Star Wars Rebels: Hera & Kanan

Chapter Eight

The Ghost was never completely silent, even during the end of the sleep cycle, even when Chopper wasn't rattling around in the bowels of the ship and grumbling to himself. Kanan had become very familiar with the tiny metallic pings and clangs of the Ghost at rest, as it sat parked in some out-of-the-way spot on some out-of-the-way planet.

He had always been an early riser. On Kaller, after the murder of Master Billaba, he'd barely slept at all. It was impossible to sleep when you knew that you were being hunted by the same Clone Troopers you'd once considered friends. The paranoia had never quite left him, making it difficult to fall and stay asleep. Between that and his habit of waking up early, he'd been chronically sleep-deprived in those early years- that is, until he discovered alcohol. Drinking never brought him peace, but it brought him sleep and numbed his feelings. It had also provided a little respite from the loneliness of his existence, even if the camaraderie of a bunch of drunk strangers was a fleeting and false comfort.

Until meeting Hera on Gorse, he never would have admitted to himself that he'd been lonely. But in truth, loneliness had defined him for so long that he had just gotten used to it. For the first fourteen years of his life, he'd been constantly surrounded, taught and nurtured by other Jedi. And then the Order fell, and the past eight years had been a series of planets and faces he barely remembered because he hadn't stayed long enough for them to make an impression.

Until Hera.

It was a little over two weeks since he'd told her about Caleb Dume. And ever since that night (which had ended in a very unpleasant hangover), he hadn't touched a drop. There were certainly days where he wanted a drink badly, but he already felt so much better and clearer without it. His sleep, however, had not improved. So he spent the hours when he should have been sleeping trying to meditate. Or he'd work through Form III, just as his Master had taught him. For the most part, he kept his lightsaber hidden in a drawer in his cabin, but it felt good in his hands during these early morning sessions. It felt like an old friend.

He told himself that he was just trying to keep himself occupied, that he was just doing what he had been trained to do from a very young age. He tried not to think too much about the implications of using his lightsaber and touching the Force via meditation. He was rusty, in some ways worse than he had been as a youngling. Things that had once been second nature now felt well beyond his abilities. But deep down, he knew that something was compelling him to remember what he had been taught, to let it become a part of him again.

No, not 'something', he thought. It's her. It's being around her.

He was sitting cross-legged on the bench in his cabin, trying- and failing- to meditate. Form III was coming back to him much more quickly than meditation- he was a physical being, and even though Soresu was meant to be more of a meditative Form, it was much easier to focus while he was moving. If he sat still and tried to meditate, he found himself constantly distracted- often by thoughts of Hera, so maddeningly close, but still so far out of his reach. He could feel her in the Force at that moment, lying asleep just across the corridor.

Kanan had avoided physically using his abilities for a long time, but he'd never completely stopped allowing his feelings to touch the Force. All Jedi were taught to read physical and emotional cues in other beings; for instance, the knowledge that someone was lying to you could end up being a tactical advantage if diplomacy failed. When he started living in close quarters with Hera, he had refrained from trying to read her emotional state. It felt intrusive. But living and working so closely with her made it easier to tune into her frequency, as it were, without even trying. He could often sense her strongest emotions, whether he wanted to or not. He knew, for example, that she was physically attracted to him- her heart rate usually accelerated when he was in close proximity. But something had changed in Hera since the night he told her about his past. Even when he was trying to deliberately block her out, her emotions had begun to cut through his consciousness like bolts of energy through a conductor. He couldn't sense what those specific feelings were, and using his abilities to try to figure that out would have been incredibly invasive. She deserved to keep her inner world private. But it wasn't so hard to figure out that they were starting to develop feelings for one another. He might've found the situation incredibly frustrating, given her apparent unwillingness to pursue anything romantic with him- if not for the fact that his own feelings on the matter were so complicated.