A/N: This is imperfect and slightly AU for several small reasons, but I've been sitting on it for months and months, unfinished and dead in the water. After I saw the mid-season trailer and Kanan's new 'do, I decided now was a good time to dust it off. Like I said—slight AU details, but lots of Kanera, so maybe you won't mind? Reviews most welcome!

The Padawan Braid

Hera rapped her knuckles against the 'fresher door. "Get out!" She shouted at Kanan, annoyed. "I want to shower, too."

"Plenty of room for the two of us," he shot back.

"As oh-so-very tempting as that sounds, I do prefer bathing alone."

Something dropped on the floor and she heard Kanan curse under his breath. But his voice was pure flirtation when he said, "Oh, really? Then what about that time—"

She cut him off immediately, grateful he couldn't see her face flushing. "You mean that time we were both covered in mud and showered together to keep from trashing the Ghost, and neither of us was naked? That time?"

He laughed. "Not naked? I distinctly remember underwear."

"And I distinctly remember kicking you out as soon as you got rinsed off!" She banged her palm against the door. "Hurry up!"

"Will you please relax?" An edge of irritation crept into his voice. "Showering is harder than you'd think—" he stopped in the middle of his sentence, and the door whooshed open, revealing him to be fully dressed, but still very damp "—when you've only got one good hand."

He held up his right hand, encased in a hard cast, and waved it in her face. If he was looking for empathy, he wasn't going to find it with Hera. She frowned. "You were in there forty minutes."

"It took half that time just to shave! I am not left-handed."

"And it shows. Yikes." She took his chin in her hand and turned his head from side to side. Nicks and scrapes littered both sides of his jaw. She sucked in a breath through her teeth and stepped back, tilting her head to get a good look at him. She had to clamp down on a grin. "And what happened to your hair?"

His expression soured. "Not so easy to do your hair—"

"When you've only got one good hand," she finished, eyes rolling. "I get it." She looked at him again. His hair, still dripping at the ends and sticking to his neck, was very obviously tangled. It was longer than she'd realized, stopping just shy of brushing his shoulders. It fell around his face in a manner that made Hera appreciate his bone structure in a brand new way. "You know," she said, smiling slyly, "it's not the most unattractive thing I've ever seen."

His eyes took on an absolutely sultry light. "As a rule, I tend to think compliments like that are just insults in disguise, but coming from you, I'll take it."

She took half a step toward him, peering at him coyly through her lashes. "So I'm the exception to the rule?"

He leaned close. "Baby, you're the exception to all my rules."

"I like the sound of that." Hera stood on tiptoe and kissed him with vigor, catching him completely by surprise. She pulled away and saw that he was blushing just slightly; they were still in uncharted space when it came to expressing their romantic feelings for each other.

"Well," he said, clearing his throat, "um—"

She tapped a finger to his mouth. "Don't say anything. You'll ruin it."

"You're probably right."

"I'm definitely right." She reached out and took a chunk of his still-dripping hair between her fingers. "What are you going to do with this until your hand heals? Leave it down?"

Kanan's face scrunched. "No way. I was actually—well, I thought maybe you'd be willing to help me with it?"

Hera's eyebrows pulled together in a sarcastic expression. "Because I know so much about hair?" She ran a hand over one lek, flipping it over her shoulder.

"I'm confident you can figure it out," he said, eyes lingering on her shoulder and the one lek. She smiled innocently, knowing very well how attractive he found her.

"I make no promises." She stepped past him. "Just let me clean up, alright? Fifteen minutes tops."

True to her word, Hera didn't take long to shower and change into a fresh set of clothes, though she did spare a few extra moments to smooth on her favorite scented lotion—something which did not go unnoticed by Kanan, if the admiring glint in his eye was any indication. She smiled innocently as she settled beside him at the dejarik table. "Now what?"

"Now," he said, handing her a brush, "I'm trusting you to get all the tangles out without pulling me bald."

Hera froze, horrified. "That…that can happen?" He flashed her a crooked grin and she felt her face flush, embarrassed by her own gullibility. She punched him in the arm. "Idiot," she murmured fondly. "Give me that."

She took the brush from him and nudged him off the bench so that he was sitting on the floor in front of her. She raked her nails across the top of his head, pulling his hair back before she started to brush it. His hair was thick, but had a finer texture, was softer than she thought it would be. Still damp, it slipped easily through her fingers. She'd felt hair before, but having her hands in it was something different. She couldn't decide whether she liked it or not; she had a feeling she'd prefer it if she was doing something a little more…flirtatious. He shifted uncomfortably a few times as she dug the brush too hard into his scalp. She folded her lips and pressed them together, concentrating on figuring out how to brush his hair without tearing through the tangles or scraping his scalp.

"You got quiet back there," Kanan said after a while.

"Yeah," she said, hands falling still. "This is harder than it looks."

He gave an exaggerated, stunned gasp. "I have a skill that the Hera Syndulla doesn't have?"

She leaned forward, putting her mouth at his ear. "Kanan." Her voice was low and suggestive. "These hands have done things—I have skills far beyond what you can imagine. And this—" she paused, tugging at the ends of his hair, "requires no skill. Don't flatter yourself." She started brushing his hair again, grinning at his speechlessness.

"You," he managed at last, "are completely—"

"I know, I know." She fell quiet again, brushing his hair until she was reasonably confident that she'd smoothed it all out. She lifted it, preparing to brush from the bottom—she was nothing if not thorough—and then the brush caught on something she couldn't pull it through. "What in…" She mumbled under her breath. "How on earth did you—Kanan, what's this?" She'd moved the top layers of his hair aside to get a look at what the brush caught on, and found a small braid, positioned so that when he had his hair pulled back in its usual style, it was invisible. Hera's brows pulled together when she felt how he tensed up. "Kanan?"

"Uh…that's…it's…a Jedi thing. I'm so used to…I forgot about it."

"Oh." Hera was glad he had his back to her; she was sure nothing but surprise showed on her face. In the two years she'd known him, he'd only once or twice mentioned the Jedi by name, and with great pain in his eyes.

"I know you're curious," he said after a beat of silence.

"I've always been curious about you," she answered truthfully. "But I don't want to push you into talking about anything you don't want to."

He reached back and took one of her hands, gently pulling her into the floor with him. She scooted so that she was sitting cross-legged in front of him, knee-to-knee. Still holding her hand, he turned it palm-upward and used a fingertip to trace absent patterns across her skin. "I want to," he said, not meeting her eyes.

"Alright." She didn't say anything more, knowing he needed time and space to open up.

After a while, after he'd twined their fingers together to ground him to the present, he did. "It's a Jedi thing," he repeated slowly. "Or—it was." His eyes flicked up and she nodded, encouraging him to go on. "It depended on species—some had braids, some had beads or other markers. It was a way to show your status as a learner. You would re-braid it as your hair grew…add different-colored bands to mark different skills you'd learned. It was tradition for a Padawan's master to cut it off with a lightsaber when the trials had been passed."

"Trials?"

"To becoming a Jedi Knight," he explained.

Hera blinked, trying to process his pain, the loss of the life he'd never gotten to live. She reached into his hair, running the braid between her thumb and forefinger. "You kept it all this time?" She asked softly.

"No." He turned pale. "After it—after—the clones—they were—looking for me. And everybody…" He closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths. "Everybody was looking for Jedi back then. I had to…change everything about me."

"Your hair," she guessed.

He ran a hand over his head. "It was a lot shorter back then. The braid was a dead giveaway. It was the first thing to go." His face was so haunted, his eyes so distant. Hera reached for him, pulling him into her arms. He buried his face in her shoulder. "It's hard to—"

"I know, love. I know." She held tight to him and didn't say anything more about it. Kanan opening up to her about his past was as new as their relationship, and she didn't want to wreck either of those things by pushing him. She wanted to know him, know everything about him, but she was a private person herself and she understood how difficult—sometimes impossible—it was to expose your deepest, most hidden hurts.

Kanan understood something, too: that sometimes you had to open your wounds to help them heal. He'd never even come close to wanting to do that until Hera walked into his life. He hadn't been able to keep explaining about the braid earlier, but now—in the dark, in the middle of the night—it was easier. He was laying back-to-back with Hera in his bunk, her presence a soothing warmth when he'd woken from his latest nightmare. He hoped that his startled jerk hadn't woken her, too, but he could tell by the way she turned her head on the pillow, nudging her chin against his shoulder, that it had.

"Hera?"

"Mm?"

"I wanted to finish telling you—from earlier." He turned over on his side, propping up on his elbow and she rolled onto her back, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She stroked her thumb over his cheek.

"I'm listening."

"After a while, after I grew out my hair, I put the braid back in."

"Why?"

He paused for a moment, leaning into her touch. "At the Temple, having the braid cut off was a rite of passage—one I never earned."

"I don't think anyone would blame you, Kanan, for doing what it took to survive."

"No," he agreed, "but if I can honor the Jedi in some small way…I want to."

She nodded and sat up just slightly, brushing their lips together. "Thank you for telling me," she whispered. "And for what it's worth, I think you do honor the Jedi, and not just with the braid."

He doubted that very much, but the way she said it, that lovely voice so earnest and tender, almost made him believe it was true. He started to think about what it would take for him to truly lead a life that would honor the Jedi, but Hera's closeness, the way she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, distracted him beyond coherent thought.

Six Years Later

After she got word that Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka were safely on their way back from the Jedi Temple on Lothal, Hera hadn't seen a reason to stay up and wait. It would be almost four a.m. by the time they returned, and they'd no doubt be exhausted. A briefing could wait until morning, but she half-expected that Kanan would want to talk privately before then. She was right.

She heard him come in her cabin, and she was distantly aware of the lights turning on the dim setting, but she couldn't quite wake up; sleep's hold was heavy on her tonight. The bunk shifted as he sat on the edge and he whispered her name. While she was trying to drag herself to consciousness, he called her name again, this time laying a hand on her hip. The physical touch was enough to wake her fully and she blinked up at him.

"Hey," she said, voice groggy.

"Hey." He brushed the backs of his fingers along her neck and she sat up, holding his gaze. There was something in his eyes—those brilliantly teal eyes—that made her breath catch in her throat.

"What is it?" She watched how his mouth moved as he considered what to say. "Kanan, what happened?"

He shook his head, taking her hand. "I…need you to do me a favor."

"Anything," she said, a crease forming between her brows. "What's wrong, Kanan? You're scaring me."
"I'm sorry." He let out a breath he'd been holding and he smiled broadly. He leaned over to press a kiss to her forehead. "Just—here." He turned around, putting his back to her. He pulled the hair-tie from his hair and shook it free. Hera reached up to finger-comb it and he guided her hand to the braid hidden at the back of his head. "I want you to cut it out."

Hera inhaled sharply through her nose. "What?" She remembered their long-ago conversation and everything he'd said about the braid and its significance. She'd had the distinct impression he never intended to cut it out, that he felt he wasn't worthy.

"On Lothal, at the temple," he began, voice soft and awed, "It was a vision, or…something…but it was real, Hera, and—" He lifted his eyes to hers. "I was knighted—I'm—a Jedi Knight."

"What?" Hera stood up on her knees and leaned over his shoulder to look at him. "Kanan, that's—that's incredible!" She was blinking back tears she didn't want him to see, so she retreated behind him again. Her heart raced with joy—never for a second had she ever doubted he could be the Jedi she'd seen in him. She held the braid between her fingers and he wordlessly handed her a small pocket knife. It occurred to her that an easier solution would be to just unwind the braid and trim the ends to be even with the rest of his hair; cutting it off at the scalp would surely cause problems with being able to tie back the shorter strands later on. But this was important—a rite of passage, as he'd once told her. He'd waited long enough.

She swept his hair over one side of his neck, kissing the nape of it before she very carefully held the knife at the base of the braid, the blade just grazing his scalp. She sawed as evenly as she could through the tightly-wound strands until the braid was free. He immediately reached back to feel where it had been, prodding the bristly, short hairs left behind. Hera took his hand and laid the braid in his palm, curling his fingers closed over it. He held it tightly, not turning around, not saying anything. Hera put a hand on his back, not knowing where his mind was at, but wanting him to know she was there if he needed her.

"It's killing you, isn't it?" He said after a while. His voice was thick with emotion, but there was an unmistakable, teasing note underneath.

"What?"

"Having to wait all these years to say 'I told you so.'" He turned, looking at her earnestly. "You've always believed in me, Hera. You always thought that I could be a Jedi. I…wouldn't be here, wouldn't be training Ezra…none of it, if not for you."

"Kanan." She climbed out of the bunk and knelt in front of him, taking his face in her hands. "This has always been you, love. Always." She laid a hand on his chest, feeling his heart beat. "You would have always become this man, this Jedi that I am so proud of. I believe that with all of my heart."

He dropped his head, face flushing at her praise. "I don't know about that," he murmured.

"I do." She lifted his chin. "I do."

He pulled her out of the floor then, into his lap. She could tell by the apprehensive lines around his mouth, the fatigue under his eyes, that much, much more had happened on Lothal that they needed to talk about, but he didn't say anything and she didn't ask. It bordered on irresponsible, but she didn't care. It could wait another few hours.

She held him close, breathing him in as his hands roamed over her skin. Their touches were no more intimate than that—they didn't have the time or the energy for anything else. But they didn't need anything else. They had each other, and they had the pride of this moment, this triumph for Kanan. For the space of a few more hours, there would be no crew, no rebellion, no worries about what else had happened on Lothal, or what might happen. There was only closeness; her fingers tangled in his hair, his hands gently stroking her lekku.

There was only Hera Syndulla and Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight.