Unsettled/Disillusioned

Chapter 25: the Mantis crew

Greez and Monk had prepared a generous spread of Pyloon's best dishes for the Ghost crew, and the Spectres could enjoy endless tap at the bar that night. Cal would pick up the tab. Cal though, didn't join the Ghost crew at dinner, as Kanan had warned him away from Ezra. Though Kata, Greez, Toa and San had a spot for him at their table, just on the other side of the wall to the Ghost crew's, Cal was a flitting flame that seemed eager to avoid everyone's gaze. He went straight from the kitchen in the saloon to grab his plate, piled it with food, sprinted over to Greez to hold the old Latero in a one-armed hug, then the ginger Jedi retreated into his basement apartment under Pyloon's.

Kanan couldn't quite stand the awkward air between the two groups and opted to eat alone as well. Kanan took his portion from Monk and decided to eat on the rooftop, citing he preferred to meditate right after dinner as well. The warm but quiet air of the rooftop garden didn't help his appetite much. Too quiet... he was left with his thoughts and imagination.

Kanan didn't want to think about what Cal had done in the bluffs. He didn't want to draw comparisons between Cal Kestis and Darth Maul: but how could he avoid it? Darth Maul was a vicious and cruel storm of billowing black smoke, broken glass and green Dathomirian fire.

He didn't want to think of that. He tried to focus on how Ezra felt instead. Those weeks where his Padawan, honest and kind Ezra, was enamoured by the Sith holocron's siren song. He wanted, tried, to do the right thing but had hurt everyone around him. Ezra had come back from that, apologised and promised never to toe at that edge again. The worst Ezra had suffered, as far as Kanan could surmise, were hairline fractures on his soul that closed up like shining scars on skin. But Cal... every time Kanan looked to, or sensed Cal through the Force since the bluffs, he didn't see just hairline fractures or silvery scars; they were gaping wounds that had been torn open with the events of the past days.

Kanan heard the door whoosh open, rousing him from his reverie.

"Hey, hope I'm not interrupting anything," Greez greeted quietly, balancing a tray with tea cups and a pot in his four arms, "I heard Jedi like tea, helps them relax. Cal doesn't like tea though. Do you?"

"I guess I never acquired the taste before I was deployed," Kanan sighed but took a cup anyway, the nutty aroma was a balm for his anxious thoughts. It was warm as it travelled down his throat, the calming liquid unfurling his tense nerves.

"Oh, right, you're a veteran, too," Greez forced a chuckle, "would you believe we were on Cantonica once and Clone Wars vets could get a discount at some of the restaurants? They wouldn't believe Cal had served in the war though."

"Cal was deployed long before I was," Kanan admitted, "in fact I was worried I would miss out on the action. I caught the last six months of it all."

"Cal said he was deployed two weeks after the First Battle of Geonosis," Greez stated. For a brief moment Kanan wondered if that was part of why he and Cal seemed so different. He fought for six months. Cal served all three years.

"Sorry. Probably not the best subject to open with. Not helping your appetite?" Greez asked glumly, looking at the plate of hardly touched food.

"I don't feel hungry... Not after what happened in the bluffs," Kanan shrugged. He regretted his choice of words as Greez recoiled. Kanan collapsed in on himself and set his plate on the bench beside him. "It's not what I expected when I came here... Cal was... that wasn't the Cal I knew."

"Maybe... maybe you got the wrong idea about the Mantis crew, we're not quite like the Spectres," Greez sighed and took a seat beside Kanan on the bench. "Meeting Cere and Cal and Merrin, even BD-1, was the best thing that happened to me. But I wasn't there for every mission he was on, usually Cal would go off on his own with just BD-1 as support. I don't know everything he encountered or went through in those years, I just knew when he came back aboard the Mantis, he'd always have new cuts and bruises, sometimes broken bones... we did our best to help him, he was our leader after all."