(A/N)- Aside from Day One I think this was my favorite one to do this year. Just... aahhhhh I won't spoil I'll just let you get to it.

Set Post-Canon but prooooooobably not compliant with Ahsoka, unless we happen to luck out and get a decent second season that hooks Sabezra up. Whatever, I like my writing more anyway lol.

Small warning for a depiction of a panic attack.

Disclaimer: [inarticulate salting over missed opportunities]

Day 5: Free

You're alone, you're on your own

So what? Have you gone blind?

Have you forgotten what you have and what is yours?

-"King" by Lauren Aquilina

Sabine felt herself rousing, coming to awareness. She was groggy and confused for a moment before her ears registered the sharp gasp that had come from the body laying behind her.

The bed creaked, worn springs groaning a bit, as she felt Ezra sit up. His breathing was tight, rapid, like he'd suffered a great fright and was only now calming down. He was leaned heavily on his hands and even though she was turned away from him in the bed, Sabine could sense him shaking minutely.

Sabine blinked herself more awake, growing concern taking root in her heart. She listened to her husband's breaths for several moments, gauging whether or not he was going to be able to pull himself out of it.

The bed creaked again and a tiny, heartbreaking choked sound came from him.

A resigned drop hit her stomach. She pulled her head up, craning her chin over her shoulder. Like she feared, his hands were clenched over his face now, fingers beginning to curl into his forehead, nails digging into skin.

"Ezra?" she called.

"I'm fine!" he choked out, retreating immediately, sliding out of the bed on the other side and ignoring her as he walked around the bed and headed to their little kitchenette area.

Sabine's mouth pursed at his stubbornness, but she didn't say anything, silently slipping the covers off her legs, bare toes brushing the floor as she swung her feet over the side.

Ezra had turned the cold tap in the sink on full blast. The water ran noisily, her husband thrusting his whole head under the stream for half a second, then snapping up ramrod straight.

His breathing was still jagged, too jagged. The sensory shock to his system wasn't breaking through the panic caught cycling in his mind, that Sabine could see in his haunted eyes, as she quickly came to join him.

His hands were mashing against his face again, one fist knocking at his temple. The water dripped through Ezra's thick hair, making trails down his skin. "C'mon, c'mon... get hold of yourself..." she caught him saying in a strained, fearful whisper.

She reached past him, shutting off the loud tap before it could wake the other occupants of their house.

Gently, very gently, she slid a warm hand up Ezra's bare back.

He shivered slightly at her touch, but the smallest coil of tension eased out of his tightly-wound shoulders.

Sabine moved closer to his side, taking hold of his right wrist, squeezing carefully. She began to rub her palm in straight back-and-forth lines in that spot between his shoulder blades that always soothed him.

"Breathe, Ezra," she told him. "With me, okay?"

His eyes were pinched closed, fighting to hold back the flashbacks, but he swallowed thickly and nodded.

Sabine nodded as well. "One..." she counted, taking an inhale with him.

His breath rattled, but he took in a full lungful.

"Two..."

They let it out, together.

"One..."

In.

"Two..."

Out.

Sabine counted, and they breathed, over and over, for several long minutes, it didn't really matter how long. What was important was that by the end of it Ezra's shoulders had slackened and the pinch had eased out of his face. His muscles were no longer tight as knots and he was calm.

At peace.

He exhaled softly, in control of himself, and Sabine stopped counting.

They stood there in the dim blue dark, the full twin moons casting silver across the floor from the front windows. The silence was full, and pregnant, heavy with unspoken assurances.

Sabine traced her fingers up Ezra's spine, pausing to catalogue his collection of scars. It had grown in the ten years he'd been absent. Ezra didn't like to talk about his time on Peridea, and Sabine hadn't pressed him yet, but she could see the evidence of his trials and ordeals all over him.

Broken ribs that had never quite healed properly. Faded electrical burns. Permanent pale lines around his wrists.

She let her hand drift across his shoulder blades, feeling it when he gave a hitch.

His head was hanging, bangs drooping in his eyes. "Why do you put up with me, Sabine?" he muttered, his voice thin.

"What do you mean?" she asked, slightly alarmed.

"This," he said, frustrated, jabbing a finger to point at his head. "Me. All the nights where I can't find my way out of my own head." His hands dropped to grasp the edge of the counter, an awful self-hatred in the eyes that wouldn't look at her. "Why do you keep me around?"

Sabine wanted to reach into his head and beat the negative voices inside him to a pulp. But she controlled those flickers of anger, knowing he'd sense it. Instead she projected calm and warmth and love, tried to imagine herself as a steady presence for him, an anchor, an embrace.

"I thought it was because of your boyish charms," she quipped.

She thrilled when she caught him smothering back a chuckle.

More seriously, letting the hand on his wrist drift down to twine with his fingers, the one on his back slowly curl up around his neck, Sabine pushed in closer.

"And because the pain of being without you, of not having you here with me, was a thousand times worse than struggling with you through a couple rough nights," she told him firmly, emphasizing her words by breathing them on his cheek, soft and intimate.

Ezra shuddered, holding back on his emotions. Trying not to break down in front of her, she knew.

She let go of his wrist. Raised her hands and grasped them around his face. His beard was shorter now, than when she'd found him, but still tickled her palms. She turned him towards her, drawing him in, pulling at him.

Her lips pressed softly against his. She was gentle, giving only light pressure, moving slowly so as not to startle him. His kiss back was hesitant at first but then he dove in, hands clutching at her, clinging to her back, drinking her in like a drowning man in search of air.

She let him grasp at her. Let him use her as a lifeline. It was a kind of desperate passion that could only be felt on nights like this, when the specters of Peridea came to torment her husband in his sleep, taunt him and grind his self-worth into dust.

Ezra stiffened up and pulled back, his hands on her shoulders, gaze dropping again. Sabine panted breathlessly with him, eyes shimmering in the moonlight as she reached for him.

Her hand slid up his chest, tracing the long ugly curved scar where the Nightmothers had tried to carve out his heart.

"You're not alone anymore," she told him.

He shuddered again, but it was softer, more relieved. As if the words were exactly what he needed to hear.

"I know," he said, "but..."

He trailed off, biting his lip and not finishing his sentence. Sabine could tell the negative voices were lingering, trying one last time to shatter him.

She stepped away and tugged at his arm.

"C'mon," she urged.

A bit confused, Ezra let himself be led, Sabine's left elbow tucked firmly around his right, her hand clasped tight in his.

She brought him up the stairs at the back, through the dim hallway and through their children's room, all three of them sleeping peacefully in their beds, under their grandmother Mira's hand-stitched quilts. She walked him out to the balcony landing, out into the chill open night air, breathtakingly lit by the white moons floating overhead.

Sabine swept a hand out, to indicate the alabaster spires and white towers of Capital City, the beautiful city lights laid out before them.

"You did this, Ezra," Sabine said, profoundly, a pinch between her eyes as she struggled to keep her emotions in check. "Never forget that."

He looked where she gestured, his eyes dazzled by the sparkling lights, the peaceful blue sheen over a city at peace.

"Thrawn is dead, Lothal is free, and..." Sabine's voice hitched, sparing a glance back into the nursery bedroom at the tiny sleeping bodies. "...our children will grow up safe... because of you," she emphasized.

His eyes also drifted back towards the precious sight of their children. Little Mira, named after her grandmother. Noah, five years old and already so bold and spunky. And baby Caleb, snoring in his bassinet.

Sabine watched a glimmer waver in his eyes, that he blinked away quickly before turning back to her, a wan, grateful smile on his face.

No words were spoken. No words were needed.

He opened his arms and she melded herself to him, and he held onto her like a rock in the middle of a rushing river.

"Thank you," he whispered, the words tickling her hair.

Sabine gripped him tighter. I'm here, Ezra, she tried to convey with her embrace. I'm here. And I'm not letting anything hurt you again.

Their arms wrapped around each other, skin on skin, breath against breath, and she felt his sorrows and pain melt away into forgotten memory, replaced by comfort, and peace, and the unwavering surety of her love.

(A/N)- Hope y'all had a happy Sabezra Week!