Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jyn checks her blaster as the ship touches down on the platform. Her blaster is fully charged, and so is the spare magazine. Her flashlight works moderately well, given how outdated the model is. Her data chipset is in her pocket. Her purified air mask is on and running. The report indicated that while the planet Bahravi was previously surrounded by a Type II atmosphere, it now lacks density and copious amounts of oxygen. 

All around her, the fifteen sentients of the Pathfinder strike team are doing the same. 

Kes Dameron pops his head in from the cockpit. “Ready?”

He gets nods and an “aye, Lieutenant” in return. 

“Alright, let’s get up and move out. If I'm late tonight, my wife will run me over with her X-Wing.”

Jyn chuckles. Knowing Shara and how their trip to Yavin 4 is to tell her parents they’re going to become grandparents, Kes’ fear is reasonably well-founded.

She quickly steps onto the landing platform with her fellow Pathfinders, looking around the presumably abandoned facility before her. She holds her breath. This is a trial for her suggested Pathfinder-Intelligence commission, and her job is to secure the intel. Granted, she is technically supervised. Cassian is staying on the ship with Bodhi and is ready to come if Jyn finds herself in over her head, but she can hold her own. Her job is to help the Pathfinders secure the place if necessary and document everything there is to find. It’s easy. Jyn is armed to the teeth and can care for herself just fine. Cassian can use the hour or two to keep Bodhi company or catch up on sleep. 

They got the intel of some strange energy spikes in the Belsmuth sector a few weeks ago. After observing the initial flutter-like readings, Intelligence deemed that those spikes meant an unprecedented, unknown Imperial activity on the uninhabited planet Bahvari. Before the scientific branch could come up with an explanation for the records, the energy readings went out with a big bang. That was the last straw for Intelligence, who decided to send the strike team to secure the site for proper investigation. 

Even from orbit, the planet has been suspiciously calm. The records said Bahravi should be primarily barren, with rocks and only sparse vegetation covering it. The dominant element is sulphur; nothing that cannot withstand acid rains could survive here. Still, there were supposed to be some life forms to be found, but the orbit scanning brought no results. There were supposed to be breathable levels of oxygen on the surface, but the proximity scan only reported about ten per cent of it in the atmosphere. The planet looked completely deserted from orbit and not much more lively from the ground. To Jyn, it looks burnt down as she walks from the ship to the crevice identified as the energy waves' origin. It is darkened by smoke, the edges of the stone covered in a sticky layer of soot. A panel block of a reinforced door has been pried open by the Rebels, revealing a dark, sloping corridor behind, leading further into the mountain.

The place is so desolate that Jyn knows deep down in her bones that whatever the Imperials thought to be crucial enough to hide in a place like this must be a deal breaker. Especially since they seemingly incinerated the facility and most of the planet with it. 

As Jyn enters the forsaken installation, the place is eerily quiet. She cannot help but remember the same creepy silence from the data vault in the Scarif citadel. The wrongness of it has been digging under her skin for months now.

She palms her wrist comm. “I’m in.”

The device cracks with static. “How does it look?”

Cassian sounds tense over the comm. He doesn’t do well sitting on a ship while somebody else collects field data. He trusts Jyn, though, and stays behind without fuss so that she can prove herself to the higher-ups.

“Completely vacant,” she replies. “No signs of anything alive inside the installation.”

“No signs of that outside as well,” Cassian replies. The connection fizzles as Jyn walks further inside. The corridor slopes down like it’s leading into the heart of the mountain. She must also turn on her flash now as the yellow-tinged daylight does not reach as far. In front of her, the Pathfinders spread through the corridor, checking every bifurcation from the main hallway. All of them lead to rooms that are too small to be the hub, so they continue for now as one unit.

Her comm cracks again. This time, it’s Bodhi’s voice. “Jyn, be careful there. This place gives me the bad tingles.”

Jyn knows what he means. “Always am, Bodhi. Always am.”

The comm takes a few seconds of static before cracking up again. “Jyn, that’s a filthy lie, and we all know it. What? No, Cassian, you shut up. You, of all people, have no right to be offended here.”

Jyn snickers into the semi-dark. She considers not answering but knows it would only make Bodhi more anxious. Cassian, too, though he’s more experienced in hiding it. “Keep the engines on standby, Bodhi. We’ll be back up in no time.”

The corridor continues further down, branching off to multiple small, abandoned rooms with nothing noteworthy inside. This deep inside, there’s no outside light at all. After a while, it ends with another heavy open door. In the cone of her flashlight, Jyn sees Kes Dameron checking his life form detector, and he signals the all-clear to the squad. One by one, the Rebels enter the room. Corporal Guinn, a youth with shoulders so broad he could fit two adult people in them, has to walk sideways, much to the amusement of the rest of the squad.

Jyn has seen enough laboratories to recognise this room as being one. The screens are powered down, the machinery has stopped running, and no scientists are running around. Yet it looks almost exactly like she remembers her father’s lab on Coruscant when her mother would bring her by as a little child - only abandoned, with no sign of anyone, alive or dead, inside.

Dameron consults his life detector again. “Type I-like air here, friends,” he says, and the Pathfinders sigh happily as they start undoing their constricting atmo masks.

“Thank heavens,” Sargeant Nowe mutters as he rips off his mask. “Bloody piece of junk will choke me one day, and it doesn’t even filter kriff.”

Jyn stops in the middle of the room, looking around. “Roah, how are we doing?”

“No signs of any activity at all,” the small Togruta with the electricity scanner in her hands nods back. “Everything’s dead.”

How apt, Jyn thinks. If she were hard-pressed to describe this planet in as few words as possible, she would probably go with ‘ everything was dead’ .

“Let’s see if we can get the computers running,” Dameron says through the rush of Jyn’s thoughts. “Va’haulen, do your thing.”

“Aye, Sir.” The stocky Bothan comes forward, pulling a power starter from their vest. They plug it into the back of the main console and press a button on the top. The console blinks with light and then slowly loads.

“Good one, Va’haulen,” Dameron says, clapping his hands together. “Erso, start slicing. The rest of you, folks, look around for anything interesting. Don’t trigger any nasty shit. If you do, and it kills me, you’ll be explaining that to my wife, and she won’t be happy with you.”

“I work with Erso, Sir,” says Corporal Roakshell, a tall, muscular Human with a buzzcut as he walks by. “Why do you think your wife should terrify me?”

“And what exactly do you mean?” Jyn replies nonchalantly, still hacking through the console login. The thing is determined to struggle. It keeps flashing red alerts saying “access denied”, fueling Jyn’s determination to beat it.

“I mean that you’re scary when you get going, Lieutenant,” Roakshell shrugs. “And that Captain Andor is a very courageous man,” he deadpans, and the entire squad giggles.

Jyn snorts. “Captain Andor has nothing to fear from me, Corporal. I’d sooner punch out the lights of everyone in this room than lay a hand on him wrong.”

(She still remembers holding Cassian to her while kneeling in the sand, knowing that his body was shutting down and there was nothing she could do to stop that. She won’t allow it to happen again, even though he insisted on returning to fieldwork despite not fully recovered. That was a moot point, anyway. His body will never recover to how it was before, and they both know that.)

“Yeah, I love you too, Erso, you’re like the kriffing sunshine,” Dameron growls, “now hurry up, for Force’s sake.”

Jyn swears some choice words that make Va’haulen’s ears twitch, and one of the Privates turns red. Dameron yawns theatrically.

And then, the console lights up at Jyn, granting her access. 

She’s flooded with files of data. Jyn quickly plugs the chipset she’d brought into the data port on the console. The files start flashing into her face.

The name Erso catches Jyn’s eyes, and she stares at it, popping all over the screen in mute horror.

“So what - oh,” Kes Dameron sighs from when he’s perched behind Jyn’s back, peering over her shoulder. “Shit. Your pop’s work?”

“Probably,” Jyn nods, opening one of the copying files to study it. “He didn’t work here, I think. It looks like they just kept lower-priority research here. Including his side projects.”

“What kind of research?” Dameron asks, sounding wary. Not bloody shocking - Galen Erso’s name is a red warning light for most Alliance Rebels. 

(Jyn would know. Sometimes, people still bother her about her name. Some even threaten violence. Those few that tried got mysteriously transferred within a few days. Jyn never asks about that, but she has her suspicions.)

Jyn filters through the files. “Lots of stuff. Not just my father’s but others from his team, too. Bombs, modified blasters, poisons, that kind of thing. Clean energy generators; that sounds like my father. Only, they weaponised it. Here, see the last entry they opened. Project Ashtray.”

Kes’ eyebrows pinch up. “What a stupid name.”

“It fits, though,” Jyn says, briefly scanning the protocol. “I get it now. My father theorised a Kyber-filled payload that, when activated, would create a miniature star from which to harvest energy. At the risk of igniting any oxygenated atmosphere. I’d hazard a guess that this was a try-out place.”

Dameron looks around. “Do you think they burned down a planet just to see if it worked?”

Jyn shrugs. “They blew up planets, including their most prized data storage, just to see if they could. This doesn’t surprise me. I don’t understand how oxygen’s still left to breathe down here.”

Dameron looks around the lab. His Pathfinders are standing around, watching the two. 

“Go search the other rooms,” Kes orders. “See if you find a clue what else the Empire did here. And someone go establish contact with the ship.”

The soldiers spread out, heading toward the main corridors to check the smaller rooms they had seen before. Jyn tries her comm, but there’s only static. She tries calling the ship again, but there is no reply.

“Must be the stone all around,” Kes says. 

“Yeah, I know,” Jyn replies. “It’s probably full of lead. My mother found out -”

She doesn’t finish the sentence as, at that moment, a stream of bright pink gas pours from a pipe near the ceiling, and the stream hits Jyn squarely in the face.

In shock, she inhales and immediately feels herself slipping away.

*** 

Cassian has been pacing for the last fifteen minutes with increasing intensity. He grips the Kyber crystal hanging around his neck so hard his fingertips turn white. Every thirty seconds, he tries his comm, to no avail. Bodhi doesn’t know which drives him up the wall more - the unresponsiveness of the entire team, the ominous stillness of Bahravi, or his friend’s mounting neuroticism.

(Bodhi always thought snipers would be calm and collected under any circumstances. That their ingrained response to increased pressure is taking aim and holding position. And that spies would have trained themselves out of nervous ticks like pacing. And Cassian has, he knows. When it comes to problems that he can talk his way out or shoot at first, Cassian is like that, too. But the moment the problems are outside of the sight of his scope, when he’s not in the agent frame of mind - when the problems threaten their team - then the overly cautious spy wins over the cynical assassin and sends them both spiralling.)

He’s keeping the engines warm as Jyn requested, and he tries the comms with the more powerful ship transmitter, but he doesn’t know how else to contribute.

Finally, Cassian sighs, sets his face into a determined grimace and slips the crystal under the neckline of his tunic. Then, he trots over to the weapon section of the ship’s trunk.

“What are you doing?” Bodhi asks, shooting out of the pilot seat. 

“I’m going to check on them,” Cassian replies matter-of-factly as he straps a blaster to his belt. He curses his previous decision not to bring his rifle because, quoting Jyn as she looped her crystal around his neck, ‘You’re only here as my good luck charm. You won’t need it.’ Empirically speaking, Cassian’s instances of having good luck to share are scarce, but in the rose-tinted fog of a brain swathering in oxytocin, he foolishly believed her. He should have known something was going to go tits up. He doesn’t even have a full tactical vest like the Pathfinders, just his uniform jacket. His back twitches with every single step and the damaged nerves make his right leg give out from time to time. The decreased sensitivity in his foot makes him stumble even on smooth surfaces. He’s not fit to be a one-person rescue team. But he can’t just sit here and wait.

“There might just be interference,” Bodhi argues nervously. He would never admit it aloud, but he doesn’t want to be left alone in the empty ship on this strange planet. He doesn’t want Cassian to go and put himself in danger, either.

However, it is a communal belief of the Alliance personnel that Captain Andor has cultivated a sixth sense for identifying danger in situations and dishonesty in people, and Bodhi believes it. If Cassian has a bad feeling about something, it is an undeniable fact. No matter how improbable or how much it makes Bodhi’s skin crawl.

“The protocol for interference is to return to the point of last contact and report,” Cassian grouches, looking in another compartment for a breathing mask to fit him. Almost all of them are made for larger beings than him, but he’s lucky to find a mask that is the right size and seals well enough. “They failed to do so in a plausible time window. The rational conclusion is that the team cannot report back for any reason and demands help.”

It makes sense and gives Bodhi’s previously baseless fears some unnecessary directions for growth. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, Bodhi,” the spy shakes his head. “You must stay here with the ship.”

“Cassian, you know that if something took out fifteen Pathfinders and Jyn, it would probably take you out too.” It’s not a kind thing to say, but it’s true. Unlike Jyn and most Pathfinders, Cassian wasn’t born a brawler. If something overpowered them, Cassian stands no chance against it if he can’t shoot it first. His hand-to-hand combat skills are now sorely lacking if he were honest with himself. Despite spending a lifetime relying on his eye and trigger finger, he used to be quite agile and could hold his own in a fight for as long as it took him to get away or start shooting swiftly. But that was before the mission to Scarif in which he traded physical fitness for reduced mobility, permanent nerve damage and chronic pain. 

Not that Cassian would let something as relative as common sense get between him and Jyn in potential danger. 

“Bodhi, no offence, but you would hardly help me with that,” he says, trying to keep his voice patient. He checks his blaster and the extra ammo cartridges on his belt. “I need you to stay on the ship and keep the engines running for evacuation. I’ll be in contact. Use the long-range sensors to locate the nearest Alliance ships and have them on standby.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for some help before going in?”

“I’m not waiting any longer.”

Bodhi is staring at him with huge, fearful eyes. Cassian knows that his friend struggles with his duty - on the one hand, he wants to go with him and assist; on the other, he’s not trained for that. Bodhi’s skills as a pilot far outweigh any potential advantage of Bodhi, the hand-to-hand warrior. 

Cassian walks up to him and puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. The mask is an uncomfortable pressure on his face, but he needs oxygen to breathe outside. This is not the moment to risk decreased cognitive abilities from polluted air. “Engines. Sensors.”

Shaking slightly, Bodhi nods. “Keep your comm on.”

They part - one running back to the cockpit to activate long-range sensors while the other exits the ship in a hurried yet firm step.

The crevice looms like a sinister deity as Cassian approaches it. It looks like a recent, massive fire has been through here. That doesn’t make any sense since nothing around here could cause or feed the fire, not even any remnants of it. This planet is getting weirder by the minute.

Cautiously, Cassian enters the outer door to the installation with his blaster ready. He walks slowly and quietly, keeping his back to the tunnel wall.

“So far, so good,” he mutters into his comm. 

The device cracks before sending Bodhi’s voice through. “That’s what Jyn said when she walked through.”

“Way to make this even weirder, Bodhi,” Cassian says, but his words hold no reprimand. He’s glad to have the pilot on comm. The place is creeping him out. “I can’t see anyone.”

“I can’t tell whether that’s a good or bad sign,” Bodhi notes.

Privately, Cassian agrees. “Any luck with reinforcements?”

“Yeah. The Falcon is nearest. They’re on their way.”

The Falcon means Solo, Skywalker, Chewbacca and the Guardians. That’s as good as they can ask, save for another Pathfinder squad orbiting the planet. “Tell them to stand by on orbit and try to reach Command.”

He follows the sloping corridor. There is no light that he can discern. He keeps passing doors to smaller rooms, but nobody is in them upon inspections. 

He should have run into someone by now; the place can’t be that big. Pathfinders always leave a human chain to communicate with the outside crew. Something big must have happened to them.

Tentatively, Cassian activates his comm. “All quiet,” he says into it.

The signal is so distorted that the cracking static almost entirely swallows Bodhi’s answer. The sound bounces around this deep in the tunnel, much louder than it is.

Inwardly, Cassian swears and takes a few steps back to where his comm hisses less. “I said, all quiet. This must be the interference line.”

This time, he can just make out Bodhi’s answer. 

“Try Jyn or Dameron. Maybe you’re within reach now.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Cassian accedes and switches the comm frequency repeatedly. “Jyn? Kes? Roah?”

He gets no answer except for the echo around. 

Cassian sighs in despair. “Bodhi, I’m going deeper. I’ll be off -”

There’s the sound of glass crashing in front of him, followed by a loud groan of a humanoid.

Cassian remains frozen on the spot, staring in the direction the noise came from. His sole light source, the flashlight attached to the front of his jacket, is too narrow to illuminate the whole corridor. 

He waits for more noises, which do not come. Anxiously, he switches the comm frequency back to the ship. “Bodhi, there’s something right in front of me,” he mumbles as loudly as he dares. “I will check it out. Have the Falcon call Command and have them send another strike team if I don’t report back in five minutes. Do not leave the ship and be ready to evacuate if ordered.”

There’s a crack and an “okay, good luck,” and the comm is silent again.

Cassian takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly to steel the grip on his blaster. His heart is hammering, and he feels fourteen again, sneaking into a fully staffed Imperial garrison through ventilation shafts. Back then, he was alone in enemy territory with nothing but a vibroblade and payloads to distribute. Things are better now - though, not really. He’s armed but woefully unprepared and has much more to lose than just his life.

He walks forward, keeping a defensive stance. His flashlight is quite weak for illuminating this hallway. Cassian makes a mental point to request better equipment for the Pathfinders as soon as they hit the base.

The door in front of him is cracked open, and Cassian squeezes through without touching it.

The light cone falls onto the bloodied, beaten form of Corporal Roakshell, limp on the floor, with Kes Dameron standing over him, trembling, dazed and oozing blood from his nose. His blaster is at his hip, unused, his breathing mask hangs by his neck, and Kes does not seem to be even aware of either. Both men have their flashlights still running on their vests, serving as beacons now rather than lights.

In all the time Cassian has known First Lieutenant Kes Dameron, he’s never seen him this out of it. It’s horrifying. Kes Dameron is a beast of a man but also a leader to his men, just about to become a Captain. 

(Cassian knows that because he secretly checked the promotion lists. The suspense was killing him. He can’t often help it. After all, his active curiosity and brain capable of digging up information that interested him and knowing how to keep his mouth shut got him recruited into Intel in the first place.) 

Whatever made this fearless commander stand over his subordinate's bloodied, unconscious body with a blank fear in his eyes is enough to put ice into Cassian’s veins.

He takes a slow step closer, keeping his blaster down, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. “Kes? Can you hear me?”

The man’s eyes seem to skip from the limp body at his feet to around the room before finally passing through Cassian and around. Kes squints his eyes against the flashlight, but he shows no signs of recognition. 

Cassian takes another step closer. He takes down his mask to show his face. The room isn’t big; maybe four metres are between them now. “Kes?”

The man’s eyes snap towards him suddenly and violently. Cassian freezes again for a split second. And then Dameron launches himself at him, fists raised and eyes huge, with a mighty roar and clearly with harm in mind. 

Shocked, Cassian hastily steps back before raising his arm and firing a stun bolt right into the middle of Dameron’s chest. It’s instinct. He doesn’t even think about it. He just fires and hopes he didn’t imagine switching his blaster to stun before.

Dameron’s legs collapse from under him in the same heartbeat that the bolt hits his chest, and the momentum of his run carries him to crash into Cassian. Together, they tumble to the floor, the blaster flying from Cassian’s hand.  He lands on his back, mercifully not cracking his head into the wall. However, the impact of his ribs into the stone floor and Kes’ weight on top of him, stopping him from rolling with the fall, still almost wind him.

Cassian takes a shaky breath and desperately pushes Kes off top of him. He rolls the man over, checking for vital signs and severe injuries in the feeble light that his flashlight can provide. 

Kes is bruised and battered, and his right cheekbone is developing an impressive swelling. His lips are split and bleeding, but no bones seem to be broken that Cassian can discern, other than perhaps his nose. He’s breathing evenly and without a rasp, and his heartbeat is strong.

Cassian breathes out in relief. Just one, because all he knows now is that Kes isn’t going to die right now and that he didn’t unintentionally kill his friend, but he still has no answers. Gingerly, the agent gets up and crawls over to the unconscious form of Corporal Roakshell. The Corporal is more battered than Kes, and with bad contusions, possibly breaks to his knuckles - hard to tell without a bioscanner - but alive, breathing and hopefully not about to stop. Just to be sure, Cassian rolls Kes on his side so he doesn’t choke if he starts vomiting. His nose is still bleeding. Cassian puts the oxygen mask over both men’s faces and hurries out of the room.

He trots to the last point of contact with the ship. He almost crushes the speaker button of his comm in a hurry. “Bodhi. Bodhi, do you copy?”

The comm cracks for a second. “I copy,” comes the response. “Cassian, are you alright?”

“No,” he answers truthfully. “Bodhi, Kes Dameron just tried to kill me. He was completely out of it. Something must have happened to them, some kind of mind control.” 

A pregnant pause follows his words, and then, “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Cassian doesn’t comment that Bodhi just swore for probably the first time in his entire life, though the significance is not lost on him. 

“I didn’t imagine Dameron lounging at me all manic and about to off me with his bare hands,” he retorts, breathing heavily. His head is pounding, his hands are sweaty, and he thinks he’ll begin unravelling if he doesn’t find something to focus on. “Bodhi, I only found him and Roakshell so far. Nobody else. I need to go deeper.”

“General Draven says, and I quote, ‘don’t be an idiot for once in your life and wait for reinforcements’, end of quotation,” Bodhi says. “The Falcon will land in fifteen minutes. The strike team is coming in -”

Cassian knows his friend means well, so he pushes hard to keep the edge out of his voice. “No, Bodhi. Call for a med-evac. I need to find the others. I need to find Jyn.”

And that is the crux of the matter. He doesn’t know where Jyn is or if she's even alive, and every second of this insecurity takes a decade off his lifespan. 

Bodhi understands what he means. He has to. He’s been around all this time. They’re all intrinsically linked, but it is Jyn who glued them together. Even more than that, Bodhi and Jyn have been like brother and sister from the very first minute they met. Their bond runs deeper than blood, more profound than the empty canyons and craters on the newly barren surface of Jedha. There’s very little they wouldn’t do for each other. Cassian knows that if it came to Bodhi choosing between saving him and Jyn, he would always choose Jyn, and he’s glad for it.

It makes this situation easier for all of them. Bodhi does not keep fighting him and does not insist that Cassian wait for backup before looking for Jyn. In a tight voice, he simply says, “Be careful, Cass. We're coming after you if you don’t report back before the Falcon lands.”

If he’s unable to find the Pathfinders and retrieve Jyn by himself, maybe Solo, Chewbacca and Skywalker will have more luck. Especially if they are backed by Chirrut and Baze, the only other two people in the Alliance as invested in Jyn’s well-being as he and Bodhi are.

“Alright,” he says, “see you soon, Bodhi.”

He turns off the comm, takes another deep breath, in and out, and begins descending the corridor.

Where the quiet stillness felt unsettling before, it is now oppressive. Cassian keeps checking every lab he finds, expecting to run into a rabid Pathfinder about to rip his head off. It doesn’t take long before he starts finding unconscious bodies instead.

First, Cassian trips over Va’haulen and almost lands on his breathing mask because the Bothan’s fur and dark clothes make them nigh invisible in the dark. It’s only years of weapons training that prevent him from accidentally pulling the trigger of his blaster as he falls and stunning himself. 

Steering himself, Cassian gets up to his knees to check on Va’haulen. They seem fine - no apparent severe injuries save for a bump on the back of their head. Cassian thinks their heartbeat is appropriate for a Bothan, though he’s uncertain in his knowledge of Bothan physiology. Their airway is clear, and their mask works when applied and activated, so Cassian feels not too awful about leaving Va’haulen where they are. He marks their position on his datapad so he can re-route help later. He’s got to move.

Next, he runs into Private Rowatt, sprawled in one of the smaller labs off the main corridor, bleeding from an ugly head wound. Next is Roah, eyes fluttering, her right montral looking to be caved in. Her head is twitching around, and she can’t get up on a knee bent all the way backwards. This doesn’t stop her from lashing at Cassian as he approaches, trying to grab his foot from under him. Cassian, though, is ready for it and shoots Roah between the montrals with a stun bolt. As with the others, he checks Roah for life-threatening injuries, secures her with her breathing mask, marks down her position, and moves on.

When his detector indicates that he’s reached the zone of a Type I-like atmosphere, he’s successfully located nine Pathfinders. Three of them needed to be stunned to stop them from killing Cassian, another Pathfinder, or themselves. It is around the sixth person identified that Cassian realises something. For a heavily armed unit, with most of them still holding onto their blasters, he has not found any blaster injuries on anyone, and nothing life-threatening as it is. If he weren’t so worried, he would probably ponder it harder. As it is, he pushes on because none of the people he has found so far are Jyn. 

Cassian enters the main lab room with a sense of impending doom, which he attributes to the lasting failure of locating his partner. The lab is dark, save for the central console, which flashes fluorescent blue light to the opposite wall. Three more men are spread through the room, in a similar state as the others - battered, alive but out cold. Unlike the others, these men have received some rudimentary first aid and been put into recovery positions, which means that someone with their wits up and about was here.

There’s broken glass and laboratory equipment everywhere. Blasters, scattered and unused, and flashlights, some still running, litter the floor. Some of the desks are toppled over. 

Cautiously, Cassian advances to the console, hoping to get answers from it. The screen is cracked up close, and the corners are pitch black. The small power device running it is still attached and humming softly. When Cassian looks down, he sees one of Jyn’s data chips - unmarked, per protocol, with a tiny self-destruct button on top - sticking out of the console’s data port. A system message on the console announces that copying files has finished, so Cassian gently extracts the data chip from the port and hides it in his pocket. This is what they came for in the first place. It’s crucial to bring it back to Intel data analysts.

Somewhere nearby, there’s a light grinding sound of something dragged on the floor, followed by a sharp inhale.

Cassian whips around, his hand going straight to his blaster. He scans the room around, but he can’t see anything. Quietly, he steps away from the console and, while holding his breath, he lowers himself to the floor.

Under one of the desks, he finds Corporal Guinn awake and so tightly packed into the tiny space his broad shoulders must be killing him. When Cassian looks him in the eyes, the young man soundlessly backs down even more, and he seems like he’ll cry any second now.

Unlike any other Pathfinder that Cassian has encountered so far, Guinn’s eyes are clear and alert, clouded in nothing but fear. He’s bleeding from his right temple, and his movements are sluggish, but he’s aware.

Cassian kneels on the floor and lowers his head despite every possible instinct screaming at him not to. “Corporal, are you with me?” he asks quietly.

The young man (boy, really) stares at him like he’s seeing a ghost. 

Cassian wrecks his brain to remember Guinn’s first name. He knew the full name and drinking preference of every Pathfinder that served with Melshi and Dameron (ah damn, Melshi, it still hurts) and those that came after deserve the same courtesy. He’s familiar primarily with those who filled up the gaps right after Scarif, but Guinn is new. He’s hardly been on the force for a few weeks, and his personal details are somewhat hazy in Cassian’s memory.

“Tallak,” he finally remembers, hoping he’s got it right.

The youth’s eyes snap to him, somewhat intrigued.

Good, Cassian almost claps himself on the shoulder. “Tallak, how badly are you hurt?”

The man takes several seconds to point at his head and then shrugs. He’s obviously in shock but still seems to have lasted out whatever storm has passed through here.

“Tallak, I need you to tell me what happened here,” Cassian says calmly, even though inside, he’s screaming.

Guinn is staring at him still like he’s lost for words. Then, finally, he whispers, “Everybody just went crazy.”

“Was someone else here?” Cassian asks, carefully transferring weight from his right foot, which is beginning to cramp in this position.

Guinn shakes his head and winces. “The place was empty. Abandoned. No life signs or electrical activity. We even had to kick-start the console.”

Cassian is trying to process this information. “So, nobody from the outside attacked the Pathfinders?”

The boy almost sobs. “No, Sir. We were spreading out, then some gas poured in from the ceiling and hit a few people in the faces, and they went completely batshit.”

Cassian frowns at the man, who is not wearing his mask. “It didn’t affect you?”

Guinn shakes his head. “Didn’t get in direct contact, Sir. The gas dissipated really quickly in the air. I was near that wall, only turned around to see some people getting a faceful of it. As soon as they breathed it in, they got all shaky and confused, and then all hell broke loose. Roah punched me in the head, and I went down. It took me a little to get my bearing; they were all gone by then. ”

This information is even more confusing than the string of knocked-out troopers down the hall. “I found Dameron in a lab almost halfway out. Most of the others are sprawled between there and here. How did they get there?”

Guinn’s eyes get that far-beyond, terrified look again when he stares at the spy. “Sir, I don’t know, I didn’t exactly stick around to look. Things got insane really quickly. Everybody just tried to run from each other in all directions.”

Cassian pulls himself up to look around. He can see other rooms behind this one. “We’re still short three people,” he mumbles anxiously.

Guinn is shaking all over. “Sir, you can’t do anything without at least one strike team to cover you. It’s suicide.”

Cassian weighs his options. Guinn is useless as a backup in his current state. He now has some idea of what might have happened. Thanks to that, he knows he has to find Jyn immediately. She’s in real danger.

“Tallak, I need you to return to the ship,” he says. He fishes in his pocket for the data chip and his datapad with marked positions of the fallen Pathfinders that he could locate and hands both to the shaken soldier. “Commander Solo is landing as we speak. Tell him everything you’ve told me and direct the med-evac to start picking people up. And give this chip to Pilot Rook. Tell him to send the data on it to Intelligence immediately. He will know what to do.”

Guinn’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. “Sir, you can’t be serious. You can’t stay here by yourself. They’ll kill you.”

Cassian smirks, lifting his blaster. “I’ve been doing quite well so far, Corporal. Up you go. I need you out of here.”

Guinn keens as he crawls out of his hiding place. He wavers on his knees and grudgingly accepts Cassian’s hand supporting his elbow. “Sir, I get that this is about Lieutenant Erso,” he mumbles, holding onto his head.

Gently, Cassian helps him upright. “Yes, it is.”

There’s no point denying that, not to a Pathfinder who serves with Jyn. 

Guinn grabs the edge of the desk to stabilise himself. “I should warn you, Sir. Pretty sure Erso was the first to throw a punch, and she sure as hell wasn’t pulling it.”

That does not really surprise Cassian. The gas was clearly a mind-altering agent, and Jyn is nothing if not a survivor in every situation. Her natural way of dealing with problems is disarming first, asking questions later.

“I’ll press my luck,” he says, checking the charge in his blaster. The thought of having to fire on Jyn is sickening, but he will do what he must to get her back home in one piece.

Guinn shrugs again. “Well, it’s your funeral. I’ll let Solo know.”

Cassian looks him over. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah, if I have to,” Guinn answers, taking a few unsure, wobbly steps. Cassian thinks he doesn’t look overwhelmingly stable or fast but can get outside by supporting himself on the wall. “Sir, how are the others that you found?”

It’s Cassian’s turn to shrug. “Not beyond repair, from what I could tell. I just stunned those that were a bit too active.”

“Okay,” Guinn nods, “fair enough. Good luck, Sir.”

“And to you.”

Cassian watches the trooper wobble out before turning the other way. He’s confident the kid will be alright but should receive advanced training and counselling before being sent on the next mission. 

Falcon should be landing just about now. Anxious, Cassian rolls his shoulders to release the mounting tension and cautiously steps into the first adjoined lab, calling Jyn’s name in a hushed voice. He wishes he had K-2 with him right now. K-2 always knew how to ground him, always looked out for him, and saved Cassian’s hide more times than he could count. Not to mention that he could pack a punch and take one, too.

He must be going crazy because he could swear he could perceive her from somewhere nearby. It’s like she’s slipping right out of his arm’s reach. It’s an uncanny feeling, one he cannot explain, one he can’t remember experiencing before.

***

She watches the man stalk in, looking to both sides with his arms held out in front of him with a weapon. The light shining from his chest is a dead giveaway, a beacon to his position in the dark and revealing his every move. He’s of a slight stature, not nearly as tall as the others, and he wears very few protective layers. His limbs are made of sinew and bones, not thick folds of strengthened muscle. An apparatus on his face is giving out a constant, slight hiss. He’s favouring his right foot slightly - no, the entire leg is unstable and incapable of the same range of movement as the left one. He’s alone - his first and most grave error. He’s also clearly unaware of the accurate dimensions of where he’s found himself; he looks left, right and forward as he walks in, but he doesn’t look up. He walks in, leaving his right side wide open like he expects another to fill the space. But there are no footsteps other than his own. He’s either obtuse or inexperienced in exploring empty, hostile environments all by himself.

That’s an easy mistake to use, and she will use it. If she doesn’t, there’s no guarantee that he won’t find her and kill her. She can’t let him just walk away. That’s what men do. That’s about the only thing in her otherwise almost empty mind. Men kill women if given an opportunity and must be shown swiftly that they don’t stand a chance.

Soundlessly, she drops from her perch above the entrance to the hall, hooks her legs around his shoulders as she falls, twists sideways, and brings them both down to the ground. He barely has enough time to gasp in surprise as his knees buckle. 

They roll on the floor together, but she’s already leaping to her feet. The man takes a second too long, overwhelmed by her surprise attack and possibly already incapacitated. The weapon comes loose from his hands and clatters loudly on the ground, far from his reach. His right leg is twisted under him, the angles ugly and unnatural in the cone of light that he’s still got attached to his chest. He tries to get his other foot and arms under him and lift himself. By that, he’s only presenting his poorly protected stomach to her.

She’s not going to waste an opening like this. Firmly bracing herself with her right foot on the ground, she swings her bent left knee (much firmer and sturdier than her right knee for some reason, much better for fighting) deep into the man’s midsection. He fails to block her strike with his crossed arms at the last second and crumples around her leg. With his diaphragm momentarily paralysed, his ribcage bulges with the futile effort to draw air in. The apparatus on his face slips off, still hissing, hanging around his neck. He’s down now - curled on his side, twitching, his useless arms wrapping around his bruised chest by instinct and his knees drawing up. Pathetic, scared and vulnerable, no longer a valid threat. She just needs to make sure he’ll stay down.

She leaps away from the distance of his arm's reach because she’s not suicidal enough to leave herself open like that. Instead, she approaches him from behind, where he can’t see her coming. Lightning fast, she grabs the hair on the back of his head with her right hand, pulls his head up and slams it into the ground. She doesn’t use deadly force, not enough for his skull to split open and pour his brain onto the stone (he can’t learn not to hurt anyone and spread the message if he’s dead), but well enough to knock him out for some time. Long enough for her to disappear. 

He goes boneless like she expected, his arms and legs twitching for a second before going limp. She pushes at his shoulder to roll him onto his front so the tell-tale light from his chest won’t be drawing his companions from afar. His body turns under her hands without resistance. As she expected, the shoulder she’s holding in her hand is mostly skin and bone.

(This is up close, the bit of light from down under touching the outline of his cheek; there might be something familiar about him. Some kind of pull, a whisper inside her brain that’s all too easy to override. After all, she will not risk her life and health for something she can’t put a hand on.)

She gets up, wrinkling her nose at the metallic tang in the air. That will attract predators. She needs to scutter.

Yes, but where? The perch was the best hiding place she could find until she stupidly marked it with a knocked-out man right under it. Others will come and search around, and they won’t be dumb enough not to look up. Removing this one won’t help much since he’s already bleeding on the floor here. The big space he came from is too light; she’ll be made out. The dark places behind her could work, but the two huge men who gave her a slip earlier are still out there. They’re too big to take on at once, and men always team up when the goal is hurting women. It’s what they do. Even this one must have companions somewhere nearby - such a delicate, slender thing couldn’t have survived on its own for very long. 

She’s unsure what to do now. She doesn’t know the way out. Getting out in the open is essential - closed spaces like this mean that no matter what she does, she will run into danger sooner or later. So, into the light, look for escape, or into the dark, hoping to find a tunnel out of this burrow? Two big men are there, but how many could be coming from the light? This one came from there, so there must be some entrance. But if he found her hiding place coming from there, others would, too. Maybe the dark is worth a risk, then. They will not expect her to come from there, and she can sneak by them or take them down, one by one. She will need to eat soon, too - hunger pangs at her insides, though it’s ignorable for now. She needs to find a stash and needs to make more stashes around.

She must have taken a long time to decide because now she can hear rustling behind her. She turns around and looks down, and sure enough, the scrawny man is up on his elbows, blinking in the light shining into his face. He’s holding one hand to his forehead, which bleeds profusely. With his other hand and left leg (the right one still seems out of commission), he’s grabbing on the floor for a purchase. He’s starting to crawl in the direction of the weapon that he dropped at the beginning of their fight.

A low growl makes its way out of her throat. She would have let him be if he only stayed down like he was supposed to. He’s giving her no other option now. Pushing her battered fingers into fists, she sets to finish this off.

***

Cassian can hardly hear anything through the blood rushing in his ears. As awareness deepens again, he realises he’s freezing except where his body is on fire. He thinks he’s concussed (it would be a miracle if he weren’t), and his treacherous right foot has suffered at least a bad sprain. His right knee pulsates all over from landing his and Jyn’s entire weight on it, and for all he knows, it could be shattered to pieces. He doesn’t know what the hells happened to his shoulders and back. Still, he just had the weight of an adult, geared-up (if short) person drop on top of him and twist him around. He can hazard a guess that this is not the recommended exercise for someone still recovering from multiple spinal fractures. Overall, the medbay staff will have a field day patching him up this time.

If he even gets out of here. It’s entirely possible that he won’t find the strength to leave or that he’ll just walk right into Jyn again once he gets to his feet.

He’s still in shock from that. Not from Jyn attacking him - he knew that would be feasible. However, he didn’t expect Jyn - his lover, his soulmate, his better part, his best friend in the entire galaxy, his Jyn - to unleash senselessly on him like that. 

He knew her to be an expert combatant, of course. He still remembers seeing Melshi after the Pathfinders brought Jyn from Wobani, holding an ice pack to his head because he got greeted with a shovel in the face. He’s repeatedly seen her in action on missions or in the gym. Jyn’s beyond impressive when sparring with other troopers or against opponents, moving with animal grace and always hitting her target. Her fighting is like a deadly dance. Cassian’s been mesmerised since the first moment he saw it. That all still applies, yet things feel markedly different when he’s on the receiving end.

Deep inside, he hoped that Jyn would recognise him, that she would react to his voice and snap out of the trance the strike team had entered. He thought he would find her like the others, injured and afraid, easy to stun, ready to be carried out and taken care of. He wasn’t prepared to fall prey to Jyn, the cold-blooded hunter who doesn’t know him. 

He doesn’t know what’s happening in her mind due to the gas. He just concentrates on one thing - getting to his blaster. Without it, he’s as good as dead. He can’t see or hear Jyn anymore. Naively, he hopes that’s a good sign - she’s somewhere safe now. Solo and the strike team will find her when they come; he just needs to remind them not to hurt her. This isn’t her fault.

His head is pounding, and blood flows into his eyes from where the contact with the floor split his forehead open. His hands are sticky with it. He tries not to worry about that - head wounds always bleed like a slaughtered bantha. It doesn’t mean anything. Still, his hand instinctively moves to feel around the wound and push at the pressure point above his nose, hoping it will lessen the headache a little. It doesn’t really, but it does reinflame pain in his collarbone.

His other hand briefly grabs the Kyber crystal around his neck, still hidden under his clothes. Let him be lucky this time. Grasping for purchase, Cassian looks around, searching for the blaster. It’s lying about three metres in front of him. That’s not too far; he can do it. Agonisingly slowly, he pushes himself up on his hand and foot, not even coordinated enough to compete with a toddler.

When the growl sounds close to his left, he almost jumps because the thought that Jyn wouldn’t run away while he was out didn’t even cross his mind. He must be more compromised than he thought for not noticing her lurking around. He’s granted a precious couple of seconds to realise the depth of his mistake before Jyn is on him again.

She kicks him in the side with her metal leg, sending him rolling on the floor and nearly knocking the wind out of him again. He lands on his back in an explosion of pain. He cries out involuntarily, and his arms fly up on their own to shield his head. Jyn’s knees land straight on his middle, just inches away from his solar plexus, and he already knows that the contusions there will be rather impressive, whether he gets out of here alive or not. The analytical part of his brain would praise her for taking advantage of her opponent’s previous injury. As it is, he’s too busy fighting to pull air in through the cloud of pain it causes him.

 Jyn’s thighs clench around his waist on both sides, effectively trapping him in place. His attempts at dislodging her with his legs are futile and only irritate his busted knee further. Adrenaline kicking in, he seizes her upper arms, trying to shove her off him. She twists, breaking his handhold. She retaliates by smashing her right fist into his face so hard his head nearly snaps off his neck right there. He lets out a whine he can barely hear through his ringing ears. 

In the upward stream of light pouring from his flashlight, Jyn looks demonic. Her face is contoured in the scariest grimace he’s ever seen on her. Her forehead is creased, and her eyebrows quirk up quizzically. However, a second later, she grabs his hair again in the same move she used to knock him out the first time. This time, it’s crystal clear to Cassian that if Jyn succeeds in bashing his head into the floor now, he won’t wake up again.

He brings his arms under hers to twist them out. He makes her let go of his hair, just for her to punch him again. This time, he can hear the crack his nose makes as the bones snap, and the agony that hits a second later makes him nearly faint again. Before he can get his bearings, her hands are closing around his throat.

And she immediately starts squeezing with all the not-insignificant strength in her hands.

Cassian freezes for a second, panic turning off any conscious thoughts.

He had been strangled before - a lifetime ago when he was too young and weak to fight back meaningfully. He had to resort to choking people, too - comrades, even. A profound aversion to having anyone’s hands at his throat has been ingrained into him for years. It has taken him months of living and sleeping with Jyn to let her touch his throat in any context without it bringing him anything but deep discomfort. He has been getting better lately, though. Jyn kissing his pulse point the other day in the comfortable safety of their bed actually brought him joy.

This progress has been negated in the two seconds it takes his dizzy brain to realise what’s happening. By then, Jyn, this feral, uncontrollable, animalistic Jyn, pushes into her hands with all the weight she’s not using to hold him down. Immediately, his hands fly to hers, trying to pry them off without success.

Cassian chokes, finding that his airway is obstructed and painful. Even worse, the vessels pounding underneath Jyn’s merciless hands means that the blood flow to his head is limited, and very soon, his brain will start shutting down. He’s only got a few precious seconds.

Oh, gods, she’s really going to kill me.

The crystal is burning against his frigid skin.

Cassian doesn’t want to die. Not here, not like this, not by Jyn’s hands.

Unthinking, his hands clasp into fists and swing at Jyn, no longer concerned about causing damage. Killing him and waking up from this trance will likely cause more harm than his fists, anyway. 

He claps her once on the cheekbone, but she rolls with it, eyes turning furious as she leans more into her hands. Cassian can’t see much of it as his vision starts fading from the sides. He lands another hit in her face and one on her side. He trashes under her and kicks up. His strength is waning; nothing he does seems to alter the inevitable.

He blinks tears from his eyes, thinking at the aether - the Force, probably, please, don’t let them hurt her, it’s not her fault, when the grip at his throat relents.

He draws in so much air he chokes on it again. Everything hurts, his lungs burn, and his pulse booms so strongly in his temples that he’s almost gagging. A fit of cough wrecks his body so violently that it lifts off the floor. All this causes him not to notice that Jyn’s hand has grabbed the hair on the top of his head. He doesn’t fight - cannot fight - when she pulls, keeping him in place, and smashes the crown of her head right into the bridge of his nose.

Agony explodes all over his face briefly, and then there’s nothing.

Chapter Text

“Bods, what in the name of kriff,” Han Solo bellows as he runs up the ramp of the U-wing with Chewie in tow and rips off his oxygen mask. “You let him go alone?!”

Bodhi turns in the pilot chair. “Do you think I had any authority over what he does? He’s an adult. What should I have done, handcuff him to the chair?”

“Obviously not, because he would pick the handcuffs,” Han retorts. “I’m talking like, a full-body duct tape wrap. Now we’ve got one more person to worry about.”

Chewie voices out a moan. Luke Skywalker, who materialises next to him, shakes his head.

“All we know is that they need help, and there’s no contact with them. Comm signal will not penetrate the stone more than about fifty metres.”

“Right,” Solo nods. “Great. Who’s coming with me?”

Unsurprisingly, Chewie moans in assent. Luke nods. The Guardians, standing at the ramp, are already armed and waiting.

“I want to come too,” Bodhi says, defiant. 

Solo winces. “No, pal, you owe me way too many Sabacc credits to put yourself in danger.”

Bodhi gasps, “What Sabacc credits do I owe you, pal?”

“How is this relevant right now?” Luke asks nonchalantly.

Before either of the pilots can answer, Chirrut whips his head around. “Someone is coming up.”

The entire company presses to the ship’s opening door, drawing arms and activating their masks. Baze and Chewie shield the others with their prominent statures, covered by their repeater blasters. Chirrut and Luke stand behind them, lightsaber and quarter-staff at the ready. Han is at their shoulders, his handblaster pointed out. Bodhi peeks around the corner, face inflated in a mask that is a poor fit over his head, lacking a blaster but neither conviction nor curiosity.

Shadows move at the mouth of the installation. A few moments later, the dishevelled form of Corporal Guin pushes through the durasteel door, holding his bloodied head and not entirely stable on his feet. As soon as he sees the blasters pointed at him, he stops in his tracks and waves both arms above his head in surrender.

“Swear I’m not about to go rabid on you,” he calls to them and grabs at his head harder.

“Oh, thank the kriffing heavens,” Solo growls and pockets his blaster. The others do the same. Corporal Guin, encouraged by this gesture, stumbles to the ship. Chewie slaps the door closed after him again.

“In the name of everything you hold dear,” Han starts as soon as the man clears the entrance, “start speaking.”

Next to him, Chirrut lays a comforting hand on his biceps. Han shakes it down. Though he still doesn’t believe it wasn’t Leia’s idea of fucking him over to make him stay, the Pathfinders, as a whole, have been given to him to command. This unit is his responsibility, and he will be damned if he lets them down.

Guin is breathing heavily, waving his hands before grasping the wall. “The team is incapacitated—some sort of gas. Everybody just lost their shit on the spot. Most of them knocked each other out. They’re all unconscious and accounted for except for Lieutenant Erso, Sargeant Nowe and Corporal Hiiks, who must have slipped through the back of the labs. Captain Andor is looking for them.”

With that, he pulls out a datapad and thrusts it at Han’s chest.

“Wait, what - ohhh,” Han mutters as he flips through the decrypted notes marking the positions of fallen Pathfinders. “Right. Wait. You said Erso, Hiiks and Nowe are off their tits, and Andor waltzed in with no support?”

Corporal Guin looks absolutely wretched. “I think you are the support, Sir.”

Han almost yells. “So, to sum it up. We have to find and apprehend a Wookie-sized human, a Bantha-sized human, and a pint-sized nuclear reactor before any of them reset the life warranty of either of us or the the kriffing nerf-brain with no self-preservation instincts. Did I miss a vital piece?”

Sounds right, Chewie agrees. 

Han’s knees almost buckle. While he is not, and cannot be made, responsible for Andor’s life and well-being, he doesn’t want the idiot to get killed. Han could even admit that he likes the moron. He likes roasting him, and he likes it even more when Andor gets irritated and attempts to politely, yet passionately, out-insult Han back. It’s one of the few worthwhile pastimes one can enjoy on Hoth, and Han will not be deprived of it.

And damn it, he likes Erso, too. She’s a good one. If her idiotic boyfriend got himself killed for no reason, and she’s sad over it, Han would be ready to dig him up and reanimate him just to deck him on Erso's behalf.

“The Captain had a blaster,” Guin pipes out, gently feeling his pounding head.

“So do all the Pathfinders, kid. Now, you sit your ass down,” Han commands, pushing the man towards the cockpit. He slaps his breathing mask onto his face and activates it. “Bods, you deal with this one. We go people hunting.”

Luke sighs, following him with Chewie in tow.

“Are the other Pathfinders in need of medical help?” Chirrut asks Guinn resolutely, standing indecisively at the ship’s exit.

The boy looks up. “Probably, but not critically,” he answers. “Unless they wake up and start going again. They’re all over the corridor and the big lab. You’ll see.”

Baze steps forward, mumbling, “Let me look you over, lad.” He checks Guinn’s head wound, palpates around his skull, peers into his eyes and then releases him.

“Good,” he says then and turns to Bodhi. “Clean this wound and bind it. If he starts falling asleep, poke him in the ribs.”

Bodhi nods. “Just bring them back, alright?”

Baze and Chirrut nod, turning to leave.

Corporal Guin speaks again. “Sir, I’m so sorry. It took me by surprise. And I did warn the Captain that what he’s doing is suicide.”

“We know,” Chirrut assures the man, already halfway out of the ship. “It’s just how the Captain is.”

***

Han Solo expected to find all kinds of wilderness in the main lab complex. He’s heard legends of the Geonosians performing mind control via brain worms. The Geonosians have been wiped out, though, so that sounded unlikely.

The place is trashed; unconscious Pathfinders are lying around, and no dead bodies can be found. That is optimistic, though Han does not relent the tight grip on his trusted blaster. Thirteen found, three missing. He keeps close to Chewie on his right side. On his left, there’s Luke, lightsaber lit and held high in one hand, casting the large hall into a fluorescent blue light. He holds his other hand drawn in front of him in the way Han has learned to associate with him, exercising his Force abilities. Chirrut and Baze follow carefully. Despite their atmo scanner reading a Type I-like atmosphere down here, they all keep their oxygen masks on.

Han aims for the lit-up console, studying it briefly. “Download complete,” he reads aloud, looking the terminal over. “There’s no data chip. Someone must have taken it.”

Chirrut turns his head around. “Jyn’s Kyber crystal is nearby,” he says quietly. “I can feel it.”

The others exchange looks, knowing that Jyn never wears the crystal on missions to avoid damage to it. And that she always leaves it with one specific person.

On Han’s side, Luke takes a deep breath and moves his hand left and right, feeling around in the Force. In the privacy of his mind, Han ponders the hypothetical world where the Rogue One didn’t survive, and Luke lacked the benefit of honing his instincts under the tutelage of another, if much weaker, Force user. Chirrut can’t teach the boy lightsaber combat - he’s never trained for that himself - but since healing from the injuries sustained on Scarif, he has helped Luke develop his intuition and feeling around with the Force to breathtaking degrees. Han’s quite happy that he doesn’t have to discover how things would be in that other world. 

“They were both here,” he says then. “A little while ago, but I can’t feel them well. The Force is all strung up and muddled around here.”

“Good to know,” Solo mutters, voice distorted through his breathing mask. He waves his hand at the team to spread out around the lab. “It would be much easier to look if there were actual lights in this damned place.”

Chirrut snorts nervously. “Certainly, that would be a game-changer.”

Solo cringes, saying nothing. Chewie yawns at him mockingly.

The echo answers, bringing back Chewie’s voice and faintly, from afar, the sounds of someone starting a coughing fit. Quietly, at first, but then the sounds gain intensity. 

The four men and a Wookie are practically running toward them, looking around frantically for signs of oncoming danger. Like one front, they cross into the first adjacent lab, still following the gagging sounds. The adjoining room is dark, the screens are long dead, and no light sources are connected. The men almost trip on the instruments thrown all around the floor in their scramble forward. Han concludes their feet make quite a lot of noise, tagging them as easy targets to anyone intending harm. They have to be quick, then, and watch their backs. Finally, their flashlights fall onto a pair of standard-issue boots, revealing Captain Andor's twitching, hunched-over form. He’s holding onto his throat, curled on his side, face bloody and pale, only pulling air in with difficulty.

Unsurprisingly, Chirrut and Baze hurry forward, kneeling by the blood-drenched younger man and talking to him gently. The spy initially attempts to shy away from them but doesn’t get far. Baze takes the breathing mask that hangs uselessly around Andor’s neck, undoes the clasps and holds the hissing oxygen tube in front of the captain’s face, letting him inhale the purified air. This seems to help Andor, who latches on the tube. Baze uses this opportunity to whisk out his bioscanner and run an analysis on the man while hastily conducting a quick inspection of his head.

In his peripheral vision, Han notes Luke walking in a wide circle around them with his lightsaber at the ready. His eyes are closed, and his face has the same expression as when he’s meditating with Chirrut.

Han approaches cautiously. “How is he doing?”

Baze looks up at him, frowning. “He’ll live.”

Han leans closer to him, whispering now. “Now try to say it convincingly.”

“He’ll live, but right now, he might wish he wouldn’t right now.”

Han takes the bioscanner, observes the screen, and makes a sympathetic face. 

Andor seems to have sustained an ugly-looking knee luxation that should be reduced as soon as possible due to decreased blood flow to his lower leg. A twisted ankle that would prevent him from walking on it if the knee didn’t, but can wait to be treated by the medics. His clavicle is cracked, and the scanner points out a compound series of minor injuries to his spine and deep bruising, possibly small bleeds to his chest and abdomen. Overall, these injuries, while painful, are fully treatable with proper care and a nice, long swim in bacta. 

What Han can see as somewhat alarming, both on the scanner and with his own eyes, are the hand-shaped bruises reddening Andor’s already swelling throat and the overall state of his head. His face is all banged up, puffy, and covered with still-drying blood. His nose crooks sideways quite noticeably. The scanner also indicates a compounded traumatic brain injury, one that the scanner cannot fully categorise. That particular part makes the screen of the scanner flash in orange, demanding attention.

Han swallows. He might not be an expert in treating injuries - causing them is more his alley - but even he can tell that Andor escaped death by a literal miracle. Despite his proclaimed disregard for its questionable existence, the Force must indeed favour him.

Han hands it back to Baze. “Was it Erso?” he asks quietly.

Baze does not reply verbally. He doesn’t need to. 

Behind him, Chirrut turns his head slightly towards Han while still whispering something to Andor. Understanding blooms in the sightless eyes, and he nods in the commander’s direction.

Han curses under his breath. If Erso beat her boyfriend - whom, he knows, she would breathe for - into a bloody pulp and essentially left him for dead, it makes Han worried about what kind of mind alteration happened to the Pathfinders. Erso is a formidable sparring partner, even with self-control, but a wholly unhinged and uncontrolled Erso? The number of opponents Han would voluntarily engage in this situation rather than her is shockingly high and might include most of the Imperial military.

“Great,” Han mutters, watching as Chirrut gently props Andor up. The man holds his hands to his head, shielding his eyes from their flashlights, and Han can’t blame him. Eventually, Baze whisks out a medical-issued flash into the captain’s eyes, making him shrink back and gasp in protest. This results in him almost hacking up his lungs again.

“At least your pupils are equal size,” Baze mutters fondly, putting the light away. Instead, he fishes a fistful of hypos in his bag and unceremoniously empties them into the Captain’s outstretched thigh. Han presumes whatever is in them - mainly analgesics - makes the younger man flinch at first, and then he almost instantly unwinds. “Idiot child.”

The younger man hiccups, mumbling dazedly, “I’m fine, Baze,” which is a far-fetched statement at best.

Han admires the way neither of the guardians calls him out on such a blatant lie. On the contrary, both of them emit such a confident feeling of calmness, bordering on joviality, that even Han himself could fall for it. He doesn’t, though, because, unlike Andor, he’s got his brains about enough to see the edge behind the facade. The urgency in their actions. The subdued panic of parents whose children are in acute danger.

Han leans in to speak to the medic. “Somebody should stay with him while we look for Erso, Nowe and Hiiks.”

“Chirrut and I will take him to the ship,” Baze replies, receiving a firm nod from his husband and a feeble sigh from Andor. The large Jedhan gently probes around Andor’s mangled knee. Satisfied with his findings or his patient’s lack of reaction, his hands loom around Andor’s calf.

Han figures out what Baze is about to do about two seconds before Andor does - a testament to how incapacitating that brain injury must be. He steps forward. “Why not wait for the med-”

“Now, Chirrut,” Baze says quietly, knowing he will be heard.

That signals the blind monk to grasp Andor’s upper body in a vice grip, momentarily immobilising him. His hand lodges into the back of Andor’s head, pressing the agent’s face into his robes.

Before Andor has the time to squirm, Baze tightens the grip on his lower leg, springs to a half-crouch, and gives it a mighty tug. An uncomfortable, wet pop resonates around, almost making Han gag. It’s followed by Andor’s howl, mercifully muffled by Chirrut’s robes.

“What the fuck,” Han mutters, mostly to himself. He feels vaguely sick.

“Doesn’t hurt so badly anymore, does it?” Baze asks quietly, pointing his scanner at Andor’s twisted ankle and checking for a pulse in his lower leg. “And you’ll get to keep your foot, too.”

Andor, face turned green, lifts his head just enough to hiss, “Touch my leg again, I’ll bite you.”

Baze chuckles like he’s considering Andor’s warning as a particularly endearing empty threat. Having had some experience with dislocations and fixing them in field conditions firsthand, Han wouldn’t be so confident about that. 

The next second, Andor’s entire body jerks, and he pukes all over Chirrut and most of himself.

With the patience of a saint, Chirrut sighs, pressing Andor’s good shoulder in his hand. “Yes, I deserved that.”

“What I meant to say,” Han continues, “is that the medevac team has grav stretchers. You know, terribly useful for relocating people down a leg or two.”

Baze looks the Commander in the eye, still maintaining the uncanny composure. “Do you think it’s wise, then? To let him linger here, waiting for who knows how long, watching you chase Jyn around like a wild animal?”

True. Han did not consider that. It's probably best for Andor not to witness that.

“Right you are,” he mumbles. “Will you and Chirrut manage?”

Baze rolls his eyes. “He hardly weighs anything. Besides, the less time he spends in this unfiltered atmosphere, the better. Can’t exactly put a standard mask on him right now.”

That makes sense to Han, who concludes that Baze, who apprenticed with the NiJedha temple physicians for most of his youth, would know more about injury recovery than he. The fact that Andor doesn’t protest or insist that he’s fine again, despite the two of them talking right next to him, means that he must feel even more miserable than he looks.

“Right,” he agrees. “If you’re sure. Better get moving, then. I’d hate for Erso to slip by us and run into your backs.”

Baze nods pensively. “I would like to avoid that, too. Chirrut wouldn’t like fighting her, and I couldn’t do it.”

Han can appreciate the deeper meaning behind the medic’s words. Not only will Baze probably have his hands full lifting Andor - that knee might be back in place, but he’s nowhere near any state to walk - even more importantly, Baze might be unable to face Erso in battle, period. She’s like his daughter, Han knows, even more so than Bodhi and Andor are like his sons. Han can’t envision a scenario in which Baze Malbus would engage Jyn Erso in battle outside of the gym and mean it.

(Han, himself, understands much more than Baze thinks. He suspects - can’t be sure, and he dares not ask - that he had met Erso years ago, in some backwater hellhole or another. He judges so by the fact that Erso’s face was mildly familiar to him when he first ran into her, around the time she landed on Home One with a mint new prosthetic leg and a bravado to mask her insecurity about belonging. She might have been one in the line of shaggy-looking, hungry-eyed kids Han would sometimes take pity on and give a ride somewhere closer to the Core without asking for anything back. Han thinks it was her, or at the very least, her doppelganger that one time - the eyes were hard to forget. As was the horrifying offer of her body as payment for the ride, with the trained self-assuredness that suggested it was neither the first nor the second time she had to compensate this way for basic needs and niceties. She had claimed to be twenty, then, but looked positively thirteen to Han, who vehemently denied her suggestion and insisted on buying her lunch before letting her out of his sight. If it was Erso back then, Han has counted back that she would have been seventeen at best and retroactively had a few more sleepless nights over it. He hadn’t been brave enough to bring it up with her or even ask Chewie to confirm or disprove his suspicions, just because he fears he might be right.)

Andor, largely disinterested in Han’s presence until now and too busy just maintaining existence, glances in his direction. His stare is unfocused, skidding around, unable to latch on any specific object. Like a picture from a horror holo, crimson dots cover the whites of his eyes. His nose is zig-zagged and swollen, and disturbing dark blue patches are developing over his face. He flinches when Baze feels around his ribcage, measuring the volume of his inhales on each side.

All in all, Han is amazed that the agent is even awake. Once his eyes settle on Han, though, his stare turns almost unbearable. Stripped of his usual steely self-control, Andor appears way too young, scared and vulnerable than Han would ever associate with his otherwise perfect soldier demeanour. 

“Don’t,” he starts, slurring, and takes a rattling breath, “don’t hurt her. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

And just like that, Han doesn’t know what to say. 

It’s hard not to scoff or spew back irony automatically. Usually, when he hears words like these from someone looking like this, he knows very well that they’re simply untrue. Those would be the delusions of people trapped with people who hurt them and who are not yet able or ready to leave. This is different, though.

Still, the fact is that Erso and the two burly men still running wild are extremely dangerous. They might not go down quietly - in fact, it is highly improbable. If they attack, Han is responsible for the health and well-being of his core team - Luke, Chewie, and even the Guardians - over possibly having to cause injury to someone absent of their marbles. He can’t say that to Andor, though. The man is already stressed enough.

“We’ll catch her,” he says because he’s got to say something. “When we do, she’ll be in better shape than you, so let the fellas take you upstairs and be glad you’re alive.”

Andor stares at Han - through Han, clearly struggling to interpret what he’s just been told and whether it fits his request. Han realises that he should have used smaller words to communicate his thoughts since Andor is obviously too concussed to grasp complex sentences.  There’s a movement behind Han’s shoulder, and Luke appears there, putting a comforting hand on Andor’s good shoulder.

“We won’t harm Jyn,” he says kindly. “I will make sure that she’s apprehended safely. I promise.”

Luke’s intrinsic personal pull must make Andor re-focus on him. As he does, the panic seems to seep out of him slowly, like he wouldn’t expect the actual Jedi to lie or make empty promises. Luke’s easy word is all it takes to reassure him.

Han would probably feel the same if he were in Andor’s shoes. Luke Skywalker is the most reliable entity in all of creation, and if he says that he will make sure Erso is captured with no harm to her, then that’s what they’ll do.

“Let’s get going,” Baze says as he zips his medical bag closed and passes it to Chirrut. Han and Luke step back, allowing the two Jedhans to gather themselves and the Captain.

“We should head out, too,” Han murmurs to Luke and Chewie. “I don’t want to spend one second longer in this dungeon than I have to.”

His companions do not protest, so Han and Chewie re-check their blasters. Luke re-ignites his lightsaber, and they march on.

Chewie bends to Han as they walk and quietly remarks, how can you humans even live when you’re this breakable?

Han shrugs. “My standing hypothesis is that Erso is, technically, not a human. She’s a Star Destroyer in a meat suit.”

Luke frowns at him as if he wants to determine whether Han is serious. He turns over his shoulder to glance at Baze, hoisting a very injured yet indignant Captain Andor into his arms. When Luke turns back, his face almost shines with worry and empathy. He keeps on trailing after Han and Chewie into the darkened lab.

Their flashlights barely reach the other end of the room now. An expanse of more space opens ahead. Chewie looks around, trying to get his sensitive eyes to focus in the dark. Spread out? He asks.

“I’d rather not,” Han replies, “between your muscles and Luke’s magic feelings, I feel very defenceless on my own.”

Chewie chuckles, serves your ego right .

“Magic feelings,” Luke repeats, shaking his head. Still, he keeps a careful eye around the place, reaching his lightsaber-holding hand forward in every direction. His other hand strays to his temple.

“Sense anything?” Han asks, eyeing the gesture.

Luke shrugs. “She’s somewhere here, that’s certain. Somewhere quite close.” He stops in his steps, blinking. “Oh.”

“What?” Han mostly manages to sound disinterested, he thinks. He has a reputation to protect, which would tank if he sounded like a mynock that got stuck in an air vent. It’s tough, though, given how many creeps this place gives him.

“Nothing, really,” Luke says apologetically. “Well. I said that the Force is muddled here. Lieutenant Erso is normally quite bright in it, you see. So, usually, I have no problems locating her, even among crowds. But now, she’s somehow dimmed down. I can feel her somewhere around here, but she’s obscured.”

Han frowns at him. “None of what you just said makes any sense, Luke.”

Chewie shakes his head. That’s because you’re kinda dumb, mate.

“What I mean is she’s not herself at all,” Luke puts simply. “And I can’t tell where she is, exactly. Her crystal isn’t attuned to her now, which would help me track her. She could be right next to us, or she could be two clicks out. I’m sorry.”

Han sighs. “Not your fault, kid. That’s what life form detectors are for.”

Chewie scratches his head. So you took ours from the Falcon?

“What?” Han hisses. “I thought you took it. You had it last.”

I put it on the charger after you let it go dead again, dropped it on the couch and forgot it existed, Chewie huffs. That’s hardly ‘having’ it.

“Well, I thought you were taking it with you anyway,” Han grumbles.

How could you think that?! Unlike you, I don’t have any pockets, you dimwit!

“Which hardly ever stopped you from taking stuff before, if I remember correctly!”

Now listen, you ungrateful -

“So we don’t have a life form detector,” Luke sighs. He chooses to ignore his friends' bickering and instead closes his eyes, drawing his right hand forward again. In the Force, he reaches out, trying to locate the uncharacteristically foggy presence of Jyn Erso and the equally obscure, much less familiar beacons of Sargeant Nowe and Corporal Hiicks. “This will take a while,” he mutters, already feeling a tension headache building up.

***

When Baze emerges from the steel door on the surface, it is to find the medical transport and the strike team landing next to the Falcon.

“The cavalry is here,” he announces to Chirrut, who, of course, already knows. Still, the blind monk nods.

In Baze’s arms, Cassian starts squirming. If Baze is being honest, the captain has been exceptionally compliant the whole trek up the installation, tolerating all the manhandling and tugging with minimal fuss. Once or twice, Baze had to check that he was, in fact, conscious. His bruised face stands out even more in the yellow daylight of the surface.

“Stop moving,” Baze mutters.

“Back hurts,” mumbles the captain irritably.

“It’s going to hurt much more if you make me drop you,” Baze replies gruffly.

This makes the younger man stop wriggling. Instead, he holds a hand to his cracked nose. “You said you wouldn’t,” he sighs.

“So don’t make me.”

As they speak, the medical team exits the ship, rushing to them with a grav stretcher. Baze deposits Cassian on it with the utmost care but still earns a weak huff from the injured agent. Several more emergency responders, accompanied by infantry troopers, walk past them into the installation. Baze pushes the gurney to the medical transport. When the ship door rolls open to him, he almost collides with a short, silver-haired Human frowning at him.

“Long time no see,” Baze smiles at her sarcastically.

“Two months of not having any of you idiots on my table,” Bones grumbles. “What a delightful day to end a record streak.”

From the gurney, Cassian shoots the doctor a fleeting look and mutters, “Oh gods, why is it always you?” before collapsing back.

Bones chuckles.

“Doctor Tyr,” Chirrut sing-songs as he approaches. “How nice to see you.”

Bones rolls her eyes at him. “Lads,” she responds, stepping away. “Roll up. I’ve been lonely without you crashing at my door all the damn time.”

The two Guardians follow her, pushing the gurney through the force-field entrance that keeps a stable atmosphere.

“Is Jyn here already?” Cassian asks feebly, a hopeful expression turned on the guardians.

“Well, I ain’t keeping her in my closet,” Bones replies. 

Chirrut shakes his head. “The evacuation team set out two minutes ago. I think they will need a little more time to do anything.”

Cassian blinks rapidly like he’s trying to make sense of the timeline of events before letting out a soft, confused “Oh.”

The doctor frowns, looking in turn at the two older men. She takes out the advanced medical scanner and lets it run. “How long was he out?”

“We don’t know,” Baze replies, handing over his own smaller and simpler device with the scans he took in the laboratory. “Ten to twenty minutes. He’s still a bit disoriented.”

Bones eyes the small screen critically. “Forget disoriented; he should be dead,” she mutters in a low voice. “These contusions - look, here, at the cerebellum, and here, the frontal lobe, this couldn’t have happened in one go. I’ve never seen this kind of scan in anybody with vitals.”

Both look quizzically at Cassian, who is leaning on Chirrut with an ice pack held to his head, seemingly ignoring everything again.

“Quite alive for a dead man,” Baze whispers back.

“Oh, he loves to prove me wrong,” Bones states. “Always has. I bet he’s read in a medical journal that double concussions are almost always lethal in full humans, and he decided to survive one out of spite.”

Baze smirks, gazing at Chirrut. “It runs in the family.”

Chirrut shrugs. “Spite is an excellent motivator.”

The advanced scanner beeps, and both Baze and Bones study the results. The picture on the screen bears fewer flashing warnings than the previous one.

Baze peers over her shoulder at the screen. “That’s looking better than I expected. No detectable cranial bleeding is reassuring.”

“Yeah, it really is,” Bones agrees. “I don’t know why, though. Either your scanner is laughably poor with brain activity, or my scanner is on mushrooms, or we have a miraculous recovery at our hands, and I’d love to describe and publish it.”

“No way you’re studying me,” Cassian huffs around his ice pack.

“Spoilsport,” Bones says. Then she turns back to Baze. “Should I expect someone critical enough to need both our bacta tanks open?”

Baze starts looking up his scans of the Pathfinders along the way. “I recorded some unusual brain activity in First Lieutenant Dameron. He was stunned unconscious, but the brain did not look like it. But, as you said, my scanner could be faulty.”

“Fucking splendid.” Bones lists through it. “I will re-scan them here when they come. Have a look at the medical textbooks in the meantime. Bacta won’t help with brain fuckery. It doesn’t penetrate the brain-blood barrier.”

Baze nods, putting his scanner away. “The worst casualty so far is here, anyway.”

As if on cue, Chirrut shakes the captain’s uninjured shoulder. “Hey, no sleeping.”

The captain groans. He moves the ice pack from the top of his head to his face.

Bones scratches behind her ear. “Let’s put him in bacta for an hour or two,” she decides. “General pain relief and bone knitters now, stim shot and another scan after the immersion. Mednog to support the bacta from within. It should help the leg, now that it’s circulating again, and the internal injuries. The spine will need much more bacta to heal up, but the scaffolding and the replacement discs seem still holding. That’s reassuring.”

“Yay,” Cassian hums, hunching over even more to relieve his spasming back. He points one bloodshot eye at Chirrut. “Heard of Jyn?”

Chirrut shakes his head. “It’s too soon. Give them some time.”

Cassian shrugs slightly. “They should be back by now.”

“We left ten minutes ago,” Baze reminds him. 

“But Jyn is out there,” the Captain counters. The ice pack over his face, his clogged nose, and the undeniable exhaustion make him sound like an overtired loth-kitten.

“Yes, and how can you help with that?” Baze asks, not unkindly. “The best thing you can do for Jyn right now is to let us put you together. If she sees you looking like this, she’ll have a heart attack.”

Despair grows on the visible parts of the captain’s face as he stares into the space ahead. He looks as close to crying as Baze has ever witnessed, which must be due to the brain injury eradicating his barriers. Still, it’s a scary sight. Sighing, the old monk busies himself by grabbing a pair of gloves.

“She’s all alone,” Cassian mumbles finally before looking up at Chirrut. “Go help her, please?”

Chirrut shakes his head slowly. “Jyn will be alright,” he says firmly. “She has people looking for her. It is you who needs us right now.”

The younger man’s eyes slide to the ground. “Chirrut, I hit her,” he whispers, clearly miserable by his own actions. As if the fact that he was the one who was attacked first and who went down like a bloodied ragdoll while Jyn ran off, likely without a significant injury, was secondary.

The two Guardians turn to each other and sigh. However, it is Bones who speaks. The doctor still hovers by the edge of the cot, observing the scene and evaluating her patient’s mental status. The results, so far, are not too reassuring, but the mednog should help with that. She concludes that she can risk letting her patient out of sight for a few minutes for his benefit.

“I’m going to check on Corporal Whatshisname,” she announces quietly to no one in particular. “And let Bodhi know that you’re not dead. He’s worried sick. The tank will be ready in ten, and I’ll be back. Chirrut, if you want to change into something that doesn’t have someone’s meagre stomach contents on it, there are clean gowns in the cabinet behind you.”

She gets a thankful nod from each Jedhan. On her way out, she flips on the heating and pumps on one of the two bacta tanks on the ship. Then, the pressurised door snaps closed behind her again.

Baze shares a fond one-way look with Chirrut. They’ve been together so long, and the Force has proved to be on their side, after all. Baze Malbus had healed his brothers in the Temple and had been one with Chirrut in body and spirit long before the silly young man in front of him was a twinkle in his mother’s eyes. He and Chirrut can tackle almost any problem together, even if the problem is that their son lacks the understanding of the importance of self-preservation.

“You are allowed to defend yourself,” Chirrut says quietly, taking Cassian’s right ankle into his hands and gently, without tugging, undoes his boots. 

Content that the problem has been addressed, Baze steps back to the cot and puts an antiseptic wipe on the long, jagged cut on Cassian’s forehead. After a few seconds, he concludes it will need at least some loose stitches to close the edges before they can let the bacta take care of it. Without sewing it, the laceration would leave a prominent scar, doubtlessly ruining Cassian’s career. 

(Deep down, Baze is tempted to do just that — ruin Cassian Andor’s career. Take him out of field operations completely. He’s skilled enough to be helpful to the Rebellion in about twenty other, less dangerous ways than what, as Baze knows, is killing him, literally and figuratively. He doesn’t take many black op missions anymore, but each time he does, he seems smaller and aged beyond his years upon return, radiating grief and self-contempt within a click radius in the Force. Baze would be doing the young man a service right now if he omitted the tiniest part of his job. He could well explain it as a lapse of judgment, even. Rescuing a young life from harm and the danger of death is well worth something as banal as a scar on his face and a bit of bitterness, is it not?

Sadly, Baze is aware that this is not something he can force on Cassian. He has to be ready to quit and consciously choose himself over the anonymous masses who will never suitably appreciate his sacrifices. At this point, Cassian does not realise that walking out and living a fullfilling life with his family is an option. It will take time, but Baze knows he will get there eventually. They all just have to wait him out.)

Baze reaches for a bottle of local anaesthetic and draws a small syringe with it.

“Hold still,” he says, and for good measure, he puts a stabilising hand on the back of Cassian’s head. He applies the anaesthetic around the cut on the younger man’s forehead, earning a wince. Pushing a needle through swollen, thoroughly innervated tissues is painful, Baze knows from experience. It’s nothing compared to the hurt of having his nose set straight, even with the general painkillers. That will happen just before the bacta immersion.

That honour, Baze is happy to leave for the doctor.

***

“Bloody hell,” Han Solo spits. “Fuck this place and everything it stands for.”

Chewie affirms that, and even Luke does not step in to find something positive.

They have been searching for almost half an hour. The back labs are much bigger than they seemed at first, and there are so many of them. One room opens directly into another, and so on and so on. Hall upon hall filled with various instruments, the purpose of which Han can only guess. Force only knows what surprises the Empire had been brewing in here. Without electricity and overhead lights, it’s difficult to search properly. 

Corporal Hiicks was found by a sheer miracle - precisely, by Han tripping on his thigh when walking forward while looking sideways. The corporal was discovered on his back, unconscious, with an arm nearly torn out of the socket. It was an ugly sight, but at least it was one man less to worry about.

And since then, nothing. Not a sound, not a sight.

Han recognises that neither the moment nor the audience would appreciate hearing that he needs to relieve his bladder soon. Still, it is something that presses on his mind more and more, and he’s anxious to end this entire exercise before his dignity comes to be questioned. 

Luke keeps looking around with an expression that makes him look like he has an intense toothache. When asked about it fifteen minutes ago, he just shrugged and said the Force was shrouded here. It’s gotten worse since then.

I can hear people behind us, Chewie announces.

Han turns around and sees the distant pinpricks of flashlights in the main lab. “Finally,” he mutters. “Took them long enough.”

“They were probably busy with all the patients all over the place,” Luke reprimands him softly.

Han shrugs. “In the meantime, we could have become patients ourselves.”

We would be in much less danger of that if we had our life form detector with us, Chewie mentions, shrugging.

“We have Luke. He’s like a life form detector that speaks,” Han shoots back.

“Ha ha,” Luke shoots back, massaging his pulsating temples. The migraine building up behind his eyes is almost enough to make him wish he were still on Tatooine, Force abilities dormant and utterly unaware of the scale of the galaxy around him. He used to have migraines even back then since he could remember - either from the heat or from the Force grasping at his closed-off mind, he’s been told. Headaches from heatstroke or dehydration are a common side effect of living on Tatr all. Yet never before leaving that miserable dust ball has Luke experienced the sheer visceral pain of his mind expanding and hitting every barrier imaginable. It’s exhausting.

You good? Chewie asks. Luke thinks he must be getting better at Shyriiwook because he believes that he can make out Chewie sounding concerned.

“Yeah,” Luke growls, ill-tempered. “Can’t wait for this to be over.”

“Almost sounds like you’re not having fun with us,” Han says.

“Every day, I thank the Force for blessing me with a friend as hilarious as you are.”

Somewhere ahead of them, there’s a sudden noise of something hitting flesh, closely followed by a pained masculine yelp. 

Finally, Luke thinks with a flood of relief in his pounding brain. Finally, it’s over, and we can go home.

In the cones of their flashlights, they can see the burly figure of an unarmed Sargeant Nowe toppling ungracefully on the floor. A much smaller, lither body springs away from him, too quick to follow. Nowe remains on the floor, writhing with his hands to his head, screaming at the top of his lungs. The more petite figure - Erso - disappears in the dark, but her hurried footsteps echo uncomfortably closely.

“She’s trying to cut us from the side,” Han yells, readying his blaster. 

There are more hurried footsteps as the strike team rushes in, guns blazing. 

“Only shoot to stun!” Luke hollers as he adjusts the setting of his lightsaber to the lowest - still capable of hurting but not slicing through flesh. 

“But where is she?” calls the nearest soldier right as he shoots a stun bolt at Sargeant Nowe for good measure.

Luke closes his eyes, trying to ignore the commotion around him and just feel.

His mind hits a wall that feels like a nest of eels - evasive, calculating, volatile and ready to snap at the slightest prodding. It's very near. He opens his eyes wide and turns to the left.

He narrowly side-steps the fist that flies out of the dark. Luke grabs and twirls it around, earning an angry huff from its owner, who is dragged into the sharp light.

Han and Chewie are still screaming nearby, both with fingers on the triggers of their blasters. In the cacophony of noises shattering in the hollow space, Luke manages to get a good look at Jyn Erso. He can barely recognise her, and not just because of the contusions blooming on her face. She doesn’t even feel human in the Force when he can finally pinpoint her. It’s like somebody took her soulless body and shoved a wild animal’s brain into it. Not much that would identify this volatile mass as Jyn Erso, the way Luke knows her.

Instead, she’s all terror.

Not anger, like Luke expected. He thought that the psychoactive gas that hit the Pathfinders overrules one’s inhibitions and causes an uncontrolled surge of aggression. This close, however, he can tell that Erso is lashing out due to uncontrollable fear. She’s not even trying to kill anyone, not ultimately. She’s so scared of them that her mind cannot handle it.

This close, Luke can tell that she doesn’t recognise them. Her memory has been wiped clean, and she’s in survival mode. 

So Captain Andor was right; she didn’t know what she was doing. Luke’s heart constricts painfully in his chest from the onslaught of terror the Lieutenant is radiating around her. 

His heartache is somewhat lessened when Lieutenant Erso twists in his grip and punches him hard in the throat. The instinct to let her go and grab his pulsating windpipe is strong, yet the Force tells him not to. Instead, Luke swings his lightsaber towards Erso’s left knee. It will hurt her for sure, but with the setting so low, the lightsaber shouldn’t cause any worse injury than a second-degree burn in a healthy human.

The sounds are still trashing around the cavern and inside Luke’s head, and he thinks he might puke, too. For some reason, nobody seems to be able to take aim at Erso and finally put her out of commission and out of Luke’s hands. His nose is hit with the smell of his lightsaber burning the fabric of the woman’s tactical uniform. Just as he expects the pungent stench of burnt flesh to surround them, the blade skids away.

Luke realises that in the heat of the moment, he’s completely forgotten about Lieutenant Erso’s famously supposedly laser-cannon-equipped prosthetic leg. While not made of bescar, the outer alloy is highly durable enough to withstand a lightsaber on lower settings because that’s what it just did.

That gives Luke just enough time to compose a very apt Huttese curse in his head. He can now more or less understand how Captain Andor might have felt when about to be pummeled by the Lieutenant, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

Luckily for him, the Rebel Alliance seems to put more emphasis on proper aim training than the Empire because several shots finally connect with Erso’s back. The fist she had drawn back to hit him with again falls to her side. Her body goes limp so fast that Luke has to reach the Force to catch her before her head cracks on the stone floor. He even has to drop his lightsaber to do so. The weapon sizzles and turns off upon impact.

There is silence for a few precious seconds before Luke hears Han shouting, “For kriff’s sake, how many times was she hit?”

Luke wastes no time hurrying to undo the neckline of Erso’s vest and jacket underneath. To his side, Chewie croaks, four or five? How many does it take?

“I don’t know. I never got stunned multiple times at once!” Han bellows. Immediately, he turns to the strike squad. “You bozos did set to stun, right?”

The nearest member of the strike squad checks his blaster rifle and shrugs. “Probably. We almost never use the stun setting, really.”

Luke promised. He looked Captain Andor in his big, sad eyes and promised that Lieutenant Erso would be caught with no harm done to her. The Captain believed him. Luke will be damned if he’s made a liar. He frantically presses the tips of his fingers to Erso’s pulse point. He can feel her, more or less, in the Force; he can tell that she shouldn’t be dead, but this entire experience has been so rattling that he has to make sure.

“Well, for your own sake, I hope that you did. Because if not, there’s a man up in the ship that will make you regret your karking grandparents being born, and I’ll gladly help him…”

“She’s alive,” Luke breathes, sitting back on his heels. His fingers rest against the Lieutenant’s jugular where her pulse, still frantic, is beating away without a hitch. “Out of it, but alive. Thank Force.”

He gulps air like he’s just run from his aunt and uncle’s farm to Mos Eisley with a sandstorm on his heels. His head is still pounding, but the visceral pain that electrified the inside of his skull, temple to temple, is edging away slowly. He feels himself becoming almost unbearably light.

Jyn Erso lies next to him, looking pitiful with a face full of bruises and knuckles torn raw. They still don’t know what is wrong with her and the others or how to fix them. But they’re all accounted for and undeniably alive, and that’s something. Luke was dreading a different outcome.

Chewie’s hand lands on Luke’s shoulder. The young Jedi looks up into the concern-streaked face of the Wookie.

Little friend, Chewie asks, you good?

“Yeah,” Luke replies, sighing. His vision floats, unconnected to how his head is moving, and begins darkening from the edges. “Everyone is alive. We made it alive.”

Chewie’s troubled whine matches Han’s frown, but Luke doesn’t have it in him to care. 

***

Hours later, Jyn finally blinks awake into the dimness she recognises as the Falcon’s crew quarters. The small triangular ceiling is only faintly illuminated by a wall light to her right. This is good because Jyn’s head is splitting in three, and more light would only worsen it. It makes her squint, and her eyes close immediately as they are.

She lets out a displeased huff. She frowns, head swirling with thoughts she cannot identify, fear-infused memories that must belong to someone else. 

Because she wouldn’t, she could never. It’d be utterly bizarre. She couldn’t have.

“There’s a cooling pad next to your bed,” says an incorporeal voice from somewhere in the room. It’s raspy and tired, probably belonging to an individual rather harmless, yet Jyn feels the spike of fear in her bones. The crew quarters on the Falcon are tiny - big enough only to fit three cots into it along the walls - yet she completely missed the part where she wasn’t alone in it.

Agonisingly, she lifts herself on her elbows and peers over her feet. The first thing that she sees is the light-clad form of Luke Skywalker, seemingly dead to the world on the cot by the other wall, sprawled on his back with his mouth hanging open. She turns her head, and there. Sitting carefully upright on the cot perpendicular to hers, shrouded in shadow, is Cassian. He’s leaning in the wall corner with his right leg outstretched sideways along the cot, wrapped in a heavy-duty medical brace from mid-thigh to his foot. His left is tucked partway up, and he’s holding another cooling pad on his stomach. His left hand is taped to his right shoulder, tied to a plast-steel upper-body brace he’s wearing over the medbay blues somebody put him in. His face is mostly obscured in the low light, but not enough for Jyn not to see.

“Oh, fuck,” she croaks and falls back into the mattress, bringing her bacta-patched hands to cover her eyes. “Fucking hell, no.”

She can hear Cassian sigh. “Not as bad as it seems,” he murmurs, probably aiming to sound reassuring. That’s a bizarre notion. Even the two seconds were enough for Jyn to notice how his face contained many more colours than it should and angles that were not supposed to be there. Even worse, she saw how his skin and hair glisten in the low, yellowish light, suggesting a recent bacta immersion. If this is what he looks like after getting bacta treatment, what state was he brought in? Clinically dead?

The wild array of snippets and memories flying through Jyn’s head does little to negate that. She put those bruises on his face. She broke his leg and collarbone, and Force knows what else. She smashed his head twice and walked away, leaving him for dead. She didn’t know it was him - she couldn’t remember anything - but that doesn’t absolve her from the blame. If help didn’t arrive in time, he would have died all the same.

“Your nose is broken again,” she states hollowly into the ceiling. The splint and the swelling around were a dead giveaway.

She can hear his tunic scratching on the wall and imagines that he’s shrugging. “Third time’s the charm, I’ve heard.”

Jyn clinches her prickling eyes closed almost violently. “Not funny.”

“I know,” he says quietly. Jyn can barely hear him over the hum of the hyperdrive and her own heart pounding in her ears. Not with how apparent it is that Cassian cannot speak up. Because Jyn faintly remembers almost choking the life out of him.

(His terrified eyes at that moment, frozen in shock, staring at her in the back-light - those she remembers vividly.)

He gazes her way warily, still somewhat on guard, and Jyn hates that. Even more, she hates herself for putting that very understandable, very expected apprehension between them. 

“I’m so sorry,” she wheezes through a throat that feels like a dumpling is stuck inside it. 

“‘S fine,” she can pick up him saying, almost whispering. “You didn’t know.”

It’s those few syllables that finally push Jyn over the edge.

She shakes her head, draws in a ragged breath which breaks somewhere in her throat, puts her hands over her face, and lets her body rack itself with the sobs that tear out.

She doesn’t cry loudly - she learned not to at a very young age - yet it still alarms Cassian. After all, she has never cried openly before him, not since Eadu. Even then, the screaming took priority. There have been tears since then, of course - if nothing else, night terrors do occur. Pain lingers, and despair remains. Solace is found with one another.

But this is new.

All this time, they have never once harmed each other until now.

Cassian huffs as he pulls himself up, grabbing the wall to compensate for his braced leg. He awkwardly shuffles forward on his left, arm outstretched for balance. He sways more than he should on one leg.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing,” Jyn squeaks, laboriously sitting up herself. She swallows the lump in her throat. “Lie back down.”

From the other cot, Skywalker snores softly but does not stir.

“Shh,” Cassian hums, reaching her cot and almost falling into it face-first. “Scoot. Got to keep the leg elevated, or Baze will kill me.”

“So maybe you shouldn’t be walking on it,” Jyn hisses through the flood of shame and hurt because she did that to him.

“Done.” He climbs beside her and drapes his leg across the mattress. Once settled, he tentatively reaches for Jyn’s hand, giving her every chance to stop him.

She takes his trembling hand, lacing their fingers together. He lets her. His hand is warm in hers, wrapped in a bacta-infused bandage like Jyn’s own. Up close, his face looks even more terrible, and his eyes are jumping around, not really meeting hers. He's still concussed, but judging by the fact that he’s speaking quite coherently, he's recovering. Probably with a killer headache and on stims, hence his hands shaking, but awake. Alive.

“Why are we here?” she asks because them being more or less cosy in the Falcon’s crew quarters doesn’t make much sense. She thinks she should probably be restrained, and Cassian should still be in bacta. She can’t understand why they’re not being swarmed with medics.

Cassian closes his eyes. “Dark, quiet, couldn’t handle Bodhi looking at me like he expected me to drop dead any minute.”

If Bodhi saw his face displaying every colour of the visible spectrum and all the bandages and braces he’d been put in, Jyn can hardly blame him for thinking that.

She derives that Bodhi is on board the Falcon, then. Solo and Chewie were out with Skywalker, Chirrut and Baze, last she’s heard. She remembers Solo, Skywalker and Chewie down in the tunnels. She can guess that Chirrut and Baze are also here because she can’t picture them elsewhere. That means that they are still under medical supervision, probably on camera. She’s sure that the crew outside knows that both she and Cassian are awake but chooses to grant them some privacy. That is reassuring.

“What about him?” Jyn asks, pointing her chin in Skywalker’s direction, who is still entirely out of it. 

Cassian scoffs. “Came in half an hour ago or so. Said Baze sent him to check up on us. Passed out in twenty seconds, been out ever since.”

This is probably good because Jyn possesses neither the mood nor the strength to deal with Luke’s hero worship on the Rogue One crew.

“Right, so… how bad is it?” she asks finally. The uncertainty is killing her. She remembers snippets, fighting for her life with the entire Pathfinders squad, not knowing why. Not knowing anything because her brain could not process anything but fear.

(The paralysing fear of the dark but even more so of the approaching lights. The dread mounting, boiling in her with each passing moment. The thick fog lagging every decision. The despair when they nearly passed her, but Nowe had to literally walk over her, and she snapped.) “The mission?”

“Mission successful, intel secured.” Cassian frowns, shrugging again. “Everyone’s alright.”

Jyn gives him a pointed look. “Try again.”

“‘S true. Nobody got hurt badly.”

“So this,” Jyn draws a circle in the air that encompasses most of Cassian with her finger, “this is just a light booboo that’ll be gone by tomorrow.”

Cassian scoffs. “The price for… stupidity, more like.”

“So it’s fine, then. You had it coming.” Jyn lets the irony drop from each word like sweet syrup.

Cassian opens his eyes, finally looking at her. More or less. His gaze keeps slipping. “Know I should’ve waited for backup,” he says slowly. “I… couldn’t. ‘Twas risky. Stupid.”

He’s right, of course, and Jyn would love to scold him and yell some common sense into him. But when she opens her mouth, her words run dry. She has no right, really - not only because he got hurt by her hand, but also because if their roles were reversed, she wouldn’t wait by idly either. She would tear the planet apart to get to him if she didn’t know whether he lived or not.

It’s not the healthiest frame of mind, Jyn knows, the evidence of which is etched into Cassian’s face. 

She slowly raises her hand, bringing it to his purple, swollen cheekbone. He leans into her wrapped-up palm lightly, despite the wince when his split skin comes into contact.

“I’m sorry,” Jyn whispers again.

Cassian looks at her with utmost softness. “So am I.”

“What?”

He clears his throat painfully. “Maybe you should see a mirror.”

“... Oh.” That makes sense. She does recall Cassian struggling underneath her grip, punching and kicking anything within reach. He also landed a few hits, as did some of the Pathfinders. She’s probably somewhat battered up herself. She doesn’t care about that much, except that it seems to offend Cassian.

Experimentally, she rolls back her shoulders and stretches her upper body. There is some pain in her ribcage, but it is tolerable. Her right leg and foot work fine enough, though the muscles in her thigh and calf pang from overuse. Despite the charred gash in the trouser leg, she doesn't worry about the left. Finally, she touches her face. Her jaw aches when touched, as does her cheekbones. Her left eye is puffy, though not closed shut. She thinks she might have bruises she’s not yet aware of.

Cassian is watching her inspect herself with a remorseful look on his face. “You’ll be getting into bacta on Hoth.”

“I’m alright,” Jyn replies quickly. She has difficulty understanding why he is out of bacta anyway.

Cassian eyes her carefully. “Glad to hear that,” he says after a few moments of silence. “‘Cause I’ve got a favour to ask.”

Jyn inhales sharply, momentarily petrified that the favour to ask would be along the lines of “when we land, I need you to move out of my quarters and out of my life”. She would be crushed if it was, but she wouldn’t fight it. He’d be just another in the line of people who left her behind. It’d be nothing new, except that, unlike everyone before him, he would have a good reason to walk away.

Instead, Cassian gently wraps his hand around hers.

“It’s clear my self-defence skills are not up to date,” he murmurs hesitantly. Looks her in the eyes intently. “I… I’d like it if you’d train me.”

Jyn stares at him for several heartbeats. She doesn’t think that he’s joking - despite the popular opinion, Cassian does have a sense of humour, and it’s much better than this. He wouldn’t lead her on like that. But surely, after what she just put him through, he wouldn’t ever want to revisit a situation where he’s the target of her hits, even in training.

“Me?” she asks, uncertain.

“Yes,” Cassian confirms. His face hardens in determination. “There’s no one I trust more.”

Jyn swallows hard, feeling another surge of emotion threaten to close up her throat. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Jyn, I’m sure,” he says. “Think it could help us both. To get over this. Be… be back to being us.”

Jyn considers this. What Cassian is suggesting makes sense. He would surely benefit from better hand-to-hand combat skills - not just for self-defence but also for building back up the muscle he had lost after Scarif. And Jyn knows how she would go about it. She could help him work on improving his weaknesses and reinforcing his strengths. She would ensure the lessons were beneficial yet safe, pushing boundaries but not overstepping them. She would make sure that they never got into this situation again. 

Next to them, Skywalker snores loudly. Jyn kinda wants to feed him his own sock.

“Alright,” she nods, then. “I’ll train you.”

The banged-up corner of Cassian’s lips quirks up just before he presses it to her palm. “Thank you.”

As if she doesn’t owe him for giving her a home, a purpose, and all of himself. “And I’ll talk to Draven,” Jyn says. “About granting you a bodyguard for field operations. Someone to have your back.”

Because that is even more of a reason why things went down the way they did than rusty self-defence. Jyn can recall Cassian’s wide-open flank as he walked in below her. He’s still used to having K-2 cover him as he had done for years without a fault. They’ll need to work on that, too.

Cassian watches her quietly, intently. His eyes do not skip as much anymore. “Will you?”

“Yes, of course,” Jyn breathes in dual meaning, yes, of course, I will talk to him as well as yes, of course I’ll have your back no matter what.

He pulls at her hand, drawing her closer. It takes a little figuring out how to slot her arms around him in a way that wouldn’t hurt either of them. Finally, Jyn curls herself around Cassian’s right side without touching his knee or cracked collarbone, and she leans her forehead into his shoulder. The smell of bacta that lingers on the scrubs and in his skin fills her nose. 

“I love you,” she can hear him mumble into her hair. “Always will.”

“I love you too,” she whispers hollowly as her heart constricts. She could have lost him today. She could have been the cause of his loss. She runs her hands up his sides as much as she dares without causing him further pain. “I don’t deserve you.”

She can feel more than hear Cassian chuckle humourlessly. He kisses her temple, and his hand splays out on her lower back. “We both know you don’t.”

What Jyn knows is that they don’t mean the same thing at all, and she wants to scream. She settles for holding him tightly instead. Between them, her Kyber crystal soaks in their shared body warmth, like it has its own mind to be content.

Chapter Text

It takes a week for Cassian to be allowed back in service, though for desk duty only for the time being.

It takes another week for Jyn to relent and meet him in the gym.

She wouldn’t even hear about it while the evidence of her lack of control was still apparent at first glance. It isn’t until the bruises have faded, the scrapes closed, and Bones grudgingly allows Cassian to do light stretching exercises that wouldn’t hurt his banged-up spine. Only then does she agree.

In the meantime, the medbay had confirmed that the gas and its effect had completely cleared her system upon landing on Hoth. Only later does Jyn find out that without knowing what the gas was, the medevac team on Bahravi had all the unconscious Pathfinders put on pure oxygen while re-starting their brain activity via electroshocks. Jyn is reasonably glad to have been out for that part and even more glad it worked so well.

The strike team had recovered the cache holding the treacherous gas and brought it from Bahravi for analysis. The lab technicians successfully tracked down the mechanism of action, as Draven informed them two days later when the medbay finally released everyone from observation and treatment. Then, he yammered something about the limbic system, prefrontal cortexes, and sea horses, and then something that sounded like the name of a former senator of Naboo. Jyn wasn’t exactly sure what it all meant - her knowledge of medicine is mainly limited to how to avoid getting dead or knocked up. She spent the entire meeting concentrating on Cassian’s hand holding hers under the table, shielded from the general’s critical eye. 

The Empire flash-burned the atmosphere of an entire planet just to see if they could. It will take years for Bahravi to recover and even longer for life to settle back, if it ever fully does. Had the research team operating there not sealed the outer door with residual air before leaving, the lab complex would have burned, too. Had the door not give out due to sudden changes of temperature and released the oxygen tanks after the flash, the planet would be utterly destroyed, and the Alliance would never have found out what happened there. Still, Jyn feels that maybe the Imperials counted on that. That this was a trap set for them, which they walked into. It was pure luck that no one died this time. Next time, they might not be as lucky.

The trace-analytic branch of Intelligence is again working against the clock to decipher Jyn’s father’s notes. There are dozens of projects to decode, and no guarantee that their copies won’t be used against the Rebels or the general population at any minute. Two weeks in, the techs are still hard at work coming up with a possible preventive action for the gas. 

(Meanwhile, the Pathfinders have received a brand new batch of atmo masks and strict orders not to take them off on missions at all costs for the foreseeable future.) 

Somehow, the nearly catastrophic fallout of the Bahravi mission has not ended Jyn’s career in Intelligence before it even began, nor has it cut her off from the Pathfinders. If anything, it seems, her teammates now treat her with near admiration. Even Roakshell now keeps his commentary about Jyn’s personal life to himself, which is a blessing. Privately, Jyn thinks that it’s more likely fear than respect, but she can live with that. 

Cassian doesn’t look at her with fear in his eyes, and that’s all that matters. She thanks the stars for that. However, she has been mindful of her hands on his skin since and has kept them away from his throat no matter what. She doesn’t think she could pretend like nothing happened if her touch were to make him flinch.

She still feels uneasy facing each other in the gym for the first time. Yet the well-lit, chilly room is nowhere near the sulphuric tang and lightless spaces of Bahravi. She’s in possession of all her faculties, and she can control herself. Even more, Baze and Chirrut, despite claiming to be terribly busy all day, have somehow found themselves in the gym, looking like nothing was amiss.

“Are you just going to sit there?” Jyn asks as she stretches her flesh leg, checking that Cassian is doing the same.

“We are here to watch the show,” Chirrut replies serenely. Baze chuckles and soon starts providing hints on perfecting the stretching exercises to maximum effect.  

Jyn smiles, feeling reassured by their presence. She’s not overly surprised when Han Solo, Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker trickle in a short while later. 

With muscles properly warmed up, Jyn finally turns to face Cassian. She still feels apprehensive about this, but she did promise. And he was right before - he needs the training. It is a good idea.

Jyn sighs and shakes off her arms. “If you feel like stopping at any time, we will stop.”

(This is almost word-to-word to what he said to her months earlier, just before they slept together for the first time.)

Cassian’s lips quirk up in a half-smile. “Don’t worry, you won’t hurt me.”

(This is not what she replied then because she always understood that just because one was not hurt in the process, it did not mean that the experience was necessarily good or desired. But in the end, it was.)

“This is getting quite explicit,” Solo mutters to Chewie somewhere on Jyn’s right. Chewie answers something that Jyn does not understand, but it turns the tips of Skywalker’s ears a bright shade of red.

Jyn snickers and finally lets her legs slide into the familiar guard pose. Her right leg stands front, mildly bent with her right foot under her knee, bearing her weight; her left is extended back, the artificial foot perpendicular to her flesh one. This brings her dominant right side forward, and she draws her arms bent at the elbows, her hands up and forward. She watches Cassian take the same pose, only mirrored, putting his left side forward to compensate for his right being weaker.

Jyn takes a deep breath, holds it in, and releases it with all lingering doubts. “Now, try to strike me.”

END