Chapter Text
Ezra was barely keeping conscious in Kanan’s arms as he ran from the star destroyer, through the airlock, and onto The Ghost. They had barely escaped the inquisitor while they were aboard the huge ship, but as they were on their way back to the ship Ezra had been shot. Kanan had picked him up and ran to The Ghost with Zeb covering their escape.
Ezra had never been shot before, it didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would have. That was a funny thing to think when you had a third degree burn burrowing into your left shoulder, he must be in shock. He shivered and tried to curl tighter into Kanan’s warmth as the man ran to the small med bay on the ship, yep definitely in shock.
They made it to the med bay and Kanan gently placed him on the medical bed along the wall and placed a blanket over the boy. He had to get a better look at the damage before he decided what to do about the wound. He started taking off Ezra’s clothes, but the reaction he got from the kid was wild and unexpected.
Ezra felt Kanan trying to take off his clothes and immediately sat up clumsily pushing his hands away and trying, but failing, to sit up, “Get off! I’m fine, I need to be up helping Hera with the guns.” His statement was punctuated by the ship shuddering under a barrage of TI fighter bolts. Hara’s voice came over the ship’s PA system, “I’m getting hammered up here, Zeb! Sabine! On the guns! Chopper set coordinates for a hyperspace jump!”
“Ezra, I got to take a look at your injury so I know how to treat it. Why won't you let me help you?” Kanan said as he gently pushed the teen back down onto the bed.
“You can't, I don't want you…” suddenly Ezra’s eyes rolled into his head and he passed out.
“Ezra?” Kanan gently nudged the kid with no response. He started to take the kid’s clothes off, the blaster bolt had hit Ezra in the shoulder just above his chest, but below the joint and collarbone. The burns were bad, but they would heal with the right treatment and plenty of rest.
What caught Kanan’s attention after realizing the blast wound was nonlethal was the almost round scar on the kid’s chest. It looked like the healed burn mark of a slaver’s brand, but it was muddled, like someone had tried to erase the mark by burning it again. Kanan knew he was crossing all the kid’s boundaries, but he needed to know why Ezra was so guarded with his body. Why did the boy he thought of like a son fight so hard against pain and shock to keep his body hidden from him?
Kanan took Ezra’s jumpsuit completely off, leaving Ezra in nothing but a pair of very worn, hole ridden boxers. The man couldn’t believe what he was seeing, the healed burn scar on his chest was definitely a covered slaver’s mark, because the boy’s back was criss-crossed with so many whip lashes that Kanan wasn’t sure he could see unscared skin between the lashes. There were newer cross hatch marks on his shoulder and upper hip most likely made by a knife, a classic torture technique of pirates. He had needle scars from drug testing and cigarra burns on his chest ribs and stomach. A nasty scar on his ankle explained why the kid walked a little uneven. What disturbed Kanan most was a bite mark on the kid’s left shoulder.
He used a scanner to confirm his prognosis on the kid’s blaster wound, which was correct, but the scanner also found multiple old injuries, including at least seven broken and rehealed ribs, a dislocated shoulder that was slopilly put back into place, and an old hip injury that had resulted in bad arthritis, probably another reason Ezra’s gate was uneven. Kanan brought out some bacta paste and smeared it liberally over Ezra’s blaster wound, then grabbed a bandage and started wrapping the burn to protect it and keep it from getting infected. Then he covered the kid with a couple thick blankets and let him sleep.
He immediately headed up to the cockpit where Hera had managed to get them into hyperspace alive. When she noticed it was Kanan who walked in she immediately got up from her pilot’s seat and walked up to him, “how’s Ezra? Zeb told me he was shot?”
“He’s going to be alright for the most part, but I need to get him a shirt from my cabin. Hera, he’s had it really rough on the streets,” Kanan said.
Hera knew Kanan had scars and old injuries from the war as well as from when he was on the run from the empire. She also knew some of Ezra’s story, but it couldn’t be so bad as to make Kanan so distraught. “You had it rough when you were surviving on the streets as well,” Hera said. They walked together to Kanan’s cabin where he brought out an old, soft t-shirt from the storage area under his bed.
“Not that rough, Hera,” he lowered his voice and said, “He’s been through hell, and if I had known.” Kanan started to panic, breathing heavily and pacing around his cabin running his fingers along his scalp.
Hera grabbed Kanan’s arm, gently stopping his pacing and turning him to face her so she could speak to him, “what if’s aren’t going to help Ezra now. He’s safe now, and we will do our best to keep him safe and make sure he’s taken care of for as long as he’ll let us. Right?” Kanan nodded as he rested his head on her shoulder and calmed himself down. “I hate that he had to survive on his own for so long, but the best we can do is give him a better life than what he’s gotten.”
Ezra was still sleeping on the bed by the wall when they walked into the med bay. Kanan gently removed the blankets so Hera could get a good look at him. She couldn’t believe the amount of scars that littered the boy’s body, but she kept her face calculating so Kanan wouldn’t feel like he had to comfort her. The boy’s marred skin disappeared under the thin cloth of Kanan’s shirt and Hera let out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding.
Kanan covered the boy with the blankets and checked the diagnostic screen again just to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. “He probably needs to be on some pain meds for that hip. We should pick some up the next time we’re on planet.”
Hera read over the diagnostic screen with him, “We should check his kidney and liver function as well, who knows how long Ezra’s been doing the injections, and I wouldn’t rule out death sticks either.”
Kanan kept watch over his sleeping padawan and a few hours later Ezra woke to find him sitting by his bed. His shoulder had been bandaged and his clothes had been changed to a big, baggy, dark blue shirt that almost reached his knees. Ezra sat up, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at Kanan. “You saw?”
“Yeah.” Kanan said. He could see the kid noticeably shrink in on himself. Putting up his walls so when Kanan lays the hammer down he might not collapse. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“I thought you’d been able to read my whole story.” Ezra looked up at Kanan then, a kid, barely a teenager, who had already seen too much life. “Seven years on the streets. I did what I had to survive.”
Kanan nodded, “Can you tell me when it all happened?”
Ezra looked down at the blankets over his lap as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I was seven when the Empire took my parents. I almost starved to death that first month.” He placed his hand over his ribs, pointing to the scar on his ribs and feeling the slight ridge of it through the thin fabric of the shirt. “Month three I was almost stabbed by an older kid and his thug friends, I was able to dodge away from a more fatal wound, now I know it was the force.” His fingers rubbed at the botched brand on his chest, “I was unlucky enough to interrupt an underground slave auction, their favorite punishment was lashes, and I was sold to a drunk trader who would beat the hell out of me and burn me with his cigarras. I still can’t stand the smell of the things. I was with him for almost three months”
“After escaping, I was running from stormtroopers when I fell from a two story building into a trash bin and tore my leg open. I was nine? On my tenth birthday I got burned by a blaster bolt while stealing my speeder. That winter I got pneumonia and was laid up for over a month. Being a tester for the Drug cartel was the only way I didn’t starve.”
Ezra took a breath, his voice was starting to shake, but he swallowed the lump in his throat.” I was twelve when an essential part of my tower’s heater broke and I didn’t have 300 credits to fix it so I sold my body for credits so I wouldn’t freeze. That summer I was caught in a bad deal with some pirates and tortured for information by the gang they were stealing from.” He looked over at Kanan and could see the hurt and anger in his face and through the force, “I got smarter, and as I got older it was easier to get good paying work so I was able to make a decent living without testing drugs or anything else.”
“You survived,” Kanan said, placing his hand on the padawan's knee.
Ezra nodded his confirmation, “now I don’t have to survive, with you guys, I can finally start living.”