Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hera’s up late in the cockpit, running alternate route calculations and enjoying the peace that the hum of hyperspace brings when she hears a shout and a crash.

Immediately, Hera runs for the noise, stopping in front of the room Kanan has been claiming as his own for the past several months. It may be her ship, but she refuses to invade his privacy unless absolutely necessary. She can’t hear anything for a moment, and then there’s a sharp intake of breath.

“Kanan?” She winces at the hesitation in her voice. He doesn’t answer. “You okay?”

A moment of silence again before the door opens, and the person who greets her is barely recognizable. He looks like someone who has just seen something terrible.

“I’m all right,” he mumbles, clearly lying. There is blood running down his arm.

“Stay right there,” Hera orders. “Let me get something for your arm.”

She returns with a small medkit. He’s still standing in the doorway, still looking slightly lost.

“Nightmare?” she asks, finally identifying the look on his face.

He hesitates for a moment. “Yeah,” he replies hoarsely.

“Sit down,” she nods back at his bunk and turns on the light. There’s a shattered glass on the ground.

“Oh, shit,” Kanan mutters. “I’m so sorry, I must have—“

“It’s okay,” Hera answers quickly. “That explains your bloody hand.” She sits next to him as he unclenches his fist slowly, and she can see the cuts are over his knuckles. “Nice punch though.”

He forces a smile. “Thanks. Sorry. Not usually one for destruction of - of property.”

“Well, I know that’s a lie,” she smiles.

“Not anything that’s yours. Not anything on the Ghost.”

Hera is touched by how completely serious he is. “Here, let me see.”

He holds up his arm, quickly reaching out to grab a bandage to wipe away the blood before letting her look at his hand. Kanan’s slowly coming back to his usual self, but she notices he’s keeping his breath steady, as if he’s trying to calm himself down. As if it’s a habit.

“Well,” she reaches for the tweezers, picking out a shard of glass still stuck in the wound. “Must have been a nasty one.”

“Yeah. Every once in awhile.”

She nods, accepting it, pulling out another piece of glass.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“You’re not going to ask?”

“It’s not my business unless you choose to tell me,” Hera replies, holding gauze to the bleeding to get it to stop.

“Hmm. That’s kind of you. Because you know more about me than I know about you.”

Hera frowns, considering this. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“I’ve never caught you in a nightmare, punching at inanimate objects,” he says it like he’s trying to lighten the mood, but she catches the emotion behind it.

“Doesn’t mean they don’t happen,” She’s suddenly aware she’s holding his hand in both of hers. She looks up at him to ignore the fact it feels too natural. This, all of this, is an act of trust.

Kanan’s processing what she just told him, then nodding. He isn’t going to ask either.

“I thought you might have recognized my name and guessed a thing or two about me,” she checks to see if the bleeding has stopped yet.

“Your name?”

She starts wrapping his hand carefully.

“Maybe not,” she shrugs. “My - my father is a fairly well-known revolutionary.”

“Ah. I see,” Kanan is still too polite to ask more questions. “Something you inherited from him, then?”

“I suppose so.” There’s more to that story, but he will not hear it all tonight. She smiles softly, tucking the bandage into itself to make sure it won’t come undone. “Well, at least I maintain some secrecy with those who haven’t studied the Clone War.”

She can feel Kanan tense. He clears his throat. “Yeah, well, I was too busy fighting in it to study it.”

She looks up at him again. It feels like the air has gone out of her lungs.

“Oh, Kanan,” she murmurs. “I’m so sorry.”

Since she found out about his connection with the Jedi, she’s thought of how his pain and habits of avoidance can easily be explained by the death of the Order, the systematic execution of the Jedi, but she never envisioned him actually fighting in the war too. She spent a childhood hiding in the tunnels beneath battlefields, but she assumed Kanan had lived out the war years safe and warm in the protection of the Jedi Temple.

“You were —“

“Thirteen when I started.”

She’s still holding his hand, but he hasn’t let go, so she doesn’t either. He squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back, careful not to squeeze the bandaged area too hard.

“It seems like I didn’t know much about you after all.” It’s all she can say. Until he tells her more. If he tells her more.

“That’s okay,” he shrugs, finally letting go. “I prefer it that way.”

And suddenly the connection is broken. The Kanan he likes to project to the rest of the universe, the Kanan who doesn’t really care about anything, is back.

“I guess I can understand that,” Hera responds, standing and making her way to the door. She’ll give him back his privacy.

“It’s easier,” he continues. “I try not to get too attached.”

“That a Jedi thing or a self-defense thing?” she asks.

He smirks like the question doesn’t bother him.

“Don’t know. Maybe both.”

Hera nods. He’s her crewmate, but it’s not like she’s keeping him here. He could leave at any time. Maybe he will.

The thought hurts her more than she’d like.

She stops at his door, turns to face him.

“Well…it’s nice to have someone around. Even for a little while.”

Chapter Text

“Syndulla.”

Kanan sits down in the co-pilot chair.

“Yeah?” Hera glances over.

He smiles to himself.

That can’t be good. “You need something?”

“No, I just—I figured out the connection.”

Hera sighs, adjusts the controls. She shouldn’t have mentioned her father. It had been a show of good faith, and Kanan had been distracted by his nightmare. She didn’t think he’d be still thinking about it. She keeps her expression even, refusing to let him get any information out of her.

“Oh, you did, did you?”

“Yeah. I did,” he smiles wider, triumphant. “Did your father ever run for the Senate?”

Hera turns to him, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. “Wow. You look that up on the HoloNet all by yourself?”

“You and I both know all records of the Republic have been scrubbed from the ‘Net. I remembered that all by myself.”

She doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or pleased he took the time to figure part of her life out.

“So you’re a fan of political trivia, then?” she quips.

He opens his mouth for some banter-y reply, then closes it, something dark passing over his expression she can’t quite read.

Great. She’s said something wrong, but she’s not sure what. And she won’t know if he doesn’t tell her. Of course, he told her he fought in the war in the same conversation where she mentioned her father, so her best guess is it has something to do with that. Hera gives him some time to work it out, turning back to the ship controls.

It’s strange, they’ve lived together for months now, sharing a relatively small space, having to rely on each other for backup. Despite an obnoxious start, he’s mellowed out when he doesn’t have to impress anyone with flirty bravado and can just be himself. He’s good in a fight, loves her ship, and is even a decent cook. Although he’s still jumpy when it comes to the rebellion, they make a good team, and she likes him.

And yet, despite living in close quarters, she still knows surprisingly little about him. Sure, she knows he hums loudly and off-key in the shower (when he’s drunk, but not drunk enough to be sad), how he takes his caf (disgustingly sweet), and (accidentally!) what he looks like in his underwear (from an awkward encounter she pretends she doesn’t think about), but she doesn’t know, like, his favorite color. Or what his family was like. (Did the Jedi still call it a family?) And he sure doesn’t know any of that about her.

She knows both of them traveled alone before they met each other, and she’s always kept people at a very safe distance. Especially since she left Ryloth. But maybe it would be good for her to share…something…

“I’ve said something that upset you.” There. She’ll offer him the opportunity to say what it is.

“No,” he shakes his head a little. “You’re fine. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” she says lightly. She can see the moment he makes the decision to stay. He slouches a bit in his seat and exhales slowly.

“No, I do. I don’t mean to shut down and be an asshole.”

They’re going to try and over-accommodate each other at this rate.

“You’re not being an asshole…currently,” she teases. He smiles slightly, but she still wants him to have the chance to talk about this. “It’s hard for me to talk about my past, so I imagine for you-“ she winces, tries to start over. “I know the war and politics went together so closely and you were fighting—“

Why is this hard? She’s usually great at making connections with people.

Weirdly, he’s still smiling at her.

“Are you making fun of me?” she asks.

“Not yet. Keep trying though.”

She rolls her eyes again, adjusting the power system.

“Hera,” he shockingly surrenders first. “I’m sorry I brought up your family. It’s none of my business—“

“I gave you that information though. It’s your right to put it together. I’m not saying you have to share anything with me, but I said something that made your expression change. If I can do anything to avoid topics that make you upset…”

He sighs deeply, rubbing his forehead tiredly. “You’re fine. I’m just a bit of a mess.”

“I know,” she says confidently. “I am too. In different ways but—“

He snorts. “You? Please, Hera.”

She swivels her chair to give him a look, unable to help herself. “Did you want to talk or--“

He winces at her intensity. “Sorry. It’s just kind of hard to believe you feel that way. You’re so incredible at what you do and…” he trails off. She glances back over at him and is to surprised to see he looks a bit…flustered?

She clears her throat, rushing past that observation for now. “Well, maybe I try really hard to appear that way.”

He’s listening, smart enough to keep his mouth closed.

She takes a deep breath. “I—uh—“ Hera hesitates for a moment, but he’s waiting for her, not a hint of snark in his expression for once. “I ran away from home when I was seventeen.”

He nods once.

“My—my father is very involved in the Free Ryloth movement, as you probably know, and-“ Suddenly, she feels an unfamiliar lump in her throat. Has she ever actually said any of this out loud? She’s not sure. She keeps going before she loses courage. “Things got even messier after the war. I - I got into some trouble against the Empire, and my parents stood up for me, started fighting again. Eventually the Empire killed my mother because—“

She takes a shaky breath. He doesn’t need the details.

“My father was heartbroken. Obviously I was too, but I—we had lost —“ she can’t bring herself to mention her brother, but Kanan is still listening, the expression on his face is so open that she presses forward. “He put all his time into fighting for Ryloth, and I kept thinking about the bigger galaxy out there, how Ryloth can’t be free if nobody else is, you know? So…I had to leave.”

To her surprise, Kanan reaches over, squeezing her hand once in reassurance, then letting go.

“I’m so sorry, Hera.”

“It’s fine,” she replies, her voice tight. “I just feel so selfish sometimes. I shouldn’t have run away, shouldn’t have left my father and my people behind, but I felt like if I stayed, I’d never be allowed to do anything that mattered. It was like…I’d suffocate.”

“Hera,” Kanan says firmly. “You’re the least selfish person I know.”

“But—“

“You do nothing but fight for others. Sometimes we have to chart our own paths apart from—“ he hesitates. “Apart from the people who raised us.”

“But you didn’t have the choice,” she says quietly.

He looks away, looks at the floor for a moment, exhaling sharply.

He’s quiet for a few more moments, but Hera gives him the time to think.

“I was required to study up on Republic politics, early war battles before I could leave for the battlefield. That’s how I knew your father’s name.”

“Oh,” Hera responds, tapping her fingers on her knee. “That makes sense.”

He doesn’t add anything else to his own story, but he does turn back to her. “Thank you,” he says. “For telling me about yourself. I—you really are —“ again he seems more at a loss for words than usual, but his words make her feel an odd fluttering in her chest. “I may not believe in the rebellion the way you want me to but…I believe in you.”

She smiles.

Chapter Text

In retrospect, Kanan might have seen the shot coming, but in the moment, Hera acts instinctively. She shoves him out of the way and the blaster bolt hits her shoulder instead of his chest. Hera sees stars as she stumbles forward. She’s taken fire before, but just grazes. This one burns and tears, knocking the wind out of her. Kanan, bless his fast reflexes, fires back, and their enemy drops before he can get in another shot.

“Hera! Hera, look at me, are you okay?”

She’s not sure. She’s grasping at the wound, gritting her teeth. “Hate—them—”

“Yeah, me too, look, we need to go, and I’m gonna need to pick you up.”

She nods jerkily, feeling lightheaded. He’s got her in a second and starts running. Now she really owes him. She’s not sure if she’s passed out or just delirious, because they are back at the Ghost in both an eternity and no time at all and she can hear Chopper in a panic.

“Chop, please, I need to take care of her, just get us somewhere.”

Kanan sets her down, but all she can feel is the burning in her shoulder.

“Hera?”

He looks very worried.

“Hera, can you stay awake for me?”

Has she been asleep? She focuses in on his face and nods. She can sure try.

“Good, good. You’ve taken some blood loss from that cut, so you may feel a little blurry, but I’m here, right?”

What cut? she thinks, and then remembers the slash to the side of her neck. Remembers the whole job gone wrong. She got too ambitious and got caught, and Kanan deserves to be furious with her, but he’s not. He came after her and saved her life instead, even though she told him to leave her behind. To save the supplies.

“Yeah,” her voice sounds far away. “Yeah,” she repeats, so he knows she’s listening.

“I’m just trying to stop the bleeding,” he presses something to the cut on her neck carefully. “Can you just put your right hand on that?” She lets him guide her hand there. “There. Hold pressure.”

“Did you — did you kill him?” her mind is sluggish, but that much occurs to her. She almost wants to laugh. If her scrappy ex-Jedi just took down a crime lord—

He frowns, clearly not expecting the question. “Uh…you know, I’m not sure, but, I do have to look at where you were shot now.” She can hear the worry in his voice, although he’s clearly trying to remain calm. The fact he’s so worried about her gives her a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She shifts, pulling her good arm and shoulder out of her pilot’s jumpsuit, and then he helps her with the other. She can already tell it’s bad from the amount of blood on the top she wears underneath. She turns to look at the wound.

“Don’t look,” Kanan says, without looking up from his digging in the medpack.

“That bad?”

“Well, it’s not the most glamorous thing I’ve seen.”

“You know what you’re doing?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

She believes him, or she wants to believe him enough that she does. He pulls out an antiseptic, unwraps the standard packaging with practiced ease.

“You look comfortable with that.”

“You still trying to make conversation?”

“Yes, because I know that’s going to really hurt.”

He doesn’t deny it. “I’m sorry.”

She’s patched him up before: bloody knuckles from bad reactions to nightmares, bacta patches, black eyes, but this —

“This is a little more challenging than some bloody knuckles. I really do owe you.”

He frowns, shakes his head a little. “You — You just took a blaster bolt for me, Hera.” He checks the bandage on her neck and puts a fresh one down, this time taping it down.

“You threw a few men across a room.”

“Shh.”

“Do not shush me.”

“Sorry, it’s just — the shot went clean through. I wanted to warn you before I cleaned it out.”

Hera winces.

“Here.” He offers her a hand to hold and she takes it. Now is not the time for pretending she’s too tough for this. “Ready?”

“Just do it.” She tries to focus on him, but the antiseptic burns and immediately she can’t think of anything else. She yells, squirming in pain, but he’s steady.

For some reason, she remembers her mother’s face before she died from a blaster shot. She wonders if this is a glimpse of what her mother felt after the Imperial officer shot her. How had she still been so calm as she took Hera’s hand—She feels a sudden tightness in her chest.

“Hera, look at me—“

Hera hears her name being called, but she doesn’t know where she is anymore.

“Hera! Breathe with me—“

Kanan. Kanan is there, holding her hand, and she’s on the Ghost again, aware she’s panicking, but she doesn’t know how to make herself stop.

“Come on, it’s all right. I’m done. Breathe In…” she tries to make her body obey, feeling the tears running down her face.

She takes in a breath, finally, and she’s shaking, but Kanan doesn’t seem to mind.

“Good, now breathe out.”

You're okay. You're fine. He lets her take a few more.

“I’m sorry, I don’t—“ she can’t remember the last time this happened to her. She’s not usually one to panic. Kanan has never seen her cry. She needs to pull herself together…

“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. You with me?” He brushes a hand against her cheek gently, just to wipe a tear away, then pulls back as if he’s trespassed.

She nods. “Just—a memory. I’m - I’m okay.” She wipes her face with her free hand, feeling more embarrassed than she’d like.

He’s carefully stitching up the front part of her wound. “I’m sorry, you might not have a pretty scar.”

“Better than being dead.”

He works on it carefully, and her breathing thankfully steadies out. Her body feels heavy and tired. She watches him, and for a second she feels like something is expanding in her chest just from looking at him. What’s wrong with her?

“Can you sit up?”

She nods, slowly bringing herself up as he moves behind her. He holds a hand against her good shoulder to steady her, then carefully sets a bacta patch on either side of her shoulder.

Hera tries to gather herself, to figure out what she can say to get ahead of the weird debrief they’ll need to have. She’ll need to talk about the rancor in the room: how they threatened her when she got caught, the nasty comments they made about her body, about how Kanan must be taking advantage of someone like her.

“Kanan.”

She means to sound steady, but her voice is hoarse and shaky.

“Hmm?”

“Look at me.” This time, she sounds better, thankfully.

Kanan comes around so he’s sitting next to her. He looks too worried. She shifts, still holding the bandage to her neck.

“What they said—“

Kanan frowns, a crease appearing between his eyebrows. He’s still angry.

It shifts something vulnerable in her, throws up her walls of self-defense.

“You didn’t have to defend me,” she blurts out before she can stop herself.

“What?”

She holds up her free hand to stop him. “I mean in that situation, you got me out, and that was good, but—“ she feels a lump in her throat and ignores it. “But you have to admit some of what he said was right.”

“What are you talking about?” Kanan shakes his head in confusion. “No. None of it was right—“

“You never wanted to ‘try me out’?” she cuts him off. “Never secretly hoped I was what you were getting out of this arrangement?”

He’s confused, then upset at having their words thrown back at him. “No. No! Of course, I was…initially attracted to you. And I know I was a selfish piece of shit, but I— that’s not how I think of you. At all.”

“Then how do you think of me?” she snaps.

Kanan blinks in surprise. “How do I— Hera, you’re the best person I know!”

It’s such an honest and vulnerable statement, it terrifies her even more.

“Oh, am I?” she snaps. A small voice in her mind tells her to slow down, that she’s letting her panic take over and being irrational, but she doesn’t care.

“Yes!” he replies, standing, then, as if he realizes how he’s towering over her, takes a step back and a deep breath. “Look, if-if you need a moment to be alone, that’s fine. Today was…a lot, but--“ He hesitates and turns back from the door to face her. “I trust you. I like you. Just…” he scrubs a hand over his face. “Let me know when you’re ready to talk.”

He walks out.

Hera presses the heels of her palms to her eyes, trying not to cry.

What is wrong with her? She’s acting like a child.

Because you care about him, and it will hurt if he doesn’t see you as an equal. If he views you the same way everyone else seems to.

But she might be more scared if he everything he said is true. If he does see her as an equal. If he does think she’s the best person he knows.

The man just saved her life. She owes him a better explanation.

“Kanan, wait,” she calls, stumbling for the hallway.

He turns from his doorway, looking at her.

“It’s just—“ her voice wavers, but she has to keep going. “People don’t ever see me.”

His expression softens.

She leans against the wall on her good side, because she underestimated how much she’s hurting, but she’s too stubborn to leave now. “You’ve…been around the galaxy. So you know. You know how people talk about me. How the Empire views Twi’leks. Most people see me as - as an object. Sometimes I don’t think anyone has ever seen me as someone who has real thoughts and feelings.”

He’s silent for a moment, and she can’t quite read him. She can hear her own heartbeat, probably because she’s lightheaded, but also because she’s being terrifyingly honest.

“My whole life I’ve had to be careful. What they said to me—that’s not new.”

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, even though he knows. He’s been traveling with her for almost a standard year now.

“I like and trust you too, but I’m worried you maybe just—“ she swallows. “Are playing nice to get laid and go.”

He looks offended, then takes a moment to process. “Hera, I need you to know, I don’t expect anything from you, okay? Not now, not ever. And the second I ever make you feel like you’re less than the incredible person you are, you can throw me out the airlock.”

Hera smiles faintly. Because she can tell he means it. And he knows she’ll do it.

“And we can continue this conversation, but did you come out here cause your neck is still bleeding?”

“No. But if you’re offering to help…”

He smiles softly, offering her an arm and leading her back in.

She sits and she drops her hand from where she’s been holding it. He starts putting on a bandage.

“You know; we might have more in common than I thought.”

She snorts. “Oh yeah?”

“You’ve been lecturing me about my coping skills, but it turns out, we both avoid getting close to others.”

“I get plenty close to others!” she returns.

He laughs. She can’t explain the feeling she gets at the sound. She relaxes a bit.

“You’re kind to others. You do incredible things for them, risk your life. But you’re cautious. Because people who actually get close could hurt you.”

She bites her tongue.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“You could very well be talking about yourself,” she points out.

He smirks. “You caught me.” He finishes applying the bandage. “Look, I don’t completely understand, and I could never understand your life, but I — I know a little about what it’s like to live realizing most people would harm you if you let your guard down.”

“Yeah,” she nods.

“But while we’re on the subject, is there anything I’ve done wrong?”

Hera knows what he means, but still takes the chance to tease. “I told you to leave me and save yourself.”

Kanan rolls his eyes. “Anything that I’ve done that’s made you uncomfortable, I mean.”

“No,” she says, seriously. “You know I would have told you.”

He grimaces. “What about the shameless flirting when we met?”

She shakes her head. If she’s honest, she trusts him a lot more than she’s trusted anyone in a very long time.

“I just don’t want to…let you down,” she says, then feels her face grow warm.

He frowns. “Hera, you never let me down. I know I’m a mess, but I feel like…I hope I’m a different person than I was a year ago. Obviously, if you want me out, I’m out, but—“

“No. I don’t want you to go,” she says, and she means it. “And I know. I just—guess I’m embarrassed with everything that happened today.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Still, I’m sorry you had to see…all that.”

“What? You getting shot?”

And objectified. And vulnerable. And nearly failing a mission. And you getting hurt because of it. “Me…crying. Thanks for helping me calm down. I don’t usually —“

“I know. It’s okay.” He shrugs, then smiles. “Besides, it’s not like you haven’t seen me break down. You’ve helped me through my fair share of issues.”

“Speaking of which—“ she pulls over the medpack and cracks one of the ice packs. “You’re gonna have a bad black eye if you don’t ice your face. You got a nasty punch to the nose for my risky planning.”

“I’ll be okay,” he smiles, but takes the pack anyway.

They sit in silence for a few moments.

“I should probably go check on Chop and the ship,” she says, finally. “But — we should continue the debrief.”

Kanan nods, following her to the cockpit.

Everything is just fine, but Hera had to check. Just in case. And it gave her time to think of what to say next. She sends Chopper away, makes sure they’re safely in hyperspace, and turns to face Kanan in the copilot’s seat.

“Question,” he says, squinting at her from behind the ice pack.

“Yes?”

“Why’d you hire me on in the first place? I’m arguably the last person you should have let live aboard your ship.”

Hera smiles. “Haven’t I told you already?”

“I know ‘Because I needed someone to help move crates’ is not the real answer. If it were, you’d have hired someone who drank less and had a less complicated backstory.”

“Hmm,” she pretends to be considering it for the first time. “You do have a point.”

But he’s still waiting for an actual answer.

She lets out a breath. “Kanan, the truth is, it’s because your first instinct is always to care deeply.”

He opens his mouth to protest and then shuts it, as if he realizes denying it just proves her point.

She laughs. “You try to pretend you don’t, but, at the end of it all, you would do anything to help other people. It’s who you are. Your strength is your heart.”

Kanan snorts. “Sure it is.”

“I’m serious! I think it just bothers you to hear it because it may remind you of…of your old life.”

“Still trying to recruit me, Captain?”

She smiles. He’ll come around.

“I’m just saying, maybe, after a year of working together...we can start believing it’s okay to let each other in.”

He studies her for a moment, a faint smile appearing on her face.

“What?” she asks, wondering if he disagrees.

“Thank you,” he says.

“For what?”

“For giving me a chance. For trying to see me.”