Their First Place - Epilogue

This is a continuation of another fic, Their First Place, but it features Kanan and Hera.

Kanera Week prompt:

Tuesday (Sept. 20): What If / Fix It

His light, agile footfalls sounded surprisingly loud as he walked up the ramp and through the halls of the freighter, but there was no one around to hear them.

Zeb and Chopper were on duty on base somewhere.

Ezra and Sabine were...wherever they were these days.

But Kanan thought not of their empty cabins as he passed them by. As usual, there was one Spectre in particular he was longing to see, and he knew, crew or not, where she would be.

Caf in hand, he approached the door, and with a flick of his fingers, it whooshed aside. There he found her where he always found her, emerald lekku swaying over the back of her well-loved chair as she hummed a little tune.

It was her office, her command, her sanctuary: the cockpit of the Ghost.

He could tell she was deep in thought, so without a word he passed her the mug with her favorite brew, which she accepted without looking and immediately sipped. Kanan eased into his place in the co-pilot chair next to her to wait. Sipping his own caf, he attended to the bustling base in front of them.

Yavin was certainly a step up in intensity from Atollon. There was a constant buzz of activity, as if they had moved to the center of a city. The rebellion really was happening all over the galaxy. More people were joining their cause every day, and there was no shortage of work to do. Even though their little group, their family had officially joined the rebellion when they linked up with Sato a few years ago, moving to Massassi base now, the hub of the Rebel Alliance, was an important step up. The final leg of their journey.

Everything Hera had been working toward, even before they met, was finally being realized. He was so proud of her, and he was grateful to have been on this journey with her, even if that meant, every day, they were edging closer to all-out war.

Long ago, Kanan had told Ezra that they were going to take more losses before this all was over, and the words echoed oddly in his mind all of the time.

But as he always did when those fears and anxieties crept up on him, he let them go. Kanan reminded himself of some other words he'd said to his padawan, to be present in the moment. Hera was here now, they were together, and that’s what was truly important.

Besides, they were so rarely alone. This time together was a gift.

"What's on your mind, Love?" asked Hera, feeling more alert thanks to the caf and ready to emerge from her stack of to-dos.

"You," he replied simply. His grin inspired one of her own.

She chuckled a little and shook her head.

After all of this time, he didn't have to flirt with her, but he still wanted to.

"That sounds like maybe you have something else on your mind, Love," Hera replied. It wasn't an objection, just an observation.

"Weeeellll...now that you say that, I did notice that we're alone. In fact, it sure has been quiet in here a lot lately," he said.

"Yeah, that's usually why I end up working here instead of in the office they set up for me on base. Down there, it's too noisy, too many distractions, too many people..." admitted Hera.

"It's funny you should mention that," Kanan said with a good-natured huff. “Because there actually seems to be a significant lack of people here on the Ghost."

It’s not that Kanan minded being alone with Hera on the Ghost, but the frequency of it lately had started to become suspicious. It was normal for Zeb and Chopper to be occupied elsewhere on base, but there had been a rather noticeable absence of Spectres Five and Six.

"Oooh?" she responded coolly, aware as she was of his lead-ins. "Well, I can assure you that they are all out on official Rebel Alliance business."

"What kind of business?" Kanan inquired innocently, setting down his caf and folding his arms.

"Oh...you know...picking things up, dropping things off...official Rebel Alliance business," she pointedly, indicating that that was the final word on the matter. Setting her caf down, she pretended to take her work back up again.

But Kanan was not to be denied. Clearly there was more going on here.

"Hold on there, General. Milk runs? Did you just say Ezra and Sabine are doing...milk runs?" he asked in an amused but incredulous tone. "That kinda seems like a bit of a waste of both a Jedi and a Mandalorian, don't you think?"

Kanan waited for her answer, but she didn't seem to be going along with the joke. Something was off about this.

"Hera..." he said softly.

But Hera didn't reply right away. Instead she gave up on her work and stared out the viewport, watching the hustle and bustle of a people at war. Her thoughts on this particular issue were compounding and emotions were getting the best of her, so her nervous hands found the mug of caf again, fingertips fiddling with the edge of the lid as she considered what to say. Then Hera took a deep breath.

"They're so young, y'know?" she said suddenly, gaze still on the base, voice cracking just a fraction.

With a sympathetic smile, he nodded along. "Yeah," he said, sighing. "Yeah, they are young."

"And they've been through a lot. Even before they met us, and ever since then, all we've done, all they've done, is fight. Live from one mission to the next. And..."

Hera paused, gulping some caf to swallow the lump in her throat.

Kanan waited.

Sighing heavily, Hera changed tracts. "I can see a lot from up here, you know? The whole base, really," Hera continued. "And I kept seeing them, orange and purple standing out amongst crowd. After Mandalore, I was just so happy to have you all back, I didn't really think much about what I was seeing. But then one day it hit me - I wasn't just seeing them. I was seeing them together."

Kanan smiled and said with a laugh, “I told you they were doing that! Remember what I said about Krownest? They were inseparable!"

"I know!" she said, laughing in turn. "I know. But I hadn't really thought about it. I hadn't seen it happen. And I kinda thought that that would've just been a Mandalore thing - Ezra being nervous around Mandalorians and sticking close to Sabine out of self-preservation."

"No," said Kanan, shaking his head. "No, that's not what it was like."

"Yeah, well, I get it now, Love. And it wasn’t just that. They were always together on base but they were never…here…anymore either,” she said.

“Mmhmm,” hummed Kanan, knowing exactly why.

"One day, I was looking for Sabine for something, so I went over to the gauntlet. Just before I went inside, I heard them. And..." Hera paused and looked over at Kanan.

"And...?" Kanan asked with a raise of his eyebrow behind the mask.

"And," she continued, "they just sounded so...happy. Laughing and carrying on. I know that they did that here, too, it was just...different. Just the two of them without anyone else around. So I snuck away."

"Uh huh. So then...milk runs?" asked Kanan.

"Yeah. I just thought - with this down time, if you can call it that, as we get assumed into the Alliance - that they deserved...a break. A chance to just be on their own for a while."

Hera paused. Looking down at her cup again, she said quietly, "They're just kids, Kanan. We're asking so much of them, and they're just kids. They haven't even gotten to do anything yet! They're nearly the same ages that we were when we first met and..."

Kanan reached over and slid his hand into hers, entwining their fingers and giving her a supportive squeeze.

"I just wanted to give them some time," she said with a sniff. "Like we had. Even if it was just for a little while."

Kanan smiled. "We did have some fun, didn't we?"

Chuckling through the tears, Hera squeezed his hand back. "Oh, yeah. From the obnoxious flirting, to the bickering over ship duties and mission strategies, leaving my droid behind, more than once..."

Kanan raised his hands defensively, "Hey hey hey! First of all, some people had a very difficult time learning how to have a crewmate that wasn't a droid. And, speaking of, that droid got himself left behind on at least one of those occasions, and one more thing..."

"What?" she asked with brow lift of her own.

He smiled cheekily at her. "Don't knock the flirting because I'm pretty sure that worked," said Kanan, leaning over and planting a gentle kiss on her cheek.

Hera laughed. "Oh, that wasn't the flirting, Love. Definitely not. That was just you being..." she turned to meet him face to face and kissed him. "You."

Kanan smiled on her lips and kissed her back, pulling on her hand in his to re-seat her in his lap and wrap his arms around her.

Pulling away to remove his mask, Hera then rested her forehead on his, softly tracing the lines of his beard.

“I want them to have a chance at a better life, Kanan,” said Hera quietly. “Better than what we’ve given them so far…something more than…this…”

“I know,” said Kanan gently, rubbing her back. “I know. Me, too.”

Then he smiled. “That’s why we’re doing this, right? Why we’ve always done it? So that people are free to live their lives?” She nodded. “Maybe it’s hard to believe right now, but…hopefully, someday, that will mean all of us, too.”

Hera nodded, an unsure little half smile gracing her lips as she absently looked to where her hand lay on his heart.

"Love...do you ever think...what if..." Hera started.

"No," he said firmly, shaking his head.

"No?" she repeated.

"No," said Kanan. "I love you, Hera. I love every minute we've spent together, the perfect ones and the...less than perfect ones." They both chuckled a little, and then Kanan said, "Every step we've taken together from Gorse to Yavin has had a purpose, and I don't regret anything about it. This is our life, Hera, unconventional as it may be, but it's ours." Kanan leaned in and kissed her again.

Hera beamed, doubt melting away in his arms.

"Thank you, Kanan," Hera whispered, sparing a moment just to be grateful and content with him.

But then, her thoughts merged in a new direction, so she said, "Well…for now then…did you happen notice that we are alone on this ship? Just like how we used to be?"

Kanan chuckled, tightening his embrace. "Yes, in fact, I did notice something like that. Do you have some time, General Hera?"

"For you, Love," said Hera, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close, "tonight, I've got all the time in the world."

Kanera sweetness with a side of mentioned Sabezra cuteness 🥰