uncertain_dume | From A Galaxy Far, Far Away to A Galaxy Not All That Far Away At All, Thursday Evening, Fandom Time

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From A Galaxy Far, Far Away to A Galaxy Not All That Far Away At All, Thursday Evening, Fandom Time

It wasn't that Kanan had been in any hurry to part ways with Hera and Zaluna; really, the opposite couldn't have been more true. But, besides the fact that he had to leave a trail placing him on Gorse through all the previous action so that he'd be just another suicide flier who'd left the planet when work dried up, he'd come back to this galaxy with a plan in mind. He would be damned if after all of that, he went back to Fandom without his ship. Especially now that the Expedient was space dust at best, having been at ground zero when Forager blew. The planet that they'd relocated Zaluna to was quiet. Kind of pretty, actually, for a sparsely populated agricultural world. The sun was warm, different from anything Zal would have experienced in a lifetime on Gorse, and the locals were pleasant.

Hell, even Kanan found himself enjoying the walk to Zaluna's new home from the spaceport where he'd parked the Escape. And he couldn't help but smile as he approached Zaluna's new home to see her making her way up a pathway toward a large tree.

"Keep walking, Zal, and you'll bump into it."

Zaluna smiled. "You're still here, Kanan!"

"Enjoying the weather. Gorse was a steam bath," he placed a guiding hand on her shoulder. "You doing all right?"

"Better than ever." With his guidance, she navigated her way around the tree. "What do you think of my garden?"

"It's good," Kanan replied. He hesitated for a moment, and then ventured, "You know you can get those eyes treated, right? To get your sight back."

"Like Vidian?" Zaluna chuckled and shook her head. "No, I think I've seen enough. I have a place to live, and a little girl who visits daily to help me with things. But I'll be helping myself soon." She gestured backward. "And look! I have a tree!"

Kanan laughed. He couldn't imagine possibly being in such good spirits himself, if he were in her shoes. But she seemed to be taking the loss of her sight not only in stride, but as something of a blessing. He had no idea how she did it.

"I'm thinking it's Skelly's tree," Zal continued. "A nice monument, don't you think?"

"Well, there are some twisted clinging vines over there I would have thought of instead."

"No," Zaluna turned her face skyward and sighed. "Skelly's ashes are probably still back there, raining down on Cynda. I think he'd like that."

Kanan was silent for a moment, and then: "That works, too."

	Hera came up the walk from the house and found them there. “I’m ready to go." She hugged Zaluna. “Take care—and thank you.”
	Zaluna walked to the edge of the gravel road with them. “And now,” Kanan said, “I get the pleasure of walking this gentle lady back to this mysterious starship of hers.” He'd heard so much about it. Or, rather, he'd gathered so much about it just by how much Hera had been frustrated by the late Expedient that the suspense was killing him, now. “I see,” Zaluna asked. “Are you traveling together?”
	“We haven’t discussed it,” Hera said quickly. Zaluna smiled. “You’d better take him with you,” she said, “or I’ll put him to work.” She turned and walked back toward the garden.

	“I think she’ll be fine,” Hera said for the third time as they walked toward the little town where she'd rented a hangar. The medic had said Zaluna was healing nicely, but she couldn't help but fret a little. As they came up on the hangars, she asked Kanan without looking at him, “So what’s next for you?”
	“Well," Kanan said, shrugging his shoulders, "you know me. A force always in motion.” Though really, with the possible exception of Kasmir and Kleeve, at this point Hera probably had a better idea of that than anybody else in the galaxy. Like Kasmir and Kleeve, Kanan figured he could trust her with that.
	“I do know you.” She kept walking. “So what do you think about what Zaluna said?” He could do a lot of good if he came with her. She wanted to grab him and insist, but as she'd said earlier, forcing people was the Empire's way. If Kanan just wanted to keep himself alive, she couldn't make him care.
	“What, going with you?” Kanan shrugged, blowing out a breath and smiling wryly. “Well, you know what I’ve said. You’re great company.” He eyed her. “But I don’t think you’re looking for a traveling companion, are you?” She was looking for a revolutionary. And that... that, he wasn't. He'd already fought his war.
	“Not like that.” Hera stopped outside the door to the closed hangar and looked up at him. “What’s happening to the galaxy is serious, and I mean to do something about it. If you mean only to mind your own business,” she said, offering her hand, “then I wish you luck in your travels.”
	He looked down at her hand, and then at her. His mouth had gone dry, and the idea of shaking her hand and seeing her off on her way seemed... wrong. The way turning his back and walking away from Kasmir had felt, a twisting feeling in his guts that left him almost short of breath. “I still haven’t seen this ship.”
	“And you won’t," Hera said. "The fewer people who see it, the better.” What Kanan didn't know couldn't be coerced out of him.
	He had to be caught before he could be coerced. He scratched his beard. “It sounds pretty large. Must be a lot on it to keep up.”
	Hera stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, there is.”
	“You might need a crew for something like that.” He looked at her pointedly. “Not a traveling companion. Not a revolutionary. Crew.” Clearly he had lost his mind. That was what this was. He'd just gotten his own ship back. She was some kind of revolutionary looking to start war with the Empire, and he was a not-quite-Jedi on the run, trying to avoid notice by that very same Empire. Even so, he thrust his hand into hers.
	Hera flashed him a shrewd smile and shook his hand. “I can live with that.” She could use crew. And if he wanted to pretend he wasn't getting involved, well, he'd been doing that all along - and he'd still helped. "Welcome aboard."

[OOC: This one's mostly NFB because spaaaace, though if you want to mention that a ship landed in a junkyard and out came Hera and Kanan, that's cool! Once again, some bits were pulled straight from A New Dawn, and preplayed with

futurespacemom! Other posts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, and Nine! That's all there is, there isn't any more! For about another six years. Hera and Kanan are gonna keep nattering on in the comments, now. Thanks for being patient with my canonspam.]

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"They don't even have caf," Kanan replied. "They have something close, and it's not bad, but it just isn't the same."

He paused outside his door, fumbling for a moment for his keys, and then opened it and stepped inside.

"Home sweet hidey hole."

It was definitely an apartment! There was a couch!

There were clearly more amenities for the dog than for Kanan, mind.

Hera looked around. "I don't know if it'd be better or worse if those are your dishes on the floor. Do you even have a table?"

Kanan blinked her way, then grimaced faintly.

"I did say it was sparse. The table's in the kitchen. Folded up- there was a wobbly leg I've been meaning to fix."

He sighed and slipped inside to set the groceries on the little coffee table by the couch, obscuring the view from the doorway of the holocron that was sitting there. It wasn't as though he'd been expecting company, after all.

"What you see is basically what there is. And a bed and a nightstand in the bedroom."

Jedi living and fugitive living were kind of similar on that whole 'minimalist' point.

"Still not planning on staying, then?" Hera asked. She followed him to put her packs down. Don't worry, Kanan; she wouldn't know a holocron to see one.

He was still ever so casually picking it up and tucking it into the deep pockets of his long coat all the same. You know. For reasons.

"Staying had never really been the plan," he replied, shrugging it off. "I spent five months on Gorse, and that was the longest I'd been anywhere, besides here."

Or the Temple. But he wasn't talking about the Temple.

"Why? What else does it need?"

Place to sit, place to eat. Place to sleep. Place to keep his, like, two personal possessions. Check.

Hera shrugged. "A place to put your clothes, to keep food. A holoterminal. And please tell me you have a water shower."

"Clothes go in the closet, food goes in the fridge, they don't have holotechnology around here and I have nobody to call anyway, and the shower," Kanan gestured toward the bathroom, "came built-in as a feature."

Thank everything.

"If you want to go clean up, I can get a start on food. I'm probably about as starving as you are, anyway."

"No holotechnology?" Hera stared at him for a moment, then gestured, 'never mind'. "Later. Right now, you are a god among men." She grabbed up her pack. "Point the way to the shower."

Kanan could definitely live with 'god among men' status. He needed a shower of his own. Force, did he ever. He'd been on the receiving end of a few more explosions and a couple more beatings than Hera, after all, and his coat and tunic were still full of dust and blood and he wasn't even going to think about the state of his hair right then. But 'god among men' meant that he was perfectly willing to change clothes, scrub down in the kitchen sink, and wait his turn for the shower.

"Right this way." He walked for the bathroom, flicking the light on and gesturing inside. "There's a towel hanging up on the wall, it's clean, and the hot water takes a little while to figure itself out, so be careful not to burn yourself in there."

"Only one towel?" Hera asked. She had a bit more than him to dry off, after all. And he'd need one, too.

Kanan gave his shoulders a shrug.

"Only one me."

Seriously, he'd been on his own for a while.

"I'll use something else when it's my turn, it's just water."

Of course, if he dried himself off on a blanket, he'd have nothing to sleep under tonight. Sigh.

Hera grimaced, but hey, she'd been through worse, and at least it wasn't too cold out.

"Okay. Thank you."

Which didn't mean she wasn't closing the door on him. Sorry, Kanan.

Aaaand... that was the door in his face. Kanan blinked at it, and then shook his head and chuckled a little to himself before making his way to his room to at the very least pull on some clean pants and a short-sleeved shirt, which was going to sit on the kitchen counter until he'd cleaned himself off in the sink somewhat, first.

The coat... once he'd rescued his holocron from it, it was going to just get tossed in a heap by the door. It was laundry fodder, if it could be saved at all.

So, by the time Hera was done in the shower, she'd be met with the sight of a somewhat cleaner Kanan, bare-armed and cooking. Nerf, mostly, and a bunch of vegetables from Earth he was only just starting to remember the names of.

She was dressed in a pair of loose pants and a tank herself, still drying her lekku when she stepped into the kitchen. "That smells like real food," she said, happy and just a touch surprised.

"Strange food, but real food," Kanan confirmed. "I'm not exactly a gourmet chef, but I've worked enough kitchens to be able to fake it, and I've been eating the local food for a while. It'll do."

He'd claim to be showing off for a pretty lady, but really, most of this had just come out of the freezer anyway.

"I put some caf on, too, if you've got any interest in it. I haven't had a decent cup in far too long. It was time."

And that stuff that he'd bought from Hondo, he'd save for people he really, really didn't like.

"Caf sounds great, thank you. Maybe it'll keep me awake long enough for dinner." Now the adrenaline was starting to wear off, her body was realizing she hadn't slept very well in days. "Cups?"

"Over the sink," Kanan said, dutifully. He even had more than one! They were mismatched, but it wasn't like beggars could be choosers anyway. "There's sugar up there too, if that's how you take it. No milk, though. Going to have to head out to get more of that later."

He'd been gone a week and it had been on the old side when he'd left. He didn't trust it. Down the sink it had gone.

Hera got one of the mugs down - like she was going to complain about mismatched ones? - and poured herself a cup, not bothering with sugar for now.

"Have I thanked you for the room and cooked food yet?" she asked.

Kanan shrugged.

"If you haven't yet, you're welcome to do it again," he replied easily. "None of it's really anything special, anyhow."

Okay, this was the first fresh nerf he'd had in a while. That on its own was an occasion worth noting. Along with 'still being alive' and 'having gotten all the pink feathers out of the bed weeks ago.'

Hera laughed. "I noticed." She waved around at his bare apartment, grinning. "But it's a place to stay and you seem to cook better than I do, so I'll take it."

Well, Kanan couldn't help but grin at that. He wasn't going to dwell on that low-key giddy feeling that was settling in his chest at that. It was probably exhaustion setting in, on top of everything else.

Yeah. Had to be.

"Great," he decided, and then reached to flick the heat off on the stove. "Though if this is 'better than you do,' I might have to be almost as worried about what you've been eating as you seem to be about my inability to furnish an apartment."

"I live on the Ghost," Hera said, "and cooking wasn't much of a priority growing up. I know my way around prepacks and a ship's galley."

Something prompted her to add, "I can make caf, though." So it wasn't a dealbreaker, right?

"Well, then you've got the important part covered," Kanan chuckled, shaking his head as he reached for some plates. By some miracle, he had more than one! Thank you, Cecil, wherever you were now, you crazy bastard. "This isn't anything fancy, though. Just whatever was around that didn't look like it'd be horrible if I threw it into a pan."

It was some kind of nerf broccoli stir-fry thing. There were noodles? It probably wasn't bad.

It smelled good enough. Green and meaty. "I'll let you taste it first," Hera promised with a grin.

"Fair enough," Kanan replied, smirking right back as he served out two platefuls and dug out a pair of forks. "Still not too late to order out for those flatcakes, though."

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