Post-Relics of the Republic

[notallofus]

It's good to be home again, and, oddly enough, on the newly-repurposed Phoenix Home, too. Kanan feels less exposed, which he wasn't expecting. But support, back-up, and more people on the lookout for important resources means somewhat less scrambling, and the odds can be stacked a little higher before doom is a foregone conclusion.

He guesses, anyway. But --

But he also feels sick to his stomach. There are clones on board, and although they're older than the ones he saw last -- Grey and Styles, Soot and Big-Mouth -- but maybe that's what his soldiers -- his friends would have grown into, if they'd been given the chance. If they hadn't betrayed -- no, they'd been betrayed, no matter how it looked from the outside. If Rex is right . . .

It's so hard to hold onto that, though. Harder than he wants it to be. They're good men, Rex and Wolfe and Gregor, but they've got the faces of his nightmares, and that's . . .

Maybe if he gets out of his own head a little, maybe . . . maybe that'll make this better. Somehow. Which is why he pulls himself away from the mess and goes looking for Hera. She'll be on the Ghost, he knows, and --

And that's probably better for him, too. More hands always help turn a slapdash field repair into something that'll last.

Comments

[for_everyone]

"I'm not sure I really understood it during the war."

She finally glances back up to him, and then down again, drawing those images up from her mind.

"They were the ones it was safer to be around, they fought the droids and sometimes brought supplies. Besides that - they were just people. Offworlders, like the others."

[notallofus]

"It was easier to differentiate them from each other up close. They all had . . . names, and patterns on the armor, and they sometimes got tattoos . . . "

He trails off again.

"I guess exactly like offworlders. Or maybe any-worlders."

Kanan swallows.

"And, I mean. What do you think of them now?"

[for_everyone]

"They ultimately protected you. Stood up against the Empire."

Now, she does meet his eyes. "And I think we have to trust that it was what they wanted to do."

[notallofus]

He huffs out a breath, forcing his arms to relax. It takes a minute, but he does lower them down to his sides.

"Yeah, it was definitely what they wanted to do. I just want to add a 'this time' to it, and that's . . . I know it's not fair."

Kanan swallows again, determinedly plowing forward. He'll get past this. He will.

"Do you know, yet, how you -- and Sato, and Ahsoka, I guess -- are planning to integrate them into Phoenix Squadron?"

[for_everyone]

She keeps her eyes on him.

"As much or as little as they'd want, I'd guess. Ahsoka knew them, right? Maybe she'll... "

Have a better idea of what they need? How to handle this? Hera really isn't sure.

[notallofus]

Kanan scrubs his hand through his hair, tilting his head back.

"Maybe, yeah. She'd definitely be one to ask. Maybe they'll even tell her. But -- "

He trails off again.

"It's a place to start, anyway."

[for_everyone]

She lifts her eyes, tilting her head back.

"The whole thing makes me a little uncomfortable, too."

[notallofus]

Kanan winces.

"Yeah, sorry. I -- Do you want to talk about it?"

[for_everyone]

"I just mean, they never really had a choice in all this."

She hesitates, briefly, to say what she's thinking. But there's no point in softening it. "They were the Republic's slaves. More than that, they'd never known anything else, right? From the time they were born, when they were children, all they did was..."

Hera straightens from the wall, her words slowing as a realization that has nothing to do with the clones lights up her mind.

She closes her eyes. Her voice goes quiet. "Shit."

[notallofus]

He's listening to Hera, thinking back about the clones. They always seemed like adults, to him, even though . . . now that he thinks about it, they were probably the same age. Just . . . he can't imagine himself fighting a war at ten, or eleven, or --

Damn.

Then Hera closes her eyes, and Kanan shoots up straight from where he's leaning against the wall, looking toward Hera with a furrowed brow.

"What?'

He tries not to snap, and it mostly works.

"What did you just think of?"

[for_everyone]

Hera shakes her head, her eyes flickering open again, as she tries to recenter her thoughts.

"It's just - something else -"

[notallofus]

"About . . . "

Kanan is still frowning.

"Children? Or -- "

He's not connecting the dots. But he's trying.

[for_everyone]

"About, what choice did we have?"

She looks back up to him. "How young were we when we started training?"

[notallofus]

Kanan's mind goes blank.

Why is that even --

What?

"Uh. I -- I'm not sure about you, but we starting doing basic instruction and physical training when I was . . . four? Maybe? I -- "

[for_everyone]

Hera watches him, perhaps waiting for him to make this connection on his own.

"Kanan..."

Her eyes flicker down as she tries to find the words. She leans back to the wall, folds her arms. "It makes me uncomfortable, that the clones were born into war, trained for it before they could have any choice about it."

She takes a breath. "And it's not the same, but they weren't the only ones."

[notallofus]

Is she --

"But we . . . I mean, I -- "

Weakly,

"We wanted to be there? So it's . . . "

Shouldn't that make it different? It feels like it should, except . . .

[for_everyone]

She looks up.

"Did you want to be there?"

[notallofus]

"I -- "

He stops, rubbing at his face again.

"I remember some of us didn't. A lot of the rest of us wanted -- we wanted to be out there, but . . . maybe not to be in a war so much as to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. It's . . . "

Kanan swallows.

"I guess you're kind of right. I -- didn't think of it like that. Uh."

[for_everyone]

"Maybe you wanted to do what you were brought up to do," she suggests, quietly.

"Like they were happy to call you general."

[notallofus]

He flinches, he can't quite help it.

"Yeah. I -- that wasn't . . . I wouldn't call that a good feeling, this time. But when I was C . . . yeah, that's probably what I dreamed would happen, someday. And I wanted that. So . . . "

He swallows.

"I don't know how to unpick that. But I probably should, huh?"

[for_everyone]

Her shoulders curl, into a tight shrug.

"Now I wonder if we're passing it on."

[notallofus]

"To . . . "

He takes a deep breath.

"To Ezra and Sabine, you mean?"

But they're teenagers! he means to say, and they wanted to come with us and do this work, but --

[for_everyone]

"They were in this before they came to us," she says, slowly, like she's reminding herself, too. "We didn't make this war, and they deserve to be able to fight for themselves. But -"

But they're young, she can't help thinking. But they should have been allowed their youth, and a real choice when it came to the shape of their lives.

[notallofus]

"But we're still taking them deeper in," Kanan says slowly. "Into the conflict, into . . . into what made us who we are. It's a different war, but it's still -- "

He breaks off again, shaking his head.

"I don't know how we make it better. I don't know if we can."

But they can try, right?

[for_everyone]

"I don't know, either."

But as always, in the face of a hard choice, of a terrible situation, Hera looks to the first step -

"But we can remember it."