(A/N)- Day Twoooooooooooo!
Bit of a shoutout reference to my fic "The Lady Doth Protest" in this one, specifically the last chapter. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: *attempting to pry Star Wars from Disney's cold corporate fingers* Gimmmeeeeeeeeeeeeee I can make you money I promise!
Day 2: Memories
I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met
I don't know what I'm supposed to do
Haunted by the ghost of you
Take me back to the night we met
-"The Night We Met" by Lord Huron
Sabine walked into the Ghost's kitchen, feeling exhausted after the whole ordeal at the Lothal Jedi Temple, the long trip back to their new base of operations in the southern mountain range.
She needed caf.
She was surprised to see Ezra still up, curled in the corner of the booth and looking at a datapad. He didn't glance up when she walked in, too absorbed in whatever was on the pad. Sabine paused a moment, just watching him.
The stress marks in his face made him look haggard, older. He wasn't completely put back together from their misadventure—his hair wasn't combed and his clothes were a bit rumpled. But considering all he'd been through the past twenty-four hours, disappearing into the Temple and then collapsing it somehow with the Force, telling her later the Emperor himself had tried to catch him, she couldn't blame him.
She gazed at him one moment longer, tracing the soft lines of his face. There was a steadiness to him, a calm serenity. She marveled a bit at how much—in the gray-white light of the ship—he resembled a marble statue of the heroes of old, visage captured in immortal stone.
Shaking herself, she continued to the caf maker. She shook out a packet of beans from the cupboard, filled the pot with water, set it to heat at a moderate temperature.
She glanced back over at him as she worked, curiosity leading her.
"What are you looking at?" she asked.
Ezra stirred, straightening up, dropping his feet back flat to the floor. "Just some pictures and recordings from past missions," he told her. "I couldn't sleep, so Hera gave me her datapad to add some notes to her mission report."
"Bet they were pretty interesting," Sabine quipped, giving a faint smile.
"Well, yeah, but that's beside the point. I finished with the report and was just kind of clicking around for a bit on the pad. Found the folder with the holos and..." He shrugged a bit. "Just kind of got carried away I guess."
By now the caf maker had chimed, and Sabine had taken the pot and poured a cup, filling it to the brim. "Huh," she commented. She wrapped her hands around the warm porcelain and walked over to the table to join him. "Lemme see."
He made room for her on the seat, scooting over, and extended the datapad towards her a bit as she sat and set the cup down.
She leaned in, studying the picture he was currently viewing, and smiled with a small chuckle.
"That's a good one," she said. She pointed to it. "That was when we went undercover at that fancy Imperial gala, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," he confirmed, laughing shortly.
He swiped from the image of him and Sabine—dressed to the nines, giving cheesy poses and grins to Hera behind the camera—to one of him and Kanan, the older man awkwardly trying to teach him ballroom dancing. (Ezra, as it turned out, had never learned.) Kanan was trying to demonstrate with his hands on Ezra's shoulders and Ezra was grimacing with embarrassment.
Sabine's smile widened as she drifted off briefly into the memory.
Ezra stared very determinedly down at his feet, watching his steps but still stumbling awkwardly, falling out of rhythm, nearly as often as Kanan was.
"This doesn't seem like it's helping," Ezra complained.
Kanan dropped his hands with a huff. "I'm a little rusty, okay?" he defended.
"I can't watch this," Zeb muttered from his place beside Sabine, who was standing back and watching the lesson with amused glee. The Lasat uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, elbowing Kanan out of the way. "All right, step aside, lemme show you how it's done."
Ezra let Zeb manipulate his hands into the proper position. "You dance?" he asked Zeb, slightly incredulous.
Zeb bared teeth with pride, grinning. "Was High Honor Guard, kid," he bragged. "We were invited to all the parties." He snapped into instructor mode seamlessly. "Right then, from the top, let's go. One two three and one two three and—"
Ezra fared much better under Zeb's direction, and fairly soon Zeb declared him ready enough to try it with his planned co-conspirator for the night, calling Sabine over with a gesture.
She may have enjoyed the bright red Ezra's face turned as he full-face flushed, hesitantly taking her hand, letting his other one rest on her waist softly.
Sabine pulled herself from her reminiscing and brought her cup up to her mouth, sipping the hot caf with long, slow gulps as she watched Ezra flick through the pictures one by one.
Ezra stopped on a slightly blurry image of Sabine, captured mid-dash down the Ghost's central hallway, fleeing a very irate-and green-striped-Zeb.
"I don't remember this one," he laughed, sliding the datapad closer to her.
Sabine swallowed her caf and put her cup down. "That actually happened before you came along," she explained. "You're looking at the aftermath of a brilliant prank I played on Zeb." Not that she meant to boast or anything but the look on Ezra's face as he held the datapad and marveled made something in her heart skip.
"How did you get just his stripes?" Ezra asked, impressed.
Her grin could have cracked her face. "Very meticulously."
"Hope it washed out better than the paint bombs I accidentally set off once," Ezra laughed.
Sabine shook her head, that incident playing in her head as well.
"Shoot!" Ezra exclaimed, bolting up from where he was laying on the grass. "What time is it? Kanan's gonna kill me!" he moaned, without waiting for an answer.
Sabine stopped spraying for a moment, leaving one of the checker patterns on the TIE's strut unfinished, and paused.
"Forget about your Jedi training again?" she guessed.
"Second time this week. He's gonna think I'm not taking this seriously." Ezra scrambled up to his feet, already turning towards the rolling grassy hills. "I gotta go, Sabine."
There was a half-formed comment on the tip of Sabine's tongue about understanding why Ezra would be reluctant to do Force stuff again, after Anaxes—she hadn't been officially told but she'd eavesdropped on Kanan and Hera's conversation afterwards—but it died and a frantic warning took its place. Her paint supplies, including some experimental paint explosives, were all scattered about on the ground of the hidden hollow and in his haste Ezra was about to run right over some.
"Wait, watch your—!"
That was all she got out before Ezra tripped on a loose paint can and fell sprawling into the paint bomb cluster. He caught himself on his hands, but still set off the hairpin triggers of several packed dispensers of paint.
Clouds of orange, purple, and blue powder went up around him. Ezra coughed, disappearing for a moment in the paint mist before it settled on him, staining him several vibrant mixed shades.
Hands over her mouth in chagrin, Sabine rushed over. "Kriff, I'm sorry!" She set down her sprayer and knelt by Ezra, but the damage was done, his skin and clothes were covered in paint. "Are you okay?" she asked.
His head lifted and he looked a bit dazed, as if he was still trying to decide that. After a long minute he pushed himself back, sitting up with a long, tired exhale.
Sabine bit her lip, trying not to laugh—that wouldn't help him—but he looked like such a sad dejected puppy, orange splashed in his hair, purple mixing with blue to splatter his collar and front indigo.
"I really don't want to explain this to Kanan," he muttered out, finally.
"Then... stay here," Sabine offered. "I'll cover for you, say I needed you for a supply run. We'll go into Jhothal and pick up some rations or something."
He looked at her askance, a bit horrified and panicked that she would even suggest such a thing. "But—" he started to protest.
"Hey," she interrupted, shrugging, "he'll be annoyed for a while but that's it." She held out a hand. "Come on," she said, "let's see if we can get that paint off you."
The paint did not come off easily, alas. Sabine was pretty sure she'd had to empty her whole carton of cleaning wipes before the stain had looked faded enough for them to head into town without attracting attention and questions.
As her cup drained, the two spent a quiet ten minutes just scrolling through the pictures, commenting and reminiscing. Sabine didn't notice she had drifted closer and closer to him on the seat until her arm brushed up against his.
He didn't seem to mind the close contact, leaning into her shoulder comfortably. Her face warmed but she chose to ignore it by staring more intently at the datapad.
So many of her happiest memories had been made alongside him, she realized, as they wandered through still images and video of the past together. They'd shared in each other's triumphs and tragedies, always rising from the ashes, extending hands to help each other up. Through all the good times and bad, he had always been there for her.
She felt some kind of sentimental tug in her chest, gazing out the corner of her eye at him. The light from the datapad flickered in the depths of his eyes like twinking starlight.
Ezra chuckled. "Can't believe Wedge let his hair grow out like that," he said, stopping for a moment on a holo of the pilot with a truly horrendous case of fritzy helmet hair.
Wedge. Skystrike. Ezra coming back for her. Her family hadn't done that for her, when she'd spoken out, when the threat of Imperial retaliation had forced her to flee, but Ezra had. Unconditionally. Unquestioningly. Without hesitating.
As soon as they'd gained hyperspace, he was up out of the command seat, turning towards her eagerly.
Normally he knew better than to try to hug her but she found herself pardoning the way he threw arms around her, grasping onto him as well, from excitement, from relief.
"I'm glad you're okay!" he told her, breathless in her ear.
Seeing him—smelling him, feeling his arms wrapped around her—made her giddy for a moment, made her feel so utterly safe that she forgot everyone else in the room.
"Guess you were worried huh?" she quipped.
Behind them, Kanan stood with amused smirk, arms crossed. "He may have been." The tease in his voice was prominent.
Ezra pulled back first, averting his eyes and rubbing the back of his neck. "A little, yeah," he downplayed, expression sheepish.
"Aww c'mon, with you boys backing me up, I was going to be fine," Sabine drawled playfully, an affectionate punch hitting Ezra's arm.
He smiled at her and she held his gaze for a tick, heart still beating fast from the rush of their escape. And... maybe something else?
Wedge coughed awkwardly behind them.
"Oh!" Sabine said, remembering their guests. She arranged herself professionally, gesturing in turn. "Wedge Antilles, this is Ezra Bridger. We work together," she explained.
"Is that what they're calling it these days?" she thought she caught Hobbie muttering.
But when she turned in his direction the other pilot was nonchalantly casual, as if he hadn't said anything at all. Wedge meanwhile, was shaking Ezra's hand like he wasn't quite sure what to think of a kid younger than him who had obviously been put in charge.
Sabine knew she should go report in to Hera and Sato, but found herself lingering, watching the boys figure out the pecking order and silently rooting for Ezra when he asserted himself.
He had really shown up for her today. She really liked that.
She was suddenly very aware of their close proximity. Her heart ticked up, but she couldn't pull away, didn't want to pull away, not just yet.
Ezra's expression had turned somber. Sabine pulled her eyes from his face and glanced down at the datapad.
The image was of Kanan, Hera wrapped lovingly around him, cradled into his shoulder, from before he was blinded on Malachor. Sabine felt a pang in her own heart, her hand finding Ezra's shoulder and squeezing comfortingly.
"Kanan told me once it does get easier—mourning the things you miss," she told him.
Blue eyes flicked up, serious and intense. "He said we'd take more losses, before it was over, too."
The words seemed to portend something, heavy with unspoken meaning. Sabine met his intense look, her thoughts answering something he hadn't said.
I don't want to lose you, she thought. Not you too.
His face was so close. She wanted...
The moment passed. Ezra broke eye contact and turned aside, clearing his throat. "Sorry. That was kind of morbid."
"A little," she commented absently, reeling from the odd sensation stirring in her chest.
She forced herself to make space between them, draining the dregs of her cup. She left it there on the table as she stood, patting his shoulder softly one last time.
"You should get some sleep. We've got a lot to decide tomorrow," she told him.
"I will in a bit," he promised. "Thanks for keeping me company."
"Always," she assured him. "That's just what you and I do."
She breezed out of the kitchen, making her way through the darkened ship back to her room.
-SW-
Ezra watched her leave, eyes lingering on her back, before he hung his head with a heavy sigh.
There was so much uncertainty in the future. Without Kanan, he wasn't sure of his path forward. Ezra stared down at the image of his mentor, wishing he could have asked the man one last time all the questions burning inside his head.
Sabine was right, though, he should get some sleep.
He scrolled back through the images until he found the one Hera had took before they infiltrated the gala. They both looked so carefree in that moment, captured in time. Sabine's dress had been absolutely gorgeous on her.
He studied the image, committing it to memory. Memorizing her face, her smile, the joy that shone out of her.
When he'd burned her visage into his skull, he stood up, leaving the pad on the table with her cup, and softly trudged off to his room.
(A/N)- It's not clear when Ezra started getting his visions of the upcoming battle for the Dome, but I like to think they started creeping in on him right after "A World Between Worlds". So Ezra's sort of already mentally preparing himself to say goodbye to Sabine.
Thanks for reading!
