uncertain_dume | MCA #3, Saturday Morning

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MCA #3, Saturday Morning

Well, this was an awkward way to wake up.

That was the first thought through his head as he realized he wasn't in the bed alone. There was somebody else in that bed with him - lekku, warm to the touch, a Twi'lek, though he couldn't dredge up a name for her if his life depended on it - and just the fact that he was waking up half-curled around a person whose name he couldn't even remember was enough to jolt him awake just that little bit more.

There was something at the food of the bed, too and a quick glance down didn't betray much in the dim morning light beyond that it was some kind of animal, maybe the Twi'lek girl's pet? Which meant that he was definitely the one intruding here. Made sense. He didn't recognize the room, either. Couldn't even remember the situation that put him here in the first place.

Hell, he must've been pretty drunk last night, then. Couldn't remember the girl, the place, how he even got to be here...

His own name...?

"Wait, what?"

Oh, he had a bad feeling about this.

[OOC: For that lovely green lady! Or any visitors that might take place after the Hera thread!]

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"This actually explains a lot all on its own," Kanan admitted, giving a sheepish laugh as he glanced back at Hera.

... Okay, he had questions there, but asking, 'hey why were we sharing a bed' was one of the few questions even Caleb Dume knew better than to just blurt out there.

"I could probably come up with a list, anyway."

Caleb.

"It seems to have skipped you over," he noted. "How? And do you know what this little guy eats? I mean, I don't want to give him something that'll upset him or worse. And how did we end up with a tiny wolf, anyway? And, um, I don't have anywhere I need to be or anything I need to do, do I? Because I don't know if I'm going to be any good at it right now, though I suppose I can give it a good try." He abruptly turned a grin back toward Hera. "I told you we weren't unsafe, see?" And then back to Kaidan. "... We are safe, right?"

Caleb.

Kaidan caught the grin and waited until he could catch Kanan's eyes. "Hera's the captain of the ship you're from. You're her crew. You're not, uh. Anything other than that. You're used to staying on a ship where there's no space, thus: one bed." You were a weird ascetic Jedi mofo who didn't believe in furniture and probably really enjoyed having Hera's weight in the bed and there was zero chance Kaidan was going into any of that.

He would apologize to Kanan on Monday for glossing over the importance of 'Captain' and 'Crew' but he figured his friend would understand.

Kaidan laughed a little, "At least some things never change, buddy. I kind of expected the questions. You hit me with a constant string of 'em every time. I don't know why it skipped me. It doesn't always affect everybody and I guess this time it's my turn to sit it out. Jack, too. She's another friend of yours. Short bald woman with lots of scars and tattoos. Lives upstairs in #8 and she'll help you out if you need it too."

He ruffled Stance's ears. "Stance eats dog kibble. You should have some in the apartment but if not, we can hit up a store and get some more. Don't give him people food, I'm not sure what-all of that he can and can't eat. He's a dog, buddy, not a wolf. This is his adult size. You've had him since he was a puppy because you found an abandoned puppy somewhere and brought him home with you. I'm not sure of the details. You've got nothing going on today, it's Saturday. Tomorrow you work at Luke's Diner but, uh, I don't think anyone'll give you flack if you don't go in so that's up to you. Hera owns the scrap yard - Syndulla Scrap - but I don't know what her hours are or if she just goes in when she feels like it." Paused. "She might want to go over there at some point to reassure her astromech, Chopper, that she's ok. I'm pretty sure that's where he lives."

Kaidan looked up and caught Kanan's eyes again and nodded firmly. "You're safe. There's a lot of people who are mighty confused today but it doesn't seem to have made anyone dangerous. Stay on the island for the weekend and everything'll be back to normal on Monday."

"Monday," Kanan echoed, chewing on his lip and chewing on all of that information at the same time. Captain, ship, one bed, that explanation made sense enough for now. "And Jack's upstairs in number eight. Got that."

By the description, she seemed like she'd be easy to spot, at least.

"And I have a dog and Hera has a droid. If he's going to worry then maybe once we get some food figured out for ourselves and Stance, that should be our first stop. Astromechs can get pretty attached to their people if they get half a chance. We wouldn't want him to worry, either."

He opened the door a little more and stepped to the side, giving Kaidan a fully trusting smile.

"Unless you have somewhere else you need to be, I don't suppose you'd mind helping us figure out where these places are? I'm sure I can wander around until I find anywhere I need to be. This place doesn't seem too big. But if you've got your memories it might be better to just get directions. Or an escort, if that isn't too much trouble."

... The scrapyard was right across the street. That would make that easy, anyway.

"I got nowhere else to be right now," Kaidan assured him, "I can map out or walk you wherever you need to go. You're not wrong about Chopper. From what you've said, he's a cranky little guy even on his best day so I don't think letting him worry is a good idea at all."

He stepped inside. He'd.. actually never been in here. Kaidan threw Kanan a speculative look, "You usually do the cooking. Do you remember how? Sparkle did, so there's a chance you might. If not, I can fix you both something. Uh. Do you remember what caf is?"

The apartment was... sparse. The furniture it came with, mostly. Very little in the way of personal belongings, at least that seemed to be Kanan's.

Lots of dog toys, though. Stance was a lucky boy, already trotting into the apartment to pick up his favorite plush flying saucer toy to show it off to Kaidan. See how great it was? It had been chewed right to hell and it was the best.

"I know what caf is," Kanan promised, smiling crookedly. "The 'what' of things seems to be a bit swing and miss. The 'how' in a lot of cases is straightforward. It's the 'why' that I'm having difficult time with. If... that makes sense. I'm not completely sure it made sense to me and I'm the one who just said it."

And Kaidan was absolutely down for a game of tug with Stance. He nodded at Kanan, "It makes sense. Seems to me that the amnesia flu didn't blank you down completely but targeted just the personal stuff. Which is better than it could've been."

He laughed a little helplessly, "And, Kanan? 'Why' is always your favorite question. You run your brain down so many rabbit holes asking that question.. but I probably know most of the immediate answers. Which 'why' did you need right now?"

"There's going to be a lot," Kanan warned, hand reaching up to run awkwardly through his hair. "Everything from, 'why do I know caf but I didn't even know my dog is a dog?' to, 'why am I so calm about this?' It doesn't feel right, but it feels safe and I don't know how to explain that without sounding...?"

He waved a hand around.

"Either crazy or blindly optimistic, but it doesn't feel like either."

"There always is a lot of 'why's," Kaidan grinned. He followed the familiar Caleb gesture of hand through hair and offered, "Do you want a hair tie? You probably have a million of them around here."

The rest.. He tilted his head and asked, "What's the word 'Jedi' mean to you?"

"Hm? Oh, I... probably. It'll keep me from eating it every time I open my mouth. Thanks," Kanan replied, vaguely.

It was awful and he had no idea why he didn't just cut it. Problem solved.

The rest, indeed. He opened his mouth to reply, and had to close it again, frowning a bit at the weird pang in his chest.

"Apparently, it means an awful lot."

Good to know.

"Explains a bit, too."

Kaidan nodded slowly. "Yeah. You're reacting to what you feel in the Force. That's why you're calm and you know you're safe. If you get a bad feeling about something, Kanan? Listen to it."

Kanan nodded slowly.

"Follow my guts," he echoed. "That, I can do."

That instinct was about all he really had for certain, besides whatever he was being told now. It didn't seem like much of a stretch from there.

Kaidan threw him a lopsided smile, "You usually do. The reason you know caf is because there's caf where you're from. The dog is an Earth thing and from what I gather, you don't have Earth where you're from. That's this planet. So I suspect that things regular to your, er, home, will be things you remember but stuff you learned since coming to the Island won't show up. Maybe. Not real sure."

Lifted a shoulder, "Example? What species is Hera?"

"Twi'lek," Kanan supplied immediately.

...

"Okay, point taken. So, what's Earth, exactly? The system, the galaxy...?"

Kaidan smiled wryly. "Milky Way galaxy, Sol system, Earth in this galaxy is the only inhabited planet. Which is going to be real strange for you to hear right now. That's not how it is where you're from, not even where I'm from."

"Huh. You've named your galaxy," Kanan intoned, faintly amused. "... And it sounds like a whipped dessert or something."

See? Earth continued to be cute.

"That's because we've got more than one galaxy, though even in my time, so far as we know only the Milky Way is inhabited," Kaidan said wryly.

"That sounds like a weird thing to assume," Kanan replied, frowning thoughtfully. "I mean, my galaxy has hundreds of thousands of different sentient species alone. What would have to happen for an entire galaxy to be completely devoid of life?"

"A lack of evolution," Kaidan said dryly, "This is a very young system compared to yours, from what I understand. It's also different than the Sol system in mine, which isn't the only system that's inhabited."

"That sounds a little more like it."

A pause.

"Your galaxy also has a Sol system?"

His head hurt.

Kaidan took a breath. "Yeah. This island is kind of a weird nexus that links a bunch of different realities. My system's pretty much a mirror of this one, only mine isn't empty." He lifted a shoulder, "Jack has a picture of this one set up in the holosuite downstairs if you wanted to check it out."

"Holosuite? Oh, she's got a starmap up?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded.

"Sure, I'd love to see that. And then maybe you can explain 'nexus of different realities' for those of us who woke up without names or context for pretty much anything this morning."

"Yup," Kaidan agreed, "Though I'm going to be a jerk and not explain the nexus thing because it'd take until Monday and by then you'll remember everything about it anyway. To sum it up: Lots of people from lots of different places and times and realities all living on one little island on this planet."

See Kanan. See Kanan's eyes go wide in awe.

"That sounds... amazing! All of them bringing their own histories, their own philosophies, their own discoveries with them? And they all just... gather here? We've all just gathered here?"

He wanted to sit EVERYONE down and ask them so many questions.

So many.

Kaidan laughed helplessly. He couldn't help it, that was pure Caleb right there. It was a delight and it was also painful because he knew how Kanan would feel about it in the morning. This was who his friend might have been.

If the Empire hadn't basically murdered this future.

"Yeah, buddy. We have. You'll remember all about it on Monday but if you've got more 'why', go ahead and throw it at me. I'm used to it."

"I'll start making a list," Kanan promised, grinning. Noticing that pang of... something... vaguely. Kaidan seemed troubled. It sobered up his own enthusiasm slightly. "How long until Monday is it, anyway?"

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