Chapter Text
Looking out across Lothal after all this time was nearly surreal for Sabine.
In all the planet’s glory, easily viewable from where she stood leant across the rail of the tower she had come to claim in recent years, it never failed to amaze her. Nevermind how lacking it sometimes felt; and not with all the emptiness around her.
Not that it was always empty, or that she was always alone. But in her seeking of peace, this is often where she found herself. Isolated rather than content. Why she kept returning, she didn’t know.
Well, she figured as she watched the glowing sun cast the entire field of longrass gold, she did.
Releasing a sigh, a ship sailed overhead towards the towers of Lothal in the distance, breaking Sabine from her spiralling void of thoughts. Pushing back off the railing, she turned on her heel and headed inside.
The abandoned net-tower was dark and dusty as it had been for the last few years. Sabine paid the collected Stormtrooper helmets and disused blasters littered around the place no heed. She may have lived here for some time now but that didn’t mean she did more than sleep and on occasion eat here.
She was actually fortunate (or unfortunate, depending how you looked at it) to eat up here at all. Hera would usually invite her for meals aboard the Ghost, inside the common area where the two would gently chat whilst Jacen flung food around more than he ate it, as if he were a toddler rather than six years old. Though Sabine could admit with a small smile, the kid was getting better at actually eating what his mother or the kitchens cooked up rather than playing with it.
The fondness of the memory faded the deeper she retreated into the rather small single room. Truthfully, the tower’s room would have been relatively large were it not for the artefacts, spare parts and out of place trophies of mischief within its confines. She never considered moving them an option.
Kallus had once, she recalled as she knelt in the minimal space that she had allowed herself to carve out in the room. Zeb had brought it up when they’d visited before leaving for Lira San- not that Kallus had known that at the time. She was surprised he managed to keep it a secret at all with the way he had been nearly bouncing off the walls or grinning even in plain view of the man.
Sabine’s immediate response was to hunch in on herself, drawing her arms across her chest in a manner that would’ve been called defensive by someone with brown hair and green eyes. “Well, I don’t really want to,” she had replied at the lasat’s query.
Tilting his head slightly and his ears flicking in confusion, Zeb had pressed on, “how come?” Avoiding his eyes, she had turned from him, opening her mouth for a vague answer when she saw Kallus had been reaching for a Stormtrooper helmet mounted on a dust-caked shelf.
“Don’t touch it!” she had snapped, no heat in her words apart from pure panic. Regardless, the ex-Empirical had snatched his bare hand away as if he had been burned, sputtering a tapered off apology that went unheard. She had rushed past him to ensure that it hadn’t been damaged, only in hindsight would she scold herself for the unlikeliness of that outcome.
Cradling the helmet against her chest, she had felt heat come to her cheeks and thanked the shadows of the room. Gently placing it back where it’d been plucked by her eager hands, she had reasoned, shakier than she would have liked, “it’s, you know… just in case.”
Neither male had asked further. The two had probably shared a look behind her back, one all too knowing of what her words implied. Not that they could ever blame her. Zeb would be a hypocrite in his hope where he stared at the sky at night, lost in thought if he did. And Kallus knew better than to broach the topic often with any of them, offering soft words of support or remorse in the creaking of dusk.
With a deep exhale, she opened her eyes from where they had subconsciously shut, offering a glance in the direction of the helmet from her thoughts. Centering herself, she peered down at the knife resting across the small stool she usually ate her meals off of. No use worrying about cross contamination or anything like that, she thought, not when this was likely the last time she would be in this room for a while to come.
With a surprisingly steady hand, she curled her fingers around the hilt. As it went past her head and she bundled her long hair that had grown in the years passed, her eyes slipped shut once more.
A meditative focus washed over her, one she rarely accomplished in her time of…training. She exhaled deeply as she brought the blade through the multicoloured hairs, feeling the weight disappear from her scalp and the tension of the action vanish.
Going still, she opened her eyes before slowly bringing both hands back down in front of her. In one shone her knife, unblemished and unchanged. In the other was a long tail of hair, severed and cleaved.
Her mind was having a field day apparently, trembling in melancholy excitement at the sudden nostalgia that was overtaking her. Sabine couldn’t exactly blame it, or, rather, her. Today was her soaking in what was left of a change that had unended her world. And marked a new one would happen in an attempt to regain what she had lost. Even if it could never quite be the same.
A sense of deja vu blossomed in her brain, an image of a man, stoic and kind. Leaving a cave she had later adorned in paint as tears slipped down her cheeks until there was none left to give in the privacy of her work. A narrow face with long, dark cascading hair that framed it whenever he let it down from where he pulled it back.
After, when she had returned with a hole in her heart and in her family, she had followed Hera into it, wrapping an arm around her in silent grief. The remains of a ponytail sat in that cave, too.
So, she wondered, as she stared at her own. Wondered if this is what it felt like for him. If this is what he did.
Sabine knew she could never ask him.
Standing, she left her hair there, too, and said farewell to the abandoned comm tower. For there was somebody out there, that she could ask.
****************************
Sabine didn’t visit the memorial cave often. If at all.
It never brought her any comfort, not like it did Hera. It couldn’t bring her any pride, either, as it did for Zeb. Nor did it bring a sense of wonder, like she knew it did everyone else. Everyone else who knew them as heroes or legends. Everyone who didn’t know the truth or pain of what had been sacrificed for such victory over the Empire.
Staring at it now- the sharp lines and contrasting colours that for some reason worked just like the Ghost Crew did -it finally brought her a sense of something.
Resolve.
If the Mandolorian had had any doubts up till now, they were wiped from existence as she stared into deep, blue eyes. Ones that she had painted what felt like an eternity ago, that held the same resolve.
Perhaps her past self had suspected she would need this one day. Or maybe, she mused with a minute smile, that’s just how Ezra was. Either way, she was thankful.
Soft footsteps sounded and a shadow fell into the arching room of rock. Sabine didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
Trying to keep her shoulders from slumping, she turned with a dry attempt of a smile on her face. Her own Mandolorian helmet under her arm, she said almost sheepishly, “how did you know?”
Hera Syndulla had her arms crossed over her chest and hip cocked out. It was a stance Sabine can’t remember not seeing on the pilot, even more so since she gave birth to her son.
“Wedge told me you’d requested a spare ship be fuelled up, the engines checked and systems tested,” Hera explained curtly. Then, in lieu of prolonging any kind of disagreement, she sighed. “Does Zeb know?”
For a moment, she deigned not to answer. Then, stiffly, she shook her head. It was a guilty admittance, not informing one of the only family members she had left of her decision. It only added to the weight of not telling Hera. Or, well, it did.
Those green eyes were assessing her, inspecting like she was worried something was missing. “What are you doing, Sabine?”
Steeling herself, the short haired woman decided that beating around the bush would never work. Not now that the seriousness had seeped into the conversation. “You know what I’m doing.”
Silence for a few moments. Then, “and you know why it’s a bad idea.”
“A bad idea!” Sabine exclaimed suddenly, startling both herself and Hera though the green skinned woman only widened her eyes a fraction. “How is this a bad idea?”
“How is it not?” was fired back, an essence of a disbelieving scoff involved. As if she had completely lost her mind. It fueled her indignant outrage.
“ How is it- Do you even want me to find him?” she accused, blood pounding, thrumming through her ears like a war cry. Fists were balled by her sides, posture pointed and stance ready as if for a fight.
Snapping, Hera screamed, “of course I do!” They both stilled, words echoing through the room.
Gentler, “of course, I do.” She inhaled deeply and on instinct the younger stepped towards her. “But I-” her words cut off, the telltale sound of her throat closing under threat of tears ringing. She tilted her head up at the ceiling, eyes blinking rapidly. It was then that they realised how close they had stepped towards one another in their outbursts.
Helmet clasped to her belt, Sabine moved closer to all but climbed into the arms that fell open the moment she did. The hug was warm and comforting not just for the twi'lek who crowded her as close as she could, chin resting atop soft, cropped hair. “I can’t lose you. I can’t lose another child,” Hera whispered into the air. She gave a hard blink and tears escaped her lids to land in dollops in her hair. “I just can’t.”
A confession and a plea combined into one. It almost made her break her resolve on what she was doing. Almost.
“You won’t,” she promised, a whisper of her own like a lock in a key. Securing it into Hera’s wavering heart.
Lips thinned in doubt, “You don’t know that. You don’t even know where he is.” A coiling of her spine and she grit out, “we don’t even know if he’s…” She cut herself off, biting her tongue and snapping her head towards a blank wall of the cave.
“But I will,” she fiercely said, anything to banish the tickling thought nearly voiced in the open. In reality rather than the darkness of her own mind, a forbidden notion she couldn’t acknowledge let alone accept. “I have to.” Sabine retreated from the clinging embrace, no matter how much it pained her to leave the safety it emitted. “He’s counting on me.”
Swallowing heavily, Hera told her, “we don’t know what he meant by that. For all we know, the war-”
“The war is over, we’ve done our job,” the human woman argued, though not unkindly. “And it has taken enough from us. Don’t you want some of it back?”
Taking grasp of her shoulders, Hera licked her lips and bore her eyes deep into Sabine’s. “Not at the cost of you,” she fought and her hold on the younger was so tight she suspected she’d have bruises from it later.
A bittersweet smile crossed Sabine’s face. “And not at the cost of Ezra, either.” Her words stalled Hera and she saw the cogs turning in her mind. Advancing on the situation, she continued, “I have to do this, Hera. If not for myself, then for Ezra. For Kanan.”
Wet eyes swept up towards Sabine who had to fight back her own tears, ignoring the quivering in her voice as she had spoken that name. She managed to keep it as steady as she could, “he’s out there all alone.” Nope, she was failing, tears she thought already shed sledding down her tan cheeks. “And I have to find him. I have to go and tell him he’s not alone, we are right here, waving torches and calling his name and that we are in that place with him, waiting for him to come back to us.”
Breathing in deeply lest her lungs explode, she eased the pounding heat forming behind her eyes and the ache of her throat. Hardening her expression, she sniffed and strongly claimed, “but I am done waiting. So now, I have to go.” For extra measure, despite the reluctance to admit it, she added, “and I will do this, with or without your approval.”
A terse silence rose again.
For a terrible, long minute Sabine thought that she would have to leave this place, under Hera’s disappointment and scorn. Wondered how she was supposed to do what she needed with that kind of mark raking itself across her soul.
Tears threatened to spill, a blockage in her throat forming.
“Go.”
Sabine blinked. “What?”
Firmer, Hera confirmed, “you have to go. I know you do. I knew you would. I was lying to myself thinking that this day would never come. As much as I both longed and dreaded it.” She took her hands in hers. “I can’t stop you. Nobody could. But…”
The woman raised her chin, cautious. Whatever Hera was to say held the tone of non-negotiable. She had heard it enough in her teenhood to know it. And her adulthood..and probably for the rest of her life. It wasn't as an annoying thought as it had been a few years ago.
“All I ask,” the twi'lek said, “is that you don’t do this alone.”
Brows furrowing, Sabine scrunched her face in distaste. “Hera,” she began. Because how could she ask anyone of that? She couldn’t, especially not Hera if that was what the woman was trying to hint at.
“Don’t even try to argue,” she shot her down, a dark frow on her face that made Sabine feel sixteen again, experiencing Hera’s oddly accurate motherly scorn for the first time. Only now, she had practice with an actual child. “You go, you don’t go alone. No lone-wolfing this shit.”
If not from her voice, then her use of word choice would be enough to know that the woman in front of her was not budging. Giving birth and then teaching yourself not to swear around the result of said becomes a hard habit to break evidently. And an even harder one to learn, if you were Sabine. Or, worse, Zeb. (The amount of times that man got swatted across the nose by Hera…)
That thought in her mind, Sabine immediately dismissed aloud, “I’m not taking Zeb.”
Some ease returning to still tense shoulders, Hera placatingly assured her. “And I’m not asking you to. Force knows Kallus would wring both your necks if you even considered up and leaving with no preemptive warning.”
With a conceding shrug and an amused smile, she agreed, “we would be leaving him to deal with a planet of Lasats all by himself.” She could hear his strangled protests now. “I hear the kids have taken a liking to him.”
Huffing under her breath, Hera shot back with a bout of reminiscent fire, “yeah, not to mention me having to entertain a six year old by myself, too, thanks.” They shared a mocking moment of staring before letting out quiet giggles of laughter. It reminded Sabine of the nights on the Ghost during the Rebel days, curled up with Hera in her bunk or on the common room seats, blanket across laps and latest magazines across the busted up holopad she had salvaged. Gossip and snickers like they were both teenage girls again; something that had been robbed from both of them by war.
The reality of the situation returned to them shortly after, though. And the look they gave one another was anything but funny. Concern shone unabashedly in Hera’s eyes and Sabine tried best she could with her face to show that she was determined and unafraid. As half hearted as that truth was.
“Hera, look,” Sabine broke first. Silence was never her strong suit unless she was brooding in it by herself. “I don’t exactly know where you think we’ll find somebody ready to up and leave their life, here or anywhere, to go on a space adventure into the literal unknown.”
The older opened her mouth to either argue her point further or reassure it’s strength though ended up gaping like a fish. A flash of something spared in her eyes, nervousness perhaps but Sabine can count on one hand the amount of times she had seen the other woman nervous. She quickly brushed it aside.
With a sad smile, Sabine could admit her own logic was frustratingly true. Besides, she wouldn’t go around asking such a request. Not to anyone. She hadn’t asked Hera, she wouldn’t ask Zeb (for her own sanity), she wasn’t about to ask Kallus (for her own safety) and she wasn’t about to involve Ketsu. She couldn’t.
Finally, after a series of internal struggles, Hera sighed and brought a hand up to cup Sabine’s cheek. She felt her head being tilted forwards and she permitted it until it solidly rested against Hera’s own green one. Between them, she settled on, “I don’t want you to be alone, Sabine.” It almost sounded like an apology.
Before she had any chance to respond, to ease the worries lacing the statement, a voice rang out. One that caused Sabine’s eyes to shoot open, staring in disbelief and a tiny amount of horror.
Because in no way could the person standing at the entrance to the room be right.
“She won’t be alone,” the woman had declared casually. A staff clasped in her hands that were almost consumed by the bright white cloak that was clasped around her shoulders. An arching hood that came to twin peaks above her head. Cool cerulean eyes peered in at them, teeming with ethereal light that matched that in the air around her. A mint green owl perched on her shoulder for a split second before fluttering away.
Ahsoka Tano’s lips quirked upwards in an amused smile at the staring women; one in relief, the other in shock.
“Nice haircut,” she said.