#swfic

The hideous clanking sound started before he’d even set the mugs down on the counter. Spinning around to face the caf machine, his hands hovered frantically over the buttons as he desperately tried to work out what was wrong and how to make it stop. Hera would never forgive him if he broke her beloved provider of caf.

There was a red indicator next to the water status and another one next to temperature, which wasn’t good; he’d thought those lights could only ever be green. The noise was starting to grate against his eardrums so Kanan jabbed a finger at the power button, figuring the best option was to just turn the whole thing off. The noise stopped, and the silence gave him the space to think. No water suggested a problem with the intake pipes, and if there was no water to boil that could explain why the machine was overheating. So, find the plumbing lines, and take it from there. Shouldn’t be too hard.

The caf machine had a permanent position on the counter in the galley – Hera used it so much that she didn’t see the point in having it somewhere out of the way. The water intake pipes should be at the back of the cupboard below. He swung the door open and was confronted with stacks of caf bags.

Of course. Because Hera makes sure the caf is fully restocked before she thinks about rations. Or, Force forbid, real food.

Kanan sighed and set about emptying the cupboard. When the back wall came into view he grimaced at the sight of smooth durasteel; the plumbing was fully integrated. Of course this was the one part of the galley Hera had been sure to do ‘properly’.

He finished taking out the caf before heaving himself up off the floor to go look for the access panel key. It would be in Hera’s toolbox, but where that was was anyone’s guess. He had been hoping to get this fixed and make the caf before Hera woke up, but that was looking less and less likely as the morning went on.

Five minutes later and searching all the obvious places had yielded precisely nothing. Kanan accepted his fate.

He returned to Hera's cabin, where his captain slept soundly. Her face was so peaceful like this, smooth and unlined, free from the worries that plagued her waking mind. He stroked a hand over her bare head and traced the base of one lek with a fingertip. She stirred in response to his touch, turning to nuzzle his palm as it cupped her cheek.

"Hera," he said softly, his voice still rough from sleep. "Where's your toolbox?"

She blinked her eyes open and made a sleepy noise of confusion.

"The caf machine's broken – tell me where you left your toolbox and I'll fix it."

She raised a single eyebrow. "You broke my caf machine?" she mumbled.

"I'm fixing your caf machine."

Hera gave him a sleepy smile. "It's probably still in the forward turret. I was tightening the wiring yesterday."

He leaned in to press a soft kiss to her lips.

"I'll have your caf ready soon."

Kanan saw her eyes flutter closed again as he left her cabin. He expected that she would stay in bed until provided with caffeine, but several minutes after he'd retrieved the toolbox and started work on the pipes he was pleasantly surprised to hear her enter the galley behind him. He'd identified the problem, but a lack of replacement parts meant he was attempting a creative solution that would at least keep them in caf until they could reach a port with the right kind of supplier. His back ached from the angle, and the cramped space didn't make the job any easier, but he was determined to get the machine working again.

Behind him, he heard Hera pick up her mug and settle against the countertop. He glanced over his shoulder to see her cradling the mug as if it were full, apparently content to wait for her morning fix before starting work for the day. That wasn't the only thing he noticed: her eyes were also firmly fixed on the part of him that was currently on prominent display. An appreciative smirk danced over her lips.

Kanan grinned to himself before turning back to his work. Maybe this awkward job wasn’t so bad after all; at least Hera was enjoying herself. As he struggled to finish the last fiddly piece of work, he might have over-exaggerated any shifting of his balance, but if so it was purely for her benefit.

When the job was finally done, he backed out of the cupboard and twisted to lie on his back on the galley floor. He heard his spine crack, protesting at being forced into one position for too long.

“Fixed,” he said, letting out a gusty sigh.

Hera was moving immediately, eager for her caf. She paid Kanan no attention, choosing to stand over him as she pressed the buttons on the machine as easily as she did the ones on the Ghost’s main console. Kanan didn’t mind; he now had an excellent view of his own. He was relieved to hear the machine whir to life above him, glad that he didn’t have to go back to try something else. The day hadn’t even started and he needed a break.

The look on Hera’s face was one of pure focus as she took her filled mug and brought it to her lips. The caf was surely too hot to drink but she had never let that stop her before. She took a sip, and Kanan watched her savour it.

“Good?” he asked, a small smile playing over his lips.

She looked down at him, another kind of heat in her eyes. “It’s perfect.”

Kanan would have expected Hera to take her caf to the comfort of the common area or her favourite spot, the pilot’s chair. The look on her face said she intended otherwise. She dropped to her knees, one on either side of him so that she was straddling his waist.

“It seems I need to thank you for saving my morning,” she began, more than a hint of suggestion in her voice.

“Yeah?” he said unintelligently. Something about Hera always made it hard for his brain to form words.

Hera took another sip of caf. “Yeah.”

She leaned forward slowly until her lekku brushed his shoulders, one hand bracing herself against his chest. He could feel the extra warmth it had from the caf mug against his bare skin. She closed the remaining distance between them as their lips met and the heat of her mouth pushed all other thoughts from his head as it moved against his.

Her caf was cold by the time they were done – but at least there was caf.

---

It was an afternoon remarkable for the fact that the Spectres were enjoying a rare day off.

Hera stepped through the doors to the common area of the Ghost and surveyed the scene before her.  Zeb was absolutely destroying Ezra over the dejarik table, Sabine was flicking through her sketchbook with a look on her face that said she was ready to get stuck into a new project and Kanan was perched next to Ezra, clearly ready to take on the victor of their game. She knew this atmosphere; her crew were settling in for a long, lazy afternoon of quietly doing nothing.

This was not something Hera was willing to allow.

“Who wants some caf?” she asked, walking towards the galley.

A chorus of “Yes, please,” followed her from individuals who would gladly sip a hot drink as they whiled their time away. It was time they could be spending productively; Hera was feeling restless, and wanted to end the day having achieved something.

She let the door close behind her and counted to ten. Then she walked right back out into the common area.

“Caf machine’s broken,” she announced. “Kanan, could you take a look at it?”

He’d just started his new match against Zeb, and gave her a reluctant look.

“I’ll fix it,” Ezra offered. “I don’t mind.”

“Nope,” she countered quickly, “it’s a complicated machine and I don’t want it broken any further. That caf machine has done more for the rebellion than any other in the galaxy. Kanan?”

He sighed. “Alright. We’ll finish this after, Zeb.”

Hera waited for him to stand up before addressing the others.

“Since Kanan’s busy with that, while we wait for the caf, how about you finish up a few of the tasks I gave you this morning? Sabine, I still need that inventory of the Ghost’s munitions levels. Zeb, the Phantom could use a full diagnostic scan, Chopper has the results of the last one for you to compare with. And Ezra, didn’t you say the forward turret needed calibrating?”

A series of groans and reluctant agreements filled the air until, one by one, the three of them filed out of the room, Zeb calling for Chopper as he went. Hera waited until they were all gone before heading back into the galley.

Inside, Kanan was waiting for her, standing next to the caf machine with his arms folded and an expectant look on his face.

“The caf machine’s fine.”

“You fixed it?” She took a step towards him, layering gratitude and implications into her voice and the gaze she fixed him with.

It didn’t quite stick.

“It wasn’t broken,” he said slowly, not getting it.

“So, you’re saying that after I just sent the kids off to do chores, you don’t want a reward for fixing my caf machine?” She took another step, punctuating the word reward with drawing a fingertip over his jawline.

That seemed to get the message across.

“Oh, no, I didn’t say that,” he backtracked. “What I meant was, it was never broken to me , because of how great I am at fixing it.”

“So you do want your reward.” Her finger was now under his chin, her own tipped up so that her lips were mere inches from his.

“Very much,” he murmured.

Her answer was to push him back against the counter, hard, and lean in to press her body against his. She surged up onto her toes to catch his lips in a heated kiss as her fingers threaded through his hair, the tie that held it back only the latest in eight years of casualties.

By the time the door opened to admit Zeb, who had his diagnostics up on a datapad, they had put themselves back together with only a slight flush on their cheeks that could give them away.

“Diagnostic complete, Hera,” Zeb said to her as she passed him on her way out. “Hey, Kanan – did you fix the caf machine?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure did,” she heard Kanan reply from behind her. “Just a, uh, loose part that needed screwing back together on the counter. Good as new now.”

Hera held back a snort as she ducked around Zeb’s large form. Subtlety had never been Kanan’s strong suit.

“Great, ‘cause I could really do with a cup,” Zeb continued obliviously.

Hera shook her head as she hit the door control for the cockpit.

"I'm fine,” the Jedi lies from where he sits at the clearing’s edge, legs crossed and leaning just this side of too much against the trunk of a tree. “Really."

The cough that follows his words wracks the Jedi's body so hard he doubles over, torso practically folded into his own lap from the force of it.

"I can see that," Din says, the edge of his sarcasm flattened as it works its way through his helmet’s modulator. Nevertheless, he knows the Jedi hears it when the skin of his jaw moves a bit, teeth obviously clenching tight below.

It’s the only tell of annoyance in an otherwise calm expression.

"You know, I’ve done plenty of things harder than this in my life. I've shot down TIE fighters. I've battled Sith lords. I brought down an empire,” the Jedi says, and the list would be impressive if he could manage any kind of fire as he recited it.

As it is, it all sounds rather dull. Rather tepid, and it’s not like any of this is news to Din.

Despite what everyone seems to think of him, Din isn’t totally ignorant of current events and galactic happenings.

Okay, fine, he had been up until fairly recently but he’s made a point of catching up since, starting with asking around until he’s learned a thing or two about Luke Skywalker: the Jedi who’d shown up like a miracle and taken his child away. So he doesn’t really need to hear about the hotshot flying ace thing, and the Death Star destroyed by impossible luck thing, and the whole rebellion would have fallen apart without him and his now-Senator sister thing.

And, true, when all he’d known of Luke Skywalker was a man cloaked in black wielding a flaming laser sword, yeah, the stories all made perfect sense.

Since then Din’s visited Grogu on this jungle moon enough times to come to know the Jedi a little better. He’s seen smiles bright enough to power space stations. He’s heard laughs so open and genuine he wonders how all the ugliness the Jedi must have seen hasn’t scrubbed his joy away, like it has for everyone else in Din’s life.

It isn’t that he doubts the stories, it’s just that Din is having a tough time squaring battle hardened veteran turned space wizard Luke Skywalker with giggling delightedly to see Grogu magic-float a frog to him Luke Skywalker.

As if reading his mind—another annoying Jedi trait—he continues on. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of your kid with a cold. If I were sick.” He swipes the sheen of sweat away from his upper lip with the back of his wrist and gracelessly swipes that off on the thigh of his tight, black pants. “Which I’m not.”

"Mm-hm," Din says, a neutral enough sound.

"And anyway," he says with a grin that could have been winsome if not for the pallor of the skin it's set in. "Jedi don't get sick."

Din challenges the Jedi with a stare through his visor. The Jedi gives as good as he gets, staring right back, and sometimes it startles Din how easily the Jedi finds his eyes through the blacked out screen of his helmet. Most beings tend to stare at their own beskar reflection when they speak to him, but the Jedi is somehow able to meet his gaze every time.

"Then I guess you're not a Jedi," Din counters. “Since you are sick.”

Opening his mouth to reply, Din braces for the smart ass response he's come to expect, but the Jedi has another coughing fit instead.

It’s worse than before, and by the time it’s over Din isn’t amused anymore. Now he’s feeling bad for the guy, even if it’s his own kriffing fault for insisting on leaving the temple’s dry comfort for his usual pre-dawn meditation, sniffling along the way. Din had made sure Grogu was deep asleep and dreaming about trouble before following the stubborn Jedi, watching him sit as the wet of the morning fog rolled in, soaking through the Jedi’s cloak, and collecting in droplets along the shine of Din’s armor. 

"Come on,” Din says with a sigh that his helmet muffles, pulling the Jedi to his feet and slinging an arm across his shoulders. “Bed. Now. We can decide if you're a fraud later."

"And what if I am?" There’s a sharpness to his voice that would be impressive if the Jedi wasn’t also sagging heavily in Din’s arms, tripping over the underbrush as they went.

"You're not," Din says in a clip, pressing a steading hand on the Jedi’s waist.

They’re nearly to the temple when the Jedi says, so softly Din almost misses it: "Feels like I am, most days."

And that’s one song Din knows the tune of, because he’s had those thoughts himself. Alone, with nothing but deep space to keep him company, wondering if all the true Children of the Watch had died in the sewers of Nevarro, and if they had what, then, did that make him?