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Chapter Text

“Rebellions are built on hope.”

Cassian said the words to her like he believed them. At the very least, he had believed them once, and he believed that she needed to believe them too.

Jyn bit back the words that rose up in her throat to throw back at him. “Then rebellions are built on lies.” But she didn’t say it. Not when his eyes told her he already knew he was lying.

-||-

Her mask fit her well. The swish and crack of Jyn’s baton echoed through the halls even before the ship’s alarm had sounded, and the intruder crumpled before her, its weapon uselessly clattering to the floor. “Stowaway!” Jyn spat, her voice through her helmet strange and foreign. The Ithorian cowered on the floor, hands raised, twin mouths quivering in terror, and a dozen blasters were pointed at its face a moment later. Jyn didn’t need to skirt her gaze on her victim to know that the ship’s Stormtroopers had all been roused from their posts to provide her unnecessary backup. The unfortunate Ithorian stowaway—trying to smuggle fuel cells from under their noses, no doubt—was bleeding and quivering as Jyn stood above it.

“My good fellows,” came the cool, smooth voice of Captain Cassian Andor from behind Jyn, and she started, whirling round to see him watching the scene, watching her, with interest in his eyes. “Escort our leatherneck intruder off this ship. Perhaps through the airlock. Does that suit you all?”

A surge of disgust ran through Jyn’s spine at the Captain’s orders, and the Ithorian at her feet began to whimper. It clutched at the floor, at her boots, making pleas that they could not understand. Jyn had broken its communicator. If she could rip off this mask, if she knew she could give herself up without being shot to pieces beside the Ithorian, she would have turned on Andor for his cruelty. But she was selfish, and she was a liar. So she grit her teeth and muttered her lie in tandem with the other Stormtroopers, as much as she hated herself for it. “Yes, sir.” As easily as if they were tossing out garbage, they grabbed the Ithorian and began to drag it to the nearest airlock, its shrieks piercing her helmet.

“Must have snuck in when we were loading at Lothal,” mused Captain Andor to the security droid looming behind him, and though she was masked, his eyes met Jyn’s as she aided the other troopers in taking the Ithorian away. “Technician JS-3261, is it not?”

Of course , though Jyn, her jaw still taut with the effort of suppressing her anger. Of course he remembers the designation number they gave me . Another Stormtrooper took her place in heaving the Ithorian away as she stood at attention. “Yes, sir.”

The calm interest in Captain Andor’s voice had not changed. “Good work in taking down the intruder so quickly. You may be a technician, but I’ll be watching for you.”

Jyn bit down the hate welling in her belly for the emotionless face and lied again. Her answer would keep her alive much longer than the expletives she wished to shout at him would. “Thank you, sir.”

From the corridor behind Captain Andor came the wail of the Ithorian, and the swift finality of an airlock closing shut. With Jyn’s line of work, death was an all-too-common occurrence, but she still wondered what the Ithorian’s name was. Whether it was a he or a she. Why it had taken the risk to sneak aboard an Imperial craft for fuel cells, and how much it hated the faceless soldier that struck it down. Andor had sentenced it to a frozen, terrifying, anonymous death, but she had beat it within an inch of its life to preserve her own. The hate wringing in her chest was, perhaps, not only for Andor. Jyn shuddered, and with Captain Andor’s eyes still on her, it was a good thing she was wearing a mask.

-||-

“You’ll never win.”

It was the first lie Jyn had ever believed. Her mother had spat it at Orson Krennic before he killed her, before he won. It shows, perhaps, just how naive she had been—that the Empire could prove her mother wrong, and that Jyn would still believe her. And she kept believing it. Believing Saw Gerrera that they were making a difference, that each and every one of their meaningless deaths were anything but. Their deaths, or the deaths they caused. Perhaps that was why Jyn was such an excellent liar—she had first learned by lying to herself.

Now, she had never been good at spotting a lie, not until the last lie Saw Gerrera ever told her proved itself false. “I will come back.” And he hadn’t. He had left her to fend for herself on some far-flung corner of the galaxy. After that, her sense of identifying a lie had become as keen as a razor.

It was somewhere between “you’ll never win” and “I will come back” that Jyn had stopped believing her mother’s lie. She had stopped believing in the Rebellion, in any hope or dream carried by her parents or by the Partisans. She had realized that her skill in telling lies was not borne from being told truths. The greatest lie was that she was a part of something—the rebels came and they left. They were not united, not even under Saw. They were no family, and they had no home. And the Empire kept winning.

But she still managed to hate it. Even after she was alone and only met word of Rebellion with contempt, the Empire was cold and it killed and it took and took and it lied , and maybe that’s why she hated it so much. It took and took and kept taking from her, even when she had nothing left. Its officers, ever present on their broadcasts, were all the same—wax figures parroting Imperial propaganda in confident, charming voices. It was faceless under the veneer of its glory.

So Jyn Erso became faceless too. Faceless and nameless and selfish. Or as selfish as she could be—the memories of her parents and what they had taught her prevented her from ever truly being able to turn a blind eye to Imperial misdeeds. She rebelled, but for herself, and not for the Rebellion. She lied to keep her parents’ memories alive and not for the cause they believed in. But it still landed her in trouble.

“Jyn Erso?” The explosion that had shook her prison transport and had sent her racing to escape had barely settled when a rattling voice slithered out of the dust. It called her a name she refused to let go of, but a name she had not been addressed by for a very long time. When the dust settled, the face that the voice belonged to was still obscured by bandages and a metal mask. And when the voice spoke again, it was in a language Jyn dreaded to admit she still understood. “Saw Gerrera will be pleased to see you.”

Oh, she had tried to run again, from the old friend who had been so happy to see her once more, from the Partisans and their bombings and kidnapping of innocents. “One last mission for me, Jyn!” Saw cried insistently before her. “One last mission for the Rebellion! One last ounce of hope.” Hope . It was the old lie again. Hope was the most beautiful lie of them all. And then Saw added, “hope for your father. He sent me a message, not a message for me, but a message for you. And you may be able to get to him through this.”

Saw freed me from prison anyway , Jyn thought as she was briefed on her cover. I don’t like to be in debt, and I’m repaying it. This has nothing to do with my father. She was lying to herself again.

- || -

JS-3261 was a female Imperial ground crew member the Partisans had killed when extracting the cargo pilot that had delivered Galen Erso’s message, and amongst the many that the Partisans had taken over the years, JS-3261 was perfect.

“We were worried about finding a cover for you, but this one fell in our lap,” Saw was telling her, a manic sort of relish in his voice as he relayed his plan. They were to have eyes on the inside, eyes that would search for Galen Erso. “She and a few others came aboard that foolish pilot’s craft when we rendezvoused with him at his contact, and she was exactly what we needed, assigned to where we needed you. And the ground crew members are few and far between enough for you to slip back in the fold without anyone knowing the difference. It won’t be difficult, anyway—just a few years ago a rebel cell based in Lothal infiltrated the Imperial Academy long-term twice without being caught.”

Whatever protests Jyn had, she knew they would fall upon deaf ears. She would not be heard, not when Saw was like this. He had a plan, and she would go through with it. But for her own freedom. And certainly not for her father.

“She’s a perfect cover for you,” Saw went on, almost happily, not at all registering the grim look on Jyn’s face. “She was a small pale-skinned brunette, and her designation number was JS-3261, too! J for Jyn.”

“I appreciate you not drawing too many comparisons between me and a dead woman whose armor I’m to wear,” Jyn muttered, but that, too, fell on deaf ears.

An hour later, after being briefed, Jyn was given a dusty chamber and a wide shard of a scrapped windshield as a mirror in the Partisan stronghold on Jedha to try on JS-3261’s armor. The black Imperial ground crew armor, it turned out, was lighter and more maneuverable in than standard Stormtrooper armor, complete with collapsible batons both to guide crafts into landing bays with, and to act as a weapon. Jyn weighed the batons in her hands, whipped them into their fullest extensions, then sent one cracking into her makeshift mirror. The windshield split down the middle, and Jyn collapsed the batons with some amusement, the childish image of extending and collapsing a Jedi’s lightsaber instead of a black baton popping into her head. In the absence of a lightsaber, the batons would do.

The last article of JS-3261’s armor Jyn tried on was the helmet and its mask, and she tucked her mother’s necklace underneath the chestplate before she picked up the helmet. She tried her best not to wonder what the soldier who had worn this helmet before her would have looked like, but that only reminded her just what she was doing—wearing the armor of something she hated. And she hated how perfectly it fit.

She grit her teeth. I’ve been lying for a long time, to others and to myself. I can wear a mask to find my father. And she put the helmet on, pulled the mask down, and looked in her mirror. Just another lie to tell.

Chapter Text

When he first saw her face, he wondered if she ever smiled. Not that he smiled too often, either, not unless he was called to. But Jyn Erso’s face was a mask—it betrayed no apprehension, no fear, just steely determination. Not even in the streets of Jedha, as she raced to save a little girl, did he catch anything stirring underneath.

Not until the rain had drowned them on the craggy surface of Eadu and he had pulled her from her father’s body was the shield broken, and not until they were circling each other in the cabin of a ship with anger in their words did Jyn lift the mask. And whether Cassian had meant to or not, she had lifted his mask, too.

- || -

It was not uncommon for Cassian to be unable to fall asleep, and it was not unusual for him to jolt awake when he managed it. He would wake to dark quarters, a thousand uncertainties, and a bed that was too cold and its blankets too constricting. He would rip his covers back, take something for his splitting headache, and would slip through the corridors of the ship until he found a bay to gaze from. He would lean his forehead against the cool glass, watching the systems go by, and he would put his mind on the surfaces of the worlds below his ship. As far away as possible from the lives he’d taken the day before. Away from the ship where, aside from a droid that could know no fear or loneliness, he was alone.

This night was no different. Cassian awoke with his fingers knotted in his sheets, as if he was trying to grasp something that was not there. Whatever his dream had been, he pushed it out of his mind as he stood. Or tried to, at least. There had been something—someone in his arms, a small frame that breathed in time with him, and waking had wrenched the dream away.

It was for taking away his dreams that Cassian most hated his inability to sleep through the night. He devoted all of his waking hours to a single, frail hope, and the lies of his dreams were all he was ever likely to get. He didn’t have time for dreams in the morning.

His midnight waking was routine enough for K-2SO to ignore Cassian as he slipped from his quarters, past K-2’s workstation. The droid knew Cassian well enough to not try to offer any help when he woke like this, much less any conversation. And the last time K-2 had tried, Cassian had tiredly offered to add a patch to his reprogramming that would add the factor of “tact” to any future suggestion. K-2 barely gave Cassian a glance as the unfortunate captain traced his usual path down the corridor, around the corner, and to his favorite wide window, where space outside filled the view from ceiling to floor. Here, Cassian could be as far away from his cover as he wanted. At least for a little while.

At least , he thought, rounding the corner and running a hand through his hair, I know it’s only a cover. If I truly believed in it, it wouldn’t weigh on me this way. In the morning, he would be Captain Cassian Andor of the Imperial Navy again. He would keep up his mask until he could open contact with General Draven and the Rebellion he called home, hoping that this was how he could atone. And then he had the remainder of the night to dream. His dreams were never of the Rebellion, as much as it consumed his waking hours—they were always of the world he hoped, fraily, that the Rebellion would create. And he was a practical man. He knew he wouldn’t live long enough to live in that world. So he allowed himself his dreams, and the rare moments when he could take off his mask.

But when he came to his favorite wide window, the window he only allowed himself to gaze through late at night, as a substitute for his dreams, he found himself caught without his mask. Standing there was a small figure, dark and silhouetted against the view through the glass, and when the figure turned her head, he could not see her face. Her helmet only left her eyes unobscured, and Cassian took a step back, a shiver running down his spine. The eyes saw straight through him.

And then the figure spoke: “... Captain Andor.”

Cassian’s body relaxed, even if his heartbeat did not. His hands went to fasten the collar of his jacket that he’d left open when he left his quarters. “Technician JS-3261. Are you on duty or are you merely enjoying the view?” His voice quivered only slightly, and his affected Imperial accent shouldn’t have slipped enough for JS-3261 to notice.

There was a momentary silence before JS-3261 spoke again, and Cassian had the strangest feeling that she was sizing him up. He knew well enough that Stormtroopers had their own minds, that they could be skeptical of their commanding officers if they wished to be, but there had to be something different about JS-3261. There was something in her voice that told him she had never been sent to trooper reconditioning. And then there were her eyes. “Both, sir,” she said, quite monotone. “I was patrolling this hall and I stopped at the window.”

Another pause. Cassian finished buttoning his collar, and he smoothed down the torso of his jacket reflexively. “You’re a new assign to this ship, aren’t you?” His tone was the one he always used when addressing inferiors—more gently than another officer might, but with the self-assured, condescending formality customary for an Imperial of his rank. Any traces of his native Fest accent were gone. “For future reference, JS-3261, you may often find me wandering this particular corridor. Your superiors should have informed you." His voice trailed away, and he found himself struggling for words. "I’m. Quite partial to this view.”

They stood there, still and staring, framed in the starlight of the window. Inexplicably, she took a step forward, and Cassian felt himself mirror her, and they were suddenly close enough for Cassian to make out the color of her eyes in the shadow of the corridor. His mind flit back to the dream he’d been woken from, the momentary warmth in his cold bed. He could have sworn he’d gotten up—was he still dreaming?

Before Cassian could decide, JS-3261 had taken a step back, and he did not follow her. The two words she spoke made him uneasy. “I understand.” And then, “I’ll refrain from patrolling this area of the ship. Goodnight, sir.” Without another word, she turned on her heel and disappeared up the corridor.

I understand . As Cassian stood looking out at the systems they passed by, his forehead pressed against the cool surface of the glass, he wondered just how much JS-3261 understood. He had no real cause to worry, other than the uneasiness in his gut, and she had only been assigned to his ship since they last docked the day before. But there was something strange about the way she said those two words. He could have sworn she had seen through him, seen through his mask. Had his Imperial superiors grown suspicious of him? Was she an intelligence officer they had sent to sniff him out, after his eight years of living in this cover? Her eyes bore into him again from the back of his mind, and perhaps it was something else. Perhaps eight years of living a lie was too much. Perhaps his warm dreams and his empty bed were driving him to invent things in strangers.

Perhaps he wanted for someone to see through his mask.

- || -

That was not the accent of someone who has been an Imperial all his life . Jyn was alone with her thoughts again, as she always was, and she stared up at the ceiling of her quarters from her cot. Of course, not all Imperial officers grew up on Imperial worlds, speaking in the received, formal way she herself had been taught to. Her parents had spoken that way, as did many others who received higher intergalactic education, Imperial or otherwise. But she had surprised Captain Cassian Andor, and in that moment, he hadn’t spoken like an officer of the Galactic Empire.

Jyn shifted position, stretching her arms above her head and feeling her tendons stretch before curling her arms around herself and turning to the side. It wasn’t his voice that had most troubled her, though. It was the way he had held himself before coming into the light, the shock in his eyes upon seeing her, his undone collar—there was something very odd about seeing the jacket of an Imperial officer’s uniform in any state other than in stiff, buttoned-up perfection.

It was his face, and how, just briefly, Cassian Andor did not look like a man who had sentenced a stowaway to be cast out in space just hours before. He had the face of a friend.

Stupid , Jyn send to herself, before her thoughts on the curious captain could finish forming. You have no allies here, or anywhere. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. You’re telling yourself lies again. You’re better than this. She was already lying to everyone around her. There was no need for her to lie to herself.

- || -

Adjusting to life as a Stormtrooper was to be every bit as difficult as Jyn would have expected it. Yes, she might have been a soldier once, but there was a very big difference between being a child soldier raised by Saw Gerrera from being a nameless, faceless, armored soldier and technician in the Galactic Empire.

For one, she may have been Saw Gerrera’s best soldier, but that’s because she was a soldier of a militant resistance—a militant resistance under Saw Gerrera , whom even Jyn would admit was rightly identified by both the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire as a terrorist. Jyn had the perfect temperament to serve the Partisans’ interests. She was volatile, spontaneous, and angry; she insisted upon being independent, and every action she took against the Empire was personal. Even as she was being briefed by Saw back at Jedha on her cover, she already knew she didn’t quite have the temperament of an Imperial soldier. A Stormtrooper was, from birth, controlled, subservient, and impersonal, whether he wanted to be or not. Jyn was none of those things. What she was, however, was an experienced liar.

“And what if they give me an order I find repugnant?” she had demanded from Saw, before she had realized disagreeing with him would be futile.

Saw had simply blinked at her and had taken a breath from his breathing mask. “Of course they will,” he said simply. Jyn knew this well enough, and she also knew that breaking her cover, that being volatile, spontaneous, and angry would all get her sent to reconditioning. And it was very likely that the Empire would notice that she wasn’t one of their own when stripping her down for reconditioning. “But you’ll do what it takes. You can make them pay for it later.”

When she would received such orders, such as the call to throw the Ithorian stowaway from their midsts, Jyn thought of her father, then thought of staying alive, and under her mask, swallowed the rage rising in her throat.

JS-3261 had been assigned to a perfect vantage point for giving Saw Gerrera an angle within the Empire. The cargo pilot the Partisans had collected had been the clue Saw needed to place Jyn where she needed to be. The Partisans had been wise enough to stage the pilot’s collection as a seizure of his ship by pirates, and had gone as far to blow up the pilot’s freighter to convince the Empire that the pilot was as dead as a doornail and certainly not in rebel hands, telling them exactly where they should be looking to find Galen Erso.

Saw had been looking for a Stormtrooper aboard one of the luxury Imperial cruisers that ferried around its most “interesting” officials, particular within the research and development branch of the Imperial Army. Jyn knew the moment Saw had begun speaking whom exactly he hoped she’d have the opportunity to spy upon—she still remembered the white cape whipping against the grey horizon.

“My main concern,” she had said flatly to Saw as he saw her off before she left, “is that when I see him, I won’t be able to collect any information. I’d much rather smash his face into a wall. That wouldn’t help my cover very much, would it.”

The Imperial cruiser she was assigned to was an Arquitens -class light cruiser, operated by over a hundred Imperial personnel and helmed by a Captain of the Line Cassian Andor, who commanded this ship and several smaller gunship squadrons that escorted it when it carried its most important passengers. Upon this ship, Jyn would be alone for as long as she would be undercover, which could be years. Communication back to the Rebellion would be almost impossible.

But operating alone didn’t worry Jyn, truly. If she was to find her father, she preferred to operate alone. She had never been part of a team, not one she trusted. And the only person she trusted with her father’s life was herself.

So she stood in line with the rest of the reassigns to Captain Andor’s command, her mask firmly in place. There were only nine other reassigns who were rotated to Andor’s command alongside her, and only one other ground crew technician, who wore the same black armor as she did. The eight others were all standard Stormtroopers, all of whom were at least a head taller than her.

From behind her mask, Jyn watched him. When she was to be given orders, repugnant as they were sure to be, it would be this man who would give them to her. So she watched, and readied herself to hate him.

He was not, like many of the Imperial officers she had ever encountered, pale-skinned and fair-haired. The uniform fit Captain Andor like a glove, but there was something in his visage that made him just different enough from his fellow officers for Jyn to notice, but he was quite far from different enough to be unusual. He was handsome, perhaps—Jyn’s eyes were narrowed as she watched him—not handsome enough to be an Imperial war hero, no, but enough for him to be captain of a ship that transported the Empire’s most celebrated.

What caught Jyn’s eyes, however, what told her that this man truly was an Imperial officer, was the distinct coldness in Cassian Andor’s eyes. He looked upon his soldiers and did not see men, he saw a commodity. That was the look of an Imperial. A cold mask that let him get what he wanted.

Andor surveyed them with no discernible emotion as he was introduced, and he read each of their designation numbers and nodded at each reassign in turn as a show of acknowledgment. When Andor’s eyes fell on Jyn, she gazed back, and confirmed her suspicions. Cassian Andor was as cold and as empty as the Empire herself. It will be my pleasure to serve you , Jyn thought acidly, her face a mask underneath her helmet.

Being an Imperial technician was easier than Jyn feared it would be—a soldier she was, but her technical experience was limited to repairing and repurposing stolen and scavenged Imperial technology with the Partisans. It turned out, however, that this was all she needed to keep the ships flying. The cruiser was already stationed with its own mechanics; she was only required to offer aid.

Once they landed in any given area, her job would shift to that of a ground crew member, guiding ships as they landed and inspecting ships for any dangerous individuals that might have smuggled aboard. Both in the air and on the ground, however, she’d serve as another soldier upon the ship, guarding whichever excuse of a human being Captain Andor would be chauffeuring.

By her second day as a Stormtrooper, Jyn knew what to expect. They received three solidly nutritious (if tasteless and repetitive) meals in the mess hall, talked easily amongst each other, were on patrol duty for eight hours, standby for another four, received four hours of “free” time (mostly devoted to training or meals), and retired to their quarters for eight hours. Always an intermittent sleeper, Jyn scheduled her sleeping hours in two four-hour periods—she had never been able to sleep through a full night anywhere. It was mechanical, perhaps, but the most jarring aspect of it for Jyn was seeing her fellow Stormtroopers take their helmets off. Half of the population of troopers were clones, but the other half were the Empire’s “conscripts,” and had been taken from their families as children. And though there were no quarrels, or much stimulating debate at all, they still spoke with one another, primarily about news. To Jyn’s relief, however, the more often-reassigned technicians were generally left out of the conversation of the more familiar squadrons. When she was spoken to, either by superiors or by other officers, Jyn would affect one of her well-practiced accents to match theirs. Their routine would become hers, and she would keep her eyes and ears open, as she always did, and would wait for the moment she could make good on her father’s message.

What Jyn was not expecting was a battle within her first week, or a promotion. She was not expecting Cassian Andor stumbling around the corner of his corridor, his hair askew and his eyes distant. She was not expecting a glimpse beneath the mask.

- || -

“You’re worrying about nothing . Really, Captain, you’ve prepared for contingency upon contingency —well, I’ve prepared for contingency upon contingency, and I’ve drawn out probabilities for each one. There is nothing that you’ve done in the past year that has above a five percent chance of drawing suspicion from anyone you’ve interacted with.”

Cassian was dressing in his quarters as K-2SO, his face as expressionless as ever but his tone dripping with exasperation, waited to deliver to him his morning security newsbrief. That, at least, was what any other security droid was programmed to do. Instead, K-2 generally spent that time giving Cassian unsolicited (but always warranted) advice. If ever Cassian needed to contact the Rebellion immediately, he did so with K-2, who would patch into the transmission of passing rebel ships, which would wire the transmission on to Yavin. But this morning, he had made the mistake of asking K-2 to retrieve JS-3261’s file. “Would you please do as I asked, K-2? I only wish to hear her background.”

“There’s nothing of interest on her file whatsoever,” K-2SO went on, almost bored. “What I’m saying is that the chance of this little technician being sent to spy on you is so low, it isn’t even above the percentage threshold which I deem high enough to be relevant to you. And that threshold is less than one percent.”

Cassian turned around, his face even grimmer than usual. JS-3261’s eyes, just visible from the line across her helmet, had been upon him as he tried and failed to go back to sleep. Even in the dim of the corridor at night, he had noticed their color—grey-green at the edges, fading to an amber in the center. “K-2,” he said quietly, sternly. “If there’s any chance of her being sent to spy on me, I’d like to calculate the odds myself. Her file, please.”

There was a pause, and then the droid’s tone seemed to change. “I’ve told you many times, Captain, if you’re lonely , your Imperial colleagues have many lovely female connections with whom I’m sure you’ll find something in common. There is the small issue of your allegiance, but I’m sure—”

Seriously considering installing a mute command in K-2’s operating system, Cassian buttoned the crisp collar of his uniform, his cheeks scarlet. When he passed JS-3261 as he made his way to the bridge, he skirted his gaze. He had been under this cover for eight years. He wouldn’t let his mask fall.

Chapter Text

If there’s one thing similar about the both of them, Cassian found himself thinking amidst the explosions of Jedha, it was that they were both at their calmest under fire.

He darted alongside Jyn through pillars and people and dust, and despite the chaos, every time he caught a glance of her eyes, they were just as clear as his own vision. They stared straight ahead, together, and decided upon their next moves. They had grown up amidst explosions. This was their natural habitat. As long as he had her within sight, Cassian knew what to do.

And when Jyn vanished, when she reappeared only to shield a little girl with her arms, Cassian cried out. In that moment, he was lost. They were the same on the inside, really. Jyn wasn’t as selfish as she liked to pretend to be.

- || -

“We have a Lambda-class T-4a transport requesting landing,” announced the lieutenant at his radio post, looking up from his controls to where Captain Andor stood, surveying the bustle of the hangar. “Their call sign was L3-6732x, sir. Is this whom we were expecting?”

From her standby post beside one of the landing pads, Jyn glanced in Andor’s direction. It was only her seventh day in her new Imperial armor, and they had arrived on—of all places—Naboo, for Captain Andor to receive orders from his superiors. Apparently, from what Jyn had overheard, Andor was to transport the Imperial Governor of Naboo from Theed to some conference upon a Star Destroyer. Whatever the particular details of this mission had been, Jyn hadn’t bothered to overhear the rest. This particular journey wouldn’t be particularly helpful for her own mission.

“Are most our assignments going to be like this?” Jyn had asked one of the more talkative troopers in the mess the previous evening, and the trooper had nodded in between spoonfuls.

“This is a luxury cruiser,” he had explained after swallowing. “We get to see a lot of the Empire’s best and brightest, and the Captain mostly gets to ferry them around. Doesn’t mean we’re just a passenger service, though,” he added with a clumsy wink. “We see more action than you’d think. Comes with carrying important people. It’s why Captain Andor commands the gunships that escort us, too. Don’t worry, JS-3261. You’ll see some fun sooner or later.”

Jyn would have much rather seen more of Naboo, though, rather than what the other troopers deemed “fun.” Apparently, carrying the Empire’s best and brightest took Andor’s ship to many of the galaxy’s most famous travel destinations, and though they’d only be in Naboo overnight, it was with some degree of bitterness that Jyn retired during her required hours of sleep. The view from her barracks window was of the Theed skyline, and that was the most of Naboo she was to see for the time being.

She had been on Naboo once before, with her parents, when she was very small. As a Partisan, trips to luxury destinations weren’t exactly common, and on her own, she was more used to streets lined with excrement than the gold that lined the streets of Theed.

I wonder what Saw would think, she had thought, a little amused at herself, as she gazed out of her barracks view before she went to sleep. Assigned to spy for clues of my father, and I’m sightseeing on Naboo. Saw had warned her this would be a long-term assignment, so she should settle in, but he hadn’t mentioned she might be settling in on Naboo. No, she wouldn’t be able to see its singing rivers and palatial libraries. But Naboo’s air was clear, and that was almost just as good.

So she had stood in the hangar, awaiting the arrival of Captain Andor’s next client, morose at the thought of leaving so quickly. Andor’s ship waited on the other side of the hangar, and the landing pad was cleared for the transport to touch down. The Governor of Naboo, an Imperial installment by the name of Solas Cabor, would be shuttled from his estate to the south of the city.

Governor Cabor can take as much time as he wants getting here, Jyn had found herself thinking as she breathed in Naboo’s air. She was very tempted to take off her helmet and feel the breeze fully. I’m in no hurry .

“Don’t you think they’re a bit late, sir?” the nervous lieutenant had remarked before receiving the radio transmission.

Andor’s voice, as cool as Jyn had ever heard it, was careless on the breeze. “I’m not objecting, Lieutenant. The Governor can take as much time as he wants, as long as we can wait for him in the sunshine.”

Jyn felt much less willing to wait around on Naboo after hearing that Captain Andor shared in her opinion.

Finally, the call came, and the lieutenant read out the nearing transport’s call sign to Captain Andor. Turning around to face the ground crew, Andor nodded at his lieutenant and clapped him on the back, striding towards the landing pad. “Let us give the Governor a handsome welcome, then, shan’t we? Maybe he’ll invite us to his estate next time. Ground crew, get ready.”

Glancing toward the other ground crew member on the opposite side of the landing pad, Jyn mirrored the other technician’s movements, extending one of her batons to guide the sleek transport down. As it touched down, she collapsed her batons again neatly, replaced them on her back, then joined the other ground crew member and two Stormtroopers in flanking Captain Andor as they approached the transport. Whether Captain Andor recognized her from their strange encounter in the corridor, he did not acknowledge it, nor did he acknowledge any of them. They simply strode forward together to greet the tardy Governor.

The sight that greeted them, however, was very different. The transport’s doors opened, and the hold was full to bursting with armed individuals, weapons drawn. At their center was a bone-colored man with grey hair, gagged and bound, a child with a sack tied over her head clutching at his knee. A tall hooded female figure, bearing twin blasters, had one pointed at each of them.

“... Governor Cabor,” came Andor’s carefully level voice from Jyn’s left. She tore her eyes away from the cowering child to glance up at him—his expression had yet to change, but both of his hands were held out, a signal to the soldiers flanking him not to draw their weapons. The rest of the hangar had gone completely still. “It seems you have unexpected escorts.”

They must have been intercepted at the Governor’s estate, Jyn thought, her eyes moving back to the shaking child at the Governor’s knee. With a deep breath, she prepared herself to follow Imperial orders when Andor gave a command. Somehow, considering that these individuals were holding a child at gunpoint, she probably wouldn’t have an issue being obedient this time.

The hooded woman casually rested the tip of one of her blasters atop the head of the child, and she pointed the other one lazily at Captain Andor. Around her, the other pirates (primarily humans, but with a Twi’lek and a Bothian in their midst) held their weapons steady. “Let’s get this over quickly, boys. My men and I will be out of your hands and your Governor will be back in yours if we all cooperate. We require safe passage out of this system upon this transport we have been generously given. We also require a ransom of no less, though we will take more, than—”

“Lower your weapons,” Captain Andor said coolly. Every individual in the hangar looked quickly back towards the Captain, and Jyn heard one of the Stormtroopers to her right whisper “oh kriff.”

The hooded pirate tensed. She pressed the barrel of her blaster harder to the child’s scalp, and Jyn’s jaw tightened as she saw the child quiver. The Governor glared down at Andor in the silence. When the hooded pirate spoke again, her tone had changed. “Excuse me?”

Andor shrugged. “You have our Governor. There is no need for you to have your weapons drawn upon us. Lieutenant,” he said over his shoulder, “prepare a transfer of credits. You will have your ransom, madam. Lower your weapons.”

Idiot, Jyn thought, her eyes fixed on the cowering child. He’s confusing bravado with practicality.

The pirates seemed to think so as well—they had begun hissing, and their leader had not eased. “I will command my own men, if you don’t mind. What about our safe passage?”

“Granted,” Captain Andor said immediately, nodding back to the frazzled lieutenant again, who was already on the radio arranging credit transfers. “See to it that the patrols know that this transport is to receive safe passage out of the system, Lieutenant. And that a credit amount of their choosing be wired to this craft. Does this meet your demands?”

Her crew still hissing, the hooded woman relaxed her grip on the blaster she had pointed at the Governor. “Lower your weapons, boys,” she called to her crew in a satisfied voice, and there was another hiss as the pirates followed orders. “You seem like a man of your word, officer. Take him.” Unceremoniously, she shoved the Governor forward and off the transport’s ramp. Andor and the other ground crew member caught him before he hit the landing pad. Jyn’s eyes, however, were still on the child, and it seemed that so were Andor’s.

“You still have one hostage, madam. The Governor’s granddaughter, I believe.” Bringing the Governor to his knees, Andor cut the knots of his gag, then stared back up at the pirates. The hooded woman now held the child by the back of her shirt.

“Yes, I’ve noticed—we’ll be keeping her as insurance, just so we know you’ll keep your word. Is that fair to you, Governor?”

Jyn turned to the bone-colored man the other ground crew member was now supporting, expecting him to spit at the pirates for his granddaughter, but he did not. Governor Cabor, instead, was smoothing his disheveled uniform, turning away from the sight of the child amidst the pirates. “That is acceptable.”

The child let out a cry, and what happened next occurred very quickly. Jyn knew, as well as the Captain did, that the pirates would close the transport doors as soon as they reached an understanding with the Imperials. She also knew that Captain Andor had no interest in Cabor’s granddaughter, though he had asked about her. He was an Imperial, after all, and would have no interest in the safety of anyone beyond those with rank, even if the individual in question was the granddaughter of a governor. She knew that she herself, however, could not simply stand there and watch the child taken away. She knew that the pirates had all lowered their weapons, and that would give her a split-second long enough to act. She knew, logically, that disobeying orders would bring her nothing but trouble.

But she also knew that as of that second, Captain Andor had yet to give them any explicit orders. So she did what she always did—acted on instinct, for better or worse. It had kept her alive up to this point. If she could keep a little girl alive, too, she would.

In the blink of an eye, Jyn was halfway up the transport ramp, an unsheathed baton in one hand and her blaster in the other, and she used both at the same time. The baton she sent hurtling into the door’s hydraulic hinge where it wedged, forcing the transport to remain open. The blaster she raised to the hooded woman’s hidden face, and by virtue of surprise, had long enough to pull the trigger. The hooded woman crumpled as Jyn threw her arms around the child and rolled off and underneath the ramp.

Somewhere from above, Cassian Andor’s voice bellowed “fire at will!”

When she looked up again, Jyn realized she had started a shootout. Leaving the child, she leapt to her feet, and in the frenzy of motion, saw Captain Andor forcing the Governor out of the line of fire as the troopers closed ranks before them. Fleeing like a frightened bird, the Governor ducked behind the radio console as Andor pulled his own weapon from his belt, despite being unarmored in his dress uniform. Within the fraction of a second that Andor had been distracted raising his weapon, a stray shot caught him in the side, and he stumbled back amidst the chaos.

Again, Jyn acted on instinct. At least being a soldier was one part of her mask she didn’t have to change.

A moment later, she had Andor supported on one arm, her small frame shielding his as the pirates advanced out of the transport. The other five troopers that had stood with Andor on the landing pad were quickly being overwhelmed, and reinforcements from around the hanger were slow to come in the panic. Quickly, Jyn sized up their advantages—the pirates could only leave the transport in increments of about five, with the size of the transport’s exit. There were likely to be more than fifty pirates aboard, but they wouldn’t be able to hold their own for long, not with reinforcements arriving. All they needed to do was last long enough for their reinforcements to outnumber the pirates. She could protect Andor long enough for that.

Protect Andor? Jyn would have laughed aloud if she didn’t have to send a blow to the head of a pirate coming at her from her side with the butt of her blaster. My cover should be as solid as iron if I get out of this mess.

Throwing herself, and Andor in the process, to the side, Jyn dodged the shot of an approaching pirate and delivered a swift kick to its knee. Propping up Andor as he stirred, Jyn raised her blaster and opened fire herself, before a hand in the small of her back forced her down. Jyn’s helmet hit the tarmac when she realized that Andor was conscious again, his blaster hand steady, even if the rest of him shook.

“Reinforcements!” he shouted hoarsely—Jyn wondered if anyone besides her could hear him at all in this din. “Watch for overhead fire! They’re shooting through the windshield!” Jyn looked up in time to see that Andor was right; four pirates were in the transport’s cockpit overhead, and had broken the glass to shoot down at them. One was already slumped over the pilot’s seat, dead. Andor had forced them both down and shot their would-be sniper just in time. “Cover me,” he breathed roughly, then raised his good arm again.

Without thinking, Jyn scoffed. She pulled her own trigger, and one of the pirates in the cockpit fell. “That’s what I’m doing.”

Her head was clear. In battle, she didn’t have to lie to anyone. She would get out of this mess just fine.

- || -

The skirmish was over very quickly—the firefight ended as soon as forty standby Stormtroopers joined the reinforcements in the hangar, the remaining pirates wisely surrendering before having to face the greater number of better-armored troops. When the count was over, there would be only two amongst their dead and four amongst their wounded, including Captain Andor. Of the sixty-four pirates aboard the transport, there were forty dead.

Shaken as the Governor was, he was quick to recover enough that he insist to be taken back to his estate. His granddaughter was retrieved from beneath the transport’s ramp where JS-3261 had forced her. She did not look at her grandfather as they were both checked for wounds upon their arranged escort transport.

It was a surprisingly clean skirmish for being begun by the unauthorized actions of a ground crew member. The pirates they had killed and arrested had been wanted on Naboo for several months since. There was no real loss to their numbers; two from their supply of Stormtroopers was utterly negligible. The greatest blow, perhaps, had been done to Captain Andor.

Cassian Andor blinked to find himself still on the shoulder of JS-3261, in the quiet of the lift from the hangar to the base’s medbay. He had insisted, for whatever reason, against the stretcher his Lieutenant was about to send for him. He was fine, he said. He could get to the medbay himself. He was standing upright. Or at least, upright when supported by JS-3261.

His surroundings out of focus, Cassian started at the sight of a pair of hazel eyes quite close to him. The eyes were staring solidly at the floor of the lift, but there was something else—he had only ever seen those eyes from underneath a helmet. Somewhere in the heat of the firefight, JS-3261's helmet had been lost.

Her face swam in Cassian’s blurry vision and the dim of the lift. It was a grim face, as if harshness had made something that was meant to be soft into steel and iron. Into some sort of mask.

Something made him realize, very suddenly, that he was more than leaning on her shoulder. She was as good as carrying him, her small frame pressed into his side with the weight of his body.

“... You acted without orders,” Cassian heard himself saying. His voice was low and brittle. When he breathed, his ribs rattled against her back. “I wouldn’t have left the girl if it wouldn’t put the Governor in danger, but it was too risky. You—you may have acted. Correctly. But in any other situation you could have killed us all.”

A pause, and then two words. “Yes, sir.”

The lift stopped at the floor of the medbay, but the doors did not open immediately. “The child would not have been worth all our lives.”

“Yes, sir.”

The doors opened, and as JS-3261 helped him limp through, Cassian heard himself say, “You kept me alive, though.”

At the doors of the medbay, medic droids with bacta at the ready were already waiting for hi, and JS-3261 handed him off to them without much ceremony. “Yes, sir.”

As he lay in his bed in the medbay, his senses and wits returning to normal, Cassian’s jaw was clenched. Not in pain, but in thought. Perhaps a spy would have acted against his orders to test his severity against disobedient troopers. But why would the Empire need to test him on that? He had never been soft to the men stationed on his ships before. Maybe it was something else. Maybe they hadn’t sent her to assess his approach to disobedience, but his reaction to sentimentality. JS-3261 had acted to save a child—suspicious, perhaps, but she killed as easily as any other trooper.

And then there was the other alternative. Perhaps she wasn’t a spy at all. Perhaps K-2 was right, and he was seeing things he wanted to see in eyes he wanted to see more of. Perhaps his suspicion was just his excuse to himself.

Cassian let out a long, low breath. No, there was certainly something suspicious about her. What had she said to him during the firefight when he had told her to cover him? “That’s what I’m doing .” No Stormtrooper spoke like that to their commanding officer. She had deferred to him in the lift, but that wasn’t enough. Whatever it was, he would find it out, one way or another. What he needed to do was observe her. He could hide his own actions, as her superior officer. If she was under his supervision, however, there was nothing she could hide.

Making up his mind, Cassian sat up in his bed and called the medic droid to draw him a shower and to fetch him fresh clothes. Whatever was behind the iron of her eyes, Cassian would find it out.

- || -

“Technician JS-3261, to the bridge for an audience with the Captain.”

Jyn looked up from her cot at her superior in the doorway of her quarters. They had boarded the ship before nightfall on Naboo, after it was determined that the Governor would not be partaking in his journey after all. Captain Andor had received new orders, and they set off away from Naboo. “An audience with the Captain?”

“Affirmative, immediately.” In the Stormtrooper commander’s hands was a new helmet, to replace the one that had broken during the battle when Captain Andor had pulled her down. The commander handed it to her before leaving her to follow orders once more.

Discussion of the firefight in Theed amongst the Stormtroopers hadn’t been as excited as Jyn had expected it to be—then again, apparently the risks with transporting Imperial governors were well-known amongst most of Andor’s troops. What Jyn heard more of, however, was her own designation number, and how she had acted without Captain Andor’s orders.

Jyn’s heartbeat was nauseatingly quick as she went down to the bridge. She had thought that her actions in protecting the Captain would cement her cover of loyalty to the Empire, but perhaps disobedience of orders outweighed that. If she was sent to reconditioning, her job here would be made much harder. The thought of her father’s message only made her chest tighten further.

The bridge was, surprisingly, empty when Jyn arrived. Only Andor stood, framed in the center of the ship’s huge transparent hull, looking out, as he always seemed to do, at the endless view.

After a brief moment, Jyn cleared her throat. “You summoned me, sir.”

Andor turned around sharply as if she had surprised him, but he soon relaxed, and came forward to meet her in the empty hall. Even the communication consoles were devoid of personnel. “Yes, I did, JS-3621.” His voice had returned to its normal coolness since the morning’s skirmish. “As I believe you would recall, I chastised you earlier today for acting without explicit instruction in dealing with the criminals who had taken the Governor hostage.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Such action isn’t suited for a mere Stormtrooper. A Stormtrooper best serves the Empire through following orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

And then something in Andor’s tone changed. It was no longer confident, it was guarded, as if he was testing something out. “Therefore, you will no longer be a mere Stormtrooper technician. I’m promoting you to my personal guard.”

Jyn felt herself stop breathing. She hadn’t been expecting that. “... your personal guard, sir?”

Andor nodded, and suddenly Jyn noticed just how tense he was. His shoulders were squared, as if he was making a decision that could very likely cost him. “Yes, soldier. Your official title would be Second Lieutenant Technician, and you would still serve as a ground crew member when we’re docked, but you would take your orders directly from me and no one else. You would be my personal bodyguard. As you’ve seen today, my position encounters its share of dangers. You saved my life, without needing to be told to do so. I need someone who can act for herself by my side.”

Personal bodyguard. Jyn ran this through her mind. She knew she wasn’t being offered a choice here, and if anything, this made things easier for her—she’d be closer to any whisper from superior officers within the Empire of her father. She wouldn’t have to worry about taking orders from anyone else. There was the small factor that she hated her Captain, yes, and how easily he sacrificed lives, just as the Empire did for the entire galaxy. But if she could use his trust in her to her advantage, then she would.

But if he trusted her—and he must trust her enough to make her his bodyguard—then why did he seem so tense?

Jyn brushed the thought from her mind. She would have plenty of time to think about that later. “Yes, sir,” she repeated finally. “Where do I begin?”

Andor nodded, and perhaps the tension she had seen on him before had been her own imagination, because when the Captain turned away from her again, he seemed as cold as ever. “As you were during the fight today,” he said coolly, gazing back out of the glass hull at the systems below. “Cover me.”

Chapter Text

Jyn never grew close to anyone. Physically or otherwise. She hadn’t had a home since they had taken her mother and father away, not one that lasted. Nowhere was home, and no one.

When on her own, she had sometimes been shown kindness, of course—in prison, there had been a gruff female Wookie who would always sneak her extra rations. In the Partisans, a Drabata rebel had taught her at the age of ten how to play cards when he noticed she seemed lonely. Once, when she had been arrested for hijacking an Imperial vehicle, the Stormtrooper who was to take her to a holding cell had simply let her go when no one was looking. He had even given her her weapons back before telling her to run. But he hadn’t come with her. No one had. No one had ever stayed. No one was ever close.

As she stood in their rogue ship, facing Cassian after turning away from the crew that would volunteer their lives on Scarif, Jyn realized that this was the closest she’d ever been to anyone since she had lost her parents. She hadn’t had time to know him, no, but they were side-by-side, leaning in.

They didn’t have time to know each other. But they could be close.

- || -

Wherever Captain Cassian Andor went, JS-3261 was his shadow. For every daytime foray down corridors, she was at his side. While he met with ambassadors and gave orders on the bridge, she stayed within his sight. When he was off duty and retired to his quarters, she would be waiting for him. Always on standby, JS-3261 watched the Captain with the gaze of a soldier.

In return, out of the corner of his eye, he watched her back. He waited for the chance to look beneath the mask.

A senior officer assigning his own personal guard was a very common occurrence—admirals often had their own unit of soldiers, taking orders from them and them alone, and it wasn’t unusual for an Imperial captain to have two or more bodyguards. Andor was Captain of the Line, a Senior Captain within the Imperial Navy. His promotion of a trooper who had proven herself worthy to his guard was hardly seen as unusual. At least, to anyone other than K-2SO.

“Cassian,” the droid had said, with all the tone of an exasperated mother, the night JS-3261 had been promoted.  They had been, once again, in the safe, soundproofed haven of Cassian’s quarters. Even someone standing with an ear pressed to the door of his quarters wouldn’t hear Cassian speaking in his native accent as long as the door remained closed. “All my processing power has yet to wrap itself around your very backwards logic. I still maintain that there is no significant suspicion to JS-3261, but you clearly disagree. You find it likely that she could have been planted by your Imperial superiors suspicious over your allegiance.”

“Repeating what we both know isn’t very helpful, Kay.” Cassian had been compiling his report of the pirate attack on the Governor of Naboo to send to the Rebellion and to General Draven. Draven wouldn’t be pleased to know that they wouldn’t have the chance to catch any helpful information to aid the remaining resistance on Naboo, and Cassian knew it. The last time he had been woefully lacking in helpful information, he had gotten into an argument with Draven over the communication signal K-2SO had established. There was only so much Cassian could do without risking his cover, after all—the Empire’s main defense was its compartmentalization. If the Empire had detected a toe out of line, they could have planted JS-3261 on his ship without him ever noticing.

“But Cassian, this is what I truly don’t understand. You’re suspicious of her. And instead of sending her to reconditioning for acting without orders, or ignoring her and keeping her away from your personal affairs, you not only promote her, you give her a position in which she is at your side for all her active duty . That’s statistically a poor enough idea equivalent to a Jedi following a broadcast that says ‘all Jedi, report to your nearest base to submit to Order 66.’ To use a colloquial human expression, you are shooting yourself in the foot.”

It truly is a miracle he doesn’t spout off like this to anyone else, Cassian had thought wearily, gazing up at his only companion on this ship. When out of cover, the droid had never refrained from saying whatever was on his mind. Since going undercover, Cassian had lived the past eight years in grim worry that one day, K-2 would call a superior officer “a truly unexpected moron,” and the jig would be up. Of course, he had programmed in a patch that dampened K-2’s personality during active hours, but one never quite knew what would come out next from K-2’s mechanical mouth.

Still, K-2 was his only companion, and Cassian would explain himself. “If I’d taken any of those alternatives, I wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on her. She could dash off to communicate with an Imperial official at any moment with me none the wiser. This way, I can watch her. I’ve had eight years of experience of hiding myself. She won’t find a thing on me. But I’ll be able to see through her.”

The droid’s tone remained skeptical. “You’re the most pragmatic person I’ve ever observed, Cassian. You care about efficacy. Would you like to know my calculations on how efficacious your plan, at the moment, seems?”

“I’ll see you in the morning, Kay.”

K-2SO gave Cassian what was the robotic equivalent of an exasperated sigh, then opened the soundproof sliding door to leave Cassian’s quarters. At the side of the door stood JS-3261, quiet and at attention. Her eyes were their usual mask, betraying nothing. K-2 gave Cassian a look over his metal shoulder before leaving to take his usual sentry post by the Captain’s quarters for the night. When she spoke, her voice betrayed nothing, too. “Will that be all for tonight, Captain?”

It was perhaps lucky that Cassian was at his desk, facing away from the door when JS-3261 spoke, as her voice made him blink in surprise. He would need to get used to her presence. Putting on his usual smooth Imperial affect, he kept his back turned as he replied. “Indeed it is. You are relieved for the night—K-2SO will show you to your new quarters.”

There was a pause, but JS-3261 did not yet leave the doorway. “If you get up in the middle of the night, sir, should I be on duty then?” There was almost something cheeky in her voice, or there would have been, if she didn’t sound as steely as ever.

After a long moment, Cassian set down his pen and cleared his throat. “... Report to me in the morning. That will be all.”

- || -

When her new job didn’t require Empire-sanctioned violence, Jyn waited, and Jyn watched. She waited for Andor outside his conferences, outside his quarters, as he met with officials on military bases and on ships. She watched him as he sat in his Captain’s chair in the bridge, as he gave crisp orders to his men, as he paced before the view from the ship’s wide windows.

Listening for scraps of information was her primary objective during her long active hours of standing silently as Andor’s guard, but she spied as Jyn Erso. As JS-3261, she learned Captain Andor. She learned his daily routine, as hers began alongside his now. She was expected to be waiting on standby by his quarters a half hour before he left them. For all of her active hours, she was his shadow. Even for her inactive hours, she was to remain close at hand. As K-S2O had indicated to her on the first night, her new, small quarters were not shared with any other trooper, and they were adjacent to Captain Andor’s. She waited for him outside his personal chambers during his meals, and she took her own meals sparingly.

She spoke little, which was perhaps for the best. Within the first week she spent as Andor’s guard, she repeated only two words to her captain—yes sir. But in her silence, she listened.

The night Andor had stumbled upon her in the corridor of his ship, his voice had faltered. The colorless Imperial accent he spoke with to every other person Jyn had heard him speaking with had slipped, just for a moment, in his surprise at seeing her there. But now, Jyn hadn’t heard the traces of his native accent since. Captain Andor delivered his orders easily, formally, arrogantly, and his voice was always level. He had only raised it in Theed when shouting commands to his troops. Otherwise, his voice was always cool.

He spoke directly to Jyn only when necessary to give her orders, and Jyn soon learned that his statement that she would only receive orders from him was not completely true. The security droid K-S2O that acted as Andor’s mechanical guard when JS-3261 was off-duty didn’t give her orders exactly (more like distinctly lofty suggestions), but Andor made it clear that suggestions the droid made were generally concurred with by himself. When Jyn retired for the night to her quarters adjacent to her Captain’s chambers, K-S2O would take over from his console, and Jyn could always feel the droid’s robotic optics on her back as she entered her room. But K-S2O was Andor’s personal droid, so Jyn would understand him, too.

As for Captain Andor’s interactions with his superior officers, the only thing Jyn noted from her first week of observations was that Andor had likely been chosen to captain a luxury cruiser and its security escort for a reason. Though a cold and arrogant man he certainly was, Jyn observed that, unlike many Imperial officers, Captain Andor had no real ego. He was not an ambitious, bombastic personality. He was charming in a quiet way to whichever governor or general he was transporting, tall and attractive enough to be visible, but not obtrusively hulking or distractingly handsome. He was a fittingly anonymous face for the monolithic Empire.

And then there were the little things that Jyn learned. The little things she picked up about her Captain from behind her visor as she stood silently by his side. Unless he was called to a meeting with other officers, Andor ate his meals alone in his quarters. He engaged in training and recreational shooting practice in the ship’s training rooms or upon the bases they docked at once a day, always in the morning. The blaster he carried on his belt was a nonstandard one. It seemed to have originally been an ordinary Imperial heavy pistol, but it appeared to have been custom modified to configure into a sniper rifle. When waiting for him outside the ship’s practice shooting simulators, Jyn had caught a glimpse of his scores—perfect long-range sniper kills, all of them. His fingernails were ragged and chewed short, perhaps from the constant anxiety of being responsible for individuals worth more than entire planets to the Empire. And late at night, when she too lay awake and unarmored in her cot, she would hear the door to his quarters slide open. It seems that Andor’s midnight strolls were a regular occurrence.

By the end of her first week under her new cover as Captain Andor’s bodyguard, Jyn had learned much more about the man than she had heard any relevant information about her father. But that’s fine for now, she thought to herself. She stared up at the empty ceiling of her room as she lay in her cot, and she heard the sound of Andor’s door sliding open again. In the end, I’m here to take Andor and the men like him down. I can’t do that without knowing what they’re made of.

- || -

It had only been a week, Cassian kept reminding himself. He had noted nothing out of the ordinary with his new bodyguard, had seen no hint of the spy he knew she was beneath her mask, but it had only been a week. And he had done nothing the Empire could suspect of him during that week.

And through that whole first week, she had been by his side, though they had only been truly alone together once after an incident on her second day. That was probably for the better. If he had her alone, she would only be more on her guard against him. And he might make the same mistake he had made when finding her at his favorite window in the middle of the night, the same mistake he had dizzily made when she carried him after Theed. He might find himself vulnerable.

From the sitting room of Cassian’s quarters, K-2SO was again setting up the communication link to Yavin 4. None of his Imperial assignments within the last week had been relevant to Rebellion causes, except for a tip he had been able to give the Ryloth rebel cells that the Imperial Governor of Ryloth was to be staying in a certain hotel in Ryloth’s capitol after an Imperial conference. Most weeks were this way, but Draven had been becoming increasingly agitated with lack of new information. So Cassian took a steely breath, joined K-2 for the transmission, and prepared to deliver Mon Mothma and General Draven his usual account.

“One of these days, K-2, they’ll finally lose patience with us,” he remarked wearily to the droid as the transmission booted up. “They’ll have me get on top of the ship and try to assassinate the Emperor, and that’ll be the end of me.”

This transmission, however, was to be different. Draven was as he ever was, pale and grim on the other end of the holotransmission, but both his face and Mothma’s face lit up when Cassian mentioned that one of his assignments for the next week was to bring an Agent Moro, deputy to the Grand Treasurer, to an illicit meeting with the Smuggler’s Confederation on the Rings of Kefrene.

“The trading post Rings of Kefrene?” Mothma said urgently, exchanging glances with Draven.

If there’s one thing I hate about both my jobs , Cassian thought, is that both the Empire and the Rebellion like to keep me in the dark. Mothma had her reasons, he knew, and there was much that he didn’t need to know, that was better for him not to know, considering how often gathering intelligence for the Rebellion involved shooting people in the back. But still, he wished he knew more of the context of the grim glances Mothma and Draven exchanged. “The very same.”

Draven nodded. “Well, then, we have an assignment for you, too. While you’re waiting on Kefrene, we have an informant in hiding there. The communication we have managed to receive from him has been urgent. He wishes to make contact immediately. You should remember him.”

Cassian did remember—a cowering man with a crippled arm. “Tivik.”

“Rendezvous with Tivik in the Rings of Kefrene,” said Mothma, nodding at someone the holotransmission did not capture, probably to signal the writing of an official action. “Then report back to us with your findings.”

K-2 gave Cassian a look from above him, and Cassian cleared his throat. “Excuse me.” Turning away from the transmission and muting his microphone, his jaw was tight as he addressed K-2SO. “I know what you’re going to say.”

K-2SO sounded more exasperated than ever. “You do because you knew this was going to happen. How are you going to slip away to meet a Rebellion informant when you have a shadow guarding you—a shadow whom you insist was sent to spy on you?! There is a 89% chance that this will backfire horribly, Cassian. I’d just like for you to know.”

Again, Cassian took a steely breath, and he glanced at the door. He knew that just outside, oblivious to this meeting, was the shadow herself. He couldn’t trust JS-3261 to turn a blind eye if he wished to disappear into the rowdy streets of Kefrene for an hour. But he had been a spy for a long time, too. He was practical. He had ideas for every contingency. “I know what to do, Kay. I know how to deal with her.”

Turning back to the transmission, Cassian turned on the microphone once more and addressed Mothma and Draven. “Send word to Tivik that I’ll meet him in the High-Rise Cantina on Kefrene. Tell him I’ll be dressed as an Imperial officer, and tell him to be alone.”

When the transmission ended, K-2SO had stayed quiet, but he hadn’t stopped giving Cassian the same exasperated look on his expressionless face. “He’ll be alone. But will you be?”

Cassian unbuttoned his collar, shaking his head. JS-3261 would be coming with him. “Not this time.”

- || -

Considering the Captain’s unique position as Imperial transportation and protection for important officials led to him and his crew meeting a great deal of shuttles ferrying officials to him, JS-3261 was allowed to keep her ground crew member uniform and armor, even while serving as Captain Andor’s personal bodyguard. This made her distinct as one of the few technicians on board the ship amongst the dozens of Stormtroopers. The armor Jyn preferred to the heavier standard Stormtrooper gear, and she liked the added utility of her ground crew batons, but the distinction amongst the ship’s personnel was less welcome. She stood out, not only as the small black-armored reassigned female technician, but as the female bodyguard of Captain Cassian Andor.

The second day of her new promotion, her rank was already well-known amongst the ship’s personnel, thanks only in small part to the Second Lieutenant’s insignia she now wore on her armor. Disciplined though the Stormtroopers were taught to be, discipline didn’t always prevent them from spreading rumors. Jyn came to take her evening meal in the mess hall, and the very first thing she overheard was the voice of a female trooper remarking “ that’s the one the Captain took an interest in, isn’t she? Lucky girl.”

Another male voice from the sea of armored, but helmetless troops eating their dinner was distinct over the murmur of conversation. He snorted. “Oh, yeah. We all know what it means when officers make female soldiers their bodyguards. She did what? Save a Governor’s brat? I guess it’s an accomplishment enough for an excuse , but the Captain isn’t fooling us.”

A chuckle arose from one of the tables. “Scrawny girl, isn’t she, though? A little short for a Stormtrooper.”

“Doesn’t seem to bother Captain Andor.”

Jyn dropped her dinner tray heavily on the table of the offending troopers, all of whom looked up at her in surprise. The snorting male trooper’s eyes hardened, and he rose to stand at his full height, two heads above Jyn. He made a show of looking her up and down, and then he laughed, the rest of the table joining in. “Wouldn’t bother me, either. She’s good enough.” And then he made the mistake of grabbing at her, eliciting a ripple of laughter from the other soldiers.

A moment later, Jyn had the trooper on his stomach on the table, one forearm under his chin and her other hand forcing his head down so he choked against her arm. The roar of the mess hall around her fell on deaf ears until the other troopers ripped her away.

After being checked for bruises, the crude trooper was sent to reconditioning under harsh words from the unit commander for harassment, and Jyn waited in the ship’s conference room as Captain Andor heard the recounts of the incident before she received her reprimand.

Surprisingly, she received none. Andor didn’t seem irritated by the incident, perhaps only oddly agitated. He did not look at her as she stood silently at attention, her helmet in her hands. “Are you alright?” he demanded, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

This surprised Jyn. “I wasn’t the one sent to the medbay, sir.”

Andor looked up briefly, as if he was checking her face to make sure. For just a moment, Jyn thought he was going to reach out, as if to comfort her. Like he was leaning again, like the night he had found her by the window. They hadn’t been this close since she had carried him from the hangar on Naboo; their shoulders had touched and their hands had brushed as she strode beside him down the hallways, but he hadn’t leaned in, like she thought he was now.

But he wasn’t, of course he wasn’t. He was as cold as ever. “You’ll be taking your meals alone from now on. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.” After Andor didn’t continue, Jyn spoke again. “I was told I would receive a reprimand, sir.”

Andor seemed unamused, and he turned his back on her, opening the door to leave the room. “You sound disappointed, JS-3261. I don’t have one.”

On the bright side, Jyn thought, watching him as he left, if this ship believes that I’m sleeping with the Captain, then that means they believe he and I are close. My cover is that much stronger.

Chapter Text

Not every soldier was meant to be a hero. Cassian wasn’t. He had believed, once, when he was still a child, that he could be one, but twenty years in the Rebellion had taught him what he really was. He was a gear in the machine. Every order he followed, every lie he told, every man he killed was a turn. He turned to keep the machine going, to keep moving forward. And he wasn’t important. Not to the Rebellion, not to anyone. It was what he did that was important. And he did it all for the cause.

Then, at the end of his journey, Jyn Erso asked him if he was with her. Not with the Rebellion, whom they were disobeying. With her. And he was no longer just a gear in the machine. “All the way.”

It was the very first time he had been important to someone. And even if the hope they had was a lie, he would be with Jyn until the end of it. He had given her the truth.

- || -

He was her cover, and that was all. All value Captain Casian Andor held to Jyn was in his function, and for as long as he could keep her mask stable, her cover intact, she would remain by his side. She would keep him alive. That was all.

Jyn told herself this, late at night, when the familiar sound of Andor’s door sliding open buzzed through the wall. On the other side of the wall that divided their bedrooms, she knew Andor was leaving to roam the ship’s corridors, as he did every night. “If someone was going to ambush you, sir, it would be when you’re up alone and unarmed during your hours of scheduled sleep,” she had pointed out to him just that morning, and he had shrugged it off before they entered the bridge together. She thought back to it now—that Andor was at his most vulnerable as he stared out of his favorite window. That if there was a time he should have a guard at his side, it was now.

But I’m not his bodyguard, Jyn told herself before she got carried away. JS-3261 is Captain Andor’s bodyguard. JS-3261 is loyal to him. Jyn Erso only cares as long as he keeps her alive. As long he helps her mission.

She needed to be patient, she knew. But there had been little information Jyn could garner in the past few days, little whispers of Imperial weapons development and even fewer clues towards the whereabouts of her father. And here had been little danger in their travels across the galaxy so far into her second week as Andor’s personal bodyguard at all, really. Imperial control upon many worlds they passed seemed to be unsteady, and the increasing security of the bases on the planets they visited made the atmosphere often uneasy, but that was the most of it. Fighting the unease by holding his head high and looking straight ahead, Andor had led the way for Jyn to follow, for JS-3261 to keep him safe.

There was always silence between them, wherever together they were, but Jyn preferred it that way. She didn’t want to grant him any clue about herself, and she didn’t want to hear something that might make it harder for her to take him down when it was time. Not that she was particularly worried that he could tell her anything that would sway her resolution. She had no loyalty to him. The only thing they had in common was their inability to sleep at night.

And then Jyn remembered the Ithorian, and her own cruelty to keep up her cover, and Captain Andor’s sentencing.

I’m not mindless, Jyn reminded herself. I can act for myself. He only acts on orders. He’s only a gear in the machine. He may be a captain, but he’s no better than a Stormtrooper.

She wasn’t going to let him speak to tell her otherwise.

“I saw your practice combat scores in the training room, JS-3261,” Andor said suddenly, the morning they were assigned to pick up an agent of the Imperial Treasury for a meeting on the Rings of Kefrene. They were walking alone and side-by-side down a long corridor in the Treasury’s base on Coruscant to meet the agent, and Jyn looked up at Andor quickly as they strode together. His tone was light, if unreadable, and as cool as ever. “Unarmed hand-to-hand combat seems to be exceptional for you. Exactly what I’d want in a bodyguard, really.”

Is he probing me? Jyn thought—this was unexpected. Andor had never shown signs of mistrusting her before, and she hadn’t given him any reason to question her cover. Perhaps he really was just remarking on her practice scores. She had joined in on the sparring matches of the night before, and years of living on the street without being sure of having a weapon by her side had given her quite the edge on the other troopers in the ring. But she had eased up on her opponents when she realized this might be suspect, and she’d lost her last match on purpose, landing her in second place. “Thank you, sir.”

Andor went on. “And in the simulations. You seem partial to blaster pistols instead of the E-11 blaster rifle used by ordinary Stormtroopers.” He was not looking at her—his eyes were straight ahead down the corridor. This was too probing, and Jyn was thinking up an excuse before Andor spoke again. “Of course, they don’t outfit ground crew with the E-11. You already would have your batons to worry about, along with the standard issue blaster pistols you carry. They didn’t extensively train you for it, did they?”

Jyn felt her breathing relax. “Not much, sir.”

Her Captain shrugged, and they came to the agent’s office, a passing droid opening the door for them respectfully. “Your hand-to-hand more than makes up for it, though. I’m glad we’re on the same side—I wouldn’t be happy to get into a scrap with you.”

As they went in, Jyn caught Andor’s eye, and for the briefest moment, she saw what she thought was determination in his gaze towards her. As if he was determined to see straight through the mask of her helmet.

Or maybe it was determination for something else, something just as urgent, something that told them both they had so little time and that they were wasting it. Something that told Jyn to lean in, despite everything, when their eyes met like this. Something that shook Jyn and told her that her mask was useless when Andor looked at her this way.

And then, as it always did, it ended, and their eyes both slid away from one another. Andor turned, as if nothing had happened, because nothing had, and he greeted the agent.

No, he hadn’t seen through her. Jyn knew that much. He wasn’t important. She wouldn’t let him.

- || -

The Rings of Kefrene was populated by tall towers, sheer and dark as cliffsides, and Captain Andor’s sleek, beautiful ship landed amidst the buzz of an Imperial base. Kefrene was full to the bursting at all times with traders, syndicates, and smugglers, all with a certain relationship with the Empire that patrolled the streets. There was a reason why the Imperial Treasury was meeting with the Smuggler’s Confederation here.

With a few commands, Cassian sent half a dozen troops to escort Agent Moro along on her meeting with the confederation, and another half dozen to remain on standby by the meeting location, just in case tensions ran high. There was only the smallest chance that Agent Moro’s meeting would be anything but cordial, and if things did go awry, Cassian got the feeling that Moro could take care of herself. She was young, with a perpetually satisfied smile, her blonde hair slicked back and much too perfect for the chaotic cities of Coruscant. When she had first met Cassian, her smile and her eyes had lingered a little too long on him for his liking. And when he saw her off the ship for her meeting, she invited him to join her later for dinner. He declined, citing his wish to have a solitary drink in one of his favorite watering holes.

“Perhaps I’ll join you,” she had said to him, brazen and smiling as she left for her meeting. It was a good thing, Cassian thought, that he had neglected to tell her that that watering hole would be the High-Rise Cantina. Agent Moro’s presence would only complicate things.

“Are you quite sure you know what you’re doing,” K-2 said lowly to him when he returned to the bridge of the ship to tell his lieutenant and the rest of the crew where he’d be going. K-2SO indicated in JS-3261’s direction with the tiniest movement of his mechanical head. She stood, as always, at the ready at Cassian’s side. Her eyes remained as steely as always.

Cassian gave K-2 the slightest of nods. It was quite simple, really—as she was only his bodyguard, JS-3261 would have to wait outside the private lounges in the Cantina for him. He could speak privately with Tivik for long enough. And he knew that Tivik would likely not be able to escape the scrutiny of patrolling Imperials for long enough to leave the Rings of Kefrene. If Tivik complied, Cassian would either arrest him for drunkenly “assaulting” an Imperial officer and would modify his identification so he would be anonymously sent to a prison and would not be interrogated by any further Imperial justice. And if Tivik did not comply, well. Cassian touched the pistol at his side reflexively, and glanced sideways at JS-3261. He wouldn’t even need to kill him himself.

“I visit the High-Rise every time we land on Kefrene,” Cassian said idly to JS-3261 twenty minutes later, as they held on the handrails of the train car they were taking to the Cantina. This specific compartment had been reserved for Imperial officers, and the city zoomed by through its windows. And it was true; the High-Rise Cantina was his usual haunt on Kefrene, but not because he liked it. It was an upscale lounge frequented primarily by hooded mobsters with long cigars handing over bribes to Imperial personnel. Exactly the kind of place he would be expected to visit.

If he hadn’t known any better, JS-3261 gave him a look with her eyebrows raised from the gap of her visor. Cassian felt the corners of his mouth twitch upward. “Why, have you heard of it?”

“I have, sir.”

“Well, then you know that it sometimes gets a little tense in there. I don’t plan on taking any bribes, if that’s what you’re wondering, but if the officer next to me at the bar pulls his blaster on the smuggler he’s conversing with, I expect you to cover me.”

“Of course, sir.” She almost sounded affronted, and Cassian looked back at her quickly, his heart rate rising in spite of himself. He wasn’t worried about this rendezvous, he knew exactly how to handle Tivik, whether Tivik kept his head or lost it. But JS-3261 made him certain and uneasy at the same time. She would cover him, he knew. Yet he still had to watch her. He still had to keep his own cover intact. He had asked her that morning about her training scores, her unusually proficient hand-to-hand combat—he had watched her in her sparring matches the night before and the way she used the momentum from her small body to bring much larger opponents crashing down. But he had had to stop himself from searching too much. He didn’t want to sacrifice his cover while trying to unmask hers.

It was quiet, again, when Cassian realized JS-3261’s eyes had yet to leave his. It was in these moments that he was most uncertain of himself, of her. He was only important to her because it was her job to protect him, yes. He stopped himself from imagining anything else.

The train came to a grinding halt before the High-Rise’s tower, and Cassian stepped off the train first as the doors opened. On some foolish instinct, he turned back, and as JS-3261 took the large step from the train to the platform, he took her hand to help her down. Her hands were gloved, but the tips of her fingers were bare, and Cassian realized with a jolt that his fingers were, too. He had forgotten his gloves on the ship, and his thumb brushed against her fingertips.

Ad then she was on the ground, and he let go, his hands falling stiffly to their sides. “Follow me,” he heard himself say, hardly louder than the drum of his heartbeat.

They were silent on the elevator up.

- || -

“Damnit, Cassian, was that a real Stormtrooper behind you? ” Tivik hissed, his eyes wild as Cassian entered the smoking room after him. On the other side of the door, JS-3261 was taking guard, none the wiser that Andor had known the man already in the smoking room at all. It was common to share the rooms in these lounges with strangers, if you weren’t making some sort of clandestine deal. Their doors were as soundproof as his own on his ship. The only thing one had to watch out for was the High-Rise’s staff, who kept their ears open for business. The host who came to serve Cassian, a pale human with too-white teeth, seemed particularly eager to listen. Sometimes, Cassian knew, these rooms in the High-Rise were where Imperial business was done. But he wasn’t here on Imperial business.

“A Corellian nectar, please,” Cassian said crisply to the host, who smiled and slid out of the door before closing it behind them. It was exactly the kind of drink an Imperial officer would be expected to order, though he would have much preferred a Festian tequila. When the door slid shut, Cassian turned back to Tivik and returned to his native accent. “Yes, she is, Tivik. For both our sakes, I’ll trust you to keep quiet with her.”

Tivik’s eyes were bugging as he looked frantically around the empty lounge. “I can’t do this, I can’t do this anymore, Cassian, I won’t be able to get off this city without getting caught—”

“I know, Tivik,” interrupted Cassian, keeping his voice low and even. “Sit down. You have important information for us, do you not?”

The informant was sweating, his attire noticeably untidier than that of the other patrons of the High-Rise. Tivik had likely hardly left his own lodging here on Kefrene at all since he went into hiding here. Still, Cassian eyed the outline of a taser baton underneath Tivik’s cloak. “Kriff, Cassian, you don’t know the half of it—it’s a weapon. There’s rumors of the Empire’s new weapon, something colossal, something that could crush the Rebellion in ten seconds flat—we don’t know the name of it, just that Director Orson Krennic is proud as balls of it and you need to get me out of here, Cassian , I don’t care about the Rebellion anymore—”

Cassian put a quick hand on Tivik’s shoulder, speaking quickly and quietly. “Tivik, we need more, we can’t just—”

“There was a pilot!” Tivik whispered frantically, his eyes constantly moving from Cassian back to the door, and Cassian knew he was thinking of JS-3261 on the other side.

“A pilot, Tivik?”

“An Imperial cargo pilot, these are only rumors but he was a cargo pilot under Krennic’s command and they say he was killed when rebels blew up his ship but they say he was under suspicion of defecting anyway—and the rebels that blew up his ship were Partisans.”

Cassian’s mind was racing. “Saw Gerrera.” He already knew what Draven would send him and a squadron off to do. He’d likely be taking his Captain’s leave as soon as he returned to his ship.

But Tivik was still speaking, or blubbering, more like, the empty bottle he held shaking in his good hand. “I’m done, Cassian, I’m done, I can’t do it anymore, they’ll spot me as soon as I walk outside, and if they take me I won’t be able not to talk—”

The door slid open, and Tivik shuddered so violently in surprise that he dropped the bottle, and it shattered on the lounge’s marble floor. But it was only the host back with Cassian’s Corellian nectar. Thanking him in his Imperial accent again, Cassian gave him the bill. And as the door slid closed once more, he turned back to Tivik. For the informant’s sake, he kept his voice soothingly calm. “Tivik, there’s no need for you to panic. If you just listen to me, we can falsify identification and an arrest for you upon my ship. You’ll be safe in an Imperial labor camp until the Rebellion can free you again.”

If Cassian had thought this would calm Tivik, it did the opposite. “ Arrest me?” he managed to say, his voice strangled. “No, no, I can’t!”

“You’ll be in my hands, I’ll be in command of you, and you won’t be questioned—” Before Cassian could finish, Tivik was standing up, and Cassian had to keep his hands firmly on Tivik’s shoulders to prevent him. “You won’t be questioned, and you’ll be safe. You can stay on the Rings of Kefrene no longer. All you have to do is do as I say.”

The unfortunate informant gulped, and nodded, and even though there was something in Cassian’s gut that told him this wasn’t going to go as planned, he went on anyway. “Punch me.”

- || -

The door to the lounge Andor had chosen slid open, and Jyn couldn’t help herself from making a cry of surprise as the Captain came out with his blaster drawn and pointed at another man’s back. The other man, quite obviously a nervous drunk, had his arms raised and was mumbling what sounded like apologies.

“There is no need to cuff him, JS-3261,” Andor said lowly, and Jyn noticed that his lip was bleeding and that the drunkard’s one hand was red. His other hand didn’t look particularly threatening. No need to cuff him, indeed.

Instead, Jyn gripped the drunkard’s arm securely, her pistol drawn, and Andor nodded his head towards the Cantina exit, towards which they escorted the drunkard. If the rest of the Cantina had noticed the incident, they pretended not to. This must be commonplace for the Rings of Kefrene. “What happened, sir?”

Andor shook his head as he lowered his blaster, wiping his mouth on the back of his ungloved hand. “Noticed I was an officer and decided to let his fist tell me what he thought of the Empire.”

Good man, Jyn thought, pulling the drunkard along. I wish I could do the same.

“You are under arrest for assaulting an Imperial Naval Captain,” Captain Andor said roughly, and the panicked drunkard fell pitifully silent as Jyn and Andor pulled him towards the elevator. Just as the elevator doors opened, out came Agent Moro, her smile hardly faltering at all as she laid eyes on the man they had arrested.

“Captain Andor, I found you,” she said with interest, and Andor froze in place. “I asked your lieutenant for your usual haunt on Kefrene, but it seems you’ve run into trouble while here. I’ll let you get on with your business.”

To that, Andor cleared his throat, saying something Jyn recognized as thanks, and pulled the drunkard into the elevator. Once they reached the ground, in the dark streets of Kefrene, Jyn felt the drunkard stiffen underneath her hand. She knew what he was thinking—she had thought it herself many times after being caught. She knew he wanted to bolt. On his other side, Andor gripped the drunkard’s other shoulder tighter. “We’re taking you back,” he said grimly. “Don’t you even think of—”

Suddenly, with speed that could have only been borne of panic, the man ripped free of the both of them, and from the depths of his cloak he drew a taser baton with his one shaking hand. “I’m not going!” he cried, his eyes wild, and he swung the baton clumsily it Captain Andor.

Before Andor could even step back, Jyn had thrown herself bodily before him, half-disarming the drunkard, but not before being caught by the full electrocuting jolt of its tip. He was her job. He was her cover. And she would pay him back ten times over for saving his life this time.

As Jyn hit the ground, she saw the jet from Andor’s blaster hit the drunkard square in his retreating back, and from the edge of her fading vision, she saw the High-Rise host, looking down upon them with interest and speaking with none other than Agent Moro. What the host was telling her, what he had overheard in Andor’s room, Jyn didn’t quite care. Hands were removing her helmet, arms were cradling her close, and she sank into them as her eyes shuddered closed.

- || -

“I didn’t quite expect for you to come back carrying her in your arms,” K-2SO said mildly as he and Cassian left JS-3261 behind in the Kefrene base’s medbay. Though the medic droids and pointed out the jagged scars spreading out from where the taser had made contact with her shoulder, she was fine, she had regained consciousness, her circulatory system was normal. Her armor was compromised, but that was replaceable. But Cassian still gritted his teeth at the memory of her shuddering as she took the hit for him. K-2SO seemed unconcerned with his guard, though. “I take it your meeting with Tivik didn’t go well?”

Cassian sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He tried to bolt. But I got all the information I needed.” When they reached his quarters, though, Cassian pulled off his uniform jacket, but instead of heading to his shower, he dug in his belongings for a black jacket with a dark hood.

K-2SO looked perplexed. “What, are you going dancing before we leave?”

“We were overheard,” Cassian muttered, pulling on the jacket and a dark pair of trousers, then putting his uniform back on over the black clothing. “It was nothing, probably, there was nothing we said when we weren’t alone that could really be of suspect, but still—the host at the High-Rise was watching. And I think he may have informed Agent Moro.”

Hefting his blaster in his hand, Cassian turned back around to K-2. “I’ll be back in an hour. Tell anyone who looks for me that I’m in the bath. And—” He faltered when he realized that K-2 would sigh if he said it, but he continued anyway. “Tell JS-3261. If she’s out of the medbay before I’m back. That she should get some rest.”   

Five minutes later, in the dirty dim of the Kefrene evening, Cassian was on the roof of the base. He had tossed his uniform aside. His face was obscured by a hood and a mask, and it was grim with what he was about to do. His eyes peered through the scope of the rifle pressed to his cheek, waiting to spot Agent Moro return through the base’s main entrance. She had just returned from a meeting with the Smuggler’s Confederation. The investigation would suspect nothing else. Even if it meant two avoidable deaths on his hand today, he would keep his cover intact.

From behind him, there was a voice, soft and full of steel. “... Intruder.”

Whipping around in the direction of the Kefrene sun, Cassian saw JS-3261 standing there, framed against the sun dying over the city’s horizon. She wore no helmet, and if she had been able to see his eyes through his mask, their eyes would have met.

Instead, she threw herself forward and tore the rifle from his arms.

Chapter Text

Since her mother died and her father vanished, Jyn had taken many names. She had worn many masks and many disguises to wipe away the Erso in Jyn Erso. For Saw Gerrera, she had donned the helm of a soldier. On her own, she had slipped into the veil of anonymity. Both these guises were easier than wearing the name her parents had given her.

But as she threw acid words at Cassian in the hold of their stolen ship, accused him of betraying her, of lacking a conscience, of all but killing her father, she had left her mask behind. She was Jyn Erso, as determined and as vengeful as she had always been. And Jyn Erso looked Cassian Andor in the eye and dared him to match her.

“You’re not the only one who has lost everything.”

Jyn could have stumbled back. She stared at the fury and the pain in Cassian's face, and he mirrored the storm in her heart.

Whatever mask Cassian had been wearing, in that moment, it was gone, too.

- || -

“Do we have any word from Fulcrum?”

Mothma bit her lip on her sigh and looked up from the report she was reading. This was the fourth time in the past hour Draven had said this, and she didn’t even have to ask him to know exactly which Fulcrum they were referring to. “No, Captain Andor has still yet to check in. He should have met with Tivik two hours ago, but that doesn’t mean we should worry quite yet, General.”

This didn’t seem to assuage Draven’s worries. He glared over the holograms that spanned the table before them, the maps and the networks of operations and informatives they had been going through, the chessboard of a game in which they were severely outnumbered. For every rebel squadron they had, risking his or her life for a single step forward, the Empire had a thousand soldiers on the march. For every one of their pawns, clothed in darkness and black, a thousand white Stormtroopers held their weapons at the ready. And as Draven eyed the circle they had drawn on the trading post of Kefrene, he knew that this particular pawn carried information that wasn’t expendable.

“If something went wrong, then the knowledge our informant had would be lost. And considering his contact signal was urgent, forgive me if I’m a little on edge, Senator.”

Whatever was telling Draven that something was wrong had struck Mothma, too, and she set her load of reports down. “General,” she said carefully, “do you have a plan for extraction, in the case that Andor’s cover is ever compromised?”

There was a chill of silence. “I must disappoint you, Senator,” muttered Draven finally, tracing the route of their supply ships with a scarred finger. “If extraction is ever necessary, it is only to prevent the information Fulcrum holds of us from falling into Imperial hands. These things cannot be planned. If we can retrieve him when the time comes, we will. If we can’t, then we have to make sure he reveals nothing.”

Mothma couldn’t help but let her sigh loose at that. “Really, General, we shouldn’t be heartless. We aren't the Empire. We cannot be no better than what we’re fighting against.”

Draven didn’t even look up. “Senator, your idealism could achieve things in the Republic. But now, we’re only a resistance. We cannot afford to fight every battle. Or save every Fulcrum.”

- || -

Captain Andor’s action on the base’s rooftop would have gone completely unnoticed, if the only person who had seen him would have not been Jyn. If not for her, Andor’s shot would have hit its mark silently, and he would have reported to Draven as normal. If it had been any other member of personnel, Andor would have known which corridor to slip down, would have known how to avoid them. He would have been off that roof in moments, his duty to the Rebellion done, ready once more to serve the Empire.

But instead, as the Force willed it, Jyn had been restless after being cleared to return to duty. There was something from the day’s exploits that had been eating at her. It tugged at the corners of her mind as she pulled on her armor. Perhaps it was Agent Moro, hearing whispers from the High-Rise host with a curious smile. Perhaps it was how something about that drunkard seemed less like inebriation and more like fear for his life.

Or, perhaps it was the brush of a hand over her fingertips, and arms that could have carried her home.

Perhaps I need a drink, Jyn thought darkly, pushing the thought away.

Whatever it was, unlike the other troopers, she wasn’t trained to relax flying TIEs in simulations. And unlike the base’s officers, she was not at liberty to head out into the trading post to a local bar. Nor did she have a home to take comfort in. Or someone's arms, to carry her there.

So instead, she made her way to the base’s roof. Before she needed to report to her Captain, she would wipe her brow and feel fresh air on her face. She could leave her mask behind, just for a moment, and see the sun set over the edge of the city.

But as she stood on the roof, she did not see the sun set. Her eyes had been caught by something else, by some one else, on the far side of the roof. A figure, clothed in dark, with a sniper rifle held at the ready. There was no doubt about it. The figure could only be a rebel assassin, waiting for his target to come into sight.

A proper Stormtrooper, now, would have left the rooftop and sounded the alarm. A Stormtrooper would have alerted her superiors and would have waited for command. But Captain Andor had wanted her because she made decisions on her own, didn’t he?

So Jyn made her decision. She had left her helmet and her blaser in the stairwell, and she didn’t retrieve it now. Silently, invisibly, she made her way to the opposite edge of the roof, the poised sniper unaware.

Jyn could have avoided a confrontation, she knew. Perhaps she should have. Perhaps there was no sense in putting herself, unarmed, in danger this way. But she knew she’d have no trouble disarming him, she trusted in her own strength to at least keep him from killing her. What she wanted to know was why there was a sniper on the roof of an Imperial base, peering down at the movement of Imperial officers. And if she alerted her superiors, she would never know. If this was important, if this could help her, she would have thrown the opportunity away. In any other situation, Jyn would have never put herself at risk. She was too selfish. But in this moment, dry of any information that might strike a blow against the Empire, she was willing to take the chance.

And worst case, of course, if the sniper had no information to give her, she would take down an intruder single-handed in the name of the Empire, and her cover would be that much stronger. Sleeping with her Captain and taking down rebel assassins solo? Jyn thought, almost amused. JS-3261 seems like quite the Imperial zealot .

A moment later, the sniper turned around, and Jyn shot forward. He wouldn’t be masked for long.

- || -

JS-3261 slung his rifle away, and Cassian knew he’d been right in never wanting to get into a fight with his bodyguard. She moved like someone who had to fight for her life on a regular basis, who had faced armed foes with nothing but her fists many times, and who had needed to learn to compensate. His rifle clattered to a halt at the step around the edge of the roof, and Cassian cursed inwardly when he realized he had nothing else with which to defend himself. He would have to face his own bodyguard with his bare hands, and if his mask dropped, if his cover fell, he would have to kill her with them, too.

Just that afternoon, his bare hand had found hers when he had helped her off the train.

No. Cassian wouldn’t be able to kill her like that. He would need his weapon to kill her.

His jaw set, Cassian didn’t wait for her to move again. With a sweep of his feet, he knocked her off hers, and she landed heavily on her side as he scrambled to retrieve his blaster. Before he could make it more than a step, though, her foot collided heavily with his stomach. Cassian felt all the air in his diaphragm leave him, and he stumbled back, catching himself on the roof’s edge. I don’t have time for this , he thought wildly. Agent Moro could be appearing below any moment. If he could knock JS-3261 out, he could end the danger that Moro now posed and be gone from the rooftop before anyone suspected. He could do this without hurting her.

JS-3261 seemed to have other ideas, though—she had come to her feet and was advancing, and her face was filled with iron. Cassian clenched his fists. His cover would not break. Launching himself forward with a punch aimed at her head, Cassian found his body twisted, his arm pinned back. JS-3261 had sidestepped his attack, pulled his arm away, but before she could strike at his face, Cassian dragged his arm back and sent his elbow to her chin. She reeled back, off-balance. Taking her arm now in turn, Cassian forced her over his shoulder with a groan, and she came crashing to the rooftop, gasping for air. Ready to end it, Cassian bent down to grasp her face in his hands, to knock her head against the roof’s surface, but a kick up at his chest with the heels of her boots sent him stumbling back. 

Before he knew anything else, JS-3261 was on her feet again, advancing again, slower now but with as much resolution as ever. His attempts at striking her were sidestepped, and her kick landed in his side, her punch on his brow, her strike ringing in one ear. The world spun before his eyes, and Cassian felt a hiss of frustration rise in his throat as he caught a glimpse of his rifle. It was only ten feet away.

In one last, panicked move, Cassian took a deep breath and ducked low, grabbing JS-3261 by her legs and forcing her to the side, to the ground. This was a mistake. They had scarcely hit the ground when her elbow struck so close to his eye that he saw white, and when the world formed around Cassian once more, she was on top of him, her knees pinning his arms down, her elbow sharp against his neck. His hood was down already.  She glared down at him, her breath ragged and her dark hair falling in curtains around her face. And before he could shout at her, desperately, not to touch his mask, because once she saw his face it would end, once his cover broke he would have to kill her or she would have to kill him, her free hand was at his cheek.

She pulled his mask away. Soft evening air played across Cassian’s face, and he lay there, at that moment, staring up at hazel eyes that now saw him as he was. And he would have to kill her for it.

For a split second, Cassian thought of what would happen if he merely lay here and gave in. If he let his cover remain broken and waited for JS-3261 to take him in. It would be easier. He wouldn’t have to hurt her. He could just lean back into the ground and watch those eyes above him. If she had been an Imperial spy, then he would have given her an amazing break. She caught him red-handed. He didn’t have to kill her.

And then he remembered the Rebellion. He remembered what he was fighting for, and for whom. He remembered the information he possessed, the intelligence he needed to pass on, the lives he could save if only he acted, and the world he would never live in, but that he’d sworn he would help create. He would spend his whole life dedicated to that world, even if it meant living his life with a mask. It would be nice, perhaps, to finally rest, looking up at eyes that faded from amber to grey to green. And he didn’t know if he’d be able to pull the trigger even when he retrieved his rifle. Not at her. But he could try.

With all his strength, Cassian twisted out from under JS-3261 and threw himself in the direction of his blaster. And whether it was from surprise or unawareness, she did not make an attempt to follow him. She only knelt where he had escaped from her and stared up blankly at his face.

Whatever it was, Cassian reached his rifle. And without knowing if he’d even be able to take the shot, he turned it on her. He stared down the barrel at her steel-wrought angel’s face and fixed its aim between her eyes.

“You’re a rebel informant.”

Her voice was different. Her accent was sharp, clipped, Imperial. From where she was kneeling, JS-3261 slowly stood, and the look she wore was fearless. It was the closest thing to a smile Cassian had ever seen on her face. It was too grim, too worn to be a smile, but it was close. His trigger finger went stiff.

“You were going to shoot—Agent Moro, I assume. She was suspicious at the Cantina.”

She was coming closer, closer to the rifle he still held between her eyes. She didn’t even seem to see it.

“Captain Cassian Andor." A step closer. "That was your mask." Another step. "You’re a Fulcrum.”

All that was left between them was the barrel of his rifle, and she pushed it away. He let it fall, useless. He would have never been able to pull the trigger anyway.

They stood face-to-face, and Cassian saw that her eyes were gleaming. For the first time, he could finally see beneath her mask. “My name is Jyn Erso,” she said, her voice alight with schemes of rebellion and resistance. “I was sent by Saw Gerrera, and I’m looking for my father.”

Before Cassian could even think of speaking, Jyn glanced around him, at the base entrance below. “Here comes Agent Moro now—” she murmured, pulling him down with her behind the step at the edge. “Aren’t you going to take that shot?”

Chapter Text

A fulcrum is the point upon which a force can turn, can revolve, the point where weight rests. It is the hinge of the action, the turning of the tide. It is central. It is essential.

Cassian was not central, or essential. He did his part. He was expendable. Fulcrum was the name the Rebellion gave to its intelligence agents—they were the Rebellion’s pivots and links, connecting part to whole from all across the galaxy. But there was a reason they all took the same title. A fulcrum may be central, may be essential, but the individual who donned the mantle of Fulcrum was not. Cassian was a single face in a sea of resistance, and he knew it well. He was caught in the middle of the fight, but the fight didn’t revolve around him. His life had been tied to Rebellion, but the Rebellion was not tied to his.

Jyn was born with the key to the Rebellion in her hand. She masked herself with her apathy, in her own survival, but Cassian knew better. If anyone was the Fulcrum, it was she.

- || -

On the surface, Captain Cassian Andor. Underneath the cover, Fulcrum of the Rebellion.

For the first time since her parents had been taken away, Jyn was not alone. It may have taken a fistfight to get here there, he may have raised a blaster between her eyes, but she stood on a rooftop side-by-side with someone she knew would have to be her ally. Someone she had almost wished would be, when she heard him restless in the middle of the night. She had wondered what her cold Captain Cassian Andor would have been like if he hadn’t been just that.

And then Cassian nodded at her suggestion, raised his rifle, and pulled the trigger. From somewhere below, a scheming woman fell dead.

In that moment, what had almost been a smile on Jyn’s face vanished. She had told him to fire, yes, she had read his situation and understood. But now that he’d followed through, she remembered. He might be her ally now, but he could have shot her seconds ago. He was still a cold, killing Captain, that hadn’t changed. She didn’t even even know if Cassian was his real name.

“Nice shot,” she said cooly. They would have to figure this out later. The base’s siren had begun to wail. “I say we get off this roof.”

- || -

Scarcely two minutes after Agent Moro’s body shuddered to the ground, the gleam of suspicion in her eyes glazed over, Captain Cassian Andor and JS-3261 reported to the courtyard of the Kefrene base at the sound of the alarm. Moro had been struck from above, by a long-range blaster shot. From which direction the shot had come from, they could not tell—not when Moro had been in motion when the shot was taken. It was accepted, however, that Moro’s dealings with the Confederation had not been entirely successful. The outpost would be swept for her killer, and her escort would depart with her body.

As the sky went dark behind the asteroid horizon of the Rings of Kefrene, Captain Andor’s ship left the system, and it was not until the stars around them dissolved into hyperspace that Cassian found himself and his bodyguard alone once more.

They strode, silent, down the ship’s corridors to the Captain’s quarters, where a frantic K-2SO was waiting. Hardly registering JS-3261’s presence at all, he turned upon Andor with a “where have you been,” managing to sound exasperated with his flat, mechanical monotone.

But the droid received no answers from the Captain, not yet. “K-2, please put things in order for tomorrow morning. Agent Moro’s remains must be returned to Coruscant. In the meantime, I’m going to have a word with my bodyguard.”

If K-2SO recognized a shiver in the Captain’s voice, he made no sign of it. Instead, like any other Imperial droid, he followed orders, and the Captain and JS-3261 entered the privacy of the Captain’s quarters alone.

When the door slid shut, Cassian turned around, and he found that JS-3261 had removed her helmet again. Jyn Erso stared curiously back at him instead. There was still the glint of steel in her eye, a wariness, a lack of trust, and she still wore her black armor. But now he saw beneath the mask. The trace of her smile from the rooftop still lingered on her lips. They were on the same side.

“Did anyone notice you bleeding?” she said, finally, and Cassian blinked out of his reverie. They stood a rifle’s length away from one another, as they had on the roof. As they always seemed to do. “You have a nasty one, where I hit your brow. And your lip.”

Cassian felt his hand go to his face, tracing the breaks of skin Jyn mentioned. “It’s fine,” he managed to say. He had forsaken his affected Imperial accent, the crisp accent Jyn spoke in now. “I think they thought it was from earlier, at the Cantina.”

Silence fell again. In the last hour of rush, of dealing with Agent Moro’s death and the base’s panic, of giving orders to the ship’s personnel, Jyn’s face had been weighing on Cassian’s mind as she stood helmeted at his side. He had been utterly wrong about her. He had been right, perhaps, that she had been sent to spy on him, on his ship, but her motivations made all the difference. They were on the same side. He hadn’t seen through her mask at all.

Then again, neither had she. But now, as Jyn watched him, her Captain with his cool, commanding voice that was never raised, with his perfect sniper scores and his late-night walks, it all made sense. He had been dedicated to his cover, had been perfect for it. Perhaps he had been too dedicated to it. He had pulled the trigger on Agent Moro to keep his cover intact, and Jyn would have done the same, but there was more than just the issue of Moro. There was the Ithorian stowaway, the rebels her Captain had killed in service to the Empire, the soldiers he sacrificed the way an Imperial would. There were the lives Cassian Andor had taken to maintain his mask.

And then there was hers. He hadn’t known they were on the same side at the time, of course, but he had turned his rifle on her. If she hadn’t been on his side, he would have killed her. She could have been Agent Moro.

She had almost smiled on the rooftop because, just for a moment, she had felt triumphant. For the first time in years, she hadn’t felt alone. Now she had come to her senses.

So when she spoke again, the edge to her voice had returned. “It was good, then, that I revealed myself in time. You’d have lost an ally. And you’d have gained another body.”

“I wouldn’t have—” For the first time, Jyn heard her Captain’s voice break, and he had raised it so suddenly that she felt herself step back. But he had faltered, and wasn’t looking at her when he continued. “I wouldn’t have shot you.”

“If you knew that I was a rebel.”

“I wouldn’t have shot you otherwise,” said Cassian, and it was his turn for his voice to be laced with steel. Turning away from her, from the main room of his cabin to his bedroom, he unbuttoned his collar with a sigh. “You. You caught my attention. I had thought you were an Imperial spy, sent to investigate my loyalty.”

This surprised Jyn, and she halfway followed him, her arms crossed. “And you promoted me? To your bodyguard?”

Cassian’s voice was short and rough. The day already had been long enough; General Draven would have to wait until tomorrow for his briefing. “I knew I could maintain my cover. I wanted to see through yours. And I could only do so if you were close.” Without turning around to look at her, he felt a question drop from his lips. “What did you suspect of me?”

Jyn shrugged. “I thought you were a cold-blooded Imperial. A well-connected cold-blooded Imperial, but no more than a chauffeur for the Empire’s rich and famous. Your ship was a prime position, though. I’ve been waiting to be able to spy on someone from Advanced Weapons Research, in particular, but you hadn’t given me the opportunity.”

Cassian was about the open his mouth in protest—he didn’t even know that’s what she was searching for, it wasn’t as if it was his fault for not providing her with intelligence—but Jyn went on. “I noticed something, though, when you remarked on my simulation scores. When I got the chance, I took a look at yours. You have a hundred and eighty-seven perfect sniper kills saved on the sims, you know. That didn’t seem like something an ordinary Imperial brat would learn from the Academy.”

There was a pause, and Cassian turned back around to face her. She had been watching him as closely as he had been watching her. “And then there were your midnight strolls,” she said softly, and her eyes were piercing. “I wondered what kept you up at night. The Empire doesn’t like self-doubt.”

At that, Cassian let out yet another sigh, and he passed Jyn to sit down heavily at his desk, his head in his hands. “Neither does the Rebellion.”

It took a moment for Jyn to realize what he meant, to realize that perhaps he wasn’t as cold about keeping his cover intact as she thought he was. And then there it was again—the pull at the center of Jyn’s chest, telling her to lean in closer to him. To fit his hand with hers, and even if she didn’t say it out loud, to tell him, somehow, that she understood. They both wore the same mask, after all.

Instead, she found herself against the wall opposite to him, like she had pulled herself away from orbit in the last moment. There was another long silence before Jyn found her voice again. “So, you’re a Fulcrum. For the Rebel Alliance.”

His head still in his hands, Cassian nodded. “I’ve been in deep cover for eight years. I plan to keep it that way.” Looking up at her from between his fingers, he remembered what she had said. “Saw Gerrera. The Partisans. They sent you?”

Jyn crossed her arms again at the mention of her old mentor. “I’m not a Partisan. I was, but not anymore. I came here at Saw’s request. It’s—it’s a personal matter of rebellion, really. I’ve never affiliated myself with the Rebel Alliance at large. Like I said before, I’m only here because of—”

“Your father.” Suddenly Cassian’s mind was racing, he had been stupid not to draw the connections. Jyn Erso. Sent by the Partisans, who had been rumored to have captured a pilot working on Advanced Weapons Research. A pilot who had brought word of a weapon that could win the Empire’s war in the blink of an eye. A weapon that could have only been designed by the Empire’s most celebrated engineer. Galen Erso. Cassian had seen images of the father before, and now the daughter stood before him.

His title was Fulcrum, the turning point of the Rebellion. But Jyn fit it better.

Before he knew what he was doing, he had stood and crossed the room, and he was face-to-face with Jyn Erso, a woman who was at the center of this turmoil, and whom he had somehow found at his side. “Jyn,” he whispered, his voice dropping of its own accord so that he hardly noticed it was the first time he was saying her name, “you’ve got to listen to me. We’re on the same side. We want the same thing. And I don’t think we have a choice but to work together.” Jyn opened her mouth, to protest more out of defiance than of disagreement, but he shook his head to stop her. “I think I know our next move, and I think you have the information we would need to take it. But we have to maintain our covers, as long as we want to stay alive here.”

“I don’t understand—”

“My superiors will have to know about you,” Cassian interrupted, and to that, Jyn looked suddenly grim and pushed him away from her.

“I don’t have anything to offer the Rebel Alliance,” she said shortly, her voice sharp once more. Her ghost of a smile on the rooftop seemed like a fading memory. “I’ll work with you for my father, but I’m not taking orders from the Rebel Alliance. I wasn’t taking orders from Saw Gerrera when I came here, either. Don’t count on me to take orders from you. Not unless I’m addressing you as my Captain and I’m wearing my helmet.”

Cassian felt his jaw tighten, but his voice remained as low and as level as always. “I’m not recruiting you, I’m only saying that I must inform my superiors about you and the information you might provide. I’ve got to remain transparent to them.”

“Oh, really?” retorted Jyn, whose voice wasn’t quite as capable of remaining level or low. She had come forward, so she stood nearly under Cassian’s chin, fixing his dark eyes with her stare. “And do they remain transparent with you, too? You’re flying as blind as I am.”

Now that they had dropped their masks, they could only glare at what they saw beneath. Jyn saw a link to a Rebellion she wanted no part of. Cassian saw a turning point upon which his life’s work rested. Under their covers, they both saw a fulcrum.

And then, the only other individual on the whole ship who could come and go into the Captain’s quarters as he pleased entered the room, and K-2SO’s voice forced the both of them awake with its dry disinterest. “If I’m interrupting something, then I really don’t care, it’s probably for the best.” Jyn and Cassian both took a simultaneous, rather panicked step away from one another, both turning on their heels to face the droid, who went on as if he hadn’t noticed a thing. “Captain, I have your evening briefs. Unfortunately for your bodyguard, they’re essential personnel only.”

Cassian glanced at Jyn from the corner of his eye, then gave K-2 a curt nod. “Understood, K-2SO. I’ll just be another moment with JS-3261. Once she leaves, we may begin the evening briefs.”

Even though Cassian had affected his Imperial accent once more, in a bid to prevent K-2 from yet knowing that his cover had been lost on JS-3261, the droid gave him a distinctly skeptical look from his static metal face. “Privacy granted, Captain.” The door slid shut once more, leaving them alone, and Jyn looked back at Cassian. Her jaw was tight.

“... your name,” she said, before Cassian could say anything else.

“What?”

“Your name. I told you mine on the rooftop. You didn’t tell me your name—your real name.”

Something he hadn’t even known was tense unclenched in Cassian’s chest. She had called him by his title before, but now she wanted his name. With a warmth in his voice that he hadn’t heard from himself in a long time, Cassian said softly, “it really is. Cassian Andor. Just Cassian, if you’d like.”

Whatever had loosened its grip on Cassian let Jyn go, too. The tension in her shoulders gave way, and she looked down at the floor before speaking again, away from Cassian’s eyes. “Just Jyn, then. If you’d like.”

As was becoming common between them, there was a long breath of silence. This silence, though, felt much more like a long exhale. Perhaps they’d both been holding their breath.

Finally, Cassian remembered Mothma and Draven, waiting for his recount of the day’s achievements, and K-2 at the door, waiting for his explanation of the day’s misadventures. “I’ll—I’ll explain, what you wanted to know. After I speak with K-2SO. It might be a while, so I’ll come to your quarters when I’m finished. Wait for me until then.”

Jyn’s eyes glinted back up at Cassian had his last words. She couldn’t help herself. “Is that an order, then, Captain?”

Even at the end of a very long day, Cassian felt the corners of his mouth twitch. “You’re not wearing your helmet. I don’t believe it counts.”

Just for a moment, Jyn’s almost smile returned. And then she was gone, and K-2 glanced back at her over his shoulder as they passed each other in the doorway.

The door slid shut, and Cassian braced himself for the droid’s sharp tongue. It didn’t disappoint him. “You two must have had a lovely date. Did you hold hands while shooting Agent Moro?”

Cassian let out a very long sigh. “Patch me into Yavin 4, Kay. You’ll get a full account then.”

“A full account? With all the juicy details? Goody .”

- || -

“That was very obviously not a full account.”

The holotransmission ended, and Cassian was attempting to ignore K-2 as he readied himself for his long-awaited bath. “That was all the relevant information. And it was a great deal of relevant information.”

K-2SO would have crossed his arms if it had been programmed into his body language; instead, he stood blocking Cassian’s way to the shower to make up for it. “And your cover being compromised wasn’t relevant information?”

“I took care of Agent Moro and I explained that to General Draven—”

“Who cares about Agent Moro’s dead bones I certainly don’t,” K-2 said dismissively. “You said that you were able to defeat JS-3261 on the rooftop before she saw your face. But that was just as obviously a lie. Do you know how high the odds were, just from your body language, that your cover had been compromised to Madam Bodyguard?”

Quite set on finally wiping away the dried blood on his face, Cassian turned around to deal with K-2, if only so that the droid wouldn’t bother him while he was in the shower. “She’s much more important to this mission than just a bodyguard, Kay.”

“Well, clearly, you seem to think she’s very pretty for a Stormtrooper. What, are you going to shave?”

“No—Kay.” Cassian’s head had been pounding throughout the whole transmission, and this wasn’t helping. “She’s not a Stormtrooper. She’s a rebel. She was sent by the Partisans, by Saw Gerrera, and Kay, I really believe she could be the center of this.”

“I mean, you do have a bias.”

“Kay—”

The droid interrupted him. “If she’s so relevant, then why are you keeping this information from Draven? He won’t be very happy at all if he finds out.”

Cassian felt his jaw working while he tried to word his answer. Finally, his shoulders sagged, and he looked at the wall of his quarters he shared with Jyn. On the other side, she was waiting for him. “Because,” he said finally, “I don’t know yet if she’ll cooperate. She’s invested in this case, not this cause. It’s personal for her.”

“Isn’t it personal for all of us? I’m personally being forced to be here.”

“I just—want to make sure she’s with me. She could be—this could be the turning point.” He caught himself too late, and K-2 made a small mechanical noise of interest when he heard she turn into this.

“Well,” the droid said, finally stepping back and allowing Cassian into his washroom, “if she’s so important, then you might as well give her another personal reason to be invested. As soon as possible, preferably. General Draven does not like being kept out of the loop.”

“Let them know how it feels.”

- || -

The ship’s hyperdrive thrummed a low, gentle heartbeat as Jyn stood in the shower of her refresher unit, and it kept the silence at bay. There was much too much from the day for her to mull over. And she would have to speak again with Cassian, before the night was through. Her Captain, her link to the Rebellion. He would try and recruit her, she knew.

No, there was too much to think about. She pushed the day’s chaos and the electric bruises on her torso and Cassian Andor’s face out of her mind, felt the cool rush of the water, and cleared her mind, like her mother had taught her to. She could pretend that the hum of the ship’s hyperdrive was the hum of the Force. It sang in time with the kyber crystal, lying with its cord on top of her nightclothes.

Jyn’s belief in the Force had never wavered, as some had, in the years after the Jedi. To a great many, it had become the stuff of foolish religion or far-off dream. But Jyn knew it was real, even if she didn’t quite feel it. She believed that much.

What she only sometimes believed in was the Force’s will—as if it had a will. If it was the will of the Force for the universe to be this mad, then Jyn wasn’t quite sure she trusted in it. The Force was there, she knew, but it wasn’t with her. She made no difference in this fight, this rebellion. The Force couldn’t be bothered to take notice.

After she dressed, in the simple black set of clothes the Empire issued them for under their armor, Jyn dried her hair, sat in the dark on her narrow bed, stood up, sat back down again, then stood up to pace. She kept the lights off all the while. Cassian had told her he might be a while, and she knew quite well that he was giving his superiors in the Rebel Alliance a detailed account of today’s events. A detailed account would include her. She had made it clear to him not to mention her, but she didn’t quite trust him to cooperate with her. He likely didn’t know if he could trust her with cooperation, either. And he would do his duty as Fulcrum, whether she liked it or not.

There was a knock on her door, and Jyn started in surprise before opening it. She didn’t have to ask who it was. As she was only a minor officer, the commanding Stormtroopers and every other officer on this ship could enter her personal quarters at will, without warning. The command often did. But she knew who to expect.

Cassian stood in her doorway, framed by the light of the hall, and there was a brief pause as they looked each other up and down before he stepped in.

He had never seen her out of her armor before, Cassian found himself thinking—she was even smaller without it. Her knuckles were bruised blue from where she had punched him on the rooftop, her hair was damp and down from its usual knot at the nape of her neck. The touch of steel hadn’t left her eye, though, not even now.

Then Cassian realized he had been standing there, staring, for what felt like much too long, and with a quick glance over his shoulder, he stepped into her room, letting the door slide shut with the light behind him. Jyn, on the other hand, kept staring. If Cassian had found it odd to see her out of her armor, it was almost baffling for Jyn to see him out of his uniform—in her mind, cold Captain Andor’s very skin was his uniform. Now, she realized that it was part of his cover, too. Unlike her, he didn’t wear Imperial nightclothes—high-ranking navy officers were granted more extensive off-duty wardrobes. But it still shocked her to see him in anything but his dress uniform grey. He stood before her in the dim, wearing a white shirt and soft trousers, as bare without the Imperial uniform in her eyes as if he had shed a snakeskin.

Still, Jyn managed to find her voice before Cassian did. “Did you tell them about me?”

Cassian took a long moment to answer. In the silence, he crossed the tiny room, his eyes adjusting to the dark—it was about the same size as his own refresher unit, and her unmade bed was half the size of his. It must be less cold that way, he thought absently, before noticing that her bed and his shared a wall. “.... no, I didn’t,” he said finally, not looking up at her.

Jyn blinked. “You didn’t?”

“No,” he said quietly. His arms hung at his sides. “We’re going to have to work together. To keep our covers. And I believe you’ll rebel on your own, without the Rebellion telling you to. So I didn’t tell them, for now.” His eyes flitted up to meet hers, briefly. “Thought you could tell them yourself, when the time comes.”

After a long moment, Jyn felt herself step forward, until they were a rifle’s length away from one another again. And she would have told him thank you, would have asked him to explain what he had mentioned before, about their next move, if not for the sound of someone’s hand accessing the switch to her door behind her, and the voice of one of the commanding troopers. “JS-3261, you left your blaster in the medbay—”

Before the trooper came in, before he found Captain Andor conversing and conspiring late in the evening with his bodyguard JS-3261, Jyn knew, as she always did when making split-second decisions, what to do.

Without another word, without looking him in the eye, Jyn closed the distance between herself and her Captain. If he was surprised, she wouldn’t have been able to tell. Before the door slid open, she pushed him onto her cold, unmade bed, took hold of her covers, and pinned him down, just as she had on the rooftop.

She’s so light, Cassian found himself thinking wildly. How was it that they had fought on a rooftop just hours ago, and how was it that she was so strong and so light? He had carried her back himself just hours before that—had she even been this light in his arms? How was she made of steel and iron but felt as light and ephemeral as stardust?

And there they lay when the trooper opened the door, together in the narrow bed, revealed by the light from the hall, to which the trooper promptly closed the door upon them and turned down the corridor without uttering a sound.

They stayed there, frozen, long after the door had closed and the trooper had disappeared to confirm the rumor of the Captain and his guard. There was only the sound of the the heartbeat of the ship’s engines, echoing the drums in their own chests. It was as if Cassian’s lungs had stopped working, while his heart still thudded on. He didn’t seem to be able to breathe. All he was aware of was Jyn’s hair, falling around her face above him, the steady hum of the ship in place of his breathing, and the warmth. Her warmth, under the cover of darkness.

And then, slowly, as if she didn’t quite want to rob him of her so quickly, Jyn sank down beside him on the bed to stare up unseeingly at the ceiling. “... Fulcrum. Our next move,” she whispered, still so close beside him. “You told me you were going to explain.”

Cassian remained silent. He stared up at the ceiling, too, and Jyn seemed to understand, because she didn’t ask him again. From tomorrow on, they would work as a team. They would both be the Fulcrum. When morning came, they would don their masks together.  

Chapter Text

When Galen and Lyra Erso arranged for Saw Gerrera to take guardianship of their daughter in event of their deaths, they had asked from him a safe, warm place for their child to sleep. What Jyn received was a thin bedroll in a Partisan base, where the explosions from above shook the walls at night.

The warmest, safest bed she ever had, Jyn found, was in her prison cell on Wobani, and it was there that she learned she’d rather not sleep at all than to sleep safe and locked away. This, surely, wasn’t what her parents had wanted for her, either.

And then she was on Yavin 4, in a cot in a room she had been sealed in by the rebels. Here she was not free, and here she was not safe, but as she was roused to conspire, to join a mission, to win back her freedom, she learned something else. Maybe it didn’t matter where she fell asleep. It was what she woke up to that made all the difference.

- || -

That night, as he did every night, Captain Cassian Andor awoke from sleep, stood from bed, and took a stroll out into the dim and the darkness of the halls of the ship. Only this time, he woke in a bed that was not cold and was not empty. He woke with Jyn Erso, tucked into his chest. Her arms had wound themselves around him in her sleep.

He had lain there, quite helpless, quite lost in the warm lightness of her and in the tangles of her hair against his throat. It hadn’t been his own treacherous mind that had awoken him this time. It had been her movement, her unconscious embrace. And if his mind hadn’t been so treacherous, if it hadn’t told him that this was the most dangerous place to be—not facing torture and interrogation, not before a firing squad for crimes against the Empire, but safe and warm in the arms of a woman who did not trust him—he would have stayed there. He would have buried his face in her hair and slept, for the first time in years, until morning.

But whatever his frustrated, dangerous feelings were towards his new fellow conspirator, he understood one thing: that he had yet to win her trust. And to let her embrace him like this, when he knew she was asleep and hadn’t meant to do so, would not win it.

And maybe he was afraid of himself, too. Maybe he was afraid that if he remained here, with her, sunken in the warmth of an imaginary affair, he would sink too deep. Perhaps he could still salvage himself. Perhaps he wasn’t too far gone yet.

So when he returned from his midnight stroll, it was not to Jyn’s little room (which, he reminded himself, was not soundproofed the same way his Captain’s quarters were). And when Jyn awoke the next morning from her dream of holding something close, so it would not leave her, she found her narrow bed cold. No, Andor’s leaving did not surprise her. And no, she didn’t wish he had stayed.

She was still quite good at lying to herself.

- || -

When Jyn entered his room that morning, already dressed in full armor, Cassian had only just slung his uniform jacket over his shoulders. He had to make an effort not to step back when he saw her in his doorway—whether she remembered holding him last night, he didn’t quite know, and he hoped that whether she remembered or not, she wouldn’t mention it. To his conscious relief and his unconscious disappointment, she didn’t. At least, not in the way he thought she would.

“They already think we’re sleeping together,” Jyn said, her tone noticeably indifferent as she removed her helmet to speak to him. “The crew. They thought so before yesterday, but I’m sure they really believe so now.”

It was true—the unfortunate commander who had quietly turned on his heel upon finding the Captain and his bodyguard in bed together had confided his tale to his bunkmate, whom he trusted wouldn’t repeat it to anyone else. That bunkmate had shared it with one of the gunners during morning conditioning, and the rumor had become fact before breakfast.

The rumors of the crewmen, though, had yet to reach Cassian’s ears. It took a moment of staring at Jyn in surprise before he was able to speak again. “How did you get in here?”

“K-2SO let me in.” Jyn glanced over her shoulder at the closed door, behind which the droid was certainly silently judging the both of them. “He was very fresh with me about whether or not we had a ‘good rest.’ I think there must be something wrong with his personality programming.”

“I agree,” Cassian muttered darkly, and when he realized he hadn’t done so, he quickly finished buttoning up his jacket, not quite noticing where Jyn’s eyes were lingering. “I forgot that your quarters don’t have the same security as mine. From now on, we meet here. No one below my rank can enter without permission, except for K-2, and the doors and walls are soundproofed for privacy. One of the benefits of being a senior officer.”

From the door behind Jyn came the beep of alert of a droid requesting entrance. Cassian knew it was a serving droid before it even announced itself—K-2, annoyingly enough, would never bother to request entrance. Glancing at Jyn, he was about to tell her to go into his dining room so the droid wouldn’t see her as it came in, but she already opened the door before he could. It rolled in with Cassian’s breakfast, much better, Jyn noted, than her own. As it left, she picked up a wedge of the starblossom fruit on Cassian’s tray and took a bite. “No one would raise an eyebrow to me being in here, now that they know,” she said, her tone still pointedly indifferent.

Cassian let out a flat, humorless laugh, and he took the other half of the starblossom from the tray. He knew that female troopers were often promoted by their male superior officers for often salacious purposes. It was a discreet practice so common it was almost accepted, or at least expected. No one would investigate anything if a young, attractive soldier was spending an undue amount of time in her superior’s quarters. It was an excellent cover for the two of them—whatever true relationship they had. They were fellow conspirators. That’s a long way from being friends.

“K-2SO is aware of your allegiance—well, rather your lack of allegiance,” he said, picking up the breakfast tray to set on his dining table. “Help yourself, I don’t eat much. The reason why something seems wrong with his programming is because I reprogrammed him. He’s the only other rebel on this ship.”

Jyn took up his offer without thanking him and started on his omelette. Even as a promoted trooper, she still ate the same grey mush of rations the other Stormtroopers were given. Amongst the many benefits of being a senior officer, receiving real food was the most enticing. “ You programmed him? No wonder there are a few wires loose.” For her own sake, and for perhaps that of Cassian’s, too, Jyn kept her tone careless. She kept her mind as far away as possible from her narrow bed last night, from the warm safety of her dream. The only reason she was as good of a rebel as she was was that she had nothing to lose. When she had nothing to hold on to, she could put her arms to use. “Are you going to explain to me your plans from last night?”

Cassian tore his eyes away from her across from him at his dining table, sharing his breakfast like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. Like they weren’t both spies waiting for a chance at sabotage. Instead, he glanced at the time. They had half an hour before he needed to be at the bridge. “Yesterday on Kefrene, I wasn’t out enjoying a drink while Agent Moro convened with smugglers. I was meeting with an informant.”

Looking up from her plate, Jyn frowned. “The drunkard.”

“Yes, Tivik was a mole I recruited myself, into Advanced Weapons Research. He had only rumors, but rumors were enough.”

There was a pause, and Jyn’s voice was slightly less indifferent when she spoke again. “Why did he run?”

Glancing back at her, Cassian saw the suspicion on her face and bit the inside of his cheek. “He’s been in hiding on Kefrene. He wouldn’t have been able to get out without being found out by the Empire. That’s why I arrested him—I would have been able to change his identification and get him sent safely to a prison as a drunken nobody. But, as you might remember, he panicked. I couldn’t let him run.”

From the corner of her eye, Jyn saw that Cassian’s jaw was tense. Before she could open her mouth to remark on “couldn’t let him run,” he had spoken again. “Where he got you, with his taser baton. Does it still hurt?”

This took Jyn aback, and her mouth hung open for a brief moment before she could make her response. “No,” she said finally, and she took a drink from his glass before continuing. “Not enough for you to worry about, considering I can still do my job. You saw that yesterday.” Then she folded her hands on the table’s surface and met Cassian’s eye. “You have to clean up a lot of loose ends, it seems. Moro I understand. Did you hear her laugh at that homeless Rodian begging on the street while we escorted her? I would have shot her myself. But the mole you recruited yourself, not so much.”

Cassian let out a long, low sigh. He knew this was coming. “He would have been dead otherwise— worse than dead. They would have tortured him for information on the Alliance. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“You could have found another way.” Jyn’s voice was iron again. She had seen victory at all costs many times before. The Partisans had been infamous for it. “You could have shot him in the foot, or chased after him.”

“I saw every contingency,” Cassian said defensively. Jyn was testing his ability to keep his voice even. “He attacked you. They would have shot him on sight for that, we’re all instructed to shoot on sight for that, including you. It would have been suspicious if I hadn’t. He would have been compromised. And I couldn’t let him be interrogated.”

Jyn’s eyes were hard. “And if I’m ever compromised. Would you shoot me as easily?”

It had been the right decision, Cassian thought, to have left her embrace last night. He may have gained a little ground with her by not revealing her to the Alliance, but she clearly was yet to trust him. Looking away from her, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Jyn Erso. You may not trust me—”

“Maybe not,” Jyn said suddenly, interrupting him, and Cassian looked back to see that the steel in her eyes had softened. As for why it had, Jyn wasn’t completely sure. She only knew that the frustration in his quiet voice had taken her off guard. And perhaps she shouldn’t be too hard on a man who was letting her eat this breakfast. “But it’s not necessarily your fault. I’ve never had much reason to trust anybody. That doesn’t mean I won’t be your ally, though.” The ghost of her smile had returned, just briefly. “Still, if all your recruits end up like Tivik, I’m glad you didn’t recruit me.”

That was the closest thing to a thanks Cassian knew he was going to receive, but he found himself almost smiling—almost—back at her. “You won’t be seeing the barrel of my rifle. I can give you my word for that.”

There was another long pause before Jyn spoke again. “Those rumors Tivik had. You’ve yet to explain why they’d be relevant to me.”

At that, Cassian remembered what they were here for, and he stood up from the table and cleared his throat. “I think. We’re looking for the same thing. You mentioned looking for your father. Tivik mentioned a weapon, something with more power than we’ve ever seen before. An Imperial pilot was rumored to have defected, to have brought a message—”

“To Saw Gerrera,” Jyn interrupted urgently, and now she was standing too, and she strode around the table to speak to him face-to-face. “This message—I’ve seen it. All of it. It’s why I came here. My father is the key to this; he designed it, he gave it a fatal flaw, he knows how to defeat it. We just need to find him.”

Cassian felt his heartbeat quicken in his chest. Jyn had already seen the message. Leaning in, he spoke as urgently as she did. “What flaw? Jyn, the Rebellion needs this pilot. Wouldn’t he know where your father is?”

At that Jyn’s face darkened. “Perhaps he would,” she muttered acidly, “if Saw hadn’t done what Saw always does. I tried to speak with him—the pilot. Completely out of his wits. Saw tortured him. With the help of a particularly ugly old friend. He couldn’t get out a single word.” But then she fixed her eyes on Cassian’s, her jaw set. “That’s why I’m here. If you have to ferry someone from Advanced Weapons Research across the galaxy, maybe we could get something from him. My father had a certain associate I’d like to meet again.”

Without registering that Jyn had said we , Cassian ran his head through officiants Jyn might be referring to, but then his mind strayed back to the pilot. “This message—it’s still in Saw Gerrera’s possession? And the pilot as well?”

Jyn frowned deeply. “You wouldn’t be able to get them! Saw doesn’t trust the Alliance anymore. The Rebellion would be wasting its time.”

From what Cassian was learning about his knew conspirator, her temper seemed to perpetually be bubbling just underneath the surface.“The Rebellion would need them to act. Considering they don’t even know you exist, they wouldn’t be willing to act on your word alone.”

“The Rebellion doesn’t seem to be acting at all!”

Always at the right moment, K-2SO entered without announcing himself. “Trouble in paradise, I see,” he said, and Jyn and Cassian jumped away from one another once more. Pretending not to notice, K-2 pointed at Cassian’s clock. “You’re due at the bridge in five minutes, Cassian. We’re landing at Coruscant to deliver Agent Moro. You would know that if you two weren’t so busy snogging over her dead body.”

“Which we were not ,” growled Jyn, but not before K-2 waved her away.

“The specifics are unnecessary. And I know the likelihood of Cassian making a move is astronomically low. But the Captain that was present will have to make a statement in the treasury. So I suggest you at least appear well-rested, Cassian, no matter how little sleep you actually got last night.”

“ Kay —”

“Five minutes,” K-2 said lightly, and before either Jyn or Cassian could yell at him any further, he had left the room. When Cassian looked back at Jyn, she already had her helmet back on.

“Awaiting orders, Captain,” she said, with her usual note of defiant cheek. “We’ll have to act later.”

- || -

When Cassian and Jyn entered the Imperial Treasury after leaving Moro’s body in the military base that guarded it, they were no longer fellow conspirators. They were Captain Andor and his bodyguard, accompanied by Andor’s lieutenant and Agent Moro’s failed personal guards, two Stormtroopers who kept their heads bowed in wait for a demotion. The Colonel who commanded the base at Kefrene had already contacted the Vice-Regent Accountant and told him of Moro’s death, but the witnesses and Andor would be required to give a statement to the Treasury himself.

This didn’t worry Cassian, not really. His cover was secure. He had lied to the Empire about everyone he had assassinated before. This was simply the last thread he had to cut. And this time, he had an ally by his side. An ally who may not trust him fully, not yet, but who trusted him enough to share his bed. At least when the situation called for it.

Together they entered the chamber of the Vice-Regent Accountant, ready to secure their covers and lie. And then the doors opened, and Jyn felt her blood run cold.

“Dead? Moro, dead? Well, that’s no good. She was so much more amiable to deal with than your other agents, Vice-Regent, and both Grand Moff Tarkin and I will be very irritated to have any more financial delays with the mining efforts on Jedha. No, no, we need to deal with this as soon as possible. I’m going to Jedha this evening. We wouldn’t want to give the rebels any more time to act, would we?”

Amongst the individuals seated in the Vice-Regent’s chamber awaiting his audience was a greying man cloaked and caped in white, with the voice of a small man convinced of his own greatness. As Captain Andor and his party entered, the man let out a sigh of derision. “Here you go, Vice-Regent, yet another messenger here to repeat your ill news.”

Krennic , Jyn thought, and from its cold her blood began to boil. Orson Krennic . She had spent fifteen years hating the memory of his face, and now, just like that, he had appeared before her. Perhaps the Force had a will after all. Whether or not she had the will to keep herself from pulling her batons from her back and smashing his face open, she didn’t know.

From his right, Cassian felt his partner tense—for what, he didn’t know, nor did he have time to ask her. Shooting her a surreptitious glance, he grabbed one of her hands behind his back and gave it a cautionary squeeze, a wordless warning.

Then, as the Vice-Regent’s secretary announced him, he stepped forward. At his look, even though she still trembled, Jyn’s fists had unclenched. No, killing Krennic now wouldn’t help her cause at all. Killing Krennic now would only put Cassian in danger. But if Cassian didn’t know what their next action would be, now Jyn did.

- || -

It was only back at the ship that Jyn spoke, back in the privacy of Cassian’s quarters. They were due at the bridge, Jyn knew, where Cassian would give the orders for the ship to orbit Coruscant on patrol, but she took his arm anyway and forced him down the corridor to his rooms.

From behind them, K-2SO was saying something to the vein of “am I not allowed into these intimate sessions of conspiracy?” but Cassian was too surprised to hear. As the door slid behind him, he turned around to grasp her shoulders, his voice tight with worry. “Are you alright? Jyn, what happened, why were you shaking—”     

Jyn still trembled, her anger still weighed heavy on her chest, but now she gave Cassian the shadow of a smile. Her hands fell upon his. “That was Orson Krennic,” she said, her voice quivering with anger and excitement. “Director of Advanced Weapons Research. Murderer of my mother and the man who took my father away.” Jyn’s shaking hands closed over Cassian’s, holding them tight. “You’re going to alert your Rebellion. They’re going to send an airstrike or a saboteur already on Coruscant, you probably already have one, I don’t care which. They’re going to destroy the hangar where Director Krennic’s personal transport is docked. He has a project in Jedha. And we’re going to take him there.”

Cassian opened his mouth, but before he could say a single word, agreeing or questioning or otherwise, Jyn’s rough voice interrupted him. “One more thing.” She hadn’t let go of his hands. “Stop me from killing him the next time I see him.”

Chapter Text

The first act of rebellion Cassian undertook was the throwing of a stone. He was six years old, and a Republic walker was his target. But that didn’t make him unique. Every act of the Rebellion, he would learn, seemed to be sabotage. Destruction of Imperial spacecraft, Imperial bases, Imperial weapons. He could hardly afford to question his cause, not when he lied for it every day, but sometimes he wondered if all rebellion could do was destroy. He wanted to create a new world, indeed, but destroying the old one — ship by ship, person by person — was all he seemed he could do.

He would come to understand, though, that the Rebellion had created something, after all. It had built a home. A home built off of destruction, but still a home.

- || -

Jyn’s scheme, at its heart, was simple. Destroy the personal cruiser of the man who had broken her family, destroy his plans on Jedha, destroy his projects and the prison he locked her father within, and destroy the man himself, if it was convenient. For the past fifteen years, she had been living her life without a plan, without a goal, with a mask of apathy drawn tight over her face. Her father’s message had hardened that mask into iron. But when Cassian Andor had her mask undone, underneath, he found a schemer. He found a saboteur. Like himself.

Yet as he stood there, staring into her scheming eyes and searching for something to say, he found holes in her plan. Since she became his bodyguard, since she revealed her identity, he’d understood something about her. Jyn Erso may be a schemer, but she was not a planner. She had been sent here to spy on the Empire for her father, but had not planned on how she would discover that information. When they had confronted the pirates on Naboo and she acted without command, had she been a moment slower, she would have been dead. She had put little thought into walking out onto that rooftop and engaging with him—had she not defeated him and told him who she was, she would have been dead. She was rash, unpredictable, and she didn’t think, she felt. Cassian had found his mirror and his opposite all at once.

She really would be a terrible Imperial soldier , he found himself thinking. But a rebel soldier, on the other hand ...

“Did I hear the mention of sabotage? Because I have plenty of things to say about that plan. The first is that I don’t have to take orders from her.”

The voice that came from the doorway as Jyn looked up at Cassian, her eyes alight, was skeptical enough to break them apart. K-2SO always seemed to know the exact time to interrupt a private conversation for maximum impact. I’m going to need to change his security access , Cassian thought, his hands falling to his sides, still tingling from the strength of Jyn’s grip. “‘Hear the mention’? When did you come in?”

If K-2 knew that he was interrupting something again, he either didn’t care, or it had been his intention all along. Knowing him, it was almost certainly the latter. “You didn’t give me orders to stay outside. I just followed you in. You two were too busy staring at one another to even notice me. I find that extremely concerning.”

If Cassian had glanced over to Jyn, he would have seen her cheeks turning scarlet. Unlike him, she wasn’t the most adept at preventing her emotions from showing through her face. About to say something biting in retaliation, Jyn opened her mouth, only for K-2 to barge on. “Whatever you two have been scheming, it’ll have to be left for later. You have an urgent confidential message from Admiral Piett waiting for you in the conference room. Confidential,” he added, turning towards Jyn, “means that any rogue parties are disallowed from knowing the content of its message. In case you didn’t know.”

“I know what confidential means,” Jyn all but growled, grabbing her helmet once more to accompany her Captain to the conference room, but Cassian took her by the shoulder to stop her before she did.

“Before I go, Jyn, your plan—” he began, quite aware of K-2SO pointedly watching the two of them. Still, he had a better poker face than Jyn did. It came with the territory of deep cover. Jyn had the advantage of being masked by a helmet. He did not. “Though I’m sure there is a rebel cell near Coruscant that would perform sabotage if directed by the Alliance, I can’t get contact out while we’re still on Coruscant. It’s the most heavily patrolled world in this sector.”

Jyn’s jaw was set, her narrowed eyes still flicking over to K-2. “I’m not letting Krennic slip through my fingers.”

“Did I mention that it was an urgent confidential message?” said K-2SO, almost bored, and Jyn shot him another acid look as Cassian debated. But by the time she looked back at him, Cassian was decided.

“You’re right. This is too big of a lead to follow.” Jyn’s eyes brightened again, but Cassian held up his hand. “But for this we must plan . We must carry out the sabotage ourselves.”

“What’s the use of having an entire Rebel Alliance if they force you to go rogue anyway?”

“We are not going rogue,” Cassian said, biting down on the inside of his cheek in thought. “Jyn, stay here while I take Admiral Piett’s communication.”

“But I’m your bodyguard,” protested Jyn, almost irritably, as if she was offended that she had to shirk her pretense of duty to her captain, but Cassian shook his head.

“If you want to spy on Krennic, we need a plan,” he said lowly. “Stay here and start thinking of one. I’ll be back after the transmission. Let’s go, K-2.”

As they left, Jyn distinctly heard K-2SO say “she’s going to search your quarters, if you leave her here, you know. It’s almost a one hundred percent probability.” Jyn shot the droid a dark look, but as soon as the door slid shut behind them, she could have grinned. Occasionally the droid’s calculations were accurate.

- || -

“An Officer’s Ball, sir?”

The hologram of Admiral Piett nodded curtly. “We didn’t extend the invitation to you, Andor, only because we assumed you would still be assigned with Agent Moro for the ball tonight. But as you, one of our senior captains, are now on Coruscant—though in somewhat unfortunate circumstances—you’d be welcome to join the Ball tonight in the Grand Ballroom at the Imperial Palace.”

I doubt there’s only one Grand Ballroom at the Imperial Palace , thought Cassian, knowing just how gargantuan the palace was. Imperial Officer’s Balls tended to be restricted to individual branches of Imperial forces; the navy held one every cycle that Cassian always had to drag himself to, for the sake of keeping up appearances. But this ball, it seemed, was restricted to senior officers of all branches. He would likely be one of the lowest-ranking officers there, despite the fact that he was a Captain of the Line and just a stone’s throw from promotion to a Commodore. No, any good, ambitious Imperial officer would jump at the chance to mingle obsequiously with higher-ups. He would have to attend.

Then he thought of Jyn, and her risky plan for sabotage. He didn’t want her to do anything dangerous alone—he couldn’t risk her being caught, of course, caught and then tortured into giving up information on him and his cover. That was certainly the only reason he didn’t want her to go alone.

On the other hand, maybe he could make this work for the both of them. “Do you, sir, by any chance know who of note will be attending?” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Apart from yourself.”

Though Piett made no acknowledgement of Cassian’s flattery, there was a note of self-importance in his voice as he answered. “Of note? Well, no one like the Lord Darth Vader, if that’s what you’re asking, Andor. High Admiral Markand will be in attendance, though, and the Vice-Regent Accountant, as is Surface Marshall Tureen. Oh, and we’re to expect Director Krennic of Weapons Research.”

That was exactly what Cassian had been hoping to hear. K-2SO’s head curiously turned at the sound of Krennic’s name. Keeping his face unreadable, Cassian nodded to the Admiral with a polite “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you there this afternoon, Admiral.” With that, the transmission ended, and he turned to look up at the droid, his face grim. “Jyn is right. Our next move should be on Krennic. I can establish a connection with him during the ball, and when his ship malfunctions, I can offer to take him to Jedha. From there we can coordinate with Rebel forces if need be to extract the pilot. Jyn may say he’s a lost cause, but I believe we need him. If Jyn can convince Saw Gerrera to hand over the pilot to us, then all the better. And, if possible, we can glean information from Krennic himself.”

There was a pause before the droid spoke, his voice almost bored. “I knew you were going to say that.”

Cassian blinked. “Say what?”

“ All of that. Your little plan in collaboration with Jyn Erso. I predicted it down to the step. You’re so predictable, Cassian,” K-2 added, with the closest thing to a sigh a droid could emulate.

“This has nothing to do with Jyn Erso, Kay—”

“You were the one who said she was central to this mission and to the development of this weapon.”

Freezing for a moment, Cassian recovered himself in time to shoot back, “Yes, to this mission. But she has nothing to do with the plan I formulated. She’s not a member of the Rebel Alliance. She’s a rogue agent. She has no bearing on the decisions I make for gathering intelligence.”

“That,” said K-2SO, “was one hundred percent a lie. You were holding hands .”

At that, Cassian could say nothing. He only mouthed wordlessly at the droid he had made too clever for his own good. Finally, pinching the bridge of his nose, Cassian muttered, “By your calculations. Is this a good plan.”

“Oh, that . I mean, of course it is. It’s the most productive possible route ahead of you. You have to go to the Officer’s Ball, and considering the intelligence you gathered on Kefrene, this weapon needs to be as well-understood as it can be for us to properly defend against it. If Jyn Erso can lead us to destroying it, then all the better.”

“Then why do you insist upon arguing with me over it? Over her?”

“Because you cannot become attached ,” said K-2SO, and suddenly, despite the lack of change in his monotone voice, he was deadly serious. “Cassian, you know your position. You know you work solitarily for a reason. And she is not your partner. She is a rogue agent. You cannot hinge your whole plan upon Jyn Erso, whose only motivation, as you’ve told me, is personal. You know that you cannot be personal.”

There was a silence as Cassian stared up at the unblinking metal face, half in shock, half in a swell of uncharacteristic defiance in his chest. And then Cassian sighed, turning away to the door of the conference chamber. “When we return to my quarters, begin an encrypted transcription to alert General Draven of current developments, one that will pass through the Coruscant patrol unnoticed. And then locate for me in which hangar Orson Krennic’s personal transport is located.”

“Understood,” said the droid, but Cassian held up his hand.

“One more thing. The sabotage will be carried out during the ball by a team of two. You, and Jyn. Is that understood as well?”

- || -

Jyn didn’t exactly pride herself upon being predictable, but as soon as the door slid closed, she didn’t hesitate to survey Cassian’s quarters for the most interesting thing to investigate. She had done the same in friendlier circumstances. Saw Gerrera, for one, hardly ever told her anything about himself. Most of what she knew of him came from rifling through his things. And she had always been clever enough to avoid being caught—which was lucky, considering what Jyn had seen Saw do to those who even accidentally found the picture of his sister Steela.

But in these rooms, Cassian’s rooms, as Jyn scanned the blank walls and empty shelves and the cold, neatly-made bed, there seemed to be nothing to find. Even as she pulled open all of Cassian’s drawers, checked under the bed, under the pillows, Jyn found nothing of note. The only thing on display on the shelves were Cassian’s captain’s hats. Perhaps that was standard of an Imperial captain, and perhaps it was necessary for a Rebel captain masquerading as an Imperial, but even in areas that no ordinary suspicious officer would think to search, there was nothing. Nothing displaying an image of a family or friends. Or a wife, for that matter. Neither Imperial Captain Andor’s wife nor Rebel Cassian Andor’s wife seemed to exist.

As Jyn attempted to pry the bedroom’s last floor panel up and failed, she realized that Cassian must have been even more perfect of a candidate for deep cover than she had thought. She already knew he was cold and single-minded, but this only proved he was also a blank slate. He had no personal effects, nothing that would make him stand out. He would be whatever he needed to be.

Straightening up slowly, Jyn noticed something odd about the blanket on Cassian’s bed. As she examined it again, she noticed a small electronic dial sewn into its corner. It’s an electric blanket , she realized, and she almost laughed to herself as she tucked the dial away. He must get cold. But he was warm enough in my bed .

Catching the thought in her mind even before it was fully formed, Jyn felt her cheeks going red. Immediately she stopped searching and strode back to Cassian’s dining table to sit down. Whether Cassian Andor was warm or cold didn’t matter. What mattered was if he helped her get her father back.

Fifteen minutes later, she stood up with a jolt as Cassian and K-2SO returned, the latter making a mechanical noise that Jyn could only identify as grumbling. “What’s got his wires in a twist?”

“His new assignment,” Cassian said grimly, and he indicated the droid forward to stand before Jyn. “I am expected this afternoon at an Officer’s Ball here on Coruscant. There I will introduce myself to Director Krennic. Meanwhile, K-2SO is assigned to sabotage Krennic’s transport. With you, Jyn.”

Jyn looked up at the droid, who might as well have been rolling his eyes. All things considered, this was likely the best option. If they wanted to sabotage Krennic’s craft without raising eyebrows, they would need to make it look like it was malfunctioning on its own. She would need more extensive knowledge of Imperial ships for that, knowledge which would be preloaded on an Imperial security droid. And the droid might be prickly, but she had dealt with worse. She might end up sabotaging him if he made one more remark about her sleeping with the Captain, but that might be enjoyable. “That could work.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” complained K-2, but at a look from Cassian, he sighed, then projected a map to the hangar where Krennic’s transport was stationed. “Well, then, Jyn Erso, I suppose all we can do is wish Cassian a splendid time at the ball. He never likes them. Women come talk to him and that makes him scared.”

- || -

“Is Cassian really at a ball?”

Jyn and K-2SO had quietly made their way through Coruscant transportation and into Krennic’s hangar, where K-2 had more than happily taken down one of his fellow security droids to transfer its security clearance into the facility into himself. Once there, blending into the technicians working in the hangar, Jyn set off its fire alarm, so all the technicians would evacuate. They left Krennic’s craft unattended for what K-2 estimated would be ten minutes until someone noticed that the fire was imaginary.

Now, Jyn lay under the belly of the transport, using her passing flight technician knowledge to burn through the wires and pipes K-2 indicated to her. Her question, though, was met only with a sigh. “We don’t have to talk. In fact, I’d rather we don’t talk at all. The fire alarm is loud enough as it is.”

“Well fine —”

But K-2 rambled on. Over the past few weeks as Cassian’s bodyguard, Jyn had noticed something odd about his security droid. As tall and imposing as the droid was, he always seemed to talk like a bored, sarcastic child who was too clever for his parents to want to deal with. A child who blurted out whatever was on his mind. “But of course he’s at a ball. He wouldn’t lie to you. He’s ecstatic about you. And he’d much rather be working with you to sabotage this rather than me. He’d probably rather be at the ball with you too.”

Jyn set down her Harris wrench with a clatter. “No, you were right. We should be quiet. In fact, please shut up.”

K-2SO waved his metal hand at her as if swatting a fly and ignored her. “You should know that I am watching you, Jyn Erso. And analyzing your every move. And researching your past. How many times were you arrested by the Empire?”

“You know, I’m supposed to be sabotaging this ship. You’re making it a little difficult to concentrate.”

“I only wish to say,” the droid said, bending low to gaze at Jyn’s handiwork, “that your intentions and the intentions of the Rebellion coincide. But they are not the same. Ah, good, you actually disabled it correctly.”

Indignant, Jyn slid out from under the ship and stood to face the droid, her eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, it shouldn’t fly now. And considering the horrifyingly low intelligence capacity of the average Imperial technician, the repair will take them time.”

“Not that. My intentions .”

“Your intentions? I meant what I said, obviously .” As if their conversation was over, K-2SO turned around to face the hangar’s exit, but before they left the ship, the droid paused. “It’s only, Jyn Erso,” he said, mild and monotone under the constant wail of the alarm, “for now, you are on our side. For convenience’s sake, and for silly Cassian’s, I do hope your talents at sabotage are never turned on us. For now, we work together. Cassian said I had to.”

Chapter Text

Stars are beautiful. Moons as well. The pale rings of Lah'mu and its long, green horizon. The crystal Jyn wore hidden around her neck. A warm meal, and not one made from a ration pack. Planets that were lush and not barren. The smooth, comforting weight of a weapon in her hand. The rush of adrenaline from taking a chance, and the explosion of victory from that chance succeeding.

Jyn still believed that some things in the world were beautiful. But lies are beautiful. Masks, too. The truth was always ugly. Cassian was the first truth that was not.

- || -

The turrets of the Imperial Palace rose, mountainous, over the edge of the Coruscant skyline, and in its shadow hummed the long reception for the distinguished Imperial officers free to loosen their collars for a single evening. They were led in a glowing, gossiping procession, flanked by white rows of Stormtroopers, their armor pristine for the occasion. Ambitions were to be pursued, after all.

It was a small ball, in comparison to the spectacles held on Empire Day, when the invitation was extended to every form of dignitary and despot that had at least some stake in the Empire. Agent Moro had famously brought a Devaronian smuggler prince on her arm on Empire Day the year before. But officer's balls were intimate, internal affairs. Only high-ranking Imperial officers who were free to be on Coruscant at the date of the ball would receive the invitation. It was an opportunity for lower officers to brag and suggest drinks and to establish advantageous contacts, and an opportunity for higher officers to consider which of their inferiors would be the easiest tools to use. They would leave their dress uniforms behind for something new (yet they were still to wear the colors of their branch and wore the insignia of their rank) and the night was theirs to enjoy. The arriving officers in their black, white, and grey were a crowd of shifting monochrome under the Coruscant lights.

Cassian was to wear his Imperial Navy grey, and he was to keep his eye to the crowd for a paper-white cape.

"It doesn't suit you," said a dry voice from his doorway, and Cassian turned around to see Jyn setting down her helmet on his shelf as K-2SO followed her in. "Your getup. You look like you're wearing a costume."

Frowning, Cassian glanced at his reflection in the mirror of his closet. His evening dress was really quite like his usual uniform—a structured jacket with the same shade of grey, buttoned to the neck, crisp pants and black boots. The only major difference was a black cravat at his neck and the coattails on his jacket, just a touch of something more formal for such a night. "I'm always wearing a costume," he muttered stiffly, tugging on his high collar.

"This particular costume makes you look scrawny," added K-2 from behind Jyn. "Maybe that's what Cassian is trying to do. He doesn't like to talk to women."

Cassian could only bear so much. "Kay, out."

"Why only me? I'm useful, I was going to debrief you on our sabotage. And she started it!" the droid protested, but as always, he complied, leaving grumbles in his wake. The door slid shut, and Jyn and Cassian were alone again.

"He's right," Jyn said after a moment's silence. There was a touch of amusement in her voice. Something about Cassian's attempt at formal dress, with his overly fussy version of his usual uniform, gave Jyn the impression that he was nothing more than a child playing dress-up. He could play the part of a cold commander convincingly, but as a fancy partygoer, he looked overwhelmingly uncomfortable. "It makes you look like you're fourteen years old. Even if you haven't shaved."

Cassian let out a sigh, and seeming to recognize defeat, he began to undo his collar. "You and Kay seem to be getting along."

"We agreed that you looked silly. We weren't getting along."

"You two completed a sabotage mission in record time, and I assume without incident, since you thought criticizing my dress was more important than a debrief."

Jyn frowned, her arms crossing of their own accord over her chest as she watched him struggle out of his silly cravat. "It was my plan in the first place. I don't need to debrief you." And then, after a moment, she added, "Why can't you wear an open jacket?"

Rifling through his closet of grey, Cassian paused. "What do you mean?"

Jyn shrugged, glancing away from him. "The Empire always has you. Zipped up. Shouldn't an officer's social allow you to be open?"

There was a brief silence, and then Cassian let out what was almost a laugh. He took a new set of clothing from the closet, then turned around to face Jyn. "Does this suit you?"

He held it up, and Jyn furrowed her brow as she tried to make out the differences in the jacket from his last one. They were all the same flat grey. For all she knew, he could have held up a ballgown in that Imperial Navy grey and she wouldn't have been able to tell. "You would have to wear it. How is one supposed to tell otherwise?"

If someone were to tell him a week ago that he was to be discussing his wardrobe with JS-3261—he might have believed them. She was cheeky even before he knew what was under her mask. "As you wish," said Cassian, and before he began unbuttoning his shirt, he cleared his throat. After an instant of confusion (perhaps the first time Cassian had ever seen Jyn look confused), Jyn understood, and she turned her back towards him.

"I shan't peek," she said, a little too casually, but as the words left her mouth, she felt, for the first time, quite out of place. Here she stood in her Captain's quarters, waiting for him to change. There was no real pretense to her presence there. They weren't discussing the sabotage, or Orson Krennic, or the plans for the Death Star. It was almost as if they were having an ordinary conversation. And it was her own fault, really. She had lured herself into a facade of confidence with someone she barely knew. Someone who was her mirror, who wore the same mask, someone she had made bleed and someone who had been her bedfellow. But they were fellow conspirators. She was not here to be his friend. Not that she really knew how to be one.

Resolving herself to put on her helmet and to leave him, Cassian cleared his throat again, and Jyn looked up. Instead of his glove-tight formal ensemble, he wore his a jacket open, and his hat had been discarded. It was something he might have worn when in the Rebellion, only in Imperial colors. Despite the same flat shade of grey, this was no longer a costume. He had shed another skin. "Now will you pass judgment?" he said, and he found himself nervous.

Jyn opened her mouth, then closed it again. He had come to her door without his uniform, but this was somehow different. Her eyes travelled up from the rank insignia to the collar he had buttoned to the top, up to the face of the man who had worn the mask of her Captain. It was a thin face, with tired eyes and a nose that had once been broken. And it was a hand hair worn slicked back in Imperial fashion. It didn't exactly suit him. He was too young for it. Or too worn. Or too gentle.

Gentle? Jyn thought, suddenly aware of her own strange train of thought. She had seen this man kill. She had been on the other end of his rifle just a day ago. He had been nothing but her cruel Captain for weeks before that. Even here, as he stood before a mirror and opened himself to her criticism, as if they were old friends, how could she think he was gentle?

Gentle or not, it still didn't suit him.

Moving forward, Jyn frowned at Cassian, and he felt himself shrinking back, anticipating disdain or indifference or something he shouldn't have concerned himself over. She was too close. He had had to pry her from him the night before, and to leave her warmth had hurt.

And then she raised her hands, raised them to his face, and unbuttoned the top of his collar. Cassian felt the held breath leaving his body in a low hiss. "There," she said, and her hands lingered at his collar for just a moment too long. Then it was her turn to clear her throat and jump back. "Suits you better. And don't slick back your hair. You'd look less. Cold."

With that, Jyn took a few steps backward, lifting her helmet from the shelf. "K-2 says that the problem won't be identified for several days, and won't be repaired for longer. But. If Krennic wants to leave immediately, then you don't have that time. You'll need to take the chance tonight. We'll go back to Jedha. You'll get what you want. And so will I."

Then she put on her helmet and left the room, and Cassian heard her addressing K-2 with a "move, you're blocking the doorway" as she went.

Slowly feeling his breathing return to normal, Cassian turned back to his mirror, and his hand went to the spot on his collar where Jyn's fingers had lingered. Then he frowned. And then he rumpled his hair. He knew he had no business caring about what she thought. Ever since he took on this mask, he had no business caring about anything. But he did anyway.

- || -

From the monochrome mass of the black-and-white crowd strode a slim, dark woman with piercing eyes, blue and hawkish and searching. She wore naval slate grey, from the hem of her perfectly-pressed trousers to the comb that held her severe knot in place. On her chest shone the insignia of a captain—a rank that had taken her two minutes to lose and two years to win back. But won it she had. A rebel ship had destroyed her light cruiser, so now she ripped apart their fleets wherever she was sent. She had learned from her misguided confidence and had earned her title back with cold experience.

She had lost none of her ambition, though. Not even humiliation could strip her of that. Female Imperial captains were already few and far between, and fewer still were captains who looked like her. She had had to make many aquaintences and to know all the right people to get where she was. Her eyes ran through the crowd, through pale face after pale face. She had received word that an old academy underclassman was here, a man who captained one of the Empire's jewels and commanded its escort. A man whose position should have been hers.

Easily, she found him, though his was a face that was easily lost in a crowd. He was speaking to a small, black-armored soldier with batons on her back before directing her to remain on watch with the other bodyguards, lining the walls of the immense ballroom. Cassian Andor, speaking directly to an inferior officer, thought Brunson, letting the crowd part around her as she made her way towards the blank-faced man. Some things never change.

"How long has it been since you condescended to join one of our infernal social events, Andor?"

Cassian froze, then turned slowly around to face Captain Jessa Brunson, his former superior, disgrace to the Imperial Command Academy and yet still a woman he hoped never to have to run into again. But he didn't have to run. She was coming for him anyway. "It's an honor, never a condescension, Brunson." His voice was brusque and Imperial, and if he felt the eyes of the black-armored soldier on the back of his head as she retreated into the ranks of the bodyguards, he didn't show it.

Jessa Brunson matched Cassian's height, and she circled around him, noting his rank insignia with interest. "You always liked the niceties," she said, and she stopped before him to touch a long-nailed finger to the plaque on his chest. Cassian felt his chest tighten as he leaned away from her. "That's your position now, isn't it? To play nice with every dignitary the Empire wishes to send from place to place? There's a similar position opening up in another sector. I don't think I'd need to say that I have my eye on it."

The black-armored soldier was watching this exchange take place from behind a group of governors making idle conersation, and she caught her captain's eye just as he leaned away. Her hands were ready to grasp her batons. But with the smallest shake of his head, her fists relaxed, and she resolved instead to see if K-2SO had been right about her captain's fear of women. But before she could see the end of it, a flutter of white in the corner of her vision made her turn round, and when Cassian looked back again, his bodyguard was gone. She had vanished into the rows of Stormtroopers to follow the tail of a snow-white cape. K-2 was right about one thing, at least. Why does she have to be so unpredictable?

"Lothcat got your tongue?" said Brunson icily, clearly not appreciative of him leaving her hanging, and Cassian's vision snapped back onto her.

"You know well enough my position, Brunson," he said quietly, keeping his voice level. "I beat you for it." It had never been difficult for him to converse easily with his male counterparts and superiors in Imperial social functions—he never brought too much of himself to a conversation, and gave other men room to speak. It made him popular and likable and easy to have a drink with. But Imperial women were different. They already had to work hard enough for their ranks. They refused to do all the work in a conversation. A man wouldn't hesitate to let you know of his genius; a woman would wait to see if you would recognize hers. Agent Moro had been like this—which was why Cassian was grateful he had kept his interaction with her to a minimum. But at the first Officer's Ball Cassian attended in years, for the acquaintence of Orson Krennic, Jessa Brunson had sought him out for prey. And unlike Moro, he wouldn't have the opportunity to take up his sniper rifle against Brunson. He would have to be careful.

Brunson scoffed. "You may be my superior now, but I remember when you were still a clean-shaven cadet all too eager for graduation. We're old friends."

Old friends. That's a lie, Cassian was about to say, almost incredulously, but there was something in the way the corners of Brunson's mouth quivered that gave him pause. Eight years ago, he had spent nine months in the Academy under Brunson's junior command, and it was there that he had learned how to wear a mask and how to see through those of others. Brunson had seldom masked her own ambition then. She had let her confidence show, and it served her well. She was promoted quickly. But since she had been disgraced, she must have had to learn to temper herself. He knew her ambition still remained underneath, and the lie of old friends told him exactly what she wanted. Now that he was her superior, she wanted his favor in the future. Jessa Brunson wove a web of favors from superior officers, and she was distinctive enough to be remembered by each one. Now it was Cassian's turn. Though Brunson's motivations didn't involve a secret allegiance to a hidden rebellion, they both played the same Imperial game.

About to brush Brunson's unspoken request for favor away, Cassian spotted a pair of distinctive, iron-wrought hazel eyes peering out from a black helmet through the crowd. He had found Jyn Erso again, but she was not looking towards him. Instead, he followed the line of her sight, all the way to a pallid face with narrowed eyes, speaking in low tones to other officers uniformed in white. Their target had arrived. Glancing back at Jessa Brunson, ambitious and obsequious and connected, Cassian realized that she had sought him out for his help, and as did everything in the Empire, help can only be received at a cost.

His plan forming as he tore his eyes away from Jyn, he weighed his options. Brunson was a clever woman. If he asked her if she could introduce him to Director Krennic, she might become suspicious of his intentions. He didn't even know for sure Brunson would be on speaking terms with Director Krennic. But considering Brunson's ambition, her web of favors she had used to claw back up from her fall, there was a definite chance. And unlike Agent Moro had been, Brunson was not interested in the affairs of others. She was solely focused on herself. She would sell him out in a moment if she thought it would help her, yes, but she would likely think nothing of another officer wishing to make a superior's acquaintence.

And, Cassian thought darkly, he had to act quickly. Jyn had made him promise to prevent her from killing Orson Krennic. She was too far away from him now for him to do so.

A split-second later, Cassian's eyes returned to match Jessa Brunson's. His plan was fully formed. He wouldn't even need to lie. "Captain Brunson," he said politely, pointedly. "Would you do your old friend a favor? Would you be able to introduce me to Director Orson Krennic? I would be very much in your debt."

- || -

Being Cassian Andor's bodyguard had almost stopped feeling like a lie. It was almost second nature to Jyn now, to watch him. Her eyes followed him through the crowd as the tall, dark woman met him, circled him, touched her finger to his chest. It was only at Cassian's silent assurance did Jyn's fists unclench.

In fact, Jyn had seen other eyes in the crowd upon her captain tonight, too—eyes that slid over his somehow unremarkable, somehow handsome face, to the insignia on his chest, down the shirt Jyn had buttoned up herself before they had arrived there. Eyes that remained and lingered on him, but did not watch him. Not in the way Jyn did.

She wondered, at first, why so many eyes seemed to fall on him. Cassian did not carry himself in a way that drew attention. He was distinct enough, intruiging enough to be remembered, but not to be desired. What was it that they were looking at? Maybe it was because he was dressed so differently from everyone else, though it was only his open jacket and his rumpled that set him apart. He looked more like himself, though, Jyn thought. More like the man who kept an electric blanket. Who had stood in the doorway of her room, hours after she had unmasked him on a rooftop. Who had been warm in her bed, surprised etched on his face, his hair damp from a bath and askew on her pillow. He had almost been beautiful then. She was the only one who had seen that—who had seen beneath his mask.

Still, Jyn thought vaguely, as the rest of the crowds blurred together and Cassian's face remained illuminated from the lights overhead, it suits him. The man they see isn't half bad.

"… ridiculous, really, ridiculous. An undignified delay. And these damned technicians can't even find the issue. What does one have to do to find qualified engineers? Ah, well, at least I might drown my sorrows tonight."

The voice was careless and callous and rough, and Jyn knew it much too well, though she had only heard it say a few words. It pulled her gaze away from the crowd, away from her captain, towards the sight of the corner of a cape. Wherever Cassian was, she didn't know. She turned to follow the man who had taken her family away—why, she didn't know. Whether it was in the foolish hope that she could overhear mention of her father in two minutes of Orson Krennic's random conversation, or with the urge to pull her blaster from her belt and point it between his eyes, Jyn left her guard to move through the ranks of the Stormtroopers as to keep the white cape in sight.

And then a moment later, Cassian came back into Jyn's line of sight, accompanied by the woman who had been circling him with hungry eyes. The woman stopped before Orson Krennic, said a few words Jyn could not read on her lips, and then moved aside so Cassian could speak. For the briefest moment, Cassian's eyes caught Jyn's again. There was no need for Jyn to kill Orson Krennic today.

- || -

"I thank you for that introduction, Brunson," Cassian murmured at the edge of the crowd, watching Orson Krennic and his escorts move away. By the time he had confirmed his services to Krennic for the next day, the crowd of officers had thinned, leaving him and Brunson almost to themselves. To Cassian's silent relief, however, the presence of the troopers guarding the ballroom prevented any sort of intimacy. And Jyn was there, of course, at the corner of his eye. She was just within reach. "I am in your debt. When our superiors come to me asking for recommendations for a similar post, trust that I'll keep you in mind."

There was a pause in which Brunson finished her drink. Then setting her glass aside, she folded her arms and gave Cassian a long, unreadable look. "Debt is a dangerous thing, Andor," she said, almost carelessly. "You could repay me here and now, if you'd like."

Cassian froze. The look on Brunson's face had suddenly become readable. She inclined her head towards one of the ballroom's huge, ornate doors. "This palace is huge, isn't it? And beautiful. What do you say we take a look around?"

In panic, Cassian's eyes darted to Jyn's, just fifteen feet away at her post. Her eyes were steely again, but they were not looking at him. They stared daggers into Jessa Brunson, who was staring at Cassian in a very different way. The air was frozen solid.

And then, unexpectedly, Brunson laughed, and the ice between them crumbled away. "Oh, don't look so terrified, Andor. You really do need to grow up. I'll be expecting that favor, but you don't have to panic over it. And neither does your little lover," she added, following Cassian's line of sight to where JS-3261 stood. "Though I have to warn you, sleeping with your bodyguard does nothing for your rank. Do enjoy the rest of the ball."

- || -

Jyn hadn't waited for Cassian to leave his refresher unit before she entered his chambers. While she had cleaned up in her own, Cassian had drafted his report with K-2SO to be sent out to the Rebellion once they were off Coruscant and a signal could be established, and Cassian had yet been unable to tell her about his conversation with Krennic. So she waited, jiggling her foot in inexplicable nerves, as she sat on his bed and watched the door to his refresher. When he finally emerged, half-dressed, he started in surprise to see her there, but he said nothing. He only went to retrieve a shirt from one of his drawers, quite silent, and then sat down heavily on the other side of the bed. "We'll be hosting Krennic on his next trip to Jedha," he finally said quietly, pulling the shirt over his head.

"I figured as much." Jyn pulled her eyes away from Cassian's bare back and refocused them on a ceiling tile above them. His bed was softer than hers, though not warmer. It had been a very long time since Jyn had the luxury of a soft bed. This was her cover. She may as well enjoy it. "You managed it easily enough."

Cassian grimmaced, and he switched off the lights before he lay down beside her. "With the help of an old friend."

There was a silence before Jyn spoke again. To Cassian's surprise, there was a note of uncertainty in Jyn's voice he had never heard before. "Was it a. Close friendship."

"No, not at all," Cassian found himself saying immediately. He had almost sat up again, as if Jyn's question had been urgent. "She was my mentor in the Academy. She considers herself perceptive, as you. Might have noticed. But she never suspected a thing from me. And she. Clearly bought your cover. It. Suits you."

Jyn let out a strange, rueful laugh laugh. The ball had been a masquerade, and their masks had given way to six inches between them on Cassian's bed. "Beautiful lies are the easiest to believe."

No sooner had the words left Jyn's mouth did she realize how strange they were. The Captain and his bodyguard, lovers. A beautiful lie for a pair of strange bedfellows. Her words dissolved into the darkness above them, and it was not until they were both asleep that Jyn pulled Cassian close.

Chapter Text

When the end came, they barely knew each other at all. None of them did, except those who had come aboard the ship together. They were all strangers. The Captain and the rogue, partners to the last, sharing their final breaths, were strangers.

But they had been a family, all of them. Each disparate part had come together. For once in her life, Jyn hadn’t been alone. Cassian was by her side.

If they had the time, they certainly wouldn’t have wasted it .

- || -

There had been a little girl from Fest whom Cassian had rescued during the riots—her parents were traders, and they had left her at home on the unfortunate day that their city had burned to the ground. It had been Cassian's last visit to his home planet before he went to the Academy, and she the last civilian he had swept away to safety. Her name was Sousa, and her eyes were a glittering pitch.

"What is it like?" asked Sousa excitedly, bobbing up and down behind him as Cassian strode through the corridors of the hangars at Yavin 4. She was much too unruffled by the destruction of her hometown, in Cassian's opinion, but perhaps that was because she was a child. A real child, not like he had been. Her parents were coming for her. They were already on their way. "Being a rebel . Fighting against the Empire!" She made pistols with her fingers and shot imaginary Stormtroopers at the end of the hall, smirking as she holstered her weapons.

"What is it like?" repeated Cassian vaguely, his eyes raking through a crowd that gathered at the entrance of the hangar for a suitable droid to repair his shuttle. "Well—it is interesting."

Sousa made a disgusted face. " Interesting ? Is that all?"

Cassian paused for a moment, letting Sousa continue to traipse around him, battling invisible soldiers as she went. He had always been a good liar, but lying to a child would leave a bad taste in his mouth. He had been lied to much too much when he was a child to want to want to do it to someone else. So he chose his words carefully. "Rebellion is dangerous," he said, very truthfully. "Exciting, yes, but dangerous. You are always a little mouse against a gigantic cat. You have to learn how to run and hide before you can fight, and before you can fight you have to learn how to plan."

Sousa stopped her make-believe and stood in front of him, her arms crossed. She was only maybe a little over six—his age, when he had been forced into the war. He was only eighteen, but those twelve years at war had made him much older. Perhaps Sousa could tell. "Rebellion doesn't sound very fun."

"It isn't always," Cassian admitted, and he crouched down before her very seriously. "Rebellion is contradictory. Your heart will never beat faster than when you fear it may stop. You believe in the cause because it is the only thing left to believe in. You save some people, and you hurt others, hoping that you can save some more by hurting them. You are building, building by destroying, building something you might never see."

"Building what?"

Cassian shrugged. "A future. A home."

At that Sousa glanced around them, and then looked back at Cassian, her little brow raised. "You have a home. This is your home."

That made Cassian smile, just a little at the corners of his mouth. "Yes, it is. But it can be a lonely home. You never know when people stay, or when people leave. Only that you have to leave eventually. You are leaving when your parents get here. I can never stay either. I am very bad at making friends. It is home not because it is a place, but because everyone believes in the same thing you do."

"What do they believe in?"

Cassian rocked back and forth on his knees, watching the light that still shone from Sousa's eyes. She had seen her own home burn, and yet they continued to shine. "Hope," he said softly. "We believe in hope."

After a long moment, her little face tight in a puzzled frown, Sousa broke into a smile. "How many people have you shot?"

His face turned to stone, and Cassian stood rigidly, taking Sousa by the shoulder. "Come on. You will wait in the mess hall for your parents."

An hour later, a hulking, frantic man and a woman with glittering eyes swept into the mess hall, and their daughter shot happily out at them like a cannonball, squealing in the reunion. Cassian watched them from the corridor as they went, Sousa waving goodbye to him as they passed through. Sousa's father clutched his wife to his chest as his wife held their daughter. He entertained, just briefly, the thought of having that, too—of retiring a hero of the Rebellion, with a family that had stuck with him through thick and thin. Of letting himself love someone, and of letting his family grow.

And then Sousa's last question echoed in his mind—how many people has Cassian Andor shot? Already, at eighteen, it was too many. Maybe that was why his little dream was impossible.

Maybe that was why, when he woke up again after his second night of sharing a bed with Jyn Erso, she was gone. He had been clutching at air, and she had left only the ghost of her warmth on his sheets.

With a long, strained sigh, Cassian stood, found his shoes and his jacket, and then slipped out into the darkness of the corridor of his ship. Every step he took made an empty thud on the panels below him. He couldn't afford to think about her, or about the dream he used to have, or about the little girl he had saved when he was eighteen and who had condemned him to remember the lives he had taken when he lived his. Sousa reminded him, though he knew she never meant to, that he didn't deserve someone who stayed the night in his bed. He didn't deserve the hard-worn angel's face tucked into his hair, or her arms holding him close, or even her words and her gaze and her friendship. He deserved nothing more than the Rebellion he loved and lived, and that was all. And his rebellion was not Jyn's rebellion. Jyn deserved better.

Cassian made his way to his favorite window and stopped. There was a figure framed in the light of the city outside, standing there like she had been when he still did not know her name. She turned, and he felt his heart shudder against his ribs.

"I was waiting for you," Jyn said bluntly, leaning one shoulder against the window. Her arms were crossed, her chignon had fallen to the base of her neck. "If someone wanted to kill you, they'd just wait here. You're too predictable." How many people had he assassinated with a similar observation in mind?

Struggling for words, Cassian looked out the window too, touching a hand to the glass. "You didn't sleep well?"

Jyn shook her head. "I woke up thinking about someone I wanted to kill."

At that, Cassian's eyes skirted around them. Taking a step closer, he took her hand warningly. "We can't speak freely out here," he whispered. "Anyone might hear us. And there are cameras."

Almost surprised, Jyn looked down at Cassian's hand in hers, and she pulled it up higher to examine it. Scars crossed his palm, she could feel them. The middle phalanx of his trigger finger was hard and calloused. They were strong hands, stronger than one might expect with Cassian's narrow frame, but they were not heavy. They lay lightly over Jyn's. "They would see nothing unusual in this. And we can speak softly."

Cassian exhaled another sigh, but he nodded, and turned his face to the view of Coruscant through the window. "You were thinking about Krennic."

Jyn let their hands fall between them, but she did not let go. She turned to the window and absently ran a thumb over Cassian's knuckles. "I was. He is, quite simply, filth."

"You said he killed your mother."

"He did," said Jyn simply, without offering any explanation. Cassian silently acquiesced. He didn't need to know anything about her, and she didn't need to know anything about him. Only that they were on the same side. But then she added, "and he took my father away. We can follow him to my father."

There was another long pause. "Jyn," Cassian murmured hesitantly, "your father may not know exactly how to destroy the Death Star. He may be its lead engineer, but he might not know its exact plans." In his mind, Cassian already knew what General Draven might ask him to do, if they did find Galen Erso. Jyn's word of Galen's true allegiance would not be enough. Galen Erso was a liability.

Jyn did not answer. Her hand fell from his instead, and she crossed her arms and gazed out the window. Then, finally, she spoke. "My father is my priority. Whatever the Rebellion's is, as long as our priorities align, I'll help you."

"I know—that's why I'm taking Orson Krennic. You're on our side, Jyn."

"But are you on mine?"

"Yes," said Cassian, before he could stop himself. His voice was a little louder than it should have been, but in the moment, he didn't notice. "Yes, I am."

After an age of silence, Jyn spoke again. "Do you have any family?"

The question caught Cassian off guard. "… I don't.

"Isn't your Rebellion like some sort of family?"

"It's my home. It's what I go back to. But I know what I have to do. I can't afford any family."

Jyn nodded from beside him. "It makes it easier. Not to have them." And then, she added, "or so we tell ourselves."

Cassian looked over at her, surprised. "What do you mean?

Her eyes still fixed on the window, Jyn shrugged. "What's better? Having nothing else to lose, or having someone to die for?"

It took a long moment for Cassian to answer. "If I had the choice. I'd want someone to die for."

Through the window, the lights of the city sped by. Of Coruscant and its million people, its endless towers, Cassian wondered how many families slept soundly out there tonight. And then Jyn took his hand again. "Come back to bed."

They passed a trooper on guard as they returned to Cassian's quarters, and it was a small mercy that the trooper passed them by without indicating he had seen them. Cassian half expected Jyn to return to her room, but she didn't. She stroke ahead of him into his, and pulled her bare feet out of her boots to slip under the covers. Cassian followed her, almost mechanically, as if he was trying to get used to the notion of following her into bed by distancing himself from the action. And then her hand brushed his underneath the sheets, and the illusion was lost.

As they lay there, again in the darkness, Cassian's breathing slowed, but his pulse did not. He wondered if Jyn was as much of a stranger as he was to sharing a bed with someone—which she was. Then Jyn spoke. "Cassian?"

"Yes?"

"When we arrive at Jedha," she said slowly, from the other side of the bed, "you wanted to retrieve the pilot who had delivered the message. I'm warning you. He's nonresponsive."

"The Alliance will want him. For proof, at least."

"Yes, but—we'll be dealing with Saw Gerrera."

"I am aware."

"No, you aren't." For a moment, her voice was dangerous. "We've got to be careful with him. Let me handle him. He raised me, but he isn't family. We aren't his friends. We're his weapons." Jyn blocked out the fact that Saw Gerrera had freed her from Wobani, even if it was to ask her on a mission just after.

Silence fell, and Cassian was acutely aware of Jyn's hand, tense and warm beside his. "I trust you."

- || -

"Not bad, not bad," Orson Krennic said drolly as Captain Andor led him through the halls of his ship, Krennic not even bothering to feign interest. "Though the engineers of your light cruiser must take the adjective 'luxury' very loosely. My quarters, Captain Andor?"

"Down this way, Director Krennic," said Cassian quickly, indicating a long, windowed passage to their best guest quarters, airy rooms behind double doors. "Our droids are ready to fulfill your smallest request. I'm sure you will find it to your satisfaction."

If Jyn didn't have to spend all her energy keeping her temper under check, she would have been amused. She had come to understand in the weeks that she had been here that her Captain's job was as much obsequious host as it was naval commander. And Cassian wore his mask well, certainly, but she had begun to notice how false his Imperial accent seemed, now that his usual Fest accent was so known to her. His Imperial accent was too manufactured, too learned. He dropped his Rs too often. And his affected accent was too harsh. His natural voice was almost gentle.

But, of course, she didn't have time to think of that. She had to concentrate on not killing Orson Krennic. She had spent fourteen years replaying her last memory of him in her mind, and she had been tempted to make him a monster, a bogeyman who ripped her mother's heart out and carried her father away. But if Saw Gerrera had taught her anything, he had taught her that no one was immortal. And the Orson Krennic that strode before her—unimpressed, irritable, complaining about tardiness and the music from the ball last night (which was apparently too noisy and chosen in poor taste)—was no bogeyman. He was a small, loudmouthed piece of filth who wore a cape to make himself feel important, and she would take pleasure in ruining him.

But she couldn't ruin him quite yet. She had a cover to maintain. And Cassian's cover to protect. His eyes met hers when Krennic first boarded their ship, as if he was reminding her to save murdering Krennic for another day, but she remained as silent and as obedient as any trooper as Krennic's cape trailed through the halls. Krennic would bring her to Jedha. He would bring Cassian to the defected pilot. He would bring her a step closer to her father.

Accompanying Krennic upon the ship was his personal protection squad, nine black-armored death troopers looming head and shoulders above Krennic and the Captain, and they dwarfed Jyn as they marched by. It was the death troopers, perhaps, more than Krennic himself, that made Jyn's skin crawl. She hadn't seen them since Lah'mu, except from the corner of her eye at the ball last night. Captain Andor had not played host to an officer with a rank high enough to deserve them. And these were Krennic's death troopers. One of them might have been the soldier who had shot her mother.

"Are these your guards, Andor?" Krennic had said, scoffing at K-2SO and Jyn standing at attention behind Cassian as the death troopers went by. "Now, I'm not saying you need these fellows, but couldn't they even get that one proper armor?" He gestured at Jyn, still in her flight technician armor. From underneath his cap, Cassian's eyes flashed towards Jyn, and their gazes met. She felt her hands twitch for her batons. "Then again, I don't even know if we make armor that small."

Cassian had then said something about not needing a full personal guard, about a security droid and a technician Stormtrooper being just enough, but Jyn had been too busy concentrating on keeping her temper under control to hear him. K-2 had nudged her arm with a metal elbow when they began to follow Cassian down the hall, as if he was checking to make sure she hadn't gone catatonic.

And just like that, after the TIE fighters had been loaded and Captain Andor had made the order to his command of escort ships, they were off, humming through hyperspace with Orson Krennic aboard, a mere wing away from Jyn's quarters. If she wanted to, she only had to wait outside his door to put his life to a painful end. And she certainly wanted to. He deserved it. But she could take her time. For her father's sake.

Maybe for Cassian's sake, too.

“We have one week,” Cassian told them grimly as they stood around the table in his quarters, the vibrations of hyperspace making the holograms K-2SO was projecting before them quiver. Jyn was frowning in concentration as she drew a crude map of the Partisan base for Cassian to pore over. “One week. That’s five days until repairs on Krennic’s shuttle are completed and we’ll be sent on another assignment.”

“Don’t go blaming me for our compressed time span,” said K-2SO boredly. “ She was the one who did the sabotaging.”

“I’m blaming no one. I’m simply stating how it is. And how it is is that we have ten days.” Cassian pinched the bridge of his nose as he looked away from Jyn’s map. “I’ve informed the Alliance where we are, but we acted without express order, so they’ll be watching me to see what I get from this. I still haven’t mentioned you, Jyn,” he added, a hint of weariness in his voice.

Jyn looked up, a crease between her brows. “I didn’t expect you to. I trusted you not to.”

There was a brief silence, and if he could have, K-2 would have rolled his eyes. Then Cassian cleared his throat and went on. “Five days. In those five days, I would like to bring the pilot into Imperial custody—our custody. K-2SO, I’d like you to wipe his files to prevent identification. He’ll be sent into a labor camp, from which the Alliance can rescue him. From there they can test if he really is nonresponsive. Jyn, I’ll leave Saw Gerrera to you.”

“Smart thinking,” Jyn muttered.

“I will be tailing Orson Krennic, for information pertaining to the engineers currently working on the Death Star. If we are fortunate, we may trace a shipment of kyber off of Jedha to a particularly active research site.”

“There could be thousands of those,” K-2 interrupted. “In fact, there are thousands of those. Two thousand and thirty-two, to be exact.”

Cassian sighed. “Then we’ll do our research. Jyn, just focus on the pilot. I’ll focus on your father.”

“We seem to have switched priorities,” Jyn said, finishing off her map and looking up at Cassian. “I have the pilot, you have my father.”

“You told me to let you handle Saw Gerrera.”

“I know. As long as you handle Krennic.” Then Jyn grinned, just a little, a ghost of the smile at the edges of her mouth. “Saw would have you shot on sight in that uniform.”

“What a lovely family you have, Jyn Erso,” came K-2’s voice, as bored as ever. “Cassian, it seems that you’ll have some very interesting in-laws.”

- || -

“I envy you, Andor.”

“Director?”

Orson Krennic glanced over at Captain Andor from the other side of the elevator, a sort of lazy disinterest on his face. “Your position. You must have seen much of the galaxy, zipping to and fro, meeting a governor one day and his lovely daughters the next, et cetera, et cetera. Why, just today you’ll be meeting senior Advanced Weapons Research officers, the admiral of the stationed Star Destroyer, and the Mayor of Jedha City. And I’m sure you see quite a lot of action, too. What an adventure.”

Cassian blinked, unsure where Krennic was leading. “Occasionally, Director. For the safety of my passengers.”

Krennic shrugged. His ring of death troopers stood still as statues around him as the elevator continued upward. “It’s because you don’t have a child, Andor.”

“A child, director?”

“A child,” Krennic repeated, and his eyes seemed to grow misty. “My child. My weapons. My projects . Now they tie me down. They’re mine to command. They wouldn’t exist without me. I’ve dedicated my whole life to them. And—oh well. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Cassian was silent, and in his mind, he made a note to tell Jyn that the piece of filth she hated might not be worthy for her to kill. He was too mad to be bothered with.

“Where’s your guard, Andor?” said Krennic suddenly, pointing vaguely in the air at the opposite wall of the elevator.

“My guard, Director?” Cassian turned around and indicated K-2SO, standing tall and imposing beside him. “My guard is present.”

“No, no, the other one, the little one.”

Cassian felt the lie come easily to his lips. “Running diagnostics on the ship, sir. I thought that with your protection squad, there’d be no need.”

“No need, hmm? The streets of Jedha are trickier than you might think, Andor. No respect for those of us in uniform, none at all. They do like to blow themselves up. And those religious zealots still pollute the streets. You might want that little trooper of yours by your side outside the base here, Andor, for more reasons than one. After all, I know your secret. I saw through her mask.”

His breath froze into a icy shard in the back of his throat. From somewhere behind him, the soft, constant buzz of electricity of K-2SO’s body stopped. Before Cassian could reply, the elevator doors opened, and Krennic and his ring of bodyguards strode out into the conference room. Five uniformed men sat around a table—three in the same white Krennic wore, one in Imperial Navy grey with the insignia of an admiral, one in stiff khaki and a turban. A serving droid was pouring them drinks. As Krennic strode in, the men rose to greet him, and he introduced Captain Andor to the circle of men. Cassian greeted them mechanically in return. But he could pay no attention to their titles. He could only hear Krennic’s words— I saw through her mask . Had Krennic recognized her without seeing her face? Had her eyes reminded him of her father’s?  

“I was just telling Andor how I’d discerned his secret,” Krennic was saying, and Cassian snapped back to attention, his heart beating in his throat. If Jyn’s cover had been broken, she would have to escape. She would have to leave before they came for her. Or he would have to kill her, like he had killed so many, to keep his cover intact. Sousa’s voice rang in his ears. How many people have you shot?

“Director, I—”

“Oh come now, Andor. It’s obvious. I saw the looks you two were sharing. And your Lieutenant is quite a gossip. I would recommend demoting him. Andor has a special relationship with his pretty little bodyguard. I’m sure she’s pretty, isn’t she, Andor? Underneath that mask.”

The circle of men hooted with laughter at the revelation. “I know what that’s like!” “Show us a picture, show us a picture, boy. Droid! Show us a picture.”

Unable to deny the command, K-2SO projected the file images of JS-3261 without her helmet onto the table, and a holographic Jyn revolved slowly on its center. Her eyes were hard. If they looked like Galen Erso’s eyes, Krennic didn’t notice. “She’s just a little thing, isn’t she?” “Where did you find her, Andor? Slavers cut you a deal?” “Bet she’s even prettier without all that armor."

The frozen shard at the back of Cassian’s throat fell away as he felt his jaw go taught. His hands shook a their sides, and his heartbeat thumped so violently in his chest, it would have been painful, if his lungs hadn’t been quaking on every exhale. Every muscle in his body tensed, and Cassian was suddenly very aware of how much blood was in the bodies of each and every one of the laughing men before him. But his mask needed to remain intact. And for once, he didn’t even really need to lie. She was little more than a stranger to him, but every lie contains some undeniable truth.

“Yes,” he said. His mouth barely opened; his jaw was too tight. The word had difficulty leaving him. “Yes, she is.”