At some point, he'd have to return to the others.

Ezra Bridger was seated on the ground, knees pulled to his chest as his eyes watched the yellow hue of the fuel tanks in the distance, smoke rising up to block the view of the stars. The tanks would burn for days. It was but a small consolation for the ice building in his chest.

He had no will to move.

When it had happened, he hadn't quite believed it. Kanan had pushed the transport ship back, giving Ezra enough time and clarity to order Sabine to get them clear, to break through to her despite his own will to remain behind, to help Kanan. He'd held onto Hera, first in fear of her jumping off the ship again in those final few seconds, but then out of emotional necessity in their crisis.

Not crisis, he thought bitterly. Devastation.

The Empire had won. Pryce knew about Kanan's death. They held a parade in celebration of it, deliberately insult to injury. It was disgusting and immoral, indicative of the Empire's total lack of humanity. Zeb had suggested that it wasn't about Kanan, that it was about convincing Lothal that the Empire was still strong in the wake of this massive defeat—they'd been successful in destroying the fuel tanks, crushing Thrawn's plans for TIE fighters. But after learning of what on what exactly Pryce had done to torture her, this felt more like a personal party thrown by a monster than it was a cover for the morale of the Empire.

The Empire had won. The Rebels greatest strategist, leader and protector, his mentor, had been obliterated—and along with him, their hope for success in the long run. Sure, Obi-Wan Kenobi was on Tattooine, and Ezra knew that, but he also knew that Kenobi would not join this fight. Couple this with Ahsoka's death, regardless of whether she called herself part of the Jedi?

Ezra Bridger could not carry this burden. The Jedi were done.

"Last I checked, you are a Jedi."

It was a small movement, but Ezra shook his head in response, chin pressed against forearms as he finally tore his eyes away from fires in the distance. There was silence as the breeze passed over him. He felt tired, his arms almost boneless as they clung around his knees.

"Ezra, you need to go back to them."

His gaze just barely flickered to the right, but he made no move to look at the speaker. "Why? The Empire isn't looking for us right now. And camp... I can't face Hera. Not after I did nothing."

"What are you talking about?"

"I did nothing. I wasn't fast enough to react, I wasn't strong enough to-" Ezra sucked in a deep breath, a fist clenching as anger got the better of him. He was waging an internal war—and losing. "I didn't help. I didn't even try to pull Hera back on board."

"You really believe you could have stopped Hera?"

"If I had of kept hold of her before she raced off? Yes. I do."

"Then you don't know Hera at all."

A shiver ran up Ezra's spine as he looked back to the city, and he reluctantly admitted to himself that he was right. Nothing would have stopped Hera in that situation. Ezra would have wasted time and energy trying, and it would have only distracted Kanan further.

"As for reacting fast enough," he continued, taking a seat next to the boy. "There was no time to react."

"You managed to!"

There was silence for a few moments, but a response came. "I already knew."

Ezra scoffed, his eyes rolling to flicker toward the left, now avoiding him completely. "Of course you did. You felt it coming before we could even see it. Because you're stronger than us."

"No, Ezra. It... it wasn't like that. Before it happened, before we went after Hera... it's hard to explain."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing, his fist clenching again. He maintained his refusal to look at the mentor. "So you knew?" the boy exclaimed, "You knew, and you said nothing? You didn't prepare us-"

"Ezra."

He felt eyes linger on him, and Ezra forced himself to take another breath, tears welling in his own eyes. He didn't want to look at him, in case he wasn't truly there, in case this was a falsehood of his own creation. He wasn't sure how he would have reacted, whether or not this was real, but he knew he wasn't ready to face that fact just yet.

"If you knew," he continued, "you would have tried to stop me."

"Because we need you! I need you! We could have found some other way to rescue Hera!"

"No, Ezra. We wouldn't have—not really. You'd have been too distracted by what might have happened to get to Hera in time. There was no certainty what I knew would happen," he gave a quiet huff, "it was a choice I had to make myself."

Ezra's throat felt tight, tears falling as he hugged himself tighter. His words feel through a wheeze of panic, "I don't know how I'm meant to do this without you."

There was silence again, but there was a strange sense of comfort in that silence. There was no pity, no judgement, and no disappointment—all the things he expected others to feel about him in the wake of this tragedy were simply not present.

Instead, it was an immense wave of understanding.

"All I can tell you, is to look forward," he finally said. "If you keep looking back and thinking about ifs or maybes, you will fall down a path of which the others can't follow. Don't let this control you. Trust yourself."

"Trust in the Force," Ezra sobbed, trying desperately to suck in a full breath as the composure he'd maintained for the last handful of hours finally broke down.

This time, there was no one to console him. He wouldn't run after Zeb, or Hera, or Sabine. And the cold reality was that Kanan wasn't there. He would never be there again.

But through the horror and the overbearing sense of devastation, a feeling of confidence and comfort that wasn't his own fell over him.

"I can't guide you past this point," he said quietly. "But I am proud of the man you've become. And your parents would be, too. We'll always be with you."

And just like that, the breeze ceased. It was over. No one else was there with him in that moment but the Loth-wolves that sat out in the distance, watching over the camp.

Ezra sniffed again, eyes moving up one last time to the burning fires in the city. He unwrapped his arms from his knees and pushed himself up from the ground. He still felt cold, was still dazed. But this fight wasn't over. No longer were those fires Kanan's pyre—now, they were a beacon of hope.

This wasn't the end. Not yet.

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