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LothalNet comm tower E-272, O ABY
Sabine stands on the observation deck of her friend's old hideout, staring at the door before her as the cool Lothal wind pushes her forward. She wonders if this was a mistake.
She decided shortly after the liberation of the planet that she wouldn't be joining the other Spectres in the larger war. She would play her role here, helping to protect the people from future attack and, eventually, in the reconstruction from the war.
For the first few months she stayed in the city. There were barracks set up for citizens who had lost their homes from the fire that rained down from the Chimera, and she found purpose in constructing temporary homes, delivering food to the hungry, and even leading the occasional art class for the city's children-- distracting them from the wreckage around them. It some ways it reminded her of her early days with the Ghost crew-- small acts of charity adding up to something greater.
But before long the city was recovering. People were finding new work in the reconstruction, agriculture resumed, kids went back to school. The Empire didn't return, and whatever remaining Imperials were left on the planet were either sent off-world for rehabilitative processing or quickly integrated into the Lothalian community.
Soon she didn't have the busyness of rebellion work to distract her from her losses.
She found her mind drifting to her missing friend more often than not. She hated how vulnerable is made her feel, but it became an obsession. She looked for him in the faces of strangers on the street, wondering if the next corner she turned would reveal that he had come home after all. How long would it take for him to find his way back? It'd been four months now, surely that was enough?
She visited the site where the house he shared with his parents once stood. It was little more than a pile of bricks now, leveled in the firing. She knew Mira and Ephraim Bridger's bodies were probably long gone, discarded by the Empire, so instead she laid flowers here. She wished she could have met them. She wished they could have seen what a kind, selfless and brave man their son grew in to. Seen their planet liberated by him.
Vaguely, she wondered if they would have liked her. She hoped so.
In time she made her way to the outskirts of the city, pulling her speeder up to the tower that Ezra had used to hide from the Empire for so long.
Not for the first time she is reminded of just how young he was when he had to set off on his own. She steels herself and kills the engine in her speeder, starts walking toward the turbolift.
The tower is in compete disrepair but the lift blessedly manages to get her to the observation platform.
The place is a wreck. It's been disused for at least a year, since the period when Kallus used it to send transmissions that would save thousands, and the time Kanan and Hera used it briefly to spy on the Empire.
It looks like a few critters have used it as their den, if the bird bones and mysterious brown pellets on the ground are any indication. The machinery is dusty and rusted, and she can tell it hasn't seen proper maintenance in at least five years. It could be a fun challenge to repair, she muses.
She roams the large room and buried deeper, under a thicker layer of dust soon sees signs from a life lived longer ago. Her eyes scan stacks of canned fruit shoved on the lower levels of a cabinet, an orange jacket far too small for anyone over the age of 12, blankets crumpled in a ball on the floor, a small tooka cat plush in the corner next to a pile of stolen stormtrooper helmets. Her heart catches. So young, so alone.
The place is cold in both temperature and aura. There's no color, no life. She narrows her eyes at dull grey of the metal walls, these cold, loveless walls that Ezra had to stare at day in and day out.
But they'd also kept him safe, part of her mind tells her.
Maybe it's not so bad. Maybe it just needs a little fixing up.
Staying isn't a conscious decision. It starts with just cleaning up the animal feces, doing a bit of dusting. But the days go by, and suddenly it's been weeks, months. She's painted the walls, set up a kitchen, even arranged Ezra's old stormtrooper helmet collection. She picks out her favorite, the one she spent so much time personalizing for him, removing every trace of the sterile Imperial white and replacing it with the vibrant oranges and yellows that to her, mean Ezra. This one she places at the foot of her bed. She doesn't let herself think too hard about that.
Ryder comms her occasionally, checking in to make sure she's okay and one day offers her a job with the new security team he's creating for the city. It comes with a furnished apartment near the city center, he makes sure to add. She takes the job, declines the apartment.
The years continue to pass. The second death star explodes over the forest moon of Endor. Mon Mothma is elected as chancellor of the New Republic. Sabine's friends take new jobs, get new titles. Hera tells her she will always have a home on the Ghost. Wedge invites her to join him and his new wife on Akiva, where they... raise birds. She politely declines. Ahsoka asks her to train as her apprentice, which she accepts for reasons she still hasn't fully explored, but it doesn't work out for reasons she refuses to. She returns home. Because it is home now.
One brisk morning she's walking the perimeter of the tower complex when she hear a small mewing coming from the brush to her left. She follows the noise to find, hidden among grass, a small loth-kitten. It's curled in on itself, covered in morning dew and shaking.
"Oh... what are you doing all alone?"
She reaches for the kitten and it flinches, ears pulled back and teeth bared.
"No, no. I'm not going to hurt you... see?" She takes out a portion of a ration bar left in her jacket pocket. Breaks off a piece and puts it in front of the small creature.
The kitten sniffs the food tentatively, then without warning a tongue shoots from its mouth, grabbing the morsel. It chews, apparently pleased with itself.
Sabine breaks off another piece and puts it a bit further from the kitten, garnering the same result. Eventually she leaves a piece in her hand and the kitten rises, follows her cautiously before eating the food from her palm.
"There we go... who are you? Where are your parents?"
The kitten finishes the morsel, purrs and rubs its face along Sabine's still outstretched hand. Sabine looks around, sees no sign of any other loth-cats. She learned enough about the species from Ezra to know that if the kitten had a mother still, she wouldn't have let her baby get this far without her.
She winces at the sudden memory of Ezra. She's gotten pretty used to thoughts of him entering her mind unbidden. The grief isn't as all-consuming as it once was--she's at the point where she can think on happy memories of him and smile, even laugh, instead of just falling into the quiet sobs she never lets anyone see. But in moments like this, when she's caught off-guard by his memory, it's still harder.
She redirects her focus to the cat.
"So you're an orphan, huh?" she asks. "I've known your kind. What do you say, want to come hang out with me?"
The kitten lets her scoop it up into her arms. In the turbolift its loud purrs even threaten to drown out the hum of the machinery. They reach the top, Sabine clutching the animal closely, unsure that it's bright enough to not fling itself off the top deck. She pads in the entry code, same one as ever. She knows she probably should change it for safety reasons, but she never could bring herself to it.
The kitten jumps from her arms and inspects the surroundings. The mist of the morning is burning off and sunlight is beginning to shine brightly though the windows, catching specks of dust in the air and giving the room a soft glow.
The kitten doesn't seem to notice. He prances around the kitchen, inspecting each of her treasures and trinkets. Looking for food, Sabine suspects. Apparently dissatisfied, the kitten turns to her and lets out a loud mreow.
Sabine laughs.
"Yeah, it's not much," she says, smiling and reaching down to run her hand along the back of the kitten. "But it's home."
*****
LothalNet comm tower E-272, 9 ABY
Ezra braces himself for the emotions waiting for him on the other side of this door.
Being back on Lothal was a complicated experience. He first had gone to the site of the home he had shared with his parents. A kind patron of the caf-shop that stood there now explained that everything within a quarter mile was brand new, built from the ground up during the reconstruction. It pained Ezra initially, but sitting on the cafe patio, sipping an overpriced caf and watching the children in the park across the street play dulled the loss. There was laughter here now, just as there had been when he lived here with his parents. He couldn't regret that.
Hera had given him instructions to visit the memorial painted in the Ghost crew's honor, and once he got past the surreal feeling of realizing that his little crew of rebels were now considered war heroes, he had put his hand on her shoulders and promised her he would make the pilgrimage. It felt strange visiting what so many had viewed as a posthumous memorial to him. And standing there, breathing flesh and blood, he considered once more how hard it must have been for those he left behind. He didn't know that Sabine had been the artist until he arrived, and he was glad Hera hadn't spoiled the reveal for him. It's perfect, he thought, gazing at the painted face of his now-lost friend.
Last on his list was his old comm tower, and he found that he held a strange anxiety about visiting. But Hera had made him promise to come here as well.
"It's important" she had insisted.
His comm tower was his home, but it was also a lonely place for the vast majority of his youth. It was where he chose to escape the too-intimate memories of his childhood home. To be near his parents in spirit, through their work, but not so close as to be face-to-face with the reality that they were no longer with him.
It had been his escape, his hiding place. And he wondered about the wisdom of revisiting such a dark time in his life.
But he promised Hera.
Drawing in a breath, he punches in his old code, which miraculously still works. The door slides open with a familiar whoosh, and noise transports him back to being the streetrat he once was.
It's too much.
He's about to turn around, rationalizing that he'll come back another time when he's more adjusted, when a blur of fur and claws materializes from nowhere, landing on his shoulders and gripping tightly.
Ezra whirls around, trying to pull his assailant from his upper back but the claws are tight.
"Karabast! Get off!"
The creature releases its grip and pounces gracefully to the floor, circling on the spot before sitting daintily before him.
A loth-cat! Ezra hasn't seen one of these in a decade. His anger at the creature dissipates at the cat looks up at him expectantly.
"Well hello there, are you waiting for an introduction?"
The cat chirps, tilts its head and narrows its eyes in a way that Ezra reads as "no entry to strangers".
Ezra chuckles. “Alright, I'm Ezra. Who are you?"
The cat tilts his head the other direction, rises, and trots forward. Ezra braces himself for another attack, but the cat just rubs himself up on his leg, purring loudly.
Ezra crouches down and gently places his hand on the ground, letting the feline sniff him.
“I bet you’re hungry, let’s see if there's anything around…”
Without thinking, Ezra crosses the threshold into his old makeshift home and begins sifting through a few containers on the table. It's strange, being here but not recognizing half the belongings. Like seeing another version of your life, or a parallel universe. Ezra wonders if someone has been squatting here. The outside looked well maintained. He hopes he's not about to be ambushed by by some angry tenant.
The cat meows loudly, calling Ezra's focus back to his original task.
"Right, right. Sorry. Okay, where would the food be..."
His eyes land on a small cylindrical container and he notices a word he doesn't recognize scribbled on it. But what strikes him is the handwriting. Delicate, but careful, confident.
It's Sabine's. Well how did that get out here?
He gently unscrews the lid, wondering what she might have hidden within. He considers briefly that maybe looking through her things would be an invasion. They shared a lot as kids, but it's been a decade. He's sure she's changed, grown, maybe has secrets she wouldn't want him to know. But he can't help it, the desire to be near to her in whatever way possible is too strong. He doesn't know what this box is or how it got here, but it's a part of her, it's a part of what he missed, it's...
Cat food.
Realization dawns.
"So Sabine was the one taking care of you," he says to the animal.
The cat purrs his response, and Ezra turns his attention back to the container, glances again at the writing.
"Murley, that's you?" he reads aloud.
The cat chirps, jumps up on the counter.
"Alright then, Murley, well, looks like we're going to be pals."
Murley mreows his assent and rubs the full length of his body against Ezra's chest.
As Ezra levels out a few scoops of kibble for his new companion, he considers how much warmer it feels in here with another force presence. Maybe it's not so bad. He was afraid the ghosts of his past would make it unbearable, but so far he's been okay.
Ezra watches the cat eat and wonders how he came to be in the tower.
He reasons that Sabine must come to get some supplies, or perhaps use the observation deck, and stumbled upon the animal, maybe decided to indulge it. It wouldn't be the first time one of the creatures had made its way up here. Ezra himself had at times left scraps out for the wildlife when he was a kid. But those animals still went back to their dens and nests after indulging in his gifts, and this one looks very much at... home.
Ezra turns and takes in the rest of the main interior room. The first thing he notices is that the walls are painted in bright orange, pink, purple and blue. So maybe it was an art retreat for her. The thought makes him smile.
As Murley crunches on his food, Ezra wanders to a giant painting of her starbird on the far wall. He raises his hand to it and tries to absorb some of its energy. The wall is warm, lit by the afternoon sun, and for a moment Ezra closes his eyes and pretends that she's there with him, explaining the changes to her technique and color theory and all the things she used to go on about that made little sense to him but it didn't matter because it was her. He would listen to her talk about anything, if it meant being near her again.
He pulls his hand from the warmth of the painting and wanders the room some more. His old stack of trooper helmets are still piled in a corner. He chuckles, raps his knuckles on one of them. Next to them she has a little caf station set up, and he opens the top of it to find that there are still grounds in the top compartment. So she must have visited shortly before she left to find him on Peridea.
On the floor he sees an ornate knife laid purposefully next to... is that hair? Ezra inspects closer, and yes, sure enough that is a ponytail of orange and purple hair, apparently cleanly shorn using said knife and left for whoever was next here to find. It and the knife are arranged exactly as Kanan had done when he had cut his own hair in preparation for Hera's rescue. Ezra feels his heart tighten.
He looks away, and his eyes fall on the table by the doorway. He inhales sharply as his eyes find the orange scout helmet sitting there proudly. He crosses the room quickly and places two hands on it, drawing on the memories captured in the plastoid composite, and-- more importantly-- in the paint and designs that made it his. He considers lifting it, seeing if it still fits, but something stops him. He doesn't want to move it. She put it there, and he suddenly has a sense of wanting to preserve the changes she made to this place. This place that apparently became her little escape from the city. He wants to study it, like he's walking through a living museum. Soak up as much about her as he can. He considers the helmet's placement. It looks like she's put it on display here, prominently facing out toward the room, behind it the small bed that Ezra spent so many nights on.
Ezra's distracted by the bed. Those are new blankets. In fact, the mattress is on the newer end as well. He quirks an eyebrow, runs a hand over the top, opening himself up to whatever memories the fabric contains. Impressions of her force energy, strong ones, flood back into him. She definitely slept here, a lot.
Pulse racing, he looks around for other clues. There's a small icebox containing perishables that have recently gone bad. In the fresher he finds toiletries, makeup. Putting aside his former reverence for her changes he begins pulling open drawers, opening cupboards-- finding clothes, books, art supplies.
Force, she lived here.
She made this her home.
Ezra slumps on the bed, and Murley jumps up beside him, circling and eventually settling on his lap. Ezra takes in his surroundings as a whole. The bright colors, the warm light, the personal touches scattered throughout. It's so different from the lonely hideaway he knew as a child. It's so much better.
He strokes Murley's back languidly, opening himself up the energy surrounding him. It's her. Every bit of this place is her.
He decides he's home too.
*****
LothalNet comm tower E-272, 12 ABY
In the center of the main room, Sabine paces in circles as she waves her hands incredulously at the man currently driving her bat-shit crazy.
"I'm just trying to be realistic here, Ezra. This place is special to us both but I'm just not sure it's big enough for two."
"Sure it is!" Ezra replies, waving off her complaints.
He jumps about the room, moving items here and there, eyes shining brightly in a way that Sabine has come to recognize can only mean trouble. He has an idea, which is never a good sign.
Well, it sometimes is, she has to admit to herself.
But not this one.
"For goodness sake, look at the size of the bed," Sabine exclaims, pointing at the single bed pushed against the wall.
Ezra's eyes flicker to the bed, then to Sabine, and back to the bed. The sparkle of trouble in them flashes brighter, and before she can escape Ezra has looped his arms around her from behind and is spinning them both around the room, finally landing on the small bed, her in his lap. She tries to protest, but can't stop herself from giggling embarrassingly. Like she's some lovestruck teenager.
Maybe that's okay, she tells herself. She never really got to be a normal lovestruck teen. She can make up for it now.
"Seems big enough for what I have in mind," he says, nuzzling her neck.
"You're awful," she says, wriggling in his firm embrace, but she laughs regardless.
"If you think I'm letting you get anywhere further than directly on me for the first month after we find our new place, sweetheart you've got another thing coming."
"Ezra!" she says, blushing. "Not in front of Murley!"
The loth-cat jumps on them both, settling on Sabine's lap and effectively stopping whatever immediate plans for the bed that Ezra was formulating.
Sabine relaxes back on Ezra's chest, stroking the cat as the man holding her peppers her neck with small kisses.
"You really think this could work?" she sighs.
"Of course. You made this place a home. You gave me a home. In many ways." He shifts, twists her gently so he can look her in the eyes. "I want to finally be able to share this one with you."
He runs the back of his hand down her cheek, and how can she resist it when his blue eyes implore her like that?
She leans in and presses her lips to his gently. She'll never get over the quiet thrill of kissing him, she thinks. The way his warmth spreads into her, the way he picks up on every minuscule signal her body sends, the way he responds. Right now his hands are sneaking up her sides, his right cupping the back of her head and weaving into her hair, while his left inches up her abdomen.
But Murley leaps from her lap, perturbed at the shift in mood happening right in front of him, and it breaks the moment.
Sabine giggles in that same lovestruck teenage way, except she's not as embarrassed this time. For his part Ezra smiles contentedly, and then leans forward to rest his forehead on hers.
"Come on, let's give the place a shot. At least for now. It doesn't have to be forever," he tries again, cajoling. "It'll be an adventure."
He knows all the right things to say to her by now. She rolls her eyes, extracting herself from his grip and rising.
"I don't know, can we both really share one room of living space?" she asks. She stands in the middle of the space, considering her surroundings.
“You know, there are other rooms in this tower," he says, rising from the bed as well.
“Storage and tech.” She waves him off.
“But they could be converted," he responds, slowly moving toward her.
"Maybe..." she says, considering.
Ezra reaches her and turns her to face him, smoothes his hands on the sides of her waist.
“A bedroom…” He wraps his arms slowly around her middle, puts his chin on the top of her head. “Maybe a nursery…”
She pulls her head back and gives him look.
“Eventually,” he amends, smirking down at her.
She returns the smile and looks down, suddenly shy. He draws her cheek against his chest and strokes her hair, giving her time to respond. They exchanged their vows two standard weeks ago but Sabine will probably always struggle with vulnerability, with emotional intimacy. She takes time to warm up, even with him sometimes. He doesn't mind. He waited a decade for her arrival, he can be patient with her healing.
“You want to raise a baby at the top of a tower,” she finally says. “Do you know anything about children? They’re basically constantly looking for ways to maim themselves. I have to imagine whatever pigheaded progeny you produce will be ten times as bad.”
“Well they’ll have two force-wielding parents,” he responds, drawing a hand up her back reassuringly. “Worse case scenario, baby falls, we snatch them with the old force pull. Plus, the Wren genes will cancel out whatever ill-advised instincts mine pass on.”
“Unlikely,” she retorts, but she’s smiling into his chest.
Ezra smiles into her hair, kisses her forehead.
They stand like that for a moment, holding each other and swaying softly. And she can see it. A family here. A small one, mind you, but it could be done. Happily. And she feels a familiar throb of longing in her heart, similar to the one from all those years ago. But it's not pain anymore. It's hope.
"Okay," she says, making up her mind. She pulls back, gripping his tunic. "Let's do it."
"Yeah?" he asks, eyes dancing. "Really?"
"Yeah," she beams. "We're home."