Ezra's hand automatically grabbed onto Kallus' shoulder the moment he reported to his superiors and was assigned his next mission.

He was going to Lasan.

She knew what was going to happen, what mission this was. And she was also seeing that, despite how calm Kallus looked outside, she knew better. No matter how normal he looked, she could actually feel his uneasiness.

"I understand," Kallus stoically replied. "When will I be deployed?"

"You will be deployed immediately. You will be the commanding officer in charge of the Pacification of Lasan, and lead the units of Stormtroopers into battle against the Lasat species. Success is not questioned. Subdue them at all costs. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"You'll win," Ezra said quietly as he walked passed her and out of the room. "You'll win, but it won't be pretty."

And she knew that this was going to be a war that neither side will be happy to be in. She could already see Kallus' steps become heavy and his gait reluctant once he was alone, and there was just a minute slouch in his shoulders.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered because she knew that somehow, even if not for his side but just him, things were going to go wrong. So many on either side was going to be affected.

She went with him as he got ready, putting on another uniform and slipping on his helmet, grabbing standard issue blaster rifle and pistols and strapping them on. If he didn't look at himself, she knew why and understood. He went to meet his men and soon enough they were on their way to Lasan.

Ezra was horrified at how it had gone from the moment they landed. The first day had been a mess.

Kallus' ship had been shot down, though he and his men in it survived. The Lasat people had been prepared and were giving as good as they got. Kallus, unsurprisingly, was a well-oiled, well-trained machine that made it harder for the Empire to be brought down by the renegade race. It wasn't so incredulous to think now that he was one of the singular Imperial soldiers instrumental in helping to mow down the Lasat species. It was amazing in a horrifying way to watch him work.

But then there was Kallus at night, and there was nothing either of them could say about it.

She's with him as he soldiers on through the battlefield, but she's also with him at night as he lay in bed and stares blankly up at his ceiling. It wasn't long until he started to stop going to bed and keep on through the battle, allowing his men to take their quick sleep while he preferred to stay up and keep watch.

Insomnia becomes a quick friend, Ezra noted, and Kallus doesn't rest until he's practically exhausted and passes out. He can't rest otherwise.

"There's only so many times you can clean your blaster rifle," she told him on the fourth night there, when he was sitting on a seat outside his company's camp and going over it again and again. "You need to sleep," Ezra pleaded, but he instead took a rag and went over the rifle again.

"Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy, who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will. I swear this creed: my rifle and myself are defenders of my Empire, we are the masters of our enemy, we are the saviors of my life. So be it, until there is no enemy, but peace," Kallus muttered under his breath, a mantra Ezra had unwillingly learned alongside him back in the program.

"That's Imperial poodoo for you," she glowered at him, sitting down by his feet while he meticulously cleaned his blaster rifle. "You need to stop looking to them. They're all crud!"

Kallus actually sighed aloud, slumping his shoulders as he held onto his rifle tightly and tried to block out his surroundings.

"I wish I could have met you sooner," Ezra said despondently. "I wish I could have met you when you were a child, and you would have had at least one friend to look to and not cling and listen to your father. He was a lousy guy."

She wished she could just yank that blaster rifle away from him, force him to listen to her. But that wasn't happening anytime soon, especially since this was only the past. Yet no matter how many times she acknowledged that, there was a part of her that wanted something to change –that her presence there actually meant something would become different. But she knew that she was only there to view his memories, and she had a sneaking suspicion (one that grew with every passing moment) that he was probably watching her own memories.

It horrified her because there were things in her past she wasn't proud of and didn't want anyone to ever find out about, much less Kallus.

And if he found out what she was willing to resort to to survive on the streets...

"Don't you judge me," she spat at the weary figure of Kallus, going at his rifle again, though at least he wasn't muttering that stupid Empirical rifle creed. "You don't know what it means to be hungry, to just starve and feel like your stomach is tearing itself apart. Don't you dare judge me."

She never told anyone anything because she refused to be judged.

That and she was ashamed of it.

~*~*~

Kallus had never actually hated anyone. Well, that's not true. There was that bastard Lasat mercenary...But never mind that. No, aside from him, he's never hated anyone. Nothing had ever been really personal, in a way, to him.

The men Ezra ran into through the time after the first man made Kallus want to beat them all into submission, make them plead for mercy and force them to face Ezra and apologize for their transgressions against her. Alas, he was just viewing memories and he was getting increasingly angry (and more frequently at that) the more he watched.

He took note of each one of them, remembered what they looked like, what their homes looked like (they strangely never took Ezra to a hotel, but to their homes), and if he could get their names, he never forgot them.

He wouldn't let any of them off the hook. Not if he could help it. Just thinking about them put him into a murderous rage.

"You know, it's incredibly ironic that the only person willing to help you out without any real ulterior motive was a criminal-type like Wallaway," Kallus spat out at Ezra, who was sitting still as some random man was brushing her hair. For the most part, Kallus had been trying to ignore him. "And then we have your fellow criminal rebel friends adding and exacerbating that fact –will you just stop brushing her hair?!" he finally snapped at the man.

He was ignored, but that was nothing new.

"You have some kind of stupid hair fetish or something?" Kallus glared at the distracted man, wanting to reach over and wrap his hands around his neck.

"You have such beautiful hair," the man said instead to her and she made a noncommittal sound, steadfastly focusing on the array of fruits she was snacking on, including the meiloorun she had so much trouble with before.

She did have nice hair, Kallus reluctantly admitted. It was strangely well taken cared of, especially since Ezra had been mostly living on her own and on the streets for so long, as well as a strange natural blue tint to its darkness. She did have that abandoned tower though, and it wasn't as broken down as he thought. It had some working utilities left in it, and anything else Ezra was actually pretty good at fixing up.

"Your hair is nice," he complimented her aloud, because even if she couldn't hear it, he felt it was better coming out of him than this man next to her.

He could only be glad that she didn't do this often because she kept to stealing for the most part. But when security was too tight and she couldn't risk it, these are the times that Kallus dreaded seeing.

"You deserve better than this," he growled lowly, wanting nothing more than to stop watching.

To be honest, he just wanted to get out of there and confront her. He had to get all this off of his chest, and the more he watched, the more he was piling on stuff and needing to let it out. Her memories were horrible –

A thought caught on for him. If he was viewing her memories, was she viewing his? A pit grew in his stomach at the thought of that. He wasn't a saint, he knew that. He recalled all the things he'd done in his life too easily, and it wasn't something he cared for anyone else to see much less experience with him.

He had a lot of blood on his hands, and he's made one too many hard choices in life.

If she saw his life, he didn't want her coming out the same as he did. It was too much of a damn shame, especially since she was cynical enough on her own and had her own experiences and didn't need his to add to them.

~*~*~

"Kanan?"

Kanan heard Hera bright and clear, but didn't face her as he morosely thumbed through the little he had taken from his old Jedi life.

"Kanan," she put her hand on his shoulder and he reluctantly looked at her. "I need to talk to you about something."

"More news?" he asked miserably. "I don't think I can take anymore right now."

"I know," she said softly, taking a seat by him on their shared bed. "But...Kanan, you've got to know. Ahsoka just contacted us...and she wants to talk to Ezra."

"What? Why?" Kanan straightened up in panic, much more alert. "We can't let her know what happened."

Hera frowned. "It could be for the best."

"Absolutely not. She wouldn't be happy with this development, especially that we brought an ISB Agent with us. And not just any agent, but Kallus at that."

Hera was just as unhappy and nervous as Kanan about Ahsoka contacting them and wanting to talk to Ezra, more so since it was such a bad time, but she also was sure that maybe it would be a good idea to let the other woman know about what was happening. But looking at Kanan now, and the stubborn look on his face, she highly doubted he was going to change his mind any time soon.

"Alright," she said. "We'll keep it...to ourselves."

She still wasn't sure about that.

~*~*~

At the moment, Kallus was following Ezra as she headed back to her home. Sounds of an air fight reached them, and they looked to the sky to see the familiar freight ship of the Ghost crew engaging in combat against a TIE Fighter.

Kallus frowned to himself, wondering when this was and if this was when they'd met.

Just then, a lucky shot got the TIE Fighter and it went down, crashing somewhere in the fields nearby. He watched as Ezra looked in its direction inscrutably, and he wasn't sure what she was thinking. For once, it was Imperial so he didn't think she would care or bother going over (he was also sure that at this point, she might not be so quick to look even if it wasn't an Imperial). However, she started in its direction, catching Kallus off guard. He was also not sure he wanted her to go over anyway –there was no guarantee whoever it was would be kind to Ezra or take kindly to her coming over.

Ezra found the smoking TIE Fighter and hesitantly came over. She climbed up onto it and pried it opened, revealing who Kallus recognized as Baron Valen Rudor, who was coughing and trying to get out of his seat.

"Need help?" Ezra called down cheerfully.

"You! Get off right now! Do you know what you're on? This is property of the Empire!" Rudor yelled up at her.

Kallus, by now, knew her enough to notice the minute twitch of her eyebrow and her grin, signaling her irritation. He himself was rather put out by Rudor's attitude, and was almost tempted to try to persuade Ezra to just walk away and leave the pilot to his own mess.

Instead, Ezra huffed and rolled her eyes, dropping down into the TIE Fighter and easily fending off Rudor's hands as she "helped" him get unstuck from his chair. Kallus did notice that she was just as easily removing equipment from him too (things to probably sell on the black market). Then Ezra snickered and jumped up and got out of there, escaping from the TIE Fighter.

"See ya! Thanks for the stuff!" Ezra waved, holding onto Rudor's helmet.

Kallus actually let himself laugh at that, only until he saw Rudor angrily aiming to shoot at Ezra, to which his expression darkened and he called to her while attempting to get into the TIE Fighter and stop him. Well, he did managed to get in, just that he had no power whatsoever over the memory, like he should have remembered. Ezra took care of it herself though, somehow knowing what was happening and avoiding the shot, and returning fire with her little electric slingshot. It knocked out Rudor, which left Ezra to laugh in triumph. She mock-saluted the pilot's unconscious figure and then marched off.

It wasn't even too long after that that found her getting into more trouble. In fact, two days later Ezra was on a speeder in Capital City and finally ran into the Ghost crew as they were attempting to steal some crates from Imperial officers. Kallus reluctantly felt his lips tug into a grin. This was close to when she met him as well.

Curiously, Kallus finally watched Ezra's first meeting with them, almost wanting to laugh gleefully at the fact that she managed to steal the crates from them. They really hadn't been working together at the time of his meeting with her.

She was almost successful in getting away too, which was impressive considering she was dealing with both the Jedi, the Mandolorian girl, and the Lasat chasing her and Stormtroopers. But by the time she was in the fields, she had no choice but to get into the Ghost ship, and did so with a rather extraordinary jump while still holding onto the crate.

Honestly, he was just glad that Ezra finally met them and now she had people that had her back.