Kanan stared at the wall conscious of each breath he drew in and out, but not meditating. He didn't dare at this point, focusing held the visions at bay but the moment his attention slipped...

"Don't you dare put that in your mouth."
High pitched laughter and a gap toothed grin.
"Oh that's disgusting, you're disgusting. Did you know that?"

He reached up and rubbed over his eyes. He was going insane, it was the only thing that made close to sense. He'd thought at first the images and sounds were left over from the Inquisitor's attacks on his mental defenses, but they should be getting better. Instead they were worse. He didn't know when a vision would hit and they left him reeling, disoriented.

Small fingers drawing an uneven grid on the tile with some form of chalk before gathering up the pieces needed for the game. Normally it would be played on sturdy boards with colored chips, two colors and an inbetween color chip. The object of the game was to make a row of five up and down of your color, grey chips could count for black or white. You could lose if you ran out of your own color, even if your opponent hadn't made a row. It was simple, but good for developing strategic thinking and planning ahead.

Caleb pointed to a square and Ezra picked up the painted pebble they were using for chips, placing the white pebble where he pointed before hesitating, slowly picking up a black pebble and looking for the best move. In some ways this was much harder than playing with someone good at the game, he could win easily but that wouldn't be any fun for either of them. Instead he had to keep it challenging enough for Ezra to keep learning, but still easy enough that Ezra could win now and then with encouragement. The board slowly filled and he was proud when Ezra spotted the easy openings he gave him, connecting all five before he ran out of black rocks. Ezra jumped up excitedly then, running to find his mother and drag her to the board.

Caleb was amused as the woman just ruffled blue hair, making Ezra giggle and duck away. As far as she was concerned Ezra was filling up the board himself with pebbles, but it kept him quiet and happy and she wasn't about to complain. Eventually Ezra came back to kneel down on the other side of the tile again.

"Ready for round two? I'm feeling lucky this time."

"Uh huh." It was easy to pick the tile up and just dump the rocks off, smudging the lines a little but not too much to continue playing as this time Ezra grabbed a white one to start them off.

Kanan blinked and listed to the side, biting down on his lip in frustration as he shook his head, trying to straighten back up. They weren't like any visions he'd ever even heard of. Normally they were about the future, and important. These were the past, and while he hesitated to call them unimportant they didn't seem like they had any real relevance on the here and now. He just needed it to stop, everyone was already worried. He didn't want to give them reason to worry, not after what they'd all been through.

Caleb could see it coming, and he knows Ezra could too. But just being able to realize what's happening doesn't do any good when growing reflexes are still unable to compensate and Ezra took the corner too fast, slipping and going down in a tangle of limbs. His elbow scraped against the ground hard, and even through the fabric Caleb was fairly sure it was scraped. Ezra pulled himself to a sitting position, tugging his sleeve up, his eyes a little too wide and shining as he seemed to be trying to decide if he was going to cry or not. He crouched down in front of him before the waterworks could start, regarding his arm gravely.

"Hmm… yeah. Think we're going to have to amputate?"

That earned him a startled look. "No!"

"Are you sure?" Caleb fought hard not to smile.

"Uh huh." Ezra stood back up, shaking himself off just as his friends realized what happened and started over to see if the game was ending. Ezra waved to them, running to meet them.

"Kanan?"

It took him several long moment to realize the voice he was hearing was in the here and now, not part of his visions and he focused, looking up into bright blue eyes.

"Ezra, you should be resting." Kanan tried to sound normal, not wanting to worry him. Ezra still looked terrible, the bruises on his face dark and just starting to fade to greenish around the edges and the deep gashes on his cheek still covered with a thick bandage.

"So should you. Tell me what's wrong?"

"It's nothing, don't worry about it." He wasn't sure how to explain, what good it would do. Even if the visions were truly of the past, it seemed like a horrible invasion of privacy to tell him he was seeing so many private moments. Ezra was defensive about his past, how was he supposed to know he knew the names of all his toys and how long he'd wet the bed?

It was like being caught in a storm, rage and grief and pain and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't come close enough to let Ezra see him, to speak to him. What would he even say anyway? The circumstances weren't the same, but feel of it was close enough to make him hurt, even like this. He gave up fighting against it and fled. Maybe with time he'd be able to come back, when Ezra would be willing to forgive that he wasn't either of the two people he needed right then. But until then he was helpless to even get close.

There was barely time to blink before he was overtaken by the next one.

"Haven't seen you around in a while."

"Yeah. Been kind of busy. And can't stay long." And Kanan knew this, he'd seen it. He'd seen it shortly after arriving on Lothal. It had confused him at the time because it hadn't been like any vision he'd heard of, instead of bits of sound and flashes of things strung together it had been more like a dream. He could feel the difference now, even if it had confused him then. He was seeing what had happened while it was happening, not what would come.

He came out of the vision disoriented, barely aware that Ezra was saying something again.

"I.. I didn't catch that." He was vaguely aware he probably needed help, but he didn't even know how to ask.

Ezra took a slow breath, staring into his eyes like he was looking for something. "Caleb. Caleb, please, I don't know what to do."

Kanan started to speak, to say anything, but his body refused to listen to him. It was like he was suddenly a passenger in his own head and he fought down a stab of fear.

"It's ok Ezra, I'm here." He could feel his lips quirk up, his whole posture change. He fought against it frantically.

"Hey! Hey, cool it. This isn't a bad thing, I don't think anyway. Just relax and let me have this? Please?" The voice was like his own, only not quite, and he felt himself calming a little. He recognized it, he'd certainly told it to shut up often enough.

"Yeah you really did." That part just sounded amused and a little sarcastic.

"Caleb? What's going on now? Why are you, I mean why's Kanan..."

"It's like I said before, we're starting to blur together. He's getting all of my memories dumped on him like visions and I'm getting his and it's… messy." Caleb waved a hand, trying to illustrate when words failed him.

"Can't you do anything to stop it?" Ezra looked hopeful.

"I've been trying. It's… not really working that well."

"Oh."

"I've got an idea though. If it doesn't work, I'm sorry. Promise me you'll find someone else to teach you? Fulcrum, Ahsoka, she'll be able to help."

"Caleb, I don't want…" Ezra looked away then, shoulders hunched in on himself.

"Promise me."Caleb's voice was firm.

"I promise."

Kanan tried to think hard. "What are you doing?"

"Just trust me."

"Thank you." For a moment Caleb reached out, hesitant for a moment, and then the moment his hand made contact with Ezra's shoulder he was pulling him closer into a rough hug. Ezra threw his arms around him, uninjured cheek pressed hard against his chest as they clung to each other. Slowly, after what felt like several long minutes, they both eased away.

"Here goes nothing."

Kanan had dislocated his shoulder once, on a job. His supervisor had been sympathetic, poured him a shot of something that smelled like cleaning fluid and tasted worse, and then yanked the joint back in before the tissue had time to swell. That was the closest thing he could think of to describe what happened in his own mind. The feeling of something being out of place peaked and he stopped trying to fight against it, there was a moment of something that wasn't agony but defied proper description and then everything snapped back into place. It took his breath away and he slumped before he realized he had proper control of his body again.

"Are you alright?" Ezra was watching him, and he realized he had no idea how long that had just taken. "…Kanan?"

"Yeah, I'm alright." He straightened back up, feeling like everything had been half a step out of place and he'd never realized it, until now it wasn't. It felt amazing, nearly good enough that he almost missed the moment of grief that flickered across Ezra's face before he hid it.

Kanan found it strange that so very little had outwardly changed. It felt like everyone should have been able to glance and see how things had changed inside his head. He'd told Hera about it, of course, even if it wasn't important information she was his dear friend and partner. She had a right to know. It had been a little awkward, the explanation had relied heavily on gestures and metaphor, but he was fairly sure he'd gotten the gist across and she'd understood. She'd told him to take all the time he needed to adjust, but she wasn't worried about it. It was easier not to say anything to Zeb or Sabine.

The most he got from either of them noticing his better mood was Zeb's heavy pat to his shoulder as he headed to the table to get something to eat.

"Good to see you feeling more like yourself, eh?"

"You have no idea." Kanan chuckled at that. He felt like Ezra had described his experience at the Temple on Lothal, different and yet the same. The memories had settled in like they'd always belonged there, because they did. It explained a lot of things, why he hadn't felt anything at the time when he sliced off his own padawan braid, staring down at it like it belonged to someone else. It had. He remembered the feel of it now, with a bittersweet fondness of something in the past where it belonged.

He had nearly finished eating when Sabine started by, obviously annoyed. "Has anyone seen Ezra? He was supposed to help me run diagnostic checks in the Phantom over half an hour ago, but I can't find him anywhere."

"He was in our room last I saw him." Zeb spoke up.

"First place I checked, he's not there now. If you see him, remind him he's late?" She shook her head with a sigh.

"I thought he didn't have any chores scheduled so soon?" Kanan said absently, reaching out mentally for Ezra's Force signature. It was clouded, the young man obviously walling himself off to keep from being found.

"He's the one who suggested it, said he wanted things to get back to normal." Sabine shrugged, heading back towards the Phantom. Kanan knew well enough she didn't actually need someone else to run diagnostics like that, but she was probably looking forward to the routine work and company as much as anything.

Kanan got up, putting his plate away to be cleaned, and went in search of his missing padawan. Ezra tended to gravitate towards places he could see the sky when he was in a pensive mood, preferably somewhere high up, but there wasn't much that fit the second criteria on the ship. Even guessing at his hiding place he nearly overlooked him, tucked back in the aft gun port where he wasn't visible just glancing in.

"Sabine was looking for you." Kanan spoke quietly, not sure if Ezra was in a mood where he needed a little time to himself to sort out his own thoughts, or one where he wanted company and didn't know how to ask for it.

Ezra jerked a little at that, looking guilty. "The diagnostic, I forgot. She's going to kill me."

"Easy, she can handle it. Right now I think it might be more important that the two of us talk." He moved in to take the other side, sitting down. It was a little more of a tight squeeze, he hadn't been Ezra's size in a long time, but he wanted to talk with him without having to twist around or look down at him.

"It's not a good time." Ezra frowned, tucking up a little smaller. "Look, it's nothing personal, alright? I'm glad you're back, you have no idea how glad I am that you're back. I thought I'd lost you. I just didn't think… I didn't think I'd get you back and lose someone else."

"Ezra, look at me?" Kanan felt a stab of guilt, he didn't stop to think what it must have looked like to him, what he would have assumed. "I'm still Caleb."

"No, you're not!" Ezra glared at him at that, but there was more pain than anger behind it.

"Yes I am. I'm just not split anymore. Ezra, when you were six you had a loose tooth and you accidentally swallowed it. You spent hours crying because you thought the tooth-tooka wouldn't bring you a candy, remember?"

That got him the barest hint of a smile. "You kept telling me it would be fine and I'd get the candy anyway, because you knew my parents were going to leave it on my pillow no matter what. But that wasn't..."

"It was me. I remember all of it as it happened, just that I was a little more… see through at the time. Come here?" He waited patiently as Ezra considered it, then slowly scooted the short distance across the floor. "I've been wanting to do this for a while."

"Do what?" Ezra held still as Kanan reached out, separating out the hair at his temple.

"You might need to take it out when we go off world some places, but in the outer rim I don't think most people would recognize it, not on its own." As relatively short as Ezra's hair was it didn't take too long to weave the slender braid, fastening it off. Tucking it behind his ear hid it completely, at least until Ezra shifted his head and it flopped forward against his cheek again.

"A braid?" Ezra reached up to feel over it, with no mirrors anywhere close. "Like…"

"Like I had, yes. If anyone saw it and knew what it meant, they'd know you were a padawan, my padawan." The words felt right in a way he'd struggled with for far too long.

"I like it." Ezra smiled at that, leaning in just a little so his shoulder pressed against Kanan's upper arm, looking back up at the stars out the viewport.

"Sabine's still going to kill me."

"Probably" Kanan smiled at that. "Maybe you can make it up to her. I know she's been out of purple paint for a while, next place we stop you could pick some up."

"That's a great idea, thanks." As Ezra was relaxing he was lowering his mental defenses at the same time. Kanan wasn't about to go prying, but he could still sense the relief and cautious hope.

It wasn't going to be an immediate thing he knew, they'd have to find their new footing with the other, but they'd make it work. Kanan reached to ruffle Ezra's hair before letting his hand fall to his shoulder, and they sat in comfortable silence, watching the stars.