Ezra just informed us that this crystal feels exactly like the one Kanan won't let him play with." Sabine arched an eyebrow.

Kanan just looked stunned, staring at the crystal Ezra still held in the palm of his hand. In the dim ship's lighting it almost seemed to be faintly glowing. "You mean that bag's full of kyber crystals?"

"I'm guessing there's a good story behind why you'd have a lightsaber? I'm assuming that's what the crystal's in, from Ezra's description." Sabine said, choosing her words carefully.

Kanan's brain took a minute to catch up. Hera knew about his lightsaber, and Ezra had seen it before he started locking it away from the determined Lasat kitten but Ezra hadn't known the significance of it. Sabine would know full well what a lightsaber was and what it could mean. His first thought was to lie, say he stole it, found it, anything. But if she knew what to look for odds were he'd slip up at some point. Finally he settled on a compromise.

"I'm not a Jedi." Kanan said, trying to make it sound final. "There aren't any, not anymore."

"But there were, once." Sabine looked over him like she was searching for something. "I was a student during the Clone Wars, I saw Jedi on Mandalor. "

"Anytime someone wants to fill me in on this whole 'Jedi' thing go ahead." Zeb grumbled, waving a hand. "I'm guessing it's something important since you all look like Kanan just let it slip he's pregnant."

Hera made a soft choking sound at that and Sabine snorted. "It's nothing like that. The Jedi were sort of like if Wise Women and the Honor Guard combined. "

"Sounds useful." Zeb shrugged slightly.

"Maybe. But if the Empire even thought there was a Jedi on board this vessel, we'd go from a low level enemy of the Empire right to the top tier of the most wanted. Personally I'd rather if they underestimated us." Hera glanced between Sabine and Zeb.

"I can confirm. There are high level bounties out on anyone claiming to be a Jedi or possessing Jedi artifacts. The official story is to protect people from religious charlatans, but a lot of people know better." Sabine said, shaking her head slightly.

"So better to pretend I've never heard the name. I get it." Zeb flicked his ears, looking down at Ezra. "What's this mean for the kit?"

"Right now? Nothing. We keep him safe, same as before." Kanan said firmly.

Hera looked like she wanted to say something, but then she went thoughtful, reaching down to take Ezra's hand. "Let's go get some breakfast for you."

Kanan rubbed slowly over Ezra's back, getting a soft purr in response. It took some remembering but the techniques came easier than he expected, projecting calm and serenity and keeping his more complex inner thoughts shielded. Ezra responded to it better than he hoped, utterly content to stay sprawled on his chest and relax. When he'd gotten the first chance to get away he'd escaped up onto the top of the ship, sitting down and just staring up at the stars. Lothal nights were calm, the wind blowing steadily and the air chilly but not cold enough to be uncomfortable. He hadn't been terribly surprised when Ezra came looking for him, letting the little Lasat settle in without trying to shoo him back inside the ship. Hera had waited to speak with him privately and asked him if he planned to train Ezra. He'd said he didn't know. She wasn't entirely happy with the answer, he could tell, but she hadn't pushed.

It was the truth, if a simplified version. He didn't know. They both carried dangers, and he wasn't sure yet which would be the better option. If he did nothing Ezra's force abilities might stay quiet, he'd continue being unusually good at reading people and that would be easy enough to explain away as nothing out of the ordinary. They might not stay quiet, making him a danger to himself and others, as well as attracting those who would seek to corrupt him or kill him. Training him could help him hide, learn how to pass as everyone else, keep him from accidentally using his powers in times of stress. It could help him survive, give him an edge in dangerous situations, or it might make him even more of a target for the Empire.

There was also the worry that nagged at him, training him to survive was one thing, but would it stop there? He knew Hera was ambitious, that she dreamed about creating a better galaxy. He admired that, but… He'd been in the center of that kind of ambition before, and it hadn't made anything better. It had eaten up countless lives and left the galaxy broken. What if it happened again? What if he set things in motion to turn Ezra into a weapon against the Empire and used up his life with nothing or worse to show for it?

What if it did help, though? He'd always been taught to look towards the greater good and if any one of his old teachers had gotten wind of these kind of thoughts they'd be horrified. This was why Jedi weren't supposed to form attachments, you started caring about people rather than goals. You had to care about everyone equally, otherwise it led to stories of the past where Force users let entire planets suffer or be destroyed out of selfishness. But none of his old teachers were around to make that kind of judgment, it was only him.

Ezra made a soft cranky sound and with a start Kanan realized he'd gotten so caught up in his thought he's stopped rubbing over his back.

"Sorry." Kanan murmured, scratching slowly through Ezra's hair.

Ezra relaxed back against his chest with a soft purr. "Want to see me shoot?"

"At the target droids? Sure." Kanan patted Ezra's back gently then moved to set him aside so he could get up. He wasn't very good at the whole thinking thing, sitting around thinking things over and over in his head never seemed to accomplish much. He did better at thinking on his feet, actually doing things. Maybe some target practice would clear his head. In the time they'd be up there the moons had set low, the horizon starting to brighten with the approach of dawn. It wasn't as spectacular as some of the planets he'd been on, but it had its charm.

The lack of wind was almost a shock when they went down, heading towards the secondary cargo hold while Ezra detoured to grab his blasters. He hadn't stayed to watch Ezra's training for any significant time, but he'd seen enough to approve of it. Using two blasters was smart, he'd be less likely to favor one hand that way. And despite his quiet worrying, he hadn't been able to catch Ezra using them inappropriately.

Kanan checked over the droids before activating them, letting them scatter as Ezra made his way down to the hold, trotting eagerly and carrying both blasters.

"Ready to show me how good you've gotten with those?" Kanan took his own blaster out, turning the power all the way down to match.

"Ready." Ezra grinned toothily, holding them up and taking cover behind a nearby crate wall.

It was about like Kanan expected, a lot of enthusiasm and shots headed in mostly the right direction, but Ezra's aim was still abysmal.

"You need to focus." Kanan found the words slipping out before he realized what he was saying.

"I am focus." Ezra stuck his tongue out slightly as he tried to aim better, the bolt going through where the droid had been a few moments before.

"Focused." Kanan corrected automatically. "You're relying too much on looking for it, you need to relax some."

"I am. And I'm keeping my eye on it, Sabine said to." Ezra sounded cranky at that and Kanan took a steadying breath, crouching to put his hand on Ezra's shoulder.

"I'm… not explaining this well. Watch me. You look for it, but not really to see it, to know where it is. Once you got it you don't need to keep looking for it. You know it, you feel it out, and you take the shot." Kanan looked for one of the nearby target droids, unholstering his blaster and taking aim and firing it one easy motion. The droid beeped as it settled down towards the ground.

Ezra tried to mimic him, squinting at the other droid and bringing up the blaster quickly. It went wider than the previous shots. Kanan winced, but if anything this made things a lot clearer to him. He'd barely been made a padawan, and odds were good if nothing had happened he'd still have been a padawan at his age and then knights sometimes waited decades before taking a student of their own, if they ever did. He wasn't any sort of teacher, he was barely able to teach him any Basic, much less more complicated and dangerous things.

Then he felt it, like a warm tingle against his fingertips where he had his hand on Ezra's shoulders. Ezra stared unblinkingly at the droid, took aim, and fired. Kanan didn't even need to hear the beep to know it would connect. He'd been there before, spending time after time going over a move and adjusting his weight this way, tuck his arm in a bit closer, turn his foot just so, and wondering if he'd gotten it, wondering if he'd know it he had it right, and then suddenly everything clicking and it just felt right and he couldn't believe he'd ever wondered before, not when it was so obvious now.

Ezra whooped, springing up to peer at where the droid had landed, and the moment was broken.

"Great job." Kanan watched him, trying to project only pride. He was proud, but…

There wasn't any doubt now. Ezra was strong in the Force, there was nothing else that would explain what he felt, and he still didn't have the slightest clue what he was going to do about that.

Kanan had intended to go looking for Zeb once he handed Ezra off to Sabine for a language lesson .He hadn't expected Zeb to find him, carrying a familiar looking bottle.

"Let me guess, you're going to want to ask a lot of questions and you'll probably need to answer more than a few of mine. Somehow I have the suspicion it'll all go a little easier if we're not both entirely sober, eh?" Zeb held up the bottle.

"I'll agree to that. Let me just grab a cup, your room or mine?" Kanan asked, glad for the opening. There were a great deal of drawbacks to drinking, but just from what he knew of Zeb's history they'd both need the buffering effects. And if either of them accidentally said something hurtful it would be easier to shrug off and blame on the alcohol.

"Does yours have less junk in it?" Zeb asked.

"Definitely." Kanan assured him. He'd helped Zeb and Sabine haul a lot of stuff on board, some of which went into storage but enough had ended up in Zeb's room that he could imagine space was a bit tighter.

"Yours it is then." Zeb started towards the living quarters, not in any sort of rush, and Kanan swung by the galley to grab a cup and try to take a moment to collect his thoughts.

"I'd say this is a good bit less cluttered." Zeb looked around Kanan's nearly empty room and headed for the bed as the best seat to accommodate him. Kanan didn't argue, pulling out one of the nearby chairs from where it tucked up to store under the small table in his room.

Zeb waited until he was seated before pouring his cup half full before filling his own.

"I guess first we should get the impossible what-ifs out of the way. If he were back on Lasan what would this mean for Ezra?" Kanan asked bluntly.

Zeb snorted and took a swig of his drink. "Don't want to waste any time, do you? Kit acts like he's Asha-touched. Back on Lasan a Wise Woman would confirm it, then he'd get some special teaching. When he got older he'd decide what he wanted to do, and lots of jobs had special rankings for Ashla-touched Lasat. I worked with some of them, focus and discipline is always important, but they took it a step further. Doesn't really help us much though, does it?"

"It does, at least a little. Was there a chance he'd be a Wise Woman like his mother?" Kanan poked at his cup before taking a sip, feeling the liquid burn.

"No." Zeb chuckled at that. "There's a reason the best translation is Wise Woman."

"Alright, well if he'd been found by the Jedi Order we'd talk with his parents or whoever held guardianship over him, and depending on his age we'd talk with him too, and then if everyone agreed he'd be taken to the Temple to be raised and taught among kids like him. When he was old enough he'd be chosen by one teacher for more real experience, frequently leaving the Temple and going out with their teacher to learn by doing. Eventually they'd graduate and become a full Jedi Knight, and possibly a Master." Kanan hoped Zeb was following along, he was nodding like he understood.

"Is that an option, you taking him as a student?" Zeb asked, taking a longer swallow of his drink. "Not like I could teach him much beyond the basics."

"I'm… not sure. There's a lot of reasons why that's a bad idea. I was a padawan… student to just one teacher, for three months." Kanan tried to keep his voice steady, talk about it matter of fact like he was telling a story without letting himself remember any of the details. It worked for the most part, except for a thickness in his throat that he tried to clear, then took a sip to chase it away.

"How long was it supposed to be?" Zeb kept his voice gentle.

"Before the war twenty years was more like it." Kanan tried not to feel bitter, staring down into his cup and then holding it out for a refill. There was a scrap of memory, of finding out how young some padawans were being promoted to Knight and being excited that he wouldn't have to wait a lifetime for it. Now looking back he could see what a terrible sign that had been, throwing kids who still felt the Force made them immortal into battles that more often than not taught them far too permanent a lesson on their own mortality.

Zeb cleared his throat, bringing Kanan back to the here and now. "Karabast. So you have some basic training from years ago, and I have what I know. If he is Ashla-touched he'll need some kind of training, otherwise he could be a danger to himself or others without meaning to be. I know that much."

"He is, I could sense it." Kanan rubbed over the bridge of his nose. "The thing I keep coming back to, is it right to train him? I don't want to… if I put a target on his back and he ends up getting killed… "

"Don't get caught up too much in what might happen. Could wake up tomorrow and the Empire's crumbled." Zeb snorted, taking a sip. "Not likely, but we don't know. Spend too much time on tomorrow's what-ifs and you forget today. "

"And he's too young to take on as a padawan, even before the war, and after that the age went up." Kanan said firmly.

"So we teach him the basics. There's this thing, not sure the word, you clear your mind and relax and it helps you focus, we teach him that and whatever else you know. I'll teach him what I know. And then in four or five years when he's not such a small kit maybe a better teacher than the two of us might show up, eh?" Zeb drained the cup.

Kanan was fairly sure he'd had better arguments than that planned out, but he was getting just tipsy enough it was hard to remember them, especially in the face of Zeb's confidence. "Meditation. I, yeah, I can teach him that. Maybe."

"He's a smart kit, he'll pick it up one way or another. We'll figure it out." Zeb set his cup down, tapping it lightly with his claws.

"I hope you're right. I've got a lot to think about, but yeah. Tomorrow we'll start on that." Kanan stood up, glad that while his head felt a little fuzzy his walk was steady enough as he headed out, heading to the galley to get something to drink without the kick.

Kanan stopped in the doorway, nearly turning right back around when he saw Hera was already there. She would know a retreat when she saw one though and he steeled himself to get things out of the way.

"Kanan, I haven't gotten a chance to talk with you yet." Hera said, looking him over.

"I know." Kanan rubbed over his face and up, smoothing his hair back. "I'm going to teach him. But not to fight, just how to control himself. Zeb might teach him some fighting though, and he's still learning how to use blasters, but… Yeah. I'll take care of this."

"That's… that's good news." Hera smiled wryly. "I was going to say that the additional holos we found were all teaching ones. Lasan's history, language, arts and literature, everything one would need to give a full education to a kid being raised off Lasan. Sabine already volunteered to help translate them into Basic so that's a good bit of knowledge that won't be lost. But I am very glad you came to a decision on that."

"Oh. Um, yeah. That's great news." Kanan took a deep breath, letting go of some of his tension with it as he started to get himself a cup of water. "I'm going to see if I have to kick Zeb out of my bed and get some sleep."

Hera arched one tattooed eyebrow at that, looking amused. "Not the phrase I was expecting to hear."

"We were drinking together and… and that just makes it worse, doesn't it?" Kanan smiled slightly. "You're teasing me on purpose."

"A little. Everyone's been tense and I'm ready for it to sink in that we're still the same crew we were yesterday, we just know a few more things and overall that's not such a bad thing." Hera finished off the last few bites on her plate, standing to carry it to be cleaned.

"It does make sense," Kanan thought back to previous incidents. "How Ezra always knows if one of us is hurt, or when we're about to arrive back…"

"Or how he's able to get off vent covers that should require a tool set?" Hera smiled.

"Recently or just the past times?" Kanan shook his head. "Don't answer that, I don't want to know."

"Go get some sleep and I won't." Hera put the clean dish away, heading out in the direction of the cockpit.

"Yes, Captain." Kanan half-saluted and then went back to see if his room was vacant yet.

Kanan slept long enough to shake off the worst of the alcohol's effects and with only a slight dry mouth to show for it. That was easily enough remedied with another cup of water and he went looking for Ezra, not sure if he had already passed the kit's bedtime. He was in luck, nearly running into Hera looking slightly damp and carrying a thoroughly towel-fluffed and night clothes wearing Ezra.

"You're looking better, and you missed the excitement." Hera hoisted Ezra a little higher on her hip.

"Hera stepped on soap." Ezra informed him, with a giggle.

"I kneeled on it and it shot across the room and bounced off the wall and someone thought it was so funny he didn't stop laughing the entire bath." Hera shook her head, smiling as her lekku bounced with amusement. "I wish more people were so easily amused."

"It sounds pretty funny to me." Kanan reached out for Ezra and Hera easily handed over the kit.

"Mmhmm, you want to handle the rest of bedtime?" Hera asked.

"I was hoping to." Kanan let Ezra wiggle around and cling to him, supporting him as he carried him the rest of the way to his room.

"Story?" Ezra asked hopefully once he let go of Kanan's shirt and started snuggling down into the middle of the blankets.

"Of course." Kanan sat on the edge of the bunk, reaching to help tuck the blankets around him, and then he reached into his pocket. "Far away from here in the core worlds there's a planet, Coruscant. A very long time ago a temple was built to be home to all the Jedi in the galaxy…" For half a moment he worried the holocron wouldn't listen to him, not after he'd tried to forget about it for so long, but almost like it had been waiting for this it lifted at his mental command, opening up to form the spires and walls of the Temple out of light.

Ezra was entranced, the light catching and reflecting in bright blue eyes as he hung on every word.

Kanan only stopped talking after his throat grew hoarse, the holocron closing. He wasn't exactly sure when Ezra had fallen asleep, but at some point he must have. Kanan tucked up one of the blankets one more time before he eased up off the bed, putting the holocron back away. He'd expected to feel tense and worried at sharing this, and instead he felt oddly at peace. Tomorrow would be a new day and new lessons and after that it would be up to Ezra to start finding his own path, but he'd be there to prepare him as best he could. It felt something like a new beginning and something like hope and mostly like maybe he was finally ready for this.

Notes:

And we come to the end. Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me all this time, and to everyone who's finding the fic for the first time. I have a suspicion this may not be all I want to write in this AU, but for now this part of their story is done.