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Kanan Jarrus had always said his ship had stolen his heart, and that was partly true - how could it not take your breath away? With its gunner’s mounts and sleek shape and the ability to scramble its own signature? It was a beauty - but, well.
Never had he found showing a woman around his ship this nervewracking before.
Then again, they hadn’t been Hera Syndulla. None of them had the compassion she did. The care she so badly wanted to show, even though she seemed to want to turn the other way and blend into the background. None of them had her pretty eyes, her beautiful smile, her amazing voice . . .
“So this is the Ghost,” Hera mused, jerking him out of his thoughts. Her eyes swept over the cockpit. “Not bad for a ship.”
Kanan coughed awkwardly. “You think so?”
Hera slid into the co-pilot’s seat and drummed her fingers on the control panel in front of her. Then she faced Kanan with a smile that nearly made him die right then and there. “I know so,” she said, a hint of excitement in her eyes. “Can you take it out for a run? I want to see it in action.”
For a few seconds, all Kanan did was stare at her.
Then he came back to his senses.
“For a run! Yes! I can do that! Because I’m a pilot. And. Um.” To stop himself from talking, Kanan quickly turned towards the controls and started to press a few buttons. The ship immediately powered on, beeping and click -ing and making every other kind of start-up noise possible.
Soon the ship was in the sky - soaring through the clouds and over the small city below. Hera was mesmerized; she seemed to love every second of being up in the air and near the clouds.
Kanan snuck a glance over at her. She gazed out the window with a blissful expression on her face, unaware of the fact that the pilot had in fact stopped piloting.
Somehow, time managed to vanish. The ship seemed to vanish. It was only the two of them, sitting in the cockpit, watching the city fly below the Ghost. No one on board except for Kanan and Hera - well, and Zeb, but he wasn’t up here, thank goodness -
And then Hera was yelling.
“KANAN!” she shouted, gesturing wildly to the window.
With a horrifying jolt, Kanan realized the ship was about to crash.
He quickly jerked the ship up just seconds before it was mere inches away from the ground, launching it back into the sky with such speed that it used more fuel than he would’ve liked. Hera fell out of her seat sideways at the sudden jolt. When the ship was safely in the air again, Kanan had never slammed the autopilot button nor spun around in his seat that fast before that moment.
“Are you okay?” he cried, watching her climb back into the seat. “I’m so sorry, I was - uh - lost in thought, and I didn’t see where the ship was going and -”
“That was the most eventful run I’ve ever had in a ship,” Hera interrupted. But, despite all of Kanan’s nervous rambling and many apologies, she was smiling. She was smiling. Was it getting hot in the cockpit? The fact that she wasn’t mad at him for almost crashing the whole dang ship and also possibly killing them both in one foul swoop was extremely relieving, too, but her smile . . .
Kanan collapsed into his seat, dragging a hand over his face.
Kriff, he was a mess.
~
Hera thought that, as far as pilots were concerned, Kanan Jarrus was alright.
He’d been nice enough to let her join his (very sparse) crew - in fact, he’d suggested it - and Hera had gratefully agreed. Not only did it mean she’d found a crew she connected with, but she had a funny feeling that the Force wanted her to be on this ship.
(Which was . . . unsettling. She’d spent so long trying to ignore the Force, telling herself it wasn’t real, convincing herself that she wasn’t force-sensitive and the Jedi had made a mistake - but it never worked. And it had worked even less when she’d used the Force to save Kanan from being crushed under a mountain of rocks and debris.)
(He would’ve died. What was she supposed to do?)
So, here she was. The second mate to a pilot who had a crush on her and his very tall, very loud droid.
She’d decided to find his crush on her amusing. There wasn’t any harm to it. It would probably fade after a couple weeks, anyway.
But a month passed. She caught Kanan staring at her a little too long and started to doubt it.
Two months passed. She caught herself staring at Kanan a little too long and began to doubt herself.
Three months passed. They were working on ship repairs together in a tight, cramped space where the two had to sit back-to-back because it was impossible not to, and she couldn’t believe this was happening.
I have feelings for the pilot who’s been crushing on me for months, she thought, trying incredibly hard to focus on tightening a screw with a wrench. It really had been months. Over three, and here they were, still sneaking little looks at each other when the other wasn’t looking and pretending to be busy when they made eye contact.
What didn’t help is that she also knew Kanan felt the same way. He had since the beginning, after all; she still remembered their first meeting on Gorse when he’d rushed to her aide because he thought she was in trouble, and how he didn’t say anything for a solid second after hearing her voice. Now the memory put butterflies in her stomach and flames on the sides of her face. He’d been mesmerized by just her voice?
(“You speak Basic?”)
(“Words fail me.”)
(“So they do.”)
Words had always failed Kanan when he was around her. But now Hera was starting to learn that the other way around was true, too.
The Jedi had never taught her to deal with these kinds of feelings. Actually, they had - by telling her to just shove it down and ignore them. So she had carried it with her well into her early years of adulthood. She’d always kept to herself, never got attached to people, never let her emotions get the better of her, never let her guard down. It had been a good survival instinct.
And, well, here she was.
Here they were. A pilot in love and a padawan who had been taught to ignore her feelings.
“Did you get the panel screwed on right?” Kanan said, twisting around to see.
Hera finished putting in the last screw and flashed him a thumbs-up. There wasn’t enough room to turn around all the way. “All done, Captain.”
“Great.” Kanan turned around again to scan what was next on the list. “We got the carbon scoring scraped off of the wings . . . the interior cooling vent figured out . . . oh, the lights in the cockpit. Those were flickering.”
“Right,” Hera said, trying extremely hard not to think about how close they were. “Cockpit lights.”
“You got it.”
Neither of them moved.
Kanan broke the silence by giving an awkward cough. “How are you getting along with Zeb?”
The corner of Hera’s mouth turned up in an amused smirk. “You’re asking this now?” she pointed out.
She could practically see Kanan’s grin from behind her - and as soon as she did, her cheeks were turning dark green and she was automatically scolding herself for getting distracted. Oh, he would never let her live it down if he knew his smile distracted her. “I know, it kind of came out of nowhere,” he admitted.
Hera chose to push the mental image of Kanan’s smile out of her mind. “We’re getting along fine,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a droid that has as much personality as yours does.”
Kanan chuckled. “Yeah, I think he’s always been like that. He’s a loyal droid, though.”
“I’ve never asked, but how did you meet him?”
He shifted around on the floor before spekaing. “He crashed-landed in a starship near my childhood home,” came the reply. “He was pretty beat up, so I begged my mom to let me fix him and somehow she agreed. So here we are.”
“Wow,” Hera marveled. “How long ago was that?”
“Oh - years ago. I think I was ten.”
That was . . . impressive. Hera had never met a droid that loyal before. He wasn’t solely dedicated to Kanan, he was more like - a childhood best friend who had stuck with him for years.
She sighed, leaning against Kanan’s back. “You don’t get loyalty like that every day.”
There was a beat.
“. . . what about you?” said Kanan.
Hera glanced at him over her shoulder. “Huh?”
They briefly made eye contact - before Kanan ducked his head and Hera was pulling away as casually as she could. “I mean,” he began, “I told you something about my past. So what about you? Do you have any childhood stories? Any lifelong friends you’re still in contact with?”
The echoes of memories long ago - none pleasant - filled her ears before she could stop them.
Blaster fire.
(“Run, June!”)
Screaming.
(“Run as far as you can!”)
Dark-armored clones chasing after her.
(“ June! ”)
Hera sighed and got to her knees.
“Once,” she said. “But not anymore.”
She crawled out of the space without looking behind her.
~
Hera had spent the better part of the past two years on board keeping her past to herself and refusing to be involved in something like the Rebellion. She’d told Kanan time and time again that she didn’t want to get tied up in something so large or complicated. She had her own things to deal with, thank you very much.
So when she told Kanan that she would agree to help him with some simple rebellion missions, he was elated.
And stars, she’d been helpful. She was never as late as he was (she was almost always on time) and his informants seemed impressed by his stand-in (he’d received many good words about her, all of which he agreed with) and never deterred from her mission.
Except for once.
She’d been half an hour late. And Kanan, naturally worried, tried pinging her comm.
“Spectre One to Spectre Two,” he said. “What’s your E.T.A.?”
“Sorry, Spectre One,” came Hera’s voice, breathless and panting. Had she been running? “I got a little tied up with something. We’re five minutes away.”
Kanan raised an eyebrow. “ ‘We’re’? Care to elaborate?”
“Nothing bad, love. Let’s just say we might have a new crew member.”
The comm went silent, but Kanan barely noticed. He was still reeling from what Hera had called him.
Love.
She’d called him love.
He wasn’t stupid; he could tell she liked him back, but she was clearly still struggling with a few things, and besides, they’d only just gotten to talk about what happened on Gorse a few months ago. He’d long ago comforted himself by deciding to wait until she was ready.
But maybe she was ready. Friends didn’t call each other love. With a promise to himself to talk about it later, he hurried out of the cockpit to wait in the cargo hold for Hera and this supposed new crew member.
But they never got a chance to talk about the “love” thing, because Hera really did find a new crew member.
A Lasat . One that had survived.
Short and orange-furred and scarily dedicated to Hera.
Hera said he went by Chopper. She’d saved him from a couple of Imperials on the way back to the Ghost after a meeting with one of Kanan’s informants, and after she kicked their butts and made sure the Lasat was alright, he’d decided that she was his favorite person in the galaxy. Plus he didn’t speak Basic (but he understood it) and she was one of the few people he’d met who still knew his native language.
Kanan’s crew was small, so he welcomed Chopper aboard his ship with a smile and a friendly wave. But as the days went on . . . trouble arose.
“Hey, Chopper,” Kanan called a week after the Lasat had arrived. He was flying the Ghost to a rendezvous point; Chopper and Zeb were in the back seats and Hera was in her room. “Do you know how to co-pilot a ship?”
Chopper growled something Kanan couldn’t understand.
“He says that he doesn’t,” Zeb said.
Kanan squinted at the map console on his dashboard. “Well, do you want to learn?” It would be nice to have more co-pilots . . . he could always make do with Hera, of course, but -
Another growl.
“No,” Zeb prompted.
He glanced over his shoulder, frowning. “Why not?”
Chopper answered. Zeb translated. “He doesn’t want to learn how to fly in a rustbucket like your ship because he’ll be forced to sit through you teaching him and Hera how to be co-pilots.”
“Rustbucket?” Kanan was taken aback. And a little offended. “Also am I really that boring?”
Zeb laughed when Chopper replied. “No, mate, he doesn’t want to be forced to watch you flirt with Hera.”
“Ha ha,” Kanan said, but his skin had already jumped to a nice shade of red and he was secretly thanking the stars that Hera chose not to be in the cockpit for this journey. “I don’t flirt with Hera.”
“Could’ve fooled me, you know.” Zeb paused when Chopper gave his input. “Chopper says that the next time you try a new pick-up line on her, he’s going to get out his bo-rifle and wave it threateningly in your direction.”
“Woah woah woah, excuse me?” Kanan demanded, swiveling around to look at Chopper.
Zeb shrugged. “Maybe he’s jealous of you.”
Chopper snapped something back.
“My bad. He doesn’t want Hera to get hurt and he doesn’t trust you.”
“Hera trusts me!” Kanan insisted, voice raising with each sentence. “And for the record, I’ve known her for a lot longer than you have, Chop!”
Chopper yelled.
“Don’t call him Chop,” Zeb said.
“I’m the captain of this ship! The crew is supposed to respect their captain!” Kanan shouted.
Chopper said something that made Zeb pause. When he didn’t answer, Kanan glared at the tall purple droid. “Well? What did he say?”
“I’m not translating that,” Zeb stated.
Scowling, Kanan turned around to face the cockpit window just as the ship dropped out of hyperspace.
He would make do with Hera as the co-pilot.
~
They trusted their crew, they really did. But there was something nice about keeping their relationship to themselves for as long as they could.
Hera had been hesitant about the whole thing at first. She’d been raised in the Jedi Order, a way of life whose personal motto was attachments are bad and emotions are dangerous . She couldn’t ever remember a time a Jedi had had a relationship that didn’t end in tragedy. But Kanan - the wonderful man that he was - patiently listened, understood her worries, and even told her that they didn’t have to announce it. They weren’t going to deny it if someone asked.
Besides. It wasn’t like they were subtle.
“Alright, team,” Kanan said, stepping forward to address the crew. He brandished a datapad in the air. “There’s a new shipment of TIE fighters on Resiri and we’re going to need to do some damage.” He gestured to his left. “Ezra?”
Hera watched as the teenage Mandalorian grinned and held up a couple of detonators. “Say hello to my best friends,” Ezra informed them. He tossed one in the air and caught it for extra effect.
“Ezra and Hera will plant the detonators around the site and activate them from a safe distance. Chopper and Zeb are with me,” Kanan finished. “Everyone got it?”
They all nodded and gave their verbal agreement. Even Chopper, who didn’t look happy at the thought of being stuck inside the ship when he had a perfectly good bo-rifle that hadn’t seen some action in a while, reluctantly growled got it.
But as the crew started to split up to prepare for their parts of the mission, Hera pulled Kanan aside.
“The TIE fighters are getting more frequent,” she said in a low voice. “This is the third time in the last three weeks your contact has intercepted a new shipment.”
Kanan shot her a wry smile. “There’s no rest for the wicked,” he said. He paused to dust off his glove-covered hands. “We better get in position if we want to make a hole in the Empire’s plans.”
A sense of uneasiness radiated from him through the Force. Sensing it, Hera automatically frowned.
“We can talk after we complete the mission,” she whispered.
Kanan looked surprised, but he nodded. “Good luck, Captain.”
“I thought you were the captain,” Hera said, raising an eyebrow.
“Suits you better. You’re the one in charge of the mission, aren’t you?”
He shot her a smile before hurrying up the ladder to the second floor. Hera watched him disappear into the hallway that led to the cockpit before finally turning around.
Mission first, Kanan later, she reminded herself.
Ezra glanced up from inspecting his helmet as Hera walked towards him, and his eyebrow quirked up. “What was that about?”
“Just had some concerns about the mission,” Hera said smoothly. Her hands patted her belt to make sure her blaster was still attached to it. And the button that activated all the detonators in one swoop. Her lightsaber was safely hidden under her bunk. “Are you and your best friends ready?”
Ezra slid the helmet onto his head and shot her a finger gun. “You know it.”
Satisfied, Hera turned towards the ship’s hatch -
“There’s something going on between you two, isn’t there?”
Before Hera could answer him, the ship landed on the planet’s surface with a jolt. The hatch creaked open in front of them, revealing a lovely forest - and, in the distance, a not-so-lovely area full of parked TIE fighters.
She picked up the bag of detonators with a mysterious smile. “What makes you think that?”
~
Hera dropped into the co-pilot’s seat. “I don’t know about this, Kanan.”
In the pilot’s seat, as usual, Kanan glanced over at Hera to find the lines in her face full of anxiety. He never liked it when she worried, but - unfortunately - she’d always had a lot to worry about.
Still. He was proud of how far she’d come. When they first met, Hera hadn’t wanted anything to do with him or his rebellion. She’d been about to leave Gorse forever and traverse the galaxy by herself, intending to shove her past so far down that it was locked in a tiny box that only Hera had the key to.
Now - and Kanan sometimes still couldn’t believe this part - she’d been his girlfriend for years. Not only that, but she’d led so many rebel missions that they jokingly started referring to her as the captain.
And currently she was thinking of doing the one thing that the Hera on Gorse never would’ve dreamed of doing.
He knew the look that she had on her face - there was something on her mind, but she was hesitant to share it. So, not wanting to make her hold it in any longer, Kanan stopped his diagnostic check on the fuel engines and swiveled his chair around to face her.
“About what?” he simply said.
Hera waved a hand in the air. She was clutching a holocron in the other hand - the kind that the Jedi used to have libraries full of and could only be opened by someone who was force-sensitive. The holocron had been open for hours.
And Hera wasn’t the one who had opened it.
“About Sabine,” she admitted. “I’ve never . . . well, I was never even a proper Jedi to begin with.”
“Neither is Sabine,” Kanan pointed out.
“But I didn’t even make it to Jedi Knight, Kanan. If you think about it, I’m still a padawan.” She sighed. “If I never even finished my training, then who says I have the experience to teach her?”
There was a pause.
“Think of it this way,” Kanan suggested, folding his arms. “You may not have finished your training, but Sabine hasn’t had any training. She has no idea what it’s like to be in the Jedi Order at all. You do.” He gestured towards her. “You’ve got experience she doesn’t have.”
“I know, it’s just -”
She hesitated.
When she didn’t finish her thought, Kanan gently said, “It’s just what?”
Hera leaned back in her chair with pursed lips. “Taking on a padawan is no easy task, Kanan.”
“It’s not,” he agreed. “But taking on an apprentice in anything isn’t easy. Whether it be your mystical Force stuff or piloting.”
“You, taking on an apprentice?” Hera teased.
“Hey, it could happen! Maybe Sabine’s interested in piloting, too!”
“Are you suggesting we share ‘custody’ of her?”
“Depends if you take her on in the first place.”
Hera fell silent again. After a few seconds, she glanced out of the cockpit window at the lone communications tower standing amidst the grassy Lothal plains, and Kanan watched as her brow furrowed.
“I think the Force wanted us to meet,” she murmured.
Kanan shrugged. “That’s not the weirdest thing that’s happened to us.”
Hera smiled to herself and shook her head, her green lekku bouncing with the movement. “I guess that’s to be expected when your crew consists of a droid, a Lasat, and a Mandalorian,” she said ruefully.
“And . . .” Kanan raised his eyebrows. “A force-sensitive orphan?”
There was a beat.
Hera got up, dusting off her cream-colored pants with a thoughtful look.
“And a force-sensitive orphan,” she agreed, and she dropped a kiss on Kanan’s cheek. “Thanks, love.”
A smile unprompted made its way onto Kanan’s expression. “Go get the kid, Hera.”
Hera mimicked his two-fingered salute before disappearing out of the cockpit.
She would come back less than an hour later with Sabine in her paint-splattered clothes, a new sort of bond between them that even Kanan could see was starting to form. As Ezra and Zeb and even Chopper welcomed Sabine onto the Ghost crew once and for all, Kanan went over to Hera and put an arm around her shoulders.
“I’m glad you’re taking her on,” he said to Hera. “I like her.”
Hera hummed thoughtfully, her eyes still on Sabine.
“Me too,” she said.
~
Kanan used to joke about how the crew wasn’t just a crew. He and Hera were the parents, obviously, and the rest of the crew were their kids. Chopper had rolled his eyes, Zeb had made the droid equivalent of a laugh. Ezra had snorted and asked if it had really taken him that long. Sabine had just smiled - half-amused, half-thoughful, half . . . something else.
Hera, smirking, had agreed. Between training Sabine and settling disputes between the kids, she’d quickly designated herself as the mother figure. She’d even referred to her and Kanan as “Mom and Dad” once.
She didn’t realize how true that would be.
The sleeping baby nestled in the crook of her arm didn’t help much, either.
Hera let out a big yawn, adjusting in her seat ever so slightly so the baby wouldn’t wake up, and put down her datapad. It was probably a bad idea to stay up this late again. But she’d just gotten the baby to sleep. And there were piles of unread digital reports waiting for her. Well. Maybe not piles. But it would keep nagging at her brain until she read them, so it certainly felt like piles.
Still. Chopper was going to find her sleeping at the table the next morning if she wasn’t careful enough and chide her for it.
Ezra would point out that most of the galaxy was celebrating, so it wasn’t against the law for her to take a break. She’d literally just had a baby, too.
Zeb wouldn’t say anything. He hadn’t said much for the past nine months.
Anyway, she knew the galaxy was celebrating. But she also knew that the destruction of the Death Star was only a small victory. Victories deserved to be celebrated, and she had celebrated earlier with some of the other rebellion leaders, but the Empire was still at large.
Emperor Palpatine was still out there.
His apprentice was still out there.
Her own apprentice was still out there, and no word of Fulcrum.
Hera drained the last dregs of her third cup of coffee to dissolve the lump in her throat. The coffee wasn’t even that good - just the stuff the Rebellion had on hand for quick pick-me-ups. It always tasted a little cheap, a little too bitter for her taste.
Hera set her mug down on the table, but she didn’t pick up the datapad.
Kanan, she thought.
He’d always made the perfect coffee.
He’d bring it to her with the smile that always made her feel like it was a little too hot in there. His bright, vivid blue eyes would crease in worry if she was up because something was bothering her. He’d wrap her in his arms if she needed it. She always felt a bit safer in his arms.
Hera cuddled the baby in her own arms, leaning to rest her lips on the curve of his forehead and stroke his soft green hair. If she could, she would’ve whispered his name to him over and over again.
Jacen, she thought instead.
Jacen, Jacen, Jacen.
You’re too little to understand.
You’ll miss him someday, too.
As if sensing his mother’s thoughts, the baby stirred and started to whimper. Hera held him a little closer.
Or maybe you already do.