A/N: I had the idea to add to this bit by bit as inspiration strikes, progressing chronologically through the show. I love our little Ghost family, and I wish we had more Ezra/Hera moments in the show. I think our little blueberry needed mothering just as much as he needed Jedi training. So, here's another little bit of fluff for your indulgence today. A healthy dose of Kanera in the middle, too, but no kissing. *shudders* After my last update to Confrontations, I think I've gotten that out of my system for a good, long while.

Specialty

Hera Syndulla and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Things were tight in the cockpit with Hera stretched out in the floor working under console, Zeb cleaning the switches and indicators on the ceiling, Sabine adjusting the steering, and Ezra fixing the cockpit access panel. The Ghost had gotten caught in a solar flare and the ship's systems were malfunctioning in protest. Hera was as frustrated as anyone had ever seen her, and Ezra was pretty sure she was cursing under her breath as she worked. Everyone had sense enough to maintain a respectful silence.

Ezra replaced the cover over the panel he was working on and allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. He touched the display and the cockpit door slid open and then shut as he tapped again. Not bad for a Loth-rat, he thought; wiring and re-wiring door panels was something he'd been able to do from the time he was ten years old. It was somewhat of a necessity for someone who made a living on the street, dodging the Empire.

"Door's fixed," he said to no one in particular. "I'm gonna go see if Kanan needs any help on the Phantom."

"Great," Hera answered around a wrench in her mouth, still laying under the console. Her voice was tight with stress. "Before you go, check the diagnostic computer and tell me what it says, would you?"

Ezra had edged one foot out the door, hoping to make a clean getaway. "Uh, sure," he said with a short sigh. Sabine glanced back at him and smirked. He stuck his tongue out at her.

He took two and a half steps over to the diagnostic computer, just behind the starboard passenger's seat. Before he even looked at the display, he could see several rows of script and blinking indicator lights and he groaned inwardly; Hera was not going to be a happy camper. He leaned over the display and looked at the first line of script.

And he couldn't make sense of any of it.

His mouth ran dry. No, no no! Not now. His mind raced in panic. This hadn't happened in months—maybe a year—and at that, it wasn't even that bad unless he was under some kind of pressure. Like now.

"Karabast," he whispered. He thought he'd outgrown it; the problem had been so much worse when he was younger. Staring at the display, he blinked and blinked again. He squinted, begging his eyes to focus, but the Aurebesh letters flipped and changed every time he looked at them. It took every ounce of concentration to make out the first few words and form them on silent lips, testing them to make sure he wasn't going to embarrass himself when he read them aloud. It took him nearly a full minute to read the first line, and there were so many on the screen,

"Today, please," Hera snapped, sitting up on her elbows to glare at him. At the sound of her voice, unexpectedly impatient and sharp, Ezra nearly jumped out of his skin. His focus was broken; none of the words and letters made sense now. He half-turned and saw Zeb was watching him with a curious gaze, and he looked up at the Lasat with naked panic on his face.

"Give him a minute, Hera," Zeb barked reproachfully. Sabine stopped what she was doing, eyebrows nearly in her hairline, surprised to hear Zeb speaking to Hera that way. The Twi'lek's eyes widened and her cheeks turned a darker green as Zeb continued. " 'S not his fault the bloody solar flare cooked the computer."

Ezra felt heat creep up his neck and he balled his hands into fists to hide how they were shaking. He opened his mouth to say that there was nothing wrong with the computer, it was all his fault, just an illiterate Loth-rat—then Zeb stepped over and nudged him, shaking his head. The Lasat smacked the side of the computer terminal purely for show.

"Now there we go," he said, glancing at chagrined Hera. He turned back to the display and his yellow-green eyes quickly scanned through the error messages. He grunted. "If I told you half of what it says here, your head would explode. I'm gonna do a hard shut-down, then reboot and see what that gets us."

Hera nodded and flattened on her back again, lips pressed in a thin line. She looked angry, but Ezra thought he sensed something different from her—was it a flicker of guilt? He didn't know her well enough and his senses weren't attuned well enough to tell for sure. What he did know was that he was incredibly grateful to Zeb.

"Thank you," he mouthed, sagging against the wall. Zeb winked in understanding and jerked his chin toward the door. Ezra left the cockpit with a mumbled excuse and ran down the ship's corridor.

He intended to go and help Kanan with the Phantom's repairs, but his feet had a mind of their own and took him to his cabin instead. He climbed into his bunk and flopped onto his stomach. The room was cool and dark and it steadied his nerves. Ezra Bridger was a tough kid, resilient and resourceful, but he wasn't immune to the thousand insecurities inherent to being fourteen years old. He trusted his new friends with his life, he was fond of them, but admitting he sometimes occasionally had a little trouble reading was not something he was down for. Sabine would make fun of him for sure, and that was a horrific thought all by itself; never mind what Kanan would think.

Ezra groaned and rolled his eyes. "This is great. I always wanted to be the village idiot."

"I'll be…somewhere," Ezra mumbled as he bolted out the cockpit. Zeb watched him go, frowning, then he turned to Hera. He took a few steps over to where he was working, hooked his foot under her ankle, and yanked her out from under the console with a jerk of his leg.

"Hey! What in—"

"You need to take a walk, take a break or something, he growled. "You're not acting like yourself and you shouldn't have snapped at the kid that way."

Hera sat up, eyes flashing. "You think I don't know that?" Again, her tone was sharp. When she heard herself, she sighed, deflating. A gloved hand swiped across her forehead.

Sabine's eyes shifted uncomfortably. She was as unaccustomed to Zeb showing open concern for Ezra as she was to seeing Hera in anything but an understanding, if not nurturing, disposition. "Let's all take a minute," she said cautiously.

There was a beat of silence. Zeb dropped into the co-pilot's chair with a sigh. "I was watching him when he went to check the computer. Kid has trouble reading."

Hera blinked, processing. "And I was too fixated on the Ghost to notice that," she said. She clenched and unclenched her teeth, anxious.

"You spooked 'im. Pretty bad."

"I think she gets it, Zeb," Sabin interjected, folding her arms. She glared at him and mouthed Stop it.

Hera didn't pay any attention to them. "I'm going out," she said stiffly. She pushed up from the floor. Sabine stared out the cockpit windshield; the Ghost was parked on a deserted plain, kilometers away from any town or village.

"Where?"

"Out."

"Oh, okay." Sabine very nearly sounded meek.

Not thirty seconds after Hera left, the internal com squawked, Kanan on the other end.

"Hey, Hera, I'm trying to re-wire the—"

"Hera's gone," Sabine interrupted. Kanan made no immediate reply; she figured that information left him pretty nearly speechless. Hera was not one to leave a task undone, especially when that task was repairing the Ghost.

"What do you mean 'gone?'" He finally asked.

"Uh." Zeb glanced at Sabine and they both shrugged. "She went out."

There was another brief pause and Sabine imagined that Kanan was looking out into the empty field surrounding them, as she had only moments before. "Out where?"

"Out."

"Oh," he said, nonplussed. "Okay."

Sabine cleared her throat. "If I were you, I'd go and—"

"Thank you for that," Kanan said, annoyed and decidedly ungrateful for the unsolicited advice. "Spectre One out."

By the time Kanan found her—which didn't take too long—her face was no longer flushed hot with shame and upset. Still, Hera found it difficult to meet his eye as he sat beside her atop the hull of the ship. He was far enough away to keep from invading her personal space, but close enough that she could reach for him if she wanted to.

She did.

She pulled off her gloves and held one hand palm-up on her knee. Without a word, he clasped it firmly, anchoring her to him, which was exactly what she needed. They sat silent for nearly half an hour as the late-afternoon sky began to take on the warm glow of evening.

Kanan was watching her carefully, she knew. He was usually very keenly aware when something was bothering her, either through his own powers of observation, sharply honed over the last six years, or through the Force. He'd told her once that her unique presence in the Force was like an unwavering light, warm and steadfast; she wondered whether it was more like a radioactive meltdown right now.

"Today has been…" Hera let the sentence trail off, aggravated that her voice sounded so raw.

"Difficult," Kanan supplied quietly.

"Difficult," she agreed with a tight nod. She made a fist with one hand over and over, trying to control the tempest of anxiety and emotion she'd been choking down all day. And then, to her horror and dismay as much as to Kanan's, hot tears started rolling down her cheeks.

"I—do not—like this," she managed through clenched teeth, angrily swiping at her face.

"Well then, stop." She punched him in the leg, unimpressed by his insensitive response. "You know I'm a sympathetic crier, Hera," he said edgily, not quite looking at her.

"You most certainly are not," she retorted with an indignant sniff.

"When it's you, I am."

"Kanan Jarrus," she laughed, still wiping tears from beneath her eyes, "that's one of the sweetest things you've ever said to me."

"I do what I can." He squeezed her hand and said no more as she took several shaky breaths to try and pull herself together.

"Sorry," she mumbled, wiping the last of her tears away.

"Why don't you tell me what's bothering you the most?"

She gave him a sharp glance. "You mean beside the fact that I almost killed us all when I couldn't get any power from the Ghost? Other than that?"

His eyes went wide. "You…said you had you had some engine thrust after the solar flare."

"Yeah, I lied, Kanan. Until the last thousand meters, I had nothing. We were freefalling and I had no control. I just didn't want the rest of you to know that we were actively crashing."

"I…" he trailed off, no doubt contemplating his most recent brush with death. "I can see how that would wreck your nerves."

She decided not to mention how, after they landed, she calmly walked out of the cockpit and into the 'fresher, where she threw up from sheer anxiety. She rubbed her forehead. "That's not the worst part," she said wearily.

"You almost crashing the ship isn't the worst part?"

"Well, it was the worst part, but it's not—it's not what's upsetting me the most." She felt a lump rising in her throat and she swallowed hard a few times to regain control. Kanan waited patiently. "When we were doing repairs, I was just so in my head and still—my hands were still shaking, Kanan," she said. She turned her eyes to his and they were so full of compassion it made her heart ache. Then her face flooded hot with shame and she looked away. "I snapped at Ezra."

Kanan's eyes narrowed as he tried to make sense of why that would upset her so profoundly. "I'm sure—"

"It was bad." She mumbled in a rush to continue. "It was so bad, in fact, that Zeb took me to task over it. Zeb."

Kanan made a sucking sound with his lips over his teeth. "Oh."

"You should have seen the look in his eyes," she groaned, referring to Ezra. Her own eyes started to well up again. "You know how jumpy and unsure he was when he came to us. He needs compassion and patience and encouragement and I just—blew it—and I—"

"Had a really, really bad day? Were a little tense after you managed to save us all from dying in a horrific crash?" He reached over and lifted her chin with one finger. "Hera, you are the most patient and compassionate person I know. It's something I've always envied about you. I've seen the way you are with Ezra and Sabine, even Zeb. You have such a gift for putting people at ease. One imperfect moment doesn't change that."

She looked her head, humbled by his praise. "That is a rose-colored appraisal, Kanan Jarrus," she murmured, chiding.

His mouth twitched into a smile. "It's what I see."

She smiled back, remembering that phrase as one she'd spoken to him long ago. She leaned against him, laying her head on his shoulder and then she sighed. "I need to go talk to him."

"Ezra's a tough kid, and he'd have to be stupid, too, not to know how much you care about him. It'll be okay."

"I hope you're right."

"Of course I'm right."

She laughed softly. "You don't think we're screwing up the kids?"

"No way." He snorted. "They could have done a lot worse than us."

"That's scary, Kanan."

He paused a beat. "Yeah. Yeah, it kind of is."

Ezra had discovered, early on in his stay on the Ghost, that there was a useless little access hatch in one of the upper ventilation shafts, and that hatch opened directly to the top of the hull. He shimmied and squeezed his way through the Ghost, still stinging from his earlier embarrassment and wanting to be alone. He was just about to kick open the top hatch when he heard voices above him. It was Kanan and Hera. He froze, unsure what he should do. He couldn't go up there, obviously, but he wasn't sure he could worm his way back down the ventilation system without making too much noise and alerting them to his presence. Naturally, he opted to stay still and eavesdrop.

He wasn't sure what he expected to hear them talking about. About the disaster of a day they'd all had, maybe, or what to do next. Worst-case scenario, he thought he'd hear them talking about how he couldn't read properly. What he heard instead was Hera Syndulla, ace pilot and heart of their little patched-together family, almost actually crying because the thing that upset her most about her "difficult" day wasn't almost crashing the Ghost—it was her impatient treatment of him.

That blew Ezra's mind.

As he listened to her talk to Kanan, he thought back to the morning when they'd been climbing through Lothal's upper atmosphere and then just jolted and plunged back down to the planet. Ezra was in the hall when it happened, and he heard Hera barking orders as she tried to stabilize the ship, but she didn't lose her cool. She just handled it while everyone else was in various stages of freaking out. The ship set down hard, skidding almost half a kilometer before it finally stopped, and Hera was immediately on her feet and checking on everyone, as calm as if they hadn't just fallen out of the sky. It never occurred to Ezra for one small second that she'd had almost no control over the ship, or that she was terrified out of her mind. Not even Kanan managed to pick up on that, and he knew her better than anyone. It made a lot more sense now, her sour mood earlier. She wasn't just preoccupied with getting the Ghost fixed; as Kanan said, her nerves were completely wrecked.

And still, she was concerned about not having been patient enough with Ezra.

Holy kriff.

Ezra lay still for a few moments after he heard Kanan and Hera go back inside. Idly he wondered why he was still surprised to find himself surrounded by genuinely nice people. He realized he was always kind of waiting to find out there was some catch to all of this, despite the fact that he felt more and more at home every day. Ezra buzzed his lips in a sigh and pushed his hair out of his face. He could sit and analyze his trust issues, but that'd probably be uncomfortable, and he'd had enough uncomfortable for one day. He started sliding his way back through the ventilation shaft as quickly as he could. He knew that Hera would be looking for him soon, if she wasn't already. He was hoping he'd be able to approach her first.

He got his wish when he misjudged where he was at in the ship and tumbled through the hatch in the common room ceiling. He landed in a heap in front of the dejarik table, where Hera was sitting with a cup of caf. She cocked her head to the side, amused rather than irritated by his sudden appearance.

He scrambled to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Heeey, Hera, I was just, um—"

"So I see." She smiled. "Missed your exit."

He grinned. "Still getting the lay of the land." A quick silence fell, and Hera looked down at her caf self-consciously, tapping the mug. She took a breath, preparing to speak, but Ezra cut her off. "Hey—are you okay?" A look of total bewilderment crossed the Twi'lek's face, and Ezra hurried to explain why he was asking. "No, I mean, it's just—I mean, this morning was crazy, you know? With the ship and stuff. And that was totally freaky—but you were just so calm and—I mean, checking on everybody else after we landed and I don't think—I don't know if anyone—I didn't—asked if you were okay."

Hera opened her mouth and then closed it again, touched and a little taken aback by what he'd said. "I was very shaken up," she admitted finally, "but I'm okay now."

"Oh! Good." Ezra bobbed his head up and down. "That's good—I'm glad."

She smiled again and then her eyebrows pulled together. She leaned forward on her elbows. "Ezra, about earlier—"

He waved a hand. "It's all good, Hera, for real."

She hesitated. "I really didn't mean—"

"I know. Really. It's no big deal." He paused, shifting his weight. "I just—I want you to know I can read. Just sometimes I have trouble. Not a lot anymore. Just sometimes."

"You don't have to defend yourself to me, Ezra." A slow smile started on her lips. "I grew up speaking both Basic and Ryl and when I was old enough to read and write, I learned both languages at the same time. I was okay with the letters, but the numbers really threw me. Aurebesh and Ryl look so different in print, and it took me forever to distinguish between the two and learn them." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "A few years ago, I almost killed Kanan when I filled a syringe with the wrong dosage of painkillers. He was beat up so badly and I wasn't in great shape myself and I was too anxious to think straight—I could not read the numbers on the side of the syringe, so I just guessed. I was almost halfway through administering the dose when I realized it was wrong."

Ezra's mouth fell open and he laughed incredulously. "You're kidding. Did you tell Kanan?"

"So that he could harp on 'that one time you almost murdered me' for the rest of our lives?" She folded her hands primly. "Oh, absolutely not."

"Yeah, I don't blame you." He tossed his head, flipping his hair out of his eyes. "Hey, you're not going to tell Kanan, are you? About—"

"Not if you don't want me to," she said, "but I think you should, when you're ready."

Ezra nodded slowly. "Not today, though."

She gave him an understanding smile. "Not today."

"Cool." Ezra shuffled his way over to the bench and sat down beside Hera, tapping the dejarik table. "Zeb's been helping me work on my game," he said with a sly grin. Hera sat her caf aside.

"You're on."

She turned the table on and the pieces sprang to life and they didn't talk anymore. After a long and draining day, they were both happy to sit in companionable silence, grateful for the friendship of the other, and grateful for the chance to live through another disaster another day.