A/N: I just want to clarify something since there seems to be a bit of confusion and a few unhappy readers. In the last chapter, I didn't mean to imply that Kanan had been a playboy or a manwhore. What he WAS was desperate, depressed, addicted to alcohol, and very very lonely. He sought out companionship because he couldn't stand to be alone, all the while hating himself for it; which just made him drink more. He wouldn't have wanted to quite admit all that Ezra, though, in their talk, so it didn't come across as something Ezra registered, since the chapter was from his POV. I apologize if I burst your happy Kanan bubble, but I was trying to put a bit of realism into this particular story.

Also, someone said they wanted me to go back to the original storyline of Version 1 because this one is going to get depressing, but, the thing is, I'm not actually changing my plot that much. The original was also going to have everything go to hell as well, just not as quickly. (Thank you, The Mandalorian, for putting the Great Purge into my radar.) The Empire was always going to show up to retaliate against Bo-Katan's success and some people are still going to die, prompting Ezra to use the World between Worlds to fix things. The only things I've really changed is Jett and Ketsu's storyline and adding a ton more scenes from other people's POVs. If you can't take a dose of depressing tragedy with your fluff, then stop reading now and go find one of my other, much happier fics.

Thank Kriff for Dads (part 2):

Sabine strode off Ezra's Gauntlet, only pausing at the top of the ramp to look over the other parked ships. She didn't see Ketsu's low profile Shadow Caster on first glance, but the gold, black, and silver paint of the Jai'galaar was easily spotted and recognized only a few Kom'rks over.

Seeing the ship reminded her of what she'd lost, because it was her mother's. One of her favourite things, in fact, right after Father, Tristan, and her armour. Ursa Wren had loved flying nearly as much as Hera did, but her duties as Countess had kept her grounded more often than not.

And now she'll never fly again.

And Tristan… Tristan will never have the chance to find his cyar'ika. Never explore his newly discovered talent for making metal sculptures. Never grow up to be the next Count Wren like he should have been, since I never wanted the job.

But it's mine now anyway.

Sabine swallowed back a tiny, sobbing gasp, her heart breaking all over again and continued towards the ship, hoping her father was still on board.

He was.

She found him alone in the open cockpit, slumped over in the pilot's chair, face buried in his hands, causing her to hover in the doorway.

He looked just as miserable as she felt, which only worsened because the picture was all wrong.

Her mother should be in the pilot's chair and her brother should be in the co-pilot's, celebrating today's victory. Her father should be at home on Krownest or at his art gallery in Sundari. But he wasn't, and the later had been confiscated and trashed by the Empire's brainwashed troopers. And she... She should have been able to stay with Ezra and her other family on the Ghost.

Is it wrong that all I want right now is to hide in his arms and disappear from the galaxy for a while?

But I can't. I'm the bloody shabla Countess now. I have duties. Responsibilities. Obligations. My relatively carefree life is over.

Forever.

And all because I was too smart and too cocky and too stupid. Why did I have to invent the Duchess in the first place?

She'd thought she'd hated herself before, when the Empire had first tested it against her people years ago. Now it had murdered a portion of her clan and family, and she downright loathed her past self at the moment. All of this was HER fault.

If I could go back in time, I'd probably murder my younger self right now.

Kriff, I need more of Ezra's upbeat enthusiasm right now. I'm getting depressingly morbid.

But, oh stars, Dad… He looks so sad. He lost more than I did.

Closing the door behind her for privacy, Sabine walked slowly over to her father and knelt on the floor beside him, putting her helmet down.

"Sabine," he murmured, finally moving his hands and letting them fall limply to his knees. His amber eyes were damp and looked just as morose as she felt.

"I'm sorry, Father," she whispered, putting a hand over one of his and squeezing gently.

His other hand came to rest over hers so they held each other and he shook his head. "No. You have nothing to be sorry for. You've done amazing things today, my Daughter. Your mother would be proud of what you have accomplished. I know I am." He gulped as his voice wavered and she could see how he was visibly trying to keep it together for her sake.

Sabine bit her lower lip to stop the trembling, but the sorrow was fighting past her willpower again. She turned her face away, not able to look at him, or she would start bawling like a child. "But I do," she whispered to the floor. "I have so much to atone for. I'm sorry I invented the weapon. Sorry I trusted in the Empire. Sorry I failed you all. Sorry I didn't manage to rescue you sooner. Sorry I killed Mother and Tristan. And some cousins and second cousins. And... I'm not even sure who else." She paused, gulping in air, and then peeked upwards for only half a moment, seeing wide eyes that looked so much like hers glistening with moisture. "I'm sorry I killed your cyar'ika and treasured son."

"Sabine, stop." he interrupted her before she could start claiming responsibility for every death caused by the Empire. Alrich Wren slid off the chair and knelt in front of her on the hard decking, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to look at him again "You did NOT kill Ursa and Tristan."

"But..." her lower lip trembled even more pathetically as tears welled in her eyes.

"No!" he said, shaking her shoulders just a little. "No, you didn't, and stop blaming yourself for it, because I do not, and does my opinion not count the most?"

Sabine abused her lower lip some more for a few moments as she mulled that over, and then she nodded slowly and finally whispered, "Yes."

Her father sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. But when he spoke again, the truth and wisdom in his words made her respect for him grow even further. "Yes, they died by a weapon that you invented, but if you manufactured blasters, would you claim the deaths of every person shot by one?"

She immediately saw where he was going with this. "No. The person holding the blaster is the killer," she said quietly. "I understand." She sniffled. "But that isn't going to help me sleep any better."

Alrich smiled wanly as he rubbed his hands comfortingly up and down her arms between shoulder guards and elbow pads. "That, I can sympathize with. I haven't slept well for a very long time. Not since your mother cast you out. I loved her more than anything, don't get me wrong, but we've lived separately ever since she did that to you. I could not forgive her for choosing her honour over our daughter."

Sabine gasped. "Oh, Dad. You didn't. Not for me. Your relationship was one of the few things that made Mother happy."

"I know. Shab, do I know," he choked, bowing his head in remorse, hands falling into his lap again as he clenched them together. "The Saxons caught me because I was alone. My own shabla fault. I regret it all, now, so much. I thought there was time. So much more time. I always believed that you would come back and that she and I could go back to the way things were because my point had been made."

Sabine hurt for him. Her chest ached something awful. "Dad…"

He shook his head, swiping at his eyes a little angrily before any of the welling tears could fall. "And then you did, and I didn't even know it. Not until only a few days ago, thanks to Tristan's friend, Adnar, who was put on my guard duty. He told me that you had reconciled with your mother, had dueled Gar Saxon and won, with the shabla Darksabre of all things, and that Clan Wren was rebelling from Imperial rule." Their eyes met again as he looked up, a fierce look on his usually calm and good-natured face. "I am so proud of what you have accomplished all on your own. I know nothing would have changed if you had not come home and made it happen. You always were my Little Fighter. It warms my heart to have you back in my life. I missed you so much, Sabine."

And now his tears fell and she couldn't stop her own anymore.

"Daddy," she sobbed and threw herself forward and into his arms, burying her face in his chest as they finally grieved together for what they had lost. "I missed you too," she whispered. "So much." And I'm still sorry. So much so that my heart breaks into a million miserable pieces with it.

Ezra bounded down the ramp of the Gauntlet and then followed his long-ago-developed internal radar towards Sabine, which happened to guide him a few ships over to the right.

Inside the camp, what seemed like herds of Mandalorian warriors were cheering and laughing, pounding each other's backs, making out in shadowy corners (or in plain sight, to the amusement of those around them), drinking what looked like copious amounts of alcoholic beverages, and play fighting like children as they celebrated their victory. Only a few had actually sat down at the tables to eat so far.

Ezra smiled at them as he walked, the joy radiating in the Force around him infectious. He saw Fenn with Bo-Katan, talking to each other as they shared a plate of food, their body language practically screaming, 'I think you're hot and want to pounce on you, but we just met yesterday, so I'll wait a few more minutes.' Ezra felt like cheering them on, only refraining because of the distance was too far to yell easily. He'd tell them that life was short and much too uncertain these days to waste on silly things like decorum and restraint.

Arriving at the Gauntlet that Sabine had told him was named the Jai'galaar (which meant shriek-hawk), Ezra peered up the ramp, mentally scanning for other Force signatures. He only found Sabine and her father. And they felt like they were very close together; hugging most likely. Add that to the sorrow he could feel from Sabine, and Ezra decided that it was best to leave them alone for a while longer. So he walked up the ramp most of the way and then turned and sat, getting a better view of the bustling camp.

While he people watched, Ezra memorized more Mando'a words to add to his growing vocabulary by listening to the louder broadcast thoughts and matching them to the words that came out of their mouths. Unsurprisingly, considering what they'd just done, battle related words were the most common, like victory (parjai), justice (tor), and space war (tra'akaan). If felt good to be accomplishing something useful, since he was going to be Sabine's significant other. He didn't want to embarrass her by not knowing her language or make her life any harder than it already was.

He'd seen the looks some of the Mandos had given her last night at dinner with him sitting beside her. They hadn't done anything more exciting in public than a few kisses to the cheek and put their arms around each other, but that had been enough to upset more than a few people. They were clearly not happy with him being a Jedi, and some still resented her for inventing the Duchess, even though she'd vowed to destroy it again. The least he could do was learn her language. There was no helping who he was though. Ezra would never be able to just give up being a Jedi, not even for Sabine.

He was proud of who he'd become. It had taken a lot of work, a lot of sweat and tears, a lot of backwards and sideways steps as the Dark side tried to lure him away from Kanan's teachings, but he was finally content with who he was now. Everything within him just felt right. Balanced. He was living a life somewhere between the Jedi of old and a more normal life of a person who came with a family and was very much attached to them. It worked for Kanan, and it worked for him.

Which made him wonder why the old Jedi Order frowned so heavily on attachments. If Kanan and I can do it, then why not everyone else? Even Ahsoka had said the attachment rule was a bunch of bantha poodoo. She'd once said she considered her Masters to be her father and brother, and that most Master / Padawan relationships developed into the familial quickly if they'd been paired correctly. And before she'd died, he knew for a fact that she and Rex had been talking about getting formally married (on top of the secret Mando'a vows they'd made back when they were still fighting the Clone Wars) as a 'kriff you' to the galaxy at large who still believed the clones weren't any better than flesh droids.

Of course, that line of thought made him think of poor Rex, who still wasn't the same, and that was about a year and a half ago now, which just increased the guilt that sat on Ezra's shoulders like a full-grown gundark for her death. The old-before-his-time clone hadn't even really cheered up when they finally found someone to reverse-engineer the accelerated aging gene and set it to go the other way. There was actually some dark brown in his beard now and hair had started to grow hair on top of his head again, also dark brown to match his eyebrows. (Apparently, he used to dye his hair blond to draw attention away from the fact that he had a slight mutation in regards to his hair colour; except for a few with even more obvious mutations, all the other clones had black hair.) You could definitely see that he, Wolffe, and Gregor were getting younger again as their faces slowly smoothed out. They planned to have the gene disabled when they looked their proper age, which should be about forty-five by the time it evened out, since they were thirty-two now, but looked like sixty something's.

Curious at how Sabine was doing, he peeked at her feelings again and flinched as an even stronger wave of sorrow hit him than before.

Now he was left with the conundrum of whether or not to go try and comfort her or to leave her be, since she was with her father. He wished he could ask Kanan for advice on how to deal with a miserable female that was now more than your friend, but he was talking to Hera and he didn't want to interrupt them. And... Kanan was blocking him anyway. That could only mean that Kanan and Hera were having one of THOSE conversations, which Ezra wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

On the other hand, he wouldn't mind having one of THOSE conversations with Sabine. Just the thought of it was enough to wake up the one track mind of the appendage in his pants. Ezra scolded it back into sleep mode by picturing Darth Vader, with his ice cold aura and that menacing red lightsabre held to his throat.

Yep, that did it. His entire body was cringing now.

Works every time, he thought with a mental huff of relief and amusement.

But when it came to Sabine and her incredibly hot figure in that bodysuit that she didn't always have the concealing armour attached to, or her silky blue pajama set that left her arms and most of her legs bare and did nothing to hide the shape of her breasts... Let's just say he needed to picture Darth Vader a lot.

Living in a confined space with the girl of your dreams, but not being able to touch her, was both a blessing and the worst form of torture. It was also a good way to inspire him to practice his meditation more frequently to help with body control.

Thank the Force she's finally returned my interest. Maybe now I won't have to meditate so much or resort to cold showers or picture my worst nightmare anywhere near as often. I am SO looking forward to the benefits of being in a real relationship.

Not that he wouldn't have waited another decade if he had to, because he most definitely would have, for her. But he doubted anyone would blame him for exalting over her loving him back and his looking forward to applying all of his fantasies to real life.

Which didn't really bring him back to his current conundrum, but he was there anyway in an instant as Sabine's pain seeped into his mind again when her shields wavered. Should I go comfort her again?

It had been easier when they were just friends and he didn't have an instant link to her feelings. Back then, even if he felt her in a dejected mood, it hadn't been his place to try and cheer her up except in a roundabout fashion that didn't give away the fact that he was sensitive to the feelings of his family. Now that they were bonded for real, her emotions felt like his own and he felt compelled to do something to help her.

But she was still Sabine. Still the girl who liked her space and to deal with her stuff on her own. He didn't know how much she'd welcome his interference now that they were... Dating? Engaged? Friends with benefits? What are we, anyway? Force, I hope it's not the last one.

Shrugging that question off for later, he focused on his current problem; whether or not to barge into the ship and distract her into feeling happier again. She'd welcomed his presence last night, but that didn't mean she'd do it again, not with her father present. Maybe not even if she was all alone.

He waffled for another minute, but finally decided to throw caution to the wind. The worst she'll probably do is yell at me, and she's done that plenty over the years, so that won't be anything new.

Decision made, he was up and striding into the ship in an instant and aiming for Sabine's signature at the front of the large troop fighter.

He paused at the closed cockpit door, second-guessing himself again. Sabine was still feeling sad, but happiness was creeping in there as well along with a hint of mortification. What to do? What to do?

Scrunching up one side of his face from the indecision eating at him, his finger nevertheless moved towards the button to open the door. In slow motion.

The Wrens cried together for a few minutes before their stubborn and prideful Mando natures kicked back in and dried up the flood of vulnerable emotional displays. But they stayed in the hug for a long time, not saying anything, but taking comfort in each other.

Eventually, Alrich stroked his hand over his daughter's artistically styled light hair - that was about as far from her (and her mother's) natural colour of dark chocolate brown as it could get – one more time and then pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Much as I'd love to hold you like this forever, my Sab'ika, my poor knees have passed the point of protesting this floor and are now just whimpering pathetically."

Sabine giggled as she pulled out of his arms and stood easily. She held out a hand for him to grab. "Poor Dad, getting old. If you wore your armour like the rest of us, you'd have knee pads on, just sayin'."

Alrich accepted her help gratefully, once again marveling at how strong she was despite her tiny stature as she pulled him up effortlessly. They both heard his knees crack as he straightened, causing them both to laugh. He grinned. "I might have to consider that, especially if you give me grandkids to crawl around after."

"Dad!" she blushed, smacking his arm playfully. "Too soon! I've been in a relationship for one whole day so far, if that! Kids are not in the near future, trust me."

Alrich raised a brow, his mouth quirking up on one side knowingly. Not if the sparks that fly between you and that Jedi boy have any say in the matter, he thought smugly, but merely said, "We'll see."

She blushed darker and bent to pick up her helmet. "Not happening, Dad, so give up."

"Nope. Might even have to start a betting pool," he teased as they started walking towards the door.

"Don't you dare," she warned, turning and narrowing her eyes at him, just like her mother.

Their similarities hit him like a punch in the gut, but he held his grin through it determinedly. "You know me... When it comes to words or paint, I'd dare anything," he snarked as he hit the button to open the door.

His daughter's Jedi was standing on the other side, his hand poised over the opposite button. Alrich wasn't surprised to see him there; the young couple were nearly attached at the hip already, as far as he could tell.

"Hi! I was just..." the young man started as he smiled shaakishly at Sabine and Alrich (but mostly Sabine), moving his hovering hand to rub at the back of his neck. The older man chuckled under his breath while Sabine's demeanour changed almost instantly; her stance softening and an entirely different blush crossing her cheekbones. Sparks. So many sparks.

"Coming to get us?" Sabine supplied helpfully with a teasing smile as she reached for his rubbing hand as it lowered and laced her fingers with his.

"Yeah. That." The boy grinned dopily at his daughter as her smile widened.

Watching Sabine settle so quickly into happiness at the sight of her Jedi made Alrich like the energetic blue-eyed boy even more than he already had. And I'll do whatever is necessary to make sure no one takes him from her.

Not my clan. Not another Mando. And most certainly not Vader.