Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mary belongs to the words of a song

I try to be strong for her, try not to be wrong for her

But she will not wait for me anymore, anymore

Why did I say all those things before I was sure?

-"Gifts and Curses" by Yellowcard

He collapsed immediately the moment the purrgil dropped from hyperspace.

Ezra lay there floating—not quite unconscious, but definitely not lucid—for several minutes, unable to think past the sheer exhaustion weighing him down. The jump had been so much longer than he was expecting. His arms had gone numb from being held up. The shoulder Thrawn had shot burned. Even his mind felt stretched out in all the wrong ways, pulled apart and squashed back together all lumpen and misshapen.

He could hear voices above him—shouting, barking orders, angry yelling—but it was all muddled white noise on his senses, his last fleeting thought that he hoped Chopper remembered to give Sabine his saber—for safekeeping, to protect her when he couldn't, so she'd remember him—before the darkness stole him away, keeping him in dreamless sleep until he awoke again, groggy, into a fresh new nightmare.

The first months... were not good.

-SW-

She moved into the old communications tower permanently after the first months. Ryder had offered her one of the apartments in Capital City, but Sabine had turned it down. There were so many homeless and displaced from the Chimaera's bombardment, not to mention the long years of Imperial occupation... she wouldn't feel right taking one of their homes for herself. She always had a place on the Ghost of course but Sabine could tell that Hera was itching to get back to Yavin, back into the wider fight, the wider Rebellion, now that they knew the Empire's yoke could be broken, and Sabine still felt like there was so much work for her to do on here on Lothal.

Besides, the tower had become something of a sanctuary for her. A place to get away from all the pressures and hassles and stresses and just be alone for a while, clearing her thoughts.

She had been tidying it up, wiping down the fixtures, dusting off the surfaces. It wasn't a bad little shelter, close enough to the city that it was still accessible but far enough out that she felt like she had her own space.

She could see why Ezra had liked it.

Thinking of him still brought about a fresh sting of pain and grief in her heart, but she held onto hope and his last words.

He'd had a plan to take out Thrawn. He must have had a plan to work his way back home to them.

So in the meantime she would keep his lightsaber safe, protect his planet and his people from whatever retaliatory attack the Empire was surely preparing, and try to make herself useful.

-SW-

Ezra hammered together a broken patch of metal hull, under the watchful eyes of his Stormtrooper guard. He felt extremely nervous being out in the open hanger, the resentful eyes of Imperials all around him, casting glares at him constantly, but Thrawn had promised not to let him come to harm as long as he made himself useful.

The tentative deal had worked so far, so Ezra swallowed down his apprehension and tried to focus on the work.

He wasn't exactly comfortable or enthusiastic helping repair the ship, after all the effort and energy he'd spent ensuring it would never be able to return to the Empire again, but he didn't have a choice, it was this or stay locked in his cell all day—or be put to the interrogation table, as Thrawn had threatened a few times now on Ezra's more uncooperative days—and Ezra knew he stood a better chance of escaping if he was occasionally let out.

Even if the simmering anger he could feel in the Chimaera's crew through the Force made his heavily-guarded cell feel much safer, sometimes.

Enoch was the first one to try to murder him.

He blew past the guards, socking one unconscious before the warning alarm in the Force was even finished ringing, and had Ezra on the ground, one gloved hand around his throat, the other punching, breaking his nose, in mere moments.

Ezra fought back, pinned underneath the man, and it seemed to take a very long time for the other guard to pull Enoch off him, for reinforcements to encircle him, for Thrawn to make his way down to restore order.

The man gave Ezra a cursory red-eyed glance as Ezra stood there, blood dripping down his face, one hand on his abused throat, before turning to Ezra's would-be killer. Enoch was given the standard lecture: Ezra was not to be harmed under Thrawn's orders, Thrawn was still making use of him and would be extremely put out by his extermination.

And then the bastard promoted Enoch on the spot, praising his initiative and physical prowess in taking out Ezra's handlers.

A cold look was paid in Ezra's direction, the warning in Thrawn's eyes clear. Ezra gripped his jaw and wiped the blood away with his sleeve, biting back a million sarcastic comments, feeling again the weight of his captivity. Thrawn wanted him on edge, wanted him to see how easily his fragile safety could be shattered.

He wasn't going to be cowed by this. He would escape. Or Sabine would find him. Between her and Ashoka, he knew they could find a way to find him.

-SW-

They couldn't find him.

Sabine had had such high hopes, when Ahsoka finally made contact, finally made it off of Malachor, sneaking aboard a ship that belonged to one Morgan Elsbeth—an Imperial magistrate far too interested in forbidden and esoteric Dark Side artifacts—and made her way to Lothal.

But there was simply no trace of him, anywhere.

It was like he had vanished from the galaxy.

"What about the purrgil?" Sabine had asked, once, when they were almost out of options and ideas. "Can we track them? Maybe they have documented migratory routes."

Zeb had been skeptical—"We don't know if Ezra even told them to go along their normal migration routes."—and Ahsoka had been more keen on the potential lead Elsbeth presented—apparently she and Thrawn had worked together in the past—but Hera and Kallus were amenable to the suggestion. Kallus used his former Imperial connections to track down the premiere research centers that specialized in purrgil and Hera took a few weeks away from Yavin, for maternity leave, she claimed on the paperwork, though Jacen was already a month old now.

But the three of them were only met with disappointment, the stellar cetologists and scientists they spoke to lamenting that Imperial hunting policies had driven the creatures almost to extinction, that they hadn't even seen any purrgil since before the Liberation of Lothal.

"That pod you're talking about might have been the last one in existence," one man told Sabine, sadly.

What remained of the Ghost crew returned empty-handed, Hera, Zeb, and Kallus parting ways with Sabine to return to Yavin.

Sabine trudged into the tower with heavy, leaden heart. The paintings and doodles she'd added to the walls to make it more lively seemed dull and colorless in the somber light of the moons.

She sank to the floor for moment, brought to her knees by the weight pressing down on her, holding back tears.

She pressed the side of her hand against her mouth, stumbling back up to her feet, turning on lights and trying to fill the room with some semblance of warmth and normality as she turned on burners and got down food containers, but the space seemed so empty, hollowed out like bleached bones, and far too quiet.

Her eyes blurred and her hands went out of focus as she looked at them.

-SW-

The empty quiet space inside his cell was disrupted suddenly by swift tapping footsteps, coming down the hall.

Ezra raised his head up from his pillowed arms. Sensing the approaching presences, he sighed and rolled himself upright, swinging his feet down to the floor.

The marching steps came to a halt in front of his room. He was momentarily taken aback at the sheer anger he could feel through the Force; he wondered with apprehension if he was about to have another attempt made on his life.

But the troopers that opened the door and came down the stairs stepped to the side and Ezra relaxed a fraction. It was just Thrawn, just Thrawn.

Ezra stood and crossed his arms, as the Grand Admiral stalked down the steps with vibrating fury, red eyes sharply narrowed and blazing.

"Lemme guess," Ezra snarked, tone a bit flippant, feeling vindicated. "The thing was booby trapped and killed someone. I told you to leave it alo—"

Thrawn closed the distance fast, his hand flashing up.

Crack!

Ezra stumbled back from the punch to his chin, his head nearly going vertical. Alarmed, he jerked himself straight, in time to catch Thrawn reaching for him, the blue fingers grabbing, closing tight around his neck.

"What did you do?!" Thrawn demanded furiously, hands like a vice around Ezra's throat, squeezing.

Wide-eyed, Ezra strained for breath, pulled at Thrawn's hands, wild alarms inside his head, frantically trying to think of what had pissed Thrawn off this time and coming up blank.

"I... I don't..." he gargled, "...what?"

Snarling shortly, Thrawn released his throat, left hand digging into the roots of his hair and gripping, the other closing around his upper arm and yanking him harshly, leading him up the steps and out into the hall.

His heart pounded, terror turning his breaths into short, shrill pants. His pulse raced, a sick feeling turning over in his stomach. He stumbled along as Thrawn dragged him through the ship, not even bothering with binders or with his usual handlers just full-force hauling him bodily, personally.

Ezra didn't understand, his mind still spinning itself dizzy trying to figure out what he could have possibly done and why Thrawn was so angry about it.

He hadn't performed any small acts of sabotage or rebellion in weeks.

Hadn't even really been snarky when they'd found the strange device in the top chamber of the old fortress ruins, just commented, "I wouldn't touch it, it's probably got some nasty surprise hidden in it." to which Thrawn had replied a neutral, "I will take that into consideration."

Heart in his throat, Ezra gave a timid tug at Thrawn's grip. Dread shot through his stomach when Thrawn merely firmed his hold tighter in response. The alarms in his head joined the shrill ringing of the Force, beating out danger warnings. It was everywhere, reverberating all around him, off every single person they passed. It blazed inside Thrawn with a steady, ominous pulse. Ezra had never sensed so much fury off him.

Oh.

Oh no.

Thrawn was really going to kill him this time, wasn't he?

He swallowed dryly, throat tight. He almost couldn't breathe.

He wasn't brought up to the bridge.

He was taken off the ship, into the fortress. Whispers of Dark Side energy curled around his ears and Ezra's fear compounded. His eyes looked around frantically for avenues of escape.

But Thrawn just returned them to the high tower chamber. The device was active, a glowing holoprojection floating above the floor. Thrawn brought him in for a closer look, Ezra's feet stumbling as the Grand Admiral unexpectedly released him.

"Would you perhaps care to explain this?" Thrawn hissed from behind him.

Unsteady, Ezra pulled himself as straight as he could, willing himself not to look back at Thrawn, trying not to tremble. He studied the holoprojection, acutely aware of the man's eyes on him.

Two blue swirling clusters of stars floated above the emitter. The smaller one was in more prominence, a bright blinking yellow circling around a particular blip, which seemed to have several long lines intersecting it.

"What am I looking at?" Ezra asked, genuinely clueless, chancing a glance back at Thrawn.

The narrowed red eyes glowed eerily in the dim room. "This is a map of our current location," Thrawn told him, tone icy and chilling. He waved past Ezra to indicate the larger star cluster in the holoprojection. "And that," he continued, voice tight and terse, "is our galaxy."

Ezra whipped his head back towards the projection in shock. Now he could recognize the patterns in the swirling galactic spiral arms, the hyperspace lanes, the different regions, the Core Worlds clustered around the bright star center and the floating Outer Rim worlds on the edges.

His heart and stomach sank. The implications crashed over him in a slow flood of realization.

They were in another galaxy.

He swallowed again, heavily, harshly, feeling a lump move down to the pit of his stomach.

"Oh wow... my plan worked way better than I'd thought," was all he could comment, voice small.

The punch that crashed against the back of his head sent him to his knees in front of the holoprojection. Thrawn's hands latched around his head and drove his face into the patterns on the floor. Pain smashed though him.

Dazed, all Ezra could do was look up through the swirling blue motes of the holoprojection, dull to the pain, emotionally numb as the brutal assault continued, as Thrawn dealt blow after blow, slamming violent punches into his head and face and body.

The only thought in his head was the sick revelation that he was trapped in another galaxy, Sabine would never find him, he was never going home.

-SW-

"I can't wait to come home."

Sabine replayed his last words over and over again inside her head.

"I can't wait to come home."

What was she missing? What had Ezra meant? What had he wanted from her, with his comment about how he was "counting on her"?

"More than the others, I need you to understand."

She didn't. She didn't know what he was talking about, saying he had to 'make the decision no one else could'.

Frustrated, she replayed the recording again, the one he'd made for her, specifically, as if the thousandth time would reveal answers that had been hidden to her thus far.

He smiled and waved and called her name, in that adorable, dorky way she knew. He apologized for disappearing on her. He said some cryptic kark about her fight not being over, about not being able to be there to help her, said sorry again, told her he was counting on her.

Infuriated, she grabbed her helmet and threw it across the room at his holographic face. His image wavered, the little handheld projector almost knocking from its place.

The sudden motion and noise startled the loth-cat napping under the worktable; it jumped up and scurried under the bed, little talons scritching on the floor.

Sabine sat heavily on a crate, staring towards the recording, blinking back the heat in her eyes.

"You were supposed to come home," she whispered, in a thin, strained voice. "Where are you? Lothal needs you." Lothal was flourishing, the Death Star's destruction had distracted the Empire completely, bought them time. "Hera needs you." Even while Hera threw herself into the Rebellion's work, she had begged for just two weeks away from the front lines, but the infant son who needed her and the squadron of pilots that required her time prevented her from taking them. "I need you," Sabine corrected, voice breaking.

Her next inhale was shaky, clogged with emotion.

"Please..." she begged towards his image. "I don't know how to do this without you."

-SW-

Ezra didn't know how he'd gotten away.

Half-delirious from the drugs and... whatever the Nightmothers had been doing to him, he stumbled through the sterile stone hallways, shooting troopers with his stolen blaster as he went, fighting his way up from the catacombs until he was outside the fortress and running out into the cold, moonless night.

A painful stitch pulled at his side; his hand was slick with blood from holding it. He pulled air heavily through his lungs, teeth rattling as his feet pounded.

There was no direction to his flight. Just an instinct to get as far away as possible.

The strong pool of Dark Side energy faded behind him but the Force was still so weird here, so dulled and heavy, twisted and full of death. Huge bones and spires of rock like bones were scattered like a giant killing field in the rolling hills he made himself climb, further and further away from the fortress.

He gained a peak and looked back, seeing the castle of the Great Mothers lit up with eerie green mist.

A voice like a siren song echoed in the Force, calling him back, enticing him with soothing unspoken words as the Nightmothers' magicks swirled around the towering spire.

Ezra squeezed his eyes closed, turning with a choked sound, resisting the beckoning spell.

He ran again, heaving for breath, eyes blurred and staggering blindly through the dark.

He tried not to let himself feel any hope. Even if he'd escaped, even if he made it out far enough that Thrawn couldn't just catch him again, he was still trapped here, he reminded himself. The only ship off the planet was the dilapidated Chimaera, which couldn't even achieve low atmo right now, straining under its own weight just docked with the castle.

He was still stuck in another galaxy with no way out.

He ran and ran, lungs screaming, the cold of the night seeping into him.

Exhaustion brought him down a mile later.

He collapsed, his legs like jelly; it took all his strength just to find a crevasse in the rocks to curl up into, face tight from the pain in his injured side. He tried to stem the bleeding, pressing helplessly on his soaked clothes.

It was no use.

He huddled in the hollow, breaths tight, straining for the Force for some comfort in what looked increasingly like his last moments.

He was going to die here. Sabine would never find him. She couldn't possibly reach him. Ezra thought back to the recordings he'd left and regretted all of his final words to her, regretted not telling her he was probably going to die, that she shouldn't wait for him, that she should let him go and move on.

She should move on.

-SW-

She couldn't move on.

Sabine was a bubble trapped in amber, stuck reliving that moment over and over.

"Ezra please, get out of there!"

"I can't do that. It's up to all of you now."

Mandalore burned but all her eyes saw when she watched the footage of the bombs dropping on Sundari was the turbolasers of the Chimaera raining down on Capital City.

She helped her family flee their home on Krownest, what remained of Clan Wren settling on Lothal far away from the conflict, from the war, but she couldn't even take any pride or relief from their safety, because Ezra was supposed to be there with them and he wasn't.

Lothal needed its Jedi protector back and he wasn't there.

She begged Ahsoka to teach her. If I was a Jedi I could have saved him, she thought. I could have stopped Mandalore's destruction, like he stopped Lothal's. They were thoughts that haunted her in the wee hours of the night, when the nightmares and memories replayed like echos in her head. If I had the Force I could protect Lothal like he wanted me to.

Ahsoka had reluctantly indulged her in some saber training but balked when Sabine asked her for more.

"I can't teach you what you don't have," she'd told Sabine, as gently as she could.

Sabine pushed the issue.

Ahsoka shut her down.

"This is not healthy," she was warned, sternly. "You need to process your grief, not let it fester."

Words she hadn't wanted to hear. Not from Ahsoka, not from anyone. How was she supposed to go on, when the person most important to her in the galaxy was gone?

It was a dark year for Sabine. The tower grew messier and messier; she didn't have the heart or energy to clean it. She didn't even want to paint anymore. What was the point? He would never see all the work she'd done. So she shut herself away, didn't speak to anyone for months, didn't open the door except to her father, sometimes, who just held her and let her cry herself sick.

In the end, it was Hera who had to pull Sabine out of the mire and depression when it was deepest. She parked the Ghost at the base of the tower and stayed with her three months while Sabine put herself back together. It was Hera who dragged Sabine out to see her family more often, made her make plans with friends so she wouldn't be alone. It was Hera who plopped a babbling toddler Jacen into her arms with the expectation that helping care for him would give her something to do besides wallow, and when Jacen picked up his first crayons Sabine felt a spark light in her heart again for the first time in ages.

It was Hera who talked long with her into the night, sympathizing, empathizing. Grieving alongside her.

"Ezra wouldn't want you to stay stuck here," she told Sabine, a gentle hand on her shoulder. "He'd want you to live, and remember him. We honor him by finishing the fight, bringing the peace he and Kanan hoped for into being."

Sabine wiped her eyes and mutely nodded.

She didn't know how she was going to get to that place, emotionally, when it still felt like part of her had died when Ezra disappeared, but she knew that Hera was right.

Ezra wouldn't want her to give up.

-SW-

Some stubborn part of him didn't give up that night, clinging to life until the Noti stumbled across him.

It was touch and go for a while; his wound became infected and he burned with fever for a week straight, lying flat on several of their woven mats as worried beady-eyed faces crowded him and wiped his forehead.

When his fever broke, it was like a light had come through the clouds. The Force rang around him, warm and comforting, feeling almost normal. He sat up and breathed deeply, and let it fill him with renewed serenity and purpose.

He couldn't lose hope. Sure, he was stuck on a planet in another galaxy, far out of reach, far from home. But nothing was impossible with the Force.

He would stay. He would fight. He would keep looking for chances, for a path out.

And he would make damn sure Thrawn wasn't leaving this place, either.

He stuck with the Noti, learned their language. Protected them from the bandits and raiders that roamed these desolate, wild plains, from the strange flora and fauna that posed constant threats to the survival of anything on the planet's surface. Kept them away from whatever dark source of immense power he could sense was contained within this world, a power that constantly whispered to him, tickling his ears on his worst days. In time he learned to drown the voice out, ignore it like so much static and wind.

He finally changed out of his old, now quite ragged, clothes, putting the orange fabric away with reverence.

He snuck back to the fortress and the Chimaera's crash site again and again, sometimes with what meager backup the Noti could provide, sometimes on his own. He could never get too close—some ward or magick always alerted to him, always led to Thawn driving him off with numbers.

Those numbers dwindled. Ezra picked patrols and search parties off, nicking helmets and trooper dog tags. He sabotaged equipment left out in the field, burned raider encampments. Once, he managed to jury-rig a small explosive device, which he used to blow a lovely hole in the side of one of the creepy towering monoliths, collapsing it atop a squad of Stormtroopers with a fireball he was sure Sabine would be proud of.

Once he even stole one of the Chimaera's remaining gunships right out from under the noses of its pilots and crashed it into the back of the Star Destroyer, undoing months worth of repair work. The fortress had been lit up neon green with magick that night, hurling fireballs down on the Noti's plodding vehicles from across the distance.

Ezra waged his slow war of attrition on Thrawn and only grew stronger in skill in the Force as the Grand Admiral's forces grew weaker.

He let his hair grow out, gained a beard—he looked like his father, he noted with some sadness, one day when he found a mirror—sewed and repaired his own clothes and armor like he'd done years ago on the streets of Lothal.

He sat while the Noti camped and whittled little pendants and talismans, emblazoned with starbirds, keeping his hope and part of Sabine alive within him.

And he waited.

-SW-

They won the war.

The New Republic struggled to set itself up, rebuild the systems and scaffolding of democracy long broken by Palpatine's cruel reign. They barely had the time or resources to spare but they always eventually granted Hera what she needed to resume the search again.

Sabine and the others went with her, every single time, no matter how far apart in the galaxy they were.

She watched Jacen grow up and her heart panged at how much he looked like Kanan, how his eager energy and bright smile reminded her of Ezra.

She put her armor aside except for moments of greatest need—they were at peace now, mostly, she could stop fighting. She chose instead to dig out some of his old clothes from the drawers in the Ghost, tailoring them to fit her. Sometimes she could imagine she could still pick up his scent, lingering on the fabric.

She kept up with her lightsaber forms and drills, but didn't nag Ahsoka to train her. The Togruta was a bit preoccupied these days, anyway, helping Skywalker with his Jedi school and trying to keep ahead of Elsbeth in the quest for ancient Force relics.

She grew out her hair, dyed the tips of it bright orange, her roots deep violet purple. That had always been his favorite of the hairstyles she'd worn.

She named the skrunkly little loth-cat and let it come around more and more often until it was sleeping in her bed.

She'd watch the holorecordings he'd left her just to remember how he looked and sounded.

The tower's walls exploded with color again, a constant kaleidoscope of painted images moving, shifting, and changing. And when Ryder asked her to paint a commemorative memorial, to honor both the Spectres in general and Ezra specifically, she didn't hesitate to accept the task.

She captured his likeness with meticulous strokes, missing him like an ache deep inside her. She wasn't okay yet, not yet, but she was getting there. She let her brush and sprayers become her meditation routine, working bit by careful bit to do the Lost Son of Lothal proper justice.

If he came home, she vowed, she would tell him, everything that was in her heart and more.

And she waited.

Chapter Text

I had all and then most of you

Some and now none of you

Take me back to the night we met

I don't know what I'm supposed to do

Haunted by the ghost of you

Take me back to the night we met

-"The Night We Met" by Lord Huron

Sabine walked into the Ghost's kitchen, feeling exhausted after the whole ordeal at the Lothal Jedi Temple, the long trip back to their new base of operations in the southern mountain range.

She needed caf.

She was surprised to see Ezra still up, curled in the corner of the booth and looking at a datapad. He didn't glance up when she walked in, too absorbed in whatever was on the pad. Sabine paused a moment, just watching him.

The stress marks in his face made him look haggard, older. He wasn't completely put back together from their misadventure—his hair wasn't combed and his clothes were a bit rumpled. But considering all he'd been through the past twenty-four hours, disappearing into the Temple and then collapsing it somehow with the Force, telling her later the Emperor himself had tried to catch him, she couldn't blame him.

She gazed at him one moment longer, tracing the soft lines of his face. There was a steadiness to him, a calm serenity. She marveled a bit at how much—in the gray-white light of the ship—he resembled a marble statue of the heroes of old, visage captured in immortal stone.

Shaking herself, she continued to the caf maker. She shook out a packet of beans from the cupboard, filled the pot with water, set it to heat at a moderate temperature.

She glanced back over at him as she worked, curiosity leading her.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

Ezra stirred, straightening up, dropping his feet back flat to the floor. "Just some pictures and recordings from past missions," he told her. "I couldn't sleep, so Hera gave me her datapad to add some notes to her mission report."

"Bet they were pretty interesting," Sabine quipped, giving a faint smile.

"Well, yeah, but that's beside the point. I finished with the report and was just kind of clicking around for a bit on the pad. Found the folder with the holos and..." He shrugged a bit. "Just kind of got carried away I guess."

By now the caf maker had chimed, and Sabine had taken the pot and poured a cup, filling it to the brim. "Huh," she commented. She wrapped her hands around the warm porcelain and walked over to the table to join him. "Lemme see."

He made room for her on the seat, scooting over, and extended the datapad towards her a bit as she sat and set the cup down.

She leaned in, studying the picture he was currently viewing, and smiled with a small chuckle.

"That's a good one," she said. She pointed to it. "That was when we went undercover at that fancy Imperial gala, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," he confirmed, laughing shortly.

He swiped from the image of him and Sabine—dressed to the nines, giving cheesy poses and grins to Hera behind the camera—to one of him and Kanan, the older man awkwardly trying to teach him ballroom dancing. (Ezra, as it turned out, had never learned.) Kanan was trying to demonstrate with his hands on Ezra's shoulders and Ezra was grimacing with embarrassment.

Sabine's smile widened as she drifted off briefly into the memory.

Ezra stared very determinedly down at his feet, watching his steps but still stumbling awkwardly, falling out of rhythm, nearly as often as Kanan was.

"This doesn't seem like it's helping," Ezra complained.

Kanan dropped his hands with a huff. "I'm a little rusty, okay?" he defended.

"I can't watch this," Zeb muttered from his place beside Sabine, who was standing back and watching the lesson with amused glee. The Lasat uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, elbowing Kanan out of the way. "All right, step aside, lemme show you how it's done."

Ezra let Zeb manipulate his hands into the proper position. "You dance?" he asked Zeb, slightly incredulous.

Zeb bared teeth with pride, grinning. "Was High Honor Guard, kid," he bragged. "We were invited to all the parties." He snapped into instructor mode seamlessly. "Right then, from the top, let's go. One two three and one two three and—"

Ezra fared much better under Zeb's direction, and fairly soon Zeb declared him ready enough to try it with his planned co-conspirator for the night, calling Sabine over with a gesture.

She may have enjoyed the bright red Ezra's face turned as he full-face flushed, hesitantly taking her hand, letting his other one rest on her waist softly.

Sabine pulled herself from her reminiscing and brought her cup up to her mouth, sipping the hot caf with long, slow gulps as she watched Ezra flick through the pictures one by one.

Ezra stopped on a slightly blurry image of Sabine, captured mid-dash down the Ghost's central hallway, fleeing a very irate—and green-striped—Zeb.

"I don't remember this one," he laughed, sliding the datapad closer to her.

Sabine swallowed her caf and put her cup down. "That actually happened before you came along," she explained. "You're looking at the aftermath of a brilliant prank I played on Zeb." Not that she meant to boast or anything but the look on Ezra's face as he held the datapad and marveled made something in her heart skip.

"How did you get just his stripes?" Ezra asked, impressed.

Her grin could have cracked her face. "Very meticulously."

"Hope it washed out better than the paint bombs I accidentally set off once," Ezra laughed.

Sabine shook her head, that incident playing in her head as well.

"Shoot!" Ezra exclaimed, bolting up from where he was laying on the grass. "What time is it? Kanan's gonna kill me!" he moaned, without waiting for an answer.

Sabine stopped spraying for a moment, leaving one of the checker patterns on the TIE's strut unfinished, and paused.

"Forget about your Jedi training again?" she guessed.

"Second time this week. He's gonna think I'm not taking this seriously." Ezra scrambled up to his feet, already turning towards the rolling grassy hills. "I gotta go, Sabine."

There was a half-formed comment on the tip of Sabine's tongue about understanding why Ezra would be reluctant to do Force stuff again, after Anaxes—she hadn't been officially told but she'd eavesdropped on Kanan and Hera's conversation afterwards—but it died and a frantic warning took its place. Her paint supplies, including some experimental paint explosives, were all scattered about on the ground of the hidden hollow and in his haste Ezra was about to run right over some.

"Wait, watch your—!"

That was all she got out before Ezra tripped on a loose paint can and fell sprawling into the paint bomb cluster. He caught himself on his hands, but still set off the hairpin triggers of several packed dispensers of paint.

Clouds of orange, purple, and blue powder went up around him. Ezra coughed, disappearing for a moment in the paint mist before it settled on him, staining him several vibrant mixed shades.

Hands over her mouth in chagrin, Sabine rushed over. "Kriff, I'm sorry!" She set down her sprayer and knelt by Ezra, but the damage was done, his skin and clothes were covered in paint. "Are you okay?" she asked.

His head lifted and he looked a bit dazed, as if he was still trying to decide that. After a long minute he pushed himself back, sitting up with a long, tired exhale.

Sabine bit her lip, trying not to laugh—that wouldn't help him—but he looked like such a sad dejected puppy, orange splashed in his hair, purple mixing with blue to splatter his collar and front indigo.

"I really don't want to explain this to Kanan," he muttered out, finally.

"Then... stay here," Sabine offered. "I'll cover for you, say I needed you for a supply run. We'll go into Jhothal and pick up some rations or something."

He looked at her askance, a bit horrified and panicked that she would even suggest such a thing. "But—" he started to protest.

"Hey," she interrupted, shrugging, "he'll be annoyed for a while but that's it." She held out a hand. "Come on," she said, "let's see if we can get that paint off you."

The paint did not come off easily, alas. Sabine was pretty sure she'd had to empty her whole carton of cleaning wipes before the stain had looked faded enough for them to head into town without attracting attention and questions.

As her cup drained, the two spent a quiet ten minutes just scrolling through the pictures, commenting and reminiscing. Sabine didn't notice she had drifted closer and closer to him on the seat until her arm brushed up against his.

He didn't seem to mind the close contact, leaning into her shoulder comfortably. Her face warmed but she chose to ignore it by staring more intently at the datapad.

So many of her happiest memories had been made alongside him, she realized, as they wandered through still images and video of the past together. They'd shared in each other's triumphs and tragedies, always rising from the ashes, extending hands to help each other up. Through all the good times and bad, he had always been there for her.

She felt some kind of sentimental tug in her chest, gazing out the corner of her eye at him. The light from the datapad flickered in the depths of his eyes like twinking starlight.

Ezra chuckled. "Can't believe Wedge let his hair grow out like that," he said, stopping for a moment on a holo of the pilot with a truly horrendous case of fritzy helmet hair.

Wedge. Skystrike. Ezra coming back for her. Her family hadn't done that for her, when she'd spoken out, when the threat of Imperial retaliation had forced her to flee, but Ezra had. Unconditionally. Unquestioningly. Without hesitating.

As soon as they'd gained hyperspace, he was up out of the command seat, turning towards her eagerly.

Normally he knew better than to try to hug her but she found herself pardoning the way he threw arms around her, grasping onto him as well, from excitement, from relief.

"I'm glad you're okay!" he told her, breathless in her ear.

Seeing him—smelling him, feeling his arms wrapped around her—made her giddy for a moment, made her feel so utterly safe that she forgot everyone else in the room.

"Guess you were worried huh?" she quipped.

Behind them, Kanan stood with amused smirk, arms crossed. "He may have been." The tease in his voice was prominent.

Ezra pulled back first, averting his eyes and rubbing the back of his neck. "A little, yeah," he downplayed, expression sheepish.

"Aww c'mon, with you boys backing me up, I was going to be fine," Sabine drawled playfully, an affectionate punch hitting Ezra's arm.

He smiled at her and she held his gaze for a tick, heart still beating fast from the rush of their escape. And... maybe something else?

Wedge coughed awkwardly behind them.

"Oh!" Sabine said, remembering their guests. She arranged herself professionally, gesturing in turn. "Wedge Antilles, this is Ezra Bridger. We work together," she explained.

"Is that what they're calling it these days?" she thought she caught Hobbie muttering.

But when she turned in his direction the other pilot was nonchalantly casual, as if he hadn't said anything at all. Wedge meanwhile, was shaking Ezra's hand like he wasn't quite sure what to think of a kid younger than him who had obviously been put in charge.

Sabine knew she should go report in to Hera and Sato, but found herself lingering, watching the boys figure out the pecking order and silently rooting for Ezra when he asserted himself.

He had really shown up for her today. She really liked that.

She was suddenly very aware of their close proximity. Her heart ticked up, but she couldn't pull away, didn't want to pull away, not just yet.

Ezra's expression had turned somber. Sabine pulled her eyes from his face and glanced down at the datapad.

The image was of Kanan, Hera wrapped lovingly around him, cradled into his shoulder, from before he was blinded on Malachor. Sabine felt a pang in her own heart, her hand finding Ezra's shoulder and squeezing comfortingly.

"Kanan told me once it does get easier—mourning the things you miss," she told him.

Blue eyes flicked up, serious and intense. "He said we'd take more losses, before it was over, too."

The words seemed to portend something, heavy with unspoken meaning. Sabine met his intense look, her thoughts answering something he hadn't said.

I don't want to lose you, she thought. Not you too.

His face was so close. She wanted...

The moment passed. Ezra broke eye contact and turned aside, clearing his throat. "Sorry. That was kind of morbid."

"A little," she commented absently, reeling from the odd sensation stirring in her chest.

She forced herself to make space between them, draining the dregs of her cup. She left it there on the table as she stood, patting his shoulder softly one last time.

"You should get some sleep. We've got a lot to decide tomorrow," she told him.

"I will in a bit," he promised. "Thanks for keeping me company."

"Always," she assured him. "That's just what you and I do."

She breezed out of the kitchen, making her way through the darkened ship back to her room.

-SW-

Ezra watched her leave, eyes lingering on her back, before he hung his head with a heavy sigh.

There was so much uncertainty in the future. Without Kanan, he wasn't sure of his path forward. Ezra stared down at the image of his mentor, wishing he could have asked the man one last time all the questions burning inside his head.

Sabine was right, though, he should get some sleep.

He scrolled back through the images until he found the one Hera had took before they infiltrated the gala. They both looked so carefree in that moment, captured in time. Sabine's dress had been absolutely gorgeous on her.

He studied the image, committing it to memory. Memorizing her face, her smile, the joy that shone out of her.

When he'd burned her visage into his skull, he stood up, leaving the pad on the table with her cup, and softly trudged off to his room.

Chapter Text

Well I'd hope that since we're here anyway

We could end up saying

Things we've always needed to say

So we could end up staying

Now the story's played out like this

Just like a paperback novel

Let's rewrite an ending that fits

Instead of a Hollywood horror

-"Someday" by Nickelback

He bolted the moment he had the chance.

It didn't really take much. Just the hint of a Force Suggestion, a little tiny nudge towards the minds of his handlers to take their eyes off him for just a few moments—Thrawn really should have invested in some suppressors before he'd come back to Lothal to capture him—and Ezra was off, dashing down the halls with heart pounding so loud he could hear it audibly in his ears.

He was three levels down before the alarms finally stuttered out, broken speakers squealing with the alert, notifying the Chimaera's ragged crew of his escape. All eyes and attentions immediately looked for him but by then he was in the vents, squeezing through the too-narrow metal corridors with a kind of desperate adrenaline high that was dizzying.

He pulled himself heavily through the claustrophobic space, panting, his mind idly thinking of how Sabine would be so disappointed at how rusty he'd gotten at this.

Somehow, he made it to the primary hanger.

There were plenty of Stormtroopers on guard—of course there were, this was the most obvious place for him to go—and they turned almost as one towards him as soon as he opened the door. But after holding the oxygen inside a broken bridge for upwards of twenty-nine hours, Force Push-ing the lot away was a small endeavor.

All he had to do was gather it to himself and release.

Bodies flew, troopers were stunned by the force.

Ezra glanced quickly around the hanger, taking stock of what remained undamaged. There were a couple gunships, some TIEs... nothing with a hyperdrive except—

There!

He was inside the Lambda shuttle moments later. His hands flew across the dashboard, booting up the engines, powering the shields. He glanced out the viewport. As luck would have it, the purrgil had sheered off the whole side of the ship on this level, so he had a nicely large gaping hole to direct the craft through.

His hands found the steering yoke and he gunned it.

Ezra gained altitude, higher and higher, the shuttle screaming against the speed it was being made to go, until the clouds turned transparent and he was in clear space, the black void and twinkling stars filling his viewport.

Ezra slumped back in his seat, exhaling. His arms dangled by his sides. He was still tingling with energy from the escape. It had been an impulse plan, barely thought out... but it had worked.

He was away from Thrawn.

Away from the Chimaera.

Ezra stirred, rousing himself. He regripped the pilot's yoke, reorganized his thoughts. He should be able to get his bearings now. Find out where he was. Figure out how to get home.

He directed the shuttle further away from the planet with that plan firmly in mind.

-SW-

The navicomputer on the shuttle was completely, frustratingly unhelpful, unfamiilar star charts populating as it ran analyses on the surrounding systems, and Ezra had to put that task on hold for a moment as several TIE fighters were sent up from the planet to pursue him.

The shuttle was slow and not very maneuverable, so it was a harried chase. He took more than one hit, grip tight on the yoke, his precognitive Force Sense all that kept the glancing strikes from turning his craft into a fireball.

After a heart-pounding ten minutes, in which he strained the shuttle to it's absolute limits, he somehow managed to lose them in the bone field rings.

Now Ezra sat tensed on the edge of his seat, watching the petrified bones float around him, hidden inside one of the larger skeletons. He couldn't hear the screech of the TIEs. Couldn't hear anything except the pulse in his ears. The silence and the purrgil remains gave him creeping feelings of unease, and he strained out for any sense that the TIEs were returning.

They swept in tight search patterns, looking for him.

A long cat-and-mouse game ensued.

Ezra kept on the move, hopping from hiding place to hiding place with short controlled bursts from the thrusters. Hera would have been proud of how he handled the shuttle, keeping it at as low a level of power as he could while still avoiding the TIE patrol. His nerves racked every time one of the Imperial ships came too close, and he held his breath as if the simple act of respiration would give himself away.

Finally, after a long two hours, the TIEs gave up and returned to the planet.

He watched their blips on the sensors until they went out of range.

Ezra stayed wound-tight still for several moments, unable to relax until he was certain they weren't coming back.

A tingling foreboding in the Force told him it wouldn't be long before they did. But for the moment, he let his shoulders loosen, let his hands fall off the shuttle's dashboard.

Slowly, his breathing stabilized, and a slow-moving, uneasy calm seeped into him.

Now what? he asked himself.

He had been so caught up in actually enacting his escape that he hadn't stopped to consider after.

Ezra let himself drift, let the shuttle float towards the edge of the bone field, at a loss as to what to do next.

The silence was oppressive, the ambient sound of the shuttle's life support a thrumming, ticking clock, tolling inside his head. The shuttle hung in space, unmoving, going neither forward nor back as its pilot struggled to think.

All was quiet.

Ezra felt paralyzed. Dismayed. The rising realization of just how ill-thought out his idea had been was moving through him like heavy sloshing liquid.

Where could he go?

He had no idea where the purrgil had taken them. He could have been taken to the far reaches of the galaxy. Without coordinates, his navicomputer couldn't plot a course home.

Ezra considered the dilemma for a few moments, then shook himself and scooted forward on the seat. He checked the logs to see if the shuttle still had a record of the places it had already been.

A spark of hope lit in him when he found the astral coordinates for Lothal. He set the navicomputer to calculate a path, waiting with anticipation for the results.

...

...

...Was it taking longer than usual?

Ezra sat for what felt like a very long time, growing anxious, eyes making furtive glances out the viewport even though the sensors would alert him of any approaching ships. He fidgeted in his seat. His heel tapped the floor, knee bouncing.

He fought the urge to get up and pace, impatient.

Finally the navicomputer beeped, but the sound was wrong, harsh like it was some kind of error.

Ezra leaned over the dashboard, squinted to make out the words in the display screen.

UNKNOWN VECTOR, NO PATH FOUND.

"What?" he exclaimed. He'd never seen that kind of message before. A sick sinking hitting his stomach he fiddled and futzed with the navicomputer, trying to clear the error. A second or two of mashing buttons got a new and even worse status:

HYPERSPACE CALCULATIONS UNAVAILABLE.

"No no, come on!" he begged, starting over, inputting the numbers again.

The navicomputer clicked and calculated... and after an unbearable wait returned the same message.

Ezra stared at the display, heat pricking at his eyes. Why wasn't it working?

He tried again, agitation in every movement.

He screamed in anger and smacked the dashboard hard when he got the same error a third time.

It wasn't fair. He had to get home. He had to get back to Lothal. To Sabine. He had to tell her how he felt. How much he owed her. How the thought of someday seeing her again had kept him going when his hope was running thin, helped him through the most miserable days of his imprisonment.

Ezra slumped back against the seat, fighting back tears. After everything, was this how it was going to end?

As despair threatened to rise up and choke him, a quiet voice inside his head—his "inner Sabine" he called it—whispered a gentle No.

Ezra straightened himself up.

Slowly, with effort, he took in a deliberate inhale, calming himself down.

Eyes closed. Breathe. Just breathe.

The Force is with me. I am one with the Force.

He repeated the mantra, timing it to his breaths.

The Force is with me. I am one with the Force.

Okay. So the navicomputer was no good. He had fuel for maybe three days. If he returned to the planet he might be able to survive, maybe hide the shuttle, maybe steal some more fuel down the line.

But Ezra wasn't quite willing to give up on getting home just yet. Opening his eyes, his hands felt almost guided as they reached for the dashboard, trying a different tactic.

He opened up the comm channel. Tuned to Frequency Zero.

Then he sat on the floor and meditated and prayed for a miracle.

-SW-

His fuel was almost out, life-support systems at bare minimum, but he didn't even feel the chill, so deep into meditation that he was utterly still where he sat, the only sign of life his breath misting in the quiet.

He called out into the Force, reaching. Feeling the energy of the universe pool and flow around him.

Then, suddenly, there was a rolling portent of warmth.

A mind reaching back, responding to him. The shape of the mind belonged to a creature, ancient and noble, bathed in song.

The Force-carried sound became fragments of words in his head, as the creature's soul touched his.

Friend.

Little One.

Starchild.

Ezra opened his eyes, coming out of meditation sharply with a cry of relief. He watched in awe as hyperspace opened up and a huge purrgil, tentacles still glowing ethereal blue, appeared from the starry void.

Two more dropped out behind him, but the largest one was the one who "spoke" to Ezra, mind wrapping around his in a warm, comforting embrace.

Ezra's heart wrenched, burying himself in the feeling. He knew what he must be leaking out—hurtpleasehelp—but the alpha purrgil just crooned through the Force a reassurance—safefriendhere—and then the tears fell.

"Thank you..." he whispered, reverently.

A bellow echoed through the Force and the purrgil opened its mouth, directing the young Jedi to stretch out in faith and take shelter inside.

Ezra moved almost in a daze, pushing the yoke forward and letting the last dregs of the shuttle's fuel bring him one step closer to home.

-SW-

Sabine's concentration was broken by the ping of the tower's long-range comm system.

Straightening up from where she had been carefully applying slow brushstrokes to the inside wall next to the door, Sabine pushed her bangs out of her eyes and bit her lip.

Hera wasn't due to call for another hour. She always checked in every evening, catching up, making sure Sabine was okay.

Who was this?

Reluctantly, annoyed at being torn away from her work when she'd been in the zone, Sabine set aside her paintbrush and stood, brushing off flakes of paint and dust motes, and stepped over to the transmitter.

Turning the knob to switch it active, she let it connect and then leaned back on her hip, crossing her arms.

"Hello Sabine." It was her mother. "Are you well?"

Her annoyance simmered but cooled down, and Sabine tried to muster up the proper amount of enthusiasm for greeting her mother.

"Mother," she said evenly. "Nice to hear from you. What's the occasion?" Her lips quirked, tugging at the corners. "Did Tristan tangle himself up in detcord again?" she joked.

Her mother seemed... flustered. "It's... it's a bit complicated to explain," her voice wavered, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. Sabine's brows quirked slightly. There was muttering on the other side of the line, hushed whispers. "Well go ahead," she finally heard her mother parse out, gently urging.

A new voice spoke.

"Sabine?"

A cry left her, involuntarily, a sound like pain and hope and joy all mixed up. Her arms uncrossed at once, gripping the sides of the transmitter like an anchor in a violent storm.

"E—" She almost couldn't say it. "Ezra?!" she gasped, in disbelief, in guarded joy.

An exhale over the line, a sound of breath. His breath.

She would know him anywhere.

"Hey Sabine..." he said, his voice audibly trembling. "I missed you."

"Di'kut!" she cursed, curling her fingers into the edge of the transmitter so hard her knuckles turned white. "Where have you been?! Where are you?! How...?"

She couldn't finish the last part. How did you make it back to me? was what she wanted to ask, her heart knocking against her ribcage with emotion.

"Guess I owe you an explanation," he said, with a slight chuckle.

Stars but it was so good to hear his voice again. Her eyes were already brimming, threatening to spill over.

She laughed, but she had to laugh or else she'd cry and he couldn't hear her break down like that, not when there was so much she had to tell him.

How beautiful Lothal was becoming, freed from the Empire. How much she'd missed him. How much his absence hurt her daily, made her sick with grief.

What she'd realized she felt for him.

"I'm on Mandalore right now," Ezra told her. A million questions about how he'd found his way there crowded at the front of her mind but they fell away as he followed up with an adorable, "You feeling up to a family reunion?"

"I'll be on the next ship out," she promised, her voice clogged. "See you soon."

She wasted no time, ending the call, darting around the room and shoving things haphazardly into her bag, setting out an overflowing bowl of food for Murley just in case the loth-cat came around again while she was out.

She put feet to the pedals of her speeder and beelined for the city, comming Hera on the way, telling her the good news.

He was alive and he was safe and she would see him soon.

-SW-

When the ship touched down she ran to the orange-clad figure on the platform, standing apart from the rest of her family and the Nite Owls that had come to greet her.

Her bag dropped along the way; she hurled arms open.

He closed the distance the last three steps and caught her, lunging, scooping her up, taking her feet right off the ground. Her head threw back and she cackled with joy, he was crying, she was crying, they held each other so tight they could burst, their laughter swallowed up by the sound of the Ghost's engines circling overhead, as Hera tried to find a clear space to land.

The glimmering edges of sunset gave the platform a warm, heavenly glow as their emotions spilled out, their reunion on display before her entire clan and several others.

She thought she might have heard a few Mandalorians thumping their armor in respect for them. Her mother and father were beaming, their own hands clasped together. Tristan was smiling.

Ezra set her back down on her feet, finally, cradling her face like she was the most precious jewel. His eyes were glowing with warmth and love and Sabine pressed her forehead into his and looked into them happily.

"I have so much to tell you," she said, breathless.

"Me too," he whispered. "I promise, I'll tell you everything."

And she knew it was a promise he'd keep.

She let her hand drift down to grasp his, tightly, firmly, turning with him as Hera barreled down the Ghost's ramp—Chopper's indignant blorting and a tiny worried, "Mom!" calling back after her—feeling lighter than air, like bubbles were bursting in her chest.

Ezra was home.

Chapter Text

It's been a long day without you my friend

And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again

We've come a long way from where we began

And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again

-"See You Again" by Charlie Pluth and Wiz Khalifa

"You know some cultures believe in soulmarks? Like, some people believe that a symbol representing your soulmate or your soulmate's first words are tattooed somewhere on your body," Ezra babbled.

Sabine huffed under her helmet, leaning out from cover to shoot at the Stormtroopers layering down suppressive fire on them as they hid behind the crates.

"And what exactly does that have to do with our current situation?" she asked, too focused on trying to pick off troopers to pay much attention to what Ezra was saying.

"Nothing really, but it's wild, don't you think?" Ezra made a bold move from cover, his blue lightsaber blocking shots handily. Sabine begrudgingly had to admit he was getting very good at it; it seemed like second nature to him, moving his blade from position to position and deflecting shots with minimal effort. "Somewhere out there in the galaxy there's someone with your exact first words to them, written on their skin in translucent golden ink."

"Yeah that's not a thing," Sabine told him. She knew her inks, and the spacer's fable he was rambling about, and knew for a fact that there wasn't an ink in the galaxy with the properties the tales often described.

"Sure," Ezra allowed, ducking behind another crate, waiting for her to sprint through the red laser bolts and join him. "But imagine if it was. How would know it was really your soulmate? What if their first words to you were something really generic like 'Hello' or 'Hey there'? How could you tell if it was just someone being friendly versus someone the universe had basically destined you for?"

Sabine clenched teeth under her helmet, focusing on precise shots to men in the middle of the formation. If she could just manage to break the line and create a gap...

"And you know, it's a big galaxy. Who's to say you would even encounter your supposed soulmate in your lifetime?" Ezra continued, apparently oblivious to the danger or simply just not worried about it, angling out to get potshots off with his stun blaster.

She needed a grenade, Sabine decided. She freed one from her belt, priming it and pulling the pin. Standing up in a swift motion, she drew her arm back and hurled the grenade towards the center of the troopers.

"Of course my soulmark would be, 'Pretty gutsy move, kid.' but imagine if it was something really creepy and unnerving? Would you even want to be soulmates at that poi—"

"Get down!" she snapped at him, arms flashing around him and tucking in his head, covering him with her body as they both ducked.

BOOM!

The explosion shook the ground where they crouched and the dying yells of Stormtroopers as they were flung by the blast rang out.

Sabine kept Ezra protected until she was certain the blast was finished reverberating. Carefully, she peeled herself off him, peeking her head out from cover to assess.

Their way was clear, the troopers that had been in their path were either prone or dead, some of them groaning miserably.

Sabine smiled in satisfaction, then turned towards Ezra, her brain having finally caught up with the conversation.

"Hold on," she said. She leaned her elbows on her knees as she crouched, draping her hands. "Are you saying you think I'm your soulmate?" she asked, deeply amused.

Ezra's eyes widened and he gawped, pink coloring his cheeks with an adorable hue. "Oh look! There's the Ghost!" he squeaked, hastily standing up. "We should go," he said urgently, already fleeing his awkward confession and starting to run full tilt towards the VCX freighter, coming to hover over their battlegrounds, dust blowing up from its repulsors.

Sabine shook her head, chuckling, before rising to her feet and also dashing towards the lowering ramp. The kid could be a real charmer when he wasn't actively trying.

Not that she was charmed or anything.

She leapt up onto the ramp, tickled by the way Ezra was deliberately avoiding looking at her.

His crush was precious. She hoped he'd grow out of it someday, but it was hilarious and a little flattering to think about now.

-SW-

He didn't grow out of it.

He couldn't have grown out of it. Some part of this odd adult man—this handsome, bearded and broad-shouldered replacement for the boy she once knew—must have still loved her, to cause him such distraction as they fought their way up through the fortress against the Nighttroopers.

His movements were just as effortless, the green-bladed lightsaber twirling and spinning in his hands as if it had never left them, but she kept catching him gazing at her in adoration, watching her shoot, blast, kick and occasionally explode her way through Thrawn's forces.

The saber passed between them, tossed with full trust to each other as they cleared a path.

"Woah! Were those whistling birds?" he exclaimed, when she released a half-dozen on one of the Nighttroopers, the little missiles popping all around its helmet, dazing it.

"Yep!" she said, grinning proudly under her helmet. "Made 'em myself. They carry that special Clan Wren touch that I know you love."

He grinned, but the next moment his distraction cost him, as one of the undead troopers wrapped an arm around his neck, yanking back his head and choking him out with surprising strength.

Sabine reached out a hand and he caught her meaning at once, flinging up the saber so she could catch it, turn the blade and ram it through a gap under Ezra's arm, impaling the Nighttrooper.

The thing gurgled, green mist spilling from the wound like blood, releasing Ezra and toppling back, lifeless once more.

Behind them, Ahsoka slashed through the door controls mounted to the side, sealing a thick stone slab between them and the hordes.

Ezra adjusted his collar, rubbing the front of his neck. "Thanks," he said. "Nice moves."

She ducked her head, blushing a bit under her helmet. "Ahsoka taught me a few things," she deflected.

"Yeah?" he said, leaning towards her with an eyebrow waggle. "Like what?"

"Like how not to get snuck up on from behind," Ahsoka huffed, sabers stiff at her sides as she came up the steps. "Ezra," she said sternly, looking him straight in the eye, "I need you focused." Shooting a look towards Sabine she added, "I need you both focused."

"Hey, I've fought about as many undead Stormtroopers as you have," Sabine defended. She turned with a playful headtilt towards Ezra. "What's your excuse?" she teased.

She expected a glib quip back, a silly, adorable comment like he might have given her before, when he was trying to (badly) disguise an attempt to flirt with her, something she could play off of and tease back.

Instead, he just let his warm, affectionate gaze rest on her, breathing softly, "I missed you."

Her heart stuttered. She was suddenly thankful for her helmet because she was sure her face would give her feelings away.

"That's sweet, Ezra," Ahsoka said, with long-suffering tiredness, eyes pinched. "But we cannot delay."

His demeanor turned sober and stern immediately. "I know," he said, gripping fists and turning towards the stairs.

Still, he managed a smile back at Sabine, extending a hand out for their lightsaber. She passed it into his palm but didn't quite let go, letting his fingers brush against her gloves.

"Together?" he asked quietly.

She couldn't speak, but nodded sharply, her helmet bobbing. She swallowed down her emotions, putting them aside for the moment for the sake of the mission.

"Let's end this," she said, and they swept swiftly up the stairs, the saber clasped between them, two warriors of one heart and soul, united in purpose.

She hoped she would never have to let go.

Chapter Text

You're alone, you're on your own

So what? Have you gone blind?

Have you forgotten what you have and what is yours?

-"King" by Lauren Aquilina

Sabine felt herself rousing, coming to awareness. She was groggy and confused for a moment before her ears registered the sharp gasp that had come from the body laying behind her.

The bed creaked, worn springs groaning a bit, as she felt Ezra sit up. His breathing was tight, rapid, like he'd suffered a great fright and was only now calming down. He was leaned heavily on his hands and even though she was turned away from him in the bed, Sabine could sense him shaking minutely.

Sabine blinked herself more awake, growing concern taking root in her heart. She listened to her husband's breaths for several moments, gauging whether or not he was going to be able to pull himself out of it.

The bed creaked again and a tiny, heartbreaking choked sound came from him.

A resigned drop hit her stomach. She pulled her head up, craning her chin over her shoulder. Like she feared, his hands were clenched over his face now, fingers beginning to curl into his forehead, nails digging into skin.

"Ezra?" she called.

"I'm fine!" he choked out, retreating immediately, sliding out of the bed on the other side and ignoring her as he walked around the bed and headed to their little kitchenette area.

Sabine's mouth pursed at his stubbornness, but she didn't say anything, silently slipping the covers off her legs, bare toes brushing the floor as she swung her feet over the side.

Ezra had turned the cold tap in the sink on full blast. The water ran noisily, her husband thrusting his whole head under the stream for half a second, then snapping up ramrod straight.

His breathing was still jagged, too jagged. The sensory shock to his system wasn't breaking through the panic caught cycling in his mind, that Sabine could see in his haunted eyes, as she quickly came to join him.

His hands were mashing against his face again, one fist knocking at his temple. The water dripped through Ezra's thick hair, making trails down his skin. "C'mon, c'mon... get hold of yourself..." she caught him saying in a strained, fearful whisper.

She reached past him, shutting off the loud tap before it could wake the other occupants of their house.

Gently, very gently, she slid a warm hand up Ezra's bare back.

He shivered slightly at her touch, but the smallest coil of tension eased out of his tightly-wound shoulders.

Sabine moved closer to his side, taking hold of his right wrist, squeezing carefully. She began to rub her palm in straight back-and-forth lines in that spot between his shoulder blades that always soothed him.

"Breathe, Ezra," she told him. "With me, okay?"

His eyes were pinched closed, fighting to hold back the flashbacks, but he swallowed thickly and nodded.

Sabine nodded as well. "One..." she counted, taking an inhale with him.

His breath rattled, but he took in a full lungful.

"Two..."

They let it out, together.

"One..."

In.

"Two..."

Out.

Sabine counted, and they breathed, over and over, for several long minutes, it didn't really matter how long. What was important was that by the end of it Ezra's shoulders had slackened and the pinch had eased out of his face. His muscles were no longer tight as knots and he was calm.

At peace.

He exhaled softly, in control of himself, and Sabine stopped counting.

They stood there in the dim blue dark, the full twin moons casting silver across the floor from the front windows. The silence was full, and pregnant, heavy with unspoken assurances.

Sabine traced her fingers up Ezra's spine, pausing to catalogue his collection of scars. It had grown in the ten years he'd been absent. Ezra didn't like to talk about his time on Peridea, and Sabine hadn't pressed him yet, but she could see the evidence of his trials and ordeals all over him.

Broken ribs that had never quite healed properly. Faded electrical burns. Permanent pale lines around his wrists.

She let her hand drift across his shoulder blades, feeling it when he gave a hitch.

His head was hanging, bangs drooping in his eyes. "Why do you put up with me, Sabine?" he muttered, his voice thin.

"What do you mean?" she asked, slightly alarmed.

"This," he said, frustrated, jabbing a finger to point at his head. "Me. All the nights where I can't find my way out of my own head." His hands dropped to grasp the edge of the counter, an awful self-hatred in the eyes that wouldn't look at her. "Why do you keep me around?"

Sabine wanted to reach into his head and beat the negative voices inside him to a pulp. But she controlled those flickers of anger, knowing he'd sense it. Instead she projected calm and warmth and love, tried to imagine herself as a steady presence for him, an anchor, an embrace.

"I thought it was because of your boyish charms," she quipped.

She thrilled when she caught him smothering back a chuckle.

More seriously, letting the hand on his wrist drift down to twine with his fingers, the one on his back slowly curl up around his neck, Sabine pushed in closer.

"And because the pain of being without you, of not having you here with me, was a thousand times worse than struggling with you through a couple rough nights," she told him firmly, emphasizing her words by breathing them on his cheek, soft and intimate.

Ezra shuddered, holding back on his emotions. Trying not to break down in front of her, she knew.

She let go of his wrist. Raised her hands and grasped them around his face. His beard was shorter now, than when she'd found him, but still tickled her palms. She turned him towards her, drawing him in, pulling at him.

Her lips pressed softly against his. She was gentle, giving only light pressure, moving slowly so as not to startle him. His kiss back was hesitant at first but then he dove in, hands clutching at her, clinging to her back, drinking her in like a drowning man in search of air.

She let him grasp at her. Let him use her as a lifeline. It was a kind of desperate passion that could only be felt on nights like this, when the specters of Peridea came to torment her husband in his sleep, taunt him and grind his self-worth into dust.

Ezra stiffened up and pulled back, his hands on her shoulders, gaze dropping again. Sabine panted breathlessly with him, eyes shimmering in the moonlight as she reached for him.

Her hand slid up his chest, tracing the long ugly curved scar where the Nightmothers had tried to carve out his heart.

"You're not alone anymore," she told him.

He shuddered again, but it was softer, more relieved. As if the words were exactly what he needed to hear.

"I know," he said, "but..."

He trailed off, biting his lip and not finishing his sentence. Sabine could tell the negative voices were lingering, trying one last time to shatter him.

She stepped away and tugged at his arm.

"C'mon," she urged.

A bit confused, Ezra let himself be led, Sabine's left elbow tucked firmly around his right, her hand clasped tight in his.

She brought him up the stairs at the back, through the dim hallway and through their children's room, all three of them sleeping peacefully in their beds, under their grandmother Mira's hand-stitched quilts. She walked him out to the balcony landing, out into the chill open night air, breathtakingly lit by the white moons floating overhead.

Sabine swept a hand out, to indicate the alabaster spires and white towers of Capital City, the beautiful city lights laid out before them.

"You did this, Ezra," Sabine said, profoundly, a pinch between her eyes as she struggled to keep her emotions in check. "Never forget that."

He looked where she gestured, his eyes dazzled by the sparkling lights, the peaceful blue sheen over a city at peace.

"Thrawn is dead, Lothal is free, and..." Sabine's voice hitched, sparing a glance back into the nursery bedroom at the tiny sleeping bodies. "...our children will grow up safe... because of you," she emphasized.

His eyes also drifted back towards the precious sight of their children. Little Mira, named after her grandmother. Noah, five years old and already so bold and spunky. And baby Caleb, snoring in his bassinet.

Sabine watched a glimmer waver in his eyes, that he blinked away quickly before turning back to her, a wan, grateful smile on his face.

No words were spoken. No words were needed.

He opened his arms and she melded herself to him, and he held onto her like a rock in the middle of a rushing river.

"Thank you," he whispered, the words tickling her hair.

Sabine gripped him tighter. I'm here, Ezra, she tried to convey with her embrace. I'm here. And I'm not letting anything hurt you again.

Their arms wrapped around each other, skin on skin, breath against breath, and she felt his sorrows and pain melt away into forgotten memory, replaced by comfort, and peace, and the unwavering surety of her love.