for_everyone | Post-Protector of the Concord Dawn

Post-Protector of the Concord Dawn

They were all, unsurprisingly, much more patient with her than Hera was with herself. There was at least some excuse for that patience right now, as Kanan's – well, it couldn't exactly be called diplomacy anymore, but he had secured safe passage for them through Concord Dawn nonetheless. But the result felt like a mixed bag, they hadn't recruited these Mandalorians but extorted them, and extortion bred resentment, not trust or camaraderie. Maybe keeping Fenn Rau would give them the chance to talk to him, but Hera also knew if she were the captive, she wouldn't have any interest in what her captors had to say.

But then, Fenn Rau hadn't even given her that chance.

There is a bacta tank aboard the Liberator, but their bacta supplies are limited, so her sessions need to be rationed. LN-14 is one of the kinder medical droids Hera has come across, and he supplements her bacta treatments with frequently changed bandaging, giving special attention to those at the base of her lekku, something often overlooked by droid and organic medics alike. She's very quickly able to sit up in her cot, but other progress is slower. LN keeps her on a diet of liquid supplements until convinced her internal organs have sufficiently healed (and she can stiffly move her arms again).

Kanan undresses her, and carries her in his arms to the bacta tank, then back to her cot again. She appreciates and resents it at the same time, being tucked against his chest made her feel safe, but also vulnerable. Childish. She knows that's a foolish way to think – but the idea of needing him so much frightens her anyway. Fortunately, the injury to her spine and legs is comparatively minimal, and after the second bacta treatment she can walk alongside Kanan, if leaning heavily on him. There's only one hoverchair aboard, and the engineer using it offers it to her, but she refuses this, if only because engineering is the higher priority, while meetings with Sato can happen by her cot for now. But it's a note she makes for herself, something else they need to be better prepared for.

The bandages on her arms are the second to last to be removed. Those along her head and lekku remain, and even now her chest and back ache with too much movement. Still, her arms and hands can move with only a little remaining stiffness, and as she tests them as she downs her morning meal of protein and water, she knows it's time to do what's been hanging over her since she'd resurfaced after the attack. She taps the comm and asks Kanan to bring her a datachip from her quarters, precisely describing its location in a sleeve under her workstation. Then Hera carefully leans back, closes her eyes, and waits for him to come in.

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"I carry," she murmurs. Her hands slow. Near the beginning of the list, many of the names are written in alphabets other than Aurebesh.

"They die."

"We choose our own risks."

There's a hint of steel under his voice, just for a moment.

"You know we do."

"I know." Hera lets out a breath. "They knew the risks, they knew what they signed up for -"

She's heard those words her entire life. "But I - I need to remember the role I played in their deaths."

The datapad screen is still, and Hera's thumb lingers near a name at the very top. Like a handful of the others sprinkled throughout the list, it's not written in Aurebesh. "It can't become easy."

Kanan wants to object. He wants to tell Hera that she could never take it lightly, he knows her and that thought is impossible to believe.

He'd love to find a way to convince her that she doesn't have to punish herself for this, for being the leader they asked her to be.

But that's . . . that's just another burden, really. That's saying he knows better.

That's not . . . he can't.

So he doesn't.

"No. We can't let it become easy."

No one can afford to skirt that edge.

Her eyes linger on the datapad for a few more seconds, and then scrolls back down, to the newly added names. She hadn't known them well, she hadn't been the way to collect their belongings. But she stays silent another a moment, and tries to think back on them.

"Jerex... told jokes in the canteen. And sometimes on the comms."

She tilts her head. "And I traded a music datachip with Essia, she had a Wookiee tree-drum collection I wanted to hear."

"What did you give her?" Kanan asks.

He thinks he remembers the jokester in the canteen, but he can't think of a single specific one of those stories right now.

Give him a second.

"Was it something new for her, or something she wanted more of?"

"It was ah - this Glimmik chip, I picked up when we were on Rion."

She takes another breath, and adds, "Years ago."

"Glimmik's good," Kanan says, because it's true.

Then he exhales.

"And you've been keeping this list for . . . a long time."

A pause, as he gathers himself to ask the question.

"Are there other people you'd like to talk about? To remember? I can listen, if -- "

Hera can't stop a grin at Kanan's first answer, as Glimmik tends to be a sappy-sweet genre that's nice to have around sometimes, but Hera wasn't too reluctant to part from it. Still, Kanan's taste doesn't surprise her.

Her smile fades as he continues. She switches off the datapad screen, and leans back again, settling down against the pillow on her cot.

Like to? Not really. But overdue, maybe.

"Do you remember last time we were on Pamarthe?"

Sometimes the world is in need of that much sweetness. Or Kanan is.

"I remember our parting gift to Pamarthe that time."

Or, you know, the reason they got told not to come back.

Hera takes another deep breath, lets it out. She keeps her eyes on Kanan, now wanting to watch his face as she speaks.

"I mean, the man we ran into. Before that."

There's a moment where Kanan runs through his memory of that trip, then --

"Ah. What he called you?"

Isis.

Hera would nod, but the casts aren't allowing for that right now.

"When I first left Ryloth - really left, I - you might not believe it, but I wasn't looking for a war."

She takes another breath. "I'd been in a war my whole life, I'd watched my parents and my friends - I thought there could be something else I could do."

Kanan can definitely believe it. After Master Bilaba died, he wasn't looking for a war again, either. But the galaxy being what it is . . .

"Was there something else, even for a little while?"

He hopes the answer is 'yes'. He feels like that isn't the case.

Hera's face breaks into a rather rueful smile.

"Well, it wasn't hard to find some peaceful activist groups in that day. Especially in the Core, there were some who still felt protected, and the Empire was a little more selective in its crackdowns back then. And what they really needed was someone who knew a little more about the Galaxy. Especially a pilot."

"It's easy to feel invincible when we're young," Kanan offers.

He certainly had, before the clones turned on them. But not after.

"Young and privileged," she answers.

Hera's eyes fall down to her datapad. "I fell in with a group out of Coruscant. Three of them were humans, and the other was an Ithorian. They were all from the city's upper levels. Chopper and I could get work piloting transports, and then run them to dissenters around the Core. They were focused on collecting evidence of what the Empire was doing."

Kanan winces, because he already knows where this is going.

"How severe was the Empire's reaction?"

Hera closes her eyes for a moment. "About what you'd expect. It wasn't even the worst that -"

She takes another a breath, and nearly shakes her head before she remembers she can't do that, either.

"We got some footage out of an Imperial factory on Manaan, Stomrtroopers beating workers and dumping waste that was killing plants and animals. They dropped it on the holonet. It was all the kind of thing you'd just expect now, but it got some talk in the Senate then.

"And then less than a week later, they arrested on of the humans. Osto. He was well-connected enough that it made the news, they reported he had a kilo of spice on him, that he was barely conscious when they took him in. And then maybe two days later, the same thing happened to another, Karia. They got a public arrest, and then disappeared."

Kanan can feel the heaviness in his stomach, because he knows how the rest of this story goes.

The only question is --

"Did the group scatter then, or did you stick around until . . . "

He's not sure how to put that last bit. Until the end? Until everyone else had been taken?

It's hard to imagine her not being the last one out. She'd insist on it every time, if she could. And when she was a solo operative . . . that might have made it easier.

Hera huffs out a breath. "We should have. We should have had a contingency plan, I should have -"

But she takes another breath, to cut herself off from that train of thought.

"I wasn't their leader, I was - younger, I was just helping them. I don't think they'd thought about it, where they'd go if they had to scatter. And we all kept enough distance from each other that when it was happening, we didn't have time to coordinate. It was only a few days later and Theda -"

Another breath. "- she was found fallen from a walkway near Monument Plaza. They said she threw herself, but she must have put a fight."

Kanan swallows. Calling that a rough start is an understatement.

"We all have a first time that something went wrong."

He's not thinking of the clones, of Master Bilaba's voice, of running and running and hearing --

"Horribly wrong. It's . . . difficult. It hurts. We learn, but it never feels worth it. I don't think so, anyway."

"I don't think any of it was 'worth it,'" Hera answers. Her eyes are still on the blank datapad screen.

"But I got the point pretty quick."

"I'm sorry," Kanan says.

He's sorry any of them have to know this hurt. That anybody died because of the Empire. They're responsible for so much.

"It took me a lot longer."

He regrets that, too.

"Well..."

She rolls her head, gently, toward him. "I still didn't get it fast enough for it all to have ended there."

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