Not How Your Stories End

Chapter 15

AN: Hey ya'll! I'm on summer break officially now and I officially signed the lease on my new apartment so hopefully the next few months will see at least a couple more updates! Thank you all for your patience! I genuinely appreciate it more that you can imagine!

Hera didn't remember when she fell asleep, nor did she know how much time had passed when she had awoken. All she knew was that she had a crick in her neck from falling asleep in a chair, and that Kanan was shaking her awake with an urgency that hardly ever meant anything positive.

She jolted upward, blinking the sleep from her eyes and scanning the area for an attack before gradually remembering where they were.

"Hera," Kanan's hand was still on her bicep, his voice half-whispered and taking on an unusually harsh tone as he continued to nudge her into alertness, "Hera, the droid is coming back."

At that, all remaining grogginess vanished. She shook off Kanan's grip and turned her focus toward the entrance of the lobby. Just as she had been told, the medical droid was perhaps only 50 meters away, making its way toward them, slowly but surely.

Hera could feel her heart speed up. How long had she been asleep? How long had Ezra been in surgery? Was it over now? Had something went wrong? Gods, she didn't know what they'd do it he didn't pull through. He was the youngest of them all, he couldn't be the first to go.

She began to feel around, blindly searching for Kanan's hand, needing some sense of familiarity to keep her grounded. Even so, she harbored the deep feeling that he, too, was close to breaking, perhaps even closer than she.

Caught up in her thoughts, she had barely registered that the droid had begun speaking to them.

"Hello again, family of Ezra Bridger. I have come to inform you that the patient's surgical procedure is complete and to offer you an update on his condition."

Even from a few feet away, she could hear Zeb start to growl faintly from the back of his throat. Out of all of them, he was the one she was most surprised hadn't snapped yet.

"Oh, just spit it out!"

There it was.

Zeb's voice was louder than usual. It reverberated through the room in a way that could send shivers down one's spine. Hera figured that she would have chided him for that if she hadn't been feeling so anxious herself.

The droid paused for a moment in apparent shock; as if even they could sense the depth of Zeb's anger. It was a moment before the droid spoke again.

"The patient suffered a stroke during the operation."

That was it. Her worst fears realized. Something had gone wrong and there was nothing she had done to stop it. She felt Kanan's weight shift almost entirely onto her for a moment. She held him up the best she could. She wondered if he could feel her shaking.

The droid continued.

"His condition is temporarily stabilized, but I am sorry to report that he is in a vegetative state. His chances of awakening are high, but with that his chance of having sustained permanent brain damage is almost absolute. I am truly sorry"

She felt frozen to the spot. A stroke? Vegetative state? Those were things you heard about when talking about someone's aging parent or grandparent, not a seventeen-year-old boy. Brain damage. What did that even entail? Would the boy who woke up - if he woke up at all - be the same Ezra they knew before? Would he be able to recognize them? Would he ever be able to live his life as he had before?

The questions were seemingly endless, and Hera was over her head in all of the grim possibilities.

"No..." She was stumbling over her words before they even passed her lips. "N-no... that's... H-he can't... He was fine just a few days ago... He was supposed to get better... I-I don't understand!"

Tears began to burn at the corners of her eyelids, but she refused to cry. Not yet.

"I am truly sorry," the droid looked at her, seemingly pitying her. She couldn't stand it. "Meningitis is a fast-moving illness. There was little that could have been done."

At that point, she was vaguely aware that Kanan was next to her now, taking her hand and trying to sit her down.

No. She didn't need to sit down. She wasn't hysterical, she was just... confused. Confused and upset and she needed to know why. Why did this happen to their Ezra? What could he possibly have done to deserve this? He was - is - such a good kid, who has already been through so much. Why in the great galaxy did whatever power that was out there decide that he deserved this too?

She pulled away from Kanan's touch, her eyes now acutely focused on the dulled optical sensors of the droid in front of her, their cold, fixed gaze still somehow just oozing a sense of uncomfortability.

"Take me to him." It wasn't a request. For better or worse, she needed to see her kid with her own, two eyes. She was tired of feeling helpless. All she needed was that iota of control, that ability to see Ezra and sit with him and not have to rely on the words of someone else to know that he was okay.

"Hera..." Kanan started, his voice was so obviously inflated with hesitation and fear that she was certain she would snap at him. Lucky for him, the medical droid cut in before he could finish the thought.

"No, it's alright," they assured. "Please, follow me."

There was a pause before Kanan nodded, his hesitation all too obvious as he stepped back and let her forward. She closed her eyes, convincing herself that she was ready for what came next, when she felt a soft pull on her arm.

Kanan.

His expression was as soft as ever, and Hera nearly wanted to punch him for it.

"Hera, are you sure you want to do this?"

She looked at him dead on, hoping that he would be able to at least sense her resolve, even if he couldn't see it.

"Yes"

Both his expression and his grip held for a moment, and she knew he was calculating, reeling to see if this was the right choice. He must have either decided that she could handle it, or have figured out that he wouldn't be able to talk her out of it, because his fingers loosened around her bicep and he let his arm fall back to his side, giving her another small nod as she walked away.

She held her head high as she followed that medical droid down the winding halls of the underground facility. No, she wasn't hysterical. And no, she wasn't sure she could handle seeing Ezra in the way that she was going to see him, but in her heart - whether out of some sort of greater intuition or just pure stubbornness - she knew that she had to go to him. She had to be there for Ezra, and support him, even if it didn't end up making a difference at all. She had to sit there with him, and take his hand, and make sure that he knew that everything was going to be alright, even if she wasn't certain of that assertion herself.

Yes, no matter what, she was going to be there for Ezra. Because that's what a parent does for their child.