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The empty plain spread out before him, meaning action, meaning choices. He had to figure out how to make the right ones. Deep breath, Kanan. And then another deep breath. He closed his eyes, although it shouldn’t technically matter, and stepped into the Force like slipping into a dark pool.
He saw the future this time. The sensation of flight and the wind strangely cold against his cheek. A building rising up and up with him against its face. Ezra speaking from far away: “You didn’t prepare me for this.” He heard Hera’s voice, but he was not permitted to see her.
He saw the shape of Lothal next, then its place in the system, and then the whole galaxy. And a broader, blacker space beyond it that he didn’t understand. The planet was a sapling with damaged roots, or a circuit board with a connection pulled loose. Something needed to be...nudged. He was supposed to guide something into place. He could do that. But he wanted to see Hera, so he focused.
And then she was with him, hurt badly, sobbing and broken to the core, and her pain almost jolted him from the vision. You are empty before the Force, he reminded himself. He did not permit the stab of fear, instead looking for what he could put right.
He couldn’t SEE her though, not really. Bits and pieces here and there. A flash of her arm and her torso, skin shining with new burns. The sensation of shock up her spine and in her chest. She’d been electrocuted, then. He reached out and touched gently, running ghost fingers along her back, using the Force to ease the damage to her heart. But even as he reached for her she slipped away and he was left with only her voice, that broken, hoarse sobbing, calling for him over and over. “It’s okay,” he told her. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll heal.” He had the sensation of being with her still, but he couldn’t see her body, and that did not bode well for this rescue mission. Where was she? An undertow of frustration and want swept him away, until even her voice faded.
No wonder the vision wasn’t working. We don’t get to pick what we see--we take what the Force needs to show us. He smoothed his thoughts, away from Hera, back to the whole.
Something was out of place and it was given to him to set it right. This was more important than Hera. The dark pool around him shifted, the Force building to an invisible rising wave. If he didn’t fix it, Lothal would become a gateway to the destruction of all the winking lights in the galaxy. It only needed something small…
...Then he saw it. Really SAW it, the way he’d seen with his eyes before the accident. Only one Force push and he could begin the whole thing. Ezra could finish what he left behind.
Yes, he said without hesitation. Yes, I can do that.
The plain lay before him and it was time to make choices. Yes, Hera, he thought. I’ll finish this for you.
…
The wall rose clammy against her back, covered with pictures that could show her something if she had any will left to look. Her hand against her face felt hot and dry. Chopper sat at her feet, strangely silent, only the old comforting thrum of his power cells to keep her company. And the moon shone in the mouth of the cave, a little cold light to remind her where she was. Most of the camp had retired for the evening, but she heard voices on the terrace outside. They could tell her something if she could summon the will to listen.
Gradually she realized that they were just the voices of her friends. “I don’t know, I don’t like the idea of her sitting in the dark in there. What’s she even doing? I think someone should check on her.” That was Sabine. “At least for injuries, at some point.”
“Leave her alone.” That was Ezra, thick with despair. “Chopper’s in there with her. Just give her some space.”
And then Zeb— “Get out of my way—” and she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until he was almost on top of her.
“Hera,” he whispered.
She was supposed to say something.
“You awake?”
She looked up at him. She was supposed to say something. Hera, get up, get back up, she thought. But everything inside was hollow and she didn’t.
She felt the bristle of fur and the flat of his fingernail cool against her face and then he drew in a sharp breath. “Karabast, you’re burning up. Sabine! Ezra!” He grumbled something at Chopper and Chopper protested his ignorance.
“My head hurts so much,” Hera said. “I keep trying to sleep.” It was useful information. They needed it to run a diagnostic.
“Get a thermometer,” Sabine was saying. “Get her up off the ground.”
Then Azadi’s voice, mumbling and sleepy. “What’s all the noise?” She lost the thread of conversation for a moment and caught it again when he said, “It’s the after-effects of interrogation drugs. They gave her refined spice—more or less poison. It’s on its way out now, though. She’ll be all right in a few hours.”
“All right my big purple ass.”
“She is really, really hot. Ezra, we need to get her in water,” Sabine said.
“We don’t exactly have a tub.”
“IMPROVISE!”
They were worrying far too much for a fever, but she thought maybe fussing over her made them feel better.
Then she was on her feet but mostly not walking and she didn’t remember getting to the opposite side of the ledge, but Sabine and Ezra were with her in a shallow cave, and Sabine looked angry, so angry, the way she only looked when she’d been hurt within an inch of her life.
“Okay, I need to get some of these clothes off her. Get out,” Sabine said.
“She’s too heavy for you.”
“I said I’ve got her!”
Hera fell into something with a splash and her skin burned and she screamed.
“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Hera, what hurts?”
Here was Zeb again. Hands fumbled with her headgear and she had to get to Sabine to find out what was wrong. “You did good on the tub,” Sabine said nonsensically. Chop hummed in anxiety. He shouldn't be near the water. Where had Ezra gone? Somebody had to check on Ezra. Kanan would look after him.
Then she remembered and the moan sounded like her own.
“Watch the clothes, she’s burned.”
“Are those…? Oh stars.”
“No, it’s not that bad.”
In her dream she was trying to warn Kanan about something but he wouldn’t stop talking to listen to her. She’d had a vision, and if he would just shut up she could save him.
He’s already dead, she realized. No amount of trying can bring back dead. But she would try anyway. That’s what she was here for, caught in this nightmare. She could throw herself up against the blank wall of death over and over again.
“I’m not leaving.” Ezra. Good, he was safe. He and Sabine and Zeb and Chopper were here and they were all hurt and they were looking to her for what to do. But what could they do?
She could scream, she realized. She was hurt and shivering and half-undressed now, and the only weapon she had left was her voice. “Scream,” she told them, because if they didn’t they would all burst. “Just scream.”
“What’s she saying?” Zeb asked. Sabine spoke something in her ear, the familiar face so worried.
Kanan was dead, gone, nonexistent, and nothing could undo that and the pain would not stop. Nothing beats death, her own voice echoed alone in her head. Please let me wake up from this, it said also.
Days passed, she thought, and she could feel him slipping away while she sat here helpless. Where had they taken him? She searched for an opening in that high wall between them but found none. Over and over she looked. Don’t give up, she said. But there was no hope.
“Kanan.”
She whimpered, but she couldn’t find him. “Kanan.”
“Shh,” he said. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. You’ll heal.”
A firm hand touched her back and she stopped shivering. He was here.
“I think her fever’s breaking. She’s starting to sweat.”
“How can you tell with all this water?”
Only a dream, she thought, wild with glee and relief. She knew he’d find a way to fix this. She should never have doubted him.
He touched her chest and then her shoulder.
“Kanan.”
“Yes, Hera.”
“She’s good, she’s good. Check out the thermometer. She’s okay.”
Hera opened her eyes with the gasp of a fleeing nightmare, thanking the Force she could wake up and call out for comfort. “Kanan!”
Then she saw their faces and reality grabbed her by the throat and squeezed. She couldn’t. No, give me the fever back, please. She couldn’t.
They’d never exactly talked about what would happen if one of them died first, how the other one would grieve. Their understanding had been unspoken. If you go, I won’t give up. I’ll take care of the kids. I’ll keep fighting. I will carry that burden so you don’t have to worry.
But how can you keep fighting when you’ve lost? All those years she’d prayed that he wouldn’t lose her, knowing how hard he would take it. She’d thought she could bear it in his place, that she already knew how to survive sorrow, and she’d sat there complacent… And now it was too late and she wasn’t READY.
She couldn’t even begin to pick up that grief. No, Kanan, she thought. Please don’t ask this of me.