#springfling2024

He’d been alive for 25 years, fought in a war, lost people he loved, and made a variety of highly questionable decisions. And in that time, Kanan had seen and heard a lot, both ugly and beautiful.

This voice? It blew all of them away. Both gentle and firm, with a musical quality that sent warmth through his bones and made his heart skip a beat. It was absolutely exquisite, and Kanan knew, without a doubt, that he absolutely had to know the woman it came from.

She was already walking away, towards the elevator, by the time Kanan recovered enough to come to this conclusion. And by the time he’d started to move or speak or do anything, the elevator door was already sliding shut.

All he’d seen, with what was left of his vision, was a bright, vibrant flash of green.

From a shirt or a scarf, or something else entirely? Kanan didn’t know. All he knew was that the color was burned indelibly into his memory, and that he definitely needed to find out who that woman was.

He took the stairs, but when he made it to the lobby a floor below, the woman was long gone, leaving behind the memory of her voice. Kanan bit back a frustrated growl. Don’t worry, he told himself. If she was at the VA, it was for a reason. Which means I might bump into her again.

So he stayed calm, and headed out. Unfortunately, he was late for lunch with his friend Zeb thanks to his searching. The burly man was waiting in the usual booth at their favorite diner when Kanan made it.

“Oh, thanks for bothering to show up,” he said as Kanan slid into the seat across from him.

“Sorry,” Kanan said with a grimace. “I didn’t think I was going to be that late. But I— got distracted, and then the cab had to take a detour thanks to some accident. Did you order already?”

“I waited like ten minutes, but then I got bored,” Zeb said with a good-natured snort. He wasn’t the type to hold a grudge over one being late. “What exactly distracted you so much you forgot about lunch with your best mate?”

“I didn’t forget,” Kanan corrected. “I just got distracted, like I said.” The waitress approached, and Kanan ordered. He and Zeb had been coming to the diner since long before he’d lost his vision, and the menu was ingrained in his memory.

As were the staff, for that matter, and Kanan frowned as the waitress walked away. “We don’t know her, do we?”

“Nope,” Zeb said, slurping from his drink. “Some Russian kid Quinlan picked up. Now, are you being evasive, or am I going nuts?”

Kanan hesitated, then admitted, “You’re not going nuts. I was distracted by… someone I met. She and I bumped into each other in the hall—”

“Ohhh,” Zeb said, and Kanan didn’t need to see him to know a smirk was stretching across his face. “She?”

“It’s not like that!” Kanan protested, then paused. “Well… it is a little. But it’s not like I had enough time for anything to happen.”

He recapped the incident for Zeb, lingering just a little on what he remembered of the woman. Especially her voice— he probably lingered a little too long on that.

“Right,” Zeb said as the waitress reappeared, carrying both of their meals. “So you fell head over heels for this girl you met one time, and you’re gonna do what about it?”

Kanan shrugged. “Find her, I guess? Thanks,” he added as the waitress set his sandwich in front of him, along with his drink. “How hard could it be? I just need to talk to all the women in Lothal City until I find one that sounds—”

“Like an angel from your dreams?” Zeb said, snickering as he took a bite from his burger.

“I was going to say familiar,” Kanan said, scowling at him.

The man chuckled. “Sure, mate. Well, you’ve got the VA to start with. Maybe ask Piett. He and Veers know everyone around there, and if they don’t know her, they’ll know someone who does.”

“Good point,” Kanan said, his heart lightening a little. Veers was his former CO, and between him and his best friend Piett, they had a handle on pretty much everything that went on in both the VA and Lothal City. (Although it helped that Piett’s sister in law was a state senator.) After their meal, Kanan headed home planning to speak to them the next day.

He didn’t have to wait that long.

While he knew it made him something of a stereotype, Kanan liked to stop at the same diner every morning before work. He’d been going there for years, and the owner, Quinlan Vos, had been close with his mother. So he could usually count on cheap— or free, depending on if Vos’s wife was there— coffee, and a decent breakfast.

What he hadn’t counted on, however, when he stepped inside, was finding someone in his usual booth. In fact, Kanan had been expecting it so little that he’d sat down before he realized someone was sitting across from him.

“Oh— sorry,” he said, starting to slide out of his seat.

“No apologies necessary.”

Kanan froze. That was the voice— warm, slightly amused and curious, and stunningly gorgeous. And, as he gave her a proper look, there was the green. Her hair, by the looks of things. It was unexpected, and fit her well. Really well, he thought.

“Do we know each other?” she asked, her voice thoughtful. “You look familiar.”

For a moment, Kanan couldn’t speak. A long moment, as it turned out, because she asked, “You speak English?”

“Words fail me.”

There was no mistaking her smile, gentle and wry, as she said, “So they do.”

Recover, Jarrus. Pull yourself together. “Um.” Not a strong start. “We, uh, we actually met the other day,” he told her. “Bumped into each other at the VA— literally.”

“That’s right,” she said. “Which is why you sat down next to me?”

Kanan couldn’t help himself— he laughed. “Believe it or not, this is a complete coincidence. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it happened. But this is my favorite spot, at my favorite diner.” 

It’s almost like fate, the unhelpfully romantic side of his brain whispered.

He elected not to say that part out loud.

“Well, you may as well stay, then,” she told him serenely. “I’m Hera.”

“Kanan.”

“Nice to meet you, Kanan.”

“But we’ve been planning this for weeks!”

“Hey, hey, it’ll be okay.” Marc’s soothing voice brings you back down to Earth a bit.

“I know,” you sniffle, “but I just wanted today to be perfect.”

You look out the window, where rain is coming down in buckets and the clouds are an angry, dark gray. It’s definitely not picnic weather, which is unfortunate, considering that’s what was on the agenda for today.

“We’ll still have a good day,” Marc assures you, crossing the living room to grab a blanket off the back of the couch. You watch as he shakes it out and spreads it across the floor.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Well, if we can’t go outside, we’ll just have our picnic in here,” he says, briefly walking into the kitchen to grab the already-packed picnic basket off the table. He returns to the living room, setting the basket down in the middle of the blanket, then sits down next to it. He pats the empty spot beside him. “C’mon.”

You can’t help but smile as you join him on the floor, mirroring his criss-cross-apple-sauce sitting position.

Maybe it’s not exactly how you pictured today would go, but, you have to admit, it’s still a pretty damn good afternoon. You have your favorite person to keep you company, after all.

Hugging her bunny plushie tightly so as not to lose it between the sheets, Sylvie rolled over herself to change her position with the idea to enjoy her free day staying in bed for as long as her body let her.

That usually worked on the second free-day between shifts, but on the first one her working clock told her it was time to wake up, and made sure her partners were also awakened before leaving for the firehouse, around seven am.

Not today, she thought to herself, relaxing again and trying to focus back on what she was dreaming about before she had brightened up. And then came the whispering at the other side of her door.

It was weird that Brian and Joe were up before her, so Sylvie opened an eye and reached her phone, wanting to check what time it was. Minutes past seven in the morning was what the numbers on the screen told her, so her only wish quickly turned to be that nothing terrible had happened to have her partners up that early.

She stayed alert out of curiosity, trying to figure out what they were talking about until she heard her name. And then she knew they were up to no good.

If this was happening a few months back, her fear would have been that her boyfriends were having another disagreement about their relationship and dynamics, since living the three altogether and being co-workers didn’t make it any easier for any of them. Sylvie knew that the two best friends held feelings for one another since the first time she met them, and it had taken both men some time to come together and make peace with that. None of them confessed a thing, of course, until she came into the picture and became the glue into their peculiar love triangle, bringing them closer than they’d been now that they didn’t hide anything that their hearts felt. For this reason, Sylvie was afraid of being the focus of any argument and being a threat for that friendship they treasured so kindly.

As the low voices continued, she thought of getting up but didn’t as she heard the door to her room being silently open.

“Sylvie,” Joe whispered as he approached her bed. She pretended to be asleep, testing the waters to see what it all was about. “You think it’s a good idea to wake her up?” Joe then said over her; Sylvie figured out Brian was at the other side.

“She can’t miss it!” Brian responded but not in a quiet tone.

Curiosity was taking the best of her, so she made herself be noticed. “Miss what?”

“Okay, how long have you been awake?” Brian asked with a smirk, she got to see thanks to the light in the living room coming through the door when she rolled over to be on her back. 

“Since you started whispering on my door five minutes ago,” Sylvie told them.

“Sorry about that,” Joe said with a closed smile, and then threw a deadly glare to their boyfriend, who just rolled his eyes.

“I’m not apologizing, you started it! But I’m doing something better.” He sat down on her bed, leaning to kiss her still sleepy face. “Let me carry you to the living room.”

“Can Geogie come?” she questioned, raising a teasing eyebrow as she asked about her bunny plushie.

“Georgie is always welcome to join us,” Joe nodded, bowing with his arms folded to serve as support for Georgie.

Sylvie got out of the sheets, handing her beloved friend to Joe and then climbed on Brian’s back. His hands were warm where he kept her secured over him, leaning forward as not to lose his balance with the new added weight. They walked outside her room, and Sylvie realised she didn’t get to find out what the discussion was about and only knew where they were heading. “What’s in the living room?”

“The first sunrise of spring!” Joe explained with a huge smile, rushing to be the first one to reach the couch that was not in the place it was usually at.

She frowned, confused because from their apartment’s level they usually couldn’t see the sun coming out, but perhaps that was the reason why her boyfriends were that excited about it (and up so early, too).

Brian left her in the middle of the couch, which was turned to face one specific window of their living room, and had the coffee table accommodated around it as well.

“We’ve made coffee, and hot chocolate for you,” Brian told her.

“It’s early, so make sure you don’t get cold,” Joe warned. He gave her Georgie back and picked up one of the blankets that were over one of the arms of the couch.

Sylvie hugged her bunny while she let Joe lay out the blanket over the both of them. Brian served two big cups of coffee, one for Joe and the other for himself. After passing Sylvie her favourite mug, that was shaped like a koala, with the steamy drink that welcomed a great day she was looking forward to spending with her partners.

She snuggled with Joe, getting under his arm to keep the warmth between them, and then opened her own for Brian, after some sips of his coffee, to get comfortable over her.

The sun came up in the horizon, as slow as Joe played with Brian’s hair, who was more relaxed than Sylvie had lately seen him. She held him tightly with one arm, watching the sun rays hit their window and light up the scene at the other side of the glass while she enjoyed the hot chocolate. It was Joe’s secret family recipe that he only made for special occasions, so that had to be one of them.

It wasn’t long that she had moved to Chicago, but time had started really counting for her when she moved in with ‘Crotis’, as Joe and Brian called themselves. The first sunrise of spring was something she hadn’t paid attention to in the past, due to having been living alone when it occurred. Now, in the quiet of the home she had built with the man she was in love with, Sylvie welcomed the experience of sitting front row for the nature show her partners had been kind to share with her.