Good caf had always been Kanan's department, but for all her lack of kitchen skills, Hera would be the first to argue she could make one mean cup of tea with just the right saturation of sweet and a perfect compliment of cream.
She was weary, and after a lengthy discussion with Fulcrum - Ahsoka - following the last debriefing, and an impressive array of arm waving and threatening from Chopper (who had outwardly hinted that she should check on Kanan), Hera had relinquished control of the Ghost at their last jump. Despite the oppressive fatigue she felt, she was restless and unable to sleep, her thoughts jumbled and her heart conflicted with emotion - and guilt.
Standing at the galley counter, she absently stirred her warm thermajug of tea while staring into the dimly lit space around her. Kanan had slept into the next cycle, waking briefly only when the medic adjusted the lines in his arm and drifting quickly back into slumber after Hera coaxed more water into him and smoothed the lines of discomfort from his forehead. She suspected that there was something in the fluids pumping through him that made him drowsy and malleable, but he desperately needed the quiet rest in order to heal.
Eventually, she was forced to leave his side for additional debriefing, and though she knew he would understand, Hera was anxious to get back to him. At least she was, before. Before she had been unsuspectingly subjected to the details of Kanan's interrogation sessions aboard the Sovereign.
In his tenacious efficiency while reconning, Chopper had managed to glean not only prisoner records and reports that disseminated Kanan's location, but also an alarming collection of video surveillance from the holding cells.
Knowing of Imperial techniques and witnessing their transpiration were two very different things. As her fingers dug, pale-knuckled and aching into the bottom of her chair, trembling with the effort to bear the sound of Kanan's screaming over the feed, Hera realized she was angry. Angry with their allies. The reverence she'd harbored for Fulcrum and the Alliance and all the secrets she'd been privy to had been tainted, no matter how logical the orders had been. Kanan had already endured too much in his dark past, but this...
Ezra had been right to challenge her; she'd been too myopic to challenge their "orders". She would be forever grateful for the kid's dogged perseverance, but Hera wondered if she would ever be able to look herself in the mirror again for even hesitating.
And while blatant proof of his integrity under extreme interrogation had likely earned him respite from more direct questioning for the time being, she very much doubted Kanan would be pleased to learn his agony had been on display. She'd been unable to go to him ever since, even when she learned he had been released to his quarters with stable and improving vitals.
Hera shuddered and clenched the warm mug to her chest, breathing deeply through her nose and holding the breath a beat before exhaling slowly. She took a swallow to wet her suddenly aching throat. The footage had proven just how grisly Imperial torture could be, and in the end, everyone present had been visibly shaken. Only when Ahsoka let a moment of silence pass in deference before murmuring her own awe at Kanan's astounding, and frankly unlikely, resolve, did Hera believe she might be able to forgive - them, anyway.
She sighed heavily. Her drink had warmed her, at least.
Padding quietly down the corridor towards the crew quarters, the light that spilled from Kanan's open doorway was comforting, if a little startling, after so many weeks of disturbing darkness. At this time of the ship's cycle, most everyone was asleep and all but a skeleton crew monitored their travels through space. She understood why, after weeks of being closed in a dank and dark holding cell, Kanan would prefer to keep his door open, even keep a light on. Though, knowing he would fear waking the others with his troubled sleep, she was surprised he'd kept it open. She peered in carefully only to find him awake, reading.
Kanan leaned against the head of his bunk, slouched amidst more pillows than typical for him, with an extra blanket thrown about his shoulders. Even turned aside from the doorway as he was, she could discern the flush still spread high across his cheekbones, an outward sign - aside from the shadows beneath his eyes - that he was not yet feeling up to par.
"Hey," Hera greeted him quietly, knowing that she did not need to announce her presence, as he would have sensed her coming.
She felt awkward and uncertain, just the same.
She didn't like it.
"Can't sleep?" he queried softly, his voice gentle and unassuming. He looked up at her, setting his holopad aside. His blue eyes remained glassy, but his gaze was focused. The relief she should have felt in it was dampened by the fact that he still looked so very tired.
"I should ask you the same thing," Hera countered, taking a step inside and attempting to pin him with her scrutiny. "The door was open, and I saw your light on. Why aren't you resting?"
Kanan's shoulder lifted slightly with a noncommittal shrug, his mouth quirking in a hint of a wry grin.
"Not as easy as it sounds," he replied.
It was a simple statement. There was no trace of weight or bitterness apparent in his voice, even if it continued to sound gravelly. Of course sleep would not come easily, or gently, with everything he'd been subjected to during his captivity. And neither of them were strangers to disrupted sleep.
After a beat that lasted too long, she nodded. "Do you need anything? More water…?"
"I think I'm good," he quipped, tilting his head toward the recessed sill behind the bunk, and its small assortment of thermajugs and cups. "Everyone has taken my rehydration quite seriously - even Chopper."
"They've just been worried and want to support your recovery any way they can."
"I know," he replied softly. "And it's appreciated. I'm still feeling a little woozy, and the galley is farther away than I used to think it was."
She forced a smile and crossed the room then, clearing her throat and almost frenetically reaching out to fuss over the blankets, longing to touch him.
She had not realized her hands were shaking until Kanan's closed gently over them.
His eyes bored into her for just a moment and she looked away, afraid of what he might read from her. Her unease was unsettling him, that much she could tell; it was unusual for them. They had been so comfortable with one another for a long time.
But, now, Hera felt wound too tightly, and she knew it was the echo of his screaming, the agony written in his features, the fear in his unfocused gaze that haunted her even as he sat before her, on the mend. And she blamed herself. If she had not left him in the hands of the Inquisitor, if she had acted sooner to rescue him...if he had died, or worse…
"Don't look at me like that," she pleaded, unable to meet his gaze. Her throat was constricted and her eyes stung with a vengeance. She wanted to gather him in her arms and finally, finally, allow herself to break. Hold him, assure herself of his breathing, banish the horrific images of him writhing and howling in pain - all to keep them safe - but the guilt threatened to choke her out. She did not have the right.
"Hera - "
"I am so sorry," she gasped suddenly, the tears welling high in her bright green eyes. "Kanan…I thought I was doing the right thing – that I had to leave you behind for the benefit of the rebellion and everything we've fought for…I was wrong…"
"Shh," he whispered, reaching up to cup her cheeks in his palms, wiping the spill of her tears with his thumbs. His skin was still too hot against hers, his body continuing to wage battle, but the contact loosened a band in her chest. "It will be all right," he murmured, his voice catching suspiciously.
Hera's jaw worked and clenched as she took a deep breath. "You're still ill," she replied, shaking her head as if to chastise herself.
His hands lingered, outstretched and reaching for her for the briefest of moments, as she pulled away. Silently, he let them slide back to the bed in defeat.
"Hera…"
"You need rest. I'm sorry," she offered, swiping at her eyes and rising, hastening toward the door.
His voice, subdued, stopped her cold.
"My bunk smells like you…"