This is the last part. Thank you to the people who reached out to me and asked me to finish this story. Your kind words mean more than you will ever know. I hope the ending is everything you wanted.
Jyn’s life had included a lot of pandemonium. Saw favored it. Jobs on the fringe could benefit from it. Being around criminals sometimes organically produced it, and in Wobani, it was the closest thing they ever had to entertainment.
None of that experience prepared her for the moment when the rebels realized their leader was alive. Their tiny group barely made it to the edge of the landing pad before being swarmed by the rebels working in that area. The attention made Jyn’s shoulders hunch and the hair on her arms stand on edge, and it was everything she could do not to wince as she heard them calling to each other to inform their friends of the miracle.
Jyn’s discomfort did not fade even when an escort arrived to direct them to the control room. While the soldiers were able to keep people back enough to allow Mothma to walk to the control room, Jyn couldn’t find their presence comforting. Walking between armed escorts only brought back feelings of being taken somewhere terrible. It’s not going to be like that this time, she told herself as they made their way into a run down building along the edge of an evergreen forest. I’m supposed to be here.
She paid attention as the forest disappeared into utilitarian walls that had seen better days and hallways lit by lights strung up quickly along one side. The ground sloped downward – Jyn remembered this particular building had once been the entry to a mine of some sort – before eventually leveling out into a much more welcoming subterranean hall. Gone were the rickety, dilapidated walls and makeshift lighting. Standard ceilings with inset lights, walls, and mostly clean floors replaced the dirt they’d walked in on. Rebel officers passed, occasionally stopping to stare. Apparently, the news hadn’t reached the rebels in the command center yet.
One of their escorts opened a door to a conference room and directed Jyn and Bodhi inside with the instruction to “have a seat and wait” while Mothma continued on down the hall. Bodhi took it in stride, pulling out a chair at the table and settling in to wait. After lingering by the door for several minutes, she gave up and took a seat next to him.
Jyn wasn’t sure how long they waited. It was long enough for her to start seriously contemplating trying to slice the terminal against the far wall for some break in her boredom, but not long enough for her to actually go through with it. The door opened again right about the time she was trying to come up with an excuse to tell Bodhi so he wouldn’t be scandalized to admit Mothma, Draven, and what had to be some of their aides.
Draven dropped a datapad on the table across from them and pulled out a chair. “Let’s start from the beginning.”
“General Draven needs to conduct a shortdebrief before you can both head back to your quarters and relax.” Mothma was more diplomatic. “I’ve already explained the political situation and he’s agreed to keep on topic regarding the events from the end of our first meeting with the cell through meeting up with one of our supply ships on the station.”
Jyn exchanged a look with Bodhi, unsure where to begin.
Draven’s expression went from stern to resigned. “The thieves got past our security. One of you run down what precautions we used with the shuttle.”
Oh. Okay. She could do that. Somewhere around her explanation of how she suspected the shuttle thieves got around the codes to the engine controls, Jyn felt herself relax. She might not like Draven, but he didn’t seem to be setting her up for anything. His follow-up questions were genuinely directed to trying to find holes in Alliance procedures, not blaming Jyn or Bohdi for the events that transpired. From there, they moved on to her meeting with Maran. Jyn tried to remember everything Maran had said, and noticed Draven scowl when she told him about Maran dropping Staven’s name on her. She wondered if that meant it was true – that Staven was out there with his own group, some new version of the Partisans making trouble for the Empire. Jyn filed the information away as Bodhi got the opportunity to answer Draven’s questions for how they met Zera and found the cell again.
“And that was when you found Erso,” Draven paused, then made what had to be an attempt at diplomacy, “Escaping. Did anyone see Maran leave the room?”
Jyn thought. She’d been so focused on getting away, she hadn’t even thought to look for Maran at that point. Slowly, she shook her head. “I heard him speaking at one point, while I was still in the storeroom, but-”
Commotion came from the direction of the door. Jyn instinctively turned towards it, rising from her seat in the process. Her hand moved towards her blaster before she realized that the commotion was not going to be the sort that put her in danger and she forced the hand away from her weapons. The door opened in time for her to hear the end of someone saying, “-you can’t go in there” and for her to see Cassian kriffing Andor of all people pushing past an aide.
He came to a stop, his eyes trained on her, and Jyn suddenly felt self conscious. It was everything she could do not to fidget under that intense stare. She tried to look away, but when he said her name, she found any movement at all to be impossible.
“Andor.” Draven’s gruff voice broke the spell and Jyn felt her lungs suck in air.
Cassian’s gaze flickered to the general as if he just realized the man was there. “Sir.”
Draven jerked his head towards the door. “Out.” When Cassian’s eyes darted back to Jyn, Draven moved to escort him from the room. Only then did Cassian seem to recognize that he was someplace he oughtn’t have been. He caught Draven’s attention, nodded once, and stepped back from the room.
“Oh, hey, Cassian,” Bodhi remarked as the door slid shut. “Yeah, I survived, too. Pretty scary. Glad to not be dead.”
“We were talking about Maran during this second meeting,” Draven brought the discussion back on topic as if Cassian had never interrupted. “Rook, did you see him when you entered?”
They were talking. Jyn could hear them talking. She needed to concentrate. Saw would have concentrated. He wouldn’t be thinking about Cassian looking like that….
Why did Cassian even care? Did he have some sort of intel work that someone thought she would be crucial for? That didn’t make much sense; her skill set wasn’t unique. She was one of Saw’s Partisans turned criminal turned…well, she wasn’t sure what she was now. They hadn’t kicked her out, but they also hadn’t asked her to join up the way they did with Bodhi.
“Erso!” Draven rapped on the table.
Jyn realized she’d been staring at nothing and forced herself to look at him. Draven was wearing a sour expression. She would have assumed he was annoyed with her, but that expression seemed to be Draven’s default. She waited.
“Do you know what happened to him?” It was clear the question was repeated.
To Cassian? He left hadn’t he? She glanced back towards the door that Cassian had exited before she realized Draven was talking about the spy in the cell. She brought her gaze back to him. “I don’t. Zera said it would be handled.”
“Right. That should be it for now, but I’ll need a report.” Draven decided.
“Of course,” Mothma sounded agreeable. “We’ll make sure you get one. If that’s everything, I’m going to dismiss my team. They haven’t had a real meal or uninterrupted sleep for several days now.”
Draven waved a hand in their direction, almost as if shooing them away. His attention went to his datapad as he began typing at something, his scowl growing with each letter he added.
Beside her, Bodhi climbed to his feet. “That’s ‘dismissed’ right?” He asked Mothma.
“Yes.” Her voice sounded like it was smiling. “You’re off duty. Grab some rest. And good job this week, Flight Officer.”
It was over. She needed to be moving. Jyn pushed her chair out.
“Jyn? A moment?” Mothma stopped her.
She exchanged a look with Bodhi, then nodded and returned to the table. She heard the door open and shut behind her.
“I’d like your opinion of how the mission went.” Mothma took a seat equidistant between her and Draven. The seating arrangement made Jyn feel like she was being judged by the two Alliance leaders.
Oh. She was in trouble.
It wasn’t exactly unexpected. When the Alliance Chief of State nearly dies on your watch, people are going to be upset. “I’ve had missions go better.”
“I’ve also had them go worse,” Mothma remarked.
Her comment from several days prior came to Jyn’s mind. “Anyone can be turned for the right price.” She wondered whether Mothma carried a list of people who left her the way Jyn carried her own list inside the hatch.
“I meant that I wanted to know whether the arrangement worked for you.” Mothma continued. “I found we worked well together, and if you agree, I think the best way forward would be to have you join my staff. If you’re interested, of course.”
Her staff? Jyn wasn’t sure what people on Mothma’s staff did, but she doubted it was the sort of things she was good at. Last she checked, brawling was still forbidden at Council meetings. “I’d be a terrible politician,” Jyn told her.
“That’s an understatement,” Draven muttered under his breath.
“A young woman I knew,” Mothma ignored Draven, “Had aides who doubled as bodyguards. I think there might be some merit in the idea, although we’d have to execute it a bit differently. I can do the politics, but I’d like your opinions on some of the groups we’re targeting. There are several former Partisans who separated from Saw over the years and formed their own organizations. We’ve identified a subset we think may be willing to soften their tactics, like the group we met with. You’ve proven to be valuable in assembling information on these types of organizations and on helping me find effective ways to communicate with them.” She smiled slightly, “I also note that, despite the Empire’s best efforts, I am not dead.”
Only because thieves stole our shuttle. Jyn was quite sure that such a sentiment should not be shared. She kept her mouth shut.
“For the record, I still think this is a terrible idea, but, if you want to do this,” Draven waved a hand at the table, “Thing, it would be my recommendation that Erso’s position not be considered a military role. You want her? She goes on the payroll for the Chief of State’s office, not the Alliance Military.”
All I can do is fight. Jyn thought. I’m not suited for anything else.
“I would agree that she’d do better operating outside traditional military channels.” Mothma noted. “Would you be comfortable with that, Jyn? You wouldn’t enlist with the Alliance military, but you’d serve in, say, a special agent capacity, reporting directly to me.”
“I don’t do well with orders,” Jyn spoke.
“Another understatement,” Draven muttered.
“That’s why I think this will be a better fit for you.” Mothma said. “You’d have substantially more latitude to operate, and I think it’s a place where your skills would best help us make a difference. If you’re concerned about not seeing much action, well, the last week would give you some idea of what you could expect.” She turned her attention to Draven, “It would be useful for her to do some of the training you put your people through, too.”
“Fine.” Draven didn’t seem to think it was fine at all. He retrieved a datapad. “When she does that, we’ll say she’s a liaison working with Alliance Intelligence.”
“Jyn?”
She didn’t have any better offers on the table. She also had to admit that, despite the mission literally exploding around her, they had managed to accomplish the mission goals and return safely to base. She would never fit into a military shaped hole, but she wanted to help. Maybe this was something she could do. “I don’t have to do any politician stuff.”
“No politician stuff beyond offering me an opinion before or after a meeting.” Mothma agreed.
“Some of these people aren’t going to like me,” Jyn added. “If they were former Partisans, they might know Saw and I…”
“We can assess each situation as it arises,” Mothma said.
“And I’m not easy to work with.” Jyn reminded her.
Mothma glanced at Draven’s bent head as he pretended that his datapad was interesting. “Neither am I.”
“And I’m a criminal.” Jyn added.
“I’m familiar with your file.” Mothma agreed. “But I think people should get second chances. And I hope you’re willing to give the Alliance a second chance, too.”
She wasn’t sure what to say about that. It seemed – it really did seem like these people wanted her here. She weighed the offer in her mind. Bodhi was right – she did begrudgingly like Mothma. She could probably get to work with Bodhi sometimes. Maybe…maybe she could try to make some friends, too? She could try. It was better than running. Jyn had been tired of running, and the past few weeks had felt…they felt good. She wanted to help again, to belong again…to believeagain. And maybe – maybe – she did. “Okay.”
“General?” Mothma finally addressed Draven.
He waved a hand in their direction. “I’ll draw up the paperwork.”
~*~
She felt at peace with things up until she reached out to trigger the door. It had been easy to forget about Cassian’s interruption while she was discussing details with Mothma and Draven, and signing documents. The moment her hand touched the door controls, she remembered and it was everything she could do not to let her breath hitch in front of the Alliance’s higher ups.
The door opened. The hall was empty.
Of course it was. What had she really been expecting? Cassian had better things to do than to wait to talk with his former asset to ensure she was assimilating. She was being ridiculous. She should go back to her room, shower, and maybe invite Bodhi over for a dinner of ration bars away from the prying eyes of all the people who would want to ask questions and hear stories about how and why they were not dead. Or maybe she would skip all of that and just climb under her blankets and sleep.
“Jyn.”
The Force hated her. Jyn felt her hands ball into fists and her shoulders tense. Cautiously, she turned towards the sound of her name. Cassian was emerging from the shadows. Why he was skulking about in the shadows waiting for her was a mystery. Jyn could not think of one useful thing she could offer him. “What do you want?”
“We received reports you were dead. I wanted to make sure you’re alright,” he replied, as if it was obvious.
“I’m fine.” Walk away, Jyn. Just walk away. Her feet betrayed her and remained rooted. She might not know what Cassian’s end game was. She didn’t have to know. She was done being his useful asset. Before she could think about the ramifications of manhandling an Alliance officer, Jyn closed the distance between them, grabbed a fistful of Cassian’s jacket, and pulled him into the empty room opposite the one she just left. Her free hand slapped the controls closed. With a snarl, she pushed him, releasing the jacket. “You don’t get to do this.”
“Dowhat?” Cassian seemed incredulous. “Care whether you live or die?”
And that was the problem. As long as he saw her as his asset, he did have a reason to care. She was the sort of tool that couldn’t exactly be useful to the Rebellion buried six feet under the ground. The thought somehow made it worse. Jyn swallowed. Why was it, she wondered, that she could speak to a room full of important people and find the words she needed, and yet, when having to talk one on one with someone in any sort of personal way, the words just disappeared. “I’m not your asset,” she finally managed to say. She felt an internal wave of relief when they came out cold, but collected.
Cassian had not expected that, and, for a moment, he was rendered speechless. He looked hurt, as if she’d walked up to him, grabbed his shoulder, and shoved her fist into his stomach. “No. We’re friends.”
“That’s a lie,” she bit out. “You have no interest in me beyond my usefulness to the Rebellion.”
Cassian’s eyes flashed and his mouth tightened. “Who told you that?”
“You.”
“Inever said that.” Cassian’s voice held so much conviction, she would have believed him if she did not know he was lying. Because that was a problem with Cassian – he could lie to someone, manipulate them into believing whatever he wanted them to, and most of the time, they would never know. He sold it. He was trying to sell it now.
“I heardyou. You said it to that major, two days after you stopped coming to dinner.” She tried to shrug her shoulders as if she didn’t care, but found that the movement wouldn’t come. She couldn’t even sound angry, just defeated. “I heard everything. How you pretended to be nice to me and Bodhi so we wouldn’t cause problems. How the only thing that was between us was your assignment from the council to take me to Jedha. How I’m 'just an asset.’ I heard all of it.” This time, she managed the movement. “At least I knew why you suddenly disappeared. I was assigned a mission. It’s someone else’s responsibility to keep me out of trouble now.”
His eyes had widened while she revealed his lies, one by one. It was as if he couldn’t quite believe she’d caught him. Cassian’s assets likely never discovered the truth, she realized. She doubted they even knew who he really was. She wondered if she ever had.
Strange how you could start to fall in – how you could let yourself feel something for a person beyond how useful they might be to you, and never actually know them.
“Jyn…”
“Stop lying to me, Cassian.”
Silence hung between them, thick and heavy. Jyn felt as if it was squeezing the air from the room. The voices in the back of her mind told her to run, to protect herself. The problem was that she’d never been able to listen to those voices. If she had, perhaps she would have escaped before someone else could hurt her.
She didn’t think it could hurt more than it already had, but when Cassian turned wordlessly towards the door, she felt something inside her shatter. She hatedhim for it, and she hated herself for giving someone the power to do that to her again.
And then Cassian keyed something into the keypad. She heard a lock click into place and watched as he turned around and made his way back to her. For several long moments, he stood there and looked at her. She’d seen him look that way once before, on an elevator when he thought was dying. (He was dying; he should have died; theyshould have died….)
“There were charges brought against me, Jyn.” Cassian said, his voice low.
Part of her wanted to retort for what, saving the galaxy? but the words died in her mouth. Because he was serious – this was real – they punished him. Jyn didn’t know what the Alliance’s military code was, but she suspected there were rules about deserting your post to participate in unsanctioned missions. With Scarif alone, they could likely trump up some strong charges against Cassian. If they knew the truth about what happened on Eadu, that he’d had the shot and hadn’t taken it, there might be additional charges they could bring.
He looked down, then managed to get out, “There were mitigating factors, so they offered to let me plead guilty, get a slap on the wrist, and keep everything quiet. I won’t be discharged or see prison. I even keep my rank. But there are conditions. If I step out of line again….” He produced a datapad from somewhere inside his jacket. After a few moments of tapping at it, he passed her the device. “Proof,” he said, “That I’m telling you the truth.”
Jyn took the datapad and looked at the document on the screen. Her eyes skimmed over it until they came to rest on Cassian’s signature on the final page beside a date and time stamp. He signed this, she realized, the morning after he disappeared. “You didn’t tell us…”
“It wasn’t your concern.” He took the datapad back and turned it off. “And I was guilty.” Cassian tucked the datapad into his jacket. “They aren’t going to come after you or Bodhi. You were both private citizens at the time and there’s some question as to whether the shuttle was Bodhi’s or the Alliance’s.”
Jyn swallowed. Every evening, he sat there and watched as she and Bodhi began to build lives while his was falling apart, and he’d said nothing. Jyn wasn’t sure how friendship worked, but she was pretty certain you were supposed to kriffing say something about things like this. “Cassian-”
“Please,” he cut her off, “Let me finish.” Jyn saw him swallow before he managed to look at her and continue, “The day after that was finalized, Major Ranvek questioned me about you. Fraternization would be a violation of my agreement.”
She wanted to tell him he was lying, except he’d been honest about the first bit. He might be telling the truth about this part, too. If he was, she was going back into the Council room to demand her agreement with Mothma be returned and tearing it up. “You’re not allowed to have friends? What kind of Alliance is this?”
Cassian looked extremely uncomfortable. “The concern wasn’t friendship. It,” he found the wall behind her head fascinating. “It was romantic.” He sounded as if the words were being pulled from him against his will. “I needed to provide an excuse to Ranvek for why I spent time around you. I found one. He believed me. I’ve done a lot of recruiting for the Rebellion, and it’s not uncommon for someone in recruitment to keep an eye on the new soldiers. Afterwards, I didn’t know what to do. The Rebellion is all I have. People were gonna keep talking. I thought if I was scarce for awhile, maybe they’d stop. After,” he paused and tried to look at her before his eyes flickered to his boots. “After a couple days, I tried to find you, to warn you about the…the talk, but you weren’t in any of the common areas and I couldn’t go to your quarters. The only time I saw you was that time in the mess you and Bodhi looked at me like you wanted to kill me.” A touch of accusation hung in that final sentence.
Jyn was dumbfounded. “You said,” she wanted to choke on the words, “You said that I was confused, and that I was imagining a connection that didn’t exist. You said there was nothing between us except the mission to find my father. And then you left.” I thought you were different. I thought you were my friend. I started thinking maybe you would want more than that.
But wasn’t that what Cassian saw, too? Jyn didn’t know how relationships worked. When other girls were going to dances or on dates, she had been fighting a war or trying to survive on the streets. She thought the way he looked at her, the way he’d acted….but she didn’t really know. In the end, she misread everything. What she had seen as them making an effort to get to know each other, Cassian saw as a woman imagining a connection that never existed.
And that was…it was fine. Cassian didn’t owe her anything. He was allowed to be friends or not be friends with whoever he wanted. He could be attracted or not attracted to whoever he wanted. He didn’t want her, and that was….
“So I was angry,” Jyn finished. I was hurt. I thought you were different. I wanted you to be different. I was foolish. And, because she owed it to Bodhi, she added, “But Bodhi doesn’t hate you. He was trying to be my friend, but he still wants to be friends with you if that’s what you want.”
“Jyn,” Cassian moved to grab her arm, then stopped. His fingers curled around empty air before his hand fell back to his side. “Jyn, I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to hear that conversation. It was a story I made up. I never meant it. It was never supposed to go beyond Ranvek. I meant what I told you before, that this is your home, and that you’re wanted here.” He finally looked at her. “That Iwant you here. And not just because you’re useful to the Rebellion, but because we’re friends. I want us to be friends. I’m sorry I caused you to believe anything other than that.”
She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. She wasn’t sure what she believed. Part of her, the part that had let Cassian in, wanted to believe him, wanted to believe that he wasn’t like everyone else. Another part reminded her what it felt like when the people she trusted didn’t stick around. Neither part knew whether to trust him. “But if friends aren’t a problem, you could have just told him that, Cassian.”
He didn’t say anything. His eyes flickered to the ground as he pressed his lips together. After a moment, he nodded once to himself and looked at her. “You’re right.” His voice was resigned. “I should have told him we were friends. I wasn’t thinking.”
That one she knew was a lie. Cassian was always thinking. He was like a dejarik master. His mind was always three or four steps ahead. Everything he did was calculated. And if Cassian was always thinking, then there was either missing information in what he’d shared with her or he had told the major the truth. She was now willing to admit that, perhaps, the latter was not the case. Unfortunately, that didn’t help her fill in the blanks with the former. “Are we friends?”
“Yes,” he replied. “If – if that’s what you want.”
Was it? If she hadn’t heard what Cassian told Ranvek, they would still be friends. She felt herself nod.
“Jyn, I would, uh, appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about the, the plea.” Cassian looked as if he wanted to melt into the floor.
Right. They were still having a conversation about that. “Of course.”
“We should also unlock the door now.” Cassian turned towards it. “Friends don’t usually lock themselves alone in empty conference rooms. We can…move some place more public? Maybe – talk about work or…or whatever you want to talk about, Jyn. I want things to be good between us again.”
She nodded again. “I’m sorry that you got caught in – Bodhi said people keep coming up with stories about me, and I’m sorry you got caught in that.” She was half glad she couldn’t see his expression from the new angle.
Cassian stopped beside her. The silence hung, thick, and she wondered if he thought she was being conceited. Finally he made a noise that sounded like a sigh. “It’s not your fault. I got myself into it.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “You got yourself into these stupid rumors?”
“I should have seen it coming,” Cassian was watching the door controls. “And I shouldn’t have been so…. It doesn’t matter, Jyn. You aren’t doing anything to get their attention.”
He shouldn’t have been so what? Nice to her? That didn’t make sense. Bodhi was nice to her – she went everywhere with Bodhi – and no one was saying that she was sleeping with Bodhi. Of course, Jyn wasn’t sure how anyone could watch how Bodhi interacted with her and think he was interested in her in that way. He didn’t act the way Cassian….
Cassian had been acting like, well, like her. Jyn knew what messages she was sending – or at least trying to send. People apparently thought Cassian had been sending the same type of messages to her. She’d been operating on the assumption that he hadn’t meant to, but…
I sort of get the impression that Cassian is a lot like you.
Beside her, Cassian started moving again. You need to say something. Now. Before he unlocks the door. She knew how to say words, except these words, they were the type that gave power. Jyn had given people that power before. She knew where that road led. She knew how it could end – how it always had ended. Maybe not having words was a good thing. It had hurt so damn much when she’d overheard him. She’d been so angry because it was easier to be angry than to feel like you were crumbling inside. And that was just….maybe things would be better if she didn’t….
Before she could stop it, her hand darted out to catch his sleeve. Cassian stopped. His eyes went down to where her fingers were curled along the cuff of his jacket. When they came back up, the disaffected look he hadn’t shown her in weeks was weaving its way back across his face. Cassian probably wasn’t used to people sticking around either. Spies, by the nature of their jobs, often had to be solitary. Cassian knew what safety was, too. He was trying to get back to it. How much of them was wrapped up in trying not to let down the walls or let someone in who could hurt you again? “Wait.” Her mouth felt dry and she tried to swallow before repeating, “Wait. I’m not Alliance military.”
“What?” The spy face stalled.
“I’m not Alliance military,” she repeated, calmer this time. “I accepted a position, but it’s with Councilor Mothma and it’s not…. Fraternization is only a problem if I’m military, and I’m not.” Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she’d still read it wrong. “If – if there’s any truth to the talk and you might want – it wouldn’t break any rules. You wouldn’t be abusing your power or…” Oh, Force, his face was completely blank now. Maybe he did think of her like that, but thought any sort of romantic entanglement with her would be an error of judgment. Why had she opened that door? She should have just…just not said anything. “I don’t know what you want, Cassian.” The words were a struggle to say. She couldn’t quite get them above a whisper.
He was silent a long moment before he said, “I want you, but if you don’t want that, I won’t make it awkward.” His voice was almost as quiet as hers.
Jyn noticed they were both studying their boots as if the buckles were fascinating. “Me too.” She snuck a look at his face at the same time he snuck one at hers. Breathing became hard again. Words weren’t happening. Her hand, though, she could move her hand. The last two fingers caught around his. Jyn felt her thumb slide softly against Cassian’s hand.
His fingers curled against hers.
She inched her foot closer to him, removing what little personal space there had been, and stole another look.
“Jyn,” Cassian was watching her again, an almost incredulous look weaving its way across his features. She felt her face warm and a smile pull at her mouth and glanced down once more before forcing her eyes back up. He was still looking at her. “Jyn,” Cassian said again, “I don’t want to unlock the door.”
“Me either,” she agreed. Jyn wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do now. She supposed she could push him against the wall while grabbing at his belt, but that felt like some sort of cheap backroom hook-up. She didn’t want Cassian as a quick hook-up. “I don’t do this a lot.”
“I don’t either,” Cassian said. It made her feel a little better. He moved their hands slightly so he could lace his fingers with hers. He looked a little nervous, a little disbelieving….young. She suspected he felt the way she did – happy and fearful all rolled together. “Jyn, my job – I don’t wanna lie to you, but there are things I can’t tell you.”
“I know.” She thought a moment. She couldn’t realistically expect Cassian to give her top secret information that she didn’t need access to. She also didn’t want a repeat of Ranvek. “Just say that – I can’t tell you. But don’t hide things that I can know just because you don’t want to upset me.”
He considered that for several moments. “That’s fair. And if something does upset you,” Cassian continued, “I need you to tell me.”
That was also fair. Had she confronted him earlier, it would have saved both of them a lot of hurt. She could try to do better. “Okay. You’ll do the same thing?”
He nodded, his eyes watching her thoughtfully.
Neither of them spoke. She was once again faced with not knowing what to do. She could, Jyn supposed, try that thing they were just talking about where she voiced what she was thinking. It wasn’t as if she could make things worse than they had been a half hour ago by asking awkward questions like, “Now what?”
After a beat, Cassian asked, “If I kissed you…?”
“I’ll kiss you back,” she answered, feeling just as shy as he sounded.
“Okay.” Cassian’s head tilted slightly as he bent towards her. “Good.”
“Good,” Jyn repeated and pressed her mouth to his.
Notes -
While Yavin had been the primary base circa-ANH, the rebels did have other bases. The base on Hoth is not established until about three years after ANH. I needed a base for them to be on in between ANH and ESB, so this base is me doing some hand waving.
Jyn didn’t trust their contact. If she was being fair, she’d admit that she didn’t trust anyone(except Bodhi), but she particularly didn’t trust someone who’s organization had at least one Imperial mole and at least one person who thought it prudent to attack her on a street with Imperial patrols.
Now, sitting across from him in the back room of what appeared to be a laundry, she couldn’t help but feel as if she was sitting on a bomb rigged to a timer. She’d marked the exits, identified at least three things within arm’s reach that could be used as a makeshift weapon, and could see her contact’s open hands sitting on the table opposite her own. None of it made her feel safer. The fact that her contact had spent the last few minutes silently sizing her up as much as she’d done him didn’t help.
“We met before.” The man finally spoke. “You were about ten.”
The hatch rattled and Jyn shoved on it. No. She was not dealing with this right now. She focused on what was in front of her. She didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t mean what he said was false. Many people had fought with Saw, and there had been many more contacts. It was also, she knew, very easy to lie to try to set someone at ease. People at ease talked too much. Jyn remained silent.
“I thought it might be a trick, what you said in the meeting. Your little speech sounded too rehearsed. Mothma’s the type to hire an actress, so I asked someone who would know.” He reached under the table. Jyn felt her body brace even as she saw the edge of a datapad and not the handle of a weapon. The datapad clattered onto the top of the table.
Oh. So this was some sort of dramatic reveal. What was with people and theatrics? Why couldn’t someone just say, Jyn, we know your father built a planet killer and we want to use you to further our agenda and be done with it? She knew what her role was, though, so she picked up the datapad and saw a picture of herself taken from the meeting. Underneath someone typed Do you know this woman? No further explanation had been provided. Jyn slid a finger along the screen, triggering the response to appear. Jyn. No last name. Saw’s daughter. Saw reported her dead. -S.
“You’re not dead.” His voice was cool and demanded answers.
“Who is S?” Jyn replied in the same tone.
The man watched her a long moment. Jyn could see the mental debate – did answering her question gain him more than ignoring it? “Staven.”
Her first thought was that it was a lie. She’d specifically asked one of the Partisans on Jedha about Stave and had been told he was dead. Her second was that Saw had been a paranoid bastard, and he’d been substantially more paranoid at the end than she’d ever remembered him being before. He also had a history of making people disappear without killing them. “Staven’s dead.”
He gave her a cold smile. “So are you.”
Jyn was able to piece together the rest. Something happened. Staven left. Saw covered it up. She wondered why Staven was not welcome in the end. She doubted it was because his father was an Imperial Science Officer.
“Did you leave?” He continued, “Or did Saw get rid of you?”
Jyn felt her fists clench. It hurt. It shouldn’t still hurt but it hurt. She couldn’t let him know he scored a point. She needed the upper hand. “I was with Saw right before his death.” That was true. “He gave me information on the Death Star and told me to give it to the Alliance.” That was…mostly true. He showed her the message and told her to go with Cassian. “He ordered me to save the Rebellion.” Essentially true. “We were the last ship off Jedha before the Empire destroyed it.” True. “I suppose that means I left.”
“It wasn’t a mining accident.”
There were times when she closed her eyes that she could still see it. Once it started, she couldn’t make it stop. Some things did not fit inside the hatch. “No.”
He studied her. “And now you’re with the Alliance.” It was more a question than a statement.
Jyn considered how to answer and found there wasn’t a good one. She wasn’t actually part of the Alliance. She had no rank and no military role to speak of. They brought her along when the evacuated their Yavin base. They gave her a private room at their latest location and made sure she had access to food and water. No one acted like they were going to kick her out, but no one had really asked her to stay, either. The Alliance had just sort of … kept her around. She finally settled on, “We’re working together.”
“Because of the Death Star.”
“You could say that.”
“And the Alliance believed you,” he finished. He smiled in a flash of teeth that was anything but friendly. “Which is surprising, because you’re not that good of a liar.”
What? The thought barely landed before the blaster barrel materialized in her vision. Understanding followed half a second behind. She was alone. She looked like the sole survivor. Logic dictated that she was the spy. There had been many things Saw had sheltered Jyn from, but she knew how traitors were handled. “I’m not the spy,” she said quickly.
The words were barely out of her mouth before Mothma’s tinny voice spoke from Jyn’s pocket. “She’s not lying, Maran.”
Jyn watched her contact – Maran - blink. She dropped her own gaze to her jacket. “Comlink.”
Maran’s eyebrows rose. Carefully, he plucked the comlink from her jacket and raised it to his mouth. “Mothma.”
“Yes,” came the response, “I’m here, along with my pilot.”
Jyn saw Maran shoot her a dark look. If her back wasn’t still screaming at her from the fight, she would have shrugged. Instead, she settled for saying, “You didn’t think I’d bring the Alliance Secretary of State out in the open where someone could kill her, do you?”
Maran scowled even deeper, but lowered the blaster.
“Thanks.” Jyn didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm.
Maran ignored them continued speaking into the comlink. “You heard everything.”
“Given the situation,” Mothma replied, “We felt the need to rely on one of our sneaky Alliance tricks.”
Maran snorted. “The situation.” He paused. “You think we sold you out.”
“I wouldn’t have sent Jyn to meet with you if I believed you were a danger to her,” Mothma said. “But we do believe you’ve got a spy in your organization.”
Maran returned to his seat. No one spoke as he considered it. Finally, he asked, “What happened?”
Jyn listened as Mothma summarized the past twenty hours. It sounded, she realized, a lot worse than it was. She’d been through worse, and, at least this time, she was going to get to go home when everything was finished. Home. Jyn wasn’t sure when she started thinking of the base as ‘home.’ She didn’t even know if the Rebellion wanted her. It was probably stupid to be thinking of it as 'home.’ It was Bodhi’s home now, and Mothma’s. She could visit and that was enough right now. Jyn forced herself to pay attention.
“Do you want to bring this to the others?” Maran was asking.
“Until we know who the leak is, I can’t risk my team.” Mothma told him. “But we will help you identify the leak however we can. It’s in both of our interests to know who it is, and depending on how your leadership feels, we might even be able to exploit this spy to send false information back to the Empire.”
Maran was silent a moment and Jyn could see the mental calculus as he weighed the obligation he felt against the risk and against getting further entangled with the Alliance. She understood his concerns, but the Alliance wasn’t that bad, really. Sure, the leadership was … well, it could use some improvements, but there were ways around that, like…just doing what you wanted anyway. Jyn saw the moment Maran reached his own decision. “Alright. We can discuss logistics on the way to your base.”
“We have a pick-up scheduled at a station not far from this system,” Mothma said, “So you don’t need to worry about such a long trip. I know your shipping business is very busy this time of year, and losing that many days can’t be good.”
“That would work well.” Maran agreed. “I’ve got a shipment in line to head out once they sort out the mess at the spaceport. I can get your team on it pretty easily. Where should Jyn and I meet you?”
Jyn listened to Mothma rattle off the address for the hotel and tried to force her shoulders to relax. This really was almost over, and, for once, she didn’t have to worry about the inevitable re-negotiation of proceeds at the end of the job. The Alliance wasn’t paying her, but there was food and a bed and room that was hers. Maybe they’d let her keep this jacket. It was a nice jacket.
There was a small click as Maran shut off the comlink. He held it out to her. “Come on. We’re going to need to move.”
Something tingled along Jyn’s arm. She looked around the room, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Stop being so paranoid. If the Empire was going to jump out from the shadows and descend on her, they’d have done it by now. She shook off the feeling and took her comlink, returning it to her pocket.
Her eyes left Maran for less than a second. It was enough of a mistake. One moment, she was standing in the laundry. The next, there was nothing.
~*~
The first thing Jyn recognized were voices. They sounded muddled, and, as she came back to consciousness, her first thought was that it was an after effect of the stun. She couldn’t hear the actual words, though. That was…different. Usually she could understand the words.
She forced her eyes open. Her stomach rolled and she took a long, slow breath in and out her nose. The feeling quieted, and Jyn began taking stock of her situation. She was lying on her side in a dimly lit room. The light came from a small window above the door, which was the only way in or out. She was alone – the voices were coming from the other side of the door. Her arms were bound in front of her, courtesy of a pair of the standard binders that law enforcement favored. Her captor apparently didn’t have the matching ankle shackles; her legs were bound with rope.
She shut her eyes and mentally cursed the galaxy, the Force, and the entire damn Rebellion. You never learn, do you? Running out of friends had landed Jyn in Wobani. These past few weeks, she’d been running on hope, and running out of that…. She wasn’t sure which death would have been kinder.
Death. Why hadn’t Maran just killed her? Jyn tried to run through various scenarios in her mind as she rolled onto her back and then sat up as quietly as she could. Pausing, she listened for a change in the voices outside. There was none. She set to work on the knots.
Maran didn’t have her surname. Even if he somehow figured out that she was Jyn Erso, she doubted that the Imperials cared much about her anymore. The old notices seeking her 'safe return’ had been about obtaining a hostage to ensure her father’s compliance. The Empire was well aware her father was dead. As far as she knew, the Empire had no idea she was involved with Scarif. Jyn had no reason to believe that had changed. She couldn’t imagine General Draven giving the okay for her participation in this meeting if that had gotten out.
She wasn’t being kept alive because of her value to the Empire, then. Ah. One of the knots loosened enough for Jyn to start pulling it apart.
Her mind returned to working through Maran’s game. If she wasn’t valuable for the Empire, then she was valuable for the cell. No. She was valuable for Maran. The woman who had attacked her a few hours ago – was it only hours? Impossible to tell at this point – but that woman had called Jyn a traitor. The cell knew there was a spy. Jyn now knew the spy had to be Maran. Maran needed to produce a spy to avoid suspicion. The only survivor who should have died in the Imperial attack made for a great spy. While Jyn doubted eyes would turn to Maran anytime soon – after all, Mothma had trusted him above the others – it would be most convenient if the spy problem went away.
She was tailor made for the role, too. Maran knew she’d separated from Saw. The Alliance had always believed that separation was Jyn’s choice and treated her accordingly. These people likely did, too, and if Cassian’s disdain at thinking the Rebellion hadn’t been real for her was any indication…. Cassian. Jyn suppressed a snort. What did sheknow? What the hell did he know? She’d like to see what he would have done if he was a kid left in a strange place with nothing but a blaster and knife. No food, no money….the Rebellion never threw Cassian away, so what the hell would he….
Stop, Jyn. This is not helping. It didn’t matter what Cassian thought then or now. It didn’t matter if the Alliance agreed with him. What mattered was that she got herself free, got out of this place, and hopefully got Bodhi to safety. And Mothma. She should help Mothma, too, if she could.
Jyn pulled the remainder of the rope from her legs, then held up her binders to the light. She’d never figured out how to get out of these things before. A cursory view of them made clear that it would take time to even have a prayer of figuring them out now. She didn’t have that time.
It was okay. She could…she should be able to fight like this. It wasn’t ideal, but it was doable. Although a weapon would be nice. She glanced at the rope before discarding that idea; it wasn’t very useful with the way her movement had been curtailed. A quick perusal of the room verified that it was empty except for her. Alright, she’d do it without a weapon, then. Next step – get the door unlocked…. Jyn glanced in its direction and saw an uninterrupted stream of light along the side.
The door was unlocked. Maran left the door unlocked.
Of course, there were people on the other side of the door. Jyn could still hear the voices. They were probably armed. They were resistance fighters, after all. And she - she was cornered, and outnumbered, and unarmed. Maran knew she was tied up well. He wasn’t expecting her to find a way to get free and only an idiot would storm into a room of trained resistance fighters.
She stood. Something bumped against her leg and she glanced down. Jyn felt a cold smile pull at her mouth. He’d left her bloody tonfa. Maran made one hell of a mistake. He might have an entire resistance cell, but she had a stick. It was all she needed. She flicked it open. Time to go.
The door wrenched open under her free hand and Jyn threw herself at the back of the first man who appeared in front of her. She heard the crack as she connected with her target. Without stopping, she changed direction and moved to the next, catching him across the face with an upward strike. He at least managed to stay on his feet and reach for her. Undeterred, Jyn slid the tonfa past his guard and slammed it into his gut. Movement from behind had her spinning to catch her next target with the bottom of her boot connecting to his knee. As he stumbled down, she drove her elbows against the back of his shoulder helping him on his way to the ground.
“JYN!”
Bodhi! She whirled towards the sound of her name, even as another familiar voice rose above the din with, “Everyone stop!”
The order was mostly useless, as another man grabbed at Jyn. She shoved her boot into his stomach.
A woman shouted something in a language Jyn didn’t know. Another person yelled, “Jyn! Stop!” That was definitely Mothma’s voice.
This time, the fight did pause. Breathing heavily, Jyn snapped her head towards the orders. That was definitely Mothma. The woman was elbowing her way past several members of the cell. What was she doinghere?
Everyone in the room clearly had the same question. Dead people were not, after all, supposed to show up at meetings. Jyn expected more pandemonium. Instead, they fell completely quiet except for the groans and muffled curses from the men she’d been hitting seconds earlier as they pulled themselves off the floor. She took the opportunity to try to blow her bangs from her face while she scanned her surroundings for Bodhi. She knew she’d heard Bodhi….there. He was standing just inside the door, looking a little pale and queasy but otherwise unharmed.
By now, Mothma reached her. Jyn noticed the worried look as the other woman scanned for injuries before turning around to address a man partially across the room. “Mr. Vyll, is there a reason you have my aide bound up like a common prisoner?”
The man Mothma called 'Vyll’ looked like he had seen a ghost. Jyn supposed he was still trying to catch up with the rapid change of events. She had the distinct impression that Mothma and Bodhi had been walking through the door somewhere around Target No. 2, which likely only made everything more surreal. Jyn filled the silence, “Maran sold us out to the Empire. He sent two of his men to kill you and Bodhi.”
The room exploded into sound.
“It’s true!” A woman’s voice yelled above the chaos. “Hey! Hey!” A heavy pounding, as if someone was slamming against a table ricocheted through the room. A moment later, the woman who had attacked Jyn only hours earlier was standing on a table. “HEY! Listen to me! It’s true! Maran sent the Imps to collect them! I saw it myself!”
More yelling followed.
A hand touched her arm. Jyn looked up at Mothma. “Jyn? Where’s Maran?”
She whipped her head around, seeking him in the crowd but already knowing he was gone. He had to know things had turned against him the moment Mothma entered the room.
“We’re wasting time!” Vyll noticed the same problem. “Find Maran! Alive.”
For the first time since she’d met them, the cell didn’t debate. They moved as one towards the door, sending Bodhi scrambling out of the way.
“Here.” Someone landed beside her. Jyn recognized the woman from her brawl and bit back a sarcastic remark. The woman produced a set of lock picks from a pocket and set to work on Jyn’s binders.
“Are you alright, Jyn?” Mothma asked.
“Fine.” She focused on watching the binder progress and added, “It’s not the first time.”
“Me either,” Mothma said. “It doesn’t make it easier.”
The binders emitted a small whirl while brawl-woman grinned. The relief from the pressure was instant. Jyn nodded at her former foe. “Thanks.”
The woman nodded, then moved to a cabinet along the wall.
“She’s talkative,” Jyn observed as Bodhi reached them. She took the blaster he held out to her. “Thanks. Now what?”
“We clear out.” The woman announced. “Maran had enough time to get a call out to the Imps. They’ll be here as quick as they can relay their orders.”
Jyn didn’t have to be told twice. She checked the power on her blaster as she fell into step. “So where do you need us?”
“In hyperspace,” she replied. She jabbed a finger at Mothma as they moved into the street, “If she’s the prize, there’s no way in hell we’re letting Maran’s new friends get their hands on her.”
“And Maran?” Jyn asked, climbing into the back seat of the waiting speeder. She heard the engine roar to life at Bodhi’s command.
Their new friend’s face closed up into something cold and determined. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of Maran.”
If Maran hadn’t attacked her, set up her as the spy, plotted her death by torture, and tried to harm her friends, Jyn might have felt an ounce of pity for him. She knew what happened in these types of groups when you crossed them. She couldn’t, however, find any pity for him. She twisted in her seat to face Mothma. “How did you know?”
“We didn’t.” She replied. “I learned to take extra precautions years ago. Sometimes, they’re unnecessary, but sometimes….”
“He knew Saw.” Jyn heard herself say. “Maran.”
“That was part of why we thought he was one of the ones we could trust.” Mothma said. “He had a long history of rebel sympathies. He’d smuggled weapons for Saw for several years, and had helped another cell that eventually joined the Alliance. He wasn’t always an Imperial plant.”
“But I bet he was as long as he was working with us.” The woman from the cell spat.
“Maybe,” Mothma agreed. “Maybe not. Shreev’s tried to kill our movement from day one, and Maran’s been involved in enough things over the years that there were better opportunities to deal a serious blow to us before now.”
“Shreev?”
“Palpatine,” Mothma supplied before returning to the subject of Maran. “More likely, the other side finally made Maran a better deal. Everyone has a price, Zera.”
“I don’t,” the woman from the cell – Zera – said strongly.
Mothma was silent as the buildings of the city blurred past the speeder. As Zera was about to turn back around, she said, “The Empire built a planet killer. We had first hand evidence of what it could do. There was a team on Jedha that barely escaped as the Empire turned its weapon on it. I suspected it was only a matter of time until the offer became my life in exchange for not turning it on Chandrila. What do you do? At what price….?”
Jyn wasn’t sure if Mothma was implying that some of the others in the rebellion might turn her over or if she was implying that she might go willingly to spare her people. She wasn’t sure if either was the point.
“I don’t know what Maran was offered,” Mothma continued. “I don’t know what changed. I suspect the offer was generous, considering what he was giving them, but it might have been desperation rather than greed that changed his mind. Your life, your family’s life…. I don’t agree with what he did, but I stopped being surprised a long time ago.”
Zera propped her head on the back of her seat and studied Mothma. “I’m starting,” she finally declared, “To see why he thinks you’re dangerous.”
“I’m not. Not in the grand scheme of things.” Mothma said. “I’m one person. The rebellion doesn’t need me to win. It will keep growing, regardless of whether Palpatine ever gets to execute me for treason. He’s built his power on him, so he believes we’ve done the same, but the rebellion isn’t about any single person. This war isn’t going to be won because one person does some incredible thing. It will be won by the people – the average people on average worlds – recognizing that the Empire is wrong, and doing the small things that make a difference.”
“Isn’t your propaganda machine talking about an amazing pilot who made a life saving shot?” Zera challenged.
“That pilot only had the shot,” Jyn inserted herself into the conversation, “Because one of those average Imperials decided to deliver a message.” When Zera’s attention shifted to her, she added, “Ordinary people.”
“Coming up on the spaceport,” Bodhi announced, a little too loudly.
Zera turned around and faced forward, her hands scrambling to her pockets as she looked for credentials to get them inside. Jyn watched as she flashed a badge at the man at the front gate and they were waved through. “Park in Blue Lot. My aunt’s got a freighter there that will take you out.”
Jyn leaned back against the seat once more. Beside her, Mothma was wearing a pleased little smile. “What?”
“Nothing.” Mothma replied. After a moment, she muttered, “Terrible at politics,” as if it was a private joke.
~*~
Jyn wasn’t sure how long she slept on the Alliance ship. She suspected it was a decent amount of time, as she woke up feeling as if her body did not want to die. Her hand brushed over a blanket that had not been there before. She didn’t want to think how exhausted she must have been if she’d slept through someone getting close enough to cover her with a blanket.
Sitting up, she slowly rolled her shoulders before grabbing the blanket and wrapping it around herself. The small lounge area was mostly dark, and there was no sign of the others here. The loneliness hit hard, despite the absurdity of it. There were three other people on the freighter. It wasn’t as if they all quickly jumped out the airlock the moment she fell asleep. If she wanted to see people, she needed to look for them. Jyn forced herself to stand and make her way to the cockpit.
“Hey, Jyn.” Bodhi gave her a small wave from the copilot seat. The pilot’s seat was empty and, after Jyn looked from it to Bodhi, he gestured back towards the direction she came. “He’s on break.”
“Ah.” There wasn’t any other open seat, so she perched herself on the edge of the pilot’s seat. For several moments, she watched the hyperspace lines as her mind finished waking up. “How long was I…?”
“Uh…” Bodhi leaned over to check the chrono on the dash. “About nine hours? We’ve still got time before we’re anywhere near getting back if you want more sleep.”
Nine hours. That was ludicrous. What was wrong with her? Had she ever slept for nine hours before? She shook her head. “Mothma?”
“Took a datapad and headed into the sleeper cabin about an hour ago.” Bodhi supplied. “Apparently she likes reports as much as the rest of them. You’d think she’d have us write it, but she wanted to. I suspect she needs time to process all this as much as we do.”
Jyn didn’t really process things. She tended to take them, squish them as small as possible, and lock them in the hatch. If she was lucky, they stayed there. Her hand came up to circle around her necklace and she concentrated on the shape of the stone, the way the edges felt under her fingers, the familiarity…. “How are you doing?”
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet?” Bodhi was silent a moment before asking, “You?”
Jyn shrugged. “I’m fine. This isn’t the first time that I’ve been in trouble.” She twisted in the seat to look at Bodhi. “I wasn’t expecting you and Mothma to show up, though. How did you know Maran double crossed us?”
“That’s…kinda a long story?” Bodhi seemed to remember that they apparently had a lot of time, and that time could be used to tell long stories. He let out a little breath and began. “So, after we talked to Maran on the comlink, Mothma said we were going to check out and get a caf at the cart across from the hotel. I thought that was a little weird, but I’m still new to this whole Rebel Against The Empire thing. I figured, well, she knows what’s she’s doing, right? So we went across the street and – I guess it was like a stake out? We sipped caf at one of those little tables along the street and were watching the hotel to see if Maran would show.”
Anyone can be turned for the right price. Mothma might have thought Maran was their safest bet, but at the end of the day, she didn’t trust anyone either, did she? Jyn couldn’t really fault her. She could count the people she trusted on one hand and not use all the fingers, and she wasn’t anywhere near as valuable to the Empire as the woman leading the rebellion. And, at the end of the day, Mothma was right to be suspicious.
“After, I don’t know, maybe a half hour? These two stormtroopers came by with Zera,” Bodhi continued his story.
“And you recognized her?” Jyn asked.
“Yeah. I remembered her from the meeting. She reminds me of you a lot, and I couldn’t help but think about how…” Bodhi fell silent.
“How what?”
He looked at his hands. “How you were probably all alone like that, being escorted through the streets when they arrested you and sent you to that prison camp.”
They’ddrug her through the streets the last time, but Bodhi didn’t need to know that part. “Oh.”
He sighed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Jyn tried to shrug as if it was nothing. “I did do the things they accused me of.”
“Jyn.” Bodhi finally looked back at her.
She waved a hand at him to encourage him to continue. “You saw Zera with the stormtroopers.”
“I wasn’t sure what they were going to do to her, but based on how they were escorting her, I knew it wasn’t a major crime. Not enough stormtroopers. But I know enough about how the Empire works and I didn’t want something bad to happen to her. We’re on the same team, you know? So I sort of…went over and pretended she was my cousin?”
“You did what?” Jyn tried to imagine Bodhi confronting stormtroopers with lies.
“I told them I worked for the Empire, and that she was my cousin. And then I explained she had a bit of a drinking problem, and sometimes got into trouble.”
“And they believedyou?” Jyn didn’t think stormtroopers were the brightest, but that was pretty stupid, even for them.
“There was this guy who I’d sometimes switch shifts with, back when I was…you know.” Bodhi looked slightly uncomfortable. “Instead of filing reports, we’d just switch. Took less time and that way, we never had to come up with good excuses for time off and no one got suspicious if we were off playing cards or something. I’d use all his codes and he’d use mine when we checked in and submitted reports and stuff. So I rattled off his ID number and we look enough alike that when he looked me up in the system to check my story….”
She knew her mouth was hanging open. Jyn tried to shut it.
“I mean,” Bodhi continued, “I know it wasn’t as brilliant as some of the stuff you and Cassian have come up with…”
“Don’t.” Jyn jabbed a finger in his direction. “Don’t even start, because that was more brave than anything I’ve ever done. And it was brilliant. So don’t.”
Bodhi’s expression went from surprised to pleased. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “So, uh, anyway. One of the stormtroopers said she was brawling in the streets. I asked if maybe he could release her to my custody and look the other way just this once, considering I was an Imperial pilot and all. He started to talk with the other stormtrooper about it, when they got a call telling them there were rebel operatives in the area and to meet a unit at the hotel. Zera wasn’t important anymore, so they let her go with me.”
“And then you, Zera, and Mothma watched the Imperials storm the hotel, looking for you,” Jyn finished.
“No. That was when we knew Maran sold us out and got out of there,” Bodhi corrected. “Councilor Mothma told Zera about Maran. Zera figured that Maran would probably pass you off as the spy, and she knew where everyone would meet. So…we went.”
Jyn wondered if Zera told Bodhi or Mothma about why she’d been arrested for brawling in the streets. She decided it didn’t matter. As Bodhi said, they were on the same team. There were worse people she could have brawled with, and it did look bad. She leaned her head back and returned her attention to the star lines.
“You okay?” Bodhi asked again.
She didn’t want to tell Bodhi how close they’d come to dying. They should, by all rights, be dead. There had been so many coincidences. Any one of them being just a little bit different would have resulted in a different ending. “Just thinking about how much of a field day Draven’s going to have with all of this,” Jyn lied.
“Eh,” Bodhi shrugged. “I mean, I hate the guy, too, but we accomplished the mission goals and Mothma’s not dead. I think that cell has more respect for her now than they did after the official meeting. He can’t be too mad. I also get the impression he has this sort of grudging respect for us.”
“He only plays nice because Mothma likes us,” Jyn observed.
“Yeah. I’m sure that’s it.” Bodhi said. “It can’t have anything to do with the fact that we accomplish stuff.”
“He hated Saw,” Jyn said. She hadn’t been able to figure out which of her fathers Draven hated more, but she was well aware he wasn’t a fan of either of them and that when he looked at her, he saw them.
“Jyn,I hate Saw,” Bodhi said. “And I’m pretty sure you do, too, a good fifty percent of the time.”
“I hate everyone,” Jyn corrected. “Except you.”
“The Guardians,” Bodhi counted, “Mothma? I think you sort of like her, despite not wanting to. And the cook who makes the sandwiches. You can’t hate her, Jyn. She makes good sandwiches and she always says nice things to everyone.”
“Fine.” Jyn agreed. “I don’t hate everyone.”
Bodhi was silent for a few moments. “Are you going to ask Cassian about what he said?”
Jyn shot him a sour look. She knew why it was coming up, but that didn’t mean she wanted to talk about it. If she was lucky, Cassian would be off base, but she suspected she had used up her good luck supply from the Force. Did she even want to confront Cassian? She didn’t gain anything from it, and it just gave him a chance to hurt her again. She was tired of people ripping out her insides and stomping all over them. “Don’t really see the point.”
“I think I’m going to talk to him.” Bodhi declared. “I’ll keep you out of it, but we almost died together and we’re on the same team, too. We need to get along. And I sort of get the impression that Cassian is a lot like you.”
Jyn’s slouch disappeared and her spine snapped straight. “I am nothing like Cassian Andor.”
Apparently, Bodhi felt like this whole friendship thing meant she wasn’t intimidating anymore, because he said, “Yeah, Jyn, you are. Sometimes, I’m pretty sure the two of you are two different endings of the same really sad Choose Your Own Adventure story.”
No. They weren’t. She’d been a child when her parents….okay, so maybe that happened to him, too, apparently, but she’d been thrust into the war when she should have been learning….also not a good point of differentiation. She had reasons not to trust people and Cassian…also had probably had a life that taught him to never trust anyone. For a moment, she found herself wondering what it had been like the first time he’d been sold out – if the stakes were even higher since he would have been sold directly to the Imps…. No. No, they were nothing alike.
“You thought I disliked you because I wasn’t around for a couple days,” Bodhi continued. “And now I keep wondering - have either of us given Cassian a reason to think we’re his friends?”
“We ate meals together.” She went out of her way to make sure she could make every meal possible. “We told him about our days.”
“Yeah, but that’s stuff work colleagues do all the time,” Bodhi opined. “I had dozens of those conversations every week, but I didn’t think any of those people were friends. It was just small talk when you’re checking the roster or standing around the caf machine.”
“No.” Jyn was sure this was different. “I shared things with him.”
“Jyn,” Bodhi was not letting this go, “Stop just a moment and think about it from Cassian’s point of view. I’m pretty sure his only friend was K-2SO. No one seems to know him. Have you noticed that? It’s weird. I don’t think he has any friends. And, so, like there are two people he’s friendly with and they grab a sandwich with him from time to time and chat about their days. He might think we don’t want to be his friend, either. Not, you know, like real friends. I just think…” He paused, then repeated, “I just think maybe we should give him a chance to explain.”
Jyn opened her mouth to tell Bodhi that she didn’t want to, then shut it. It wasn’t her place to tell Bodhi who to talk to. “You’ll keep me out of it, though.”
“Sure.” Bodhi agreed. “Your name will not be mentioned.”
“Good.” Because Cassian could burn in hell for all she cared. And he did not deserve to know she had even mentioned his name since the last time they saw each other. No right to know she’d been thinking about him or that he hurt her or… Jyn knew she probably looked like a petulant child, sitting with her arms crossed and scowling at the window. She forced herself to relax. Removing the scowl was a bit harder. “And you’ll tell me everything that happens?”
“I thought you didn’t care.” Bodhi looked like he was trying really hard not to smile.
“I don’t,” Jyn said quickly. “I just…believe it is important to gather information about our team mates.”
Jyn’s mind flashed through several possiblities before it settled on, “Red.”
She could hear Bodhi laughing at her under his breath as he checked his instruments. It was oddly endearing. “You guessed.”
“It’s the color of the Force.” Jyn said. “It was a very educated guess. Give me another question. I’m very observant about our friends.” Relaxing, she leaned her head back against the seat rest and wondered how in the stars she’d actually ended up with a friend.
~*~
Notes -
Staven is mentioned as a former Partisan in the Rogue One novelization; when Jyn asks about him and is told he is dead. In the Inferno Squad novel, we learn he is not, in fact, dead and was not on Jedha when the Death Star destroyed it and had formed a new group similar to the Partisans. His group is later infiltrated by Imperial spies.
Last year, I wrote about 2/3 of a fic where I incorporated each prompt from Jyn Week somewhere into each chapter. I posted the first half. Recently, I’ve received several requests to post the rest. I blew the dust off the draft and set about trying to finish it. Finally, after a year, Chapter Four is done.
Where we are now in the story: After the Battle of Yavin, Jyn found herself in limbo until Mon Mothma asked for her help on a mission to recruit an independent rebel cell to the Alliance’s cause. While the meeting ended on a promising note, the mission hit a snag when thieves stole their shuttle, the Empire destroyed the shuttle thinking it was carrying the Alliance team, and the team ended up stranded on the planet, unsure who to trust and with no way to get safely home.
Jyn found Bodhi sitting on the floor of the tiny hotel balcony as the sun started to peak over the horizon. He gave her a small smile as she sank down to sit beside him and poke her legs through the openings in the railing. Beneath them, she could hear the first sounds of people starting to wake up, to move about, to begin their days. Something that smelled deliciously like grease and spices floated through the air as Jyn rested her head against the railing and told her mouth to stop salivating.
“I always liked mornings,” Bodhi remarked as they sat side by side. Keeping her forehead pressed against the metal bars, Jyn shifted her face slightly to look at him. “It feels like the world is taking a deep breath before starting. You know?”
She hadn’t really thought about it. Morning was just a signal that she had to get up, get moving, and do something if she wanted to still be alive come evening.
“I hated growing up on Jedha,” Bodhi said suddenly, “But…sometimes, I miss those times. Like now. Things seem familiar and yet not.”
She nodded as if she understood, despite knowing she didn’t. There were things she knew – she knew Jedha was gone. There weren’t people waking up, setting up stalls in the market or making breakfast for their families or hurrying off to a job. There was nothing but rock and sand and death. However terrible Jyn considered her own life to have been, she hadn’t watched everyone she’d ever known be blown apart by the Death Star. It was something she’d never fully be able to understand. “I’m sorry.”
Bodhi ran a hand along one of the rails subconsciously. “You ever hear something or smell something and it brings you back?” When she nodded, he inclined his head towards the far end of the balcony, “There’s a stand down the street that’s selling pastries that smell just like the ones my mother would make on special occasions. Got me thinking.”
Jyn felt a stab of jealousy at the way Bodhi talked about his mother – happy and wistful all at once. She knew he’d known her, that she wasn’t a name and some images and a murder played on repeat over and over. It was irrational to begrudge her friend a positive relationship with his mother, though, so she pushed the jealous thoughts down. “You were close.”
He nodded. “She died about six months before….” He didn’t have to specify what ‘before’ meant. There were events in life that marked a before and an after.
“How?” Jyn asked.
“She was sick,” Bodhi replied. “It wasn’t unexpected. She had been sick for years. It’s why I went to the Academy. The Empire paid so much better than anything on Jedha, and the medicine….” He let his own head fall forward to rest against the railing. “I still miss her sometimes.”
Jyn felt a small stab of panic. This conversation was going in the direction of feelings. She wasn’t sure how to talk about those. She hadn’t talked about how something made her feel since she was eight. She could, maybe, listen to Bodhi’s feelings, though. She thought she might be able to do that. “Do you want to talk about her?”
Bodhi turned his head slightly to look at her. His expression asked Would that be okay? When Jyn gave him the smallest smile, he returned it. “She still made me those pastries on my birthday,” he began.
~*~
Things couldn’t be too bad yet. There was breakfast. Or there would be in three, two…. The vending machine whirled. A handful of protein bars fell from its claws. Jyn quickly returned wires to where they belonged on the machine before retrieving her food. They weren’t Bodhi’s mom’s pastries, but they would keep their energy up.
Her key slid into the lock and she opened the door to their room.
“- you could always send someone back to get us,” Bodhi was saying. Jyn felt her forehead crinkle but kept her mouth shut. She dropped the protein bars on the tiny table, helped herself to one, and climbed onto the end of the bed.
“We have no idea what the Empire might do next,” Mothma replied. “If they know I was here, they know I was meeting with someone. They don’t take kindly to treason.”
Jyn ripped her protein bar open and indulged in a large bite.
“I definitely understand the concern, but contacting a trustworthy member of this cell is still our best option,” Mothma continued. “They didn’t betray the actual meeting, which leads me to believe that the organizers and leadership are loyal. Whoever learned I was here learned after I arrived at that meeting. We can trust the leadership, even though I’m not thrilled with the idea that accepting their help back home means one of them will know the location of our base.”
“What if we stole a ship,” Jyn offered.
“Uh, Jyn? Don’t take this the wrong way, but we don’t know how to steal a ship,” Bodhi said.
“You stole a shuttle on Eadu,” Jyn pointed out. “I’ve stolen ships.” She looked at Mothma, waiting for approval.
“I’m not sure if that is the best approach,” the older woman said diplomatically after a beat. “There’s a lot that can go wrong.”
There was a lot that could go wrong in any job. Jyn waited.
“Jyn, I appreciate the offer,” Mothma finally finished, “But you’ll be facing something much worse than Wobani if they catch you this time, and I cannot allow you to take that risk.”
Bodhi shot her a confused look. “You were in Wobani for stealing a ship?”
“I wasn’t stealing the ship,” Jyn corrected. “I was trying to steal guns. I tried to blow the ship up.”
Bodhi’s expression slid from confused to surprised. Jyn wondered what he thought she’d done. People didn’t end up in Wobani for minor infractions. Bodhi had seen her kill….no. Now that she was replaying everything, Bodhi had never seen her strike another person. She hadn’t met him until they were fleeing Jedha. He’d stayed with K-2SO on Eadu. He’d stayed in the ship on Scarif. He’s thinks I’m like Galen, she realized. He doesn’t know what I am. Part of her wanted to hide. The part that was frustrated with their situation and looking for a fight, however, won. She squared her shoulders, looked him squarely in the eye, and said, “I grew up in the Partisans. I was one of them. I killed a man for the first time when I was eleven. I was Saw’s top lieutenant before my fifteenth year. I-”
“Yeah, Jyn, I figured all that,” Bodhi cut her off. “I’m just surprised the rumor mill’s version of how you ended up in prison was pretty off.”
She blinked.
“Rumors usually are,” Mothma remarked. “It’s one of the unfortunate side effects of being recognizable. Now, Jyn, you offered to set up a meeting with our new allies, and I think you’re correct that you should be the person to go. These people are more comfortable with you than with me.”
Comfort wasn’t why she suggested it. She didn’t think Mothma was the best person to be handling things if discussions turned violent. Jyn supposed that Mothma didn’t need to know that, so she returned to her protein bar.
“You can make contact with them and arrange a meeting,” Mothma continued. “We can then explain what happened and arrange for transportation back to the base.”
“We don’t need to tell them where the base is.” Bodhi said suddenly, nearly bolting from his seat. Upon realizing everyone was watching him, he became sheepish. “We – ah – just need to meet up with a supply run. The, um…people here could take us to a trading outpost and, um, we could then hop onto an Alliance ship.”
That wasn’t a bad idea. There was only one problem with it. “Do you know where we could find one?” Jyn asked.
“Oh. Yeah. Um…” Bodhi glanced around before finding the flimsy pad the hotel provided. Taking a seat at the tiny table, he began drawing furiously. “So, this is us.” He circled an x on the page. “We’re strategically located not that far from this deep space station.” A few more x’s were placed on the page before Bodhi circled another one of them. “Originally, it was a fuel station, but it’s grown into a trading outpost with all sorts of things passing through. People from all these worlds,” he gestured at the other x’s, “Go here to transfer goods from their respective worlds - lots of ships coming in and out, lots of cargos being passed from one hauler to another, that sort of thing. We have a supply run pilot here about once every other week. It keeps up appearances that he’s a local shipper trying to make a living, and it’s a convenient place to refuel. He should be there in about four days, give or take one.”
Mothma contemplated the crude map. “No one is likely to suspect a cargo ship making a routine run to a trading outpost.”
“You drew that from memory?” Jyn had seen navigators remember parts of starmaps for areas they frequented. None of them had been in this sector before, though. And yet, Bodhi had it memorized and had looked up what information he had access to about Alliance personnel movements in the system.
“Yeah, Jyn.” He looked uncomfortable. “It’s part of my job.”
Jyn had met a lot of people claiming to be pilots over the years. She’d never seen them do that. An image of Bodhi over Scarif, changing from nervous to in control whenever he had to do a task that was related to piloting, rose in her mind. Normal pilots didn’t do the things Bodhi did, but she doubted anyone ever pointed that out. “You’re really good at it.”
“Oh,” Bodhi paused. “Thanks.”
Mothma shot him a smile. “I concur. A very good job. Now,” she turned to Jyn, “Let’s set up our meeting.”
~*~
Jyn missed her scarf. It was a silly thing to miss, really. It always sat in her Go Bag, but she never wore it around base. Before Cassian – no, the quartermaster - gave it to her, she’d gone some time without scarves or Go Bags or weapons. They were useful things, though – scarves. She used them for everything from hiding her face, to creating a makeshift blanket or shaw for warmth, to serving as a weapon against an attacker. Her current scarf – from the quartermaster – was sitting on the edge of her bed back on the base. Like an idiot, she’d left it behind, and the jacket the Alliance had lent her for this mission did not include any hoods, hats, or other face-hiding features.
The chances, Jyn told herself as she wound through the crowded streets outside the spaceport, of someone recognizing her were small. The only people who had gotten a good look at her had been in the meeting with the cell. She’d never taken a job on this planet before and, while it was an important hub, she wasn’t likely to run into any former colleagues. The Empire might still be looking for her, but that search bulletin was from when she was eight and used an image from when she was barely older than a toddler. No one should recognize her.
“You.” A hand grabbed at the back of Jyn’s jacket. Instinct kicked in and Jyn felt her hands come up as she was spun around. She barely caught sight of her attacker before the first strike landed.A thought of What the hell?worked its way through her mind even as she got in front of the second blow.
Jyn had been attacked by more people than she could count. Most had a legitimate reason for wanting to hit her. She could not think of one good reason the woman from the rebel cell – the one who had spoken of wanting to have a go at the Empire – would have to come after her. And yet there was no mistaking who her attacker was.
The distraction of thinking doomed her. The other woman chose that moment to surge forward for the take down. Jyn felt her back hit the sidewalk. The angle didn’t absorb the impact at all, leaving her dazed and breathless just in time for a fist to connect solidly with her cheek. She didn’t let it happen again.
“Traitor,” the other woman bit out. Jyn used the moment to force her own attack. Her opponent – bigger, stronger, and not expecting the move from an opponent she thought should have stayed down - went over.
Get up. Get up. Get up. As if the galaxy heard her, she was suddenly jerked onto her feet. She stumbled backward and collided with something hard and terrifyingly familiar. White armored arms clamped down, locking her arms to her side. Through her disheveled hair, Jyn saw two additional stormtroopers hauling her opponent to her feet, while a young woman in an Imperial officer’s uniform watched dispassionately.
“You are under Imperial arrest,” one of the stormtroopers holding Jyn announced.
Part of Jyn – the part still high from the adrenaline of the fight – wanted to slam her body into him. The part that kept her alive since being dumped saw the futility of that action. There were at least five stormtroopers, the officer, and quite a few bystanders who were likely the type who would gladly run and find more stormtroopers for 'help.’ Fighting was a guaranteed way to end up dead. She needed to keep her head, find a way out, and then keep a step ahead of the Empire.
The officer looked down her nose at both of them – quite a feat, considering she was the same height as Jyn and several inches shorter than her opponent. “Brawling. Disorderly conduct. Creating a nuisance…. You want to tell me what this is about or should we go down to the station?”
In response, the other woman spat at the officer’s feet.
She took it in stride, stepping back slightly and inclining her head to the relevant stormtroopers. They yanked their prisoner by the arms as they began leading her away, while one of the troopers used his free hand to pull a stun prod. Jyn felt her own shoulders rise and her chin lower slightly as memories of the pain stormtroopers were authorized to use when you didn’t go quietly slithered out of her new hatch.
“How about you?” The officer returned her attention to Jyn.
She felt one of the troopers holding her tighten his grip. Jyn glanced to where the others were pulling the woman away, then returned her attention to the officer. “I don’t know.”
She sighed dramatically. “They never know.” The officer beckoned to her. “Identification papers?”
One of the stormtroopers reached into the front pocket of Jyn’s jacket and pulled them free. Silently, he handed them to the officer before returning his attention to looming over Jyn and generally trying to look intimidating.
The officer perused the papers. “Gemma Myral.” Her eyes flickered above her reading to Jyn. A frown creased her forehead.
She knew. Jyn silently cursed the galaxy, the Force, the Alliance, and whoever else had a hand in her string of bad luck. She knew she should have insisted on making her own papers. Alliance Intelligence had messed up. The officer knew they were forgeries….
“You’re from Coruscant?” The officer finally lowered the documents.
Thatwas what had the officer confused? It took Jyn a moment to put it together, but when she did, she realized that Coruscant generally translated to 'Important’ in Imperial. Coruscant coupled with the rightCoruscanti accent – the one that said 'my family has enough money to live near the top levels’ – meant 'Very Important’ in Imperial. Jyn didn’t remember much of Coruscant, but she knew that government scientists and their families lived in the areas with the Correct Imperial Accents and that she’d picked up that accent. She used what she had, emphasizing her speech as she replied, “Yes, ma'am.”
“You’re a long way from home.” The officer’s tone softened just a bit. “What are you doing out here?”
“They’re looking for communications specialists in the Outer Rim.” It should be a safe enough story. Everyone was looking for 'communications specialists’ these days. “I thought…maybe it would be an adventure.”
“Communications, huh?” The officer made a show of glancing between Jyn and her documents as if looking for the lie. She nodded to Jyn’s belt. “Let’s take a look at that, shall we?”
She’d left her blaster with Bodhi and Mothma, hoping for a show of good faith with the cell. The collapsible tonfa, though, was still clipped at its customary place. Jyn watched as one of her guards removed it and handed it to the officer.
She turned it over a few times before figuring out how to open it. An eyebrow shot up. “You’re carrying a weapon.”
There was no use denying it. Jyn seriously doubted the officer would believe it was an accessory like a necklace or handbag. “I am.”
“Why would a communications specialist need a weapon?” She asked.
“I’m traveling alone, ” Jyn supplied, “And some men are…dangerous.”
The officer’s face softened again. “Your parents know you’re adventuring in the Outer Rim?”
“I’m of age.” Jyn protested the way a sheltered Corsucanti girl might. After a beat, she added in a more subdued tone, “They know. They don’t approve.”
“And you don’t know why that woman attacked you?” The officer returned to the fight.
“I don’t,” Jyn insisted. “I was headed to the spaceport to see if my flight had finally been rescheduled and she jumped me. I never met that woman before and I don’t look like I have anything of value.”
“Ma'am?” Yet another stormtrooper materialized, this one with two young boys in tow. Both boys were staring up at the soldier with nothing less than unfiltered adoration. “These kids have some footage of the fight.”
“We were doing jokes,” one of the boys said quickly, his excitement at helping spilling over. “And it was in the background.”
The stormtrooper held out a datapad to the officer. She keyed it on and muted it after a child’s voice exclaimed “and then the Bantha cub says” on the vid. Jyn waited silently. She wasn’t sure what would happen if they drug her into the local station, but she’d been in these situations enough times to know it would be nothing good. At least a fist fight wasn’t enough for a one way ticket to a place like Kessel or Wobani. Hopefully. Jyn shoved the thought away and began wondering what would happen to Bodhi if she was locked up somewhere. Hopefully, Mothma would make sure he got home safely. Hell, hopefully Mothma had enough sense to get off world as quickly as possible. If the Imperials learned that they had not, in fact, killed the Alliance Chief of State – if they learned she was trapped on this planet – all hell would break loose as they tore everything apart to find her.
“Make a copy of this,” the officer handed the datapad back to the stormtrooper, then directed her attention to the two boys. “Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. If you go with TR-7731, he will return your datapad to you momentarily.”
“Can we ask him questions?” The first boy asked.
“We want to be stormtroopers when we grow up,” the second one explained.
Humor played across the officer’s face. “A few questions that are within reason seem to be an appropriate reward for aiding the Empire,” she agreed. “And TR-7731 enjoys making time for our future recruits.”
Jyn seriously doubted a stormtrooper enjoyed making small talk with children, and took a small bit of vindictive enjoyment in imagining him pummeled with questions from obnoxious children.
Once the children were out of earshot, the officer’s humor faded. “I don’t believe for a second that you don’t know that woman,” she said bluntly, “But the video does show her initiate the attack from behind and unprovoked.” She motioned to one of the remaining soldiers holding Jyn. He released his hold on her, but continued to loom nearby. “We’ll call it self defense for now, but I’m entering your data in the system. Another altercation would be…problematic. Do we understand each other, Miss Myral?”
“Yes, Ma'am,” Jyn replied. She took the papers the officer held out to her and returned them to her coat.
“I know that flights are a bit chaotic, what with the spaceport closure yesterday, but if you can bump up your departure time,” the officer continued, the warning tone impossible to miss, “That would also be in your best interest.”
“I will try my best,” Jyn agreed. The officer nodded at her once, then motioned at her contingent of stormtroopers. Jyn watched as they paraded off down the street and did her best not to sag against the nearest building. Around her, people continued with their business, although it was clear they were all giving her a wide berth. No one wanted to be the next person an Imperial patrol decided was interesting, after all. These people might see the Imperials as their protectors, but many of them were smart enough to know how quickly that tide could shift.
Again wishing for a scarf – for anything she could loop over her head and use to hide her face – Jyn tried to blend in and make her way to the meet point. She couldn’t help but wonder if going through with the meeting was still the wisest course of action. If the last fifteen minutes were any indication, she should brace herself for the worst types of welcome.
The voice that kept her alive, that taught her to take care of herself because no one else was going to, whispered that she could run. She had the money she’d found in the spaceport. It was enough for a single ticket. It wouldn’t be too hard to go directly to the spaceport, buy passage, and disappear again. It wasn’t like the Alliance needed her.
No.
No, that was wrong. They did. If nothing else, Bodhi was relying on her. She was not going to do to Bodhi what everyone had always done to her. She also had to admit that the idea of abandoning Mothma didn’t sit much better. And she said she would help – she had wanted to help. Helping meant helping.
With a last glance at the spaceport, Jyn put it behind her, hunched her shoulders, and let herself disappear deeper into the city.
Notes – Bodhi flying for the Empire to pay for treatment for his mother comes from an interview Riz Ahmed gave where he talked about what he headcanoned for his character.
Characters: Cassian Andor, K-2SO, Jyn Erso (background) Pairings: Kay would say Cassian/Jyn. Cassian would say none. Rating: PG Disclaimer: I still don’t own Star Wars.
Originally written for Coryphefish. Posted for castiellover77.
Part One of Three: Jedha
While Cassian did not make a habit of hauling criminals around the galaxy, he suspected that they were a lot like children: when they were quiet, you should probably be worried. Since entering hyperspace, he’d heard not one peep from their reluctant passenger. He wondered if he should have listened to K-2 when his friend issued the warning about letting a blaster anywhere near Jyn Erso. He had to admit it wouldn’t take much for her to kill him and take the ship. He also had to admit that she had motive to do so – it was quite clear Jyn Erso wanted nothing to do with Saw Gerrera, and the Alliance was essentially forcing her to speak with the man.
It would be prudent to check on her, Cassian decided as he rose from his seat and issued a “stay here” to K-2. If nothing else, it was better to be safe than sorry. If Jyn was still brooding in her seat, then there was no harm. If not…. Well, if not, he’d handle it. His hand drifted to his blaster as he ducked into the main hold.
He stopped.
The criminal mastermind he’d worried about was fast asleep, her head propped against the wall and her mouth hanging slightly open. The only menacing thing about her was that she clutched the blaster she’d foundin both hands as if her life depended on it. Even that didn’t really look menacing. She looked…
Young.
Scared.
Vulnerable.
Cassian had to admit that some of those were the Alliance’s fault. Part of him – the part that occasionally tried to get in the way of his duties – felt somewhat bad about what they were forcing the girl to do. He told himself not to dwell on it, to tuck that part away with all the other guilty thoughts that occasionally wormed their way to the surface of his mind before being shoved back into their proper places. After all, in the end, it didn’t matter if Jyn Erso was afraid of him or K-2 or what they were going to do. What mattered was whether the Alliance could win the war. Besides, it wasn’t as if kidnapping a criminal was the worst thing he’d done for the Cause.
“Oh dear.” K-2’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
Cassian turned towards the sound and scowled. “Back in the cockpit,” he hissed. “We don’t want to wake her.” If Jyn Erso was asleep, she could not be getting into trouble. More importantly, she could not be testing K-2’s theory about using her newly acquired firearm on Cassian. The longer she stayed asleep, Cassian decided, the better it was for everyone.
“I do not like this, Cassian,” K-2 commented as he obeyed.
“You can talk all you want in the cockpit,” Cassian reassured him. He rubbed his hands over his face before dropping into the pilot’s chair. Part of him thought it might be a good idea to grab some sleep of his own. He knew K-2 would watch his back if he did….
“No. Not that.” K-2 said. “I do not think we should have brought Jyn Erso with us.”
“I don’t like it either,” he reminded the droid. “But we need to talk to Gerrera if we want to have any hope of getting our hands on that message, and Gerrera has no reason to deal with either you or me without the girl.”
“Because she is essentially his daughter,” K-2 finished.
“Basically,” Cassian agreed.
K-2 made a noise that was part annoyance, part suffering acceptance. Not for the first time, Cassian wondered if droids should be able to do that. He didn’t dwell on it. “Cassian,” K-2 said slowly, “You do see the problem here.”
“That we have an unpredictable criminal who we’re taking to an even more unpredictable soldier?” He prompted. “Yes. I’m well aware.”
“No. Not that.” K-2 chastised. “The real problem.” When Cassian didn’t respond, K-2 added, “You are going to fall in love with her.”
Cassian resisted the urge to groan. In retrospect, he should have seen it coming. The moment K-2 mentioned anything about a woman’s father, the warning bells should have started ringing. Instead, he’d walked right into it. “Not this again,” he muttered.
“She is your type.” K-2 observed.
“I don’t have a type,” Cassian corrected. He slouched lower in his seat. Maybe he could will himself asleep to avoid this conversation.
“Of course you do. I have years worth of data on you, Cassian, and I noticed a very distinct pattern.” K-2 reported, as if this was ground breaking information. “When you are assigned to get information from important men, and they have daughters with dark hair, you fall in love with the daughters.”
“I do not,” Cassian managed to get out between his teeth, “Fall in love with the brunette daughters of men I spy on. We have been over this, Kay.”
“Lyzia Ta'dana,” K-2 started, holding up a mechanical finger.
“Just a recruit.” Cassian interrupted. “There was nothing romantic there.”
“Nova Roark,” K-2 continued, adding a second finger.
“Is dead,” Cassian finished.
“What does that have to do with anything?” K-2 asked. “She is still part of the pattern.”
“I did not sleep with Nova.” Cassian said firmly. Nova had never seen him as anything other than an Alliance recruiter. It was, Cassian admitted, a lucky thing. He didn’t need those types of complications in his life.
“That is not what we are looking at,” K-2 insisted. “We are examining the women you fall in love with, not the ones you eventually have relationships with. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. And there was Calli Prestal, and Princess Leia Organa…”
“For the love of…Kay, there was never anything with the princess.” Cassian felt his blood pressure tick upwards.
“And now,” K-2 finished, “We are taking a brunette woman to see the man who is, for all intents and purposes, her father. And you need to get information from him.” A metal finger pointed in Cassian’s face. “You cannot fall in love with her, Cassian. She is trouble and it will compromise the mission.”
“Yes, well,” Cassian pushed the finger to the side. “You don’t have to worry about that. I don’t fall in love with criminals.”
His words did little to assuage K-2. The droid’s ocular receptors blinked, and then K-2 merely repeated, “You cannot fall in love with her,” before returning to his station. The conversation was clearly over. Not that he minded. Talking about his love life – which was and had been non-existent for years – with K-2 was not his idea of a good way to spend their time in hyperspace.
It was, however, still better than being shot by Jyn Erso.
Cassian shoved his headset back onto his head and told himself he’d be glad when this mission was over.
~*~
Notes:
The not-Leia women Kay mentions are from my random brain. None of them are canon.
Part Two of Three: Eadu
Jyn was catatonic. Cassian wasn’t sure what to do about that. Whereas he’d been able to get Bodhi Rook to at least speak with him in Saw’s dungeons, Jyn didn’t seem ready to communicate with anyone. She sat in the hold, staring straight ahead like a statue. It was as if she wasn’t really there. She certainly did not seem to be aware of anything going on around her – of the Guardians quietly talking or of the defector pilot who looked equally as lost or even of Cassian, sitting at the edge of the cockpit watching all of them.
He wasn’t sure he wanted her to be aware.
There were things that Cassian had come to accept. War was messy. Morality was not a constant. Stopping bad people meant good people sometimes became collateral damage. There were things no one wanted to do, but someone had to do them.
He was – for better of for worse – someone.
At least, he told himself, the girl had her life. Whatever would happen next – and Cassian knew what was going to happen next, what had to happen next – she would still be breathing. She’d done what was asked of her, and the Council would even arrange for her freedom. Being alive and free was more than most people had these days. All things considered, she would be better off than she was earlier this week.
It’s not as if she’s really losing anything, a small voice tried to rationalize in his mind. She said herself that she prefers to believe her father is dead. He hated himself for the thought, then immediately hated himself for caring. Jyn was making this entire mission much more complicated than it needed to be. When they returned, he would speak with General Draven and request that future neutralization assignments did not include the target’s blood relatives. Neutralizations themselves he could handle. He’d handled them for years quite successfully. He’d even spent time around family members of his targets before with no problems. And yet, with Jyn….
You could have avoided this, the rationalizing voice pointed out, If you’d just left her on Jedha. If you had, she would be dead right now. No one would have blamed you for not saving her. She had been separated from you and the planet was literally blowing apart. She would be just another casualty of war…
Across the hold, Jyn blinked slowly. Cassian held his breath and waited for her to make any sort of response indicating she was aware once more. Instead, she continued to stare straight ahead, lost in whatever mental hell she’d fallen into.
“Cassian,” K-2’s voice interrupted his study. “We need to talk.”
He suspected he knew what this was about. Despite droids supposedly not being capable of human feeling, K-2 seemed to be the exception to that rule. Maybe people didn’t know enough about droids or maybe K-2 was just special. Cassian wasn’t sure. What he did know was that he’d been short with K-2 most of this mission. While that wasn’t unusual in and of itself, he was shorter than usual with the droid on Jedha. K-2 might think Cassian was upset with him, instead of with the entire mess that the mission had become. He pushed himself to his feet and followed K-2 into the cockpit area. “You did well, Kay,” he started.
“Of course I did well,” K-2 replied as if Cassian was stating the obvious. “I would have done better if I had come along…” he paused, then added begrudgingly, “But I suppose staying with the ship meant I had a ship to fly to you when Jedha exploded.”
“It worked out,” Cassian agreed.
“That isn’t what we need to talk about.” K-2 declared. “I heard you and General Draven talking, and we have a big problem.”
Cassian resisted the urge to run his hands over his face. “I know.”
“I have done the calculations, and there is an sixty four percent chance Jyn Erso kills you when she learns about your assignment from the General.” K-2 stated, matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” Cassian suspected K-2’s calculations were a bit low. “About that. I might need you to restrain her.”
“That was my calculation with her being restrained,” K-2 corrected him. “If I do not restrain her, the likelihood is over eighty percent.”
“I’m glad you’ve given me some chance in a fight against a five foot tall woman,” Cassian muttered.
“My calculations suggest,” K-2’s voice became regretful, “That you will not fight back as strongly as you could. I needed to take account of that.” He brightened. “I do believe, in a fair fight, you would have a seventy two percent chance of being victorious. I do not believe Jyn Erso would fight fair, however, and-”
“I get it.” Cassian interrupted. The last thing he wanted to do was consider the various probabilities of Jyn killing him under different scenarios. “Let’s not worry quite yet.” Cassian glanced over his shoulder. “I’m good at what I do. I can come up with something to tell her, and she might not learn…. She’s lost in shock.” She looked so…small. Alone. Broken. He still had his parka from Jedha. Maybe he could wrap it around her to keep her warm at least….
“Oh, no.” K-2’s voice brought him back to the conversation at hand.
“What?”
“Cassian, this is terrible,” K-2 sounded as if the galaxy had ended. “It seriously complicates the mission.”
“I know I should have left her,” he snapped. “But you weren’t there. You didn’t see her like…”
“I knew this would happen,” K-2 continued to mutter darkly. “But you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“I told you I agreed that bringing her was a bad idea….” he started.
“Not that.” K-2’s head swiveled to look him straight in the eye. “You fell in love with her - and after I specifically told you not to.”
Oh, sweet Force. Of all times for K-2 to start down that never ending hole again, it had to be shortly before Cassian had to eliminate an Imperial scientist who’s daughter would very much want to engage in a revenge killing. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“You’ve cast seventy two percent more longing looks at her than at any of the other passengers you picked up on Jedha,” K-2 pointed out.
“I am not casting longing looks at anyone,” Cassian insisted.
“That wasn’t a denial of your feelings,” K-2 reminded him.
“Humans don’t fall in love with people they’ve only known for a couple days, Kay.” Cassian tried to appeal to logic. “It…it doesn’t work like that. I don’t even know her.”
“You know the important parts,” K-2 tried again.
Did he? He might not know what Jyn’s favorite thing to eat was, but he knew she had no problem risking her life to protect others. She’d even jumped in front of K-2…. What was he doing? He was actually listening to K-2 on this? The whole thing was getting ridiculous. He wasn’t even sure why he had humored the conversation this far. “Kay, let it go. I meant what I said. I do not love her. I am not going to fall in love with her. When we get back to Yavin, neither of us will ever see her again.” He should have left it at that. He should have kept his mouth closed and trusted K-2 to treat it as the end of the conversation that it clearly was.
Except he was tired. It had been a horrific day. When everything became silent, his mind either began replaying the moments when he watched as the horizon literally disappeared on Jedha or began working over the parts of his mission that were still to come. Despite knowing better – and he really did know better – Cassian heard himself fill the silence with the stupidest question ever. “What things?”
“Well, for starters,” K-2 brightened once more, as if happy to help. “Her father is very important to intelligence. He might be the most important father yet. And,” he paused, “She also looks like your type.”
Why did he open his mouth. And yet, Cassian found himself continuing to make the same mistake. “For the last time, Kay. I do not have a type.”
“Of course you do, Cassian.” K-2’s voice hovered very close to scolding. “You always fall in love with the same type of women. And it never ends well for you, does it? By your own admission, Nova died before returning your affections, you ended your relationship with Calli, the princess-”
“I have never had romantic feelings for the princess.“ Cassian interrupted. “We’ve been over this. She’s a child.”
“She is now at an appropriate age to begin a romantic relationship,” K-2 observed, as if this meant Cassian should now make up for lost time.
“This is-” Cassian cut himself off. Arguing with K-2 about it would only dig the hole deeper, which was pathetic since there wasn’t any hole to dig to begin with. “I need to report in.”
“I understand,” K-2 said, in a voice that made it very clear he did understand. In retrospect, Cassian decided, he should have programmed the droid to be a lot less observant.
At the same time, Cassian found he didn’t really care if K-2 thought he was in love with a dead girl, still carrying a torch for his former lover, and/or had some sort of infatuation with a teenage princess and a former resident of an Imperial work camp. He had bigger problems to deal with – things like planet killers, and their creators, and the fact that if he made even the slightest mistake, neither him nor K-2 would live long enough to see Yavin again. The only thing that mattered at the moment was getting his report to the Rebellion so they knew what they were dealing with – so that decisions could be made.
It was not the most enjoyable conversation Cassian had been a party to.
It made his previous conversation with his droid look like a fun time sing a long.
There had been a part of him that had hoped, foolishly, that a report confirming the existence of a planet killer would be enough, that he wouldn’t have to complete the rest of the mission. He knew, deep down, that this sort of hope was useless. He’d learned long ago that, for the galaxy to get the hope it needed to continue fighting, he needed to stop thinking in terms of hope and start thinking in terms of realism. He pulled the headset off his ears, the instruction to continue with his orders playing on repeat in his mind. “Set a course for Eadu.”
“Is that where my father is?” A female voice asked suddenly. Jyn was….aware.
In one awful moment, he knew things were about to get very, very bad. He had to hope that K-2’s calculations were incorrect. Either that, or that he would somehow end up in the eighteen percent scenario where Jyn Erso did not, in fact, kill him for assassinating her father.
Fortunately, in the end – after Eadu, after Galen Erso, after Alliance bombs raining from the sky - either the Force or dumb luck was with him. K-2’s calculations on the likelihood Jyn Erso would kill him were wrong. She confronted him, yelled at him, and laid bare his sins in front of the others for their judgment, but she did not try to kill him.
Unfortunately, K-2 might not have been wrong about everything. In the silence that occupied the flight back to Yavin, it was everything Cassian could do not to think of the ramifications of why he held his fire upon realizing Galen Erso had his daughter’s eyes.
~*~
Notes:
Cassian not killing Galen Erso because Galen and Jyn have the same eyes is disclosed in the Rogue One novelization.
Part Three of Three: Yavin
Josta Cracken once told him that animals instinctively knew when their deaths were approaching. At the time, Cassian wrote it off as another one of Josta’s old farm superstitions. Now, as he watched his impromptu meeting start to break up, he reconsidered that position.
It was more than pragmatism or looking at the odds. Of course, both of those evaluation tools agreed he was going to die. There was something more, though. Something deep in his body that somehow…knew. Knew that he had only hours left to live. Knew that everything was ending. Knew it was time.
There were many things, he realized, that a man did not consider until his time was almost up. It was as if, for years, there had been no time for reflection, and now that he was reflecting, there was no time to rectify what he saw.
Twenty years spent fighting, shaving pieces from his soul bit by bit in hopes that it would make a difference, until nothing was left but a shell. Twenty six years breathing, but none spent living. It had been an existence, nothing more. And now there was maybe a day left. Hours. Minutes. Time enough for one last act.
There was a saying that doing something right, for the wrong reason, was no better than doing something wrong. He’d always thought the sentiment foolish. Now….well, now Cassian could not definitively say why he was planning what he was about to do. Yes, it sounded good to tell people, “We have this one last chance, and if we succeed, we can give those coming after us what they need to try to finish the fight.” He couldn’t deny, however, that he was doing it more to seek absolution than for any other reason. Maybe that was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t. The ends would justify whatever internal reason he had, so maybe it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Or maybe…
“Cassian?” K-2 sounded concerned.
He sighed heavily, let his fingers slide across the rough edge of the table one last time, then stood. “We need to get our gear. They probably have another hour before they let out, but we’ll need to move fast once they do.”
“There is a seventeen percent chance they will approve the mission.” K-2 attempted to be helpful.
“We’ll proceed based on the eighty three percent chance they don’t.” He took a step past K-2, then stopped. “As high as seventeen? Really?”
“Councilor Mothma will want to fight.” K-2 observed. “And Senator Organa.”
Cassian could see Mothma believing Jyn. He’d noticed she saw Jyn in a positive light, despite what she knew about her. K-2 was probably right about Bail Organa as well. The man always struck Cassian as someone who could look at something and understand its truth or falsity. But… “The others will never believe her.” He turned back to face K-2. “The convict daughter of an Imperial scientist? The same scientist we killed? What reason do they have to believe her?”
“You convinced them to believe her.” K-2 gestured at the retreating agents. “And you believe her.” He paused. “And not because of any romantic feelings for her.”
“Now, Kay? Really?” Cassian wasn’t sure if it was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard or the most frustrating.
“I am conceding,” K-2’s voice took on a diplomatic tone, “That you do not love her.”
There was something about that concession, that olive branch, that made Cassian realize K-2 felt it to. The last little bit of time was trickling through their fingers, and there was no way to grasp it and hold on for just a few moments more. You wanted things to be right, when the last moments fell away. You wanted to face the end with peace. And, while a stupid debate wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that prevented that peace, the symbolism behind the gesture was not lost. “Thank you.”
“Even though she is your type,” K-2 added.
Cassian nodded once. Well, if K-2 could give him this concession to stand in for everything they could not say, he could give something back. That’s what friends did – or so he thought – when putting things to rest. “Yes. I guess she is.” He motioned for K-2 to walk with him as he started towards the hanger. There was gear he needed to collect, things he should prepare. He didn’t have any testamentary instruments – there never seemed like much of a point considering he owned nothing – but there was the question of K-2. Without realizing he was doing it, he reached his hand out and patted the droid’s arm.
“Is everything alright?” K-2 stopped.
“Just thinking.” Cassian replied. “Of all of us, you have the best chance of surviving this.”
“I will not abandon you on this mission,” K-2 became serious.
“I know. But you can take several blaster shots and keep going. I can’t.” Cassian looked up at his friend. “If something happens, and I don’t come back with you, what do you want?”
“I do not want to come back,” K-2 said. After a pause, he added, “You are my programmer.”
Cassian felt the slightest smile pull at his mouth and he patted K-2’s arm again. “I know.”
“Would you get a new droid?” K-2 asked, “If I did not come back?”
He couldn’t really imagine that. Pragmatically, it would be hard for him to get his hands on a second security droid. That he’d gotten K-2 in the first place was nothing short of a small miracle. There weren’t any other droids that could do what K-2 did, either. And emotionally…. There were reasons spies did not have friends. There were reasons why Cassiandid not have friends, or form attachments. A large motivation in reprogramming Kay was to avoid those sorts of problems – he was supposed to be a machine, a tool, something Cassian could use and not care about. That had backfired spectacularly. “No,” he admitted. “I don’t think I could.”
“Well, then,” K-2 became practical, “That is settled and we should finish preparing for the mission so we are ready to leave once you talk with Jyn.”
Cassian nodded to himself, started walking once more, and then stopped. “Kay. Wait.” He watched as the robotic head turned towards him, and braced himself. “I’m going to say something. You aren’t going to like it.”
“You are ordering me to stay behind,” K-2 surmised unhappily.
“No. We need you. There are things you can do that none of us can.” Cassian paused. “The primary goal must be getting the plans to the Alliance. Whatever happens to me, whatever danger I’m in, you cannot place my safety as a higher priority than the plans.”
“I understand.” K-2 sounded even more melancholy than he had a moment earlier.
“The plans are the top priority.” Cassian emphasized.
“The plans are the top priority,” K-2 repeated. Cassian knew that he was internally setting up processes to ensure that priority was met.
“Good. I need you to do something else for me.” He waited until he was sure K-2 was paying attention. “As long as it does not interfere with the top priority, protect Jyn. Do what you can to make sure she gets back to the Alliance safely.”
“Jyn.” K-2 did not sound pleased with that. “But protecting you is my second priority,” he corrected. “After the plans.”
“No. I need it to be Jyn.” Cassian insisted. “She’s…it’s…” How did you even explain something like this? He didn’t have an answer to that. “The man who built the flaw into the Death Star, he’s given us a chance. And we have no way to thank him. The only thing we have left to give is to try to keep Jyn safe.”
“You could lock her in the brig,” K-2 suggested. “I could carry her there myself, and we could leave without her.”
“That’s not fair to her.” Cassian pointed out. “She’ll want to fight. She’s earned that. I just want you to look out for her. Keep her safe. Help her get home, after.”
“And not you,” K-2 finished.
“No.” Cassian agreed. “ Not me.”
K-2 was silent, though Cassian could sense the processors were whirling. After several moments, K-2 asked, “Do I have to?”
“I’m not going to order you to.” He conceded. There had been too many orders causing too much harm. He couldn’t do to K-2 what had been done to him. He might not be a good man, but he was better than that. “But I’m asking you, as a friend. If our friendship matters, you will do this for me.”
In his defense, Cassian thought ruefully, he never specified how much better.
Cassian could tell K-2 did not like his answer. He waited, nonetheless, for the droid’s decision. “Oh, very well.” K-2 paused as if resetting additional internal parameters. “Second priority. Help Jyn Erso.”
“Thank you.” Cassian meant it. There was some peace in that, too. He didn’t expect any of them to get an After, but if someone did, he’d like it to be them.
And then, he pushed the thoughts away and pretended, like every other unpleasant thing during his years, that they did not exist. There was too much left to do to dwell on the ramifications of what precious few hours he had left.
It still didn’t stop him from smiling later when he overheard K-2 declaring, “Jyn, I’ll be there for you. Cassian said I have to.”
In a kinder universe, Cassian thought as he walked to the shuttle, maybe things would have been different and he would have had a chance to know her, to fall in love with her. He took a last look at the Rebellion and corrected himself. In a kinder universe, things wouldn’t be couched in terms of what iformaybe. There would be, he decided, some sort of After in that universe, with all the things After implied. There was even a decent chance that universe’s After included Jyn.
She was his type, after all.
~*~
Notes:
In old canon, Josta Cracken is the wife of Airen Cracken (and mother of Pash and Dena). Airen Cracken appears in both old and new canon as the head of Alliance Intelligence, and, according to the Visual Guide, was in the Outer Rim during the events of Rogue One and ANH.
There might be some canon errors in this? I originally wrote it in Spring 2017 and I haven’t scoured it to compare it against anything that’s come out since.
Characters: Cassian Andor, K-2SO, Jyn Erso (background) Pairings: Kay would say Cassian/Jyn. Cassian would say none. Rating: PG Disclaimer: I still don’t own Star Wars.
Originally written for Coryphefish. Posted for castiellover77.
Part One of Three: Jedha
While Cassian did not make a habit of hauling criminals around the galaxy, he suspected that they were a lot like children: when they were quiet, you should probably be worried. Since entering hyperspace, he’d heard not one peep from their reluctant passenger. He wondered if he should have listened to K-2 when his friend issued the warning about letting a blaster anywhere near Jyn Erso. He had to admit it wouldn’t take much for her to kill him and take the ship. He also had to admit that she had motive to do so – it was quite clear Jyn Erso wanted nothing to do with Saw Gerrera, and the Alliance was essentially forcing her to speak with the man.
It would be prudent to check on her, Cassian decided as he rose from his seat and issued a “stay here” to K-2. If nothing else, it was better to be safe than sorry. If Jyn was still brooding in her seat, then there was no harm. If not…. Well, if not, he’d handle it. His hand drifted to his blaster as he ducked into the main hold.
He stopped.
The criminal mastermind he’d worried about was fast asleep, her head propped against the wall and her mouth hanging slightly open. The only menacing thing about her was that she clutched the blaster she’d foundin both hands as if her life depended on it. Even that didn’t really look menacing. She looked…
Young.
Scared.
Vulnerable.
Cassian had to admit that some of those were the Alliance’s fault. Part of him – the part that occasionally tried to get in the way of his duties – felt somewhat bad about what they were forcing the girl to do. He told himself not to dwell on it, to tuck that part away with all the other guilty thoughts that occasionally wormed their way to the surface of his mind before being shoved back into their proper places. After all, in the end, it didn’t matter if Jyn Erso was afraid of him or K-2 or what they were going to do. What mattered was whether the Alliance could win the war. Besides, it wasn’t as if kidnapping a criminal was the worst thing he’d done for the Cause.
“Oh dear.” K-2’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
Cassian turned towards the sound and scowled. “Back in the cockpit,” he hissed. “We don’t want to wake her.” If Jyn Erso was asleep, she could not be getting into trouble. More importantly, she could not be testing K-2’s theory about using her newly acquired firearm on Cassian. The longer she stayed asleep, Cassian decided, the better it was for everyone.
“I do not like this, Cassian,” K-2 commented as he obeyed.
“You can talk all you want in the cockpit,” Cassian reassured him. He rubbed his hands over his face before dropping into the pilot’s chair. Part of him thought it might be a good idea to grab some sleep of his own. He knew K-2 would watch his back if he did….
“No. Not that.” K-2 said. “I do not think we should have brought Jyn Erso with us.”
“I don’t like it either,” he reminded the droid. “But we need to talk to Gerrera if we want to have any hope of getting our hands on that message, and Gerrera has no reason to deal with either you or me without the girl.”
“Because she is essentially his daughter,” K-2 finished.
“Basically,” Cassian agreed.
K-2 made a noise that was part annoyance, part suffering acceptance. Not for the first time, Cassian wondered if droids should be able to do that. He didn’t dwell on it. “Cassian,” K-2 said slowly, “You do see the problem here.”
“That we have an unpredictable criminal who we’re taking to an even more unpredictable soldier?” He prompted. “Yes. I’m well aware.”
“No. Not that.” K-2 chastised. “The real problem.” When Cassian didn’t respond, K-2 added, “You are going to fall in love with her.”
Cassian resisted the urge to groan. In retrospect, he should have seen it coming. The moment K-2 mentioned anything about a woman’s father, the warning bells should have started ringing. Instead, he’d walked right into it. “Not this again,” he muttered.
“She is your type.” K-2 observed.
“I don’t have a type,” Cassian corrected. He slouched lower in his seat. Maybe he could will himself asleep to avoid this conversation.
“Of course you do. I have years worth of data on you, Cassian, and I noticed a very distinct pattern.” K-2 reported, as if this was ground breaking information. “When you are assigned to get information from important men, and they have daughters with dark hair, you fall in love with the daughters.”
“I do not,” Cassian managed to get out between his teeth, “Fall in love with the brunette daughters of men I spy on. We have been over this, Kay.”
“Lyzia Ta'dana,” K-2 started, holding up a mechanical finger.
“Just a recruit.” Cassian interrupted. “There was nothing romantic there.”
“Nova Roark,” K-2 continued, adding a second finger.
“Is dead,” Cassian finished.
“What does that have to do with anything?” K-2 asked. “She is still part of the pattern.”
“I did not sleep with Nova.” Cassian said firmly. Nova had never seen him as anything other than an Alliance recruiter. It was, Cassian admitted, a lucky thing. He didn’t need those types of complications in his life.
“That is not what we are looking at,” K-2 insisted. “We are examining the women you fall in love with, not the ones you eventually have relationships with. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. And there was Calli Prestal, and Princess Leia Organa…”
“For the love of…Kay, there was never anything with the princess.” Cassian felt his blood pressure tick upwards.
“And now,” K-2 finished, “We are taking a brunette woman to see the man who is, for all intents and purposes, her father. And you need to get information from him.” A metal finger pointed in Cassian’s face. “You cannot fall in love with her, Cassian. She is trouble and it will compromise the mission.”
“Yes, well,” Cassian pushed the finger to the side. “You don’t have to worry about that. I don’t fall in love with criminals.”
His words did little to assuage K-2. The droid’s ocular receptors blinked, and then K-2 merely repeated, “You cannot fall in love with her,” before returning to his station. The conversation was clearly over. Not that he minded. Talking about his love life – which was and had been non-existent for years – with K-2 was not his idea of a good way to spend their time in hyperspace.
It was, however, still better than being shot by Jyn Erso.
Cassian shoved his headset back onto his head and told himself he’d be glad when this mission was over.
~*~
Notes:
The not-Leia women Kay mentions are from my random brain. None of them are canon.
Part Two of Three: Eadu
Jyn was catatonic. Cassian wasn’t sure what to do about that. Whereas he’d been able to get Bodhi Rook to at least speak with him in Saw’s dungeons, Jyn didn’t seem ready to communicate with anyone. She sat in the hold, staring straight ahead like a statue. It was as if she wasn’t really there. She certainly did not seem to be aware of anything going on around her – of the Guardians quietly talking or of the defector pilot who looked equally as lost or even of Cassian, sitting at the edge of the cockpit watching all of them.
He wasn’t sure he wanted her to be aware.
There were things that Cassian had come to accept. War was messy. Morality was not a constant. Stopping bad people meant good people sometimes became collateral damage. There were things no one wanted to do, but someone had to do them.
He was – for better of for worse – someone.
At least, he told himself, the girl had her life. Whatever would happen next – and Cassian knew what was going to happen next, what had to happen next – she would still be breathing. She’d done what was asked of her, and the Council would even arrange for her freedom. Being alive and free was more than most people had these days. All things considered, she would be better off than she was earlier this week.
It’s not as if she’s really losing anything, a small voice tried to rationalize in his mind. She said herself that she prefers to believe her father is dead. He hated himself for the thought, then immediately hated himself for caring. Jyn was making this entire mission much more complicated than it needed to be. When they returned, he would speak with General Draven and request that future neutralization assignments did not include the target’s blood relatives. Neutralizations themselves he could handle. He’d handled them for years quite successfully. He’d even spent time around family members of his targets before with no problems. And yet, with Jyn….
You could have avoided this, the rationalizing voice pointed out, If you’d just left her on Jedha. If you had, she would be dead right now. No one would have blamed you for not saving her. She had been separated from you and the planet was literally blowing apart. She would be just another casualty of war…
Across the hold, Jyn blinked slowly. Cassian held his breath and waited for her to make any sort of response indicating she was aware once more. Instead, she continued to stare straight ahead, lost in whatever mental hell she’d fallen into.
“Cassian,” K-2’s voice interrupted his study. “We need to talk.”
He suspected he knew what this was about. Despite droids supposedly not being capable of human feeling, K-2 seemed to be the exception to that rule. Maybe people didn’t know enough about droids or maybe K-2 was just special. Cassian wasn’t sure. What he did know was that he’d been short with K-2 most of this mission. While that wasn’t unusual in and of itself, he was shorter than usual with the droid on Jedha. K-2 might think Cassian was upset with him, instead of with the entire mess that the mission had become. He pushed himself to his feet and followed K-2 into the cockpit area. “You did well, Kay,” he started.
“Of course I did well,” K-2 replied as if Cassian was stating the obvious. “I would have done better if I had come along…” he paused, then added begrudgingly, “But I suppose staying with the ship meant I had a ship to fly to you when Jedha exploded.”
“It worked out,” Cassian agreed.
“That isn’t what we need to talk about.” K-2 declared. “I heard you and General Draven talking, and we have a big problem.”
Cassian resisted the urge to run his hands over his face. “I know.”
“I have done the calculations, and there is an sixty four percent chance Jyn Erso kills you when she learns about your assignment from the General.” K-2 stated, matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” Cassian suspected K-2’s calculations were a bit low. “About that. I might need you to restrain her.”
“That was my calculation with her being restrained,” K-2 corrected him. “If I do not restrain her, the likelihood is over eighty percent.”
“I’m glad you’ve given me some chance in a fight against a five foot tall woman,” Cassian muttered.
“My calculations suggest,” K-2’s voice became regretful, “That you will not fight back as strongly as you could. I needed to take account of that.” He brightened. “I do believe, in a fair fight, you would have a seventy two percent chance of being victorious. I do not believe Jyn Erso would fight fair, however, and-”
“I get it.” Cassian interrupted. The last thing he wanted to do was consider the various probabilities of Jyn killing him under different scenarios. “Let’s not worry quite yet.” Cassian glanced over his shoulder. “I’m good at what I do. I can come up with something to tell her, and she might not learn…. She’s lost in shock.” She looked so…small. Alone. Broken. He still had his parka from Jedha. Maybe he could wrap it around her to keep her warm at least….
“Oh, no.” K-2’s voice brought him back to the conversation at hand.
“What?”
“Cassian, this is terrible,” K-2 sounded as if the galaxy had ended. “It seriously complicates the mission.”
“I know I should have left her,” he snapped. “But you weren’t there. You didn’t see her like…”
“I knew this would happen,” K-2 continued to mutter darkly. “But you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“I told you I agreed that bringing her was a bad idea….” he started.
“Not that.” K-2’s head swiveled to look him straight in the eye. “You fell in love with her - and after I specifically told you not to.”
Oh, sweet Force. Of all times for K-2 to start down that never ending hole again, it had to be shortly before Cassian had to eliminate an Imperial scientist who’s daughter would very much want to engage in a revenge killing. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“You’ve cast seventy two percent more longing looks at her than at any of the other passengers you picked up on Jedha,” K-2 pointed out.
“I am not casting longing looks at anyone,” Cassian insisted.
“That wasn’t a denial of your feelings,” K-2 reminded him.
“Humans don’t fall in love with people they’ve only known for a couple days, Kay.” Cassian tried to appeal to logic. “It…it doesn’t work like that. I don’t even know her.”
“You know the important parts,” K-2 tried again.
Did he? He might not know what Jyn’s favorite thing to eat was, but he knew she had no problem risking her life to protect others. She’d even jumped in front of K-2…. What was he doing? He was actually listening to K-2 on this? The whole thing was getting ridiculous. He wasn’t even sure why he had humored the conversation this far. “Kay, let it go. I meant what I said. I do not love her. I am not going to fall in love with her. When we get back to Yavin, neither of us will ever see her again.” He should have left it at that. He should have kept his mouth closed and trusted K-2 to treat it as the end of the conversation that it clearly was.
Except he was tired. It had been a horrific day. When everything became silent, his mind either began replaying the moments when he watched as the horizon literally disappeared on Jedha or began working over the parts of his mission that were still to come. Despite knowing better – and he really did know better – Cassian heard himself fill the silence with the stupidest question ever. “What things?”
“Well, for starters,” K-2 brightened once more, as if happy to help. “Her father is very important to intelligence. He might be the most important father yet. And,” he paused, “She also looks like your type.”
Why did he open his mouth. And yet, Cassian found himself continuing to make the same mistake. “For the last time, Kay. I do not have a type.”
“Of course you do, Cassian.” K-2’s voice hovered very close to scolding. “You always fall in love with the same type of women. And it never ends well for you, does it? By your own admission, Nova died before returning your affections, you ended your relationship with Calli, the princess-”
“I have never had romantic feelings for the princess.“ Cassian interrupted. "We’ve been over this. She’s a child.”
“She is now at an appropriate age to begin a romantic relationship,” K-2 observed, as if this meant Cassian should now make up for lost time.
“This is-” Cassian cut himself off. Arguing with K-2 about it would only dig the hole deeper, which was pathetic since there wasn’t any hole to dig to begin with. “I need to report in.”
“I understand,” K-2 said, in a voice that made it very clear he did understand. In retrospect, Cassian decided, he should have programmed the droid to be a lot less observant.
At the same time, Cassian found he didn’t really care if K-2 thought he was in love with a dead girl, still carrying a torch for his former lover, and/or had some sort of infatuation with a teenage princess and a former resident of an Imperial work camp. He had bigger problems to deal with – things like planet killers, and their creators, and the fact that if he made even the slightest mistake, neither him nor K-2 would live long enough to see Yavin again. The only thing that mattered at the moment was getting his report to the Rebellion so they knew what they were dealing with – so that decisions could be made.
It was not the most enjoyable conversation Cassian had been a party to.
It made his previous conversation with his droid look like a fun time sing a long.
There had been a part of him that had hoped, foolishly, that a report confirming the existence of a planet killer would be enough, that he wouldn’t have to complete the rest of the mission. He knew, deep down, that this sort of hope was useless. He’d learned long ago that, for the galaxy to get the hope it needed to continue fighting, he needed to stop thinking in terms of hope and start thinking in terms of realism. He pulled the headset off his ears, the instruction to continue with his orders playing on repeat in his mind. “Set a course for Eadu.”
“Is that where my father is?” A female voice asked suddenly. Jyn was….aware.
In one awful moment, he knew things were about to get very, very bad. He had to hope that K-2’s calculations were incorrect. Either that, or that he would somehow end up in the eighteen percent scenario where Jyn Erso did not, in fact, kill him for assassinating her father.
Fortunately, in the end – after Eadu, after Galen Erso, after Alliance bombs raining from the sky - either the Force or dumb luck was with him. K-2’s calculations on the likelihood Jyn Erso would kill him were wrong. She confronted him, yelled at him, and laid bare his sins in front of the others for their judgment, but she did not try to kill him.
Unfortunately, K-2 might not have been wrong about everything. In the silence that occupied the flight back to Yavin, it was everything Cassian could do not to think of the ramifications of why he held his fire upon realizing Galen Erso had his daughter’s eyes.
~*~
Notes:
Cassian not killing Galen Erso because Galen and Jyn have the same eyes is disclosed in the Rogue One novelization.
Characters: Cassian Andor, K-2SO, Jyn Erso (background) Pairings: Kay would say Cassian/Jyn. Cassian would say none. Rating: PG Disclaimer: I still don’t own Star Wars.
Originally written for Coryphefish. Posted for castiellover77.
Part One of Three: Jedha
While Cassian did not make a habit of hauling criminals around the galaxy, he suspected that they were a lot like children: when they were quiet, you should probably be worried. Since entering hyperspace, he’d heard not one peep from their reluctant passenger. He wondered if he should have listened to K-2 when his friend issued the warning about letting a blaster anywhere near Jyn Erso. He had to admit it wouldn’t take much for her to kill him and take the ship. He also had to admit that she had motive to do so – it was quite clear Jyn Erso wanted nothing to do with Saw Gerrera, and the Alliance was essentially forcing her to speak with the man.
It would be prudent to check on her, Cassian decided as he rose from his seat and issued a “stay here” to K-2. If nothing else, it was better to be safe than sorry. If Jyn was still brooding in her seat, then there was no harm. If not…. Well, if not, he’d handle it. His hand drifted to his blaster as he ducked into the main hold.
He stopped.
The criminal mastermind he’d worried about was fast asleep, her head propped against the wall and her mouth hanging slightly open. The only menacing thing about her was that she clutched the blaster she’d foundin both hands as if her life depended on it. Even that didn’t really look menacing. She looked…
Young.
Scared.
Vulnerable.
Cassian had to admit that some of those were the Alliance’s fault. Part of him – the part that occasionally tried to get in the way of his duties – felt somewhat bad about what they were forcing the girl to do. He told himself not to dwell on it, to tuck that part away with all the other guilty thoughts that occasionally wormed their way to the surface of his mind before being shoved back into their proper places. After all, in the end, it didn’t matter if Jyn Erso was afraid of him or K-2 or what they were going to do. What mattered was whether the Alliance could win the war. Besides, it wasn’t as if kidnapping a criminal was the worst thing he’d done for the Cause.
“Oh dear.” K-2’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
Cassian turned towards the sound and scowled. “Back in the cockpit,” he hissed. “We don’t want to wake her.” If Jyn Erso was asleep, she could not be getting into trouble. More importantly, she could not be testing K-2’s theory about using her newly acquired firearm on Cassian. The longer she stayed asleep, Cassian decided, the better it was for everyone.
“I do not like this, Cassian,” K-2 commented as he obeyed.
“You can talk all you want in the cockpit,” Cassian reassured him. He rubbed his hands over his face before dropping into the pilot’s chair. Part of him thought it might be a good idea to grab some sleep of his own. He knew K-2 would watch his back if he did….
“No. Not that.” K-2 said. “I do not think we should have brought Jyn Erso with us.”
“I don’t like it either,” he reminded the droid. “But we need to talk to Gerrera if we want to have any hope of getting our hands on that message, and Gerrera has no reason to deal with either you or me without the girl.”
“Because she is essentially his daughter,” K-2 finished.
“Basically,” Cassian agreed.
K-2 made a noise that was part annoyance, part suffering acceptance. Not for the first time, Cassian wondered if droids should be able to do that. He didn’t dwell on it. “Cassian,” K-2 said slowly, “You do see the problem here.”
“That we have an unpredictable criminal who we’re taking to an even more unpredictable soldier?” He prompted. “Yes. I’m well aware.”
“No. Not that.” K-2 chastised. “The real problem.” When Cassian didn’t respond, K-2 added, “You are going to fall in love with her.”
Cassian resisted the urge to groan. In retrospect, he should have seen it coming. The moment K-2 mentioned anything about a woman’s father, the warning bells should have started ringing. Instead, he’d walked right into it. “Not this again,” he muttered.
“She is your type.” K-2 observed.
“I don’t have a type,” Cassian corrected. He slouched lower in his seat. Maybe he could will himself asleep to avoid this conversation.
“Of course you do. I have years worth of data on you, Cassian, and I noticed a very distinct pattern.” K-2 reported, as if this was ground breaking information. “When you are assigned to get information from important men, and they have daughters with dark hair, you fall in love with the daughters.”
“I do not,” Cassian managed to get out between his teeth, “Fall in love with the brunette daughters of men I spy on. We have been over this, Kay.”
“Lyzia Ta'dana,” K-2 started, holding up a mechanical finger.
“Just a recruit.” Cassian interrupted. “There was nothing romantic there.”
“Nova Roark,” K-2 continued, adding a second finger.
“Is dead,” Cassian finished.
“What does that have to do with anything?” K-2 asked. “She is still part of the pattern.”
“I did not sleep with Nova.” Cassian said firmly. Nova had never seen him as anything other than an Alliance recruiter. It was, Cassian admitted, a lucky thing. He didn’t need those types of complications in his life.
“That is not what we are looking at,” K-2 insisted. “We are examining the women you fall in love with, not the ones you eventually have relationships with. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. And there was Calli Prestal, and Princess Leia Organa…”
“For the love of…Kay, there was never anything with the princess.” Cassian felt his blood pressure tick upwards.
“And now,” K-2 finished, “We are taking a brunette woman to see the man who is, for all intents and purposes, her father. And you need to get information from him.” A metal finger pointed in Cassian’s face. “You cannot fall in love with her, Cassian. She is trouble and it will compromise the mission.”
“Yes, well,” Cassian pushed the finger to the side. “You don’t have to worry about that. I don’t fall in love with criminals.”
His words did little to assuage K-2. The droid’s ocular receptors blinked, and then K-2 merely repeated, “You cannot fall in love with her,” before returning to his station. The conversation was clearly over. Not that he minded. Talking about his love life – which was and had been non-existent for years – with K-2 was not his idea of a good way to spend their time in hyperspace.
It was, however, still better than being shot by Jyn Erso.
Cassian shoved his headset back onto his head and told himself he’d be glad when this mission was over.
~*~
Notes:
The not-Leia women Kay mentions are from my random brain. None of them are canon.
Jyn’s being stupidly courageous by having some tea with Papa Erso up on this platform^^ when Cassian gets contacted by K2 with the knowledge that Alliance is sending in support. While his response is interesting (and as a RebelCaptain, heartwarming) what makes me intrigued the most is this:
Cassian says to K2:
“No, no, no—tell them to hold up! Jyn’s on that platform!”
What K2 says to Alliance:
“Captain Andor requesting a delay on squadron support. Alliance forces onsite. Please confirm.”
Ok, ok, it might just be the difference because of protocol. (No names over unsecured channels) However, K2 doesn’t like Jyn. It’s not like he really cares to save her.
My theory: K2 is covering for Cassian. First off, had Cassian had a straight line to the Alliance, his comment would have been exactly what he said to K2. That wouldn’t have mattered to Draven if Jyn was alive or atomized. So by calling her ‘Alliance forces’ he’s protecting both Cassian’s reputation and assuaging any guilt that the Captain might be feeling over his latest assassination ( remember, K would assume that Cassian would have gone through with it.)
Anyway that’s just something my benedryl-addled brain came up with. No guaranteeing that it makes any sense. If you have anything that proves/disproves my thoughts, let me know!
So tldr: K2 is Cassian’s bff. K2 is best bff a lonely pitiful distraught gray character could ask for.
Samuel Gerrera, Northern Perimeter Reconnaissance Unit, sees the world beyond the Wall - for better and for worse.
“And this isn’t public knowledge because?” Filris enquired, catching both of them in a very pointed stare. “Galen told the Voice of the Nine Day Watch that this was a matter of preserving the integrity of the southern border by cooperating with Ancelstierre.”
Samuel snorted involuntarily. Raddus had a point about Galen being very good at proffering acceptable lies to officers.
“The risk to all three of us,” Lyra said. “Several people have tried to kill Galen and Jyn, I’ve been followed, there have been a few possible attempts - and the Wall isn’t exactly safe.”
Filris’ eyes moved to Samuel.
“I’d be lined up against a wall and shot as a spy,” Samuel said baldly. Lyra flinched, and he reached for her hand; she took his and squeezed it very tightly. “Look, ma’am, the army can’t find out I’m married. And I wouldn’t mind the Kingdom knowing, but I can’t bring carnage down on my men just because someone wants to get at Galen through me. I’d come home, but I swore oaths. There are men counting on me.”
“Hmm,” Filris said, and stared through the pair of them for a while. Then she smiled very slightly, and said: “Very well. I will treat this as privileged information. And I won’t contradict Galen’s outrageous fibs.”
