A/N: I drove home from work in total silence, tense and stressed. All I could hear was road noise and my own ears ringing and then I wondered if I could write a fic without any dialogue. It was a challenging exercise, and if it seems OOC, well…I guess that's me projecting some of my anxiety. Oops. Let me know what you think!

Nonverbal

When Chopper blurted over coms about how badly she'd screwed up her intel grab, Kanan's resultant laughter had been enough to push Hera from a bad mood to a truly foul one. As tempting as it was, though, she didn't want to take it out on him—not really—so she'd all but sprinted back to the Ghost to avoid him. She ended up with enough time to shower and then barricade herself in her room before he got back from Old Jho's. She curled up on her bunk in a manner which could only be described as petulant. Her knees were pulled up nearly to her chest and her arms crossed over her middle, body tightly coiled even though every muscle ached from the beating she'd taken.

Of course, she'd given as good as she'd gotten—and then some. As far as dangerous situations went, she'd definitely been in worse. (Although the busted lip and eye were the ugliest and most painful she'd ever had.)

Truthfully, since she ended up with her intel anyway, she didn't mind the scuffle half as much as she minded that Kanan warned her it would happen. It's a good plan, he'd said, but not for dealing with these morons. You'll have problems if you go in like this.

But she, having woken up in a funk of a mood to begin with, elected to ignore him.

Oh, how he was going to give her a hard time about this.

She was hyper-aware of every sound on the ship, listening for his footfalls. She knew exactly what path he'd take to find her once he came up from the hold. He'd check the cockpit first, engine compartment second, galley third, 'fresher fourth, her room last. And, indeed: that's exactly what he did. She heard him halt in front of her door before he palmed the panel and the door slid open.

He took all of two steps inside before he saw the bruised state of her face. His lips twitched and she could tell he was fighting so hard not to laugh at her, but then compassion flooded his eyes—and he saw her ferocious glare—and he held his hands up in surrender, slowly backing out of the room. Hera was surprised and not a little disappointed that he actually left; she'd been foolishly hoping that he'd stay. She didn't want to talk to him, but that didn't mean she didn't want his company.

She grabbed the blanket at the foot of her bunk and pulled it up over her head, tired of the whole day; moments later, Kanan pulled it back down and gently touched a towel-wrapped cold pack to her lip and eye, bruised on the same side. She winced and flinched, holding her own hand to the pack. He gave her a small, sympathetic smile and turned to leave.

Hera frowned at the empty room.

Never in her twenty years of life had she felt so contrary and out of sorts. She sat up slowly and, with a groan, dragged her blanket-wrapped self through the Ghost to the common room, where Kanan sat with a cup of caf. He looked at her curiously as she approached. His eyes were just a little guarded, as he was no doubt well aware of her terrible disposition. She opened her mouth to apologize for that, and for her stubborn refusal to listen to him earlier, but all she could manage was a whimpered sigh. He stood and closed the distance between them slowly. He raised his eyebrows, silently asking, May I? Hera dipped her head, giving him permission to touch her.

Carefully, he eased her cap off and massaged around the base of her lekku. She shivered, surprised by his gentle touch after her little…incident early in the day. He lifted her chin with one finger and she shrugged lightly, avoiding the full weight of his gaze. He pulled the cold pack away from her face, tracing the grotesque bruise around her now-swollen eye with his thumb. His eyes fell on the split corner of her mouth and he bent down so that their lips were just barely brushing in a careful kiss.

Hera kissed him not-so-carefully, ignoring the pain. She dropped her blanket and the cold pack and snaked her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe and just letting him hold her. He didn't say anything and neither did she; for once in her life, she did not want to debrief after the mission. She wanted this instead: Kanan holding her close, letting her be her imperfect, too-driven self and never mind the rest. As his hands did wonderful things to her neck and shoulders, she felt herself begin to unwind and let go of the flop that had been her day. She wrapped her arms more tightly around him.

Sometimes, a little nonverbal communication soothed aches that words never could.