Kanan was in no hurry to get to the cargo bay. Ostensibly, he was fulfilling Hera's request to check that all their new blasters were properly stored before take-off. Personally, it was a blessed respite from the bickering that was going on in the Ghost's cockpit. He didn't even know what the kids were arguing about: something about a paint bomb, an ill-timed photo, and an interrupted nap. That was about as much as he wanted to know. He couldn't bite back a smile of relief as the cockpit doors hissed had shut behind him.
But as he made his way down the ladder to the cargo bay, he frowned. He had left behind everyone's shrill shrieks, but he could hear some low murmurs below him in the bay. Since they had made their pickup hours ago, this area should have stayed empty. After all, everyone else was up in the cockpit. Except…
Suddenly suspicious, Kanan flattened himself against the wall of the cargo bay and slowly peeked around the corner. Sure enough, there was a shock of white hair in the distance. Rex was standing at the end of the extended ramp, and he appeared to be talking to someone else. Kanan couldn't make out the stranger in the dark. He couldn't hear them clearly either, but…
Kanan's eyes narrowed as he saw something flash briefly between the two men. An exchange of some sort? Yes, that was the distinctive glint of a credit in the harsh light of the cargo bay. As soon as the money exchanged hands, the stranger disappeared, and Rex turned to make his way back up the ramp. Kanan slunk slowly back around the wall, his mind working furiously.
He had told Hera not to trust this clone! He had known it was too good to be true; a sudden ally with a complicated past that sounded more fictitious than he cared to say. He should have trusted his instincts. Wasn't that what his Master had always taught him? To go with his gut? And she was dead because the people she trusted most turned against her. One of them. At this point, he didn't know why he was still hiding.
"Hey!" Kanan barged into the cargo bay. He saw Rex stumble, heard him trip into one of the bay's container, but kept marching steadfastly forward. "What's going on here?"
"General! I mean, Kanan!" Rex's face was briefly panicked—a rare sight, Kanan grudgingly admitted—and he thought he saw a shadow of a tremor pass through his hands. "Everything's secure down here."
"Funny, I doubt remember asking you to check." Kanan was perfunctorily scanning the cargo, looking to see if anything was out of place. "So what was it there? Was he paying you for information? Or maybe you sold him something, hmm? Something you didn't think we'd notice if it went missing?"
"Kanan, you've got it all wrong," Rex spread his arms wide in a gesture of innocence, but his eyes looked…guilty? Or afraid? It was enough to keep Kanan standing squarely in front of him, blocking his path.
"I'm wrong? I'm just imagining what I saw?"
Rex took the time to breathe deeply before speaking. "I was paying him, Kanan."
"Oh, you're right, I was completely wrong." Kanan's eyes were cold even with the lilt of his sarcasm. "You're paying him for some favor, and there's nothing I need to worry about. Where'd you get the money, old-timer?"
"It's my money."
"Last I checked, you don't need money on Seelos. Are you stealing from us?"
Rex's jaw clenched at the accusation. "I had money before Seelos, and I didn't exactly chuck it off a cliff before I moved there."
Kanan crossed his arms. "Alright, let's see it."
"See what?"
"Whatever it is you paid for."
Rex cast his eyes down as he clenched his hands into fists. "Kanan, I understand you didn't warm up to me at first, but there's no reason for this."
"I'll be the judge of that. You paid for something on my—Hera's—ship, and I want to know what you got."
There were another few seconds of stony silence before Rex heaved a sigh and slowly reached into his pocket, tossing a small cylinder towards Kanan. He unfolded one arm out to catch it mid-air, not missing the unmistakable rattle of pills.
"What is this, spice? Are you kidding me?" He thrust it closer towards Rex's face. "We're not risking our lives enough for you? You want to get involved with the Spice Gangs? The black market? You do not threaten the safety of the ship for this! If you have some kind of problem you can't fix, you don't belong on board!"
"Kanan—"
"Don't! Don't even start with me! You may have fooled the others, but I knew there was something off about you from the start! You think you can just forget what all of you were, what all of you did? You think you can just live without any kind of consequences? You don't get to do whatever you want with our safety on the line! You don't get to endanger me and the people I care about! Not anymore! Not again!"
Kanan was clutching the bottle tightly in his fist, nearly shaking with his anger. Never trust them. Never trust them. Never—
"Are you done?"
Kanan blinked and straightened back up, squaring his shoulders. Rex had withstood the tirade without a sound, but there was the slightest trace of anger creasing around his eyes and around the corners of his mouth.
"You have something to say, traitor?"
Rex shrugged tightly, and when he spoke, his words were clipped and harsh: "It's not that I don't appreciate you sharing your feelings. I just thought you'd might want use your eyes instead of your mouth."
"I don't have to take orders from you."
Rex's eyes narrowed. "Then I suggest you read the bottle, sir."
"What, so I can see just what—" Kanan looked down and broke off as he stared, confused, at the label. "What…what is this?"
Before, Rex's eyes were shifting, flickering downwards or away from Kanan's face. Now his eye contact could only be described as aggressive. "Well, there's not many of us 'traitors' these days. Weren't exactly built to last that long."
Kanan took a moment to study Rex more carefully. The man's posture exuded strength, but in reality…his shoulders looked uncomfortably positioned, and the joints in his fingers looked taut with pain. Yes. Waves of pain. Kriff. Wasn't he supposed to sense stuff like this sooner?
"This is medicine," he said at last. Stupid. Obvious. If Master Billaba was still around, she would've revoked his Trial of Insight.
"Mmmm." Rex calmly reached out and took back his bottle, curling his fingers protectively about it. "There's some genetic issues that slowly wreak havoc on us; someone figured out a way to help with it ages ago. Never could get my hands on it before, what with having to take care of Wolffe and Gregor and their own…well, you wouldn't care about what they're going through, would you now?"
Kanan knew he deserved that jab. It still felt like an icy stab in his chest. He recalled how slight the weight of the container had been when it was in his grasp. "So there's not much of this kind of thing on the black market?"
"Nah, they're well-stocked. I guess the Empire used to need it to supply their own renegades back in the day. There's just always a price. A price I can pay on my own without bothering you lot about it."
Another stab. "That…that was really your money. You've been saving it."
"Some of it. I'm not going to blow through all I got. I'm not an idiot."
"How much?"
Maybe it was Kanan's slumped shoulders, or his unusually quiet voice, but something finally broke Rex's steely demeanor. He sighed heavily.
"Look, kid, I get it. We've both been through a lot. A lot now, a lot then. You can just apologize and we'll forget this ever happened. Maybe I was wrong to keep it a secret. It's—"
"How much?"
Rex cleared his throat again and awkwardly shuffled his feet. He jerked his head towards one of the blaster containers. "It could've bought us about one and a half of those cases over there."
Kanan nodded slowly as he worked out the figures. "We can do that. I'll just tell Ezra to lay off the maylooruns."
"Kanan, you don't have to. You have so many expenses to cover, and I—"
"You're family." Kanan surprised himself with his abruptness. He'd meant to be reassuring, comforting, but his words were blurted, his once-aggressive posture now awkward. He forced himself to keep talking. "You work on this ship, you're family. That's the way it should be. And if you're family, we're stuck with you and whatever problems you may have."
Rex had frozen at the start of the outburst, but slowly nodded as Kanan finished his words. They were now a fair distance apart now, not saying anything, not doing anything, just standing there, but it was…ok.
Kanan could get used to this.
But it hardly lasted a few seconds before a piercing shriek mingled with a loud roar from above. Kanan's face immediately creased into annoyance as he gave an aggressive growl and turned to jog back to the ladder. He swore he heard a low chuckle behind him, and swiveled his head to face the clone one more time.
"And since you're family, old man," Kanan called, not slowing his pace, "That also means you're stuck with us."
Rex chuckled again, letting a smile creep onto his face as he broke into his own slow jog. "Guess you've got yourself a deal."
Author's Note: I had originally planned this as a one-shot, but it's been suggested that it be the first in a series depicting various "new trials" Kanan undergoes with more or less success during his time on the Ghost. Drop a line in the reviews if you'd be interested in reading that series!