Chapter Text
Hera watched as Kanan affectionately pat the bottom side of the Ghost and gave her a jaunty wink over his shoulder.
“Let’s go somewhere,” he said, making long strides up the ramp.
That was how her life with Kanan Jarrus had begun and if someone had told her then what they would become she probably wouldn’t have believed it.
To her this was an experiment. A dalliance in adding actual crew to her ship. She knew precious little about him, but what she did know was... promising.
Kanan was smart, and good in a fight. He was more selfless than he tried to personify himself as. Despite acting as if he was only in it for himself, he’d flown against evacuating traffic to a half-destroyed moon just for the chance to save his friend Okadiah.
Hera thought of all of this as she followed him through the ship, allowing him to acquaint himself, unable to keep her eyes from following his movements.
“Four cabins, huh?” He asked, when they hit the upper deck. “But I’m the only crew?”
When he turned, his distinct eyebrows arched in question. Hera attempted to act as if she hadn’t been watching him intently.
“So far,” she answered with a shrug. “I mean aside from my droid.”
She punched the controls for one of the cabins, the doors parting open. The space was as utilitarian as Kanan had expected with a low bench down one wall, a small table across from this, and two bunks straight ahead with rows of drawers below it.
“This’ll be your compartment,” Hera said behind him, as he stepped for the first time into his room.
“Definitely not the worst place I’ve had to sleep,” he said, sliding his bag from his shoulder and tossing it onto the bottom bed with a thunk. “And in which of these lovely cabins do you rest your head?”
Kanan caught her watching him again and a satisfying warmth spread through him. He especially enjoyed how she attempted to pretend she’d been looking elsewhere, those beautiful green eyes darting away.
“I’m across the hall,” she answered, nodding her head towards the closed doors, lekku swinging.
She didn’t offer to show him, and he didn’t ask despite a burning curiosity to see it. Instead he kept quiet as she met his steady gaze, crossing her arms over herself as if challenging him to ask.
When he didn’t she unfolded from herself, brushing her fingers over the top of her slightly puffy flight suit pants as if to smooth them out. “Want to see the cockpit?”
Kanan’s blue-green eyes lit up, an answer in and of itself. Hera couldn’t help the small smile that crept across her lips as she led him down, through the common area, and into the cockpit.
“Nice,” Kanan said, elongating the word into a long tone. “Very nice.”
Hera stood back, watching as he roamed the edge of the space along the control panels, running gentle fingers around the buttons and switches.
Yes, definitely promising, Hera thought again. Kanan showed reverence and respect for her ship. He also seemed to be prepared to reign in his flirting, aside from asking about her quarters. Not that she minded the flirting so much. She was no stranger to men’s weakness for Twi’lek women. She would just hate for him to get the wrong idea.
Hera had things to do, missions to focus on. There wasn’t time for emotional ties or attachments. Not in war.
Though, come to think of it, she imagined as a former Jedi he would understand all that.
If he had been a Jedi, that is. Hera still wasn’t sure. He’d used the Force to save her life, and so far hadn’t spoken of it since. She had no intention on pushing him to, even if her curiosity about the matter only grew with every moment.
“This my seat?” Kanan asked, pointing to the co-pilot’s chair. When she nodded he sank into it, running his hands down the arm rests “Not bad at all.”
He swiveled the chair to face her, smiling broadly. Truth was, Kanan could get used to this. A nice state of art ship. Very nice company. Definitely not bad.
Hera opened her mouth to say something, but before she could the cockpit door whooshed back open and an orange topped astromech came wheeling in at top speed.
It was beeping almost as fast as it was rolling, speaking in some broken binary that Kanan couldn’t understand.
“Chopper, I see you’re done power cycling,” Hera said, looking down at the droid with an affectionate glint in her eyes. “This is our new crew member: Kanan.”
Somehow the next series of chirps and beeps sounded indignant. This droid was somehow giving Kanan attitude as it advanced on him, bumping into his shins and making him jump from the co-pilot’s chair.
“Chopper,” Hera said in a warning voice. The droid’s flat head spun to face her. “Yes, I know we were doing fine on our own, but you have to admit we could use an extra set of hands around here.”
Kanan put the chair between himself and the droid, leaning against the bulkhead as he watched the exchange. This, he realized pretty quickly, was more than just an astromech to Hera. She’d sank down to her knee to address the aggrieved droid, who’s head was spinning now, two small clamped arms coming out as it chirped its response out.
“Yes, I know you have a perfectly good set yourself,” she said, patting the droid, so that he stilled his head, arms folding back inside their compartments. He beeped forlornly, and Hera turned her attention back to Kanan. “Why don’t you go settle in, and then we’ll get underway in a couple of hours.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Kanan said, giving the droid a wide birth as he left the cockpit. Then he paused on the other side of the doors once they closed.
“Chop, I need you to give him a chance,” he heard Hera say, and when the droid attempted to protest she pressed on. “He saved my life. Do you understand? He saved my life.”
Kanan stepped away then, the strange tenderness in Hera’s voice, a voice that was already music to his ears, was nearly too much.
Sure, she was right, Kanan had saved her. However he hadn’t done it to put her in some sort of debt to him. The Force sometimes worked in mysterious ways, and though it had rarely worked through him at all in the years since the rest of his Jedi brethren had fallen, it had guided him to save Hera. He wasn’t sure why, but he had known he was meant to keep her alive, to leave Gorse with her.
Even now, they’d only known each other for days, and yet he felt the connection. It was there, buzzing through the Force, and try as he might to ignore it, it persisted at the edge of his senses nonetheless.
Kanan set about unpacking his bag, putting clothes in the drawers below the bottom bunk. Slowly he unearthed the items at the bottom of the bag, the only remnants of his Jedi padawan past.
He opened the lower left drawer, and considered each item in turn before stowing them within. First the intricately inlayed cube, his Jedi Holocron which had sat unopened for years. Kanan didn’t open it now either, setting it in the drawer before fishing out the two metal pieces that comprised his lightsaber.
Fitting them together like a puzzle, he gripped the handle for a moment and closed his eyes. He remembered how proud he was when he’d finished building it, showing it to his Master Depa Billaba excitedly. Now it served as a sad reminder of her end.
Huffing out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, Kanan disconnected the two pieces and set them in the drawer next to the holocron. Then, as he went to close it a thought occurred to him, and he took a pair of his least favorite pants to place overtop of the items, concealing them.
Hera didn’t seem like the type to come into his space and look through his stuff, but it was better safe than sorry.
He used the remaining time to visit the refresher to wash up. Examining his face in the mirror he regretted cutting his hair shorter. It had been an extra precaution before he hitched a ride off of Gorse, so that he ran less of a risk of being recognized as he evacuated the planet.
Fortunately it would grow back, and he’d left enough length that surely in a matter of months he’d be able to tie it back again. For now he’d have to deal with it falling in his face every now and again.
He returned to spend the remaining hour or so before they left lounging in his new bunk, happy to have a place to call home.
Hera had gotten much done since dismissing her new crew member. She’d run diagnostics on a number of systems, done some minor repairs to the shield system, and charted the course to their next destination.
She took her time, wanting to give him adequate room to settle in, as she had said. When it was time, she knocked on his compartment doors.
“Come in.”
Kanan sat up in the bunk, swinging his legs to the floor as she entered.
“Ready to go?” Hera asked, toeing the the durasteel floor with her boot, and holding back a smile at the sight of how comfortable he had looked in the brief moments she’d seen him laying out along the bunk.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, getting to his feet. They walked through the corridor together, footsteps echoing through the ship. “Where’s our first destination, by the way?”
Hera didn’t answer until she was set down in the pilot’s chair, already tending to some of the controls, switching things on. “We’ve got someone waiting on that intel Zaluna gave us,” she said. When she looked to him he’d already sat down in the co-pilot’s seat. “I already charted the course.”
“I see it,” Kanan said, leaning over his own control panel. “Engine power 100%, ready for take off.”
Like a Gungan to water, Hera thought to herself, as Kanan snapped right into his role without hesitation. She took the Ghost airborne, lifting carefully from the launch pad straight up and out of the opening in the roof of the space dock.
She wasted little time, angling the ship and flying swiftly up out of the atmosphere. The view through the cockpit windows went inky black, speckled with stars as they entered real space.
“Last chance to change your mind,” Hera said, tossing a lek over her shoulder and turning to look at Kanan.
He laughed, a deep balm of a sound, swiveling the chair slightly to smile at her. “Let’s go somewhere,” he said again, as he had when he’d boarded. “Captain.”
Hera didn’t need to hear more, she turned back forward, and punched to activate the hyperdrive. As the stars extended into long white lines of light, and the ship lurched forward, they both knew: this was the start of something special.