notallofus | (no subject)

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It's a long haul to Demiloch, which means there's been plenty of downtime. And waiting. There's always something that needs to be done, something that needs to be fixed or cleaned or otherwise attended to. But Hera had insisted that everything was under control, and that she didn't need his help running a systems diagnostic, that she and Chopper have it well in hand, leaving Kanan to retreat to his room.

He knows how he should be spending the time, how Hera would want him to spend the time. Still, he delays before eventually opening the compartment under his bunk, and taking out the holocron. He takes a seat on the bottom bunk, and holds out the holocron, turning it over in his hand. It's dark at first, but then a blue light begins to hum within it, and the holocron lifts itself from his fingers, floating out, bathing the room in blue light.

Sometime later, the holocron is still floating, spinning in a slow circle, a holo illuminated above it. The image in the holo is of a woman, with dark skin and black hair tied into two looped braids along the back of her head. Her eyes are closed, and she speaks, softly –

"- ignorance, yet knowledge –"

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His door whooshes open, and Hera, whose face is turned away for a second, starts speaking.

"Kanan, did you want to . . . "

And then she's looking at him, at what he's holding, and falls silent.

" . . . Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I'll have Chop leave a plate out for you."

Kanan waves his hand. "It's all right."

"- yet harmony. Death, yet -"

The woman in the holo finishes, and her eyes open. She smiles, serene, yet maybe not the kind of stoicism one might expect from a Jedi, before the light flickers out.

"Just - come in."

"If you're sure."

Hera doesn't hesitate about stepping over his threshold, letting the door close behind her.

"Is everything . . . okay?"

The darkened holocron hovers for a few more seconds, then floats down, back into Kanan's hand. He leans forward, turning the holocron in his hand again.

"I'm not sure," he answers, honestly.

She's quiet for a moment, biting her lip, lekku twitching fitfully.

"Do you want me to press?"

Hera can do that, and sometimes it helps. But equally possibly it will just rub on raw nerves.

"Or sit in silence and see if things settle. I'm assuming you wouldn't mind the company."

She moves toward him, then, shifting to settle on the bunk with him. Unless he demurs, of course.

Kanan shifts slightly, giving her more space to sit down. He takes a deep breath, and releases it, looking down at the holocron as he still turns it over in his hand.

"I've been thinking a lot about - this. And about... how I'm thinking about it, now."

Hera doesn't reach to touch the holocron -- it's not for her, she knows -- but she does rest her hand on Kanan's shoulder.

"I can't say I understand, exactly, but . . . "

She can guess a little where he's going with this, at least.

"I'm glad. That you've been able to think about it more."

He stops fidgeting with the holocron, lowering his hand and looking up from it, across the spare room toward the door to the hall.

"The more I dig back into it, the more I'm seeing - contradictions. In who I am now, and the tenets of the Jedi."

Hera presses her lips together for a moment, looking sideways at Kanan.

"Does that bother you?"

He glances back at her, for a moment, and then again to the door.

"Some of it - there's nothing I can do. So much of it was about the Order, being part of the Order."

It's not exactly an answer to her question. But it matters, that this is out of his hands.

"There's not a lot about how to be a Jedi without the Order."

Hera is quiet for a minute, squeezing Kanan's shoulder gently.

"You've got good instincts for improvisation in the rest of your life. I'm betting you can figure this out, too. It won't be comfortable, but -- "

She believes in him.

He leans into her touch, for a moment, but then seems to catch himself, and pull back.

"Maybe."

Just the idea of a single Jedi seems like a contradiction. He knew the stories of the Sith, of their small numbers. But they were driven by self-interest and power, they all turned on each other eventually. It made sense. But with the Jedi - he was taught that humility and wisdom came from the Order. That it meant no one of them stood out from another, no one of them mattered more.

He looks down at the holocron. It contained only a small slice of the knowledge of the Jedi Order, and yet still more than he could hope to. And even that hope was arrogance. It was contradiction on top of contradiction.

But contradiction was something else the Jedi embraced.

Kanan sets the holocron down at his side, leaning forward and putting his face in his hands for a moment. Accept it, move on.

Lifting his face, he asks her, quietly, "Do you know why the Jedi - found us so young?"

Hera considers that for a few long moments, too.

"I know what I think, when I think about it. But whether that's really why . . . no, I don't know."

"It was so we wouldn't have - attachments."

His eyes are down. No longer fidgeting with the holocron, his hands press together.

"Before the Clone Wars, I really never knew anyone outside the Order."

She bites her lip a little, carefully removing her hand from Kanan's shoulder and folding it with her other hand in her lap.

"Do you think that really helped you do your job?"

The Jedi 'you', not necessarily Kanan-that-was.

"I wish it hadn't happened the way it did."

Again, he doesn't exactly answer her question. He's not sure if he can answer it.

"But I don't regret that I've lived outside the Order, or -"

Kanan struggles with how to say it. "- or had - other - attachments."

Hera's clasped hands hold even tighter together for a moment after that, and she exhales.

"I'm glad you don't regret it. You do a lot of good as you are, and in this crew."

Kanan sneaks a glance over at her, pressing his hands together.

"I understand if we'd - had families, homes, w- the Jedi couldn't have worked how they did. If you had a power like the Force, and that many loyalties, and responsibilities -"

How could you stop yourself from using those powers selfishly? How could you protect a place you'd never set foot on before, die for people you'd never met?

(Well. He can think of a few examples of the second two.)

"But when it happened, and I actually had to live on my own, I found out I didn't really know anything about the galaxy."

She looks back at him after a moment, hands still twisted together in her lap.

"A lot of children don't. And a lot of people don't really know what to do with children, or how to teach them while letting them be children. The Jedi tried. I can't say they were wrong. But it seems . . . hard, not to have anyone or anything that's yours. And -- they did have families, the Jedi. They had each other. From the outside it doesn't . . . exactly sound different, at the core."

"A lot of children weren't commanders in the war, either."

Kanan closes his eyes, lifting his hand, fingertips touching his hair before he stops himself, pulls back from that agitated tic he'd had when he was young.

"I'm not questioning that I had a family with the Jedi. We were close to each other, but -"

His eyes stay closed as he struggles to find the words to say it. At his side, blue light flickers from the holocron again. "But we were apart from anything else. We were supposed to transcend everything, any attachments, for the will of the Fo-"

He breaks off. The light from the holocron grows stronger, and he reaches for it again, lifting it and opening his eyes.

"I remember... that detachment gave my Master, and others, clarity. But I can't forget what's happened since then, and I don't want to."

His fingers press tight against the holocron, its blue light reflecting in his eyes. "I don't think I'll protect this galaxy by being apart from it."

"I think you're right," Hera says, after a momentary silence.

"About needing to be a part of this galaxy, about protecting it being . . . more important when you belong to it, too."

She bites her lip.

"I think maybe that's why so many people found it so easy to believe what was said of them -- the Jedi -- afterward. They were so distant, so removed, that even though they cared, people found it easier not to see it. It was harder for them to understand that kind of care. Or to believe in it."

A breath.

"What we do isn't distant, it's not really even philosophical. It's hard, and it's practical, and it's every day. We're a different kind of thing to believe in, but I believe we're just as valuable."

He listens to her, still watching the holocron, and it's a long moment before he speaks.

Very quietly, "My Master told me that as the universe changed, the Jedi's role in it would have to evolve."

At the time it was an admonishment not to grow attached to the way things were. Now it seems like an unthinkable burden.

"That's not the only role that's going to change."

She's silent another moment, then reaches out to rest her hand on his wrist.

"We're all in this together. Even though we're not all Jedi, you aren't alone. And you won't be, if our crew has anything to say about it."

Hera certainly thinks she does.

He glances over to her again, then back to the holocron. With his free hand, he lifts it slightly, then lets it go. It hovers above his palm for a moment, the floats up again, away from them.

"I don't know if I can believe everything is the will of the Force."

The idea of some greater plan, or reason, doesn't offer him any peace or understanding. At least, not anymore. Maybe it's a weakness, maybe it means he doesn't understand the Force the way he should. But he also knows it's what he feels, that he needs to acknowledge it.

He shifts his other hand, to take hers. "But if nothing else, I'm sure our meeting was."

Edited 2017-06-13 07:19 (UTC)

Hera's hand tightens around Kanan's, even as the rest of her body relaxes.

He doesn't hate it here, he doesn't regret being here, he doesn't . . .

"I believe that, too."

The holocron hangs in the air, spinning gently, blue light still shining from within it.

Kanan looks to Hera, his hand still around hers.

"I think that's -"

He lets out a breath, trying and failing to think of a better word. "- something. Something I know of the Force."

He'd still known it practically, when he'd needed it. But belief, faith - that was something else.

Quietly --

"I hope that's a good thing."

Her fingers tighten on his for a moment. Two.

"I think it is."

"I do, too."

His fingers press against hers, and he looks back to the holocron.

"It's a light, where there wasn't one before."

Hera, too, looks at the holocron, finally. There's a few moments of silence, which from her side is a comfortable one.

Then, with another quick squeeze of Kanan's fingers --

"We'll just have to keep it growing, then."

For Kanan. For their crew. For the rest of the galaxy.

(And in the meantime, hope will do.)

Kanan also lets the silent stretch, feeling no hurry to speak again.

When he does -

"What were you going to ask me? When you came in."

"Oh."

She'd almost forgotten, in the wake of listening to Kanan's thoughts on what he doesn't often speak about.

"I was going to ask if you wanted dinner."

It's not a very existential question.

He squeezes her hand, briefly.

"I'll be there in a few minutes."

"All right, love. Take your time."

She gently disentangles her fingers, then stands up and heads for the door.

Hera turns to smile at Kanan, very briefly, before heading to the mess and some really delicious reconstituted protein and vitamin supplements.

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