The lift ground to a halt and I stepped off, leading Ezra. Jacen bounced around next to Hera, smiling at me like crazy. I waved to him, then led Ezra forward. "Ezra, this is Jacen. Jacen, this is Ezra."

"Hi, Ezra," Jacen said happily. He was six years old. A thought occurred to me: today was the day that I had lost Ezra. Now if that wasn't poetic justice, I don't know what was. Jacen was talking again. "Hi, Bean."

"Hi, Jacen," I responded, hugging the little guy tightly. He looked at Ezra with big questioning eyes next. Ezra waved at the little guy brightly, and Jacen waved back, barely keeping himself from bouncing in joy and excitement. I stepped back from him, letting Ezra and Jacen get to know each other. Hera looked at me darkly. I smiled back as she motioned for me to come over. Ahsoka stood next to her, glaring at me.

"What… in the seven Corellian Hells… were you thinking?" Hera asked through clenched teeth. "Why didn't you contact me? Ahsoka and I were going crazy trying to get to you!"

I showed Hera and Ahsoka my wrist. It had my comm on it, which was broken in half. I had shattered it unknowingly during my period of unconsciousness, and only found out when I woke up in Ezra's cave. "Broke my comm. Couldn't contact you guys. My grapple broke, so I couldn't climb out."

The second part was a bit of an exaggeration. I didn't find out until I had to make the climb out of the Star Destroyer, where Ezra I had to free-climb. Hera looked at me with a slightly-less-furious face, but it was obvious she was still cross. I was gonna have to make up with her later. Ahsoka still glared at me, but I didn't really care (check that: I didn't care at all). I had grown used to her being angry at me for karking up. My enjoyment of explosions was not deterred by years of sitting in a tower alone.

I looked back at Ezra and Jacen, who were talking with a lot of hand gestures. Jacen seemed in awe of Ezra, unsurprisingly. He was a Jedi, and the Jedi were pretty much extinct. Luke was one of the last few remaining. There were a few mentions of a kid named Raven who had received training and was traveling around, going to worlds where there were a lot of people who were badly hurt and giving them treatments, but actual facts about him were thin. Ahsoka was a Jedi, of course, but it was just her, Ezra, and Luke that I knew existed. Other than that… myth and legend.

Ezra used the Force to chuck a few rocks over the cliff. Jacen looked at him, wide-eyed, as he kept them in place and brought them back up. Then Jacen jumped around a bit in excitement. I laughed at his expression, mostly because it was cute beyond belief. His eyes reminded me of a tooka, and he seemed to glow with vitality.

Eventually, Jacen turned around and lead Ezra to Hera. "Ezra, this is my mommy. Mommy, this is Ezra," he said happily. "He's a Jedi!"

Hera looked at Ezra for a long moment. "I know," she said quietly, almost a whisper. "I know."

"Hera…" Ezra said. I knew the gist of what was going through his head: I have so much to say, and no way to say it. I knew because that's what I felt like when I found Ezra. Hera probably was thinking the same.

I had just let out my problems to Ezra through kissing him, but that didn't seem like Hera's style. We were just too different. For one, she was a mother, and I wasn't. Yet. I had plans for that, and they definitely involved Ezra. They were dependant on him, even.

It was quiet for a long moment. I looked between them for a long while before Hera hugged Ezra tightly, putting her head on his shoulder. Ezra did the same to her. It was unnaturally quiet for awhile, the air only having the sounds of Hera's quiet sobbing about her honorary son being brought home to her.

The spaceport was still bustling when we got back to take the ship home. I wasn't entirely surprised about that. Hera had left the Ghost there and taken a speeder to the Destroyer instead, unlike Ahsoka and I, who took the T-6. We had left it behind on all the trips after the first one.

Ezra and Hera had not stopped talking once during the ride back. I guess neither Ezra nor I would have shut up either, but the whole "Sabine hanging over the perilous drop while Ezra tried to pull her up" incident kinda put a damper on conversation. Anyways, I just kept to myself for most of the ride, occasionally talking to Jacen. He was listening to Ezra and Hera as well.

Most of their talk was about various battles. Specifically, it was about battles that Ezra had missed. I'd list them, but I don't have enough storage or pages. The highlights were Scarif (fun battle, if I do say so myself) Yavin 4 (I was on Lothal) Hoth (Again, on Lothal) Endor (I was there for it, but I was one of the reinforcements to secure the moon) and Coruscant (Only part of a really early strike team sent for information. Haar'chak.).

I led Ezra through the crowd on the streets, not letting go of him once. I didn't want to lose him again. The spaceport was just up ahead. I wanted to get off Sanctuary as soon as possible, let Ezra see the new Lothal. Capital City had been repaired and improved, and the tower was all white and beautiful and had been expanded, becoming a Command Center for the defense of Lothal in 5 ABY. Imperial Stormtroopers landed outside the city. We beat them back easily and managed to record the entire thing, with the Empire burning civilian homes and shooting just well enough that they might have been able to hit the broadside of a barn- if they were lucky. Meanwhile, the Lothal Defense Force was saving civilians, taking down walkers, and blasting stormtroopers left, right, and center. In the skies, TIEs were being devastated by "Devastator" models of TIE Defenders that we had commandeered from the factories, with twice the effectiveness at only 1.5 times the cost. Massive propaganda value. Anyways, the area now has a hangar bay, so I'm staying there until the new house is built. Oh yeah, new house. Long story.

Ahsoka tapped my shoulder. "Shouldn't we check out of the Dingo?"

I didn't respond. Instead, I turned towards the inn. Again, I led Ezra towards the building, not trusting him to be on his own. Irrational, but to my mind, justified. The inn was about twenty feet away.

I led Ezra through the doorway and up the stairs to the rooms. He fought against my grip when we reached my room.

"Sabine, wait up," he said. I looked back at him, where Jacen and Hera were nowhere to be found. Ahsoka was just coming up the stairs. I had completely outpaced the rest of the team. Uh…. whoops?

"Sabine," Ahsoka said, looking at me. "You're a bit eager to get off this planet, aren't you?"

Kriff. She was right. "Yeah."

"Bine, Lothal isn't going anywhere, okay?" Ezra said. "We can wait."

"I know, but it's really annoying to just stay and wait," I responded.

"Yeah, well, hurry up and wait," Ahsoka said, turning around to go and find Hera and Jacen. I shrugged and entered my room, bringing Ezra with me. I was glad that the room had a two-person bed, because Ezra was back and I had seven years of loneliness to make up with him. I was going to tell him I loved him just after the liberation of Lothal. Then… well, you know what happened.

I lay back on the bed, kicking my shoes off and taking off my armor piece by piece. Ezra flopped onto the soft covers a few minutes later, after going to the refresher. I grabbed a remote and turned on the HoloNet as I drew myself up next to him. Some cooking show was on. I flipped through channels, with the white walls of the room almost glowing with reflected light. Ezra put one arm around my shoulders. Seven years ago, I would have killed him for that. But, like he once said in one of my fantasies, "That was then. This is now."

That was then. So long ago, the Jedi and the Mandalorians had fought each other and destroyed Mandalore. Ever since then, we had been in a cold war. Mandalorians hate Jedi, Jedi hate us right back. Well, technically they don't hate hate us, but they really, really don't like us, to the point where it borders on hate but isn't hate. This is now. Now, here I was. A full-blooded Mandalorian. Next to me? Jedi Knight Ezra Bridger, who would eventually repeat to me, Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi mi'dinui an, mhi bar'juri verde. Twelve words that I had waited almost eight years for him to say, and now we were together again. I didn't know about him, but I had no intention of leaving him. Ever.

There's a reason that those words mean, We are one when together, we are one when parted, we will share it all, we will raise warriors.

I don't know what woke me, exactly. I didn't hear anything, so much as just sense it, but something wasn't right. Quietly, I reached for one of my Westars, on a nightstand beside my bed. Ezra was awake, too. I touched him lightly, then turned his head in the direction of the doorway. He understood. I placed one hand on his chest to keep him from standing up.

The tension was nigh-unbearable as we waited. I had to consciously remind myself to breathe, and I'm fairly sure Ezra did too.

The door opened with it's customary metallic hiss. A tall, lizard-ish guy wearing a hood walked in like he owned the place. He was followed by two human guards, who lit the light in the room. It took me a few seconds to adjust to the sudden illumination.

"Mister Bridger," the reptile rasped, "You've got a lot of nerve showing your face 'round here again."

Ezra responded with a deadpan expression. "Look who's talking." I snorted. The hood hid the reptile's face.

"Kill Bridger, take the girl captive," the lizard ordered with his irritatingly self-karking-assured demeanor. The guards moved towards me. I sat up and laughed. Both guards looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was. I pointed to the helmet in the corner.

"Sabine Wren, New Republic, SpecForce Division Four, Fifth Regiment," I said. "New Republic Infiltrators. Your worst nightmare."

I grabbed my Westar pistols and pointed them at the two guards, with my fingers tight around the triggers. Ezra took out his lightsaber and ignited it, filling the room with an emerald glow. They kept their blasters pointed at me. And thus, a Correllian Standoff was born.

I'm probably ruining my dramatic ending with this note, but I just wanted to apologize for the unnaturally long wait in between chapters. Anyways, thanks for reading and (hopefully) being patient!

Oh, and MaybeImARebel, if you do not see my reference to you, I will be very, very disappointed.

-RebelliousWaffle