A/N: I know I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: I've been using RagnarDanneskjold's fic "Crumbling" as the basis for my headcanon while writing this series. So, if Sabine and Ezra are ever talking/thinking about something that happened in the years he was gone, there's a 95% chance I'm directly referencing something from that fic. Ragnar and I have been proofreading each other's stuff and bouncing ideas back and forth-we basically have a mind-meld with headcanon at this point. So if you're reading this fic and you're like, "Where the heck is she getting this stuff from?" That's where. But without further ado...I hope you enjoy this chapter! There's some heavy feels...again.


Must Have Been Easy

Ezra and Sabine sat at the kitchen table finishing their breakfast. His spoon hovered over his bowl of cereal, neither coming nor going. He was distracted by the article he was reading on the Holo-Net.

He whistled low. "The Rax system is still cleaning up from that skirmish between the Alliance and the Empire in their orbit three years ago."

"Mm." Sabine acknowledged as she took a sip of caf. "That was bad. Hera told me all about it. She flew in that one—almost died."

Even though the danger was long past, Ezra felt fear settle hard in the pit of his stomach. "Where was Jacen?"

"With me," Sabine said. "I had him some of the time, mostly when Hera had to fly combat. The Empire never bothered coming back here. Lothal was one of the safest places for him."

"Wow." Ezra took a bite of cereal and then talked around the mouthful. "Lothal had it easy during the war."

"What?"

Eyes still buried in his datapad, he mistook her question as her not being able to understand him talking with a full mouth. "It must have been easy here, during the war," he reiterated, "not as much to worry about."

Sabine's mug tapped on the table top. "Easy?" Her voice was low.

"Without the Empire occupying, sure," he said. Uncertainty colored his tone. "You told me yourself: nothing major happened after the Seventh Fleet left." He glanced at her. The look in her eyes made his stomach churn. "Right? Isn't that what you said?"

"You are—" Sabine swore under breath. "You are kidding me, right?"

Ezra suddenly realized he'd struck a nerve, and it made him panic because he didn't know there had been a nerve to strike. He desperately tried to backpedal. "I just mean—it would have been worse if the Empire—I mean—Lothal—"

"Had it easy," she hissed. "I heard you the first two times."

"Sabine—"

She pushed back from the table, standing. "What do you think we did here, Ezra, during the war? Sat on our thumbs? Do you think I was having fun while I had Jacen, praying to all the gods in the galaxy Hera wouldn't die? Do you think I was enjoying wondering whether or not you were even alive, or whether you'd ever come back? Do you think I and the other billion citizens of Lothal liked waking up every day in fear that the Empire might target us again?"

"No," he said quickly, "of course that's not—"

She snorted derisively, walking over to the sink with her now-empty mug. She stood absolutely still for a moment, and then threw the mug in the sink so hard that it shattered. Dark red splotches covered her face and neck. Her voice was uneven. "Kriff you."

Ezra wanted so desperately to take the last three minutes and erase them from existence. He hadn't meant to make light of what she'd been through. Honest to gods, he hadn't. He stood slowly, advancing toward her. She took a half-step back, eyes welling with tears. He couldn't tell whether she was more angry or hurt. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't mean it like that."

He reached for her hand and she inhaled sharply, tensing. "Do not. Touch me," she choked. He let go and she shoved roughly past him, bolting for the door. It whooshed open and she left, all but running. The sound of her harsh breathing echoed in his ears.

What the kriff?


Ezra spent the first hour after their...fight? laying in the floor levitating his lightsaber above his head. He wasn't trying to figure out what had happened—he'd stuck his foot in his mouth; nothing new there. Rather, he was trying to figure out why it had happened. It had been years since one of his tactless-but-well-meaning comments had elicited more than a pained eyeroll from Sabine. She'd learned to take him with a grain of salt. This, though—this was different. Without even trying to, he'd been able to sense a shift in her presence in the Force. Her usual bright light had been replaced by something tight and dark and—

Anxious. That was it.

As soon as he stated—stupidly—how the war must have been easy on Lothal, she'd become anxious, like she was remembering something she didn't want to. Ezra's lightsaber hilt clattered on the floor as his concentration lapsed. "Come on, Sabine," he said. His voice sounded strange in the empty room. "Talk to me." He thought about seeking her out; conventional wisdom said he should have followed her out of the tower when she left, but his years with her on the Ghost said that when she wanted to be alone, she wanted to be alone.

Ezra sighed, pushing up off the ground as he called his lightsaber to his hand. He wandered aimlessly through the living area. As he passed a shelf in the corner of the room, a small box caught his eye. Idly, he picked it up and opened it. The thing was full of holo-discs. He knew he hadn't left anything like that in the tower; they had to be Sabine's. A wiser man might have waited to ask her about it, but Ezra's curiosity overrode his good judgment. He took one of the discs and put it in the projector terminal next to their com. Immediately, an image of Sabine sprang to life in front of him.

She was sitting in the floor, glancing nervously at the recorder. Her hair was long, falling over her shoulders, and Ezra found himself almost overcome by the desire to tangle his fingers in the strands. He reached for the holo without even realizing what he was doing; his hand passed right through the image, of course, but there was a soft smile on Sabine's face, as if she knew. She opened her mouth and words came pouring out.

"Remember that one time I told you I thought it was dumb how lightsaber hilts are so plain and impersonal? I mean, you should—I went on about it for like ten minutes. Well...about that."

The camera turned and he saw his lightsaber hilt in the floor along with several different brushes and paints. Ezra felt the weapon at his hip now and fingered the coating of paint, still pristine. She'd told him she'd painted it, but she hadn't mentioned she'd recorded herself doing it. Maybe she'd forgotten. Ezra watched, mesmerized, as she talked through the process, talking about which paints she picked and why, talking about her eagerness to continue training with the saber upon his return, talking about how she felt about him and how she missed him. The more she talked, the more she struggled for control until, finally, she ended the recording with a gruff Spectre Five out.

After the holo faded to nothing, Ezra sat in stunned silence. He reached for another holo-recording, and then another after that. She'd filmed herself over the span of several years, in several different places on Lothal; the market where they'd first met, the remains of the rebel base camp in the caves, the memorial at the fuel depot. Her words were touching and tender and raw; Ezra found himself clearing his throat and swiping at his eyes more than once. He'd wondered before if Sabine hadn't been entirely transparent about just how badly his absence had affected her. Seeing her holo messages reawakened those suspicions. The Sabine in the holos wasn't the confident and sure Sabine he knew now; he'd seen something fragile in her eyes that'd he never seen before, heard a note of brokenness he was sure she'd tried to keep hidden.

He scrubbed his hands over his face. Whatever had happened then, she was better now, wasn't she? Yes—she was. He knew she was. And he also knew how quickly and violently buried hurts could come back to haunt you; hadn't they been going through that with his nightmares? Just a few nights ago, he'd woken choking on darkness, reaching for Sabine, needing assurances that she was safe even though he knew she was. Sabine had been his rock through all of it, never wavering. He'd been dimly aware that she'd struggled with things while he was gone; she'd told him about the crushing loneliness she'd felt sometimes. But that was all she'd said. Before today, he'd never had a reason to think it had been any worse than that.

Guilt coiled tightly in his stomach. He should have known.

Before he realized what he was doing, he keyed a code on the com and prayed Hera would pick up. She did.

Her image flickered in front of him and he was suddenly tongue-tied. Her brows drew together. "I'd say it's nice to hear from you," she began slowly, "but I get the feeling this isn't strictly a social call."

Ezra rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sorry about that."

Hera smiled. "Are you going to spill it or do I have to drag it out of you?"

"I don't—I don't even really know what to say." Ezra rolled his eyes hard, mostly at himself. "Not a whole lot, I guess. It would feel unfair to Sabine, somehow. I don't know." He grumbled a sigh. "I don't know why I called."

"Did you two...have a fight?"

"I don't even know what happened. I mean—I do. We were talking about Lothal and the war and I accidentally said something stupid and she just—Hera, the look on her face. And then I found some old holo-recordings she made..." He shifted uncomfortably. "It got bad for her while I was gone, didn't it? I mean, worse than she's said."

Hera's expression was guarded as she very obviously debated with herself about what to tell him. "Has she...mentioned me visiting her right after the Battle of Endor?"

"Uh, no, I don't think so."

"Oh." Hera's eyes widened and her lips set in a thin line. "Alright." She sighed, glancing at something in the distance. "I need to get Jacen to bed and then I'm going to call you right back. There...are a few things I think you need to know."


Sabine went to the Gauntlet with the intention of channeling her anger into something productive by catching up on maintenance chores. Well—she tried to channel her anger into something productive. She spent her first few minutes aboard throwing tools at the ramp. She stopped that when she accidentally hit the ramp access panel, sparks flying as the unit shorted out. She cursed a blue streak, knowing it would take hours to fix that alone. She sank down and sat against the wall. The durasteel paneling felt cool against her back. It calmed her.

She wasn't angry at Ezra. Not really. Annoyed, maybe, at his simple-minded suggestion that things on Lothal were easy during the war just because the Empire was gone; but she knew what he really meant. And he wasn't wrong. Even during the war's tense moments, things on Lothal were a lot easier than on other worlds. Safer. That was true. But—but. Sabine remembered too well the myriad of days when living on Lothal had been everything but easy for her, and it had everything to do with Ezra being gone.

How alarmingly fast it all came flooding back. One second she was sitting at the table listening to Ezra stick his foot in his mouth and the next, the blood in her veins just froze when she remembered how she'd sat at that same table two years ago eyeing her blaster from across the room...

Ezra had the audacity to imply that she'd had it easy?

Sabine shuddered. That was so far behind her—wasn't it? Why did that anxiety, that fear, that emptiness suddenly feel like something hot and gnawing in her chest? She'd dealt with all that, for kark's sake. And Ezra was hers and home and safe now. So why were her hands shaking?

Sabine jerked, startled, when the com started beeping. Surely it wasn't Ezra—he'd have just walked down here if he wanted to talk to her. But if he was going to do that, he'd have done it hours ago, she reasoned. She was both pleased and displeased that he hadn't, but she shoved that feeling aside as she pushed the "accept call" button on the com unit. Hera's image flickered to life and she was frowning intently.

It unnerved Sabine. "What?" She asked edgily.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Excu—what?" Sabine felt her face flushing and she bit the inside of her lip, struggling to keep calm. "What in the—" She stopped short, lowering her voice. "Is Jacen still up?"

Confusion crossed Hera's face. "No?"

"Then—what in karking hells is your problem?" Stupid, hot tears spilled onto her cheeks and she swiped them away. "Seriously, Hera. Hello to you, too."

Hera sighed, closing her eyes for several seconds. "I'm sorry," she said at last, mollified. "I—do I need to be worried about you?"

Sabine shook her head, not understanding. "What? No, we're doing fine—"

"No," Hera countered, "you're not doing 'fine.' Do you know Ezra's completely tied up in knots over whatever went down between the two of you? He has no idea what happened or why. He blames himself, though. Does that sound 'fine' to you?"

Sabine felt her anger start to seep away and aching emptiness take its place. She thought of the look in Ezra's eyes when she'd refused to let him reconcile with her. When she'd pushed him away. He'd looked so...hurt and taken aback and confused. Then she'd left the tower knowing full well he wouldn't come after her—after all those years on the Ghost, he'd been conditioned not to. She'd always wielded her temper like a weapon, and he'd learned early on to avoid her. Guilt knotted in Sabine's stomach. She hated that. She hated that he'd learned to walk on eggshells around her. She hated that she'd gotten so comfortable keeping him at arm's length instead of letting her guard down. She hated that he felt it was a safer option to talk to Hera than to come and seek her out.

She knew they wouldn't get far if that didn't change—if she didn't change. "What did he tell you?" She asked wearily.

"Not a lot—he didn't want to violate your privacy. I inferred a lot on my own. You—fought?"

"If by 'fought,' you mean I ripped his head off, then, yeah. We fought." Sabine picked at her cuticles. "He was talking about Lothal and the war and I just kind of—freaked."

"I was afraid of that." Hera folded her arms. "Why haven't you talked to him about everything?"

Sabine's eyes widened. "There was no need," she said sharply. "I dealt with it. You remember; you were there."

"Sabine." Her name was little more than a pained sigh from the older woman's lips. "I dealt with Kanan dying—that doesn't mean the grief doesn't flare when I least expect it to. Things don't just go away because life gets better. Especially if you're not talking to the one person in the whole galaxy who can help you through it."

"I thought I was fine." She reiterated the statement—as if that would make it truer—between clenched teeth. "I was going to talk to him. I just—the nightmares—he needed me."

"What he needs is for you to be honest with him. About everything. He needs you to let him in. Let him love you, Sabine."

The gentle admonishment nearly caused Sabine to come undone. "I can't relive it, Hera. I can't."

"No one is asking you to. But you have to get to where you can be honest, Sabine. It would break my heart to see you make the same mistakes I did."

Silence fell for a long moment. Finally, Sabine nodded. "Okay."

Hera blinked rapidly, as if she was clearing tears from her eyes. "You know I love you, right?"

"Yeah, even if you have a funny way of showing it." Sabine tried to sound grudging and failed miserably. "I love you, too, Hera. Spectre Five out."

She cut the transmission and sat in the pilot's seat for a long time after that, crying until her guilt and fear and anxiety ebbed away into numbness.


Hera was very clear about not wanting to get too much into Ezra and Sabine's business, so the advice she gave Ezra was very simple: Just love her.

The even when she makes it difficult was heavily implied.

Ezra knew he could do that.

He just wished he'd known much, much sooner about the depth of pain Sabine carried through his absence. He wished he knew more about it now; Hera hadn't been very forthcoming about that, either. But she'd said enough to make him realize Sabine had faced quite a few demons—and won, yes, but faced them all the same. He wanted to share that with her, to take her in his arms and soothe the hurt. She was still gone, though, aboard the Gauntlet or roaming Lothal's plains or doing whatever it was she'd needed to do. Nightfall came and went, darkness settling over the tower and the city beyond. Ezra resolved to wait up for Sabine, as long as it took for her to come back to him, and then they'd talk and—

Ezra woke to a soft kiss on his temple as Sabine lay down in bed beside him. He didn't say anything, but reached for her hand.

"I, um…" She spoke after several still moments, her voice low and hoarse as if she'd spent time crying. "I need help re-wiring the Gauntlet's interior ramp control panel."

"No, you don't," Ezra answered in surprise. "You could do that with your eyes closed."

"Haar'chak, Ezra." She swore under her breath. "Let me make peace."

He was silent for a beat, realization dawning just a half second late. "Oh."

"I—want to apologize for earlier, Ezra." She sounded tired and anxious and he hated that. He shook his head.

"Come here." He pulled her to him and she came willingly, letting him wrap his arms around her and stroke her back with long, soothing motions. "I'm sorry," he whispered against the top of her head. "I'm sorry."

They both knew he wasn't talking about what happened earlier.

"I missed you," she said jerkily. "Sometimes so much I—was drowning in it—and all that—stuff—just kind of—"

"Came back," he supplied. "I know. I know." He knew better than to ask her if she wanted to talk about it; she was already being more open about it now than she had in the last six months. When she was ready to tell him the rest, he knew she would. He waited for her muscles to relax and her breathing to slow before he said carefully, "I found the holo-recordings you left for me."

She made a sound that was almost like a laugh, her breath hot on his skin. "Well, you started it."

He remembered the message he'd left for her eyes only. "I did. I, uh, I liked your long hair," Ezra said shyly. "It was beautiful. Like—I just wanted to run my hands through it."

Sabine shivered delicately, imagining him doing that very thing. "Want me to grow it out?"

"If—if you want to."

She hummed. "It'll take years, Ezra. I'm not even kidding. You sure you want to wait that long?"

He tightened his arms around her. "I'm a patient man."

It was a tacit assurance: Yes, I'm still going to be here with you a few years from now. Yes, I'll be patient while you find the strength you need to open up to me.

Sabine kissed his neck and he hummed his contentment. "I'll hold you to that," she murmured.

He nodded. "Good."