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Fandom Island Counseling Services and Psychiatry, Monday

Well, if there were any time that people were going to need counselling, it was after something like that.

Hannibal had coffee, tea, wine, and beer ready to go, and was doing paperwork and catching up on the news.

And drinking wine. They'd missed another wedding, and this one hadn't even been a ceremony!

[Open post, no OCD! Come talk it out.]

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Kanan had considered just staying in today.

Actually, no, Kanan had considered calling Portalocity to see how much it cost to get a one-way ticket to Illium for a man, his dog, and a ship that had maybe enough fuel in it to get him to the nearest edge of the solar system from Earth. It had been that sort of everything, basically, and while he was pretty sure the 'Jedi' thing was no secret around here anymore, he'd still taken his lightsaber apart and wasn't wearing it in the open.

He had it with him, but it wasn't out in the open.

So, that was Kanan's headspace as he made his way in to Hannibal's office.

"I don't suppose you have time for a walk-in today, Doctor?"

Hannibal waved him in. "For a friend, always." He got up to pour him a beer. "In point of fact, I've been no busier than usual today. I don't know whether that speaks well or ill of the island's population."

"You mean an island full of people who for the past several days have had to fear for their lives every time they step out into the streets?" Kanan offered Hannibal a wry smile at that one. "Give them time. Just because you can logically look out there and know there aren't hollows waiting to jump out at you from the alleyways doesn't mean people aren't still on edge, no matter how much help they need."

Sorry, Hannibal. Kanan was feeling extra Jedi today.

"Or it could be that they're so accustomed to such things, they need no more help than usual." Hannibal grinned and handed Kanan his beer. "As I said, I don't know to what extent either is true; I suspect both. As well as a good number of people simply pleased to have central heat and water again."

He brought his wine over to a chair and waved Kanan toward a nearby one. "You seem to have no problems in compartmentalizing that far."

Kanan managed a little smile as he accepted the drink, and found his way to the chair that Hannibal had indicated.

"Compartmentalizing is what I've been doing for the past eight years," he noted. "I'm basically a professional by now."

If he could get paid to compartmentalize, he'd be set for life.

Interior Decorator was a job, Kanan. All about compartments.

"And yet, here you are." Hannibal smiled. "As wonderful as my company may be," and modest, too, "I don't often see you without a trauma."

"That would be because I haven't been without a trauma in longer than eight years," Kanan countered, and then took a deep pull of the beer, pausing for a moment and closing his eyes, savoring the taste on his tongue. "This is a different kind of trauma. But trauma's not entirely the reason I'm here today."

Not entirely.

"No?" Hannibal settled back and offered Kanan a calm and open presence. "Why, then?"

"Less for the trauma, and more for direction," Kanan sighed. He frowned as he looked down at his beer. "I did something this weekend that I haven't done in ages. It's left me with a lot on my mind."

The fact that he'd done so at least in part because of the trauma, he'd get to. Probably.

Hannibal spread his hands. "I will offer whatever counsel I can. Perhaps we should start with, what did you do?"

Kanan frowned, then set down his beer for a moment so that he could unclip the two pieces of his lightsaber from his belt. He held them up, one piece in each hand.

"Do you know what these are?"

... They didn't look like much of anything, the way they currently were. Shiny?

Hannibal looked them over and shook his head. "Some sort of machinery," he guessed.

Kanan's mouth quirked faintly, and he held the two pieces in front of him, clipping one into the other and then holding the assembled weapon, still unlit, in one hand.

"Not exactly. I don't suppose you've ever seen a Jedi use one of these?"

"Ah." Hannibal indicated it with a wave. "Is that the laser sword? I have seen them from a distance."

"Plasma, technically," Kanan replied, smiling faintly, though there wasn't actually much humor in that smile at all. "It's a lightsaber. Wearing one around on my belt would be like an advertisement to anybody from my galaxy. 'Hey, it's a Jedi.'"

And using one, to good effect, was unavoidable proof.

"Something you've avoided for years," Hannibal said. "And yet you did it this weekend?"

"I did it this weekend," Kanan agreed with a sigh. He kept his eyes on the saber while he talked, lowering it and holding it in two hands again as though ready at any moment to pull the two pieces apart again. "I found myself seeing a place that was dead or dying, and I was forced to reconsider a few of my priorities."

"In that place, survival was what was important," Hannibal noted. "I got the feeling there were few secrets among them. They simply didn't matter anymore."

"Mmm. Secrets can get people killed in a situation like that. Not to mention the fact that they aren't worth terribly much in a place where memories don't last half as long as the time it took to create them."

Now Kanan did pull his saber apart, the gesture strangely more reverent than most things he did.

"I still don't want to be here," he noted. "On this island. Less now than I did before and that's saying a lot. But while I am here... there's no sense in not being what I am. Maybe."

"That is a decision only you can make," Hannibal told him. "Although I'm certain you realize that once it's made, you cannot go back. Most likely." This was, after all, Fandom.

"Most likely," Kanan echoed. Then he shook his head. "The ones I'm hiding from already know I'm here. Maybe not from my own time, but somebody does. And I can't just leave."

He sighed.

"I used my lightsaber to help kill Zoe. The other Zoe. The one that was tethering the island to the other timeline. Somebody from that reality recognized it for what it was. There was a..." He stopped. Frowned. Dropped his voice down low. "On the roof of the MCA. There was a monster. One of the big ones. He used a lightsaber."

He frowned.

"He used my lightsaber. I don't know if I could turn back while I'm here even if I wanted to, now."

"Why is that?" Hannibal asked.

Kanan hesitated before answering, staring quietly down at the two halves of his lightsaber in thought.

"Months ago, I started opening myself up to the Force again," he said, finally. "Not constantly, not for much more than just meditation, getting used to the way it feels again. But... I did. I'd cut myself off entirely about seven years ago. It had seemed like the safest way for a lone Padawan to move through the Galaxy without attracting unwelcome attention. And then I came here, and..."

His lips pulled into a wry smile.

"One person likened it to cutting off a leg simply because it was an easy target for a vibroblade. I still don't think the comparison is entirely apt - there's a substantial difference between something being an easy target and it actively being the marker that has gotten people far stronger than oneself killed - but it still got the point across. I've spent years standing on one leg. I hobbled myself, to survive."

"And now you find yourself," Hannibal thought of a suitable expansion of the metaphor, "walking on a brace from time to time, and the thought of going back to entirely hobbled is anathema?"

"The thought of going back to entirely hobbled is frightening," Kanan said, voice going quiet for a moment. "For the first time in years, I'm thinking about the Jedi I could have been, instead of the roustabout sleemo I am. And it doesn't feel impossible. At least, not here."

Home was a different matter completely.

"And yet you don't want to stay here," Hannibal said. "And you're worried what will happen should you return."

"Staying here hasn't done me many favors," Kanan said, wryly. "This island has shoved more of my past down my throat in a few months than my own galaxy has managed to in years. It's made me open up to it, yeah, but that's not something I can take back with me without putting myself back into immediate danger. It's a complicated place to be in, right now."

"I can imagine," Hannibal said. "So, what do you plan on doing about it?"

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Fandom Island Counseling Services and Psychiatry, Monday

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