(A/N)- Took a week off for Christmas (and because I didn't have the chapter finished) but I'm back again dear readers. Going to be honest, the update schedule might be more every other week than every week; as I've mentioned I don't have much of this installment already pre-written. I do have an outline now though, and bulleted plot points, so I'm optimistic that the updates will still be pretty regular.
This is going to be the first of a couple rewritten Season Four episodes. I won't hit all of them, because that would be redundant and this is an altered timeline anyway, but I did want to explore certain plot points from the Mirrorverse's AU lens. Hope you guys enjoy!
Warnings for flashbacks and some PTSD anxiety.
Disclaimer: HOW 'BOUT THAT MANDALORIAN S2 FINALE EH? Oh, I mean, I don't own Star Wars, or something.
Buried Sins
Alrich Wren stepped calmly across the way towards his waiting wife. The burning tower of the Imperial outpost plumed out smoke behind him, the bickering voices of other Mandalorians and Rebels in the background of his hearing.
Ursa gave a smile, tired but affectionate, and reached for his hands as he reached for hers.
"Darling Ursa," he sighed, relief tingling in his voice. "I thought I'd never see you again."
"I feared the same," she told him, wrapping her fingers around his. "But thanks to our daughter and her Rebel friends, I finally have you back," she said with fondness.
"Ah yes, I saw them in action." Alrich glanced back at the motley crew. Two Jedi, a Lasat, a Twi'lek woman, and a very cranky-sounding C1 droid hovered close to his daughter. A rather odd collection, to be sure. But they had made amazingly short work of the garrison, the younger Jedi boy personally taking out the half-dozen guards outside Alrich's cell in less than a minute by himself. "Remarkable people," he complimented. He looked back to Ursa with excitement. "Are they staying?" he asked eagerly. "I imagine they could do some damage to the Imperial presence here."
"I imagine they could," Ursa laughed. Sobering, she shook her head. "No, apparently this is just a last hurrah before they return to Lothal, to rejoin the Rebel cell operating there," she relayed with some disappointment.
"Lothal?" Alrich repeated, confused.
She nodded towards the younger Jedi. "Bridger's home planet. Grand Admiral Thrawn has an ongoing project there."
"I see." His estimation of them went up a few more notches. Thrawn was not a party to be trifled lightly with. "Well, they are quite skilled and brave—especially young Bridger there—" he commented, "—so I'm sure they'll cause the Grand Admiral a very lovely large headache," he quipped, mirth bubbling under his expression.
Ursa gave a sudden tired sigh. Her shoulders slouched beneath their pauldrons. "I'm glad you like him," she grumbled. "Bridger, I mean. Because we have a problem," she said.
Alrich titled his head at her for clarification. "Hmm?"
A sardonic smile wrung her mouth, her gaze long-suffering. "Our daughter is in love with him," she relayed wearily.
"Oh?" Alrich blinked in surprise, glancing over at the two. He scrunched his brows, studying them, confused and doubtful. "He seemed to think they were just friends," he said, remembering back to his first interaction with the boy.
Bridger had just finished dispatching the guards and Alrich had asked him, rather reasonably, having seen a particularly colorful explosion off down the hallway, "Are you with Sabine?"
"Yeah I'm with her!" was the automatic answer, but then, apparently misunderstanding, the boy had verbally backtracked, gawping a little under his painted Scout Trooper helmet. "I mean—I'm not with her with her I'm just friends... with her," he'd rushed to clarify. Evidently not finished digging, he'd continued with a very nervous and shrill, "Not that I haven't thought about it or that she wouldn't be a great catch or anything just—! I—I mean—"
At that point he'd broken off into stammering and it took a teasing comment from Tristan to snap him out of it.
"You'd better not have been thinking about it," Tristan had laughed. "'cause if you have I might need to honor duel you."
"What is it with you Mandalorians and wanting to fight all the time?!" Bridger had complained.
Alrich was pulled out of his memory as Ursa gave a snort.
"I wish she'd tell him that," she complained. Conspiratorially, she leaned in, checking to the side once to make sure Sabine wasn't listening in. "You know I asked her to come back home to help with the uprising, practically begged her, and do you know what she said?" She rolled her eyes upwards. "She said she couldn't because, and I quote, 'he's important to me'," she drawled witheringly.
A grin pulled at her husband's mouth. "Scandalous," he chuckled.
Ursa's face pinched in dismay. "Alrich, be serious," she begged.
"He seems a nice enough boy, Ursa, and he did help free me from that Imperial prison." The man shrugged nonchalantly. "If Sabine fancies him I have no real objections."
"He's a Jedi!" Ursa protested.
His eyes were suddenly serious. "These are strange times. Full of unlikely alliances. Former Separatists and Republic senators. Defectors and guerrilla fighters." He shook his head soberly. "The Jedi are not our enemy anymore, my dear." He stared off towards the boy and the older Jedi Master, as if seeing some kind of serene light around them. "They may, in fact, be our best hope against the Empire."
The frown Ursa wore was severely skeptical, but she just crossed her arms and said, "I hope the other clans see it that way."
A sudden commotion from the doorway of the garrison had both of them turning around, and Ursa's hackles raised protectively as a furious member of Clan Kryze lurched from the opening and across the plain, spitting curses at her daughter.
-SWR-
Ezra stepped in front of Sabine, his saber igniting, but Tristan was already handling it, chasing after the man, grabbing him under his arms and holding him back.
"Traitor!" the Nite Owl yelled, wrestling against the hold. "You shame us all!"
The Ghost crew silently closed ranks behind a bewildered Sabine, who stood frozen in place as Bo-Katan and Fenn Rau and the others approached, drawn by the shouting.
"What's the meaning of this?" Bo-Katan asked of her subordinate.
"Ask her," he snarled, "about the abomination she created!"
Sabine was starting to turn pale. Hera placed a hand on her shoulder, quietly supportive, as Bo-Katan turned her gaze on the young Mandalorian.
"What is he talking about?" she demanded.
Sabine's eyes flicked towards Tristan.
He strained to keep the older man back. "We stumbled across some transmissions," he grunted. "Up in the main room. Sabine... your class project, the weapon you created back in the Imperial Academy... they rebuilt it."
Her eyes widened in horror, her face open in bald shock. "No..." she gasped. "No no no, it's not possible!" she cried in distress. She shook her head in denial. "I destroyed it! I smashed the prototype, I erased all my notes, all the data, the blueprints, the backups, everything!" she wailed.
"Well, they managed to recover enough fragments somehow," Tristan told her, finally forced to let go of the other man, who stormed off to Bo-Katan's side, mollified enough for now not to immediately attack his sister. Tristan brushed off his left arm. "It's not as powerful as the one you built. But it's bad enough," he told her grimly.
Bo-Katan stepped closer, her Nite Owls behind her still radiating hostility and suspicion.
"What weapon?" the woman demanded again. She gripped the rim of her helmet tightly, frowning with contained anger. "Explain."
Ezra exchanged a look of concern with Fenn Rau, as Kanan's lips pursed. Though all of them had been present when Sabine had confessed why she'd fled the Imperial Academy, they still only knew surface details about the weapon itself.
Sabine's expression was agonized as she hid her face, curling fingers up against her scalp. "It... it targets beskar." Her voice was small, clogged with guilt. "Conducts electricity through the metal, superheating it." She choked on her words, pressing palms over her eyes. "Cooks the wearer inside."
Ezra winced. Bo-Katan's face was flush with horror and the Nite Owls erupted anew with outrage and betrayal and fear, hurling furious Mando'a at Sabine, fingers twitching on their weapons.
Even Zeb looked horrified, looking at Sabine with wide eyes.
"Why would you make something like that?" he gasped.
"I didn't know!" Sabine burst out, raising her head. Tears glistened in her eyes. "I didn't know they were going to use it!" Her breath hitched between her words. "That they wanted to build it for real!" She took a shuddering breath, calming herself somewhat. "It was a challenge, and I was arrogant." She shook her head. "And then they tested it on people. My people. On Clan Wren. And I had to put a stop to it."
She put her hands down, facing Bo-Katan seriously, her back straight.
"I swear, I thought it was over long ago," she said. She trembled slightly, her voice shaking.
The other woman was frowning flatly, brows narrowed.
"Apparently, it's not."
That made all three groups tense. Ursa's hand strayed to her blaster holster and Ezra raised his saber a fraction higher, taking an unconscious step between the Nite Owls and Sabine.
Bo-Katan suddenly alerted to something, turning her head.
A moment later, they all heard it—the droning buzz of ships approaching. Peering up at the sky, they could catch a glimpse of TIE fighters making their approach.
The tension dissipated, refocusing as their common enemy appeared. Bo-Katan flipped her helmet on, tapping a button on her communicator to signal her waiting pilots to bring the gauntlet.
"This discussion is going to have to wait," she determined.
They all silently agreed, quickly gearing up and dispersing to their own escape vessels as the Empire's forces drew nearer.
-SWR-
There were so many things already swirling around inside her head—the upcoming infiltration of Tiber Saxon's Star Destroyer, not letting her guilt about the weapon she'd created cripple her, exactly why her father and her brother seemed to be weirdly amused every time they saw her talking to Ezra—that Sabine almost groaned when her mother caught her elbow and pulled her aside, ten minutes out from the start of their mission.
"May I speak with you a moment, dear?" she asked.
Sabine smothered down her exasperation. "Can it wait?" she begged. "We're gonna hit Sundari's no fly zone any minute now."
"Yes and I have some... concerns about the mission," Ursa told her.
She wouldn't meet Sabine's eyes, looking away evasively, and a prickle of irritation crept up the girl's back.
"Getting to the data core is our best chance of both finding out where they're keeping the Dutchess quickly and erasing all the data the Empire has on it," she immediately argued. "We can't spend too much time wandering around the Destroyer looking for it."
"I agree," her mother said, to Sabine's surprise. "But are you sure your friends are... up to the task?"
Sabine stared in confusion for a moment. Her mother had seen the Ghost crew in action, hadn't she?
A simmering realization hit her and she felt anger curdle at the bottom of her heart.
"You mean, is Ezra up to the task?"
Ursa's expression didn't change. "I've seen the way he flinches away from things," she said bluntly. "Startles at noises. Drifts off inside his own head." She leaned back, coolly, arms folded across her chest. "And don't think I didn't notice how he hesitated before following Bo-Katan out to deal with the TIEs."
Sabine's hackles raised defensively. "What's your point?" she grumbled, now wishing she hadn't mentioned Ezra's troubles with Imperial facilities to her mother.
"Armor that's cracked is useless in battle, Sabine. To actively avoid a fight... some might call that cowardice."
She almost sputtered.
"Ezra's not a coward!" she snapped, clenching her fists by her sides furiously. "How could you say that?! Do you even know what he's been through?!"
To her credit, Ursa grimaced uncomfortably, apologetically. "I'm not saying he's a coward. I know how resilient he is," she backtracked. "But the other clans... they won't see it that way." Her eyes were somber, expression stone and serious. "They'll see his trauma as weakness."
"Ezra is the strongest person I know," Sabine countered hotly. "I don't care what the other clans think. He fought Maul, and won!"
"That would be impressive," interjected a new voice. Both women turned aside to see Bo-Katan approaching. "If it were true," she diminished with some skepticism.
Sabine softened. "He doesn't have any reason to lie," she said quietly. "He wouldn't have still been on Ilum for us to find if he'd lost." One hand drifted up to clutch her elbow, as she stemmed the dark thoughts on the edge of her mind, the thousand alternate scenarios that could have happened if Ezra had not won his freedom. "Maul would have taken him somewhere else."
She chuckled suddenly.
"Heh. He almost has a legitimate claim to the darksaber," she realized.
Ursa gave an aggravated sigh. "Sabine, the cultural symbol of the Mand'alor's right to rule is not going to go to a Jedi."
"Why not? It was stolen from the Jedi in the first place," Sabine snarked flatly.
Bo-Katan's eyes stole towards it, where it hung from Sabine's belt, her face pinched with sorrow. "That sword killed my sister," she said. "Threw Mandalore into chaos, time and time again. It's a symbol of death and upheaval." She turned away with a heavy look. "Maybe it's better if it stays buried."
The regret in the woman's words made Sabine suspicious that her dismissal of the darksaber, and what it symbolized, had more to do with her personal guilt than what she actually believed about the saber. Sabine gripped the hilt, unhooking it and looking down at the blade in contemplation.
"Or maybe this is a chance to change its meaning," she mused. She looked up at Bo-Katan and held out the darksaber, offering it to her. "To change Mandalore for the better," she suggested earnestly.
Pain flashed across Bo-Katan's face, just for a fleeting moment. "My sister tried that," she said thickly. "But I was too stubborn—we were all too stubborn, too set in our archaic, dogmatic ways—to see what she was trying to do, how she was trying to unite us and stop the constant infighting." Her chin dropped, shame falling across her features. "I helped lead the uprising that got my sister murdered." She shook her head, angling away from Sabine now. "I cannot unite the clans. I am not the leader you seek."
Sabine lowered her hand in disappointment as Bo-Katan walked away.
Awkward silence reigned between her and her mother, until a chime from the front of the ship broke both of them out of their thoughts.
Sabine raised her head, looking up the hallway towards the cockpit. "Coming up on Sundari." She glanced at her mother briefly. "I should gear up."
"Good luck," her mother told her, genuine concern on her face. "And, Sabine?"
The girl looked back at her.
Her eyes were unexpectedly soft. "Take care of that boy," she implored. "He's very sweet, and I would hate for something to happen to him."
She stared at her mother in confusion and disbelief. "You just spent the past three minutes complaining about him and implying he was a coward," she pointed out.
Ursa shrugged. "I have to be hard on all my daughter's prospects."
Sabine's throat strangled at the implication and she cleared it with a loud cough, quickly looking off. She was not even touching that. "I'm gonna go destroy my weapon now," she said, over-casually. "I'll see you later."
She clipped the darksaber back on her belt, letting its weight rest against her hip again. It felt heavy, like gravity was pulling down on it more than usual, and Sabine was keenly aware of its burden.
She shook her head, refocusing her thoughts.
Just get through with this mission, she told herself.
She re-went over the plan as she joined the others near the gauntlet's exit hatch.
-SWR-
"Chopper, hurry up!" Sabine hissed. "The longer this takes the more Stormtroopers we're going to have to deal with!"
He spat a surly series of blorts at her, claiming to be working as fast as he could.
Kanan, Ezra, Fenn Rau, and Tristan stayed tensed around her, arranged in a loose circle around the data consoles in the middle of the room. Nite Owls and Clan Wren members watched the doorways and waited, with held breath, keening for any sign of Stormtroopers. After a harried but brief firefight in the hanger, the infiltration team had made it straight to the data core with few complications. But it wouldn't be long before reinforcements arrived, even with Zeb's team set to come harass the Star Destroyer with the Fang fighters as a distraction.
Sabine danced on the balls of her heels, anxious.
Chopper drew their attention by announcing he'd found the weapon. He brought up a wireframe holomap.
She studied it for a couple moments.
"Okay, well, good news is that it's not far," she said.
"Bad news?" Tristan prompted, looking over his shoulder from where he stood with both blasters pointed at the door.
"It's back in the hanger we just left," she relayed.
"Well that's not so bad," Ezra quipped lightly. "We can just hit it on our way out."
She felt a smile flickering at his earnest optimism. All-serious now, she spoke authoritatively to the group. "All right, Rau, Tristan, Milady—" she addressed, nodding in particular to Bo-Katan, "—clear a path for us. Chopper, make sure you delete everything in that data core. Kanan will cover you."
"WHOMP," Chopper confirmed with a salute, already beginning to scrub the drives.
"Ezra?"
Something stuttered in her heart when he looked at her. Sabine swallowed dryly, pushing away whatever it was she felt.
"Be my vanguard up to that hanger office?" she said.
"Uh... okay," he said, looking confused. "You sure you don't want me here to make sure Chopper does his part?"
Chopper blew a binary raspberry.
Sabine's mouth twisted a bit, grimly. "I need to prove something to my mother," she told him sardonically. Grabbing his wrist she pulled him along towards the exit. "Come on."
-SWR-
When Sabine went down, arcs of electricity from the Dutchess flowing over her, piercing through her beskar armor, Ezra's mind whited out for a second.
Searing pain as sparks tore through him, burning liquid in his veins, Thrawn's red eyes peeking out from darkness up above—
"Ezra!"
Sabine's shout brought him suddenly back to the present. He gasped sharply, his wide eyes meeting hers.
Through the pain she must've been feeling, with how her body was curled up, clutching herself, she set her expression fiercely, determined and resolute.
"Destroy it!" she shouted.
He spurred into action, lunging, his lightsaber slashing a wide green arc across the center of the device.
It stilled, its whine slowing, the electricity it was shooting off dimming into nothing.
Ezra didn't realize he was shaking until Sabine's steadying hands were on his arm.
-SWR-
A scalding inner voice berated her as Sabine staggered up to her feet, stumbling towards where Ezra was frozen, still staring with open eyes at the Dutchess's core, which mercifully was no longer throwing off electricity, at least for the moment.
His lightsaber was gripped tightly in his hand, his knuckles white, his breathing strained and shallow, he was stuck somewhere between the past and the present and it was all her fault, she shouldn't have brought him up here, she shouldn't have made him come, she should have known they would turn it on and—
She pulled at his arm, trying to draw him out from his unresponsive state.
"Hey," she called frantically, breathless still from the shocks. She reached around, taking hold of both his shoulders, staring into his face with concern. "You with me?"
He shook himself, coming out of his daze, his eyes pinching closed and face screwing in concentration.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah just... gimme a minute." He took a deep breath, steadying himself.
"We don't have one," she told him grimly, looking first towards the broken Dutchess, now beginning to heat up due to the core breach Ezra's lightsaber had inflicted on it, then back towards the door opposite them, where Tiber Saxon was swaggering in with a Supercommando flanked behind him.
The smug look dropped almost instantly off the man's face, replaced by shock as he registered the two teenagers in front of Sabine's destroyed creation.
Sabine didn't give him any more time to react, pushing Ezra behind her and whipping out both blasters, firing off a warning shot just shy of Tiber's ear.
He yelped, yanking back behind the lip of the doorway.
Blaster shots were hurled back at her as the Supercommando opened fire. Sabine felt one whiz past her cheek and flinched, but Ezra raised his saber, stepping forward to take point again and block the bolts, forcing the Supercommando back in retreat.
Tiber had recovered now, his own blaster in hand.
"What have you done?!" he screamed in outrage.
Sabine glared icily at him. "I made things right," she said.
His fingers tightened on the trigger but then a shot from behind them hit his shoulder, in the joint between his neck and chest, spinning him sideways into the wall before he collapsed down with a groan.
Both teens looked back to see Bo-Katan on the lift, blasters raised.
She moved forward into the room, checking the corners. "Everything all right?" she checked.
"We're okay," Ezra replied, before Sabine could say anything. The boy tilted his head towards the whining core, which was pitching shriller as it destabilized further. "But I think that might explode."
Bo-Katan gave a short sound like an amused snort. "Let's not stay to find out," she said, lowering her blasters, urging the two back towards the lift with a swift jerk of her helmet.
Ezra was all too eager to leave, stepping onto the lowering platform at once. Sabine strained after his expression, but he'd put his helmet down and his eyes were hidden behind the dark visors.
With a bit of defeat she grabbed up her own helmet, joining Ezra and Bo-Katan on the lift and hoping he was okay, hoping he could forgive her for her idiocy and stubborn pride.
-SWR-
Emotion, yet peace.
Ezra repeated the words to himself, his arms crossed tightly as he stood by the wall in the gauntlet's cockpit, clutching his elbows.
Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity.
Careful breath in, careful breath out. Focus only on the moment.
The Force is with me. I am not alone.
A low rumble from outside the ship had him opening up his eyes, looking out the window to see Tiber's Star Destroyer go up in a glorious orange conflagration, dropping towards the ground in broken, burning pieces.
He smiled, tension unwinding a bit as whoops from the others filled his ears. He closed his eyes again, leaning his head back against the bulkhead, concentrating on keeping the static inside his head quiet, letting it dissipate with every slow breath.
He was still shaking a little. Ezra's jaw pinched as he willed his vibrating limbs to still.
He hadn't had this strong a panic reaction since... well, since Maul had triggered one.
His kidnapper's image replaced the vague fragments of the Chimaera that danced threateningly on the edge of his thoughts and Ezra shivered, remembering hands clutched bruisingly over his mouth, nails digging in his hair, pinching invisible tightness around his throat, the crushing pressure of his fear like iron blocks around his lungs...
Ezra felt his breaths shorten and shook his head harshly, banishing that trail of thoughts, deliberately forcing himself out of his memories, his pulse kicking up anxiously.
He's dead, he reminded himself. He's gone.
That truth seemed to anchor him, allowing him to recenter himself, refocus his mind back on the next breath, and then the next. His racing thoughts began to slow back down.
He struggled for longer than he was happy with.
Chaos, yet harmony.
If ever there was a portion of the mantra he related to, he thought, that was it.
He let the Force fill him, opening himself up wide, letting its harmony melt away the chaos of emotions inside him until the echoes finally, finally faded and his trembling finally stopped.
-SWR-
Dozens of Mandalorians from multiple clans were waiting for them at the bottom of the ramp, but there was only one person Sabine wanted to see. She quietly pushed past Bo-Katan as the woman talked with various clan representatives, all pledging to stand with her against the Empire.
Anxious eyes searched the crowd and then she found him, grinning as he talked with Zeb.
Sabine breathed out in relief, shoulders untensing, moving to join them.
"Those Fang fighter cockpits are even more cramped than the X-wings!" Zeb was complaining.
"Don't worry, big guy," Ezra teased, punching a playful fist into Zeb's side. "We'll get you a nice roomy ship of your own one of these days."
He half-heartedly shoved back. "Hey, watch it!" he said. "That's the side I took a lightsaber to."
Ezra glanced over, noticing Sabine's approach, and nodded once at Zeb before turning and trotting up to meet her halfway.
Sabine stopped first, her smile strained and somber.
Ezra practically glowed as he reached her. "You did it, Sabine," he told her, eyes shining with admiration.
She glanced down with a flush and a slight stab of guilt. "You did most of the work," she dismissed. "All of it, actually." Taking a deep breath, she let the smile drop off her face and raised her eyes to look at him seriously. "Listen, about what happened up in that hanger office..." she began.
The light in his eyes dimmed a little.
Sabine bit the inside of her lip as shame and remorse echoed through her.
"I'm sorry," she told him softly. "I never meant to put you through that."
He shrugged, looking off. "It's not your fault," he said.
It was, and he was making this apology very difficult. A few notes of frustration crept into Sabine's voice as she went on.
"I knew how the Dutchess worked; I knew what it would look like, sound like," she argued.
"You didn't turn it on," Ezra countered.
"But I should have—"
"I'm okay, Sabine," he said, interrupting her protest. "I am, I promise. Yeah, I was shaken up," he admitted with a head tilt. "Okay? It's not anything I haven't dealt with before." He folded his hands around his arms, quietly, self-protectively. "It's just... how things are now," he mumbled.
He was quiet for a long moment, and Sabine worried he might drift off. But then he turned back to her and his eyes were meltingly warm.
"I'm just glad you're not hurt," he told her, genuinely.
She huffed a bit, marveling at him. He was the one who'd been hurt and here he was comforting her. That's a Jedi for you, she thought.
"What can I say? I'm hard-shelled," she joked, tapping her armor.
Growing serious, her fingers brushed across the hilt at her waist. The smooth metal felt almost soft, and it could have been her imagination but she almost thought she heard the crystal inside it humming, whispering a velvet song to her.
"I've... been thinking about it a lot and..."
Her fingers clasped the sword, unhooking it from her belt. She took a deep breath and held it out to him.
"This belongs to you."
Ezra looked... very confused, glancing down at the darksaber with scrunched eyes. "Uh... I'm not... What?" he fumbled.
"You dueled Maul and won," she explained patiently. "You have as much claim to it as anyone."
"Yeah but I didn't..." He struggled for words a moment, still looking bewildered. "...win the saber from him, isn't that sort of a requirement?"
"Ezra, take the saber," Sabine groaned. "The whole line of succession is already screwed up anyway."
"And isn't that the emblem of the rightful ruler of Mandalore?" he pressed, voice growing more confident. "Like, whoever holds the sword sits on the throne? Don't you still need that thing to unite the clans or something?" He was cringing, looking past her at the crowd of Mandos. "Pretty sure you're gonna piss a lot of people off if you just pass that off on me."
He had a point, but now Sabine was in too deep and digging her heels in deeper out of sheer stubborness. "It belongs with the Jedi," she insisted, jabbing it towards him. "It's yours."
Ezra glanced around anxiously, as if someone could magically appear at his side to rescue him from this argument. "Sabine I don't... I don't wanna rule Mandalore isn't there someone else who can...?" He trailed off, struggling for words. "Bo-Katan, maybe?" he suggested.
"She doesn't want it," Sabine dismissed. She glanced back over her shoulder, mouth quirking into a smile as she watched Mandalorians bowing to the woman, showing reverence. "And it doesn't look like she needs it to unite the clans," she quipped. "So you don't need to worry about ruling Mandalore."
"Yeah but—"
"Ezra," she cut him off. She met his eyes with a searing determination, gaze like steel. "I want you to take it. It doesn't feel right in anyone else's hands but yours." Her chest clenched a bit at her words, some strange anxiety moving through her, tightening her throat.
Wide blue eyes gazed softly back at her. "Sabine..." he breathed, his voice full of emotion. He raised his hand and for a second she thought—
But then he turned his palm up and gently pushed the saber away.
"I can't accept this," he told her, shaking his head. "I would never want to drive a wedge between you and your people, and if I take that saber, I would." His voice softened, dropping quieter, as he nudged the saber back towards her. "You keep it," he urged.
His hand lingered by hers on the hilt for a moment.
Sabine smothered down her disappointment as he pulled back. Indignation rose in her instead.
"What am I supposed to do with it?!" she demanded hotly, using it to gesture in agitation.
"I dunno," Ezra shrugged. He shot back a cheeky grin as he walked off, looking to rejoin Zeb. "Maybe you should rule Mandalore," he suggested.
Sabine steamed with several half-formed retorts jostling inside her head that she wound up not even sputtering out as she watched him leave, feeling like she wanted to scream. Why wouldn't anyone just take the damn sword?!
"That's not a half-bad idea," Tristan put in as he came up next to her. He had a grin that threatened to crack through his stoic facade. "I could get used to being royalty."
She just growled low in her throat in wordless frustration.
(A/N)- As always, your helpful chapter notes!
1. We rescue Alrich at the Imperial outpost this time. And naturally he's pretty quick to warm to the idea of a Jedi son-in-law. (Ursa might require some convincing lol.) Come on you all know he would absolutely adore Ezra.
2. The exchange with Ursa about Ezra's PTSD actually stems from/was inspired by a conversation I had about my Bad End offshoot oneshot "Broken Shards". Because how does a warrior culture that values prowess in battle and the ability to kill deal with that kind of thing? Do they look down on those with combat-related trauma or would they accept it as something that can happen even to the strongest of people? And how much more would they disparage someone who wasn't hurt in battle? They were all fascinating questions to think about and I wanted to explore it just a little in this chapter.
3. I think it was user Avalon (over on Ao3) who commented that they wanted to see Sabine accidentally triggering Ezra and the angst that would fallout from that. I hadn't exactly intended to write that in but in the course of deciding how to alter the events of this episode it wound up happening anyway. I hope it is to your liking.
4. That feel when your Not-Girlfriend basically proposes to you and you, like an idiot, Do Not Get It. Lol.
5. Yeah so Sabine's basically stuck with the darksaber in this timeline. With how I wrote Bo-Katan and altered the office confrontation I realized she wouldn't get over her guilt and self-blame enough to accept the saber from Sabine, as the main 'push' and motivation for her to do so (talking Sabine down from taking revenge) had been removed. And of course Ezra doesn't want it because Mandalorians be crazy yo. XD So she's gotta hang onto it for now. I don't have any ideas for how her keeping it affects certain [SPOILERS REDACTED] in The Mandalorian nor do I have any plans of exploring it (this series is already long enough) so I will leave that speculation up to y'all's imagination.
6. Tristan totally makes an irreverent crack about Jedi concubines right after this scene that earns him a punch to the stomach.
We're heading briefly back to Lothal next chapter, to pick up on some plot threads from "Shatterpoint". Hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am!