Chapter Text
The hospital ship Mercy was a large vessel, filled with nothing but deck after deck of surgical suites, hospital beds, and wounded soldiers being fussed over by everyone from top physicians sympathetic to the Rebel cause, to veteran combat medics with more scars than skin, to medical students expelled from Imperial universities and busted out by Alliance-backed prison breaks.
Sabine drummed her fingers on her scarred battleplate as the turbolift hummed downwards. Numbers flicked by on the display.
Deck 40.... Deck 39.... Deck 38....
Sabine's end goal was Ward 114 on Deck 11—the medical ward reserved exclusively for Alliance Intelligence and Alliance Special Operations agents, as one of the privileges afforded to the best soldiers the Rebellion had.
Prior to the attack on Chopper Base, the Ghost had operated as an integral part of the Phoenix Cell. After the Battle of Attolon, the death of Commander Jun Sato, and the destruction of the Phoenix Nest , Phoenix Cell had been dissolved and the survivors had been reassigned to the Massassi Group. However, after the Delegation of 2,000, the Massassi Group, the Atrivis Resistance Group, the Chandrilan Resistance, the Alderaanian Resistance came together and organized into the Alliance to Restore the Republic in the wake of the Ghorman Massacre, the Ghost was reassigned again to the newly-formed Alliance Special Operations as a Mission Group—which meant they got access to the perks only afforded to Alliance Special Operations, even if they still operated as part of the Massassi Group.
That last part wasn't exactly unique. A lot of Mission Groups operated out of Alliance starfighter bases, forming a sort of symbiotic relationship: the base benefited from the skills of Alliance Special Operatives, and the Mission Group got a place to refuel, rearm, and lay low.
Deck 29... Deck 28... Deck 27…
In all honesty, Sabine didn't care about the nuances of the Ghost's position in the Rebellion. She was just happy that they got special privileges, like entire medical wings reserved for their wounded... like Ezra.
That mando'kar shabuir, Ezra.
Sabine honestly didn't know how to describe how she felt. Worried and scared weren't accurate, because she knew he would be fine. He had to be, so she could kill him later for worrying and scaring her.
If she had to choose a word, it would probably be resolute .
A constant fact of life for everyone aboard the Mercy was that they were fugitives conducting an illegal, armed insurrection against the government. It didn't matter that the government was a corrupt, tyrannical mess—it was still the ultimate executor of force, the arbiter of who could visit violence upon others and when, and that made it the government. If anyone aboard the Mercy was caught by the Empire, they faced imprisonment, torture, and death. This was doubly true for Sabine, a favorite of ISB’s Most Wanted lists, and triply true for Ezra and Kanan, because they were Jedi. They risked death every time they woke up, and they all knew that.
Being reminded that they were running along the razor edge never got easier. The mission gone wrong one week ago was proof.
The op had been simple enough. Make contact with an Alliance Intelligence agent, codenamed Taurine, on the planet Knox and safely extract them. Nothing had gone according to plan. The first issue was that Taurine had been killed by ISB agents before the Spectres could get to him. The second issue was that the entire operation had been compromised by the ISB and Taurine had been used as bait to lure them in.
Immediately upon reaching the meeting point, Ezra and Sabine had been ambushed by ISB agents. Sabine had hidden her beskar'gam under a cloak, so she’d survived without major injuries. Ezra hadn't been so lucky. Actually, if she was being completely honest, Sabine didn't know how he'd survived—he'd been shot seven different times.
Sabine remembered frantically comming Hera to get a table cleared on the Ghost in perfect, agonizing detail.
"Spectre Five to Spectre Two—Spectre Six is hit—c'mon, Ez, stay with me!"
"Two to Five—you said Six is hit?"
"Yes! It's bad, Hera! We need to get out of here! Get any medical supplies you can ready!"
"Sabine, it's Kanan. What's your position?"
"Safehouse. ISB has our comm codes. They know we're here. They shot Ezra—it's bad. He's lost a lot of blood. I—fek, I don't know if he's going to make it, Kanan!"
"Stay calm. I'm coming to you."
"Hurry! I—fierfek, they're at the door!"
Idly, Sabine ran a hand over a new patch of carbon scoring on her thigh, silently thanking whichever gods existed that she'd decided to switch to full-coverage plate instead of staying with the half-plate she'd worn when Ezra had joined the Spectres. It was heavier, clunkier, and stiffer, but the extra protection more than made up for it–she knew full well that it was the only reason she was still alive.
Deck 14... Deck 13... Deck 12…
Sabine took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. In total, Ezra had come out of the mission with seven new holes in him—two in the left arm, one on the shoulder, three in the abdomen, and one in the thigh. The fact that he'd survived was nothing short of a miracle.
The turbolift stopped humming.
Deck 11 . Sabine stepped out of the lift and into the stark-white hallway.
One frustrating thing about Ward 114 was that it was, outwardly, exactly the same as the dozens of other wards on the Mercy . If you didn't know where you were going, you had to ask a crew member, and then they would ask you to prove you were allowed into Ward 114. It had taken Sabine a full half-hour to prove that yes, she really was with Alliance Special Operations the first time she'd visited Ezra.
Today, she was prepared. Making her way down the winding hallways, she found the door to Ward 114 and held her scandocs up to the doctor posted at the door.
"Sabine Wren, Spectre Mission Group, Alliance Special Operations. Here to see Ezra Bridger."
The doctor wasn't a medical student or a university teacher or a civilian. He carried himself like a veteran—easy stance, one hand hovering where a holster would normally be as he looked over Sabine's scandocs.
"Last deployment?"
"Knox."
"Commanding Officer?"
"Hera Syndulla."
"Phoenix or Starbird?"
"They're the same thing."
Satisfied, the doctor handed Sabine's documents back to her. "Head on in. Your man is in Room 38."
"Thank you."
The hallway Sabine stepped into looked exactly the same as the one she'd just stepped out of—stark white, sterile, and boring. Orderlies occasionally stepped into and out of rooms, bringing towels and painkillers and other medical instruments to and fro. Sabine ignored them.
Room 8... Room 10... Room 12…
According to the doctors that had received Ezra once he was onboard the Mercy, Sabine had been generous in saying that Ezra "might not make it". According to them, it was closer to, "he's two feet and one arm in the grave", and it was, quote, "an outright karking miracle the shock alone didn't kill him." The shot to his shoulder had fused bones together, which required surgery to fix, every single wound had clothing fused to skin, which increased the risk of infection exponentially, and most of the wounds hadn't properly cauterized, so he'd been at risk of bleeding out for most of the extraction.
Room 38.
Sabine laid a hand on the door controls, and took another deep breath.
I can do this.
She knew Ezra was doing better now. He was awake, and while not mobile, he could hold a conversation for as long as was needed—and she needed to talk to him. Ezra’s frighteningly-close brush with death had… caused her to think.
The truth was... she'd been scared of losing him. Really scared. Brushing so close with death had reminded her that there was so much she wanted to say, and it had terrified her that she might not be able to.
Hera had told her to say what she wanted to, before something happened and she couldn't.
The door opened with a hiss. Sabine stepped into Room 38.
Ezra was awake, reading something on his datapad. He was lying on a mound of pillows with an IV drip hooked up to his right arm. Bandages covered most of his torso and shoulder, like he'd gotten halfway through dressing up as a mummy before giving up.
"Hey, Sabine," he greeted, so casually, so easily.
"Hey, Ez." Sabine forced herself to relax. "I, uh... I wanted to talk to you. About some stuff I... I want to tell you. Just in case... you know."
Ezra set the datapad down. "Okay... what's up?"
Sabine took a seat beside Ezra's bed. "I... okay. You know how bad I am with... people. Just, like, generally."
Ezra nodded.
"And you know that we're... friends. Close friends."
He nodded again.
"I... Ezra, you know me better than... anyone else. You know how I am with people knowing me well. How many people left."
"I do."
"Yeah. I... I tried to stop... caring, I guess, about people. I mean... Force, Ezra, you know how dangerous our jobs are. Every day could be our last, and I... I just... I don't want to get attached if I can lose someone. It scares me. You know that."
Ezra just gave her a sympathetic look. "I do."
"I..."
Sabine drew in and let out a long breath.
"You know I care about you, Ez. I know you care about me, and you know I care about you. You're the closest to me that anyone's ever been, and I... I think—I'm not sure, but I think..."
You're sure. You know.
Despite herself, Sabine let out a nervous little laugh. "Force, you know I'm not good with words..."
"What are you trying to say, Sabine?" Ezra's tone wasn't judgemental or condescending or even joking. It was gentle. Encouraging. Reassuring, kind of.
Now or never, Sabine.
Sabine fell silent, gathering her thoughts for a second.
"I think I'm in love with you," she said, in a small voice.
Ezra's eyes widened a little bit.
"I—I... I just... you almost died, and I had—have so much I want to say to you, and it scared me because I thought I'd lost you, but I love you, Ezra, I really do—I don't know when I started but I really think I love you and I'm so scared of losing you, and I just wanted to say that so I didn't—I'm sorry. I, just—"
Ezra laid a hand on her forearm.
"Sabine." His eyes met hers, wide, honest, tender. "I love you, too."
Sabine felt her breath catch.
"I love you, with all my being. Every part of me."
Her throat felt dry, and her voice came out so quiet and tentative that she feared it might break before Ezra could hear her.
"Can I kiss you?"
Ezra nodded.
So she did.
It was an awkward position. He was perpendicular to her, and she had to lean in at a weird, uncomfortable angle, but the electricity that sent a shock through her body when he cupped her cheek with his hand made her forget about all of that and that shock was nothing compared to the feel of his lips when she finally met them. They were rough, slightly chapped—not at all like those romance flicks that Sabine would never admit to watching where their lips were soft and perfect—but it made her shiver a little nonetheless because it was Ezra.
It was an awkward, messy first kiss, in a weird position, from a perfectly healthy Mandalorian girl to a badly wounded Jedi boy, on a ship full of the wounded and dying, while the majority of the galaxy swore to find and kill them, and neither of them would've changed any part of it for the world.
When they broke apart, Sabine opened her eyes and saw Ezra staring back at her with his eyes full of happiness and love and part of her wondered why she hadn't told him this before today.
He ran his thumb over her cheek. She placed one hand on the back of his head.
"Mhi solus tome," Sabine murmured in a reverent whisper, a dopey smile across her face.
"What's that mean?" Ezra asked, with the same face.
"It's an old vow," Sabine whispered back. "We are one when together."
"I like it."
"Yeah." Sabine pressed another gentle kiss to Ezra's lips. "I do too."