Should be working on RvB Angst War… but alas... when the swr angst calls...

Zeb and Ezra's room is dark and empty, and the Stormtrooper helmets lining the walls cast long and odd shadows across the floor. Both bunks are vacant and gape at Kanan like the open mouths of terrible beasts. He frowns.

He can't recall why he came in here, but here he is, kneeling in the middle of the floor as though in meditation. Strange, as he usually prefers the quieter and emptier confines of his own room for that.

Something glints brightly on the bench across the room and it draws his eye. He is up and moving forward, curiosity itching at his fingertips, and what he finds is Ezra's lightsaber. It lies smashed to pieces on the desk, almost unrecognisable as anything other than a pile of junk. The bright blue of the Kyber crystal is catching what little light there is in the room, and it is singing out sadly to him.

Kanan reaches for it with an odd sense of longing.

There is a hiss behind him, and he pulls his hand back to snap around. He sees that the door has opened across the room.

"Hello?" he says, but there is nothing but the white artificial light of the corridor spilling into the room to greet him. It is then he hears the distant sound of laughter, echoing from another part of the ship.

He isn't alone.

Forgetting about the crystal entirely, Kanan strides towards the door and out into the corridor. He looks it up and down and finds nothing- all of the other doors to the crew quarters are shut. He contemplates for a second, then moves in the direction of the common room, where the laughter emanates from like a siren song.

The Ghost is empty and strangely dimmer than usual, and Kanan's steady footsteps clang on the metal floor, echoing dully in the long, quiet passageway. The closer he gets to the door, the louder the joyful voices on the other side seem to become and he quickens his pace. Something, some strange, overwhelming feeling is urging his feet onwards.

He knows his crew, his family is behind the door; their voices, their laughter is almost as familiar to him as his own. He knows in his heart that they've been waiting for him to join them.

Kanan hopes he hasn't kept them waiting long.

But something suddenly gives him pause. He stops with his hand hovering over the door control. Fear, perhaps, but he isn't sure why he should be afraid. Something soft but determined is telling him to turn back now, it whispers that he should not be tempted by what's on the other side.

That is not the Jedi way.

Sabine's high, happy laugh filters through the door. She hasn't laughed like that in a while, and it makes his heart swell with happines.

Kanan shakes his head and the feeling away, and presses the panel. The door slides aside.

Just as he'd already known, his crew are all there in a sort of semi-circle in the middle of the common room. They all turn to him as he steps inside with wide smiles and cries of greeting. All except one, that is- Ezra, orange jacket, short hair buzzed nearly to the scalp, keeps his back to him.

Kanan freezes.

The world reels and tumbles as if it has suddenly been ejected into the cold vacuum of space, and then it abruptly rights itself again.

Ezra Bridger finally turns to face him, and Kanan sees him.

"There you are. Did you get lost?" exclaims Ezra with a smile half as wide as his face.

Kanan walks forward slowly, deliberately, until he is standing right before his padawan. Ezra is taller than he last remembers, but still a good head shorter than Kanan himself.

He stares, and stares, and stares. He takes in everything from the parallel scars on the boy's cheek to the bright blue eyes which are gazing at him with amusement.

"Y-you're-" Kanan stutters out. He looks Ezra up and down. "You can't be here, you're-"

Tentatively, he reaches out. His hand meets the side of Ezra's face. He cups Ezra's cheeks, runs his thumbs across the bones and his eyes across every inch of skin, and then brings his other hand up to do the same on the other side. Ezra is warm, his hair bristly under Kanan's fingertips. He feels warm and safe and solid and alive and-

"This… isn't real, is it? I'm just dreaming, aren't I?"

Something shifts, and Ezra's smile softens into sadness.

"Sorry," he says.

Kanan's stomach feels like it is sinking faster than a transport ship into the lower levels of Coruscant, and he laughs. It comes out as a shattered sob.

In the background, the others have melted away into nothingness, like shadows or smoke, and he is vaguely aware that this should disturb him. It is only him and Ezra left now, alone on the Ghost. Perhaps even alone in the whole galaxy.

"No," insists Kanan, "You don't need to be sorry, you never need to be sorry, Ezra. I'm the one- I-"

He pulls their foreheads together, keeping his eyes open, straining them to keep looking at Ezra's face. Fear is telling him that if he glances away for even a second, Ezra will disappear too.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "It should have been me, why wasn't it me?"

Tears are sliding down his face, he thinks. He pulls back, but keeps staring, hunched over and holding on like Ezra is a lifeline and he is drowning in an endless ocean.

Ezra rests a hand on Kanan's arm, and squeezes comfortingly.

"It's okay," Ezra says softly. "Not your fault, never blamed you. But now it's time for you to wake up."

Kanan shakes his head fervently and holds tighter. He will not let go, he will not leave Ezra again. Not like the last time.

"Kanan." Ezra laughs gently. "It's okay. I'm okay. You're gonna to be okay. Wake up."

But Kanan isn't done drinking in Ezra's face yet- he hasn't told him everything he wants to say, all those worries and regrets and 'I love you's'. He wants to ask if Ezra had seen his parents or Master Billaba in whatever place he is now. He wants to know if Ezra is happy and warm or in pain and alone.

Kanan doesn't want to wake up. It isn't fair.

"Maybe it isn't, but that just doesn't matter. I'm gone, Kanan. Sorry for that, but it's what's real."

Kanan opens his mouth to argue and something sharp closes around his heart. He thumbs along Ezra's scar tenderly and smooths an errant tuft of dark hair back into place.

"I miss you so much," he sighs. "You should be here with us, fighting in the rebellion, it's not-"

He stops himself from finishing, clamping down on it hard. Something warns him that his time has run out, and he doesn't want to finish on a hollow regret.

He smiles as genuinely as he can through the overpowering ache in his bones. Ezra smiles back wide, happy and full of life, like Kanan remembers it.

"May the Force be with you, Ezra."

With one last lingering look at Ezra's face between his hands, Kanan closes his eyes and everything melts to black.

Kanan jolts awake. For a wild moment of fear, he panics over the oppressing darkness behind his open eyes before reality reasserts itself- he is blind, and has been blind for a long while now. This is nothing new.

He huffs in oxygen and blinks away the confusion. The constant, low thrumming of the Ghost's air vents and the occasional groan of metal is instantly familiar and calming in his ears. Besides him on the bunk, he hears Hera mutter in her sleep, and reaches out to where he senses her to be, drawing comfort from the warm, real texture of her skin.

Already the strange dream is fading from his mind (as dreams were wont to do), but he grasps at enough of the threads to remember bits and pieces of it.

Broken lightsaber, the crew's laughter, Ezra-

A far-too familiar crushing wave of emotion presses down upon him. Unable to contain it, Kanan gently flicks off the blanket to swing his legs off the bunk, and leans forward so his elbows are resting on his knees. He scrubs both hands down his face, catching loose long hair between the gaps of his fingers.

Kanan, it's okay. I'm okay. You're gonna to be okay.

Kanan hadn't cried, and couldn't even now, but only because it was a physical impossibility with his damaged eyes. Instead, he lets out a ragged breath and screws his useless eyelids shut.

He breathes in and out, trying to calm himself by stepping into the comforting arms of the Force. Hera begins to stir behind him, and he reaches for her presence, always warm and strong and right beside him. Then he extends out further, searching for the steady twangs of life that are Sabine and Zeb nearby. Sabine's presence pings from in her room, while Zeb is a little further out, perhaps in the galley, but Kanan isn't completely sure. Even further still, he reaches out to the base around him, thrumming with life and the rebelliouus, determined purpose of a hundred people fighting for freedom from tyranny, even this early in the morning.

Ezra is not there among them, not like in the dream. He knows why.

Why wasn't it me? Kanan has asked that question a hundred times now, and has gotten no reply of any sort.

The bed creaks. He feels Hera's arms snake around him, feels her concern without needing to see it, and leans into the hold.

"I dreamed about him again," Kanan says. "He was here, on the Ghost, like nothing happened. This dream felt different, somehow, though I can't explain it."

She kisses his bare shoulder and grips him tight againt her chest; she has no words, and doesn't need them.

He is grateful for her. He's grateful for all of them.

"I wish…" he whispers. It was against the Jedi order to wish for things, but the Jedi order is long dead; as far as Kanan knows, only he remains. "I just wish we'd had more time."

He gazes sightlessly across the room, then pulls out of Hera's grip and to his feet. He gathers up his shirt, and walks out the door, ignoring her soft calls after him. Three steps directly across the hall, and his hand hovers over the access panel to the room parallel to his own. Zeb and E- just Zeb's room now.

He frowns at it, and hears Chopper roll up and beep curiously at him in binary. He ignores that too, as well as Sabine's voice when it chimes in sounding tired and annoyed.

With a surge of courage, or maybe just a desire to escape the sudden crowd of curious eyes, he opens the door and walks in. Ezra's presence still hangs in the air, a faint smell of fruit and grease.

In the dream, Kanan had held his face, looked into his eyes, saw him smile again, and remembering that feels like a knife twisting in his heart.

He steps forward and gets gently to his knees in the middle of the room. The senses Hera, Sabine and Chopper gazing at him from the doorway

"It's just not fair," he says after a long moment as though stating a simple fact.

He hangs his head and the room falls into a deceptive quiet; Kanan Jarrus is not one to fall apart loudly, after all.

Could you beam me up?

Give me a minute, I don't know what I'd say in it

Probably just stare, happy just to be there holding your face

Beam me up, let me be lighter,

I'm tired of being a fighter, I think a minute's enough

Just beam me up

- P!nk

I dunno, I like present tense sometimes and it just worked for this one.

In other news, please board the angst train with me and listen to 'Beam Me Up' by P!nk and think about Kanan in an Ezra dies AU. I really really REALLY just wanted to do something short for this song bc it gives me feeeeeeeeels. Also, if you haven't already worked it out, deadzra bridger is a fave of mine. :D

I'm kinda unsure about this piece? I'm just not sure if it works like I wanted it to. I intended the dream to be confusing (like dreams are) but still realistic enough that it might be real, but let me know if you guys found it TOO confusing. It's also meant to be vague as heck for ya'll to fill in whatever gaps you please, so there's that too.

Anyway, thanks for reading!