Some Sads

When Sabine woke up by herself, she was briefly disoriented, but not panicked; she remembered Ezra leaning over, whispering in her ear, telling her he was going to the Ghost. She remembered sleepily acknowledging that, and she remembered it had been at some unholy hour. She reached for her chrono on the nightstand and tapped the display. It was six fifteen now. She groaned, rolling out of bed. She went to the 'fresher and did the bare minimum she needed in order to look presentable. She shuffled through the living area—they were staying in Hera and Jacen's apartment—and headed straight toward the kitchen and caf. She saw Jacen sitting at the table, eyes wide and blinking.

"I hoped someone would get up soon," he said.

"It's still practically nighttime, ad'ika," she answered, squinting in the sunlight streaming through the window.

"It's almost seven," he scoffed, "and I'm hungry."

She sighed. "Toast?"

"Toast. And caf-milk," he wheedled. Caf-milk was a concoction of Sabine's own making: three-fourths milk, and one-fourth caf, generously sweetened. Hera had about died when she'd seen her three-year-old drinking the stuff—she'd hoped that her son would not inherit her love of caf. But she hadn't quite been able to tell him no. Still, being the conscientious mother that she was, she limited his caf-milk consumption to weekends and other special days like Sabine-is-visiting days.

Sabine knew this.

"Fine." She grinned and set to work making a small breakfast for Jacen and herself. After they'd eaten and they sat in comfortable silence sipping their respective cups of caf, Jacen put his little hand on top of hers, the way he always did when he wanted to tell her something important.

"Bean?"

"Yeah?"

"I think Ezra's sad."

Sabine's heart stuttered; she'd thought the same thing but chalked it up to over-worry. "Yeah? What makes you say that?"

"Dunno." Jacen shrugged. "Just kinda—him and mama were talkin' about my daddy and he got this—" He stopped, not knowing how to say what he meant. "Whenever my mama used to finish telling me a story about my daddy, she'd—I don't know—her eyes looked far away."

Sabine understood; she'd seen that look—that mixture of hurt and hope—on Hera's face ten thousand times.

"And you used'ta—" He mimicked the expression briefly. "before Ezra came back."

Sabine's mouth smiled but her brows pulled together. "Do we bum you out, Jacy?" She was the only person in the galaxy allowed to use that endearment.

"Nah." He drained the last of his caf-milk. "Some sads are real big—I get it." He scooted off his chair and padded toward his room.

"Five years old and he 'gets it,'" Sabine muttered to herself. Then again—he'd always been eerily insightful. Maybe that was a shred of Jedi-whatever that Kanan had given him. Sabine finished her caf quickly, did the dishes, and set out toward the Ghost and Ezra.

She found him, as she knew she would, standing in the doorway of Kanan's cabin, looking into the empty room. She drew up beside him and put a hand on his back. She could feel the tension in his muscles.

"It's not that I forgot he was gone," Ezra said quietly. He glanced at her, hanging his head. He looked like the young, lost kid she'd met all those years ago. "It—was just easier to imagine that maybe he wasn't. I didn't…" He stopped for a long time. "Before Lothal, the last time I was on the Ghost, so was Kanan."

Sabine sighed heavily, leaning into his side as she put her arm around him. "It feels fresh," she supplied, murmuring.

"Yeah." He nodded. "You guys got used to things without him. When I saw the Ghost the other day, I half-expected—I don't know." He stopped again, shaking his head in agitation. "Hera and Kanan had a baby. You guys fought this whole war, had this whole life and I just—missed it."

"Ezra." Her heart broke for him. She knew that something had been bothering him—he'd been restless the last three nights—but she hadn't realized it was this heavy a burden of guilt and loss. She stepped in front of him, placing her hands on his chest and his arms wound around her. He buried his face in the top of her head. "You're here now, cyar'ika." The Mando'a endearment fell off her tongue and she decided she liked how it sounded, how it felt to call him that. "And we didn't—we're still grieving, too. Hera and I had to lean on each other; you can lean on us now."

She felt hot tears fall on her scalp and he was breathing jerkily as he tried to stay composed. "Lean on me," she whispered.

He crumbled in her grasp and they sank to the floor together. She stroked the back of his neck and whispered things to him in Mando'a and Basic both, comforting and calming him. Waves of grief and anger and guilt broke over him again and again, but Sabine didn't mind.

Jacen was right; some sads are real big.