Jacen Syndulla knows he's not allowed to touch mommy's special things. Up on the top shelf in her bedroom there's a holoimage projector that's on all the time, with a picture of her and dad, daddy's green mask, and something that looks rather like a wooden toy. No one's ever told him what it is, and one day Jacen decides to try to get a closer look. Sitting on the floor, he crosses his legs and closes his eyes, just like Luke had shown him to do. And then he reaches up with his hand, and feels the wood in his mind, which feels almost like it's a tiny bit alive. Or, rather, was alive, a long time ago. It still pulses a teeny tiny bit. He pulls it down, keeping his eyes shut but imagining in his head the little wood carving lifting off its shelf then slowly falling down, down, down -

A sudden clanging from the hallway jerks Jacen out of his trance. The door swooshes open and Chopper comes barging in, warbling a request from mom to come out for dinner. His concentration snapped, the wood soon follows course, its descent suddenly turned violent. With a clunk it falls onto the hard floor and one piece goes flying across the room, ricocheting in and out from under the bed before landing precariously close to a vent. Jacen snatches it up with trembling hands. The broken off piece is now dirty and cracked. The rest isn't much better.

Mommy's gonna be so mad...

Jacen stuffs the triangle in his pocket, and sets the rest on the lowest shelf. Maybe she won't notice.


It's been a long day when Hera finally tucks Jacen in and kisses him goodnight. She stumbles back to her cabin, exhausted, when she notices for the first time the kalikori apparently fallen onto the bottom shelf. She reaches to pick it up and freezes, her hand hovering just above the wood. It's grease-stained, chipped on one corner, and Kanan's triangle is gone. Her mind races as she picks up the carving; no, it can't have fallen, we didn't fly anywhere today, maybe it was Chopper or-

She looks up to find a small, guilty-looking figure in the doorway.

"Jacen!" She snaps; he ducks back out of the room, lip quivering.

Hera takes a deep breath. It shouldn't matter this much. Hold it together, Hera, it's just a broken carving.

Jacen reappears, slowly

"Do you know what happened to this?"

He ducks his head. "I'm sorry, mommy, it was an accident...I only wanted to look at it. I almost got it down all by myself but then Chopper scared me and it fell down-"

She sighs, fingering the place where Kanan's marker should be. "It's okay, Jacen." She says, and mostly means it. "Do you know where the other piece went?"

"The little green one?"

She nods, and he darts out of the room, returning momentarily with the triangle. She takes it and holds it tight.

"What is it, anyway?" Jacen asks, cocking his head slightly.

"You don't know?"

Jacen shakes no, and Hera blinks for a moment in shock before realizing of course he doesn't know, I was never around to tell him about it before.

She runs her hands over the fine-polished wood as she searches for the right words to explain the depth of the carving's meaning on a level a five-year-old can understand.

"It's...it's a kalikori." It seems so stupid when she puts it that way, like it's just another piece of bric-a-brack.

"Oh."

"What's a kal'kori?" His little baby voice butchers the word in a way that makes Hera almost chuckle.

"It's a very special family memento."

Before she can explain, Jacen asks. "What's a mem'to?"

"It's a special thing that helps you remember someone or something."

"Like the picture 'Bine gave me when she told me she was leavin'?"
"Yeah, sort of." But so much more than that, little love.

"So, who does this help you 'member?"

"This is the whole Syndulla family." Hera points towards the top. "Each cube is someone different. It starts with Grandpa Cham's daddy-"

"The long one?"

Hera nods. "And then there's Grandpa Cham."

"Who's that?"

"Grandma Eleni." Hera's voice catches a little.

"Your mommy?"

"Yeah."

"She died when you were little, right?"

She nods, unable to choke out a reply.

"I wish she didn't." Suddenly, Jacen's right next to her, curling up to her side, patting her arm reassuringly. "Grandpa told me about her. She seemed nice."

They sit there a long moment together in silence, Jacen tracing the kalikori's patterns with his fingers. Eventually, he rests his hand in hers, fingers resting on the tiny little triangle.

"What about this one?"

"That's...your daddy."

Jacen's face wrinkles in confusion. "So daddy was a Syndulla? Grandpa Cham said you never got married."

"Your daddy...your daddy will be a part of our family forever, no matter what anybody says." The tears she's been fighting back start spilling over, and within moments Jacen's handing her a grimy bandana to dry her eyes with. She uses it, reluctantly, then sets it aside.

"Can we fix it? So daddy's there forever and ever?"

Hera nods. "We'll take it to cousin Mas'saki to get put on right this time."

Apparently satisfied by her answer, Jacen's head flops onto his shoulder as he yawns.

Hera gently lifts him to his feet.

"Can I stay with you tonight?"

She almost tells him no, that she really needs to sleep tonight without someone elbowing or kicking her or waking up five times to go to the 'fresher. But she looks down at him again and he's getting so big it won't be much longer before he doesn't ask anymore, so she relents, patting the mattress. He joins her, crawling up close.

"Can you tell me a story? About daddy?"

"Just one." Hera promises.

Three stories later, Jacen's sound asleep. Hera rolls over onto her side in an effort to find a more comfortable position. The fuzz at the back of Jacen's head tickles against her lekku, and she remembers the far-gone nights when Kanan's hair used to drive her crazy. Stars, she wishes he were here right now. She turns back over again, and takes in their son's sweet, sleeping face.

And behind him, the splintered kalikori discarded on the floor.

Broken, just like her family.

It can be restored.

Her family, though, will never be made whole again.

But they can be broken together.

They can lean in and love, all the more passionately for their losses.

She finds herself whispering - to the Force, and to Kanan.

"Thank you."

For the love, and the sacrifice, and for the million minutes they spent together and the million more his gift gave her and so many others, minutes free from war and fighting, moments to treasure past, and present, and future.