Chapter 1
POINT OF VIEW: EZRA BRIDGER
"Shit shit shit shit shit-" I exclaimed, after recovering from the blow we took from the enemy ship. I couldn't decide what was worse; how terrible the mission was going, or the usage of colorful vocabulary resulting in me getting a hard thwack in the side of the head.
"Hey!" I snapped, shooting my co-pilot an aggravated glare, "What the krif was that for?!"
I pulled an evasive maneuver despite my distraction. The plan was to get in, get out, go home, but unfortunately, our simple mission was compromised.
By my copilot.
As incredible as she can be sometimes, her need to leave a detailed artwork behind only for her to blow it up later has gotten us into trouble as of late.
Sabine Wren has a lot of faith in her teammates - hell, even me. However, her easily distracted nature results in a close call on her life...frequently.
Today is one of those days. The mural was breathtaking, as always, but the constraints under which she tries to finish these projects are never appropriate for the size of the wall she chooses. And now, we're being tailed by a dozen TIE fighters.
"Okay maybe DON'T smack the one piloting the ship?" I suggested cheekily. My hands were gripping the steering so hard my knuckles were becoming numb.
"For the language, Ezra!" she laughed. A large BOOM was heard outside the ship.
Thanks to Hera and her seriousness on the younger members of the crew using "foul" language and whether or not it's appropriate, Sabine has been nonstop teasing me every time I let a swear slip.
In fairness, I do it back. We'll use every word we know in the book - and then some, since Zeb has taught us more than the both of us knew combined - and rattle them off within earshot of our poor surrogate mom for a laugh.
I shook my head and returned my focus to piloting the Phantom. "Now's not the time for a running joke Sabine!"
It was supposed to be simple.
Get in, get out.
"Hey hotshot, can't you do something that eliminates the threat?" Sabine sputtered, trying to restart the weak shields of the Phantom.
A TIE zoomed into my peripheral, maintaining our speed at the left of the ship.
I reversed sharply, sending both Sabine and me lurching forward, sending the TIEs far ahead of us.
Hoping my quick reaction time would allow for accuracy, I fired.
Two TIEs down.
I didn't have long to celebrate, because the ship shuddered as it suffered another blow from a TIE Fighter behind us.
Karabast, they just don't stop coming.
"Shit!" I exclaimed, thrusting the ship forward in hopes of outrunning the increasing number of enemies on our tails.
"Hey!" Sabine exclaimed, jumping out of her copilot's chair. She bounded towards the back of the ship, eyes glittering with excitement. "Open the back hatch!"
I know that look. She has a bad idea.
But damn, I love how she looks when she gets one of those wild ideas. Her spunky hair hung in her face, her cheeks a flushed pink-
Shit. Not now. Focus.
I scoffed, and began to laugh, remembering Sabine's agitated look from earlier. Oh, how quickly her mood shifts when she has mass destruction of the empire on her brain. "Did you know that you're adorable when you have a crazy idea?" I smirked.
"Can you do it? I just need-"
"As much as I would love to indulge that absolutely insane concept, we're going way too fast to open any part of the ship. So no can do," I laughed nervously. "Do you have any ideas that result in us living?"
Sabine merely rose a perfectly arched eyebrow. "Since when are you the brains of this operation?"
"Never suggested I was," I said cheekily. "Unless the thought of dying by my side enticed you into forgetting about the physics outside the ship? In that case, I'm promoted to brains."
I couldn't see her expression, but I could hear her huff, followed by her metal clanking of the floor hitting her boots as she stomped her way back to the co-pilot's chair.
"Romantic right?"
It completely goes against my nature to deescalate the situation, so I egged her on.
"Oh grow up!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in defeat before she poked me hard in the chest with her index finger. "You're going to get us killed because you feel the need to piss me off with your constant - and unsuccessful, mind you - attempts to FLIRT!" she burst, seeming to cram the mouthful of words into one single sentence. Only Sabine had the temper to do it.
I could barely contain my amusement. I shook my head and shrugged, "Lot of talk coming from the girl who planned a romantic suicide pact." I paused, a sinister grin stretching across my face. "Maybe I will open the hatch," I said quickly.
"Okay asshole, if you can't focus on piloting the ship, I'll do it!" she exclaimed in irritation. I was tempted to push another button since hers are so easy to press, but when I opened my mouth her hand twitched suspiciously, so I clamped shut. But that didn't muffle my laughter.
My flying was getting increasingly worse as this entire conversation happened over the top of it. It was mostly just spreading away from the fighters as fast as I could, dodging the gunfire as best I could.
My attempt at witty banter didn't ever get me far with Sabine. I'm convinced she finds it endearing...or at least maybe she once did when I was young and wasn't at her eye level yet. But, as time has gone on, I'm starting to believe that maybe her responses aren't banter, or sarcasm, or jokes...
Maybe she genuinely doesn't like me.
Not even just romantically, but at all. She always protests when we're put on a mission together, or when we get paired up for data analysis, and she never hesitates to complain that she's stuck with me when we have to reorganize the storage.
I had thought about asking her that much, at least. Are we friends? Could she at least grant me that? Could I ever-
"EZRA!" she shouted, startling me out of my wandering thoughts, because a TIE had just taken out our left thruster, causing the ship to start plummeting downwards in a tight spiral.
In a panic, my eyes roved over the control panel, and because of my fear, I blanked out on how to control the ship.
I hurriedly reached for my comm and fumbled for a minute until I found the button, keeping one hand on the steering, to no avail. "SPECTOR 2, WE ARE GOING DOWN! I REPEAT, WE ARE GOING DOWN!" I shouted frantically, noticing that the surface of Tatooine was getting too close for comfort.
Of course of all the planets we were sent to for a recon mission, it had to be this horrible, desolate dustball.
I heard momentary static before a reply came through. "Spector 5 and 6, are you alright?" Hera asked; she sounded afraid.
"No, the left thruster is out," I shook my head incredulously, "I think we're going to crash!"
My eyes darted out the window, noticing the dry barren land of Tatooine rushing up to meet us.
I looked over to my co-pilot, wondering if she would be the last thing I'd ever see.
Too afraid of the possibility, I shut my eyes.
POINT OF VIEW: HERA SYNDULLA
"Spector 5 and 6 come in!" I begged. Only static.
They crashed. They must have.
I clamped a hand over my mouth, the panic beginning to take over.
The door to the room opened with a hiss, and there was Kanan, poking his head in. His green eyes shimmered innocently, unaware of the horror I had just heard through the static.
"Everything okay? Have the kids checked in yet?" he prodded.
My eyes fluttered, my gaze locked with his.
"They-they uh, they-" I sputtered. The truth hadn't caught up with me yet. I didn't want it to. I was trying to outrun it, outrun the knowledge that we sent them out alone, and no one was there to help them, and they might not be alive anymore-
"Hey."
In the time I had dealt with the flurry of emotions, Kanan was by my side. He gently put his hands on my shoulders, his grasp firm, but tender. "Everything okay?"
I suddenly remembered how to breathe.
"No. Kanan-" I started, but my throat closed up, trying to force me to swallow the words. "Kanan, I- I don't...the phantom," I rambled. "I think we lost them," I gasped.
POINT OF VIEW: SABINE WREN
Dark. Everything is dark.
But shit I can feel everything right now.
I know I'm not dead. My body hurts too much for me to be dead.
I tried to force my body out of its comatose state.
Everything is so hot. I can feel the skin on my face getting broiled by the hot suns in the sky. It feels tight like the life has been sucked out of me.
How long have I been laying here?
I tried to shift my body, only to be met with resistance from my muscles, pain spiking up in protest. It felt like there was a weight pressing on my entire body despite no wreckage covering me. I felt heavy. I felt hot.
Where is here?
I blinked slowly, my eyes stinging from the bright light that shone directly overhead. Sand rolled off my cheeks as a came too. It was on my eyelashes - I could feel myself blinking away the sand as I adjusted to the harshness of daylight on Tatooine. My face and neck were stung from a sunburn.
Ezra...where is Ezra?
I bolted upright, and gasped in pain, forgetting about the rough landing we made. I didn't dwell on the pain for long, because I was too concerned with finding my lost crewmate.
Much to my surprise, I didn't have to look long, because he was perched on a splintered crate, dressing a wound on his ankle.
Ezra heard my stirring and met my confused gaze with his soft, but forlorn one. "You're up," he said flatly.
I blinked incredulously. "How long have you been awake?"
"About 5 hours. Your head looked a little banged up, so I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to wake you sooner than you were ready," he explained gently.
Curious, I brought a hand to my forehead and found bandages beneath my fingers.
Then like a wave, it came rushing back. The jokes, the teasing, the distractions, and the crash. I remembered how deeply Ezra appeared to be dissociating while piloting the Phantom before its final moments. He wasn't paying attention. And we both paid for it.
I felt blood in my body turn hot, and my breathing quicken. The temporary tenderness I had for my crewmate quickly dissipated and was replaced with fury.
Without any second thought, I sprung to my feet, ignoring the rhythmic pounding in my head that demanded I return to the ground. I picked a direction, and I walked.
"Wha-? Where are you going?!" Ezra called out to me.
I ignored him and continued stomping away, my boots leaving sandy prints on the ground.
"We can't just leave the Phantom here! We have to get in contact with Hera! She'll come and get us!" he pleaded. "And! You're literally concussed! You should not be walking right now!"
He ran to catch up with the distance I had on him. "Let's just work on repairing the comms, and wait-"
"NO!" I exclaimed, flipping around to face him. In all my anger, I closed the distance between us and shoved him onto the ground. He looked no longer annoyed, but afraid.
"This is YOUR FAULT!" I said through clenched teeth. "If you had been focusing on steering the ship back to The Ghost, WE WOULD BE THERE, RIGHT NOW!"
I could feel my nostrils flaring, and I could feel the daggers behind my eyes. But he fought back with daggers all his own.
He opened his mouth to retort, but I cut him off, not willing to put up with his excuse.
"You say another word, and your stupid, fucking head will be on the other side of Tatooine."
Ezra's eyes widened. My own eyes widened too. It was an empty threat, of course, but the words felt poisonous the second they hit my tongue.
I felt guilt form in the pit of my stomach until it tightened into a knot. I didn't like being intentionally cruel, especially not to Ezra. I'll snap at Hera; she blows it off. I'll burst out at Kanan; he doesn't care. I'll yell at Zeb; he laughs.
Ezra gets a look on his face. His cheerful, obnoxious grin melts into shame and a hollowness that sits in his eyes.
I am unfortunate the cause of this look ninety-five percent of the time.
I jumped a little when he muttered, "Why do you hate me?"
I hadn't expected him to say a word after my demeaning threat.
I relaxed, my expression softening. I wanted to backpedal as fast as I could. I wanted us to snap back into our normal dynamic like it never happened. "Ezra-"
"No! Fuck-Sabine, if you hate me just, just TELL ME SO, okay?" Tears were welling up in his blue eyes. Were those tears? I could never tell. His eyes always glittered.
"I get it," he conceded, tossing his hands up weakly. "You don't have to pretend with me. The rest of the crew isn't here, so you don't have to pretend to be my friend."
He ran his gloves through his raven locks, taking a breath. My chest felt tight and heavy with shame.
"I know I'm the last person you wanted to be stuck with, but please work with me long enough for us to get home," he pleaded.
Shit.
I don't do feelings.
I mean, I have feelings. I just prefer not to use them, because I usually end up in situations like this. I overstep when I think too hard about my feelings. So it's better to simply turn them off, and save people the trouble of putting out with my explosive emotions.
And yet, somehow Ezra manages to unearth them, despite how hard I try to keep them buried.
Ezra quickly wiped the underside of his eyes, and stood up, striding right past me, and towards...well, nowhere.
So he had been crying.
Great.
I curled my lips inward until they formed a straight line, and huffed out a sigh.
Now I have more than one thing to fix today.
POINT OF VIEW: EZRA BRIDGER
I wish the sand would swallow me whole, burying me, hiding me from the rest of the universe.
Sabine has a natural ability to pick the words that hurt in a very special way. It's worse when she's right.
I walked quickly, trying to keep a minimum distance of 10 feet between me and Sabine.
I don't quite know where I was walking, but I thought maybe we could find some help.
Something. Anything.
But she was right. We were here because of me. I was distracted with piloting, thinking about how Sabine felt about me, of all things, and managed to space out long enough for a TIE fighter to land a blow on us.
In fairness, the reason with was getting tailed so diligently was because of Sabine's failure to follow the time limit because of the artwork she left behind for the empire.
I could still hear her shuffling behind me a few paces.
The sooner we were rescued, the sooner I could escape the holes she was burning in the back of my head.
Earlier we had gone back to salvage some supplies because we figured we would need some sort of life support out here in the unforgiving, barren lands of Tatooine. Food, med kit, comms, and anything else that wasn't destroyed in the crash. Whatever remained was stuffed in our respective packs, and we began our trek to find help.
Because of her easily identifiable paint job that she failed to set off, the empire probably already had a good idea of who they were looking for, so we knew we had to be careful about where we asked for help. For all we knew, the entirety of Tatooine was given the news about a bounty on the heads of a few rebels.
I dragged my boots through the heavy sand, my eyes never leaving the ground.
You had one job.
I nestled myself closer to the pillow in the cold, makeshift tent.
Hot during the days, cold during the nights. That's how Tatooine works.
I could hear the silent snores of Sabine next to me. It was oddly soothing.
Our backs were touching slightly, so I shifted away. She'd be mortified if she knew we were that close in our sleep.
I felt a shiver travel up my spine, the new space between me and the girl beside me.
I pulled the blanket over my cold body and felt Sabine shudder on the other side of me.
I sat up a little, just enough so I could see over my shoulder, our makeshift cot crinkling beneath up as I adjusted.
She was curled up into a little ball, only a small amount of the blanket covering her.
I had grown bigger than her now. A year really changed me, believe it or not. There even came a time when I got taller than her. She didn't exactly like that, since she was used to the small, scrawny kid that attempted to steal from them a few years ago.
Now I was almost a whole head taller than she was. I was bigger, and a little larger in stature now.
Which was why I was taking up more of the blanket.
Silently, I lifted the entire blanket off of me, then wrapped it around her so she was fully covered with every inch of the blanket. I already felt bad that my zoning out cost us the mission. I can only imagine her fury if she discovered she was the distraction.
Returning to my side of the cot, I heard Sabine stir.
"Ezra?" she asked quietly. Her voice was low and gravelly, and I could hardly make out her words. "Aren't you cold?"
"No," I lied, bringing my knees closer to my chest. "You need that more than I do."
I hoped she would accept the nice gesture, roll over, and go back to sleep.
If I was lucky, the frigid night would kill me before Sabine would.
"Turn around," she commanded.
I suddenly didn't feel safe in the tent alone with her anymore.
Hesitantly, I rotated around, so I lay on my side, the two of us facing each other. I couldn't bring myself to meet her eyes. Our confrontation earlier was already more than I had bargained for, so I was hardly prepared for another discussion.
"Look at me," she commanded. I didn't dare disobey.
Her golden eyes were the most visible thing in the darkness.
By the force, she was the loveliest thing in the galaxy.
I finally was the one to break the silence. I caught her mid-breath, hoping to have my own questions answered instead.
"Do you hate me?" I whispered while rotating onto my back. The faded green linen above us was covered with ash and littered with holes. Faint stars twinkled through the slashed tent. "I know you would lie to me if that was the only thing I asked," I sighed heavily.
"You don't seem to understand how much I care about you. Sabine, I'm trying to be a good teammate..." I trailed off. "And I'm trying to be a good friend too. But I don't feel like you even see me like that. And even then, I know that I'm not exactly subtle about the way I feel about you. It started kind of silly, and innocent, but now. Now things," I paused, propping myself up so I could look over at Sabine. "Things are different.
"And yet," I continued, "I still feel like you treat me as that fourteen-year-old you picked up off of Lothal."
She wasn't looking at me. For all I knew, she wasn't even listening.
Her silence was telling, so I flopped onto my back. "So that's why I ask. Cause even if you don't like me, or even want to be friends, at the very least, do you hate me?" I asked, as sincerely as I could manage. If that train of thought was going to be the cause of all this, then fine. I think I at least deserve an answer.
I almost gasped when she scooted closer and nuzzled into my chest.
That's...not even close to the response I expected.
"I'm sorry, Ezra," she sighed. "I shouldn't have gotten mad. I shouldn't have yelled, I shouldn't have pushed you, I shouldn't have done a lot of things."
I froze when I felt her lips meet my cheek, the sudden warmth flooding to that one spot.
"You certainly are nothing like that kid we picked up on Lothal," she smiled.
I returned her smile.
"Much scruffier," she laughed, reaching up to ruffle my hair. I laughed with her, the moment feeling warm and bright.
"Maybe if you work hard enough I'll give you a turn being the brains of the-"
She never got to finish her sentence.
Because I was kissing her.
She didn't respond, she kind of just sat there, in complete astonishment.
When I parted from her, we looked at each other in the eyes for a moment-
Before she shoved me off of her.
She scurried away from me, horrified like she had seen a phantom.
I felt the heat rise to my face, shame pooling in my stomach. I had read it all wrong! And now, after all that effort to reconcile, my efforts are toppled by my need for her.
I brought a hand to my chest where she had shoved me, before looking up at her with remorse.
"I am so sorry!" I sputtered. I couldn't find words fast enough. "I shouldn't have-"
"Yeah, no SHIT, Ezra!"
"I'm sorry, it's just, you kissed me first, and I misunderstood-"
"That was a friendship kiss!"
"How was I supposed to figure that out?"
I huffed, then flopped onto my back.
She did the same.
Images flashed through my head, quicker than I could process. Tender embraces, shared secrets, tightly clinging onto one another longer than any real friends would.
There was conflict. Part of me was confused and almost outraged at her mixed signals. One minute she was soft and loving to me, and when I would reciprocate, she pulled away in shock and horror. However, this complicated feeling was paired with guilt. Part of me had already conceded that she didn't want me the same way I wanted her and that I was the source of the problem for pushing this narrative on her.
I narrowed my eyes and squinted at her. She shot me back the same look.
I didn't make a smart choice, letting my rage and entitlement show through.
"You know what? I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm the only one out of the two of us who knows how to feel emotions like love, or empathy, or anything like that!" I snapped. "You do nothing but make it clear to the rest of us how unworthy we are to be held at the same standard as you. But at least I know how to feel! At least there's not something wrong with me! At least-"
"STOP!"
The fire in her golden eyes was almost satisfying. Invigorating, almost. Knowing I had hit her in the place that mattered to her.
My body was trembling like I was on an adrenaline high.
But as quickly as it came, it went away.
Sabine stayed rigid and unmoving, but I could see her deflate. Even she couldn't maintain composure for long. Her eyes were glittering and glassy, and holding back tears.
She was breathing steady, but her breath quivered every time she exhaled. "For the record," she spoke in a hushed voice, "I never hated you."
I should've been satisfied hearing those words. But I wasn't.
I wish she wanted me the way I wanted her. But even then, we weren't even really friends. Maybe I didn't want to be.
I rolled onto my side, away from my teammate.
"You know, maybe you had the right idea before." I continued against my better judgment. "Hating each other might just be easier," I said sharply.
I waited for a snarky reply, for her to shout, for anything.
But nothing ever came.
