A/N: This is not so much a fic as it is a scene I couldn't get out of my mind. Set pretty close to the start of season three. Ezrabine if you squint real hard.

Stupid

Ezra was shirtless and Sabine's soft, ungloved hands were on his back and he should have liked that, but he didn't. They were in the galley, him sitting on the bench at the table, her on the tabletop behind him, knees pressed into his sides so that she was, essentially, straddling him. Again, something which should have been enjoyable, but very distinctly wasn't.

"Is it necessary for you to be so rough?" He demanded through clenched teeth, just this close to getting angry.

Sabine wasn't this close to getting angry; she was already there. "You're getting stitches, Ezra," she snapped, "what did you think it was going to feel like?"

"Not worse than the blade that cut me to begin with! Ouch!" He tensed every muscle to keep from jerking away as she pulled the needle and thread taut, finishing the suture line. She plied his skin with her fingers, checking the suture line before she tied it off and snipped the extra length of thread. Then she mercilessly swabbed the area with a stout antiseptic before anointing it with anti-bac. He winced, but tried not to flinch.

The gash, about six inches long, ran parallel to Ezra's left shoulder blade. It had mostly stopped bleeding, but it was painfully tender and would be for some time, which Sabine was well aware of as she selected two large bandages to place over the wound. She slapped the adhesive to his skin hard enough to send him a message, but not so hard that the carefully-placed sutures would break. He cried out and jumped to his feet, towering over her.

"Why are you so karking pissed?" He didn't even try to keep his voice down.

Sabine threw a finger in the general direction of the cockpit and Hera. "You really must not care whether you live or die today, using language like that!"

"What does that mean?"

"You almost got yourself killed today—and me!"

"I don't see you bleeding!"

"Is that how we're going to qualify close calls? By who bleeds more?" She stood up, face flushing in anger. "You were stupid today, Ezra! What you did was reckless, impulsive—"

"If I want that kind of lecture, I'll go talk to Hera," he snarled. Then as an afterthought: "Or Kanan."

Sabine blinked for just a moment before she responded, and the demanding edge in her voice was softened minutely by curiosity. "Why don't you go talk to Kanan?"

The question threw Ezra off balance and he shifted uncomfortably. "He's…still recovering." Sabine frowned; it was obvious to her that Ezra had been slowly unraveling since Malachor, and she figured that his estrangement from Kanan played no small part in that.

"And what about you?" She queried softly, eyes boring into his. He tried to sidestep her.

"Thanks for cleaning me up."

She laid a hand on his arm, refusing to let him pass. She was dimly aware that he was taller than her now, and that he was no longer a lanky kid; he'd gained both muscle and stature in the last several months. "Kanan will adjust to this. The injury has healed and he will come to terms with being blind. I believe that."

Ezra flinched at the word blind and his jaw tightened.

"What he won't recover from," Sabine continued, "is losing you."

Ezra ground his teeth, frustrated. "He's not losing me. I'm fine, and I'll be fine, like I keep telling you." He sighed and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair, anger seeping away as suddenly as it had flared. "I'm just done playing it safe, done playing by the rules! Look where that got us! If we had just—"

"So you're what? Doing penance for what happened to Kanan and Ahsoka by trying to get yourself killed?"

His expression darkened. "Is that what you think?"

"Honestly, yeah. It is." She put a hand to his face and he gently pulled it away. A crease appeared between his eyes when he saw her delicate fingers stained with his blood.

"I'm sorry," he said slowly, still staring at her hand. "I'm sorry."

She withdrew from his touch and took a step back. "Don't be sorry, Ezra." She was frustrated to realize that her eyes were stinging and she turned to leave. "Just don't be stupid."

"No guarantees." He forced a smile.

He stood in the middle of the room, wanting to leave, but not wanting to follow Sabine too closely. As he muttered under his breath, counting out the seconds, Hera walked in. She spared only a glance as she poured a cup of caf. He knew better to think her passive expression was anything other than studied disinterest; he had no doubt she was assessing his condition with a critical eye.

"I won't ask," she said archly, turning on her heel. "But Ezra." She looked him in the eyes, and he squirmed a little under her gaze. "I don't think anyone on this ship could recover from losing more family. Understand?"

Didn't she get that he was trying to prevent that from happening? He swallowed hard. "Yes, ma'am."

Hera nodded, stepping past him. He followed her out of the galley, heading to his room. He chewed on what she and Sabine said to him. He had been reckless and impulsive lately. Aggressive, a little vindictive, and, yeah: stupid, too. All things a Jedi shouldn't be. He knelt in the middle of the floor, emulating Kanan's favorite pose. He started to meditate and the currents in the Force felt familiar and warm.

Until they didn't.

Stupid.

The darkness in the back of his mind whispered to him.

There's nothing stupid about what you're doing; you've grown strong.

He dug his fingers into his knees, trying to stay centered, trying to remember everything Kanan taught him.

The only stupid thing was Malachor. It was stupid of you to let Ahsoka die. You could have saved her; why didn't you? And Kanan—how could you leave his side? Splitting up was stupid. He's blind now because you weren't there to take Maul on together. Stupid little Padawan.

He tried to remember the feel of Sabine's hand on his face, the unspoken affection in Hera's steadfast gaze. But the darkness spread like ink in water and overtook him.

Everyone could die, and it would be your fault.

"This is stupid," he whispered, rubbing his throbbing temples. What was he thinking, trying to fixate on the Jedi way? That clearly hadn't worked; this was better.

He held his hand palm-upward and the Sith holocron found him, as it had many times before.

Elsewhere on the ship, Kanan shivered violently as a sudden chill came over him. He dropped his mug of caf and it shattered, sending shards of ceramic and hot liquid everywhere. For a second, he thought he felt a flicker of something in the Force, something dark—

Hera's startled gasp jerked him back to the moment. "Love?" She sounded worried and he hated that. He absolutely hated that.

"It's nothing," he said flatly. "Just an accident. Stupid."