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“Have I mentioned how much I hate wearing cadet armor?”
Ezra gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes, even though Sabine couldn’t see them beneath his helmet.
“Only three times now since we put it on.” He grinned. “Maybe you Mandalorians just need to lower your standards.”
“I’ll get you for that later,” she said.
“Sure.”
Sabine squared her shoulders and Ezra did the same, trying to project the image of a good Imperial cadet. As long as the two of them didn’t attract any attention, they should be able to download the intel Hera had sent them here for and get out before anyone noticed something was wrong. For once, it seemed like what had been planned as a straightforward op was actually going to be a straightforward op.
As they rounded the corner, Sabine stopped in her tracks so abruptly that Ezra walked right past her. Turning to face his crewmate, he saw that her shoulders were tensed, her posture reminding him of a loth-cat in the midst of deciding whether it should pounce or flee. Suddenly uneasy, Ezra followed her gaze. Halfway down the corridor, walking toward them, was an Imperial officer. The insignia on her uniform marked her as a lieutenant, a rank she looked a little young for. Her dark blond hair was pulled back in a tight, immaculate ponytail, and her bright green eyes were narrowed in irritation as she stared down at the datapad she held as she walked.
As she drew closer, she looked up, catching sight of Ezra and Sabine.
“Something wrong, cadets?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No, ma’am,” Ezra said quickly. He grabbed Sabine’s arm just above her elbow and she flinched. Ezra blinked. In all the time he’d known her, he didn’t think he’d ever seen Sabine flinch before. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it.
“My friend just…” he didn’t let himself pause for long as he frantically searched for an explanation “…isn’t feeling well. But she’ll be fine. Probably not contagious.”
The lieutenant was already walking away, clearly not interested now that she was done snapping at them.
“What was that about?” Ezra asked, keeping his voice down as he started moving again, gently pulling Sabine along beside him.
“Nothing,” Sabine said, wrenching her arm away much harder than Ezra’s loose grip actually warranted. “Just drop it, okay?”
Ezra shrugged. They hadn’t been caught, so he wasn’t going to press the issue. Still, concern prickled at the back of his mind. He had never seen Sabine so… so rattled before.
The rest of the job went off without a hitch. Ezra and Sabine easily found the control room, copied the data they’d been sent to retrieve, and made their way back to the Phantom. But the whole time, Ezra knew something was wrong. Where normally Sabine’s emotions were hidden behind durasteel walls, now he could sense them freely stabbing against his mind. Fear that tasted cold and bitter on the back of his tongue. Rage that rang in his ears like the aftermath of an explosion. A deep, visceral sense of disgust-revulsion-loathing that made him sick to his stomach.
Sabine remained silent for the entire journey back to the Ghost. Once they reached the ship, she bolted, her footsteps pounding against the floor so hard Ezra could hear them echoing until she reached her room. For a moment, all Ezra could do was stare after her.
Then, the anger exploded in the pit of his stomach.
As the door closed behind her, the fragile hold Sabine had kept on her emotions throughout the mission shattered. Her hands shook as she grabbed the nearest object she could find. She had already hurled it across the room before she even realized that it was a can of spray paint. The clang as it bounced off the wall and hit the floor barely registered over the screaming inside her head.
Her body was moving on its own, without any direction from her brain as she raced to her bunk, grabbed the pillow off of it and held it against her face, screaming until her throat hurt.
Sabine’s eyes stung as she slowly lowered the pillow, blinking as she stared down at it. Her stomach churned, twisting around like it was trying to rip itself in half. This wasn’t her. She didn’t break down like this. She didn’t lose her temper and throw things. No matter how angry she was, she kept her head.
Except now, apparently.
With a frustrated growl, Sabine threw the pillow back onto her bunk and began pacing across her room. After three years, just seeing that bitch’s face made her feel like she’d been shoved off a cliff and was plummeting toward the ground.
Her hands were still shaking, anger pulsing in the pit of her stomach like a second heartbeat. It built and built like a chain reaction until she found herself slamming her fist into the wall. The shitty cadet armor didn’t give any real protection to the hands, so a bolt of red-hot pain shot quickly up her wrist.
“Kriff,” she muttered, cradling her wrist in her left hand. Just seeing the sleeve of the white uniform made her feel sick. Ignoring her still-throbbing wrist, she peeled the uniform off, tossing it into the farthest corner of the room. The feeling of the ship’s cool air against her skin just made that twisting in her stomach worse. Hands shaking, she pulled open one of her drawers and grabbed the first set of normal clothes she could find.
She changed with her eyes closed, knowing from experience just how bad it would be for her to see even a hint of her own skin right now. The switch from the cadet uniform to the loose, gray pants and pale purple shirt with mercifully long sleeves made her sigh with relief. Once she was satisfied she wouldn’t have to look at any part of herself she desperately didn’t want to see, she opened her eyes and shoved the uniform into her drawer to be properly dealt with later.
All the energy that had driven her rage and frantic change of clothes drained out of her in an instant. She dropped onto the bottom bunk, her back slumping, forcing her to stare down at the dull gray floor panels and the spots of color strewn across them. Sabine could feel her hands shaking and couldn’t even bring herself to do anything to stop it.
Helpless was not a word Sabine liked. Where she grew up, being helpless meant being weak, practically equivalent to being already dead. It was worse than useless, worse than stupid. If she couldn’t take care of herself, she wasn’t worth anyone else trying to save her either. And yet, right now, that was exactly how she felt. Just as small and helpless as she’d been – no. She wasn’t going there.
But she was already there, wasn’t she? From the moment she’d laid eyes on that sleemo, she was back there.
A soft, almost timid knock on the door snapped Sabine out of her trance. Quiet as it was, it still made her freeze up, her nerves firing and her senses on high alert, as if an attack could come at any second.
“It’s me,” Ezra’s muffled voice called.
“Come in.” Sabine barely recognized the sound of her own voice as she admitted her friend.
The door opened and Ezra hovered there for a moment before entering the room. He held something in his hand, offering it to Sabine. It took her a painfully long moment to realize that it was a cold pack from the medkit.
“I heard you punch the wall,” Ezra said.
Silently, she took it, cracking it and holding it against her wrist. She barely even felt the pain, the shock of seeing Auria again numbing her to it almost as soon as it started.
“Are you okay?” Ezra asked.
“Do I look okay?” Sabine snapped without even meaning to. It was like she wasn’t even in control of her own actions anymore.
Her shoulders slumped as the surge of strength that had come when she snapped at Ezra faded, drowned out by that sickening helplessness.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Ezra said with a shrug. “I’ll go.”
He turned to leave, but before he could take one step toward the door, Sabine found herself speaking almost without meaning to once again.
“Wait.” Ezra turned back. “Can you – can you stay?”
Just asking felt like she was slowly tearing her own fingernails out, but Ezra’s presence was the only thing curbing her anger.
“Yeah,” Ezra said. “I’ll stay.”
There was something in his voice that made Sabine’s blood go cold. He knows. But he couldn’t. There was no way he could know. Kanan had explained to her that Jedi couldn’t read minds, exactly. Then again, it wasn’t like she was doing a great job hiding that something was wrong.
Ezra perched on the edge of the lower bunk, as if not quite certain that he was really welcome. Sabine didn’t have it in her to reassure him.
“You want to talk about it?”
Sabine stared blankly down at her injured hand. She wasn’t sure how to answer that. She wanted to bury all of it, never speak of it, just like she’d been doing for three years now. But she also wanted to admit everything. She could practically feel the words inching up her throat like bile, threatening to spill out whether she wanted them to or not.
“Her name’s Auria.” She hadn’t said that name in years. It was strange how unfamiliar it now felt. The older girl had once been her best friend – or so she’d thought. But her name was like that of a stranger. “We were at the Academy on Mandalore together.”
“Who was she?” Ezra asked. “I mean… you know, to you.”
Somehow, inexplicably, Sabine laughed. It was a quiet, completely foreign sound that she quickly swallowed down. There was no good answer to that.
With a frustrated sigh, Sabine kicked at a crumpled-up piece of flimsi on the floor.
“We were friends,” she muttered. “I started at the Academy early, so I was younger than all my classmates. She sort of… took me under her wing.”
Now that she’d started, it was like the words couldn’t be stopped. The story bubbled up inside her, spilling out of its own free will. Fine. If it wanted to be told so damn badly, and if Ezra really wanted to hear it, then she would tell.
“She was so nice to me,” Sabine said. “And she didn’t treat me like a little kid the way some of the others did.”
A memory flashed across the surface of her mind. Auria’s hand catching her wrist and pulling her down until she was sitting on the older girl’s lap. Soft lips brushing against her cheek in a quick, mischievous kiss. Something anyone might do to an actual girlfriend.
“Sometimes she would – she’d kiss me or hold me, and she’d tell me that was what friends do.” She tripped over the word friends. It almost felt wrong to say, as if Auria had corrupted the very word itself. “And then she – she wanted more, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She told me to trust her, and I did.”
Sabine barely recognized her own voice. It was strained, shaking, tripping over words in a way she never did. Even when she’d faced her mother after running away from the Academy, she’d stood strong, never flinching or shaking or breaking down. But not one scrap of that strength was available to her now. It was kriffing ridiculous that just seeing Auria again had stripped all of that away. Nothing had even happened. Auria couldn’t have recognized her with the helmet hiding her face. But Sabine still felt as shattered as she did the last time the other girl raped her.
Even half-thinking the word made Sabine want to cringe. Calling it that meant she was a victim; something she’d been taught from birth it was never acceptable to be.
She glanced sideways at Ezra, who had stayed silent as the story spilled out of her. Her cheeks grew hot as she saw him looking at her as if she was a kicked tooka kit.
“I’m sorry.” Ezra winced the moment he said it. “I know that’s not –” He cut himself off, now staring down at his hands. Sabine shifted nervously. She’d done exactly what she was afraid of; scared him off, killed their friendship by revealing just how kriffed up she was.
“How old were you?”
It was the last thing Sabine expected him to say. She was so taken aback it took a painfully long moment before she was able to answer.
“Twelve when it started,” she said. “It didn’t stop until I left.”
A heavy silence hung between them. With it came nervous energy that built as Ezra’s hands curled into fists on his lap.
“Eleven.”
The word was barely more than a whisper. So quiet Sabine at first wasn’t sure she really heard it. When it sank in, it was like the very way she saw him shifted.
“Yeah?” she asked, her voice barely louder than his.
“Yeah.” He swallowed, his shoulders tensing. “It was different, but I – I just mean that I get it.”
Sabine said nothing. On some level, she wanted to know what happened, wanted to know if he really did get it. But she couldn’t ask him to open up a wound like that again.
Whether because he sensed her curiosity or because he felt the same inexplicable urge to tell that had overwhelmed Sabine just moments ago, she didn’t know. But Ezra spoke up again, his words rushed like he was trying to get them out before he lost his nerve.
“There was this guy who – he went after street kids. Kids who didn’t have anyone to notice they disappeared. I’d heard about him, but I didn’t know what he looked like. He – he pretended he was a shopkeeper. Said he needed an extra set of hands for the day. And I needed the credits. But he knocked me out, took me somewhere, and held me for about a week. Then he just let me go.”
A visceral sense of disgust filled her as everything she’d only just thought about herself flashed through her head all over again. The idea of Ezra seeing himself that way made her want to track down that sleemo and snap his neck like a twig.
“That’s…” Sabine trailed off, not knowing what to say. Terrible. Horrifying. Kriffing evil. Nothing quite captured it.
Ezra saved her from having to continue by shrugging. “It was a long time ago,” he said. “I just… I understand is all.”
Slowly, Sabine reached out, resting her open hand on the bed between them. After a moment, Ezra reached out and took it.
“Thanks,” Sabine mumbled. “For staying.”
Ezra squeezed her hand gently, leaning over and bumping his shoulder against hers.
“It wasn’t our fault,” he said. “It took me a really long time to get my head around that.”
“I know,” Sabine said. “Still hurts, though.”
“Yeah,” Ezra mumbled.
The silence that fell between them was strangely comfortable. There was a sense of relief that came with it. He already knew so she didn’t have to act like nothing was wrong. And he knew, so she didn’t have to explain anything. They could just sit here, taking comfort in the fact that the other understood.
For now, at least, that was enough.