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"All right." Hera drops down from the nose of the Ghost, having spent the last forty-five minutes cleaning and mending the nose gun canopy. "How's it going, Chopper?"

Chopper blats, a shower of sparks spraying from under the ship. Hera walks around to join him, kneeling down next to the droid to get a look at the panel he's reattaching. "We should probably look into getting this replaced –"

Before she can finish, Chopper blats again, rolling toward her with his unignited welder. Hera raises her hands, but doesn't move.

"– I was just going to say, you're doing a great job in the meantime."

This gets a contented, 'I already knew that' sort of chirp, and Hera steps back as Chopper resumes his work.

"Can you keep watch out here? I need to talk to Kanan for a while."

Chopper waves a free arm at her, and Hera steps away, out from under the ship and into a spill of moonlight. Interruptions were doubtful, in any case. They'd chosen a cavern far from any of Ovanis' cities, offering nothing of value but a place to rest. No ship could approach without being heard, as echoes crashed easily through the high, curved mountains. In fact, few pilots could even land a fighter, let alone a freighter, among the caverns here.

But Hera still glances up once to the moons. Then she turns, and heads up the ramp, into the Ghost. She walks through the crates they'd stacked in the cargo hold, up the ladder, tracing her hand along the table as she passes through the galley, and then against the wall as she walks along the cabins.

When she reaches Kanan's door, she curls her hand into a loose fist, and knocks.

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Kanan keeps it up for another few moments, but ending on a comparative victory seems . . . the thing to do.

So he withdraws his Force-sense, locking himself mostly away behind his own eyes again.

"Good. You did that quickly. I knew you could."

His hand is still in hers, and he squeezes lightly, holding on.

"It wouldn't have lasted long."

Hera's head still aches, but she lowers one of her hands, curling the other along her forehead. After a few seconds, her eyes flutter open. "But I'll take it, for now."

She raises her head, dropping her remaining hand down to her lap. "Thank you, really."

"No, it's -- "

He clears his throat, awkward at being thanked for this. But --

"You're welcome. It's a good tool for you to have. And sometimes the surprise at any actual resistance will buy you a couple more minutes. That's -- usually good to have. If you're in that situation."

Which he devoutly hopes she never will be, but there are no guarantees.

"With what we're up against, anything helps."

Hera slips her hand into his again. "But you can tell me if I'm - pushing too much -"

"Wh -- "

His eyes go a little wide.

"No, I know you'll listen, if I do. It's just this technique, the probing, it's so easy. The only reason it's not one of the first things we learned is because you can't trust younglings with this. Kids. I think that's the part that I can't stand, somehow."

He twitches, shoulders rolling in faint negation.

"Which makes it even easier to think about how our enemies could do this, and -- "

Anyway.

Hera lets out a breath. She had long since accepted what the results of her capture could be, had seen survivors of Separatists and Imperial prisons. But a power like that... it begins to feel insurmountable.

And she can't accept that.

"And a droid..."

Her voice fades, uncertain, as she considers what she's asking. "It's - not the same?"

Edited 2017-12-06 02:40 (UTC)

"No, it's not the same at all. A droid can't . . . adapt, much."

Kanan falls silent as he thinks that over, making sure there isn't a better term for it.

"They have one direction, forward, and if you can stymie that by divorcing yourself from your situation and fully inhabiting your safe place . . . there's not really much they can do."

"It something," she says, quietly.

She blinks up at him, and then down again. Her head still aches slightly, and her hand is still wrapped around his. Hera feels no desire to move just yet.

Except, maybe. She shifts, slowly leaning to rest her head against Kanan's shoulder. Just... just for a moment.

He shifts just slightly, so that her head rests on the meatiest part of his shoulder.

The most comfortable, or so experience would suggest.

Kanan exhales, and slowly, carefully, leans his cheek to rest against the top of her head.

"Enough somethings add up."

"They do," she agrees.

She doesn't move yet.

He doesn't, either.

"We just need a couple more . . . "

And, you know. A moment or two like this, every so often.