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Hera returns to the cockpit, helping Chopper set them on a course back to Lothal. It's a roundabout route of hyperspace lanes – the Empire knows they fled, and knows they're likely to return, so it's all the better to take their time and avoid any paths they're likely to be monitoring. It'll also take a large bite out of their fuel supplies, more than Hera really wants to lose right now. But she knows it's worth it not to cut corners, not when the Imperials will be out for blood, not just for the new TIE they'd destroyed, but for spiriting Tseebo and all the intel he had away from them.

And that intel –

She forces herself to be patient, to take her time setting out the coordinates, in working through Chopper's frustrations with her insistence they take every precaution possible. And finally, with their course laid in and the coordinates of their first leg ready, Hera takes the Ghost into hyperspace, the ship shifting forward, the stars beyond them blurring into streaks of blue and white.

Hera doesn't linger in the pilot's chair. She leaves Chopper to monitor their progress, and then climbs down out of the cockpit. As she makes her way through the ship, she notices a light from the nose gun turrets, and stops for just a few seconds. But then she keeps moving, onward to the cabins, until she comes to a halt outside Kanan's.

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Kanan doesn't look up from where he's studying his hands, gaze distant and slow to return. But it's Hera, and he can't help but know she's out there, so --

"Come in."

Edited 2018-04-10 01:49 (UTC)

She'd figured she wouldn't need to knock.

The doors open, and Hera waits until they've closed behind her before -

"You said we needed to talk."

"We do. Probably about more things than this, but -- "

He takes a deep breath.

"I'm concerned about Ezra."

"Kanan -"

Hera steps across the room, moving to sit down on the bunk next to him.

"Tseebo had information about Ezra's parents."

It takes him a second, mind working to absorb that when he had mostly been thinking about how one can fight the Dark Side even in its most mild forms.

Then he looks up, blinking heavily as if to clear his head.

"His parents? Are you sure?"

It's reflexive, because it's such an oddly foreign thought, in this moment.

Hera nods. "From what he said -"

She breaks off, for a few seconds, glancing down to her hands in her lap. She plays it over in her mind once more, looking for a flaw, any sign or detail she might have overlooked. But then, she looks back up to him.

"I think they're alive."

Kanan's eyebrows lift, because it seems so implausible on the face of things.

And yet --

"Any idea where? If Ezra . . . that's the question he'll ask, we both know that."

Hera grimaces, shaking her head. "What Tseebo could tell me - there was definitely no execution order. And there was record of a completed transport, which means they probably weren't summarily executed or 'lost' in transit. They went somewhere."

She takes a deep breath, and then, "But he couldn't find where. They could be in any Imperial prison, anywhere in the galaxy. And just the ones we know of - there must be over a thousand."

Kanan swallows over the sudden lump in his throat. It's good news, in its way, but it's also --

It's also going to make everything a lot harder.

"If we had something concrete . . . "

"And I could be wrong."

Hera lets out a breath. "It's a guess, maybe Tseebo didn't find everything, or maybe, if they realized what he was looking for -"

But she stops. This isn't going to do them any good, and it isn't what they need to focus on now. The first thing, and always the most important, is to look to what they can do. To how they can move forward.

"We can look for them," she says. "We have plenty of people who us a favor, and some of them definitely have reason to be watching Imperial prisons."

"It's a good first step. We can figure out what else to do . . . whenever there ends up being an else to do."

Maybe they'll get news quickly. That would be . . . something. Plus an additional difficulty in the long run, but that's not why Kanan's apprehensive, not really. But too good to be true actually is, a lot of the time.

The question is, what do they tell Ezra now.

But it's not what she asks.

"What did you want to tell me? What happened to you and Ezra?"

"We . . . . "

Kanan trails off, looking down and away again.

"I'm worried about him. Even before hearing this news I was worried, and now . . . "

"Worried how?"

It almost feels silly to ask, there's so much to be worried about. But she needs a little more to go on.

"What he did, with the Fyrnock mother . . . "

Kanan trails off again, trying and failing to find words to put to his disquiet. Until --

"It saved us, yes. But he didn't ask for help, he commanded it. And with the possibility of finding his parents in front of him . . . "

Hera waits a moment, running over his words in her mind, trying to make sure she understands him.

"He can - control other living things?"

"Animals, at least," Kanan admits, after a long silence. "It's Dark, Hera. And I don't know if he understands what that really means."

Kanan's afraid he doesn't even know how to explain to Ezra any other way.

Edited 2018-04-11 01:04 (UTC)

"Is it -"

Her mind flashes to their attempt to rescue Luminara, to the stories of red lightsabers. She stops short, and tries to shake those visions from her mind.

"How can we help him?"

"I'm not sure," Kanan says helplessly, looking down at his hands.

"Keep reminding him of the right thing? Don't push him away when he gets angry, or afraid, or both at the same time? Keep in mind that we've got to walk the talk, if we tell him not to sacrifice everything in pursuit of our end goals -- especially not other people. We'll know it when we see it, I think. I hope."

Hera also glances down, briefly.

Then, speaking slowly, and carefully, "Is - it a problem you ever had?"

Kanan shakes his head. He'd almost regret that this is true, except if it weren't . . . if it weren't, he probably wouldn't be here now.

"I was too afraid, and by the time I wasn't . . . I was out of the habit of using the Force to solve my problems. I imagine I might have, but Ma -- my teacher was . . . she'd have known how to handle it, how to redirect without shame, I -- "

"I think you know something about that, Kanan," Hera says, quietly.

"Even if maybe not - just through the Force."

"Maybe," Kanan says at last, and he shouldn't be ashamed of it, all of it brought him here, but --

"I think I've been running away from that, too."

"Well..."

It's a little longer before she speaks this time. Her eyes stay down, glancing from her hands, to the floor of Kanan's cabin. They have to make a decision. But what right do they have to decide this?

Nothing, is the answer that comes to her mind. Nothing is going to come and give them permission. No one is going to tell them what they should do.

"He's scared, and angry," she says, at last. "And maybe he - and we - have to think about that. How he's going to handle that, as a person, and as a Jedi."

"It's easy to think that just because you can lift rocks with your mind, or trick people into not realizing they've seen you -- that you can do anything. That you should do anything, that getting what you want is worth any cost, and that you have the right to choose that because of what you can do. He's not there yet, but . . . my job -- our job -- is going to be making sure that he knows that. A Jedi is no better or worse than anyone, and we have to consider others in our choices. So I guess . . . not making his training a secret club is one thing. Give him grounding, keep him aware that it's one skill among many, and all the rest of us have our specialities, too."

He's thinking on the fly, and some of it sounds like babbling, but it's already bringing those months with Master Depa more and more clarity, which can only help.

He hopes.

"All right."

After another few seconds, she reaches out, touching his shoulder. "Being responsible with our power is something we all have to do. Even if we can't all lift rocks with our minds."

Edited 2018-04-11 02:40 (UTC)

Kanan musters a half-smile, reaching up to touch the back of her hand, just briefly.

"It's not the rocks that worry me so much, but you're right. We've all got the possibility of overconfidence nipping at our heels, and arrogance, too."

"And anger," she sighs. "And fear."

Her hand stays on his shoulder, but then she looks down again. "And about his parents..."

"I don't want to lie to him," Kanan says, because it's the truth.

"But . . . "

He trails off again, shaking his head a little.

"What do you think?

She's the only one in here that had parents that she remembers, so --

"If he asks, I'm not going to lie to him, either."

She lowers her hand. "But for now, we don't really know anything. And maybe it's better if we have something more, before we bring this to him."

Edited 2018-04-11 03:03 (UTC)

"I think it is," Kanan agrees, closing his eyes against what feels like a betrayal.

But at the same time . . .

"We'll find some concrete news about them, it might just . . . take awhile."

Right?

"If it could help him, somehow, or if there's something we're depriving him of -"

But it's the same uncertainty Ezra already has. And there's nothing any of them can do but this. Reach out, track down any more information they can.

"No one ever really completely disappears." She looks to Kanan as she says it, maybe trying to convince herself, as well. "Not even in the Empire."

"No," Kanan agrees, shaking his head. He does open his eyes, though, looking back at Hera.

"No one ever really does."

Whether they can find the traces that remain, though . . . that's always a question.

Hera nods, her eyes falling.

"In that case," she says, slowly. "I should probably go and start getting the word out."

Edited 2018-04-11 23:06 (UTC)

"Probably," he agrees, taking a deep breath.

"And if there are any places left that our contacts don't overlap . . . I can put some kind of word out there, too. And I'll keep an eye on him, on his . . . "

Kanan gestures vaguely toward Ezra's cabin.

"On how he's feeling. And how he's expressing it."

"All right."

She reaches out again, this time briefly putting her hand on his knee.

"If it looks like we should rethink this..."

Well, they can always do that.

"We'll know."

He rests his hand on hers, just for a few seconds, lifting away just before she moves her own hand away.

"I can only hope we'll get to give him good news."

Given the Empire, it's a very faint hope, but --

"Then the sooner we start, the better."

And she stands from the bunk, giving him one last, small smile before she heads for the door.

"I'll be out in a minute," he says, mouth quirking up at one corner even as she turns to go.

They have a plan, and it's . . . . it's going to have to do, for now.

But first, meditation, just to get his nerves back under control.

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