Jacen: Chat, Unc is back and low key cooked, for real. I thought Ezra was a baddie, are you his choppleganer? That’s what you get for beefing with Thrawn when you should’ve been looksmaxing.
Ezra: I've learned a lot these past few years. Gained confidence.
Sabine: I see that.
Ezra: And I'm confident enough now to say that you're wrong sometimes, Sabine.
Sabine: Oh? Okay, then. So, was it WRONG for me to spend ten years trying to find you?
Ezra: Well, no but that's not what I -
Sabine: Was it WRONG for me to risk my life to rescue you from another galaxy? Was it WRONG for me to come back and stay with you on Lothal?
Ezra: (panicking)
Ezra: When - when did I ever say you were wrong sometimes?
Sabine: Just now. Maybe you have a point! Hmmm. Should start rethinking some life choices . . .
Ezra: Sabine, you see I misspoke. That's on me.
Sabine: Mmhmm. Is that so?
Ezra: What I meant to say is that I'M wrong most of the time -
Sabine: Go on.
Ezra: - and that I should listen to you MORE.
(Ezra's newfound confidence after his time spent surviving on Peridea easily breaks upon impact on the iron wall that is Sabine Wren.)
KAW 2021 ~Day 1 Prompt: Ghost crew being a family/ The Crew Finds Out~
So I thought I'd do a fun meme of Ezra trying to explain to Sabine about how Kallus x Zeb is a *thing*. Little does he know that Sabine has already painted them together cuz she knows they are a thing, but she's indulging Ezra's crazy theories about the two of them because that's what the space fam does. XD
The ship appeared deserted as Sabine exited her room and made her way to the lounge. That made sense; it was late in the day, and most likely anybody wanting to eat would have done so a few hours ago, and people still had duties they needed to perform. It didn’t matter what was happening in their lives, they still had jobs to do.
Now she thought about it, there was probably something else that she should have been doing too.
The tip of her finger felt strange; it tingled, almost buzzed with the sensation of a thousand tiny bumps passing underneath it. Her arm still itched slightly where the droid had taken the blood, and she was exhausted, physically and emotionally wiped out. If it hadn’t been for her stomach’s insistence, she might have stayed where she was in the dark of her room and fallen asleep.
The door to the lounge opened, and she found herself faced with Ezra, standing frozen in the center of the room, gripping a ration bar in one hand. He looked at her as though he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Sabine froze too, surprised. “Oh,” she said. “Hi.”
He hesitated for a moment, then tucked the bar in his pocket and forced his face into something that looked like a close approximation of a smile.
She stepped a little further into the room, allowing the door to close behind her. “How’s it going?” she asked. It was an ask-on-instinct question, just something to fill the silence. She didn’t think until the words were already out of her mouth that she had a good idea already of how it was going, and the answer was probably not so great. She resisted the urge to slap herself in the face — that probably wouldn't look so great either — and waited, half hoping he would, and half hoping that he wouldn't answer.
“Um…” Ezra ran his fingers through his short hair awkwardly; clearly he had realized her error too. “Great,” he said, unconvincingly. “Good. Fine… not bad. You know.”
Despite herself, Sabine couldn’t help but smile at that. “Sorry,” she said, and raised a hand to her mouth to cover the evidence. “That was a lot of answers.”
“You know me,” he said. The obviously fake smile softened into something that looked almost natural. “I like to be thorough.”
Sabine walked past him, heading to the kitchen area. Ezra turned to watch her as she did. There was something wary in his expression, but something hopeful too.
“What about you?” he asked.
Something about the whole exchange felt awkward somehow; stilted, but she couldn't tell whether that was real or happening inside her own head.
She reached up into the cabinet above her head, and grabbed first thing that qualified as food. She picked up two cups and filled them with the first drink she could find — which happened to be water, but that was fine — and placed them on the table. She sat down, and pushed one in Ezra’s direction. “Same,” she said, in answer to his question.
He relaxed incrementally, and took a step closer, reaching across for the cup. He took a sip, hovered awkwardly next to the table, not sitting down, like he was keeping his options open in case he decided to leave suddenly. She knew that feeling, she had experienced it more than a few times; that wariness, knowing that the other person doesn't mean you any harm, but being half convinced that they were going to cause it anyway. She ripped open the wrapper of her nutrient bar and bit into it. She realized as she did that she had chosen one of the bland, flavorless bars with the unpleasant texture. She forced herself to chew and swallow, and made a mental note to look at what she was choosing next time.
Or, maybe she shouldn’t. Ezra wouldn’t be able to do that soon enough, Kanan already couldn’t. Although she doubted that an inability to read the labels on rations was the worst part of losing your sight, it was just one small example of how unfair this whole thing was. And now she couldn’t stop wondering whether it was something that Ezra had considered.
“You’re eating late,” Ezra said. “Forget again? Busy working on some project?”
Well, yes, but… “Something like that,” she said quickly. He had meant art, but he hadn’t actually said so, which meant she could withhold some of the truth without lying. She wanted to ask him whether he had made any progress with the dot writing information she had given him, maybe try to gauge whether he was ready to move on to trying out reading by touch. She didn’t mention it, for now. It didn’t feel like the right time. Instead, she took another bite of the flavorless bar and washed it down with a swig of water. “You too,” she said. “Eating late, I mean. I didn’t expect to run into anybody.”
He shrugged and subconsciously touched the pocket where he had stashed his own lunch, or snack, or whatever he had intended the meal to be. “Been busy,” he said. “With Kanan. Training…” he stopped abruptly, looked away. “Stuff,” he added, unnecessarily.
Training with Kanan wasn’t anything unusual; far from it. It occurred to her that something in the training this time had been. The way that Kanan used the Force to get around, to fight, to do… a lot, now she thought about it. Ezra would need to know all of that, and more besides; things that maybe didn’t even require the Force to do. The average blind person didn’t have that advantage after all, and while they might not all be running around the galaxy fighting a rebellion, they still managed to live their lives.
Her mind took her back unexpectedly to the darkness that had filled her room as she had studied, that same darkness that Kanan now inhabited, that Ezra was facing. The idea of training must have suddenly taken on a new level of meaning for him now. Or perhaps it wasn’t that, perhaps his reluctance to talk about it came from the presence of Kanan himself, some kind of mental connection that Ezra was making between Kanan’s situation and his own. Or maybe it was nothing to do with that either, but he was assuming that she might think it was, and reacted accordingly.
Not knowing what was going through his mind was making this incredibly difficult. She could normally read him easily — or she had thought she could, the huge secret that he had been carrying had managed to slip under her radar somehow — but he was closed off now, holding back from her in a way that she had never imagined possible. Gone was the easy grin, the teasing tone, the jokes that they had shared the last time they had been alone together in this room.
Silently, Ezra took another sip from his cup, put it down and pulled out his ration bar. She noted with envy that it was one of the good ones, the ones with an actual flavor, and a flavor that didn’t want to make her puke. He ripped it open and slid into the seat opposite, to join her for lunch.
“So…” he said. He raised the bar to his lips and allowed it to drop away again, “I guess this wasn’t the welcome home that you and Zeb were expecting was it?” He smiled nervously, fingers fidgeting with the wrapper that surrounded his food. “Sorry about that.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He had nothing to apologize for; he had done nothing wrong, everything that was happening was happening to him, not because of him, and anything that she, or Zeb, or anybody else might be experiencing was nothing compared to what Ezra must be going through. On the other hand, he knew all that. Or rather, she assumed he knew all that. He didn’t appear to be fishing for sympathy, but rather aiming for a conversation somewhere in the general vicinity of normal, and probably trying to confront the bantha in the room as he did.
It was a valiant effort, and probably better than she would have achieved if she had tried it. She decided to go with it; to sidestep the thing now would probably make it worse. “Yeah, you better be sorry,” she told him. She affected an exaggerated scowl, but carefully allowed a hint of a smile to creep into her expression at the same time, to let him know that she was joking. Could he see that? Surely he could, he wouldn’t have been able to keep it from them if it was that bad.
She really needed to read that file Hera had given her again, try to concentrate this time, really understand it, then she would know these things for sure.
Maybe she should ask Noisy to print it out in the tactile alphabet, at least then she could be learning that at the same time. And maybe not having to look at the words would make it easier. Of course, at her current reading speed, she wouldn’t finish it for years, and by then she wouldn’t need the information anymore. By then, Ezra would already…
She forced herself to retain the joking, scowling expression, and ignored the sudden urge to cry. “Zeb and I had this whole ‘tales of the recon mission’ story worked out, you kind of stole our thunder,” she added.
Ezra stared at her, and for a moment she thought that he had misunderstood, that he genuinely believed she was upset with him, then the apparent shock melted into relief and he grinned. Sabine felt herself relax for the first time since Hera had met them off the Phantom and told them about that meeting.
“Oh yeah?” Ezra asked. “So, did that story include the part where you both came back reeking of sulfur?” He leaned back in his seat with an easy smile. “Don’t think I didn’t catch a whiff of it around the ship yesterday.”
“Must have been yourself, Bridger, because your intel was faulty, that place actually smelled pretty pleasant.”
Ezra folded his arms and glared at her, and her stomach gave an unexpected lurch. How long would he be able to do that for? How long before the jokes and the actions that accompanied them would have to change?
He must have seen, or perhaps sensed the change of mood come over her, because he backed off and directed his gaze back at the table. He raised his cup to his lips and took a sip, she got the impression that he was doing it more to give him something to do than because he was thirsty. “Seriously though,” he said. “I’m sorry. I should have told you all months ago. I had a plan to do it and everything, but then I couldn’t because…” he shook his head. “Hey, do you know about the dokma races?”
The sudden change of subject made her head spin. “Uh, yeah,” she said. “I’ve been a few times. You’ve seen me there. Not as often as you though, Mr. Compulsive Gambler.”
He nodded and took another sip of his drink before breaking off a piece of his nutrient bar and popping it into his mouth. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Forgot.”
They fell into silence. Not quite the same awkward one from earlier, but not exactly their usual comfortable familiarity either. They’d get back there, eventually. How, she wasn’t so sure. Had it only been a week ago that they had been here, in this very room, poking fun at each other, talking about the upcoming mission? That whole time, and for so long before, Ezra had been carrying that secret. She knew secrets, she understood them, and she had kept them herself, but nothing so big, and never for so long. And never, ever, from family. She rested her elbows on the table and looked across at him. “How’d you manage to hide this so long?” she mused.
The question was out there before she could stop it. She felt her eyes widen in panic as she tried, and failed, to think of a way to take it back, or to make it sound as though she was asking about something else. It was too late. She knew the answer anyway, not that Ezra was going to answer it: it was just life. To him, anyway. Given enough time, it was possible to get used to anything, you simply assimilated the new facts into your world view, and carried on, and the longer you did it for, the easier it became.
He paused, obviously taken aback by the unexpected question. She watched him, caught between the urge to apologize and tell him not to answer, and the equally strong desire to hear what he might say. The silence went on too long. “You don…” she began.
“I’m a pretty great actor,” Ezra told her, at almost exactly the same time. “So, I mean, there’s that.”
Sabine relaxed again. Crisis averted. Or maybe there had been no crisis in the first place. Maybe it was all in her head. Maybe Ezra was more okay than she had realized and she was projecting her own discomfort onto him.
She rested her elbows on the table and shook her head. “I’ve seen you pretending before,” she told him, incredulously. “‘Great’ is not the word I’d use.”
“Well, there’s ‘brilliant’, or I guess, ‘amazing’,” he said. She got the distinct impression that his relaxed demeanor was a front, but it was one that she wouldn't have noticed if she hadn’t known him as well as she did. Maybe he was a decent actor after all. “I just didn’t want to sound too big-headed. Anyway, fooled you, didn’t I? You never suspected a thing.”
He said that in a faux-mocking tone, as though gloating at his deceptive prowess. It felt easy and normal, though she was sure it had taken effort for him to achieve. She wanted to respond in kind, send some sort of veiled insult his way, keep the conversation going in the same tone, but she couldn’t muster the enthusiasm, the words wouldn’t come.
“No, I didn’t,” she said quietly. She popped the final piece of her ration bar into her mouth and tried to chew the thing. It was dry and difficult to swallow, in addition to being almost entirely devoid of flavor. She took a sip of water to wash it down. “You did good there.”
Ezra’s smile faltered as she failed to respond as he had presumably hoped. She sighed. Since she’d gone and broken the spell, she might as well go one further and address that rampaging bantha head on. “How are you though? Really?” This wasn't the same throwaway question she had asked when she had first seen him there, plucked from the air without thought to fill the silence. She genuinely wanted — and did not want — to know.
“Fine,” he said, repeating his response from earlier. He leaned back in his seat, shuffling slightly to the side as he did, opening up an escape route in case it should be needed.
Sabine frowned. “You’re not ‘fine’, Ezra,” she told him. “You can’t be. I’m not ‘fine’, and I’m not the one this is happening to. Talk to me.”
“Hey, it’s just a pair of eyes, right?” He plastered a grin on his face; it was fake, the smile didn’t reach his… his eyes. She looked at him, unsure what she was supposed to say to that. “I mean, I’m a Jedi, so it’s not like I need them,” he continued. The grin and the confidence faltered slightly. “Just look at Kanan, he’s fine.”
She thought of Kanan; of how his nightmares had woken her in the middle of the night from the next room. She thought of those times when she had sat with him in the days and weeks after his injury, his listlessness, his disinterest in everything. She thought of the blankness of the mask he had taken to wearing to cover his injury and how, to her, it had been almost worse than the wound itself; how she had been forced to paint it because she couldn't stand to look at it anymore.
She thought of his almost complete absence for six months, how even when he had been there, he had been gone. She thought of him now; he still wasn’t quite the same man she had known. Something was missing, something other than the obvious. He didn’t smile so much anymore, even now, when he appeared in other ways to be ‘back’.
She wondered what Kanan would have made of Ezra’s statement.
Ezra stared at her intensely, as though he were trying to will her to believe him. She nodded; to do anything else would have been cruel. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess you’re right.” Her voice cracked just slightly as she spoke.
“Really,” he said, somehow picking up on her response. He ran his fingers through his hair again and didn’t look at her. “I’m fi…coping. I can still… It’s… it’s really not as bad as it seems, you know? I’ve got time, I can learn. I’m learning.”
She bit her bottom lip, teeth pressing into the flesh so hard that it hurt. She hadn’t expected a real answer. She had expected him to make an excuse and leave, as he had the previous day, when he had stammered his way through the basics of what he needed them to know, and then fled before anybody tried to get him to talk about it. She knew for a fact that he hadn’t slept in his bed the night before, and the only reason she could think of for that was an attempt to avoid Zeb. He had spent the past day, and she didn’t even know how many days before it, running from this, and she hadn’t expected that of all the people on the ship, she would be the one he would speak to.
Now that he had, she didn’t really know what to do. She leaned forward, closing the distance between them slightly, though the table still served as a barrier separating them. She wasn’t sure whether that made things better or worse. “What are you learning?” she asked, in a voice so quiet that it was almost a whisper.
Still not looking at her, he sat still, and didn’t reply. Sabine waited, as the seconds stretched into minutes; finally he shook his head and slumped slightly. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing useful, anyway, Kanan doesn’t think I’m ready. And every time I try, on my own, to do anything more than sitting around meditating, it just doesn't work, I think I can get an idea of what’s around me, and a second later it’s gone, and I’m not even sure if it was real of if I was imagining it, and anyway, even if it was real, if I can’t keep it up for more than a second, how am I going to be able…” he slumped further in his seat, looking suddenly so utterly lost, so…
So he definitely wasn’t ‘fine’. He wasn’t even close to it; she felt as though she was watching him crumble before her eyes, and she didn't want that. She had wanted him to talk, she had wanted the truth, but she realized now that she hadn’t wanted the truth to be this.
At a loss for anything else to do, she reached across the table. She couldn’t hug him, not without getting up, pulling him to his feet, the whole thing would be beyond awkward. Instead, she placed a hand on his arm, a small gesture that she hoped would be enough.
He flinched back as though he had been burned, so suddenly and unexpectedly that the surprise made her almost mirror the movement. She pulled her hand back quickly and cradled it in her other. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t…” What? She didn’t know what had happened, what had prompted that kind of a reaction from him. Clearly, he was tense and on edge, uneasy with the direction the conversation had gone, and probably feeling trapped, like it was too late to back out and flee now.
A thought occurred, a horrible thought. “You didn’t see me, did you? I surprised you.”
“What? No!” Ezra got to his feet, leaving his half-eaten nutrient bar forgotten on the table. His hands clenched and unclenched, and he shook his head angrily. “I mean yes… I mean...I can see,” he said. “I’m not… I saw you just fine, I just don’t want you feeling like I need…” he broke off and shook his head. “I saw you just fine,” he said, and turned to leave.
“Ezra, wait.” She slipped out from her chair and took a few steps after him. She didn’t know what she was doing, why she was calling him back, or what she was going to do if he stopped. All she knew was that they couldn’t leave it like that.
He stopped, and turned back to face her. “It’s been a day, and I’m already sick of this,” he said. “I had this thing for months. Longer than that, even. Nothing’s changed just because you know now, I’m still me!”
She frowned, taken aback by that statement. “I know that.”
“Then just... don’t treat me like I can’t do things, I can still do everything I could before, nothing has changed.” There was a pleading tone in his voice, like he was hoping desperately that she would believe it. “There was no reason for him to…” he tailed off.
Sabine waited, curious to know what someone had done, but when no continuation came, she decided not to probe for more. No point making it even worse, whatever ‘it’ was, because there was something else going on here that she didn’t know about. “I won’t treat you any different,” she promised.
Ezra finally looked up and locked eyes with her. “Oh really? So, ’The Tactile Alphabet - Reading For the Visually Impaired’, that’s a file you like to hand out to everybody, I suppose?” He practically spat the words at her, then spun around quickly and left the room, leaving her staring after him, wide-eyed in shock as the door closed after him.
She stood alone in the center of the room, with no idea what to do next.
