"Careful," Kanan warned the kid. "You'll cut your arm off."

The kid in question, a Loth-rat by the name of Ezra, turned around to see the lanky outlaw scolding him. Beside him, the Twi'lek pilot, Hera, was also watching, and her droid was cackling at him. "Look, I know you're not going to believe me, but it's like, this thing...wanted me to take it."

"You're right, I don't believe you," Kanan responded as if 'this thing' hadn't been his. "Now hand me the lightsaber."

"Lightsaber? Wait, isn't that the weapon of a Jedi?"

"Give it to me, and get out," Kanan told him, holding out his hand for it. Ezra deactivated it and turned it over before stalking away. The ex-Padawan was fully aware that he still had the holocron, but he only attached the weapon to his belt and watched him go. "Now we'll see," he told Hera, who had witnessed the whole exchange.

The two of them stared on for a minute before Hera looked back at Kanan. She had been on board for this little experiment, but it was still so risky. "Are you sure about this? You don't know what he's going to do with that thing, whether he opens it or not. Who says he won't sell it before he figures out what it is?"

"I don't," he answered sarcastically, crossing his arms and leaning up against the wall. "For all I know, that's the last time I'll ever see that holocron again."

Hera narrowed her eyes. "You don't believe that, do you?"

He smirked, laughing under his breath. They had known each other for too long for Hera to not be able to read him like an open book. Looking back the way Ezra had left, he said lowly, "I can still barely believe I felt anything. It's been years, Hera."

"I know, that's why I'm so worried," she explained. "You've kept your cover up for fourteen years and you risk blowing it on a stranger?"

"I thought you said it was a good idea."

"I said it would be good for you two to learn more about each other it turns out he can use the Force, which you haven't proven yet."

"That's what I'm doing!"

She facepalmed, groaning slightly. "I just don't want you to make yourself a target. We're already terrorists, we don't need to give the Empire another reason to arrest us."

Kanan sighed, nodding. Hera was right, as always. He wasn't trying to put anyone in danger, much less himself, but this was something he needed to for reasons he couldn't explain...yet. "If he doesn't open it before he leaves, I'll ask for it back and make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. I just...I have to take this chance."

"Why?" she asked softly. "I believe you and I'll do what I can to encourage him, but I don't understand."

"Me neither," he confessed, much to her annoyance.

"Well, that cleared everything up," she teased, elbowing him before walking back to the common room. The team needed to debrief if they were going to help those Wookies.

As ever, the Force was being little to no help explaining what was going on. Kanan had felt something about Ezra through the Force on Lothal, he was sure of that much, but what he had felt was still up in the air. Maybe he was just supposed to pay attention to him, maybe it was a warning, maybe it was just a heads-up because the kid was planning to steal a couple of their crates.

It hadn't felt like any of those, though. Despite trying to hide his Force abilities, Kanan had used them to assist in a few of the Ghost crew's riskier missions. It was very helpful when they were on the run from stormtroopers and had saved them more than a few times, but all of those instincts had been passive. They came from Kanan himself, becoming more and more accurate with the more experience he aquired, or from the Force, warning him about danger.

What he had felt from the kid wasn't passive, wasn't dormant. It was active, very very active and dynamic. Weak? Yes. Untrained? Yes. Unpredictable and unreliable? Absolutely, but it was alive and it was coming directly from Ezra. The only other people Kanan had ever had that type of connection in the Force with were now dead, or missing at best.

It was still hard to think about. He could rattle off for days the names of people he knew were dead thanks to the Jedi Purge, thanks to the clones. Some he had seen killed with his own two eyes, some he had seen lying lifeless on the ground, and still some others he had seen reported dead by news frequencies on the HoloNet.

If there were any survivors other than himself, he hadn't seen them in fourteen years and he didn't know they were alive. Even if he did know where to find them, it was too dangerous. Even mentioning the Jedi in the presence of Imperials was enough to get arrested for treason. Then again, that wasn't saying much, almost anything could get you arrested if the stormtroopers wanted it enough.

Maybe that was why Kanan was so determined to figure out the truth about Ezra. He was way too young to have ever been in the Jedi temple on Coruscant, but if he was Force-sensitive then Kanan would finally not be the only one. Even an untrained teenage Youngling was better than no one.

Still, even as he walked to follow Hera to the common room for the debrief, he couldn't convince himself that was the real reason. The Force had a mind of its own, that much was for certain. There was a common saying in the Jedi Order: 'There are no accidents in the Force'. It was because of that Kanan couldn't bring himself to believe meeting Ezra was a coincidence. Something was meant to happen because of this blue-haired kid, and it was going to happen whether Kanan was ready for it or not. Something was changing, and that change had woken up the Force inside of him, and probably inside the kid too.

Change was scary. The last big change Kanan had faced hadn't just affected him but the entire galaxy. He had lost his home, his master, his friends, his safety, and his trust. Hell, he had even lost his name. Change meant diving into the unknown and forcing yourself to accept it no matter what the future would throw at you. Change meant loss of what was familiar and comfortable. Change meant a throbbing heartbeat was lodged in your throat as sweat ran down the back of your neck because you didn't know if you were going to survive, it meant blood was pulsing in your ears and your knuckles were white because of how tightly you were holding on to your sword, your shield. It meant muddy boots and wet socks, it meant torn robes and broken armor, it meant blaster bolts and the shouts of people you thought were your friends. Change meant you might not make it to tomorrow.

The only thing that allowed Kanan to keep putting one foot in front of the other was the reminder that he was still alive, that he had survived and he had made it to tomorrow, except that tomorrow was today. For reasons that weren't fair, for reasons he didn't know, Kanan had been the one to survive. If he could do it the last time something changed, maybe he could do it again. It wasn't like he had a Jedi Order to lose this time.

This didn't feel like last time, though. This change, this push from the Force...it wasn't hostile, it wasn't desperate. It felt steady, despite how much quieter it was compared to what it used to be. The silence of thousands of Jedi had also silenced the Force but it had found its voice again, in Kanan and in Ezra. Instead of a raging, uncontrollable wildfire, a small match had been lit. If they were careful, if they did it right, maybe this time something good might happen. Kanan had already hit rock bottom once. As long as that didn't happen, as long as the only way to go was up, maybe...maybe...