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The sound of crates clattering from a neat stack into a haphazard pile resounds from the cargo bay, followed shortly after by contentious voices -- and bleeps -- raised in a chorus of 'he did it'.

Kanan rests his face in his hand for a moment, eyes closed.

"Do you think they'll clean it up, or are they going to pretend we couldn't hear them and have no idea who could have made the mess?"

They can get back to mission planning in a minute, and should. But --

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Hera looks back at him. "Do you think he wants to fight with you?"

"I think," Kanan says slowly, "that learning to feel the Force is frustrating, let alone learning how to use it. I think that half the directions I have to give seem contradictory from the outside, and even from the inside sometimes. I think that when I was learning, there were others there with me to argue with, to debate with, to have pointless childish dramatics with. Here, Ezra's only got me. And if you're fighting your teacher, you're not . . . you're not learning the Jedi way of things."

The Dark Side always seemed to have more conflict between Master and Apprentice.

"Plus, with our jobs, it's not like he can even afford to have much space away from me to sulk."

Put that way, Chopper's cantakerousness is a blessing, too.

Edited 2018-02-21 02:22 (UTC)

"Ezra doesn't have another student to share what he's going through," she says, nodding slightly.

"And you don't have another teacher."

"I've got you," Kanan says, with a very slight smile.

"Which isn't nothing, Hera."

It's not the same as another teacher, but she knows, and he can talk to her, and --

Well.

"But I also really need to not take my irritation out on him. At least as much of it as I can help."

Hera smiles very slightly back. "I know."

It fades as she blinks away again. "But I think that's a challenge for anyone who's a -"

- parent, she can't help but think first.

"- teacher, or a leader. It feels like you can't be frustrated, or uncertain. You can't let them see you like that, because they're always looking to you."

"I never saw Master Depa uncertain."

He sounds sure of that, but . . . is it really true? Or was Caleb just blinded by hero worship and his own certainty about the certainty that comes with adulthood. With Knighthood.

"Do you feel that way, too? Speaking of leaders."

Edited 2018-02-21 03:02 (UTC)

"Do I feel like I have to be that way?"

She blinks back to him. "Why do you think I shoved you in here."

"I thought it was just me panicking."

The slight upward quirk to one corner of his mouth indicates he's mostly kidding about that.

"We were both panicking."

She'll admit that now, anyway.

"But I saw both sides of it, with my father. The way his followers saw him, and - times when he couldn't be that."

Kanan swallows, tilting his head to lean it back against the wall.

"Do you think they would have understood, his followers?"

"I don't know."

She's not really sure that she understood, before something like this.

"Sometimes it felt like we knew different people."

"Maybe different parts of the same person," Kanan ventures.

"I wonder if either of us would see that more clearly now. Knowing what we know."

Being where they are.

"I'm sure my younger self would've driven us both crazy."

She is sympathetic to her parents, thinking back on that. "But I'm still not sure it's helping me see a way to ... avoid the same mistakes."

Kanan is quiet for a minute, gaze still fixed up on the ceiling while he thinks.

Or tries to avoid thinking. But --

"Maybe the only way to avoid the same old mistakes is to make new ones."

Unfortunately.

"And you know I'm good at those."

Kanan could wish it were more of a joke, really.

"We all make our share of those."

She takes another deep breath, then looks over to him. "Kanan, I know this won't make it easier, but - you know he respects you, right? That he looks up to you?"

Edited 2018-02-22 03:03 (UTC)

"Nothing's going to make this easier."

Kanan's responding smile is small and crooked, and doesn't exactly reach his eyes.

"I'm trying to be worth it. I just don't know how."

"I think..."

She blinks away, going silent for a few seconds. "I think you have to make it your own. You can't be someone else, the person you think would be better for this. And you can't always be what he needs you to be - no one can ever really do that."

Her eyes still down, Hera does move one hand toward him, just short of touching his.

"But you can take what you've learned, and make it into something you can do. In your own way."

Kanan reaches back after a moment, fingertips just barely touching hers.

"You're right. I'm never going to be Master Depa, but . . . I can use her as an example, and just keep trying."

In a galaxy full of uncertainty, that's really the best any of them have got.

"And you can be yourself."

She presses her fingertips just slightly back.

"That's a good thing."

His smile is crooked in the extreme.

"If you say so."

Hera lifts her hand, reaching over to lightly shove at his shoulder.

"I do say so."

And he better remember it.

Edited 2018-02-22 20:46 (UTC)

"Thanks."

He sways with the shove, over-exaggerating for effect.

Then --

"Is there anything you need?"

Her first instinct is to say 'no.' That she's fine, she's not frustrated, or exhausted, or uncertain. An easy, simple reflex.

She swallows it down. Instead, she says, "I don't know."

With a look back up to him, "But I'll think about it."

"You do that," he says quietly.

Then he winces at the sound of a body -- probably Ezra's -- colliding heavily with the wall.

"Enough with the roughhousing, you two!"

The look he gives is accompanied by a very crooked smile.

"Guess that's a sign, huh?"

Hera nods, with her own half smile. "Come on."

She rises from the cot, glancing back at him as she walks across the cabin, and then opens the doors.

"All right," she calls, stepping out and unconsciously putting a hand on her hip. "What did you three do to my cargo bay?"

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notallofus - 2018-02-23 03:29 (UTC) - Expand

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