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Cassian's little craft sat in orbit, waiting for clearance to land on Sesis Minor. They were taking forever because there was a pouring storm on the surface, right over the spaceport he was due at in -
He glanced at the chrono on the dashboard.
Ten minutes ago.
Not that he could mention that to port authority. "Yes, I need an emergency landing because I'm a Rebel picking up an intelligence agent who's been embedded for a month." He was supposed to be a gig pilot picking up a paid transport.
He didn't know who the agent was, of course. His clearance for this mission was low. He'd headed out from the Kelodab system with only the agent's location and their destination, the base on Dalloosis. Plus a set of passcodes for ID. If all went well, he wouldn't even see their face.
If all didn't go well . . . he'd handle that as it came up.
It was odd being on this end of things. Anonymous pickups like this were usually doled out to baby intelligence agents, getting their first taste of keeping their mouth shut and their eyes open. Cassian had been working in data analysis for months. This was his third foray back into the field. He'd done a dead drop circuit of the Primtara sector last month, and dropped an agent into enemy territory in the Inner Rim two weeks ago.
His stamina and health were slowly returning after the hammering both had taken from his injuries on Scarif. But he had the feeling he'd never again do the kind of missions he'd done before, with nothing more than an objective and no backup except for Kay.
Kay.
He had to take a breath and hold it for a moment, until the heavy pain in his heart ebbed.
It was good to move away from what he'd been doing before Scarif, he knew. It had been important, but it had also been draining him dry, making him question why he was doing any of it.
Until Jyn . . .
He cut that thought off too.
It had been a good change. But still, he felt as alone as he had at the very beginning of the Rebellion, before Kay had joined him.
This was important work, he reminded himself. Just because he wasn't doing the riskiest missions anymore, the most high-level recons, it didn't mean he wasn't still a Rebel.
If you couldn't run, you walked. If you couldn't walk, you crawled. And if you couldn't crawl, you found someone to carry you.
Who've you got to carry you, Cassian Andor?
He remembered a small, sturdy shoulder under his arm, sand gritting under their feet, the way she tried to turn him away from the twisted bodies on the beach . . .
He shook his head hard. There'd been plenty of times someone had carried him. Now he was doing the carrying.
He was two hours late for the pickup by the time he got his landing codes. The storm had supposedly eased up, but as he bounced and rattled his way through the clouds and then the pouring rain, he doubted it. He had to circle the landing bay twice before he could see it well enough to feel comfortable setting down. Once he was down, he sent his pickup the signal and settled in to wait.
They had a ninety-minute window to respond. Beyond that, port authority would get nosy about the tiny ship waiting for a passenger. He could only hope that his pickup hadn't had to go to ground after waiting for so long.
Seventy-eight minutes into the window, as Cassian toggled the warmer to melt the freezing rain off the sides again, his pickup sent the return signal. When he leaned over to read it, his belly went cold.
It was the version of the passcode that basically translated to get me the hell out of here, someone's on my tail and I'm running for my life.
His hands darted out to fire up the engines again. He didn't bother requesting takeoff clearance. If someone was on his pickup's tail, port authority would have instructions to stall anyone trying to leave.
Six minutes later, a small figure swathed in a long, dark coat darted through the door of the landing pad, slapped it shut behind them, then staggered across the tarmac and up the ramp. The door of the landing pad began to glow red near the lock.
"In," barked a voice through the comms. It rattled as if their teeth were chattering. "G-g-go. F-f-fucking g-g-o."
It was a human voice, femme, with a Core accent like - never mind that, Cassian told himself. Not your clearance.
The ramp was already up and he was firing the engines, pulling the lever back to lift off the landing pad. A light began flashing urgently on his dashboard, port authority trying to hail him. He ignored it, focusing on the other sensors that showed him what to avoid.
He shot a look down and saw a cluster of stormtroopers just outside the landing pad, their armor gleaming white in the dimness as they swung their blasters up toward the craft's underbelly, trying to shoot them out of the air. The bolts zipped past the windshield, but nothing hit before they were beyond range.
It had gotten darker and the rain heavier, and the turbulence rattled the craft like a pea in a can. He took a moment to hope his pickup had belted themselves in. They dove up through the low cloud ceiling. Another light began to flash wildly. Lightning arced, lighting up the heavy clouds around them, killing his night vision. He dimmed the windshield and focused on his sensors.
After another very wild ten minutes, the cloud thinned and the stars appeared. Nothing followed them through the atmosphere, and the moment he could, he jumped to lightspeed. He let out his breath and relaxed back against his seat.
Then he flicked the comms and called out, "We're clear."
No response. They probably already knew that, since the flight had leveled out to the calm stillness of hyperspace.
He added, "There's a galley with food and a cabin with a bunk, a first aid kit, and a fresher. Use what you need. I'll be up here."
Still nothing. He shrugged, leaving the comm line open, and sent a brief transmission ahead to the base. Pickup complete, on our way, ETA 5 hours.
Now as long as his pickup could attend to themselves, his job was to sit quietly in the cockpit for all that time, to keep things anonymous.
He'd just pulled out his datapad to start writing his report when he heard something thump hard over the comm.
He frowned. "Agent," he said. "Agent. Respond?"
A low groan, almost too quiet for the comms to pick up. He unbelted himself and climbed out of the cockpit.
There were puddles and rivulets of rainwater all over the deck. One of the seats was soaked, so clearly the agent had belted themselves in for departure. A huge puddle below the seat narrowed to a trail that led back toward the craft's one tiny cabin, then ended in another puddle, slowly gathering around a dark, wet heap lying half-in and half-out of the door.
He cursed, reached down, and shook their shoulder. "Hey. Hey. Can you hear me?"
They groaned and rolled toward him, and he was staring into the dripping, bedraggled, pale face of Jyn Erso.
For a split second - which was at least a split second longer than he'd ever allowed shock to get him before - he gaped at her.
The last time he'd seen her had been on Yavin. Although did it really count? Her face had been one of a mess of fleeting impressions while he swung through consciousness in the first painful, drugged-up, confusing days in medbay.
Before that, he remembered her smiling at him on the beach, as he forced words past the pain that had taken over his body, telling her that her father would have been proud -
She groaned again and he snapped into action. "Jyn," he said, slapping her cheeks. Kriff, her skin was like ice under his fingers. "Jyn. Stay with me."
Her eyes drifted open, but didn't focus. "Wha - " They slid closed again.
She wasn't shivering. Her skin was cold and her lips blue, but she wasn't shivering, and her pulse was as slow as syrup under his fingers. Oh, this was bad.
She'd gotten on the ship under her own power, he recalled. Limping a little, maybe. If she had internal injuries, he was just going to have to risk it. Above all, she needed to get dry and then warm.
He fumbled at the catches of her jacket. Just as he'd thought, it was soaked through. He managed to peel her out of it, as gently as possible, but it still felt like manhandling a dripping, lifesize doll whose head lolled on his shoulder.
He dropped the jacket to the deck with a splat and reached down for her boots. He had to cut the wet laces with the vibroblade from his pocket to get them off, and peel the socks away to reveal her icy white feet. Her ankle sheath was so soaked he had to cut that off, too, as carefully as possible so as not to nick her skin.
He hesitated for a moment, but she still wasn't shivering. He pulled her shirt - also soaked - off over her head. Unbuckled her blaster belt and dropped it to the deck, undid her pants and pushed them down her legs. She made confused noises, so she was conscious, but the fact that she didn't so much as try to slap at him worried him more.
The process of removing her shirt had snapped the hairband that held her usual bun in place, and her hair fell in dark ribbons, sticking wetly to her skin. Against it, her face looked even more ice-white.
There was what looked like a blaster burn on her left thigh. He hesitated over it, but it wasn't actively bleeding, and the dousing she'd taken might have actually helped to halt some of the burn damage. Small mercies. He could tend to that after he'd gotten her warm again.
"Jyn," he said in her ear. "Jyn?"
"Nngghh," she muttered.
A ship this size didn't run to water showers, or for that matter, towels. All they had was a sonic panel in the tiny 'fresher. The sonic's evaporative process would drink more heat from her skin, but only for a short time, and then she would be dry all over and he could wrap her up warmly with all the layers he could find.
Body heat, an old first-aid training reminded him. Skin to skin. He shrugged out of his jacket and peeled his shirt off, throwing both at the bunk for the moment.
She wasn't in any shape to help him get her up. He was going to have to carry her. He paused for a moment to properly position his back, hips, and knees, hearing the voice of his physical therapist in his ears. Then he slid his arms under Jyn's body and scooped her up. She rolled against him, small and soft and clammy cold.
It was only a few steps, the cabin running to the same tiny proportions as the rest of the ship. He managed to snag the one thin blanket off the bunk on the way.
He didn't want to lay her down in the fresher; the sonic panel was higher up the wall and there wasn't enough room anyway. He tightened his grip around her back and crouched to set her feet on the floor.
She wilted against him.
Cursing, holding her up with one arm, he shut the 'fresher door and turned on the sonic panel. The faint buzz over his skin told him it was working. He waited just until her back was dry to the touch. Then he folded her against himself, pulling the blanket over her shoulders. Her chilly face settled in the curve of his neck. She mumbled something against his throat and burrowed .
He tightened his arms around her and then just stood there, holding her, willing his body heat to soak into her core, willing the sonic to dry out her hair, willing her warm again.
He'd left her unders on, reasoning that the sonic would dry the thin fabric along with the rest of her and she might feel slightly less embarrassed and violated when she could understand what he'd done. He tested the strap running over her shoulder and found it dry.
As his touch, she jerked, and then began to shiver violently. His stomach unknotted. He lowered his mouth to her ear. "Jyn? Hey. Are you with me?"
She blinked and this time, focused. Her mouth opened, then shut. Her lips weren't as blue anymore. "Oh, g-g-g-great," she said through chattering teeth. "Like th-thi-this d-d-d-d-day wasn't b-bad en-no-no-nough. N-no-now I'm ha-ha-llucinat-t-t-ing."
He got more concerned. "Jyn, tell me who you think I am."
"C-c-cass - "
He relaxed and managed a smile. "No hallucination. It's me."
"Y-you?" She goggled up at him.
"I'm your ride."
She looked around hazily. "W-where are w-w-we?"
"'Fresher on the ship. We're in hyperspace. I had to get you out of your wet clothes and warmed up."
She muttered something that might have been, "Careful what you wish for." But her teeth were chattering so hard that it was hard to tell. She leaned into him again, and he tightened his arms around her, feeling her shivers rattle his bones.
"How's your leg? Looks like you took a blaster bolt."
"Hurts l-like hell," she said.
"Anything else?" he asked, and she shook her head against his shoulder, her hair snagging on his stubble.
He left the sonic on, even as his skin started to feel dried out and tight, until her hair was dry to the touch. Then he lifted a hand to switch it off.
She was still shivering against him, though less violently. He said, "Do you have anything dry to change into?"
"Had t-to leave it," she mumbled. "Ev-ev-everything. 'Cept the package."
"Okay. Come on," he said, and helped her into the cabin and onto the bunk.
She folded herself up under the blanket. He layered the sheet, his shirt, and his jacket over her and dialed up the temperature in the cabin.
She was still shivering. That was good, he told himself. Her body was working to warm itself again. "I'm going to get you something warm to drink. Stay right there."
When he came back with several pouches from the galley, she was trying to climb out of the bunk again, eyes fixed on the soggy clothes he was stepping over.
"Hey," he said, not entirely surprised. "Stop that."
She shot him a look. "No."
He met her gaze and, with one finger, pushed her back on the bunk. She scowled, and the effect of the scowl was undercut by the set of shivers that wracked her again.
He shook one of the pouches and felt it go warm in his hands. "Hot chocolate," he said, handing it over. "What were you going for?"
"My j-ja-jacket."
"It's soaked."
She gave him a very sardonic look. "S-something in m-my jacket."
He scooped it up and held it out, far enough not to drip on the bunk but close enough for her to reach.
She dug around in an interior pocket, pulled out something that she could hold in her fist, and maintained eye contact as she shoved it into the blanket still wrapped around her and, presumably, into her bra.
"If you're trying to goad me into asking what that was," he said, "you know better. Drink your hot chocolate. Slowly."
He took her clothes into the 'fresher, wrung them out over the sink, then hung them up and spread them out as best he could before switching on the sonic. When he went back in the cabin, she was hunched on the bunk, pressing the hot chocolate to her chest, and taking slurps every now and then.
"Good?"
"No, it's t-terrible, but it's warm. " She nodded at the other pouch he'd brought. "Tell me th-that's Corellian rum."
Her teeth had mostly stopped chattering, he noted. Good. That was good. "Soup," he said, passing her the second heated pouch. "No alcohol until you can feel your feet again."
"I can f-feel my feet," she claimed, but tucked the pouch into her lap. "They're c-cold."
He smiled as he popped open a cabinet and found the first-aid kit. Those pouches were awful, it was true. But they were portable and heated fast. "Let's see to that leg."
She fumbled the blanket aside to expose the blaster burn on her thigh. He cleaned it and applied bacta and a bandage as she finished the hot chocolate and started on the soup. It was a nasty burn, but as he'd thought, the damage was lighter than usual for an injury like this. "Better?"
"Some." She was still rattled by an attack of shivers every now and then. When he used the basic scanner from the first aid kit on her, the temp reading was low but not critical.
He considered for a moment, then sat on the bunk next to her. It felt different to do this when she was conscious and aware. "I'm not trying to - anything," he said. "But body heat is pretty efficient."
Without hesitation, she scooted up next to him, burrowing her cold feet under his thigh, tucking her shoulder under his arm. He put his arm around her, and tugged the blanket up.
For a moment they were both quiet. Then she said, "I'm going right to medical, aren't I?"
"Probably," he said, feeling her icy toes under his thigh. It was like sitting on an icicle.
She sighed, shifted, and rooted around for a moment. Then he felt her press the thing from her jacket into his palm. "Here. Get this to Major Krosh. She's waiting for it."
It was small and square, like a datachip in a protective case. He pushed it deep into his pocket without looking. "All right."
She curled against him again. He rested his head back against the bulkhead and smoothed the wild tangle of her hair, reminding himself that he had to get up in twenty minutes to switch hyperlanes.
The minute they landed on the Dalloosis base, Jyn was indeed hustled to medical. When she wasn't getting treatments to the blaster burn or tested for lingering damage from her tangle with hypothermia, she had a lot of time to lie under piles of blankets and think about what had happened.
Her last really clear memory of Sesis Minor was staggering through the rain and the wind, focusing on landing pad Esk-56, trying to avoid the troopers on her tail, trying to keep track of the time, trying to remember what she was supposed to do if she missed her pickup. Cold, so cold.
Her memory got patchy there. Flickers, flashes of stumbling up the ramp, belting herself in, feeling the craft lurch and bump its way through the storm and beyond the atmosphere.
But without the adrenaline of the chase burning through her, it was like the cold and the wet had crawled into her core and settled there, freezing her from the inside out. Then the next thing she knew she was stripped down to her skin with Cassian Andor's arms around her, his body solid and warm against hers.
Of all people.
After the battle at Yavin, he'd been evacuated aboard medical transport, while she'd been stuck there another day. She'd asked about him constantly, but kept being told that wasn't her business. As the evacuation had scattered the Rebellion across the stars, the answer had changed to, we don't have access to that information.
And just like that, someone else had slipped through her fingers. Just another gaping hole in her heart, in a lifetime of them. Mama, dead on Lah'mu, Saw buried on Jedha, Papa shot down on Eadu. Chirrut and Baze and Kay, sacrificed to Scarif. Bodhi, gone away to be a pilot. And Cassian, just gone. Disappeared. In the wind like a spy fleeing discovery.
She'd tried to reason herself out of the feeling. They'd only known each other for about a week. It had been a week that upended her whole life, but she'd thought, maybe it was just another mission for him. One he filed away with all his other missions.
She'd stayed with the Rebellion, though, bouncing between divisions, doing what they needed her to do and keeping an eye out on every new base for his calm, steady gaze, his neat form in Rebel browns striding through the halls.
Welcome home, had echoed in her dreams, until she woke up frozen to her bones and nearly naked in a sonic, pressed up against his warmth.
He'd stayed with her the whole way back to base. Warmth had returned to her body, but only very slowly, bringing aches and pains along with it. Sleep had kept trying to steal her away, but he'd kept her awake, asking questions, prodding answers out of her. Basic things, simple, nothing classified or private. Just to keep her conscious. He'd only left her to land the craft, and then the medical team had swarmed.
By her second full day in medical, she'd almost caught up on her sleep, and she was permitted visitors, which she learned when the door of her private room swished open, then clicked firmly shut behind a middle-aged Twi'lek woman in uniform.
"Sergeant," Major Krosh said, draping her lekku over her shoulders before she sat in the chair next to Jyn's bed.
"Major," Jyn said, saluting. Sloppily. But saluting. She liked Krosh, inasmuch as it was possible to like anyone you had to report to. "Did you get the package?"
"Affirmative." Her tone didn't betray whether the information Jyn had sliced out of a secure data center had been what they needed. She might not even know yet. "Hear you had a bit of trouble getting off planet."
"Afraid that cover is burned," Jyn said regretfully.
"It happens. Anyway, better the cover than you. Andor got you out."
"He did." Jyn eyed her warily. Krosh didn't make small talk. Why was she bringing up Cassian? Was Jyn about to get shouted at for not hand-delivering the package?
"If I'm not wrong, you two have something of a history."
"You know you're not. Ma'am."
Krosh's flat mouth twisted into a momentary smile. "He's a legend, you know," she said. "I about swallowed my tongue when he walked in my office."
"Don't you outrank him?"
"I outrank you, too, and I didn't go to Scarif."
Jyn flushed and looked away. "When's he going back - wherever?"
"He's been reassigned here. To this sector's intelligence operations. Good news for us. He's got a lot of experience in the field."
Although her heart had jumped in her chest, Jyn rolled her eyes. "I know what you're getting at."
"Do you?"
"Yeah. I'll think about it."
Krosh got to her feet. "I'll expect your report by 0900 hours tomorrow."
"Ugh," Jyn muttered. That, she did not like.
After Krosh left, a med droid came in, miffed in the way only droids could be about being kept out of her room for something so banal as security. "And you have another visitor," it said, scanning her toes for any hint of tissue death. "I'll tell them you're not up for - "
"Who?" Jyn asked quickly, her mind ringing with He's been reassigned here.
"Some captain."
"Andor? Captain Andor?"
Its oculars flickered as it checked. "Yes, that's it."
"I can see him. I can see him right now."
"That's my call," the droid said snippily. It scanned her again, and added in an annoyed voice, "Fifteen minutes."
Jyn scooted herself up in bed so she wouldn't be lying there like some sickly damsel. She ran her hands over the blankets, tweaking them flat, and pushed her bangs behind her ears.
The door swished open and Cassian came in. "Hi," he said, standing back by the door.
"Hi," she said, resisting the temptation to fiddle with her hair again.
"How're you doing?"
"Better," she said. "Got all kinds of - " She waved a hand. "Treatments and things."
"Your leg?"
"No lasting damage, they said. Might not even scar."
"That's good," he said.
She worked her thumb under the edge of the blanket. "So, how’ve you been?”
”All right,” he said, uninformatively. “You? Other than - " He made a gesture that seemed to take in their surroundings.
She looked away. “You know. Doing my bit. How’s all your - “ she waved at him, up and down. “Everything?”
He nodded. "Better. Now, anyway."
She nodded.
She thought, is this where we're at? After that week? After the ship? Are we just distant acquaintances who make awkward small talk?
She remembered the feel of his chest moving up and down under her cheek.
He looked at one of the machines as if trying to figure out what all the lights and numbers meant. It struck her that he looked uncomfortable. Because of her?
Her stomach soured, and she said sharply, "If you've got something to do, you can go."
He blinked. "No," he said. "I don't have anything to do."
"You've checked in. I'm good. You can leave if you want to."
"I don't want to."
"No? Because you look like you want to crawl out of your own skin right now."
He looked at her for a long moment, brows folded together. Then he said, "I've never liked being in medical, but then I spent eight months in a recovery center."
She blinked.
Said, "Oh."
Thought, Jyn, you idiot.
Eight months. Stuck in a sterile white room like this, probably in pain, getting poked and prodded. No wonder he looked uncomfortable. Hell, Jyn had been here only a couple of days and she already wanted to break out a window and climb down the outside wall.
"Eight months?" she said. "Really?"
"Mmm."
No wonder she'd never seen him or heard anything about him. No wonder he looked so uncomfortable. But he was here. He was here and not taking the chance to bolt like a spooked fathier, even after she'd told him he could.
"What took so long?"
He left his spot by the door and came to sit down in the chair next to her. "Spine, mostly. They had trouble getting the implants to stabilize. That was the worst of it."
"What else?"
"Some internal damage, including bleeding. I lost my spleen and my appendix."
She swallowed. She hadn't known all the details of his injuries, but she'd known they hadn't been minor. The one medic she'd been able to threaten into telling her anything had promised her he would live. She'd hung onto that with an iron grip.
"Better now, though?" He looked better. He looked really good.
"I'm strictly forbidden from some things, but I've got most of my function back." He looked at her and smiled a little. "Of course, if you hadn't gotten me onto that shuttle on Scarif, I wouldn't be here."
"Yeah, well, you returned the favor."
He shrugged. He looked shy now.
She worked her thumb at a loose thread. "Did you know it was me?”
"Anonymous pickup," he said. "So, no."
She blinked. She didn’t know how to feel about that. Clearly neither did he. “Coincidence?”
He shrugged. “The Force, Chirrut might have said.”
She almost hiccuped at the name. There'd been nobody to remember Chirrut or Baze or Kay with, except for the few times she'd crossed paths with Bodhi over the past months. "Yeah," she said. "He probably would've."
He smiled at her, sadness around the edges of it. "I'm glad it was me."
"I am, too," she said. “Don’t think I would have stood for anyone else stripping me down to the skin and hauling me into a sonic."
Was that a blush, touching his face? He cleared his throat and said, "I didn't know you'd gone into Intelligence."
"Just sometimes. I do whatever's needed, really. This time, I knew someone involved in the underground on that planet, and I've got the slicing skills, so I was a decent choice."
"More than decent, I imagine."
She flushed, and he looked down at his knees.
"You're here now? That's what Krosh said."
"Yeah." He cleared his throat. "So far, she seems to run a good division."
"Not bad, for a spy. She keeps making noises about getting me a partner. I've been doing well enough on my own, but maybe she's got a point. If it's the right one."
His eyes lifted to hers.
"Someone I've worked with before," she said. "Someone who, um, who knows when to step back and when to step in, and you know. Knows me." She swallowed. "If - you're not - already assigned to - anyone."
"No," he said. "I'm not."
She hooked her thumb in the snag on her blanket again.
"There's some things I can't do anymore," he said. "Physically. And some things I won't do."
"Anything you can't do, I will," she said. "And anything you won't do, we won't."
"All right," he said.
She held out her hand. "Partners, then?"
He took it, but didn't shake. He just held it, his fingers warm around hers, strong and steady. "Partners," he said.
FINIS