Anakin was on board one of the transports, using one of the bunks because his ship was currently with a cruiser somewhere with another Rebel fleet. He was supposed to head back to the cruiser by now, but with the loss of the command ship, he decided he probably ought to stick around for a little bit longer. Just enough to help Commander Sato and his crew to find some stability.

He wasn't expecting Kanan to run up behind him while he was walking back from a debrief with Sato. "Master, can I talk to you?"

Turning around, Anakin forgot about the debrief. Chances were Kanan didn't want to talk about that. "Always. Should we do it here, or somewhere else?"

"It doesn't matter to me," Kanan said, so Anakin led him to a hallway off to the side where there was less people passing through. Hopefully there were would be fewer distractions there.

"Are you okay?" Anakin asked first, predicting that he was stressed. Facing a Sith tended to have that effect on people.

Kanan certainly seemed stressed, but he didn't make any mention of it. "I'm fine, I just...I got to thinking: what if Ezra is right? About fighting, I mean."

"How so?"

"What if we shouldn't wait around for Offee to show up again?" he explained, gesturing out to the rest of the ship. "You said it yourself, she's coming. Why not bring the fight to her and get it over with?"

Anakin stared him down. "You're ready to face her again? I thought you'd want a bit more recovery time."

"Well...yeah," he admitted, and he rubbed his right shoulder as he went on. "I'm not talking about me, though. I'm talking about you."

He kept his face still, not wanting to interrupt Kanan's train of thought. That couldn't be the whole point, there had to be more to it.

Except there wasn't. Kanan thought his point was made and he was holding eye contact with Anakin.

That's when Anakin raised his eyebrows. "And why wouldn't you be there with me?"

"Me? I can't do what you do."

"Survive?" he reminded him, crossing his arms. "You seem pretty alive to me. Recovery time or not, you managed that much."

"I'm still a Padawan," Kanan argued flatly. "You've been a Knight for decades, and you've beaten Offee before. If she's the problem, then let's fix it. Go take her out!"

"First objection: you are not 'still a Padawan'," Anakin corrected. "Rank aside, you're an adult and a capable one. I may not have the authority to make you a Knight, but I am going to treat you that way. Going on missions as an agent is one thing, but I go to fight Offee as a Jedi Knight, all of the Knights are going."

That shut Kanan up pretty quickly and efficiently. Even the implication that he was in league with Anakin Skywalker was beyond fathomable, but he was looking at him very sternly and it was hard to argue a look like that. He wasn't done, either. "Hiding behind your Padawan status isn't going to help anyone. Not me, not Ezra, and certainly not you."

"I didn't pass my trials."

"Surviving the Jedi Purge is a good enough substitute. That's not an excuse."

"I can't do what you do," Kanan insisted, trying to explain. "I barely survived that duel with Offee with my entire crew behind me, I can't survive a one-on-one!"

"I'm not asking you to," Anakin assured him, uncrossing his arms and holding a hand in front of him. "I'm asking you to fight with me, if it comes to fighting."

It was certainly a more comforting thought, but he was still trying to wrap his head around the whole 'all of the Knights' thing. As it processed, one question emerged in his mind: "Why?"

Breathing once, Anakin quieted his voice for this next part. Some things had to be said with tough love, but this wasn't one of them. "I'm not your master, Kanan. You know that."

The words hit him like a bag of bricks, even though Kanan already knew it was true. He didn't really know how it connected to the point, but he was paying attention now if he wasn't before.

"I'm not here to shelter you, though I'd protect you if my life if you were in danger. I'll give you advice, but not orders." Anakin paused for a second, then clarified. "If you decide Offee needs to be taken out, I'll be with you for the fight, but I'm not going to make that call. I'm not going to make decisions for you."

That was the thing about going to smart people for advice: The knew exactly the thing to say to throw you off when they wanted to. Kanan did know that Skywalker wasn't his master, but he had become some kind of superior figure to him and in the past, that type of figure was in charge. Skywalker refused to do that, and he was all but putting Kanan in charge. At the very least, he was forcing him to bear some responsibility.

He was responsible, now. Not just for Ezra, but for himself. It was clear that Skywalker was going to hold him accountable for that responsibility whether he liked it or not. Kanan couldn't deflect that burden anymore.

It was still a large pill to swallow, but though Kanan didn't fully understand everything this responsibility entailed, he nodded and exhaled. If Skywalker was doing this, there was a reason. That much, he had learned over the past few weeks.

He thought for a moment, then asked, "You did say you would give advice, right?"

"For what it's worth, yes," Anakin affirmed, leaning back against the wall. "You want to hunt down Offee?"

"If it's possible. Waiting will only make it worse, won't it?"

"Why?"

Kanan glanced down the hall, where the Ghost had docked with the transport. "Like Ezra said, we've got to be ready to fight."

"Why do you want it?"

He should have seen that coming. Master Skywalker wouldn't let him off that easy. It made sense, though. If Kanan was going to decide to make a move like this, he should have his reasons for doing it. If he couldn't state his beliefs with certainty, then he probably shouldn't try.

Taking another breath, he spoke in a low voice. "After Ahsoka left the Order, I didn't see her often. The one time I felt like she was afraid, really afraid, was when she was talking about Offee."

That was not the reason Anakin was expecting to hear. "What did she say?"

"She told us to run," Kanan remembered, almost hauntingly. "If we ever saw her, she told us to run, but we can't run anymore. We can barely even hide. If we can't do either of those things, then the only option left is to fight."

Anakin let his gaze drift. He didn't know the context in which Ahsoka had said that to Kanan, but he could guess. It had been during the Clone Wars, but what exactly about Offee had Ahsoka been afraid of? What was so dangerous about Offee that Ahsoka would tell anyone to run away? Ahsoka didn't run, she was fearless. What made her so afraid that she would give such a warning?

He didn't know, but he trusted Ahsoka and he trusted Kanan. Between her warning and Kanan's encounter with Offee on Lothal, enough had happened that he had developed his own fear of her, whether it was the same as Ahsoka's or not. Kanan wanted to eliminate that source of fear.

It appealed to Anakin too. After years of Offee slipping past him, he was optimistic about finally getting close to her, even if it wasn't very close at all. If the Empire lost one of its strongest assets, that would be a win. It was tempting. Not to mention Anakin wouldn't mind getting a little bit of revenge on the side, but that was personal and ought not to be his pure motive.

So he didn't talk about that. "Do you remember what I said about the Balance of the Force?"

"Yeah, you said it was heavy on the Dark Side. Wouldn't this even the score a little?"

"'A little' would be understating it, but yes," Anakin responded. "I'm all for hurting the Empire, and it would effectively take away the strength of the Dark Side. I don't know that this is the right way to do it."

Kanan shrugged. "Is there a right way to do it? Or a wrong way?"

"Not until genocide happens," he explained. "The last time a Sith was murdered, nearly ten thousand Jedi died. That's not going to happen again."

"There aren't ten thousand Jedi to die in the first place."

"There's Ezra."

It was very frustrating to argue with someone who was right. Kanan was getting discouraged. "So killing the Grand Inquisitor was wrong too?"

Anakin shook his head. "I don't know. It's been years and I'm still trying to understand, but I think the key is context. You didn't hunt down the Inquisitor, if anything he hunted you. Everything happens for a reason, maybe the reason you killed him was to even out the Balance of the Force. There's no way to know for sure."

It took a moment, but Kanan made the connection. "Doing it for the wrong reasons might have consequences."

Nodding, he shook his head. "I can't say I understand the Balance completely, but from what I've observed, there's a difference between killing a Dark user when circumstances are presented to you and creating those circumstances yourself. I don't know which time this is, but if we're wrong, then we have to accept those consequences."

Looking away again, he mentioned, "I don't ever remember the Force being this complicated before."

Smiling a little bit, Anakin explained, "The more you learn, the less you understand," he summarized a bit sadly. "Maybe we should go. Maybe these are the right reasons and Offee needs to die. Do you believe we could do it?"

"I mean, between the two of us, probably."

"It's not that simple," he pointed out. "Hunting down Offee means we go out there and find her, sneak into whatever base or ship she's stationed at, duel her without getting captured by Imperial forces, kill her, and get back to the Rebellion alive if not in one piece. That's a tall order, especially for two Jedi who would make excellent trophies for the Empire."

The 'trophy' comment released a little bit of the tension, but Anakin kept going. "We've got so much here, Kanan. You've got a crew that needs you and a Padawan to train, and I've got my own commitments here. If we go, it should be because the risk is worth it."

A small grin fought its way onto Kanan's face. "You're warning me about risks?"

"I take my risks because I know from experience that they work," he reminded him. "I can't afford to shoot in the dark anymore. None of us can, not when we have so much at stake." Making eye contact again, he asked one more time, "Do you believe we could do it?"

It wasn't a mocking question, it didn't even sound like Skywalker knew an answer that he expected Kanan to say. He was going to believe whatever answer Kanan gave, which meant that Kanan had to believe his answer too.

Did he believe they could do it? Compared to everything else, the duel was the least challenging step of the plan. What were the chances Kanan and Skywalker could get to Offee without getting shot down or taken prisoner before then? Even if they got that far, dueled Offee, and managed to kill her, could they escape an entire base or ship full of stormtroopers, officers, and agents like Kallus who would love nothing more than to put Kanan back in an electrocution chair until he died?

If they couldn't, was it worth it? Was it worth it to kill Offee and never see his crew again, his family? Was it worth it to leave Ezra without a teacher? After all the time he had spent on the Ghost, with its people, with Hera, was he ready to give it up for the chance to kill a Sith?

He couldn't say yes. Kanan didn't want to say no, not out loud, but Anakin could already see in his face that his mind was made up. There was no need to say anything. Kanan did, though. "The no attachments clause of the Code is starting to make sense, now."

Anakin laughed a little and leaned against the wall once more. "I'm not sure suicide missions are a good reason to have the clause."

It was true, though. If Kanan didn't have four good reasons to stay, he wouldn't have reserves about hunting Offee down no matter how hopeless it seemed. Maybe it was a stupid idea, but it didn't seem like a bad one until he remembered the others.

He looked back up at Anakin. "Why did this never happen before?"

Shrugging, he suggested, "We didn't see each other that often. You and Depa were more likely to be on the other side of the Galaxy most of the time."

"Okay, but why didn't anyone do this? Just...talking?" His gaze drifted. "Maybe it was because I was a Padawan, but I don't remember anyone in the Order giving advice this way."

"I have no idea," Anakin confessed, shaking his head. "If I ever get a chance, though, I'll ask around."

"If I'm 'not a Padawan' anymore, what about you?" Kanan asked. "It's been just as long for you, wouldn't you be a Master by now?"

"Age has nothing to do with mastery, or so I've been told," he explained, fiddling with one of his glove straps. "Besides, I've never fit the Council's image of an ideal Jedi. They wouldn't want me running around influencing kids."

It made sense, Skywalker had always been known for his unorthodoxy. He said it very casually, though. "You don't seem very bothered by that."

"I'm not. I wish they weren't dead, but they and I disagreed on a lot of points. Their opinion about my conduct isn't as important to me as it was to some others. In any case, they'd never make me a Master."

"Points like what?"

He breathed deeply and made a face that implied there was a long list to go on with. "Plenty, and probably too much for one night. I've already lectured your ear off."

"I don't mind."

"Not yet, you don't," he insisted, walking out of their talking spot. "We should get to sleep anyway. Sato's going to have work for us in the morning, I'm almost sure of it."

Kanan groaned. "Great," making Anakin laugh just a little. They started walking together, Kanan toward the Ghost and Anakin to the bunks.

Right before they hit an intersection, Kanan spoke up again. "One more question."

"Fire away."

"If you were going to be a Master, what do you think it would be for?"

It was pretty random, but it made Anakin think. What was something he knew better than almost anyone else, something that he could teach to other people confidently?

"I'd be the Master of failure," he answered a little quietly. "I can't remember how many times I've lost, whether it's losing a person or a battle or anything."

He nodded, somewhat familiar with the concept. "Goodnight, Master."

"Goodnight, Kanan," Anakin replied, walking off toward the bunks. As he navigated through the hallways a bit further, he hoped he hadn't discouraged Kanan too much. There was a lot to chew on from that conversation.

Minutes later, he had his armor off and his hair down for the night. As he laid down, he focused on the background noise of the transport and closed his eyes. It was a bit louder than the Rogue usually was, but it sounded a lot like Republic cruisers used to.

Anakin stared at the ceiling of the barracks. Not for the first time, he remembered that Rex was still out there somewhere. At least, he hoped he was. The last time Anakin had seen the clone commander he had given him a communicator, but not once in fifteen years had he heard anything from him.

The matching communicator, he pulled out of his belt. He turned it over in his hands a few times, willing it to beep or something. Multiple times, Anakin had considered sending a message to Rex just to check up on him, maybe just send an all-clear signal just to see if one would come back. Maybe exchange coordinates and meet up. Maybe Rex and some of his brothers would want to help the Rebellion.

How old would Rex be by now? With the accelerated aging, the last fifteen years would have been thirty to him and any other clone survivors. The oldest clones would be nearing their sixties soon. Anakin had no idea what clones looked like at sixty years old, but he was suddenly very curious and intrigued.

His thumb brushed over the buttons on the communicator. Just two short beeps, as simple as that. After fifteen years, maybe an all-clear signal was overdue.

He did it. Two quick clicks before he could change his mind, and then he put the communicator away. There was no telling if any response would come, and there was no point in staying up all night waiting for it. For all Anakin knew, Rex had lost his communicator and the only thing that had heard the signal was a womp-rat.

His mind drifted off and wandered, and he was about the lose consciousness when from his belt, he heard the same signal repeated back to him: two short beeps. Anakin smiled and rolled over on his bunk. Wherever Rex was, he was okay. That was enough for tonight.