(A/N)- More Bad Things Happen Bingo! Anon asked for "Anger Born Of Worry" for Sabine towards Ezra. and I was like: "Oh good, one of my favorite tropes for them! :D"

Really enjoyed writing this one. Hope you guys like it too.

Disclaimer: Please just give me Star Wars I would approve so much content for it.


Afterdust

The Atollon dust was beginning to settle after their semi-disastrous retrieval mission of the half-dozen Y-wings that now lined the landing pad, being meticulously checked over by technicians and mechanics before they were sent off to join General Dodonna's Massasi group. Sabine watched them with something prickling in her heart, something unpleasant and festering.

She was inexplicably, irrationally, angry.

By the base metric at least the op had been a success—they had gotten the Y-wings, as she had none-too-hastily pointed out to Hera—but Sabine's mind was playing back all of the stupid setbacks and obstacles that had very nearly resulted in not just failure but capture and death.

Setbacks almost universally caused by a series of bad calls.

Sabine didn't understand why it was bothering her now. Ezra had already been scolded and reprimanded, demoted by Hera with official agreement from Sato, once they'd been debriefed. He had been quiet and scarce all night, wandering in and out and through the base in an aimless fashion, sufficiently chastened by Hera's words. Sabine had even defended him—sort of—in front of Hera when he was first being chewed out.

So where was this anger and upset and hurt coming from?

She kicked a loose rock by her feet, watching it skitter off into the pre-dawn darkness, out of view.

All she could think of that had changed was that she hadn't known the details of how, exactly, Ezra had lost the Phantom and wound up needing to be retrieved by the Ghost until just a few moments ago.

She hadn't meant to eavesdrop. She had just been checking through her cans of paint. Her door was open and she'd heard Kanan and Hera's raised voices from the cockpit. Hera was ranting—of course she was, it had been her ship that Ezra had gotten destroyed—and Kanan had been gently trying to calm her down. Sabine had only caught every other word but it had painted the vivid picture in her mind of Ezra, clinging terrified to the outer structure of the station as it fell into the gas cloud, wind blasting past him, eyes wide and hopeless.

Her throat had clenched up, quiet notes of horror dropping into her heart. She'd listened to Kanan describe Ezra's suffocating guilt and despair leaking through the Force to him and almost cursed herself for not being there, for being out in orbit making off with the prize instead of making sure Ezra was safely off the station.

The fact that their comms had been jammed was a logical point that she could not, in her wild musings, appreciate.

So here she was. Standing with her arms crossed and letting the miserable prickle travel from end to end inside her chest. Furious thoughts chased each other around her head.

Idiot. Moron. Dumbass. Why hadn't he beelined for the Phantom as soon as he'd cut the power? Why had he wasted time fighting his way up to the control room in the first place instead of cutting the locks off the Y-wings with his saber? Even making out with Hondo would have been better than what had happened, with it ending with her stranded up in space being pulled towards a Star Destroyer while he plummeted into oblivion somewhere sight unseen below her.

She had taken it for granted at the time. Assumed that of course Ezra would have gotten out, would have been on the Phantom on his way up to meet them. It was Ezra, he had always come through okay, always managed to get himself out of trouble.

But he hadn't. He had been dropping dozens of meters per second into an ionized gas cloud without a prayer of escape, without anyone even knowing he was in trouble.

Her fingers tightened on her arms.

Stupid! she thought furiously.

The agitated energy within her finally propelled her feet into action. She uncrossed her arms and stalked, stiff-legged, through the base, glancing around sharply with her eyes, searching. Her fists clenched tightly by her sides and the pulsing heat inside her throbbed hotter and hotter, growing steadily into a simmering blaze.

She found him near the makeshift mess hall, talking to one of the junior officers, laughing a little without an apparent care in the world. She stormed up to him, and he must have sensed her anger because he startled a little at her approach, turning to look right at her with wide, bewildered eyes.

"Ezra," she said, sharply, coming to a stop in front of him. "We need to talk," she told him, in a tone of voice that said she wouldn't take no for an answer.

The junior officer grimaced, wincing with sympathy, and hastily made himself scarce. Ezra inhaled slowly through his nose and then let it out again in a long sigh, also cringing with anticipation.

"Okay," he said.

Sabine grabbed his wrist harshly and pulled him behind her. He offered no protest as she dragged him along, out to a relatively secluded area by the south perimeter fence. Very few Rebels milled about on this section, so they could speak freely without having to worry about anyone overhearing and spreading the gossip. Sabine's heart was still flaming with pulsing indignation inside her chest.

She let go of his wrist and whirled on him, brows furrowed harshly over her eyes and jabbing a finger into his collar.

"Look, I don't know what's been going on with you lately," she began, withering displeasure in every line of her face. "But this recklessness, this impulsive, cocky, self-assured bullish attitude of yours? It needs to stop," she told him. "You need to slow down and seriously think about how your actions and orders affect other people!"

His eyes pinched closed and lowered immediately, his shoulders shrinking as her scolding washed over him.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"Do you know how lucky we were that everyone got out okay and that we actually accomplished the objective?!" she ranted at him, almost unhinged now that she could let everything out. "Do you even appreciate how many bad calls you made on that mission?!"

He flinched, his eyes squeezing tighter, shame pulling his chin down. "I know," he said softly, miserable. "I gave bad orders. I almost got everyone killed."

"No you idiot, you could have died!" Sabine cried in outrage, and something in her mind broke with horrible clarity. She suddenly understood what was bothering her most, why she was so angry.

She stood there and panted, hands trembling, the realization ringing around her head like a tinny bell.

"You... you could have died and I wouldn't have even known until an Imperial interrogator was holding it over me, crowing about it," she said, tremulously, her voice shaking with unexpected emotion. Sabine felt a burning heat beneath her eyes and furiously blinked at it. "We could have lost you," she said. "I could have lost—"

Her voice locked up, stalling, seizing as she realized with a mortified flush rushing to her cheeks what it sounded like she was implying.

She swallowed thickly, breaking eye contact with him and turning her head aside, heat in her face and eyes and heart, thumping with steady pressure, halting, stuttering.

"We—we just lost—" She couldn't say the Togruta's name, couldn't force her mouth to form the syllables of their lost friend. "—we can't afford to lose another Jedi. Not now," she finished, a desperate, almost whiny squeal to her voice as it choked and faded.

Ezra's expression was heartbreaking, guilt and shame and despondency all clashing on his face.

He turned away, unable to even look at her.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled again, his shoulders curling in, shrinking him further. "I messed up. I know. I'm..." He drew in a shaky breath, trembling. "It—it won't happen again," he whispered thinly.

Sabine felt immediately ashamed of her harsh tone. Ezra had been beating himself up about the disastrous Reklam mission for hours now, she'd watched him mope and shuffle around the base like a dead man herself. What good was her scolding him, except to make him feel even worse?

She struggled to speak for several minutes. Ezra had turned away from her, shoulders slumped, and she wrestled words to her mouth as she reached out for him, softly.

"Ezra..." she said. She never wanted him to feel like he was only good for the things he could do for the Rebellion. Like it didn't hurt her, personally, the idea of losing him. "I... I didn't mean it like—"

He shrugged off her touch, rejecting it with clinical detachment.

"I need a moment," he told her shortly, walking away before she could say anything else, call him back, let him know her true feelings.

Sabine watched him go, saw the stiff lines across his shoulders, and knew her anger hadn't helped, hadn't put things right between them.

But she let him walk away.

-SWR-

Two hours later, with the red sun beginning to creep over the sandy horizon, Sabine found him again, curled up into a self-loathing, miserable ball against a stack of supply crates. AP-5 had ratted him out to her, complaining that the young man's brooding presence was interfering with his ability to inventory properly.

Sabine had just sincerely thanked the inventory droid and made her way into the maze of crates, holding her arms softly as she approached him.

"Hey," she called, then stalled on what she wanted to say. "Um..." she trailed off.

Ezra paid her a brief glance before staring morosely forward again.

Sabine felt a sour taste in the back of her throat. She swallowed it down, forcing words out.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. She paused, then inhaled slowly. "I shouldn't have yelled at you, I just..."

There was heat stinging under her eyes again and she had to intake a gasping breath to keep her composure.

"I'm... I'm really glad you're okay," she told him.

At the way he looked up at her she found herself babbling.

"I'm—I'm glad we got the Y-wings and that—and that you didn't—" She gulped down a thick lump of emotion. "—that nothing bad... happened to you, I mean—" Her words felt rushed and frantic as she spoke them. "—I know we lost the Phantom but I'm still—I—I mean—"

She swallowed again, and a knot of emotion strained her throat.

"I don't know what I would've done if you—if something had—"

Force, why was she so bad at this?

She regained her composure.

"You're my friend, Ezra," she said, though the warbling note in her voice implied more. "I couldn't bear it if you..."

He turned up a smile at her, so genuine and warm it made firecrackers go off inside her heart.

"I know," he whispered. "Thank you."

She flung arms around him with trembling emotion, feeling him safe and there and alive and almost sobbing with relief.

Ezra's hands came up behind her back, holding her close as she cherished this moment, this reassurance that he guessed what he meant to her and would change his actions accordingly, wouldn't throw himself against an impossible peril with the smug assurance he could master all circumstances, could defy and cheat death itself.

She felt it like a soft dampening, his apology and his desire to do better, be better, for everyone.

And she let him express it freely, holding him to herself in tender affection.


(A/N)- I may have, uh... caught the feels a bit while writing this. Ow.

You can request a prompt/character over on Tumblr. See this post: h tt [#]p s: / / tari silmarwen . tu mb lr . c[#]o m / post / 673415204767465472 / im- doing- a-bad-things-happen- bingo- because (delete the spaces and the special characters in the brackets)