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I pretty much threw a dart at the board
...to decide which of my RO fics to crosspost next. But the predictable winner: the queer Rogue One AU!
AKA an anon once asked me what I thought about f!Cassian, and Itranscended onto a higher plane realized that f!Cassian/Jyn combined with my affection for Chirrut/Baze and Bodhi/Luke makes for a universe where every single member of the team is queer. YES PLEASE.
title: whatever we deny or embrace (prologue)
verse: queer Rogue One AU (1/6)
characters: Bail Organa, Cassian Andor, Saw Gerrera, Jyn Erso; Mon Mothma; implied Jyn/Cassian
stuff that happens: Cassia Andor and Jyn Erso emerge out of the early days of the Rebellion.
PROLOGUE
When Bail and Breha talked of adopting a girl, they always thought of a baby girl. An infant they could protect and nurture, one they might guide into womanhood without memories of another past shadowing her, another mother and father who might divide her heart. She would be clean and safe and beloved from the first, knowing nothing else until she grew old enough to understand.
She was, in short, not Cassia Andor.
-
Bail always regretted Cassia, at least a little. Of course, he had many regrets, too many to possibly name, and one child who grew into a fine woman could not make up much more than a drop.
The early mercy missions that had cloaked something increasingly like sedition scooped up other refugees, other orphans. But Cassia was one of the first, a six-year-old girl they pulled from the rubble of Fieste, still smeared with ash and blood as Padmé—pale with outrage—marched her through the consulate ship. A six-year-old who could smile or break down sobbing at a moment’s notice, who convincingly repeated their lies to the troops that came to secure the vessels of opposition senators.
She was, to be frank, useful. He hated to think of a child that way, a little girl. But she was exceptionally so.
Nevertheless, something in him twisted when he saw her in her fatigues at thirteen, sixteen, seventeen. Private, corporal, sergeant. Scaling the subgrades so quickly that he could only guess what they had her doing. She bothered him even later—at twenty-one, young enough to smile at his Lieutenant Andor, though by then she could pass for thirty. The double pips of captain by twenty-three.
They were quick to find a use for anything and anyone, and quick to reward achievement. They had to be. Nevertheless, Bail wished things could be different.
He wished the Rebellion could be different.
Jyn Erso was Saw’s pride, and what passed for joy in these times. What warmth he could feel for another being, he felt for her: the child who resolutely brushed tears away as she reported Lyra’s horrifying death, the girl so ready to learn that she could dodge blows and sabotage a building at eleven, the young soldier who outfought, outwitted, outmatched every one of his people. At every turn, she showed herself as earnest, faithful, strong, all that he ever demanded of her, and then some. She was his best, most trusted fighter, his—
She was his daughter, and he loved her.
For all his failings, he tried not to lay too much of that burden on her. Saw knew it would have been kinder to drop her in an orphanage somewhere far from the Empire’s eyes, or better yet, to turn her over to the Alliance. Undoubtedly they could find a use for her. He trusted them that far, although he generally wouldn’t have committed a damaged speeder to Alliance leadership. But they knew how to find use in things, weaknesses and strengths to exploit.
And they had operations running throughout the galaxy, even if their weak-bellied supposed-leaders chose to stay ignorant. Jyn, who excelled at everything from combat to slicing to sabotage, would be welcomed with open arms. She would have even before she could offer any particular skills, because she was always quick and resolute and clever, and he knew perfectly well that they made use of children like that.
Yet—
Well, he didn’t hand her over. Saw kept her as his own, and turned her into something that Lyra would never have wanted, and loved her with all that remained of his heart. And when the danger of her true identity finally grew too much, he left her to find her own way.
He could give her that much.
Jyn no longer parroted Saw Gerrera’s beliefs and screeds the way she had once done. But like her—her mentor before her, she cherished no warm feelings for the Rebel Alliance. The cuffs they clapped on her didn’t help. She wasn’t fool enough to call this no better than Wobani, but it was certainly not as much better as she’d have preferred.
She faced down a general without much interest. Right, they had officers in the Rebellion, like the Imperial knock-offs they were. But she didn’t know who this "General Draven" was or how he’d proved himself (if at all), so she didn’t care. She cared only slightly more about the woman with the robes and chain of a senator. Mon Mothma had an air of pained dignity that reminded Jyn unpleasantly of Saw, and a mild, reasonable voice nothing like his. Jyn instantly classed her as the main threat.
In the meanwhile, Mothma had managed to summon another woman into her orbit without doing much of anything. Jyn frowned.
“This is Captain Cassia Andor,” said Mothma, “of Rebel Intelligence.”
Captain Andor turned out to be a sharp-faced woman of about thirty. She was very attractive, which didn’t matter, and she studied Jyn through narrowed, distrustful eyes, which did.
Then again, Jyn didn’t find her particularly imposing. Not that she found anyone imposing, but Andor had a tired leanness about her, and if she stood a bit taller than Mothma—several inches above Jyn—the general dwarfed her. Incongruously, she also had glossy dark hair that slanted over her brow in a neat fringe, too long for pragmatism, too even for carelessness. Beneath the hair, her hard features somehow came together to form a delicately pretty face.
Altogether, she looked nothing like a soldier. But then, she wasn’t a soldier, was she? Not like Jyn had been. Intelligence—she must be a spy. And she absolutely looked that, whatever title the Rebellion might slap on her.
Without preamble, Andor demanded,
“When was the last time you saw your father?”
AKA an anon once asked me what I thought about f!Cassian, and I
title: whatever we deny or embrace (prologue)
verse: queer Rogue One AU (1/6)
characters: Bail Organa, Cassian Andor, Saw Gerrera, Jyn Erso; Mon Mothma; implied Jyn/Cassian
stuff that happens: Cassia Andor and Jyn Erso emerge out of the early days of the Rebellion.
PROLOGUE
When Bail and Breha talked of adopting a girl, they always thought of a baby girl. An infant they could protect and nurture, one they might guide into womanhood without memories of another past shadowing her, another mother and father who might divide her heart. She would be clean and safe and beloved from the first, knowing nothing else until she grew old enough to understand.
She was, in short, not Cassia Andor.
-
Bail always regretted Cassia, at least a little. Of course, he had many regrets, too many to possibly name, and one child who grew into a fine woman could not make up much more than a drop.
The early mercy missions that had cloaked something increasingly like sedition scooped up other refugees, other orphans. But Cassia was one of the first, a six-year-old girl they pulled from the rubble of Fieste, still smeared with ash and blood as Padmé—pale with outrage—marched her through the consulate ship. A six-year-old who could smile or break down sobbing at a moment’s notice, who convincingly repeated their lies to the troops that came to secure the vessels of opposition senators.
She was, to be frank, useful. He hated to think of a child that way, a little girl. But she was exceptionally so.
Nevertheless, something in him twisted when he saw her in her fatigues at thirteen, sixteen, seventeen. Private, corporal, sergeant. Scaling the subgrades so quickly that he could only guess what they had her doing. She bothered him even later—at twenty-one, young enough to smile at his Lieutenant Andor, though by then she could pass for thirty. The double pips of captain by twenty-three.
They were quick to find a use for anything and anyone, and quick to reward achievement. They had to be. Nevertheless, Bail wished things could be different.
He wished the Rebellion could be different.
Jyn Erso was Saw’s pride, and what passed for joy in these times. What warmth he could feel for another being, he felt for her: the child who resolutely brushed tears away as she reported Lyra’s horrifying death, the girl so ready to learn that she could dodge blows and sabotage a building at eleven, the young soldier who outfought, outwitted, outmatched every one of his people. At every turn, she showed herself as earnest, faithful, strong, all that he ever demanded of her, and then some. She was his best, most trusted fighter, his—
She was his daughter, and he loved her.
For all his failings, he tried not to lay too much of that burden on her. Saw knew it would have been kinder to drop her in an orphanage somewhere far from the Empire’s eyes, or better yet, to turn her over to the Alliance. Undoubtedly they could find a use for her. He trusted them that far, although he generally wouldn’t have committed a damaged speeder to Alliance leadership. But they knew how to find use in things, weaknesses and strengths to exploit.
And they had operations running throughout the galaxy, even if their weak-bellied supposed-leaders chose to stay ignorant. Jyn, who excelled at everything from combat to slicing to sabotage, would be welcomed with open arms. She would have even before she could offer any particular skills, because she was always quick and resolute and clever, and he knew perfectly well that they made use of children like that.
Yet—
Well, he didn’t hand her over. Saw kept her as his own, and turned her into something that Lyra would never have wanted, and loved her with all that remained of his heart. And when the danger of her true identity finally grew too much, he left her to find her own way.
He could give her that much.
Jyn no longer parroted Saw Gerrera’s beliefs and screeds the way she had once done. But like her—her mentor before her, she cherished no warm feelings for the Rebel Alliance. The cuffs they clapped on her didn’t help. She wasn’t fool enough to call this no better than Wobani, but it was certainly not as much better as she’d have preferred.
She faced down a general without much interest. Right, they had officers in the Rebellion, like the Imperial knock-offs they were. But she didn’t know who this "General Draven" was or how he’d proved himself (if at all), so she didn’t care. She cared only slightly more about the woman with the robes and chain of a senator. Mon Mothma had an air of pained dignity that reminded Jyn unpleasantly of Saw, and a mild, reasonable voice nothing like his. Jyn instantly classed her as the main threat.
In the meanwhile, Mothma had managed to summon another woman into her orbit without doing much of anything. Jyn frowned.
“This is Captain Cassia Andor,” said Mothma, “of Rebel Intelligence.”
Captain Andor turned out to be a sharp-faced woman of about thirty. She was very attractive, which didn’t matter, and she studied Jyn through narrowed, distrustful eyes, which did.
Then again, Jyn didn’t find her particularly imposing. Not that she found anyone imposing, but Andor had a tired leanness about her, and if she stood a bit taller than Mothma—several inches above Jyn—the general dwarfed her. Incongruously, she also had glossy dark hair that slanted over her brow in a neat fringe, too long for pragmatism, too even for carelessness. Beneath the hair, her hard features somehow came together to form a delicately pretty face.
Altogether, she looked nothing like a soldier. But then, she wasn’t a soldier, was she? Not like Jyn had been. Intelligence—she must be a spy. And she absolutely looked that, whatever title the Rebellion might slap on her.
Without preamble, Andor demanded,
“When was the last time you saw your father?”