uncertain_dume | MCA #3, Tuesday Evening

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MCA #3, Tuesday Evening

It had been intended to be a night at the bar. Kitty had a free first round deal on, and Kanan had taken to going in on Tuesday nights from time to time to chat anyway. And after this weekend... well. To chat and probably to make bad life choices involving far too many of a drink named after him.

The chat had gone well, had gone better than expected without going too deeply into anything at all. And Kanan had been left with some weird combination of resolve and guilt only one drink in that saw him heading home far earlier than he'd intended to, in far better shape. He had gotten into the habit of running away, a habit that had started when he was only slightly older than Jacen, and had kept on with right up until tonight, when instead of actually ordering drink number two, he'd realized exactly what he was doing. Running again, from a talk that desperately needed to happen.

"Hera? You home?"

Maybe Jacen's present was their future. Maybe it wasn't. Either way, Kanan couldn't afford to run anymore.

[OOC: For one!]

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Hera looked up from the news reports of her contacts that she hadn't really been reading anyway and came out to the living room. "I am. I thought you weren't going to be for a while?"

"That was the plan," Kanan replied, grimacing a little. "It was a stupid plan."

He was good at those, when it wasn't a matter of life and death. And sometimes when it was, but usually those ones actually worked.

"I'm not interrupting anything important, am I? I was hoping we could talk."

"I'm not getting anything done," Hera admitted. She sat on the couch, waiting for Kanan to join her.

Kanan lingered near the doorway for a few seconds, and then nodded, making his way across the room and sitting next to her. There was no way to sit on that couch that didn't involve sitting practically hip to hip. Funny how much more blatantly obvious that was right now, all things considered.

"Guess it's that kind of night," he offered. "At least you were going for productive."

He'd just sort of been aiming for unconscious.

"I was aiming for looking at current problems to avoid thinking of future ones." Hera shrugged. "I'm not sure it's much better. I just wouldn't have had a hangover tomorrow."

"What? Hera Syndulla, running from problems?" Kanan offered her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You must be picking up on some of my bad habits."

"I...have always been better at other people's problems than my own," Hera said. She sighed and leaned in a little. "Especially the big ones."

Kanan hesitated at that, and then reached out to put his arm around her shoulder.

"It's only a big one if we let it be," he said, carefully. "And maybe it will never be anything at all. You know what this place is like."

And so did he. And that was why it was so concerning.

"I do," Hera agreed. "But..." She took a deep breath. Start with the main thing. "I don't want to get you involved in everything just to get you killed."

"Well, you can stop worrying about that one," Kanan said, glancing her way. "I'm getting myself involved in this. You don't have a blaster to my back, and I'm not so stupid as to walk into a rebellion without knowing the risks."

"You know what I mean," Hera said. "I'm so glad you're with me in this, but..." She trailed off, unable to really put it in words. She knew death was a very real risk for both of them, but it somehow seemed more real now for Kanan.

"But we were shown a glimpse of what could be, and he stood right there on that ship of yours like it was the only real home he knew and it's hard not to believe in a future that's already been lived by somebody standing right in front of you."

Hence the drinking plans tonight.

"I'm not going to pretend this is easy," Kanan sighed, leaning his head back and staring up at the ceiling while he gathered his thoughts. "But I can't let somebody else's definitely change the fact that his future is our maybe. Just like all of the other ones."

"He was wonderful," Hera said. "I'd be so proud to have him for a son." She shook her head. "But we've had two different children now, and it hasn't ended well for you in either case."

Which was firming her resolve on a few things.

Probably the things that Kanan very much wanted her resolve relaxed on, somewhat. He bit back another sigh.

"And in another reality I become a twenty-meter tall hollowed-out Force monster, and in another one I enjoy a quiet retirement running a jogan orchard on some backwater planet in the Outer Rim. You can't trust these things, Hera. You certainly can't plan your entire future around them."

You could, however, stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that on no fewer than four different occasions, the island had indicated that something kind of horrifying would happen to Kanan's eyes. He was doing exactly that.

"I don't intend to," Hera said. "But I also can't ignore it. I don't want to leave any child with one parent, or worse, with none. I don't want to ever have to choose between the galaxy and one person."

That... that was fair. Was more than fair. And while Kanan still couldn't quite shake the weird pit that had formed and settled somewhere in the bottom of his guts, he could hardly argue with Hera's logic, either.

"So we don't have kids," he replied, leaning forward a little, switching up his staring at the ceiling with gazing somewhere in the direction of the floor. "We've already decided to hold off on a relationship until after the Empire is out of the way, a kid kind of ties in to all of that anyway, doesn't it? Hell, I can barely take care of myself and a dog."

"I don't want to have to choose between the galaxy and you, either," Hera said. "Or between a child and you."

She reached out to touch his hand. "I care about you. And I never want to jeopardize the galaxy for that, or leave you in second place after everyone else."

Where did that leave them?

Limbo, apparently. Kanan swallowed, and then turned his hand over so that he could curl his fingers around hers.

"Hera..." He glanced at her sideways. "If it comes down to the galaxy and me, the answer is obvious."

He pulled in a deep breath.

"Can I be... just for a moment... just wholly, unironically Jedi with you?"

It wasn't something he made a habit of. But that was a side of himself that she was going to be seeing a lot more of, if they kept doing whatever this was. He needed her to know that it was there, yes, but also to understand what it meant.

"Of course," Hera said. She squeezed his hand.

"Okay," Kanan replied, and he let that breath out slowly, carefully picking out words and putting them together. "Okay. Because you're going to see a lot more of it going forward. And some of it, you might not like. Because when it comes down to a choice between a Jedi's life and the greater good, it isn't a choice."

He looked down at their clasped hands and frowned.

"I've been running from it too long, you know. I cut myself off from the Force, learned how to live without letting myself think about it, and what I couldn't stop thinking about, I drank away. Master Kenobi likened it to cutting off a limb. I argued it was more like purging gangrene."

Master Kenobi hadn't cared for that.

"But the more we do this, the more I need to commit myself to it. The more clear it is that there isn't another path for me. It's what I am. The Force led me to you, led me to this for a reason. And if that reason is that there's some moment in time when my death could lead to lives saved, then that's the moment I need to be in." He looked back over to her. "Hera, you're stuck with me. Your rebellion is stuck with me. But if that time comes, if the Force guides me to that moment where I'm needed most, it won't be your choice to make. I need you to know that."

Hera looked at him, taking that all in for a while before she answered. It was a lot to think about, and Kanan deserved an honest answer.

"I'm not a Jedi, and I'll never be one. I think you know I'm willing to die if I have to, but I don't know if I have that same faith. I just need you to do everything you can to stay alive. Not to give up unless there's no other way."

Kanan nodded, shifting his weight around so that he could look her in the eye.

"I was going to be a Knight, you know," he said, though his words were coming out slowly. Carefully. "Not right away, of course. Some time after the war, my Master would have finished my training, and then I would have spent the rest of my days in service to the Force... to the galaxy."

He pursed his lips a little.

"Service doesn't mean throwing myself in front of every dangerous situation looking to die for it. I accepted it as a possibility back during the Clone Wars, but I've fought damn hard to keep alive. I don't intend to stop doing exactly that, either."

He gave her a brief grin, but it was lacking the usual edge, the brittle corners that it usually had when he got to talking about these things.

"I happen to be pretty good at it."

He was alive, after all. Ten thousand other Jedi were not.

Edited 2018-04-11 02:48 (UTC)

Hera softened a little. "I know you are. But the more Jedi you are, the harder it's going to be. You cut off that limb so the rest of you could live."

She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. "That sounds like I don't want you doing this, and I do, I really do. But I worry."

"Well, fortunately I'm not going to ever be completely Jedi," Kanan noted, airing one of a million little insecurities. "That's just not possible, anymore."

Kanan was possibly not counting on being knighted by the Force itself. But really, who would?

"I don't plan to start pulling Force leaps and levitating things at people or igniting my lightsaber in the middle of a firefight with an army of bucketheads. I can be what I am without being obvious about it. That's going to have to be how I go about it, isn't it?"

He leaned his own head sideways, so that his cheek was resting against the top of her head.

"We just have to be careful about it. That's not really any different from what we were already doing."

Hera nodded. "For what it's worth, I think you'd have made a great Jedi. But if the Force led you to me, I'm glad that it did."

"Can't think of anywhere I'd rather be," Kanan replied, giving her a little smile. "Things will work out, you know. One way or another. They won't be easy. But we knew that."

And if it cost him his secret or his eyes or his life, at least it wouldn't be a surprise. Maybe, at the very least, it would be worthwhile.

And if it wasn't, then what the hell did he survive this long for?

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MCA #3, Tuesday Evening

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