A/N: Inspired by a post on Tumblr about how Ezra sleeps in his armor (which I now cannot find). It kinda spiraled from there.

Everything switches back and forth from current time to Ezra's childhood, if you couldn't tell.

Zeb was the first to notice that Ezra slept with his gear on. Weapons, belt, armor, anything he wore during the day, he slept in. Zeb didn't think it was even worth mentioning. If the kid decided to sleep in all that, it wasn't Zeb's business or problem. It didn't even make that much noise, as Ezra scarcely moved once he went to bed (aside from throwing the occasional snide comment about Zeb's smell).

Ezra learned early on to never sleep without all your possessions on you. While he may feel entirely alone, there were other people just as desperate, as needy, as willing to do anything. The first fruit Ezra ever stole was small, maybe two bites of underripe fruit. It was stolen from the crate he hid it in less than an hour later.

He didn't eat that night.

Chopper was the next to notice, but like Zeb, he didn't care how Ezra slept. The only reason he even noticed that Ezra slept with his gear on was because Ezra fell out of bed when Chopper decided to come in banging pots and pans. Chopper enjoyed inventing new ways to wake Ezra and Zeb up. The armor on Ezra's leg clanged when he smashed it off the ground and that's all Chopper noticed before he wheeled out of the room to avoid the incoming retaliation from both occupants.

Some thieves were more obvious than others. They had no issues shaking a child down on the street for everything other than the clothes on their back (and sometimes those too). It only took one of these shakedowns to make Ezra realize that carrying anything valuable on him was a good way to get it stolen.

The next morning, Ezra stole sewing supplies from an old Twi'lek man. He added secret pockets and cut slits in the lining to hide things in. Two weeks later, Ezra added padding to the pockets to keep the contents from jangling. The black eye he had at the time made it harder.

Hera wondered about Ezra. He had a tendency to nap, curled up in corners (which the rest of the crew found endearing). They ranged from five minutes to three hours, but they would always immediately end at the slightest noise or touch. Early on into Ezra's stay with them, Hera would sometimes try to cover him with a blanket, or adjust his position. The second her hands brushed him, Ezra would snap awake and jump to his feet. This lead to an unfortunate number of collisions between the two.

"Wouldn't you be more comfortable taking off your belt? Or at least sitting in a chair?" Hera called back to Ezra, deftly dodging asteroids at the helm.

"Nah, 's fine. Doesn't bother me anymore." Hera pulled the ship sharply to the right, and forgot about Ezra in the next few minutes. By the time she remembered to ask him what he meant, Ezra was asleep, tucked tightly in a corner.

At first, Ezra slept in the open. The fields surrounding the capital city had grass tall enough to hide an adult. A child had no problems hiding there. He quickly learned that he was as likely to get run over by an escaping rebel or prisoner as he was to get shot by their pursuers. Neither were happy to see Ezra.

Then Ezra started sleeping with his back against the backs of buildings. The wall would keep someone from sneaking up behind him, Ezra reasoned. That reasoning lasted for a few weeks. A group of older boys that Ezra had stolen food from surrounded him. Ezra ran and kept running.

While two walls make it easier to get pinned between, it also means one less direction to keep watch for. Before Ezra found the tower that became his home, corners of alleyways and docking zones were his bedrooms.

Sabine found out rather suddenly that Ezra did not appreciate having his things taken from him. She already knew that Ezra was protective of his food, and she'd seen him sleep in the common room often enough to know Ezra never took off his gear. But lately Sabine noticed that Ezra's backpack was starting to wear out along the straps, and the buckle didn't quite click shut. She wanted to fix it, but Sabine doubted Ezra would ever willingly let someone else fix his gear when he "could do it just fine".

So when Zeb and Ezra had to go clean up (a crate of fruit was knocked onto them during a fight, and they were both sticky from head to toe), Sabine took her chance. She snatched Ezra's bag from his bed and set to work. The buckle was easy enough to replace, and re-attaching the straps was still very easy. Sabine just finished adjusting the strap to lie perfectly when Ezra sprinted past her room.

"Woah, where's the fire?" Ezra stopped and ran back to her.

"Have you seen my bag? I can't find it. I swear I put it on my bed-" Ezra roughly ran a hand through his hair.

"It's right here." Sabine picked it up from her table and handed it back. Guilt nibbled at the corner of her mind at the sheer relief on his face. "I just wanted to fix the straps and buckle for you. I was going to put it back before you finished cleaning up."

"Oh." Ezra ran his hands over it, fiddling with the new straps and buckle. "Thanks."

Sabine wasn't sure if she felt as happy as she thought she would.

When you have almost nothing to call your own, you hold tighter to what you can get. Ezra's backpack was stolen from a passing merchant. They didn't know it was gone until Ezra was far, far away. Ezra adjusted the straps to fit his small shoulders, filled it with the assorted scraps of food and metal he picked up, and moved on.

The first person who tried to take it from Ezra was bitten and kicked in the shins. The next got a sprained wrist, the next a black eye, and so forth. The backpack was the only thing he had that could be taken off easily, and that made Ezra much more cautious about keeping it safe.

Kanan would be the first to admit that he didn't know a lot about his padawan. At the same time, Kanan felt like he knew so much about Ezra. He knew Ezra didn't like standing in the open for some time, Ezra cracked jokes at authority figures because they made him nervous, and he could steal everything off your body without you ever noticing. But as time went on, Kanan also grew to know him through the Force.

Ezra tended to hide his emotions beneath an easygoing, devil-may-care attitude. The Force revealed the feelings hidden beneath. Kanan felt every burst of gratitude for the smallest kindnesses. The raw joy when Ezra piloted with Hera. The fierce protectiveness of the entire crew.

The last made Kanan simultaneously pleased and concerned. The protectiveness bordered on feral, an ingrained desire to do whatever it takes to keep something safe. Once, Kanan asked about it. Ezra brushed it off with a slightly hitched laugh and a diversion to a different topic. The well-worn fear and sadness left a bitter taste.

A new law was passed.

"Any citizen without a home will be taken in and given a new job to sustain them." It sounded nice enough in theory. And then people started realizing that the homeless taken in by the government didn't come back. After watching the girl he'd shared an alley with last night get dragged away, Ezra knew he needed some place to hide.

Abandoned houses were routinely searched. Hangars were too busy to hide in. No one would take in a street rat.

Ezra found the communications tower on accident. He'd been spotted by a stormtrooper and ran. Passing the city borders, Ezra dashed into the grass. The stormtrooper was determined, and kept chasing him. When Ezra finally started to lose him, he finally noticed the tower. It was close enough now to recognize it for what it was. Another minute or two of running and Ezra pried open the door.

Panting, Ezra locked the door and slide down it to lay limply at it's base. Silence reigned for several minutes, interspersed only by Ezra's struggle for breath. Once he'd recovered enough, Ezra scaled the stairs, achingly dragging his feet up. The wind plastered his hair to his face, but it was the best thing Ezra had felt.

Henceforth, the tower was known as "Ezra's Tower", if only to its sole occupant.

Ezra Bridger sleeps in armor and eats food like he hasn't had any in months. He sleeps lightly but will fall asleep almost anywhere. He might be a little too protective of the things he treasures, but the people who love him are protective right back.