Sabezra's First Meeting Anniversary:
D201/14 ABY, Lothal
There was a sense of anticipation in the Force that had Ezra... not on edge exactly, but he was certainly alert to everything going on around him as he went about his day.
So far, everything had been fairly routine.
Sabine had woken him up with a very sweet kiss before she'd all but bounced out of bed to start her day, having an early appointment with a client at her gallery. A few minutes later, Ezra had rolled himself off the bed much less enthusiastically to go do the dad thing and ensure that his children were clean, clothed, and fed before they went to school.
From there, he'd taught a few classes at the Jedi school, had a very nice - but weird - lunch with most of his family (Sabine was ensconced in her studio with a painting she was determined to finish. He'd make sure she ate as soon as soon as she emerged from Creative Land.); where his children and Jacen had been struck with endless bouts of unexplainable giggles and Hera just shrugged with an 'I have no idea what their problem is' look on her face. Since this wasn't that uncommon an occurrence thanks to the children's endless capacity to find mischief in everything and anything, Ezra just went with it, assuming they'd let him in on the joke when they were ready.
Now he was delivering a crate of paintings to the Lothhawk for Sabine, to be dropped off at her father's gallery on Mandalore the next time they ventured that way for a visit. He'd had to drive into the city to get them, but he didn't mind the time to himself to just enjoy the lovely summer day. Not to mention the entertainment the new pack of wolf pups were providing as they galloped and tumbled alongside his speeder bike on his way back towards home and where the Lothhawk was parked. Their tongues hung out as the silver and black puppies panted and grinned at him, sending him 'welcomes' and 'come play with us' through the Force.
Sitting patiently on her haunches near the landing pad, their mother watched with golden eyes glowing with amusement. She nodded regally at Ezra as he pulled the speeder to a stop by his Gauntlet class Mandalorian ship and he smiled back at the giant black lothwolf as he sent her a mental 'hello' and a wave. Five puppies surrounded him, all vying for attention as he dismounted the bike that was only marginally larger than their month-old bodies. "Easy, easy!" he chided laughingly as they bumped and nudged him with happy barks that translated to 'friend!' in their minds. "You're gonna knock me over!"
Despite his words, Ezra happily spent a minute or two patting each of their heads and scratching his fingers through their thick fur in the places he'd discovered they were always itchy. It was like being in a whirlwind of vibrant Force energy as their young signatures surrounded him with enthusiastic and strong energy, and he loved every second of it. The puppies would grow up to be just as reserved as their parents, but for now, they were a consistent source of joy and entertainment to Ezra, his children, and most of the other Jedi on Lothal.
Sabine, Din, and a few others who just weren't animal people, on the other hand, only tolerated the puppies' antics. (They had a tendency towards breaking things due to their size.) (And eating things they shouldn't, like homework.) (At least, that's what Caleb would have him believe.)
From her prone position on top of the Razor Crest – which was 'conveniently' located next to the Lothhawk, had a decently flat roof, and a huge engine to hide behind – Sabine tapped her fingers against the ancient durasteel with impatience as she watched Ezra pet the lothwolf puppies for what felt like an eternity.
She'd been waiting for this moment for half a year and now that it was finally here, even the tiniest delay was enough to get on her nerves. Including adorable but scary puppies who made her husband look about ten years old and even more adorable.
Come on, Ezra, grab the crate already! Drag yourself away from the mesmerizing puppies! You can do it! I believe in you!
He finally did, releasing it from the anti-grav lock at the back of the speeder bike after remembering at the last second to activate the crate's anti-grav first.
Good boy. Not dropping my paintings is always a recommended idea.
As he walked past Din's faithful old gunship towards the already lowered ramp of the Lothhawk, Sabine leapt off the roof and landed with hard-earned agility on the floating crate, startling not only Ezra but the puppies following him. She smirked behind her visor at his expression of surprise as she drew one of her blasters and levelled it at her beloved soulmate.
Ezra gasped when out of seemingly nowhere, a small female dressed in colourful beskar armour landed on his crate in an easy crouch. The puppies yipped and bolted towards their mother. "Sabine!" He stumbled to a stop as he gawked at his wife who he hadn't seen in full armour for at least a month. He'd almost forgotten how kriffing hot she looked in it. And… Did she change the paint on it again? It looks different, but… familiar?
His appreciative gawk turned into blinking shock as she pointed one of her trusty WESTARs at him. "What are you doing?"
There was an unmistakable air of self-satisfaction about her as she said, "What I should have done twenty years ago. But someone had the audacity to possess the most amazing blue eyes and I couldn't make myself do it."
Do what? And did she just say she liked my eyes even back then? I wish I'd known that.
He was just opening his mouth to ask the question when she shot him.
Sabine watched Ezra crumple bonelessly to the duracrete from her stun blast with wide eyes, kind of surprised that he'd actually just stood there and let her do it. Shows just how much he trusts me, I suppose. He would have dodged that if anyone else had pointed a blaster at him.
She jumped off the crate and shook her head at his large, thankfully-still-breathing body. Maybe I didn't think this through as well as I should have. Now I have to drag his heavy shebs into the ship all by myself just because I got all sentimental and wanted to recreate the first moment he saw me.
"Normally, I'd say I can't believe you actually did that, but it's you, so I'm not," a familiar voice drawled from behind her.
Sabine spun around and had to take off her helmet to see Kanan properly. (For some reason, her helmet's HUD didn't register his ghostly form, and the small window actually provided by the darkened visor just didn't do the real world justice in comparison to the 360-degree view she normally had with her helmet on.) "Good to know I can't surprise you anymore," she said with a wry smirk. "I'm guessing Hera told you my plan."
Kanan inclined his head slightly, his own smirk flirting with his moustache. "She did. I had to see this for myself."
Sabine snorted. "Of course you did. You never could resist the urge to do the dad thing, even though Ezra and I are very much grown up now."
The glowing, translucent figure shrugged. "Hey, it's a habit. And you'll always be my kids, no matter how old you get."
As much as she wanted to be annoyed at his overprotective ways, Sabine only felt the warmth of familial love bloom in her chest. "Thanks." She glanced down at Ezra. "Since you're here, do you think you could do your Force thing and bring him into the ship for me?"
One of his eyebrows rose and he crossed his arms over his green robe-covered chest. (Robes she still wasn't used to seeing on his person, despite the fact that he'd adopted a more Jedi-like appearance after he'd been granted the title of Jedi Master by an equally ghostly Yoda a few years ago.) "I could. But it would be much more entertaining to see you do it."
Sabine huffed at the ghost. "Seriously?"
"Seriously."
Grumbling under her breath (but just loud enough that he could hear her) about nerfherding Jedi arseholes, Sabine put her helmet on the still floating crate and then hit the button to deactivate the anti-grav. The crate settled on the ground gently, being of the more expensive variety that didn't break merchandise if used properly, and then she turned back to her peacefully slumbering husband and thought at him, This would be easier if you were still at your teenage weight.
But he wasn't. Ezra was only slightly shorter than Kanan now, and had packed on more muscle than the older Jedi ever had, thanks to his determination to keep up with her Mandalorian relatives (i.e. Tristan) who used to tease him unmercifully for being a wimpy little Jedi.
Fortunately, despite being more artist and mother than warrior these days, she still trained like a Mando on a near daily basis, so picking Ezra's heavy shebs up and propping his shoulders on top of the crate wasn't as bad as it could have been. From there, it was a simple matter of grabbing Ezra around the thighs and sliding him forward so that he was draped over the crate with arms and head hanging over one end and feet hanging over the other. She shot the silently laughing ghost a look filled with annoyed triumph as she reactivated the anti-grav and started pushing. "I can't believe you're making me cart him into the ship like this."
Kanan followed her. "And I can't believe you didn't just wait for him to get in the ship and then close the ramp on him and take off. Or kriff, just tell him. I guarantee he would have happily gone with you."
She knew Kanan was right. But… "Where's the fun in that?"
He chuckled, shaking his head at her. "And that's why Ezra calls your kind 'crazy Mandos', and rightfully so."
Having heard this many times before, Sabine only shrugged as she hit the button to close the ramp on the way by and then parked the crate as close to the interior hallway door as possible. "So we like to keep things interesting, what's wrong with that?"
"Nothing, I suppose, unless you're the one who's been stunned just because your wife wants to kidnap you in the most authentic way possible."
Sabine grinned at Kanan's dry tone and eye roll, deciding to mess with him a bit. "I doubt Ezra will complain much when he wakes up and finds himself in bed with a naked me."
Kanan groaned as he slapped a hand to his face. "Too much information, Sabine. Too much!"
She smirked. "Your fault for barging in on my hard-earned alone-time with Ezra."
"But he's not even awake!"
"Semantics," she replied with a casual wave of the hand. "Now either get out and go help Hera with the kids or make yourself useful and carry Ezra to my cabin for me and then get out."
The ghost heaved a sigh that probably shouldn't be possible, considering he didn't breathe, but it made Sabine smile widely nonetheless. "Fine. I'll move him for you. But only because poor Ezra's had his dignity trampled on enough."
The man in question did look rather silly with his fine ass in the air and flopped over a crate like that, but it's not like he knew what he looked like at the moment. Regardless, Sabine wasn't going to quibble over the whys and wherefores. "Thank you."
Kanan rolled his eyes again and then raised a hand, picking up Ezra with the Force so that her husband looked like he was lying on a floating bed. "Lead the way, Mando girl."
He didn't actually say 'crazy', but she was sure there was a silent one in there somewhere. "Of course, Ghost man." She grabbed her helmet off the crate and hit the button for the door as Kanan huffed with amusement behind her.
Ezra woke up to the familiar and faint sensation of the drag of hyperspace that the compensators couldn't quite completely mask.
I don't remember scheduling a trip for today. Where am I going? Is it even still today?
He cracked an eye open and found himself blinking dazedly at the image before him.
Or… I'm dreaming and I'm not actually going anywhere.
He thought this because a Sabine with short orange and blue hair and an armour design from when they'd first met was undressing him; something he knew had never happened in real life. They hadn't gotten bold enough to actually undress each other until sometime after she'd changed her hair to blue and teal.
His dream Sabine smiled at him as she pulled off his second boot and sock. "Oh good, you're awake."
"Am I?" he asked as propped himself up on his elbows, discovering that his jacket and t-shirt were already cast to the floor of their cabin on the Lothhawk.
Surprised we're not on the Ghost for this dream, but whatever. Dreams never make any sense anyway.
"Of course you are, babe," she said laughingly as she crawled forward and started on his belt with dexterous fingers.
Ezra had zero problems with this, his blood already stirring with desire at the mere implication of their location and her actions. "Are you sure about that? Because you don't look like my wife. You look like my teenage fantasy. You're even acting like me teenage fantasy," he added after she'd tossed his belt to the side and it landed with a solid thump thanks to the lightsabre attached to it.
Sabine paused with her hands resting high up on his thighs in a blatant tease, a wry smirk tilting her lips as she looked up at him. "I suppose I am, aren't I?" She laughed and shrugged. "Oh well. Might as well enact some fantasies while we're at it."
As much as he wanted her to continue, Ezra caught her hands and pulled her forward so that she was straddling his waist, having finally woken up enough for him to realize that she was no teenage girl, despite the surface appearances that had fooled him into thinking otherwise. She was a little too curvy in the hip area and there were faint smile wrinkles around her eyes that were the only indicators of her recently attained age of thirty-six. "And what, exactly, is it that we're at?"
Sabine tugged her hands from his and ran them through his hair lovingly as she used her weight to push him back down on the bed. Then she gave him a fleeting kiss that he automatically returned before saying, "We're celebrating the twenty year anniversary of the day we met. And we're doing it far away from everyone and everything so no one can interrupt us for once."
He barely registered the last part of what she said, because his brain supplied a memory of when a colourful Mando girl had landed on one of the crates he was stealing and pointed a blaster at him for a few alarming seconds before she'd shot the anti-grav hitch instead and taken the second crate with a few words of advice about Zeb and a yelled 'good luck!' From there, his mind flashed to her jumping onto a crate again in the same outfit and actually shooting him this time.
He gasped and sat up in a surge, tumbling her backwards onto his legs. "You shot me! I can't believe you kriffing well shot me!"
Sabine caught herself with her hands and shrugged, looking only vaguely remorseful as he helped her find a new position that was more comfortable than her backwards sprawl and put their chests almost together again. "I just wanted to fix a mistake I made. And I'm kidnapping you from our life for a week, sooooo, it made sense."
Ezra gawked at her. He had no words. Literally no words. Only my warrior goddess would think that shooting me is a perfectly normal and acceptable way to get me to take a vacation. Kriffing hell, she could have just asked me.
It's a good thing I love her beyond anything.
Apparently he'd been silent too long, because she nudged him. "Aren't you going to say anything? Thank you, perhaps?"
He shook his head, a reluctant chuckle escaping as he cupped her face with his hands and kissed her instead of saying the words she was looking for. He might get around to those later after he got over the fact that she'd shot him. "I guess the only thing to say is; let the teenage fantasy reenactments commence?"
She beamed and her hands flew down to the fastening of his trousers. "That's what I thought. Prepare to be blown away, Bridger."
Ezra grinned and reclined back against the pillow again, folding his hands behind his head and fully prepared to enjoy whatever she had in mind. "Oh, I'm already there, cyar'ika, trust me." For how many other wives would cut and dye their hair, repaint their armour, shoot a man in a sort-of copy of something that happened long ago, and set up a weeklong vacation for us just to ensure she surprised me with an anniversary I didn't even know we were celebrating?
I definitely love her more than anything.
And he told her so, multiple times, over the course of the week filled with laughter as they caught up on all the movies they hadn't had time to watch, ate delicious food that she'd had prepared and stored from their favourite restaurant, and lazed in bed loving each other for endless, perfect hours.
They repeated the impromptu new anniversary tradition every twenty years till the very end of their long and happy lives.