Chapter 2

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She wasn't, although she was now at the farthest part of Chopper Base that she could physically get. But he could feel the disturbance of emotions ahead of him and it drew him like a beacon. Not as much as it would have had she been Force-sensitive herself, but he was looking for her.

Misery, pain, fear, anger, despair. The blind Jedi winced at the combination, driven by Sabine's emotional Mandalorian nature and by her age. He was glad he'd left puberty far behind. Padawans were often most at risk during this period too, where emotional disturbances hit like storms, and it was very difficult to let things assume their proper proportions. Teenagers felt emotions on the raw. And the two of them had had to grow up so quickly that that wasn't always acknowledged.

Kanan moved quietly into a store-room that was more like a large barn, one of the outermost buildings in the little compound. She was in here. Somewhere. Mind you, so was a lot of debris on the floor, which was more difficult for the Jedi to pick up on. He stood still a moment, readjusting himself to the new surroundings and trying to pick out where the safest path was. He needed to work on this more. While his Force-abilities had grown substantially to balance out his lack of vision, and while his abilities in battle were still prenatural, it was still tiring to keep it up constantly without the rush of adrenaline. And he was beginning to realise just how damn tired he was after the day as well.

He managed a few steps before standing on something that rolled under his foot and had to twist to catch himself against a table. It wasn't stable either and he felt several metal objects slide into his side before dropping to the ground. But at least he and the table were both upright.

"Go away," came a sharp voice from the back of the shed. Well, he'd alerted Sabine anyway. Her voice sounded raw.

"Sabine?"

Sabine groaned to herself and buried her face against her knees, which were drawn in against her chest. She didn't want to talk to Kanan right now. Or Ezra. Or anyone else. She doubted they'd particularly approve of what she'd said. And she didn't want to confront the damage she might have caused while she was still so…unsure.

"I don't want to talk, Kanan," she said in a muffled tone.

"Alright." Where the kriffing hells was the floor and why was there a pile of junk around this farking table? His foot moved uncertainly over the debris and he cautiously placed it down.

Sabine glanced up again at the last cure, curious as to where he'd picked up Mando curses. She wriggled to the side and peered out. Kanan, from the way he'd grabbed his foot, had just stood on a detached droid probe which was still holding some power. She could see a blue spark from the pile of debris by him. She grimaced. And this wasn't fair either. Why had the galaxy decided to blind Kanan and leave their most capable warrior flailing in the dark? Although mostly, he didn't. She frowned, watching him again for a moment. He cautiously put his foot down again and ran his fingers lightly along the edge of the table, feeling for it and where it ended to give him more idea of the size and shape of the room. Sabine wondered for a moment if he did this more when he was alone and exactly how he projected that confidence to compensate through the Force for his lack of sight. He seemed so capable with it now that she felt a pang of guilt in remembering that it was still really only a few months since he'd been left in permanent darkness. To the young artist, losing her sight was a nightmare she never wanted to confront. And he was in here looking for her despite the obvious trouble it was giving him. She grimaced again.

"I'm over here, Kanan. Careful, there's a crate right in front of you, and a battery's rolled beside your left foot."

Kanan glanced up at her voice, which sounded at the least a bit more conciliatory. She saw the movement of a nod in the gloam.

"How…are you doing that?" she asked after a moment, watching him as his foot moved in the air to avoid a fallen tangle of wiring that would have given a sighted person trouble if they'd added their leg to it.

"Still have trouble with places like this," he replied, starting to pick his way through the debris with careful steps. "Energy disruptions, blasters, people, even living things are one thing. But bits of dead metal scattered around is…subtle. But everything, even those bits of metal, have a presence in the Force."

"You can feel it or…see it?" she asked, eyeballing a long thread of wire that had flailed out away from its coil and was stretching under another workbench. She'd tripped over it herself coming in and now she wriggled out of her hiding space to move towards the Jedi. She was angry still, and confused, and still wanting to lash out, but seeing Kanan stumbling was still wrong in a way that she couldn't quite define. There was absolutely no comfort she'd get out of watching the proud, confident man falling over. Especially when she could see the trap ahead.

"Hrmhm…yes and no. Feel it, I suppose. It's a bit like trying to explain sight to someone who never had it."

Sabine crouched down to loosen the end of the tripwire from its deathgrip on the bench-leg. "Careful, there's a trail of wire here about two feet in front of you at ankle-height."

"That I probably wouldn't have felt right now," he agreed, pausing to lean against another table. "It's tiring to keep up."

Sabine glanced over at that, surprised at the admission. "It's something you have to ..keep up? It's not just there?"

Kanan shook his head and then rubbed his nose near where the mask sat over it.

"I relied on my sight. Think of it more like having to train my hearing to account for it. Ability's there, but I still have to focus on it to keep it up constantly. Helps when there's adrenaline. Draining when it's constant."

"Is that why you meditate more since..?" She gave up trying to untangle it and sliced through the wire. "It's gone."

Kanan nodded gratefully as she assured him the path was clear and took a few more steps.

"It helps," he acknowledged. "But it also helps me unwind to allow me find the Force in the first place. It's frustrating. Difficult to keep emotions down when you feel helpless, and that clouds my ability to feel the Force. And then I fall over things."

Sabine's lips moved in a silent "oh" as a few things fell into place. "I guess that just makes it worse then," she responded, backing up to her hiding place.

"Yes," he acknowledged simply, moving to stand beside her and resting a hand lightly on another workbench.

"I'm sorry, Sabine," he said gently and she could tell, glancing over in surprise that he was apologising to her, that he meant it.

"I'm…I didn't mean it, what I said," she started uncertainly, before pausing. Had she? She flushed a darker shade of red as she remembered one or two of the nastier bits.

"I know the stories that were spread about us. They popped up like mushrooms overnight, and, well…" He shrugged. "No-one was going to refute them."

Sabine glanced towards the door. "Mandalore never went in for the better stories about Jedi," she said. "But I don't really think it. Even…" She hesitated.

"The mind-control?"

Sabine tensed, pressing herself back against the workbench. "I don't know where that came from.." she muttered.

"It's an ability used through the Force. Out of reach of those that aren't Force-sensitive. And yeah, it's true that a master can ..take a mind and subsume it. It's not a Jedi teaching though."

"But you can still force people to do things against their will."

"Yes. I won't say it's something that sits entirely well with me either. Little enough free will in this galaxy without crushing it from others. But Jedi can't and don't control minds in the way that Sith do. The mind-trick is just that, a temporary mental illusion. Jedi don't go down that road much further. To seek control over others is a Dark Side response to fear."

"..So what's the Light side response? The Jedi response?" She frowned, looking at him.

"To control ourselves."

Sabine exhaled. "Or you can become something like…that. Like Maul. Or the Nightsisters." Her voice was low and Kanan could sense something from her that he'd never wanted to feel from the rest of the crew. Fear.

"Some of them are fallen Jedi, yeah. Sith, that is. The Force would be there whether Jedi or Sith were or not. And Force-sensitives keep being born. I don't know why we are, sporadically, across many races, throughout time, but we are, and presumably for a reason. The Jedi Order sought to keep those who showed those abilities safe. From themselves. So they could protect the galaxy."

"From you?"

"From the Dark Side. From those that fell to it. From dark Force-users. And from something like the Empire." He paused. "That didn't go well."

"…Were your parents Jedi? Or is it just completely random?" she asked after a moment.

"I don't know. Probably not. Force-ability can move in family lines, but it can also just come out of nowhere."

She looked at the ground. "Is it the Empire hunting y- us - like through the Inquisitors – or is it the Dark Side itself?"

"Both. Ezra is a young, mostly untrained active Force-user growing up in a war. That's something that'll interest Dark Force-users. The Empire mostly just wants every Jedi dead. And you're not wrong. That places all of you in danger too."

Sabine glared at the ground, wishing she'd kept it inside. "I didn't mean…" She stole a quick, sideways glance at the older man, and felt a pang of anger at herself when she noted the tight lips and lines along the side of his mouth. Her words had really not revealed anything new, she realised. Kanan – and perhaps Ezra – already lived with this knowledge.

"I know. But you're still not wrong. It's why I kept being a Jedi hidden for so long, well, that and not being suicidal. The Force has been a death-mark for coming up on twenty years now. For the Force-sensitive and often anyone around them. Being part of the rebellion has drawn the attention of the Empire, but having a Jedi amongst you has drawn the specific interest. They will send more agents. And I have thought many times about whether our utility to the Rebellion is worth the danger it brings too." His voice was quiet, contemplative and unusually sad. She wasn't used to hearing it from the often sardonic man.

Sabine flushed hot and cold at the words, feeling a wave of shame. "I never meant that you both shouldn't be here. I don't know why I exploded like that. We need you both here. We'd all have been dead several times if it wasn't for you. And not just because you're Jedi. Even before…" She felt her cheeks scorch again. Had she really turned on her friends like that, in her fear of the Nightsisters domination? On Ezra? On Kanan?

"Sabine…you felt the touch of the Dark Side and you should never have had to." Kanan's tone was deeply regretful. "It's not easy to overcome. It's not easy to shrug off. And it wasn't something you should have been exposed to."

Sabine glanced up again, eyes glinting in the half-dark. "I don't regret it," she said sharply. "I know I reacted badly, but Ezra was in danger and you were going to get him out of it. My place was there. I just wish I understood it more! I feel lost when this sort of thing starts happening."

"And today?" The voice was quiet, Kanan feeling that Sabine was on the edge of talking out her emotions rather than lashing out at the galaxy.

Sabine looked away. "I was gone. She..it..whatever it was rushed at me and there was nothing I could do to protect myself. It took over my body, my mind, and made me do things." Her voice, kept under steely control, didn't tremble. But it was a close-run thing.

"I know. Me too."

Sabine's fingers clenched around the workbench. "Even you couldn't fight it off. What chance do any of us have then?"

"We did escape," he reminded her. Sabine glared at the ground.

"Because Ezra.." Her voice did shake slightly now.

Kanan nodded. "Because Ezra came back for us like we went for him. Because we're family."

"I couldn't save myself. I mean, you've all saved my life directly multiple times by now, but this was different. I didn't have a chance without Force abilities. And…"

"And it scares you," he concluded softly, when Sabine had to decide between finishing her sentence and allowing that damned crack in her voice through the burning in her throat.

"Doesn't it scare you?" she asked roughly, turning to look at him, eyes scanning his face.

"Yes."

She hesitated, blindsided. She'd expected another adult answer that would make her feel like some stupid scared kid.

"..You don't show it."

Kanan paused for a long few moments. He wasn't an idiot. He had realised what had sparked off the blaze earlier. In trying to reassure the two youngest members of the team, he'd accidentally downplayed Sabine's entirely legitimate and understandable fears. He glanced over to her.

"I wish I could see you," he said with a grimace. "I... forget at times both how young you two are and how quickly you have had to grow up. I don't mean to hide things from you."

"We ask if you're okay – Hera too. And you expect us to answer truthfully when you ask us, but you don't answer me truthfully."

Kanan grimaced again. There was truth in that.

"..We do," he acknowledged with sigh. "And you're right. I can't expect you to tell me when you're hurting if I lie when I am."

Sabine leaned back against the workbench again, feeling an odd tremor of relief at that. And something more. A thread of unease. Some deep part of her subconscious, the part that still looked automatically to Hera and Kanan not just because of their roles on the Ghost, but as adults who would always know what to do, who weren't afraid, who were guides and guardians as well as friends, was distressed. A small part of the child that had been Sabine Wren before war had engulfed her far too young.

"Are you afraid?" she asked in a low tone.

"Often." Kanan turned to lean his elbows on the workbench, resting his weight on them after a test to ensure the whole contraption wasn't about to collapse under him. "I spent the best part of fifteen years keeping the Force out, trying to fade away. It was a beacon to the galaxy, a blazing come-and-get-me. Anything I did that accidentally drew on it, being a bit too quick, being too good at something, was a risk. Staying in one place too long was a risk. Even now I still don't really like carrying my lightsaber openly. Never particularly wanted to be a target for the galaxy and that's what it meant. And the Dark Side is terrifying in its own special ways. And now I'm afraid of what that might mean for the Ghost and you all. Eventually it might have to come to that, that Ezra and I will have to leave to draw the Empire and the Dark Side away from you."

Sabine felt a cold wash of fear at that. She had trouble imagining the Ghost without Kanan and Ezra. And she feared for them. If they left and just dropped out of contact to protect them, they'd never know if they were safe. Or if the Empire found them.

"You've always feared it, since you revealed yourself," she said in a low, ashamed tone.

"Yeah." There wasn't much else to say about that.

Sabine turned as well, leaning her elbows on the workbench and pressing her face against her hands to rub it. She felt a bit at sea. Kanan was extremely private and didn't talk about his past. Or his feelings. But a number of things flicked into place, taking up new significance in retrospect. She remembered Lothal, outside the radio tower, Kanan's voice on the comm. ordering – pleading with – Hera to go. It wouldn't have worked if it was anyone else, she finally realised. The adult Jedi was what they wanted at the time. He'd known that they couldn't escape with him and had chosen to stay and face capture so they could escape without him.

"It's… not that I'm afraid for myself. Not really. But I'm afraid of losing you both. You and Hera took me in when nobody would have amongst my own people and ..well..not many that would have out in the galaxy either. And then there was that mission we found Ezra and you became a Jedi and…all the rules changed."

"Sabine… it's fine to be afraid. We all are. If you can point out one member of the Rebellion that is never afraid, I'll point you out either a kriffing idiot or a spicehead. And you are no coward. But what happened with the Nightsisters was deeply unsettling to me, and I at least have some experience of Dark Side can be like. There is no shame in being shaken by that."

"Doesn't the Dark Side… poison Jedi?" she asked a bit uncertainly. Kanan made a so-so gesture with his hand.

"On the one hand, yes, absolutely. On the other, we still have to choose to let it."

"So you've touched the Dark Side before?"

"I've felt it before. I feel it in the Inquisitors that attacked us. There are… places too that are imbued with it. And things."

"But you were never tempted by it? Is that how it works?"

Kanan shuddered involuntarily as certain memories flooded back.

"Not in the way you'd expect, at least. I've never sought or wanted unreasonable power. Power to control or dominate."

Sabine frowned, feeling there was something missing from what he'd said. Was he circling the topic again?

"If that's the way I'd expect, what did you mean?" she asked, deciding to take him directly at his word.

Kanan paused again for a long moment. On the one hand, he knew she needed to understand this mysterious power that had invaded her life – as collateral damage, he had to admit she was right on that – on the other, these were intensely private things she was asking the reticent Jedi, a Jedi with fifteen years of harsh conditioning to avoid speaking or thinking of them. Hells, he'd spent a decent portion of the nine years or so before he met Hera blind drunk to not have to think about this sort of thing. And the reasons he'd not spent more of the subsequent six years also drunk were Hera, having something to focus on and then the rest of the crew as the group had grown.

Which was also a distraction, Jarrus, he told himself. You still weren't dealing with all of this until after Ezra came along, you showed yourself and suddenly you were back to being a blazing Imperial target.

Actually, if he thought too much about that question, he'd want to get blind drunk again. There was absolutely no way he was going to explain the mental mindscrew of the Inquisitor's personal attentions orbiting Mustafar, or how a will could be broken by the peculiar mix of seduction and torture that was the hallmark of the dark side of the Force. And copious use of brain-melting drugs.

The silence stretched so long that Sabine glanced over, worried that she'd over-stepped. Kanan had his secrets, same as she held hers. Some had been exposed to each other, but she knew instinctively how painful that was and how certain bits could never be told.

"Mustafar is a Dark place," he said slowly, eventually. "It was used to break Jedi for a reason. That time I was captured, if the ship had gotten to Mustafar rather than the rescue while it was still in orbit, it's very unlikely you'd have gotten me out and even less likely that there would have been much left of me to rescue. Even from orbit, I could certainly feel it below. Hate, despair. Two of the most difficult emotions to overcome and both will destroy a Jedi. We feel those emotions like anyone else. Thing is, when they escape, become consuming, we…can gain power from it. The worst in us, backed up by the negative side of the Force. And all the power that it brings. Jedi in that state – fallen Jedi – can wreak havoc as their emotions consume everything like a raging fire. Or - they can be controlled by a stronger will, fed on emotional suffering and conditioned to completely serve a master. A more powerful Master. Such as a Sith."

Sabine paused, taking this in. Two and two came together and her eyes widened. "Kanan…the Grand Inquisitor – the Inquisitors. Were they…?"

Kanan grimaced and she could see the tightness of his lips give the answer. "The Grand Inquisitor was once a Jedi Master, yeah. As were many Sith throughout the ages at some point in their lives. All the Inquisitors, I don't know. It's likely that some of the younger ones were children when they were taken. Trained up in the Dark Side and utterly brainwashed to their Master's control. Tools. Weapons. They never stood a chance." A thread of bitterness through his tone.

Sabine exhaled shakily as his words and all they meant thudded into her confused thoughts about the Force, the Jedi, all the strangeness that she couldn't understand.

"That's…evil," she said quietly, looking down at the workbench.

"Yeah, it is. That's the big difference between the Jedi and the Sith. They desire control and domination. Power above all else. Sometimes it starts as seeking power to protect. A fall for what seemed like good reasons. Loss can drive anyone. Be stronger, be better, don't let it happen again. Madness will certainly do it, and the madness on Mustafar is enough to eventually break anyone. There are many paths to the Dark Side. And simply because we have ability that most don't, that's the duty to control it. To control ourselves. Turn that power to actually helping the galaxy, not trying to reshape it to our likings."

"You were never tempted by –that-? After the Temple…"

Kanan didn't answer immediately again and Sabine wished she could see more of his face. He can't see yours at all, she pointed out to herself, and the sense of frustration loosened a bit. Even with the Force, he could only "see" so much. To him, her face was at least half-shrouded too. Only so was everything else.

"No, I can honestly say I wasn't. I was barely fourteen when that happened, and mostly focussed on survival. My instinct was to hide the Force, hide my abilities and fade into a crowd. Survive. Not to expand it, make a beacon of myself. Even now, I know what the Dark Side is. It promises power and it will deliver it, but only at the cost of humanity and suffering. If I chose that path, I would become another part of the problem. For what little good it might do in the short-term, eventually ordinary, decent people, probably including the Rebellion, would suffer from having another Sith in the galaxy. If I survived the road to becoming a Sith. Most don't. Thankfully. They are incredibly rare."

Sabine looked across the workbench, mulling this over. She flicked a pencil and it rolled over the desk.

"…I can see how it would be tempting," she said eventually. "I'm not sure that…after I left Mandalore, after I saw what my weapon was being used for… if I'd had that option, maybe I would have taken it to destroy the weapon."

"And then you would have been a weapon as dangerous as that one was."

Sabine exhaled, frowning at the desk. She glanced over again, considering the older man.

"Are Sith more powerful than Jedi?"

"Bear in mind that I was a padawan of six months training. I was active in the last few months of the war, but there's far more that needs to be learned than just war. I'm no match for a Sith. Most Masters wouldn't be. They were rare and far between for generations. For thousands of years, Sith were rumour and myth. And they gain power from their emotions, paying for it with who they were until there's nothing left. Jedi… one on one, a Sith will mostly kill the Jedi. The Sith knows what they're fighting. The Jedi doesn't. And we control what power we have. The Sith take power and forever seek more of it to use. No Jedi will drain the life-force of others for strength. A Sith will. A Sith would drain a planet for the power it gives him and care absolutely nothing for the husks left behind."

Sabine went so quiet that it was Kanan's turn to wonder if he'd overstepped. Maybe he'd told her too much. And really, there was nothing about the Sith that wasn't terrifying. Putting it in words that many of them had been Jedi like him may not have been the best way to calm her. On the other hand, she needed to know the truth. Once distrust and fear started to stir, if he hid the truths from her that could easily end up being revealed to her anyway, it would only feed that mistrust and fear.

Sabine didn't entirely know what to think of it at this stage. Jedi had been a scary story for night-time on Mandalore, remnants of the war that had scorched the planet before her birth. The whole thing with the Sith made sense, and she had to admit that it disturbed her that Kanan and Ezra, the people she knew, her family, had that potential, that power, to become something like the Inquisitors. Or worse. But this was Kanan talking to her. The same Kanan that had taken her in along with Hera. The same Kanan that came up with ridiculous-sounding plans and changed them constantly as things inevitably went to hell and somehow ended up pulling it off, pulling them out, mostly with what they'd gone in for. The same Kanan that made snarky comments, got frustrated with Chopper and refused to eat las'ka fruit. The Kanan that appreciated her art and got into discussions with her about it. The Kanan she had trusted her life to repeatedly and without a second thought.

"I'm sorry for what I said, Kanan," she said quietly, the proud Mandalorian not liking to have to apologise, but feeling the need to. "Ezra was right. You're hunted for what you are, not… something you did. Well, mostly not for something you did. We've all upset the Empire even without your being a Jedi," she added with a touch of her usual insouciant humour.

"We are. As are all Force-sensitives across the galaxy. Most of them children now, born since the Purge. I found Ezra, half-trained padawan as I was, but at least I knew what it meant. Most of those kids won't found. Or at the least, they won't be found by anything that means them well."

Most of them children now. Sabine glanced back at the workbench once again. Because the adults were all long-dead. Except Kanan. And even he had probably only survived because he had been a child when he fled, his name and face not yet known. His name. Surely he wouldn't have kept his real one. There would have been records… But even as the thought flashed across her mind, she knew that would be a step too far. Still, just for a moment, she wondered who he really was. Then another thought, heavy and comforting, fell into place. He was Kanan Jarrus, even if he had been born under another name. She knew Kanan, even if she never did find out who he had once been.

She had, with no intention of doing so, betrayed her own people. And they had betrayed her in return. But Mandalore still stood. She was still Mandalorian and no-one could take that from her. She could wear the armour that was part of her freely, follow Mandalorian customs openly, be Mandalorian. Zeb, as a Lasat, was one of the few survivors of his race, if not only one left; the rest wiped out, their customs forgotten and lost. And he'd always stand out as being alone, so visibly different from most other races in the galaxy. And Kanan and Ezra had also lost their people, also alone in their own way, even if they looked and were human. But with the flipside that, while Zeb was mostly left alone now, a Jedi that showed what he or she was would still be actively hunted and destroyed.

She didn't like it, but Ezra hadn't been wrong. She'd spend her life atoning for what she'd done. There was no atonement Kanan or Ezra could do simply for what they were. And those ..creatures of the dark and the Empire would hunt them for the rest of their lives, unrelenting. She wondered how Ezra, younger than even herself, dealt with that knowledge. Or did he even think of it? Had she really thought about what it meant until now?

"I'm sorry," she said again, but this time it wasn't just for what she'd said, but for a galaxy where genocide was barely noticed amongst all the other suffering. A splash of water hit the workbench and she glanced up in surprise, scanning for a leak in the roof. Then she felt it on her face and winced. Oh, she was not crying again, was she?

A comforting arm around her shoulders made her realise that her tear hadn't gone unnoticed. Normally, she would have refused to allow anyone near her while she showed a weakness like tears. But it was dark and…Kanan couldn't see her. He couldn't see her anyway. There was a moment where the two sides warred with each other and then she wrapped her own arm around him in return, turning to hug him, her shoulders shaking as she cried out the stress of the day, the terror of losing herself under a wave of malevolence that would be used to harm her friends, her family. Her reaction to that paralysing fear, the harsh things she'd both said and heard, and her fear of losing the family she had come to love.

Kanan wrapped his other arm around her and let her deal with the reaction. It was far better than her repressing it down and refusing to deal with the emotional stress. He exhaled quietly. Child soldiers. Like he had been. He and Hera had argued over how much danger they should be allowed to face, particularly Ezra, but it was pointless. They all faced danger. And merely that it wasn't right that teenagers should fight a war didn't save them all from cruel necessity. Sabine would have been fighting anyway, or else just avoiding the war whenever she could until some bounty went wrong or that fair-weather friend of hers abandoned her in dire straits. Ezra…what would have eventually happened to him on Lothal, just another street-kid? At least on the Ghost, they could give them support. Love. A family. Things that he hadn't realised how much he himself had needed until he joined Hera and accidentally, here and there, built a family.

"This is why we fight, Sabine," he said. "So maybe the next generation won't have to. For peace at last."

Peace. Safety. A galaxy where children could grow up without the shadow of the Empire over them. Where Force-sensitive children wouldn't be ripped from their families and tortured into monsters. Where Sabine and Ezra and so many others didn't have to fight, didn't have to see and do things no kid should have to. A galaxy where people wouldn't be hunted or enslaved just for what they were.

Peace. Such a fragile word.

"Can it happen? Are we ever likely to see it?" she asked in a muffled tone, apparently addressing his shoulder. Ah. Another of those questions, that he both didn't want to answer and knew he had to.

"I don't know. I think it can. But there will be loss and pain while we fight for it." He really couldn't – and didn't want to – think too much about the chances of all of their little family surviving it. That thought haunted him in spare moments much like it was currently haunting Sabine and he hugged her more tightly for a moment.

"But here and now, we're alive and able to do something about it. Billions of people out there that have no defences. They can do almost nothing. We are free. We can fight. We have each other."

Sabine pulled her head back and wiped across her face with her glove. It was a curiously childish gesture, at odds with the young Mandalorian warrior and her usual complete self-possession. Kanan felt the movement of her arm, but couldn't see her face. She looked better though, or rather, her signature in the Force was calmer, the colours that he associated with Sabine there rather than the roiling fear and anger.

"We are free. And we can fight," she repeated after a moment, agreeing with the sentiment. She looked up at him. "Please believe me though. I lashed out. Said things I didn't mean and don't believe. I had to fight something and…you were there." She flushed red again.

"Same as Ezra did. I know you didn't mean it. And maybe I should have been explaining more of this as it happened. I don't understand all of it either, though. But I will explain what I can when…the weird stuff starts happening."

Sabine nodded. "Thanks. I think. Maybe I'll regret knowing too much about it too," she added wryly. "But it's still better than not knowing, living in ignorance."

Kanan felt a chill down his spine. Was it really? Did knowing about just how evil the Sith were actually help when Sabine couldn't hope to go up against one if it came? He would have been happier in some ways if he'd remained mostly ignorant, if the Clones had remained the epitome of his terrors regarding the end of the Jedi. And you'd also still be a drunken idiot bumming around the galaxy getting into fights. Or more likely, you'd probably have died of liver failure or some brawl by now. There was that.

He dropped his hand lightly onto her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, much as he did with Ezra when his padawan was stressed or upset.

"You should rest if you can, Sabine. I know I need it after today." No more than Sabine did he like admitting weakness, but he'd sensed she needed to hear that she wasn't the only one stressed by the events. She looked relieved. While the conversation with Kanan had been deeply needed – and she'd even admit silently that the tears had probably been needed too – both of them had had about as much sharing as either could cope with for one evening.

"Yeah…I might see if I can draw it out and then get some sleep. It helps to stave off ..you know. Bad dreams. Thanks, Kanan. I…needed to talk. I'll apologise to Ezra," she added with a rueful sigh.

If Hera had had her usual way, Ezra would be reassured by now and hopefully ready to reconcile. Which was all to the good for a peaceful life on Ghost as well. He smiled at her, and with another brief squeeze to her shoulder, let his hand drop.

"Yeah, I'll probably meditate for much the same reason," he added over his shoulder as he turned to go. She followed him out, noting that he stepped almost exactly where he had placed his feet before and had rendered them safe. Was that Force or memory?

She decided not to ask, figuring she had probably pried enough from the man for one day. She felt a bit emotionally wrung-out herself. Instead she smirked.

"Want me to teach you a few more Mando curses? I like being a bad influence."

"No, you know what Hera said about corrupting the innocent," he responded with a quick grin as they made their way back out into the dusk, heading for the Ghost and home.

Thanks for the reviews I amm Groot (love the name) and All Things Animated :D ATA: Maybe a regional thing or something, but I could only find reference to it being E.11 (well, and a youtube video that reckoned it was E10, but I took that as an outlier!). Don't have the box set to check though. Always a few mistakes to slip through :P I do use British English though, so some forms may just be unfamiliar.