for_everyone | (no subject)

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Hera never brings him food herself. She does usually help prepare it – she has a better sense of the Terran diet than most, and when it comes down to it, she doesn't fully trust the others not to poison a meal they know is going to their half-Terran 'guest.' But she always finds someone she does trust to take it into him. And then, at first, she'd waited, leaving him to eat alone before she entered his room.

She kept to the first. But the second, she gradually eased. Hera remembered how total her isolation had been, and what had eased in her when she'd grown used to sharing meals. That was something she could do, even if she wouldn't serve him.

So the time she waits becomes shorter and shorter. Until today, when it's only a few minutes after seeing Muroc exit the makeshift cabin that she approaches. She nods to the guard, and then though she doesn't have to, she knocks on the door. She doesn't wait for an answer before entering the room.

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"Never?" she asks.

"My mother was kind."

Kanan's voice is soft.

"But she wasn't Terran."

"I wondered..."

But now Hera looks away, and she doesn't continue this thought.

He looks up at her again, the motion quick and half-startled.

"What?"

"I don't know."

She doesn't look up. After a few seconds, she shakes her head.

"Maybe, I thought - they have their children, too."

Kanan's quiet for a second.

"Maybe for full-Terran children it's different."

Something passes across his face that isn't quite a flinch.

"Maybe if they're not an officer's children."

She draws her hand back.

"Then we won't know."

Hera takes a breath, and seems to draw herself back up again. "But if you work with someone who can help you trust yourself, it might help you start to trust others."

He's quiet again, and for a lot longer this time.

Then --

"Is it worth it?"

"Yes."

For this, there's no moment of hesitation, or consideration. "It's better not to be alone. Not all the time."

Another silence.

"I'm afraid."

It's only the truth.

"Were you?"

"No."

There's still no point in lying.

"But I had very little to lose."

"I should be able to say that, shouldn't I?"

A pause.

"I don't even want my father to care, anymore. But -- "

"I was different," she answers.

"You don't have to be like me."

"I'm not exactly flush with examples," he says, managing to inject some wryness into his tone.

It doesn't last.

"But I'll try."

Hera nods.

Her eyes flicker back to the board. "Do you want to try again?"

"Yes."

His response is immediate. He also flushes faintly a second later.

"If you have the time, of course."

She looks up. Her head tilts again.

"I do.

"Do you want to play black this time?"

"Actually . . . "

He thinks about that for a moment, but --

"Yes."

Hera touches her fingers to one corner of the board, and turns it gently, so that no pieces topple over.

And then, without speaking, she looks over her new pieces, and considers her first move.

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