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There was no salvaging Kanan’s clothes. They reeked of piss and terror. The smell made Hera wrinkle her nose as she picked them up from the refresher floor where Kanan had dropped them. The shirt was littered with tiny burn holes. Hera didn’t want to think about how they had ended up there.
Hera heard a dull thud from inside the sonic shower where Kanan was getting clean. “Kanan?” she called. “Everything alright, love?”
He didn’t answer.
The clothes fell from her nerveless fingers. “Kanan!” Hera yanked open the shower door to find Kanan asleep on his knees, snoring open-mouthed with his head tipped back against the wall. Hera gasped at the state of him. His arms and chest were covered in fractal burns that shown red against his amber-brown skin. He had wide bands of bruising across his wrists, chest, and legs where he must have struggled against his restraints. Hera swallowed back her tears. He had been shocked. Repeatedly. It was one thing to know intellectually that he was being tortured. It was another to see the results.
“Kanan?”
He didn’t stir at her call. Hera switched off the sonics and knelt beside him. “Kanan?” Hera shook his shoulder.
Kanan awoke with a gasp and a look of pure terror. He thrashed weakly against her hand before recognition set in. “Hera?” he rasped. “What—what happened?”
“You fell asleep in the shower, love.” Hera brushed his hair back from his forehead. Up close, he looked even worse, paler than he should be, pain and exhaustion in every line of his being. He hadn’t seemed so bad after the rescue and during their chat with Fulcrum. Clearly he had finally burned through whatever reserves had been keeping him going. Hera was running on fumes herself, given how little sleep she’d gotten in the weeks the Empire had him. “Let’s get you dressed and into bed.”
“My clothes.” Kanan tried to push himself up before falling back with a groan.
“Oh, we’re burning those,” Hera said with forced lightness. He’d been tortured in those clothes for weeks. She never wanted to see them again. “You stay here and I’ll grab you something clean.”
Kanan made a vague noise of agreement and slumped further back against the wall. Hera left him there with a kiss on the forehead. He was barely conscious when she made it back with fresh underwear, sleep pants, and a loose shirt. Kanan normally slept topless, but better to cover the damage in case they ran into one of the kids in the hall. Hera knew she ought to to get him looked at by whatever medic the fleet possessed, but that was tomorrow’s problem. For now, what Kanan, what they, needed most was sleep and each other.
It was a slow trip down the short hallway from the refresher to Kanan’s cabin. Hera got him settled into bed. Shucking her shoes, pants, and flight goggles, she climbed in after him. Kanan nuzzled the top of her head, stroking her lekku with a trembling hand, as Hera laid her head on his chest. Tears gathered in her eyes as she listened to his heart beat. Hera had resigned herself to never hearing it again after Fulcrum had ordered her to give up the search. If it hadn’t been for the kid’s insistence, orders be damned, she wouldn’t be hearing it now. Hera buried her face in his shirt. Kanan hissed in pain as she managed to hit one of his injuries. Hera burst into tears.
“Hey, ‘z okay,” Kanan slurred, sounding almost drunk with exhaustion. “‘Z okay.” He rubbed gentle circles on her back, but it just made her cry harder.
“I left you,” Hera sobbed.
“Told you to,” Kanan reminded her.
“No.” Hera shook her head, her face still pressed against his chest. “I left you.” How could she explain? Letting him sacrifice himself to cover the kids’ retreat was one thing. Hera stopping trying to rescue him was another. She had given up on him in her heart, let him die in her head, until Ezra had found a way to bring him back. Hera had spent years keeping him in the dark about their true mission against the possibility of capture. The fact that Kanan hadn’t known enough to betray the wider Rebellion while the Empire tortured him to death had been cold comfort indeed.
“You came,” Kanan murmured. “You got me. ‘M here. You go’ mmmm….” Kanan trailed off as he fell asleep mid-sentence. His breathing evened out. His hand slipped from her back to her hip.
Hera chuckled wetly. Kanan was here. She got him. Weeks’ worth of tension and heartache slowly melted with each puff of his breath. Kanan was here. She got him. Hera closed her eyes and let his heartbeat lull her to sleep.
A leader needed to be prepared to make the tough calls, to give up everyone and everything for the cause. Her father had taught her that. Fulcrum had too. Hera had told herself she was strong enough to be the leader her father was, the kind of leader Fulcrum and the Rebellion needed her to be. These past few weeks with Kanan in Imperial custody had proven otherwise. Hera was never going to be callus enough to use and discard the people she was fighting for. Tightening her grip on her sleeping lover, Hera realized she didn’t want to be. A day might come when Kanan gave his life for the cause, but until then, Hera was never going to just give up on him again.