Saga Now or Never (Post-Endor SWR)

Title: Now or Never
Author: amaximinalist
Genre: Introspection
Characters: Kanan Jarrus, Hera Syndulla
Timeframe: Post-Original Trilogy
Summary: For an estimable fifteen years of their partnership, Kanan and Hera anchored themselves in liminality by their commitments to the War. But when peace finally arrives, the pilot and her Jedi Knight allow themselves to ascend into an unknown future.

Originally published on AO3
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The whiff of residue vapor of dying fireworks lingered and the waning cheers reverberated—“Evil is no more, tyranny is no more!” rebounded in his canals.

He had to plant himself in the cushion of the pilot seat to clear his head, swallow a few breaths, let the sun remedy him, to replay last night festivities in his head to assure himself, yes, he hadn’t woken from a pleasant wish-fulfilling dream. The revelry, all too real and earned, as tangible and concrete as the hearty backpats and spontaneous embraces from fellow rebels, some strangers snagging the nearest acquaintance or his comrades. Yes. Real.

Now the last night’s smells and morning disposition eased him, a massage on his consciousness, to welcome the truth: All over. He bathed in the hospitality of dawn radiating from the shield of the window, a dawn he would like to see, though he had refrained from remarking, “Nice, would liked to have seen it,” because that could be misconstrued as self-pity or remorse for unreachable what-could-have-been-days, or, even worse, revive Ezra’s timeworn guilt. Or assume that the warmth of the sun isn’t even more than enough. Because it is.

“It’s all over.” He could let the truth materialize across the space of the two pilot seats to reach her ears.

“I wish,” she replied tranquilly.

She meant: not every planet recovered from the Empire and unrest still persisted across the galaxy, so as far as she is concerned, the war is over but the job ain’t. Headlines may rejoice, statues of the Emperor may be beheaded, the Rebels may cheer, their crew may celebrate, his apprentice may wail tears of relief and sadness (“Kanan, if only my parents could be here for this”), but the Universe will drag itself back to stability to revert to the safe equilibrium of when the Republic existed. This tranquility was only a break, a calm in the middle of a hurricane, an interlude before forthcoming adversities, the residue of the Empire’s damage. When the momentary recuperation period expires, the work will drudge on again.

He bucked against the tides of trepidation. “Yet, we survived the War. We came out of the War. Both of us.” Then he bit his lips to prevent himself from spoiling the optimistic declaration.
But he needed to be negative vocally so that he’d have a chance to receive a positive counterpoint, or at least, her input on coping.

“This is so good, that I’m afraid it isn’t true.” He would not let himself be deceived or get snug even in the brightest of truths, not like the naïve bright-eyed Padawan Caleb.

“Yet, the Force, I feel it’s at the peace… for now. I can only wonder how long it would last.” Order 66 had shaped the Jedi Knight to be suspicious of complacency, even safeguarding himself with cynicism. The future could turn its guns on them. One moment, he and Styles and Grey and Master Billaba chatted and debated amiably, encircling the campfire. In another moment, his clone brothers cocked their weapons at him and his Master.

A subtle breeze of a gentle nod, the fluttering of lekku, the crinkling of cloth: he inferred a nod, a mutual agreement. A trepidation threaded and wired through their hearts, the ambivalence that things were too good.

“How long will this last?” He echoed himself to fill in her silence, to permit time for her to think of something. Positives were always in progress.

Another mild flaps of lekku; another nod. She was no stranger to false victories: When Ryloth crumpled into the Empire’s fist, it was after the blissful illusion of everlasting victories with the Clone Wars. She had recounted, “Suddenly, the carriers that supplied us with medicine began snatching our families away.”

Yet, her consistent nods of guarded reality did not deter him from anticipating whatever positive counterpoint she’ll fire up. He wished he had this innate caliber of generating positivity on the spot, her optimism contagious, so much that she could ignite the void wicks in the hollowed hearts of defeatists, like in the younger Kanan Jarrus on Gorse, into the embers of hope to fuel successful missions, illuminating possibilities and options in the dark.

“Let’s not overthink the future, luv” turned out to be her candlestick of positivity of the day. He still hasn’t figured why he remained smitten with her melodic voice: the tonal firm layer traditionally precluding her impromptu rhetoric. He was quick on his feet (well, ok, she was too). She was quick with words (in this case, though, she took her time with them).

“No future is ever perfect. Let’s think about what happens now.”

Now sounded so much like music. He doesn’t want to taint this melody. But situational truths must be reinforced.

“Ezra and I must meet this Skywalker. Maybe with him, give the Jedi Order a jump-start. This will take us out of those direct Rebellion matters.” It’s truths packed with good news, but good news with downer parts, the drawbacks. At first, he wondered how recovery could be achieved with scant Jedi (he does sense forthcoming news of emerging Knights and Masters resurfacing from alleys and alias), but the existence of her, Sabine, Zeb, supplemented with the accounts of the late Bridgers, reminded him of his faith in other denizens of the universe, those untouched by Jedi powers in their blood and doctrine, resurrecting an old friend’s words: “Time for people to be their own Jedi.” The world can wait on its Jedi. They could become capable living without the Jedi. They could be the Jedi without lightsabers or Force powers. Or they just be themselves, their ordinary selves, healing their world as they had for the last two decades in the wake of the Temple ashes.

“And you, Hera?”

“Our work in the Rebellion doesn’t end here. We must fly off to other planets. The rest of the world, Ryloth included, will need time to recover. So we’ll be there for them.” We, referring to the Rebellion, a community that Hera led outside of the Ghost, a community he could chat amiably with and call “friendly acquaintances” and “fellow fighters,” but not people he quite considered “comrades.”

And this was a we that minused him and Ezra. Minused Sabine and Chopper. Minused Zeb, who had pledged to visit Lira San, his “spiritual homeworld” he was now comfortable with calling it, after the War.

She sounded in the bounds of “I’m fine,” but over 15 years of partnership shaped him to know if he were to stand up and walk over for the act of touching her cheek—his method of deciphering her facial expressions as well as doubling as a caress of affection—he would trace angles of a smile and yet diagnose the shades of sorrow.

“Luv, I guess even when peace happens, we just don’t have much time do we?” We, the two of them. She never denied negativity and the cons. In his jaded days, peace had been a far-off outdated ideal, something unreachable, only achieved in small snips—thus, his old occasional discreet kindness away from the Empire’s eyes on Gorse. Now he knew what peace felt like. Peace wasn’t complacent. It was relaxing. Peace was… disconcerting. Do you remember Caleb, when you feared the Clone Wars would end without you? When you feared early peace because you feared a War without your involvement. Look at where I am now, so iffy about enjoying peace despite fighting for it. Maybe peace is not the word for it. Maybe it’s just called, an aftermath, Caleb.

“I do wish… if only…” She reverted back to unspoken contemplation. Even forlorn in the ellipses of her doubts, her voice brimmed with warmth, like Endor’s dawn blanketing them, like the Atollan sunset when he and Ezra departed with no guarantee of homecoming before their steady normalcy was threatened by the blinding.

Warm like her palm when she reached across the space to bridge the chasm, to compensate for words locked in her heart, the fabrics of her leather glove and his fingerless glove mingling and Kanan’s free fingers tracing the leather stitching.

“I do wish for more time… for us.”

This did not rule out holo-communication. But that wouldn’t be the same if he didn’t receive the direct dose of her witticisms in proximity.

He had to give her a positive, a match to light the candle: “Maybe not much, but didn’t we make the best of it before?”

It’s now or never, Kanan Jarrus.


She can’t read into the Force or his mind, and once she required the spark or dullness in his long-lost eyes to decipher him. It’s not the first time he had held her hand, but this is the first he has fiddled with her fingers. He began to tug at the leathery slots. She does not repel it, reciprocating through stroking the cloth, trying to figure him through the gesture.

Her fingers tapped upon his palm. “We did make the best of it, luv.” In his head, he replayed the succession of bygone banters (“Well, luv, you remembered to make breakfast?”) amid the fire of the Empire and the steaming cup of caf he handed to her (“Still not over Rion, aren’t you?”). Hera’s Greatest Hits.

Now she has widened the spaces between her fingers so his may twine around them. He couldn’t forever hold his peace—It’s now or never, Hera.But he’ll wait for her to conclude whatever she had to say.

“And Kanan, we can still make the best of it.” Her thumb and index finger pinched playfully at the top of his glove and he shifted his hand in circular motions beneath her fingers, to give her more playground to toy around, like they’re encoding an improvised unspoken game. Will the dance of his hand will her to understand, to detect, to deduce, the words within him to be liberated?

“Kanan, luv, once partners, always partners. We may not always be on the same planet, or even star system, together. We may not ever do many missions together again. But our different goals were always for the good of the galaxy. But with whatever time we earn to be together again or even if we’re apart with each other in our thoughts, shall we always be partners?”

He could barely process when her glove had slipped off—instigated by the waltz of their hands. It landed with an airy slap on the floor, as he hand now traced her skin, before he replied, “Always.”

Kanan had already ascertained the thickness of her pulse through the leather. She had been a shell a collected coolness, but her heart throbbed like a beating drum.

The chair squeaked: she’s leaning forward to amplify the intensity of her declaration. “I mean, not just aboard the Ghost.” Now her smooth voice shifted into a mock business tone, as if she conspired to strike some proposition, with a trace of apprehension.

“Where else could we be partners then?” He traced a halo over the center of her palm, a mini-massage.

The rhythm of her pulse was ready to burst like an oversteamed pipe.

“In life, Kanan, in life.” Her voice remained anchored in tranquility above the torrent in her blood.

She began undressing his hand from his glove, unraveling it, freeing it into the air of dawn’s heat. The drumming of her heart accelerated upon electric skin contact with the calluses on his hand.

“You think that’s something you would like, luv?”

Despite the cool delivery of those words, the urgency of her heartbeats surged, palpable.

He didn’t need to touch her cheek. He could envision those sly, trembling corners of her lips and tension in her cheekbones that would allow him to deduce a deepening shade of green, a Twi’lek’s blush.

It had been a tacit competition to be the wittiest during levity, so he could barely resist holding his peace here:

“Admiral Syndulla, is this a proposal?” He enunciated the final word so she could absorb the implications.

The quietness lingered between them like an overdrawn beat to a punchline. He bit his lip, chiding himself for rushing this joke, a humorous quip with actual candid gravity, and offending her boundary. But the currents in her blood, stabilized like a calming river in a dying rainstorm.

“Of course, luv,” she breathed, in a tantalizing yet sturdy tone that denoted, at last, you’ve figured this out.

“Will you accept my proposal, Kanan Jarrus?”

He refrained from a yes. He’ll hold back his peace.

A terse verbal affirmation couldn’t justify this moment. If he was going to answer, he’ll give her a perfect one, or something closer to perfect. Something that’s “yes.” Something more than yes. Something beyond yes.

Well played, Hera, first come, first serve. He decided to refrain from revealing that his Force-vision, or at least, the conversational sounds of it last night, had played out a little different. In that script, he initiated the question. It’s now or never, we’re free Hera, at least, free from this War. I feel free to ask you this… But the future could flip corners fast. She had always proven an proficiency at changing the future, flipping the script, guiding him into outgrowing his debauched complacency and rewrite and respark his future into a vocation of open benevolence.

He processed the length of her breathing, paced and steadied when she soared toward the flurry and fire of Empire carriers.

He figured he overstayed his silence when the throbbing pulse beneath her hand resurfaced, attempting to escape the suspense of his hesitation, and she remarked, “What do you have to say, Kanan Jarrus?” to compensate for the lull without hastening his obligation to say something.

He savored the increasing pressure on his bare hand, an assurance that she was here, an enduring beacon in the Force lit for him ever since he followed her down the endless night of Gorse, not an apparition like fallen comrades, not a shadow-conscience whisper like Billaba.

More than justified, maybe not perfect, maybe he’ll thwack his own forehead, accusing himself of corniness, but this would be perfect for her, especially on the off-chance of earning a chuckle, whether she'll be laughing at or with him, or both. He doesn’t want her to mistaken his hesitation for indecision, refusal, or worse, a denial of possibility in this chaotic galaxy, so he spilt it like an anxious sabbac player slapping down his aces too soon:

“I do, Hera, I do.”

He gave their de-gloved hands a sway, an imitated handshake, a faint replication of their first amiable and businesslike handshake when he boarded the Ghost, and a squeeze, a tribute to 15 years together and beyond, an insurance of comfort for unforeseen tribulations even in post-war, in the smoke of the aftermath.

In one swoop motion, without parting their unsheathed hands, they bridged the space between the two pilot seats and anyone witnessing their embrace from the doorway would say they became one with the dawn, encompassed in its brimming halo, the sunbeams of the horizon extending to bless them and offering to elevate them to its infinite plane, and both knew though parting was inevitable, they were an everlasting torch furnishing the sky beacon that blushed eternal.

 

Mav Edit: Concrit removed. Concrit is only allowed if asked for and only by PM.

I liked the campfire recollection.

[Removed] welcome to the Boards; good to see you getting involved.

 

Thanks for the momentary comment. I had to make a reference to the Kanan comics.

If I may inquire, what's "concrit?" I seemed to have missed something.

 

Hi, welcome to Fan Fiction!

1) A hardened substance resulting from mixing cement and water. Often used as a building material in the modern age.

2) A portmanteau (combined word) of the words "constructive" and "criticism". Hence, con crit. Concrit.

Evil man that I am, I am not allowed to do an all round review of your work unless you sign up that you are open to concrit, so a moderator, Mavjade, erased it, leaving the only positive thing I had to say.

On the Fanfic Resources screen, look for a thread that allows writers to sign up for concrit.