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Jyn/Cassian week!
So, it's this year's Rebelcaptain Week at Tumblr, and this time I've actually managed to get my ficlets posted on time! And they're all for storm in the desert, so:
title: like a storm in the desert (2/4???)
verse: everybody lives and are more or less happy, fight me
characters: Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso; Baze Malbus, Bodhi Rook, General Draven, Mon Mothma; Jyn/Cassian
stuff that happens: General Draven and Jyn have their inevitable stand-off, Draven and Cassian have one of a different tenor, and Jyn and Cassian reach an important consensus.
chapters: one
Without turning around, General Draven sighed.
Sigh, Jyn decided, was too strong a word for it. Even the exhalation sounded regimented, contained to a breath just that bit more abrupt and more forceful than usual. Nevertheless, it managed to exude strained patience.
Without hesitation, she walked around him to lean against Cassian’s bed, placing herself between them with absolutely no attempt at subtlety.
Cassian himself seemed scarcely to notice. He lay at a slight incline, pale and heavy-eyed, studying his hands with the fierce concentration of a—well, of a man dragged out of deep sedation.
“Erso,” said Draven. “I should have guessed.”
He sounded more like he was receiving an unexpected visit from his relatives-in-law than that he’d, say, sent an assassin after her father. Oh, the hand could have been Cassian’s, and the choice; but the will was Draven’s. Jyn wouldn’t forget.
She didn’t bother replying. Silence could be its own weapon, and she’d already spoken with Draven more than she ever wanted to.
An hour or two after Jyn had first started wandering around the med-bay, a sharp-eyed medic had insisted on examining her leg and then on dropping her into a quick bacta treatment. She woke in blessed peace, fell asleep—then woke again to Draven and Mon Mothma watching her, an experience she felt no desire to ever again repeat. She couldn’t understand why they would hover around her rather than Cassian, why they would trust her answers over Cassian’s, why they would have anything to do with her at all, in that appalled instant.
Over the next several minutes, it only got worse. Draven simply ignored her questions about Cassian as he demanded details about the mission: details that Cassian would know. In the end, it was Mothma who broke in and assured her that Captain Andor was alive, and as well as possible; they just couldn’t know the length of his bacta treatments, and needed every detail she could provide right now.
Jyn, though not fooled by the sympathy in her face—she knew that trick too well—accepted the offering as the best one she could get. So she answered their questions. Answered all of them once, and then twice, thrice, never varying from the first time. She knew something had gone wrong, must have gone wrong, long before they told her.
Thanks to Han Solo, she knew it’d gone right, in the end. Here and now. And yet, here and now, Draven stood before her. Again.
Jyn thought about sitting down. There was only one chair—her chair—and she could make herself clear that way. But Draven towered over Cassian and Mothma, much less Jyn. She had enough of a disadvantage without making it worse. Instead, she borrowed from Draven’s own tactics and ignored him altogether.
“You shouldn’t be awake yet,” she told Cassian.
His face remained drawn in effort, but some of the heavier lines faded, and the entire slope of his shoulders relaxed as he lifted his eyes.
“Jyn,” he said, her name full of relief.
She felt abruptly convinced that he’d been asking after her, too—and no doubt received no better answer.
Cassian said nothing else, but nodded at Draven by way of explanation. Only then did Jyn bother looking the general in the face.
“We need answers,” Draven said brusquely. “And we need them now. You’ll do as well as him.”
“Better, I imagine,” said Jyn, closing her fingers over Cassian’s shoulder. It felt thinner, though that might well mean nothing. The memory of his voice whispered in her mind—leave it, leave it, that’s it—and it sounded weaker by far than the single word she’d just heard. But then, it had been weaker. He’d …
She focused her attention on Draven. “I’ve told you all we know, though.”
Disregarding that, he said, “This weakness. Where did your father say he planted it?”
“Throughout the Death Star,” replied Jyn. “It’s designed to self-destruct, like I told you. One direct blast to the reactor module should set off a chain reaction that explodes the whole station.”
A part of her, desperate and fragile, urged her to ask, That’s what you found, didn’t you? In the plans? You should have seen it, why are you talking to us—
No. She knew they must have found her father’s trap in her father’s design, unless Solo had been lying about the plans all along. But that would explain still less. No, they’d found the plans, and found Galen’s trick, and this was just a matter of … of confirmation or some nonsense like that, as if it made any difference at this point.
Regardless, she refused to ask.
Draven nodded, his stolid expression unaltered. “Is that true, Andor?”
Only raw obstinacy kept Jyn from bristling at him. She confined herself to a clench of her jaw, confident at least that Cassian would support her as far as his faculties allowed. These days, she didn’t expect any stabs in the back. Only the front.
“Yes, sir,” said Cassian. She glanced down at his face, just in time to see a faint grimace disappear. “That is my understanding.”
Sweat stood out from his skin, though he felt cold through the thin material of his shirt. Pain, undoubtedly; the medics had sedated him for a reason. Jyn took care not to tighten her grip, but fixed her stare on Draven with renewed disdain.
“You’ve seen it,” she added. “What are you going to do now?”
“You’re clever, whatever else you may be,” Draven said. “You know perfectly well what we’re going to do. There’s no other choice.”
“The time to fight is now?” said Jyn, coolly.
“It seems so,” Draven replied. “And it must be done right. If we fail, we’ll all be dust by this time tomorrow.”
That time, she did flinch. Not at the prospect of death, which she had faced far too many times to cower from. But that sounded like something Saw might have said. Like things Saw had said, many times. But he never stopped there.
“And if we succeed?”
The curl of Draven’s lip approximated a smile. “Then you all can enjoy your promotions.”
He turned to leave, apparently considering that adequate.
“I haven’t even joined the Rebellion,” Jyn protested. It was certainly not adequate.
“You have now,” said Draven. His gaze flicked from her, to Cassian, to her again. “Get some rest, both of you.”
And with that did, he really did leave.
“Is he serious?” she demanded, more from the universe than Cassian. Right now, she didn’t feel like demanding much from Cassian. Instead, she braced her arm against his back. “I hate it, but he’s right. Halfway right. Can you sleep like this?”
“The plans?” he said stubbornly.
“They’re here. Some smuggler helped,” said Jyn. “None of us can do anything more, right now. Draven was just confirming the intel—if we can trust him that far.”
Cassian gave a groggy nod. “He doesn’t usually lie for no reason.”
Jyn knew better than to confuse honesty, even far more reliable honesty than Draven’s, with trust. Trust was about loyalty, the sort that inspired an expectation that someone would always have your back, and fulfilled that expectation in word and deed. Perhaps he’d given Cassian reason for that kind of trust; she felt nothing of the kind.
Not towards him, anyway.
“Cassian,” she said, “go to sleep.”
Mon Mothma had never been an excitable woman, even in their youth, with the Republic corrupting itself everywhere they looked. But anticipation lit up her face every time she returned to Erso’s plans.
Draven couldn’t have said which Erso he meant. It didn’t matter—or it hadn’t.
“Well?” she demanded.
“I talked to Erso,” he said. “It matches up.”
Mothma took a deep breath, one that seemed to restore her to her usual serene dignity. “Do you trust her?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Draven, “when it comes to this.”
The extent of his distrust for Jyn Erso could hardly be quantified, otherwise. But in this—well, there was a point at which healthy skepticism drifted into paranoia. She’d proved her loyalty as far as the Death Star went.
“If we succeed,” Mothma said, picking her words with unusual care, “you know what we’re going to have to do with her.”
Draven did know. Didn’t mean he had to like it.
But he knew.
Two hours after the Death Star plans arrived: Jyn and Cassian woke again in the med-bay. This time, they stayed alert, eyes clear and grips firm.
Two and a half hours after: the medics let Cassian try to walk, testing more cybernetic implants and repairs than Jyn cared to think about. He limped heavily—but he walked.
Three hours after: the quick errands escalated into full evacuation, all but the pilots and a select few of the leadership scattered out from Massassi Base. And Rogue One. Jyn and Cassian, along with the rest, refused to leave—but he walked out of the med-bay under his own power, only leaning a little on her shoulder when she offered, after.
Five hours after: the Death Star arrived. Jyn and Cassian had nothing left to give, but they meant to stand witness, either to the Empire’s hobbling or the Rebellion’s. And so they did, huddling with Baze and Chirrut and Bodhi as Galen Erso’s handiwork burst into a billion shards of light high above.
Six hours after: they were Lieutenant Erso and Commander Andor, heroes of the Rebellion.
“Commander,” said Draven, pointedly.
For the first time in … most of the weeks he’d known her, Cassian felt some relief at Jyn’s absence. She’d gone to check in on Bodhi, who apparently had worked himself into exhaustion in the evacuation.
“Sir.”
“About Erso.” He paused, the stretch of silence neither condemning nor approving. Cassian waited. “I trust you can provide an accurate assessment of her abilities?”
Cassian couldn’t remember the last time Draven had questioned his accuracy. He just suppressed a scowl.
“Yes, sir,” he said, keeping his face politely attentive.
For the next ten minutes, he answered Draven’s battery of questions in as exact detail as he could. At the end, his general gave a satisfied nod.
“Then I see no reason to alter customary procedure.”
The steady line of Cassian’s thoughts stumbled to a halt. Customary procedure? Jyn? What procedure? He felt that he should know—Draven clearly thought he should know—but nothing came to mind.
“I’m not sure I follow,” he said.
Draven sighed. “You know that Intelligence prefers to assign partners to each other, if they prove effective. That is, obviously, not in question. If you were aiming for secrecy, you missed the mark.”
For a few more seconds, Cassian remained utterly bewildered. Of course Intelligence assigned partners to each other; that was what partnership meant. Did he mean maintaining partnerships that achieved success, or—but what did secrecy have to do with—
Oh. Oh.
At the realization, raw yearning washed through him. He rarely cared for individual people at all, much less felt any preoccupation with them, but Jyn seemed to fill every recess of his thoughts. She had almost from the first. It was like nothing before, nothing at all. He couldn’t have put an exact word to it, aloud—or wouldn’t, but privately he felt a dizzying mix of fascination, worry, attraction, respect, and sheer liking. Sometimes he looked at her and really did feel dizzy, skin sparking at the slightest hint of a touch.
It felt nonsensical, but Jyn stared back at him with his own heady focus, jolted at the same surface nothings, and he thought she might be just as nonsensical. Maybe, she—maybe—
He’d hoped for more unlikely things.
(Not for himself, but there was a first time for everything.)
Alongside the rush of longing, though, came something else: relief. Intelligence did prefer to recruit partners together, or bring in those of established operatives. It reduced the risk of leaks, concentrated focus on operations, and raised motivation to carry off those operations with minimal loss. Also, couples could often pass unnoticed where individuals might raise suspicion; real couples naturally tended to be more convincing, especially for extended periods of time.
He’d always thought of it in those terms, remote and pragmatic. At this point, Cassian himself had no idea what he’d stop at for Jyn’s sake. Maybe nothing. It had certainly felt like it when he climbed after her.
He didn’t know about how much Jyn echoed the feeling, but her scream still echoed in his memory. He couldn’t recall the last time anyone had called out his given name like that (though in fairness, he rarely heard it from anyone but Kay at all, until now).
He remembered, too, her blazing fury when she looked at him and then at the man in white. Not only for him, but—in part. She certainly cared to some extent; he thought it probable enough that both would feel more urgency together than alone. He hoped so.
And there he was again.
“Ah,” he said. “I had misunderstood you, sir.”
Mon Mothma, Draven, and company didn’t so much offer Jyn a place in Intelligence as inform her of it. As soon as Cassian’s limp grew less obtrusive, they’d be going undercover as an Imperial major and his wife at a minor records facility. Nothing like Scarif; Draven wanted personnel records for his own purposes.
“It’s hard to picture you as some officer’s wife,” said Baze.
“Probably hard to picture me as lots of people I’ve been,” she returned. “But it’s not that sort of thing. Zara Lannan is a respectable programmer.”
Zara the programmer honestly sounded a lot easier than some of the other personas she’d taken on. Cassian’s wife seemed quite a bit more difficult. In some ways. Maybe. She just—
It’d be different.
A full two days had passed since Luke Skywalker blew the Death Star into countless burning pieces. As Lieutenant Jyn Erso of Rebel Intelligence (that still boggled her, a little), she’d acquired quarters of her own, which she had yet to sleep in. But she could claim good reasons for that, namely that a) she’d promised the medics that she’d keep a close eye on Cassian in exchange for his discharge, and b) his new quarters were positively palatial by her standards. So she’d more or less invited herself to stay in them, and Cassian didn’t complain.
That part, at least, wouldn’t be any different. Probably.
Later that evening, she ran into Bodhi on the way to Cassian’s quarters. Their quarters, since she now kept her spare blasters there.
He flushed. “Oh. Um. I’ll just … er, be going.”
It took Jyn a good long moment to follow the misdirection of his thoughts. “No, I just—”
Bodhi held up his hands. “It’s not any of my business.”
With that, he all but fled, Jyn staring after him in bewilderment. There could be any number of innocent explanations, including the real ones. Why would Bodhi—
Bodhi. Bodhi, whose introduction to them would have been Cassian rushing into a crumbling bunker. Baze’s and Chirrut’s, too. Then the fight at Eadu, and just after, Cassian showing up with a strike force and open vulnerability, and Jyn leaning into him in the hangar. Jyn and Cassian unthinkingly pairing off on Scarif, and clinging together when the shuttle came for them, and then after. Baze’s unexpected gentleness, and Sefla’s—the medics excluding the others from Cassian's room, but not Jyn—Solo’s apology—even Mon Mothma’s sympathy. Mon Mothma.
It wasn’t Bodhi. It was everyone.
Jyn dodged into their quarters, half-disappointed and half-relieved to find Cassian there, sitting on his bed with a datapad. She’d have liked some time to organize her thoughts, or to decide what they were. Instead, she just waited for the door to hit the ground behind her, and said,
“Do you know that everybody thinks we’re lovers?”
A certain amount of amusement touched her discomfort as he started, then flushed up to his cheekbones.
“I do now,” Cassian said.
She gave him an exasperated look.
“Not just now. I mean—Draven said something about it.”
“Draven?” Somehow, that particular horror hadn’t occured to her. “Draven talked about it?”
But now she remembered him saying welcome to Rebel Intelligence in the least welcoming tone possible, and yet one which invited no argument. As if neither of them had a choice—
“Not as such,” Cassian assured her, setting his datapad down. He didn’t fidget, but looked very much as if he’d like to. “It’s standard practice in Intelligence to assign partners together, if they’re successful. For security, and … efficacy.”
Jyn made her way to the bed, kicking off her boots and dropping down beside him. “That’s why they’re keeping us together?”
“I’m sure stealing the plans has something to do with it,” said Cassian. “But partly, yes.”
“Did you tell him the truth?” she pressed.
In reality, she didn’t know what the truth meant to Cassian. To herself, even, but—had he wanted—had he—
Yearning hit her like punch in the throat, a heady longing to reach out for more. She could, in this very moment. For once, though, she didn’t dare.
“No,” Cassian told her, his expression set in neutral lines. Not cold, just unreadable. “I didn’t want to … it seemed better to talk to you, see what you thought.”
That warmed her as much as the longing, as much as the familiar lock of their gazes, searching each other’s for—something.
“We’re a good team,” said Jyn, picking her words as she’d evade mines. “I think that what other people assume is their problem, not ours.”
Cassian’s rare smile touched his mouth; Jyn’s rarer smile curved hers. She almost fled again from the jolt that sparked through her, shivering down her veins, but this was her home. She had nowhere else to be. Instead, she held herself upright, meeting his eyes steadily.
“I think so, too,” he said. “And partner is such a versatile term, yes?”
A laugh rose in her throat, unwilled but unhindered.
“Yes,” said Jyn. “It is.”
title: like a storm in the desert (2/4???)
verse: everybody lives and are more or less happy, fight me
characters: Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso; Baze Malbus, Bodhi Rook, General Draven, Mon Mothma; Jyn/Cassian
stuff that happens: General Draven and Jyn have their inevitable stand-off, Draven and Cassian have one of a different tenor, and Jyn and Cassian reach an important consensus.
chapters: one
“And if we succeed?”
The curl of Draven’s lip approximated a smile. “Then you all can enjoy your promotions.”
He turned to leave, apparently considering that adequate.
“I haven’t even joined the Rebellion,” Jyn protested. It was certainly not adequate.
“You have now,” said Draven.
The curl of Draven’s lip approximated a smile. “Then you all can enjoy your promotions.”
He turned to leave, apparently considering that adequate.
“I haven’t even joined the Rebellion,” Jyn protested. It was certainly not adequate.
“You have now,” said Draven.
Without turning around, General Draven sighed.
Sigh, Jyn decided, was too strong a word for it. Even the exhalation sounded regimented, contained to a breath just that bit more abrupt and more forceful than usual. Nevertheless, it managed to exude strained patience.
Without hesitation, she walked around him to lean against Cassian’s bed, placing herself between them with absolutely no attempt at subtlety.
Cassian himself seemed scarcely to notice. He lay at a slight incline, pale and heavy-eyed, studying his hands with the fierce concentration of a—well, of a man dragged out of deep sedation.
“Erso,” said Draven. “I should have guessed.”
He sounded more like he was receiving an unexpected visit from his relatives-in-law than that he’d, say, sent an assassin after her father. Oh, the hand could have been Cassian’s, and the choice; but the will was Draven’s. Jyn wouldn’t forget.
She didn’t bother replying. Silence could be its own weapon, and she’d already spoken with Draven more than she ever wanted to.
An hour or two after Jyn had first started wandering around the med-bay, a sharp-eyed medic had insisted on examining her leg and then on dropping her into a quick bacta treatment. She woke in blessed peace, fell asleep—then woke again to Draven and Mon Mothma watching her, an experience she felt no desire to ever again repeat. She couldn’t understand why they would hover around her rather than Cassian, why they would trust her answers over Cassian’s, why they would have anything to do with her at all, in that appalled instant.
Over the next several minutes, it only got worse. Draven simply ignored her questions about Cassian as he demanded details about the mission: details that Cassian would know. In the end, it was Mothma who broke in and assured her that Captain Andor was alive, and as well as possible; they just couldn’t know the length of his bacta treatments, and needed every detail she could provide right now.
Jyn, though not fooled by the sympathy in her face—she knew that trick too well—accepted the offering as the best one she could get. So she answered their questions. Answered all of them once, and then twice, thrice, never varying from the first time. She knew something had gone wrong, must have gone wrong, long before they told her.
Thanks to Han Solo, she knew it’d gone right, in the end. Here and now. And yet, here and now, Draven stood before her. Again.
Jyn thought about sitting down. There was only one chair—her chair—and she could make herself clear that way. But Draven towered over Cassian and Mothma, much less Jyn. She had enough of a disadvantage without making it worse. Instead, she borrowed from Draven’s own tactics and ignored him altogether.
“You shouldn’t be awake yet,” she told Cassian.
His face remained drawn in effort, but some of the heavier lines faded, and the entire slope of his shoulders relaxed as he lifted his eyes.
“Jyn,” he said, her name full of relief.
She felt abruptly convinced that he’d been asking after her, too—and no doubt received no better answer.
Cassian said nothing else, but nodded at Draven by way of explanation. Only then did Jyn bother looking the general in the face.
“We need answers,” Draven said brusquely. “And we need them now. You’ll do as well as him.”
“Better, I imagine,” said Jyn, closing her fingers over Cassian’s shoulder. It felt thinner, though that might well mean nothing. The memory of his voice whispered in her mind—leave it, leave it, that’s it—and it sounded weaker by far than the single word she’d just heard. But then, it had been weaker. He’d …
She focused her attention on Draven. “I’ve told you all we know, though.”
Disregarding that, he said, “This weakness. Where did your father say he planted it?”
“Throughout the Death Star,” replied Jyn. “It’s designed to self-destruct, like I told you. One direct blast to the reactor module should set off a chain reaction that explodes the whole station.”
A part of her, desperate and fragile, urged her to ask, That’s what you found, didn’t you? In the plans? You should have seen it, why are you talking to us—
No. She knew they must have found her father’s trap in her father’s design, unless Solo had been lying about the plans all along. But that would explain still less. No, they’d found the plans, and found Galen’s trick, and this was just a matter of … of confirmation or some nonsense like that, as if it made any difference at this point.
Regardless, she refused to ask.
Draven nodded, his stolid expression unaltered. “Is that true, Andor?”
Only raw obstinacy kept Jyn from bristling at him. She confined herself to a clench of her jaw, confident at least that Cassian would support her as far as his faculties allowed. These days, she didn’t expect any stabs in the back. Only the front.
“Yes, sir,” said Cassian. She glanced down at his face, just in time to see a faint grimace disappear. “That is my understanding.”
Sweat stood out from his skin, though he felt cold through the thin material of his shirt. Pain, undoubtedly; the medics had sedated him for a reason. Jyn took care not to tighten her grip, but fixed her stare on Draven with renewed disdain.
“You’ve seen it,” she added. “What are you going to do now?”
“You’re clever, whatever else you may be,” Draven said. “You know perfectly well what we’re going to do. There’s no other choice.”
“The time to fight is now?” said Jyn, coolly.
“It seems so,” Draven replied. “And it must be done right. If we fail, we’ll all be dust by this time tomorrow.”
That time, she did flinch. Not at the prospect of death, which she had faced far too many times to cower from. But that sounded like something Saw might have said. Like things Saw had said, many times. But he never stopped there.
“And if we succeed?”
The curl of Draven’s lip approximated a smile. “Then you all can enjoy your promotions.”
He turned to leave, apparently considering that adequate.
“I haven’t even joined the Rebellion,” Jyn protested. It was certainly not adequate.
“You have now,” said Draven. His gaze flicked from her, to Cassian, to her again. “Get some rest, both of you.”
And with that did, he really did leave.
“Is he serious?” she demanded, more from the universe than Cassian. Right now, she didn’t feel like demanding much from Cassian. Instead, she braced her arm against his back. “I hate it, but he’s right. Halfway right. Can you sleep like this?”
“The plans?” he said stubbornly.
“They’re here. Some smuggler helped,” said Jyn. “None of us can do anything more, right now. Draven was just confirming the intel—if we can trust him that far.”
Cassian gave a groggy nod. “He doesn’t usually lie for no reason.”
Jyn knew better than to confuse honesty, even far more reliable honesty than Draven’s, with trust. Trust was about loyalty, the sort that inspired an expectation that someone would always have your back, and fulfilled that expectation in word and deed. Perhaps he’d given Cassian reason for that kind of trust; she felt nothing of the kind.
Not towards him, anyway.
“Cassian,” she said, “go to sleep.”
Mon Mothma had never been an excitable woman, even in their youth, with the Republic corrupting itself everywhere they looked. But anticipation lit up her face every time she returned to Erso’s plans.
Draven couldn’t have said which Erso he meant. It didn’t matter—or it hadn’t.
“Well?” she demanded.
“I talked to Erso,” he said. “It matches up.”
Mothma took a deep breath, one that seemed to restore her to her usual serene dignity. “Do you trust her?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Draven, “when it comes to this.”
The extent of his distrust for Jyn Erso could hardly be quantified, otherwise. But in this—well, there was a point at which healthy skepticism drifted into paranoia. She’d proved her loyalty as far as the Death Star went.
“If we succeed,” Mothma said, picking her words with unusual care, “you know what we’re going to have to do with her.”
Draven did know. Didn’t mean he had to like it.
But he knew.
Two hours after the Death Star plans arrived: Jyn and Cassian woke again in the med-bay. This time, they stayed alert, eyes clear and grips firm.
Two and a half hours after: the medics let Cassian try to walk, testing more cybernetic implants and repairs than Jyn cared to think about. He limped heavily—but he walked.
Three hours after: the quick errands escalated into full evacuation, all but the pilots and a select few of the leadership scattered out from Massassi Base. And Rogue One. Jyn and Cassian, along with the rest, refused to leave—but he walked out of the med-bay under his own power, only leaning a little on her shoulder when she offered, after.
Five hours after: the Death Star arrived. Jyn and Cassian had nothing left to give, but they meant to stand witness, either to the Empire’s hobbling or the Rebellion’s. And so they did, huddling with Baze and Chirrut and Bodhi as Galen Erso’s handiwork burst into a billion shards of light high above.
Six hours after: they were Lieutenant Erso and Commander Andor, heroes of the Rebellion.
“Commander,” said Draven, pointedly.
For the first time in … most of the weeks he’d known her, Cassian felt some relief at Jyn’s absence. She’d gone to check in on Bodhi, who apparently had worked himself into exhaustion in the evacuation.
“Sir.”
“About Erso.” He paused, the stretch of silence neither condemning nor approving. Cassian waited. “I trust you can provide an accurate assessment of her abilities?”
Cassian couldn’t remember the last time Draven had questioned his accuracy. He just suppressed a scowl.
“Yes, sir,” he said, keeping his face politely attentive.
For the next ten minutes, he answered Draven’s battery of questions in as exact detail as he could. At the end, his general gave a satisfied nod.
“Then I see no reason to alter customary procedure.”
The steady line of Cassian’s thoughts stumbled to a halt. Customary procedure? Jyn? What procedure? He felt that he should know—Draven clearly thought he should know—but nothing came to mind.
“I’m not sure I follow,” he said.
Draven sighed. “You know that Intelligence prefers to assign partners to each other, if they prove effective. That is, obviously, not in question. If you were aiming for secrecy, you missed the mark.”
For a few more seconds, Cassian remained utterly bewildered. Of course Intelligence assigned partners to each other; that was what partnership meant. Did he mean maintaining partnerships that achieved success, or—but what did secrecy have to do with—
Oh. Oh.
At the realization, raw yearning washed through him. He rarely cared for individual people at all, much less felt any preoccupation with them, but Jyn seemed to fill every recess of his thoughts. She had almost from the first. It was like nothing before, nothing at all. He couldn’t have put an exact word to it, aloud—or wouldn’t, but privately he felt a dizzying mix of fascination, worry, attraction, respect, and sheer liking. Sometimes he looked at her and really did feel dizzy, skin sparking at the slightest hint of a touch.
It felt nonsensical, but Jyn stared back at him with his own heady focus, jolted at the same surface nothings, and he thought she might be just as nonsensical. Maybe, she—maybe—
He’d hoped for more unlikely things.
(Not for himself, but there was a first time for everything.)
Alongside the rush of longing, though, came something else: relief. Intelligence did prefer to recruit partners together, or bring in those of established operatives. It reduced the risk of leaks, concentrated focus on operations, and raised motivation to carry off those operations with minimal loss. Also, couples could often pass unnoticed where individuals might raise suspicion; real couples naturally tended to be more convincing, especially for extended periods of time.
He’d always thought of it in those terms, remote and pragmatic. At this point, Cassian himself had no idea what he’d stop at for Jyn’s sake. Maybe nothing. It had certainly felt like it when he climbed after her.
He didn’t know about how much Jyn echoed the feeling, but her scream still echoed in his memory. He couldn’t recall the last time anyone had called out his given name like that (though in fairness, he rarely heard it from anyone but Kay at all, until now).
He remembered, too, her blazing fury when she looked at him and then at the man in white. Not only for him, but—in part. She certainly cared to some extent; he thought it probable enough that both would feel more urgency together than alone. He hoped so.
And there he was again.
“Ah,” he said. “I had misunderstood you, sir.”
Mon Mothma, Draven, and company didn’t so much offer Jyn a place in Intelligence as inform her of it. As soon as Cassian’s limp grew less obtrusive, they’d be going undercover as an Imperial major and his wife at a minor records facility. Nothing like Scarif; Draven wanted personnel records for his own purposes.
“It’s hard to picture you as some officer’s wife,” said Baze.
“Probably hard to picture me as lots of people I’ve been,” she returned. “But it’s not that sort of thing. Zara Lannan is a respectable programmer.”
Zara the programmer honestly sounded a lot easier than some of the other personas she’d taken on. Cassian’s wife seemed quite a bit more difficult. In some ways. Maybe. She just—
It’d be different.
A full two days had passed since Luke Skywalker blew the Death Star into countless burning pieces. As Lieutenant Jyn Erso of Rebel Intelligence (that still boggled her, a little), she’d acquired quarters of her own, which she had yet to sleep in. But she could claim good reasons for that, namely that a) she’d promised the medics that she’d keep a close eye on Cassian in exchange for his discharge, and b) his new quarters were positively palatial by her standards. So she’d more or less invited herself to stay in them, and Cassian didn’t complain.
That part, at least, wouldn’t be any different. Probably.
Later that evening, she ran into Bodhi on the way to Cassian’s quarters. Their quarters, since she now kept her spare blasters there.
He flushed. “Oh. Um. I’ll just … er, be going.”
It took Jyn a good long moment to follow the misdirection of his thoughts. “No, I just—”
Bodhi held up his hands. “It’s not any of my business.”
With that, he all but fled, Jyn staring after him in bewilderment. There could be any number of innocent explanations, including the real ones. Why would Bodhi—
Bodhi. Bodhi, whose introduction to them would have been Cassian rushing into a crumbling bunker. Baze’s and Chirrut’s, too. Then the fight at Eadu, and just after, Cassian showing up with a strike force and open vulnerability, and Jyn leaning into him in the hangar. Jyn and Cassian unthinkingly pairing off on Scarif, and clinging together when the shuttle came for them, and then after. Baze’s unexpected gentleness, and Sefla’s—the medics excluding the others from Cassian's room, but not Jyn—Solo’s apology—even Mon Mothma’s sympathy. Mon Mothma.
It wasn’t Bodhi. It was everyone.
Jyn dodged into their quarters, half-disappointed and half-relieved to find Cassian there, sitting on his bed with a datapad. She’d have liked some time to organize her thoughts, or to decide what they were. Instead, she just waited for the door to hit the ground behind her, and said,
“Do you know that everybody thinks we’re lovers?”
A certain amount of amusement touched her discomfort as he started, then flushed up to his cheekbones.
“I do now,” Cassian said.
She gave him an exasperated look.
“Not just now. I mean—Draven said something about it.”
“Draven?” Somehow, that particular horror hadn’t occured to her. “Draven talked about it?”
But now she remembered him saying welcome to Rebel Intelligence in the least welcoming tone possible, and yet one which invited no argument. As if neither of them had a choice—
“Not as such,” Cassian assured her, setting his datapad down. He didn’t fidget, but looked very much as if he’d like to. “It’s standard practice in Intelligence to assign partners together, if they’re successful. For security, and … efficacy.”
Jyn made her way to the bed, kicking off her boots and dropping down beside him. “That’s why they’re keeping us together?”
“I’m sure stealing the plans has something to do with it,” said Cassian. “But partly, yes.”
“Did you tell him the truth?” she pressed.
In reality, she didn’t know what the truth meant to Cassian. To herself, even, but—had he wanted—had he—
Yearning hit her like punch in the throat, a heady longing to reach out for more. She could, in this very moment. For once, though, she didn’t dare.
“No,” Cassian told her, his expression set in neutral lines. Not cold, just unreadable. “I didn’t want to … it seemed better to talk to you, see what you thought.”
That warmed her as much as the longing, as much as the familiar lock of their gazes, searching each other’s for—something.
“We’re a good team,” said Jyn, picking her words as she’d evade mines. “I think that what other people assume is their problem, not ours.”
Cassian’s rare smile touched his mouth; Jyn’s rarer smile curved hers. She almost fled again from the jolt that sparked through her, shivering down her veins, but this was her home. She had nowhere else to be. Instead, she held herself upright, meeting his eyes steadily.
“I think so, too,” he said. “And partner is such a versatile term, yes?”
A laugh rose in her throat, unwilled but unhindered.
“Yes,” said Jyn. “It is.”
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