Author's Note: And here we are at the bitter (happy) ending. More notes at the end.

UPDATE NOTE: I made a minor correction to unclude Ahsoka.

Epilogue
The Scribe

Caleb Wren sat back from his desk and smiled. He looked out the window over the snowy valley. In the distance, he could see Sabine's speeder returning from the Wren Stronghold for the day. Ursa had given him and Sabine the guest house as their own and simply built a new guest house. Caleb's work required peace and quiet, so a home away from the Stronghold had been a huge help.

He looked back at his datapad, pleased. After over three years, he had finished his record of the Jedi. Three years of labor and it was done. Of course, he could add more to it later if he came across more documents. It surprised him how much information the Empire had missed about the Jedi. Caleb had spent a good deal of time collecting these old reports, cataloging them, and including them in his record. He had also met dozens of people that had known the Jedi and remembered them. He added their accounts as well.

Caleb had little doubt that this had been the will of the Force. That so much of what had once been lost or forgotten had come to him in such a short time was no coincidence. Sabine had been right about his destiny; he had faith in that now.

Of all the futures Caleb had imagined when he left Lothal, he never imagined that he would have become a bit of a scholar. His education growing up on the streets of Lothal had not exactly been extensive. Three years ago he had read slowly and wrote at an excruciating pace. Now he read whole works of history in an afternoon, and his words were articulate and precise. Hours of practice at both had seen to this.

And the funny thing was, he enjoyed the work. In his endless rewrites and revisions, he'd even adopted the formal tone of the histories he had poured through. Sabine poked fun at this. "Honestly, I thought I was marrying some hotshot young Jedi-Mandalorian hybrid, not some soggy academic." Even in marriage they still bantered, and she was still better at it. He didn't mind; Caleb knew Sabine was intensely proud of his work.

Caleb kept hoping that Ahsoka would reappear. He and Sabine had made a cautious trip to Malachor after their marriage. All quiet and dead again. Wherever Ahsoka was, she would have to be the one to find him when the time came. She would have been a huge help to his work, but he had pushed through on his own.

Of course, he and Sabine hadn't spent three years sitting around waiting for him to finish his record. They had also played an instrumental part in Mandalore's ongoing civil war. Their role in that war was rather secretive though, known only to Clan Wren. The rest of the clans knew the Wren-Bridgers by a different name; even the alias Caleb had an alias.

But that was a story for another time.

And so much had happened in the Galaxy in those same three years. For one, Caleb now knew what Master Kenobi's hidden hope was. Hera had breathlessly commed him the day a farm boy from Tatooine had destroyed the Empire's secret battle station. The mention of the planet Kenobi had hidden on for so many years had instantly made him suspicious, and Hera further confirmed his suspicion when she told him the old general was involved. But the final confirmation was the young man's name: Luke Skywalker.

Caleb knew there were a lot of Skywalkers in the Galaxy, but one from Tatooine under the care of Master Kenobi could only be descended from Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka's master and one of the greatest Jedi to ever live. Hidden hope indeed; the son of Anakin Skywalker.

Caleb forbid Hera and the others from speaking to Luke about the Jedi. And if someone else told him they had known Jedi and Skywalker approached them, they were to recount the stories of Ezra and Kanan. Including, of course, their deaths during the Battle of Lothal.

"You sure, Ez... Caleb?" Hera asked, correcting herself. Even the Ghost crew was trying to use the name Caleb in all but the utmost privacy. "He's supposedly Force-sensitive, but you're way past his level."

"That won't stay that way, Hera. Trust me. Trust the Force. And keep me updated."

That had been over two years ago. Since that time the galaxy had erupted into a chaotic war, with the Alliance becoming a serious military force. At one point they had even forced the Empire to cede vast swaths of the Mid Rim in a massive offensive. These gains had been temporary, but it had emboldened the Alliance and drove more systems and people to their cause.

Caleb didn't know how the war would shake out. But he trusted the Force, and he was a patient man.

Ezra chuckled. Sabine was home now, so he started to think of himself as his birth name again. It was easier and easier to become Caleb these days, but he never had trouble slipping back to Ezra again. The door opened, and Sabine came in. She crossed immediately to the desk and leaned in to kiss him.

Ezra smiled. "It's done. Completed this afternoon. For now anyway."

Sabine beamed radiantly. "I'm proud of you. I never had any doubts you would finish it."

"It was harder than I thought it would be," he admitted. "I never expected so much other material to fall into my hands while writing this. And I think I rewrote every chapter at least three times." He gestured to his datapad. "But it's done."

"So what now?" Sabine asked. "Still plan to hide copies of this all over the galaxy?"

"I do. You up for a bit of a vacation? Make stops at a few dozen worlds. Find libraries and archives to hide this in. Quiet places that no one would expect to find something important, places where my record could sit for a century before being found. Just in case we don't outlive the Empire after all."

"I still intend to see the end," Sabine said, raising an eyebrow.

"I know, and I do too. Still, it doesn't hurt to have a contingency plan in case the Empire scouts us out."

"Alright," Sabine said, "we can start plotting a trip, but mother and I have another operation planned first."

Ezra groaned. He usually didn't mind, but at the moment he wanted to see his own project through to completion before dealing with more Mandalorian politics. "Well, what's it going to be? Normal armor or the special set."

"Special. I'll make sure they're polished and looking their best this evening. We leave tomorrow."

Ezra scratched his beard thoughtfully. At least it was going to be one of the fun trips. "Alright, but try not to let your mother plan anything else for the next couple months. This is important too."

"I know, and I'll see what I can do on that end. If something big comes up, we may have to come rushing home." Sabine kissed Ezra again.

"I understand," he said, pouting a little.

"I'll try and make it up to you. I promise. Food prep's on me tonight." Thankfully Zeb's speech three years ago had spurred her to improve on that front, something Ezra was eternally grateful for.

"No don't worry; I'll be there to help in a few minutes," he said.

She left, and Ezra looked back at his datapad, reading the first page one last time.

A Record of the Jedi Order, their Beliefs, and Practices

Along with Commentary Drawn from the Life of Jedi Knight Caleb Dume and Padawan Ezra Bridger.

This record was compiled with the intent of remembering those things that have passed in the hope that they will not be forgotten. No attempt is made to justify the faults of the Jedi. Instead, they are here acknowledged so that the new order that rises will not repeat the mistakes of the past.

This record was compiled by The Scribe, in memory of Caleb Dume. May he rest in peace, his legacy enshrined in this account until the end of days.

Ezra smiled, stood from his chair, and went to help Sabine make dinner.

Updated AUTHOR'S Note:

Well as much as I loved the way the show ended, it appears Sabezra didn't happen on screen in Canon. Yet anyway. I strongly suspect that if Ahsoka and Sabine fund Ezra and bring him that would change. I mean come on guys. Sabine DIDN'T go home. She stayed to protect Ezra's world. (I'm secretly imagining her as like Batman stalking the streets at night as a do-gooder. I'm sure one of you will write that story...) Also, the way she touched his face on the mural at the end... Feels man. Feels. (Although I didn't love that pixie cut...)

Someday. Someday...

Original Final Author's Note

Oh wow, it's finally done. I have put SOOoo much time and effort into this in the last month, and I'll be glad for a break. I did it though! Fully finished and published before the end of Rebels. I hope you found the outcomes acceptable... Sorry. But again I hope we the characters get some sort of happy ending in the show. Quick! Someone call Dave Filoni. Maybe he can make some edits before Monday... ;)

Big shout out and thanks to my wife for all the help in editing. She's spent about 30 minutes to an hour every night helping me edit for the last week. Her attention to detail really helped me squash an embarrassing number of grammatical bloopers, the kind that's hard for the person doing the writing to spot. Thanks, Wife!

Also massive thank you for all the kind reviews and messages. Those have meant a lot to me and have been a huge encouragement. I haven't done much creative writing in a decade, so the validation of peers has meant a lot to me.

So where does that take things now? Depending on how Rebels shakes out I may make a minor adjustment or two to make things closer to canon. So you may see minor updates to the story, in the next week. They'll be small. I'm not doing huge rewrites if canon veers wildly off course from what I've written. (Ahsoka, in general, might need another mention, especially in this epilogue but I don't have a clue what Filoni has planned for her. And I'm not sure we'll find out before the end either...)

Also, I think you can pretty clearly see the seeds I sowed here in the epilogue to continue with a sequel. Of course, Sabine and Ezra are doing something special in the Mandalorian civil war. Fenn Rau and Lady Bo-Katan do have such high expectations after all...

But it's not happening soon. I need a break and need to spend a bit LESS time on this project and spend some more time on real life stuff. I've got a hazy idea of what I have in mind. I'm a planner, so I'll spend some time letting it stew and have the whole thing plotted planned and ready to go before returning to it sometime in the vague future. Then I'll probably have most all of it written again before I begin publishing. So look for a return someday. Just not next quite what is generally referred to as "soon."

Now a final note on this story, I hope you like how I removed Ezra from history (for now) and yet still tried to leave him a major player in the history of the Galaxy. Also since I've read that Ezra was named after the Old Testament prophet of the same name, I gave him a similar role as being the Scribe. You can look up the story if you're interested. It's not a one to one match, but I liked the parallel.

Thank you all so much! If you have any questions or comments feel free to PM me! Until next time I bid thee farewell!