#anyways the premise behind this was kanan and hera not being used to sharing the ghost post a new dawn | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bedlamsbard · 4 years

Text

I was originally planning to wait on posting any of this concept because I wanted to add more, but since I’m not sure when that’s going to happen and also we could probably use some nice Backbone AU Kanan/Hera, here are a couple of scenes from the field AU concept. This is a Backbone’verse AU, set while Hera is back at ISB HQ and Kanan’s off at the Crucible.

About 2.5K below the break.

Hera heard the cockpit hatch slide open behind her and had to resist the urge to scream. Chopper, tucked up near the nav console, let out a low rumbling noise of discontent that the intruder apparently decided to ignore.

“This is a pretty nice ride, Hera,” Markus Anjali said, oblivious of Chopper’s reaction. “Why don’t you –”

“Don’t sit there,” Hera snapped as he put his hand on the back of the co-pilot’s chair.

He looked at her in surprise. “Why not?”

“Because it’s my ship and I said so.” And because it was Kanan’s chair, and she couldn’t bear to see anyone else sit there.

Markus shrugged in elaborate unconcern and took the empty chair behind it instead. “So why don’t you fly this ship more?”

“I work in an office, Markus,” Hera said, willing him to go away. “The only thing I’m flying these days is a desk. I can’t exactly park the Ghost in the HQ speeder lot.”

“You could still hop over to one of the moons,” Markus suggested. “They have some nice resorts. In fact, after we get back to Naboo why don’t we –”

Hera was saved from having to turn him down again by Chopper impatiently telling them that they had reached Christophsis and were exiting hyperspace. Hera suspected they were a minute or two early, but that would still put them in the system and she wasn’t about to argue.

They came out of hyperspace a few hundred kilometers outside the Imperial blockade around the planet. Hera transmitted the Ghost’s transponder codes and received permission to continue her transit to the planet, along with an approach vector that she was warned to stick to or risk being destroyed. Since she had no intention of deviating, that wasn’t a problem. Markus chattered at her through the entire approach, while Hera resisted the urge to tell him to go back and join the other agents she was transporting. Or to shoot him. At this point she wasn’t picky.

She spotted the Imperial encampment as she entered the atmosphere and descended down towards the crystalline planet’s surface. A landing officer on the comm gave her directions to her parking spot and she angled the Ghost down towards it, sliding into a spot between a couple of other nondescript light freighters presumably piloted by other field agents. As she was powering down the Ghost’s systems, movement on the landing field outside the viewport caught her eye.

Hera froze with her hands still on the switches, then blurted out, “Chopper, finish up,” and threw herself out of her chair and down the ladder to the hold.

“Hera!” Markus called after her, but she didn’t look back.

She was down the ramp even before it had finished lowering, racing across the field to throw herself into Kanan’s arms. He caught her with only one staggered step back, his arms tight around her as Hera pressed her face against his chest and sobbed. After a moment she leaned up to kiss him frantically, looping her arms around his neck to pull him close to her. He was clean-shaven, with scars on his cheeks and jaw that hadn’t been there before, and his long hair had been cropped short to reveal a notch taken out of one ear. But it was him, it was him, he was here.

He cupped her face between his palms, his eyes wide with startled delight. “What are you doing here?” he asked. There was a hesitant note to his voice, as if he wasn’t entirely used to speaking anymore.

“I was assigned – I brought a load of agents from Naboo,” Hera said. “And I was assigned here. What are you doing here?”

“I was assigned here,” Kanan said, echoing her. He kissed her again, then enfolded her into another hug, his arms tight across her shoulders. Hera leaned her head against his leather-clad chest, vaguely aware of his unfamiliar black uniform and the metal cylinder hanging from his belt. She was too relieved and overwhelmed by having Kanan here at all, not when she hadn’t expected to see him for months more. Or ever.

“Hera?” Markus’s voice said from behind her. He sounded utterly baffled.

She felt Kanan stiffen, but made herself straighten up and turn around anyway. Markus was staring at her with confused betrayal in his eyes, with Cado and Leshan just behind him.

“Isn’t that –” Leshan began, before Markus blurted out, “I thought you didn’t like men.”

“You didn’t think I liked men and you still kept trying to sleep with me?” Hera demanded, too startled by that to think about her response before speaking. Kanan went, if possible, even more still; Hera reached behind herself to find his hand with one of hers.

Floundering, Markus said, “Well – I mean – you’ve turned everyone down – and that guy you were supposed to be – I mean – I thought he might not be – uh – real.”

Hera stared at him, speechless.

“I thought – maybe you just – uh – needed to –”

“Stop talking,” Leshan told him firmly, seizing him by the arm and thrusting him back towards Cado, who caught him effortlessly and slapped a hand over his mouth when Markus made to protest. She stepped forward and said, “Hera, I didn’t know your man was –”

Still among the living was the obvious end to that, but she finished with “here” instead, flicking an inquisitive look at Hera.

“I – I didn’t either,” Hera admitted. “I didn’t think – I thought you would still be –” She glanced at Kanan, glanced at Leshan’s curious expression, and faltered.

“Usually,” Kanan said, looking down at her. If he was aware of the others, he didn’t show it, all of his attention focused on her. “My ma – my teacher’s been on this op with me, but he had to go back a few weeks ago, so right now it’s just me.”

“Your –” Hera considered their audience and decided to leave that for another time. “I have to go check in. Will you come find me later?”

“Of course.” He ducked his head and kissed her quickly. “I love you,” he added, his voice low, the words just for her.

Hera smiled up at him, giddy. “I love you too,” she said, then reluctantly released him. She watched him walk away, raising a hand briefly in greeting to Chopper, who was perched at the top of the Ghost’s ramp, until he disappeared behind the hull of another ship.

Almost as soon as he was out of sight, Markus burst out, “You and an Inquisitor?”

Hera looked back at him. “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she said, and went to go find the camp commander so she could report in.

Major Beck, the ISB agent in charge of the operation, had clearly already heard about her arrival, and eyed Hera askance as she came into the command module to check in. But she didn’t comment on the way Hera had greeted Kanan and granted her permission to sleep on the Ghost, rather than assigning her one of the two to four person tents the other ISB agents on the operation were staying in. The concession left Hera grateful; she had had more than her fair share of rooming with other people back at the Academy and didn’t want to do it again. Especially with Kanan here.

“Besides, it will keep your astromech out of the way,” Beck said dryly, handing over a couple of datachips with the most up-to-date information on the operation that Hera was classified for. Chopper had become infamous at ISB HQ shortly after Hera’s arrival and had been banned from the premises unless explicitly requested soon after that.

Hera bit her lip, not certain whether to smile or not. “Yes, ma’am.”

As Hera was turning to go, Major Beck added, “Agent Syndulla. I would be very careful with him if I was you.”

Hera looked back at her, wondering if she was still talking about Chopper. “Ma’am?”

“Be very careful with that man,” Major Beck repeated, and Hera realized that she was talking about Kanan. “He’s not safe. He’s not entirely sane. He might have been once, but he isn’t anymore. A physical relationship with him isn’t against regulations, and I understand that you two have a history, but be very, very careful.”

“Ma’am, I –” Hera had absolutely no idea how she was going to end that sentence, but Major Beck waved a hand to dismiss her before she had to figure it out. She left the module feeling confused and a little concerned, then spotted Markus outside with Cado, Leshan, and the other agents Hera had ferried over. Hera ducked around the side of the module before Markus could look over and spot her, nearly running over a stormtrooper as she did so. His double-take as he registered first her uniform and rank badge, then her skin color and lekku, would have been comical if Hera hadn’t been so distracted; as it was, she returned his belated salute absently and stepped around him to hurry down the pathway between the command module and the one next to it.

She didn’t spot Kanan as she familiarized herself with the camp, ignoring the stares she got from troopers and agents who didn’t expect to see a Twi’lek in an ISB uniform. It was the first time that Hera had ever been on a major field operation – when she had been a cadet, she had been mostly used to the stares, but that had been a long time ago now. In the Imperial Complex back on Naboo she only seldom ventured out of the ISB building, and everyone there knew who she was even if most of them thought that she shouldn’t be there. At least here her uniform was proof enough of her identity; she had a recurring problem with other Imperials not believing she was one of them whenever she was in civilian clothes.

Since the Ghost hadn’t been stocked up before she left, she stopped in at the mess tent to get dinner, managing to slip out just as she Markus come in with Cado and Leshan. She didn’t feel like talking to them right now, since she suspected that the only topic of conversation would be Kanan. She took the boxed-up dinner back to the Ghost and sat in the empty lounge to eat it and read over the files Major Beck had given her, ignoring Chopper as he rolled around, cleaning up grumpily after the agents that had been onboard earlier. This was punctuated by loud protests that he was an astromech, not a cleaning droid; since Hera hadn’t given him any instructions to clean anything she didn’t bother to weigh in. She resisted the urge to go and sit in the cockpit or the gunner’s bubble so that she would have a view of the landing field, trying to make herself concentrate on the files. There was no guarantee that she would be assigned to this operation for any period of time, since she was mostly here as a glorified hoverbus driver in the first place; after the incident with Agent Sarkos on Garel it had been made very clear to her that she wasn’t trusted in the field.

She had finished eating and put the remains in the galley to deal with later when she heard the hatch open down below and then close almost immediately. Chopper grumbled, wary, and Hera scrambled to her feet, abandoning her datapad as she hurried to the ladder leading down to the hold. She had code-locked the hatch; there was only one other person who could get in.

Kanan was standing in the hold when she reached the bottom of the ladder, looking around as if he couldn’t quite believe that he was really there. He turned as Hera came towards him, looking tired and ill in the artificial lights in a way he hadn’t in the fading sunlight a few hours ago. Hera walked into his arms, holding him close against her as he pressed his face down into her shoulder.

They held onto each other, neither speaking, for what felt like a long time. Hera finally released him so that she could cup his face between her palms and take a good, long look at him, studying his features now that she wasn’t as overwhelmed by seeing him again as she had been the first time. He looked terrible.

“It’s all right,” Hera told him. “I’m here now. It’s all right.” She kissed him gently, then drew him in the direction of the ship’s upper levels.

They curled up together in the lounge, Kanan turning his face wearily against her shoulder like he couldn’t bear to look at her or anything else. “Do you want to talk about it?” Hera asked him softly.

He shook his head. “Do you?”

“No.” Hera pressed a kiss to his forehead. She could tell that he was thinner than he had been beneath his black leathers and that some of the scars on his face were old, some more recent. There were fading bruises on his neck beneath the high collar of his shirt, and a black mark that Hera didn’t want to look at too closely.

Kanan put his face back down against her shoulder and sighed. “Are you all right?” he asked her. “That other agent said –”

“I’m all right,” Hera assured him. “I’m bored and I hate everyone, but I’m all right.” She didn’t want to tell him about getting alternately propositioned and ignored, or about crying herself to sleep every night, or the fact that she had barely been able to look at the Ghost and had kept her feet firmly dirtside for the past four months. At least she didn’t have any new scars or bruises.

“Bored is better than some things.” Kanan turned his head a little to kiss her neck – not amorously, but as if he wanted to kiss her and it was the closest patch of bare skin he could reach without moving. “I’m very tired,” he added wearily.

“Can you spend the night?” Hera asked him. She didn’t want to get her hopes up, but having him here and having to sleep in an empty bed seemed like unreasonable cruelty.

He nodded. “My master won’t be back for another week at the earliest,” he said. After a moment he raised his head again, his eyes bright as he studied her face, and added, “I missed you so much.”

Hera leaned in to kiss him. “Your clothes are here,” she murmured. “All your things –”

Panic flashed across his eyes, so briefly that Hera half-thought she had imagined it. “I’ve got clothes,” he said. “They’re just all black.”

“Not your color,” Hera said, and he bit his lip in something that was vaguely akin to a smile.

“Not really.”

She laid her hand against the side of his face and kissed him again. “Will you come to bed with me?”

He nodded, then hesitated. “I can’t – don’t –”

Hera kissed him. “I’m tired too,” she said. “Come on, love. Let’s go to bed.”

#cut scenes and concept writing #kanera field au tag #as always comments are appreciated

36 notes · View notes

prepare4trouble · 7 years

Note

Since I just watched a Red Dwarf episode with approximately this premise: the Ghost crew were in a potentially toxic area, and Chopper enjoys putting in quarantine procedures when they get back!

Um… What even is this story?

I might have gone a little overboard.

The problem is, I know that episode (and all Red Dwarf episodes) like really, really well. As in I can almost quote it word for word. And that is one of my favorites. Honestly, I don’t think you wanted an entire retelling of Quarantine, but that’s kinda what you got. I really did try not to take too much from the episode though (note the lack of Mr Flibble and Rimmer’s gingham dress – if the Ghost had a video link in the cargo bay, they might well have made an appearance though! No luck virus here either, but who needs luck when you have the Force?

Also, to Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, you have my apologies!

Ezra wasn’t claustrophobic, not by a long shot. The Ghost wasn’t exactly spacious, and his windowless quarters even less-so. In the past, he had regularly relied on his ability to crawl through small spaces to escape or to hide, it had saved his life on occasion. This, however, was very different. They had entered the Ghost through the cargo bay doors, and found that they couldn’t get out into the rest of the ship.

There was something about being in a place that he couldn’t get out of that bothered him.

It wasn’t a completely unfounded discomfort, considering what had happened to his parents. Or considering the lingering threat of an Imperial jail that had hung over his own head for so much of his life, and still did, if he should be unlucky enough to be captured.

He walked across the center of the cargo bay until he reached the wall, stopped, turned, and walked back again, trying to ignore the feeling of rising panic building inside him. “This is ridiculous!” he complained. “We’ve been trapped in here forever. There’s nothing wrong with us. If we were going to get sick, surely we’d have done it by now!”

Kanan shook his head, a curious expression on his face. “It’s only been half an hour,” he said.

Ezra forced out an exasperated sound and flopped down on the single bunk that Chopper had thought to provide in the cargo bay. His knees and elbows hit an unexpectedly hard surface.

Well, that was just great.

“He does have a point though,” Zeb said. “I mean, not the half hour thing, that’s ridiculous, but how long is Chopper going to keep us prisoner in here?”

“And,” Sabine added, “if one of us does have it, surely locking us all up in here is a great way to make sure we all get sick.

Hera frowned. “Chopper said the incubation period is up to four days. If we’re still healthy then, we’re okay to leave.”

“Great!” Ezra sighed loudly. Four days? There was no way he was going to be able to do this. “I’m fine,” he said. “I don’t get sick. Not often, anyway. And if I was, surely I’d be able to feel it. Nobody we spoke to on the planet was sick, nobody had even mentioned an illness going around. Chopper’s probably just messing with us.”

Sabine glanced around, looking worried all of a sudden. “You don’t think he might be right, do you?” she asked Hera. “You know what Chopper’s like, if there’s any chance he’s just playing some kind of a joke on us…”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Hera promised.

“Yeah,” Zeb agreed. “He knows what I’d do to him if he tried it!”

Kanan shrugged. “Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, it’s going to be fine.”

“Hey,”

Ezra looked up from the space between his feet to see Kanan standing in front of him.

“You okay?” he asked.

Ezra nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I be? After all, who doesn’t want to be locked in the cargo bay with four other people for a week, with a porta-fresher and only one bed?”

The corners of Kanan’s lips twitched in something that looked like amusement. “We’ll talk to him about the sleeping situation the next time he checks in.” He sat himself down on the bed next to Ezra, then frowned. “Wait a minute,” His hands explored the surface of the bunk.

“Yeah,” Ezra confirmed. “He ‘forgot’ to put any padding on it too.”

Kanan sighed. “We’ll talk to him about that too,” he said. “It’s going to be fine.”

“Chopper?” Sabine said, arms folded and glaring at nothing, as they didn’t have any kind of a view screen installed in the cargo bay and were relying on audio only to communicate with the outside world. “Here’s a thought. Why do we have to stay in the cargo bay when the only other person on the ship is you? You’re not organic; even if we did have this virus you wouldn’t be able to catch it.”

Chopper explained about the contamination of surfaces aboard the ship. It didn’t sound very convincing.

“Chopper, if you’re lying to us, you’re going to be in real trouble,” she said, her eyes narrowing in frustration.

An indignant sound came over the comms, and Chopper cut out the signal.

“Great!” Sabine said, her voice tight with anger.

“Calm down,” Hera told her. “We’ve just got to get through the next few days, then we can get out of here. Why don’t you draw something, I’m sure I saw a sketchbook and crayons in the box of stuff he gave us.”

Zeb let out a derisive snort from the other side of the room, one that began to make a lot more sense when Sabine opened the box. A brand new, crisp sketch pad, and a box of crayons, every single one broken down so far that they were useless, and no way to sharpen them.

“Damnit!” she shouted, and threw the box across the room in frustration. “He did that on purpose!”

Hera, watching from the corner, glanced at the surveillance cameras through which she was sure Chopper would be watching them. “I think you might be right,” she said.

“What else is there in there?” Kanan asked.

Sabine reached into the box. “Oh, hours of entertainment,” she said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “A children’s board game with the pieces missing, a datapad that’s either broken or run out of power, I can’t tell which, and a holovid.”

“Well, at least that last thing isn’t so bad,” Kanan said. “Not as much fun for me, but maybe you guys could narrate…”

“We don’t have a player,” Hera interrupted.

Kanan sighed. “Right.”

“Think he’s gonna feed us?” Zeb asked.

Ezra shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on it. It’s Chopper. Not like eating is a big priority for him, he’s probably forgotten that we even need food.”

“Well, he has one minute to remember, or I’m going out there and…”

“Going out there?” Sabine said. “How are you planning on doing that? Hera’s already tried every single code she could think of on the number lock he set on the door. Do you see any tools around here to break out? Do you see any lightsabers to cut through the door? No. Because the people of the planet insisted we go unarmed. If we could just ‘go out there’ there wouldn’t even be a problem, would there?!”

“I’ll get out there somehow,” Zeb growled. “Just you watch!”

“Guys,” Ezra said, placing his hands behind his head in an expression of nonchalance that he did not feel. “Relax, okay? It’s been five hours, I’ve gone without food for way longer than that, we’re not going to starve yet. He’s given us water, we could easily survive four days with just that. I’ve done it before.”

“Yeah, well we can’t all be as resilient as you, can we?” Sabine said with a scowl. “Some of us need food! And art supplies. And somewhere to sleep at night!”

Zeb folded his arms. “Don’t worry Sabine,” he said. “We won’t really starve. If it comes down to it, we can eat the kid.”

Hera folded her arms. “Stop it!” she said. “I’ll speak to Chopper. In the meantime, sit down and be quiet, we’ve done nearly a day already, we’re getting there.”

Food, when it came, was five ration bars passed through a tiny airlock capsule that Ezra hadn’t even known about. Hera took the box and distributed the food to everybody to prevent arguments. “Sprout flavor,” she said, as she handed them out.

“All of them?” Ezra hesitated before taking the bar. He looked up, at the surveillance camera. “Chopper, you know I can’t stand these, they literally make me throw up!”

Chopper’s voice came through the intercom. No other flavor on board.

“Chopper, I know that’s not true!” Ezra insisted.

Incorrect. All other flavors have been jettisoned due to possible contamination.

“Jettisoned? Chopper, that makes no sense at all,” Hera insisted. “Find something else for Ezra to eat.”

“Why bother?” asked Zeb. “He said himself, he doesn’t need to eat. Keep these coming. They might be disgusting, but if he’s not eating there’s more food for us.”

Ezra rounded on him, only barely resisting the urge to give in to the dark side of the Force. “Fine, if you like that idea so much, why don’t we take your waffle stash when we get out of here? Share it out among everyone else.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t have a waffle stash,” Zeb said. He tore open his ration bar and finished it in two gulps. “This isn’t half bad actually, by the way. A bit to eat really hits the spot.”

Ezra balled his hand into a fist and pulled it back ready to plant it in Zeb’s face. Seeing this, Zeb’s expression spread into an amused grin as he prepared to retaliate.

“Stop it!”

Kanan’s voice from the other side of the room cut through the argument. “That’s enough. Ezra, sit on the bunk. Zeb, over at the other side of the room, now! It’s going to be fine, we just need to…”

All four other occupants of the room turned on him with one voice. “Stop saying it’s going to be fine!”

Kanan backed off a step, and was just about to answer when Chopper switched on the intercom again.

Irritability is symptomatic of the virus. Please stand by for room decontamination.

“Wait, what?” said Kanan. “Irritability is symptomatic of being trapped in a room with four other people for a day with nothing to do and nothing to eat!”

Correct, however it is also symptomatic of the virus. Further symptoms include irrationality and mental instability, followed by eventual system shutdown. Preemptive system shutdown and reboot required for any chance of cure. Stand by for decontamination.

“Reboot? Full shutdown?” Ezra gulped as everything began to click into place. He hadn’t seen anyone that was sick on the planet. He also hadn’t seen any droids. “Chopper, what kind of a virus was it you said they had on that planet?”

Irrelevant. Stand by for decontamination.

Ezra stared wildly around the room. “It’s a computer virus,” he said. “And Chopper’s already got it.”

“Never mind that!” Kanan said. “What does he mean by system shutdown?”

“Nothing good,” said Hera. She was already by the panel at the door, the cover removed and her hands in among the wiring. “I don’t think I can do anything without tools,” she said.

Ezra took a deep breath. Was it his imagination; the panic returning, or was the air getting a little thin? How exactly was Chopper planning on executing the ‘systems shutdown’? “Guys? I think…”

“Don’t talk, save your breath.”

Okay, so they figured that one out already.

Hera’s fingers continued to work at the wires, but with no way of cutting them, even if it were possible it would take too long. “I’ve already tried every numeric code that might mean something to Chopper. I can’t access the wiring properly without my tools. I don’t suppose the Force would help with this?”

Ezra stepped forward. “I guess I could try to guess the number…”

“No, Ezra.” Ezra turned to see Kanan behind him. “I don’t think that’s what she means.”

Ezra turned back to Hera, eyes wide, questioning. She nodded. “Do it. Use the bunk, maybe, that looks heavy enough.”

Standing side by side, Kanan and Ezra concentrated on the single bunk that Chopper had provided them, lifting it and driving it with as much force as they could into the door, again and again until the metal started to buckle and a gap appeared. Air, recycled and stale, but full of precious oxygen, began to enter the room, and Ezra took a deep, thankful breath.

“Keep going,” Zeb called. They pulled the bunk back again, and once again thrust it forward into the door. The metal buckled further.

“I think I could get through there,” Sabine said. “I’ll go find Chopper, make sure he doesn’t try anything else while you guys get everyone else out.” Without waiting for a response, she headed for the door, dropped to her knees and began to squeeze through the small gap.

“Go easy on him,” Hera called as she disappeared. “It’s not actually his fault, and he has told us the way to cure it.” She stared at the damage to the door. “I can’t believe he made us do this to my ship!”

At the other side of the door, Sabine turned and peered through incredulously. “I’ll try not to hurt him too much,” she said. “Well, at least until he’s back to his slightly less murderous self and we see what he has to say for himself.” With that, she disappeared.

“Whatever she does to him, he deserves it,” Zeb said

Ezra thought about that Actually, he wasn’t so sure. If Chopper had been sick without realizing, and his sickness had made him paranoid enough to believe that a group of organics could be carrying a computer virus, then Hera was right, it wasn’t exactly his fault.

Still, there was no way that Chopper wasn’t going to pay for this.

#star wars rebels #star wars rebels fanfiction #red dwarf #I'm sorry #quarantine

14 notes · View notes