us get the girls out and I think he's gotten the incredibly stupid idea that he can fight this guy. I need to help Vos but I need somebody to find the kid before he gets hurt," Cal explained hurriedly, his words frenzied as he reached for the hilt of his saber at his waist. "Please. If you can."

"And 'ere I was hoping you were asking me to fight," Zeb smirked, but then nodded. "I owe the little guy, though. He got that thing outta my chest, er—sorta, anyway. I'll find ‘im. Just do me a favor?"

Cal was already walking toward the ramp with Zeb in tow. "Anything."

"Bring that bastard to his knees for what he did to Hera and Kanan."

"Deal," Cal replied before rushing out of the ship to help Quinlan with Bode.

Quinlan landed blow after blow on Akuna, bloodying the fallen Jedi's face and his fists, and he felt a delicious satisfaction with each sickening crack of bone on bone. Even better was giving the man a few seconds to recover, allowing him to spit blood onto the deck of the Ghost and right himself for a couple of seconds, only to start laying into him again. This man, this bastard, had turned on his own family, had pulled him away from Tanalorr, had disrupted the peace that Quinlan had finally convinced himself that he could to hold onto without wondering when it would come to an end. Bode Akuna didn't deserve the quick and easy death that Quinlan knew that he could deliver with his lightsaber—he deserved to suffer.

"You think I can't feel that?" Akuna sneered at him, staggering against the wall to push himself up, one eye starting to swell shut, much like he'd done to Jarrus' face. "You think you can hide that darkness from me? You know what I am."

"A traitor? A murderer? An Imperial?" he ticked off, drawing his fist back again to strike.

Akuna laughed, his hand curled around his side, where Quinlan hoped he had caused a couple of broken ribs.

"Strange that you call me a traitor and murderer," he grunted. "The names Akar-Deshu and Kav Bayons mean anything to you?"

Hearing those names again after so many years turned Quinlan's blood to ice in his veins and sent his thumb searching for the emitter switch on his hilt, but he didn't activate his saber, not yet. Instead, he bared his teeth, rage starting to twist his expression. "Shut up."

"You call me the traitor, a murderer, but it takes one to know one...doesn't it, Vos?" Akuna asked, having the gall to straighten his spine and broaden his shoulders, standing over Quinlan as he studied him with a judgmental gaze. "You killed them, our brothers in the Order, a long before the end of the war. Ironic that you call me a traitor when we know that there was a time that you were just as twisted as Krell. I don't need to be an empath to know you're driven by emotions, by pride, by an attachment to a dead woman held together by the Dark Side abilities of one of those witches of Dathomir. We're cut from the same cloth, you and I. The only difference between us is that I know what I am."

The cargo bay was set alight in a brilliant green as Quinlan's saber blazed to life and he lunged at Bode with a growl, ready to deliver the man's death knell. His blade came within mere millmeters of Bode's throat, the heat of it leaving a satisfying line of red that began to rise up in blisters. "I am nothing like you. I've seen the images, listened to your daughter while she told us that you left her down here to rot and die with the others because she wanted to help them."

If anything, Akuna seemed pleased with the turn of events, somehow strengthened by Quinlan's fury. The man chuckled darkly and shook his head, unaffected by the movement bringing his neck even closer to Quinlan's blade. "You had one thing right, Vos. The anger? That fury you're feeling? It really does have a tendency to make a person sloppy."

Before Quinlan could ask what the hell Akuna was going on about now, there was a brilliant flash of red, followed by a sharp pain low in his abdomen. His hand flew to the insult, eyes widening as he stumbled backward. In Akuna's hand was his remaining blaster, the end of it smoking.

"You son of a bitch," he wheezed before he fell backwards, striking the back of his head against the wall of the cargo bay.

The last thing he heard before the edges of his vision started to fade was Cal crying out his name.

With his blaster fully charged and lightsaber at the ready, Bode was finally poised to finish one of the men he'd loathed for the entirety of his life, a grudge that he held dating all the way back to their days in the Jedi Temple. The fact that he was one of Cal Kestis' saviors, one of the idiots responsible for turning Bode's life upside down, would simply make his death all the more sweeter. Before he could bring down his saber on the slumped over man, Kestis' voice drew his attention and he lowered his saber to his side.

Knowing that Vos wouldn't be rejoining the fight, Bode decided to leave the unconscious man for later. The delicious feeling of the man silently suffering from a carefully placed blaster bolt, one that wasn't fatal, was an unplanned but welcome incident, one he decided that he wanted to savor for a while. Finishing Vos after eliminating the rest of Kestis' friends would make this confrontation and the Kestis’ capture well worth the struggle. The rest of the motley crew meant nothing to Bode but his fight with Vos was personal and the man's death was something that he’d been looking forward to since he found that the Jedi had survived the Purge.

Why rush to enjoy his end?

With a demeanor that could only be described as jovial, he turned to face Kestis to see that the shorter man wielding two brilliant blue blades and an expression that could only be described as determination. No matter what facade the kid tried to put on, Cal could feel his anguish and guilt.

Good.

"Cal Kestis," he grinned, his voice dark. "You know, if you'd just faced what was coming to you on Coruscant, none of this would have happened. These people, your friends, they're suffering because of you. Their blood is on your hands."

"I hate to break it to you, banthashit for brains, but I'm not the one holding a blaster," he quipped, shifting his stance into one of a man ready to fight, even if there was a lazy drawl to his reply.

"I've got to admit, I didn't miss your mouth," he sneered at Kestis, keeping his blaster and saber at the ready.

Kestis shrugged, his green eyes sparkling with mirth that was so obviously feigned. "Guess that means that I won't be able to convince you to skip the part where we fight and we just sit down and talk things out, instead."

"Not a chance," Bode uttered and began to advance toward the kid, each step heavy and hulking, the pain of Vos' assault on him feeding into his anger and bringing him strength. He picked up speed as he flipped the settings on his blaster to the lowest charge, ready to stun the cocky son of a bantha, but he lurched forward unexpectedly and landed face first on the deck of the cargo bay. A sharp pain tore through his leg and he cried out. When he looked back he saw that a panel of the decking had been displaced, probably during his scuffle with Vos, he cursed in frustration before pushing himself up to his hands and knees.

Despite the momentary disruption in his intention to dispense the justice he'd long hungered to deliver to Kestis, the other man still hadn't moved to make the first strike. Even with his fake bravado, he could feel that disgusting Jedi placidity surrounding Kestis, laced with just a touch of concern—or maybe it was a touch of fear. Whatever the feeling, Bode didn't care enough to identify it, not when Kestis seemed unphased that his friends were about to die and that he'd brought them all to the slaughter.

"It's fine," the arrogant kid smirked. "Take your time. I've got all day."

Bode finally rose to his feet and then quickly fired off several rounds from his blaster in an attempt to catch Kestis off guard. He wasn't that lucky, though. Kestis easily deflected all of them with his dual blades, forcing Bode to quickly reignite his own saber and parry the bolts rushing back toward Kestis or out of his reach.

They continued on like this as Kestis began to draw Bode away from the ship, the pair engaged in an easy volley of blaster bolts, their respective blades crackling through the air with easy swings as they moved out into the open. Whatever game Kestis was playing at, Bode was happy to play along. It didn't matter where their fight took place because Bode had no doubts that he would emerge from this confrontation victorious.

As they came to a halt, Bode noticed that he was surrounded by three ships; the freighter that he'd hijacked, a heavily modified U-Wing that looked like it had seen much better days, and a luxury yacht, of all things. He had no doubt that the yacht was Kestis' ship and that the man who had ruined his life had been living in comfort all of this time. The sight of the ship was nearly enough that he wanted to end Kestis now but he knew that he needed him alive. Without the bounty on Kestis' head, the reward that some greedy Imperial would be happy to collect in exchange for Bode's safety, all of this would have been for nothing.

If he was going to regain the trust and the love of his daughter, the frustrating nuisance before him had to be breathing when the dust settled.

Bode worked to tamp down his rage, reminding himself that there were at least four or five other people, not counting the additional two that were stupid enough to join Hera's foolish quest against the Empire.

Forcing Kestis to look on while Bode ended his friends would be enough for now, especially when he knew that he was mere hours away from being able to turn in the fallen and soon to be broken Jedi, and he would make his return to a life of safety a hero, even under the rule of an Empire that would have otherwise wise continued to seek his ending.

Merrin did her best to control the shaking in her hands as she sifted through the crate of medical supplies. She knew that she needed to be outside fighting at Cal and Vos' side, the concern and intensity in Vos' tone when they first learned the identity of the man who baited Hera and her crew still clear in her mind, and the Jedi Master’s insistence how about how dangerous the former Jedi who turned Cal over to the Empire was muddling her mind, making it difficult for her to focus. No matter how hard she tried, she simply couldn’t silence her racing mind.

Vos and Cal, they needed her, but right now, she knew that wasn't an option. The cuff wrapped around Hera's frail wrist kept alarming, loudly proclaiming in an unending series of obnoxious chimes that she was failing the woman she'd long ago come to know as a friend—one that she hoped to grow closer to if this war against the Empire ever ended.

As though the young girl who looked exactly like her father could sense Merrin's distress, she stepped forward and placed her hand over Merrin's. Something about gesture was soothing, in a manner that Merrin would have once thought to be unnatural before she understood that such works could be performed through the Force. It was instantly clear to Merrin that the child was in no way like her father, at least not yet.

"I think she needs those ones, too," Kata spoke gently, pointing to a collection of fluids that were pale yellow in color.

Wordlessly, Merrin examined the label on the bag that the child pointed out and then looked back to the girl in silent question.

"Kanan, he kept telling me that she needed these packets on the ship...electrolytes, he called them. I think she needs the fluids but I think she needs those too," she explained. "Maybe something about how they work can have an effect on her heart and that's why her vital signs won't get any better."

Knowing nothing about how electrolytes, or the depletion of them, worked in one's system, Merrin had no argument to the contrary. Kanan told Merrin to listen to Kata and Hera wasn't getting any better with the fluids that Merrin was pouring into her at a rate that she'd already exchanged the bag twice. At this point, what harm could it bring?

Merrin plucked up one bag and then another, carelessly dropping them at Hera's side before searching for another kit to place yet another line. They were nowhere to be found amongst the mess of emptied supplies and her search became more frantic.

"Sithspit," she muttered under her breath, throwing the trash to the ground in the hopes that it would reveal an unused kit. Certainly the Anchorites would have packed more than a handful of the kits in anticipation that Hera's crew would all need this type of therapy…if not the rest of them, too.

Before she could growl in frustration or turn to tear through the crate full of supplies, a new set came into view, held by the same little hand that had pointed out the fluids with the additives.

"Here," Kata offered, her voice still steady. "I can try to do it, if you want."

"Nonsense, child. You have no idea what you're doing," Merrin waved her off after taking the proffered kit.

"Actually, I think she does," the colorful teenager spoke up from the corner, her voice little more than a rasp. "She started one on me."

Incredulous, Merrin turned to look and see that Sabine was indeed hooked up to a bag of IV fluids, the girl's color already remarkably better. "How?"

"I just watched you," she answered, looking down at the ground, her light brown cheeks warming slightly. "I know that they need you out there. I can help Hera."

"And if you cannot do this?" she questioned. "I refuse to let my friend to die."

Kata straightened her posture suddenly, something about Merrin's words seeming to stir something within the girl. "And I refuse to let my Captain, my friend, die," she spoke, her statement exuding unexpected confidence. "If I can't get another line in, she already has two. I'll just use one of those. We need to leave and get her to a real medic that can help her. My papa, he's angry...the longer it takes for your friends to stop him, the less time she has. Right?"

Before Merrin could answer, the scratching and guttural noise of her sister drew her attention to the doors of the engine bay. In all of her panic, she'd forgotten about her sister's deteriorated state. Without Vos there to understand what she was saying, if she was saying anything at all, Merrin could only try to interpret Asajj's body language. Really, she didn't necessarily trust herself to comprehend any of it or even understand how Vos could. Her sister had always lashed out in the past when Merrin had been driven to wake her, always no more than a few weeks after the chant of resurrection had worn off to allow a cruel ending to once again take its toll on Asajj's body, turning her into just another one of Merrin’s undead sisters.

"I think she wants you to fight, too," Kata said, seizing Merrin's concern to pull the kit from her hand.

Merrin looked down at Kata and then back up to her sister whose deadened gaze was fixed on Hera. She felt her brows pinch together as she fixed Asajj in her gaze. "You...you recognize her, don't you?"

Asajj obviously couldn't answer her with words, but there was something about the way that her sister was standing with a nearly protective posture at the head of the cot that felt like a confirmation to Merrin.

It didn't make any sense. Her sister had never remembered anybody before, her memories always limited to Vos and the people she knew before she died. After rescuing Cal from Coruscant, when Asajj began to fade from this life again, Vos returned her to the living waters, slipping her back into what should have finally been the eternal slumber she earned. Despite her promise not to wake her sister ever again, Merrin's hand was forced when they needed her help in a fight against a Gen'dai warrior who swore his allegiance to an ancient Jedi that held the secrets to Tanalorr—a fight that neither Hera nor Kanan had ever been a part of.

The discovery that she was able to continue living on Tanalorr with no trace of the despicable fate that she met in her first life was purely happenstance, but the effect that the planet had on Asajj lasted for years, even allowing her sister to gracefully age as though nothing had ever happened.

But now was not the time for trying to understand how Asajj could possibly remember Hera.

"You will not harm them," Merrin said to her sister, the words less of a command and more of a threat.

Asajj's wordless response, coupled with the exaggerated flailing of her arms, that appeared to be shooing her away seemed like the kind of sarcastic response that her sister would give in normal circumstances.

From Merrin's other side, Kata nudged her. "It's okay, I promise. You can go."

Warily, Merrin looked up to Sabine who also appeared to be completely unaffected by her sister's haggard appearance. "You, with the explosives," she called, her tone more confident than she felt. "You have my permission to use those if she steps out of line."

Sabine snorted and stopped what she was doing with the materials that Merrin specifically told her to leave alone to produce two blasters from holsters on her thighs. "I'd rather skip blowing the ship up since we're on it, if that's okay with you."

Merrin felt one corner of her mouth quirk up at the girl's response.

Perhaps Hera's choice of crew members wasn't as questionable as she first thought.

Ezra watched from his displaced grate in the floor cargo bay of the Ghost as Cal and the really bad guy disappeared from sight. He waited for a few minutes, listening to the hum of lightsabers clashing and a blaster firing way too much—really, hadn't one of the things he was taught in classes that the Jedi didn't use blasters?—until he was sure that they weren't coming back in his direction. Once he was sure that he was in the clear, he jumped out of the floor and kicked the grate back into place.

Master Vos was laying against the wall, not looking so good with the way that his dark skin was sweaty and his chest was heaving with each breath.

Since his mom was a medic, Ezra had seen his fair share of blaster wounds and even watched her attend to them before. Those types of injuries became way too frequent when the Empire had taken over the city and started hurting innocent people. Most of time, his mom could take care of simple wounds with a couple of injections that she referred to as stims, but sometimes if the people who needed help waited too long, they needed other things, too. Those kinds of wounds were way more complex and things he didn't really care to learn about, but he didn't mind helping her with the shots, especially when she had more than one person who needed to help—something else that happened a lot before they were forced to leave Lothal. 

In a weird way, it was kind of fun to see how quickly the medicine helped his mom's patients, and he always figured that's why he liked giving the shots for her. Now that he was a little bit older, he started to realize that part of it was also because he liked the way it made him feel to help people. The things going on in the Galaxy were bad but when he was doing work with his mom, he was doing something good to counter the bad things that the Empire was doing.

He begrudgingly acknowledged to himself that the dumb thing about serving others was the lesson that his Masters and mentors were trying to teach him about the purpose of the Jedi before he decided that he didn't want to be a Jedi, that he just wanted to go back to Lothal.

Maybe, possibly, when they got back to Tanalorr, he'd try to be better about staying in class so he could somehow learn to do more good. That part about doing good things was kind of impossible though, especially when he was stuck on a stupid planet where everybody was safe. Even if he wanted to help his mom, the only people who came in to see his mom were people who got hurt in training or were having babies and stupid stuff like that.

Every once in a while she'd get somebody sick and offer to let him help but those people were usually the kind of sick that scared him.

Ezra wanted to help people before they got hurt that badly, like he helped Kata and Sabine.

And maybe like the people with regular blaster wounds.

Deciding that maybe there might be a first-aid kit in the ship somewhere, Ezra decided to forget his original objective for a minute and he scurried toward the ladder when something lying on the ground caught his eye—two small syringes with red caps on the ends.

"Stim shots!" he exclaimed, a little louder than he intended to.

Without waiting to see if he'd accidentally drawn any attention, he ran across the bay and grabbed them, and then went back over to Master Vos. There was no hesitation as he uncapped each one and jabbed the injections, one right after another, into the grumpy Jedi Master's arm. Once they were spent, he ran back over to his grate and pulled it aside to drop the evidence into the vent before pushing it back into place. It took less than a minute before Master Vos' moans subsided and his breathing eased. For a second, Ezra thought he should wait until Master Vos was more fully awake and back on his feet but then he remembered why he was really on the ship, and he scampered back over to the ladder that led up to the catwalk overlooking the cargo bay.

The hatch was closed due to the really angry and definitely dangerous looking droid that, according to Cal, belonged to the Twi'lek Captain, but there was another grate that he could crawl into. He was sure that it would get him farther inside the ship so he could find what he was looking for. From down below, Ezra heard Master Vos use a whole lot of words that his mother would feed him an entire bowl of ahrisa for using, and he jumped back against the wall, crouching down in the corner so he wouldn't get caught and sent back to the Mantis II.

As he settled down into the corner and willed himself to be unseen, he heard the slightest crack beneath his foot. Ezra shifted slightly, scooting his foot over to reveal a small device that looked like a remote, save for the fact that it only had a single button. He smiled to himself at the discovery. 

At least he didn't have to deal with that killer astromech now.

Kata tapped her foot impatiently, watching as the bag of fluids labeled electrolytes dripped into Hera's veins too slowly, but the instructions on the label were clear—it couldn't be given too fast. She didn't know why it couldn't be given as quickly as the other fluids that didn't seem to be helping, and in spite of the fact that she knew this was what Hera needed, she knew that she couldn't ignore the label either. Somehow she knew that doing that would hurt the woman that she cared about so much and she made Merrin a promise. Her eyes turned to the other bag that was clear, seeing that it would need to be changed again soon.

"Another one of the clear ones, please," she said to the weird looking woman who couldn't speak with words.

Merrin felt afraid of her for some reason, Kata could sense it before she left to join the fight, but Kata didn't understand why. The woman was kind and caring, full of a kind of light that Kata couldn't describe, and she saw no reason to fear her because of that. When she extended another bag to Kata, she smiled faintly up at the woman who kind of looked like she should have, maybe, been dead.

"Thank you."

The woman made no noises or gestures in return.

In the corner, Sabine, who was more curious than concerned about the woman's presence, finally spoke up. "She's wearing a lightsaber. I think she's a Jedi, too. A really weird Jedi."

Asajj, Kata thought that she'd heard Merrin call her, decidedly did not like that assertion, her previously less threatening noises turning into something that sounded like an angry tirade. Even though her actions said one thing, there was something about that light within the woman that seemed to shine brighter, and Kata knew that while the woman cared about Hera and promised Merrin to look after the three of them, that her place was elsewhere.

After changing out the bag of fluids, she reached up to take Asajj's jerking hand, drawing the woman's attention.

"We'll be okay," she promised Asajj. "I'll close the hatch and make sure it's locked. If you have one of those, I know that you want—no, you need—to fight."

The woman stilled, clearly hesitating, her gaze that looked kind of curious but mostly worried, shifting from Kata to focus on Hera.

No sooner than her eyes landed on Hera, the constant chiming of the cuff around Hera's wrist stopped, momentarily panicking Kata. She let go of Asajj and rushed to examine the readings on the cuff, hoping that she hadn't failed her newfound crew, Merrin, or herself. A wide smile broke out across her face and tears sprang to her eyes. She looked up at Asajj, who had moved from the doorway to her side, and she could tell that Asajj understood what the readings meant without Kata saying a word.

Kata nodded anyway, unafraid to let Asajj see the tears slide down her cheeks. "See? She'll be okay, I promise. Please go. Please make my papa stop this so we can go somewhere safe and Hera can keep getting better. Please. I want this to be over."

This time, Asajj jerked her finger at the door and rattled off something that sounded like a vague threat if the girls didn't stay in the makeshift medbay, even if Kata could tell that she didn't really mean any harm.

"We're not going anywhere. I'll close the hatch and I'll lock it, I promise," she paused for a moment and looked around until she found a clear space of bulkhead and thumped out a pattern against it. "I'll close the hatch and keep it locked until I hear that knock."

For good measure, she repeated the pattern.

Asajj repeated it back to her.

Smiling, Kata nodded.

Placated by Kata's quickly improvised plan, Asajj moved really fast for somebody who looked the way she did, leaving the two of them alone. Just like she said she would, Kata closed the door and activated the lock that would prevent anybody from entering from the outside, or at least she thought that's what it looked like it would do. Her eyes turned back to Hera and then shifted to Sabine.

"Is it weird that I'm just a little bit jealous that she looks that creepy but she's still really cool?" Sabine asked, turning her attention away from the components that Merrin had definitely told her to quit messing with for a moment.

Kata felt herself smile just a little bit, even if she didn't really feel like smiling or joking, knowing what was probably going to happen to her papa. "I think that maybe she's not supposed to be like that normally, but I could feel that she's still good."

Silence lingered between them for a few moments before Sabine spoke again, this time with her eyes fixed on whatever device she was building. "And your dad? What about him?"

Tears burned at the corners of Kata's eyes but this time, she refused to let them fall. It made her heart ache to tell the truth but she couldn't lie to her new friend—or herself.

"I can't remember the last time that I felt any goodness from him."

There was no hesitation in Sabine's reply. "They might have to kill him, y'know."

"I know," she mumbled, turning her attention back to the bags that were going into Hera's veins and the cuff that had finally stopped chiming. All of the readings were still good, seemingly pleasing the small device. Kata didn't want to think about what might happen to her papa right now, especially when she'd already lost her mama, but then again, it had felt like her papa had been gone for a long time, too. Maybe it would be better if he really was gone, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much if she knew he was with her mama, and maybe she would be able to breathe easier if she didn't have to always feel all of the darkness inside him.

What she didn't understand was why she hoped that the papa she used to know was somehow still in there and that somebody would be able to save him.

Refusing to look at Sabine, she continued speaking and wondered if her new friend would be able to work out from her words that maybe she wanted things to work out differently, that she wasn't necessarily ready to accept that her father would be gone from her life forever. 

"I can feel the good in Asajj, in all of them. I know that, no matter what, they'll do the right thing."

Kata didn't care to admit out loud that she was afraid to find out what the right thing was. 

Cal remembered the lessons that he'd learned as a youngling, how emotions like rage could fuel the power of somebody Force-sensitive, that those negative feelings they were taught to avoid like fear and fury could lead to the Dark Side, but he'd never seen those lessons so strongly demonstrated in his life—not even in the Inquisitors that he'd fought. The Inquisitors, a group of fallen Jedi or Force-sensitives that the Empire twisted and tortured into their bidding, drew their power from the fear driven into them and the agony of the methods that the Empire employed to bend them to the will of the Emperor under the guise of safety. Even those who wanted to step back into the light were terrified to, afraid of the Sith Lord, Darth Vader, and meeting their ends.

Bode Akuna was different, though, his emotions were so much more complicated than something as simple as pain. Cal wasn't sure how to explain it or understand it, but he was nearly positive that he didn't want to.

The pair had been trading blows and dodging attacks for what felt like an eternity, and the initial barbs they exchanged were quickly lost, replaced by more animalistic noises and gasping breaths. Nothing was slowing the man down, not the injuries Quinlan had inflicted, not the few punches Cal was able to get in, and definitely not the graze along his side from one of Cal's sabers.

If anything, the physical insults only seemed to fuel the man's frenzied attacks.

"BD, I could really use another stim," Cal managed to grind out, the kiss from Bode's blaster along his right shoulder starting to burn to a point where it was slowing him down.

In response, his trustworthy companion spat out an abbreviated version of binary littered with some colorful words informing him that Cal probably shouldn't have let his friend use up all the stims BD could store if he thought he was going to need more than one.

Cal groaned, not necessarily from the pain, but because he knew that Merrin would never let him hear the end of this if she found out about it.

"Maybe we just keep this a secret between the two of us, okay little buddy?" he said under his breath.

Apparently noticing his momentary distraction in conversing with BD, Bode must have decided to seize the moment, Cal feeling the wind suddenly knocked out of him as he was laid out flat on his back. For a second, he thought that maybe he'd been stunned by one of the shots from Bode's blasters until a great weight came crashing down atop him, further driving him into the rocky and hard ground. Cal's eyes shot open to find the hulking man over him, and he began pushing his feet hard against the surface beneath him, struggling for some sort of purchase to liberate himself from the guy who was easily twice his size. Abandoning the hold he had on his sabers, he reached up to claw at the large forearm that was firmly braced against his neck, effectively cutting off his airway.

If he survived this, Cal was definitely going to make sure that Kanan heard about using up all but one of his stims.

The overcast sky above him seemed to grow brighter, flooding his vision in a brilliant white, streaks of lightning disrupting Cal's vision, and the frantic kicking of his legs started to slow. Drawing on the Force as best he could while still fighting to breathe, Cal worked to focus his strength into his arms, bracing his hands against the man's forearm and heaving with all of his might. Bode went sailing out of his sight, leaving Cal to cough and sputter on the ground, frantically fighting to catch his breath. He knew that he couldn't afford to stay down for long.

Cal clawed blindly at the ground beside him until he found his temporarily discarded lightsabers and then he forced himself back up to his feet, swaying slightly as he stood. Just then, an explosion of emerald fire appeared at his side and he let out a loud sigh of relief. The beautifully terrifying vision of the woman he loved appearing from a haze of green smoke was always a welcome vision but never more so than in that moment.

"Told you to make Kanan lay off the stims," she remarked dryly, pulling her dagger from its scabbard before transforming it into a lethal spear with a simple flourish, the deadly weapon alight in her magick.

"You would have to overhear that," he grumbled without looking at her. "Trouble is still on the loose but I've got it covered. I think."

"One problem at a time, Cal," she stated flatly. "Preferably the smaller one first."

"Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think the bigger problem will wait for that," he replied, motioning his lit saber toward Bode, who appeared to be fully recovered from Cal's Force push, if the speed at which he was barreling toward him was any indication.

"If you believe Bode to be the bigger problem, you're clearly suffering more from your injuries that I initially thought," Merrin smirked and then grabbed onto Cal's arm.

Even at his strongest, Cal knew that he'd never get accustomed the stomach turning experience of being unmade, torn from reality—especially without warning—and then dropped back into time and space a heartbeat later. He was also smart enough to know that no amount of pleading with the woman he loved so much would ever convince her to at least try and remember that he needed just a little bit of notice before she pulled that stunt.

For now, minus the fact that he was this close to losing his lunch, he was grateful for her abilities. Especially when they were now behind Bode and the big oaf was just standing there, stupefied.

"I hope you're ready for this," he muttered to Merrin. "He's as bad as Quinlan said he was."

"When have I not been ready for a fight, Jedi?" she asked, spinning her dagger, leaving sparks of emerald in the wake of its tip.

With the pair of them making no effort to keep their voices low, it didn't take Bode long to spin on his heels, his nostrils flaring when he spotted them. As furious as he was, the man didn't fail to comment on Merrin joining their fray.

"I suppose that I should thank you for bringing all of your friends and making this job so much easier for me."

"Technically, you brought a couple of them for us," Quinlan called out from the ramp leading into the cargo bay of the Ghost. Cal couldn't help turning his attention to the man, nor did he miss the blaster sized bolt that had burned into his tunic, but the flash of skin beneath that appeared to look healthy. He glanced up questioningly at the Jedi Master, although his attention was focused solely on their opponent.

Bode must have noticed the same thing Cal had because his face grew a comical color of crimson with rage. "How?"

"Let's just say I had a little help," Quinlan replied, his expression haughty, even as he slid his gaze to meet Cal's.

Ezra.

He knocked his hand against Merrin's, trying to silently relay to her that she needed to get inside that freighter and poof their troublesome—but admittedly helpful—problem back to safety but she shook her head.

"There is no time, Cal. We need to end this," she hissed beneath her breath. "He doesn't know what Vos is referring to and it is safer to keep it that way."

Knowing that Merrin was right, Cal drew in a deep breath and tried not to curse Kanan and the fact that he used up BD's supply of stims. "Right," he replied on a heavy exhale. "Then let's end this and go home."

Before Bode had the opportunity to rush them, his attention obviously split between he and Merrin on his left side and Quinlan on his right, Cal watched as Asajj unexpectedly appeared behind him.

Bode cried out in agony as she left four jagged gashes in his shoulder, tearing away his flesh with her spindly fingers. Before the raging bantha had time to react to her sneak attack, Asajj had already darted back out of his reach with the absurd speed that still sent shivers down Cal's spine, her attack quite vividly reminding him of his first visit to Dathomir and one of his not-so-friendly welcoming parties.

Quinlan seized Bode's temporary distraction, using the Force to yank the man's blaster out of his hand. He didn't waste a second before destroying the thing and dropping it to the ground in two steaming heaps before he looked pointedly in Bode's direction. "Let's see how tough you really are without your toys, Akuna."

Cal watched as Bode boldly advanced forward, further surrounding himself by the four of them, rather than turning to address his still unseen attacker or charge toward Quinlan. Dread began settle heavily in Cal's gut, coupled with a prickling cold sensation that traveled over every inch of his skin.

His unease did not go unnoticed by Merrin. "Cal?"

Not daring to look toward her for even a moment, Cal tightened the grip he held on his light sabers. He watched closely as the man reached up to his shoulder and then pulled his fingers away from the bloody gashes to examine his fingers. A dark chuckle echoed throughout the colorless canyon that surrounded them as he looked up from his hand, wearing a twisted smile. Bode slowly turned between the four of them, drinking them in with bloodshot and sickly yellow eyes, the man emanating a new and far deadlier intensity than just moments before.

"So," Bode started as he reignited his lightsaber, the deadly crimson blade only serving to emphasize his blood thirsty expression, "which one of you wants to die first?"

Chapter Text

Years.

It had been years since that deadly day on Dathomir when the man in the mask with his deadly golden gaze and army of droids struck down her sisters one by one until only she remained. In those early days of loss and suffering, her dreams were relentlessly haunted by the blur of his blue and green lightsabers as he removed the limbs and heads of her sisters, of the way that their bodies hung lifelessly with his weapons of light skewered through their midsection, and how he so carelessly tossed them aside before moving onto his next victim. For years after the ruthless destruction of her homeworld and the elimination of her family, it was the lightsabers that caused her to violently wake from sleep, crying out for her family to run and hide, that they could not win the fight against this monster.

And then Cal Kestis happened to her, the foolish boy that was full of hopes that were far too big for one being found his way into her life, sought out every crack in her soul and softened her long-hardened heart. The violent flashes of blue and green faded from the nights when trauma still tormented her dreams, replaced only by the unnatural yellow gaze of the cruel monster that left her alone on Dathomir, surrounded by stifling silence and the dismembered, beheaded, and charred corpses of her sisters.

How had it been years since that unspeakable day and the vision of acrid yellow eyes tainted by unfathomable hate still caused her hearts to begin to race and beat out of sync, leaving her paralyzed with a fear that she'd never be able to put into words?

Hell had broken out around her.

Cal, Vos, and her sister took turns fearlessly launching themselves at Bode, one after another, only for each of them being carelessly flung away with a simple flick of the wrist, and still she could not bring herself to move. Her brow had broken out in a cold sweat and the necklace that hung at her neck, the one Ilyana—her first love—made for her, suddenly felt too tight, as if it was trying to cut off her airway, causing her to clutch at it frantically so that she could tell them all to run while they still could. The words would not come and the fools she had come to think of as her family would not stop fighting until they got themselves killed.

Merrin had seen all of this before and she knew exactly how it would end.

Why couldn't she force the words past her lips?

Those eyes, that contemptuous yellow gaze, found hers and suddenly she was thirteen all over again, overwhelmed by an all-consuming need to run. There had to be somewhere she could conceal herself, that she could withdraw into a world all her own until the fight was over, and she was left to stand alone in the ruins of another life lost to the most inexplicable of evils in the Galaxy. Again, she began to claw at her necklace, but this time the feeling that she couldn't breathe felt too real, and distantly she registered the sound of her own struggle to draw in even the most shallow of breaths. Her eyes moved away from Bode's and she saw the way that his fist was closed around the air, his grip simultaneously tightening around nothing and her neck, and for the first time since the man rose from his knees, transformed in his hatred, she began to fight.

Only, Merrin's fight was a desperate attempt to cling to life, rather than any sort of meaningful action to end the life of the man who had tried—and might still possibly succeed—in killing the people she loved.

"Mer!" Cal's voice sounded too far away, too broken to do anything to stop the inevitable, and she felt her poor and pathetic fight against Bode's invisible chokehold begin to seep out of her muscles.

She'd failed without even trying.

In what she was certain were her final moments in this cruel life, Merrin's eyes flitted about, desperately seeking out the man who saved her from the darkness that Taron Malicos enshrouded her in, wanting one last glimpse of her love. Just as her hearts started to slow in her chest, she watched as her sister wrapped herself around Bode, driving her fingers so deep into the man's neck that his blood appeared to start gushing from beneath Asajj's unrelenting grip. Merrin dropped to the ground a mere second later, gasping for air and fighting back the tears that burned in her eyes, trying to shake the image of her fallen sisters from the forefront of her mind.

"Mer!" Cal cried out her name again, but this time it was accompanied by the sound of the dry ground shifting beneath her, the soft vibration of him skidding to a stop at her side. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her into his steady embrace, his hands probing along her body, probably looking for some sign of physical injury although she'd done nothing more than stand frozen in place like a fool waiting for her turn to die.

She tried to shrug him off, but he would not let her.

"It's okay," he soothed, holding her tight. "Hey, look at me. I need you to look at me, Merrin. I need you to breathe."

Her eyes turned up to meet his, those soft pools of emerald that she fell for too easily, and she found herself clutching at his now-filthy tunic, as if holding to him would help her find and maintain some sort of grasp on reality. Each time he told her to breathe, she drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs back up with the dry and stale air that surrounded them until finally, the world stopped spinning. Without letting go of Cal, she pushed herself up to her knees.

"It's okay," she echoed, two simple words burning like fire through her throat.

Merrin could tell by his expression that there would never be a need for her to elaborate on what had so easily caught her off guard, that he'd never make her say it aloud, because he already knew. Her Jedi, born with a map of the stairs ingrained in his flesh that destined him to carry the weight of his galaxy on his shoulders, was simply like that. He was more intimately familiar with the broken images of her  nightmares than he was with his own.

Cal's hand fingers twined with hers as he helped her to her feet. "Be here with me, Mer. Stay with me."

Drawing in a deep but shaking breath, she nodded. "Always."

He gave one final squeeze of her hand before letting go although he remained at her side.

Bode was a monster, of that much she was certain, but it had been years since the man with putrid yellow eyes had taken her family away from her, years since she lacked the power to stop that loss from happening. That day was in the past, a day that she long ago decided need not define her, but she would never forget it.

She may have lacked the power to prevent the loss of her sisters before but today?

Today was different.

Merrin would sooner lay down her life than allow history to repeat itself, but she knew that she would not need to.

Together, they would stop this, and possibly lay to rest the fractured memories of a life gone by with the death of Bode Akuna.

The great thing about stim shots were that they soothed injuries and helped heal up the idiot who decided to get themselves hurt in the first place. Caleb Dume had seen them in action before—on Kardoa, Mygeeto, and Kaller—and exactly how many of the injections the Clones could tolerate. Now that Kanan Jarrus had tested the mettle of the stims on himself, he realized that he never had time to pay attention to whether they simply acted as a stopgap for the men's injuries until the medic could intervene or if they actually rejoined the fight.

If he'd realized that the injections used in such excessive quantities would leave his body in better repair but increase the racing of his heart and further rob him of what energy he'd managed to muster in the cargo bay to get to Hera or the sudden burst of insistence that got him back to the engine room to deter Merrin from using the stims on Hera in her fragile state, he wouldn't have used so many of the damn things. He laid on the acceleration couch of Cal's grossly luxurious ship, eyes closed as he strained to hear what was going on in the engine room but it was quiet, too painfully quiet. Certainly, the soundproof doors that led to the ship's inner workings were partially to blame for that, but it wasn't noises he was listening for.

Hera was quiet and it was driving him mad.

Kanan had lost track of the time when a very concerning version of Asajj staggered past him, leaving him alone on the ship, but every minute of it had been spent in a special kind of agony that had nothing to do with his physical condition. It took forever, pushing himself up from the couch and then stumbling across the ship to the hatch that would lead outside, his legs steady but his head swimming from what he assumed was a lack of blood or maybe just the effects of being malnourished and dehydrated—probably a little bit of both. The ramp proved to be a formidable foe as he descended it and it wasn't until he was lying flat on his back halfway down the damn thing that he realized that both his blasters and lightsaber weren't on his person.

Some Jedi he was.

Did he really even want to be a Jedi, though?

No.

Not right now.

Probably not ever.

All he wanted right now was to be able to get onto his feet and join the struggle that he could sense from the ship's galley, but here he was, stuck on the ramp and shivering under a cold sun. Some Jedi he was. Some husband he was. Some leader he was. None of this should have ever happened to begin with but since it had, he should have been able to at least mount some sort of response to the sorry bastard that did this to his crew.

I should have just laid on the acceleration couch and slowly bled out, he thought to himself.

That would have been more helpful—and a lot better—than lying on the ramp and listening to Kestis bitch about not having any stims.

"I'm getting too damn old for this," Quinlan muttered to himself, struggling to peel himself off of the ground after Bode threw him into the side of his own fucking ship. Although he hadn't taken the opportunity to do any sort of damage assessment, he was fairly certain that there'd be a Kiffar-sized dent in the hull when he got around to it.

As if the Bastard wasn't in bad enough condition to begin with.

With an outstretched hand, he called his lightsaber from wherever it landed until the hilt was solidly in the palm of his hand, and forced himself to turn his attention back to the fight in spite of his broken and aching body loudly protesting that decision. When he glanced up to find that bastard Akuna, a grin split his face when he found Asajj wrapped around him, formidable in every way and quite literally tearing chunks out of Akuna's flesh every time she got an opening. He'd always known that the woman he loved was absolutely terrifying and not one to be trifled with, but it was a bit of a turn on to watch her so effectively slow down the ass that Quinlan had wanted to end since the moment he'd learned he was alive.

If not end, at least beat into a pulp, although the longer this fight went on, the more that Quinlan wanted to dispatch Akuna to the worst of the seven Sith hells.

"Are you starting to understand what the hell I was going on about?" Cal yelled out over the cacophony of Asajj's constant and vibrant stream of cursing and Bode's fruitless struggle to shrug off her onslaught.

"Nope," Quinlan answered, igniting his saber. "If you think there's a problem with that, you clearly need your head examined. She's doing better than we are and she looks damn good doing it."

"Then perhaps we should follow her lead," Merrin, who finally snapped out of whatever trance she was in, chimed in.

"I'm open to suggestions," he shot back, although his attention was focused on Akuna, who'd finally gotten a grip on one of Asajj's arms. "Sooner rather than later, preferably."

Merrin, who must have noticed that Asajj's attack was starting to falter at the same time he did, brought her hands up from the ground, hundreds of emerald strands appearing from thin air. Each strand snaked its way around a different part of his body; his arms and his legs, his chest, his shoulders—and perhaps most satisfying of all, his neck. For now, the spell or ritual or whatever thing she wanted to call it was working, but if Asajj could break out of a few of those strands with minimal effort, Quinlan was fairly certain that it wouldn't take long for Akuna to tear his way out of them.

"Correction, I'm open to suggestions that will end this shit," Quinlan spat, closing the distance that Akuna had so forcefully put between the two of them.

"I don't see you doing anything useful!" Merrin snapped at him. "Cal?"

Quinlan didn't turn to look at the kid but he could sense the conflict practically oozing from his pores. That was the problem with these kids that hadn't seen anything outside of the war; death scared them too much. They were too young to understand that sometimes it was the only means to an end, no matter how much the Jedi openly preached against violent acts until they couldn't, leaving a bunch of abandoned and traumatized kids in the wake of the war. Then again, it probably wouldn't have been the Council's brightest move to teach a bunch of teenagers with too much time and power on their hands, kids that were doomed to be alone in the Galaxy, that sometimes getting their hands dirty was going to be a necessary part of the job.

Resigned to the fact that he was going to have to deal with Akuna, and not exactly displeased with the fact that he was going to have to be the one to ultimately take care of this problem, Quinlan drew back his lightsaber to strike.

Unfortunately, Akuna picked that precise moment to prove that Quinlan was always right, easily snapping out of Merrin's trap and then throwing Asajj over his shoulder in a fit of rage.

He supposed that Asajj was a more preferable choice of ammunition compared to the charge of the man's now-obsolete blasters, but it didn't mean that getting struck in the chest was any less comfortable.

"Fuck," he groaned, his hands coming up to rest on some part of her body. "As much as I love being beneath you, it's gonna have to wait until we're headed home, Asajj."

Asajj snorted derisively at him and less than playfully shoved him back into the dirt, using him as leverage to push herself back up to her feet. "Then get your hand out of your pants and start fighting," she sniped. "Idiot."

Grinning like an idiot, her idiot, Quinlan started to follow suit at Asajj's bidding when a sudden flash of red came rushing at him from above. He threw his hand up over his head, hoping to lose no more than a limb, but the cowardly attack never landed. When he looked up, he saw the golden blade of Asajj's lightsaber crackling against Bode's crimson blade, but he didn't take long to marvel at the sight, knowing that Akuna easily had her outmatched in brute force.

Quickly rolling out of the way, he started to frantically search for his lightsaber once again, tired of having the fucking thing knocked out of his hand by being sent on unexpected flights across their entirely too-small battle ground or, more preferably—in his opinion—having his girlfriend thrown on top of him. Just as he spotted it, at least five meters away, he could hear Asajj's blade finally falling to Akuna's. He abandoned his attempt to retrieve his lightsaber again, and dove for the man's knees, knocking the dick into the dirt before he could bring any harm to Asajj.

"A little help here!" he yelled over his shoulder.

Another set of tethers materialized from Merrin's fingertips, this time winding their way around his body, the scene reminiscent of a corpse being prepared for burial. A moment later, the ground began to open up, apparently intent on swallowing Akuna whole—a funeral that Quinlan could definitely get behind. Although the plan that Merrin had apparently settled on without consulting the rest of their team was working, he couldn't resist the urge to work in one last sucker punch, his fist making satisfying contact with Bode's jaw.

It didn't take long for him to realize that he probably should have checked in with the rest of the gang before indulging in some improvisation.

Anything that fueled Akuna's rage only strengthened him and Quinlan absolutely should have known better, but he also didn't think that the subpar Jedi he once loved to hate could have ever broken free from being actually swallowed up by a planet, at least not until the man's hand was wrapped around his neck. At least Akuna was giving him the courtesy of actually using his hand if he was going to try to strangle the life out of Quinlan, as opposed to that underhanded Sith shit that he tried pulling with Merrin, allowing him to fightback against the man's stranglehold.

Quinlan reached out with both hands, his arms just long enough to allow him to press his thumbs into the inner corners of Akuna's eyes, causing the man to cry out—a deep and guttural sound ripped from his chest—and Quinlan's fingers pressed harder until finally, Akuna let him go.

The second that Quinlan was safely back on the ground, a sharp dagger whizzed over the top of his head and lodged itself into Akuna's right arm, causing the man to drop his lightsaber. Without a second thought, Quinlan scooped it up from the ground and jumped to his feet to turn the man's own weapon against him.

It was time for this fight to be over and Quinlan couldn't think of a sweeter way to end it—

—unfortunately, for all of them, it seemed like Cal had different plans.

Cal admittedly hadn't done much fighting since the others joined the fray, outside of getting tossed around and helping Merrin back to her feet after Bode lashed out, nearly taking the woman he loved away from him. He knew that Bode was not a good person and that the Galaxy wouldn't exactly mourn the man's loss, but there was one person who would—a girl that was too young, too strong with the Force, and far too impressionable to be dealt that kind of pain at such a young age. True, her father had clearly pushed her into unspeakable things in his quest for revenge, using her as bait to draw in Kanan and Hera before locking her up with the bait Bode knew would draw him in, a punishment for the girl having such a pure heart.

This was wrong. It was wrong and no matter how much Cal didn't want it to be, he knew that it was, and he couldn't let it stand.

If he'd waited one moment longer to intervene, before bringing up his lightsaber to halt Quinlan's clear intention of removing Bode's head with the man's own lightsaber, the fight would be over and they'd be going home. This was wrong, though, and Cal knew that it didn't have to end this way. It was pure intervention of the Force that he'd managed to stop Quinlan just in time to give the man trapped by a prison of his own creation another way out of this fight, if only for the girl safely tucked away aboard the Mantis II, a girl that was probably already sure that her father was going to die.

Although he couldn't understand Asajj like Quinlan could, it was clear that she was displeased with this turn of events, but Cal held his hand up.

"It doesn't need to end like this," he said, his voice steadier than he felt. "We aren't like him. There has to be another way."

"It doesn't have to end—are you crazy?" Quinlan snapped, applying just a little more pressure behind Bode's blade, the crackling crimson of Bode's blade sparking against the brilliant blue of Cal's. "Have you forgotten the part where he turned you over to the Empire and the fact that we've all risked our lives twice now because of it? Did you forget that you have friends on that ship that still might die, even if we walk away from this?"

Cal shook his head, offering no response as he studied Bode, the man hanging his head before his shoulders started to shake. At first he couldn't tell if the man was laughing or crying, but then he lifted his gaze, the brown eyes that he remembered still notoriously absent, distorted by that sickening color of yellow, and he spat blood in Cal's direction.

"Aren't you just the good little Jedi?" he uttered, blood and spittle dripping down his chin. "I bet you wouldn't be so noble if it was my lightsaber at your neck, would you?"

"Maybe not," Cal agreed, his concession soft. "But that's not the case right now, is it?"

"Would it make you feel better to be the one who ends me? To be the man who rips my life away from me again?"

"I didn't take your life from you the first time, Bode," Cal answered, keeping his gaze fixed on the other man's. "And I won't take your life now. There's another way out of this."

Merrin's hand curled around his arm, threatening to draw Cal's attention away from Bode. "Are you hearing yourself, Cal? This man tried to kill you, he's tried to kill all of us, and he still might succeed in Hera and Kanan's case."

"And this man has a daughter!" he argued. "He has a daughter aboard our ship, looking after one of our friends, and maybe he's already lost her, Mer...but what if he hasn't? You and I, we know what it's like to lose our family. Are you really prepared to do that to her? Because I'm not."

"Oh, but I will," Quinlan chimed in. "You don't know him like I do, kid. This man is well beyond the potential for redemption. If there were any other Jedi left in the Galaxy to back me up, they'd all tell you the same thing."

"But there aren't," Cal replied evenly. "Maybe he's not worthy of a chance but we're not making that decision until he has a chance to prove us wrong. Put the lightsaber down, Quinlan."

"Fine," he muttered, letting the red blade extinguish. "But for the record, I think you're an idiot."

Asajj rattled something else off, something that Merrin readily responded that she agreed with, although Cal damn well knew that she had no idea what her sister was actually saying.

Bode chuckled, rising to his feet as he shook his head, making no attempt at distancing himself from the tip of Cal's lightsaber blade. "They're right, you know. You are an idiot. This fight won't be over until one of us is dead and—"

Out of nowhere, Bode's cried out in a guttural noise, a wordless curse of immense pain, as he went unexpectedly tense. Moments later, small streaks of blue electricity coruscated over every inch of his hulking frame. The smell of charred flesh and hair filled the air around all of them until Bode collapsed to his knees, the fight clearly gone from him as he twitched uncontrollably.

Cal, confused by the sudden turn of events looked up toward the cargo hold of the Ghost to find Ezra peeking out from the ship, a small remote in his hand. Next to him was Zeb, his expression darkened by a wide and wicked grin, the Lasat clearly waiting his turn for the device in the boy's hand. He was so distracted by the sight of their so-called bigger problem, that he hadn't noticed Kanan limping up from behind him, until he was shoving past Cal to get to Bode. His first impulse was to grab Kanan until he noticed that he was unarmed, at least save for his fists.

Making what Cal decided was an acceptable use of BD's stims, the meds just enough to apparently help him finally drag himself off of the Mantis II, Kanan threw a right cross hard enough to cause Bode's neck to audibly crack, sending the man to the ground.

"That," he growled, "is for Kata."

Kanan drew his left foot back, wobbling as he did, but miraculously not falling over.

"And this, is for Hera," he uttered in a menacing tone before driving the toe of his boot into Bode's gut hard enough to make the man forcefully expel a small bit of stomach content onto the scorched earth beneath him.

After that, Kanan dropped to the ground next to Bode, such little exertion claiming what little energy he had in reserves and his consciousness along with it. Still, Cal couldn't help but chuckle at his friend who must have just been waiting for a chance to get a crack at the man who had brought so much suffering to his crew. He had a feeling that even if Kanan hadn't been unarmed that he wouldn't have resorted to his less violent means of joining the fray, even if temporarily. Cal tried not to think about how he might react when he came to and found out that Bode was still breathing.

"Are you sure it is wise to laugh at him before you check to see if his heart is still beating after the foolish man used so many stims?" Merrin questioned with an arched eyebrow.

Cal waved her off, "He's fine. Like I said, I've used way more than that before."

From Cal's shoulder, BD chirped a reluctant—but chiding—agreement.

Zeb stepped off the Ghost, dragging Ezra along by the shoulder and clutching the remote that was almost comically small in contrast to his massive hand.

"So...is it finally over?" Ezra asked, looking every bit the kid who knew he was about to spend a week in the nekko pens when they got home.

Although he couldn't say for sure, Cal nodded anyway, trying to force a smile onto his face for reassurance as he answered.

"Yeah kid, it's over."

Chapter Text

Quinlan rubbed his temples, trying to alleviate his massive headache after dealing with the logistical nightmare of moving three ships with only two pilots. They were all well aware that Hera's beloved freighter had some sort of technology that allowed her to mask the signature and signal of her ship but none of them knew how to activate it. Try as they might, and Quinlan tried a little bit more harshly than Cal would have preferred, there was no waking Jarrus long enough to get a coherent answer. Hera's homicidal astromech wasn't exactly interested in helping, either.

As for Hera?

Well, he would leave it to the youthful and stupid optimists to hope she would be clamoring out of her bed anytime soon to assume control her ship, the Twi'lek woman looking closer to death that Asajj ever had—even when she actually died in his arms after Dooku's brutal assault. Akuna's kid insisted that it was a simple case of dehydration but it was easy for anybody with eyes to see that there was something a little more serious going on, especially when her vital signs weren't exactly the picture of stability.

It was probably a good thing that Jarrus wasn't really coming around quite yet, all things considered.

He found himself thinking as they argued about the best way to get back to Tanalorr that bringing Akuna down—at least temporarily—might have been the easiest part of this hellish experience, but finally they agreed that Cal could dock the Mantis II through one of the Ghost's airlocks and fly Hera's ship back to Tanalorr. Whether or not the kid could actually navigate the Abyss with such a cumbersome setup remained yet to be seen. Maybe it was possible, though. Quinlan had only traveled the damn thing twice and something about the compass opened up the deadly Koboh matter to travelers in possession of the peculiar device, as though the deadly nebula could sense the intentions of those brave enough to risk the trip, welcoming another group of Force-sensitives that sought protection from the evils of the Empire.

Just when Quinlan thought that they were all squared away to finally make the trip back home, Kata had looked to all of them with large and pleading brown eyes, insistent that Jarrus and Hera should be moved from the Mantis II and Merrin's somewhat impressive setup for a mobile medbay onto the Ghost instead, citing that when Hera woke up that she might get scared if she was on a ship she didn't recognize. Even though they were all exhausted, she'd come up with a surprisingly halfway-decent argument for a girl of just eleven years old, and not one of them had the strength to resist her pleas.

It didn't hurt that she'd all clung to them, weeping, thanking them for not killing her Papa without giving him a chance to get better, especially when they were all well aware of how close they'd come to ending the fight definitively until Cal intervened. As much as Quinlan wanted to shrug her off, guilt gnawing at him since he was ready to end Akuna more than the others, he couldn't bring himself to do it—just like he couldn't tell the kid no when she wanted to waste just a little more time moving Jarrus and Hera around.

Fuck, he'd gone so soft in his old age.

What should have taken half an hour at most ended up taking two under the direction of a mouthy thirteen year old girl that had draped herself over Kata's shoulder to keep herself upright, sneering at all of them with the kind of bravado that only a Mandalorian could carry herself with, asking them if they were stupid when they tried to set up the cots and supplies in the cargo bay since it provided the most space. It might have made sense that they wouldn't want to come to, if they did, in the cargo bay, but the smart mouthed teenager had definitely earned a large portion of the credit for his massive headache.

Getting the supplies up into the lounge was easy enough and Hera felt damn near weightless as Quinlan was tasked with moving her to the newly set up bay, but Jarrus was another story. Although he was a shadow of the man he remembered, he was a hell of a lot heavier than he looked and it ultimately took both he and Cal to move the guy with Zeb otherwise occupied babysitting Akuna. All the while, Quinlan maintained that they should have just smacked the dumbass awake so he could haul himself up the ladder, but Merrin and surprisingly Asajj felt the need to argue with him over that idea. He was pretty sure that Asajj was arguing with him simply for the sake of having something else to bitch about.

As for Merrin, she was just pissed that Quinlan had asked her to poof him up to the lounge and refused to entertain any requests for her help after that, especially when a weary Cal couldn't stop giggling like a damn schoolgirl for the poorly-timed revival of that joke.

Once the eleven year old had been placated, the thirteen year old tucked into her bed, and the ten year old strapped firmly into the cockpit with Cal and Merrin, Quinlan returned to the peace and quiet of the Banshee's Bastard. Zeb had made himself comfortable, practically sitting on top of Akuna's prone form, the fallen Jedi a mess of dried blood and bruises, burns and insults that could end up killing him despite Cal's nauseatingly noble intentions in keeping him alive. When the Lasat cracked one eye open and granted Quinlan a small grin, opening his palm to reveal the remote for the electrodart that Ezra had slammed into the man's leg when he tripped him up in the cargo bay of the Ghost, Quinlan smirked.

Nobody, not even Cal, reprimanded the Lasat for delivering a few extra jolts of electricity through the crude device when it struck his fancy.

"Just to make sure he's actually down," Zeb had grinned toothily while he explained himself, showing absolutely no remorse for his actions.

After that, Quinlan decided that he liked the big guy and maybe, sort of, hoped that he'd stick around Tanalorr once he saw the place.

It wasn't like the man wasn't the last of his kind, too.

Certain that Akuna was in capable hands, and wouldn't be a problem for the return trip to Tanalorr, he made his way up to the cockpit where Asajj was only somewhat impatiently waiting.

In the aftermath of their fight, it was easier for him to see how much the battle had taken out of her, but he still couldn't see what the others were so insistent about. Yes, she looked a little bit worse for wear, and yeah, those fucking bolts of lightning still streaked her skin, but underneath all of that she looked normal to him. He didn't doubt that she was still in there, whatever thing they thought they saw, because she was standing right in front of him.

They were all crazy.

She was still, and would always be, his Asajj.

So why was he worried as he pulled her into his arms, enveloping her in a too tight embrace, as though if he let go he'd be letting her go forever?

The woman he loved held onto him just as fiercely, murmuring endearments that rarely spilled from her lips because they never needed to say the words aloud. They knew that they belonged together and their love was one meant to last forever.

Mustering the last ounce of strength he had in his weary body, Quinlan pulled back and ran his hands over her pale blond hair before pressing his lips against her forehead in a lingering kiss.

"Come on," he murmured, taking her hand. "We need to get home but I'm not taking off until you get some sleep."

"Since when are you in charge, idiot?" she asked, her smoky voice drawing up one corner of his lips into a half smile.

"Starting now," Quinlan replied, guiding her into their cabin. "Your command resumes after you've rested. There's no way in hell that I'm flying all the way back to Tanalorr on no sleep. You're going to have to take over at some point."

Asajj gave him a dubious look, one that alluded to the thing they were both thinking, but Quinlan refused to acknowledge it. She was fine, she would be fine, and the memories that they'd been able to make together wouldn't be lost because of Akuna.

Quinlan would not lose her.

He'd never lose her.

Maybe it wasn't what he wanted for them, but he tried to remind himself that the worst that could happen is that they'd have to start all over again. Then he thought that it might not be such a bad thing if that were the case. If they did have to start from scratch, she wouldn't remember the dumbass things he'd done in the past few months. She wouldn't remember those years he wasted in avoiding Tanalorr when they could have been together. The worst case scenario for them was one in which Asajj would have to work on finding something new to constantly bitch about since she wouldn't remember the litany of things she had to throw in his face at her fancy.

It didn't stop him from hoping she'd keep getting to add to the list she already had.

They'd spent years making those memories and he wasn't ready to give them up.

After hours spent placating the thing around Hera's wrist that could not seem to make up its mind as to whether or not it was concerned about her condition, Merrin thought she had finally won the battle of wills with the frustrating device and closed her eyes to drift off into a light nap when it began alarming again. She cursed, loudly, forgetting that there was a very concerned eleven year old girl sitting next to her that was stubbornly awake despite being told to go lie down innumerable times. After casting a sidelong glance in Kata's direction, she sighed heavily.

"I don't suppose you have any other suggestions since Hera does not seem to be happy with the fluids and these electrolytes you thought would fix her?" Merrin asked, trying not to sound too blunt in her frustration.

After all, it wasn't the girl's fault that Hera was like this.

Kata glanced up at her with a brown gaze that was a confounding mixture of sad, exhausted, hopeful, and scared before turning to look back at Hera. She drew in a deep breath, the grip she held on Hera's limp hand tightening, and in a way it seemed like she was trying to talk to Hera...or maybe just listen. After several minutes spent in silence this way, the girl's brow furrowed and she jumped up from the seat where she'd been sitting so attentively over Hera.

"She hurts," Kata said, sounding more frustrated than Merrin had ever heard the girl, even when she was less than keen on entertaining an eleven year old's medical advice. She jumped to her feet before Merrin had time to react, her hands poking and probing along Hera's body, trying to find any obvious wounds.

Merrin narrowed her eyes, performing her own assessment from a distance. There were spots on Hera's wrists that they already attended to with bacta and bandages, ugly wounds caused from the binders that Bode had applied too tightly. Kata had been so insistent no other physical harm had actually come to Hera that Merrin never considered that she needed to check more thoroughly for evidence of that. She'd merely relied on the word of a child.

Absently, Merrin ran her hand over her throat, thinking of how Bode had wrapped an invisible hand around her neck and cut off her airway. Unfortunately, she now knew from experience that such an action inflicted a type of injury that could not be seen, only felt, even long after suffering that kind of brutal assault. There was no way of telling how long she'd truly been in the man's grasp, but it felt like an eternity, and she was going into that confrontation healthy—if she could still feel it, what if there was some sort of internal change? An injury that would be far more damaging to Hera in her compromised state?

A startled gasp drew Merrin's attention away from the dark thoughts and back toward Kata's frantic search for whatever they were missing.

"Sithspit!"

Contradictory to the gravity of the situation, Merrin found herself having to hold back a small smile.

"Perhaps it is best that you refrain from using that type of language until you are older," she spoke gently, rising from her seat to examine whatever it was that Kata had discovered. Her hand came to rest on the girl's shoulder as Merrin focused on what Kata was pointing to—some very foul looking wounds at the end of Hera's head tails.

"I should have seen those," Kata said, her voice breaking. "I don't even know how they got there."

Kneeling next to Kata, Merrin reached out to take her hand. "I did not notice them either. You cannot blame yourself for this. If not for your bravery, she would not be with us now. Maybe none of them would be. You must not forget that, yes?"

With obvious reluctance, Kata nodded.

"Alright then. Why don't you grab some more bacta and bandages to clean those up while I try to reach our medic back home? Perhaps one of those patches for treating a fever, as well. It will take some time until the message can reach my friend and we receive a response but perhaps by then we will not need it since we have had your gifts and keen eye to help us."

The remarkably resilient girl nodded and then went about the new task given to her, whatever tears of frustration that she may have wanted to spill forgotten now that she was tasked with a new purpose.

As Kata went about her work, Merrin glanced down at Hera, doing the best that she could to quell her concerns. Worry would do nothing to alleviate Hera's ailments and if a mere child could pull herself together so easily, there was no reason that Merrin could not do the same.

Cal hung his head between his shoulders, doing his best to work out the tension that had been there for the better part of two weeks to no avail. With Kanan and his crew aboard, the time required to travel back to the opposite side of the Galaxy and the safety of Tanalorr was no shorter than it was when they departed on this mission, but it sure as hell felt a lot shorter now that they knew they were safe. Or mostly safe?

Were any of them safe?

The sound of rustling beside him caused him to lift his head, and where he expected to find Merrin settling into the co-pilot's seat, he found Kanan instead.

Although Kanan had steadily become more fully alert over the past couple days, he hadn't moved much from his cot next to Hera, stubbornly laying at her side and ignoring offers of food or drink while he fixated on her. Apparently, Merrin's vague threats had done something to coax him out of his cot, but Cal wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not.

Compared to Hera, Kanan looked to be the picture of health, his wounds far better healed than hers thanks to his unrestrained use of stims, an intervention none of them felt comfortable trying with Hera giving her precarious state. He still looked nothing like the man he remembered from Jedha as they parted ways, the friend that he'd built a house for, a home that he longed for them to occupy. Despite the fading bruises and healing lacerations, his friend was still pale, thinner than normal, and obviously exhausted with dark circles beneath his eyes. Worry weighed down his shoulders and tension tightened his jaw in a manner that Cal had never seen in him during the few times they managed to sneak a call over the holoprojector.

Even a shower, a change of clothes, and the destruction of three razors to get rid of the laughable amount of overgrowth from his typical neatly trimmed goatee could not conceal that he was a long way from being fully recovered. It was a difficult notion to reconcile, but Cal couldn't help but think that Kanan probably would have been better off if he was in the same condition as the woman he loved, blissfully unaware of the gravity of their situation until it was hopefully improved.

He knew that he should probably tell him to go back to bed but Cal decided to forego the lectures.

That part was better left to Merrin, who probably should have worded her threats better so that Kanan didn't mistake her words to mean that he should be up and staggering about the ship.

"You gonna take it personally if I tell you that you look like crap?"

Kanan snorted softly. "I still look better than you on your best day."

"If you say so," he smirked before glancing at the tattoos that presumably ran the length of his arm, although Cal could only see a portion of them peeking out from the olive colored, long-sleeved shirt that Kanan had pushed up his forearms. "I know that you said you managed to smooth talk her into all of that, but honestly? I didn't believe it. Especially since you wouldn't send proof over holo."

A crooked grin brightened his expression fleetingly. "You'll never believe what I talked her into whenever we were both pretty sure that we wouldn't see the other side of this thing."

Cal huffed, knowing the answer wasn't at all what he wanted it to be. That didn't stop him from asking. "Laying low on Tanalorr until this whole thing with the Empire blows over?"

Kanan chuckled. "I might be smooth but I'm not that smooth. I'd be surprised if she doesn't snap out of this before we get there and demand control of her ship back so we can get back to work, run some supplies to the Outer Rim or something. I keep waiting for her to wake up and remind me that I never got around to checking the calibration on the Phantom's steering before everything happened."

Heavy silence settled over them for a few moments as Cal searched for something to say. He was well aware of how sick Hera appeared to be and that Merrin had managed to pass along a single message to Mira. The response was less than encouraging, a simple statement that indicated that the best they could do is have a bacta bath ready when they all arrived on Tanalorr, and for Merrin and their eleven year old medic to continue whatever it was they'd been doing in their attempt to mitigate her symptoms in the mean time.

That was assuming that they actually knew what was wrong with her. Kata and Merrin, they weren't experienced with any of this. It was the word of an eleven year old empath and an incredibly frustrated Nightsister running on very little sleep and a whole lot of anxiety.

Now that Cal thought about it, maybe the trip didn't feel any shorter now that he knew that he'd gotten Kanan and Hera away from Bode. It still felt like a race against the clock and impossible odds. If Greez had been there, he would have told him to cut his losses and fold while he still could, to get out of the rigged game.

The problem was that death was a far more formidable foe than a couple syndicates with too many bounty hunters in their employ and giving up was a hell of a lot more expensive than a ship or a limb. No matter how hard Cal fought, or how carefully he played his hand, death wasn't an enemy that could always be defeated. Maybe he'd won the first hand on Coruscant but it was starting to feel like the chips weren't going to fall in his favor this time around.

"This shouldn't have ever happened," Cal finally spoke up. "You're both out here, risking your lives to fight the Empire, and I'm safe, in hiding, with nothing to lose because the people I love are right there with me."

"Ouch. And here I thought you cared about me, too," Kanan deadpanned.

"You know what I mean."

"I do," he sighed, lifting his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "If this is some sort of attempt to try to convince me to talk to Hera, drop it. This isn't going to change anything."

"No?" Cal asked. "The two of you, your whole crew, could have died. All they know right now is that you're a handful of troublesome renegades. If they actually figure out what you are, then what? Bode figured it out and you weren't running all over the Galaxy waving your lightsaber around. What happens when the Empire figures it out? What then?"

"Then we'll figure it out," he answered, like it was just that simple. "You know as well as I do that Hera is stubborn."

"Yeah, stubborn. I hope she's stubborn enough to make it back to Tanalorr and get through whatever that is." Cal scoffed and then instantly recoiled at his own words.

"If there's anybody in the Galaxy stubborn enough to get through whatever that is, it's her." Kanan's voice had turned cold. "Speaking of stubborn, wanna tell me why the fuck that man is still breathing and why the hell you're hauling him back with us? Decided you need a little population control back on your hidden paradise?"

Cal felt his face blanch, irritation rising up in him. It was the same question he'd been asking himself for days but that didn't make it any easier to hear coming from Kanan. He swiveled his chair to face the man he considered to be a friend—a brother, even. "I think we both know why he's still breathing."

"She would have been better off without him," Kanan muttered, meeting Cal's gaze unflinchingly. "The things that he put Kata through, that's going to haunt her for the rest of her life."

"And his death wouldn't?" he countered. "Maybe he's beyond help but Merrin said she's already lost her mother. I think after everything she did for your crew, for us, that we owe it to her to give him a chance."

"A chance," Kanan echoed incredulously. "A chance for what? He sold you out to the Empire, Cal. He used her as bait to lure us in, to drag you back into a fight so he could do it all over again. You gonna just keep him alive until he succeeds? Or are you just going to wait until he hurts Merrin to see that he's way past the point of redemption?"

"He won't hurt anybody else," Cal insisted irately, finally looking back out into the blue and white swirls of hyperspace. "We have means of containing him. Even if we didn't, he has no way of getting off Tanalorr without help."

"Fine. You can contain him. He's stuck on your little planet where he can only hurt a few people," he replied, his voice noticeably colder. "Then what? What do you do when you figure out that he isn't going to change? You think it's going to do her any good to keep her father locked away forever? That it's going to somehow make her feel better to know that he's breathing even though he's still a monster?"

"I don't know!" Cal finally snapped, slamming his fist against the console. "I just knew that it was wrong, okay? We weren't raised to end lives, Kanan. That's not what we were supposed to be."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kanan shaking his head in disbelief.

"Maybe you should have thought about that before joining up with Gerrera and doing his dirty work. Seems to me that you didn't have a problem forgetting the virtues they crammed down our throats before they shipped us off to war when you were running around and waving your lightsaber for everybody to see, playing the part of the big hero until you couldn't."

Cal grimaced. It was another harsh truth that he was well aware of, one that he didn't really need to hear from his friend. Although he knew better than to keep going, exhaustion and guilt and the nagging feeling that he'd made the wrong choice had fully taken over any ounce of common sense he might have had, along with his ability to just keep his mouth shut.

"And maybe you should learn a lesson from my mistakes and quit letting Hera drag you all over this Galaxy for Fulcrum before you end up in the same position I was in. How long will it be before Fulcrum has you pulling the same stunts I did? Risking your life for a Galaxy that's still falling apart no matter what you do?"

Kanan shoved himself out of his seat and started to storm off but then stopped to turn around. "Maybe you've forgotten after all of the time you've had to build a peaceful life where you can pretend the Empire doesn't exist, so I'll remind you: the position you're in right now? The fact that you're breathing? It's because I decided to follow Hera all over this Galaxy while she was running jobs for Fulcrum. It's because I agreed to go back to Coruscant when Hera didn't want to risk it after Fulcrum asked me to do it. My wife wouldn't be in the condition she is if I'd listened to her to begin with and you? You'd be dead."

Without another word, Kanan stormed out of the cockpit, leaving Cal alone with his guilt.

"Yeah," he muttered weakly to himself, letting his head hang once again. "I know."

There wasn't anything he could do to take back what he'd done now. All Cal could do was hope that his life, or his choice to keep Bode alive, wouldn't carry the price tag that he was starting to fear that it might.

Chapter Text

A sharp gasp jerked Cal from the light sleep he'd fallen into and he bolted upright, knowing the source of the distressed sound immediately.

Merrin's nightmares weren't like his, they never had been.

Where Cal would unfortunately talk in his sleep and fitfully kick his limbs about with his nightmares, Merrin's could only be likened to that of a person condemned to suffering their agony in silence, her terrors never allowed for more than a strangled gasp or quiet tears. Although Merrin wasn't necessarily immune to terrors in the night, hers didn't seem to come as frequently as his, as though accepting that her past didn't need to define her gave her some sort of freedom, a shelter from the calm in the storm.

At least, until it didn't.

Cal gathered Merrin up in his arms and brushed his lips against her forehead, easing her gently from sleep. It was another one of those differences in their dreams—Cal couldn't bear to be held down in his terrors, the very action adding to the harrowing memories of the bloodthirsty clones pursuing him through the corridors of the Albedo Brave, making his body think that he'd been captured. For him, all it took was the light touch of her hand against his, a brush of her fingers over his cheek, and it was enough to quiet the dreams until she could pull him out of them with her words or her kisses more completely.

For Merrin, her memories were that of running for her life, of everybody that she'd ever known and loved collapsing to the ground at her side with blood pooling around their bodies until she was the only one left. In her nightmares, as well as the reality they were born from, there was nobody to hold her, no soothing embrace to take away her pain, so the safety and warmth of Cal's arms was the exact thing that she needed to ease her pain—and it provided the added bonus of giving her a place to bury her face until her tears finally stopped falling.

After the novelty of the purely physical aspects of their relationship wore off, Cal and Merrin had to learn how to talk to each other. He was already being haunted by nightmares of Coruscant and faced with a new crop of nightmares brought about by the discovery of another surviving Jedi that brought about more pain and left him feeling even more devoid of hope than before. Merrin was being haunted by the tinny, mechanical voices of the Separatist battle droids that wandered the mostly-barren planet. It might have taken them a few weeks to figure it out, but there were only so many times that they could resort to sex as a means of avoiding their past traumas...not that they didn't exhaust every avenue possible before realizing that talking would be the only way to work out their demons, and so they finally started using their words.

Cal rarely let a day pass where he didn't find himself thankful that she insisted that they needed to stop holding to that which pained them rather than allowing themselves to be consumed by darkness. If it hadn't been for her persistence, he would have never been able to adjust what little he had to life on Tanalorr, trying to convince himself that he felt as though he had a purpose in protecting Force-sensitives by empowering them with knowledge. It was because of Merrin's love and her enthusiastic encouragement that he could trick himself into believing, if only on occasion, that he still had a purpose in the Galaxy. Although he knew that he should, he'd never really gotten around to telling her that most days he still struggled with feeling like he'd given up on the person he was supposed to be. Maybe he would when they got home.

Possibly.

Right now, that conversation didn't matter.

The discussion that did matter at that particular moment was the one in which he discovered that it was no longer the flashing green and blue of lightsabers that troubled her when the memories of her murdered sisters caught up to her, thanks to a certain naive boy with no sense of self preservation whatsoever who tossed her his lightsaber. Even now, his face still warmed when he recalled the way that she told the story of how they first met, but the desperate clutch of Merrin's hand around his light shirt pulled him away from his reverie. He didn't have to ask her what had brought about the fresh crop of nightmares that had been haunting her since they left Codia I, not when he'd seen her reaction to the putrid yellow of Bode's eyes, that same acrid color of General Grevious' gaze, hidden beneath a mask that made him look like the personification of death coming for her people.

Rather than letting out the sigh that wanted to escape his body, he murmured her name and pressed another tender kiss to her forehead, followed by a whispered reassurance that everything was okay.

Nothing was okay.

This, like what had happened to Kanan and Hera, was his fault.

He couldn't pinpoint an exact point where everything had gone wrong, one time that he wished he could return to and change the events that unfolded to prevent things from happening the way that they did, mostly because there was just so many things he'd done wrong. Dying on Coruscant wouldn't have made it any easier for her. Not getting captured meant that Quinlan and Asajj wouldn't have found each other again. Never going their separate ways meant that he never would have allowed himself to acknowledge the fact that he loved Merrin the moment he laid eyes on her.

Or, pretty close to the moment he laid eyes on her. Maybe the second time that he laid eyes on her, when she wasn't quite so dead-set on ending him.

Then again, she was really pretty, even if she was really pissed off, too.

Cal had to admit, if only to himself, that he really did love her the moment he laid eyes on her.

Merrin shifted in his arms and he pulled back to look down at her. He didn't bother asking if she was okay because they both knew that she wasn't, just like he wasn't. Instead, he dipped his head and kissed away the tears at the corner of her eyes, pressed another kiss to the tip of her nose, and then finally pressed his lips against hers. He smiled against her mouth faintly, unable to help himself.

"This seems vaguely familiar," he whispered into their kiss, remembering the first time they kissed each other was when they were aboard the Ghost after making their escape from Coruscant.

"That it does," she agreed before nipping at his lower lip and then pulling away. "You have not slept in days, my Jedi. There is something troubling you."

Cal frowned, decidedly much happier with their lack of discussion given the amount of time they'd been traveling coupled with how long it had been since they were together. He finally gave into his withheld sigh. She might have been good at making him talk but it didn't mean that he necessarily wanted to, especially right now, and for more than one reason.

He knew that she wouldn't let him get away with remaining silent, either.

"More than one something," he admitted quietly. "Kanan is mad at me and understandably so. I'm mad at him for all the wrong reasons. And...I keep questioning if I did the right thing with Bode."

Gentle hands came up to cup his face lovingly, the soft pad Merrin's thumb tracing over the seam of his lips. "Do not question your decision, my Jedi. You have always been able to see the good in people when it isn't obvious to most."

"You questioned my decision," he pointed out, trying to sound light-hearted about it.

"I did," she nodded, "but I do not question your heart."

The question that weighed mostly heavily on his mind found its way out of his mouth before he could battle it back. "And what if I'm wrong? What if he hurts somebody on Tanalorr?"

"Then we will deal with him," Merrin shrugged, as though the answer was obvious, and the solution not quite so final.

The daunting knowledge that Bode might still need to be eliminated had crossed Cal's mind more than once, but there was something vastly more grotesque to him about the notion of taking a man's life outside of a fight, to take the life of man deemed to be beyond redemption, rather than simply eliminating the problem while he could still defend himself.

It wasn't something he wanted to think about until he had to.

"I don't suppose Quinlan sent any word before you came to bed?" he asked, changing the subject.

"I have not. I'm certain that Bode is well-contained with our new Lasat friend," she answered, pulling him back down against the mattress with her. Once she was settled on her side with her arm draped across his waist, he pulled her more fully against him, wanting the comfort of her body against his.

"Strangely enough, I wasn't even thinking about Bode," he chuckled darkly at himself. "I guess it's kind of dumb to think that you won't be making a trip to Dathomir after we get things settled back home."

Merrin grimaced slightly. "I cannot make sense of it. My sisters, save for her, never attacked me on Dathomir because I am one of their own. The same has never held true for Asajj, in the rare instances that I ever let her reach that point. Something is different about her and yet it is clear that her state is deteriorated."

"Not if you ask Quinlan," Cal huffed.

"I do not believe that he is blind to what she is," she said bluntly. "I am not certain that he even understands her like he claims to. The man has consumed too much jet fuel in his lifetime."

Unable to help himself, Cal laughed. "Come on. It's possible. I'd still love you, even if you became one of your undead sisters."

"No, Cal. You would be absolutely terrified of me."

Cal shook his head, a genuine smile tugging at his lips when he realized that the woman he loved so much had eased his pain by simply being. "You'll never let me live that down, will you?"

"When have I ever been merciful, Cal Kestis?" she murmured, nuzzling her nose against his, her eyes becoming half-lidded as the distance between their mouths closed.

"Right now, I hope," he rasped, his lips barely brushing hers with each word, their limbs starting to tangle in an effort to eliminate any space left between their bodies. Cal's fingers skimmed beneath the edge of her shirt and then higher, drawing a shiver out of her as his rough fingertips blazed a trail along her smooth skin and soft curves, expertly tracing out the tattoos that only he got to see from pure memory.

"I can—" Merrin started and then stopped, her words breaking on a whimper when he dared a little higher, fingers barely brushing the curve of her breast beneath her shirt. He stopped and she continued, her tone shifting into that mewling tone she shared only with him. "I think mercy is in order."

Her statement was as much of a plea as it was permission.

Cal gripped her waist and rolled onto his back, pulling Merrin along with him until she was straddling his hips. He surged up to kiss her while blindly grasping at the edges of her shirt, tugging at it impatiently, even if he wasn't quite ready to break off their heated kiss to pull it over her head. As a result, he'd gotten pulled only halfway up her back, but it worked for now, especially since that gave him a new expanse of her flesh and tattoos that he could trace out until he was sated by the feverish kiss neither one of them seemed eager to end.

The sound of soft thumping and a dragging noise above them drew a frustrated groan past both of their lips, rapidly and effectively breaking the temporary spell they'd fallen under.

"Let it be known that I am not the one without mercy today," Merrin growled, extricating herself from his arms and then climbing over him to get out of bed with a scowl that was terrifying and fists clenched at her sides. "Your suffering is due to the rodent infesting this ship."

For a fleeting second, Cal considered calling after her to at least have a little bit of mercy on Ezra, but he opted against it. The trip home still felt too long and their departure from reality was far too fleeting, especially when he knew that he needed to mentally prepare for Merrin leaving Tanalorr almost as soon as they returned, headed for a trip to Dathomir to restore what had been lost in their fight with Bode.

Just this once, Cal decided that Ezra deserved whatever idle threat that Merrin hurled his direction, even though he doubted the kid would actually learn anything from it.

The return trip to Tanalorr had been a lot less eventful than their trip to...wherever they ended up. Ezra didn't miss the cramped ventilation shafts of the Mantis II, along with the multiple wires and cables that tripped him up and caused a few problems along the way, but he did miss the sense of anticipation on the ship. Sure, he'd been scared at the time, especially of Merrin, but now things were just quiet and everything, along with everybody, just felt heavy. They beat the bad guy and nobody died, at least not yet, and his mom was going to fix the Captain of the Ghost when they got home, so nobody was going to die.

Shouldn't everybody have been more happy?

Ezra guessed that he shouldn't have minded, especially since their distracted moods made it easier for him to explore the far more complex ductwork of the Ghost. It was easier to move about with little vents here and there that allowed him to quietly spy on the occupants of the cockpit or cabins, galley or lounge. He decided that he could definitely get used to this ship—

—at least, he thought he could until a wave of bright orange smoke began to chase him through the ventilation. He'd never seen Merrin turn orange before but maybe she could do it. Maybe she was so angry that for whatever reason, her creepy green Nightsister color had burned away into an actual fire, and he was about to be burned to a crisp before he finally made it home. When he rounded a sharp corner in an effort to escape what looked like it might be really painful death, the thin durasteel of the ventilation gave out from beneath him and he fell hard onto his stomach, and he landed on the cold deck of whatever room laid below. He groaned, unable to move for only a second before he realized that a Merrin-sized fire was coming to consume him.

Quickly rolling to his back, he looked up to see Sabine replacing the grate that he'd fallen out of and Kata looking down at him curiously, although her brown eyes didn't look quite as friendly as Ezra thought they had the first time he saw the girl.

Scowling, Ezra pushed himself up and glared at the two girls. "What'd you do that for?"

Before either one of them could answer, the door to the really colorful room slid open and Merrin appeared in the doorway, causing Ezra to yelp in fear.

"I thought I smelled a rodent," she scowled as her eyes landed on Ezra.

Even though she looked like she just rolled out of bed, Merrin was still terrifying. Her dark brown eyes narrowed and her spindly, long fingers covered in black tattoos curled into fists. There was a spark of green in her eyes, probably the start of a spell that would end him for good, but then she just growled and stomped out of the room.

Once the hatch was sealed, he leaned back against the wall, clutching his chest as he let out a heavy exhale. "That...was close."

"What was close?" Sabine asked. "You act like she tried to kill you."

"She did," Ezra replied, pushing himself up to his foot. "She's a witch. So is the creepy looking one but she's not exactly the same. That one, Merrin, she hurts kids for fun."

Ezra found himself fixed in two doubtful gazes, one light brown and one dark brown.

"I'm telling the truth! Did you see the black marks on her fingers? Those are symbols of all of the children whose lives have been forever changed by her. She's made kids disappear before, turned them into oggdo bogdos and nydaks and all kinds of monsters, and then even when their parents begged for her to turn them back, she refused to. So instead of having kids, they have these big beasts that they have to look after," he insisted, running his hands through his hair.

Kata looked toward Sabine but said nothing. Honestly, the girl looked as miserable as everybody else on the ship.

"Have you ever seen her turn somebody into a beast?" Sabine questioned.

"Well...no," he admitted.

"So how do you know what those symbols mean?" she pressed on.

"Because she told me!" Ezra replied irritably. How else would he possibly know what they meant? The girl was clearly not as bright as her armor.

Sabine crossed her arms, peering down her nose at him. "Let me get this straight: you're terrified of her, you actually believe that she turns children into beasts but you've never seen one, and she told you that all of those tattoos represent children that she's caused harm to?"

"Congratulations, you have ears," he muttered.

"And you're an idiot," Sabine snorted, nudging Kata back toward the bunk that looked like somebody had been lying in it before he had the floor pulled out from beneath him. "If she did that kind of thing, it sounds to me like you would have been an oggdo whatever a long time ago. Instead, you're just obnoxious. I bet you weren't even supposed to be on this trip."

Ezra opened his mouth to argue with her but then closed it again. Everything Sabine said was true—there wasn't a good reason that he hadn't been turned into another one of her black tattoos a long time ago. For some reason, that didn't bother him as much as the fact that there were two girls his age on the ship and they seemed to be wholly unenthused with him. Or maybe one of them was just really tired. Either way, he would have thought at least they would be kind of cool.

Distracted by his self-pity, he didn't notice Sabine coming at him until it was too late, one of her hands curled around the front of his shirt.

"Listen, kid. This is our ship, not your playground. If I catch you crawling through the ventilation and snooping around it again, I'm using more than a paint bomb to get you out of it," she threatened in a low voice. "We've all been through enough without you making things worse."

"It was you," he grumbled, jerking out of her grasp as he realized that the explosion of orange was one of the so-called bombs he overheard the man, Kanan, talking about. With what he hoped was a withering glare, he spun on his feet and tromped toward the door. Through the sound of his blood rushing through his ears, he could just barely overhear the other girl, Kata, saying something about Ezra only being lonely but he didn't care what Kata thought.

And he'd definitely never admit out loud that she was right.

After spending so much time hating Tanalorr and wishing that he could go back to Lothal, for once, Ezra was happy to be going back to the planet. He wanted to be back with his family, with his friends from school, with people who actually had personalities or a sense of humor. Literally anything would be better than being stuck on a ship any longer with a bunch of sad people or a couple of stupid girls who wanted nothing to do with him, even being turned into an oggdo bogdo.

Although Kanan could hardly call having some kid aboard the Ghost who liked to crawl through the ductwork peaceful, the ambient lighting and thicker walls of Hera's cabin offered more quiet than the lounge had, as well as the ability to shut out the unsolicited opinions of their temporary shipmates that he should be resting. His wounds were healing, he no longer felt faint when he stood, and walking ten feet didn't fatigue him. As far as he was concerned, he was fully recovered.

All that mattered now was Hera.

With her hand gripped tightly in his, he kept his gaze focused on her face, watching for the slightest shift in her expression. He could have sworn that she was holding his hand just as firmly as he held to her, but the mild lack of sleep had him questioning himself one moment and then imagining her berating him for doubting her the next, especially when he was the one who pointed out that the girls looked pretty pissed off long before she spiraled into what seemed to be a pretty nasty infection. As much as he wanted to see her eyes and wanted more than anything to have her give him a piece of her mind, he knew that she needed her strength.

"Take your time," he murmured, bringing her hand to his lips. "I know you'll wake up when it doesn't feel like somebody slammed your lekku in a hatch."

"What?"

Kanan looked up to see the door to the cabin open and Kata standing there. She was holding a tray containing a drink and a bowl of something steaming that made his stomach rumble in response, wearing an expression of intense confusion.

"Sorry, I was just talking to her," he smiled weakly. "I'm trying to rush her when I know better."

After she placed the tray down carefully on the cot next to him, she circled back around to the other side of Hera and sat on the edge of her cot. "Does she hear you when you talk to her? Can you tell? Or can you hear her somehow?"

"It's kind of hard to explain," Kanan admitted. "In a way, yes. But not in the way that most people would think of a conversation happening."

"But she's not a Jedi, right?"

Looking down at their hands, he gave a gentle squeeze of Hera's once again. "No. She's not. It's just something with us. The connection that I share with her, it's different from the way that I feel anybody else around me, but we've always been this way, right from the moment that we've met. I don't know for sure but if I were to guess, the way I sense her is the way that you sense, well, everybody."

"Jedi can't do that normally?" she asked. "I'm not supposed to be this way?"

"Not every Jedi was as talented with being able to sense people the way that you can. It's a sort of gift that you have," Kanan tried to explain and then found himself fighting for a better way to explain it to Kata, some way that made it all make sense, how the Force worked in her. He finally shook his head and then sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I'm not much of a Jedi, Kata. I learned about the Force in theory but I was really young when the Clone War happened and almost everything I know about being a Jedi was taught in a classroom. I never learned how to be a Jedi, not the way I should have. I know I said I would teach you a couple of things, but I don't know that I have much I can teach you."

Kata mirrored his same defeated posture and her eyes shimmered slightly with tears he knew she wouldn't shed. "Well, then you can teach me what you do know and we'll figure out the rest of it together."

It was obvious that the girl, who had been so strong up until this point, was struggling with her emotions. He hated seeing an eleven year old girl being forced to grow up so quickly and already well-versed in denying the gravity of her situation. She was obviously tired of being abandoned but she didn't know what was waiting for her on Tanalorr and that, in this instance, being left behind wouldn't be a bad thing.

For now, though, Kanan decided that he didn't want to cause her any more heartache. He could sew a couple seeds to fuel her imagination but keep his promise to her, as well.

"I'll teach you what I can," he agreed, knowing that what he had to offer her couldn't be stretched into more than just a couple of lessons anyway. He paused for a moment to take a drink of whatever Kata brought him, a chilled tea of some sort, and then set it aside before continuing in a more casual tone. "From what Cal has told me, there are a lot of people that are strong in the Force who live there. They'll be able to teach you even more after we're done with our lessons."

"I like my plan better," she replied evenly, averting his gaze as she reached down to take Hera's other hand.

He watched as Hera's fingers tightened around Kata's, the action an obvious but silent endorsement of Kata's stubborn assertion. There was no helping the slight huff of amusement he made in response to Hera's wordless declaration and the way that it brightened Kata's expression with a wide smile. For just a moment he allowed himself to fully awash by the sense of relief that the woman he loved really would be okay, even if it was going to take a little while for her to fully recover. He would welcome the frustrating days or weeks ahead of them until Hera fully regained her strength, even if he already knew that he was going to be just as eager as she would be to get off Tanalorr and back out into the fight.

Still, he knew that they needed the unplanned downtime both for Hera's sake as well as Kata's.

Maybe once Kata saw Tanalorr for herself, she would realize that there were people there that could teach her, people far more qualified than him. Maybe there was even a chance that somebody would be able to sucker punch the stupid out of her father and she'd have one more reason to stay on the hidden planet, but he doubted it. There had to be something about the planet that Kanan could point out to the girl though, something about the safe haven that would make her want to stay, and he was already hell-bent on finding it.

When he told Kata that he didn't have connections to other people the way that he did with Hera, he hadn't been entirely truthful with her. Besides Hera, there were only two other people in Kanan's life that he had ever felt a strong connection to, the kind of bond that could only be forged in the Force; one of those people had been his Master Billaba, and the other?

The other was the eleven year old girl sitting across from him.

Kanan could only hope like hell that Kata's strength was too unrefined to recognize that her ability to connect with him was any different from the others she could so easily read.

It would make things vastly easier for both of them when it came time for him to join the list of people to leave her behind.

Chapter Text

Jedi Master Eno Cordova had assumed a great many roles in his time since the fall of the Jedi, a means of preservation for both his survival and the future of those gifted in the Force. It wasn't until his former Padawan, Cere, discovered him in her determination to preserve what remained of the Jedi and they found a new home on Jedha that he began to feel like the man he used to be prior to the Purge. When Merrin brought Cal into their fold, Cordova was ecstatic to say the least, both grateful to discover the young man that his former droid companion entrusted to continue Cordova's journey and for the promise of the future that the Cal carried within him.

Cordova knew that Cal always struggled with seeing the bigger picture, the young man just like Cere in so many ways, but he'd hoped that once Tanalorr became a thriving community of Force-sensitives safe from the Empire that Cal would begin to see the value within himself. It was clear as Cal disembarked from the Mantis II attached to a second ship that Cordova could only assume to be the Ghost that even if Cal had found a way to make peace with the path the Force put him on prior to the past catching up with him, that he discovered a new reason to struggle with decisions made long ago while he'd been away.

A hulking purple Lasat with a presence just as brilliant as that as the late Master Tapal descended the ramp of Quinlan's—the man loathed being referred to as Master Vos—U-Wing, hefting a man with coppery skin marred by a great many wounds. Given the look on Quinlan's face, it was quite easy to surmise that the limp figure draped over the Lasat's shoulders was the former Jedi Knight Bode Akuna.

He offered a kind smile as he studied the scene before him, a multitude of battered and war-weary soldiers returning from battle, some of them in far worse condition than others.

"I suppose that this is not a case of Merrin's ability of making friends wherever she travels?" he questioned, trying to lighten the heavy mood.

"It is not," Merrin said, her hand firmly wrapped around the shoulder of one Ezra Bridger, a boy with a proclivity for getting himself into nearly as much trouble as Cal once could, but more impressively is that he found it on a world free from the harms of the Empire.

After a cursory glance over the group assembled before him, Cordova noticed a glaring absence and he felt a slight tug at his heart. "Madame Ventress?"

"Sleeping," Quinlan answered gruffly, making it clear that he was in no mood to discuss it. "Bet you never thought you'd see the day we needed one of those cells on the lower levels of the Command Center, old man."

Cordova gave a slight nod. "I did not," he admitted. "I don't expect to see the day that you realize one is only as old as they feel, either."

"Then I guess I'm a hell of a lot older than you," Quinlan huffed, nudging the Lasat forward. "Let's get this bastard locked up before he wakes up and all hell breaks loose. The last thing we need is for him to wake up and go on a killing spree. I think he's taken enough from us."

There was no missing the sharp edge to Quinlan's words as he glanced in Cal's direction. It was no wonder that the young man radiated disappointment with himself yet again.

"Very well, then," he replied, offering another gentle smile and extending his arm to allow the Lasat and Quinlan to stroll past. As he cast one last glance back toward the other unfamiliar faces limping off of—or being carried—the various star ships, Mira and Ephraim Bridger hurried past them, the two anxious parents forgoing their usual pleasantries to reunite with their son. Cordova caught Mira's hushed scolding to Ezra that they'd be discussing his behavior later before she turned her attentions to the members of the crew who looked to be in need of her assistance.

It was clear that she had her work set out for her, a notion that Cordova could appreciate given the sullen expression that Cal wore and the darkness that Bode Akuna seemed to be steeped in.

Their trek to the lower levels of the Temple, what Quinlan insisted upon calling the Command Center, was made in silence. Although he hoped they'd never see the day that they would need these cells with their ray shield walls and impenetrable barriers, Cordova was thankful for Cal's foresight and his jaded view of the Galaxy in those early days after they first secured Tanalorr.

The Lasat dropped Bode to the marbled ground none too gently, but nary a groan nor a reaction past the now prone man's lips.

"Dare I ask how you've contained him?" Cordova ventured warily.

With a dark chuckle, the Lasat held up a small controller. "Let's just say that he's a bit zapped right now."

Cordova maintained a neutral expression. "I can take that for you if you'd—"

"I'll be holding onto this."

"Very well," he paused for a moment and then glanced up at the Lasat. "I'm afraid I don't know your name."

Cal stepped in, finally seeming to remember that he'd brought back friends, both new and old, that were unfamiliar to Cordova. "Master Cordova, this is Garazeb—"

"Zeb. Just call me Zeb," he corrected. "And I'm not goin' anywhere until I know that guy isn't going to hurt anyone else."

"Of course, Zeb," Cordova nodded, laying his hand upon Zeb's arm reassuringly and willing a bit of calm into the man. He could sense his underlying distress and exhaustion. "In the meantime, allow one of our friends to bring you a proper meal and something to drink at the very least. I'm certain once Mira is finished attending to your friends that she'll want to check in on you as well."

After a moment, Zeb flicked his ear. "Yeah. Food sounds okay."

"Go eat, Zeb," Quinlan said, pulling the remote from his hand. "Get a shower so you don't smell and get checked out. I'll give it back when you're done."

Cordova tried not to show surprise at how easily Zeb agreed with Quinlan. He knew better than to hope that he could pry the remote from Quinlan's hands though. A darkness of a different kind swirled around the man who he'd grown close to in a way, hearing his sordid stories from the unseen side of the Order, and it was something that Cordova would perhaps need to address eventually but now was not the time. Leaving Quinlan to his own devices, he turned his attention to Cal.

"You made it back in one piece," he smiled warmly, placing both hands on Cal's shoulders. "All of you."

Cal cleared his throat and glanced in Quinlan's direction as he walked away with Zeb at his side. "For the most part."

Receiving Cal's message loud and clear, they stepped away from the cell and strode down the darkened corridor. "I'm certain that Merrin can set things right again."

"Yeah, maybe."

He tilted his head as he studied Cal. "What is it, son?"

"Let's just say that the fight didn't end how the rest of them would have preferred," he answered, jamming his hands in his pockets and casting his eyes to the ground. "He—Bode—he's something darker than what he was. Turned by his hatred. We had him on his knees and I had an opportunity to end it all. Quinlan was ready to take the action that I wasn't and I stopped him."

"And you're questioning if you did the right thing?" Cordova asked.

"How can I not? Asajj is...well, you know. Hera is sick. Kanan is angry with me. Quinlan might be even angrier, if that's possible," Cal sighed.

"And yet somehow, you're the one who is the angriest with yourself."

"That obvious?" he asked, glancing up.

Cordova felt the corners of his eyes wrinkle as he smiled genuinely at the young man, his response so reminiscent of a lesson he'd taught Cere when he was much, much younger and his former Padawan much, much reckless. "Tell me what it was that made you stop the others from taking this man's life? You, out of all of them, had good reason to want to see a more permanent means to ending this situation."

Cal drew in a deep breath and then shook his head before letting it out. He ran his fingers through his wily hair. "It just felt wrong. It was like the Force was screaming at me to stop what was happening before it was too late...but—"

"But nothing, Cal," Cordova spoke gently. "If it is the Force that guided you, then your actions were not misguided."

From down the corridor, Quinlan snorted. "Yeah. Wait until this bastard wakes up. I think that even you will disagree."

There was no missing the way that Cal's face fell, even if he was trying to remain stoic. "Quinlan is right," he finally said. "So many things went wrong that it's hard not to question if any of my decisions have ever been right. Too many people suffered needlessly because of me."

Before Cordova could provide any reassurance, to offer the wisdom that suffering is but a part of life, Cal walked away. Eventually, the young man would see that it was the ability to overcome suffering and see past the pain that helps one grow as being the mark of a true Jedi—not simply the ability to wield a lightsaber.

Perhaps once he saw that Bode could remember what it meant to truly be a Jedi and rediscover that there was more than suffering in the Galaxy, even in its current state, that Cal would understand that his decision to spare the man's life was not made in vain.

Only time would tell.

Kanan exhaled a sigh of relief once Hera was settled into the bacta bath, the crease between her eyebrows and the grimace that had painted itself over her beautiful expression already started to smooth away. He was certain that he'd never been more exhausted in his life, even when he'd gone by a different name and spent months trying to outrun the men who had slain his Master and sworn themselves to seeing to his end. Still, he had no intention of leaving her side, not until he knew that she'd truly be okay.

At least, that had been his plan.

"No," Mira Bridger said in a firm tone that reminded him of his Master Billaba in a way. "You may make yourself comfortable after I've attended to your insults."

Despite knowing better, he tried to wave off her assertion that she would be looking after him. "They're fine. We had enough bacta aboard the Mantis to heal them up for the most part."

"And stim shots," Ezra chimed in loudly.

Mira shot a withering look in her son's direction and he audibly groaned before going back to sorting out the remaining medical supplies that had been offloaded from the luxury yacht. She turned that same expression on Kanan.

"Those bandages say differently," she nodded in the direction of his wrists. "And so does that nose and your eye. I doubt that your friend—"

"My wife," he interrupted her. "She's—Hera—she's my wife."

A small smile played upon her lips and her expression softened slightly. "I'm certain that your wife would be unhappy with me if I let your condition deteriorate while she's recuperating."

Reluctantly, Kanan left Hera's side to take a seat on a small exam table pushed up against the wall. "This really isn't necessary."

"It is if my mom says it is," Ezra spoke up again from the corner.

Turning her back to Kanan, Mira placed her hands on her hips. "Ezra Bridger. I've told you three times to organize those supplies so that you can start working on your homework. You've missed a lot of school and your Mentors are not going to go easy on you after the stunt that you've pulled. They care about your progress here. How many times do I have to remind you that we are not on Lothal anymore?"

Kanan jerked his head up in surprise. "Wait, Lothal? You're from Lothal?"

Mira looked back in his direction and opened her mouth to answer, only to be interrupted by Ezra again.

"Yeah, we are. They're stuck here because of me. Otherwise, they could be home and—"

After another stern look and a raise of her extended finger toward his neglected responsibilities, Ezra finally shrank and began halfheartedly working on his punishment once again.

"We are from Lothal," she spoke quietly once she seemed certain that her unruly child was actually going to listen. "We were placed on the Path because my husband and I were responsible for the creation of a message spread along the very edge of the Outer Rim in an effort to recruit others to the cause against the Empire. When—"

"The Bridger Transmissions?" Kanan asked incredulously, interrupting her. "That's you?"

Smiling widely, Mira nodded. "They are, or they were. Once the Empire determined that we were responsible, we drew the ire of the Empire and they somehow discovered what Ezra is capable of and began to hunt him. So our friends helped us find the Path and now they carry on our legacy in our absence."

"Your messages, they're working. They're still working," he offered, gazing over at Hera. "We've been to Lothal several times, working to shut down Imperial operations and deliver supplies where we can. I can't tell you how many years I spent telling her that she was crazy, chasing down the transmissions made by complete strangers, but she proved me wrong. She made me believe that there was still good in the Galaxy, long after I'd decided there wasn't. In a way, I guess you and your husband made me believe, too."

"You found the strength to believe on your own," Mira corrected him, applying something that first stung and then soothed the still open and admittedly angry wound on his right wrist. "The only thing we did was speak to the truth we felt in our hearts."

Kanan looked back toward the modest woman, feeling a gentle ache spread through his chest, both because he wondered if she truly understood how much she changed his life and what her mission had done for the world she used to call home. Nothing that he could say felt adequate for the gravity, or the light, that surrounded her.

"Thank you," he finally said. "For what you've done."

Finished with the fresh bandage around his wrist, Mira took his hand in both of hers. "It is I that owe you thanks for carrying on the work we started so that we can raise our son in a safe place...so long as he can refrain from getting on unfamiliar ships and learns to stay out of trouble."

Unable to help himself, he let out a huff of laughter. "I think that our fight will be less of a struggle than yours."

The smell of something delicious wafted into the room that Mira had set up for her medbay, drawing Kanan's attention up toward the door where Ephraim, Ezra's father, stood with a bowl of something steaming. It reminded him of a dish from Old Jho's in Capital City.

"Truer words have never been spoken," Ephraim, who was clearly the more laid back of the couple, said with his own chuckle. "Fortunately, if there's a woman up to the task of such a fight, it is my Mira. She's not one to be argued with."

He set the tray down next to Kanan before he continued. "If I might offer my professional advice, if she tells you to eat and rest, it's best not to argue with her because she is a formidable adversary to have."

Mira shook her head and nudged her husband gently. "Rather than making an attempt at intimidating our guests, I think it's time for you to take our son and make sure he eats and then gets to work on his homework immediately. I'm going to go to the Temple and take care of the others while Hera and Kanan get some rest."

Ephraim offered a slight wink in response before doing exactly as he was told.

"He might say that you're a formidable adversary but I should warn you that once Hera finds out who has been looking after her, it's going to be impossible for you to keep her down," Kanan said, smiling genuinely as he looked in Hera's direction.

Using one hand to still Kanan's head with his gaze still turned toward Hera, she applied the same treatment to the cuts around his still swollen eye. "Then you'll do as I say and make sure you finish your meal so you can get stronger. I have no doubts that she'll be far too stubborn for me to handle alone."

Rather than answering with words, Kanan gave a small nod of thanks as Mira left the two of them alone. Although his initial urge was to leave his food untouched and return to Hera's side, he knew that Mira was right—and the smell of the Lothalian meal made his stomach rumble. He couldn't remember the name of it but it was one that he knew Hera loved, leaving him to wonder if he could ask that they make it again before they left Tanalorr to return to the fight.

Better yet, Kanan decided he'd just ask for the recipe so he could make it for the woman he loved any time the mood struck him. More than that, he didn't want to be on this planet any longer than necessary, and he knew Hera wouldn't want to be either.

They had a mission and the greater good of the Galaxy to fight for.

Zeb settled himself against the cool stone wall at the end of the corridor where they were housing the bastard that didn't deserve to be breathing. At the request of the old geezer with a heart that was too big and some kind of Jedi values or something that Kanan didn't have, Zeb agreed to give him space while the man tried to talk sense into the guy that tried to kill all of them. Personally, he was glad that Kanan wasn't quite so noble when it came to their mission, otherwise they wouldn't get anywhere against the Empire. If patience and compassion were enough to save the Galaxy, the Empire wouldn't even exist.

Eventually the old man would see that.

In the mean time, Zeb was content to sit and wait for his chance to finish what the others started. Hera was still a mess but slowly getting better, Kanan was more angry and restless than Zeb had ever seen him, Sabine was more skittish than she had been when she first came aboard the Ghost, and Kata—poor Kata—was terrified of even walking within a hundred meters of the Temple, like her dad was gonna burst out of the doors and snatch her up to make a run for it.

Sitting on a hard floor in a corridor that was a touch colder than he would have preferred would absolutely be worth it when he got his opportunity to go around with the tough guy now that he didn't have any of his bounty hunting toys to play with.

The sound of the red-headed kid, Cal, shuffling again across the corridor from him caused Zeb to let out a half grow. He didn't have to peel his eyes away from the cell where the old Jedi stood outside of the protective shield, speaking in a low voice, to know that Cal was staring at him.

Again.

"I already told you once. I'm not givin' up the remote. I don't care what the geezer is, that guy would destroy him in a minute."

"I don't expect you to," Cal answered, his voice breaking a little, like he hadn't spoken in days. "You just remind me of somebody."

Zeb glanced toward him, an eyebrow raised. "You got a couple purple wookiees in this place."

Cal huffed a slight laugh. "No, it's—my Master, before the purge, he was a Lasat."

Although Zeb hadn't really known what to expect as to who he could possibly remind the kid of, he most certainly hadn't been expecting that it was a Lasat Jedi. He felt his brow draw down, his memories returning to the place that he used to call home, a system ravaged and destroyed by the Empire. The Lasat valued their families, even the communities throughout the system leaned heavily on each other for support. They were a tight knit people—

He shook his head. "You sure you didn't get hit in the head during that fight? We had a lot of elders on Lasan, people that were s'pposedly blessed by the Ashla, village folk turned prophets," Zeb paused to snort. "Fat lotta good that did us since none of 'em saw the Empire coming to wipe every one of us out."

Cal chuckled darkly at that. "Sounds like a lot of your people would have made good Jedi, then."

Zeb couldn't exactly argue with that. The Force or the Ashla or whatever people wanted to call it, none of it did anything to save the Galaxy from slaughter and suffering. He didn't want to think about it.

"A Jedi, huh?"

A faint but sad smile traced Cal's face. "A Jedi Master."

Zeb's ear flicked slightly before he responded. "Your Jedi, didn't they take kids from their families and alla that?"

He gave a slight shrug. "Not exactly how it worked, but yes, those strong in the Force were brought to the Temple at a young age to begin their training as Jedi."

Zeb shook his head, finally looking away from Cal. "That's not the Lasan I remember, not even as a kit. I can't imagine my people giving up one of their kids to a bunch of outsiders."

Cal shifted again. "He, uh, he saved my life. He died to save me when everything happened. I don't know if that's a bad thing or a good thing."

Hearing the pain in the kid's voice tugged at his reluctant heart, cracking his stubborn resolution to never speak of his people or his life before the Empire left his world in flames with not a survivor to be found in the rubble. Part of him wanted to hate the guy for it but there was a bigger part of him that longed for home after hearing Cal's confession.

"Sounds like they might've taken the Lasat off of Lasan but couldn't quite take the Lasat out of the Jedi, then," Zeb spoke quietly. "Didn't alla that happen when they ended the war? You don't look old enough."

"I was younger than most," he nodded, something of a wry smile on his face. "The Masters at the Temple, they wouldn't have exactly called me humble when I was a youngling. I was good at pretty much everything which wasn't much of a problem at first but the older I got, the more I became a challenge for the Jedi Council. They assigned me to Master Tapal when I was 8 to put the fear of the Force into me," Cal laughed to himself. "It worked, too. Even the things I could do in Temple without trying became utterly terrifying with a Master that I needed a ladder to look up to. He didn't take it easy on me, either."

Zeb cracked a genuine smile. "Sounds about right. The General of the Honor Guard, he was intimidating enough to whip a bunch of rowdy boys with loud mouths and furious fists into soldiers in a matter of seconds. Didn' keep up from actin' up when he wasn't looking at him, but he sure as hell had us prayin' to every faith in the Galaxy that we didn't get caught when we were being fools."

"The Honor Guard, huh?" Cal asked, the tone of his voice making it clear that he didn't really understand what it meant to be a member of the Lasat Honor Guard.

"Captain of the Honor Guard," Zeb corrected him. "The training was brutal. They started us young and put us through years of hell. I easily had another couple weeks left in me, even with your friend down there fighting dirty. We learned to fight without food, manage our drills on minimal water, and how to survive conditions that would have killed weaker kits."

"Looks like your training paid off."

"I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing," he answered solemnly. "At least there's more than one o' you left."

He could see Cal tilt his head slightly out of the corner of his eye. "You really think that you're the last one."

"I know I am," he said, turning his gaze on the kid. "I was Captain of the Guard when the Empire came to Lasan. I fought like hell until I realized there wasn't anything or anybody else left to defend and then I gave up. I felt like I failed my people. Unlucky for the Empire, they might've put me down but they didn't make sure that they took me out."

Cal held his gaze. "I used to think I was the only one left and obviously I was wrong. Maybe you are too."

Zeb snorted softly, betraying the strange sense of fondness for the kid's bit of optimism. "I'm okay with being the last. Either the Empire will get to finish the job one of these days or I'll get to finish them. Doesn't matter to me either way, but I gotta admit, if this place is a perk of retirement, those bucketheads might have a harder time takin' me down."

"I'll add your place to the list of places we need to start construction on then, assuming you don't want to share a house with Kanan and Hera," he replied, clearly joking although his tone took on a new sense of sadness or disappointment.

"Ain't no way in 'ell that I'd want to live with them. The walls on Hera's ship are thinner than those two think they are," Zeb grumbled. "I want my place as far away from theirs as possible."

"Lucky for you, we have a whole planet to work with," Cal mumbled, turning his eyes away from Zeb to look down the corridor. "And if you don't like what you get, I'll let you have first dibs on their place instead."

After a moment of silence and studying the kid carefully, Zeb finally spoke up. "You two send each other those so-called secret messages all the time and I ain't seen the two of you together once since we got here."

Cal picked at the edges of his nails, keeping his gaze averted. "I let him live. Maybe you haven't noticed but it wasn't exactly a decision that everybody agreed with."

Zeb shook his head, a small sound of disbelief escaping his lips. "I thought you Jedi were supposed to be sensitive to that sort of stuff?"

"What sort of stuff?"

"Kanan, he might not have liked your choice, what with Hera and all, but I've been around him long enough to know he doesn't hold a grudge against anybody but the Empire and maybe that bastard down there," Zeb nodded down the hallway. "He ain't mad at you for that."

Clearly motivated by curiosity alone, Cal glanced back up in his direction. "With what happened to Hera? To all of you? The fact that they had to even save me from my own stupid decisions in the first place? I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that my questionable choice is exactly why he's mad at me."

Chuckling, Zeb reached out to pat the kid on the back. "Give it a few days after you get your head on straight, kid. I think maybe those Force-y things you do will kick and you'll get it."

Before Cal could question him any further, the old man joined them at the end of the corridor. "I'm afraid I've gotten as far as I think we can for today. Why don't we all head upstairs and see what our Anchorite brothers and sisters have prepared for latemeal?"

Cal readily stood but Zeb remained stubbornly fixed where he was.

"If it's all the same to you, I'm good right here. I'll leave that trusting in the Force thing to you Jedi. I trust in my fists and this nifty little toy," he answered, wiggling the little remote back and forth in his fingers. "I failed to protect my friends once. I'm not going to let it happen again."

Although the older Jedi's disappointment was plain in his expression, he forced a small smile on and nodded. "Very well, my friend. If it brings you comfort, I will not dissuade you from keeping guard."

Zeb didn't respond, and they took it for what it was—their cue to leave.

There wasn't any way in hell that he'd abandon guard so long as the bastard was still breathing or the second family he found was still on this planet. He already failed them once and he had no intentions of doing that again.

Chapter Text

"Cere Junda."

Bode spoke her name in a way that it was simultaneously laced with vitriol and wonder. The acrid yellow of his eyes sent a chill down her spine but the smug curl at the corner of his mouth set a thrill of power ablaze through every nerve in her body, burning at the very tips of her fingers with a fury that begged to be unleashed. It was immediately clear, even years after her encounters with the Sith Lord known as Darth Vader and her brush with the Dark Side, that Cere would never truly be free from the temptation of the shadows if so many conflicting emotions could so easily stirred within her from the mere manner in which the menacing man spoke her name alone.

"Cere."

Cordova's tone was a stark contrast to Bode's; spoken with love and concern. The way that his hand came to rest against her shoulder could have acted as either an anchor to keep her from venturing onto a path she could not turn back from or a gentle guide—a reminder that she need not face her demons alone.

Just as her former Master was protective of her, Cere would not allow any harm to come to the man who helped her find herself as a brazen Padawan who thought she knew more than the most sage of Jedi and then years later as a former Jedi Master who spent every day struggling to forget all that she knew of the Force, let it pull her to the dark.

One definitive step to her left placed Cere solidly in between Bode and Cordova, caged in by the light and the dark, between calm and cruelty.

"I have to admit, it stings a bit more than I expected, finding out that I've spent years chasing the wrong Jedi," Bode uttered, studying her with an expression that bordered on lecherous. "I mean, sure, there have always been easier targets to go after—lost Padawans, younglings, those poor bastards born with Force-sensitivity and no idea what to do with it, but none of them seemed worth the time. An entire creche wouldn't have paid for the life I used to know," he paused to flash a dark grin. "Besides, you and I both know that the Empire has a much better means of dealing with those children and putting them to good use. That's what happened to your first Padawan, wasn't it? Trilla, right?

"Kestis was different, though," Bode continued on without allowing her to answer. "He wasn't one of those kids that could be bent or broken by the Empire, not after you trained him to be a symbol of hope for the Galaxy. The price on his head was just enough to buy the kind of security I was looking for but you? You could have paid for my freedom."

"From where I'm standing, it seems to me that you could have had both without ever getting blood on your hands," she finally replied, her words steadier than she felt. "There's always another way."

He leaned forward then, resting his elbows on his knees as his gaze bored into hers. "Tell me, Master Junda, where were you when that team infiltrated the Jedi Temple to rescue the kid? You'd already given up your first Padawan to the Empire, watched as she died. The entire Galaxy knew of Kestis' impending execution and yet, you were nowhere to be seen."

Cere opened her mouth to reply but no words would come, Bode's observation winding around her neck like a noose, her argument trapped deep in her chest with her lungs that burned for even the most shallow of breaths.

Avenge us, Trilla exhaled in her final moments, a plea and a battle cry.

Cal would have never gone quietly but she wouldn't have ever known what he said with his final breaths.

She wouldn't have been there to hear it.

Bode rose to his feet and took two confident strides forward, the tip of his nose coming within mere millimeters of the red glow created by the thin rayshield that separated them. Despite the near-predatory posture he assumed over Cere, his voice had taken on the tone of a conversation shared between friends.

"You see, Cere, you might have said there's always another way, but we both know that's just a lie you tell yourself. From where I'm standing, it seems like you and I are the same person."

"And how is that?" she questioned in spite of her better judgment.

"Because we both understand that no price is too high to ensure our continued survival, our freedom," Bode answered with a conspiratorial grin and a deadly flash of his sickly gaze. One heartbeat later, he lifted his left hand in a fist at his side as his gaze shifted over Cere's shoulder. "You understand, Master Cordova. It's nothing personal."

Suddenly, the gentle and reassuring grip of Master Cordova's grip on her shoulder turned desperate, the pads of his fingers raking at her flesh. Leaving no time to rational thought, Cere threw up her hand and deactivated the rayshield, flipping an invisible switch until the thin, red barrier disappeared from in between them. Before she could reach down to grasp the hilt of her lightsaber, it flew from her belt and into Bode's hand.

After that, all hell broke loose.

The snap hiss of her lightsaber igniting was drowned out by Zeb's animalistic growl as he came thundering down the long corridor, the sound of Master Cordova struggling for every breath the scant breaths he could draw, and a crackle of otherworldly energy that suddenly surrounded them. In a moment of clarity, a true gift of the Force, Cere threw up her hands and halted the flash of her brilliant blue blade as it hurdled at her from above with deadly precision. Behind her, Master Cordova collapsed to the ground, violently gasping and coughing. Before her, the Lasat that reminded her so much of Jaro Tapal barreled into Bode's hulking form at full force, driving both men deep into the cell meant to contain only one monster. Bode’s head whipped back and Zeb drove him into the wall, busting open a large gash on Zeb’s forehead that immediately began pouring blood. The attack worked though, catching Bode off guard by the frontal assault and causing him to lose his grip on Cere's lightsaber, sending it skittering out of his gaze and across the corridor, drawing her attention from the barrier she'd thrown up and toward her discarded weapon. Jutting her hand out, she called her lightsaber to her hand and ignited the blade once more, ready to deliver the man's death knell only for the rayshield to come back up just before she could strike.

And Zeb was still in the cell with the monster masquerading as a man.

"No!" Cere cried out, her fist smashing against the shield, her eyes wide in terror as she helplessly watched what she was certain would be the Lasat's final moments in this life while he struggled against a raging Bode.

In an explosion of emerald fire and smoke, Merrin appeared inside the cell, her spear in hand and alight in the magick of her people. The distraction was perfectly timed, dividing Bode's attention long enough for Zeb to break free of his choke hold and for Merrin's spear to morph into the deadly dagger that almost always resided at the small of her back. She drove the dagger into the back of his bicep, delivering a blow certain to slow the fallen Jedi down without being fatal before grasping Zeb's arm, and disappearing from inside the cell before Bode could react.

"Zeb, now!" Merrin commanded, her voice distant, and Cere looked up to see that the pair were now at the end of the corridor—at least for an instant, as Merrin had already unmade herself once again.

Before Cere could turn her eyes back to the cell, where she expected to see Merrin reappear, she felt herself enveloped in an indescribable feeling of both weightlessness and heaviness, of time moving too rapidly and seconds stretching out before her in an eternity. It wasn't until she heard the pained cry of Bode at the end of the corridor that she realized what had happened and her senses finally started to find their way back into her body.

"It seems like Cal has not exaggerated the disorienting feeling associated with your preferred method of travel," Cordova commented, his voice a bit raspy as Merrin helped him up from the ground.

Cere wanted to feel relief that her former Master, the man who always trusted her to understand herself through making mistakes and learning from them, was still with them and already trying to provide comfort through his gentle wit, but it was proving to be difficult.

Merrin, never one to mince words, looked to Cere. "What happened?"

All Cere could do was shake her head. The reasons that the Jedi preached against allowing one to be overcome by their emotions were many, something Cere unintentionally learned when she nearly fell to the dark, and a battle that she elected to engage in each moment she drew breath as she found her new purpose in the Force. This had been something different, though, a type of intrusion she couldn't begin to explain.

It was a kind of agony that rivaled that which she suffered when she first bore witness to what her inability to fight the Empire's manipulations had done to Trilla, an echo of the unrelenting ache she felt every time she thought of Trilla as she was taken from this life, an ever-present pain that reached deep into her bones when she thought of how close she'd come to losing Cal.

Cordova's hand closed once again over her shoulder and she felt the warmth of peace trying to work its way into the cracks of her broken soul. "Bode is an empath, a powerful one, more so than I could have ever imagined or Master Vos suggested. He is so deeply rooted in his hatred and pain that it's given him a kind of strength that none of us could have planned for."

Cere lifted her gaze to meet Cordova's for only a moment and then wordlessly looked back down at her clenched fists. Her former Master need not verbalize the implications of Bode's strength in his gifts, at least when it came to her involvement in trying to help rehabilitate the man. Until the fallen Jedi could be pulled back from the brink, it was too dangerous for Cere to be involved, Cere with all of her regrets and her demons and the years old wounds that were barely healed over.

"If that is the case, then we must maintain our distance until he is dealt with or dead," Merrin stated bluntly. "It is not safe for any of us to be down here alone. I will secure the cell and this corridor with a ritual that he cannot so easily manipulate."

It looked as though Zeb might have been preparing an argument but Cordova placed a gentle hand against the Lasat's forearm. "You'll learn rather quickly that it is not best to argue with Merrin, my friend. Now come, let's attend to that gash before it gets infected."

For a moment, Cere glanced back over her shoulder, at the end of the corridor where she had a feeling that Bode was listening, hanging on to every word that they said. Just as she considered walking back down the corridor to confirm her suspicions, she caught Merrin peering at her, an eyebrow raised in question.

With a sigh, Cere let her shoulders sag. "Promise me when you come back here to deal with him that you won't come alone."

"I will bring Cal with me. If he could not be swayed in the heat of battle, he cannot be manipulated while the monster is contained."

Although she couldn't shake the guilt of Cal stepping into harm's way because of her failure, what else was there for Cere to do but allow Merrin to guide her out of the corridor and hope like hell that she would not lose another former Padawan to the dark?

For a planet hidden beyond a deadly nebula full of some mineral that had an insatiable taste for starships, a world full of Force-sensitive sentients that were violating multiple Imperial laws just by breathing, Tanalorr was absurdly normal, at least in the galactic sense of the word. Day to day life on the planet sounded like the kind of stories that she overheard parents telling their younglings during long trips in cramped freighters as they tried to outrun the reach of the Empire. The people here had homes built and decorated to their liking, they got to keep the food that they grew in their gardens, their kids went to schools that didn't funnel straight into involuntary and lifelong Imperial servitude.

And when the kids weren't in school?

They played.

Outside.

At first, it might have been slightly amusing—engaging in really bad games of gravball, having races to see who could run the fastest, and playing games of tag in absurdly huge expanses of green—but after a few days of peace and quiet, Sabine started to see how three clans could simultaneously be engaged in six wars and never have any clue of where their loyalties should lie. Ezra didn't seem to mind all of the kids or playing games like the Galaxy wasn't completely and utterly doomed, and while she didn't know his story, Sabine had to assume that something bad happened to cause his family to run away from wherever they lived before.

On the other hand, Kata was just as unimpressed with normal as Sabine was.

By the eighth day in a row of regular meals of rich foods, running from ten-year-olds instead of troopers, and not being able to play with explosives or weapons, both girls had enough. Sabine suggested forming their own rebellion by wandering outside of the boundaries set by the adults but Kata wasn't keen about the idea. It didn't exactly take a genius to understand that the younger girl probably faced some pretty severe consequences if she broke the rules, considering that her dad was a legitimate psycho. Instead of trying to find quiet inside the boundaries, something impossible given the number of tiny sentients who didn't understand what the word quiet meant, they got creative with following the rules.

If Ezra could get away with scurrying through vents, surely nobody could get mad at them for scaling the side of a Temple built into a mountain.

The climb was an easy one, the ledges plenty wide enough for them to scale high enough that the screaming of younglings couldn't be heard and adults wouldn't freak out about them climbing an actual mountain. They'd even be able to claim that they saw when Merrin or Cere or Vos or whoever might come looking for them came outside, giving them the ability to maintain innocence at all times. Once they settled back against the rock wall, Sabine looked out at the landscape that they wouldn't have ever been able to see from the ground.

"I guess this place isn't so bad as long as you don't have to deal with all of that," she said, waving down at the younglings below.

Kata picked at a ragged edge of her shirt. "Yeah, I guess."

Sabine glanced over at the young girl. Kata was even more quiet than normal. Come to think of it, she had been for a couple of days. She didn't spend much time weighing the consequences of questioning the girl's silence before speaking up.

"It's something bad, isn't it?"

There was a slight look of surprise on Kata's face when she looked up. "How did you—are you—?" she stammered.

"Definitely not. But you've got that look on your face. Kind of like the look Kanan would get every once in a while. Not that I was on the ship very long before we ran into you...but it was usually obvious when something bad was going on," she explained. "You've got the same look. Kind of."

For several moments, Kata was quiet and then she sighed. "It's my papa. I don't think I'll ever get him back."

"It hasn't been very long—" Sabine started and then stopped herself. "Yeah, I can't lie. He doesn't really seem like he was ever a good guy."

Kata shrugged slightly. "He was when I was younger, I think. When my mama was still alive. After that he changed and I kept thinking that it was just because he hurt but no matter how much my papa was hurting before, I didn't think he'd ever do anything like that. It feels like he's still doing it."

"Feels?"

"I don't know how to explain it. It's part of my gift, I guess. Right now, it just feels like a dark cloud that follows me everywhere. Like I'm always cold even though the sun is shining. I think—no, I know—it's him," she explained quietly.

"Have you asked anybody?" Sabine asked, glancing out at the horizon in front of them.

She shook her head. "I don't really want to talk about it."

Sabine felt a little bit guilty since she'd brought it up, so she volunteered the only thing she could think of to maybe make it feel better. "My parents suck, too," she confessed. "The Mandalorians, a lot of them, have all sworn an allegiance to the Empire, either because they are scared or because they wanted the power. They sent me off to an Imperial Academy and when I ran away from that place, they turned their back on me. My mother, she wouldn't even listen to what they were asking me to do or what I had done for the Empire. She just...disowned me."

Kata looked up from where she'd been fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. "So what did you do?"

"Tried to pretend I was a bounty hunter," Sabine snorted indignantly. "A friend abandoned the Academy with me. We made it for a while but then we had a disagreement and so she rigged a building to blow and left me for dead. Kanan found me."

"So...you're just going to stay with them now?" she questioned.

"It's not like I have anywhere else to go right now," Sabine muttered. "I'm definitely not staying here."

"Do you think...if I said I wanted to come with them too, do you think they'd let me come? Just in case I'm right about my papa?" Kata mumbled, looking back down at the ground. "I don't know where else I would go and I don't think I can stay here if it's always going to feel like this."

Sabine studied Kata closely, wondering when she'd shifted from feeling the same uncertainty that the younger girl was feeling now to the knowledge that she'd always have a home aboard the Ghost. She reached out without thinking, taking hold of Kata's arm. "We could share a room...but you're not painting my walls until you prove that you don't suck at art."

Kata smiled a little. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Sabine nodded, and then bumped her shoulder against Kata's. "Also, I think we should definitely go check out that beach after lunch."

There was only so much serious conversation that Sabine could handle.

After a quick glance out toward the shoreline, Kata looked back at Sabine. "Yeah, maybe. We should probably ask Kanan first."

Sabine opened her mouth to argue that she didn't need permission from Kanan to do anything but then she closed it again. While she wasn't exactly enthused about answering to anybody, at least Kanan cared about her, no matter how obnoxious it was. If asking Kanan permission to do something helped Kata feel the kind of normal that neither one of them was used to, a normal that could follow them all around the Galaxy if they wanted it, then what was the harm?

Besides Kanan letting it all go to his head, anyway.

"Yeah, we'll ask him first. I guess," she finally agreed. "We can see how Hera is doing, too."

Kata gave a decisive nod and then pointed down at the ground. "We might have to ask her first," she smiled a little wider, finger leading to a white speck on the ground. "Guess we should have known that we wouldn't be able to hide from her."

"Maybe," she replied, "but she's cool. It's too bad she couldn't come with us too."

"Yeah, but then who would scare Ezra?" Kata giggled, standing up and dusting off her pants.

Sabine wrinkled her nose before following Kata's lead. "And I definitely don't want him coming with us. Maybe we'll just come back to visit sometime...rarely and only for a few hours because it's way too normal here."

"So what do we do if we beat the Empire and everything gets normal out there?" Kata questioned, cautiously making her way back down the wall of the Temple.

"Come back here where there are space witches who can teach us how to make weapons from magick?" Sabine suggested. "Do you think she can actually teach us that kind of stuff?"

Kata tilted her head as she seemed to consider the question. "I guess there's only one way to find out."

Sabine wasn't sure which was worse—a kind of normal where she had to ask for the things that she wanted or the kind of normal where kids went to school and played outside—but maybe having Kata around to find out with her would make figuring it out just a little less painful.

For the fifth day in a row, it was later than usual when Merrin got home, the house she shared with Cal already dark. Although she knew that he was probably still awake, his relentless thoughts always reliable for keeping him awake when he should be exhausted, it didn't make her feel any less guilty. Between the dangers associated with their new captive, the additional children lacking adult supervision but in possession of multiple questions about Nightsister magick, and their recovering friend, it was starting to feel like their once peaceful planet tucked away from the Empire's cruelties was reaching a level of chaos that rivaled that of Koboh. If the mayhem continued for much longer, Merrin feared that it might just become the norm.

There were too many families that required refuge on Tanalorr and needed a place that offered the opportunity to raise their children or live a quiet life with their loved ones without the tumult that ravaged the rest of the Galaxy. More than that, for reasons that she knew were purely selfish, she needed some form of placidity to find its way back into their lives, if only for Cal.

The man she loved didn't need any help finding reasons to punish himself; he had always been capable of doing that without any extra assistance.

When she finally crept into their room, she found him lying in bed with his back turned to her. His pale skin was bathed in the luminescent lavender and lilac hues of the Tanalorr night sky, making the constellation of his freckles stand out even more than usual. After she rid herself of all but her shirt, she slipped into bed with him, and she snaked her arm around his waist.

"Mira plans for Hera to come out of the bacta bath full time tomorrow," she murmured into the back of his bare shoulder. "She told her that it will still be a couple of weeks before she feels comfortable with Hera returning to her fight."

"I'm sure that went over well," Cal mumbled, his fingers weaving with Merrin's.

Merrin felt one corner of her mouth tug up slightly. "I think it speaks to how miserable she still feels that Hera agreed she's in no condition to fly right now."

Cal didn't have a response to that.

Making no effort to withhold a sigh, Merrin tugged gently on his shoulder in an effort to make him roll over. "You need to talk to him, Cal."

Like every other time she'd suggested approaching his friend, the most she got was a grunt in response.

"I'm not going to stop asking until you give me a comprehensible answer."

"How 'bout I just tell you when there's something to tell?" he countered.

Merrin frowned. "And let you continue to avoid him?"

Cal rolled onto his back but he kept his eyes cast up at the ceiling. "What could I possibly say to him right now?" he asked, frustration creeping into his tone. "You know what happened with Cere, to Cordova, to Zeb," he ticked off. "Am I supposed to just saunter in there while Hera feels like she's been hit by a hovertrain and apologize for letting Bode live and just casually mention oh, by the way, he's already tried to kill a couple of people so I guess I should have listened to you?"

"That is a start, yes," she murmured. "A better approach might be offering the house you built for them, give them a place to rest and some privacy until Hera is feeling better."

As was becoming a rather obnoxious habit with her beloved, he offered a grunt in place of actual words, a poor substitute for an answer.

"I am not looking forward to the day that they permanently become our neighbors. You Jedi are stubborn and difficult," Merrin grumbled. "Did they teach you to answer to avoid experiencing emotions by offering responses that rival the eloquence of an angry Nydak in your fancy Jedi Temple?"

"Did your sisters teach you to pester Jedi to their deaths?"

"No," she smirked, tracing her finger along his sternum. "They did teach me other vastly more gratifying ways to inflict pain upon a Jedi."

Of course it was her vague threats of inflicting pain that captured Cal's attention, finally drawing him out of himself and onto his side so that he could face her. He leaned in to kiss her but made a pathetic noise when she pulled away, her fingertips pressed firmly into his chest to keep him at bay.

Merrin scraped her nails down his side, leaving little red welts in her wake. "I also know that when my Jedi is suffering that he prefers I kiss it and make it better."

Cal rasped her name pleadingly, leaning more heavily against the hand that kept him at arms length but not so much so that he was violating her boundaries. It was clear that he was in need of a distraction and if she were being honest with herself, Merrin knew that she needed him just as badly.

She refused to let that distract her from her original mission.

With a less-than-gentle shove, she pushed Cal onto his back and swung her leg over his hip until she was straddling his body. Her lips trailed slowly up his abdomen, over the steady thrum of his heart, the column of his throat, the tip of his chin, until finally, her mouth was a mere millimeter from his.

"I'll give you whatever you want, Cal Kestis," she whispered, letting the heat of her breath tease his lips, a statement that she punctuated with a slow and sinuous roll of her hips against his.

"Fine, I'll talk to him," he groaned, giving far more easily than she expected him to, even with the addition of temptation. "Later. Much later. Right now I just want—"

Whatever it was that Cal just wanted, Merrin was sure she'd figure it out, sooner rather than later if the way that he was groping at any part of her body he could reach was any indication. Some remote part of her mind wished that she'd thought of using a little bribery to get him to talk to his friend days ago, but that was some self-admonishment best saved for later.

For now, she had a Jedi to reduce to more of those incomprehensible noises that he seemed to prefer making and she intended to enjoy it.

Chapter Text

Cal watched from a distance as Kanan made his way down the hill that followed the crystalline blue stream from the Bridger house, keeping himself concealed behind a large flowering bush. It felt foolish, like something that he would have done as a child in the Jedi Temple when he was trying to ambush one of his friends in the creche, but he knew if Kanan caught sight of him that the conversation that Merrin swindled Cal into the night before wouldn't happen. As wary as Cal might have been approaching Kanan, the woman he loved was infinitely more terrifying and disappointing her even more so.

Once Kanan's heavy steps on the craggy terrain grew close enough, he emerged from his hiding spot. Cal frowned when he noticed that the other man didn't seem the least bit surprised by his appearance. If anything, his expression seemed to harden slightly, the line between his heavy brow growing more pronounced.

He'd been hoping that his friend's palpable distraction might have made him at least a little more approachable but that didn't seem to be the case.

"Word of advice, Kestis. You should be taller than the plant life you're trying to hide behind," Kanan muttered at him, his steps not slowing even slightly as he spoke.

"Honestly, I was just going for the bush that matched my hair," Cal answered, his words infinitely brighter than he felt. He immediately fell into step with Kanan. "So, uh, Merrin said Hera is doing better."

"She's fine."

"Still gonna be a couple of weeks until she's fit to fly, though, right?" he pressed.

"Sounds to me like Merrin already told you everything there is to tell so there isn't much point in you in asking," Kanan answered flatly. "I have things I need to do."

"What are you working on? I could help if you need me to."

Kanan stopped, heaving a great sigh before he spun to face Cal with narrowed eyes. "Don't you have anything better to do right now? Some asshole to save locked up in your basement?"

"Actually, that effort is going about as well as our conversation," he admitted sheepishly. "Or did Merrin tell you that already?"

"She told me that she'd do what Bode couldn't if I didn't give you a chance to talk," Kanan sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. "If a bunch of rabid clones and that guy couldn't do it, I figured I'd take my chances."

"Not too smart," Cal huffed. "Merrin isn't very squeamish when it comes to murder."

"Yeah, well, seeing as the other guy is still alive, it seems to me like I'm safe for now."

"She already told you."

"She might have tried to bring that part up after Hera was asleep," Kanan said. "Lucky for me, the kid was snooping around and cut the conversation short. It's probably the only time that he's been thanked for not listening to his parents."

Cal shook his head. "You know how long we've been trying to break him of that?"

"I guess you'll be trying a little while longer," he replied flatly. "Now if you don't mind, I need to make sure the ship is cleaned up so Hera can sleep in her own bed tonight."

Without waiting for Cal to respond, Kanan continued on. For a few seconds, Cal weighed the merits of letting his friend walk away. He had tried to talk to Kanan, after all. Wasn't that what Merrin wanted?

There wasn't a doubt in his mind that Merrin would somehow know that Cal had barely tried to talk to Kanan, though. Either she was concealed in the foothills leading up to the landing pad and spying on him or she'd find out secondhand somehow. The woman he loved had her ways and they were ways that he wasn't willing to test the boundaries of.

"You, uh, you sure that she wants to sleep on the ship this soon?" Cal called after him, jogging to make up the distance between them. "I know she'll, that all of you, will have to go back to the ship eventually. But maybe it's too soon. She just came out of the bacta full time, right? There's no rush to go back to the Ghost."

Kanan didn't break his stride. "You must have missed the part where I mentioned that there's a ten year old snoop infesting that house. We'll take our chances with the Ghost."

"That's not the only bed you've got on this planet, y'know?"

That was enough to make Kanan stop walking.

"When are you going to drop that?"

Cal gave a slight shrug. "I don't know. Probably never. There's only one way to find out though."

Kanan balked in response, his ire clearly rising. "You really don't get it, do you?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest once again. "This life isn't a life I—that we—can have. What makes you think that I want to see any more of this world than I have to? This house that we supposedly have, the school where kids allegedly get to have normal lives, some place where you can get food that doesn't come in a package without having to steal it, why do you think that I want to know about any of it? You're the genius. How have you not figured out that I don't want to hear about it."

The response startled Cal momentarily but it quickly gave way to realization. "Wait, this—you're not mad about Bode, not right now. You're mad about being here."

"Whatever you want to tell yourself," Kanan grumbled and started to walk away again.

This time, Cal didn't let him.

"You know, Merrin has two hearts," he blurted out.

"What does that have—"

"Merrin has two hearts and I'm jealous of her for it. She can split her passions. The woman I love can come and go as she pleases. She brings people along the Path, she fights the Empire and keeps Koboh cleared out whenever she wants, and then she comes home to me and she's just as content being here. I'm jealous of her, that she never has to know the ache of just sitting here, waiting for the war to be over," Cal rambled. "Your heart isn't in the fight with the Empire, it lies solely with Hera—but you get to go where she goes. Some of us aren't that lucky."

Kanan shook his head. "I don't care what they taught us at the Temple, you can't have somebody like Merrin and just love them halfway. Maybe you've got it easy on this planet but Merrin is too smart not to see through that."

"Yeah," Cal said on a heavily exhalation. "I know. I'm aware of what it probably looks like."

"And what do you do when she leaves the planet on a mission and doesn't come back? Can you live with yourself knowing that she's aware that the only heart you have isn't with her, wherever she is? That she means less to you than your lightsaber?"

"She doesn't mean less to me than my lightsaber," he bit back defensively. "You don't get it because you're out there. Sitting here, I'm—"

"Supposed to be building a life for those of us stuck out there!" Kanan snapped. "So quit complaining and build it. Build something that will last so when Hera and I finally burn down the Empire, we actually have something to come back to. Find a way to keep them from taking this away from us too instead of moping around and finding out that even your hidden planet isn't impervious. Quit trying to save people that don't need to be saved in order to make yourself feel better!"

"Fine," Cal retorted. "I'll follow your advice as soon as you take mine. Quit trying to shove your wife back onto that ship when we both know neither one of you are ready for that. You've got a house, and a bed, right up there on the hill. If you want to be a dick and sleep on the Ghost because you think that the exterior of that ship will make you forget where its parked, then fine, but why don't you try following your advice and think of the woman you love first?"

Kanan's mouth hung open but no argument came. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. "Fine. We'll stay at the stupid house. We still need clean clothes. Or are you going to tell me that you filled up our closet, too?"

Cal shook his head and then offered, "You need help?"

"No. I don't. All I want is some clean clothes, my wife, and some space. Not necessarily in that order," he answered, his expression once again flat. "From everybody."

His emphasis on the word everybody wasn't really necessary but Cal didn't tell Kanan that. Instead he nodded and pointed up to the ridge. "Second house from the top. Ours is next door. I'll...keep my distance. If you need anything—"

"We won't," Kanan cut him off and then turned to walk away once again.

This time, Cal let him.

Maybe it wasn't the conversation that Merrin was hoping he'd have with Kanan but it was a start.

Cal tried not to fixate on the fact that now, more than ever, he hoped she didn't overhear things for herself. He'd rather answer her endless line of questions instead of trying to find a way to put into words that he loved her more than he could ever explain but how it still hadn't stopped him from feeling lost.

The last thing he needed was for another one of the people in his life that he loved to be hurt because of his actions.

Sparks of green created a dazzling display before Cordova's eyes as Bode slammed his fists against the barrier that separated the two men by mere millimeters. The man's sickly eyes flickered with deadly desire, his lips pulled back into a snarl, as two wisps of emerald snaked around his wrists and pulled him back down to his seat. Although Merrin's barrier was enough, and her aid in getting their unwilling guest once again comfortable within his cell more so, Garazeb was apparently unconvinced by her efforts. Bode's form seized up as electricity coruscated over his body, his jaw clenched and eyes rolling back in his head, a guttural noise leaving the man's chest.

Cordova did his best to withhold a grimace as he turned to address the protective Lasat. There was no doubt that he was trained with the Honor Guard just as he'd told Cal, however it was obvious that whatever patience the still-young man had learned was long diminished.

"My friend," he spoke softly as he extended his hand, offering a small smile, "I think it is time that you allowed yourself rest. Perhaps some time to recover from this tribulation with your crew mates?"

Zeb clutched the device possessively. "I'm fine right 'ere."

Undeterred by the Lasat's defensive posture, Cordova reached out to close his hands over Zeb's. "Let it go, Garazeb," he soothed. "Let it go. Your wounds are not as visible as those of your crew mates but they still linger. You deserve healing."

Reluctantly, Zeb let go of the device but said nothing to confirm or deny the insults that were so clear to Cordova.

Still holding Zeb's hand, he squeezed gently. "Go, my friend," he said, gesturing toward the end of the corridor. "It's almost time for dinner. Merrin will escort you up to the kitchens. Her protections will keep me safe."

From beyond the barrier, Cordova could feel Bode's cold gaze lingering on him but he said nothing until Merrin was dutifully escorting Zeb onto the turbo lift. He turned his attention back to Bode, determination broadening his shoulders. "Now, where were we?"

"What does it matter to you, old man? Why do you care whether or not the hairy beast is pressing the button?"

Sadness tugged at his expression as he studied Bode before dropping the remote to the ground. "I suppose that you feel as though it shouldn't have any bearing upon me, the pain that you're suffering."

"I suppose that it somehow makes you feel better to pretend that it does," Bode uttered, his nostrils flaring slightly as he rose back to his feet, only to be tugged back down. He cried out, an animalistic sound as he fought the wisps that overpowered him, the noise echoing loudly off of the marbled walls of the corridor. "Dammit!"

"No man should know the agony that you're intimately familiar with. The pain you're entrenched in, that you cloak yourself with, you're clinging to it as though it is your lifeline. Why, son?" Cordova continued, unaffected by Bode's outbursts and struggling.

A sudden and heavy silence fell between the two of them, Bode's outcries turning to a sound more akin to a sob. He doubled over, his muscular shoulders starting to shake, until he looked back up at Cordova with a penetrating gaze, deep brown eyes surrounded by bloodshot sclera that shimmered with emotions that struggled to surface through all of his rage and anger.

"Kata," he gasped, as though it was the first breath of air he'd drawn in days. "The suffering, the anger, I'd endure any of it for my daughter...for the love of my daughter."

The man folded in on himself again as Cordova settled into his seat outside Bode's cell. "Perhaps that's the best place for us to start, then."

Bode lifted his head, his acrid amber eyes meeting Cordova's. "We can start wherever you want, old man. It will not change how this ends.

Vos squinted against the obnoxiously bright rays of the setting sun, lifting his eyes to shield against the light. Had it not been for the fact that the cabinets of the home he shared with Asajj were long empty save for stale rations, he would have turned around and gone back, but his stomach was growling and his head was throbbing.

"They really need to relocate the dining halls closer to the gardens like they said they were going to," he grumbled.

"Maybe if you tell them that it's a real inconvenience when you're hung over, Kestis will get on it," Asajj replied mockingly.

"Woman," Quinlan sighed. "I knew I should have left you at home."

"Call me woman again and you won't have to worry about me coming anywhere with you again," she vaguely threatened.

A slight smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, no matter how miserable he felt. "I didn't hear you complaining earlier."

"If by earlier, you mean two days ago, then I'm not surprised. You weren't exactly coherent, lover."

Vos dropped his hand to his side, deciding that the sun was less of a headache than the woman that he loved. "I already told you—" he started, but she cut him off.

"And I started listening to you when, exactly?"

His face split into a wider smile, eyes glistening as he took her in. "At least we can agree on that."

"Because there's nothing to agree on. Idiot," she said with a certain fondness to her voice.

Just as he was starting to reconsider his insistence that they should probably get some real food and tug Asajj back to their house, a startled sound drew him up short. He glanced up toward the opened door to the kitchens and saw Jarrus standing there next to Merrin, his jaw slack.

Quinlan was starting to think that his face might actually break if he smiled any wider.

"What's that look for? Afraid I might try to choke you again?" Asajj sneered at him.

Merrin, not usually one for surprise, had clearly been caught off guard. "I do not understand."

"Oh, for the love of the Force. Don't tell me you can't understand her," Quinlan groaned. "I told you she was fine. I knew she'd be fine all along."

"Please," Asajj snorted. "I woke up to you passed out drunk and you'd pissed yourself."

"Woman," he scowled, glancing up at Jarrus and then looking over at Merrin before he cleared his throat. "She said that she's happy to see you."

"No she didn't," Jarrus muttered. "She said you can't handle your liquor and I don't have time for this. I have to get this stuff back to Hera."

Jarrus barely made it a couple of meters before Asajj called after him.

"Hera. She's getting better?"

Although he was enjoying Merrin's look of utter astonishment, Quinlan glanced back toward Jarrus.

"She is," he answered, although his expression seemed to darken slightly, and the annoyed tone of his voice took on something that seemed colder. "You can stay here with them. There's no use in two of us getting yelled at for letting her sleep longer than she wanted to."

Obviously the kid was in some sort of hurry to put an end to the conversation because he didn't wait for Merrin to respond before turning to walk away. He knew for a fact that he wouldn't get much out of Merrin, at least not in the way of a good story—if he was going to get any of the juicy details, his best bet would be to stay up late and play a round of sabacc with Greez.

"I guess you've got permission to eat dinner with us now," Quinlan half-joked. "Think the kid needs a nap."

"He needs something," Merrin answered, her answer predictably vague.

Asajj pushed between the two of them. "You two do realize the food is inside, right?"

Merrin looked at her sister and then looked back to him before shaking her head. "When did that happen?"

Quinlan snorted. "When did what happen? I told you she was fine all along."

Scowling, Merrin followed her sister back into the building. "I am not in the mood for this."

"Tell me something new," Quinlan said, following close at her heel. "Don't suppose you'd be willing to indulge in some gossip and tell me what that was all about back there."

"I would not. You could tell me the truth and explain what has transpired with my sister, though," Merrin replied. "We both know that you were not as blind as you pretended to be."

"Maybe not, but I also wasn't as blind as you were," he conceded. "I don't know how to explain it—"

"And he sure as hell doesn't know when it happened because he was passed out," Asajj disrupted him, once again offering her unsolicited opinion on the matter.

"And...I was sleeping. Heavily."

Fortunately, this time, Asajj only had a sound of derision to offer.

"You will be giving me an explanation," Merrin told Asajj bluntly. "I want to know how much you remember from before."

"It's nice to want things."

With a slight chuckle, Quinlan swept past Merrin to wrap an arm around Asajj's waist. In truth, his action was born more out of the desire to see the reaction of the others more than any sense of needing to be close to the woman he loved, although their physical proximity and the sound of disgust that Merrin made when Asajj reached around to grab his ass was well worth risking his life by nudging Merrin out of his way.

The table that they preferred to dine at late in the day was fuller than usual, almost crowded, the remainder of Hera's crew having joined them for the meal. Greez looked comically small next to Zeb, the two men amicably talking about something. Next to them the bratty, but admittedly useful, Bridger kid was wedged in between a girl with hair that faded from a brilliant orange into a ruby color that rivaled the Tanalorr sunset and Akuna's daughter, although the two girls seemed to be talking over the ten year old boy, who didn't seem to notice that he was carrying on a conversation with himself.

Cere sat at the end of the table, next to two empty chairs that he guessed belonged to Kestis and Cordova. Merrin disappeared, quite literally, rather than sitting in the chair that he supposed would belong to Kestis, leaving a burst of emerald smoke where she'd been standing.

"I hate when she does that," Quinlan muttered, waving his hand in front of his face.

There was a sudden clattering of dishes to the ground and all of the jovial conversation fell silent.

As nice as it might have been to enjoy seeing the people he cared for together, Quinlan would have been lying if he didn't enjoy the various gazes of disbelief, sounds of surprises, and the poorly disguised sound of terror from Ezra.

"She's a zombie witch who can come back to life?" he whimpered.

"Told you mine was better, loser," Quinlan beamed with pride, pulling a seat out for Asajj—one that she pointedly did not take, sitting in the one next to it instead.

"And you were told not to call a ten year old kid loser," Asajj reminded him, reaching for one of the glasses and the pitcher at the middle of the table. "Speaking of which, when did we get so many younglings and when do they go away?"

Quinlan opened his mouth but then closed it again, deciding that the best part of everybody being able to see that Asajj wasn't ever truly gone is that they could all understand her again, too.

Chapter Text

Even after Mira Bridger had ushered the obnoxious amount of younglings off to her house for bed, Asajj could still feel four sets of eyes fixed on her. One of them, she was used to and although she'd never admit it aloud, she loved that her idiot still gawked at her after all of these years, like he'd never seen her before.

The others, however, she could have done without.

Finally fed up with their curious gazes, she decided if she was going to be able to enjoy her Tevraki whiskey in peace, she was going to have to address the bantha in the room.

"If you're waiting for me to explain any of this, you're looking at the wrong witch," she said dryly, swirling her glass as she did.

Merrin gave a slight shake of her head. "This, whatever this is, was not my doing. Nothing I learned from our sleeping sisters, nor any of their words that I studied, alluded to a lasting ritual. Perhaps one of the Great Mothers might have wielded such power."

"It may be Tanalorr's influence," Cordova mused, joining in the conversation. "The witches of Dathomir were known to draw on the Dark Side of the Force but it does not mean that all who wielded the power at the core of the planet acted out of malevolence. Perhaps your gifts combined with the strength of this world in the Force created something more lasting."

"My sister's state cannot be explained by a mere extension of the ritual. She returned from a state similar to that of my sleeping sisters," Merrin refuted.

Quinlan scoffed. "Oh, come on. She was not that bad. I could understand her."

Asajj snorted derisively, even as she gave his thigh a gentle squeeze beneath the table. "You barely understand me when I'm speaking to you, slowly, in Basic. Idiot."

Cordova chuckled. "It certainly seems as whatever happened had no effect on your unique personality."

Cal, who was clearly distracted and vastly more quiet than normally, finally spoke up. It was barely a huff of a laugh, "Unique."

"It still makes no sense," Merrin insisted. "Before, when I woke you, any memories you possessed were only those of the past and of this fool," she said gesturing toward Vos. "But this was different. You remembered Hera and Kanan."

"How would you know if you couldn't understand me?" Asajj countered, pushing Merrin's buttons merely for her own entertainment.

"That much was clear," she replied bluntly.

For several long moments, the two of them studied each other with narrowed eyes, each waiting for the other to break. It wasn't a game that Asajj enjoyed playing and one that she always lost because she simply did not have the patience for such foolish things.

"Fine. I recognized them. So what?"

"It does not make sense," Merrin repeated, a slight edge of frustration sharpening her words.

"Does it really need to?" Vos asked. "It saved you a trip to Dathomir and I have to put up with her reminding me that it took me years to come around after the kid kept trying to get me to make a run through that death trap. Isn't that all that matters?"

The way that Merrin remained silent for a heartsbeat, it was clear that she was choosing her response carefully. "If it is as Master Cordova says, that Tanalorr's strength somehow surpassed the power of the ritual and sustained you, what is to say that the same cannot be said for that of our lost sisters?"

"What?" Cal blurted out, her suggestion finally getting a more pronounced rise out of him. "You want to wake them up and bring them back here? Don't we have enough on our hands right now?"

Narrowing her eyes, Asajj turned her gaze to Cal. "And what exactly does that mean?"

Cordova raised his hand, that aggravating expression of Jedi placidity painted across his face. "I believe what Cal meant to say is that we still have our hands quite full with Bode. There's a small chance that I've made a little headway with him today but the challenge we face is still quite daunting."

Asajj polished off her whiskey before pushing it toward Quinlan for a refill. "If you still have a pet project in the basement, shouldn't you focus on that instead of fixating on why I am the way I am?"

"She has a point," Quinlan muttered, filling her glass and sliding it back in her direction. "And if nobody hasn't figured it out after all of these years, none of you are going to."

The tone in her lover's voice made it plain that he still wasn't enthused that Akuna was still breathing. Truth be told, after seeing what the bastard had done to Hera and how the girl at dinner—Kata—oozed a level of pathetic that Asajj hadn't ever experienced before, she couldn't help but agree with Quinlan.

"You think I made the wrong choice too," Cal said, his gaze still cast in her direction.

"I don't care what choice you made," Asajj answered before sipping her drink. "But for what it's worth, I'd work on whatever benevolent spirits reside on this planet fixing that son of a bantha before you go digging up our dead sisters. You might be too young to remember such things, but I can recall approximately two of us that wouldn’t have wanted to be responsible for the end of the Jedi ourselves if we could have, and they're both sitting in this room."

Merrin frowned slightly, like a youngling that had just been told she couldn't have a pet tooka, but said nothing.

Done with the curious glances, the defeated sighs, and the unbearable amount of sulking, Asajj unceremoniously stood up from the table. "I would not take it that hard, sister. Give it another five years and I'm sure that you and that one will have started your own coven."

Asajj smiled to herself as she heard Cal choking on his own breath while she walked away, bottle of whiskey in hand and Quinlan in tow.

That was certainly one way to get the attention off of her.

Hera startled awake, her limbs thrashing about as she fought an invisible foe, each movement drawing incoherent pleas past her lips.

It was just as well that Kanan couldn't sleep in this place, because while Hera had never been completely immune from nightmares, they'd never been this bad.

Gently, he stroked along tchun, the only signs of Bode's cruelties having faded to a few bruises, and he murmured her name, quiet but firm. When the thrashing of her limbs calmed, he leaned over to kiss the top of her head and uttered her name once more, this time, causing her eyes to flutter open slowly. Without looking, he knew that she'd still have that glazed over look in her eye, the obvious signs that she was trapped in her terror, and he hated that this has become a new routine for them.

Then again, hadn't it always been a routine for them?

Their roles had merely reversed.

"Kanan?" she finally whispered, becoming more alert as he pulled her into his embrace. "You're okay."

"I'm okay," he assured her. "Sabine, Zeb, Kata—we're all okay. We're safe."

Heavy silence lingered between them as Hera tiredly took in their surroundings, just as she had over the past three nights, and then she looked up at him with something akin to shame in her gaze. "I'm so—"

"No," he cut her off. "Don't apologize. This isn't your fault, none of this was your fault. If anything, I'm to blame. I should have known."

"It's not your fault either, love," she replied, burying her face into his neck, and deeply inhaling as though she was trying to reassure herself that this was still real.

Hera's body curled into his, clinging tightly to him. To anybody who didn't know her, she might have given off the appearance of being relaxed but he could tell by the trembling and tension of her lekku that she was anything but. The tautness of her muscles in the long appendages would do nothing to help alleviate the pain that lingered although her infection had cleared. It didn't help that she was naive to pain medications, his stubborn wife refusing to take so much as a weak pain tablet when her lekku were stiff and aching from a long hyperspace journey or a particularly brutal flight, so the stronger pills that Mira had prescribed left Hera in a haze and a cycle of these nightmares.

Still, they were a necessary evil.

Carefully, Kanan reached over to the nightstand at his side without shifting in the slightest to retrieve first the pain tabs he set aside and then the cup of water. He really did loathe this new routine.

"You need to take these," he said, leaving her no room for argument. "If we're getting off this rock anytime soon, you need to do what Mira says."

Kanan hated it even more that Hera didn't argue with him. He wanted the days back when she'd try to convince him that tchin was bent the way she wanted it to be bent and it had nothing to do with a bad lekkuache.

Once she'd taken the medication and emptied the small glass of water, he set them aside and wrapped his arms tightly around her. When he spoke again, he wasn't sure if he was reassuring her or himself.

"Just a few more days and I think we'll be able to get out of this place," he mumbled before brushing a kiss against her temple. "Back on the Ghost where we belong."

Hera started to nod but then she lifted her head to look up at him, the slightest degree of clarity in her otherwise clouded gaze. "This place, this is the house that Cal built for us, isn't it?"

"It's a waste of space for a family that could use it," he answered, not trying to mask the bitterness in his voice.

"It's a space that we'll need for our family when we're done fighting," she replied, laying a hand against his cheek. "I made you a promise Kanan and I meant it. However long it takes us to come back, to really be able to call this place home, I want that with you."

There hadn't been a day in his life that Kanan was capable of saying no to his wife and that moment wasn't an exception. He took the opportunity to kiss her gently, his hand gripping her hip just a little tighter, allowing his mind to wander to a far off future that probably didn't exist—one where their time spent in their bed would be vastly more enjoyable than the routine they'd come to know. It would have been easy to let himself get carried away, to pull her body tighter against his or find creative ways to show her just how much he loved her without exceeding the limits of Mira's orders, but instead he pulled away.

She was beautiful as she looked up at him, kiss swollen lips slightly parted and emerald eyes sparkling in the magenta glow of the Tanalorr night sky cast into their room.

Force, there was nothing more he wanted than the unlikeliest of futures with her.

"Then this is home," he finally murmured, nestling his head atop hers, "or at least it will be eventually."

Kanan just wished he could make himself believe that.

Initially, when Ezra started sticking around for his classes, it was mostly because he wanted to brag to the other students that he snuck away on a top secret mission and that Merrin hadn't turned him into an Oggdo Bogdo. He also enjoyed the awe of his classmates that he was something of a big deal, fielding questions if he really helped save somebody's lives and if he'd really taken on a bad guy by himself. Sure, he might have exaggerated a little, but he did trip up the creepy guy and slam the electrodart into his leg so it wasn't that much of a stretch to say that he was involved in the fight. When the novelty of his stories wore off and his classmates no longer seemed to care about the stories he had to share, Ezra kept going to class.

He wasn't sure why, they were as boring as ever and he didn't feel any stronger in his skills during the training sessions led by Master Kestis or the sparring lessons taught by Merrin. The homework and studying that he decided to do every night instead of waiting until he had a pile that he was behind on wasn't teaching him anything about becoming a Jedi like Master Vos or Cal, and no amount of practice would ever help him win in a sparring match when he felt like he was half the size of the other kids in his class. Just like before he stowed away on the Mantis II, it was all a waste of time.

So why couldn't he stop showing up to class?

After his second week in a row of showing up, Ezra finally realized during one of Cal's classes with their training sticks why he couldn't just go back to exploring the planet and ignoring his responsibilities. It felt like a pulling sensation inside him, something that drew him to Cal, a gravity that he couldn't be denied. They'd learned very little about bonds in the Force, or at least Ezra hadn't learned much about bonds in the Force since he hadn't spent much time in Brother Armias' classes, but what he did know about the bonds—this thing he felt toward Cal was sort of like that. Learning from him felt right, but Ezra was afraid to ask.

Who would want a Padawan who was known for misbehaving and mischief?

At first, Ezra tried to brush off the idea of it, knowing that nobody would ever want him. The feeling wouldn't go away though, it was like a gentle but persistent nagging that reminded him of his mother telling him to clean up his room, and it refused to be ignored. So Ezra started by lingering after class, helping to pick up training sticks left behind by the other students who rushed out of the room, or making a show turning in his work early, or going through the exaggerated motions of packing up his backpack. When that didn't seem to get Cal's attention, he finally gave up and decided that he might as well get the disappointment over with instead of letting the idea of being apprenticed to Cal keep him awake at night.

After their afternoon training session with their training sticks, Ezra lingered, this time holding onto the last one and fidgeting with it. He'd planned and schemed all night long how to bring up his question and here he was with the chance to do it but too afraid to speak up.

"What happened to you being the first one out the door?" Cal asked, reaching out to ruffle his hair. "Did I bring the wrong kid back to Tanalorr?"

Ezra's cheeks flushed slightly. "No. I mean...I just thought..." Suddenly, he couldn't remember what he wanted to say again, his grip tightening on the stick as he shuffled his feet. Finally he forced out the words that he'd thought up the night before, fully prepared to be told no.

"I just thought maybe you could show me that one thing again."

Cal studied him closely, head tilted to the side. "I showed you a lot of things today, Ezra."

This was a stupid idea.

"The, uh, the stuff with Form II," he clarified, having absolutely no idea what he was asking Cal to show him. He'd been too busy trying to work up the courage to ask Cal what he really wanted.

Although it was clear that Cal was surprised, he gave a slight nod and picked up a stick. "Do you remember the ready position?"

Ezra looked down at the ground and tried to remember all that they'd done today. Had they even gone through Form II? This was an incredibly stupid idea.

Still, he tried to feign confidence and raise his stick in the form that he thought was the ready position.

Cal nodded but reached over, tapping his toe against Ezra's foot. "Widen your stance just slightly there, and lift your shoulders. Keep them broad. You can't fight with your posture slumped like that."

Nodding, Ezra made the adjustments that Cal recommended and then looked back to him for approval. When Cal smiled, he felt something like pride swell up in his stomach, and they began to move through the stances together. Ezra wasn't really sure when he actually paid enough attention to remember the basic moves of the form, but it came to him almost naturally, working at Cal's side.

Where he was supposed to be.

Suddenly, Ezra dropped his stick and blurted out the real reason that he'd stuck around without thinking. "I want you to teach me," he spat out, the words all mashed together. "I know that I'm not a good student and that I have to keep coming to class but the lectures and stuff, they don't make sense to me. They don't make me better at being being the kind of person I want to be, somebody like you that's brave and strong, and does the right thing no matter what. You make all of this make sense."

Cal lowered his stick and looked at Ezra, a slight expression of surprise on his face. His brows drew together and he was probably thinking of how to tell Ezra that it was never going to happen.

"Nevermind," Ezra said, rushing to put his training stick up. "That was a dumb question. I'm sorry."

"No," Cal called after him. "Ezra, come here."

With sagging shoulders, Ezra turned to face Cal and then dragged his feet back across the training gym to the guy who would have to be crazy to want to be his Master.

"I'll teach you," Cal said quietly.

"You wil—"

"If you keep coming to class. Keep showing up, keep paying attention. You have to prove to me that you're ready," he continued, cutting off Ezra's disbelief.

"How long will I know until I'm ready?" Ezra asked, trying not to act too excited.

In response, Cal merely shrugged. "The only way to know is to keep working hard to find out."

Ezra smiled and nodded. "Yes, Master."

Suddenly, he found himself looking forward to class the next day even though school had just gotten out.

His classmates were never going to believe this.

When Kata imagined Kanan teaching her how to be a Jedi, meditation isn't exactly what she had in mind.

She shifted next to him, unable to keep her eyes closed for more than a minute or two at best before she opened them and glanced in Kanan's direction. He was obviously didn't want to be there.

"You have to focus, Kata," he said, his voice gentle and his eyes still closed.

"It's hard to focus when I can tell that you don't want to teach me," she answered bluntly, giving up on any hopes of learning how to meditate today. "You don't want to do this and you promised that you would."

Kanan signed and opened his eyes to look at her. "I told you that I don't know as much as I should about being a Jedi. Cal, Vos, the others—they'd be better teachers than I am."

"And I don't want to learn from them," she argued. "I want to learn from you. I want to go with you when we leave. I can't stay here with Papa."

"You don't know that yet, Kata," replied, genuine concern in his voice. "There's still a chance that he could get better, or maybe he already is. If he changes, don't you want to be here with him?"

This was the second time that she'd tried to convince Kanan that she wanted him to be her teacher since they'd come to Tanalorr. The first time he told her that their lessons would have to wait, she understood—Hera had just come out of the bacta bath and even though she was sleeping a lot, she was having a lot of nightmares. Sometimes they were so strong that Kata could even feel them when she was sleeping next door in Cal and Merrin's house.

They were nightmares that her papa caused.

Anger started to well up in her stomach, like a fire burning through her veins. "I want to learn from you," she repeated. "I'm not staying here."

"Kata," Kanan started, his mouth hanging open as he was obviously searching for another excuse why he couldn't teach her. He didn't want her. He wanted her to stay behind on this planet with a man who looked and sounded like her papa but acted nothing like him.

"I'm going with you!" she said more forcefully, her voice intoned with all of the anger and sadness and pain that she felt, her fist clenched at her sides. Behind Kanan, one of the large trees that surrounded them began to snap along the trunk as her emotions overwhelmed her, tears welling up in her eyes. It wasn't until he grabbed her shoulders to snap her out of it that those dark feelings let go of her, his touch grounding her and pulling her back from the brlnk of an indescribable darkness.

Her eyes widened at the sight of the tree and then she looked up at Kanan. "I...I didn't mean to do that."

"You can't do that again," he said firmly. "You can't let your emotions control you."

Kata felt those emotions start to surge within her again but she did her best to fight them. "How am I supposed to control them if you won't teach me?"

Rather than waiting for Kanan to answer her, Kata elected to take some advice that Sabine had given her when they first arrived on Tanalorr, abruptly turning and stomping away from Kanan. She'd planned on finding her friend—the only friend she had on the planet—to ask her how to make Kanan teach her when she ran headlong into Merrin at the bottom of the hill, causing her to stumble backward.

"Sorry," Kata mumbled, starting to walk around her before Merrin grabbed her by the arm to stop her.

"It does not appear that your training is going well," she observed, her eyes scanning up the hill to the tree that had been split at the trunk. "Unless that is something Kanan intended to teach you."

Kata looked up the hill with narrowed eyes at Kanan, whose back was turned to the two of them before she looked back to Merrin. She felt her eyes stinging with tears, both from frustration and fear, but she refused to let them fall. If she was going to make Kanan teach her how to be a Jedi, she had to prove to him what she already knew. There was only one way that she'd make it off of Tanalorr and away from the darkness trying to wrap itself around her.

"Merrin," she said, her voice much steadier than she felt, "I want you to take me to see Papa."