*Note: please know that I will not be using actual asl sentence formation due to the fact I cannot do it well. I will be doing Ezra's signing as if he was speaking. Please know that if he is "speaking", he is using ASL.*

When Ezra wakes up, he feels relaxed. Happy.

It lasts for promptly 5 seconds. At most.

What happened the night before makes him bolt up, scaring the poor dog at his feet, looking towards the young boy in concern.

"We thought you'd never wake up, kid," Ezra snaps his head towards the voice. It was Zeb. Collecting himself, he looks towards the man in confusion. Zeb nods his head towards the clock. "It's nearly midday."

He was right. It was 11: 47 a.m.

"We're about to have lunch. You comin'?" Ezra's stomach growls, so he nods. He hasn't eaten in days. He knows he needs to eat at least once before they throw him back out on the street. As if on cue, someone knocks on the door. "Come in!" Zeb yells, taking off his headset. Ezra looks down at his computer on his lap and watches as he pauses the game he was playing. He then also looks up at Hera who pokes her head in. When she catches Ezra looking at her, she smiles.

"We should be having lunch in ten. Will you join us?" Ezra nods. "Alright." As she leaves, Ezra jumps out of bed and crouches next to it. Reaching under the bed, he feels for a strap.

There!

He pulls it, and a backpack full of his necessities come out.

"Hey, kid, what is that?" Ezra almost forgot Zeb was in the room. For being so big, he's quite quiet. Ezra turns around, showing Zeb the backpack. Well, that surely didn't answer his question, but at least it's not drugs or something. Zeb shakes his head and puts back on his headset. Ezra sighs, happy the items in the bottom didn't spill out.

Grabbing the pretty much useless phone on top, he unlocks it quickly, checking for any notifications. When he opens an email and the orange and red square pop up, he panics.

Shoving the phone back into the bag, he puts everything that fell out back in.

"Kid, what's wrong?" Zeb asks, genuinely concerned. Ezra, not thinking, quickly signs

I have to go

Zeb looks at the fast hand movements, surprised. Ezra runs out of the room, slinging the backpack over his right shoulder. "Kid? Kid! Kanan! He's running!" Ezra tries his best to get to the front door before Kanan could stop him, but due to the front door being so close to the kitchen, Kanan is able to intercept him.

"Ezra, what's going on." Ezra, still frantic, not caring whether or not they know he can communicate, although it's very limited, signs

I have to go

I have to go

I have to go

"He's signing!" Sabine states, surprised. Ezra tries to push past Kanan but to no avail.

"What's he sayin'?" Zeb asks as Ezra signs it one more time.

I have to go.

"I have to go?" Ezra nods, having given up trying to push past Kanan. "Why? What's wrong."

Can't talk. He signs.

"Can't talk? You can't talk to us? Why? Ezra, what's going on?" Ezra, taking their surprise as an opportunity, finally is able to push past Kanan and runs off, the cold air slapping him in the face as he shivers. The shirt and sweatpants had little to no effect to help block the wind and Ezra runs off into the distance, really wishing he had his jacket.

It was going to be a long run.

"What just happened?" Zeb asks, staring at the door.

"I..." Kanan tries, scratching his head, sighing. Sitting down, he tries to wrap his mind around what just happened.

"We have to find him," Sabine blurts.

"What? Why?" Hera asks, concerned.

"Well, one. It's cold." Sabine chuckles. Hera glares at her. "And two," she says. "He was panicking. Somethings wrong." Walking to the stairs and up to her room, Hera looks at Kanan.

"You think she's right?"

"Yeah, I know she is." Hera looks at him, concerned.

"Kanan?" He stands up, nodding.

"Let's go find him."

Ezra doesn't stop until he's near the railroad that runs on the perimeter of Capital City, Lothal. He estimates that he's made it about a few miles away from where he started. As he slows down his breathing, he listens. Hearing footsteps behind him, Ezra claps three times.

"Ezra?" The figure stops as Ezra turns around, bowing sarcastically. The figure rolls his eyes, something Ezra can barely see with the fading sunlight. "Yeah, yeah. Come on, we need to get back to base. You got the email I reckon?" Ezra nods. Making an L with his right hand, Ezra puts his thumb below his chin and his first finger bends into an x twice.

Who?

"I don't know," the figure says, shrugging. "But what I do know," he says, pointing towards an abandoned building. "Is that you need to be in there. Now." Ezra nods and shoos him towards the building, telling him to go first. As the two go toward the building, Ezra's handed a jacket from Jai. "It's cold, dude." Ezra shrugs as he puts it on.

As the two arrive at the building, Jai opens the door for Ezra and bows sarcastically as Ezra did before. "After you, " he smiles. Ezra rolls his eyes but smiles too. Entering, it's dark, but he can still see. A lot of the people there are running around, but almost everybody freezes when they see that Ezra's arrived. Almost immediately they start yelling. Ezra starts to panic and tries to clap to get their attention and it doesn't work. Jai tries calming them down, but it doesn't work either. Ezra rolls his eyes and puts his fingers in his mouth and blows. The high pitched whistle quiets down the panicking group and all attention is on Ezra. He sighs and starts to sign to Jai to asks him to be his voice so everybody can understand him.

"Yeah, of course." As Ezra signs, Jai says it aloud. "Where is Zare?"

"Meeting room!" Somebody yells out. Ezra signs...

"Thank you." Ezra signs for Jai to follow and the two go to the back of the building to where the meeting room is. A path is cleared for the two and Ezra tries to figure out what's going on. Reaching the room, he opens the door and Zare is sitting in one of the chairs that they were able to find. Letting Jai in, Ezra closes the door and turns towards a relieved looking Zare.

"Zare, what's going on?"

"I'm moving." Ezra's mind immediately stops working.

"What do you mean you're moving? I thought you weren't adopted yet?"

"I was. A few days ago. We're moving. To Arkanis. It's at least a five-day drive. I'll never be able to come back and meet up with you guys. Calling, sure, but I won't be able to come back during school. I'm sorry."

"You're okay, we'll figure it out." Ezra signs, sighing.

"You have no idea what to do, don't you?" Zare asks and Ezra nods. "Well, I don't leave for another week, so we'll just have to figure it out." As the three sit in silence, Ezra tries his best to come up with a replacement for Zare. He sighs and snaps, gaining the other two boy's attention.

"What about Oleg?" Ezra asks.

"Oleg?" Jai says in disbelief. "Why pick him as a replacement?" He looks to Zare to back him up, but he nods.

"No, I understand where he's coming from. He'd actually help in my replacement." Ezra nods in agreement, looking back at Jai whos still upset.

"But-"

"Jai, he's the only one who's been here long enough to understand how to deal with the issues we have from time to time. You're just going to have to deal." Zare stands, walking over to Jai and hugs him. "I'll see you later, yeah." Pulling away, Zare turns towards Ezra, smiling. "Good luck, Ezra Dev Morgan Bridger." Ezra rolls his eyes at the long name but hugs Zare.

One last nod to Jai and Ezra and Zare walks out of the room and out of the building through the quiet crowd. One last wave and he walks away from the building back home and to his new one.

The rest of the night, Jai and Ezra explain to the group what was going to happen, who was going to replace Zare, much to many peoples dismay, and that's that.

They were all going to miss Zare.

Ezra leaves the West side of Capital City just after midnight where the building was. He stays in the shadows until he gets back to where Kanan and Hera's neighborhood was. Thankfully he knew his way back quite well at this point from doing the trip so many times after he ran away from home so long ago. So, it's not the issue of where the neighborhood is.

It's where the house is.

All the houses...looked...the same.

He tries his best to remember, but he was in such a state of panic, he never got the number off the house, so he wandered up and down the streets of the neighborhood. Walking down the middle of the street, Ezra turned as the headlights of a car started to come into view. Ezra, not quite caring who it was, stared into the headlights until the car came to a stop five feet from him. As it did, the driver's door was thrown open and Ezra saw...oh no.

"Ezra!" Hera yells, running towards the boy. Ezra quickly takes a few steps back in panic and Hera realizes that she had spooked him. "Ezra, you're okay! We thought something had happened to you after you ran off! You can't just do that, you scared us!" Hera explains, motioning for the boy to follow her and get into the car. "Come on, let's go home."

Home. Ezra mouths the word as if it's foreign, but gets into the back of the car on the driver's side.

Hera makes a u-turn and the two sit in silence as Hera drives home. Ezra remembers her making a call to everybody else that she had found him, but he was too tired to listen or care. When they pulled into the driveway of the house, when Ezra got out, he made sure to look at the number.

180212

Going back inside, everybody was already back and waiting in the kitchen.

This outta be fun. Ezra thinks, keeping his head down as he walks in. He hears a sigh of relief come from Kanan but a "Great, k, he isn't dead. Night." From Zeb. Sabine follows not too far, nodding to Ezra as she passes him.

Ezra stands there, head down and hands behind his back, making sure not to look up. He hears Kanan stand up and walk past him. "We'll talk about this in the morning." Ezra nods and turns to go upstairs. Before he even starts walking, Hera asks,

"Do you want some hot chocolate, Ezra?" Ezra turns around and looks at Hera. He thinks for a moment before nodding, still rather cold with the jacket on. She smiles and begins to get a teapot and fills it and puts it on the stove. Ezra slowly walks over to the table and sits down. He watches Hera as she grabs two cups from the cabinet, a green one and a blue one, and sets them near the stove. Grabbing a can of something from the pantry, most likely chocolate powder, Hera puts three tablespoons into the cups. Ezra flinches at the high pitch sound from the teapot and Hera quickly opens the end and pours the boiling water into the cups. Stirring them, the powder dissolves and she goes to the freezer and grabs an icecube tray. Putting four in each cup, she brings them over to the table and places the blue one in front of Ezra. Holding the green one, Ezra sits to his left with one leg on the chair and one on the floor. Ezra grabs the cup, careful not to burn his hands, and watches as Hera takes a sip slowly. Ezra raises his cup to his lips and does the same, testing it on his top lip to make sure it wouldn't burn him. The ice, already melted, had cooled it down considerably, so it was only a little hot. Taking a large sip, he feels the warmth flow through him and feels himself relax a little. He sighs contentedly and takes another large sip.

"You're not in trouble, you know," Hera says, halfway done with her cup. Ezra raises a brow and she hums. "Okay, maybe a little. But it's only because you ran off with no explanation for easily seven or eight hours." Ezra nods, shrinking back into his chair. "Ezra, honey, we just want to know why." She says, watching him closely, but her eyes soft. Ezra shrugs, taking another sip. Knowing she won't get anything else out of the boy, she lets the subject be.

When they're both finished, Hera tries to take Ezra's cup, but he's up and moving to the sink before she can take it. "Ezra, it's alright. I can clean it up. You can go to bed." Hera tries to coax, but Ezra turns on the sink and starts to clean the cup. Hera sighs, and walks over to the sink to clean her cup with Ezra cleaning his. Once they're both finished, Ezra looks at her and motions putting it somewhere. Hera opens the dishwasher and pulls out the top rack and Ezra places his cup in an open spot. Ezra signs to her without thinking much of it,

Good night.

Hera smiles and signs back to him,

Good night, Ezra.

He looks at her, shocked. Hera smiles. "Sabine had taught me some so she could study for her ASL final a couple of years ago. She knows it pretty well and I know what I remember from her last-minute studying with me at midnight with five cups of hot chocolate on the table for her with my one." Hera laughs, the memory feeling fresh in her mind. Ezra mouths oh, and nods. Ezra points to the stairs and Hera nods. "Good night, Ezra." She watches the corners of his mouth raise before he turns and walks to the stairs and up them, not making a single creak on his way up.