Jania. The very name cut her to the bone. Song had always suspected the Ranger was once married, once in love, but she hadn’t known the truth. She hadn’t known the tragedy of her death, the injustice. She hadn’t known he’d been months away from having a family, only for them to be mercilessly ripped out of his hands. She hadn’t known just how much pain Kanan had endured.
Now she did, and now she felt nothing more but aching remorse.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, because Song didn’t know what more she could say. The loss of her brother had been devastating, but for Kanan to lose his wife and unborn child? The galaxy truly was an unforgiving monster, bleeding the lives of men and women like them until they became little more than rot and empty husks of their former selves.
“We’re just a couple of damaged goods, aren’t we?”
She turned to him again. Her visor glinted in the moonlight, the stars. White tulips and patches of lavender swayed as a soft breeze ran over the clearing of the forest. It was beautiful, more than she could have imagined. Song could have stayed in that moment forever, seated at Kanan’s side, waiting until the morning sun would peek between the trees.
She reached for his hand, resting her head against his shoulders.
She lifted her helmet and showed him the scared young woman hiding underneath, exposing her delicately braided hair, revealing the truth of her identity.
She cupped his face into her hands and kissed him.
Song did none of those things.
Instead she looked away from him, unable to string together the right words to say. Although they were both broken, they were still the Ranger and the Mandalorian. Still on opposite sides of the same coin. Song wanted desperately for him to join her on the trip to Chandrila, to keep her anchored to the ground when she confronted Amita Ghafa, but what then?
She staggered back to her full height. Struggling to look him in the eye, she said, “I’m going alone, Kanan, and not because I’m afraid you might stop me. You’re a Sector Ranger. If you’re part of this, if you help me—whether or not Amita lives or dies—you will lose everything. And I’m not letting that happen.”
“This is my burden to bear.”
Without another thought, without thinking, Song yanked out her blaster and fired two stun bolts into his chest. She couldn’t risk him following her back to the ship or posing another fight. She wouldn’t let him risk losing his job, his life, in service of her own terrible need for revenge. Most of all, she didn’t want to risk him changing her mind.
I’m sorry.
@llamallove