for_everyone | (no subject)

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This had been itching at her for a while. She knew it was time, overdue probably, but it was always so easy to be busy elsewhere. Even setting aside a moment for it could feel like a waste – she might as well be calling into a black hole for all the response she got. Not that it mattered, she never really wanted an answer. If anything had happened to him, she would've found out quickly enough through their mutual contacts. And the same was probably true if something happened to her. He didn't need these occasional updates that she was still alive.

And yet, she draws Chopper into the galley with her. It's late in the cycle, and she's fairly sure Kanan's in his room. Right now that's just as well. Chopper rolls back a couple meters from her, and she nods. "All right, start now."

Chopper lifts his photoreceptor toward her, and a soft blue light flares within. Hera looks into the light, shoulders squared, chin up.

"Hello, father."

The first part is always the same.

"I'm still alive, and I'm safe."

This is only half true. In her entire life, Hera had never been safe.

"I have another crewmember now. Besides Chopper. He's actually been here for a while, but I didn't say anything before."

Hera does glance away. Her lekku twitch.

"I thought maybe you'd want to know I'm not alone."

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"I want you to stay," she says, before turning to go get two cups.

"And help, maybe?"

"I'll do my best," he says, sitting down and folding his hands together. It's going to keep him from fidgeting too much, or at least he can hope.

"Help with what?"

She puts two cups down on the table

"Making the caf?"

(She does smile at him as she says it.)

"Oh. Oh! Right. I can do that."

He stands up again, going to the cupboards to pull out the caf and the condiments that go with it.

Good going, Kanan. You're definitely on top of things today.

She's really not trying to push Kanan so off-balance.

So she falls quiet as she moves to turn on the caf-making. Maybe if she gives him a little space, they can both regain their footing.

Kanan's not great at quieting his mind, not without touching things it hurts to touch, so the distraction of the caf-making routine is welcome.

As is the quiet.

But eventually --

"So. Do you send messages back and forth a lot?"

Hera waits until she's taken a seat at the table, wrapping her hands around her caf.

"I send him messages."

But she shakes her head. "Not very often, just - once in a while."

"I couldn't help hearing the end. So you -- it's good you let him know you're alive. And -- "

He takes a sip of caf to keep himself from digging into it even more. But --

"He does the same?"

"He doesn't answer."

She takes a sip of her own caf. "But I'd know if he were dead, and he knows I'd know."

Kanan winces. He can't help it.

"Does that . . . bother you? Him not answering."

He thinks it'd bother Caleb, if Master Depa had ever stopped talking to him. Before she died, of course.

"I think he thinks if I really wanted to talk to him, I could transmit to him directly. Not send a recorded message."

She lowers her eyes, staring down at her caf. "Or I could just come back to Ryloth."

Kanan's response is instant and instinctive.

"But then who'd be doing your work out here?"

A few seconds of silence slip by before she answers. Her eyes stay down.

"My father's only interested in throwing the Empire off Ryloth. The rest of the galaxy - it's not important to him."

Kanan's silent for a moment, taking another swallow of caf. He drops his gaze from Hera, too, just in case that's making her feel more on the spot.

"I can understand that point of view, I guess. Given how much help anyone outside Ryloth has ever been to Ryloth. But at the same time -- "

"The Empire's never going to leave Ryloth."

She closes her eyes, takes another deep breath. "I'm sorry, I already argued all of this out with him."

"No, I'm pushing, asking all these questions. It's all right. I don't mean to make you have to fight it out again."

He takes another sip of caf.

"But you're right. The Empire's never going to leave anywhere they've already got their hooks sunk."

"I'm more sure of it now," she says, opening her eyes and looking back up to him.

"Before I left I thought he might've been right, that if the cost was too high the Empire might leave. But even then I couldn't stand that, it would still be out there, it would still -"

She breaks off. He knows as well as she does, she's not fighting only for Ryloth. And for him, she doesn't need to justify that.

"But now I think they'd wipe out every Twi'lek on the planet before they'd leave it."

Kanan's shoulders hunch for a moment, and his gaze drops.

But then he looks back up, mouth pressed into a thin, harsh line.

"That's what they do, yeah. That's who they are."

Hera nods, looking back down to her caf.

"We - we really had it out before I left. It was probably a long time coming and we just..."

"But you left a . . . while ago, right? And he's still not over it?"

Is she? It doesn't sound like it, but he's not about to say that. At least she's trying to talk to her father, which seems to be more than can be said the other way 'round.

"I don't know."

Hera reaches for her caf, carefully lifting it again. "I think he has a mission. And now that I'm not part of it..."

She takes a small sip, then puts it down again. "I'm not a priority."

Not that she'd felt like one before, either.

"Well, that's just . . . "

He trails off. What does a person say here? He's already covered that he's sorry, and that her father's behavior sounds baffling and upsetting, so --

"Do you want me to heat up some protein? To go with the caf, since it's getting late in the day, anyway."

She glances up, and then, after a second, nods.

"If you're hungry."

"Right."

He stands up after a second, going to riffle through the cupboards looking for the protein cubes that are the closest thing he gets to a favorite.

Then he turns back, looking at Hera over his shoulder.

"You do know you're the most important person on this crew, right? The most central to what we do."

"I appreciate that, Kanan."

Hera leans forward over the table, watching him search.

"But I'm not -"

She props her elbows up on the table, folding her hands and resting her head on them.

"It doesn't bother me, that he doesn't respond."