Work Text:
It’s common sense to the younglings already that their future masters resided within the temple.
That one day they would be chosen and bonded in the force with their teacher. It’s a lesson they are taught while extraordinarily young.
With stories in the crèche before some could even walk or write basic. A youngling's life revolved around that fact.
With basic training that would assist their master and set up what their guardian would have in store for them in the future.
A foundation their master would pull them from, the problem being Ezra Bridger is not willing to wait.
Four years old and something within tells him that he's supposed to meet his master sooner than most.
Whether that be because he truly wants to start that connection now, or the force had something a little different in store; the boy couldn’t comprehend it.
Nor did he really care. His master was in the temple with him and it drove him mad, more often than not the boy tried to sneak away when the tug was most pressing but he was almost always caught.
The crèche masters always gave him a stern look and sat him back down with a warning. It was unfair. That they could seemingly tease him about having a master and not let him go find them!
Didn’t they feel the calling like he did? And if they didn’t feel it in the same way couldn't they at least sense it?
The raven haired child was frustrated, he wanted his master and he wanted them now. Wanted to be held and cared for and taught the ways of the force!
And Ezra would only have the one the force was tugging him towards, would only choose the perfect person possible to be his master.
He didn’t know who they were yet, Ezra had met plenty of masters already. Now with the clone wars over - something he only knew vaguely about since it ended the day he was born - that the Jedi were back in abundance.
Master Yoda read them stories although he never read them right. Master Junda came in and played with them. Master Windu explained the lightsaber forms although they were too young to truly grasp what he’d been teaching.
The man was intimidating but Ezra had felt something there between them, it was barely there as if it were a clue. But the tug didn’t belong to the man so Ezra let that fleeting thought go.
He’d felt another tug when a togruta visited the temple, the woman was not a Jedi and simply went by Fulcrum but Ezra vaguely believed if not in this life in another maybe she could have been his master, still she wasn’t right.
Master Kenobi had been kind, except there was no tug with him either.
It was maddening, it kept the boy up at night to the point the crèche masters were just as annoyed as he.
Smothering him with sleep suggestions when he’d huff in his own way of defiance. Not wanting to sleep if it wasn’t his master tucking him in.
Ezra isn’t surprised the next morning without fail they had lessons in patience, them more often than not directed at him.
He’s too young and stubborn to really care, if they want him to be patient, his master will just have to teach him and they are not his master. So how could they expect anything more from him?
Caleb may have been knighted, but that doesn’t mean he broke the tendency to follow his master around.
He’s eighteen years old, maybe he should be hanging out with the other knights his age. But he feels no reason to.
He has other things on his mind. Like the very pretty Twi’lek he’d watched over for a week to make sure she was alright due to her fathers political “allies”, although it didn’t seem like she needed him all that much.
(Except she had blushed a lot and her attraction to him wasn’t exactly hidden in her signature.)
There was the other thing too. The nagging. It started around four years ago, really the day the war had ended.
He’d passed it off as a result of the dark presence that had overcome the galaxy finally going quiet, but now not so much.
It’s something , a tug he has yet to understand.
So he waited, patiently. Whatever it was would find him in time. He just wished he didn’t have to constantly feel the tugging until it happened.
Caleb walks with his master and Master Windu, feeling particularly odd. The tug in his head is gone, and in its place is a sort of warmth that keeps his spirits high.
It’s the upheaval in his gut before a fall. The last specks of sand trickling out of the timer. It was time to meet whatever was on the other end of that rope.
He just didn’t know what that could be.
“It seems we’re not alone,” his master’s voice pulls him from his reverie, effectively gaining the attention of Master Windu as well.
The older man looks just as confused as he feels at the comment, Caleb only understanding when he feels the bottoms of his robes being shifted causing him to stop in his tracks.
Both Jedi stop as well, Master Billaba smiling down towards the ground, while a look of both amusement and concern passes over Mace’s features.
It’s enough for Caleb to look down just in time to feel arms wrap around his shin. Two brilliantly sapphire eyes stare right back up at him, and the little boy seems all too happy to have found him.
Younglings weren’t supposed to be on their own, hence the worried look on his grandmasters face, yet Caleb can’t begrudge the boy because his presence had finally made his stomach drop.
The boy was exactly where he was supposed to be.
His lineage seems to understand this immediately, as does Caleb as he carefully gets to a knee, his new padawan gladly throwing himself into his arms with a triumphant cry:
“I found you!”
Caleb’s heart flutters at the boy's voice, it small yet boisterous, fragile and filled with guile.
“Yes, yes you did,” he knows he sounds breathless and he could always blame it on the grip the boy has on him but they’d all know that wasn’t the truth.
“It appears we’ll have to pull out another glass,” Depa muses to her own master, the three of them having been on the way to her quarters to drink tea and reconvene, maybe even meditate together.
“After we inform the crèche masters,” Windu returns, staring down at the pair fondly. After all the heartache the war had put them through, it was nice to see such developments not pressured by demand or threatened by tragedy.
Caleb returns the hug, head tipping to rest against raven hair where he inhales. The smell of wheatgrass, laundry detergent, and the plant life in the gardens filling his nose.
“Ezra?” A new voice chimes in, it is loud, concerned, and the slightest bit irritated. It doesn't take a genius to know who the creche master is referring to. Caleb doesn’t have the heart to turn back and look at the woman, nor offer up his padawan.
The youngling presses closer, trying to hide beneath his chin and Caleb lets him with a huff of laughter. The boy’s name fluttered around his head, stamping itself into his heart.
“He’s here,” Master Windu’s voice replies, a soft sound of laughter coming from Depa, most likely giggling at Ezra’s actions as well.
“Oh,” The woman’s voice tapers off, able to see the boy’s unique hair sticking up over the crouched down Jedi’s shoulder.
They can all hear and feel the force singing around the pair, enough that the master let’s out the most genuine sigh of relief they’ve ever heard. It raises many questions, ones she seems to pick up on immediately.
“Ezra has a reputation,”
Caleb looks up at this, absently tangling his fingers into the boy’s nape to soothe the embarrassment he feels welling up in the child.
“He has a hard time listening,” and understatement because the boy outright refused, ”Because we aren’t his master, but I don’t think that will be a problem anymore,” the woman muses.
Caleb gets back to his feet at this, taking Ezra with him and settling the boy on his hip. Ezra doesn’t seem to mind the shift, little hands tangling into the front of his tunic, head resting against his collarbone.
A smug grin gently tugs at the older man’s features, taking in the information entirely amused. Knowing Ezra had probably felt the tug as well as he, in fact maybe the child had been born with it, knew nothing more than it’s insistent lull.
The information doesn’t surprise him, although he can certainly see where the creche master’s annoyance came from, but as the boy’s master he really only feels endeared. How could he not?
Caleb rested his cheek on the boy’s head and felt as their bond cemented itself. Ezra’s yearning to stay with him loud and clear, even more so than it had been before. To the point the Knight tightens his grip, his own way of showing he wasn’t going to make the boy go back to the creche. Not now.
“We were going to have tea, we can bring him back later, yes?” Depa questions the other woman. Taking charge because she knew her own padawan was lost to the development, while her master would be brash and simply claim they were taking the child and he’d be brought back later.
“....yes,” the creche master returned unsurely, ultimately giving a bow of respect before she was off.
Again, Depa Billaba was nice enough to ask because Caleb and Mace weren’t going to question if it was alright or not. Just carry on after informing them of the boy’s whereabouts.
Ezra seems all too happy about the development, embarrassment and nervousness lost; cuddling closer to his master in the way he’d wanted to for so long. Ezra had finally found his master and his lineage!
It was rare nowadays for Jedi to get injured, still some pursuits went wrong and Caleb was in the medical wing because of it. His shoulder having been dislocated, bruises lining the left side of his torso, and a stab wound in his gut that thankfully missed anything vital.
Whiplash ate at him, and yet Caleb smiles and does his best to comfort his youngling. The boy curled up on his right, a constant stream of tears carving through his tan complexion.
“Hush,” he murmurs, voice gruff as his thumb idly wipes away the child's tears, “I’m alright, it’s okay. We’re safe,”
It’s obvious Ezra doesn’t quite believe him, looking at his injuries dubiously before curling closer. Clinging to their bond, Caleb feels more and more exhausted as he provides the assurance the boy needs - not that he really minds.
These things happen and Ezra is more than worth it.
He had no true reason in bringing Ezra, in fact he probably shouldn’t have but he certainly got the result he wanted. Hera adores Ezra just as much as he does, the twi’lek more than happy to show him around Ryloth and give him a tour of her prized ship: the Ghost.
The youngling takes in her words like they were laws, honestly the boy seems more eager to listen to her than him; which is saying something considering Ezra’s past.
“Mm fatherhood looks good on you,” Hera muses lightly as they watch Ezra chase Chopper around, and vice versa.
He feels no need to rebuke her words, in fact he doesn’t even think about it when she first says it. Their apprenticeship is seemingly familial, at least he thought so. Especially when watching how Hera interacted with her parents.
All he can do is nod.
Caleb heaves, Ezra held tightly in his arms. The child shaking and trembling in fear, and Caleb cannot blame him. The creche masters had taken the younglings on a field trip to another temple that was out of use after the clone wars - although there were plans to reclaim it.
How could they have known Darth Maul would appear to take his pick of potential apprentices?
Two younglings died, eight were injured, and the creche master who’d accompanied them didn't make it. Both he and Cere Junda managed to slay Maul, Caleb very nearly getting blinded in the process, but that would have been a blessing really.
Because the way the sith’s eyes lit up when he saw Ezra had built up bile. He wished he hadn’t seen it, but if he hadn’t he probably wouldn’t have had the strength to lop off the bastard's head.
The child presses into his warmth, just as affected by the now dead man’s glare. Reinforcements were on their way, healers and even Master Kenobi, but Caleb blurs it all out as Cere and the medics tend to the other children.
Their terrified souls looking to him in awe, but all Caleb can think of as he holds his son to his chest is the hell the boy would have endured if Maul had gotten his hands on him.
Briefly Caleb feels the reassuring hand Obi-Wan places on his arm, but he keeps walking. Curling around his ward as they settled in on the shuttle, breathing deeply together in shared breaths.
Caleb pushed his anxieties back into the force, as they were not important any longer, not with his child here in his arms and the half-sith dead.
The Knight isn’t surprised when he hears the door to his quarters open in the dead of night. Ezra often snuck throughout the temple from the creche to find him. Honestly he didn’t know why he hadn’t set up a cot for the boy and just demanded Ezra stay with him in his quarters permanently.
He could always just send the boy to class or escort him himself, Ezra didn’t have to stay with the others his age as he had no trouble with getting along with them.
He’ll have to inform Master Junda later, maybe in the morning when he inevitably brings Ezra in for class.
The youngling in question crawls up his cot, settling at his side. Trying and failing to dislodge the covers leading Caleb to assist. Ezra freezing up at having been caught sneaking in even if he knew Caleb would never be angry with him for doing so.
Caleb tucks Ezra close to his heart and promptly falls back to sleep, fingers tangled in thick raven tresses, Ezra following suit immediately after.