Who: Kanan Jarrus & Agent Carolina When: May 2nd Where: Hospital room What: Carolina visits Kanan after he ends up in the hospital Rating/Warnings: Low/cursing and injuries? Status: Complete on posting
It had taken longer than she had anticipated to get the mess cleaned up at Chateau Katou, but it was still well within visiting hours when Carolina finally arrived at the hospital. The woman at the front desk directed her upstairs with what somewhat confusing directions. Hospitals in general felt like mazes meant to ensure only the people who worked there could get from one section to another without taking a wrong turn somewhere. Sure, there were name plates at nearly every intersection, but none of them included arrows to indicate in which direction the department was located.
Leaning against the wall of the elevator, Carolina remembered the last time she had been in a hospital. At least this time the person she was visiting was conscious. She could only imagine what kind of injuries Kanan had received in the fight after seeing what had happened to the house. Katou had not seemed to be injured other than the graze on his shoulder. On the other hand, Kanan’s injuries had been bad enough to warrant a stay in the hospital. How much of the blood they had cleaned had been his? Her hands curled into fists.
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, depositing its passenger into the sterile front room. A quick word with the man sitting at the nurse’s station and Carolina had a better set of directions that took her straight to her destination. She paused just out of sight of the open door, closing her eyes and taking a breath to calm down and don her poker face. It would not do Kanan any good to see shock at his injuries or the anger that still boiled beneath the surface at the assholes that had done this to him.
Carolina had both arrested and killed a number of smugglers and dealers while on active duty and had not thought twice about it before today. It had been her job and her duty to carry out those missions for nearly half her life, but she had already resigned her commission. Kanan’s name was not on any of her mission lists or reports, and even if she were to return to the service, she would make sure that it would stay that way. It would be the least she could do after everything he had done to keep her sane last month.
Green eyes opened again, this time with an edge of determination. The butterflies churning in her stomach had been firmly put down. Adjusting the strap of the messenger bag on her shoulder, Carolina stepped forward into the doorway. One hand went up to rasp her knuckles on the open door as she let herself in. “Knock, knock.”
Not all of the blood on the floor of Chateau Katou had been Kanan’s, a good portion of it had probably come from the dead body that had been dragged inside and left to rest while Katou - and later Kanan - struck a deal with the two surviving hitmen. The rest, however, had indeed been Kanan’s. He looked as though he’d gone a few rounds with an angry gorilla. Well, at least his face did. Nearly his entire face was covered in deep purple bruises and was cut up thanks to taking a header through the window. The worst of these, were one which crossed over the bridge of his nose, connecting his eyebrows together. The other cut traced over his cheekbone down to his jaw. Stitches held those portions of his face together. At least the swelling had subsided by this point, as had the tenderness so that resting his head against the hospital bed’s pillow didn’t quite feel like grinding his skin against sandpaper.
There was an angry looking red ring around Kanan’s throat, looking like a strange twisted sort of choker. It looked worse than it actually was. Although his voice was a little horse when he greeted Carolina as she entered. “Well aren’t you a site for sore eyes,” he gave her a rueful smile. No one liked visiting hospitals, especially after a friend of theirs had their ass beaten in on their own front lawn. He had to show Carolina that he was doing better than he looked. The morphine in the IV drip helped that considerably and he was thankful that his other wounds were bandaged and hidden under a very unflattering hospital gown.
“Pull up a chair,” he said making a gesture to a seat by the bed. “Have a seat and tell me the house isn’t nearly as bad as I think it is.”
The sight of Kanan's face made Carolina's fists curl in rage and she struggled to maintain her composure. There was nothing for her to hit or to kill in a hospital room that would help the situation in the slightest, but damn if she didn't want to do it anyway. The reason she hated visiting hospitals was not because of the sick people or the confusing layout, but rather the fact that there was nothing she could do to help the person heal faster once they had arrived. The only thing left to nonmedical personnel was to sit, wait, and if they were lucky, entertain the injured for a few hours before visiting hours were over.
One thing that Kanan did not need was for someone to pity him or make him feel as if he needed to comfort her instead of the other way around. Carolina did not trust herself to smile, so she settled for a half-curl of the lips at his greeting. “Always a charmer.” The messenger bag went in the chair he had indicated but she remained standing. She had spent entirely too long scrubbing blood out of wood while trying to only use one side of her body and her back was making its complaints known. The sturdy back of a hospital visitor’s chair was a far cry from a pillow or an ice pack.
Now that she was closer, green eyes assessed the wounds she could see above the covers and gown. It was easier to look at the bruises and cuts if she treated them just as she would any injury a Marine on her squad had received, so she did. The mess in the living room hinted as to the origins of most of his wounds, but her gaze lingered on the angry red ring around Kanan’s neck. He said he had been jumped. She would bet dollars to donuts that they had started with an attempted garrote. “The house will be fine. Katou and I cleaned up most of the blood this afternoon. You, on the other hand…” A smirk. “Those are going to be some rather roguish scars once they heal.”
“A rogue needs roughish scars,” Kanan said. The morphine in his I.V. made his smile almost sloppy. He kind of felt a little sloppy. However, given the options of feeling sloppy and being in the pain he knew he should be in, Kanan would opt for the former.
He noted the slight upward curl of Carolina’s mouth as she looked him over, taking stock of his injuries. He appreciated her not fawning and telling him how awful he looked. He knew he looked like hell. His hospital room had its own bathroom and he’d been up a couple of times to take a piss, because like hell was he going to resort to using a bedpan. On his first trip, Kanan had opportunity to take stock of his own injuries and compare them to what he thought he had and how they felt. After taking that look, he was very thankful for the painkillers.
Carolina wasn’t one for fawning, though. Never in the time Kanan had gotten to know her, had she ever given that impression. She couldn’t ignore the way he looked and even if analysing, even to herself, what his injuries were, her stoic restraint helped Kanan as well.
He saw her eyes linger on his throat, felt their presence even more so than he felt the lingering sting. He watched her make her assessment. Part of him wanted to tell her she was right - the assholes had tried to strangle him first. However, he knew that wouldn’t have made the situation any better for her, especially after cleaning up his blood from the living room floor. So, he said nothing about it.
“Thanks for stopping by the house,” he said. “And for checkin’ in on Katou. Kid seemed alright when I saw him last, but, I didn’ really have the frame of mind to tell how he was handlin’ things. Is he doin’ ok? You didn’t see anyone...hangin’ around, did you?”
“Well, you’ll get them all right.” Carolina’s gaze returned to Kanan’s face. The painkillers were definitely doing their job considering the rather dopey-looking smile he was sporting. “Along with one hell of a story to go with them.” The former CO had a thing for scars, too. To her, it was a sign that the person had truly lived their life instead of playing it safe. Although, most of her own scars had come from climbing too-tall trees and hopping one too many neighbor’s fences in her youth than wounds she had received in battle. A miracle, considering she was usually the first one to run directly at the enemy.
“The kid’s fine. He has a scratch on his shoulder, but nothing else. Things were pretty quiet by the time I got there, but I told him I’d stick around your place for a while, just in case.” Carolina paused there, debating if she should continue. Kanan was definitely on all of the happy drugs and she did not want his decision to be affected by that. She sighed. Given the man’s nature, a little bit of morphine would probably not change things. Might as well just come out and say it.
“Kanan...you know I was a Marine. My squad and I, we were tasked with a lot of black ops. Some of them involved people in your line of work. My team, well, we were good. A lot of those people ended up on my list.” Green eyes were steady as they looked the man directly in the eye, trying to judge his reaction. “I don’t regret counting them. I also understand if you’d rather I walk away after you’re out of this place.”
Kanan relaxed hearing there was no one lurking around the house. He knew by now that Katou was more than capable of defending himself - not only himself but the two of them - but Kanan still felt better knowing that there weren’t reinforcements lurking around. All the kid had done was protect Kanan. It wasn’t fair, but that was life. It was never fair. Both of them knew that all too well. They were in this together now, and Kanan would be damned if he left Katou out to dry now.
“Thanks for checking up,” he said only now being able to lay back against his pillows a little more at ease.
He didn’t say anything more as he listened to Carolina make her admission about what she had done as a Marine. Maybe it was the morphine, but Kanan didn’t understand at first what it was she was talking about. Of course he had known she was a Marine. Then slowly the gravity of her words and what she meant seeped through the dope and settled into his brain.
He met her gaze straight on. “You did your job,” he said. “People in my line of work know the risk, and believe me there is a lot of risk.” The fact that he was currently in a hospital bed was proof enough of that. “We all know that sooner or later the law may catch up with us. Some of us are smart or lucky enough and manage to retire old and rich.” Like Janus for instance. “But it’s rare. Most of us end up dead or in prison. It’s the risk we accept when we get into this line of work. I can’t be mad at you for doing your job, for upholding the law. I’m a lot of things, Carolina, but I’m not stupid enough to hold a grudge against you for something like that. If anything, you should be mad at me for being a low life lawbreaker.” He cracked a smile at her. “So, we good?”
“You’re wrong about one thing.” The tension that had been in her shoulders since she had first received Kanan’s text message this morning was finally starting to fade. The hard-backed hospital chair was starting to sound better to suddenly-tired limbs, but she remained standing. “My job wasn’t to uphold the law. It was to protect my country, regardless of the laws that we broke.” Carolina did not know a single country that did not have some form of a law against trespassing, stealing, and murder, but to their enemies, that was exactly what they had done. She was a soldier, not a fool. There were two sides to every war. She just happened to have been on the other side.
“I guess we are.” Shaking her head, Carolina turned away from the bed and headed for the bag she had brought. How did he do it? If someone had hurt anyone from her unit, even if it had been his or her job at the time, she did not think she would be so quick to forgive that person. She would definitely not want that person anywhere near her unit again. Even if it was only a Dream. If she ever met the asshole who had shot Maine in the throat in real life, she knew she would not need much provoking to knock his lights out. Yet here was Kanan, giving her a goofy smile and trusting her to look after his friend.
A few moments later she returned to his bedside, a rectangular package in her hand wrapped in what looked to be a pair of jeans. “Here. Sorry about the wrapping, but I didn’t want to stop on the way here if I didn’t have to. I tried to bring you the matching set of comics as well, but you wouldn’t believe how fiercely that rookie guards his collection.” Carolina shook her head at the memory. Maybe if she had not been as injured she would have made more progress, but it was a moot point. Next time she would just ask him where he bought his comics.
If Carolina were to question Kanan’s quick “forgiveness” (he didn’t believe there was anything to forgive), he would have given her a confused look. The fact of the matter was, Carolina hadn’t gone after anyone important to him. Janus was still alive and well, Lina had left the life of underworld crime long behind her and Leliana was following suit. All three were alive and happy. If she had any of them on her “list”, well, that may have been a different story. He couldn’t hate her for capturing - or killing - people he didn’t even know. People that probably would have not thought twice about killing her or even Kanan himself if it served them in the end.
Someone had gone after someone he knew. Though, Katou hadn’t been the direct target of the attack, he had been caught in the line of fire and had gotten involved just because he happened to know Kanan and because Kanan happened to reside at his house. That made Kanan’s blood boil. As soon as the effects of the morphine had worn off, he was going to want retaliation of his own.
Kanan watched curiously as Carolina fished around her bag. He looked equally as curious at the jean-wrapped package she handed to him. “Points for originality,” he quipped before removing the rectangular box from within. As he did he came face to face with...himself.
Sort of.
In his hands was a box containing a 12-inch action figure of the version of him from the Dreams. He stared at it for a moment, blinking. It wasn’t every day you found your own action figure. A grin crawled across his face. “Holy shit.” He said looking up at Carolina. “Where the fuck did you find this?”
"I figured this way I wouldn't 'accidentally' forget to bring you pants." Carolina quipped right back. She glanced at the doorway before reluctantly pulling over the hard-backed chair. It was not nearly as comfortable as the edge of the hospital bed, but it afforded a better vantage point to see anyone entering the room. Given the circumstances, it was probably best that someone not doped up on painkillers kept one eye on the door to see if anyone came into the room. She did, however, make sure to sit on the very edge of the non-existent bottom cushion.
The look on Kanan's face made her grin in return. "Had a bit of time to kill at the store and I happened to spot a familiar face down one of the asiles." She had never been the biggest Star Wars fan, regardless of the day she was born, but she had recently begun to find she had a renewed interest in the series. Funny how that worked. "I guess this would make you more of a rebel than a rogue." Okay, so maybe humor was not her forte, but she had managed to make him smile. That had to count for something, right?