Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Dear?”

Ursa looks up from her datapad at her husband, who is holding their baby daughter. Nearly two years old, Sabine’s tufty black-brown hair fluffs out around her as she babbles in a mix of Mando’a, Basic, and baby gibberish, waving her hands around.

“What is it?” Ursa asks, pinching her forehead. The past three days have been a sleepless nightmare—she’d only just got back to Krownest when she was greeted with the news that an entire galaxy-spanning war was over, and what was more, that the Chancellor was now the Emperor. The uncertainty of what this meant for Mandalore and Krownest had been nearly consuming her.

“Look. When did this happen?”

Ursa stands up and walks over. He’s holding Sabine’s pudgy toddler arm, so her palm is facing up.

Sabine’s first soulmark had faded in minutes after she was born, but no second mark appeared in the next few weeks. It wasn’t unexpected; it simply meant that her match hadn’t been born yet.

Her mark is a sort of stylized bird, wings arched upwards to form itself in a circle, stained in deep pink-purple on her wrist. Ursa hadn’t expected it. When Sabine’s started to appear, Ursa had at first thought it was the signet of Clan Wren—fitting, since she would lead it someday. Ursa herself had that soulmark, and so had her aunt who had ruled the clan before her. But in the end, it was something different.

And that is fine, Ursa repeats to herself. Not everyone had soulmarks—it was a blessing from the manda that Sabine even got one. It meant that she could inherit the clan’s leadership someday, once she found her other half and bound herself to them—whether it was through marriage vows or adoption vows.

“What about it?” Ursa asked.

“Look at her hand.”

Ursa does look, and gasps.

There is a mark in the palm of her daughter’s hand, fading in slowly, darkening every second.

Ursa secretly has hopes for her daughter’s other soulmark, the one that would appear when her compliment came into being. If it happens to be a signet, especially one from another clan, the connection could be good for both parties…

But it’s not a signet.

It is a brilliant orange color, tiny to fit in the little space of her hand but big enough to be clear. Sabine’s little nose scrunches up as she wiggles her arm out of her father’s grasp and holds her hand up to her face to examine it.

“It’s a wolf,” Ursa says, slowly, trying to think of some connection between Mandalorians and wolves. She finds nothing.

“Wuf,” Sabine repeats, tracing the mark with her finger. “Issa wuf.”

Ephraim and Mira never discuss it together, but they both know that Fate has chosen their son.

Why else would his soulmark be a wolf?

The Loth-wolves were creatures of wonder and legend, but they’ve been gone for a long time. And their sweet baby boy has the mark of a wolf on his palm.

A soulmark represents something essential about a person. For Ezra to have the mark of a wolf… and he was born on the very day the Empire staked its horrible claim to power…

He has a destiny.

They will do all they can to prepare him for it.

Father tells Sabine about soulmarks.

He and Mother are soulmates. But soulmates don’t always get married, he says. Sometimes they’re very best friends. Sometimes they’re family. Sometimes one is way lots older than the other one so they adopt them.

No matter what, a soulmate is a person who matches you.

Sabine can’t wait to find her soulmate. Mama says that once she does, she can lead the clan with her soulmate one day.

Her soulmate will be perfect.

Mom and Dad are gone.

Mom and Dad are gone, but Ezra isn’t all alone.

He has his soulmate.

Shivering against the cold wind, Ezra wedges himself farther back in the flimsiboard box and wraps the ragged blanket tighter around himself.

Today would be a really great day for that soulmate to show up.

The sun is almost setting, on the very outskirts of the city, and he hasn’t found anything to eat since this morning, so his tummy is all hurting and twisted up. It’s snowing, too, which means that pretty soon his flimsiboard-box shelter will get soggy.

Ezra is cold. He’s tired. He just wants to rest. His soulmate isn’t here to find him and help him. He’s still on his own. But it’s okay. They’ll find him soon. They will. They will.

Just, not yet.

Ezra closes his eyes to wait. Soon, he sleeps.

Ezra doesn’t feel his body grow colder. He can’t tell that his heart is beating slower, and slower, until it stops beating at all. He doesn’t know when his last flickers of life fade to nothing.

(He will not know—for many years, at least—that on a far-away icy planet, a little girl silently sobs herself to sleep, because she knows what it means when a soulmark disappears.)

Ezra doesn’t feel the soft tickles of a snuffling breath, or the nudge of a long snout. He doesn’t feel it when dagger-sharp teeth close on the back of his collar and lift him up, carrying him off, unseen, into the grasslands.

Ezra doesn’t hear how the welcoming yips of puppies turn to frightened whines as their mother carries this strange, dead cub into the den. He doesn’t feel himself laid out on the stone in the middle of the anxious litter of pups. He doesn’t know how the two enormous bodies of the pups’ parents settle down gently on either side of him and stay there, for a minute—for an hour—for a day—for a week—until their steady breathing has breathed life back into his body.

Ezra wakes up in the grasslands, confused, unable to remember anything that happened.

(On a faraway ice planet, that same little girl cries out in breathless joy as she sees the soulmark burn itself back onto her palm.)

Maybe it was his connection to the Force, the one he didn’t know he had yet, that called them, or maybe it was the mark of the wolf on his hand.

Either way, the Battle of Lothal will not be the first time the wolves have saved his life.

“You have soulmarks? Show me.”

Sabine purses her lips and folds her arms. “It’s kinda personal.”

“Come on,” Ketsu insists. “Sisters, remember? Sisters tell each other everything. Let me see.”

Swallowing her reluctance, she pulls off the glove of her cadet uniform and offers her hand. “The purple one is mine. The orange one is theirs.”

Ketsu takes her hand, examines it, chuckles over it.

“So, he’s gonna be a fighter, huh?”

“What makes you think it’s a he?”

Ketsu raises an eyebrow. “Well, you like guys, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but—but lots of soulmates are only ever friends—” Sabine objects, squirming a little as Ketsu traces the outlines of the wolf with a neatly-trimmed nail.

“Don’t be silly, little sister,” Ketsu chuckles, releasing her hand, and slowly pacing in a circle around her. “Trust me. I know just how it’s gonna be. A cadet at the academy, I think, a year or two above you… handsome, gorgeous green eyes, wavy golden hair… and he’s not just attractive, either.”

Sabine almost smiles at that. The truth is… she wouldn’t really mind that being the case.

Ketsu clasps her shoulder. “He’ll be competent, too. The best student, the best fighter, the best at everything. You’ll think he’s stuck-up at first, I bet, until one day you dramatically learn he’s really your soulmate, and then it’s all romance from there.”

“Very funny, Ketsu.” Sabine dismisses, and they don’t talk about it any more, but—secretly—just a little bit—she kind of hopes it’s true.

Ezra likes to make up stories about his soulmates.

His first one is that his soulmate is a kid like him, without a mom or dad. But that kid has friends, and they all live in a big abandoned building, and Ezra goes to live with them, and it’s okay when it snows and the wind is knife-sharp and cold, because they have a roof, and they can share blankets to stay extra warm, and they laugh and play and are never lonely.

His second soulmate story is that his soulmate is a nice grownup person, like his parents. The nice person tells him that they always wanted a son, and gives him everything to eat that he ever wanted and he never feels hungry again. They love him just as much as his own Mom and Dad did.

His third soulmate story is that his soulmate is a kid, like in the first story, but this one has rich parents who live somewhere amazing and they travel the galaxy in a luxury ship and he gets to go with them on all their adventures. That one is his favorite.

But honestly?

Ezra would take anyone.

He just doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

After the Duchess, Sabine looks at her palm every day, waiting to see the soulmark fade out.

She is dar’manda now.

She doesn’t have a soul.

But the marks don’t disappear.

So Sabine makes up her mind. When she finds her soulmate—if she finds her soulmate—she won’t approach them. She’ll let them go, and, like ships drifting by in the void of space, they will never meet. They will never stay together.

And if they do—if they find out she’s their soulmate, somehow—well, Sabine has a backup plan.

She’ll tell them what she is. She’ll show them proof.

She’ll show them the only remaining evidence the Duchess ever existed—a holorecording of it in action.

No one will want her after they’ve seen that.

Maybe Fate can bind her to someone, but Sabine won’t let that bond grow.

It wouldn’t be fair to her soulmate.

Ezra lies on his stomach, sprawled out in the alleyway with grit grinding into his cheek and blood trickling from his nose and his split lip, with a soon-to-be black eye on the way. Somewhere around the corner, he hears the laugh of the older kids who cornered him.

Usually, he can get away.

Not today.

Even though he knew it was a bad idea, Ezra had saved every credit, barely even spending money on food for the last month, to save what he needed to buy warm clothes before the cold set in. And now, he’s lying in a muddy alley as a local gang walks away with all his savings.

Ezra feels too weak to even move.

Breathing hurts.

He probably has broken ribs.

Ezra doesn’t believe in gods or spirits or deities. He’s thirteen years old and has too many scars to count. If there were any supremely powerful beings out there, they’ve long abandoned him by now.

But now, he pulls his hand up to lie parallel to his face and stares at his soulmate’s mark, and he does something he hasn’t done in years.

He prays.

Whoever you are, you put these marks on me. You promised me I had someone out there. Keep your promise. Please. Please, just let them find me. Let them help me. I can’t do this alone anymore. I need someone. Something. Anything. Please.

The mark blurs out of focus as his eyes fill up with tears, and he blinks them away—

And his heart skips a beat.

A spot of color shines on the wall across from him, so bright that he wonders if he’d gone blind not to see it before.

It feels like a sign. Maybe it is one.

Because that brilliant pink-purple painting is the exact copy of the mark on his wrist.

His soulmate has been here.

Here. In this alley. Not long ago.

He pushes himself up with strength he didn’t know he had, dragging one hand along the mucky ground.

Ezra wishes he had the color of his soulmark to paint in, but he doesn’t. So he stumbles over, bracing himself against the wall, and draws a crude wolf’s head in mud beside the beautiful symbol of his soulmate.

He hesitates for a second, and then writes beneath it:

Are you here?

Maybe he will get an answer.

(He does not.)

“Soooo, about those paintings of yours…” the new kid drawls, leaning on the counter. He’s trying to look cool, but he actually looks close to exploding with excitement.

Sabine gives him an unimpressed look. “What about them?”

“Oh, nothing. They’re just a little…” He pulls his sleeve down and gives her a giddy smile. “Familiar?”

Sabine’s heart sinks.

It’s her soulmark.

Her soulmark, on his wrist.

And he’s grinning at her like the world is perfect and she’s the greatest thing to ever happen to him.

But it’s not supposed to be him. It’s not supposed to be anyone because she’s dar’manda and she doesn’t have a soul and doesn’t have a soulmate, but even if she did, it’s not supposed to be him.

Sabine turns and runs out of the room without a single word.

Hera is a bit startled when Sabine bursts into her room, snatches up one of the pillows from Hera’s bunk, smashes her face into it, and lets out a muffled, bloodcurdling screech.

“Are you okay?” Hera asks, raising an eyebrow.

Sabine screeches again.

“Sabine.”

A third screech, longer and more high-pitched.

“Sabine, what’s going on?”

The pillow hits the floor as Sabine angrily tosses it down and speaks in starts and bursts, waving her hands around.

“It’s the—he’s got—it’s my—the—it’s him—”

“Wait, what are we talking about?” interrupts Hera, slowly becoming bemused at the consecutive stages of grief cycling across Sabine's face, and makes an educated guess. “Did something happen with Ezra?”

“NNYYYRRRGH!” Sabine says, flailing her arms, which translates, approximately, to yes.

“What did he do?” Hera asks, crossing her arms.

Sabine drops down to sit next to Hera on the bottom bunk and buries her face in her hands.

“…he has soulmarks.”

“It’s not unusual,” Hera shrugs. “A lot of people do. Kanan said most Jedi did. Why…”

She trails off, realization hitting.

“Sabine.”

She doesn’t reply.

“They’re not… your… soulmarks… are th—”

Sabine takes Hera’s other pillow and screeches into it.

“You know, that was my reaction when I found out Kanan was my soulmate.”

“He is not. My. SOULMATE.” Sabine sits up, scowling. “This has to be a mistake. How could he be my soulmate? We are not compatible.”

“Why not?” Hera asks, hoping to give Sabine a little help in processing this information.

“Because… because… ” Sabine stammers, trailing off. “Because it was supposed to be someone cool!” she finishes, suddenly yelling. “It wasn’t supposed to be this—this—this annoying little bratty street rat—”

“Hey, Ezra could hear you,” Hera cautions.

“So what?” Sabine snaps viciously. “Why should I let him get his hopes up? There is no way in the universe that I’m his soulmate. This is just some galactic screw-up.”

“Sabine, if his soulmarks match yours, he’s your soulmate. And your soulmate is a nice, if awkward, kid. You could be really good friends someday. Give it a try. Be his friend. Who knows? He might have hidden depths. He—”

“Is an idiot and we will never, ever, be friends!”

Ezra could dance out of sheer joy. He found his soulmate. His soulmate is Sabine.

She’s cool. She’s smart. She’s drop-dead gorgeous. He loves her eyes and her laugh and her smile and her art and she’s amazing.

(He knows soulmates aren’t always romantic, and he thinks he’s okay with it if he and Sabine aren’t. Because they’re still soulmates and that is awesome. But, he does hope a little.)

(A lot. He hopes a lot.)

Ezra isn’t completely sure why she ran off when he showed her his soulmark, and part of him—the part that’s still telling him nobody wants him—says it’s because she’s disappointed it’s him. But he won’t believe that.

Sabine won’t be disappointed in him. Maybe he’s not the most awesome person ever right now, but he’ll be a Jedi one day, and she’ll think he’s cool then.

Sabine won’t be disappointed in him.

Sabine still gets a disappointed pang in her stomach whenever she thinks about it.

Her soulmate is Ezra.

Why is she disappointed?

It’s complicated.

Sabine doesn’t want to want a soulmate, but she does want a soulmate, and she doesn’t want that soulmate to be Ezra.

It’s not his fault. He’s just… kind of… un-cool.

He has shaggy black hair and eerie electric-blue eyes. He’s clumsy, klutzy, dorky, and awkward. He smells weird. He has no comprehension of color theory and it shows in his fashion sense.

He’s shorter than her.

But it shouldn’t matter, and that’s the hard part. Sabine shouldn’t care who matches her soulmarks, because her soulmarks don’t matter, because she has no soul, but she does care who has her soulmarks because once, long ago, before she became dar’manda, they would have been soulmates. And that’s disappointing.

Maybe if he knew everything, he wouldn’t want to be her soulmate, but he doesn’t know, and he does want to be her soulmate.

Sabine thinks about the recording she’s kept. Ezra hasn’t known her for that long. If he saw the holo and knew about the Duchess, he’d stop wanting to be her soulmate.

Sabine should show him.

She should.

But she doesn’t, and she doesn’t know why.

It’s their little game.

He’ll say “Hey there, soulmate!” or “What’s up, bestie-ny of destiny?” (he’s pretty proud of that one), and Sabine will roll her eyes or make a face at him or chase him around the Ghost, yelling that she’s not his soulmate.

It’s a joke, obviously. Ezra doesn’t mind her denial. It’ll just make it all the better once she finally admits it. Kanan and Hera find it amusing, too, which is why Ezra isn’t worried he’s breaking soulmate etiquette or being too pushy. Zeb is annoyed, but what doesn’t annoy Zeb?

Anyway, he’s making a Plan, and there’s no way that Plan will fail to make Sabine admit he’s not that bad.

Okay.

Ezra’s not that bad.

He gave her a TIE fighter to paint.

But Sabine doesn’t have a soulmate.

End of discussion.

When Kanan is captured, Ezra brings Sabine in on his plan. He doesn’t mention the soulmates thing, the situation is too important for that, but he does feel a secret satisfaction that they’re able to come up with a plan so quickly. They work well together, and it’s great.

She and Ezra work together so well.

It’s awful.

Because now she actually understands it—they are a team and they could be the best team out there if they tried—and she can’t deny that they’re soulmates.

Fate made no mistake, matching them.

Sabine was the one who made the mistake.

If Sabine hadn’t done what she did, then—then she’d still be annoyed that he was her soulmate, but she wouldn’t be this upset.

Show him the holo, common sense dictates. End this now before it goes further.

But the thought of the horror or disgust that would on his face whenever he would look at her, if he knew what she’d done, is sickening to her.

It’s cruel to let him keep thinking they’re soulmates, but she can’t bring herself to change his mind.

“Hey, Ahsoka?”

“Yes, Ezra?”

The Padawan sits down beside her, looking nervous. He fiddles with his sleeve cuffs for a minute, then blurts out:

“Are you and Rex soulmates?”

She chuckles, gesturing to her jaig-eye marks. “Figured that out all on your own?”

“Friend-soulmates?” he continues.

It’s an oversimplification, but Ahsoka nods. “Friends” is about as close a word as she can put to it. Platonically in love might be a little closer, but nobody really seems to understand what that means.

Ezra looks off towards the horizon with her, silent again for a moment.

“Were you always friends?”

“Stars, no,” Ahsoka chuckles. “The first thing I did when I met him was to say, Oh. You’re a clone. I didn’t mean to offend him—I had just hoped my soulmate would be a Mandalorian. Because of the Jaig eyes. It took a while for us to get past that.”

But Ezra’s attention seems to have caught on something else she said. “Weren’t Jedi and Mandalorians enemies back then?”

“Yes. That’s why I was excited,” she explains, a little bit of her inner child springing up at the chance to infodump about a several-month-long research project she’d conducted at age 12. Ahsoka mostly restrains herself. “The Jedi temple kept records of soulmarks and soulmatches for the entire history of our Order. In ten thousand years of Jedi, there had never been one with a Mandalorian soulmate—Mandalorians hated us too much for that. So, I thought I was the first.”

He goes very quiet, and then looks up at her with huge eyes.

“Not even one?” he whispers.

“Not even one,” Ahsoka confirms.

For a third time, silence falls between them, and she is the one to break it this time, voicing a suspicion she’s had for a while.

“Sabine is your soulmate, isn’t she?”

Ezra’s reaction is instant; he winces and looks away, and then—

“Yeah,” he admits, quietly. “She’s my soulmate.”

Ahsoka reads between the lines and puts together the context clues, and then pats Ezra on the shoulder.

“Be yourself, Ezra. Fate has paired you together for a reason. Give yourself—and Sabine—enough time to figure out why.”

He nods, sadly, and Ahsoka gives him a reassuring smile, and changes the topic to something lighter. And nerdier.

“So, have you ever wondered how soulbonds work…?”

Sabine and Ketsu catch up on the trip—it feels good to be something a little bit like friends again.

Eventually, Ketsu brings up the inevitable.

“So, you find him yet?” Ketsu asks, crossing her arms. “Your soulmate?”

Sabine clears her throat. “You know how I feel about soulmates.”

“You don’t have one,” Ketsu repeats with a sigh. “Okay, have you found someone with your soulmarks?”

Sabine hesitates, then nods once.

“Well?” Ketsu leans forward, a teasing smirk on her face. “Is he as drop-dead gorgeous as I told you he’d be?”

“Judge for yourself,” Sabine says sarcastically. “You met him earlier.”

She sees the wheels turning in Ketsu’s brain. Then she violently shakes her head.

“The kid who was with you?” When Sabine nods, Ketsu shakes her head again, closing her eyes and holding her hands up. “Hold on, little sister. The math isn’t mathing. That guy is your soulmate?”

She sighs. “He was. But not anymore. I don’t have a soulmate. I’ve told him so.”

“Really?” Ketsu asks. “How’d he take it?”

“He doesn’t believe me,” she shrugs. “But he’ll figure it out, sooner or later.”

Ketsu purses her lips. “That’s a recipe for disaster.”

Sometimes Ezra wonders if Sabine actually means it when she says they’re not soulmates. But that can’t be true. The marks are right there. Of course they’re soulmates!

But… why doesn’t she admit it?

Why doesn’t she want him?

It doesn’t matter. He’s just… not good enough yet. But Ezra will do anything to be a good enough soulmate for Sabine.

And someday, he will be good enough.

He knows he will.

Everything has gone wrong. Ahsoka is dead and Kanan is blind and Sabine—

Sabine will never, ever want him.

The Presence in the holocron makes that clear, and so does she.

The Presence has also told Ezra that he could make her want him. He could get inside her head and change her feelings to whatever he wanted them to be.

(Ezra had a few strong words with the Presence, that day. It hasn’t bothered—or maybe it hasn’t dared—to make a second suggestion about manipulating Sabine’s mind.)

Sabine should want him to be her soulmate because she wants him to be her soulmate.

And if she doesn’t?

Then it’s time to move on.

He opens the holocron with a touch of the Force and asks if it’s possible to break a soulbond.

It will hurt, warns the Presence.

Ezra clenches his jaw.

“Good.”

It had been a bad day and a nightmarish mission and a sonic isn’t enough to make her feel clean and free of the bloody grime she’d acquired, so Sabine indulges in a water shower.

She’s just finished rinsing out her hair; she runs her hand through her bangs to see if there is any soap left in it, and then she looks down at her palm to check, there are no bubbles—and no soulmark.

Sabine stares at her hand, heart stopping.

The wolf’s head is gone.

Her starbird is bright on her wrist, glistening with droplets of water, but it’s like the wolf was never there.

Soulmarks disappear when a soulmate dies. She knows, because the wolf’s-head mark disappeared once already and then came back, and she’d done hours—days—of research, trying to figure out why it did that, and the only answer she ever got was death. So there is no reason for it to disappear now, unless… unless…

Oh. gods.

She has to make sure Ezra is okay.

She slams the water off and jumps out of the shower, wraps a towel around herself, and runs.

Her feet smack wetly on the durasteel floor as she sprints full-speed for Ezra’s door, skidding into the room.

He is alone, sitting on the lower bunk with his eyes closed and his head bowed. When she appears, he looks up at her with dark-shadowed eyes, and Sabine stops in her tracks.

The door slides shut behind her.

They are both illuminated in a red glow.

Her hand that’s clutching the towel, keeping it up, clenches involuntarily as uneasy chills run up her spine.

There’s a glowing pyramidal object floating in the middle of the room, and Sabine takes a breath and stomps past it, pushing it out of the way to stand in front of Ezra.

He looks fine.

“What happened to your soulmark?” Sabine demands.

Ezra stares up at her.

“It’s gone now,” he says, coldly. “Give me a few minutes to get rid of yours.”

Sabine stares at him, unable to comprehend what he’s saying. “What?!”

“There are ways of breaking soulbonds,” he says emotionlessly, looking away from her. “I’ve only got my side of it done. Just give me a little while to cut yours. Then we won’t have to deal with each other anymore.”

It’s like a blade has ripped right into Sabine’s chest.

Ezra is breaking their soulbond.

Ezra doesn’t want her.

It’s what she wanted.

It’s her worst fear.

“Okay,” she agrees quietly, turning away before he can see the tears forming in her eyes. “Thanks for telling me. I thought you had died or something. I—I’m going to go get dressed.”

Sabine walks away.

She will not cry.

She won’t.

She can’t.

It’s better this way.

As soon as she’s gone, Ezra falls apart, trying not to gag as another wave of pain tears through him.

When the holocron said that cutting a soulbond would hurt, he hadn’t realized it meant it would hurt this badly.

The holocron had warned him that the closer he cut a soulbond to himself, the worse it would be, and that soulbonds should be severed in the middle.

But he just didn’t want Sabine to feel anything. So, he’d sliced his half of the soulbond much closer to himself than her—and he was paying for it.

Minutes pass, but finally, the wave of pain recedes and he can breathe again.

He drags his sleeve back to stare at Sabine’s starbird one last time.

The symbol that gave him hope for seven years, then broke his heart for two.

She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t want me.

He has never been—will never be—good enough for her.

Ezra has to cut the bond. He has to free her from the promise Fate made. He can’t let the universe trap them together when she’s made it clear that all she ever wanted was to be free of him.

Before he can hesitate, he seizes the other half of the soulbond and slices through the thousand golden filaments that bind him to her, even closer to himself than the last one.

The pain is too much.

Ezra’s vision flares white, and he only has time for a single, choked cry, before he passes out.

After Malachor, things had gotten… bad… with Ezra.

Bad enough that Zeb doesn’t feel guilty for eavesdropping when he hears Ezra’s voice from Sabine’s room.

They’re both yelling. A lot. It’s making Zeb worried.

“Why?! You what to know why?! Because you’ve made it so clear that you can’t stand me!”

“I didn’t say that! I never said that!”

“You might as well have!”

“Look, there are just some things you don’t understand—”

“Oh, I understand. You don’t want me for a soulmate.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you, it’s—”

“Don’t bother lying to me.” Ezra’s voice is cold and bitter. “Kanan’s ignoring me because I’m the reason he went blind, Ahsoka’s dead because of me and look what that’s done to Rex, the circles under Hera’s eyes get darker every time the mission fails because I did something wrong, Zeb thinks I’m worthless, all Chopper does is shove me around—don’t try to tell me you want a screw-up soulmate like me! You wanted me gone, you wanted that bond gone, and—congratulations! You got your wish! We can just ignore each other for the rest of our lives now!”

“Ezra, no, I—”

Without warning, the door slides open and Ezra storms out, nearly slamming into Zeb.

He staggers back, staring at him, and then it hardens into a glare. He doesn’t say a word, not even to snap at Zeb for listening; he just shoves past him and stomps down the hallway.

Zeb looks back into Sabine’s room at her standing there, one hand just a little raised as if she wanted to reach out to Ezra before he left.

Her eyes turn steely.

She sprints past Zeb after Ezra.

Sabine catches up to Ezra in the cargo hold, as he’s storming for the exit. She’s called out enough that she knows he’ll just keep ignoring her, so she just grabs him by the wrist and pulls him back.

“Ezra, stop!”

He yanks his arm away from her and tries to leave, but she’s faster, and she moves around to block the exit. Ezra reverses his direction, heading back the way he came, but she won’t let him.

This time she grabs his arms and forces him to face her. “Talk to me, Ezra!” He shakes his head, so she shakes him. “Yes! Yes!”

Ezra glares at her. “Why should I?! You’ve always resented me! You hated that Fate tied us together! Now you’re free, so leave me alone!”

“That’s not true!” Sabine argues.

“Liar.”

It’s a snarl, the snarl of a wounded animal trying to fight. 

And Sabine feels bad for him.

“I don’t resent you,” she says quietly, lowering her gaze. “I’ve never resented you.”

To her surprise, Ezra laughs. A soft chuckle at first, but then a sharp, painful ha! as he pulls away from her and turns around, pacing across the cargo hold.

“You don’t resent me?” he demands, sticking his hands in his pockets and staring at the floor as he paces. “What? Do you mean that you haven’t always wanted a different soulmate? You didn’t check your wrists every day for two years to see if those stupid marks had disappeared because fate finally figured out I’m not good enough for you?”

“Ezra—”

“I’m SO TIRED of not being GOOD ENOUGH!” he yells, kicking a crate furiously and making her jump. “I’m not good enough for anyone on this stupid ship! Not Kanan! Not Hera! Not Zeb! Not even my own soulmate!”

He kicks the crate again and Sabine steps towards him. “Stop that, you’re going to hurt yourself!”

“Soulmarks—” He turns around, staring at her with blazing eyes. “Soulmarks are supposed to be a promise! They’re supposed to mean that there’s someone out there who would care about me! It was supposed to mean you would care about me!”

Sabine starts to bristle in annoyance, and she’s about to snap that she doesn’t owe him anything when his voice cracks and she realizes that there are tears in his eyes.

“But you didn’t care!” He starts pacing again, shaking his head furiously. “So, obviously, that meant I just needed to be a better soulmate, right?! And then you would want me! Then you would care! Then I wouldn’t be the useless kid you always hated! Then I would be GOOD ENOUGH!”

“That’s not how it works,” Sabine says, and he kicks another crate.

“I KNOW THAT!” he cries out. Sabine has never seen Ezra this angry. Never. “I KNOW that now! But I DIDN’T before! Because I knew if I worked hard, I could be a good enough Padawan for Kanan, and I could be a good enough rebel for Hera, and I could be a good enough roommate for Zeb, and I thought I could be a good enough soulmate for you—”

He stops with a choking sound, bending over and bracing himself against the wall with both hands as his head drops low.

“But being a good Padawan, and rebel, and roommate, are all about things you do, and I could do better, but soulmates, that’s—” He pauses with a shudder, and then starts to speak again, a little faster, and then faster than that, halting for breath and spilling out words in short gasps that sound more and more like sobs. “That’s about what you are, and it took me so long to realize that I can be the most good version of me in the galaxy, and it’s won’t—be—enough, and it’s never going to be enough, because I’ll still be me, and you—don’t—want—me—”

Sabine is looking at him now, staring at him, because she can’t help it. His shoulders are heaving and even though he’s turned away from her, she knows he’s crying like he’s never cried in front of her before.

It’s like years of pain have been storing up inside him, and now he’s shedding their weight in tears.

But he gasps raggedly and pulls himself together until he can speak clearly.

“And now I’m not even a good enough Padawan or rebel or roommate, and all of those put together don’t hurt as much as not being good enough for you, because I had a chance—I had a chance to do those things, and I failed, but I can’t even fail with you—I can’t even try—I was doomed from the start, so the only thing I could ever do to be a good soulmate to you was to stop being your soulmate at all, and so I cut—I cut the soulbond—even though—I—I wanted you—to be my soulmate—so much—but—I knew—you didn’t want me—”

His voice raises to high rasp and he drops his head lower, no longer able to speak as he hiccups and sniffs and tries to muffle his sobs.

Sabine doesn’t realize she’s moving forward until he is wrapped in her arms and she is clutching him to her chest, certain that he’s getting tears and snot on her bodysuit but she doesn’t really care.

He resists, pushing her back, but his shoves are weak and she holds onto him.

“You’ve got it all wrong, Ezra,” she whispers into his ear, being too honest, but she can’t say anything besides the truth anymore. “I wanted to be your soulmate. I just couldn’t be, not after—”

She stops.

“After what?” he asks. His breath is hot against her throat.

“Nothing.”

“After I screwed up and Kanan got blinded?”

“No.”

“After I ruined everything?”

“No.”

“After I disappointed you by being me?”

“You never disappointed me.”

“Then, Sabine—” he chokes, and he slowly leans back until he’s staring into her eyes—blazing, blurry blue—blurry because she’s tearing up now, too—and he doesn’t look away. “Sabine—Sabine—Sabine, won’t you tell me? Where did I go wrong? What did I do that made you decide we didn’t fit together? When did you stop wanting me?”

Ezra sounds so broken and so—so hopeful, all at once, like he thinks that he must have done something, and that if he knows what he did, he can undo it. He can fix himself for her.

He cradles her face in his hands, looking at her desperately.

“Please, Sabine,” he begs, and that’s what breaks her resolve.

“It’s me! It’s me, not you. I’m the one that’s not good enough!”

“You’re good enough for me.”

“I’ve done—” Her voice hitches. “Horrible things!”

“I wouldn’t have cared.”

Ezra is staring into her eyes and it’s taking her apart. 

“You can’t be my soulmate! I’m dar’manda. You’re not my soulmate because I don’t have a soul anymore.”

“How do you stop having a soul?!” he asks, apparently not expecting an answer.

Sabine remembers the holorecording she’s kept for all these years. 

She doesn’t want Ezra to see it. She doesn’t want him to know what she’s done. She doesn’t want him to stop looking at her like he’s looking at her now.

But he has to know.

He has to know what she is.

“Come with me,” she tells him.

Ezra has felt so much that now he can’t feel anything at all, anymore, as Sabine leads him by the hand down the hall and into her room.

“There was a Mandalorian named Demagol, once. Thousands of years ago,” she explains in a low, rough voice as she goes to a drawer and opens it. “He did horrible experiments on children. A demagolka is someone like him—a real-life monster.” She takes something out of the drawer. It’s a holodisc. “That’s what they called me when I left Mandalore. A dar’manda demagolka. A monster without a soul. And I deserved it.”

She turns around and holds out the holodisc to him. He approaches slowly, uncertainly, and takes it from her.

“Watch it,” she commands. “You’ll see.”

Ezra swallows his trepidation and turns the disc on. It projects a recording of Mandalorians—flying, fighting, shooting, yelling to each other.

Then, without warning, the yells turn to agonized screams as arcs of electricity jump into the frame, and the Mandalorians melt into ash.

The video ends.

He looks up at Sabine.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” she whispers, clenching and unclenching her fists. He thinks she might be shaking. “They were cooked alive inside their own armor. Mandalorians’ greatest strength, turned against us. And who do you think built the weapon that did it?”

“You did,” Ezra says, a realization suddenly illuminating the questions that have haunted him for so long.

“I did,” she confirms. “I didn’t know they were going to use it. I thought it was a challenge. But they killed people I loved with it. So I destroyed it, and I tried to tell my family what had happened, but—” Sabine’s voice hitches, and she repeats the one word. “Dar’manda demagolka. That’s what they called me.”

Her eyes, dripping with tears, look up at Ezra. “I don’t have a soul anymore, Ezra. And I keep that holo to remind myself that no matter what my soulmarks say, it’s just not true. Not anymore. Not after this. You see now, that it’s not you? It’s me. I don’t have a soul, so I’m not your soulmate. That’s why I let you cut the soulbond. For your sake. I would have stopped you—I would have told you everything—if I thought you would still want me afterwards.”

One weight lifts off his shoulders as another settles in to take its place.

It’s not him.

It’s not him.

It’s not that he isn’t good enough. It’s not that she doesn’t want him. It’s not that she resents him. It’s not that she hates him.

She hates herself.

She hates herself, and she wants him to hate her too.

But Ezra cannot do that.

He shakes his head, staring at the holodisc. His fingers close around it tightly.

Then, he throws it aside and forgets it ever existed.

“Sabine, Fate isn’t random,” he says, and she looks at him in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

He steps a little closer, but doesn’t reach out to her—not yet. “Ahsoka told me once that they kept records in the Jedi temple of the Jedi with soulmarks, and who they matched to. And those soulmarks matched with all kinds of people. Other Jedi. Clones. Anyone from royalty to slaves, anywhere from Alderaan to Nal Hutta. Jedi had soulmates everywhere. Hundreds, thousands of people from every world.”

Ezra meets her eyes and holds that gaze.

“But do you know how many Jedi have had Mandalorian soulmates?”

“How many?” she asks.

“One.”

The silence hangs around them, burning stillness.

Sabine’s head tilts just a little. “Who was it?”

Ezra raises an eyebrow at her and shrugs his arms loosely, smiling a half-smile. “You’re looking at him, Sabine.”

Sabine’s eyes grow wide, and she whispers a quiet, “Oh.”

Now he does take her hand, squeezing lightly once.

“A Jedi is supposed to love unconditionally, Sabine. Forgiveness and compassion is kind of our schtick. Even if—even if I’m not always the best at it, it’s still what we do.” He laughs, awkwardly, looking away for a second before meeting her eyes again. “So, maybe that’s why you’re the only Mandalorian in ten thousand years to get stuck with one of those crazy laser-sword-swinging nerfherders for your soulmate.”

“You really don’t care, do you?” Sabine breathes out after a long pause.

“Not nearly as much as any reasonable person should.”

“You are insane, Ezra Bridger.”

He stares at her for a second.

“Yes.”

She laughs, and then their arms go around each other now, and she holds him tight and he holds her tighter.

“I’m sorry I cut the soulbond, Sabine,” he says. “I thought it was what you wanted.”

Sabine leans into him, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Can we fix it?”

He’s about to say that they’ll find a way, when he realizes something, and his stomach sinks. Ezra steps back, away from her, and looks down.

“Actually, Sabine… there’s something you should know first.”

“What?” she asks, looking worried now.

Ezra exhales, wincing, and asks, “Do you know what a holocron is?”

(She doesn’t, so he tells her.)

(He tells her everything.)

(Sabine takes his hand and says she doesn’t care, either.)

The kids have been quiet for a while.

Hera is nervous.

She walks around, calls for them, but gets no answer. She checks the Phantom, the common areas, the cargo bays, and finally their rooms.

Ezra’s room is empty. Sabine’s room…

The lights are on, but dimmed, though they’re bright enough for Hera to see something a little bit confusing.

Sabine is lying on her side on the top bunk, facing away from Hera. There’s nothing confusing in that. The confusing parts are the stack of armor in the corner (Sabine never takes her armor off during the day, even to sleep), the orange jacket lying in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bunk, and the form of a body barely visible behind Sabine.

Cautiously, Hera approaches. The only explanation she can think of is that the kids both decided to take a nap. In the same bunk. For some reason. Hera has no idea what that reason would be.

But that doesn’t explain why they’re lying so close together, she thinks, as she gets closer and stretches up on tiptoes to look. Their foreheads and noses are touching, their legs are tangled, their right hands are clasped together, and Ezra’s left hand is reached up to cradle her face.

Hera is anxiously wondering if she should consider alternate explanations, when she looks a little closer and really starts to worry—for a completely different reason.

Both of the kids’ faces look ashy and sick, and their breathing is ragged and raspy.

Quickly, Hera pulls off a glove and rests a bare hand on each of their foreheads. Sabine is feverish and sweaty; Ezra feels clammy.

“Force-exhaustion.”

Hera jumps and turns around. Kanan is standing with one hand resting on the doorway.

“What?” she asks, whispering.

“It’s Force-exhaustion,” Kanan explains, motioning for Hera to step over towards him so they can speak quietly together. “If a Jedi does something too strenuous, it makes them sick. I could feel Ezra’s presence from all the way out in the desert, so I came back to make sure he didn’t go too far.” He nods towards the passed-out kids. “Clearly, I’m too late.”

“But what about Sabine?” Hera asks. “She’s no Jedi.”

Kanan nods. “No, she’s no Jedi, but her presence is more… receptive to the Force, than the average person’s. It’s surprising that she could get far enough to make herself sick with it, but not impossible.”

“How do we treat Force-exhaustion?” Hera asks, but Kanan shakes his head.

“We can’t treat it. They’ll just have to sleep it off.”

So Hera finds a blanket and tucks it over the two Force-sick kids, turns the light all the way off, and leaves them to rest.

Sabine’s consciousness returns gradually—first she feels the soft blanket tucked over her, then the pounding headache, and then the feeling of Ezra’s body close to her.

Ezra.

Right… Ezra.

She remembers now.

Ezra and the Jedi holocron. Questions about reforging a soulbond, but no answers.

We can fix it. There has to be a way to fix it!

Then, the Sith holocron. Even fewer answers than before. Deciding to do it themselves, no matter how “impossible” it was supposed to be. Ezra had been scared to do it, she recalls. Scared that she would regret it. But she wouldn’t, and she told him so.

So he’d finally agreed.

Soulbonds weren’t made of the Force, Ezra had explained, but he could try to use the Force to fix it.

He had taken off his gloves and jacket, and she’d removed her gloves and her armor and rolled up her right sleeve, and then they sat together and clasped their once-soulmarked hands together.

She remembered Ezra’s soft cry of pain as he tried to reconnect the first “thread”, as he’d described it, and it instantly snapped with the tension.

We’re too far apart. It’s pulled too taut, it breaks before it’s healed.

Then how do we get closer?

I don’t know…

Sabine had moved towards him as she closed her eyes and tried to push her mind closer to him, too, somehow. Trying so hard—so so hard—and then she remembered losing herself in the strange ebb and flow that seemed to surround them as Ezra connected each thread, sealing it with the Force, one-by-one, tying them together again. 

She remembered surfacing for moments, and in each one, she’d drawn herself closer and closer to the boy who was just as Force-lost as she was, until they collapsed together, still in each others’ arms, too battered and mind-beaten to move, but with something there. Something that Sabine could feel, then and now. Something that shone with light.

She forces her crusty eyes to crack open—it’s all she can do for now, because it feels like her body has been drained of all its strength—and finds that Ezra is looking right back at her.

He is smiling.

“ ‘zzzra?” she asks, slurring the sounds. Her eyes flutter shut with the effort.

She feels his hand move from cupping her face to resting with his palm on her cheek. Gently yet clumsily, he brushes the cracked crusts out of her eyelashes. “Mmhmmm?”

“Don’… Don’ cut th’ bon’ ‘gain.” Sabine mumbles, then draws another big breath, and squeezes his hand. “Want’chu for m’ sou’mate. You’re… good ‘nuff… f’r me.”

He sighs—happily, she knows—she can almost feel the way he smiles—and squeezes her hand. It’s the only reply he gives, but the soulbond that she’s felt ever since he fixed it burns with an overflow of joy and calm and peace and I-am-not-unwanted.

And, between their clasped hands and their pressed-together wrists, glimmers a faint purple-gold glow.

Sabine sleeps.

Chapter Text

Ezra is used to nightmares. They come every night, sometimes more than once. He usually wakes up on his own. If he cries out in his sleep loud enough to wake his roommate, sometimes Zeb will be the one to shake him awake.

This is the first time he’s been woken by Sabine.

He doesn’t know it’s her, at first. He just feels a grasp gathering the threads of the soulbond and pulling him close, and a pair of strong arms wrapped tight around him as someone whispers words he doesn’t know in a frantically soothing voice.

“Ni olar. Ni olar, ner solus kar’ta. Nu jair—nu veman. K’uur. Ni olar, ni olar, ni olar. K’uur, Ezra. K’uur. Ni olar.”

He drags himself to full consciousness with a shuddery gasp, and realizes that it is Sabine who is holding him. She’s lying on her back and he’s halfway on top of her, with his head resting on her chest and one hand clutching the fabric of her bodysuit.

All this understanding comes in a split second, and then, with another gasp, he tears himself out of her fiercely comforting hold, sitting up and shoving himself backwards until his back bumps into the wall.

It takes him a moment—but just a moment—to remember why he’s in Sabine’s room.

Fixing the soulbond, and sleeping, and waking, and sleeping again all come into his memory.

And then he remembers the nightmare, and sees the dark stain of his tears on her suit as she sits up.

Sabine reaches out and rests a hand on his arm. 

“Ezra?” she whispers, hoarse and dry.

He barely hears her—his attention is pinned on the feel of the contact between them, and her bare hand.

Gently, he takes her hand, and turns it over. Her fingers twitch slightly at his lingering touch, but she doesn’t pull away.

Ezra has never actually seen her soulmarks before. She never let him see, before he cut the bond, and he didn’t get a glimpse of them after they reconnected the bond and before they passed out. The colors are a little different on her skin tone, he notices, comparing it to his own marks, but the size and shape are the exact same.

Somehow, seeing his soulmarks on someone else’s body makes him feel breathless.

With one finger, he traces the wolf’s head on her palm, and her hand spasms again.

Ezra takes her hand in both of his, and runs his thumbs over her palm. With one hand, he keeps going, sliding it down so that her wrist is beneath his hand, and her hand is beneath his wrist—a wolf and a starbird, a starbird and a wolf.

“You’re my soulmate,” he exhales, tracing his fingers along the back of her hand. “You’re my soulmate.”

“You’re my soulmate,” Sabine adds.

Ezra shuts his eyes, trying to keep the tears back, but he can’t.

He is her soulmate.

He is good enough.

Maybe he’s failed everyone else—failed as a Padawan and Rebel and crewmate and friend. Maybe his connection to the Force and his apprenticeship with Kanan and his place in their family-crew are all broken beyond repair. Maybe their soulbond is the only thing he has left.

But it is there.

It’s there, and it’s warm and bright and full of tenderness.

With the hand that is not in his hold, Sabine reaches out and wipes a tear from his face.

The touch shatters him.

Ezra can’t stop the sob that bursts from his chest, and he lets go of her hand, expecting her to draw away. 

Instead, he senses her getting even closer, and then he feels her arms go around him. She pulls him close against her and just lets him cry, rubbing comforting circles on his back and breathing in time with him as the minutes stretch on, until his tears stop and he finally pulls himself together.

Sabine still doesn’t let go.

Ezra doesn’t want her to.

It would be embarrassing in any other situation, but at this moment, he just wants to be held. He doesn’t care if it’s Sabine holding him.

Or—well—he does care. He cares a lot. It means everything to him that Sabine would hold him like this; with her arms around his middle and his legs thrown across her knees and his head resting on her shoulder.

But Sabine is still Sabine, and he’s still himself, and so it would be embarrassing to be like this with her, except that he needs this contact more than anything right now.

The thing that would have broken him down into a flustered, stuttering mess not so very long ago is the thing that is holding him together right now.

It’s been such a long time since someone touched him gently.

Ezra holds onto Sabine like she’s his lifeline, because she is, and wonders if he’ll ever have a chance to repay her for everything she’s doing for him.

Mother has sent Chopper to monitor the brats.

Chopper does not want to monitor the brats.

Unfortunately, Chopper does not have a choice.

He travels down the hallway to the bomb-making paint gremlin’s quarters. Mother said that is where both brats are recharging. Chopper had pointed out that when Mother and the meatbag disaster man would recharge together in her quarters, Chopper was forbidden from entering, but Mother said that this is different. Chopper does not see the difference. Recharging is recharging. Why would Mother and the meatbag require privacy for recharging if the paint gremlin and the grubby street rat do not?

Mother told him to stop stalling and go check on the brats.

Chopper hopes their power cells are not leaking. They have been recharging for a long time. He does not want to be assigned their chores.

The door to the paint gremlin’s room opens, and Chopper has to run a quick diagnostic on his optical sensors to make sure he isn’t malfunctioning, because the scene in front of him makes no sense.

The paint gremlin and the street rat have not been close. They do not act like friends, and in the last few weeks, Chopper has documented increased aggression and avoidance.

He does not see aggression or avoidance now.

What he sees is the paint gremlin sitting in her bunk, and the street rat sitting almost in her lap. Her arms are around him. Chopper believes it would be considered “cuddling.”

Perhaps it would also be considered “cute,” except they are both looking at him in shock and maybe fear. Fear that he will make fun of them? Fear that he will take a holo and show everyone on the base?

Chopper does not care about the reason for it.

Chopper likes being feared.

Am I interrupting something? Chopper asks. His database says that this is an appropriate line for this situation. 

“Just give us a minute, Chop,” the paint gremlin says hoarsely.

Is the minute metaphorical, or should I set a sixty-second timer?

The street rat makes a huffy laugh sound, and then raises his hand and gestures. The door slides shut. It does not open when Chopper smacks it.

Chopper turns and rolls away. He will inform Mother that they are still recharging. In fact, he will tell her they are “cuddling” and that they have locked him out. Mother will not be pleased by that.

It serves them right.

Chopper is an astromech, not a nanny droid.

This should not be his problem.

Three days after Sabine gains a soulmate, she almost loses him.

The mission they’re on is dangerous, but they didn’t expect it to be this dangerous. An Imperial ambush caught them completely off-guard, and she and Ezra are separated from the others—pinned in the middle of a hallway, stormtroopers approaching on either side.

It’s bad enough as it is.

But then Ezra gets shot.

Sabine sees it happen, but her mind doesn’t register the sight until a phantom pain rips at her stomach through the soulbond, and she doubles over, dropping her blasters and clutching her stomach.

His body hits the floor.

She lets out a gurgled scream that is made up of two-thirds pain and one-third terror as she sees him drop, the lightsaber hilt clattering out of his hand and rolling across the ground. Her mind fills with thoughts of Ezra—Ezra, on the ground, hurt, wounded, maybe dead, she just got him, she can’t lose him—

And then the lightsaber hilt is in her hand—

(She never stooped to pick it up.)

—the blade is ignited and striking out in perfect form—

(She’s never held a lightsaber before.)

—four, five, six blaster bolts deflect back at the stormtroopers as she twirls the blade in front of her and then around behind her back—

(She doesn’t know that move.)

—she throws her left arm out with confidence as she swivels to look back over her shoulder, hurling the two last stormtroopers backwards into the wall—

(She can’t use the Force.)

—and it is over.

(She hasn’t—she doesn’t—she can’t—but she does.)

Her knees feel weak.

The lightsaber bobbles and hums in her shaking hand, then hisses as it deactivates.

Sabine catches herself on the wall with her free hand, white spots filling her vision. Every nerve ending in her body is on fire and she wants to throw up.

She brushes against the soulbond.

Instead of a comforting golden warmth, it burns her like white-hot metal.

Sabine blacks out.

Ezra scowls as Hera leaves the medbay, crossing his arms tightly and lying back, staring up at the ceiling.

It wasn’t his fault he got shot. It wasn’t his fault the mission went wrong! It wasn’t like he was trying to ruin it! Why is he the one getting blamed?!

The bed creaks, and he feels someone sit down at the foot of the bed. He knows it’s Sabine, but he doesn’t feel like talking to her now.

She’ll make him feel better, and he wants to stew in his anger.

He wants the Sith holocron.

“I lied,” Sabine says, voice soft. It’s unexpected enough that it pulls him out of his anger for a moment, and he tilts his head up a little, looking at her.

“Huh?”

She’s sitting at the end of the bed, elbows on her knees, slouched forwards. “I told Hera that you took out most of the stormtroopers before you collapsed.” 

That’s what Hera had told Ezra, too, and he assumed he must just not remember it. “I didn’t?”

“You didn’t.” Sabine exhales. “I did. And I shouldn’t have been able to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t shoot them, Ezra.” She clenches her hands into fists, staring at the wall ahead of her. “It was all on instinct. I didn’t even think about it. I just saw you go down and then the lightsaber was in my hand and I was doing things I shouldn’t have been able to do. I—I pushed them away. Without even touching them.”

Ezra blinks, trying to understand what she’s implying. “You… used the Force?”

“I don’t know,” Sabine whispers, staring down at her hands in bewilderment. “I don’t have the Force… do I?”

“No.” Ezra hisses through his teeth as he tries to prop himself up against the pillows—the blaster shot didn’t hit anything important, but it aches all the same—and Sabine is instantly on her feet beside him, bending over him and helping him to sit up with a gentleness that makes his chest ache in a very different way.

Then, she leans back—but not too far back—and sits down right at his side. Light as a feather, she reaches out and brushes back a little strand of hair that’s fallen down onto his forehead.

And she takes his hand.

Instead of his usual jacket, he’s wearing the plain white shirt typical for people stuck in medbay, and he doesn’t have his gloves, either. Her fingertips are warm as she softly traces the wolf’s-head mark on his palm.

The touch makes him forget why he ever wanted to be angry in the first place

He doesn’t want to be angry.

He wants to feel safe.

His skin prickles with chills as he thinks—he wants to be in her arms. He wants her to hold him close again, like she did before.

He shouldn’t want that.

He doesn’t deserve it.

“Do you think it was the soulbond?” she asks. “You fixed it with the Force. Could it be some kind of a… Force-conductor, now?”

Ezra swallows anxiously, pushing back the unwarranted feelings creeping up in his chest. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“When I tried to feel it, after… it all happened… it felt like it burned me. It was hot.” She bites down on her lower lip. “The Force is… it’s warm, in a way, right?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s cold.”

It’s warm when I’m with you, he thinks,

She glances up at him through the hair hanging in her face. “I carried you all the way back to the Ghost. I shouldn’t have been able to do that, either. I—I told Hera it must have been adrenalin, but I know it wasn’t.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“I was scared,” she breathes out. “I knew I had to protect you. I had to get you to safety. But I was so scared.”

He squeezes her hand. “I’m okay, Sabine.”

Silence creeps over them like dusk, and he thinks it’s a peaceful kind of quiet until he feels a little droplet fall onto his hand.

“Sabine?” he asks.

She draws in a breath, and he can hear it tremble.

“I need you,” she rasps.

“Huh?”

“I need you, Ezra. I—” Her voice breaks, and she pauses for a moment. “I had everything, once. Family. Friends. A home. A soul. And I lost all of it.”

Her grip on his hand gets even tighter as her voice cracks, and she hangs her head lower.

“I can’t lose you, too.”

Ezra knows exactly what she is feeling. It’s why he’s been using the Sith holocron.

He can’t lose her, either.

So he squeezes her hand in a gesture of comfort.

“Tell you what,” he offers softly. “As soon as I’m out of here, we can try to see if we can do it again.”

She looks up quickly, meeting his eyes. “What do you mean?”

He gives her a smile. “Well, if you can use the Force, you ought to know how to do it right.”

Ezra trains her in secret.

They go out to the desert every afternoon they can, and practice. Sometimes they work on actual action skills like telekinesis. Sometimes he blindfolds her and tosses pebbles and she has to “sense them” and dodge (but that one usually ends up in laughing and tussling and being generally unproductive.) Sometimes it’s just sitting around and trying to “feel the Force,” which Sabine thought was a waste of time and stupid until the day she realized she could feel it. And some days, they work on lightsaber forms. He uses his own blade to demonstrate, and she uses Kanan’s blade to try to follow along.

(It’s not like Kanan uses it anymore, anyway.)

(Kanan’s absence is a perpetual ache. She can see it in Ezra’s face—the rejection, the fear, the unwantedness. It tears at her heart to know she made him feel that way, once.)

(She knows Ezra has been doing his best to make her feel worthy of the mark they share, even though she knows she’s not—so she will do her best to make sure he never, ever feels unwanted again.)

Sabine progresses well. At least, that’s what Ezra says. She thinks he might be a little too kind in his criticisms of her. Maybe he’s afraid to upset her, or push her away.

She wonders how long it will take him to figure out that nothing will be prying him out of her heart.

It’s an hour past midnight when Ezra knocks quietly on Sabine’s door. The light showing from the crack beneath the door disappears momentarily as the door opens and she whispers, “Come in.” Once he’s inside and the door is shut, she turns the light back on.

They don’t want to wake anyone up.

They don’t want anyone to know what they’re planning.

Sabine points to a half-packed duffel bag on her table. “Try and fit your stuff in,” she says.

It’s not difficult; all he’s got to pack is a single change of clothes. He notices she’s stuffed several pockets of the bag with ration bars and spare parts, and also spots their toothbrushes.

“Perfect,” Sabine observes. “We’ve got everything.”

“Not quite.” Ezra unhooks one of the two lightsabers from his belt, and lies it on top of everything else. “There. That’s all.”

He can feel Sabine’s eyes on him. “Why are we bringing Kanan’s lightsaber?”

“Same reason we use it for practice. Not like he ever touches it anymore,” Ezra says, trying not to sound like that hurts him. “If we do find you a kyber crystal, it’ll be easier to explain how to build a lightsaber with two examples.”

Sabine nods.

Neither of them say any more about it.

“The other stuff is already in the Phantom,” Sabine says. “Ready to go?”

“Ready.”

Ezra zips the duffel shut and slings the strap over his shoulder, and Sabine puts her helmet on and switches the light off. Silently, they creep out of her room and through the Ghost. He pauses in the kitchen, taking a folded piece of flimsi and a little round magnet from his pocket. He uses the magnet to stick the note to the conservator.

“Note for Hera,” he explains in a low whisper. “So she doesn’t worry. Says we’ll be back soon-ish and it’s soulbond stuff and not to worry about us messing with the Empire.”

“Good,” Sabine murmurs.

One after the other, they climb up into the Phantom. Ezra puts the duffel bag in the back; Sabine takes the pilot’s seat.

“Where to, Jedi?” she asks.

“I dunno,” Ezra says, sitting in one of the seats, and pointing to the one opposite him, then taking out the Jedi holocron. “We’ve gotta figure that out together.”

He tries to pretend it’s not more difficult to open the Jedi holocron than it is the Sith one.

Sabine sits opposite him, mimicking his pose. “So, what are we doing?”

“What I did to get my kyber crystal.” He opens it up to the biggest starmap. “It’s going to be different with you, but I’m hoping we can do it.”

“Okay. How?”

“Close your eyes,” Ezra instructs, reaching for the Force while trying to hold on to the soulbond, too.. “Focus on the soulbond. Try to feel the Force through that.”

“Mm-hm,” she murmurs. He can feel a gentle tugging at the soulbond, and he thinks it’s working.

“Try to let that guide you. Think of where you need to be.” He pauses. “Reach out.”

She does. Literally. She holds one hand out.

Eh, that works.

“So,” Ezra finishes, “Where are we going?”

He sees her thinking. A minute passes. Then, slowly—but steadily—her hand shifts, pointing in a certain direction.

“Ok, good,” he says, mentally marking the general location down, then enlarging it so it shifts to a more close-up starmap. This one shows tiny pinpricks of light, some bigger than others, and long lines—planets and hyperspace routes. “Now do that again.”

Sabine huffs, but she does do it—and faster, this time. Ezra tries to push his grip on the Force as far into her hands as he can.

Increasing the size once more, the map switches to one showing planets with known kyber formations.

There are none.

That doesn’t mean it’s a bust, of course. There’s plenty of unmapped ones. They just have to narrow it more, now.

“Okay, again,” Ezra says. She opens her eyes and glares at him.

“How many times are we gonna do this?”

“Do you wanna try to get a lightsaber, or not?”

She huffs. “Fine! Fine.”

This time takes the longest of all, and Ezra is about to give up hope when Sabine moves her arm suddenly, pointing with an open hand. “There. It’s there. I think.”

“Great,” Ezra says, and stands up, moving close to read the names of the sectors around where she pointed.

“So, we’re looking at somewhere in Weneen, Quelii, Belsmuth, Meerian, Ojoster, or—”

He breaks off abruptly and looks at Sabine. She looks ghastly in the blue glow of the holocron, and he knows she must recognize those sector names. 

They were her neighbors, after all.

“Mandalore,” she finishes for him, breathing out the word. “Somewhere in the Mandalore sector.”