Work Text:
The tip had come from Fulcrum.
How Hera’s mysterious contact had learned of it, Kanan didn’t know. But his friend swore by the intel, and if there was even the faintest possibility that it was true, they had to help.
So they found themselves in a dim, chilly warehouse-turned-workshop, posing as potential buyers for the “cargo” the owner was trying to “offload” in total secrecy. The “cargo” in question: a Jedi.
In the years since Order 66, a black market had cropped up for “Jedi artifacts.” People were willing to pay through the nose for lightsaber parts, scraps of robes, even kriffing Padawan braids. Kanan tried to take comfort in the knowledge that most of the “artifacts” were probably fake. The Empire had destroyed nearly everything, after all. But more than once he’d found himself scrolling through hidden corners of the holonet, rage and disgust mounting as he saw the last fragments of his people being sold like curiosities. Sometimes he just barely held himself back from throwing the datapad across the room.
And this Jedi had been swept up into the worst of it. The owner of this place, a human man called Eskil, had kidnapped a supposed Jedi survivor and had been selling pieces of him. Vials of blood, locks of hair, even at one point a finger. But today, it would end. Kanan and Hera were here to get him out, whatever price they had to pay to do it.
“The Empire’s done a great job dealing with the problem,” Eskil was saying as he led them through the headquarters of his kriffed-up little operation. The problem, of course, being Force sensitives. “But the fact that these… creatures are a scourge on our galaxy doesn’t mean they can’t be useful to honest folk.”
Sensing Kanan’s anger, Hera reached out, the back of her hand brushing gently against his as they followed Eskil. He was a tall, severe-looking man with hair so blond it was almost white and blue eyes like chips of ice. Just hearing the way he spoke about the captive Jedi, like he was something even lower than livestock, made Kanan’s hand itch to reach for his blaster.
At last they reached a door with a keypad beside it. Eskil punched in the code and led the way into an even darker room. Kanan stopped short, only just managing to stay in character when he saw what waited on the other side of the door.
The boy was in a cage.
Kanan’s teeth ground together for a moment before he forced himself to relax his jaw. He couldn’t afford to blow their cover yet. If it was really necessary (and maybe even if it wasn’t), that could come later. For now, he crossed toward the cage, making himself appear only halfway interested in what was inside it.
The kid couldn’t be any older than Sabine; probably younger given his size. He certainly wasn’t old enough to be a survivor, unless he was one of the few infants the Order took in. His wrists and ankles were both shackled together, and a heavy collar encircled his neck, a chain connecting it to one of the bars of the cage. A filthy-looking rag had been tied in his mouth to keep him quiet. But what struck Kanan the hardest were his eyes. They looked half-dead, as if all hope had been drained out of the kid along with the “Jedi blood” this sleemo was selling.
“He ever give you any trouble?” Kanan asked, drawing Eskil’s attention to him as Hera moved into position. She placed herself just inside the door, where she could easily block it from closing and sealing them in. Or block their mark from escaping. Their plan was to get out of here without leaving a body in their wake, but well... plans changed. Sometimes for the better.
“At first,” Eskil said with a shrug. “But that was years ago. He just needed some breaking in.”
Kanan looked at the boy again as he pretended he was considering what Eskil said. The boy stared back at him, those defeated blue eyes unblinking. One of them was ringed by a horrid bruise that looked fresh, within the past few days. As those eyes met his, Kanan could feel the Force rippling around the boy. He was Force sensitive, but untrained, with no idea how to harness his power. How to use it to save himself.
Reaching within, Kanan drew upon that well of power that had gone untouched for so long. He’d never been able to shut the Force out completely, but he’d gone to extreme lengths to avoid actively using it for years. In preparation for this op, the rest of the crew had let him practice on them, but they’d been compliant, hoping that it would work. An unwilling target was another story.
“You will give the boy to us,” he said, pushing against Eskil’s mind. The man blinked, and Kanan could feel his resolve wavering.
He repeated the order, pressing harder. The man wanted his “cargo” moved as quickly as possible. The Empire was closing in on his operation, and concealing a Force sensitive carried a heavier penalty than simply smuggling. It should be easy enough to convince him. Easy enough to make him think that this was the smartest course of action. Easy enough –
“You’re one of them,” Eskil said, sounding equal parts disgusted and triumphant. “But your Jedi witchcraft won’t work on me.”
In one swift motion, he drew a blaster, pointing it at Kanan. Now, there was no choice. Kanan drew his own weapon, pulling the trigger before Eskil had even processed that the man he was trying to threaten was armed.
The man was dead before he hit the floor.
There was a rattle and crash from inside the cage and Kanan looked over to see that the boy had pressed himself back against the bars. His eyes were wide as he stared not at Kanan, but at the blaster in his hand. Terror rolled off of him in waves, making the chains rattle even though he wasn’t moving.
“It’s okay,” Kanan said, slowly returning the blaster to its holster. “We’re here to rescue you.”
Hera picked the lock quickly, pulling the cage door open and climbing in. The boy flinched, moving away from her as she settled on her knees beside him.
“I’m going to take the collar off,” she said softly. “It shouldn’t hurt.”
The boy went still, staring at Hera for a moment before he slowly lifted his chin, giving her better access to his neck. His muscles went rigid as Hera worked the lock carefully. It took longer than the cage itself. Long enough that Kanan went to the door, peering through it and listening intently. Eskil could have associates they didn’t know about. Someone who might come through and realize that something was amiss.
At long last, the collar popped open with a loud clack. Easing him away from the bars, Hera untied the cloth from around the boy’s face and pulled another rag from inside his mouth. The boy retched and gasped, shaking with sheer relief.
“You’ll be okay,” Hera told him gently.
She made quick work of the shackles binding the boy’s ankles and wrists and slowly eased him toward the edge of the cage. He was so kriffing small. The threadbare clothes he wore were hanging off of him, swallowing up limbs that were frighteningly thin.
“Can you walk?” Kanan asked.
The boy nodded slowly. He gripped one of the bars, his knuckles going pale as he got to his feet. Now Kanan could see it. The middle finger on his left hand was missing. Kanan added that to the mental list of medical attention the kid would need once they got him somewhere safe.
With his first step, the boy staggered. Kanan caught him, one hand gripping the kid’s arm, the other at his back, steadying him. The kid’s arms were covered in marks from needles. His veins were probably wrecked by this point. If he needed fluids, getting an IV in him would be trouble.
As terrified as he clearly was, the kid didn’t pull away. He limped alongside Kanan, letting the Jedi guide him. Kanan could sense the sparks of suspicion and distrust popping and crackling in the boy’s mind, but the kid was just too defeated to fight whatever fate he was being led to. Or maybe, Kanan dared to hope, he was just biding his time, waiting for his chance.
“What’s your name, kid?” Kanan asked as they slowly made their way through the warehouse. Hera was hovering at the boy’s other side, ready to help Kanan if he fell again.
The boy took a long, shaking breath, his muscles tensing as if he was gathering his strength.
“Ezra.” His voice was hoarse and strained. “My name’s Ezra Bridger.”
Ezra winced as he gingerly pressed a cold pack against his bruised eye. The man across from him grimaced with sympathy before setting a cup of water down on the table between them.
They were on a ship. An old freighter. What little he’d seen of it stirred something half-forgotten in his chest. It looked like a home. Like the people who lived here really loved it.
The Twi’lek had hurried off to the cockpit as soon as they’d gotten here, giving the Human a vague order to “look after him.” And so they’d wound up here, in a small galley with a medkit set out on the table while Ezra tried to wrap his head around everything that had just happened.
Eskil was dead. The bastard who’d held him captive for years, who’d kept him penned up like an animal was dead. A warm bubble of the sort of the happiness he hadn’t felt in years swelled in his chest, and for just a second Ezra found himself actually smiling.
Eskil was kriffing gone.
But that bubble burst just as suddenly as it had formed. Eskil might be gone, but now he was stuck on these strangers’ ship and had no idea of their intentions.
They hadn’t bought him. At first it seemed like they'd intended to, but then they said they were rescuing him. It could have been a ploy to get him to comply. Nothing that they’d done gave him any real reason to trust either of them.
And yet, there was something about the man that almost (almost) put him at ease. A strange sense of… familiarity? Something like that. He didn’t know the word for it. Like he was looking at someone he’d known his whole life. Someone who was… like him?
“My name is Kanan,” the man said, his words slow and gentle. “The woman who helped me get you out of that place is Hera. You’re on her ship. I know you’re scared, and that all of this is probably confusing, but we’re here to help you. What we did, acting like we wanted to buy you, we only did because we wanted to get you out of there.”
Ezra could only stare at him. He couldn’t possibly think Ezra would believe that. No one had so much as tried to help him before, and he’d figured out long ago that no one ever would. Nobody cared. He’d known that for years, long enough that he should just be over it already, but still a deep ache welled up in his chest at the thought.
“People don’t do that,” he muttered, his voice straining under the weight of that ache. “What do you want from me?”
“Nothing,” Kanan said. “There’s no catch here, kid. This is what we do. We help people, especially when helping them might cause trouble for the Empire.”
Ezra huffed, sinking lower in his seat.
“And how does helping me cause trouble for the Empire?” he asked.
“Kid… do you know why you were in that cage?”
Ezra’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together harshly. Biting cold began to sting at his skin and he slammed the cold pack down on the table with one shaking hand. He knew exactly why he’d been locked up there. It wasn’t like he hadn’t noticed the weird things that happened around him. After he’d been kidnapped, before they crushed the fight out of him, things would move when he was furiously kicking and screaming and trying to get away. He had no control over it, but he knew he was the one causing it. Eskil knew it too, and had taken everything from him because of it.
“I take it that’s a yes,” Kanan said.
Ezra nodded, staring down at the table, stubbornly avoiding the man’s gaze. Kanan was doing a good job at disguising his pity, but Ezra still knew it was there. He could just… tell. Somehow.
“You’re Force sensitive,” Kanan said gently. Ezra internally recoiled at the term. It had only ever caused him trouble. Brought him unspeakable pain that nearly killed him dozens of times over. “That’s why rescuing you causes trouble for the Empire. They…” he paused, and though Ezra wasn’t even looking at the man, his first thought was that Kanan was shuddering. “They want everyone like us either dead or serving them. But we got you out before they could find you, and we can protect you.”
“Like us?” Ezra echoed, his voice suddenly going hoarse.
“Yeah,” Kanan said. “I’m like you. And I… I was a Jedi. Before.”
Ezra blinked. He didn’t have many clear memories of his parents, but he did remember them telling him stories about the Jedi, whispered to him like they were a secret he had to take to his grave. He also remembered how the stories ended.
“I thought the Empire wiped out all the Jedi.”
“Not all of us.”
That feeling that Kanan was familiar to him began pounding in Ezra’s chest, hammering against his ribs insistently. His stomach lurched, as if he was standing on a ledge overlooking a steep, far drop.
“I survived,” Kanan said. “I like to think I’m not the only one, but… I don’t know.”
A sharp pang shot through Ezra’s chest. He knew exactly how that felt. The last time he’d seen his parents they were alive, being shoved into a prisoner transport packed with other people while he followed their order to hide. The only way he’d been able to keep going was by crushing the hope that they’d survived. By telling himself he would never see them again. That they were never going to come back and save him. That he was on his own.
“My parents died,” Ezra mumbled, unsure of why he was even telling Kanan this. “A – a lot of our people were taken. I hid.”
“So did I,” Kanan said softly. “We both did what we had to do.”
A heavy silence fell between them, mutual sorrow and loss hanging in the air.
“You’re free now, Ezra,” Kanan said. “And we won’t force you to stay here if that’s not what you want. But if you stay, we can help you. And I… I can teach you how to use your abilities.”
Everything in Ezra’s head felt frozen. He didn’t know what to do, what to say. He wished there was some way he could take back everything he’d said and convince Kanan that he wasn’t Force sensitive. But he was plummeting off that ledge now, and there was no way to stop it. Kanan knew what he was. There was no going back.
But beneath the frantic denial in his head, he did want to learn. He’d spent six years of his life enslaved. Five of them locked in that kriffing cage. If he learned how to control his powers, he’d never be that helpless again.
“I’ll stay,” Ezra said, finally dragging his gaze up from the tabletop to look at the Jedi. “And I’ll learn from you. If – if you really want to teach me.”
“First things first,” Kanan said with a smile. “Let’s put this medkit to use.”
When Kanan entered the cockpit, Hera was still there. They’d be on autopilot for a while yet as they travelled through hyperspace, but she loved to watch the shifting, swirling colors. She’d told him once that no matter how long she flew, she could never stop being fascinated by it.
“How’s the kid?” Hera asked, glancing over at Kanan as he sat down beside her.
“As okay as he can be under the circumstances,” Kanan said. “He’s taking a sonic now. And we’ll have to get him to a medic soon. But he’s alright. Mostly.”
He suspected it would change soon enough. That Ezra’s unsettling calm would crack once he realized he was really safe. No one could live through years of captivity without it leaving scars.
“We’ll have to get him to a medic,” Kanan continued, pulling himself out of that downward spiral before it could truly start. “I did what I could but he needs a professional.”
Hera nodded. “We’ll take care of it.”
“Apparently he lost that finger after he flipped the bastard off,” Kanan said. He was surprised the kid even felt comfortable enough to tell him that. But it was a good sign, he thought. Even after everything he’d been through, Ezra hadn’t had all the fight knocked out of him yet.
“Knew there was a reason I liked him,” Hera said. She paused for a moment before she spoke again, her voice going quiet.
“Did he say anything about his family?” she asked. “Anyone who might be looking for him?”
“His parents are dead,” Kanan said. “Sounds like there’s no one else left, so he’ll be staying with us. And I – I offered to train him. He agreed to it.”
Hera blinked in surprise.
“Are you sure about this?”
Kanan nodded. Strangely enough, he was completely sure of his decision. He hadn’t started the conversation planning to offer to teach Ezra. But in the moment he’d known it was the right thing to do. The thing he was meant to do.
He’d never thought he would reach this point. When the other Jedi were killed, he’d barely been a Padawan for a year. The thought of teaching a student of his own was the farthest thing from his mind. But this kid had no one. And he was brimming with rage and pain that he didn’t know how to handle. He needed help. Not just from an adult, but from someone who was like him. Kanan might not be the best teacher, but there was no one else left.
“He needs it,” Kanan said, staring out into the whirling lights of hyperspace. “At the very least I can teach him how to defend himself.”
“Fulcrum will want to talk to him,” Hera said, taking the news of the new addition to their crew in stride. They’d both known it was a possibility. “And we’ll need to figure out where exactly he’s staying.”
“He can bunk with me or Zeb,” Kanan said. He looked over her, leaning over the edge of his seat to nudge her with his elbow. “Or he could have his own room if you want to move in with me.”
“Keep dreaming, Jarrus,” Hera said, gently knocking his elbow away. She swiveled her seat to look at him fully, elbows resting on her knees as she leaned forward.
“You’re going to be good at this,” she said. “You’ve been amazing with Sabine since she joined up. I know you’ll be great with Ezra too.”
Kanan reached out, squeezing Hera’s hand gently. She had just as much unwavering faith in him as he had in her.
He could only hope that she was right.