fandomtownies | Syndulla Scrap, Friday

Sabine had been back here for class already today, but she was back again with a purpose.

"Hers, I need a part but I know where it is!" she called.

Hera smiled over her shoulder. "Okay!" she called back. "Need any help?"

"I got it. Be right back!"

She wandered off for a moment, returning again with a couple small parts in hand. "Turns out I needed two."

"Glad we had two, then," Hera said. "What're they for, or is that a secret?"

"No secret," she answered. "I don't really get to wear my helmet around here, so I'm trying to link the systems to my phone, so I can share pictures and information if I don't have one or the other with me."

"That is a very good idea," Hera said. "Hey, Chopper!" she called in his direction, getting a distant annoyed warble. "I've got him working on something similar," she explained to Sabine. "Wanted to see if I could get the local systems hooked up to the Ghost's holoprojector. You should compare notes."

"Ooh, definitely," she said, brightening a little. "Is this for information purposes or are you trying to get TV in there?"

"Trying to get Twitter in there," Hera said. "For Summer's class. Kanan started an account for Stance, we decided I should give Chopper one. Though having all the local information could be useful, too."

Chopper showed up and saluted. Hera smiled at him. "Hey, Chop. Sabine here's trying to interface her tech with the local stuff, too. Think you can work together?"

Chopper gave a skeptical blatt.

Sabine stuck a hand on her hip. "I've probably gotten further than you," she told him.

Hera hid a grin as Chopper went on at length about how far he'd gotten and how he was clearly better at this and basically dared Sabine to come see what he had so far.

"Over in the Ghost," she pointed out as Chopper spun and headed that way, still spouting his opinions. "Want me to bring you a Coke? Or some tools?"

"Yes, thanks," Sabine said, smiling as she started to follow Chopper on board. "Not sure what I'll need yet, but I guess we'll figure that out!"

Hera nodded. "I'll bring them all over. And Chopper, be nice!"

He didn't even dignify that with an answer.

"It's okay," Sabine assured him. "I know better by now."

It was part of his murderous charm.

Kaidan headed over to the scrapyard. He hadn't seen Hera in awhile and he had something to discuss with her.

...There were some sort of little..mechanical..pieces.. doing something with plastic trash. Kaidan stopped to stare at them for a moment. "Hera? You here? If you're here, the hell am I looking at right now?"

He maybe sounded a little plaintive.

"Right here." Hera came out of the main building opening a Coke. She eyed the bitey bits and shrugged. "They liked playing with the bottle."

"Are they some form of..mini..micro droid?" Kaidan asked, still staring at them. "They're kind of cute, in an aggressive way."

Hera shrugged again. "No idea what they are. Solid metal, as near as I can tell, they just have mouths and like biting. They've calmed down a little since we put them in the corral and started playing with them, though."

She took a drink and cocked her head at Kaidan. "Can I help you with something, or did you just come to visit?"

"Huh," he said, considering them a moment. "Might need your help with something. Christmas is coming up."

Sure, that was helpful.

"Christmas?" Hera frowned. "That's one of the holidays around here, right?" She hadn't paid a lot of attention last year.

"Winter holiday, about three months out," Kaidan confirmed, "I'm plotting against Kanan. Is there garage space around here that he doesn't regularly stuck his face into?"

"That depends on why you're plotting," Hera said. She crossed her arms. "What's it for?"

"Kanan's Christmas present," Kaidan smiled a little, "I'm not sure what it'll be yet, but I have some ideas. One of them would require a garage, and possibly access to tools."

Hera eyed him. "There's a few empty docks at the end, and they've got shacks that might work out. What are you thinking of doing?"

Kaidan shook his head, "Not real sure yet. I'm dragging him on an adventure on Monday, looking for a birthday present for Iris. I have kind of an idea what I want to do but I'd also like to see if anything along the way catches his attention, you know?"

He shrugged a shoulder, "He was talking about a speeder awhile ago." [NFB that last bit pls squirrels]

Edited 2018-09-15 04:29 (UTC)

Hera nodded thoughtfully. "I'd tried building one a little while ago, but I didn't have all the parts I needed. You can start from there, if you want to have a look."

Kaidan laughed a little, "Build one, I doubt I could do. Fix one up? That, probably." He threw her a lopsided smile, "If I had a garage and the right tools for it, somewhere Kanan wouldn't poke his nose and spoil the surprise."

"Well, as I said," Hera pointed, "there are a few unused docks down that way. You're welcome to one of them and the shed that goes with it, though you either pay rent or you'll have to get out if I need it for another ship.

"I probably won't," she added, "but you never know. I've got a ton of Earth-standard tools and a few sets from our galaxy, too, and you can borrow them if you return them in good condition and prove you won't take a finger off."

"Happy to rent it if it turns out I need it. Vette's good with machines and probably more familiar with your tools than I am, so I was thinking of asking her to help work on whatever. If there is a whatever." Kaidan lifted a shoulder, "Can't hurt to put more cash in her pocket either."

Hera nodded. "Vette seems like a good kid." Mildly larcenous, but good. "You like taking care of the kids?"

"I know what it's like to suddenly find yourself in a place that's outside scope," Kaidan said, "It was an adjustment for me and I'm from a place so similar to this Earth that it's all echoes of my own history. Except that's what it is - history. My timeline's a century and a half further down the line."

His jaw tightened. "Vette couldn't read. Whatever chooses people yanked her out of wherever she was and the school didn't even bother to find out if their students could read the papers they were handed. Nina's from a world where technology isn't." He wasn't angry at Hera's question - he was angry that this kept happening to people. Kids. "They're both good kids. So's the other one I hired, Prompto. Less worried about him, he seems to be doing ok so far."

"So you're a caring type," Hera said. "Understandable when they're kids, even if they probably have more behind them than a lot of kids do. Where do you draw the line - do you see me as a child?"

That question came out of nowhere. Kaidan tilted his head at her and answered the first part instead. "My besetting sin, just ask anyone. I care too much."

He really did.

"I've seen you all of three times, Hera. You could be six years old, for all I know, or three thousand. For what my opinion is worth, you seem mature enough."

"Glad to hear it." Hera crossed her arms. "And Kanan? Does he strike you as a child?"

Ah. Well then. That explained it.

He considered how he could answer this without saying something that would further piss Kanan right the hell off.

"In some ways, I consider him a peer, for all he's a decade or more my junior. In others, where emotions are concerned, his maturity is stunted and has only recently started to expand. Where emotions are concerned, he's not going to react like an adult with a lifetime of experience, because he doesn't have it. I wouldn't use 'child' to describe it, though."

He met her eyes, "I would use 'family'."

"Kanan's an adult," Hera said firmly. "He's been an adult in every way that matters for at least ten years. Whatever you think of how he deals with his emotions, he's not stunted. And he certainly doesn't need you policing his interactions with others."

"If you're talking Hernando, he really, really does. I'm not letting those two talk without an interpreter anytime soon," Kaidan said flatly. "Hernando gutted him, Hera. He wasn't aware he was doing it. He had no intent to do it, but he sank Kanan right back into that 'I'm bad for everyone, I should just leave' mentality he only barely's crawled back out of. He's not allowed near Kanan until I have time to unpack Hernando's stupid trauma-induced fear fixation. Which I will do if I have to take a damned drill to his skull and let some daylight in."

He rubbed his face. "I can't stop either of them from doing whatever they damned well please. But I can make the cost to Hernando, if he doesn't give me a chance to sit down and talk him out of this damned tree first, higher than he wants to pay."

"He saw me shoot someone in the face. I did it then, I would do it again, and he's scared of Kanan. I'm pretty sure it landed on him simply because Hernando couldn't take having it land on me, which is where it belongs. Kanan wouldn't hurt a damned fly unless it bit him first."

"Do you hear what you're saying?" Hera asked. "You can't let them talk? They're both adult men. You're not their father or their captain. Whatever their problems are with each other, they won't solve them by you forbidding them to speak."

She was scowling now, but she kept her voice as even as she could. "You admit Kanan's not a child, so stop treating him like one. Stop trying to make him deal with things the way you think he should."

He thought about what to say. Then he asked, "Did Kanan tell you what's going on with Hernando? What happened on Monday?"

"He told me some of it because he wanted to," Hera said. "I didn't ask about the rest, because I trust him to deal with it. I don't want to know anything he doesn't feel comfortable telling me. I did urge him to speak face to face with Hernando, and I told Hernando the same thing. Beyond that, it's up to them."

Kaidan rubbed his face. "Kanan didn't even know what post-traumatic stress disorder even was until I told him. He didn't know he had it. He sure as shit didn't recognize it in Hernando. The conversation was: 'I don't know why you're afraid of me. It's hurting me. Please stop.' 'I don't know why you're angry at me. It's making me fear you. Please stop.' That's what you or I would read. What Hernando read was a threat to his life, and you know just as well as I do that isn't what Kanan would ever mean, and it's not what he said. What Kanan read was 'Your trauma and pain don't matter', and that isn't something Hernando would ever mean, and that's not what he said, either."

A breath. "Hernando isn't rational right now. Not about this. He's only barely begun to understand that. He sure as shit didn't understand that what he said to Kanan cut him right down to the bone. I'm the only one who knows them both well enough that Hernando would even listen to me about the kind of man Kanan is. Kanan's less likely to listen to me about the kind of man Hernando is, because Hernando's already sliced him open twice. You think he's ever going to see Hernando as anything but malicious, it happens a third time? I don't."

Hera gave him a flat look. "I just told you I didn't want to know anything Kanan didn't want to tell me, and you proceeded to tell me all this without finding out what I knew already. That isn't yours to tell."

She firmed her jaw. "But since it's out there - you think because Kanan doesn't know what you call a specific kind of trauma that he doesn't know he was traumatized? You think because he's confused now, he's incapable of figuring things out? Kanan's a smart man. He's also not you. He's not from your planet or your upbringing. He does things his own way. You want to help? Trust him. Let him be himself."

"This tells you nothing but the situation," Kaidan said just as flatly.

It still didn't tell her why or what. That, however, was up to Kanan.

"He knows he was traumatized," his voice quieted a little, "He didn't know that what he was feeling was normal. He didn't know there's therapy for it and coping strategies that have been developed over hundreds of years by people going through the same type of shit. He doesn't need to be me or from my planet for it to give him a basis from which to start. It's worked across cultures and species, there is no reason it wouldn't help him too. And no, I absolutely don't think he'd have figured that out if left to himself. He'd have kept on doing what he's been doing for the last decade, letting himself bleed out inside because he didn't know where to look for bandages."

He took a breath. "If you think I'm ever going to let someone sit there and drown like that, you need to think again. I was a combat medic. I wouldn't let that happen to my worst enemy, I'm certainly as hell not going to let it happen to Kanan. It will be subarctic in Hell before I watch him give into the insidious voice in his head. I will throw Hernando on the first plane back to Mexico before I see him make that voice louder."

Edited 2018-09-16 03:49 (UTC)

"So he doesn't need anyone hurting him worse, unless it's you?" Hera challenged. "He's not bleeding or drowning, he's coping. You want to show him ways to do that? Go right ahead. But the only one he's been able to count on for years is himself. You fix that by being there for him and showing he can count on you, not by telling him he can't count on himself."

"I'm not the one who told him that. That's what his brain keeps telling him, and it's lying to him," Kaidan said quietly, "But he's listening to it, and he shouldn't."

He wasn't touching that other question.

She thought he wasn't bleeding or drowning?

Good to know.

Kaidan nodded once, to himself. "Good talk, Hera." He meant it, that wasn't sarcastic, "I need to go see about lunch, though. This was meant to be a short stop for a question."

Hera huffed in exasperation. "You tell him that every time you take over his life like he can't deal with it himself. Every time you call him stunted or treat him like a child. Next time you want to? Maybe consider asking him first."

She shook her head. "Go get your lunch. Enjoy. Chopper!" She stalked off toward the Ghost. "Have you got that interface running yet?"

..every time you take over his life..

Well. Tuesday would be just a fun time for both of them.

Kaidan gave her a wave over his shoulder as he left.

Syndulla Scrap, Friday

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