A Distraction
I finished it in time! This is my submission for Rogue Robin. It was inspired by this post, and I think the fact that we had some great Hera and Chopper interaction in the latest episode helped me in writing this as well. I also hope there is enough of an open ending, I have a few ideas of how if can continue so...if anyone needs help I can always let you know my ideas haha xD
Summary: A small Hera learns about the death of her mother and in distracting herself from this harsh truth, she stumbles upon a crashed y-wing and uncovers an droid...
I hope y’all like it!
Fic below the cut:
“Your mother has fallen…”
The words echoed around Hera’s brain. They couldn’t be real, they just couldn’t. She knew the war was real, she had never thought otherwise. And many of her people had fallen. This was a fact of life, of her life. But not her mother. Her mother, so kind, so strong. Hera wanted to be like her when she grew up, wanted to see the pride in her face as Hera got her first ship and flew it, as she did some good in this world. Now that dream could never come true.
“Hera…”
Her father’s voice was broken, layered with pain, nothing like the commanding general she heard almost constantly. It was further proof of the truth. That her mother was really gone…and she was never coming back.
The realization weighed on Hera’s chest and she couldn’t take it. She couldn’t face it.
So she ran. Ignoring her father’s calls after her, ignoring the concerned glances she received from those she passed. She had no destination, she just needed to get away. She couldn’t think about this, she couldn’t face the truth. Not now…maybe not ever.
Only the tightness in her chest made her slow. Tears had built up in her eyes, and now they flowed freely no matter how much she tried to stifle the pain. Trying not to think about it, she looked up and saw a crashed y-wing.
Plenty of them had crashed on Ryloth, their pilots still inside. Hera didn’t want to think about death, about how she couldn’t stop it. What better way to distract herself than with a ship?
Walking carefully, so as to not step on any debris with her bare feet, Hera slowly made her way to the ship. There wasn’t a lot let intact, but maybe she could learn more about how the parts fit together and worked anyway.
Pulling aside some scrap metal, she caught sight of what looked to be part of the engine. But as she looked at it, she realized it was too fried and damaged to be of much use to her. Still, she imagined how it would look if it was whole and working, how it could power a ship and send it flying into the sky.
Rummaging through the rubble and thinking of flying did its job. Hera was distracted from the reality of her loss. The tears on her cheeks had dried and her mind was fully occupied by searching.
As she pulled away another piece of rubble, she froze. There was a cockpit of sorts, but it was outside of the ship…and it wasn’t empty. She couldn’t see a lot of the droid, it was buried in the ship, but even as she looked at it, she was sure he had quite a bit of damage. But as her hand rested on the top of it for a moment, a desire built up in her chest. This droid may be too far gone. It may never turn back on. But it could…and that was enough for Hera.
Pulling aside as much debris as she could from the droid’s cocoon, Hera grabbed onto the droid itself and pulled as hard as she could. It shook a little, a good sign that it wasn’t totally stuck in there. Still, it took her a good deal of maneuvering, pulling, and prying to finally get him out and on the ground.
Once she did, she finally had a good look at it. A C1-10 P droid…quite an old model, but it had still worked at one point. It wasn’t as beat up as it could’ve been, but it still wasn’t completely intact. It would need a lot of work…
The next few days, Hera focused solely on fixing the droid, on finding any spare parts that could possibly replace its destroyed ones – and even though they may not have been made for the model, in theory they should work. Some things were only damaged, it’s circuits for one, and all she could do was make sure all of the connections were correct. She didn’t have the tools to do much more than that, but she had hope. Especially as it slowly started to look more and more like a complete droid – more on the inside than the outside, but she had managed to make the outside look a little more put together than it had before.
As she replaced the power cell with a slightly newer one, she took a deep breath then pressed the button to turn it on.
Silence followed and disappointment washed over her. All that work, and for what? She couldn’t give it life, she couldn’t make it work. Not with what she had on hand at least…
Then a humming filled the air and Hera looked up quickly and as she placed a hand on the droid, she felt the vibrations. It beeped at her, and a smile formed on Hera’s face.
She had done it. She hadn’t been able to save her mom…nothing could bring her back. But she had saved this droid.
“Welcome back,” she said to it. “You were in a crash, but I fixed you up…well, as much as I could, at least.”
The droid responded with a beep, though in reality it sounded more like a grumble than a beep.
Hera couldn’t understand what it was saying, she hadn’t seen many droids before, but as the droid grunted more she was determined to learn what it was saying.
“I’m Hera, by the way, and you’re a C1-10 P, right?” C1-10 P...that was no way to call a droid. Not one she had put so much time into, not one she had saved. No, this droid was her friend now, it needed a name.
It grunted some more and she tilted her head, absent mindedly writing its model number in the dirt at her feet. Catching sight of it, she frowned, it almost looked like…
“Chop…” The word came out of her mouth before she could think.
The droid beeped again and she looked up at that.
“You like that?” she asked.
It grunted and she smiled. “Chop…I like it. Welcome to Ryloth Chop. We are going to have lots of fun together. And one day, when I get my own ship, maybe you can help me fly it. Every ship needs a droid, right?”
Another grunt.
Despite not being able to understand what it was saying, Hera couldn’t help but feel like maybe it was agreeing. And as she got up and started walking to stretch out the muscles in her legs, she noted that the droid was following her.
“We are going to be good friends, Chop, aren’t we?”
It grunted once again, but Hera took it for a yes and nodded to herself. Yes, they would be good friends, good friends for a long time…
