A/N: Here we are at the end! Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorited, followed, or just read along. I couldn't have done it without you.

There's no plans for another sequel right now, though more SWR stories may follow once season three starts and we get some new inspiration! Until we meet again, Skye

Through the Daybreak

Part Ten

Some time after the away team arrived back to Chopper Base, Sabine finds herself making careful tracks in the direction of the infirmary.

Truth be told, she was hesitant to press her family for information. Her father in particular appeared particularly stricken. He'd collected Rex and Zeb and immediately headed back out, only stopping to draw her into a hug, being ever so careful not to touch the bandages. Ezra passed her in the corridor without really looking at her, disappearing into his room to meditate. It was her mother that had sat her down in the common area and explained what had happened, sparing no gory detail.

Having heard of Ketsu's injury, Sabine is eager to see her. For someone in their line of work, the loss of mobility almost certainly meant retirement and subsequent destitution. Support had been crucial to Kanan's recovery after he'd lost his sight, however unwilling he'd initially been to accept it.

She finds Ketsu propped up in a collapsible bed, arms crossed as she derides their long-suffering medic. As expected, she is restless to get moving once again. "What do you mean you can't bring me my blasters? I've got to polish and touch them up like I do after every mission. What kind of place is this?"

The young man shrugs his shoulders and casts a grateful glance towards Sabine. "I'll give the two of you some privacy."

"Wait-you come back here-" She makes an errant reach for him, but stops midway when she sees her friend.

An awkward silence descends over the room. Carefully, Sabine retrieves a chair from the corner and pulls it up to the bedside. "Guess you're stuck with me."

"I've been through worse," Ketsu admits, crossing her arms behind her head. "How were things here, little sister?"

"Quiet," she says. She glosses over the fact that she'd been pacing the floor of the control center, worried out of her mind. Now it was apparent that Ketsu could have died trying to prove her loyalty to an old friend. That fact was eating Sabine alive.

Ketsu pulls back the edge of the blanket to reveal her bare legs, one held stationary with a brace. A sickening purplish-red color pooled underneath the skin where the vessels had broken. Her calf was hopelessly warped, the musculature lopsided from where the speeder had fallen on top of it. "I've shattered one of the bones in my lower leg, and broken my femur in three places. I'm lucky I wasn't completely flattened by the impact. That medic says they may have to amputate if the internal bleeding starts again. I'm not so sure about running around with a prosthetic leg."

"Ezra's got one, and he manages just fine," Sabine answers quietly. It was something she'd always been conscious of, but never asked about. As far as she knew, her brother wasn't willing to divulge that information.

She nods, settling back into the pillow. After some time, Ketsu assures her, "You don't need to come in here with that scarf covering your head. We're both wounded, you know. There's no use hiding it."

The scarf comes off into Sabine's lap. Her hair is only just starting to grow back in patches, and it's debatable if she'll ever have a full head of it again. Fleetingly, she considers tattooing her scalp once the stitches come out.

"They've made room for Shadow Caster right beside the Ghost. Looks like we're gonna be neighbors."

Wait a minute. Had she read her lips right? "Does this mean you're staying?"

"Of course. When I'm all healed up, maybe I'll even join Phoenix Squadron." Ketsu reaches out and grabs her hand, trying to convey to her friend that there was no reason to feel guilty for what had happened.

Sabine's eyes light up and-a very rare occurrence as of late-she smiles.

And squeezes her hand back.

-0-

To whom it may concern: It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you…

Hera sighs and places her datapad next to her in the bunk. None of these letters were ever easy to write. Try as she might, she couldn't perfect the careful pragmatism of Commander Sato, or the clinical detachment of her father when dealing with deaths of personnel.

Lieutenant Mishala served admirably under my command. Her sacrifice will not be forgotten. Phoenix Squadron is grateful for her loyalty…

Many of the pilots killed at the hands of Old Master and New Seeker had no families; either they were drifters, searching for purpose in their lives, or wanted desperately to get back at the Empire for the deaths of their loved ones. Her pilots lived transiently, without much to their names, so tidying up their affairs was often easy. Six of them had already been buried in the mountains this past year, rings of wildflowers the only thing indicating their final resting places.

But on the oft occasion they listed a next of kin, things became difficult. Even when they had remains, it was next to impossible to get them back to the family. They had to be alright with their loved ones being thrown in an unmarked grave on some grubby little desert world. And there was no guarantee that Hera's message would even reach them, as many off-the-radar channels as it had to pass through. Such was the nature of their war.

The hatch opens to reveal Kanan, who looks exhausted despite it being only a few hours past daybreak. He waits for the door to close behind him, then leans against it and says, "We couldn't find Saneetra's body anywhere in the caverns."

That was an exaggeration, as they'd only ventured about a hundred feet until the cave ceiling lowered and they could no longer carry a sensor marker in front of them for protection. He watched her breath her last, but part of him couldn't believe that it was over.

"No one could have survived that, love," she assures him. Not even a force sensitive could walk away from six blaster shots to the chest and a bloodthirsty krykna stampede.

He knows she's right. Sighing, he approaches the bed and sits directly behind her, pulling Hera into his chest. She settles herself into the vee of his legs, turning her cheek to nuzzle into his neck.

"How's the letters to the families coming along?"

Nothing like a reminder of death to ruin a romantic moment. Hera props the datapad on her stomach to show what she has so far. "It doesn't matter how many of these I do, Kanan, I can't help but put myself in their place. What if you, or the kids, or anyone else here were to receive a message saying I had died?"

"Captain Syndulla is immortal," he announces automatically, mimicking a common saying among the pilots referencing her uncanny luck in combat situations. They both knew how untrue this was, and shared a private smile.

"But Hera…" She pauses, seeking his hands to intertwine their fingers together. "Hera is only one twi'lek, who fears things bigger than herself."

Kanan sets the datapad aside. "So does everyone else." This wasn't meant to discount her feelings; he still feels her flinch. "But we still keep moving, we still keep fighting."

"Dear, our problems are much larger than the average person living in the Empire. If we make a mistake, an entire city or world might be wiped out."

He considers this. "Then we should be glad that everyone is just as fearful of the unknown. If things start to change for the worse, people act. We've seen that firsthand. It's what keeps us alive, Hera."

"And if we start living for anger instead of fear…"

"We become like Saneetra," he concludes. An uneasy quiet descends over the pair. From the corridor, two sets of footsteps approach and then dissipate.

It would have been easy for Hera to let anger consume her. Sure she spent her life on the run, never sure when their next payday would be or if they would all live to see the next day, but what she'd gained through struggle more than made up for it. She had the privilege of sharing a bed with the most compassionate, thoughtful man in the galaxy-even if they never did find the time to marry, they had adopted two wonderful children and kept a close circle of friends. For a girl raised underground, terrified of Imperial raids and desperate to live up to the reputation of her parents, it was all she could ever hope for.

"We're going to survive this," she remarks apropos of nothing, securing his arms across her waist like a safety restraint.

"Don't we always?"

-0-

"I can't believe she's dead," Ezra marvels that night as they sit with their backs to his bunk.

In the near darkness, Sabine's eyes are trained towards his mouth. She sighs and disappears further into the cocoon of her blanket.

"It's like the end of an era for Kanan. His master's gone, his master's sister's gone, and now her daughter is gone-" He holds up his clenched hands, as if he's reaching to find words to express something he can't quite place. "And now we've got to go back to normal."

Of course normal was a relative term for people like them, who spent their days on the run committing vigilante action. But the sentiment was still there. "There's no guarantee Maul won't come back."

"You're right," Ezra responds, his expression inexplicably darkening. "But if he does, we'll have plenty of warning."

And they'd be prepared. Sabine closes her eyes momentarily. "Ezra, do you ever wonder why we can't be regular kids? You know, go to school, learn a trade, find a mate, pop out a few children, grow old, and never worry about who the Empire is oppressing that day?"

Only every day after his parents died. Laying alone in his bed at night in the abandoned communications tower on the plains of Lothal, he'd often prayed to the powers that be that he could be ordinary, even just for a moment. Have a complete, happy home, and always know where his next meal would come from. If only.

"I guess we're destined for bigger and better things," he concludes.

A few minutes pass without either saying anything. He thinks she may have fallen asleep, but then Sabine nudges him. "Ezra?"

"Mhmm?"

"I never had a brother back home. But I'm glad I have you."

Ezra is surprised to feel tears stinging the corners of his eyes. He swallows thickly and elbows her back. "You're the best sister a guy like me could ask for. And I mean it."

"I know you do."

-0-

"Agent Kallus, we're receiving a transmission from open space," one of the nameless lieutenants reports, gazing up at his commanding officer on the elevated walkway.

This was unusual. Typically it was they who reached out to ships they passed, demanding authorization codes and identification. Sometimes they were lucky enough to come across a smuggler or rebel cell-lately, not so much.

"Can you trace the signature back to their vessel?" The tone in his voice conveyed that the answer better be yes.

He shakes his head. "It's encrypted, but looks to contain a set of coordinates."

"Route it back to my office," he orders dismissively, turning to leave.

Moments later, Kallus sinks into his desk chair, and places his head in his hands. He wasn't sure he could handle another week in the Outer Rim, trying his best to catch the Lothal rebels and getting nowhere. There were rumors among the ranks that he might even be replaced, transferred to some remote outpost to complete some low priority task for the ISB.

The message does indeed contain coordinates, and just five words written in standard.

Here you will find them.

Kallus enters the coordinates into the mapping system on his datapad, and is immediately placed somewhere in an unnamed system. He's a few hundred kilometers from an uncharted desert planet, which from preliminary readings seems perfectly inhabitable.

He considers his years of loyalty to the Empire. He thinks about the bounty on his head that would unquestionably be there if he didn't produce results.

And then he thinks of Zeb, the Lasat from the rebel cell who had introduced doubts into his mind that he'd been wrestling with for months.

His finger hovers over the delete button.

The End