uncertain_dume | MCA #3, Wednesday Afternoon

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MCA #3, Wednesday Afternoon

Funny thing, Kanan hadn't been by the scrapyard since Saturday. That Saturday. Where he'd been marched there with a death sentence hanging over his head. Which wasn't because he was traumatized by the whole thing. Honest. He was fine. He was completely fine. He'd never been so fine in his whole life.

You could tell he was fine because he kept forcing himself to go out and socialize and do all the things that fine people did! All week so far, even!

...

But today his get up and go had kind of gotten up and went. So he was calling a 'stay home' day. Maybe he'd ask Chop to walk Stance for him. After all, it was finally safe to and the poor pup had been cooped up all summer. He just sort of wanted to hang out in the living room today. Maybe order delivery. See if there was anything good on TV.

Be fine.

[OOC: For she who also lives here, but open for calls/visits!]

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"Really?" The look was a bit softer now, but still skeptical.

Kanan frowned at her for a long moment before saying, "It isn't my first time being marched to a certain death by brainwashed Clones, Hera."

"That doesn't make it better, Kanan," she pointed out. "That probably actually makes it worse."

Kanan raised his eyebrows at her at that.

"You think I don't realize that, Hera?" He shook his head. "It's left me with some things to work through, is what I'm saying."

"Okay." Hera sat down next to him. "So what do we need to do for that?"

"You're asking a man whose solution the last time it happened was to cut himself off from the Force for eight years, let the galaxy think he was dead, and live under an assumed identity, going from planet to planet every few weeks and never looking back."

Which was probably not the solution he was looking for, here.

"I have no kriffing clue."

"I'm also asking the man who keeps forgetting that he's not alone this time," Hera said. She put her hand over his. "You don't have to hide from me, and you don't have to hide here. You don't have to cut yourself off from anything if you don't want to."

Kanan hadn't technically been alone the last time, either.

But that was a part of his history in between names, in between lifetimes, and that... that he was going to just hold on to. He'd walked away, after all.

"I'm not hiding," he sighed. "I'm just..."

Hunkering down and contemplating building a pillow fort to move into forever. That was a thing people did, right?

"Just...?" Hera prompted.

Pillow forts forever were hiding, Kanan.

Hey, he'd gone to work on Sunday, did class and the radio broadcast on Monday, and he'd even gone to the bar for some healthy socializing yesterday. He wasn't hiding!

... Crap, he'd forgotten to submit a class while he was imprisoned and awaiting his violent execution, though.

"I'm tired, Hera," he sighed. "You can't tell me I'm safe here four days after I was almost put down by brainwashed clones in your own damn junkyard. After a whole summer of people being kidnapped and hunted and poisoned. You can tell me it isn't the Empire, fine. The Emperor isn't here. But this place has been presenting a pretty damn solid case for keeping my head down for months."

And his usual coping mechanisms were right off the table.

"You're right," Hera admitted. "Not safe. But you still don't have to hide. And you're still not alone." She sighed. "I'm sorry I wasn't here to help when it happened, but I'm here now. Talk to me?"

One of Kanan's shoulders hiked up slightly.

"I mean, that couldn't have been helped. If it wasn't last week, it might've been the week before, or the week before that. And up until then, portals actually worked."

He was seriously tempted to deflect entirely and ask how the mission had gone, but even he knew that wasn't a 'right now' conversation.

He sighed.

"It's over now," he noted. "This whole... thing. No bad feelings about next week, no paranoid glances over my shoulder to see if anyone's listening before I speak. Summer's over and we saved the island. And I... I had a lot of time to think about this. Even a year or two ago, I would've walked away and not come back again once it became clear that the summer was only getting worse. But I didn't. I've been living on this island for longer than I've been anywhere, since..."

Since.

He sighed.

"... Did I mention Rey came back?"

It was a change of subject, but not really. Not if you knew where it was all coming from.

Since Kanan was talking now, Hera would go with it.

“I don’t think you did. How is she?” She hadn’t missed how worried he’d been.

"She had a rough few weeks there. Made some friends, lost some friends. Most of them were the same people. Has an archenemy. Is arguably the galaxy's newest Jedi."

It was wild just how casually he could say all of that.

Hera grimaced. "Is that good or bad?"

"We don't know yet," Kanan replied. "We're kind of workshopping that one together."

He still hadn't quite come around to using the words, 'I am training Rey to be a Jedi.'

"If anybody can help her, it's you," Hera said, squeezing his hand. "Does she need anything else, anything I can help with?"

"There's probably a lot she needs," Kanan admitted with a sigh, "but nothing I can put a finger on outside of the Force stuff."

He paused another long moment before adding, "She's got a resistance waiting for her back home."

Hera sighed. "Maybe we can give each other pointers, then." And wasn't that a bit demoralizing - would needing to resist ever stop? "Since I can't help with the Force stuff."

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that I can."

He was in no position to train anybody in the Force.

What was he? A Padawan, and barely that?

He was the one who had run away.

He was the one who had hidden himself away for years.

He still couldn't wear his lightsaber in the open back home.

He might never use his real name again.

What the hell was he?

"Better than nothing, I guess."

"You are definitely better than nothing," Hera said. "You can give her a solid grounding, if nothing else. Be there for her. That's the most important part."

"Sounds a little as though up until she came back here, the people she reached out to for help were willing to offer just about nothing," Kanan sighed. And then winced faintly. "I don't know if I'm cut out for this, Hera. There has to be better for the job, especially here. But I can't turn her away."

"Because you're a good person." Hera shook her head. "Besides, I've heard your feelings about Master Skywalker. Would you really think he's the better one to teach her what being a Jedi is all about?"

She gave him a wry smile. "And before you say it, just because your practice may not be perfect, that doesn't mean you don't know how."

Kanan opened his mouth. And then shut it. And then sighed.

"I mean, I still had a lot to learn, Hera."

Which wasn't entirely a disagreement.

"If she were to go to him for training, I couldn't in good conscience tell her not to. I wouldn't have a leg to stand on."

"Of course you wouldn't," Hera said. "But you would - and can - still be there for her, for when she needs to learn less about technique and more about principle. Isn't that just as important?"

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