As quietly as I can, I slip past the front door with my bags of groceries and close it with my foot before dumping the bags on the counter, walking back to the kitchen table and snatching up the note I wrote to Sabine.

"Off to grab some groceries. You can stay if you want, I'm making breakfast."

Crumpling the note in my hand, I then stop for a moment to hear the soft snoring of Sabine coming from the back of my apartment then double check by probing the Force as softly as I can.

Yup. She's still back there. Either her, or somebody else. There's one living being in this apartment with me.

The options could be endless really. The envoy of bodyguards Dad had, Elias, all of the other, lesser Sith Assassins, the adepts my dad created before and after he created me.

"The perfect man."

"Hah." I laugh to myself, half a bag of groceries open. "Perfect."

(Flashback)

The opaque wall that's been uncompromising there for a while now, I'd estimate about ten hours suddenly drops with a noise, causing my eyes to pop open. I quickly turn to see the apprentice from earlier, holding two trays of food.

"Breakfast." He smiles. "Figured you were hungry."

I smile, then shift my legs on the end of the bed before they start waking up. "Thanks." I say, then take the proffered food and shift.

He isn't here to just eat. He's here for more intel.

"I can eat and talk." I say quietly, setting the tray of eggs, two sausage links, biscuits and gravy and a piece of toast on my lap then grabbing the napkins to set on my lap. "Feel free to start whenever."

"Yeah, but I thought we'd enjoy a little bit of this first." He smiles. "I never did introduce myself. I'm Cayle."

I stop my preparation, glance up to see that he's extending his hand to me. "Ezra. Nice to meet you." I shake his hand.

He's actually treating me like I'm human. Like a person instead of the enemy personified.

Cayle doesn't say anything else, opting to sit on the floor and settling into his food before we both fall silent for a few minutes.

"This is good." I speak up.

First really edible thing I've had here.

"I'll pass that along."

"I assume it's your kitchens?" I smile and glance up. "Did they know?"

Cayle shakes his head. "No, they don't need to."

Compartmentalization.

"These powers you mentioned." Cayle says quietly, biscuit on his fork as he looks at the wall behind me. "They've been popping up more recently. Not just in you, in other people."

"It's a big time for both the Jedi and Sith Orders." I joke.

Cayle's eyes find me. "Do you know why?"

"No." I shake my head.

"Do you know where they come from? The powers."

I shrug, then look up at the ceiling. "I…you know who my father is?"

"The Architect. The Sith's greatest mastermind. We've been chasing him for over thirty years."

"He's all that and more. I'm the creation that he worked hardest for. I don't really know what these 'powers' are. He just called it "The Force" and said that he pulled it out of thin air. The 'dark matter all around us, holding the universe together.'" I mockingly wave at the wall. "I know that out of everything he did, he experimented on thousands. I was born only after he figured out how to purposefully create somebody with those abilities."

Cayle's eyes are fixed on me for a moment longer before he blinks and looks away. "Not to get off track, but what about your brother?"

"Him too." I laugh.

"Our intel previously pointed to the idea that he was going to be the next leader."

"Head. Lord." I nod. "There's a few puppet names for our leaders."

"Darth's. Dark Lords of the Sith." Cayle adds.

I take a bite of food then continue. "My dad always had him pegged for the top spot."

Even though I'm the breakthrough. I'm 1.0, he's the 2.0 upgrade.

"You need to get him when you get my Dad. Or he's going to do exactly what he did, but with all of his resources."

"All of his intel, research, cash flow…yeah. I agree." Cayle sighs. "He's got 'The Force' too?"

"Yup." I nod. "We use it differently though."

Cayle sets his fork down then wipes his mouth. "I'm just normal. A normal, standard human being that just has really good reflexes. What does it feel like?"

The air conditioning kicks on behind Cayle, and I stop to take it in, then keep talking. "Addicting. I can use it in small doses, but I'm still learning how to control it."

"The Council says it does seem to be like a drug. The more you use it, the more it controls you. Advocates moderation."

Moderation.

"I agree actually." I smile, causing Cayle to glance over at me.

"Does your brother have a better handle on these powers?"

I nod once more. "Yeah. He's the improved model of me."

"You're a person, not an invention."

"That's not how he looked at me." I snap, then get to my feet angrily. "I was a success until he and Mom had Elias and he realized that he was more potent than I could be. Then I became a tool, and he became the future. That's all I think I was. Bridger 1.0 that gave way to 2.0." I pace around the room, then stop. "At least I think so. As I told the Council, I just had my change of heart. There's a lot to think about."

(End Flashback)

The soft sound of footsteps pulls me out of my memories as I'm cutting up peppers, with the tomatoes, chunks of ham and leaves of spinach set off to the side. "Morning."

The footsteps suddenly stop, then firmly move forward before Sabine pokes her head into the little kitchen. "Hi? Morning?"

"Yeah, it's about 10 in the morning. Still morning."

Sabine gives me a sideways look. "When did I see you last night?"

What?

"You texted me." I say, chopping as I talk, then stop and glance over to Sabine and see that she's still wearing the sweats I gave her before she procured tacos from thin air.

She somehow ordered 15 and ate 10 of them, leaving five for me before passing out on the couch after installing something called Netflix on my TV.

Sabine silently starts poking around on her phone as I chop before she drifts back toward my room. "Oh, I see it now."

"You said you wanted to sleep, so I brought you here." I explain as Sabine looks back in. "Didn't mean to spook you."

"I'm not spooked." She says quietly. "Waking up."

I smile, then set my knife down and open the fridge. "I made you this. Hangover cure I know. There's ibuprofen in the bathroom for your headache." I explain, then hand her a glass of green juice.

"What is it exactly?"

"Bananas, yogurt, some greens, oats and cranberry juice." I smile. "I had to go to the store to get all of it. Was afraid that the blender would wake you up."

The dirty blender container sits accusingly in the sink as Sabine eyes the drink again, then takes a small sip. "Doesn't seem poisonous."

"I don't think it is." I joke. "You can lie back down, I'll grab you when I'm done cooking. It's an egg scramble. Something for your stomach."

"You don't have to make me food." Sabine immediately proffers.

"You're my guest. I'm hungry and it's breakfast time." I disagree with her. "I want to make you food."

Sabine hesitates, then bites her lip. "Where'd you sleep last night?"

"Couch in here." I point in front of me, past the small notch. Sabine walks into the living room to where the living room is as I left it, desk on the right with my laptop plugged in, The couch is to the left, blanket I used folded up neatly on the arm near the wall.

"So that's your flaw." Sabine says loud enough to hear. "You're a clean freak."

I can't help but laugh. "I've been called meticulous. You've been looking for a flaw?"

"Everybody has them." Sabine admits, then walks back toward me in the kitchen.

We're only human.

"Would it be okay if I took a shower then? I feel…awful."

I smile and nod, then look to her. "Sure. There's towels in the cabinet behind the door. Nice and fluffy."

Sabine silently walks away before spontaneously saying "It's so…FLUFFY!"

(The Next Night)

Oh good. Finally.

I slam the door behind me and toss my bag aside and dart straight to the bathroom, flick on the water and start cleaning my hands up.

I was in such a zone that I didn't realize I cut my hands up so badly. Wasn't until I was driving home like a maniac, stopped to think about why my steering wheel was so slick before I realized it was blood.

The water flows easily from the faucet before hitting the cuts on my hands and knuckles and transitioning from clear to pink before swirling down the dr—

A knock at the door causes me to glance back, then probe out and feel somebody at the door.

Who would be here, now?

Pulling a towel into my hand from across the room, I wipe my hands off, still bloody before striding to the door and opening it.

"Hi." Sabine smiles up at me, holding a small box and a plate wrapped in aluminum foil. "Can I come in?"

I step aside and nod. "Yeah. How'd you find me?"

She doesn't have my address. I brought her here after all.

"Postmates." Sabine waves her phone at me. "Those tacos I ordered last night? Entered your address from somewhere. After my game today I knew I needed to do something, dug around, found that."

"You didn't have to do anything." I say as I shut the door.

My hands are still bloody.

I scrunch up the towel in my hand before slipping off to the kitchen sink and starting up the water there. Sabine follows and watches as I start cleaning my hands again. "Are your hands…bleeding?" She asks, taking a step forward, getting in her toes and peering up.

"Yeah." I nod quietly.

"How? What'd you do?" She asks quickly. "Did you get in a fight?"

Kind of.

I laugh. "No. I felt in the mood to hit something. I did some MMA training in high school. Wrestled. Looked up a gym. Only problem is that their heavy bag…was more like a concrete block."

And the cinder blocks I broke didn't help. The Temple really needs to buy a new bag. I figured that if I'm going to smash my hands, might as well work on my punching power.

"And it cut your hands?"

I cut off the water and bring my hands up to get a good look at the multiple cuts, ranging from my right thumb to a paper cut on the inside of my left middle finger, a slice dangling across my right palm before the small cuts across both of my fists. "Yeah."

Some liquid bandages and I'll be fine.

"So what's up?" I smile at her before slipping past her and walking to the bathroom and my first aid kit. "How'd your game go?"

"Won." She says nonchalantly. "I would have scored but the post denied me. Story of my weekend."

"The post?" I ask, digging around under the sink.

"The white bar. I hit the side one. I didn't hit it right, but it still should have fucking gone in." Sabine says, sounding frustrated before whacking the door frame with an open palm. "But it didn't."

"Sorry." I apologize.

Sabine looks away from the door and back to me. "You weren't there."

"I'm behind on homework." I confess.

She isn't. She's got all the time in the world since she's going to be gone all this week.

"I figured that. Did you get caught up?" She asks politely as I finally find the bandages.

"No." I reply. "I'm ready for tomorrow though, so I'll be okay."

Walking back to my room, I hesitate for a moment as my mattress is stripped bare, the comforter in the washer with my sheets and pillow case in the dryer. "Oh." She says quietly before I sit on the mattress. "I—you didn't have to—"

"It's okay." I smile. "I need to clean my sheets anyway."

I unscrew the bottle as Sabine nervously looks around my room. "Sorry."

"You didn't do anything wrong." I say, then start applying the bandages to my left hand with my right. Sabine looks on for a moment, then sits next to me.

"Want me to help you with your other hand?"

"I've got it." I say, pausing for a moment to let the bandages harden before switching hands and the palm cut twinges painfully.

Yeah, that's going to need more. If I have to go back to the Temple to get it stitched up I'm going to be pissed.

Sabine silently watches on for a moment, then walks around my room, lingering around my dresser where I've got my keys, some spare change and some random odds and ends before I finish with my hands. "C'mon. I don't want it to get cold."

"Cold?" I ask, getting up and letting Sabine lead me back toward the kitchen.

Sabine walks ahead, then grabs the plate and turns to me with a smile. "I made you some cookies. Chocolate chip."

Oh.

"Thanks."

"I would say sit down at the table, but you don't believe in kitchen tables apparently." She jokes, pointing to where a table should be, but isn't.

Everything is there but that.

"Couch will do." I answer, taking the cookies and walking toward the couch. Sabine walks behind me, then sits in the recliner as I sit on the couch.

"I also got you this." She extends the bottom box to me. "Been working on it for a bit, waiting for the right time." She laughs. "Figured it can't hurt me."

"Nothing can hurt you." I take the box. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I've basically slept on your weekend." She frowns. "You take care of drunken me, clothe me, feed me breakfast, let me sleep on your couch and your bed then get me dinner, drive me to my car at the soccer field. I kind of dominated things."

"I had fun. The party was nice."

Sabine winces. "Oh, yeah. I heard you met some of my teammates?"

"Yeah." I laugh quietly. "I did. They're…something."

"Sorry." Sabine apologizes again.

"You didn't do anything wrong. Don't apologize." I tell her.

"They're my teammates though. And I was going to tell you to avoid them since they can be home wreckers, but they kind of revealed themselves. Matt said he talked to you about it?"

She talked to Matt.

I nod. "Yeah."

"So—oh dammit. It didn't go well he said." She shakes her head.

"It went fine. We just didn't click. It happens, No hard feelings."

"Well, I'll try to stay sober enough next time to introduce you to some people." Sabine laughs at her own expense. "There are some nice people I play with too."

"I kind of figured that. Even though you do seem to lose your mind when you play." I tease her.

"I get competitive." She says breathlessly. "And soccer's a physical sport."

I smile at her. "Yeah. You're always getting pushed or yanked. And when you're not you're pushing and yanking your opponent."

"My mark. Open the box. And give me a cookie." Sabine takes the cookies and replaces them with the white box.

Okay…

"Huh." I smile, opening the box, setting the lid aside and lifting up the first shirt, a white USC jersey.

It looks like one of her soccer jerseys.

"Check the back." She tells me. Doing as I'm told, I flip it around to see "Wren" on the back, with "5" underneath it in the standard beveling her jerseys have.

"Nice. Thanks." I smile at Sabine then pick up the next one, a scarlet one that has the USC logo on the front.

"I kind of had to work to get you these. The designs are copyrighted and I had to bribe our SID, who is a jackass, but it worked. Can't get these at the bookstore or online or anything. It's the team's and yours. Do you like them?" She asks, looking hopeful.

"Yeah. They're awesome." I reply, looking at the black version. "I've never seen you in this one."

I've only seen the red and the white versions.

"We usually only wear black on the road." Sabine explains. "Our seniors say that's how it's always been, which I think is a dumb reason to do anything but oh well."

I smile and set all three shirts aside, then grab another cookie. "You ready for this week?" Going to be a long one."

"Yeah, no kidding. It's going to suck but I have to go even though I probably won't play one of the two Oregon games."

"Why not? You're kind of the best player." I ask.

Sabine bites her lip. "Not really. There's a difference between best player and who scores goals. I'm not the best player. I just score goals right now. The best players, like our captain, Jaicey can affect the game without scoring. The little stuff, manipulating side actions that affect what the person with the ball does. Small things that add up."

Omnipresent. Fingerprints that are everywhere.

"Anyway, yeah." Sabine claps her hands. "I'll be gone all week while you're stuck here. By the time I get back it'll be two class days, then Fall Break."

"Already?" I blurt out.

I have to report to the Council during Fall Break. Shit.

Sabine nods. "I know, time's flown. Gonna be mid to late September before long."

Dammit. The usual sessions are torturous. But now they have something new to torture me on.

Their torture topic smiles at me. "You staying around for Break? Or going home."

"Staying. It's not enough time to fly home just for basically a long weekend." I shake my head. "I'll probably go see Kanan and Hera and the kiddos. Hang around here. Watch your Netflix."

Sabine lights up. "Yeah! I can't believe that,. You've never heard of it? Ever?"

"Nope."

She drunkenly flipped out on me, spilling a taco before installing it, logging in and starting some random show on Alaska.

"Unbelievable." She shakes her head. "You're such a weirdo."

"Then why are you here?" I ask jokingly.

Sabine laughs, then reaches for my remote. "I have to make you normal. And relax. Your idea of relaxing isn't relaxing." She says, pointedly looking down at my hands.

Yeah, well…it helps me.

"Says the girl that does nothing but play soccer."

"That ain't no damn lie. God my FEET HURT!" She screeches, then tosses off her shoes.

"You said the same thing yesterday." I observe.

"Because humans aren't meant to kick a ball like that and run around so much. I soaked my feet while making the cookies but…ow." She winces, then rubs the edge of her foot.

"I've got ice." I offer her.

Sabine stops and hesitates. "Do you have a bucket and some hot water? That'd really help."

"Under the bathroom sink." I nod. "Help yourself."

Sabine complies, talking to herself the whole way, voice filling the apartment with energy, causing me to smile.