A/N

Originally published in AO3.

I do not own the characters of Kanan, Hera, Ezra, Sabine, Ben Solo (some who are only mentioned rather than appearing). They are property of Lucasfilm. I do own the two child characters though.

A note: according to a Tumblr post, "Cihes" is the Ryloth word for "Dawn."

Jedi Do Cry

When the baby cried, she saw Kanan crying: his long-lost teal-blue eyes heaving in the weight of moisture in a non-verbal confidential confession to the Force, in whatever private space he inhabited. When the baby cried, she saw what she couldn't see, what he deliberately kept out of her sight. When the baby cried, she saw the backside of him, the black of his hair draped loosely around his neck, shrouded in the dark of his cabin, five nights after Malachor, choking back the reflexive sounds from the throes of his throat. When she reached out to caress his cheek, he intercepted the maneuver of her hand and shifted it to his cold chest, his heartbeat, but away from his face. Even if he were to turn to her in pseudo-eye contact, there would have been nothing to see, tears were no longer possible for him, but the inferable quiver of his mouth and the blankness of his bacta-infused blindfold.

Malachor was eons ago. That particular episode where Kanan drew her hand to his heart was eons ago. Grand Admiral Thrawn was eons ago. The War was eons ago, at least, she could not believe it had existed and then concluded—no, ended was the better word, concluded would mean it stopped scarring the Universe—in her lifetime. Kanan likewise couldn't believe he got the privilege of "growing old" beyond the age of 40.

The wriggle of the baby in the cocooned-swaddle and the jingling wrist-bells of her firstborn underneath the shaded-orange of the Ryloth sky reminded her of that.

Which supplemented the discontent, prolonged what was supposed to be a momentary anxiety, too outdated for worthy current concerns, when her firstborn shouted, "Jedi don't cry!" her bells shivering from her wrists as she leapt for a slash with her weapon, a stick.

Hera stopped bothering with asking her to detach the bell-bracelets from her wrists, devices only rendered useful with Kanan's presence, so he could track the girl without relying too much on the Force. Without Kanan, the bells served as arbitrary accessories. The child had gotten used to the bells, like noisy jewelry she refused to part from, or possibly a tribute to her father, pretending he listened to ringing of her maneuvers and the mock-lightsaber whooshes from her teeth.

Hera unbuttoned the flap at her chest. It would have been nice if flight suits were tailored with mothers in mind, so she had accomplished the personal customizing herself, cutting layers of open flaps and installing buttons for nursing purposes. Breast-feeding, a cinch with the secondborn, though she wished she applied this convenient ingenuity with her firstborn. Too late.

"Jedi don't cry!" She reiterated as her feet reunited with the ground. By that time, the baby, plopped its lips to Hera's breast, emitted gentle murmurs, eyes shut, suggestive of napping but with an active mouth, suckling away in pulsating tss, tss, tss. Kanan had joked that this one baby's mode of meditation. This baby tended to be serene in a state of perpetual half-slumber, snugly fit into the category of "easy baby." Not like her older sister, born a "hyperactive, bouncy baby," who scurried around the Ryloth sand, batting a stick at the air, locked in combat at an imaginary enemy, an invisible battle droid, partaking in a few intervals of bouncing up for a double front-kick, a faint imitation of her wayward father, occasionally chanting her grandfather's favorite war song in Basic ("Fire, fire, fire, hope and ardor never burns out").

The firstborn had nary looked in her mother's direction or wavered in her focus, batting invisible lasers. If the baby had her daddy's teal eyes and his stoicism, this girl waving her toy twig-sword had her daddy's teal eyes and his smugness. And she had his request to practice those offensive exercises three hours a day.

"Jedi don't cry, Cihes!"

What she'd give to hear his counterpoint and slice of his Jedi teachings, archived his quips in her memory, when her first daughter shot out these unreasonable commands. This wasn't as much a product of sibling annoyances, she had always tolerated the baby's cries, warned what to expect from an infant sister, as much as it was the result of something ingrained, a belief, an idea of the universe, how Jedi operated, a lesson scrambled in the simplicity of a child's thoughts.

"Little luv," she exclaimed as she bounced the baby. "You know that isn't true."

"Jedi are brave! So Jedi don't cry." What molded these conclusions in a child's thought? She can trace the lessons of Jedi Bravery back in their bed, nights ago, when he was home and not with Skywalker, when he shared Jedi heroics of The Clone Wars, his hand on her cheek to feel the angles of her smile, her eyes staring aglow up his blank eyeballs.

"Did you know your Daddy cried when he named you? You were there when he cried when I named your sister." She could talk about those times, those shared family moment. She excluded the part about Kanan's bygone dark days: scrounging for scraps in dumps, shoddy roofs for shelter, and time for tears when his Master Billaba fell. Or those times in the months after Malachor, in those occurrences he allowed her into his cabin, where he'll let her into his bed but not reveal his face even though his muffled guttural gasps were audible. That was his business when he'll divulge these stories. Maybe Ezra could disclose his own stories of his own tears to show to her daughter that crying happened to more than one Jedi.

She whacked at the air, at a passing insect. "He did not," she reproached. "I saw."

Hera realized that she might assume that crying equal tears.

"Daddy can't have tears." His eyes were far too damaged for moisture to leave his eyes. She first witnessed a tearless cry when he held their firstborn. It was the first time she had seen him cry. He spoke of crying and he had cried with her in proximity, yet he turned away, as if to conceal his phantom tears, no matter how wary she was of the noise. "But he does cry." The muscles of his face twitching, the corners of his lips quivering, the warbles of his speech ("H-h-hera, I can see why the Jedi forbade this," he muttered as his palm shielded his newborn first child from the hospital light). That was Kanan sobbing with celebratory joy mingled with the surge of paternal fear.

"Besides, she's a baby. Babies cry." She needed the baby's cries, an alarm to its needs. She wasn't like Kanan, who could assess the source of the baby's discomfort. Kanan had been adept at predicting and deducing its source of the cries and would've have automatically reported in a humorously-mock debriefing tone, "She's hungry," a code between them. He'd would have handed the baby to Hera's breast before the cries occurred and it was cries-averted. There was a language between Kanan and the children far from her comprehension.

"But she's a Jedi. She got the Force."

"No, she isn't." Hera playfully rebuffed, in a sing-song voice, to reduce the chance of the child detecting the discomfort in her. She suspected her girl hadn't mastered sensing emotions. "She may got the Force, but she's hasn't chosen to be a Jedi."

She choked back a "yet." No, do not predestine this child's career choices. The firstborn may have chosen by her fourth birthday, with the contingency that she could change her mind, but no children of theirs will have their destiny set from the womb. She and Kanan had this talk when their first child was kicking in her belly. Yes, they shall both receive a Jedi education, a precaution for Force-imbued children in this chaotic galaxy, but no, they weren't Jedi. Yet, no maybe yet. Maybe never.

"When's daddy coming home?" Fourth time today, an improvement over the countless times she asked this, as if induced repetition would hasten his homecoming. It may remind Hera of his absence, yet the words soothe her. Today, there was no longer an if, but a when. When he'll come back. During the war, they still had to think in the "whens" to finish missions, but never deny the "ifs." If he will come back. If he will come back from Malachor. They now had faith in the security of the natural order of the Universe. For now.

She wouldn't even be there to see the ship land and him sweep up their daughters. It was her last day of domestic responsibilities-vacation, she interpreted too-before she plopped them both into the arms of extended relatives and depart from Ryloth. Then she'll be back, to a routine homecoming, with Kanan listening to the landing of the Ghost, the hiss of the opening ramp, and her footsteps getting closer to him, so he could playfully plant the bundle in her arms in a ceremonial transfer of parental responsibilities he'd done during her absence—"Your turn, Hera."—and then embrace her.

"Likely in five days." Given that the schedule was interchangeable by circumstances, she trained herself to add "likely," so the girl would acquaint herself with the already occurring probability: he won't always be home on schedule. They learned to give flexible promises.

"Likely," the child echoed huffily with the undercurrent of bitterness as she stabbed the invisible droid with the clambers of the bells. "Likely" had became the red flag, an alert he might not be on time.

Then the baby's mouth released itself from her breast in an instantaneous, and cute, lip-pop. The baby smacked her lips, satisfied, content, its hunger pangs eliminated, a tiny sleepy engine full of fuel and burrowed her head into her mother's chest.

Hera buttoned the flap at her torso when out of the blue, "Mommy, is there a war?"

A chill crept down Hera's spine as the baby whimpered, its zen disturbed, evidently sharing the chill through the entity called the Force.

The answer: technically no. But Hera's conscience knew better. "I hope not. Not that I know of." The War "concluded" on Endor, but the fighting endured to the Battle of Jakku. There hasn't been another major assault since Jakku. Yet.

She had to rock the baby and sush to buy her time to decide what to say.

"Why do you think there's a war?" Did the child have a little Force-vision? Could she have seen a catastrophe? Kanan was better at tapping into those matters, this Force. Those moments where Kanan confirmed that her belly, in both pregnancies, were "full of the Force," Hera readied herself for those days where she could stand by and mutter, "Your father will know better how to explain it. But that doesn't mean you can't tell mommy what you have seen." Her girls should feel they could approach her as they could approach their father in matters of the Force.

"Daddy's busy. Is there a war? Don't Jedi get busy with war?" Bit of a murky realm to clarify. Jedi could get involved in the affairs of wars, even though theoretically, they should be peacekeepers and defenders rather than front-line generals. Kanan knew better how to illustrate it to break down the complexities of Jedi's relationship to War.

Still the girl needed an answer. Hera stroked the infant's back. "No, there doesn't need to be a war for bad things in the world to keep happening. Bad things don't just end after a war." Case in point, the Battle of Jakku and the planets that still relied on her and her Squadron to deliver rations to recovering villages.

"Is Daddy dealing with bad things?" Kanan once recounted a vague anecdote from his Jedi history: his firstborn reminded him of the annoying ("annoying" applied in teasingly good-natured connotation) kid in his Youngling class who ambushed Master Kenobi with excessive questions, almost enough to be stigmatized as a teacher's pet to the Masters.

"Sometimes, but mostly he's helping the Skywalker search for kids like you." She paused to grin at the baby. "Children who have the Force." The Force, though a long existing concept ingrained in her, served as an awkward vocabulary upon her own tongue, for she was used to Kanan and Ezra applying that term more.

"Are they his kids too?"

Hera laughed, letting herself bounce the baby in tandem with her chuckle. "Well, from a certain point of view, they could be if he becomes their teacher." She never stopped viewing Ezra and Sabine their "kids," half-jokingly and sincerely. If she had met any new students of Kanan, they could become "hers" if she spent enough time with them. Like maybe Alora, Dhara Leonis, or in Ben Solo.

"Daddy loves us, right?"

"Kaleb Syndulla, always. Even more than you and I will ever know." She hadn't figured out his choice of name in Kaleb. All he mentioned, or a clouded response to her question in the hospital bed, was that Kaleb had the namesake of a lost comrade, Jedi maybe, maybe the aforementioned almost-teacher's pet in the Temple. Whoever it was, she might never find out and she won't ask, a curiosity burrowed in the back of her mind. That's Kanan's business who Kaleb, the Kaleb before their firstborn, was.

"Of course Daddy loves you, Cihes, and me, what makes you doubt it?" It was not the first time Kaleb ever expressed doubts about her father's affection in her attention tug o' wars with the baby: When Cihes came out, for every kiss Kanan gave Cihes, Kaleb pleaded for compensation ("You gave the baby more kisses, so give me more!").

The girl released her twig from her grip and kicked it high into the air, above her height, a display of true talent and her daddy's coordination, though one can also argue it was attributed to her mommy's lithe reflexes.

"He's not home."

Then the girl shot out her arm toward the floating stick, which now hovered in the air, suspended in the intensity of her concentration, her eyes as wide as saucers.

"Daddy's busy with the world. Sometimes like I am. That's why he's gone. That's why I will be gone tomorrow morning. He loves us, but he has responsibilities out there. I have responsibilities out there."

"Is love a bad thing?" The stick remained airborne before the girl's eyes, a mini-log in the sky, a fissure in the clearness of the sky.

"No."

The girl dropped her arm and the stick fell to the dirt. "Daddy says old Jedi can't love too much." This was new. Or rather, it was new that she was the recipient of this subject matter.

Hera had to deduce the context: Kaleb wouldn't be talking of literal elderly Jedi, but of the Old Order itself, the Old Order that aided Ryloth. Regarding the conversation about love, Hera might have missed this conversation, out doing deeds for the galaxy, or drifted asleep. Kanan spoke of the Jedi with Kaleb tucked in the crook of his arm at bedtime.

"I think he meant that Jedi can't marry. Or, that used to be the way. Jedi can love. But they were discouraged from attachment." There was a true misconception spread around in her childhood: Jedi can't love. At least that was one interpretation for their productivity when they defended Ryloth. An aunt had commented, "These Jedi focus because they don't have families to worry about." Young Hera knew that to be untrue. Because if Jedi had comrades and Jedi had masters and apprentices, they ought to have worried about each other and mourned their deaths.

As Cihes, named for the Rylothian symbol of "dawn," babbled in her baby linguistics, Hera wondered if the baby tried to process this conversation, a little eavesdropper, tuning into a dialogue beyond her cognitive comprehension.

"So too much love is a bad thing to old Jedi?"

"Ask your daddy." Kaleb saved the questions for Kanan, so it was flattering that Kaleb had tried her. "He can explain it better."

"I already did. I asked grandpa too. Grandpa don't know. Grandpa tells me to ask Daddy." Kanan was the go-to figure for Kaleb's Jedi inquiries. But maybe one of Kanan's answer didn't satisfy her. Or maybe Kaleb, in her widening scope of curiosity, figured that different people delivered unique realms of answers, each a puzzle piece to an understanding, an enlightenment.

"Then what did Daddy tell you?"

"That Jedi can love but were too careful, sometimes too scared, to love. So why is it bad to love too much, Mommy? So it's bad to have too much of a good thing? Doesn't that make the good thing not good anymore?"

Hera didn't expect the bubble of pride to sweep her chest as she, without aid of her Jedi husband and his Force expertise, for once she welcomed his functional absence in this time and place now, concocted her candid answer: "It's too easy to apply "good or bad" to this situation. All I can say is that, I don't know whether "too much love" or "attachment" are exactly synonymous. Love is love for me. There isn't too much or too little love. But it's like your health, you must keep it well. But love is a commitment too. Love doesn't always solve everything. It can't solve a war, but it helps you cope with war. It can be the fuel to help you fight a war. Sometimes you can't always act on love if you have priorities. Like me and Daddy were too busy during the War to have you. When the War ended, it was safe to act on love and the right time to have you and Cihes."

Suddenly, on cue, as if the namedrop was the magic trigger, Cihes widened the red cavern of her mouth into an ambivalent yawn.

Something compelled Kaleb to not speak anymore, to halt questions, or forever hold her peace. She retrieved her stick, summoning her pre-lightsaber, the bells clanking from her wrists as it zipped to her welcoming palm.

Hera awaited Kaleb to execute a combatant strike toward unseen lasers and the inevitable chiming of the bells. But Kaleb suddenly froze still as a statue, the play-weapon at her side, non-offensive mode, staring wistfully at the cloudless impending twilight, her budding lekku pointing to the dirt. Perhaps she imagined the dot of the ship descending to deposit her father, her teacher from birth, who will grant her the next stages of techniques and training so she could, in Kanan's words, "advance" to somewhere Hera will never follow. Or maybe she was just staring at the sky. Either way, the bells were rendered inert, motionless and songless.

With no sounds of the bells, the familiar dull discomfort frothed in Hera's chest despite all rational awareness: there's still a when he will come home. She didn't know how she could describe it to Kanan once they reunited. Of course she had been used to Kanan's regular absence, whether in the occupational hazard of war or the scheduling of their post-war domestic life, but without those jingles, his existence had ceased. Not as in, he never returned from Mustafar or Malachor, but he just stopped existing, even though he was stationed light-years away, with the expanse of the galaxy and stars between their reunion.

If her Kaleb didn't make the bells dance, Kanan seemed gone. Kaleb, though visible and contemplating the sky and its imminent sunset, seemed gone too. Clinging to the weight of the baby, Hera fought back the urge to walk over and embrace Kaleb, to re-spark the rhythm in the bells, because she suspected that Kaleb, preferring her father's arms, would resist and force her to let go too soon in the waning brightness of twilight.

Then Cihes thrashed about her blanket, her eyes, her daddy's eyes, welling up, writhing with the reoccurring primal call to be satiated, underneath the instinctive sushes of her mother, who had to postpone deciphering her own heartache to figure the new mystery of her baby's distress.