Author's Note: Several of you noted how you had foreseen the twist chapter coming. That's fine I wasn't hiding it from the reader so much as I was from Ezra. I was hoping people would mostly be suspicious enough to anticipate it coming. This next chapter was difficult to me. Mostly it's about a mother and a daughter and them sorting out their complicated feelings and actions. As a man, this was harder for me to write and I hope I've done it justice.

Please enjoy. Also, I've appreciated the kind reviews and messages! Thank you very much!

Chapter 8
Rhyme and Reason

Sabine sat in her mother's conference room across the table from her. They had stopped to get a cup of caf on the way. Ursa had poured them two cups and then stared at the pot, handed the cups to Sabine, and took the entire carafe with her. "I think we'll nee this," she said smiling weakly.

Sabine sat quietly. She would wait for her mother to speak. If her mother was going to humiliate both her and Ezra, then she would get to be the one to figure out how to break this awful silence.

Ursa took several minutes to compose her thoughts. Finally, she just looked at her daughter sadly. "I'm sorry, Sabine," she said hesitantly. "I've made a mess of things. I let the Countess get in the way of being a mother again. You'd think that after some two decades of being a mother I would have learned how not to hurt my own children." She stopped and stirred her caf. "I had no right to embarrass you and Ezra so publicly. I shamed my only daughter and her, well I still don't even know what you two are. You came to me with an important need, and I blew it. Worse, you probably weren't even surprised. I have no right to get frustrated with how hostile you act towards me sometimes when I'm the cause." She was quiet again.

"I don't deserve your forgiveness because I can't pretend that I probably won't do this again someday. I'll do my best, but with how little faith I have in myself, well... I'm sure you don't have much faith in my mothering abilities either. I'm... I'm sorry Sabine. I need to ask you to forgive me."

Sabine let out a deep, long breath and felt some of the tension in her stomach beginning to ease. She wiped away the tear running down her cheek with the back of her hand. "I guess it depends on what happens now."

Ursa stared at her Caf. "If you want my permission to marry Ezra, well, you'll probably get it. At this point, I think I owe you at least that in reparations."

Sabine eyed her mother. "That easy, huh."

"Probably," Ursa said. "Let's just talk. No more Countess. No more clan Wren. Just Ursa and her daughter. At this point, I just want to understand you and Ezra. I'm getting more than a few mixed signals from the two of you." Sabine started to speak. "Wait," Ursa said, "Let me start with something first. I have another objection to the two of you besides just the Jedi and clan objections. It will be difficult for me to swallow old instincts, but I can learn to accept those for the sake of your happiness. There is, however, something else that I may not be able to put aside. Maybe you can relieve your mother of this fear."

"What's that?" Sabine asked, curious at the change in her mother. She must really regret what happened in the Great Hall for her to be this willing to compromise.

Uras hesitated. "I need you to promise me that this wouldn't be a marriage of convenience."

Sabine frowned, unsure of where this was going. "What do you mean?"

"I meant exactly what I said. I married your father for almost entirely political reasons. It was going to be a good arrangement for the Clan, and his skills complimented mine. Where I was a warrior, he was a diplomat. I certainly didn't love your father when we said our vows to each other."

"Don't look at me like that Sabine. Marriages are not based on love but upon commitment. We were committed to making it work, and it did. He quickly fell in love with me, but it took ten years for me to work up the courage to tell your father that I loved him."

"Does dad know this?" Sabine asked quietly.

"Of course he does. He's not a fool. Hopeless romantic that your father is, he spent the first ten years of our marriage trying to win my heart. And his long-suffering persistence paid off."

"Boy, does that sound familiar," Sabine murmured as she took a sip of caf.

"What was that?" Ursa asked.

Sabine waved for her to continue.

"In all likelihood, Tristan will have to make a choice like I did. He will say his vows and commit to a woman he may not love or even know that well. And maybe someday he will learn to love his wife. I hope so. It pains me to know he may endure what your father and I did."

"I'm sorry, I had no idea," Sabine said quietly. Her parents had always appeared so united, even in their disagreements, that she couldn't imagine a time when this had been different.

"Don't be sorry. As far as I'm concerned, your father and I still have our best years ahead of us. A marriage of commitment ages like the finest of wines," Ursa said quietly, quoting an old Mandalorian proverb.

Ursa finished the last of her cup of caf, stared at it for a moment as if wondering how it was empty already, and then poured herself a second.

"However that doesn't mean I want you to go through what I did. I'd rather you marry out of commitment and love, not commitment and practicality. I'm afraid that your desire to marry Ezra is at least half practicality. Your dear friend is in trouble, and you're trying to mastermind a way for him to escape. Hide him in Clan Wren, behind a helmet and armor where no one will ever know who he is."

Sabine looked at the table. She had naturally thought of this.

"Don't be ashamed, it's a good idea, and it would probably work." Ursa hesitated again. "I just want more for you, Sabine. More than I had myself, and more than what Tristan will probably have." They were quiet for a moment. "So tell me about you and Ezra. Convince me that this wouldn't be a joyless marriage." She raised an eyebrow, "Since you've spent all day trying to convince me that you two are not a thing."

"I... Don't even know where to start," Sabine said truthfully. "This isn't a topic I've talked about with anyone. Well, Hera, tried to talk about it once, but I brushed her off."

"How about starting at the beginning?" Ursa suggested patiently.

"Okay. The beginning." Sabine collected her thoughts. "Ezra has was in infatuated with me from the moment he came on board the Ghost. It was obnoxious at the start. He tried so hard and failed so hard it was... embarrassing for everyone. It stopped when Kanan took him aside some months after he'd joined and told him to back off. Ezra was so mortified, he even came and apologized to me. After that, life on the Ghost got better for everyone. From then on, he was polite and kind, always trying to make up for the past."

"I knew he had only buried those feelings, but he had buried them deep enough that we were able to become friends. Close friends. We learned to work together and made a great team. Hera noticed and began planning ops around the two of us functioning as a unit. Meanwhile, Ezra's affections matured into something less juvenile and more... Well, I'm not even really sure what the word is. Selfless, perhaps. Something more like love, I guess, rather than a boyish fantasy."

"I think it was at that point that I started to at least enjoy his attention, and not just because his unending devotion was flattering. It had been a part of my life for several years, and a part of me realized that it wasn't going away anytime soon."

Sabine shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably. "Then one day I realized we had both grown up and I finally saw Ezra, I mean really saw him for who he was, who I was, and our positions in relation to each other. It... It freaked me out, and I tried to ignore it, act like everything was the same. This was around the time I returned to Krownest with the Darksaber."

"I hated being back home, mother; it was like I was missing half of my self. I was like a droid missing its counterpart, stuck in a half-broken state unable to really function properly. When Ezra showed up months later asking for help from Clan Wren I was overjoyed to see him."

"I could tell," Ursa smiled.

"From that point on I couldn't completely ignore that things had changed, I just didn't know how to put it into words or what to do about it. When it comes to the emotional stuff, I'm like you, mother." Sabine shook her head. "If I was like dad this wouldn't be any problem."

"But something had changed, and apparently everyone noticed. Hera was the only one that outright said anything, which was embarrassing, but I knew the others saw it too."

"When the empire thought they had killed Ezra and we faked his death I wasn't going to let him leave alone. For his good and mine. I'd been without my partner for a few months before and that was not something I was about to repeat."

Sabine hesitated for a moment. "So yes, I was going to follow him anywhere. If that took wandering around the outer rim smuggling or working odd jobs, that was going to be okay. I'd be with Ezra. And then Senator Mon Mothma opened her mouth and ruined everything."

Sabine looked at the floor. This was going to be hard to explain. "The marriage idea came kind of spur of the moment in response to new complications. You're right. I was thinking about the practical part. Who's going to look for a Jedi amongst a Mandalorian clan? But it was also more than that. It gave me a way to keep him with me in spite of you demanding I stay at Krownest."

Sabine sighed. "I can't... do what Hera and Kanan did. Hera... Hera always thought there would be more time. That there would be a day when she could be with Kanan, outside of the fear of the Empire, outside of the Rebellion. And well, that day will never come. That's a regret I'm not sure I'm willing to live with, a regret Hera will carry with her for the rest of her life." She smiled tightly. "I know that tomorrow may never come. Something may happen to Ezra, and I don't want to be left wondering what might have been. So I had to do something. I'm just... I'm so bad at talking about these things, and I can't even imagine trying to talk about it to Ezra. I pushed him off for so many years that I'm embarrassed to even bring the conversation up."

"Dear," Ursa said with a chuckle, "I don't think Ezra's going to be mad at you for changing your mind."

"I know, trust me, I know. I thought that, well if I just up and marry him for reasons practical and otherwise that...

She looked at her feet and spat out the next part as if it was going to kill her. "That Ezra would be mine forever without me having to really confront that fact that I'd fallen in love with him."

Ursa's eyes went wide. "You were going to marry Ezra because you were too afraid to talk to him about how you felt?"

"At the time it seemed like a good idea. I hadn't had much sleep for two days..."

"Sabine Wren, that's... I can't believe you would concoct so ridiculous of a scheme. Honeymoons are a thing, dear. He would have figured out where you stood very quickly."

Sabine's eyes went wide with terror. "WHOA, whoa, no! We are not talking about that. That is not something I want to think about right now."

Ursa laughed. A genuine, good-natured laugh. "I can not believe you, Sabine Wren. This is easily the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard."

Sabine turned a little red. "Look, it made sense, and it still does. I started thinking about our marriage vows. Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde" she recited. "We are one when together, we are one when parted, we will share all, we will raise warriors. When I realized we had already started to live out Mandalorian marriage vows, I made up my mind. We already were two parts of a whole. One when together, one when apart. It's why everyone assumed we were more than friends. You argue that marriage is about commitment more than love, well Ezra and I are already well down that commitment path even if we've never talked about being in love."

Ursa smiled and finished her second cup of caf. "Sabine, I'm sorry you turned out so much like me. I know you received your father's artistic side, but I think you'd have been better off if you'd gotten the rest of him too. You wouldn't have tied yourself into knots over this young man."

Ursa paused, realizing that her cup was empty. She looked at the pot with a thoughtful look, then seemed to decide against it. "Sabine you have my full permission to marry Ezra."

Sabine tried not to smile, but the sudden light feeling in her chest rose into her head, and she smiled anyway.

"On one condition," Ursa continued.

Sabine felt the smile slipping away. "What's that?"

"You talk to him and be as open with him as you have with me. Also, you get to explain the whole part about wanting to marry him so that you didn't have to deal with your complicated feelings. I'm not sure I'll ever be over how daft an idea that is."

Sabine groaned. "So much for me taking the easy way. Thanks, mother."

"And I'll give you plenty of time. Ezra is free to stay as long as necessary for you two to work out of this mess you've put each other in. And that I made worse."

Sabine stood and walked to Ursa, taking her by the hands and raising her to her feet.

"Thank you. I needed you to be my mother for awhile."

"Well, I can't let your father do all the parenting. Occasionally I do my duties. And I'm sorry for what happened earlier this evening. Forgive me?"

"Already have," Sabine said as she embraced her mother.

Alrich and Ezra walked in silence to the Gallery. It was an enormous room similar to the Great Hall in that it was made at least half of windows. Unlike the Great Hall, it was filled with art.

"Is all of this really your artwork?" Ezra asked.

"Almost all of it. There's a piece or two of Sabine's scattered around from when she was younger. I hope to add more now that she's developed her skills."

"This is amazing. I, don't know much about art from a technical standpoint like Sabine does, but she's at least taught me to appreciate it."

"A lifetime of dedication to a single craft will forge a master." Alrich smiled. "I'm not there yet obviously, but I hope to be there before the end."

"The Jedi have a similar saying. I may be messing up the wording, but it is Mastery cares not for aptitude, but for devotion."

"Wise words," he sat on a couch looking out the window. A moon was out tonight; the frozen forests were a sparkling wonderland.

Ezra sat beside him. "Krownest sure is beautiful."

"It is. Though one does have to remember how quickly it can kill you. Rather like Mandalorian women, actually."

Ezra laughed out loud. "Okay, that was funny. I'll have to remember that. You probably just got me in big trouble with Sabine."

"Hmm. Ursa never liked that one either." They were quiet for a moment, both enjoying the view.

Finally, Ezra broke the silence. "I can't imagine you brought me here just to watch the moonrise."

Alrich smiled. "On the contrary. That is precisely why we are here. If there is something I can say to help you, I will. If not then a few moments away from the noise of the Hall will be refreshing for both of us."

"You are nothing like the rest of your family," Ezra said in amazement.

"Perhaps not. Tristan and Sabine each have a piece of me in them, though in different ways. It is natural for children to take after their parents in some ways, both the good and the bad."

"My parents were taken by the Empire when I was just kid." Ezra mused. I couldn't tell you if I was like them at all."

Alrich scratched his chin. "Ephraim and Mira Bridger." Ezra looked at him in surprise. "I asked Sabine about you after we first met, then did my research on the young man that was so adamantly 'not with' my daughter."

Ezra slumped. There it was again. The best first impression he ever made.

Alrich smiled. "I read about Ephraim and Mira Bridger. Read how they defied the Empire with their broadcasts and paid the price. And then I realized that during my imprisonment on Mandalore, I had already met you. Your broadcast from Lothal was spread wide across the galaxy, even into Mandalorian space. Indeed if your Rebellion ever succeeds in toppling the Empire, your transmission will be remembered as one of the stones that started the avalanche."

"I don't think I deserve that kind of praise," Ezra said uncomfortably.

"Hmm. It's not praise, so much as an observation. If one day the Empire falls, that will make you one of the most influential men since the fall of the Republic. History will not remember much of Ephraim and Mira Bridger of Lothal, but you are their legacy, and through you, they have shaped the fate of the galaxy. I wish I could have met them and shaken their hands. Instead, I am left knowing them only through you, through the lens of their son."

Ezra accepted this in silence as he thought of all that he had done and seen over the last few years. Finally, he said quietly. "Kanan and Hera will deserve some credit too then. They had so much influence over me, who I've become, who I am. It was almost like having parents again." And then he was quiet again.

"Indeed," Alrich said. " I also owe them much for rescuing Sabine. They saved her from destruction much like they saved you." There was silence for another minute. When Alrich spoke, he looked Ezra straight in the eye. "Ezra there is no one in this galaxy I would rather my daughter marry than you. I have known you for a short time, but the legacy of your actions tells me all I need to know of your character."

Ezra's eyes went wide with surprise. "I'd love to... marry Sabine, trust me I would, but I'm not even sure what's in Sabine's mind right now. I've loved her for so long and yet she's never even hinted until the last couple days that anything had changed. Now she's suddenly trying to marry me. I'm am so lost right now. Also, I don't really think Ursa is going to let a marriage happen right now."

Alrich laughed. "Oh Ursa will let it happen. I think if you but ask, she'll allow it."

"Really...?" Ezra said suspiciously, narrowing his eyes. "That's not the impression I got earlier."

"Trust me I know my wife. The Countess may have a tough exterior, but it eventually wears away to the beautiful Ursa that I love, the mother of my children. I'm sure by now she and Sabine have made amends. She'll give her permission."

"Hmm," Ezra said not really sure he believed it. Reaching out with the Force he did feel that Sabine was feeling calmer than she had all day. Maybe Alrich was right.

"And about Sabine. I've seen the painting of you in her room. She must have spent hours on your eyes alone." He laughed. "I think you should trust what your instincts are telling you about Sabine. Try not to over-think things like she has. The best advice I can give you is that Mandalorians are a people of bold actions and deeds. Sabine brought you here and trapped you in her little ill-advised scheme. Maybe try turning the tables on her."

Ezra smiled. He could do that. As a matter of fact, he already had an idea. "Alrich can I ask you something else?"

"Anything."

"Is there anything else I need to know about Mandalorian marriage customs." He smiled sheepishly. "You know, in case it comes in useful later."

Author's Note: There's a chance I may not get the next chapter finished edited by next two need some more extensive work I feel to be up to par. I'll try to keep up my schedule, but no promises. Also reviewer Nutzkie I think you actually nailed on the seizing the day aspect better than I did!