Chapter Text
The weirdness factor of Sabine’s life had already increased exponentially since she started hanging out with Jedi, but this was unprecedented.
“Ezra got older?” she repeated, crossing her arms at Hera. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Hera shrugged, looking as confused as Sabine felt. “What it sounds like. We ran into some turbulence and when it was over, everything was the same, except—”
“Me!” a new-but-not-really-new voice announced cheerfully, and someone slid down the ladder from the port of the Phantom into the common room of the Ghost, landing lightly on his feet.
If nothing else, the orange jacket was confirmation of his identity.
Ezra.
Sabine shifted her helmet, tucked under her arm, as she curiously observed him. He was taller now. A lot taller. And his hair was shorter… not a great look, to be honest. But he had scars on his face. And he stood up a little straighter. And… holy happabore, was that muscle definition she saw beneath the very fitted sleeves of his jacket?
Huh.
How…
…interesting…?
Turning her eyes away from him, Sabine casually put her helmet on. Because of no reason in particular.
“Don’t worry,” Ezra said, giving her and Hera both a crooked smile that made Sabine feel weird feelings inside her chest, which she chalked up to the usual feelings of annoyance that Ezra caused. “It’s temporary. A week at most. The biggest problem will be explaining to little-me what the heck happened, once he comes back, missing a few days. Oh, and on the subject of little-me—” He put his hand over his heart like he was swearing solemnly. “I promise I’m a lot less annoying now than I was when I was fourteen.”
“Fifteen, actually,” Hera corrected.
“Really? When did that—” Ezra paused, tilting his head to one side. “Does anyone else hear that?”
The sound of Chopper’s angry babbling echoed down the hall, followed by running feet. The door opened and Chopper careened inside, followed by a frantic Zeb.
“I can explain!” Zeb said quickly.
Sabine’s immediate thought was that something weird happened to Kanan, too, but then Kanan walked into the room, looking absolutely normal but also incredibly sheepish.
Both Kanan and Zeb seemed to notice Ezra at the same time, because their jaws dropped in perfect unison.
“Why,” said Kanan, distinctly, “Is Ezra tall?”
In Ezra’s opinion, the crew was handling the news well, all things considered. Zeb was just kind of in shock, Chopper didn’t give a rip, Kanan and Hera took it like champs, and Sabine…
…was sitting at the Dejarik table with her helmet on, ignoring him.
Zeb and Kanan pulled Hera aside to talk to her about something, and Chopper rolled after them, leaving Ezra alone with the girl who became his best friend.
They weren’t friends yet, though.
He hoped that wouldn’t be a problem.
With a little sigh and a shrug, he sat down at the other end of the table from her, leaning back and twiddling his thumbs.
“Hey, Sabine?” he said, after a moment.
“Mmhm?”
“What’s the difference between a Loth-cat and a comma?”
She sat up a little straighter, and he could picture her bewildered face. “Huh?”
“One has claws at the end of its paws, and one is a pause at the end of a clause.”
A second went by.
Two seconds went by.
“What do you call a fish in a three-piece suit?” Ezra continued, keeping a straight face.
Sabine still said nothing.
“Sofishticated.”
She continued to show no reaction.
“What’s red and bad for your teeth?”
“Are you done?” Sabine asked flatly.
“A brick.”
She crossed her arms in silence.
“There are two muffins baking in the oven,” he went on, undeterred. “One turns to the other and says, ‘boy, is it just me, or is it getting hot in here?’ and the other one says ‘HOLY CRAP, A TALKING MUFFIN!’ ”
“Your sense of humor really hasn’t improved much, has it?” she sniped.
“Nah, but yours got a lot better.” He gave her the biggest, most mischievous grin he could. “ ‘Cuz those were all jokes you told me when we got into a terrible joke contest last month.”
Sabine turned away and went back to ignoring him. He wondered if he’d made a mistake in trying to amuse her with terrible jokes. After all, his past-self was full to bursting with terrible one-liners. She probably didn’t think it was funny.
“You did WHAT?!” Hera hollered from the other room, and Ezra snickered.
“Some-one’s in trou-ble,” he sang under his breath.
Sabine still didn’t laugh. Instead, she blurted out abruptly, “You aren’t my future boyfriend, are you?”
Ezra stared at her, feeling his own heart rate spike at the unexpected question—and the way it hit a little too close to home. “What?”
She slumped sulkily. “You heard me.”
“Well—no! Of course we're not—together! Why would you think that?”
“I don’t think it!” she protested, glaring at him. At least, he was pretty sure she was glaring, under that helmet. “It’s just that, when you talked about her, you sounded… close… and I’m concerned that future-me lost her mind and started dating you.”
“Well, don’t worry about it. We’ve never dated.”
As soon as he said it, he realized it wasn’t completely true, and his face must have given it away, because Sabine sat up sharply, smacking both hands on the table.
“Did you just lie to me?!”
“It’s more of a technicality thing,” Ezra explained quickly. “Future-you and me aren’t a couple, and we’ve never actually dated, but we did go on a date, but it wasn’t really a date.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yeah, I guess not.” Ezra sighed. “So, a while ago, I shot my mouth off to a couple other—people we were working with—and accidentally made them think that I was going on a date with future-you, and I had to choose between eating my words and looking like a cocky idiot, or somehow convincing you to go on a date with me. I was sixteen and looking stupid was about the worst thing in the galaxy to me, so I went with the second option and begged you until you agreed to it.”
“I agreed to it?” she sputtered.
“I think it was the idea of winning rigged carnival games with the Force that got you,” Ezra said dryly. “But, yes, you did agree, and… we had a lot of fun. You actually started calling me your friend after that.”
“But we didn’t ever go on any actual dates?”
“No,” he said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Stop worrying about it. Future-you and I are friends.”
“And you’ve never kissed her, right?”
“Seriously, Sabine?!” he demanded, feeling like this was getting a little ridiculous. And also kind of bad for his self-esteem. He wasn’t that terrible, was he? (Plus, he really didn’t want to be thinking about kissing Sabine. Not ever, but especially not with the mission he’d be going on, once he went back to his time.) “No, of course not!”
“Haar’chak,” she muttered.
Ezra blinked a few times, wondering again if he heard her right.
“Uh… what did you just say?”
“I said Oh, thank goodness in Mando’a.”
“Right. So. I may not be as fluent in Mando’a as you are, but… that’s not what you said.”
For a moment, Sabine was utterly silent.
Then, in a squeaky voice—
“You speak Mando’a now?”
“Yeah. You taught me some, for a prank, and it was pretty easy to learn, so I worked on learning the rest and then surprised you by snarking back at you when you made a sarcastic comment about me in Mando’a.”
Sabine cleared her throat a little. “…what was the prank?”
“Oh, we—” Ezra stopped as the door opened back up and Hera walked in, looking officially miffed, followed by Kanan and Zeb, looking shamed. He muttered to Sabine, “Tell you later.” Turning his attention to Hera, he asked, “What did they do?”
Hera’s lekku twitched irritably. “Come on, you two. Crew meeting.”
Crap.
Craaaap.
Crappy crap crap.
Ezra spoke Mando’a.
Even her bilingual self-narration wasn’t safe anymore.
Sabine just had to be calm and very chill about everything in general and nothing specifically.
Also, she had to make sure she hadn’t accidentally given him the impression that she was disappointed that they weren’t together in the future. Because, obviously, she didn’t feel disappointed about that. Why would she be disappointed? Ezra was just a whiny kid. And even if he grew up shockingly well, he had stupid jokes. So she was GLAD about this non-relationship thing.
Obviously.
ANYWAY.
Hera had called them all into the cargo bay to… do something, and Sabine followed Ezra (just because he got up first, it wasn’t like she wanted to look at him or anything) as they all walked together. Hera was explaining something, and Sabine paid about 50% attention to her. The rest of her attention was… in other places. Irrelevant places. Places that had nothing to do with Ezra.
Her hand twitched, and she DID NOT think about squeezing his bicep to feel how muscle-y he was
In fact, she was not thinking about it so much that she didn’t even notice when Ezra stopped abruptly and she walked right into his back.
He didn’t even react, though. He just stood there. Sabine stepped to the side and looked around at his face and saw that he was gaping.
Then he shut his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face with a groan.
“Of course,” he muttered. “It had to be this one.”
Curious now, Sabine looked ahead into the cargo bay. There was a man standing there—tall, dark-skinned, with a mustache and an air of smugness.
“What is it?” she whispered to Ezra. “Who is that guy?”
Ezra’s nose wrinkled.
“Lando Calrissian.”
Upon reflection, Ezra was actually a little bit glad about this.
Sure, that meant he’d have to handle Lando being obnoxious and annoying, but it also meant that his past self didn’t have to handle it—because he hadn’t handled it. Or rather, he’d handled it terribly. At least now he’d look like slightly less of an idiot in the end. And Sabine wouldn’t have the chance to bring it back up to make fun of him.
That didn’t mean it was easy, though. Lando was still annoying. Ezra decided the best way to deal with it was to just avoid him.
So, he found a seat in the common room while Lando was in the cockpit with Kanan and Hera, and turned on a datapad he’d found. He’d decided it was probably a good idea to make a list of information for his past-self, when they swapped back, and he set to work on it.
- Do NOT trust creepy red-and-black Zabraks on Sith planets who encourage you to use your anger to channel the Force
- For the love of the Force, don’t use the Sith holocron you find, you’ll almost get your friends killed if you take its advice
- Sabine will think you’re way cooler if you stop trying to impress her and start trying to be friendly with her.
- Repeat: DO NOT TRUST THE ZABRAK. ESPECIALLY IF AHSOKA AND KANAN ARE SUSPICIOUS OF HIM TOO.
Zeb huffed and sat down heavily next to him in his chair, muttering something about Chopper and Lando.
“Mm-hm,” Ezra said absently. The door to the cockpit opened and Lando walked out; Ezra hunkered down further in his seat and ignored him as much as he could.
- Next time you need to introduce yourself with someone else’s name, say you’re Lando Calrissian. He’s very annoying and I stole his name a few times the first time around.
- The Dark side of the Force is exactly as bad as Kanan says.
- DO. NOT. TRUST. MAUL.
“Hey, y’know what I think?” Zeb asked in a whisper.
“Mm, what?” Ezra mumbled, not bothering to look over at him.
Zeb snickered, reaching over and poking Ezra’s shoulder. “I think Sabine likes you.”
It was so completely unexpected that it broke through Ezra’s concentration, and he shook his head in disbelief. “Wait, what?”
“Sabine likes you.”
Ezra moved to the side, away from Zeb, and kept his eyes fixed on his datapad, refocusing himself. “Nice try. I’m not that gullible.”
“No, really. She keeps staring at you.”
“Because I got older and she’s not used to it,” Ezra pointed out. “Everyone’s staring at me.”
“Yeah, but—”
Ezra elbowed him sharply as Sabine strolled into the room, and then inhaled quickly as it hit him just what scene was about to play out. He could remember this moment vividly, and he quietly stood up to leave before the retroactive embarrassment over his past self’s behavior could hit him full-force.
“Sabine! I understand this is your work,” he heard Lando say, as he slipped around behind Sabine towards the door. “It reminds me of Janyor’s protest paintings on Bith.”
Ezra halted in the doorway, pressing his lips into a thin line. Common sense told him to just walk away. But the petty little voice in the back of his mind told him otherwise.
“Janyor of Bith is a major influence!” Sabine chirped happily.
“Well, your work is even more stunning in its simplicity.”
The petty voice in his head won the debate, and Ezra looked back over his shoulder, piping up. “It is, isn’t it?”
They both turned to look at him, and he went on casually.
“The starbird motif really highlights the Mandalorian influence behind it as well,” he added. “Not to mention the symbolism behind the choices of color.”
Ezra smiled at Sabine, feeling kinda triumphant at the blank look of utter astonishment on her face, and then turned to go. But then he paused, one more time, and added without turning around, “Actually, Sabine—you should show him your impressionistic stuff. He sounds like a real connoisseur.”
He had to bite down on his lip, hard, until the door had closed behind him, and then he let himself break into a smug grin.
Showing off instead of letting it go might not have been the most mature thing to do, but it sure felt good.
Sabine just wanted to get something straight, right now. The fact that Ezra possessed, not only muscle definition, but also a decent comprehension of the meanings and influences behind her artwork, was absolutely not connected in any way with her minor spells of cardiac arrhythmia. It had NOTHING to do with it.
And the confused little ‘oh…’ she sighed out as he walked away—that was just because she was surprised he understood that the starbird symbolism was Mandalorian in origin.
“He’s right,” Calrissian stated. “I would indeed enjoy seeing your other works.”
“Mm-hm, yeah,” Sabine said hurriedly, darting towards the door Ezra had left by and shoving her helmet on over her head as she went. “Maybe later.”
She caught up with him in the kitchen, and slowed to keep pace at his side.
“So, you actually know about my art now, huh?”
He smiled down at her (holy sithspit, was he—actually—taller than her now?!) and shrugged lightly. “I do pay attention sometimes, you know.”
“Well, you could’ve fooled me,” she drawled. “Since when have you done that?”
“Since—”
He trailed off as a shadow passed across his face, and she stopped, catching his arm (to stop him, too, and not for any ulterior purposes like touching his bicep or whatever.)
(They were very close together.)
(She was going to have to check the air filters in her helmet; it was getting a little hard to breathe.)
“Since when?” she asked.
Ezra looked down at the floor.
“Some bad things happened, about a year ago. One of us made some big mistakes. Things went wrong. Kanan got badly wounded, and Fulcrum was—” Ezra shut his eyes, avoiding her gaze. “She was killed. It broke us up badly. Hera worked all the time, Zeb threw himself into missions, and Kanan shut down. You and I mostly just had each other. We’re all healing now, but it was bad for a while. And you and I got close, then.”
Fear curdled inside of Sabine, making her sick. Her heart beat louder, faster, and only her tight control kept her breathing close to steady.
She’d broken apart her last family with her mistakes.
Would she do the same with this one?
“Was it me?” she demanded, voice wavering only a little.
“What?”
“You said one of us made mistakes. Was it me?” she repeated. “Were they my mistakes? Was it—my fault?”
Her helmet hid her face, but her voice cracked and betrayed her fear.
Ezra’s eyes got wide and he inhaled sharply.
“Oh—oh, Sabine, no,” he said, clasping her shoulders, the touch comforting in its firmness. “It wasn’t you—it was me. I was the one who screwed up. It wasn’t you.”
He hesitated, just a second, letting go of her. Then he looked right into her eyes—quite a feat, as she was wearing her helmet—and added, softly:
“You were the one who kept me sane in the aftermath. If it wasn’t for you, I—I might not even be alive at this point. You saved me, ‘Bine.”
Every strange feeling she’d been feeling that day paled in comparison to the weightless plunge into bewilderment and certainty she felt at that moment.
She could dismiss the flutters and breathlessness and strange giddy feelings as any number of things, but there was exactly one explanation as to why she was suddenly and desperately wanting to kiss his ever-loving lights out.
Karabast.
The fact was, Sabine had developed a sudden and painfully huge crush on him, and there was no way in all the galaxy that she could deny it now.
“Oh, um, just a heads up—” Ezra said, laughing abruptly and in an embarrassed way. “Zeb’s got a conspiracy theory going that you’re crushing on me now, so—beware of that.”
Oh, karabast!
Was she that obvious? Had Zeb known before she had? Did Ezra know too?!
This was horribly mortifying.
Not mortifying enough to make her stop thinking about kissing him. But still. Very mortifying.