Chapter one summary: Sabine loves color - she's an artist, after all. But, when she gets migraines, having a neon mural plastered upon every wall of the Ghost suddenly doesn't seem like such a great idea.
Sabine is a very strong person, and a very private one - two things that have not gone unnoticed by Ezra.
So, when Sabine first decides not to go on a mission, and Ezra then finds her splayed out on a chair (apparently asleep) in the common area when he gets back from said mission, he's a bit unnerved, to say the least.
He tiptoes up to her, not quite sure what to make of the unlikely scene. Her brows are pinched together, as if in pain, and if he listens closely, it almost sounds like her breathing is a tad bit more labored than it should be. Is… is she sick?
"I'm fine- go away," Sabine says pointedly, eyes flicking open halfway, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
"Umm… you don't really look fine," Ezra points out tentatively, stepping backwards an inch in anticipation a second before she swings a fist through the air where his side would have been but a moment before- a bit more aggressive than usual.
"I have a headache - lay off." She turns towards the back of the chair and closes her eyes again.
Ezra merely shrugs and goes to sit in Zeb's overly large chair off to the side, seeing as that Sabine's pretty much laying across the entire bench seat. Geez, Ezra could probably use Zeb's chair as a bed if he wanted to. He could probably fit three of himself in it if he curled up into a ball tightly enough.
He decides to use his time to try to think up a way to get Kanan to let him train with his lightsaber rather than meditate tomorrow, but doesn't get very far into his scheming before Chopper rolls by, beeping and whirring something unintelligible, arms twirling about.
Sabine grunts, rather aggravated, and shoots Chopper a dirty look before rubbing her right ear.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Ezra dares to ask again.
"I said I was fine," Sabine snaps.
"Alright, alright." Ezra holds his hands up defensively, though Sabine has pinched her eyes shut again. "Wouldn't your room be quieter, though?" Ezra doesn't mean to rude or make it sound like he doesn't want Sabine around him- quite the opposite is true, but he does have a valid point.
Surprisingly, Sabine doesn't take it the wrong way. "It's too bright in there," she says.
"What?" The whole ship is pretty dark - not depressingly so, but no part of the ship can exactly be considered bright, aside from maybe the cockpit in hyperspace.
"There's paint all over my room," Sabine groans. "It's too bright.
"Oh." He hadn't thought of that. It makes sense though. Sabine's walls are plastered in neon colored graffiti, a checkerboard table serving as the centerpiece of the room, and a rainbow array of paint cans in the corner. While he's never had migraine (only minor headaches that are easy enough to sleep off), he can definitely see how that wouldn't exactly be conducive to getting rid of one.
"Umm… you can stay in my room, you know… if you want, of course," Ezra offers.
Sabine cracks an eye open, gazing at Ezra cooly and deliberating. From down the hall, there's a loud clang, echoing off of the metal ship walls in an endless ring, making her cringe: the regular hustle and bustle of the ship. Still, she doesn't accept.
"Oh c'mon," Ezra pushes. "You'll never get rid of a headache while in here."
"Fine," she finally cedes. She's ready to pay money if it means getting rid of this widespread constant throbbing pain at this point.
Ezra nods eagerly and hops up out of Zeb's chair to lead Sabine to his room, happy to be able to help.
Sabine, of course, knows exactly where Ezra and Zeb's room is (it's a few feet away from hers, after all) but is too drained to point this out and just follows wordlessly, shoulders slumped the whole way. She just wants to lay down and for this infernal headache to be gone already.
Zeb looks rather surprised when he finds a clearly pained Sabine following Ezra into their room.
"What-" he starts, before Ezra holds up a hand.
"She has a migraine and the paint in her room is too bright. I told her that she could stay here… if that's okay." Ezra phrases it like he's offering Zeb a choice- he sounds as though he's offering Zeb a choice- but really, he's not. Sabine is going to stay here and that's that.
Zeb opens his mouth to say something, but shrugs and drops the issue. "Yeah, I guess that's fine."
Sabine does her best not to wrinkle her nose when she steps inside, only half succeeding. The smell could only be described as guys' room: musty and sweaty. And when those guys include Ezra and a Lasat, well… it's worse. Ezra snickers at Sabine's face, but isn't offended by it, figuring that she just smells Zeb.
At least it's nice and quiet and dark, though. The only real color in the room is the mural that Sabine oh so tastefully painted on the wall to commemorate Chopper's prank on both Ezra and Zeb back when the kid had first joined the crew. The colors are subdued enough that they don't really bother her.
"Uh, you can take my bunk," Ezra says awkwardly. He's not about to offer Zeb's bunk up for grabs.
Sabine squirms, feeling vastly uncomfortable with this whole general setup, but she's starting to get dizzy and really does just need to lay down for a while.
"Right. Thanks." She climbs up to the top bunk without any further questions.
"Uh, I'll let you be, then," Zeb says, awkwardly shuffling out into the hallway. Sabine closes her eyes, still feeling almost stressfully out of place in someone else's room, and can practically feel Ezra's eyes burning into the back of her head.
"You need anything?" She asks.
"Oh. Umm. No. Just… are migraines really that bad?"
Sabine lifts an eyebrow. Had he never had a bad headache before? "Uh, yeah." She lets out a breathy laugh. "Have you ever known me to skip out on missions?"
"No." It would take more than Ezra can imagine to stop Sabine from fighting the empire, which is precisely what has Ezra worried.
Sabine isn't quite sure why Ezra is still here and staring at her, but she knows better than to say anything after Ezra has been so nice.
"M-maybe I could try to force heal it," Ezra says suddenly, finally spitting out the words that he's been mulling over.
Sabine sits up slowly. "You can do that? I thought that was just for- you know, flesh injuries."
Ezra shrugs. He still has a lot to learn. "I can try. It's worth a shot, isn't it?"
Sabine frowns at the wall. "I don't know. Are you sure that you should be messing around with something that you don't quite understand? What would Kanan say?"
Ezra raises an eyebrow and Sabine sighs in response. He idolizes his master, that much is clear to anyone… but nothing ever quite keeps him from… bending a few rules behind Kanan's back, either. "Do you want your headache to go away or not?"
"Yes," Sabine answers. "I do."
"Alright then." Ezra takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and raises a hand slowly, reaching out in an attempt to force heal. He's read about it, and Kanan's talked about it. He's even healed a few scrapes and bruises on himself in secret- just for practice. This feels like a totally different beast, though. It's not a cut or scrape or wound that he can see.
Sabine sits perfectly still, heart picking up speed in spite of her usual calm as she waits for her migraine to miraculously shrink away. Instead, she's met with a white-hot searing pain behind her eyes and shrieks out as she grabs her head. It feels as if someone has just branded the inside of her head. A blaster bolt would probably hurt less!
Ezra freezes, relinquishing his hold on the force, eyes growing wide at the sound. Slowly, he brings his hands to cover his mouth, horrified. Sabine drops back down into a laying position on the bunk and squeezes her eyes shut.
"Sabine, I am so sorry." He should have just listened to her. He should have just trusted what his gut told him Kanan would have wanted him to do. He shouldn't have tried this. What had he just done?
Sabine manages a curt nod and a forced smile that comes out more like a grimace, eyes still squeezed shut.
"I-" Ezra starts to say something else before pausing and pressing his lips together in a grim line, instead turning and fleeing quickly down the hall.
Sabine isn't sure how much time has passed when she wakes up- it can be hard to tell when there's no moon or sun, but based on the soft snoring coming from the bunk below her - Zeb, presumably, it must be their self appointed nighttime.
She sits up gingerly, taking care as to not make enough noise to wake Zeb up, and slowly clambers down from the top bunk, landing on the ground with all the finesse of a cat.
Her head still hurts- a dull throb just behind her temples, like always the day after a migraine, but it's at least bearable now.
She slowly makes her way out to the common room. She hadn't meant to sleep for so long as to prevent Ezra from going to bed, only for a few hours. Where is he sleeping? He isn't in her room, is he?
No, when she steps into the common room, Ezra is splayed out on Zeb's chair- one leg and one arm over each arm of the chair, and the remainding arm covering his face. He's fast asleep, mouth wide open. The sight would almost be laughable if it weren't for how uncomfortable the poor kid looks.
"Ezra," Sabine says in a loud whisper, shaking his shoulder slightly.
He startles awake, jumping and making a brief kind of snorting sound before finally closing his mouth. Sabine has to do her best not to laugh.
"Sabine?"
"Hey."
"A- are you okay?" He stumbles over his words, both eager to apologize and tired. "I didn't mean to hurt you, really!"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," she assures him before Ezra can get too worked up over the matter and wake up the whole ship.
He lets out a pent up breath. "Sorry."
Sabine just shrugs. What's done is done, she supposes. "What was that, though?"
Ezra shrugs in return. "I asked Kanan. He wasn't sure either. He said that maybe I moved your brain or something with the force instead of using it to heal, or that I was focused on your pain or whatnot instead of concentrating. He said that you should be fine, though… and that I'm doing meditation all tomorrow and the day after." Ezra cringes in on himself at the memory. He really thought that he hurt Sabine for a while there.
"Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you can have your bed back."
Ezra shrugs and curls back up in Zeb's chair. "I'm okay here," he says, closing his eyes again, still tired from being woken up in the middle of a sleep cycle.
"But… come on, that can't be comfortable."
"Mph." Ezra swats the air near Sabine, much like she had done to him earlier. He's too tired to walk to his bunk now.
Sabine sighs and slips away back to Ezra's room, stealing the blanket from the top bunk, and taking it back to the common area to put around Ezra, taking one look back at the scene before leaving to go back to her own cozy room, grinning in spite of herself.
This kid would be the death of them all.
I've heard a lot of requests to make more chapters for my one-shots about space siblings, so I've decided to make a multi-chapter fic dedicated completely to the three.
Also, I'm pretty new to Star Wars, and still have quite a bit that I need to catch up on (not to mention that for this chapter in particular, I don't really get headaches very often) so if you see a mistake, don't hesitate to let me know! :)
If you have the time, reviews always mean the world! I'd also love to hear any ideas for future chapters.