A/N: This is the last chapter of the story. Thanks to everyone who commented! I wouldn't have gotten through this long story without you. :) Please let me know your final thoughts. I'll see you next time!

13.

The morning of their next mission, two days later, Ezra was out before the sun rose on Atollon. The sky had just started turning a lighter shade of bluish purple, and night was on the wane. Sitting and meditating in the natural rock amphitheater-like area where he and Kanan had trained seemed natural. Everything he'd learned with such dedication felt as if it were right at his fingertips. As he opened himself to the Force, he felt strength and calmness flow through him, and he knew instinctively that the mission would go well.

He and Kanan had been training physically since Malachor, but their main focus had been on meditation and the spiritual side of the Force. The more he discovered, the more he found out there was to learn. The old Ezra had seen an end to his training, when he would be a Jedi in his own right, but the new Ezra realized that there would be no end to training. He would always be learning and growing in his understanding and relationship with the Force.

The light-filled sea on which he floated began to grow brighter, the way it always did now when his Master was near. He could hear the careful tread of Kanan's hesitating footsteps, which meant he wasn't using his force-sight fully, probably saving his strength for the mission.

"Do you need help?" he asked, opening his eyes to see Kanan in the near darkness.

"No. But thanks, Ezra." Kanan reached him and gracefully knelt, sitting on his heels in a meditation pose.

They remained meditating in silence for a long time, each taking strength from the Force and each other's presence within it. When the sky started brightening into deep purples and pinks, Ezra opened his eyes.

"What's your question?" Kanan asked, his eyebrow raised.

"How did you? Nevermind." Ezra said, with a sigh. "Ok. Master Yoda sent us to Malachor, for something to help us defeat the Inquisitors..."

"Yes..." Kanan urged, thinking he knew where this was going, but willing to be patient for his padawan.

"We thought that was the Sith holocron..." Ezra said. "But it didn't help anything. And it got left back on Malachor."

"I knew you took it back there, but I left it," Kanan said. "It had caused too much trouble already." He thought back to how the holocron, for all intents and purposes, had been torturing Ezra. If he had only known what kind of damage it would do, he would have thrown the thing out of the airlock as they left Malachor.

"But what did Master Yoda send us to Malachor for, if it wasn't for the holocron?"

"That...is a good question, Padawan." Kanan smiled as he felt Ezra's frustration at not getting an answer. "What does the Force tell you?"

Ezra closed his eyes again and focused. There was nothing amiss. Just a feeling of peace and things being what they should be. "I feel like things are...okay. Like the way they were meant to be."

Kanan nodded. "I do too."

"But that doesn't answer my question. We didn't learn anything that would help us fight the Empire, Vader or the Inquisitors!"

Kanan considered a moment, turning his face towards Ezra. "Think. What did you learn about yourself?"

Ezra frowned. "Nothing." Then his eyes narrowed. "Wait. I learned that the dark side is a lot different than I thought it was."

"Go on..." Kanan said.

"I mean, I know you told me all about it. How it's slippery and always trying to pull a Jedi in. But I didn't understand. Not until Maul. Not until he tricked me and...hurt you." Kanan watched Ezra's Force signature brighten with his enlightenment, and then darken with anger. "But still...you lost your sight to teach me a lesson? Master Yoda sent us for that?"

The dark side—it pulls at him. It calls to him. Eventually he will be consumed by it.

No.

Kanan realized he had lost his eyes so that Ezra would learn early, early enough, what the dark side really was so he would not listen to its seduction-not let it turn him. The Zabrak's betrayal of Ezra had taught that lesson well. If blindness was the price for the assurance that Ezra would stay in the light, Kanan was glad to pay it.

"Ezra." He reached out and placed a hand on Ezra's shoulder. "Let your anger go."

"No. It's not fair..."

"Ezra." Normally, his voice would have gone hard, a warning tone to it, but this time it was gentle. "Perhaps Master Yoda was simply fulfilling the will of the Force. We do not know. Perhaps I was to learn a lesson here as well. Anger will do nothing to help either of us. Let it go." He put his other hand on Ezra's shoulder.

Slowly, begrudgingly, he felt Ezra attempt to cast off his anger, but it clung to him tightly. The boy tried again to let it go into the warm light-filled sea of the Force around them, and it finally did. As he watched, the Force filled the place left by the dark anger, and a blanket of peace surrounded his Padawan at last.

"I don't understand it all," Ezra said softly.

"Me either," admitted Kanan. "But that's the thing of it. Understanding comes in its own time if you are open to it."

Ezra opened his eyes and focused them on Kanan, whose eyes were closed and peaceful. "I'll try to be patient," he murmured.

"I know you will." Kanan let the boy go, then got to his feet. "I am proud of you."

Immediately, he was knocked back a little from the force of Ezra's hug. It made him smile as he returned the gesture. "Hera, Sabine and Zeb are on their way."

"How did you…? Nevermind." Ezra looked toward the base and in the early, rosy, golden light, he indeed saw Hera walking toward the Ghost, followed by Zeb and Sabine.

"I may be blind but..."

"I'm still a Jedi." They finished together.

"Let's go kick this rancor, kid," Kanan said, placing a hand on Ezra's shoulder and allowing him to lead him to their crew, who were waiting.