Chapter Text
Garazeb Orrelios leans over his makeshift workbench in the Ghost's cargohold with a focus that borders on the extreme. He very carefully marks out each and every motion he plans to take with a tiny graphite writing utensil that threatens to snap in his grip without any effort at all. Hunched over the smaller weapon, he spares a glance toward the far larger one off to his left. Suspended between empty crates over a small tarp pilfered from Sabine’s room to prevent any lacquer from dripping onto the floor, his AB-75 gleams under the fluorescents. The metallic bayonet is polished, the weapon’s frame drying with the guards taped up to prevent any errant drips, though he’s done this enough times to know just how thick the lacquer needs to be to prevent it from running. It hardly takes an hour for the finish to cure, but he always gives it two to prevent any tacky, sticky residue from taking residence in his fur due to his impatience.
Though he doesn't have the five fingers his human friends have, his craftsmanship does not suffer for it. Besides, he knows his way around a bo-rifle. These weren’t weapons made by human hands. This one had been meant to be a happy surprise. These were made by his people.
And this weapon’s purpose was to be a gift that opened a doorway to a conversation, later on.
When Zeb learned that these weapons were still the preferred weapons of Lira San’s overwhelmingly peaceful regime, he had been overjoyed. Chava had seen to it that he be provided with repair parts for his own. Though they were designed to stand up to the test of time and be passed between generations, maintenance would always be necessary, and upkeep of one’s weapon mandatory.
Kallus had lost his, in the course of his defection. Zeb, having heard about Thrawn's "collection," was certain that Kallus's weapon, the bo-rifle he'd earned through skill and honor despite the circumstances that lead to it, was aboard the Chimaera. And Thrawn and Ez- the Chimaera was gone.
He leans back and shakes his head briefly, trying to reorient his brain. Focus on the design, he reminds himself. Don’t let your mind wander. He had done his own weapon first, sampled the design on purpose. This rifle is brand new, unlike his own. He wants it to be perfect. He looks over the stock and the first design he’d etched with painstaking care to the one Sabine had drawn, taped to the wall in front of him. It was more complicated, but he’d seen more ornate designs back on Lasan. Sabine might not think it as good as if she’d done it, but he had to be the one.
“Hard at work, I see,” Hera calls from behind him.
Zeb grumbles good naturedly, rubs the back of his head as he turns. “You should be sleepin’,” He reminds her.
She rubs her belly in response, eyebrows arching in a sarcastic reply. “I know my limits,” She reminds him. He hears what she doesn’t say: I’m pregnant, not an invalid.
He spends a lot of time with her, so to him, she shows. She’s been holding off on letting rebel leadership know, afraid they’ll ground her, but any day now someone’s going to figure it out. He understands that she needs to keep moving, understands the kind of loss she’s working through. The kind they all are, really, but she has reason to take it harder than most, if you ask him. He’s appointed himself as her watchman, and while he tries not to be overbearing, he’s not afraid to go toe to toe with her for her own health.
“I thought Kallus would be back by now,” She says, after a moment. That she doesn’t know where her people are is more of a tell to her frayed mental state than any emotional indicator.
“Some mission with a new agent,” Zeb reminds her. “Hush-hush Fulcrum business. You probably know more than me.” He pulls down a crate from a stack piled up in the corner to face him and she takes the hint to sit.
“Sounds familiar,” Hera supposes. She’s got the top half of her coveralls undone, and the baby belly is obvious without the extra layers. There’s nothing to her, Zeb thinks. “It’s all kind of a blur lately.”
“I know what’cha mean,” He growls, not unkind. “Chop’s constantly zappin’ me, askin’ if I’ve eaten. Apparently he and Alex have some kinda agreement. Sabine says he sends her messages, too.”
“He’s a good droid,” She says, leaning against the stack of mostly empty boxes behind her impromptu seat. He’s been following her around like a shadow, only leaving her alone for small instances at a time unless a mission dictates otherwise. “Just don’t tell him I said that.”
He rumbles something that might be an agreement but isn’t and watches her quietly. “Nightmare?”
“Can’t get comfortable,” She returns, and he winces at his suggestion. “But,” She relents, “The nightmare didn’t help.” Unwilling to talk about it, she nods with a lift of her chin towards his makeshift bench. “What’re you working on?”
“Gift for Alex. Since his weapon’s gone-” He exhales sharply, but Hera doesn’t react to that. She’s far more in control of her emotions than anyone gives her credit for. “I had Chava send me a replacement. He’ll probably have to mod it a little, but I thought he’d like it.”
“You two are cute,” She comments. He pretends not to hear her drowsiness bleed into her voice, and doesn’t mention that it’s taken her longer to answer than normal. Another moment passes. “You should-” Her eyes soften, and she’s very much awake again.
“Yeah,” He agrees, knowing exactly what Hera’s trying to say, even if she can’t get out the words. Then he sighs. “Yeah.”
“Don’t wait too long,” She tells him, softly. “Not because of me and-” She shakes her head. “I get so caught up on this war, and our cause.” Her fists clench. “It’s worth it, Zeb, we all know that. I just… you can be happy and be with someone and fight this war, too.”
Zeb reaches a hand out, covering one of her fists with his massive hand, uncurling her fingers and lacing them with his own. One of her major fears since with… everything has been the fear that those around her would do what she did. Not say the words, make the time until it was nearly too late. “I know, Hera. We’re gonna talk.”
She nods. “And you’re going to give him a gun.” She waggles her eyebrows, trying to lighten the mood. “So, is this some kind of Lasat mating thing or-?”
He laughs and the sound is so unexpected his ears perk, as if unsure that he’s capable of the sound. They exchange half-guilty smiles, one survivor to another, and he lifts the weapon from the crate that functions as a workbench to show her.
“No. Lasat aren’t nearly so formal with gifts and what-not unless you’re a royal.”
“And I don’t think Kallus abides by Coruscanti courting rules or whatever those snobby people call it,” She rolls her eyes. “Sounds like you lucked out.”
His ears flatten a bit, the only way besides his expression to betray embarrassment, but it’s just Hera, and he’s never been able to keep a secret from her very well anyway. She’s too smart for her own good, sometimes. “Yeah, doesn’t make me less nervous about it.”
Delicate green hands take the rifle from his hands, her eyes lighting up at the Fulcrum symbol etched into the stock. “Zeb, this looks ama-” She turns it over, slowly, seeing the etching on the barrel that curls around it entirely. “Oh,” Tears well up in her eyes, but she doesn’t stop inspecting it. “I’m sorry,” She says, when they fall treacherously. “Damn hormones.”
“Don’t be,” He says, ducking his head. “I, uh,” He looks up through soft, half-lidded eyes. “I might have gotten a little choked up working on mine earlier, so…” He rubs the back of his head and takes it back from her, clamping it in the stand he’s rigged so that it won’t move while he works over it. “Damn kid,” He says, sniffing as delicately as he can. Then, softer, “You don’t think it’s presumptu-”
“Garazeb Orrelios,” She barks at him, though it lacks the whip-crack it normally does with Hera in tears. “Kallus will absolutely love it. He- Ezra,” She exhales his name like it takes physical effort. “Ezra means the world to all of us, Kallus included.”
“Okay,” He agrees, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand while he has his back to her. He hasn’t cried or anything, but he doesn’t want to take the chance of Hera seeing if he did. “Want me to grab you a blanket and we can hang out together while I finish this?”
The sound of a concerned droid echoes down the hall. “Well, right on time for his 0300 check,” She quips to Zeb. “Chop, could you bring me a-”
The droid barges into the hold, babbling in binary. Something about being where she’s supposed to be, doesn’t she know she needs sleep, and lacquer fumes can’t possibly be good for the baby. Even so, he’s got two pillows compressed by one manipulator and the blanket from her bunk in the other, and he makes a big deal about her putting one between her knees like some nursedroid before barking an order at Zeb to use the exhaust if he’s going to be doing weapon maintenance in the ship.
“I’ve been going outside to spray the lacquer,” Zeb tells Chopper, who ignores his argument entirely, turning on the exhaust anyway. It’s more like white noise, the rumbling hum of the fans reminiscent of spacefaring, almost.
“Bah-bah bahbahbah bah ba-buah,” He grouses.
“Yes, mom,” Hera says for them both, tolerating his overbearing protectiveness. “Thank you for checking in on us. I’ll make sure he doesn’t stay up all night.” Then, placatingly, “We’ll go to bed soon, I swear.”
The droid clicks together the clamps at the end of his appendages in an ‘I don’t know why I put up with you people and your lies’ kind of gesture and then threatens to tell Kallus on them both, since he’s the only one of them that ever seems to be rational.
“C’mon, Chop,” Zeb pleads, using his most angelic tone. “I’m tryin’ to finish this present for him. He’ll be back in the mornin’ and then we’ll all rest easy. Besides-” He trails off, eyes sliding pointedly to an already dozing Hera, curled up on the weapons crate like it’s the most comfortable bed on base.
The droid wheels over to his master quietly and tucks her in, careful not to touch her and jolt her awake. He pats Zeb’s leg as he passes by, not shocking for once. “Bah bua bah-bah wah-bahbah bah wua.”
“Yeah. I know. I’ll come get you from your dock before I carry her to bed.”
“I can still hear you, you know,” She murmurs, but it’s slurred by sleep.
“We know,” Zeb answers, in sync with Chopper’s confirmation in binary. Then, softer, he murmurs, “G’night, Hera.”
She waves a hand in an indelicate flop before it finds her belly over the blanket. The astromech waves his manipulators around for show, but he’s hardly mad. He sees himself out, and then Zeb’s alone with his thoughts again.
The sound of the engraving tool he’d nicked from the hangar for his project isn’t loud at all. Zeb takes his time. Hera seems to sleep better these days with the sounds of work around her, and he’s committed to doing this right even if he’s working on it until dawn. He wants Kallus to like it. Wants him to know that even with everything that’s going on, he’s a part of their family. However he wants that to be.
Though, Zeb smiles to himself, just a little. He’s pretty sure they’ve been dancing around mutual feelings for a while now. With everything bad that's happened, it'd do them some good to make things clear. Get it all out in the open.