Chapter Text
Hera Syndulla despised being late. The Air Force never allowed for anything but early, and her current job required similar levels of precision. Tardiness was not an option.
Yet. Here she stood. Her watch face blinked 14:21 at her, and no matter how many times she checked, she still could not comprehend what she was facing.
Hera had missed her flight.
Fuck.
Kanan Jarrus hadn’t held a permanent address since he was 10 years old. He lived out of his sprinter van, and that was good enough for him. Adding Ezra was cause to make a few renovations, but Kanan still enjoyed a life of wandering. Never staying in one place too long, always looking for the next adventure.
Once, he had a bed and a roof he could almost call home...but, well, that was a long time ago.
“The Ghost”—his orange, clunky, beat-up van—was home. And he was about to leave it, parked in an airport lot, for far too long.
Why did he agree to go?
When the wedding invitation arrived a few months ago Kanan was tempted to click “no” on the RSVP and be done with it all. But of course, Ezra found the email.
There was no question after Ezra found the email.
The two of them were soon set to travel to some small island called “Lira San” for their friend Zeb’s wedding. Kanan had never imagined Zeb as one for a destination wedding, but the years had certainly changed Kanan—and the time between Zeb and Kanan’s catch-ups seemed only to be getting longer.
A quick search showed Lira San as a part-beach, part-mountainous island in the middle of the ocean (truly the middle of nowhere in the middle of the ocean). Kanan distantly remembered Zeb mentioning his hometown, but it’d been too long for him to recall anything more than that.
Kanan knew Zeb before he adopted Ezra. They’d run on crews that often overlapped, Kanan as an EMT and Zeb as a firefighter. They lost touch after Kanan went on his way, as he seems to always find himself doing, until Kanan and Ezra were out hiking and ran into Zeb.
Quite literally, too. Though Zeb was nearly 6’5”, Ezra walked straight into him when going around a turn. The two hit it off immediately, bantering like brothers, and so Kanan couldn’t say no to Ezra’s face when he asked about going to the wedding.
Ezra meeting Zeb was a catalyst for Kanan to be more involved with his friend’s life, but he’d only met his fiancé once or twice. The man was quiet and stern-looking, but Kanan trusted Zeb and saw the balance Kallus brought to him.
And here Kanan was in the airport, alone, going to this wedding. What had he gotten himself into?
Ezra promised they’d fly out together, but a series of unfortunate delays for Kanan and an ever-growing list of groomsmen duties for them both led Ezra to fly out a day early. This left Kanan alone in the airport with his thoughts and little else.
“Coffee for K?”
Old habits died hard. Full names required spellings and conversations and trails that he never wished to leave. So, K.
“Thanks,” Kanan said, dropping some coins into the tip jar. He took a sip of his coffee—it was far too bitter for his taste, but at least it was caffeinated.
Continuing to sip his coffee, Kanan made his way through the crowds to his gate. Airports filled him with a strange ache of feelings and today was no different. He tried to filter through them, without allowing the old memories to overwhelm.
Happiness. For Zeb, for the wedding. It will be good. I’m excited to see him again, Kanan reminded himself. But before he could relax into those feelings, a bump of a shoulder against his own sent him spiraling. Tightness in his stomach and a quickening of his heart forcing him to take deep breaths.
“No,” Kanan mumbled to himself. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He was just getting on an airplane. He wasn’t going anywhere. This was a trip. He would come home again.
Hot liquid spilling and a body colliding into him pulled Kanan back. His coffee was everywhere, on the floor, on the person he’d walked right into, on himself.
“Shit!” someone exclaimed.
Kanan stopped breathing. He would know that voice anywhere—knew that hair, those eyes, that person—he would know Hera anywhere.
He looked up, blue eyes meeting green.
And there she was. Standing right in front of him, staring daggers at him.
"I’m so sorry, I—” Kanan’s voice caught in his throat. He reached for anything to clean up the mess that he made, but Hera held her hand up.
“Don’t. Say. A. Word.” She spun away, walking off to probably be anywhere but next to Kanan.
Kanan remained still, unable to move any of his muscles. Maybe if his heart stopped for a moment, too, he could rewind time.
“Damn, it takes a lot to piss off a stranger with so little,” someone said. Kanan unfroze, looking around for the source. An old man, sitting on the bench, mouth in a half-smile.
“We—we’re—” Kanan struggled for words. How could he explain the history between him and Hera? How once they had—well, how once they had not been the strangers they are now?
The stranger waved his hand halfheartedly. “Yeah, yeah. Heard it all before.”
Kanan opened his mouth to defend himself and Hera, but a flash of green from the doorway caught his eye.
Hera.
Walking out with coffee still dripping on her shirt and a carrier of some kind in her hand that he missed in the chaos before. Moving quickly, he pulled his extra sweatshirt from his backpack.
“At least take this,” he said. “Please.”
Hera glanced between Kanan and his sweatshirt and back again—her green eyes calculating something. After a moment, she set the container down and took the sweatshirt from his hands.
Kanan looked down at the carrier, a glimpse of orange fur peeking out.
“Is that—”
A screeching “meow” from inside the bag answered his question.
“Chopper,” Kanan said, his voice a mixture of love and displeasure. On good days, Chopper once curled up on his lap and let Kanan pet him. On bad days, Chopper actively sought violence—and so often Kanan used to be his main target.
Kanan knelt down to stare at the orange cat, who promptly resituated himself to face away from Kanan.
“Ah, well, glad to see some things haven’t changed,” Kanan muttered to himself. For a moment, the edges of Hera’s mouth almost turned up into a smile, but her face was back to neutral before he could tell.
Standing there, so close, flashes of moments from years ago again threaten to choke Kanan. Digging his fingers into the side of his bag, Kanan flashed a quick smile at Hera.
“I’d better get going.” Whatever moment may or may not have happened was gone now. The people moving around them were no longer moving as a river around a rock. Whatever pause in time was gone, people were jostling and bumping into Kanan and Hera, no care in the world for these two strangers.
“Same,” Hera said quietly.
The two began moving, grabbing bags and checking pockets for tickets and phones. Hera started to walk away before turning.
“Did you want this back?” She tugged at the sweatshirt, an old blue one with “Lothal Rescue Squad” written on it.
Kanan shook his head. Lira San was a beach with warm weather predicted, so he shouldn’t be needing it. Seeing Hera again had him too stunned to remember that the sweatshirt was his last tangible remainder of his time volunteering in Lothal.
And with that, Kanan and Hera walked away, moving in separate directions. Even as Kanan searched for his gate, checking and double checking his ticket, he still could not get the memory of Hera out of his mind.