Hera ends her call, letting out a long sigh. She'd made contact with Kanan and Zeb. Good. The fact that hearing Kanan's voice gave her her stomach and turned her into a romantic sap on the phone, though, had been a surprising and rather disquieting revelation. She had told herself going into this that she was going to avoid making any real connections with him or Zeb, that she wasn't going to put herself through that again-that the only reason she was meeting with them was so that she could hopefully leave behind all of these weird side effects that she'd had ever since leaving the game.
"Hopefully at least I'll finally be able to get rid of you," Hera mutters, glaring down at the bright green patterns that ran up her entire right arm and were starting to appear on her left one.
She had signed up to be a beta tester for that accursed VR game on recommendation from her therapist. Even if she hadn't been a perfectionist who demanded twice as much from herself as from anyone else (something she'd gotten from her father, who had drilled that standard into her head), the fact that she was a woman of petite stature who was a pilot in the commercial airlines business put her under even more strain. A lot of interviewers would take one look at her and decide that she couldn't possibly know how to fly a plane, although they were always happy to try to offer her a job as a flight attendant. She'd learned from her time in the air force how to fight to get the respect that she deserved, so she'd finally managed to secure a job because, when given a chance, her performance clearly spoke for itself. But she still had to deal with people who had very outdated ideas about women pilots-not usually her coworkers around her own age, but older men who were either a little too helpful, as if they thought she'd forget basic flight protocols, or else completely snubbed her and acted as if she were a fussy toddler that they'd been saddled with (although to be fair they snubbed pretty much any female pilot who didn't suck up to them.) So was it any wonder that she was constantly on edge when she was living with that every day? Her (unofficial) emotional support cat, Chopper, helped some, but he couldn't fully take away the daily feelings of insignificance that she dealt with since, no matter how hard she worked, no one ever seemed to truly respect her.
Her therapist felt that she needed a break, to go do something fun to give her a chance to get out from the stress she was under. Hera didn't feel like she could justify taking time off for a full vacation, but just taking a weekend to virtually visit the world of her favorite movies had sounded like something she could justify. When she'd actually won a spot in a game testing session she had even been excited. What she had not expected going into the game was to wake up at the end of the weekend feeling like she'd lived a whole other life in there, that she'd feel like she'd had a family-a best friend, kids, even a husband who she'd been completely in love with-only to first lose so many of them in the game and then to completely lose them once the game was over. Waking up, being told she'd never see them again, felt like losing… Everything. But it was only a game, wasn't it? Just a digital world. None of it was real, even if some of the characters she'd met might have been played by real players. It wasn't real, so she needed to move on.
She kept telling herself that this should be easy. None of it was real so it shouldn't have any real effect on her. Yes, sometimes she'd find herself approaching a stranger who looked something like one of the Ghost crew, but she wasn't that disappointed when it turned out not to be them. It wasn't like she was actively looking for them or anything. Even if she did find them, they'd probably be nothing like how they were in the game so it was better not to be disappointed by reality.
She spent about a month this way, telling herself to be logical and strong, like she always had to be, trying to push away any thoughts of the game and the people she'd met in it. Then her subconscious apparently decided that if she wouldn't deal with her feelings while she was awake then she'd have to confront them in her sleep. Chronic nightmares were the result: seeing Ezra, alone, hungry, sleeping in an abandoned building with broken crates as his only bed; Sabine, living in a home where she was constantly ignored, except for when she was being screamed at by the people in charge for being "lazy" and "distracted all the time"; Kanan, sitting alone at a table, contemplating a bottle of whiskey in front of him, clearly trying to resist the temptation to drink it, with Zeb standing in the background, trying to reach Kanan but running against an invisible barrier every time he tried.
When Hera failed to heed those dreams, telling herself that this was just her overactive imagination taking over (something that she hadn't let happen since she was a child, when it had always gotten her in trouble), the dreams only continued to get horribly worse: Ezra succumbing to starvation; Sabine swallowing a bottle of pills just to stop the pain; Kanan finally giving in and drinking, only for the scene to immediately switch over to a car wreck, Zeb holding Kanan's body in his arms and crying. And every dream ended the same way: with the others looking right at her and asking, "Where were you?"
The dreams were slowly but steadily starting to wear her down-she was staying up late just to try to avoid them, and even when she did sleep she'd wake up feeling like she hadn't slept at all. The ever present dark circles under her eyes and her constant state of exhaustion were starting to attract negative attention at work, and she knew that she had to do something. She couldn't risk losing her job because of this. It had occurred to her to try to find the other players since finding the others seemed to be the message of her dreams, but she'd read over the agreement that she'd signed before playing the game and knew that the testing facility couldn't give her their contact information, so how was she supposed to try to find them on her own when she had nothing to go on but their first names, if those even were their real first names?
The final straw that had made her break down and call the facility to demand to speak to Dr. Tano was when the markings had started showing up on her arms. It had begun on her right arm, so faintly at first that she thought she was imagining it, but every day the markings became clearer and brighter. At first she'd had no idea what they were, had even gone to a dermatologist who had laughed her out of his office, telling her that the "mystery" of them showing up was clearly her getting blackout drunk and getting a tattoo so not to waste his time. But finally, after many hours of sitting alone in her apartment staring at them, she'd finally made sense of them: they were the same markings as her game avatar had had on her leku.
How? How could a game cause her body to physically change like this? It was impossible! And yet it was clear that others could see the markings (she was having to be extra careful to cover up at work since visible "tattoos" weren't allowed), so this wasn't just in her head. Finally she'd called the facility from her hotel room in New York City after a flight, prepared to do whatever it took to get answers from Dr. Tano. But when the receptionist answered and Hera had tried to explain what was going on, she'd immediately been cut off.
"Not one of you again! Look, I don't know why everyone from your testing session is so desperate to 'find each other' or whatever, but I'm getting tired of this."
"I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about, I just want to talk to Dr. Tano about-"
"You've all been harassing her for months, just leave her alone! Look, I've gotten permission from two of the other players to give out their contact information, so I can give that to you but that's all you're getting."
Hera barely had time to scribble down the information that the receptionist told her rapidfire before being hung up on. When she'd tried calling back to try again, the phone rang busy every time she called, and it quickly became clear that she'd been blocked. Hera knew that she could try calling from the hotel phone, but she was almost positive that it wouldn't do any good: she'd get hung up on and blocked there too. So all she had to go on were the names and phone numbers that she hoped she'd written down correctly.
She finds herself staring at the names: Garazeb Orrelios. Kanan Jarrus. Was it possible? The last names were of course different, but could this be her Kanan and Zeb? She spends the better part of two hours just staring at the paper, trying to decide what to do. Reaching out to them, if they were her Kanan and Zeb, could put a stop to all of this, or at least help her figure out what was going on. But on the other hand, it would require her to open up a door she'd closed a long time ago-a door to letting herself connect to people who could hold her back or hurt her, or, worse, that she might hurt without meaning to. She'd learned three ex-boyfriends ago that her chaotic schedule due to her job and commitment to said job wasn't something most people were willing to live with, and it hurt too much to be cheated on or broken up with again. But did she have any choice? If she kept on like this, she wouldn't have a job to be committed to.
Finally, summoning up her courage, she dials Kanan's number into her phone and makes the call. There were a tense few moments in which the phone rang: after spending all this time psyching herself up for the call, she hadn't considered that maybe no one would answer. She was mentally scrambling to try to figure out what sort of voice message to leave that wouldn't sound crazy, but then finally someone answered-Kanan. Her Kanan.
It was amazing how just hearing his voice calmed her-steadied her, made her feel for the first time in two months like she wasn't completely losing it. All she wanted was for him to reach through the phone and hug her and tell her that everything was going to be okay. And then she heard Zeb's voice, and it almost felt like she was home again.
Of course almost as soon as she got off the phone her common sense kicked back in, telling her to not put too much stock in this, that all she was really trying to do was get some answers, that even though Kanan had sounded excited about seeing her he'd be just like everyone else she'd ever met so not to get her hopes up. But as she lay in bed that night, hugging a pillow to her chest, all she could hear over and over again was Kana's voice in her head, saying that he'd see her on Sunday.
Saturday came and went-having slept without nightmares for the first time in months meant that she actually felt awake and full of energy and thanks to that she flew even better than usual. Then she got home and, after having a good cuddle with Chopper, decided to take a nice long bath. While she was in there she realized that she hadn't confirmed a time and meeting place with Kanan and Zeb yet so she creates a group text and sends over a message to see if they had any preferences. Kanan answered almost immediately that he'd be happy to meet anywhere. Had he been watching his phone, waiting for her text? That sounded exactly like something Kanan would do. For some guys that would have seemed maybe a bit creepy, but for Kanan it felt sweet, as if he was so excited to see her he'd been waiting just to hear from her.
When Zeb responded, a couple minutes later, it turned out that he also didn't have a preference. Hera realized that she was going to have to take charge of this (not that that was anything new, there was a reason she'd been captain of their crew in the game) so she suggests a coffee shop near her apartment, as much for the fact that she was craving one of their teas as the fact that a coffee shop seemed like a fairly safe place to meet two men who were technically strangers. She knew the staff there, knew that if anything (god forbid) started going wrong she could go to them for help. She wanted to believe that things were fine, that Kanan and Zeb were just as honorable in real life as in the game, but she'd still rather be safe than sorry.
Sunday at noon found Hera standing in front of her bathroom mirror, trying to get her level of giddiness down as she reviewed her hair, makeup, and outfit in the mirror for the final time before leaving for what was most definitely not a date. What was she, a teenager? She should be far more level headed than this! Either she treated this like she'd never met Kanan before outside of their phone call, in which case there was no reason for giddiness, or she treated this like everything in the game had really happened, in which case they were far past the point of first date jitters. All the logic in the world, though, couldn't calm her racing heart.
She finds herself frowning at herself as she looks at her reflection in the mirror. Something just didn't look… Right. She knew what it was: it was that Kanan had only ever seen her as her twi'lek avatar and, try as she might, she couldn't match that look to how she really looked. She knew that her face and bone structure was mostly the same-the 3D body scan that was used as the basis of her avatar was to thank for that, even though she may have adjusted herself a little in the height department (only because being on the short side was a tactical disadvantage.) She obviously couldn't have green skin (aside from the markings on her arms) and wouldn't want to, and she doubted Kanan at all expected that. No, what was bothering her was her hair. It had taken her an hour of fussing with it to realize why: Kanan had never seen her with hair before, only leku. And while she obviously couldn't have leku naturally here, it was throwing her whole mental image of how she thought Kanan would expect her to look off. She'd tried putting her hair up into two pigtails but immediately felt ridiculous and took them back out. A ponytail seemed too casual, a bun like the one she wore at work was too severe, and just letting it be loose was too unwieldy since her hair was almost to her waist and on the thick side. Finally she'd settled on a braid-it could be considered dressy or casual depending on how things went which seemed like the safe bet.
She lets out a soft sigh, making herself turn away from the mirror. This was as good as it was going to get. If this was the Kanan she'd known in the game, looks shouldn't matter to him anyways. Or at least she hoped so. He'd always seemed to value her more for what was inside of her head than what was on it. But was it vain of her to hope that he might still be as physically attracted to her as a human as he'd been when she'd been an alien species which was known for being considered attractive by most of the galaxy?
"I'll see you later, Chop," she says, stopping to scratch Chopper, who was currently lazing in his favorite sunny window ledge, under his chin.
"Prrp?" The cat looks up at her with his big blue eyes, as if asking why she was leaving when she could be staying here and giving him pets.
"I promise I'll tell you all about it when I get home," Hera laughs, kissing the top of his furry head before grabbing her bag from its hook by the door and heading down the apartment stairs to where her car was parked. Technically she could have walked to the coffee shop, it was close enough. But she'd learned from experience that it was better to have a car to leave in quickly should a date-or even non-date-go sour.
The walk to the coffee shop was usually about ten minutes, so it was about a five minute drive, including the one stoplight and the time it took to find a parking space. She shoots Kanan and Zeb a text, letting them know that she'd arrived. She'd left out a little early so she didn't assume they were there yet. But about thirty seconds later she got a text back from Kanan saying:
We're actually here too, accidentally got here a bit early.
Someone was really excited to see you, Zeb adds.
Shut up Zeb!
But you were!
You're literally sitting right next to me, why are we arguing in text?
After that the texts stop, and Hera has to suppress a smile at that. It was sweet that Kanan seemed so eager to see her, and, if she was being honest with herself, she was really excited to see him too. It threw her a bit that she didn't have time to get settled and prepare herself, but maybe it was better to go ahead and get the introductions out of the way. Taking a deep breath for courage, she pushes the door open and walks inside.
Technically she knew that she should look for the others first, but she also didn't know how deeply they'd get talking so if she wanted a drink-and she really, really wanted some tea today-it was best to place the order now before it was hard to break away. That thought in mind, she heads up to the counter and places an order for a jasmine milk tea before thinking to ask the person running the register, "I'm here to meet up with some friends-you don't happen to remember a Kanan or a Zeb placing an order, do you?"
"Hm… Kanan I'm not sure about, but Zeb sounds familiar-we don't get many Zeb's in here, it's kind of a memorable name," the cashier answers. "Big guy, facial hair, looks like he works out a lot?"
That sounded like Zeb so Hera answers tentatively, "Yes?"
"Last I saw he was heading towards that back corner."
The shop was pretty crowded today, so it was a bit hard to see if there was anyone who looked like Zeb in the direction that they were pointing, but it was the best lead that Hera had.
"Thanks for your help," she says, taking a number so that the person delivering her drink would be able to find her when it was ready and then heading in the general direction of where she sincerely hoped Zeb and Kanan would be. As much as she'd told herself over and over that getting involved with them on anything more than a "trying to see if we've had similar experiences since the game and then move on with our lives" level, she couldn't fight the fact that she was getting more and more excited about the idea of seeing them the closer she was (hopefully) getting to them in physical proximity.
She finally broke through the majority of the crowd and starts scanning tables for any sign of Kanan and Zeb. Finally she spots someone she thought might be Zeb sitting at a table, facing away from her-of course it was hard to tell for sure, she'd never seen him as a human before, but she noticed a few purple stripe-like markings on his back that were reminiscent of her Lasat friend. (If it really was Zeb, she had to wonder if they were tattoos that he'd had from before the game, or if, like her, they'd started appearing aftwards.) She starts walking towards the table, trying to appear casual so that if it turned out she was wrong she could pretend that she'd been trying to use the trash can just beyond it. It was hard to see around the man's large figure to see if there was someone else sitting at the table with him…
Then suddenly she sees someone stand up from the table and step out into the aisle, and she knew she had the right table. There was no denying those bright blue eyes or that ponytail or even that slightly ridiculous goatee that he insisted on growing.
"Hera?" the man asks, and there was so much hope in his voice that it made her want to run right into his arms, although she was doing her best to hold back. She was also doing her best to hold back tears, because it was suddenly hitting her that this was the first time that she'd seen him alive since the fuel depot. She had watched him die, and yet here he was, safe and sound, and even though she knew logically it was just a game the part of her brain that held all of her memories and experiences from the game was practically screaming at her: Go! Go to him!
But she still managed to keep herself at least outwardly calm and collected. Somehow.
"Kanan?" she asks, wanting to make sure even though she didn't see how it could be anyone else.
"Yes," Kanan answers, his voice coming out in a relieved gasp. "Hera, love, it's me!"
Something about the way that he said "love", the pet name they'd shared for all those years, was enough to finally break down every one of her barriers and, being distant and protecting herself be damned, she finally gave in and ran the rest of the way to him, her heart leaping in her chest as he catches her in his arms, lifting her up off her feet and spinning her around. Maybe it looked ridiculous to everyone else around them, maybe it was like something out of a cheesy romance movie, but she didn't care. She presses her head into Kanan's shoulder, breathing in his scent, holding onto him as tightly as she dared, just letting him fill up every one of her senses. Nothing had felt so right since she'd woken up from that game, and she had no intention of letting go of him for a long, long time.