Chapter 7: Familial Inheritance Snippet 2 (Little Secrets)
Summary:
Kanan and Ezra discuss DJ's father...
(NOW WITH TEXT)
Familial Inheritance
Snippet Two: Little Secrets
Also known as the one where Ezra and Kanan have a little talk about DJ's Father
Kanan's so used by this point to Ezra responding to his question either on the whiteboard or via their reforged link that he literally starts at the sound of Ezra's, very quiet, very, disused voice.
"DJ is ...oh kark. Just say it. She's your daughter, Kanan."
Kanan's hand literally stops halfway between the table and his mouth as he lifts up his drink. His head pivots to meet the other man's gaze.
Ezra's smile is wry. "It felt wrong not to say it aloud. I'm kind of a little surprised you don't already know. Force Kanan, she looks just like you - well maybe minus the nose shape. Still she's got your eyes, your coloring and most of your expressions, particularly when she's frustrated or mad."
Kanan blinks, opens up his mouth then closes it, opens it again, "But that's not..."
"Possible? Yes it is. She's fifteen next April, Kanan...her mother was from a planet called Stryder apparently - though her and DJ left there shortly after DJ was born. Apparently you and the lady in question shared a meal and a table at a Cantina and then afterward … how shall I put it... you apparently some pleasant company afterwards. There are pictures of the two of you that DJ has in her stuff...and your old brushes had enough DNA left on some of them for me to get official verification six months ago. Way I figure it, she must have been conceived not long before you met Hera on Gorse, and joined her on the Ghost on a permanent basis."
"I..." Kanan's mouth opens then closes again. Because he's honestly completely and utterly dumbfounded. Not because it's impossible - because he knows karking well that it isn't. Still he feels like he's been literally sideswiped... "How in Force did you end up...?"
"Finding her?" Ezra shrugs, "It certainly wasn't deliberate on my part, Kanan. I was having force visions about the kid for almost three months before I finally tracked her down, completely ignorant of your particular connection to her. That I didn't find out until much later. By complete accident for the record. When I originally found her I just meant to find her a place somewhere other than here. To see if I could foster her out with Clan Wren or something like that – I mean I know that Sabine would have been happy to have her. But the truth is that I was hurt pretty badly in the process of recovering her, when I did find her - this was just back before Rex tracked us both down and ended up moving in as well. And it took me awhile to heal up. By the time I was ready to travel again it had been nearly four months, and DJ insisted that she wanted to stay, and since by that point she knew what my life here's actually like and she hadn't complained even once, I guess I just decided she was entitled to make her own decisions."
Kanan nods at that. Pauses, then tilts his head. "She calls you 'Dad,' Ezra?"
Ezra shrugs, "I didn't pick the title Kanan - she did. I haven't really been training her formally in the use of the Force or anything, well outside of teaching her some meditation and what's required for actual survival for shielding and stuff, so having her call me Master just didn't seem right, and she objected to calling me Ezra for some reason, so she decided on 'Dad' instead of 'asshole' or 'stupid head' which had been her favorite until then, so I decided to take it as an upswing.'
He has a daughter. Kanan Jarrus has a daughter. And not just a daughter but a teenager - who is, thank kark, past the worst parts of childhood in Kanan's opinion like tv puppet obsession and potty training. "Does...does she know who I am Ezra?"
"That you're her biological father? Yes, she does, Kanan. Though she's probably really reeling at the moment – if only because her mother told her that you died before she was even born - I don't really know the reasons. So this technically is the second time that you've come back from the dead from her perspective. At least figuratively speaking" Ezra snorts. "Once she knows you know, be warned, you're probably about to be dubbed publically ZombieDad. She's been calling you that for over a week now in private. Her sense of humor when under stress can be a little, uhm, inappropriate."
"Wonder who she got that from..." Kanan snaps back, automatically rolling his own eyes.
Ezra turns then and lifts a very, VERY eloquent eyebrow in his master's direction. "Kanan I suggest in this case you not try and start that particular debate with me."
"Nature vs nurture kid."
"It's both thank you very much...and in terms of the later Kanan you most definitely had more than adequate time to pollute me."
"You wound me Ezra."
"Cry me a river, Master. I've spent almost two years raising YOUR teenager daughter. THERE WERE BAD ROM COMS AND HAIRSTYLING INVOLVED. Previously dead or not, Kanan, you most DEFINITELY OWE ME BIGTIME."
"Not really though." Kanan observes after a moment or two…
Ezra snorts. "No. Of course not, really. I mean yeah the kid is a stubborn hellion, yeah…."
"But you love the kriff out of her."
"Yeah." Ezra shrugs, "I also figure she's also karmic payback basically." The younger man's lips quirk up, "I try and imagine sometimes, how she and Hera would have gotten along if things had worked out differently. Pretty well I think, though I don't know how much they would have had in common honestly speaking… they're certainly equally headstrong that much is for certain, but DJ's basically a former street rat just like I am without any interest in flying at all or my particular knack with technology."
Kanan frowns at this, "So you're saying when you found her she was living on the street?"
Ezra nods, "After a fashion at least. Her mother passed when she was nine year old. Though thank kriff," He says with a little up quirk of his lips, "She had a gang of sorts she ran with up until right before I found her – a little group of 3-4 other pickpockets who didn't do anything but pickpocket who basically stuck together for safety and company, she was the oldest, I think, and they were all squatting together in the same building up until…"
"Until what?"
"Until the inquisitorius caught word of DJ's existance." Ezra responds, looking over at Kanan grimly. "And then set out to catch her by using her little 'family' as the bait in their trap after she avoided them four sperate times. I was only able to save her literally by the skin of my teeth once I found the right planet, Kanan, thanks to my Force visions, but I wasn't able to rescue any of the others in time. DJ and I surviving at all was frankly speaking miraculous who I was up against and the fact I had no backup. Not that she saw it that way at the time. " The twenty five year sighs deeply, egretful. "Which unsurprisingly made our first couple of weeks traveling together less than pleasant, even without a major lightsaber injury to complicate the situation. When I first saved her ass and then got us both off planet, before she learned from Rex how Force Visions really worked, she spent a good month alternating between clinging to me when she realized how close I'd come to actually dying and refusing to speak to me because she blamed me for not saving her 'sibs' as well." Ezra's grin is wry, "Which considering that I wasn't speaking myself at the time, I assume made us our ongoing dynamic pretty comedically tragic to outside onlookers. I have to give Rex credit, Kanan – if I'd been the one hunting someone down and found what he did when he first arrived at this place I'd have pulled a one eighty and run as fast as I possibly could have in the other direction. But he stayed. Because he's stubborn and he's Rex." Ezra snorts, very softly.
Kanan snorts as well, and can't help but think in that moment in time that he's almost unexpressibly grateful for that.