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1.
Rex and Kallus had been sitting in neutral space for two solid weeks, playing game after game of dejarik until they were sick of the very squares on the board, when Hera Syndulla finally commed in her approach. Both let out a simultaneous sigh of relief at the message—they hadn’t yet discussed how long they planned to wait there, and now they wouldn’t have to.
“Holding at previous coordinates, Captain Syndulla,” Kallus said, and Rex added, “It’s good to hear your voice.”
He thought it would be even better to see her face, but he was wrong. She descended the ladder in perfect rhythm, step by step, the final jump onto the deck deliberate, eyes focused on where her feet would land. She didn’t move like anything hurt, but one look at her made it clear that she’d been seriously injured.
“Chatter on Imperial channels was that you’d been captured,” Rex said. “And then they said they’d caught a Jedi, too—”
“—killed a Jedi,” Kallus broke in.
“Killed a Jedi,” he corrected, “But we didn’t put much stock in that.”
Hera kept her eyes focused on his chest plate. “We’ve got a plan,” she told him, voice rough. Then she coughed and cleared her throat. “Excuse me. We’ve got a plan for freeing Lothal, but it’s a little desperate.”
She wasn’t injured. Recognition hit like a concussion blast. “Hera—” he said, offering sympathy and pain and a friend.
Her eyes flashed up at his face. Don’t , that savage look said, but he did.
“Who was it?”
“We need to gather reinforcements. I’ll send some messages. We also need a way back onto the planet. I’m taking the Ghost this time.”
“We’re coming too,” Kallus said.
“Tell us and get it over with,” Rex pressed. “Kanan or Ezra?”
She stopped still, like she’d moved just the wrong way against a sharp injury. Walking wounded.
“I need to send some messages,” she said again.
Braced on the doorframe, her hand shook. Rex covered it with his own. “Kanan,” she said, and at first he thought she was calling him by the wrong name, her voice caught between a plea and a sob. Then she said it again, “Kanan,” and he understood.
“Oh, no,” he said.
She coughed again, and he heard the sound for what it was—an attempt to keep the contents of her stomach where they belonged. Then she shook herself back to the present task. “I don’t have time for this right now.” She moved past them into the cockpit.
Kallus met his eyes, stricken, looking for all the galaxy like a child who never realized this could happen. He’d known death before, but never the death of someone he cared for. Never loss. Rex felt a flash of irritation and affection at the same time. You great Imperial baby , he thought. I can’t take care of you right now. But Kallus turned heel and walked ahead of him to the cockpit, steps uniform as always.
“Captain Syndulla,” he said. “Awaiting your orders.” And then, less stiffly: “Anything in the galaxy. Tell me to do anything.”
She looked up at him with eyes that were dry but not dead. “Help me wipe every last Imperial soldier from Lothal.”
…
2.
The next time Rex had a chance to talk to Hera, Lothal was won and Ezra lost. Standing in the Capital City docks, she and Sabine had apparently started a contest to see who could talk over the other one fastest.
“I shouldn’t have let him go—” Sabine was saying.
“I shouldn’t have walked away. I should have paid attention.”
“I SAW him, and I didn’t say ANYTHING.”
“If I’d been with the Ghost we could have gotten him back before they jumped.”
“Hera, this is not your fault. It’s my fault!”
Silence.
“Well, it’s Ezra’s,” Sabine finished.
Hera sighed where once she would have smiled. “We should have taught him that he matters more than the mission. We should have taught you that, too.”
Sabine glowered. “You and Kanan did just right. I wouldn’t trade you for ANYTHING.”
“You either. That’s my point,” Hera said.
“You going to be okay tonight?”
“Yes, I just need to...finish an official report; that’s probably first priority. Rebel Command is screaming for details.” She turned and saw Rex, startled to find she wasn’t alone.
“Sorry, General. I, ah, sent out your request for star charts to some old buddies of mine. We’ll find out where they jumped.”
Sabine touched Hera’s shoulder. “I’m going to find Zeb if you’re good.”
Hera nodded.
Sabine left, and Rex figured any assurance was better than none. “We’ll find him.”
“We will,” Hera said. She laughed—Rex was sure she didn’t mean it to sound bitter, but it did. “I can’t believe I lost my other Jedi.”
“It’s not you; they’re good at getting lost.”
“Blaster fire, bombs, falling off cliffs—those I expected. But to just— just— misplace him...”
There was an awkward silence. “You all right, General?” Rex asked.
“Not even a little. You?”
“Been a hell of a lot better. Been worse, too. We’ll get him back, things will get better.”
She met his eyes with hot determination. “I want it to hurt. If they’re going to be gone, I want to feel it.”
Rex sized her up. “This year’s going to be hell,” he said.
She nodded.
“There’s nothing for it. You’re just going to have to white-knuckle your way through it.”
She held up one fist, skin stretched pale green over the bones, acknowledgement and promise that she’d keep going.
“Can’t execute that kind of maneuver alone.”
“I think…” she said.
Rex waited while she worked out her thoughts.
“I think...the first thing we’ll do is go after Ezra. Chopper will be able to figure out those charts. We can do it.”
For just a moment she reminded him intensely and absurdly of Padmé Amidala. What would it take to destroy her? Drop a mountain on this woman’s head and she’d dig herself out with a spoon. Then he thought of General Skywalker, beaten so silly that he couldn’t even tell what was going on around him, getting back up over and over again purely on instinct when it would have been much smarter to stay down.
A lot of the General’s plans involve falling , he’d said. “Sure, we can do it,” he said now.
“Thank you, Rex. It’s good to have friends.”
He’d get those star charts for her or die trying.
...
3.
Just after they’d lost Ahsoka, Hera Syndulla had come after Rex, offered him their mutual pain, and sat next to him cleaning weapons like a brother. The way he saw it, he owed her at least that much. After they left Lothal, though, she wasn’t exactly easy to find—according to Dodonna she’d taken a partial leave of absence. Syndulla taking care of herself? Good. Good for her.
When a little more asking around uncovered that nobody had seen her for a week, though, he got worried enough to track her down. Zeb met him just inside the Ghost’s ramp, arms crossed. “Sorry, you can’t see her right now. She’s sick.”
Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe the past month had been too much and she was doing worse, not better. He could hardly fault her; he’d spent fifteen years licking his wounds in the desert, certain that the galaxy was done with him. “I think she should see me,” he told Zeb. “I know what she’s going through.”
Zeb snorted. “Doubt that. She’s pregnant. Sick as they come.”
She...was...what? You’re going to have to white-knuckle your way through this year , Rex had told her. Force, could he ever stick his foot in it.
“Is…?”
“Yeah, it’s Kanan’s.”
“Not what I was going to ask. Is she going to—” he cleared his throat awkwardly, “—be all right?”
“Medical droids say yes. Looks like she’s going to keel over any minute if you ask me, though.”
The whoosh of a door opening somewhere in the ship. Hera’s hoarse voice: “I can hear you talking about me!”
Both of them winced. “Yeah, guess she’s going to make it,” Zeb said.
…
4.
They started holding little social events on the Ghost, just for their immediate circle of friends. Dinner and board games, an attempt to jump start their lives again. Hera huddled in the corner and ate nothing, but she watched what they did with interest.
Shortly thereafter she returned to work, thinner than she’d ever been but giving a hell of a briefing. Things were getting back to normal. Painful, awful normal—living in the aftermath of an explosion, but living nonetheless. Zeb smiled more. Hera smiled more, too, and her stomach finally started to grow, and sometimes she put a hand to it absently while they were talking. Rex breathed a little easier for her.
He thought she was back to work and back in the game or he never would have followed her out of the diplomatic dinner and to the Ghost. “General!” he called after her as the ramp lowered. “Got a comms request in the middle of the party. Those charts finally came through.”
She turned around, nose pink with crying. Crying? “Thank you, Rex,” she said, genuine gratitude in her voice even as it crumpled. “Maybe they’ll have what we need to find Ezra.”
“Hera, are you—”
Her eyes dared him to ask if she was all right.
“I’ll walk you into the ship—”
“—it’s fine—”
“—and wait until Zeb or Chopper gets back—”
“—Thank you, but I don’t need—”
“—with your permission.”
“I don’t need Zeb.” The pitch of her voice rose.
“You don’t need to sit here by yourself.”
“What I NEED,” she snapped, “Is KANAN.”
He stared her down. “Yeah. I know.”
They hadn’t gotten farther than the hold. She sat down in the middle of the floor and started to cry in earnest. Great, soldier, good move, Rex scolded himself. He jammed the close button on the ramp and sat down next to her.
“I hate happy people,” she said, nonsensically. “It’s not fair, but I hate them.”
That doesn't sound like you, he thought, but this wasn’t the moment to tell her to stay strong. Instead, he said, “You want to tell me what happened tonight?”
“Not really, but I think I’m going to anyway. Those people, they’re so...so nice and full of pity, and they don’t know anything.” The words were coming fast, and the tears were coming fast, and it occurred to Rex that he had never before, not even in those first moments of loss, seen Hera Syndulla let go of her emotions. “Do you know what they say to me? The ones who are stupid enough to pry in the first place, I mean.” She wiped snot on her sleeve, as if afraid that taking the time to blow her nose would destroy her momentum. “They tell me what a blessing this baby is. That’s the word they use. Blessing. The Force took Kanan away, but oh, at least I have this consolation prize. People say these things—out loud, to me—like the baby is safe, like the Empire isn’t going to kill him too, or— or— an accident in combat, or some sort of genetic anomaly, or chance. Like it’s the will of the Force since the beginning of time that he exist, like it was the will of the Force that Kanan had to die and this is just a trade-off. And you know what? Maybe it was. Maybe the Force DID take Kanan away from me. And they want to look on the bright side, to make that okay. But I am so filled with anger when they talk, so, so angry, because it is not written ANYWHERE that I have to choose one or the other.”
Rex didn’t have a handkerchief, so instead he slipped the guard off from under his bracer and handed it to her. Hera wiped her face without a word of thanks and handed it back to him.
“We’re the lucky ones,” Rex said dryly, parroting the old line. “We survived.”
“No,” said Hera. “Surviving should be normal. I shouldn’t have to lose them. I don’t accept this.”
“No, you don’t,” said Rex, patting her hand.
They sat for a minute.
“Civilians are bloody idiots,” he said. Then a minute later: “They think if there’s a reason for bad things to happen, they’re safe. Everything in the galaxy works according to some grand plan.”
“There’s no plan,” Hera said, hollow.
“Well...there’s YOUR plan.”
“But I’m tired, Rex.”
“I know you are, General.”