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Beginnings
Back in the days of the Clone Wars, Hera would sneak out at night to look up at the stars, and imagine herself up there, soaring across the diamond-studded sky, the wings of her ship blotting out the stars like the gunships she saw over her homeworld night after night.
On Coruscant, the night sky was practically invisible. Caleb, raised in the temple, never really saw it except in holograms. But on missions with his master, he saw the stars for the first time, and it made him feel small, insignificant. Like he was a single drop in a great ocean.
Ezra’s parents taught him the constellations, and on the nights when he couldn’t sleep, cold and hungry in some back alley of Capital City, he’d pick them out from the swath of stars and whisper their names like a magic spell.
Sabine gazed out the window of her dormitory at the Imperial Academy, watching stars long after the other cadets were asleep.
She and Ketsu plotted their escape by moonlight.
And when the girl she thought was her friend left her for dead, the stars became her only companions.
The dark silence of moonless nights was Sabine’s fortress, and each pinprick of light a guardian.
The Lasat’s stories were interwoven with the sky. Zeb learned each tale by heart, monsters and tyrants and kings and queens tangled up in the stars, and years later, he could still recite those stories the same way his grandmother used to tell them.
After the destruction of Lasan, the smoke and dust blotted out the stars.
Spectres
When Hera left Ryloth, the sky became her only real companion apart from Chopper.
She let the Ghost float in the midst of a starfield, where she could stare out at the diamonds studding the darkness.
And she was happy, even if it did get lonely out there with nothing but constellations and a grumpy astromech for company.
Kanan’s wandering days are a blur to him now, scattered with half-clear memories of bar fights and odd jobs.
He rarely looked at the sky during that time, because it reminded him of Depa.
And even the thought of his master was like a burning knife.
But when he met Hera, and joined the Ghost as Spectre One, he began to finally make peace with the stars.
In the weeks after he joined the crew as Spectre Four, Zeb repeated the old stories in his head. Over and over. Making sure each word, each name, each star was still in its place.
He still remembers them. And on nights when Ezra or Sabine is kept awake by nightmares, he’ll sometimes tell them the ancient legends.
Someone has to keep those stories alive.
Sabine’s early days as Spectre Five were a swirl of terror and confusion and timid words spoken almost too soft to hear. And the nights were a patchwork of fear and nightmares and sobbing.
Her third night on the Ghost—woken at two in the morning by a dream she’d prefer to forget—she crept out to the empty cockpit and gazed out at the stars.
And it was calming, somehow, to realize just how small she was compared to the vastness of the galaxy.
She still goes out there when she can’t sleep, and she sits alone, curled in the copilot’s chair, until the sky begins to lighten.
But now, she's not afraid.
This is her home, after all.
During his first weeks as Spectre Six, Ezra was fascinated by jumps to lightspeed He’d sit there, completely mesmerized, time after time, watching the stars blur into blue.
The others never made fun of him for it, because they all remembered their first time in hyperspace. And they were just as fascinated as Ezra.
When the excitement of that wore off, he still stayed with Hera in the cockpit during jumps. He couldn’t always stay awake—trips might last for hours at a time, and the endless tunnel of blue light nearly always made him start to drift off—but he did his best to keep her company. Sometimes Sabine would be there too, when she wasn’t painting, and they’d play word games, back and forth, arguing over the rules, laughing.
And now he clings to those memories, like too-thin blankets, wrapping himself in them in search of comfort and warmth.
Hyperspace jumps are usually quieter now.
Ezra misses the days when everything was almost okay.
Aftermath
Ezra barely sleeps now.
Between the guilt eating away at him from the inside and the nightmares that lurk in wait, he rarely gets more than two or sometimes three hours at a time.
So he goes out to the ramp to watch stars.
Kanan’s always there sometime later. And Hera has spent long hours comforting him after nightmares, or talking quietly to him while he struggles to fight down sobs.
But it’s Sabine and Zeb that help him through some of the worst nights.
They’re no strangers to self-blame and crippling guilt and nightmares.
And when he can’t stop himself crying, and can’t sleep at all, they come sit one on either side of him, and it’s only then that he really feels safe.
Hera sees the others falling apart, piece by piece.
She sees Ezra’s battle with guilt, and his tears.
Kanan, struggling to stay together for the crew.
Zeb, storming off into gray predawn light with his bo-rifle to practice alone.
Sabine, hiding turmoil under a mask of calm confidence and smiles and jokes.
So many different pieces of one puzzle that seems to no longer fit together.
And she sees them starting to put themselves back together. Ezra trimming his hair short, building a new lightsaber. Sabine cutting and dyeing her hair, repainting pieces of armor. Kanan begins to wear a mask instead of a blindfold. Zeb trains harder each day.
She puts on a brave face for her family, but in the early hours, before any of them are awake, she sits alone in the cockpit and watches the sky begin to grow light.
And it’s only then that she allows her shoulders to slump and her eyes to well up with tears.
She has no idea how they’re going to get through this.
But somehow, they’ll find a way.
Zeb copes by training alone for hours at a time.
He insists it’s because he needs to be ready for the next battle with the Empire, but really, he just can’t face Kanan’s blindfold or Ezra’s haunted eyes.
He slips away before dawn, when the others are usually in the midst of fitful sleep, and returns only when the sun grows too hot.
It’s lonely out there, nothing but pale blue sky and krykna and birds, but it’s better than the uncomfortable silence of the Ghost.
He barely looks at the stars anymore. The old stories seem meaningless now.
They all come to a happy end, and life doesn’t work that way.
Sabine has done her best to keep herself together since Kanan and Ezra returned.
Ezra’s quiet and keeps to himself, and Kanan is still adjusting to his new reality. Zeb’s irritable. Hera’s stressed and exhausted.
On the worst days, Sabine feels like she’s struggling to hold them all together.
But the stress, the grief over losing Ahsoka, the fact that Kanan, who’s the closest thing Sabine has to a father, will never see again—it’s all catching up to her.
She only cries at night, when the others can’t see.
She paints sunrises and sunsets, stars sprinkling darkness. It calms her. Pushes away everything else.
And, night after night, she watches the sky.
There’s still a shred of hope, somewhere, that she’ll see the lights of a ship. That Ahsoka could still reappear.
Nothing ever comes.
But still she watches.
Kanan can’t see the sky now. But the others help him to.
Sabine describes the sunrises and sunsets, painting a picture in Kanan’s mind. Hera guides him outside where he can feel the sunlight warm his skin, and tells him about the endless dance of birds flying overhead. Ezra tries to show him the constellations, marking each out on the ground with pebbles and guiding his master’s hands across the patterns so Kanan can ‘see’ the stars. Zeb will come sit with him on the ramp, and they talk quietly, trading war stories.
He can’t see the sky with his eyes. But in his mind, it’s as clear as ever.