Unbalanced

Imbalanced

He sat there in the cockpit of the gauntlet fighter he took from Maul. He wasn't doing anything, he wasn't putting in hyperspace coordinates, calling Sabine or even checking what Maul had left him. No, he was thinking about the fight he just had with him.

He couldn't believe what he'd done down there. How the fight had somehow involved a pack of Tuscan raiders and the infamous or maybe famous Obi-Wan Kenobi. How he and Maul hadn't stopped their dual to deal with raiders but instead fought them all while keeping the fight going. He couldn't believe that he'd taken seven slashes from Maul's saber and kept fighting. Then theirs the two blaster burns on his back.

"I can't believe I almost let the darkness consume me. What have I done? What if Kanan's sensed it?" He wondered if he could get away with not telling Kanan that in his rage he killed not just Maul and an entire tribe of Tuscans but the old Master as well. "Doubt it, he's, I don't have a clue what he's gonna do."

He let his anger control him. He let his hatred for Maul lead him to violence and revenge. He let Ashoka's death guilt-trip him into thinking that this would make it better, but it didn't. Looking up into the viewport his reflection would have caught his eye. He didn't see it, he was incapable of actually seeing it. But he could feel it in his very being. He could sense the corruption, he could feel the dark side trying to consume him. He knew he had a small but ever-present yellow tinge around his blue eyes. Even if they were a bit faded these days.

"No putting it off anymore I guess." His senses proved to be right. He could feel Kanan reaching out to him and right then his commlink went off, Sabine's calling him. Answering the call he was greeted by Sabine's voice. Times like this is when he realizes how blind he really his. He knows the image of Sabine is there, being projected into a little four-inch-tall version of her, but no matter how hard he'd try, there was no way for him to see her again.

"Hey, bean, how's everything going back at base?" He honestly didn't know if his little diversion would even work. He really hoped it would though. "Wel- manda! Ezra! What happened!?" He wanted to ignore her response but it was a valid one. He was certain he looked like death warmed over. "Well, uh, bean I, uh, may have had a run-in with Maul and a Jedi who didn't think I was all that, uh, friendly."

"How bad did they hurt you?" That was something he really didn't want her to know. One lightsaber wound was enough of a problem, much less seven of them and two blaster wounds. "Pfft, hurt me? Please, I'm totally fine bean. Nothing to worry about." There was a moment of silence, he may not be able to see it but he knew Sabine was glaring at him. "I may have a few major burns and a couple of blasted wounds."

"Ezra! You get back here right now! Before you drop dead or I shoot you myself!" With that, he heard Sabine apparently drop the commlink. "I hope she's prepping the med bay for me."

It took a few hours to get back to base. He was tempted to turn around and leave. He could sense how upset Sabine and he'd guess Hera were. Be also got concerned and nervous from them. "Shit, why can't I sense Kanan? This can't be good." Landing was easy enough, just two button presses and the ship took care of the rest.

"Well, Maul, you might have been an unhinged psychotic monster but your taste in ships is impeccable."

Getting up from the captain's chair proved to be more difficult than he'd thought it would be. "Oh come on, I can get out of a chair. Come one, come one, you got this Bridger!" Failing to completely get up only meant falling back in an unceremonious heap in his chair, he knew his wounds had caught up with him now.

The sound of feet stomping up the ramp drew his attention. At first, he thought it was Sabine or Hera. It turned out to be the medical team. "Hey guys, been a while huh?" Sensing there surprise made him come to the conclusion that he looked worse than he felt. Now that was saying something.

"Commander Bridger you're awake? We didn't think you would be." As they pull the stretcher out and laid him down on it they started to go over his injuries while en route to the med bay. By the time they arrived, they decided to put him in a bacta tank. Seeing as that was the best way of healing his nine third-degree burns and the twenty-two bone fractures.

Despite what many people believe you don't have to be asleep to be placed into a bacta tank. Although at the moment he wished he needed to be but under. The verbal beat down coming from both Sabine and Hera was almost too much for him. After almost two hours of this, the medical droids said visiting hours were over.

Sabine was about to leave when she turned around and walked back to the tank and placed her left hand on it while using the right to turn on the speaker. "Ezra, how are we supposed to live on krownest if you die before we ever get there? I thought you had died on the return trip when they pulled you out of that ship on a stretcher."

The fact that she needed to stop talking for a moment and collect herself to stop from crying made it painfully obvious how badly he'd screwed this one up. "Tell me, did you at least do the thing you set out to do?" He did feel kinda bad for not telling anyone he was leaving, except Sabine. But even she didn't get a reason as to why he had to go.

"Yeah bean, I killed Maul. That was the whole reason I ran off. I just couldn't take hearing him in my head anymore. I couldn't stand it knowing that he was walking around without a care in the world while I'll never get to, really, see you again. This force sight is nice and all but it's like seeing the world in negative. Yeah, that's better than nothing but it's just not the same. Then theirs the fact that when we have kids one day, I'll never get to really see them."

To say Hera was surprised would be an understatement, yes she knew they were together, the very adult sounds coming from Sabine's room most nights since Malachor more or less proved it. Plus every time those very leud sounds came Ezra was nowhere to be found, all this tipped her off. The time Kanan came to her and told her he could sense his padawans, desire, as he put it was not even all that surprising to her. But what was surprising was the fact that it seemed Ezra has killed Maul. Then this plan of theirs makes it sound like they plan to elope any day now and they seemingly had the okay from Sabine's family.

Kanan was not pleased, not one bit. That evil sith Holocron had nearly corrupted his padawan. He thought he might need to step in and slice the thing to pieces with his lightsaber. He had sensed the shift in Ezra right before he cut the Holocron in two. It seemed that it did too, he sensed its efforts to corrupt him stop, knowing that it's lost. Thankfully Ezra won out over the dark side. Seemingly with the help of Sabine. Unfortunately, he had heard the Holocron, rename Ezra, that was what prompted him to go and cut it in half. "Vectivus, no, I can't allow that to happen. Don't worry son, I won't let the dark side take you from us. Not now, not ever."