Author's Note: Hi everyone! I hope you enjoy this stand alone one shot. I got to wondering why Kanan decided to move from place to place so much…then had the idea for a Jedi ghost story…all mixed up with a "wanderer" motif from an old TV show from the 70's that I used to watch as a kid. (For us older folks out there…a show called "Kung-Fu." Remember how Caine would go from town to town helping people?) We know so little about Kanan's early days I thought it would be nice to explore. So far, it's a stand-alone story that doesn't really fit into any specific timeline, except for this is later in the early days of Kanan's wanderings. He has yet to understand how his Jedi past will fit into his future. Hera, however, is right on his horizon.

Please let me know what you thought! May the Force be with you!

As Phoenix Jax drew closer to the galley, she heard loud raucous laughter. She paused a moment, listening to the sounds of the Neon's crew congratulating each other on their unlikely escape.

She supposed they had reason to celebrate. Her ship had been disabled and boarded by a crew of pirates, intent on stealing not only their cargo, but their entire ship. They had been on the verge of succeeding too. Four of the pirates had rounded up her small crew in the cargo bay. The four men, Skiff, Teryk, Geln and Brak had been kept under watch by four of the pirates while two men kept Phoenix in the cockpit, trying to get her to give up the codes to the ship. When they'd been boarded, she'd locked down the ship's computers, so that only her code would unlock the helm.

Trying to get the code from her had just begun to get physical when an incredible thing had happened. The passenger they'd taken on at Th'etal, the one who had offered to help offload the shipment as partial payment for his passage, appeared to save the day. A big pirate with bad breath and heavy, gloved fists had just begun to target Phoenix's face when there was a noise, a very light thump that one of the pirates went to check out.

Next, there was a slight sound that Phoenix found she couldn't place, but she didn't have to wonder what had happened for long. The door swished open and before it even opened the entire way, a blue blaster bolt targeted the pirate holding her by her hair. He slumped to the ground and instantly Jarrus was standing there in black pants, a grey shirt and bare feet, his brown hair loose from its nerf tail. It was obvious he'd been asleep when they'd been attacked. Her lockdown should have sealed him in his room for his own safety, but here he was, standing before her with his blue-green eyes luminous in the subdued lighting (or were his good looks getting to her?). The door slid closed behind him.

"You okay, Captain?" he asked her, coming forward to take her arm gently.

She nodded, still surprised. He had the aura of one who could take care of himself and was used to danger. "How…how many of them?"

"Four more in the cargo bay. Your people are in their custody."

His words seemed to shake something loose and she leaned down to pick up the pirate's blaster rifle. She checked it, then slung it over her shoulder. "Let's go." She found herself wiping at her left eye, where a cut from the pirate's fist burned. She also had a cut lip, which she could feel swelling as they stood there.

"I've got this," Jarrus said with a grin, as though he was fully enjoying himself. "Just back me up in case I need it."

She nodded reluctantly, settling the rifle up against her shoulder and pointing toward the door. After what she'd been through, her head ached and she could feel her left eye swelling up. It probably WAS best Jarrus went first. If what he'd just done was any indication, he seemed to have a very unique skill-set.

She saw the other dead pirate propped up against the hallway wall, a blaster shot to the forehead. She walked past, following Jarrus, who stalked down the hallway, bare feet making no noise on the decking. She followed, placing her own steps carefully to avoid making noise.

They went down the hall, twisting down side passages several times before reaching the open hatch to the deck. He made a 'stay here' gesture and placed a finger to his lips, before slipping through the doorway. She had remained flattened against the bulkhead, listening intently.

But there was no noise for long moments. Then, she heard one of the pirates say, "Did you hear that?"

The other one answered. "It's nothin'."

"I'm checking it out."

There were steps, that drew closer to the doorway, but then silence. By the time Phoenix glanced around the doorway, there were only two guards left watching her crew. She ducked back just as one of the guards began calling for his missing friends. His voice become louder as he moved toward the open doorway and she chewed her bottom lip with each second that passed. Wait…wait for it… When he stuck his head around the corner, she put a plasma bolt through it, and he hit the ground heavily.

"What the kriff?" she heard.

It's on now, she thought, darting through the door to see her passenger stepping up behind the pirate, who began to raise his weapon on Phoenix.

"Drop it, bitch," the pirate snarled at her.

Before she could even throw down her weapon, Jarrus was on him. They fought close quarters for a moment. This rogue was heavy, and probably had at least a hundred pounds on Jarrus, but it didn't do the thug any good. As the raider turned to use his weight to advantage, Phoenix fired, and he went down in a heap.

"That was a little close." Jarrus raised an eyebrow, glad there'd been enough of the sleemo to stop the bolt before it went through the both of them.

"Nah. I'm just that good," Phoenix quipped, but her eyes held a look of respect for their quiet passenger.

Her crew had been fine, except for Skiff who'd been hit in the head and one of the younger ones who had a dislocated shoulder.

Their next plan was to secure the pirate ship docked with them for salvage, but before they could get on board, it disengaged from the Neon and hit hyperspace. She treated the two injuries in the medbay, then everyone not on duty trickled away to get some shut eye. When Phoenix had awoken, she'd realized there was a party going on in the galley.

She hovered on the edge of going in or not, when their enigmatic passenger exited the galley, turning a bottle of Skiff's best whiskey up like it was water. When he dropped the bottle, their eyes met. His eyes had shown a flicker of something, but before she could recognize it, it was gone and he'd put a hand out against the wall to steady himself.

"Cap'n Jax," he gave her a drunken salute. She'd noted his Outer Rim drawl when she took him on, but now it was touched with something else that she couldn't quite put her finger on. A slightly more refined accent? Like Inner Rim. Hmm…she thought.

"Jarrus," she replied, a touch of a grin on her features. He lazily replied with a smile in kind, then extended the bottle toward her. She took a hard pull on it, coughed at little at the burn, and wiped her lips with the back of a hand. "Today you really saved our asses. That was something…something amazing."

He shook his head, giving her an even look and a shrug. "I think you were pretty handy with that blaster rifle, yourself, Cap'n. From the crew's stories, you really know your way around one…lucky for me," he smirked then took another drink. When done, he offered her the bottle once more.

"Don't turn this around on me," she warned, raising a finger, then taking another drink. "This is about you. What I want to know is…do you need a job?"

His eyes widened just a little, breaking his mask of cool so quickly she almost missed it. Then it was smoothly back in place as he chuckled to himself.

She handed the bottle back and went on. "We could really use someone like you. Maybe you could…train my crew so that we function a little better during something like what happened today. "Outer Rim's getting a little dangerous. And…Terek, Geln and Brak…they're pretty young."

"You mean they're pretty green." He shook his head and chugged more liquor. The bottle was close to being empty now. "I find that I'm usually a bad fit for things like that. But thanks. I appreciate the offer."

She looked into his eyes, which seemed like fathomless blue-green gems. "C'mon-only for a few months. I'll drop you at any planet you wish, whenever you want. I'll pay you ten percent of what we make off each haul. A strictly business proposition."

He sighed and closed his eyes for long moments. She was sure he was going to say no, but when he opened them, he nodded. "Okay. Just for a month."

"Thank you," she smiled at him, snatching at the bottle. When she brought it down and returned it to him, she leaned in, and kissed him.

"You're welcome," he said, surprised. "So this is the 'strictly business proposition?'" He asked with a smirk.

"Sorry. I couldn't…resist," she murmured. "You know what they say: 'Fortune favors the bold.'"

He smiled as he seemed to consider the proposition for long moments, as his eyes lingered on her face. Then, he shook his head, took the bottle back from her and turned it up. "You're better off not getting involved with me. I've been down this road before and it never turns out well."

"Why would you say that?" Phoenix asked.

"Trust me, I'm just a transport wreck waiting to happen."

And with that, Jarrus handed her the bottle. He turned deliberately and began to walk down the hallway. He listed to one side, then straightened his gait until he hit the turn in the passageway.

Weeks passed on the Neon and Phoenix watched things settled into a routine. Kanan fit in with the crew well; he was no stranger to hard work and he had a lot of skills that made him valuable to a small crew like hers. He knew how to run the cargo loaders; he was a pretty good engine mechanic, and he had enough first aid skills to have been a valuable medic at any medcenter in the Inner or Outer Rim. Two weeks ago, Teryk, the youngest member of the crew, had been caught between the wall and a falling stack of cargo. His arm had been cut on the metal edge of the shipping container that fell on him. Jarrus had not only gotten the kid out from under the heavy metal containers but stopped the heavy bleeding and got him to the medbay before Phoenix could make it down to them. When she found them, Skiff was closing the wound with a cauterizer while Jarrus looked on.

She'd found him in the cockpit one night, watching the starlines fly by the ship during a long, complicated series of jumps to Chen'na. She'd gone to bed early, then later made her way back up to the helm to check their progress. Their astromech, Y9, was a good little droid, but sometimes unreliable, so she wanted to double check the calculations on their next jump.

She almost didn't notice him until she was fully in the cockpit. He was standing to one side, and so still that she wondered for a crazy second if he was actually awake or just sleepwalking.

"Hey—" she said, cut off by a little squeak as he moved faster than she could discern. He grabbed her arm, and held her, his eyes roving over her features as if trying to figure out who she was. "Hey…hey it's me."

His features softened with the recognition. "Sorry," he murmured, relaxing his grip on her. "I startle easily sometimes," he said apologetically, letting her arm go.

Phoenix had employed her share of war veterans over the years and had seen the same symptoms from them. It made sense when she thought about how he'd handled combat with the pirates. Maybe this was what he'd meant when he'd turned her down…

"No problem, Jarrus. I was just coming to double check the jump coordinates…Y9 is…a little unreliable…from time to time." As she spoke, she could see the distraction in his eyes. "Are you okay?" Something was weighing heavily on his mind, and it was something he didn't seem to want to share.

"Yeah. It was just a…just a bad dream. Bunch of banthashit." He ran a hand through his loose hair, looked away a moment, then brought his gaze back to her. "I'll leave you to it."

"Kanan…if you-"

He backed away, cutting her off. "I'm all good. I'll let you get to work with Y9."

And he was gone.

"So, Skiff, finish that story you was tellin' us at breakfast." Axel called across the crowded cargo bay as he took a seat and grabbed an Ebla and a meal bar. They'd been loading the bay since breakfast and it was time for a break.

It seemed as if the work on the freighter was never over. After lunch, they were slated to pack more cargo in for their trip to Ylix; they'd just loaded medical supplies, and later they would pick up a shipment of replacement parts for agricultural equipment. Captain Jax was resolved that they make this trip worth it and fill the Neon as full of cargo as possible so as to maximize profits, so they'd be crammed to the gills for this trip. He smiled at the thought of the payoff.

The older, heavily muscled man put down the crate he was moving and headed in the direction where a few of the crew were gathering. "Guess it is 'bout time for a break." He grunted as he sat and opened a beer.

Even Jarrus made his way over to lean against the nearby bulkhead, eyebrow raised as Skiff delved back into the story.

"So anyways, like I was sayin'...this guy I served with on the Erebus claimed to have discovered a Jedi Temple…and he said it was haunted."

"That's some serious banthashit, Skiff." The men muttered to each other as their friend picked up the thread of the story from breakfast.

"Well, I don't know, but I never seen the guy go pale like he did when tellin' the story. Looked like a sheet of flimsiplast." Skiff began to summarize the part he'd told at breakfast for Teryk, who'd been absent. "Claimed he was salvaging on Lacen, and you know that whole planet is unstable. Supposedly this dwarfnut was looking for some scrap and the ground just opened up and he fell in. Said he landed in this dark cave...wandered around for a while. He swore he found the bodies of Jedi and a temple."

"What the frack?" Teryk, the youngest of the crew, looked on with wide eyes. "How many? Were they all just piled up?"

"He said he found three bodies; two adults and a kid. He knew they were Jedi because one of 'em had one of them laser swords in his hand."

"Wizard…He took it, right?" Teryk was transfixed. "On the black market those are worth…a crazy amount of credits."

Skiff chuckled, shook his head and took a long pull of his beer. He caught a crosswise look from Jarrus, who then abruptly turned up his own beer and downed it all. "He thought about it, but when he went to take it, he swore he heard a scraping sound behind him. He turned and there was a masked person behind him, holding a yellow lightsaber. Just staring at him. I shit you not."

"Wait, now. You saying there was a Jedi still in there?" One of the men shook his head.

"I'm not sayin' nothin. I'm just telling you the story as I heard it. Gimme another beer, Teryk." The kid passed over a bottle. Skiff popped the cap and took another long pull. "The…person…whatever it was supposedly reached out and touched him and he said he didn't wake up until his buddies found him, lying on the rocks above. Whatever it was moved him out of there...and the cave had closed up. It was gone." He slid his eyes over to Jarrus, who was staring at something on the other side of the cargo bay, a hard look on his face.

"Well, I wouldn't feel sorry for no Jedi. They were traitors, karking bastards." Teryk muttered.

"You shut your kriffin' mouth, kid. You are too young to know shit about that." Skiff retorted. With another glance in Jarrus's direction, he frowned. "The Jedi weren't ever bad. Don't swallow everything the Empire says." Teryk blushed, a sure sign that he had just been talking out of his ass, Skiff thought. "I seen 'em myself once. Jedi agricultural corps. They saved my planet from a blight that hit all the crops. Seen a few of 'em fight in holos from the war. Whatever happened to 'em, they sure as hell didn't deserve it."

"Eh, who knows." Axel said, shrugging. "Ain't no way to help 'em now, anyway." The story seemed to be at an end, and the men hauled themselves up and began working again as Teryk cleaned up, tossing the empty bottles in the recycler.

Skiff angled toward where Jarrus stared across the cargo bay. "Meet any Jedi before…the Empire?"

Jarrus shrugged. "Yeah. A few."

By the look on his face, Skiff could tell it was a tender subject. "Son-of-a-bantha's like Teryk don't know what the universe lost. It's a karkin' shame." Jarrus still said nothing, so Skiff changed the subject. "Still on for the class, tomorrow Jarrus?"

"Sure you can handle another lesson like yesterday's, old man?" Jarrus raised an eyebrow and shifted against the wall he was holding up.

"Bet your ass, I can." They both laughed a moment, then Skiff made his way back to one of the loaders.

Kanan's eyes drifted back to what he'd seen during the old man's story.

The kid was still there.

He knew no one else could see the kid, dressed in a white tunic, over which were brown Jedi robes. Caleb Dume was taller this time, brown hair pulled back in a nerf tail, Padawan braid hanging down behind the left ear. He could even see the different beads and Chalactan silken threads woven into the long braid by his Master. Each one represented a milestone that a Padawan achieved along the Jedi path. For each of them, he could still remember the warmth of his Master's laughter and the pride in her voice as her deft fingers wove them into his brown hair.

Kanan's heart clenched at the memory, which felt like a black hole in his heart. The first time he'd seen the kid, Kanan had been young enough to feel like he was looking in a mirror. A mirror that showed a future that could never be. An echo of the past.

The blue-green eyes still regarded him from across the bay. They held a serious, slightly sad expression.

Was it an omen, or just a remainder of a past that had died a long time ago? He had no idea what the vision wanted, just that it kept appearing, each time he stopped somewhere long enough to feel comfortable.

Gritting his teeth, Kanan practically bolted from the cargo bay and into the fresh air, suddenly needing to escape the figure the only way he knew how. If there was one thing Kanan Jarrus had learned to do well, it was run from his past.

It was long after dark when Kanan returned to the ship's ramp. He keyed the code and leaned on the side of the ship while the ramp opened. Then, on unsteady legs, he staggered his way up the platform, which closed automatically once he was in.

He tripped over a box and ended up on the floor. Maybe it was best just to sit here until the world decided to slow its spinning, he thought. He pulled himself up against the box and let out a sigh. It was better like this. Drunk, he could think without feeling, which was better when the past got too close. He'd half thought the Neon might be gone… he hadn't told anyone where he was going, but the ship was still in its berth when he got back from the bar.

It was time to go. He'd done what he'd contracted with Phoenix to do, the younger members of the group were becoming pretty good shots with a blaster rifle and they'd all increased their hand-to-hand fighting skills under Kanan's tutelage. He was starting to feel a sense of attachment to them and that coupled with the vision he'd seen meant it was time to go.

"Well, looks like someone had a good time tonight," he heard Phoenix's boots on the decking and he smiled ruefully.

"Somebody had to do it," Kanan snorted, then leaned his head back against the box, watching the world sway.

She stepped around the box and sat herself down on the floor across from him.

Something must have shown in his eyes because she reached out and put a hand on his boot.

"What is it?" She looked up at him, eyes soft in the darkened cargo bay. He shook his head, looking away.

She'd watched him this month head out several times when they'd been in port. He'd always come back staggeringly drunk, like he was at the moment. His eyes had a trapped look about them, leading her to wonder what he was running from. "Is it trouble with the authorities? Because I don't care about that. I know some people who can get a new identity for you."

He shook his head.

She frowned. Something was really wrong. She stood up, reaching a hand down to help him to his feet. "Come on. I'll help you make it back to your room."

"I've slept in worse places. I'm fine, here."

"Sure, you are." She slung his arm around her shoulders and pulled him, with difficulty, to his feet. They walked back to his quarters without comment. He opened the door and she edged him in. She gently deposited him on the bed and he pulled himself onto it before he falling over into a laying position.

"Let me help you," she offered once more.

The look on his face showed that she probably was about to be the focus of some sarcastic comment, but then he laughed instead. "I think the time for that has passed." His peculiar greenish-blue eyes were empty. "Don't take it personally though. This is…" he paused, trying to think of what he wanted to say through the haze of alcohol in his brain. "This is one of those situations where it's not you, it's me. I've got to move along."

"Kanan…no offense, but that's banthashit. This past month, you've become a part of my crew. You have a home on the Neon if you want it. No strings. You saved my ship, and me, and I owe you, you laserbrain."

"I appreciate it." His eyes drifted closed. "You'll never know how much, Phoenix, but I gotta go. It's…" He trailed off, and she sensed he'd passed out.

"We'll talk more in the morning," she said softly. She waited a few moments, then left, shaking her head. She would convince him when he had sobered up in the morning.

Kanan awoke three hours before dawn. Packing was a matter of throwing his two changes of clothes into his bag, making his bed and heading out. He stopped only to place a note for Phoenix on the folding table.

When Kanan entered the corridor, he saw the echo of himself again, at the end of the hallway, watching him. This time Caleb was older, very much so, but still a Padawan. And that was all he'd ever be. "What do you want from me?" Kanan whispered. "I'm not a Jedi anymore. That path is…lost to me."

The Jedi version of himself simply looked at him with sadness reflected in his eyes. They stared at each other for long moments, then Kanan turned away. After a time, the vision faded from the hallway in silence.

"One ticket to the furthest planet from here."

The Rodian looked over the tall human in front of her. He was dressed in green and wore various pieces of armor in a shade darker than his sweater. He looked a little cranky, like most travelers, but he had kind eyes, when one took the moment to look. "Let me see. That would be Gorse? Will that do?"

"Yeah. Sounds perfect." Kanan slid the credits under the plastisteel window in front of him.

"Reason for trip?"

"Looking for work." Kanan murmured. "And a change of scenery."

The Rodian nodded, sliding the ticket to him. "You'll be looking for bay 24DZ, to your left. Good luck, Citizen."

"Thanks. I'm sure I'll need it." Kanan murmured, taking the ticket and heading down the terminal in the direction of the bay. The Rodian watched him move through the terminal, able to keep him in sight for a lot longer than she normally would have because of the absence of crowds at this hour. You always met interesting travelers on the night shift. The blue alien idly wondered where the teal-eyed human had come from and what he was headed for on the mining planet but became distracted when two moisture farmers with their entire brood of children came to purchase third-class tickets to Tatooine. By the time she was able to glance back up, the handsome traveler had vanished into the night.