Ezra took a deep, steadying breath. He'd like to think that he'd both hardened and calmed his nerves in his training with Kanan, but missions like these served to still rattle them.

"You okay?" Ezra felt Kanan's warm hand on his back, and jumped, startled. Geez, if he couldn't even keep track of where Kanan was, how was he supposed to carry out this mission?

Ezra looked up at Kanan. His mask's eyes were looking down at Ezra, but Ezra had to imagine the expression of concern that should be beneath them: a reminder of what had happened last they'd visited this infernal planet.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay."

Ezra stared forward at the cargo door to the Ghost: the only thing separating him from Malachor.

"I can always come with you, if you want," Kanan reminded him.

"And I'll be with you the whole time, too." Sabine smirked, nudging Ezra in the shoulder. The gesture was meant to build up his confidence, but Ezra didn't feel any better. Still, he appreciated the thought.

The mission was simple: return the sith holocron, and search for Ahsoka. Kanan had been the first to volunteer to do the mission with Ezra, but Ezra wasn't going to go for Kanan doing a mission on Malachor again. Not after last time. Kanan had originally objected to not going into the temple with Ezra, but decided to go along with Ezra's plan for the sake of the poor kid's peace of mind. That, and Ezra needed to start trusting his instincts again. Instincts that he'd been doubting since his first go at Malachor. It seemed like, strangely, this would be the best place to start trusting them again.

Kanan had one condition, though: Sabine was to accompany Ezra instead.

Of course, this still left all of the "two and only two- no more, no less" entrances to the sith temple as an issue. Ezra hoped that it meant two force-wielders. That way, Kanan and Ezra could open up the gate to the temple, and Ezra could go inside with Sabine while Kanan stood guard and waited for them: two opening the gate, and two going inside.

"Ready?" Hera asked from further back. Her eyebrows were creased in an expression of concern that the crew was far too familiar with. But, even with the classic concerned expression, Hera's eyes always held a certain fierceness within them. Not now, though. Now, they were blank. Even fearful, if Ezra was seeing right- certainly not was he needed to calm his nerves.

"We're ready," Sabine answered gently, offering a comforting nod.

"You have the sith holocron?" Hera asked, turning towards Ezra.

"Yep." Ezra patted the bag slung over his shoulders and felt the holocrons sharp edges beneath the leather.

Hera pursed her lips. She didn't like the holocron. Everybody knew that much. After multiple close brushes with the dark side, and no further insight to understanding the sith, the crew had decided that it would be best to just destroy it. When they had tried, though, the impending explosion had destroyed half the common area of the ship, and the Ghost wasn't able to fly for the better part of two weeks. They all thought it best to just put the cursed thing back where it came from.

"Alright then," Hera sighed, finally opening the door to the ship. "We've caught sightings of both Vader and Maul from other cells elsewhere. I don't know how they got off planet, but you shouldn't run into them here. Still keep an eye out, though. Come back safely, you hear?"

"We will," Sabine said, answering for Ezra.

"That goes for you, too," Hera said, turning her head towards Kanan.

"Of course."

"I mean it."

Kanan smirked deviously. "Have I ever gone back on my word?"

Hera narrowed her eyes at him, and though Kanan couldn't see, he seemed to sense that his joke had not been taken particularly well, and his smile slipped promptly from his face. "Yes, actually."

Kanan visibly flinched. "I'll do everything I can, Hera. You know that."

"I do." Hera closed her eyes and nodded. "Well, you'd better get going, I suppose."

"I suppose so."

And with that, the trio turned and walked down the ramp back to Malachor, leaving their three anxious crewmates to wait in agony behind them.

It was like they had all just stepped into one of Ezra's nightmares. It was the second time that Ezra had stepped out of a ship to this scene in reality, but Ezra had truly seen it before a hundred times before, replaying his last visit in his mind, having the most awful of dreams about it, seeing it every time he closed his eyes...

"You need to go back?" Kanan asked, seeming to sense all of the thoughts running through his padawan's head.

"No, no, I'm fine."

They walked up to the temple in silence. There had been three of them last time, too. Then, they had been joined by a fourth. Ezra was hoping he could be joined by a fourth again, just with Ahsoka this time. Not Maul.

"So, this is Malachor," Sabine mumbled, gazing up at the huge sith temple.

"This is Malachor."

Everything was so red. Red and black, with sharp, geometric, jagged lines, waiting to pierce and swallow them. How had Ezra not seen it the first time?

Beside him, the colors danced in Sabine's eyes as she picked out all of the shapes and the patterns. Ezra knew that the artistic gears in her head were starting to turn. She had an unprecedented love of color that no situation, even one as grave and serious as this mission, could tamper. But, Ezra could also see her set her jaw squarely as she locked her lips. Even if that place did hold a certain beauty in her eyes, albeit a hated, terrifying beauty, she kept it to herself for Ezra's sake.

"This is where we enter the sith temple?" she asked.

"It's where we- I" Ezra corrected. There was no we between he and Maul. "entered last time."

The temple was damaged. It was damaged badly. But, it was still standing. As much as Ezra didn't want to have to wander around inside of it, if it was still standing, that meant that Ahsoka might still be alive, right? "Kanan?"

"Here."

"Ready to lift this door?"

"Ready as I'll ever be."

Ezra nodded. He hoped that the temple would admit Sabine, and that it wouldn't force Kanan, the one opening the door, to come with him instead. It would be better if Sabine was there with him. Otherwise, it would… be too much last time. Plus, Sabine had learned to be one of the best support systems Ezra had. Even more so than Kanan and Hera. He needed that. "On the count of three. One. Two. Three!"

Ezra groaned under the weight of the huge stone door, and Sabine stepped back, awed by the display. Not much could make Ezra break a sweat when it came to force wielding these days, but his muscles shook with the strain of lifting the door. Slowly, with the thunderous sound of grating rocks, it rose.

"Sabine," Ezra panted. "Try going through."

Sabine shook her head, broken out of her daze, and stepped tentatively under the stone gate. Ezra's heart seemed to stop in his chest as he half expected the forsaken temple to play one more cruel trick on him and slam the door down on Sabine, but it remained open as she passed underneath.

Something in his chest loosened. He could breathe again, and followed after Sabine.

"You sure you don't need me to follow?" Kanan called over the sound of the shifting rock they were holding up.

"I'm fine. Besides, the temple admits two at a time."

"Comm me if you need anything!"

"I will!" With that, Ezra's grip on the stone gate finally gave out, and the large rock came crashing down: a thick barrier between he and his master. Ezra stared at it blankly. This was it. He was back inside the temple.

"Hey." Sabine waited for Ezra to start forward, but when he didn't, put her hand on his shoulder, fingers light and cool. "You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah." Ezra squeezed his eyes closed, trying to clear his head. "Let's just get this over with."

Sabine frowned as Ezra began walking into the temple, but didn't push the issue. "Do you remember how to get back to where you found the holocron?"

"Of course." He laughed dryly. "Believe me, I've been trying to forget. I can't."

Sabine's frown deepened. "You want to forget it?"

Ezra raised his eyebrows. "Of course. You wouldn't?"

"No, no, I would." Sabine contemplated. "At least, I would want to. I don't think I would actually try."

"And why is that?" There was a part of Ezra that wanted to snap that she wasn't there the first time he was here, that he knew how to feel his way out of his situation better than she did, but it wasn't often that Sabine showed such a soft, introspective side to him. He didn't want to jeopardize it.

"Well, I mean, for something that has such a big impact on us all… it just seems better to try to understand it and come to terms with it, rather than fight it."

Ezra remained silent as he let her words sink into his head. It was a good idea that she had, and probably the right idea, too. But, he wasn't there yet. He wasn't ready to let any of this go yet. If there was a way to fight what what had happened the first time he was on Malachor, he'd fight it, no questions asked. After all, that's what he was doing here now: returning the sith holocron and searching for Ahsoka. Trying to put all the pieces back together as best he could.

"I can't sense Ahsoka," he said.

"You can't?" Something in Sabine's face collapsed; She had been careful not to expect too much out of the trip, but some hope just coudn't be squashed fully. Sabine had admired Ahsoka.

Ezra closed his eyes as he walked and concentrated on sensing Ahsoka's force signature: a fierce kind of light.

"Maybe I can?" Ezra groaned in frustration. "I don't know. It's hard to tell if I'm just imagining it or not."

"It's okay," Sabine was quick to assure. Ezra had been through a lot, and the last thing he needed was thinking that he might have left Ahsoka behind if they wound up not being able to find her. "If she's here, we'll get closer to her when we're putting the holocron back, and you'll be able to tell then."

"Yeah." That sounded like a good plan to Ezra. "Let's do that."

They both walked silently towards where Ezra had first picked up the holocron, Sabine trying to offer as much quiet support as possible. As Ezra tried to see as little of the temple as he could, Sabine soaked in her surroundings, trying to plan out escape routes and look for threats. As magnificent as the temple was, even half crumbled, it was starting to give her the creeps.

"Are we almost there?" she asked.

"Yeah." Ezra's heart was starting to fall. At times during their trek, he could swear that he felt Ahsoka. Other times there was nothing, and he was positive that he was just imagining the whole thing and feeling what he wanted to feel.

"Here we are." Ezra gestured forward as they exited a stone archway, in front of a massive chasm.

"Let me guess. You got it over there?" Sabine pointed forward to the platform a solid twenty feet past the ledge. Neither could see where the chasm bottomed out, but both knew that that they wouldn't live to find out if they fell.

"Of course," Ezra smirked. "Getting it on this side of the gap would be too easy."

Sabine rolled her eyes, but couldn't help a small smile. "How on earth do we get over there?"

"I throw you."

"You throw me?" Sabine asked, incredulous. "Look, Ezra. Don't take this the wrong way, but while you may not be the gangly little kid we first picked up off the streets, there's no way you're able to throw me over there."

Ezra chuckled under his breath. "With the force."

"Oh."

Ezra's breathy chuckles morphed into a hearty laugh, one that they both hadn't heard in too long. "But, uh, on a serious note, I'm going to need you to jump."

"Jump?! You're crazy."

Ezra shook his head. "Nope. Not crazy. You jump, then I propel you over with force. If I can do this with Kanan, then I can definitely do it with you."

Sabine glanced down over the edge skeptically.

"I suppose I could just use the force to get over there myself, and you could stay here."

"Oh, no." Sabine crouched by the ledge, ready to leap and always up for a challenge. "If you're going over there, then I'm going with you."

"Alright then. On the count of three?"

"On the count of three."

"One. Two. Three."

Sabine lept into the air, arms reaching for the solid ground on the other side, and Ezra summoned all the strength he could muster into propelling her across. She tucked herself into a ball and tumbled safely onto the stone on the other side of the chasm, perhaps a bit scratched up, but otherwise alright.

"Your turn!" Sabine called across.

Ezra rubbed his hands together. Propelling himself across would be much harder than throwing somebody else across. When he was last here with Maul, he wouldn't have trusted himself to. He was confident in it this time, though, a bit stronger, and took a running leap off the ledge. Then, there was nothing but air beneath him, and the force pushing him forward, that kept him from falling to his death. For one terrifying second, Ezra didn't think he'd make it. He was falling too fast and coming up too short, only managing to grab the ledge of the other side with the tips of his fingers. He briefly heard Sabine gasp before his fingers slipped and he began falling towards the bottom of the chasm. And then, there was a solid, almost crushing weight around his wrists: Sabine, dragging him up to where he had planned on landing. She could be astoundingly strong when she wanted to be.

Ezra panted on his hands and knees, trying to catch his breath. Sabine did the same beside him, muscles burning from the strain of pulling Ezra up.

"Don't do that," she hissed, elbowing him hard enough to hurt, eyes still panic-stricken.

"Wasn't exactly my goal," Ezra gasped out between breaths. "It's harder pushing yourself across than it is throwing somebody else."

"Still…"

Ezra sat up, and dug into his napsack for the holocron and studying its strange angular surfaces. It hadn't been worth it. He'd only lost and lost and lost to this holocron. He'd gained nothing from it.

"Ready to put that thing back?" Sabine asked.

"More than ready."

He gently placed the holocron back where he had found it all that time ago. He expected something to happen, maybe, like the temple rumbling, or some confirmation that this was the end to all of his struggles, but there wasn't one. He just set it down. Simple as that.

"Ready to go?" Sabine said.

"Yeah?" Ezra's brows creased. They still had one part of the mission to complete: find Ahsoka. Had he really felt her nearby?

He closed his eyes and reached out with force. He wasn't leaving this place without being absolutely sure, and longed to sense that familiar light. A light that was blindingly bright, but not as restricted as a jedi's force signature. A free light.

But, he was met with something else entirely. Ezra's eyes snapped open.

"What?" Sabine asked. "Ezra, what is it?"

No. No no no. Hera had said that there was nobody here. This shouldn't be possible…

"Run," Ezra hissed out between his teeth.

But, Sabine couldn't run, not without Ezra using the force to put her back on the other side of the chasm. "Ezra! What's wrong?" Sabine practically yelled.

This wasn't the light he was looking for. This was cold. Dark. But, it wasn't Vader, either. It was, in Ezra's opinion, worse than Vader.

From out of the stone archway where Sabine and Ezra had just jumped from not long before, stepped a tall, red, horned figure. Sabine gasped and took a step back.

"Why, good morning, young apprentice. Nice to see you again."

Maul.

That's it for part one. Part two should be up soon. Let me know what you think, and if you have the time, any reviews are most welcome. ;)