Kanan's apartment, Tuesday morning

[futurespacemom]

All right, Hera had shirts. She had gone to sleep in a shirt, she had just bought shirts at the store, and she didn't have so many things that she'd have lost them!

She was pretty sure Kanan wasn't the sort to steal all her shirts for a joke, and anyway all of his seemed to be missing too, and Chopper was still back on the Ghost (she had checked).

She had finally resorted to weaving her new scarf around her and tying it, in lieu of an actual top.

Then she went to make caf. She was not dealing with whatever this was without caf.


[Open post, though if you don't live there, you'd better knock!]

Comments

[uncertain_dume]

"Or being bombed by Skelly," Kanan noted, smiling wryly. "Guess I'm just not used to being taken care of."

It had been a while. Okadiah had done good by him, too, but in totally different ways.

[futurespacemom]

"Well, you've done it now," Hera said wryly. She smoothed down the second patch and took a look at his back for where to put another. "I'm pretty bad at not taking care of people."

[uncertain_dume]

"Guess I did ask for it," Kanan allowed, glancing over his shoulder at her. "But you know I'm probably going to stay stubborn about it. Warning you now so it doesn't drive you completely barvy."

He would've been stubborn about it with anybody. People didn't live forever, after all.

Knowing what Hera intended to do with her future wasn't going to help that any.

[futurespacemom]

"Duly noted," Hera said. She put one more patch on. "That's the worst of what I can see. Anything else I can't?"

Which was her way of asking if there were areas that hurt without too much visible bruising, not an invitation for Kanan to take off his pants.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan paused for a moment to consider that, and then sighed, nodded, and crouched down to un-tuck his pant leg from his boot, rolling it up to expose the knee that had given out on him after he'd thrown down with Charko. He could have made a crack about taking off his pants, but at this point...

Maybe he just didn't feel like it.

"Could probably use some here, too. That knee took a bit of a beating last week."

It wasn't like Charko had been the last of the punishment he'd taken, either.

[futurespacemom]

Hera nodded and knelt to wrap another patch around it. "Thought I saw you favoring it, but I wasn't sure. You're good at hiding it." She smiled up at him. "Not a bad thing. Just know you don't have to with me."

She looked back at the patch as she smoothed it down. "That goes for all of it. I know it's probably second nature by now, so I don't expect a lot of revealing talks or anything. But whatever you do want to say, whenever - I'm here for it."

She tugged his pants back down. "Has that got the worst of it?"

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan was silent for a few seconds before he nodded. He wasn't sure what to really say in reply to that offer.

She knew. That part was important. She knew more than anybody had known since Kasmir, when it came to people from home. And Kasmir, he'd run away from. Convinced himself that it was for the best, and had taken off with the Escape, never to look back. With Hera... he'd done very much the opposite.

"Yeah," he said, smiling at her wryly. "Yeah, I think that's about it."

[futurespacemom]

Hera grinned back. "So, want a tour of the rest of the things around here I know we didn't get around to supplies and things before. And maybe the weird rain will stop before we head back out."

[uncertain_dume]

"Never going to complain about a tour of this ship," Kanan replied, shrugging. "Let's see if you can wow me any more than you already have, huh?"

[futurespacemom]

Kanan definitely knew the way to Hera's heart.

"Well, I can show you the galley. It's not impressive, but maybe you can give me some ideas for stocking it. And you still haven't seen the Phantom."

[uncertain_dume]

"Besides 'more caf?'" Kanan chuckled a little. "Give it time, I'm sure you'll think of things from home that you're not going to be able to go without for a while. Bacta is the sensible option. But I saw the way you were stocking up on meilooruns."

If she missed them half as much as Kanan did, hey...

"So, tell me about the Phantom."

[futurespacemom]

"I like meilooruns," Hera protested. "But you're clearly the cook of the two of us."

She shrugged. "The Phantom's a VCX-series fighter. Twin laser cannon in front, dorsal laser pointing aft. Makes it a good extra gun for the Ghost. Seats four aside from the pilot, or can carry cargo." She led the way up the ladder to its hatch and stood aside for Kanan to follow. "It's a little bit fighter, a little bit shuttle."

[uncertain_dume]

"You know something has gone horribly wrong when I'm 'clearly the cook,'" Kanan snorted, shaking his head as he followed her up the ladder. "But this, I like. About the same size as Expedient, but actually useful."

Low bar, there, Kanan.

[futurespacemom]

Hera snorted. "Thanks. Though I bet Expedient wasn't a bad cargo ship when she was built. Phantom doesn't have her cargo capacity, or a TIE's maneuverability, but she'll carry quite a bit, and she's got the arms. And shields," she added. "She's a lot less of a sitting duck."

[uncertain_dume]

"Well, the most dangerous thing Expedient was ever supposed to come in contact with was meant to be inside of her," Kanan said. "Shields wouldn't have done her any good against baby."

... Case in point, the fact that there was no longer an Expedient.

"I have to appreciate that Phantom here stands a decent chance of holding her own, though."

[futurespacemom]

"That's the idea," Hera said. She patted the pilot's chair. "The shields weren't a comment on Expedient, though. I mean, I guess we're lucky the Empire cares so little about their fighter pilots, but still - give me just about anything other than a TIE."

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan gave a little snort at that.

"You get enough of them coming after you at once, shields don't matter all that much," he noted. "But I definitely wouldn't want to be in one."

[futurespacemom]

"Oh, I don't know, I think we did just fine. Even in an old cargo ship," Hera said, smiling.

[uncertain_dume]

"Well, that's not that much of a surprise," Kanan replied. "I mean, look at the pilot we had."

[futurespacemom]

Hera grinned. "True. But the gunner did help a bit."

[uncertain_dume]

"What, you mean that crazy sleemo who started yelling that he was going to kill all of his coworkers?" Kanan flashed Hera a grin. "I don't know. That hadn't been the plan, after all."

[futurespacemom]

"I'm not touching that part," Hera said, rolling her eyes. "Just the flying and taking down TIEs. Though I have to admit, it worked."

[uncertain_dume]

"Well, you did call me the tactician for a reason, I'm sure," Kanan replied, smirking. "What can I say? I know miners."

And it meant they got to blow up a few TIEs, so...

[futurespacemom]

"And a lot of other folks, I'm guessing," Hera said. She sat down, looking at him curiously. "You said you'd basically never done the same thing twice. What's your favorite?"

[uncertain_dume]

"My favorite?" Kanan blinked, and then scratched at his beard for a moment while he thought. "Anything I got to use my ship for, I suppose. I don't usually look back, if I can help it."

Because if he looked back, he'd have to acknowledge that maybe he cared. And he couldn't afford to care.