Note: Here are the incomplete plans for my Rebels "Expanded Universe" chronology: (BBY = Before Battle of Yavin/ ABY = After Battle of Yavin ). It is tentative and can change.

5 years BBY – "Star Wars Rebels season 1" (Disney XD series)

5 years BBY – "The Truth in the Lies" (In Progress - Part One of the Mandalore Trilogy)

4 years BBY – "The Loss of Hope" (Completed and Updated)

0 years BBY – "A New Hope" (In Progress part 1 of the Star Wars Trilogy)

0 years BBY – "Blood and Water" (working title – coming soon)

2 years ABY - "Revenge of the Death Watch" ( working title - coming soon – Part 2 of the Mandalore Trilogy)

3 years ABY – "The Empire Strikes Back" (coming soon – part 2 of the Star Wars Trilogy)

3 years ABY – "Rise of the Duchess" (coming soon – part 3 of the Mandalore Trilogy)

4 years ABY – "The Return of the Jedi" (coming soon – part 3 of the Star Wars Trilogy)

5 years ABY – "In the End, At the Beginning" (Coming soon)

9 years ABY "The Thrawn Crisis" (Coming soon)

Star Wars: Rebels
The Truth in the Lies

Chapter 2: Simple and Easy

"I… I… what?" Sabine asked as she felt a cold chill run down her spine and her chest constrict.

"You need to answer me, Sabine," Kanan said with a hardness she'd never heard addressed toward her before. "What do you remember?"

"Is Ezra ok?" She asked in a small voice, craning her neck to try to get a better look at her friend. "Please … tell me I didn't …"

Kanan took a deep breath before he responded. "He was lucky. After Zeb and Hera took you down, I put him in a healing trance that gave us enough time to treat his wounds… barely." The Jedi said, glancing toward his wounded Padawan. "Now. Answer the question."

"Kanan…" Sabine kept trying to see Ezra, but gasped when Kanan roughly placed his hand on her cheek and forced her to look him in the eye.

"Sabine. NOW!" he growled, and he could tell it frightened the girl, but at the moment he didn't have the luxury to care.

"I… Ezra and I were trying to clear up that code… and… I suddenly got some weird headache… I got up to try to get a pain pill out of the cabinet when I heard something about an order… and… I felt like I was about to pass out… I heard blaster fire and someone screaming…" She looked pleadingly toward her leader, "That's all I remember, I swear… I don't know what happened!"

"You're not lying to me?" He glared right into her eyes, and she couldn't be certain he wasn't using the force to read her mind.

Both Sabine and Kanan glanced up when the door opened and Hera and Zeb walked in. Zeb gave her an angry glare while the heartbroken-looking Hera avoided looking in her direction. "Hera… Zeb… I don't know… please…" She begged but both didn't say anything to her.

"We thought it would be best if Ezra woke up in his own room away from…" Hera drifted off, finally glancing toward the restrained Mandalorian. The sad expression on Sabine's mentor's face broke the girl's heart even more.

'What is happening to me?' Sabine frowned.

"We're… going to figure this out, Sabine," Kanan said, patting the railing of her bed then followed Hera and Zeb out of the room, leaving the girl alone with only her thoughts, struggling to recall and come to terms with what she had apparently done.

"Please be ok, Ezra…" She whispered out loud, a soft prayer to the Force which seemed to have saved his life from her.

-SW-

Ezra slowly groaned as he felt himself coming back around in darkness. With a few blinks his eye sight cleared and he saw Zeb looking down at him. "Not exactly the prettiest face to wake up to on the ship…" Ezra grunted earning a grin from his roommate.

He'd much rather wake up to the smiling face of …

"SABINE!" Ezra sat up quickly, but almost collapsed at the pain in his chest.

"Easy, Kid!" Zeb gently pushed him back down.

"What happened?" Ezra asked clutching his bandaged chest. "Something happened to her! Is Sabine ok?"

"She's… we're working it out, Kid," Zeb said, avoiding his gaze. "We'll talk more on her after you get some rest. You got shot point blank in the chest twice, Kid. Even a Jedi can't just walk that off with a shrug."

"But…" Ezra struggled to sit up but Zeb shook his head.

"Don't make me regret letting you have the bottom bunk, brat," Zeb half-snarled, moving toward the door, "Going to tell Hera and Kanan you're awake. Stay put."

Ezra pouted and glared at his friend but laid back against the pillow.

Zeb studied him a moment before he turned and walked out of the room. Ezra waited a few minutes before climbing out of bed, much easier this time. His chest was throbbing but it wasn't that much more painful than the time he was hit by a speeder back on the streets.

Ever so carefully Ezra scaled up into the ventilation shaft of the Ghost and moved over to the commons area where he heard Hera, Kanan and Zeb talking.

"…I think it would have been better if she was a traitor…" Zeb sighed, crossing his arms.

"It had to have happened at the academy," Kanan shook his head then glanced to the captain, "Do you know how long she attended there, Hera?"

"She's never said, just that she was disillusioned by their secrets and do as I say without question philosophies…" Hera replied.

"With her having no idea what they did to her… or what triggers that… I do know she responded to Order 66. It's likely she may respond to other code words as well…" Kanan said, glancing to his companions. "She's a danger to us and herself…"

"So what do we do?" Zeb asked, "What happens if we go on a mission, we depend on her, and one of those code words come up and she turns on us?"

"I've spoken with Ahsoka," Hera said after a moment, and seemed to hesitate. "She's said she could set her up in a non-field cell. It would be best for everyone."

Kanan sighed, "Ezra won't go for that… he'll fight it tooth and nail…"

"Even after she shot him, twice?" Zeb asked, "I mean… Force, the Kid was dead for about thirty seconds… Till you got him breathing again…"

"What other options do we have?" Hera asked softly. "It's far too dangerous to go to Mandalore… the Imperial presence there would rip us apart before we even got close… And even if we could get there it'd be next to impossible to get to the academy and investigate what they did to her… even if the information is still there."

Ezra had heard enough, and turned and started making his way toward the medical bay.

-SW-

Sabine sat in darkness and silence. She couldn't remember it, but the detailed and artistic imagination that she cherished and loved so much had turned on her as she had her best friend. She could just imagine herself, drawing her blaster, and turning to Ezra. Seeing his bright blue eyes looking at her, so trusting, trusting in her. He'd smile like he always does when she's giving him attention. A smile that she's noted he only gives her. Then she would lift her blaster and aim it at him, and before he could even lose that trusting, loving smile, she'd fire striking him in the chest. His face would change to that of a pained expression, before his body would fall, his chest smoking from the burnt hole, blood oozing out from the open wound. "Ezra…" She whimpered, closing her eyes tight, trying to get the imaginary image from her mind.

Her brown eyes snapped open when she heard someone kicking the vent plate. She gasped when she saw the young Padawan drop to the floor before her bed. "Ezra, get out of here… what if I… I could kill you!" Sabine hissed, as he silently approached. "Ezra! Are you listening to me?" She asked, but he remained silently watching the door.

She gasped when he lifted his lightsaber from his belt, and with a pop hiss he illuminated the room in the blue light of his blade. She stared at it for a moment. This is actually how she wants to go. Not killed by an enemy, but stopped by her best, truest friend. One who she had begun to let inside her emotional armor. One who she had betrayed and almost killed. "Ezra… Do it quickly…" She said, closing her eyes and relaxing.

She heard the sound of the lightsaber blade singing through the air, but instead of the sound of hit striking her flesh, she heard it slicing through metal. She blinked in surprise when she heard him deactivated the blade. She looked when she saw him place it back on the belt. "C'mon, Sabine, we're getting out of here."

"What?" Sabine asked in stupefied confusion.

"Can you walk or not? Cause my chest is still sore and I'm not sure I can carry you," He then flushed, "Not that you're heavy, your armor is though…"

"But Ezra…" Sabine stared at him.

"Look, do you want whatever's wrong with you fixed or not?" Ezra asked, holding out his hand. "I know it wasn't you, but I know we can undo whatever they did to you. You just have to trust me. You do trust me, right, Sabine?"

Sabine stared at his hand. Trusting the young Jedi wasn't an issue. Not in the least. Herself at the moment was her greatest challenge. Finally after a moment, she put her faith in the Force and the young man before her who was learning to wield it, and took his hand.

The two teenagers made their way out of the med bay, Sabine's helmet in one hand, Ezra's hand in her other. Both gasped when they ran into Chopper in the hallway. His dome spun in agitation and alert, but before he could do anything, Ezra lifted the small droid with the Force and threw him into his and Zeb's quarters, and quickly closed the door. "Ezra!" Sabine gasped, as Ezra drew his saber and stabbed the locking control.

"No choice, we can't let them know we're on the move. Not yet." Ezra shook his head, "c'mon, we have to hurry." He said, pulling her toward the nearest emergency hatch.

The duo opened the hatch, and looked out into the starlit Lothal sky. "Ladies first," Ezra smiled, motioning toward their exit. A stray thought hit Sabine's back, 'he wants me to go first so he wouldn't open his back to me…' she frowned behind her helmet's faceplate, before jumping out and rolling on the cool grass. A moment later, Ezra jumped and rolled but didn't immediately go to his feet as she did.

Instead, the boy stayed on his knees and hugged his chest as he gasped for breath. "Let's go back in, Ezra, you're hurt…" Sabine said, placing an arm around her shoulder.

"No, getting you better is more important," Ezra said, his blue eyes looking at her with the determination of a full Jedi Master, a role at that moment she knew he was going to reach.

"So, what's the plan?" Sabine asked, helping him to his feet and they started running across the field away from the Ghost. "You do have a plan, right?"

"Of course I have a plan!" Ezra shouted, then smiled sheepishly, "Kinda…"

"Then, I'm kinda worried…" Sabine shook her head, noting that their fingers were interlocked.

"Go to Visago, get him to help us get a transport to Mandalore. From there, find the Imperial Academy there. Once there we find out what they did to you, then undo it. Then we come home. Simple and easy."

"Yeah, what could go wrong?" Sabine asked, causing her companion to sigh.

"Nothing till you said that…" Ezra grumbled.

To Be Continued…