Chapter Text
“Where the HELL ARE THEY?!” Jyn yells as she storms into one of the command rooms, oblivious to the stares she draws, her gaze focusing in on the only other woman in the room.
Leia looks at her calmly, the polar opposite of the rage that Jyn feels burning inside of her, and quietly requests people clear the room. Everyone scurries to oblige. Once they are alone, the Princess steps forward and greets Jyn as if nothing is the matter. As if their friends had not been brutally attacked last night and were now lying in medical. “Good morning, Jyn.”
“Where the hell,” Jyn repeats, reigning in her temper to a hiss instead of a shout, “are those miserable hutt-spawn.”
“I assume you’re referring to Corporals Lorat, Ienvich and Baro. If so, I’m afraid I can’t tell you, Jyn.”
“Why the kriff not?!” she yells, rocketing back to peak volume, losing her cool as quickly as she’d gotten it.
“Because I don’t want you to do anything rash and attempt to injure them further or otherwise assault them.”
“They deserve it!” Jyn shouts, unable to believe that Leia is protecting them.
The Princess throws up her hands in supplication. “I don’t argue that point, they deserve whatever you would throw at them and more. I am livid at their inexcusable behavior. I cannot believe they stooped so low and let prejudice and judgement blind them to reason. But it’s not them I’m protecting, I’m protecting you from yourself. The last thing I need is for Cassian to wake up to discover his…” she hesitates, gauging Jyn’s reaction as she continues, “…shall we say partner? His partner has been thrown in lockup because she assaulted some prisoners, even though it may have been justified,” Leia explains, eyes sparkling with humor. “While I would gladly sit on the sidelines and watch you deliver their justice, I cannot in good conscience do that. The Alliance has to operate under strict rules and guidelines in order to maintain peace between so many differing nations and peoples, rules that clearly state attacking a fellow rebel—even one convicted of wrongdoing—is a crime to be punished, and I cannot make an exception for a friend no matter how much I desire to.”
Jyn folds her arms. Part of her understands what Leia is doing and applauds her for it (and she wishes she, herself, had the self-control and calm to handle the situation with such dignity) but the rest of her just really wants to punch someone. Three specific someones, actually. She’s kicking herself repeatedly for asking Cassian to restrain himself from stepping in yesterday at lunch—because if she hadn’t, maybe both Cassian and Bodhi would not be injured and laid up in medical… maybe Bodhi would be able to see straight (though Yevez assures her that Bodhi’s difficulty seeing is only temporary) and maybe Cassian would not have re-broken two of his just healed ribs, torn ligaments in his still damaged leg and collapsed in exhaustion, all in the name of defending his friend. If she could take her anger out on someone else—specifically the spineless perpetrators—she might be able to stop beating herself up over her error in judgement. At last she sighs, grudgingly acquiescing to Leia’s wisdom. “At least promise me that they are being dealt with severely.”
Leia’s eyes harden and her calm façade slips to reveal a malicious grin. “Oh, trust me, Jyn. By the time I’m done with them, they will wish they’d never even entertained the thought of hurting Bodhi, let alone crossing paths with me or with Cassian.”
Jyn immediately feels better. If she can’t mete out the punishment herself, Leia is the next best option. Those poor fools, she thinks, vowing never to get on Leia’s bad side. I almost feel sorry for them… Almost, but not quite.
*
Cassian wakes to a persistent rhythmic tapping coming from somewhere beyond his feet. He immediately identifies that he’s lying on a cot in medical and that his body aches, but not as much as he’d anticipated it would—got to love those bacta tanks. His head, however, appears fully intact and undamaged, which is a most pleasant surprise given that the last time he’d been conscious he’d been on a one way trip towards the floor. He vaguely remembers arms slowing his descent and makes a mental note to thank Solo later, both for catching him and for his help in getting Bodhi to medical. Critical self-assessment complete, he blinks open his eyes to the bright light in order to identify the source of the tapping.
Immediately, he wishes he hadn’t. Vorin stands at the foot of his bed, arms crossed and face as close to livid as Cassian has seen in quite some time. Vorin is a fairly easy going, generally happy person by nature, so it takes a lot to perturb him and draw his ire. Apparently Cassian’s latest adventure had been enough to push him over the edge.
Cassian sighs, shutting his eyes and muttering hopefully, “Is it too late to pretend you didn’t just see me wake up?”
The tapping halts. “Oh I think we are far past that point, my friend,” Vorin responds, voice laced with anger. “When I released you from medical on the stipulation that you only engage in light activity, this is not what I had in mind!” he hisses.
Cassian winces as he raises an arm to cover his face, as if that would provide him a shield against his friend’s wrath. “In my defense, I didn’t intend to get into a fight,” he argues. “It just sort of… happened.”
“Uh huh.” The medic’s voice indicates he is far from appeased. “You just happened to engage in combat with three men when your body had not yet fully healed from nearly dying a few weeks ago! And the worst part is, that’s exactly what happened so I can’t even be mad at you for what you did! Because if you hadn’t just happened upon the fight, then a good man would probably be dead! Unbelievable! Why do you make it so kriffing hard to be mad at you, Andor?!” the man demands. “Can’t you for once not be the hero!? Give someone else a chance!”
Cassian peers at the man from beneath his hand. “I would have gladly stepped aside and let someone else take care of it, but no one else was around,” he feels the need to point out.
“Irrelevant! Just stop being such a damn hero! It’s going to get you killed!” Vorin fumes.
Cassian huffs. “Next time I see something, I’ll be sure to look around and ask for someone else to intercede.”
His friend just growls at him.
“You know, for someone who claims he can’t be mad at me, you sure do a lot of shouting…” Cassian observes. “Are you sure you’re not angry?”
The medic shouts in frustration, pulling at his hair. “I said I’m not angry with what you did, Andor, because it needed to be done and I know you would do it again given the chance because that’s just who you are! If I were mad at you for just being you, then I have no right to call myself your friend. I am, however, mad because you terrify me sometimes! No, not in the way you always worry about,” Vorin dismisses upon seeing a look of hurt flash across Cassian’s face. “You don’t scare me with your Intelligence Captain persona, nor am I horrified by what you’ve done. No, you terrify me because you clearly value your own life so much less than others! You help everyone else before you help yourself, even at the cost of your own health! As your friend who cares about you, it’s frightening, infuriating and commendable all at the same time.” Vorin pauses, before exclaiming more loudly, “And, there is at least one other thing that I can be mad at you about!” He storms to the head of the bed and turns so that Cassian can see a small streak of gray hair on the man’s temple. “You see this?! This is all because of you, I’m sure of it! I’m twenty-nine. I should not have gray hair at twenty nine! It’s all your fault!”
“I think it makes you look rather dashing,” Cassian compliments.
The medic whips his head around to stare at the captain. “You can’t talk your way out of this, not this time Andor. I may not be able to be furious with you, but I can sure as hell make you furious with me! You are not to leave this facility, you are not to leave this bed for three days at minimum! No exceptions.”
Cassian stares at his friend. “You keep saying you’re not angry, but you certainly have the appearance of a man who is…”
Vorin’s eyes harden. “Keep pushing and I’ll make it five days minimum,” he threatens.
Cassian’s about to reply with a retort certain to up him to six days, when a voice interrupts him. “I think that sounds like an excellent idea, Yevez, perhaps you’d like to go ahead and write it into his medical instructions and make it official?”
Cassian pales at the sound of the too calm, too sweet voice. He can’t see the owner of the voice, as Vorin blocks his view, but he knows who it is. The medic’s face turns from a frown to a smug smile, watching Cassian’s panicked face. “You know what?” the blond replies, “I think you’re right. In fact, I’ll go do that right now and leave you alone with our brave hero.”
Cassian glares at his friend. “Traitor,” he hisses.
Vorin’s grin only widens at that as he backs away, quickly fleeing and revealing Jyn Erso.
She stares at Cassian, her face blank and unreadable, which is highly unusual. She’s not an open book—most people have difficulty reading her—but Cassian has always been good at catching the subtle cues of her face and body language. Now, though, she’s as mysterious as the few corners of the galaxy yet undiscovered. He can guess why she’s here, though, and fears he knows what’s about to come.
He groans. “I’m really not in the mood, Jyn. I just had Vorin lecture me on my risky actions and tendency to put others first too often and at the expense of my own health. I don’t need you telling me I was stupid, too.”
She says nothing, just starts stalking towards him.
“I would do it again!” he states defensively. “Bodhi needed me and I wasn’t about to let three scumbags hurt him further. Are you even listening to me?” he demands as she ignores him.
She marches right up to him as he opens his mouth to continue to defend himself, but she silences whatever protest he was about to voice with a kiss.
Well, that was not what I was expecting. He’d been prepared for her usual fiery temper and a tongue lashing for injuring himself, he had not been prepared for affection.
She pulls away from him, eyes sparkling.
“Uhm?” he utters intelligently.
She smirks. “I considered yelling at you, but I figured you’d expect that and I strive to be unexpected. Plus, the look of surprise on your face was priceless. How are you?” she inquiries innocently.
“I’ve been better,” he replies slowly, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She nods sagely. “I imagine you have.”
Upon seeing his face still wary, she smiles at him, then. A warm smile. “Stop looking at me like I’m about to snap your head off. I’m not mad at you. You did what you had to do and I’m proud of you for it, even though you scared the living daylights out of me, Cassian. Imagine my surprise when Yevez pounded on my door in the middle of the night, yelling to inform me that you were injured in medical again. I admit that I agree with Yevez in that I wish you were a little more selfish sometimes, but I wouldn’t ask you to change what you did.”
A hesitant smile slips onto his face, so of course, that’s when she adds, “Of course I still think what you did was stupid,” she informs him sternly, “but brave.”
Instead of that statement wiping the smile off of his face the way she’d clearly intended it to, his smile spreads.
She frowns at him in consternation that he’s apparently completely ignoring her rebuke. “What?”
“You think I’m brave,” he tells her smugly.
She gapes at him, then bursts out laughing. “Cassian Andor, if you’re only now figuring that out, I don’t know how you’ve lasted so long in Intelligence!” she leans forward and kisses him again. “Of course I think you’re brave. In fact I know you are. I’ve known it since Jedha, and you’ve proved it over and over again since then,” she murmurs to him earnestly.
Cassian has no words to respond, so instead he pulls her down beside him and nestles her into his arms, with her head resting on his shoulder. They sit in silence for a moment, before Jyn grumbles mutinously, “Leia won’t tell me where those three excuses for bantha fodder are… could you convince her to enlighten me?”
And it’s his turn to chuckle, no matter how much it hurts his ribs.
*
Vorin Yevez releases Cassian one day before he releases Bodhi. The pilot argues that Cassian’s injuries are worse than his, but the head medic tells him firmly that head wounds are more stubborn and take more time and he refuses to risk Jyn or Cassian coming to beat him up if he releases Bodhi too soon, only to have him collapse. Yevez also mutters something that Bodhi doesn’t quite catch, something about there being only so much silent and brooding Andor that he could take, but maybe the pilot imagines it.
Bodhi finds this highly unfair, but he knows it’s only because his friends care, so he keeps quiet. The man who helped him and Cassian to medical that night—Han Solo, he’s told later by Yevez—drops by a few times to check on both Bodhi and Cassian. He never stays long and he always seems a little conflicted: a strange mix of a carefree “don’t need anybody” outlook and oozing confidence, mixed with moments of uncertainty, almost like he’s questioning his attitude. Bodhi tries to interrogate Cassian about the smuggler’s weird behavior, because he doesn’t really remember anything from the two men’s conversation on their way to medical, only that they had one, but Cassian just waves him off and says the man has a lot to think about.
The day that Cassian leaves medical, he stops at Bodhi’s cot, looks him dead in the eye and promises that it will end now. Bodhi doesn’t need to ask what the “it” is… it’s clear from Cassian’s angry gaze and clenched jaw. Bodhi has a hard time believing there’s really anything Cassian can do to stop the distrust and hazing that some people show him—which occurs every day, even though the physical confrontation has only occurred once—but the captain’s gaze is so serious that the pilot doesn’t have the heart to tell him it’s pointless.
But once he’s released from medical and starts moving around the base again, learning to operate various sections of it and continuing his snowspeeder career (much to his dismay), he does notice a marked shift in the way people treat him, even in the way people look at him or pass him in the halls. Gone are the sidelong glances, the eye contact avoidance and the fake smiles. They’re replaced with genuine friendliness and people interested in actual conversation with him. It takes a week and a half for him to have a full day where, at the end of it, he realizes he hadn’t looked over his shoulder even once out of fear of an attack or some snide comment. Lorat and Ienvich have disappeared, vanished from the base as if they’d never existed. Bodhi asks Cassian about them and all the man says is that the pilot won’t have to worry about them again. Bodhi figures they’ve probably been disciplined and transferred to a different base or faced some other fitting punishment, but he doesn’t ask again.
All in all, life looks pretty good for the Rebel Pilot.
*
Cassian finally feels almost back to normal, health wise at least. And it’s about time! It’s been almost a month since Scarif, a little over twenty-three days since the Death Star’s destruction, and a little over a week since his confrontation with the men assaulting Bodhi. He can finally walk from one end of the base to the other without needing to catch his breath and he’s already scheduled his first off-planet mission departing a week from today. It’s a low level, low risk mission to one of his many contacts in order to bargain for some hyperdrive motivators. Since so many ships were destroyed at Scarif and during the run on the Death Star, the Alliance is dangerously low.
Currently, he’s standing in the command center, just finishing listening to an intercepted Imperial transmission that one of the technicians thought he should hear, when a commotion catches his—and everyone else’s in the room—attention. It’s Leia arguing animatedly with Solo, Chewbacca looking on from the sidelines, clearly conflicted as to whose side he should take. Moments later Leia throws her hands up in the air and yells, “Fine! Do what you want! Leave! I don’t even care!”
“Good!” the smuggler shouts back, turning away and marching towards the door, throwing “Come on, Chewie!” over his shoulder.
The wookie looks at Leia regretfully and moans a goodbye, before following his friend out the door.
Leia crosses her arms and glares at the now empty doorway as Cassian makes his way over to her. “Where are they going?”
“Who knows?!” she exclaims, face reddening in anger. “All he’ll say is he’s running a ‘top secret mission’—which is a pack of lies because I know that nobody has assigned him anything—and he doesn’t know when he’ll be back, which is really just code for if he’ll be back! And I have no authority to hold him here because he hasn’t become an official part of the Alliance, and besides, it would be pointless even if I could!” she finishes angrily, turning to him. “That man is infuriating! Don’t you think so?”
Cassian wisely keeps his mouth shut, only offering a noncommittal shrug that satisfies Leia enough for her to turn her attention back to the smuggler. “He’s all ‘I’m all about money’ one minute and the next he’s saving the Rebellion and then the next he’s just disappearing! Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother!” She stops herself there, reigning in her temper and pulling out her cool, collected persona. “But what does it matter. He’s just a smuggler with a ship that’s a piece of junk. It’s no loss to the Alliance.”
Cassian’s not so sure about that. He thinks Solo could be a real asset to the Rebellion if he ever figures out the war of morals and priorities raging in his own head, the war that Cassian’s proud of himself for having helped ignite. And, he doesn’t think Leia’s right in her assessment of the man’s vague answer really being code for “if” he’ll be back. Cassian knows the man will be back; Leia has that sort of pull on people and he’s already witnessed Solo fall prey to it. The man’s a goner.
*
A little over a week later, Jyn finds herself a bit at loose ends. She hasn’t found her niche in the Alliance yet, despite being all for the cause, now. She does her best to fit in where she’s needed, picking up scouting missions and Imperial frequency monitoring shifts where she’s needed, but she doesn’t feel like she truly belongs yet. People are perfectly friendly and welcoming to her, but she still lacks a specific purpose and drive. Of course she wants to join Intelligence, but apparently not just anyone can do that. Even for an established hero, there’s a screening process and more importantly, a training process.
She’s already begun the training and most of it is stuff she’s been doing all of her life—blending in, hiding, lying, etc.—but they won’t let her fast track through it just because of her hero status and her acquaintance with the Captain of Intelligence. And she grudgingly admits that there are things she doesn’t know, such as specific Imperial policies and laws which she needs to be familiar with in order to blend in better, languages and dialects—in case she doesn’t have an interpreter droid with her—and various other things she’d never considered. So until she completes the training a few month from now, she’s not supposed to leave Hoth. Which is why—despite her arguing—she did not go with Cassian on his mission to barter for hyperdrive motivators.
She still doesn’t think he should have even gone on a mission in the first place, let alone by himself, but he, Leia and General Draven had overruled her. If it had only been General Draven, she would have told him precisely where to shove it and ignored him, but she respected and trusted both Cassian and Leia. Despite how much she might have liked to, she didn’t allow herself the childish indulgence of sulking or not speaking to either of them as punishment, because that’s exactly what it would have been: childish. And it would have been a disservice to Cassian, something he very much did not need right now. She wants to be the good in his life, not the bad, just as he is the good in hers.
So she bit her tongue—only after telling him in no uncertain terms that he was to take it easy and that she would rain down hell and fire if he came back with even one scratch more than what he left with—and stayed silent, watching him fly away with his solemn promise that he would return.
That had been two days ago and—if he is still on schedule—he’s supposed to return later that day. Jyn strategically scheduled herself to have the afternoon monitoring shift so that she would be the first to know of his arrival and be the first to greet him over the radio.
Her shift doesn’t start for another hour, though, so until then she occupies herself with sparring a droid programmed to block her every move. She’d prefer for it to strike back, but she’ll take what she can get. Thus far she has only managed two hits on it, which to her seems dismal, but she understands that only a few other people have ever managed to strike it, let alone on their first go with it. So that makes her feel a little better.
She hears the door to the training room open behind her but doesn’t bother to look and see who it is. It’s probably just someone else wanting either to vent their frustrations or work on honing their skills. That is, until a cleared throat and a loud “Hey!” catch her attention.
She turns, ready to ream the interrupter out for breaking her concentration—she’s sure she’d been about to land another hit on the droid—when her eyes land on who it is: Han Solo.
She hasn’t had much interaction with the man herself, but she knows how he helped Bodhi and Cassian the night Bodhi had been attacked and she thinks Solo’s a lot like she used to be, before her father died: he watches out for himself, not caring what other people think or caring for other people at all—except for occasional moments that are gradually growing more frequent—without a specific purpose or cause. She thinks he’s slowly coming around, though, and she’s grateful to him for both his role in the Death Star’s destruction and the aide he provided to her friends.
“Yes?” she asks cautiously, unable to think of a reason he would come looking for her.
He stands awkwardly in the doorway, his hand rubbing the back of his neck, so uncharacteristically insecure that she worries a disaster has occurred. “You’re the one looking for the droid, right? For Andor?”
“The droid?” she asks quizzically, before understanding floods her and her heart begins racing. “The Imperial droid?!”
“Yeah, the Imperial security droid. I’ve got a decommissioned one in perfect working order sitting in my ship and I need to know where to put it.”
“You have one?!” she practically yells, unable to believe her ears.
“Yeah, that’s what I said, lady,” Solo says, face twisting into a smirk, confidence returning with a vengeance.
Jyn doesn’t know what to say. Her mind races with all sorts of questions—where did he get one, how did he get one, and most importantly, WHY did he get one?—and her heart pounds with hope. It takes her so long to formulate an answer that the smuggler frowns and crosses his arms. “Look, if you don’t want it, you could at least have the decency to tell me to my face after I went to all of the trouble getting it, or I can just junk it.”
“No!” she exclaims, stepping towards the man so fast that he takes a step back, before immediately catching himself and stepping forward again. “No, don’t junk it!”
She thinks furiously, wondering where she should put it. Engineering? The mechanical repair room? Strangely enough, she’s paranoid that if the droid’s put someplace public, something will happen to it and this will have been for naught. She knows it’s a ridiculous fear, but she’s not going to take any chances. “Can you bring it to my quarters, please?” It will be incredibly weird having a lifeless, hulking Imperial droid just sitting in her room, but she doesn’t think—hopes—it won’t be there for long.
The smuggler nods. “Sure thing. Mind coming with me to fetch it?”
She shakes her head. Of course she doesn’t mind. She follows the man through the hallways of the base and into the small hangar, where the Millennium Falcon sits, Chewbacca standing outside its loading door, waiting for them.
“Hey, Chewie!” Solo calls. “Bring it out!”
The Wookie moans his assent, disappearing into the ship only to appear moments later with a hoverboard carrying an indistinguishable lump covered by a sheet.
At Jyn’s look of confusion, the smuggler shrugs. “Didn’t want to attract any unnecessary attention.”
They make their way through the base, drawing some stares, but nobody stops them. When they finally reach her room, Chewbacca pulls the sheet off of the metal body and hauls it into her room, positioning it sitting on the floor.
She reaches out to touch his arm as he passes her on the way out the door, but stops herself just before contact. “Thank you,” she murmurs.
He looks down at her, his eyes kind, gently places a furry hand on her shoulder and croons something quietly.
“He says ‘you’re welcome,’” Solo supplies. “And not to mention it because it’s the least he can do for you all.”
She blinks away the moisture in her eyes as the Wookie exits the room after giving her shoulder a firm squeeze. Solo turns to follow his friend but Jyn calls out to stop him, “Wait! Why did you do this?”
The man stops in the doorway and half turns to face her. He shrugs. “I figure you guys have lost enough. And Andor in particular. Plus he’s given me a lot to think about so I wanted to give him something back—I hate owing people. And besides, everyone needs their copilot.”
Chewbacca calls something from out in the hallway and Solo smiles. “Damn right, buddy. I can’t do anything without you.”
“But,” Jyn stammers, searching for word. “How?”
The man’s smile turns into a smirk. “It’s what I do. I am a smuggler after all.” And he’s gone.
Left alone with only the shell of a droid, she turns to the hulking object and shakily removes K2’s backup from behind a few books on her shelf. She opens the port in the droid’s head and is about to insert the disc, hoping beyond hope that it works, that it hasn’t been corrupted and that the droid circuitry accepts it, but she stops. When was this backup made? Was it before or after K2 met me? she ponders. Given that there was very little time between them landing on Yavin and then taking off for Scarif, she thinks the odds are high that this backup predates her acquaintance with the droid. Add to that the fact that initially K2 was somewhat hostile to her, and she wonders whether it’s a good idea to try booting the droid up now, with only her in the room. If K2 comes online to a complete stranger in an unknown environment, well, she wouldn’t blame him for whatever actions followed.
Instead, she tucks the disc back onto her shelf and exits the room. Her shift on watch is about to start and Cassian will be back in the next few hours; he should be the one to reboot K2. He’d known the droid far longer than she had.
*
Cassian returns that afternoon just as scheduled and just as he’d promised. His voice comes on over the radio, informing them of his approach and his mission’s success, and just like that, her nerves settle and a smile slips onto her face. She gives him the clearance code and which bay to fly to, then tells him, “Welcome home, Captain.”
She can hear his answering grin over the radio. “No place I’d rather be.”
She finds him waiting for her outside of the control room’s door three hours later, sitting on the hallway floor going over something or other on his digital device—briefings, future mission plans, she doesn’t know. Her heart warms as he looks up to meet her eyes and a smile immediately lights up his face.
Leia told her a few days ago that she’s seen Cassian smile more in the past few weeks than she has ever seen in her years of friendship with him. It’s humbling and a little scary for Jyn, knowing that she’s the reason why—or at least, that’s what Leia heavily implied. It thrills Jyn to know that she’s been able to keep her silent promise to him, to give him reason to smile more. And it scares her because she knows, with a few careless words, she could hurt him deeply. She never wants to do that, but it’s in her nature to be volatile. That’s something Cassian understands, though, and thus far he’s done a good job of seeing past her prickly shell whenever she raises her shields on instinct. She has hope that he will continue to do so, but she won’t allow herself to rely on that. It wouldn’t be fair to him if she forced him to always read between the lines, so she counsels herself never to lash out in anger: words spoken in anger take only a few moments to tear down what they’ve built between them for days upon weeks upon months.
With these thoughts and new promises to herself swirling in her head, she slides down next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and entwines her hand with his. “You could have come in to say hello.”
“Nah, I didn’t want to distract you from important work.”
They sit in silence a moment, before she squeezes his hand and murmurs, “There’s something I need to show you.”
He turns his head to look at her, an unidentifiable tone in her voice giving away that “something” is far from ordinary. He smiles hesitantly before getting to his feet and extending his hand to her. “Okay.”
It eases her soul seeing him move so easily. Two weeks ago he wouldn’t have been able to sink to the floor and return to his feet, and now he does so with ease. His stance and hand are strong when she places hers in his and allows him to pull her to her feet.
She stays silent as they wind their way towards her room, partly so she doesn’t burst out with the surprise and partly because she’s deathly afraid she’s about to get his hopes up only to dash them if the droid doesn’t accept the file.
He keeps eyeing her suspiciously, until he finally breaks the silence. “You’re acting…” he searches for a word, before huffing and settling on, “weird. What’s going on? Is everyone okay?”
She almost rolls her eyes. Of course his first thought is everyone else’s well-being! She just nods, not trusting herself to speak.
When they finally reach her room, she gestures to the door. “After you.”
He stares at her a long moment, brow furrowed, trying to understand what this is all about, before he finally cues the door to open, eyes still on her, then steps into the room. She can tell the moment his eyes land on the droid even though all she can see is his back, because he freezes. She doesn’t even see him breathe.
He remains silent for so long, body blocking the doorway so she can’t sneak by to get a glimpse of his face, that she worries maybe this was not a good idea. Finally, “Jyn,” he whispers, voice hoarse, “what is this?”
She walks up to him and gently pushes him forward into the room, giving herself clearance to move around his still figure so that she can face him.
“This,” she gestures to the droid, “is what I wanted to show you.”
She twists and pulls the disc off of her shelves, then turns slowly back to Cassian and places it in his hands.
His eyes widen and he swallows. “I thought I’d lost it,” he murmurs, hands trembling. “Kay was always so paranoid that I would screw it up or damage it, I just thought I’d finally proved the pessimist right.”
Jyn stares at him in surprise and then in horror. You stupid idiot! she yells at herself. Of course he would notice it’s missing! Of course he would blame himself and think there was no hope of ever seeing K2 again! Aloud she gasps, “I’m so sorry! I wasn’t thinking!” she grasps his hands and forces him to look at her. “I found the disc on Yavin and wanted so desperately to give you something back that I took it thinking I could construct a new body for K2. I never thought about the fact that you would think you’d lost it! I just didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to give you false hope!”
He stares at her for a long moment and she fears that at any moment his look of stunned reverence will fade and that he’ll turn away from her in disgust, but of course he doesn’t. He’s Cassian. He sees right through her. “This is why you were so upset that night, why you avoided me for a whole day, isn’t it? Because none of our circuitry could handle the Imperial format.”
How the hell does he remember that and immediately connect it to this? she wonders, continually surprised by him, before she bites her lip and nods. “I got so discouraged that I had to give up, but Leia found out about my predicament and issued classified orders for pilots to be on the lookout for an opportunity to obtain an Imperial droid and, for some inexplicable reason, Han Solo dispatched himself and brought it back today.”
Cassian’s gaze turns thoughtful. “So that’s why he left,” he mutters to himself.
“What?” she asks, confused.
He shakes his head. “Never mind. It’s not important.”
“I’m so sorry for not telling you! I can’t believe that I caused you so much pain when I was only trying to keep from hurting you… please don’t be mad!”
“Mad?” Cassian echoes in disbelief. “Jyn, for the love of the Force how could I be mad? You’ve given me back one of my best friends. I cannot even begin to thank you enough.”
She blushes at that. “Well, it was a group effort, really, and Solo’s the one that actually got the droid, so it’s him you should thank, but I’m not even sure the droid will work. Solo claimed it’s in perfect condition but I didn’t want to risk booting K2 up without you here—I’d prefer to keep myself intact and uninjured.”
The man smiles at her and it’s a full smile that reaches his eyes and lights her heart. “A wise decision. And thank you, again.”
He moves to the droid slumped against the wall and opens the port before sliding the disc in. “Here goes nothing,” he mutters, letting out a breath and stepping back.
A low hum fills the room and the droid’s eyes begin to glow. A moment later, mechanical whirring sounds as the droid comes online and begins adjusting circuits and limbs, automatically running a diagnostic.
The droid sits there for a moment, blue eyes staring at the floor, before the glowing orbs snap upwards and immediately land on Cassian.
“Cassian, it’s cold. Why is it so cold that my circuits are shorting? Yavin 4 has no business being this cold.”
Cassian stares at the droid in wonder and happiness, managing only to say, “That’s because we’re not on Yavin 4 anymore, Kay.”
The droid looks from Cassian to Jyn—lingering on her for several moments, analyzing her, probably—and back. “I take it that, because this woman is grinning just as stupidly as you are, she must know me and yet my records give me no indication that I know her,” Kay observes critically. “Add to that the fact that I somehow went from Yavin 4 to here—wherever “here” is—without knowing it and without record of a shutdown—and you promised never to shut me down manually, ever since that incident three years ago that we swore never to speak of again—and I surmise that you successfully used my backup drive without screwing up. Well, I guess miracles really do happen,” the droid comments snarkily.
“Correct!” Cassian confirms, ignoring his friend’s sarcasm and moving forward to throw his arms around the droid.
Kay leans back, clearly puzzled, before awkwardly patting the man on the back. “You’re hugging me. Why are you hugging me? Why in the galaxy are you hugging me?! You never hug me…” the droid utters a gasp, “Does this mean I died!?”
“Correct again, Kay,” Cassian answers, tightening his arms around the droid before, stepping backwards to give Kay space. “You were an absolute hero,” he states earnestly.
The droid stares at him, expression unreadable, until he cocks his head slightly. “Huh, how stupid of me. What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking like a true Rebel, Kay,” Cassian informs him, grinning ear to ear, before sobering slightly. “I’m only sorry it took so long to get you back, but like I’ve always promised, I don’t leave the people I care about behind.” His eyes meet Jyn’s, then, and they convey more promises, more hopes and dreams, more love than she thought a single gaze could ever hold. They’ve begun a journey and she cannot wait to see where they go. Together.
“Wait,” Kay speaks up suspiciously, rising to his full height. “What was that look between you two just now.”
Cassian looks away from Jyn and up towards his friend, smirking. “Kay, you’re the one that’s always reminding me how smart you are and how efficiently your analytical programs run. Figure it out.”
“What?!” Kay demands, miffed. “No!”
Cassian only chuckles and turns away, ushering Jyn out of the room ahead of him.
“Hey! Cassian!” Kay shouts from behind him, “what was the meaning of that look!?”