Not How Your Stories End

Chapter 11

From the view of any passersby, Hera would have appeared perfectly calm. She would have seemed composed - waiting patiently in the medcenter lobby like any other member of a family waiting for news on a loved one. If anything, she would have seemed a bit too calm, given the circumstances.

But Kanan knew better. He knew the signs. The way her knee was slowly rocking back and forth, casually bumping into his own on occasion. The sound of her lekkus brushing against the shirt of her flight suit as she continually fussed with their positioning. Even her slow breathing pattern was too perfect not to have been intentional and forced. All of these near-imperceptible quirks - more than likely unnoticed by anyone but him - were dead giveaways of how she was truly feeling in that moment: stressed out of her mind.

And Kanan couldn't blame her. After all, he'd have been lying had he said that his previous attempt to be calm and control is fear hadn't flown out the window the moment his Padawan had the first seizure. Then, when Ezra had stopped breathing entirely, Kanan had let himself descend into pure panic. It had all felt just too real. Ezra had been dying, and Kanan could feel every single second of it - the bond they shared slowly slipping from his grasp, teasing him with the loss of yet another sacred bond between Master and Padawan. He couldn't help but feel cursed.

But then Ezra was back. Weak, but not going anywhere, and although he was holding onto their bond perhaps a bit more tightly than he had been before, Kanan was able to calm himself considerably since arriving at the medical outpost on Mandalore, recentering himself and even slipping into light meditation here and there as they waited to hear about Ezra's condition.

But where he was becoming more hopeful about the situation, Hera seemed to grow even more worried and disbondment as time passed. He supposed it made sense, all things considering. After all, she didn't share the same bond that he did with Ezra. So while he felt Ezra's growing spirit and resolve not to give up, all she had seen was a boy barely clinging to life. And for all she knew, Ezra was still in that state or worse.

So, strangely enough, Kanan found himself in the position of a comforter for the second time in these past few days.

Just like in the hallway earlier, neither of them said a word. No words were needed. Instead, he just reached out and grasped her hand lightly - an invitation to let her guard down. At first, she seemed hesitant, as if she had already resigned herself to suffer in quiet and would refuse the offer of support. But it appeared that she had quickly thought better of it and let herself scooch back towards him, leaning in to rest her head against his waiting shoulder.

No thoughts were exchanged. No tears were shed. They just sat in silence - two vulnerable souls letting themselves be broken together for awhile. The future might have looked bleak and uncertain, but at least they knew they would face it together.

Another twenty minutes passed before the silence was interrupted with Sabine's arrival, which was something akin to an emotional tornado. She burst through the doors without any of her typical, witty remarks or fanfare, looking unusually disheveled, even considering how early in the morning it was. Upon closer inspection, Hera could see that her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and that there were subtle tear tracks maring her cheeks. She supposed someone had told her what had happened, then.

Sabine had entered with a frustrated cry on her lips, but after a few inevitable yet brief sobs, it would have seemed that she, too, had few words to say. She explained that she had been told of Ezra's condition as she came in and that the nurses in the hall still had no updates. Solemn nods were all that were exchanged between the lot before Zeb quietly reached out his hand and welcomed her to join in on their vigil; their small chain of silence and support - of fear and hope.