uncertain_dume | MCA #3, Wednesday Afternoon

Kanan listened in silence until the words had run dry, eyes still resolutely on the ground in front of him. He considered all of it. Chewed on it for a short while. And then he ventured, "I don't know if I was loved."

That seemed like a bad starting point to just leave off on, so after another moment, he continued, "And I'm okay with it being that way. I don't know if my parents thought they were doing what was best for me when they gave me over to the Order, or if they were doing what was best for them. I don't particularly care, either way. I'll never know the answer, I'd drive myself insane just dwelling on it, if I did."

He hiked up a shoulder.

"But I was never alone, Kaidan. If I was ever singled out for anything growing up, it was just how hungry I was for answers. Asking questions all the damn time. It drove the Masters half barvy, but in the same way any teacher would get exasperated if a kid just kept on repeating, 'Why? with no end in sight." He tried a little smile on for size. "I was safe. My life was stable. I was never left wanting for somebody who knew how to teach me to keep control. When you put it all that way, it just makes it harder for me to feel as though I was missing out on anything."

He was quiet for a long while.

"They were my family. They were my safe place. And maybe that all changed, maybe they never were what it was I thought they were, or I'm understanding it all wrong. But that's what I've got. I don't have the one I was born into, but I did have them. And after them I ran for so long that I'm still puzzling out what it means, besides. To build your own."

That was more than Kanan had ever said about his childhood, and it put paid to a few things that, having been left blank, hadn't been filled in well. He wasn't sure if it was the point of the comments, but Kaidan picked up that it was possibly a bad idea to make the kid who always asked 'why' about everything..wonder about his birth family.

"The Normandy is home," Kaidan said after another long silence, "I love Mum and still visit - it's where I was headed when I wound up here - but the Normandy is where the bulk of my family is. John built it by treating everyone like a person. It sounds simple, but if it hadn't been a joint human/Turian venture, I don't think he would have gotten away with having nonhumans on an Alliance ship. Nonhumans who weren't Alliance, even. He didn't treat them like people to buy their loyalty, but it's what it bought him just the same. He set the example everyone on the ship lived by. Some of the crew weren't too sure about, or weren't too happy with, having Asari, Turian, Krogan, and especially Quarian aboard, but when they followed John's example, they learned to see past their bias. At the end, even the man who'd been dead set to throw them all off the ship - he died trying to keep them safe. Any one of us would have."

He fidgeted with the small stone again. "Never had friends. Sort of did, at Brain Camp, but the teachers liked to make us competitive toward one another. The only person I thought of as a real friend was Rahna. Didn't end well." His throat closed for a second.

Kaidan took a breath, cleared his throat, and continued, "That changed, on the Normandy. I wasn't treated like just a weapon. That alone would have bought and paid for my loyalty, but it wasn't just John. It was all of them. Joker, Liara, Tali, Garrus, Wrex, Ash, John, eventually Jack and Grunt, Mordin and Legion, they all..treated me like a person. Trusted me to be one. Accepted me. It took me a long time to trust any of that. Any of them. We fought together, went through hell side by side and guarding each other's backs. I learned." He snorted softly, "Mostly because they made me. When people tell you they like you, that they trust you, and every action they take only reinforces that, even someone like me can learn to believe."

Edited 2018-08-03 01:09 (UTC)

Kanan listened still, making note of the names Kaidan had already told him, committing to memory the ones that he hadn't, yet. Rahna. Didn't end well. Emotions. Mordin, Legion...

He sighed, and then on a whim leaned sideways to bump his shoulder against Kaidan.

"I have Hera," he offered, because he was starting to get a feel for this found family thing. "Kitty and Summer are kind of like little sisters in their way, though I might actually be younger than Kitty, I've never asked." He shrugged. "Piece by piece, I think I might be figuring it out."

~~Just wait until you see how Rahna ended~~

"Family are the people who make you want to be a better person, because you care about them and you only want the best people to be around them," Kaidan said, trying to articulate something that was more a feeling than words.

He lost words, after that, for awhile.

Another few moments later, and Kanan offered, "I like that."

He drew in a little breath.

"I think... that's the kind of family the Order would have approved of."

It didn't sound selfish at all.

That's because family is about selflessness, though Kaidan isn't able to articulate that right now.

"The Order or..her?" Kaidan asked after another long minute.

Kanan chanced a sidelong glance at Kaidan for that.

"My Master?"

He could say it. He'd just run his mouth for a good five minutes about his childhood, why not say more now?

Because Kanan had the habit of choking on his own words at the weirdest moments.

"Yes," Kaidan asked, "If she met your friends, what would your Master think?"

Kanan closed his eyes as he gave it some thought.

"I think," he said, words coming slowly but with some measure of resolve, "she would have been disappointed... that it took me so damn long to finally open myself up to letting people back into my life."

He paused, and then added, "I don't think she'd be alone in that."

"One of the reasons I keep bringing up your family is because I don't know if you realize that when you say 'Master', what I hear is 'Mother'," Kaidan said after a long moment of silence.

And again, Kanan was opening his eyes and glancing sidelong at Kaidan.

"And I... I don't know that you'd be wrong."

The closest he'd ever had, anyway. And she'd even given him his life.

"That's because I'm not," Kaidan answered quietly, "You just don't know why I'm right."

"I... I guess I don't, you're right."

And back went his gaze, right down to the ground yet again.

"She loved you," Kaidan stated with quiet conviction, "She tried to raise you to be a good person. Not a good Jedi, though that's part of it, probably. I've met other Jedi. One of them might be a good person, but he's so broken you'd have to take a back hoe to his defense mechanism to unearth it. The other.. is a sleemo. A Jedi Master would've raised a good Jedi. Only a parent would try to raise a good person. A good parent. Some are crap. She sounds like she was a good one."

"You're a good person. The only time people don't see it is when you don't want them to."

Edited 2018-08-03 03:11 (UTC)

Kanan opened his mouth to speak, but no words came forth. He closed it again, and then tried to inhale, but that didn't seem to be happening, either. He reached his hands up to scrub at his face for a moment in the hopes that doing so would help him with either of those things, but mostly it just resulted in him sitting there on the stairs with his face in his hands.

He opened his mouth again, and again, no words. Instead, there was sound that wasn't quite a laugh, something more ragged than he'd ever given his throat permission for. It was followed by a shuddering breath.

He could absolutely feel, when he let himself.

"Damn it, Kaidan."

"She was the only mother you had," Kaidan said, again with quiet conviction, "You are allowed to miss her. You're allowed to mourn her."

He took a breath, and reached out to put his hand flat in the middle of Kanan's back, "You didn't fail her. She loved you, and she wanted you to survive, and you did what she wanted you to do. She would be proud of the man you grew up to be. She would probably be sad that you've been punishing yourself this long. She wouldn't want you to suffer. Ever."

"Good mothers don't."

When Kaidan's hand met Kanan's back, it was probably clear that he was shaking with the effort it took to hold himself together. It had been a long time since it had been that bad, and Caleb had been too caught up in fresh horror, feeling thousands of lives blink out through the Force, to even be aware of what he was doing, back then.

Kanan did manage to pull in a breath, though. And then another. And then he was opening his eyes and getting back to staring at the ground.

This was a better place to be.

Far, far better.

"Sounds like her," he said, finally. "It's almost a shame you've never met.

Kaidan frowned at the back of Kanan's head for a moment. He was doing the thing again.

"It's a damn shame," he agreed, "Though the entire reason I know how a good mother thinks is because I have one, too. I know what my mother would have to say to you. She's said very similar things to me."

"Your Master chose you. I met Caleb. He was a bright boy, intelligent, curious. The kind of child most parents would kill to have. I would guess that she chose you because when you asked 'why', she wanted to be the one to answer."

Remembering the part of the Litany Kanan had said before, Kaidan repeated quietly, "'There is no death, there is the Force.' All her answers, they're still there. They're in you. You just haven't asked her 'why' lately. You should. It might help you."

Edited ("don't call me kid" shut the hell up Kanan, I fixed it.) 2018-08-03 04:14 (UTC)

[OOC: Ha! Weren't going to leave him with the opening, huh?]

Kanan had fallen silent again, eyes on the road, brow creased a little as in his head he picked at Kaidan's words. Caleb had sought her out once, before she had taken him as her Padawan, to ask something that maybe nobody else would have dared to ask. She hadn't admonished him for it, she had simply made note of that fact, and then had answered him, honestly.

She'd always been honest to Caleb. Always.

Until the very last time she'd spoken to him.

"It might," Kanan agreed, vaguely. "I do, sometimes. Not as often as I should. She's always got answers."

And then something in his expression shifted, and his voice got tight again.

"She's always right behind me."

She had promised she would be.

There, my Padawan. Perhaps I'm not such a liar after all.

He exhaled another shuddering breath, and then lifted a hand to his face, touching the tips of his fingers to his cheek. They came away wet. He wiped his face dry with his hand almost ruthlessly, and then sat up straight again. Inhaled, trying to steel himself again. His eyes didn't seem to be cooperating, but that was fine. He could pull himself to his feet even if his vision was blurred. What was there to look at out here anyway? There was... the fish, which was even more grotesque while viewed through tears. There was Kaidan, who was doing his damnedest to make him crack.

"There is no death, there is the Force."

Kaidan followed, standing. "Come here," he directed, quietly but firmly, moving in to hug his most stubborn friend, "This is one of those times you accept the hug."

Kanan stayed put, letting Kaidan put his arms around him, and heaved a sigh that was maybe a touch more shuddering than he would have liked.

"Glad we cleared that up," he muttered.

Was he talking about the meaning of family? Was he talking about what the Order had meant to him? Was he talking about when to just accept the hug? He wasn't going to clarify, no.

"Kanan - what was her name?" Kaidan asked.

"Depa." The word had left his mouth before Kanan had even realized he'd opened it to speak, and it was followed with an even smaller, maybe a little more fragile, "Master Depa Billaba, of the Jedi High Council."

There was pride behind all that, all the same. Something fierce. Something Caleb.

He'd always been proud of her. He'd always been in awe of the fact that she'd chosen him. She'd given him an entire world of meaning to his life that he'd been lacking before. And his world had fallen to pieces when she'd been killed.

Kaidan nodded, repeating quietly and with compassion, "Master Depa Billaba, of the Jedi High Council." The only mother you had.

He could tell Kanan had stopped trying to strangle his emotions - for the moment. Kaidan just hugged him, maybe a little harder, and waited to see if he'd speak again.

And Kanan... maybe a little grudgingly, settled into it. His breathing had evened out, at least, but his eyes still seemed to be doing that leaking thing that he just wasn't a fan of.

"Someday we're going to have a conversation that isn't going to end with one of us wanting to shake the other a little bit, you know," he muttered, after a long silence. "Don't know about what. But it'll happen."

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