A/N: Hey y'all! Here's a little fic that I wrote after some friends and I traded different prompts to work on. I was tasked with writing about Hera's thoughts and feelings during Sabine's darksaber training and after she left. It was an exciting prompt and y'all know how I love Space Mom, but I felt so incredibly rusty and clumsy doing this, so please excuse!
And check out WestwardGlance's "Further Adventures in Chocolate." It's a really sweet fic...no pun intended.
Needle and Thread
Winds of change were blowing, and it didn't have anything to do with the lightning storm rolling in from Atollon's western skies.
Perched on top of the Ghost, Hera shivered, remembering again the stricken look in Sabine's eyes when she'd asked the teen to take up the darksaber and rally Mandalorians to the Rebellion's cause. She felt like a hypocrite; if anyone had asked her at age nineteen to walk back into her father's house as if she'd never left and implore his aid—
She wouldn't have.
There'd been too much anger, too much pain, too much shame, too much fear of the unknown on both his part and hers. And the enmity between her and Cham was nothing to that between Sabine and her clan. Hera was the only one on the Ghost who knew the whole of the story, so she knew how deep Sabine's tenacity ran—as well as her pain. Before she left for training with Ezra and Kanan, she'd pulled the young woman into a hug, an awkward embrace that said both I'm sorry and I'll be with you every step of the way—you know that, right? And Sabine's reluctant, answering sigh said, I know.
That didn't make it any easier to watch her go.
When she came back, though, Hera could see in her eyes that she was a changed woman. Woman. Not girl. A woman who'd taken years of private anguish and pain and turned them to dust with her bare hands, breaking down the walls she'd built within herself. It was beautiful—and it hurt. Hera knew that Sabine was ready to leave the safety of the Ghost and confront her family. If she did that, maybe she'd find reconciliation. If she found reconciliation, relationships would have room to grow. And Sabine might choose to stay with her biological family instead of her found one.
Not that Hera would begrudge her that, but it didn't make the preemptive ache in her chest go away.
She watched from aloft as Ezra and Sabine sparred with each other in the hold, sabers humming, verbal jabs coming just as fast as each crash of the blades. Another time, their laugher would have made her heart sing. Today, it only felt leaden. Kanan drew up behind her, his hand just brushing the small of her back. She glanced at him. "What?"
"You good?" The question was casual, almost deceptively so. She knew he wouldn't have asked if he didn't already know the answer, which gave her two options. One: lie to the man who already knew everything about her, or, Two: tell the truth to the man who already knew everything about her. She ground her teeth; after ten years spent together, why was she still having this discussion with herself? She closed her eyes and blew out a noisy breath. Put that thought away, Hera, she chided. Now isn't the time.
Kanan was waiting patiently. She wanted to stall. She reached to remove his mask, gently pulling it away from his face, and as she did, a strand of hair worked loose from his ponytail. She tucked it back as she looked into his beautiful, blinded eyes. She let her thumb graze his cheekbone. A muscle in his jaw tensed.
"Hera."
She stuffed her hands in her pockets and jerked her chin, motioning to the teens in the hold below. "They're going to leave us."
Kanan frowned at her. "Shouldn't they?"
She knew what he was asking. Shouldn't Ezra and Sabine eventually forge their own paths across the galaxy? This home—the Ghost—was only ever meant to be temporary. "Yes," she said dully. "I just…hate change."
He chuckled. "Says the woman who brought aboard every single crewmember on this ship—including me—which spurred major changes. Every time."
"Adding to the crew was easy," she countered hotly. Tears sprang up and she blinked them away.
His hand on her elbow turned her toward him. "Absence isn't the same thing as loss, Hera." His voice was gentle.
He read her mind; of course he did. "It feels the same and—we're coming to a point, Kanan, where nothing will ever be the same again. Not with the Rebellion, not with the crew, not with—" She faltered. "Not with us. I can feel it in my bones. Can't you?" She knew he could; she'd felt him thrashing in his sleep beside her, plagued with nightmares the way he always was before something happened.
"Not all change is bad." He looked pointedly into the hold below.
She followed his blind gaze. Ezra and Sabine had finished sparring and were sprawled on the ground, sitting next to each other, catching their breath, eyes bright. They looked young, yes, but they also looked so much different than the two kids who'd initially boarded the Ghost. They looked wiser, steadier. More whole.
Then Hera looked up into Kanan's face, studying the lines and the scars and the softness that hadn't been there all those years ago on Gorse. The man she fell in love with back then was so different than the one standing before her now. She took her gloves off and then threw them in the floor, and then she laced her fingers through Kanan's. The contact was warm and firm and everything she needed.
"No," she agreed with a sigh. She rested her head on his chest. "Not all change is bad."
But just because some changes weren't bad didn't qualify them as good, either.
Sabine staying on Krownest on her own terms and on her own volition was good. Ezra's face cratering whenever he remembered she was gone was not good. It made Hera's heart ache deeply—more than it already did. She missed Sabine and, truth be told, she missed the company of another woman. As time went on and the ship settled into a new rhythm, Ezra and Zeb started acting more like their old selves, occasionally pulling Kanan into their antics.
When those antics ended one morning with a hot cup of caf dousing the front of Hera's jumpsuit, she glared icily, turning on her heel with a disgusted sound. She muttered something foul in Twi'leki as she left and Chopper sniggered. She went to her cabin and started to strip out of her stained clothes, frowning at the darkened splotches of skin on her chest and abdomen where the caf had burned her. The frown deepened when she noticed a rip in her jumpsuit, in the seam at her waist. Terrific.
She dug through the drawers in her workbench, looking for the small sewing kit she kept for things like this. How many times had she had to fix a tear in her own clothes or Kanan's? A wrestling match between Ezra and Zeb last week ended with a substantial underarm tear in the teen's tunic. Before that, Sabine had needed to repair a rip she'd gotten—
Ah. It must still be in Sabine's room.
Hera pulled on a fresh change of clothes and went to Sabine's room, sighing as the palmed the door open. The space seemed so dull without the Mandalorian's presence to fill it, even with paint covering almost every inch of the walls. Hera stepped inside, wondering where to start her search for the sewing kit. Sabine kept things neat, save for a few odds and ends scattered on the tabletop under her bunk. Hera leaned down, looking at the assorted items. Eyeliner, blaster cleaning solvent, a pot of cream eyeshadow, binoculars, nozzles for her paint guns, and—there. Hera's small, plastic case with needles and different colors of thread inside. Under that, a piece of flimsi with Sabine's neat print on it.
Thanks, it read. For everything. You patched us all up and made this crew a family. If I don't come back from Krownest—for whatever reason—know that I'll miss you. Sorry that I'm leaving you stuck with the guys. —Sabine
Hera blinked back a veil of tears, taking both the sewing kit and the note in her hand. You patched us all up. Such a simple string of words. But it was a "thank you" and an "I forgive you" all rolled into one. It was a balm to Hera's weary heart. She left the room and turned out the lights behind her. She went back to her own room and picked up her torn jumpsuit, preparing to fix it. She took out the needle and thread she needed, holding them between her fingertips. She smiled ruefully. When Kanan had come on board with her on Gorse, she hadn't intended to get close to him or to anyone. She'd intended to always keep the mission first. But she'd inadvertently patched together a family instead. She sighed, recalling Kanan's earlier words.
He was right; not all change was bad.