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melanie-ohara · 11 months ago

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Take Yourself Apart For Me - Chapter 2

Whumpuary2024, Day 08 - Prompt: "Help Me"

Shin confronts her deepest fear: asking for help

I'll level with you: I cried a bit writing this one

AO3 Here

Shin spent the next two days in the Mandalorian's bed. Despite her escape attempt, they never attempted to put her back in the restraints - maybe they thought her injury would keep her captive. Or maybe they trusted her not to kill them in their sleep. Ahsoka Tano had given her back her lightsaber and from the weight of it Shin knew she hadn't removed the power pack, and she wondered what Baylan would have expected of her now. Tano was a war hero, he had told her, and she had no chance against her. She would sense her intentions even in the deepest of sleep and cut her down in seconds. But Sabine was weak: barely able to use the Force unless her life depended on it, unbalanced, and with aggression that rivalled Marrok. Shin had bested her in every contest they'd had, and she could kill her without breaking a sweat.

Her eyes shifted down to the drawings on the wall. Did she want to kill her?

Baylan had sent her to Lothal. Morgan Elsbeth sent her on Seatos. Thrawn sent her on Peridea. Not once had she decided for herself.

The door opened and Shin rolled onto her side to face the wall before Wren could see her face. Murley's portrait looked up at her, and Shin felt that its stare was a little accusatory.

"Brought you food," Sabine said, with cheer that didn't sound forced, no matter how much Shin wished otherwise. She lifted her hand and Sabine pressed the carton into her fingers without complaint. As always, she'd already put the straw in for her.

At Huyang's insistence, Shin was on a liquid diet of blended protein infusion until she was fully healed, and the thick, flavourless gruel she had to suck down through a straw sometimes made her wish Feldspar had actually killed her. She could hear Sabine beside her, unwrapping a protein bar for her own breakfast, and wished her presence didn't comfort her so much. She was sick of eating alone.

"Your armour," she said, after a long silence broken only by Sabine's chewing. "I heard the droid saying."

"It's wrecked," Sabine said, trying and failing to sound flippant.

Shin remembered Sabine kneeling under a barrage of blaster fire from the bandits that had once been her allies. "Why did you save me?" she asked abruptly.

She didn't need to look to know Sabine had shrugged before she answered. "Ahsoka saw something in you," she said. Neither of them spoke for a moment. "Why didn't you go back to Thrawn?" Sabine finally asked.

Shin closed her eyes. She wanted to reach out for her lightsaber, sitting on Sabine's desk on the other side of the room - not to attack, just to feel the weight of it in her hand for a while. Instead, she pictured it: the orange crystal sitting at the centre of the emitter matrix, the delicate twists and curls of the cables that ran along the core to the power cells, the thick insulation sheath and the metal hilt that sealed it away.

"I don't know," she lied.

"Right," Sabine said, scrunching up the wrapper of her protein bar and getting to her feet. "Good talk."

She sounded annoyed, and it reminded Shin uncomfortably of the way Baylan had spoken when she was younger, and failed one of his drills or didn't put her all into an exercise.

"Wait," Shin said, before she could stop herself. She rolled onto her back to check that Sabine hadn't left, and saw her standing with her head cocked slightly and her hand on her hips as she looked at her.

"Go on," Sabine prompted. Gently this time.

Shin swallowed hard, and then nodded. "Baylan left me," she said. The words caught in her throat, but she got them out. She had barely admitted it to herself before now. "I… couldn't leave him."

Sabine sat down again. "He's family."

Shin shook her head. "We're not related. But I've never known anyone else."

Sabine moved her hand, and for a frightening moment Shin thought she might touch her. Instead, she just laid her fingertips gently on the edge of the mattress, an inch away from Shin's arm. Her nails were painted deep red.

"I lost my family too," Sabine said quietly. "My planet. And Ezra, twice now."

Shin looked away from her eyes. "I never had any of that," she said to the ceiling.

Sabine tilted her head. "Well, not many people have an Ezra to lose."

Shin thought it might have been a joke, but she didn't feel like laughing. It would hurt too much anyway. Sabine sighed and Shin felt her weight shift like she was about to get up, and she opened her mouth just to stop her.

"I haven't felt anything since that day."

Shin couldn't tell which of them was more surprised by what she'd said, but it was true so she didn't try and take it back. She did try to stop the tears welling in her eyes and the tightness constricting her throat, but it didn't work. Slowly, Sabine leaned forwards.

"I've been there," she said softly. Shin felt a tear breach the corner of her eye and roll down the edge of her cheek into her hair.

"Then… can you help me?" she asked.

This time Sabine did reach out to her, and Shin tried not to flinch too obviously when her palm came to rest on her forearm. She could feel the warmth of her touch even through the sleeve of her shirt.

"What do you need?"

Sabine took her weight as she guided her across the common room to the cockpit access, one of Shin's arms over her shoulders. Her instinct was to loop her own arm around Shin's waist, but she had noticed how little she liked to be touched without warning and instead left it pressed awkwardly between their bodies as they walked. She kept an eye on the white surgical patch Huyang had pressed over Shin's wound once the skin had healed enough, looking for signs that she'd torn her stitches again, but they made it to the cockpit without incident. She lowered Shin carefully into the pilot's chair and then took her usual seat once she was settled.

Sabine flipped the intercom switch. Ahsoka had left early to scout the mountain path ahead, but Huyang had stayed aboard with them. "Huyang, I'm taking us for a ride," she said.

"For what purpose?" the droid asked.

"Uh… We've been hovering for a week now, I want to run the engines for a bit. Make sure they don't dry out," she said, shooting a glance over at Shin. She was too busy familiarising herself with the cockpit to return it.

"This is a T6 Jedi Transport," Huyang complained. "The engines do not 'dry out'."

"Ignore him," Sabine said. Shin was already ignoring both of them.

"Taking us out," she said, and tugged the yoke towards her. The ship rose gracefully into the sky and Shin accelerated a little as they climbed towards the clouds. Sabine watched her hands move over the controls with the ease of an experienced pilot and the care of someone who dearly loved to fly, and was reminded strangely of the way Hera flew the Ghost. She felt a pang of sadness then - Hera and Zeb and her old life were so far away now, and she would probably never see them again. Kanan was further away still.

"This suits you," Sabine told Shin, more to get out of her own head than anything else. It was true though: the other woman was sitting up straight with a look of calm concentration Sabine had never seen on her. When they fought, she looked feral - blistering focus and a vicious will to win - but now she looked in control.

"Baylan didn't like flying the ship," Shin said without taking her eyes off the wisps of cloud starting to break apart on the screen. "I taught myself."

She banked the ship a little faster than necessary and Sabine saw her relish the brief rush of G-force pressing them sideways into their seats. She didn't smile, exactly, but her wide unblinking eyes softened and the tension in her jaw eased for a moment. It returned quickly, though, and Sabine noticed her knuckles tense a little against the yoke.

"What is it?" she asked, and immediately regretted it. Shin hated her prying, but she couldn't help it.

Shin's lip twitched, but she answered the question. "The last time I flew, I was trying to kill you."

"That was you?"

"You didn't know?"

Sabine thought for a moment, remembering the one-man fighter craft diving and twisting out of her gunsights every time she thought she had them locked. "The gold one," she said, and Shin nodded. "No wonder I couldn't hit you."

The tiniest hint of a smile tugged at Shin's lips, and Sabine let herself grin openly at the victory of finally cheering her up as Shin took one hand off the yoke to adjust the thrust vector of one of the engines, and then instead of putting it back on the controls she laid her hand, almost casually, on the console between them.

Sabine stared, slackjawed and stunned, for several seconds. Then she looked up at Shin, who was looking very intently the other way. It was obvious, overt even, in a way she would never have expected from the woman who communicated in angry glares and five-word sentences. She almost didn't believe it, especially when Shin shied away from any attempt to touch her. Cautiously, Sabine moved her own hand - not close enough to touch Shin, but near enough that she would know she had noticed. She was reminded of facing off against her on Seatos, and the way she had read Sabine's guard and taken a counter-stance to match her. Sabine's heart was racing the same way, too. She looked over at Shin to see what she was going to do next. A barely perceptible blush rose on her cheeks under her gaze, and slowly, without taking her eyes off a point on the distant horizon, Shin moved her fingers out until they brushed against Sabine's own.

Sabine couldn't help the gasp that slipped her lips, and she worried for a second that the sound made scare Shin off. Instead, when she looked over, she saw Shin looking back. She hadn't turned her head much, just enough that Sabine could see both of her pale, blue-green eyes. Her usual wide-eyed stare had softened, and now there was a definite smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

"Thank you, for this," Shin said.

Sabine nodded slowly, and flicked out her tongue to moisten her lips. Cautiously, she lifted her little finger and let it drift gently across Shin's until she could curl it into the space between her third and fourth digit. Shin took her counter-stance: her little finger closed around Sabine's.

"So what happens now?" Sabine asked.

"I don't know." This time she was telling the truth.