The roof of the MCA, Monday

[futurespacemom]

As promised, Hera was going to take Jacen flying. As suggested, she wasn't going to use the Phantom unless he protested the current plan.

She led him up to the roof and over to where Kanan's ship was parked. "This is the Escape. What do you think?"


[Expecting the one!]

Comments

[futurespacemom]

"Never," Hera said. She smiled up at the moon's horizon. "Okay," she said, leaning forward over Jacen's shoulder, "how about that asteroid field?"

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen grinned in reply to that, and then he nodded, pulling the Escape up and out of the moon's atmosphere, and then kicking up the speed. They could probably make that jump via hyperspace in practically seconds, but this ship didn't have those calculations programmed in, and they hadn't exaclty brought Chopper along.

So... cruise control, for a little while. He looked back at Hera.

"So, why did you decide to bring me up in this ship, anyway? I mean, not that it's not a great one," he said quickly, "but I kind of figured it would be the Ghost's peripherals until the end of time."

[futurespacemom]

Hera hesitated. "It was Kanan's idea, actually. I was going to use the Phantom, since you wanted to take her up, but Escape is his ship. He thought you'd enjoy something you could do a bit more in."

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen was silent for a few moments at that, looking down at the controls in front of him. Glancing around the cockpit.

Looking back toward Earth for a few beats too long.

"What's it like? Having him around?"

He regretted letting the words leave his mouth before he had even said 'him.' But there were just some things he didn't have the heart to ask his mother back home anymore. As a little kid, he'd wanted stories of their adventures together, and he'd always just kind of assumed that the faraway look and the way he could feel her heart drop were the way things like this were meant to be.

[futurespacemom]

"I haven't really thought about it," Hera answered. She took a moment.

"It's good to have someone who's got my back. I trust him completely, and that's pretty rare. He's a good man, even though sometimes he still likes to pretend he's not, or that it's not that important. I owe him my life, and he owes me his. We're not far beyond that yet, but...it's good. Having him here."

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen was silent for a long moment at that. He was all that and a cap on the kalikori, and those two facts warred inside of him for a moment before he said, quietly, "I wish you still did. Have him with you, I mean."

Not for Jacen's sake. Kanan was a stranger, to Jacen. A name to live up to, a literal knight that had stepped in and saved entire worlds. But he'd grown so used to the tired look that sometimes crossed his mother's face that looking at her now, without it...

It hurt, realizing just how much of her had been brought out by him.

[futurespacemom]

"I...don't even know what to say to that," Hera confessed. "I don't want to lose him, but I don't have any idea where our lives were when we'd have had you." She sighed and gave a brief laugh. "I don't even know what tense to use."

[what_dad_was_like]

"And I don't know what I shouldn't tell you," Jacen admitted. "I've probably already told you too much. I didn't mean to, I don't know how this stuff works. Not really."

He sighed and looked back at the controls.

"This place, right? You told me once, this place was full of possibilities. Like dreams, but awake. You never really know what they mean until they're real, and you realize that what you thought you knew wasn't the whole truth at all." He smiled a little. He sometimes had those dreams, himself. But those dreams came from somewhere different, something that was a part of him, a part of everything. "Maybe all I am for you is a warning. That would be okay, maybe."

An entire life lived, just to spare some version of his mother some pain.

[futurespacemom]

"That sounds terrible," Hera said. "Fandom is full of a lot of things. Maybe you'll be my son someday and maybe you won't, but I think you're pretty amazing. You shouldn't only be a warning."

[what_dad_was_like]

"No, I mean..." Jacen frowned a bit. "I mean, I'm going back home to my Mom soon, I can feel it. And when I go back I'll just be Jacen again, flying around the galaxy in the copilot's seat, and things will be back to normal. I won't only be a warning. I'll be me, with my life."

He chewed on his lip, "But there's got to be a reason for this, right? I'm just trying to figure out if it's you or it's me I'm here for."

Because meeting the man who had influenced the lives of so many of his loved ones had been kind of underwhelming, frankly. And overwhelming? It was a lot of complicated emotions all at war with themselves, and it was easier to think about his Mom anyway.

[futurespacemom]

Hera sighed. "That, I don't know. But I do think you should get to know Kanan a bit while you're here. Especially if it's the only time you will. Memories are all I have of my mother, and they're precious things."

[what_dad_was_like]

"Do you think it's the same?" Jacen looked at her, his expression torn. "He's not the person everybody told me he was. I don't know what to think."

There was a saying about meeting one's heroes...

Nobody ever said what to do when that hero was your dad.

[futurespacemom]

"How is he different?" Hera asked.

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen opened his mouth to reply, then paused, then closed his mouth again.

He chewed on his lip for a moment.

"Are you sure you want to know?"

There was a lot. And this was all stuff she might not have seen, yet.

[futurespacemom]

"Maybe not specifics," Hera answered, "but I'd really like to know why you're having a problem relating to him. I know it's overwhelming, but I get the feeling there's more to it than that."

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen looked down at the starmap, not quite certain how he wanted to put... well... any of it. Definitely not certain how he wanted to put any of it without going on about the blind Jedi Knight who had given the rebellion the means to liberate an entire world, who had ended his own life to save Hera's. To save his.

"My father," he said, at length, "was... a wolf." He frowned a little. "In that he couldn't be stopped. Even when it killed him, it didn't stop him from doing what needed to be done. Mom would tell me that he never stopped having misgivings about the rebellion. That the cause he dedicated his life to with you wasn't always something he agreed with. But he was somebody she could go to for solutions. Even when he hated it, he'd find a way to fix it."

He blew out a breath.

"I don't know if I see that person in that man," he said, finally. "And... I don't know. Maybe I'm afraid to try to. I'm the legacy of heroes. Me. You don't exactly set a low bar to live up to either, Mom. But what if he really is everything you told me he was?"

[futurespacemom]

Hera put a hand on his shoulder. "He is. He may not be everything I think he could be, but that much he already is - he's with me no matter what, even when he's not sure he agrees. He's good at planning, at knowing what needs to be done. He's amazing. He just hides it well. I don't mean it's something he has to go digging for, I mean he hides. He's always had to hide. Maybe your father let a little of that go, or maybe he made a deeper commitment - everybody changes over time. We're still finding ourselves."

She sighed. "And whatever your legacy is, you're you. That's enough. Don't worry about living up to your parents. I'm sure I've taught you that much, at least."

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen glanced at the hand on his shoulder, and then he smiled faintly.

"You might have said, 'Just look at me and your Grandfather' a lot when I wasn't sure about my place in things," he admitted. "But that's different. You're my mom and my hero and my best friend. And my father just seems... impossible. Untouchable. I want to be able to do you both proud."

[futurespacemom]

"Now I don't know if I can live up to that," Hera said. "And I'm pretty sure nobody can live up to 'impossible'. We want to make you proud, too, you know."

[what_dad_was_like]

"I am proud of you, Mom," Jacen replied, and then huffed out a little laugh. "I almost beat some girl up today at the diner because I thought she was saying rude things about you."

It probably would've ended badly, likely for both kids involved.

"And I was proud of him, too. But he's always been this legend, for me. And now he's... real? He's real. And real is weird."

Real was hard, when half of your history consisted of ghosts.

[futurespacemom]

"Real has a lot more ups and downs," Hera said. "Think of how many people your grandfather's a hero for. Kanan was starstruck when he found out who he was. But you know that's only one part of the story."

She gestured at the Escape. "Before I met your father, he'd been a smuggler. He was working as a bouncer at a cantina. It doesn't take away from the fact he was a Jedi, or that he saved a lot of lives, including mine. All it means is that he gave up a safer life to save them, and that he did it all in spite of what he had to lose. Legends lose a lot of their humanity."

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen made a soft little huffing sound. His father hadn't lost his humanity so much as he'd passed most of it on to him, apparently.

"Maybe that's it," he said. "Maybe after all this time, it's just hard to see him there being so... human."

He swallowed.

"But if he is all of that and I let myself get to know him, I'm going to have to leave him behind."

[futurespacemom]

"You left him behind before you ever knew him," Hera said gently. "Get to know him now so you can better carry him with you."

[what_dad_was_like]

Jacen frowned a little, looking up and out at the vastness of space before them, a star system that he didn't recognize in a galaxy far from home.

"... Do you think you'd both fit behind the pilot's seat?"

They weren't so far out that he couldn't turn back. And he still wanted to show Hera what he could do.

[futurespacemom]

"Well, we might have to get a little friendly," Hera said, grinning, "but I think we could manage."