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"Do we have to get the resonnator coils from Dakkar's?" Ezra whined.
There was something unusually agitated in the kid's voice, Kanan thought, as he double-checked their funds again and looked over their shopping list one more time before they headed out.
"He's the best shop in Capitol City for getting new starship parts," he pointed out, distracted counting the credits.
Behind him Ezra muttered, "Yeah I know that. I'm the one who told you that, Kanan."
Drawing his eyes up with a raised eyebrow, Kanan asked, "Then what's the issue?"
Ezra didn't respond right away, prompting Kanan to glance over his shoulder. The kid was standing with stiff shoulders and helplessly gesticulating hands.
"Wouldn't the market street be cheaper?" he argued.
"Too many Imps this time o' day," Zeb piped up, from where he was hefting crates onto their lift. "After that TIE fighter we stole in Jhothal, we don't need any extra attention." The big Lasat grinned a bit at the mention of their daring heist, but it did nothing to unsour Ezra's mood.
"Well I don't see why I have to come along," Ezra grumbled.
"I already told you, I want you to take the opportunity to practice sensing and filtering the crowd," Kanan told him dismissively, adding one more item to the list on their datapad. "Hera and Sabine are still out haggling with Vizago and I don't trust Chopper and you alone on the Ghost together." Kanan looked up and finally turned around, something in the Force pinging him to a sense of distress from his padawan. "You're doing an awful lot of arguing to get out of this errand," he observed. He folded hands across his chest, trying to project concern. "Like you're trying to avoid it. Anything I should know about?" he prompted.
As expected, his probing shut the kid down cold.
"I'm not trying to avoid any—" Ezra started, then slashed his hands in an aggravated, dismissive wave. "Ugh, forget it! All right? Fine!"
Kanan's eyes softened, concern genuine now.
"Ezra—" he started.
"I said forget it!" the boy interrupted, stopping any further discussion. "All I wanted to say was that Dakkar might not appreciate seeing me, okay?" His eyes were angry, but avoidant, not looking at Kanan, and his arms had clutched around his elbows in that guarded, self-protective stance he always took when he didn't want to talk about something, or was trying to shield himself from some kind of hurt.
A pang went through Kanan's heart, and he wanted to grill Ezra further, but he knew the boy's trust was still fragile like glass, even after all they'd already been through.
No, better to back off for now.
"All right," he said, very gently. "I'll do the talking. You can just hang back and focus on your Force sensing."
"...Fine," Ezra agreed, still not looking at him.
Kanan exchanged a glance with Zeb, who shrugged, as clueless as he was as to what was bothering the kid, and then decided to put the matter aside for now, motioning them out down the ramp of the Ghost and into the streets.
-SWR-
Ezra tried to do the exercise Kanan had tasked him with.
Tried to open himself up to the pulse and rhythm of the crowd, the shifting emotions and presences he could feel through the Force, the ebb and flow of beings through the city streets as they went about their business.
In some ways it was easy; he'd been doing this unconsciously for years, leaning on the Force to pick out good marks and targets for pickpocketing, feeling out who might be sympathetic to a pathetic-looking hungry street urchin.
In another way it was so much harder, because he couldn't shake the knowledge that they were going back to his shop, that there was a reason he'd stopped pilfering from this place in particular, no matter how enticing the wares were.
He couldn't shake the worry that ran rampant through his veins, as he, Kanan, and Zeb took the familiar streets and turns towards Dakkar's shop.
-SWR-
Something was definitely up with the kid, Kanan thought, as they closed in on their destination.
The shop itself wasn't anything of particular note, just a market stand and awning in front of a small clay building.
But Ezra's eyes darted around like he expected to get shot at any moment.
Kanan noticed the restlessness in his padawan and nodded subtly to Zeb. The Lasat got his meaning at once and moved to block Ezra from line of sight, as Kanan approached the portly human at the counter.
All business, Kanan slapped a few credits down on the table and announced, "I need some resonnator coils."
The man—Dakkar, Kanan presumed—smoothly slid into salesman mode.
"We'll you've come to the right place," he bragged. "I have an exclusive contract with the Empire and Sienar, I get all the latest tech delivered straight to my shelves. What model are you looking for, today?"
Ezra hung back, an itch on Kanan's periphery senses, as he negotiated with the shop owner. An agreement was made, and Kanan secured a good price, especially with the trade-in they had on their lift. Zeb shifted to fetch the big piece of machinery, and Kanan watched Dakkar's expression sour in realtime as he caught a glimpse through the gap.
"Ah hell no, beat it, Loth-rat!" Dakkar snapped at Ezra. "Before I call the Stormies on you again."
Ezra gave a noticeable flinch, expression gaunt and timid as he shied back.
Kanan held up a placating hand. "It's all right," he assured the shopkeeper, applying the slightest bit of Force influence to diffuse the man's anger. "He's with us."
Dakkar didn't look impressed. "What, is he taking you for suckers or something?" he snorted.
Zeb pushed forward, blocking line of sight to Ezra again, a bit of a protective scowl on his face. "Kid went straight," he growled. "You gonna have a problem with that?"
Dakkar was slightly mollified by the Lasat's overbearing presence. He still huffed and flicked eyes to Kanan.
"Watch your wallets, that kid has been nothing but a thieving nuisance as long as I've known him," he warned Kanan. He tried to look around the two men and pin an unfriendly glare on Ezra. "Had to get the Stormtroopers involved last time to straighten him out!" he called loudly, projecting his voice so it would carry to his target.
Ezra prickled defensively, glaring back.
"Oh yeah they straightened me out all right," he said snippily, bitter sarcasm dripping off every word. "Made 'em feel really big to have a skinny starving kid to kick around!"
His hands were clamped like vices around his arms and Kanan saw a tremor going through him. Ezra was shaking—with anger and distress, both of which were also rolling off him past his shields—and looked ready to throw himself at Dakkar and start punching.
All right, now was the time to push for answers.
Kanan gestured with his head. "Zeb, take over and finish up here," he ordered, then stepped away from the counter.
He turned and put a gentle hand on Ezra's back, about-facing him, guiding him away from the shop. Surprisingly, Ezra didn't resist, or shrug Kanan's hand off. He just let Kanan walk him further down the street, until Dakkar's shop was far out of earshot. Kanan bit his lip as he glanced down at Ezra, who was still shaking, still tensed up in his shoulders and neck.
He stopped them about two blocks away, coming around to Ezra's front.
Ezra's eyes were on the ground. "Sorry," he muttered.
"I'm not angry," Kanan assured him, both hands on his shoulders now. "Take a deep breath," he instructed.
Ezra obeyed, closing his eyes and inhaling loudly, then slowly letting it out.
The shaking subsided a bit.
Kanan waited a moment or two more, then asked, "Mind telling me what's got you all upset?"
Ezra bit his lip. For a moment Kanan thought he wouldn't say anything, would clam up and dismiss his outburst as nothing again.
Then, slowly, Ezra began to explain.
"It was... when I was ten," he said. His hands loosened just a fraction from clutching his arms. "I used to nick things from Dakkar's shop all the time. Small parts, easy to carry, but expensive." He sighed. "I had a fencer who would always give me a good price for them. Enough money to carry me through for a while."
Ezra paused for a moment, hesitating.
Kanan was about to prompt him when he spoke again, haltingly.
"I saw this fuel injector on the shelf. Could have set me up for months. It was way too heavy and I knew it but..." Ezra shook his head. "I got caught. Dakkar called out to a nearby Stormtrooper patrol. They told him they'd make sure I regretted it."
Indignation and outrage passed in a flash through Kanan, as he remembered Ezra's earlier words. "They hurt you," he guessed accurately, voice a low angry growl. He'd known the Empire was cruel, known it didn't discriminate based on age, known it encouraged the worst of its footsoldiers, but the thought of local low-level Stormtroopers pummeling a ten-year-old still made him burn inside.
Ezra shrugged. "A black eye and some bruised ribs. I've had worse beatings," he dismissed, and that just made Kanan even more outraged on his behalf. Ezra continued, his voice starting to strain and crack. "But afterwards... they didn't want to drag me all the way to the Dome to get processed and put in lockup so they just..." His next inhale shuddered through his small frame. "...took me to a nearby listening outpost and shoved me in a cramped supply closet."
There was a haunted, faraway look in his eyes, as he stared forward into nothing.
"They left me in there all night."
Kanan dropped his hands off Ezra's shoulders in quiet horror. The mental image invaded his mind; Ezra shouting himself hoarse, banging on the locked door with his fists, stuck in a small dark space for hours with no idea when the troopers outside would let him out, or if they even would.
For someone Ezra's age at the time... it would have been terrifying.
"I'm sorry," he said, and the words felt grossly inadequate.
Ezra shrugged again, empty gaze tilting towards the side. "The lieutenant showed up in the morning and made them turn me loose," he finished. "But I haven't been near the shop since."
Kanan stood there, reeling internally, once again being reminded of just how hard Ezra's life had been before he'd met them. On his own since age seven, Ezra had told them himself, and yet it only sank in for Kanan with stories and snippets like this.
That Ezra would be so hungry he'd take a risk he knew he shouldn't. That a Stormtrooper patrol would be called on a ten-year-old pickpocket. That those same troopers would gleefully administer a beatdown on a child and then lock him in a closet seemingly just to continue tormenting him.
The injustice of it all simmered inside him, stirred up a deep protective urge. Kanan looked at the kid and saw him as exactly that—a kid, someone he was responsible for keeping safe now, making sure he knew he'd never have to nick and pinch starship parts to feed himself again.
"So... yeah," Ezra finished, clearly done with this uncomfortable conversation. "That's why I didn't wanna come today."
The older Jedi sighed. "For what it's worth," he said, "if you were a little more forthcoming with me when I asked, I would have let you stay on the ship."
That finally got Ezra to make eye contact. "Sure you wouldn't have said, 'You need to face your fears, Ezra. A Jedi needs to confront and accept their past.'?" he asked, in an almost perfect imitation of Kanan's teaching tone and inflection.
Kanan grimaced, and scratched behind his head. "Well I probably would have still said that, but I would have also let you stay."
Ezra grinned. "Chopper would have zapped me unconscious within five minutes," he joked.
"Not if he didn't want me open up his compartments and scramble all his wiring he wouldn't," Kanan assured him. The threat was not an idle one. He'd only done it once before but he sure as hell would do it again for Ezra.
The kid laughed, shortly, feeling lighter in the Force. "Thanks," he said quietly.
He let go of his arms, and pointed back down the street.
"Do you need me for anything or should I wait for you here?" he asked.
Kanan thought for a moment.
"Go take a lap around the block and do the exercise I told you to do earlier. We'll meet back up with you there. It shouldn't take long," he said, choosing a landmark.
Ezra gave one of his jaunty play salutes and said, "Yes sir!"
"And stay out of trouble!" he warned Ezra.
Ezra was already backing off, swinging his arms out in a helpless shrug. "Trouble follows me, Kanan, I'll make no promises."
Kanan watched him head off, rubbing the side of his neck fondly. Force, that kid was something. Pulled at him in all the right kinds of sentimental ways. He sent up a silent plea to the Force for patience, and the strength to keep protecting Ezra, and sheltering him whenever he could.
Dropping his hand, he headed back to Dakkar's and pointedly made the rest of the transaction as clipped and as short as possible.