Summary: Sabine was a student at the imperial academy, taking orders blindly. Sometimes, she needs to prove to herself that she's different now.

It's rare that Zeb can't sleep. Every now and then, he'll hear Ezra tossing and turning above him, as apparently trouble sleeping is a normal human thing, but never Zeb. Hera has a short sleep cycle as a twi'lek, and normally wakes up long before the rest of the crew, but Zeb will sleep until someone works up the courage to wake him up.

Tonight is a rare night, though. Tonight, he can't sleep. It's a rather odd feeling- not being able to lapse into sleep despite any exhaustion level, but nevertheless, here he is. He wonders idly if this is what it feels like to be human. If so, he's rather happy that he's a lasat.

After lying on the bed looking up at the top bunk and listening to Ezra's almost inaudible soft snores for almost two hours, he figures that he just has to accept the fact that he's not getting back to sleep anytime soon. Might as well make a cup of caff and get started on the day's chores. If he gets them all done by morning, maybe he'll be allowed to go back to bed early when he's more likely to fall asleep.

When he's halfway down the hallway, though, he nearly runs straight into Sabine. She's already in her decorative armor, despite it being the middle of the night, and nearly spills her own mug of caff when she has to stop short.

"Zeb?" She asks, stilling her mug. "What are you doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep," he shrugs. He looks down at Sabine's hands around the cup, smeared with a layer of green paint that's only partially been wiped away. "Painting again?"

She's silent for a second, looking down at the green paint on her fingers. "Yeah," she says finally.

"What're ya painting?"

She's silent for a second. "A forest… can't quite get it right, though." She steps around Zeb and continues on her way to her room.

"Maybe I can help," Zeb offers. "Fresh perspective and all."

Sabine stops, looking back at him, calculating.

Zeb has heard Hera talking to Kanan about this sometimes. When she's up at ridiculous hours of the morning, she'll find sabine come out of her room with all of her armor on, grab a cup of caff, and retreat to her room, coming out stinking of paint fumes by morning. He has to say, he's curious now.

"Alright," Sabine cedes, surprising them both.

Zeb turns and follows Sabine to her room. She's painted over a large section of the metal wall with a light gray to serve as a canvas for the new piece. Towards the top, she's already painted what looks like the emerald green leaves that balloon out from the top of a tall tree canopy, though most of the tree trunks remain unpainted. Zeb looks over it.

"I don't see what you need help with. Looks good to me."

Sabine steps back, chin in hand, and squints at the unfinished piece. "No… it's missing something."

Zeb can't understand exactly what she's seeing. It looks pristine to him.

"There needs to be more… maybe some animals… a colorful bird, or a snake, or a wild cat of some sort? What do you think?"

Zeb continues to stare at the leaves. "Uh… I don't know. It looks perfect to me."

"That's the problem," she says, pointing a finger at Zeb, though there's no malice behind it. "It can't be perfect. It has to be wild… untamed. We're going to go with all three animals."

Zeb leans against the wall and watches as Sabine goes to work. There's something surreal about how passionate she is, how focused.

"Wait, don't lean there!" she shouts when she turns and sees him, far too late.

"Huh?" He pulls away from the wall, only to see a red circle with a slash through it printed onto his arm

Sabine cringes. "Sorry… wet paint."

Zeb sighs. That's going to take forever to get out.

He then looks all around the room. Little red circles with slashes through them are painted all over the room, each one over a stormtrooper helmet. Some are new, shining with wet paint, and some are old and faded, barely visible. They're everywhere. A realization dawns on him.

"Why are you even up this early, Sabine?"

She replies without missing a beat. "Couldn't sleep. Same as you."

"You sure hate stormtroopers, don't you?"

Sabine pauses, the hissing of her spray paint can abruptly falling silent. "You could say that."

"Is that what you were training to be?" he asks. "A storm trooper? At the imperial academy?"

Her hand twitches and Zeb thinks that she'll kick him out for a moment.

"Yeah," she says, voice level and plain. "It was."

He knows that he should probably stop prying (Sabine can't stand prying) but he plunges forward anyway. "Your room is a nice contrast, at least."

"That's the idea."

She steps back from the wall she's working on to examine it, having the whole tropical forest made now. Plants spill out from everywhere, hardly any light managing to penetrate the thick canopy leaves. Most everything is a deep green, but a few vibrant orange or purple plants spill out of the brush.

"Was it bad there?" He dares ask.

Sabine pauses again, but it's not as abrupt or annoyed as last time. It's more of a thoughtful pause. She pauses as she thinks of a response.

"Honestly? No."

Zeb's taken by surprise, to say the least. The few times the imperial academy has been brought up, a certain gleam in her eye and set of her mouth expressed so much hatred towards it that even Zeb would be afraid to approach her.

"Well, yes and no," Sabine goes on to say. "They treated us alright, I guess, that wasn't the bad part. But, we were all the same. We had the same uniform, same code for how our hair was supposed to look… and we all thought the same. Nobody thought for themselves; we were just mindless drones…" A shudder runs down her spine, and Zeb grimaces as well. The thought of Sabine without all of her creative spunkiness… well, it isn't Sabine.

"Well… at least you're here now."

"Yeah." She yawns into her sleeve, and for the first time, Zeb notices the bags under her eyes.

"You should really get some sleep, you know."

"Have to finish this first," she says, eyes not leaving the painting.

Zeb groans. She'll be exhausted tomorrow.

"Sabine, I know it's important and all, but can't you finish it tomorrow?"

"No!"

Zeb looks out at the painting of the rainforest on the wall, the exact opposite of the strict and sterile environment that Sabine had just described. "Look, I know that this is probably about the imperial academy, and that this is your way of getting it out, but you're here now. Hera has a mission for you tomorrow, and-"

"That's not it," she interrupts.

"What?"

"That's not it. I know that I'm here now."

"Then… then why is it so important that you paint now?"

Sabine pauses, always being the last one to open up about anything. "Do you-" she pauses, closing her mouth again. "You don't think I'm still like that, do you?"

Zeb compares the scene that Sabine just described to him to everything in front of him: the art, the checkerboard table, the slashes over the stormtrooper helmets, Sabines swirled decorative armor, her vivid blue and green hair…

"No. Not in the slightest."

She relaxes a bit. "Good."

"Is that what you're worried about?" Zeb can't imagine why on earth this would be a concern to her. She's nothing like a stormtrooper in training.

"I know it's stupid," she says, hugging her arms, "but…" But sometimes, she needed to prove that to herself.

"Could be worse," Zeb adds. "You could want to go back, and can't."

Sabine's face scrunches up. "Why would I ever want to- oh." She looks up at Zeb, eyes saddened, when she finally hears the hidden message in his words. "I'm sorry, Zeb."

He shrugs. "Not much we can do about it now."

"... Is that why you're still up now?"
"Maybe…" He hadn't gone to bed with Lasan on his mind, but normally when he can't sleep, he'll find the back of his mind dwelling on it, missing it, even when he doesn't realize it.

Sabine moves slowly and silently, going to pick up a paintbrush for the finer details of her mural. "Do you wish you were still the same? Or wish you were different from back then?"

Zeb thinks for a moment. "I've tried to forget most of it, honestly," he sighs, squirming awkwardly. "I guess I'd rather be the same, but I can be only be the same with Lasan, and that's not happening, so…"

Silence

"Maybe there's an in-between," Sabine suggests, voice calculated. "A little bit of both."

Zeb turns the idea over his mind and nods slowly, though Sabine doesn't see it. He thinks he likes this idea: remembering the good along with the bad and using both as fuel.

"Anyway, you're not like a stormtrooper, so you can go back to bed now."

"No can do," Sabine says, intent on finishing the mural before going back to sleep. "But if you want me to finish faster, you could always pick up a brush and help."

Zeb groans, but complies. "Fine. What do you want me to paint?"

"Anything you think fits… but don't mess it up."

Zeb frowns and stares, finally dipping his brush into the light beige paint off to the side, and dabbing an array of brown specks atop the forest floor- a layer of dust, just like that on lasan. This can be a place that they can both run away to when thoughts of the past come chasing them during the nighttime hours.

Chapter brought to you by a suggestion from Firehawk720! Thank you so much! This is also somewhat of a sequel to "When The Lights Go On"

I apologize for the delay. I normally meet up with my writing buddies on Tuesday afternoons and write my chapters then, but those meetings are canceled for last week and next week. Also, if any of you are interested in my original writing, I've started a story on wattpad and the link is on my page.

Thank you all for all of your wonderful reviews!