Post-Protector of the Concord Dawn

[for_everyone]

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.

Comments

[for_everyone]

"Well..."

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

[notallofus]

He doesn't flinch, though he does, carefully, reach out to touch her cheek.

Just for a moment.

"What happened then?"

[for_everyone]

She doesn't move from his touch.

"Snij, the Ithorian, signaled me."

There's a small, mirthless smile with that. "Which sounds like a trap, right? Like something that has to be a trap."

[notallofus]

"It does," he agrees. Because she's right.

"Did it turn out not to be?"

He's honestly not sure which answer he prefers, somehow.

[for_everyone]

"The location wasn't great for a trap, it was near a market in the lower levels, I could mix with a crowd until I found him. And I knew he might be looking for a way off-planet. I had to try to get him that."

Her eyes flicker down, and then back up to Kanan. "It wasn't a trap. But he didn't show, and after waiting I did a circle around the area. They must have caught up with him while he was on his way there."

[notallofus]

Yeah, Kanan would have preferred it to have been a trap. Because the chance of Hera's not holding onto guilt for this is . . . . basically none.

"You saw them take him?"

He really hopes not.

[for_everyone]

"No."

That falls to a whisper, but it doesn't last, as her voice is full as she continues, "You see, unlike the others, they didn't bother covering it up. They just left him."

[notallofus]

Kanan spits out several obscure swearwords that were all the rage back in his Jedi Temple days.

"They would."

Sometimes there isn't much else to say.

"I'm sorry."

[for_everyone]

She listens, still watching him, her lips pressed together before she replies.

"It's when I made my next mistake. I sent an alert to the Coruscant police."

[notallofus]

"You wanted your friend to be taken care of," Kanan says, because he can understand the impulse. "It only makes sense, when he wasn't 'disappeared'."

(And he made similar mistakes in those early days. Some, worse. Or at least he remembers them that way.)

"How fast did it all go wrong?"

[for_everyone]

"I was going to get off-world, anyway," she answers, her eyes flickering away again. "I knew I had to at that point. But I had one more transport job lined up and - I was pretty low on credits."

Another deep breath. "And - I don't know. I don't know why they came after me this way, if it was them. But I was prepping to leave, and Chopper was with me, and he started insisting something was wrong. I came back with him into the engines and I saw it - they'd messed with the wiring to hide it from the ship's sensors, but the fuel capsules were brittle and pitted, like some corrosive had been sprayed on them. They never would've held, most likely the ship would have blown apart on takeoff.

"So we got everyone off, and we ran from there."

[notallofus]

Kanan inhales deeply, and exhales slowly, and with great control.

That thought is terrifying, despite the fact that it happened a long time ago.

"But you stopped running, eventually."

Otherwise they would have never met the way they did.

(When Kanan was still running.)

[for_everyone]

"I ran away from Coruscant," she amends, a little of her smile back.

"And I stopped using that name."

[notallofus]

"Well, Coruscant isn't the only trouble spot in the galaxy."

'Trouble' is too light a word for it.

"Neither is Pamarthe. You weren't expecting someone to use that name again with you at all, were you."

It's not really a question.

"If . . . no one else made it out."

[for_everyone]

"They weren't the only ones I used it with," she says. "When I was starting out, I - well, I couldn't exactly use Syndulla."

Not that anything's changed, but usually doesn't stick to an alias longer than any one job now. "But I wasn't expecting anyone I'd come across back then to recognize me."

Or, as Kanan said, to still be alive to remember.

[notallofus]

No, she really couldn't use Syndulla back then.

And even now, within the team . . .

"Do you think they'll connect that name with Hera Syndulla of Phoenix Squadron?"

Is it something to be worried about? Kanan's not sure.

[for_everyone]

"I don't think so," she answers, her eyes flickering back to the ceiling again.

"I don't know for sure that they ever knew it. But I doubt it would matter to them now."

[notallofus]

"I keep thinking Caleb isn't going to matter," Kanan says quietly.

"Which I know is different, but . . . history has a weight."

A pause.

"You don't have to carry it alone."

Not all of it, anyway. Some things are private.

[for_everyone]

"It was different for you," she says. "Even if after the Clone Wars, you'd just lived some quiet life somewhere, the Empire would have hunted you down because of who you'd been before. I was-"

But she stops. Because it's not that simple, after all. She was still Cham Syndulla's daughter. Still a product of the last war. when it come down to it, still a Twi'lek.

She closes her eyes again. "I don't know. I just meant that next to what I've done now, I doubt that I used to be some low-level dissident will mean much to them."

Even if that alone had been reason enough to kill her.

[notallofus]

He smiles, quick and mostly humorless.

"No, you're right. I think what we're all doing now is definitely more of a reason for the Empire to come for us."

Even him, oddly enough.

"It's been a long few decades."

A long life, in some ways more than others.

[for_everyone]

She switches the datapad back on; it flares up, flashing among several screens before reaching the list again. Her fingers slide along to move up the list, reaching close to, but not quiet, the beginning.

"Most of them were young," she murmurs. "Older than me, but young and well-connected."

She takes a breath.

"Osto." A holoimage ignites over the pad, a young human around the age Hera was now, he had dark skin and long hair, and a smile that rang clear even in the dim hologram. "His father worked with the diplomatic congregation from Chandrila."

Hera slides her fingers across the screen, bringing up a new image, a young human woman now, with dyed green hair tied in three tight buns along the back of her head. "Karia, her parents both worked for the Coruscant opera."

Another flicker. Another young woman, her dark brown hair was braided in many looks at the back of her head. "Theda. She was the oldest, had a pretty big following as a holoreporter."

And finally, a young Ithorian. His bright gold eyes stand out in the holo. "Snij. His parents were agriculture lobbyists."

As the holo fades, she adds, "I learned most of that after the fact."

[notallofus]

Kanan looks at the datapad for as long as Hera has it on, focusing on each face as it comes into view.

Chandrilans, Coruscanti, holoreporters, lobbyists -- people who thought they understood the system, knew how it worked, knew how to make change occur.

In the face of the Empire, that's not the security thought it was. It still isn't.

"How much digging did you do to find these things out?"

Did she visit their families? He wouldn't put it past her, except that she would probably also have worried about putting others in danger.

[for_everyone]

"Plenty of it was public after the fact," she says. "Osto and Karia were from families prominent enough that their disappearances would raise questions. Snij didn't turn up in the major networks, but I found him in reports from Coruscant-based Ithorian communities. Theda took me the longest - her identity wasn't reported, just her death. It was the happenstance of coming across an opera lover that led me to her."

She looks back down to the datapad screen. "They were the ones who could afford to be peaceful about it."

[notallofus]

"Is that why you joined them?" Kanan asks, after a moment.

"To see if that would work? Or . . . to try to keep them safe?"

[for_everyone]

If I'd meant to keep them safe, I did a terrible job, she can't help but think.

"They needed someone like me," she answers. "And if it could be done that way - maybe they were the ones who could."

She switches off the datapad again. "I was wrong. The Empire comes after some of us more than others. But there's no negotiating with it, not for anyone."