MCA #3, Thursday Night

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan had been doing... impressively well, all things considered. Trip to Coruscant, re-treading old trauma, wrapping his head around the possibility of actually continuing his training.

Staying up all hours of the night, afraid to close his eyes.

Okay. Some things weren't going as well as others. Tonight was one of those nights, Kanan laying on the flat of his back, staring up at the ceiling. Sleep seemed to be evading him, taking a back seat to the shadows in his head, instead. And for not the first time this month, he tried to ignore it for as long as he could, tried to center himself, push beyond the pain so that he could at least get some rest, whether it would ultimately be restful or not.

However, after a good, long while of just sitting with his own thoughts tonight, he did something he hadn't done before.

"Hera...? You awake?"

[OOC: For one!]

Comments

[futurespacemom]

"As long as you didn't try to get him in a fighter, he'd have been fine. He still doesn't like them, but he's gotten better. And if you were my friend, he'd have shocked anyone who looked at you funny. He was a bit more protective and less grumpy at first."

She poked his side gently. "We're supposed to be talking about you, though. Or rather, I'm supposed to be listening, and you're supposed to be talking."

[uncertain_dume]

"We were talking about me," Kanan replied. "In a roundabout sort of way..."

Of course, it was the sort of roundabout that was fully intended to break orbit. Which, Kanan allowed, was kind of counter to the point.

He sighed a little. Still bad at this.

"I took a hell of a path to get from where I was as a Padawan to where I am now," he said, finally. "I'm not proud of most of it, either."

[futurespacemom]

Hera nodded. "You survived, though. You can be proud of that, even if not of the things you had to do. Or the things you didn't have to but did anyway."

Hey, she'd met him on Gorse.

She settled in against him. "Tell me about it, then. Whatever you can."

[uncertain_dume]

"Most of it probably isn't difficult to guess," Kanan noted. She had met him on Gorse, after all. "Travel world to world, take off when the work dries up or I get bored or restless. I was on Gorse for five months. That's the longest I'd been in any one place since the war."

He frowned a little.

"I can't imagine the smuggler thing is a shock. I took any job I could get my hands on. Even a few bounties from time to time, if the pay was right and I needed the work."

[futurespacemom]

Hera nodded along. "Pretty much what I figured. A lot of it the same things I've been doing, so I'm not exactly going to judge you about them. Must've been quite a change, though."

[uncertain_dume]

"It's nothing shy of a miracle I didn't blow my cover in the first year," Kanan agreed. "All I ever knew was the life of a Jedi. Lying about who I was, hiding my identity? I had no clue."

[futurespacemom]

"You've mentioned you had a friend to help you out?" Hera asked. "Or, well, a sort-of friend?"

[uncertain_dume]

"Yeah, some pirate sleemo who mostly kept me around so that he could collect my bounty and then bust me out again," Kanan replied, a touch vaguely.

That wasn't entirely the case. Kasmir had been a friend. But Kanan wasn't entirely certain he was ready to talk about him more than was necessary.

There was a lot of guilt there, too.

[futurespacemom]

Hera rolled her eyes. "Sounds like a fun guy. As long as he got you out okay."

[uncertain_dume]

"Well, I'm here," Kanan replied, shrugging one shoulder. "That whole thing... isn't really what I need to get off my chest, I don't think."

Well. Maybe. Later.

"But it's kind of why I never got the chance to work my way through the rest of it."

[futurespacemom]

"Tell me about that, then." She patted his chest. "Get it off of here."

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan was quiet again for a few more moments, and then he nodded.

Okay.

Get it off his chest.

"They were my family," he said, finally. "They weren't just my teachers and my classmates. They were everything I knew. And then they were nothing. Blood spilled across the galaxy. Lightsabers burning on the temple steps."

[futurespacemom]

Hera squeezed her eyes shut and hugged Kanan tight, just letting him talk.

[uncertain_dume]

"The first thing I actually did after the Purge was try to go home," Kanan murmured. "Stole a ship and made it all the way to Coruscant's orbit before I got a message warning every Jedi away. I kept the message. It's the last piece of evidence I'd seen of another possible survivor back home."

[futurespacemom]

"Did you ever find them?" Hera asked in a hushed voice. She knew what the answer probably had to be.

[uncertain_dume]

"Of course not," Kanan replied, closing his eyes tightly and shaking his head. He swallowed. His next few words came out a little more choked with emotion than anything she'd probably ever heard him say before. "Not back home. There have been Jedi here, but never, ever anyone back home."

[futurespacemom]

"Did..." Hera took a deep breath and blew it out. "Did you want to try looking? There are always rumors. Even if most of them are false...maybe."

[uncertain_dume]

"I don't know," Kanan admitted quietly. "If there are rumors, we're not the only ones who are going to go chase them. And if we get caught following them, sooner or later somebody is going to notice."

There was a horrifying thought; the possibility that he'd be the one to lead the Empire toward another survivor to slaughter.

[futurespacemom]

Hera nodded. "Yeah. But I had to ask. It just seems like...you can't be the only one. I don't know if that's hope or the odds or just blind faith talking, though."

[uncertain_dume]

"It's not completely blind," Kanan murmured. "Between all the other Jedi we've seen here, maybe there is a chance. I'm just hesitant to let myself hope."

Because if they were alive here, years before the point in the timleine that Kanan was at now, but dead back home...

[futurespacemom]

"I can't say I blame you," Hera said. He'd gotten wounded badly already. To have hope and have it taken away...

"We'll keep an eye out," she decided. "No searching, but - open eyes and open ears."

[uncertain_dume]

"Open eyes and open ears," Kanan replied softly. "And in the meantime, I guess I... work my way back to what I used to be. Maybe become more than that, someday."

A thought which still rattled him, honestly. But he was warming up to it.

[futurespacemom]

Hera smiled. "I think you'll be great at it. And if you ever need a voice of reason, I'm right here."

[uncertain_dume]

"Heh. You know I always need one of those," Kanan replied, smiling wryly. "But thank you, Hera. Who knows where I would be right now without you?"

... Honestly, probably dead in the ruins of Cynda somewhere.

[futurespacemom]

"It doesn't bear thinking. I don't think I'd be anywhere good without you, either." Honestly, probably also dead in the ruins of Cynda, or in an Imperial prison.