for_everyone | (no subject)

Hera had learned from her father that the right kind of party did two things – it gave your fighters an outlet after the rage and trauma of battle, and it tired them out of their post-mission stress. And in this case, it seems to have done the trick. While some talk lingered after the impromptu performances, it had softened quickly, as they each found their own spaces to relax. Most stayed together in the galley, though Kanan had said he was going to find a quiet place to meditate. Hera, meanwhile, heads for the bridge.

The course is set, and it's still a few hours before they'll arrive at the rendezvous with Phoenix Squadron. They had searched the ship to deactivate any form of tracking, down to ripping out the extensive monitoring devices they had found decked all over the comms equipment. Some were buried deep enough that Hera doubted even those serving aboard the ship knew about it, and wondered at what the Empire was looking for as it spied on its own officers. Any signs of disobedience or subversion? Anything compromising to keep them in line?

When she enters the bridge, Hera stops at the spot where the ship's captain would stand, behind the piloting controls, equally close to the weapons, comms, and technical stations. The clean durasteel is lit by the swirling light of hyperspace beyond, blue streaks cutting over black chrome. She can imagine the Imperial crew that must have manned these controls only hours ago, gray uniforms and the cold lights above glinting off their visors, leaning over the glow of their monitors and controls.

"Your orders, captain?"

Hera turns, though she recognizes the voice before she sees Numa standing by the doorway behind her.

"You startled me."

"Really?" Numa tilts her head, stepping forward onto the deck. "I wasn't trying to. You're distracted."

She steps up next to Hera, gazing around at the same places Hera had, piloting at the front, comms behind them, monitors still blinking red and black in the silence. She turns back to Hera. "You imagining being at command in this thing?"

Hera chuckles. "No thanks. Once we reach rendezvous, this goes to the fleet, and I get back to the Ghost."

"The Ghost," Numa repeats, with a skepticism Hera didn't expect. She looks back to Numa, meeting her eyes.

"Are you aiming at something?"

Numa tilts her head, a soft twitch running through her lekku. "You've been gone for so long, Hera. You're so far from us now. In this fleet, do you really think you'll be staying in your little ship?"

Hera brushes past the comment about the Ghost. There's the first thought she has, the one she nearly voices, I could always die in it, but she bites that one back as well. Instead, she tries to face Numa head on. And it takes her a moment, in the open, desolate glow of hyperspace, under the hard lines and low lights of the Imperial bridge, for her to circle back to where they had really parted.

When she speaks, it's in Twi'leki. "Are you still angry with me, Numa?"

There's another twitch in her lekku, and Numa answers in Basic. "You left us, Hera. Cham's right, you haven't seen what the Empire's done to Ryloth since then. We needed everyone who could fight."

Hera starts to speak, but Numa lifts her right lekku, and Hera lets her finish. "I see it differently now. And you're right, probably." She smiles a little at that. "That we need to think about more than Ryloth. But someone has to care only for Ryloth, Hera. No one else will."

There's no hesitance. Hera answers, softly, "I know."

Numa relaxes, and lifts her hand to place it on Hera's shoulder. "And it's all right for you to be ambitious, Hera –"

"I just wanted to fly –" Hera breaks in, but Numa shakes her head.

"Luon. Galo zet shendrimio."

And Hera understands. She doesn't have a chance to answer before Numa pulls her close again, into her arms, this time in silence, no one else to see, away from the song and the frenzy of the aftermath. Hera pulls her close in turn, closing her eyes, trying not to think of what's around them for a moment and only hold close to Numa's embrace. The feel of her, the traces of the desert still on her clothes and her skin. Because Numa was right. She'd been gone for so long, and she would soon be gone again.

When Numa does release her, she takes hold of Hera's shoulders meeting her eyes as they break apart. Very seriously, "And tell me, Hera. This Jedi is treating you all right?"

Hera smiles, though she doesn't laugh. "You really think he'd be onboard otherwise?"

"I had to ask." Numa rocks Hera by her shoulders, insisting in Huttese, "Noah human stoopa."

"Bargon," Hera answer in kind, raising her hand to Numa, who clasps it in turn, and grins.

"Good, now let me take watch here, and go talk to your father."

Hera sighs. "You're sure?"

"You two need it. But this time, try sending a message back for the rest of us, when you can?"

"I can't promise anything." Which Numa knows just as well. But she lingers a moment before she lets go of Numa's hand, and one last nod as she heads to the doorway.

And there, she pauses. "Numa?"

Numa already has one hand on a piloting chair when she looks back. In the low light, Hera can barely make out her face now, her figure silhouetted in the swirling light beyond.

"We've been working with a clone. I don't want to say his name, but –"

"He knows?" Numa asks. It doesn't take more than that.

"Waxer – Umbara." Hera shakes her head. "He didn't know about Boil."

"What about yours?"

Hera pauses. "Which? From lessutoinfal, or – ?"

"Ze."

Hera feels herself slump against the doorway. Her lekku touch the wall, and the hum of the enormous ship runs through her, like roaring waves, as the blue light streaming around Numa's dark shape. It's a few seconds before Hera remembers the question Numa asked her.

"Near the end," she straightens, rubbing one hand down her lekku. "He didn't say more than that, and I didn't push."

Without speaking, Numa turns back toward the chair, and leaving any goodbyes for later, Hera continues through the door.

Hera doesn't think about it when she heads to the hangar. She doesn't need to. Most will still be resting in the mess hall, and she had, predictably, gone to the bridge. That left what was, to her, the obvious remaining spot to head to for someone who wanted to be on their own.

With so many of its TIEs gone, the hangar looks even more enormous, one of the largest she had ever seen on-ship. She first looks for the long black mark left by their crashlanding into the ship, the metal denting and twisting at her boots, the burned remains of their TIE Bomber that had at least, thankfully, burnt out. They'll have to clean up their own mess first, but then, it could have been much worse.

It's what she's thinking of when she hears a whistle across the hangar – it's two high notes, in quick succession, the whistle itself soft but the sound carrying easily along the high walls and ceiling. Her first, ungenerous thought is that he's testing her, seeing how much she's forgotten. It's not fair. It doesn't have to be the first thing she always assumes about her father. She returns it, the same two notes but a quick, higher note between them. He's already given her a location, and the response is a simple, I'm coming.

She finds him leaning against a refueling panel, long tubing hooked along the wall, fuel levels, quality, clarity in readouts on a screen over the associated controls. Even from a distance, Hera starts counting what will need to be refitted, replaced so that the stations can serve the A-wings and the other scattered fighters that Phoenix Squadron had collected. But she sets that aside from now. Her father leans with his arms folded, his gaze down even as she comes closer, even as she has no doubt that he's been following her footsteps since she returned his call.

She stops a few meters from the panel, and then waits. She doesn't speak first. It's not so much to make him talk, as her uncertainty of what version of her father will emerge now. The distant leader, the affectionate parent, the hounding instructor – their conversations could be like rounds of sabacc, and after enough bad hands it's hard to bet again.

"Hera." He doesn't look up at her, but his next words still slice through her defenses.

"It was – good to hear you sing again, Hera. Your mother always loved your voice."

Hera takes a deep breath. Her right hand curls around her left wrist.

"She loved yours, too."

That gives Cham pause. He glances up at her, then stands straight, taking a step toward her. "Right, well, she wouldn't have stayed long otherwise."

There's a twist to his lekku as he says it, reinforcing that it's a weak attempt at a joke. Hera offers a weak attempt at a smile in return.

But she asks, "Are we gonna fight again?"

Cham lets out a breath. "No, I hope not."

He meets her eyes this time, watching her for a moment before he continues. "I am glad, now, that we were brought together again, that I've seen what you are now."

Hera doesn't answer, but she also doesn't look away from him. She should ask, maybe, what he sees, but she's still not entirely sure that she wants to hear his answer.

"I wanted you to be ready, Hera." Cham says. "But I didn't want this war for you."

That Hera answers at once. "I know, father. I remember."

Cham shakes his head, glancing to the floor again as he collects his thoughts. "All of you were right back then, of course. That the peace I'd hoped for was a foolish thought."

"Luon, amma –" It's not at all what she wants him to think. Foolish or naïve were never what she'd call her father. But he stops her before she goes on.

"It's all right, Hera. I meant that – sometimes I fear that you and I are made for war."

That does silence her. Because again, already, he's stung right to her core, because he can't help it any more than she can.

"That we won't know what we'll be without it," she murmurs.

Cham takes another step forward, and reaches out to her. In response, she holds out her hands, letting him take them into his. There's a hesitant warmth, careful and uncertain, as her father truly greets her for the first time.

"On Ryloth," he says, "among our people, I hoped that I'd found some place to go to ground. And when you left for good I thought I'd lost another connection to anything beyond this war." He presses his thumbs into her palms, and looks up to her. "But I see now that I didn't lose it."

She pulls at him, and he comes toward her, letting her put his arms around him. Hera doesn't know when she last embraced her father. But he puts his arms around her in turn, and she decides not to care.

"Hera," he says, quietly, against her shoulder. "I hope you've found your people out here."

They break apart a few seconds later, and Hera nods, taking a deep breath.

"I'm not sorry for leaving." That is the truth of it. "But I'm sorry for leaving you."

"Maybe it's what you needed to do," he answers. "So that I could see you again."

She smiles, a not so weak attempt this time. "You know why we can't get along, right?"

And he smiles wryly in return, and pats her shoulder before stepping along next to her. "In that way, I suppose we are never far apart."

And she moves alongside him, as they begin to make their way out of the hangar. Neither of them speak, the only sound the echo of their footsteps along the cavernous walls around them.

Then, at the door, Cham pauses. "Hera."

A few steps ahead, Hera stops, and turns back to him. He slips into Twi'leki.

"Euwae aluvaatete wilson."