A/N:k I'm baaaaack! This chapter took more time and effort than I wanted and I fussed with it a lot. I tried something a little different-let me know what you think!


A Family Reunion

This was the coolest thing ever because Jacen loved Lothal and he loved Bean and he'd always loved hearing her stories about Ezra and the Loth-wolves and the Loth-cats (why did everything on Lothal have two names? He needed to remember to ask mama). Only now, it wouldn't be just stories. Ezra was there—with Bean; were they married?—and he probably had his lightsaber with him and he probably still did know some Loth-wolves and Loth-cats. And he could tell lots more stories about Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight, probably. (Jacen liked thinking about his father as Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight sometimes because it made him feel so proud to know that his papa had been a hero.)

Mama talked about him, but not much when it came to Jedi stuff. No—when it came to Jedi stuff, her mouth stopped smiling and her lekku stopped swaying, and Jacen knew that meant No more. It didn't make her angry. It just made her sad, and that was worse than angry. And—he figured out recently—it made her feel scared, the same way he felt scared that one time in the market when he'd let go of her hand and he lost her and he didn't know what to do.

She didn't tell him she was scared, of course—that's not what mamas do—he just knew it.

Maybe Ezra could help. And maybe Ezra could show him the exact spot where his papa had helped save Lothal. He'd asked mama to show him, just once, and he'd felt a cold, crying feeling in his chest so bad when she looked at him with her big, green eyes open real wide. He couldn't bear to ask her again, but—he wanted to.

He almost forgot about asking her at all because the day before they left for Lothal, Zeb came back and said he was going on the trip with them and that was double exciting.


"Why are you acting weird?" Jacen asked as he jogged to catch up to Zeb. The Lasat had hardly said anything funny at all the whole way there and that was very unusual. Jacen felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned; mama was giving him that Hush, now look she was good at. "What?" He whispered loudly. "He is."

"I think Jacen's trying to ask if you're okay, Zeb." The tone of mama's voice was asking it, too.

Zeb's big shoulders shrugged. "I'm okay, Hera," he said. He sounded like he was not okay, but Jacen knew better than to argue. He looked at mama and she gave him half a smile and a shake of her head. Jacen wedged his little hand into Zeb's massive one. The Lasat held more tightly than usual—not too tightly, of course; as strong as Zeb was, he never once hurt Jacen, not even on accident—tighter than the time they went with mama to a ceremony on Coruscant and Zeb was worried Jacen would get lost.

"Hey," Jacen said suddenly, "are you nervous of seeing Ezra? You shouldn't be. He told me some stoooories about you two. He said you were like brothers. If I had a brother, I'd be happy to see him after a long time. Mama, can't—" There was a soft yank on his hand and he stopped talking right away; he looked up to see Zeb's lips pressed together tight as he shook his head.

"Right," Jacen whispered to himself. He and Zeb had talked, not too long ago, about things that made mama too sad; wondering what would be like to have a little brother was one of them.

Zeb winked at Jacen and nodded. "Yeah. We were like brothers. You're right, Jace."

Jacen wanted to ask: Well if you're brothers, then why aren't you more glad to see him? He was too little still to understand anything about the fall of Lasan or how hard it had been for Zeb to connect to anyone after, and just how deeply he felt Kanan's death and Ezra's disappearance because of that. The little boy was mercifully oblivious to most of the pain that the grown-ups in his life carried with them, for which they were grateful; Jacen's starry-eyed outlook on life reminded them of simpler things. To him, this wasn't the long-awaited reunion between two friends. It was just a precious and rare opportunity to have all his favorite grown-ups collected in one place. When he saw Ezra and Sabine walking toward them, about halfway between the tower and the Ghost, he broke free of Zeb with a wild screech.

"Ezra! Bean!" He ran as fast as his little legs could carry him, launching himself at the pair. Ezra was the one who grabbed him, tickling his belly until Jacen was just shrieking with laughter. But, the little boy noticed, Ezra was really looking at Zeb and mama. Jacen lunged over, looping his arms around Sabine's neck. "Hi, Bean."

"Hi, baby." She hugged him tight, but her eyes were on Zeb and Ezra; they were standing in front of each other now.

After a long minute, Zeb spoke first. "What in karking hells is on your face?" He asked roughly.

Ezra palmed the two-week-old growth on his cheeks and chin. "Thought I'd try a beard."

"It's not staying," Sabine muttered.

"I'm with her," Zeb said with disgust. "It makes you look—"

"Mature? Worldly? Debonair?"

"Stupid. It makes you look stupid."

Zeb and Ezra stared hard at each other and then they laughed and they hugged—but not the way mama and Sabine always did, Jacen observed, but by patting real hard on the back. And then that turned into pushing and shoving and jabbing—something Jacen was eager to participate in. He dropped out of Sabine's grasp and ran at Ezra and Zeb, going for a tackle. His meager weight did nothing to upset either of their balance, but Zeb fell over anyway and Ezra followed, wrestling Jacen down into a wriggling, giggling ball.

Hera and Sabine stepped past them, the Twi'lek slipping an arm around the younger woman's waist. "Just like old times," she murmured contentedly.


Jacen was in heaven. It had always been a dream of his to hang out with all the Spectres all at the same time and this was great. They talked, they joked, they ate together—mama even let him stay up well past bedtime, when the grownups where just sitting drinking caf and talking to each other in the living room. They were making plans about what to do tomorrow, and that reminded Jacen he had a question. Half-asleep and warm and comfortable where he was sitting between Ezra and Sabine, Jacen asked drowsily, "Ezra, can you take me to see where my papa saved everybody?"

Mama and Sabine and Zeb had been talking to each other quietly, but they stopped and it was almost like they stopped breathing, too, because they all got very, very still. Only Ezra didn't stiffen up. He put one big arm around Jacen and squeezed. But his eyes did that darting thing as all the adults looked at each other. (When grown-ups did that, Jacen had observed, it was because they either didn't know the answer to your question, or didn't want to tell you.) Jacen looked at mama; her face was a little bit the wrong color green and her eyebrows were doing that jumpy thing like when she was trying very, very hard not to cry. Zeb and Ezra were also looking at mama, but Sabine—whose cheeks weren't softly pink like they usually were when she was close to Ezra—was staring hard into Ezra's eyes.

At the same time mama said very faintly, "I don't mind," Sabine said, "Can you?" Her voice was a little too high and it wobbled.

Ezra took a slow breath. Jacen felt bad for him; he knew how uncomfortable it was to have mama and Bean frowning at you like that at the same time. But Ezra was calm. "If Hera has no problem, I have no problem."

"Jacen, get pajamas on and brush your teeth, please. Wait for me to come tuck you in." Mama's tone of voice meant no nonsense, so Jacen was quick to obedience. He hopped up, quickly circulating the room with hugs goodnight for everyone. His heart was beating way too fast, because he was afraid everyone wouldn't have gotten so upset if he hadn't asked Ezra about going to that place. He felt his face go all hot as he walked down the hall and his eyes started leaking and then he heard mama's quick footsteps behind him. She scooped him up and held him tight and he put his face on her shoulder.

"Of course Ezra can take you, love," she whispered. Her voice was right in his ear and her breath was warm. "Of course you can go. I'll go, too."

He nodded and mama sat down with him in her lap, right there in the hallway, and she didn't let him go for a long time.


When the Spectres stood together at the memorial site, holding hands, even Jacen had silent tears running down his cheeks. He could feel the love and the sadness there and it made his heart ache. But it was a good kind of ache. He said so to mama.

She smiled and she kissed his hair and she said, "I think so, too, love," she said. "I think so, too."

He could tell that she meant it.


The memorial ended up being one of Jacen's favorite places to visit on Lothal. The plants and ponds and bugs provided endless hours of exploration, and so did the stories he was hearing about Kanan. It was easy to see how Jacen delighted in hearing about how he himself had been there, safe and protected in his mother's belly the night that history changed course. Someone took him to the site nearly every day of the visit—even Hera, a couple of times.

Mostly, though, Jacen wanted to with Ezra and Zeb because it was hard to pass up the chance to hang out with "the boys" when hanging out with "the girls" was almost all he'd known for the first several years of his life. (Plus—there was a cool park near the memorial site that this wicked-looking set of monkey-bars. Ezra and Zeb let him do flips on those that Hera and Sabine never would have.)

One afternoon ended sulkily, though, with Jacen cradling a scraped arm as Zeb and Ezra led him out of the park. They didn't make it far before Zeb scooped Jacen up and threw him on his shoulders; the boy was dragging his feet petulantly and they were moving at a snail's pace.

"Cheer up, kid," Zeb said. "A little soap and water and that arm'll be good as new." Ezra gave the Lasat a sidelong glance; they both knew that soap and water were not in the future. Antiseptic solution was, though, and that was going to come as unwelcome news to Jacen.

"What happened, anyway?" Ezra asked, eager to redirect the conversation. "You fall off the monkey-bars? I didn't see."

"Ugh, no," Jacen answered, disgusted. "We were playing and this mean girl just pushed me."

It took all of Ezra's natural and Force-drawn strength not to laugh. Zeb was not as disciplined. "A mean girl!" He chortled. "You're too young for that mess."

Jacen hunched over, looking into Zeb's face from upside down. "What mess?"

"Don't listen to Zeb," Ezra warned with a glare.

The Lasat grinned toothily. "Girls are only mean to boys they like."

"Wha—" Jacen gasped. "You mean like—boyfriend and girlfriend?"

"Exactly like."

"Gross!" A pause. "I don't believe you. Prove it."

Zeb looked at Ezra and Ezra elbowed him hard in the ribs because he knew where this was going. Zeb, no, he mouthed. Zeb cheerfully ignored him. "Ask Ezra. Sabine was mean to him for years before they—" He stopped, fishing for an approximately accurate phrase. "Were boyfriend and girlfriend."

At that, Jacen perked right up. "Ezra, Bean is your girlfriend?"

Ezra cringed; girlfriend was too childish and small a word to describe what Sabine was to him. But nothing else fit, either. "Yeah," he said slowly. "She is."

Jacen scoffed. "You're sayin' that like you don't even like her."

"Yeah," Zeb chimed in, mimicking the little boy's tone of voice. "Don't you even like Sabine?"

Ezra knew Zeb was just trying to get a rise out of him and it was absolutely working. "Of course I like her," he ground out. "She's—" Courageous, beautiful, tender, funny, tough, understanding, infuriating, enthralling. He wasn't about to say any of that to Zeb—not while he was intent on being juvenile—and Jacen wouldn't understand. "She's just Sabine," he finished lamely.

"'Just Sabine,'" the Lasat crowed. "The highest compliment a woman could ever hope to hear. We should tell her, Jacen."

"Zeb."

Jacen was happily oblivious to the war of dirty looks and mouthed curses taking place between the two adults. "You gonna put a piece for her on your kalikori?"

Ezra stopped dead in his tracks. "Am I—" He didn't bother explaining that neither Mandalorians nor Lothalians had kalikoris; the spirit of the question was clear enough. Marriage—Hera would have explained adding a non-family member to your kalikori as being tantamount to marriage. "I—maybe—if she—"

Zeb, aware this had taken a very uncomfortable turn for Ezra, masterfully redirected the conversation. "And what about you, kid? You gonna add that playground girl to yours?"

"Don't be dumb!" Jacen sounded a comic mixture of outraged and horrified. "Mama says that when you do that it should only be for someone so important and that you gotta make a good decision 'cause it's a perm'nent decision and I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a big deal and..."

Ezra stopped listening as Jacen rattled on, dazed by the enormity of the idea of marrying Sabine. The kid was certainly right about one thing: it was a big deal. And he didn't mind that at all.


Hera and Sabine agreed to clean the kitchen if Ezra and Zeb would cook; it was a decision they were regretting. Not because Ezra wasn't a good cook (Zeb mostly watched and kept Jacen from sticking his hands on the burners). He was, in fact, a great cook—something Sabine was going to have to ask about later. She was pretty sure that he'd only been capable of making toast and cold cereal six years ago. But talented as he was now, he wasn't overly efficient; Sabine and Hera had been left with a bigger pile of cookware and utensils than they knew what to do with. With Jacen playing outside with the messy chef and his assistant, they decided to have a glass of wine each before tackling the clean-up.

Hera swirled the pink liquid in her glass, pretending to look at it with interest. "So," she began lightly, "when do you think this will become a permanent arrangement?"

Sabine eyed the chaotic nightmare of a mess by the sink. "Never," she answered, wide-eyed. "Zeb and Ezra are only stepping foot in this kitchen over my dead body." She noticed Hera giving her a flat stare over the rim of her glass. Realization suddenly dawned. "Aaand that's not what you were asking me." She frowned. "Has anything given you the impression that this isn't permanent?"

The answer was no; in fact, Hera had been pleasantly surprised to find that Ezra and Sabine were doing much better than she expected, given the extent of things they'd had to work through the last several months. "No," she said honestly. "But there's permanent and then there's acknowledging that it's permanent. Have you two...talked about that?"

Another question to which the answer was no.

Sabine shifted uncomfortably. "Not—like you're talking about." Her eyes narrowed as her mind tried to move through the muddy waters of Hera's insinuation. Marriage—she was pretty sure they were talking about marriage. She kept waiting for a cold, hard, panicked fear to settle in the pit of her stomach at the idea of getting married—it didn't. "We...haven't been avoiding it or anything. It just hasn't come up, I guess." Sabine heard the sound of her own voice like it was coming from far away.

Hera hummed. "What about...?" She let the rest of that sentence drop suggestively, arching an eyebrow.

Sabine downed what was left of her wine in one, enormous gulp. The flush on her cheeks had nothing to do with the alcohol. This talk was moving somewhere Sabine didn't want it to, but she couldn't pass up on the opportunity to embarrass the life out of Hera. She clasped her hands and leaned forward, lowering her voice. "Are you asking if I've made Ezra my lover?"

Dark green splotches started creeping up Hera's neck. "I take it back."

"Well, the answer is no," Sabine said softly, turning serious. "Almost—a couple of times—but we're not—" She stopped short, sighing. "I'm not ready. And he knows that. He's not—pushing or anything. He knows...it's still hard for me to be totally open with him. I don't really...want to bring that into bed with us, you know?"

Hera reached across the table to squeeze Sabine's hand. "I do. And I think that's wise. You should stay with that until...until the time is right."

Sabine picked up the wine bottle and poured herself another half-glass. She was tempted to probe into Kanan and Hera's relationship, dimly aware that she could probably learn a lot from their missteps. But that would probably be better done with a clear mind; the wine was already making her feel fuzzy around the edges. And anyway, she wanted to keep the mood light. Her mouth twitched as she brought her glass up. "You know...a whole lot of your advice seems to fall under the 'do as I say and not as I do' header. I hope Jacen doesn't ever hear you intimating you wish you'd waited to hop in the sack with Kanan. Might give him a complex." Sabine's grin was absolutely wicked.

Hera snatched her glass and the bottle away. "I think you've had enough," she said primly. She stood up. "Come on—this mess won't clean itself."


Nobody had dry eyes as Jacen, Hera, and Zeb prepared to board the Ghost. Jacen least of all as he clung to Sabine and Ezra, an arm around each of them.

"I love you guys too much to go," he wailed as Hera pulled him off.

"We love you, too," Sabine said. She kissed his cheek for the dozenth time. She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I think Ezra likes hanging out with you better than he likes hanging out with me."

"That's not true," Jacen argued. He shoved his palm across his face, smearing tears everywhere as he put his head on Hera's shoulder. "He likes you most of all. He said so to me'n'Zeb."

Ezra blushed and Hera and Zeb exchanged knowing glances. Sabine just smiled. "Yeah, I guess I'm stuck with him. But there's still a big place in my heart for my Jacen, okay?"

"'Kay."

The adults had said their goodbyes previously, not wanting to make this any harder on Jacen than it had to be. After one last, quick round of hugs, the Ghost and its crew departed, leaving Sabine and Ezra standing together on Lothal's plain. She leaned on him, sniffing hard against an onslaught of tears, and he laughed as he put his arms around her, kissing the top of her head.

"Sad that you're 'stuck' with me?"

"Yes," she groused, angry at the moisture on her cheeks. "You're an idiot who doesn't know how to cook without using every pot in existence."

"But I'm your idiot who doesn't know how to cook without using every pot in existence—right?" He feigned uncertainty and Sabine laughed and her shoulders relaxed and she turned around to kiss him.

"Yeah," she mumbled against his mouth. "You're mine."