Work Text:
When Caleb finally joins the group of younglings (though he's hesitant to call it a group--Katooni and Ganodi hardly count as that), they are lingering cautiously outside of Appo's suite. Katooni's eyes light up when she spots Caleb, though the wringing in her fingers does not stop.
Ganodi does slow her pacing, though tugs on her padawan beads anxiously. Katooni sports a set of her own too, and they sway as she approaches Caleb. Like the few younglings who managed to survive Order 66, they were granted the rank of padawans.
"We've been waiting for hours. He didn't come down when we called him for breakfast."
Caleb nods stiffly and presses the ringing mechanism. He waits--nothing.
He knocks afterwards. Still--nothing.
A flood of anxiety erupts in his stomach, but he wills it down as he thinks of the first logical thing that comes to his mind.
It could be that he just can't hear them. These rooms used to belong to older Masters, and were more spacious than the others.
The Jedi had granted it to Appo to give him some privacy after Order 66. And mainly because the previous occupant, one of the many fallen Jedi, was dead.
Caleb was furious at first. Fury bordering the Dark Side--or so he'd been told. But more frankly, he was enraged that their Order, still reeling from Order 66, let a clone live with them.
The sentiment was shared amongst some of the others.
They were broken--the entire Order. A sea of missing limbs, of cloth bandages (because Force they'd run out of bacta), and funding nearly drained.
The Sith being revealed as the Chancellor did little to nothing to help their reputation. The Galaxy blamed the Jedi for the Clone Wars.
More than they blamed the clones.
And Caleb, in his anger, had let everyone know his thoughts about a clone living in the temple. A clone who ran down defenseless younglings with his blasters, who led his men into alcoves and crannies Caleb and his friends used to hide in when they were little.
His home had been tainted with ghost that would not leave. They were still removing the stains. Every week someone found a new body.
He didn't care that Appo shot Skyawlker. He didn't care that he had a supposed chip in his head.
He just cared that Appo was there, and he was the closest thing he could direct his anger at. He wanted him gone.
At that moment, he wanted Appo dead.
And then the next day, he walked into Appo swinging by his neck on a rope.
Caleb hasn't touched the Force since then. But he thinks he'll have to use it today if Appo doesn't leave his room.
"It's been almost four hours." Ganodi speaks in the same way she sounded when they cut Appo down, and told them he had a small pulse.
'Okay," Caleb says--Kanan--he likes that name now. He used it when he was on the run, and uses it when he needs to be strong. Caleb hid when Depa died. Kanan helped him survive.
"Stand back."
There is an dread about them as Kanan focuses his will on the door. He doesn't mean to tear it clean off. But the Force is new to him, and since Depa died he can't regulate as well as he used to.
He closes his eyes, and let's the Force guide him.
It's not as clean as he wants it to be. The door rolls off of the sliding mechanism like foil. The metal makes a loud, ugly sound. Katooni covers where Caleb thinks her ears must be, while Ganodi closes her's shut.
Caleb steps over the mess, and immediately finds Appo on the couch. Appo, who's eyes are closed. The sadness has scarred him permanently. Even with his eyes shut, there are heavy bags under them, purple and bruised. He looks older than he should be, and it's not because of the accelerated aging. He looks small on the couch, eaten by the large black hoodie he's wearing and the beige blanket on him.
"Look, there's pills!"
Caleb is free of the mess in a second. Katooni beats him to it though. She's shaking Appo like a rag doll. Ganodi joins too.
"Whoa whoa whoa, I'm awake. I'm awake! Is Coruscant on fire?"
Appo doesn't move like a regular clone anymore. A regular clone would have been up and alert the moment the doors came flying open. Appo is sluggish in his movement, pushing himself up by his elbows as he groggily takes in the wreck of his living room.
He removes his hood, and with it a headphones. His hair is curly, and a bit unkempt.
"You weren't answering the door. We--we thought when we came in, something happened. You weren't waking up." Katooni stammers, "You were supposed to come down for breakfast."
"I'm sorry. I'm on some new sleeping pills. Heavy stuff. heavier than what our medics used to give us to knock out," mechanically, Appo nods towards the half empty bottle, then looks at his door, "I guess they did the job." Caleb scrutinizes the medication. Appo used to scream at night, and he'd heard something about them giving him something to put him to sleep. Caleb couldn't imagine why they would do that.
He thinks Appo is a minor inconvenience away from swallowing the entire thing.
"What were you listening to?" Ganodi doesn't ask when she sits on his couch and takes his headset herself. It's award, maneuvering them on her ears. But she manages.
"It's pretty!" She screams.
They wince.
"Sorry," she apologizes, then says quietly, "this is pretty."
He's less tense around them. Good. He used to not even be able to look at the younglings without feeling guilt. And when Caleb yelled at him? Well that pushed him over the edge. Caleb feels he might as well have given him the rope.
"You should answer your comms. We get scared you know. What if you--" "Caleb, stop." Katooni hisses. She's on her knees with Appo's tooka in her arms, eyes pleading with Caleb to just be normal. Her expression a reminder that they were all hurt.
"What have you three done?" They forgot the door was busted in. Master Kenobi stands outside, jaw dropped and hands on his hips. Caleb is a bit guilty. From what he understands, Kenobi is still cleaning up Skywalker's mess.
"Master, he wasn't answering his door. We commed him earlier...We thought he..." Katooni being the sensible of them all speaks. But even her words fail her.
They do not need to speak to tell Master Kenobi what's befallen them. Why they did what they did. What has transpired. Appo looks tired, his hair curly. Like he hasn't moved in years.
"Goodness, you look just like Cody..." He didn't mean to say it, and by the time it's out he looks so bewildered and disappointed in himself all at once.
"Sir?" "Please forget I said that. Children, out. You have your duties," he fixes his gaze on them, and then at the mess of the door, "And Appo, we will have someone fox the door. I am so sorry."
Katooni returns the tooka to Appo, and threads her fingers in his before she's pulled away by Obi-Wan's presence. Ganodi is no different. She takes the headphones off and hands them back to their owner, squeezing Appo's hand before she leaves.
Caleb lingers, blue eyes locked on brown ones. The last time he turned his back on someone clearly in need, they died.
"Caleb," Obi-Wan says, "We must leave. He will be okay."
It's deeper than that. Caleb is forming an attachment, and everyone knows.
Appo included.
"It's alright," he mumbles, voice lacking all confidence. But stern as it can be.
"Be here...when we get back?" Caleb sounds small, and he feels small. He has a hundred and one things to say. To demand.
They should take the medicine away. His hoodie has strings. His blaster is on his table. Caleb could walk away and never see Appo again, and that terrifies him more than it should.
"Yeah kid, I promise."
Experimentally, Kanan reaches into the Force. It's the only way he'll truly know. When he last did this, when he told Appo to just die, he'd felt a reassurance in the Force that let him know Appo would do just that.
"You mean it?"
"I do." And Appo really means it. The Force is reassuring him, again. But this time, it's different. It's calm, warmth beckoning him back.
He nods and follows Obi-Wan out. He thinks he hears Deppa telling him it will be okay.