Chapter Text
“He almost left you behind, you know,” a melodic female voice informed him sardonically. Cassian blinked awake, waiting for his blurred vision to focus on the Twi’lek woman sitting next to the bed he was tucked into. For an instant, all he could think was Jyn, where is she, she was here- then he realized that it wasn’t Jyn speaking. Whoever was seemed familiar, as did the stark white room. He forced his foggy mind to focus. Bacta tanks against the wall. Medical droids hovering nearby. There was a young woman with a long, patient face wearing a white tunic waiting nearby, watching carefully. Then he forced his focus on the woman speaking to him, and groaned when the picture finally cleared.
Syndulla. Of course it would be the Ghost that pulled them from the clutches of certain death. He glanced around, expecting to find her pet Jedi standing guard over her, but was surprised to find they were alone, apart from the doctor and the droids.
“Why didn’t he?” Cassian finally croaked a reply.
“Well, your friend Erso wouldn’t let go of you, for starters,” Hera smiled. It seemed almost genuine, amused.
“That doesn’t sound like Jyn,” he struggled to sit up as she passed him a glass of water. The doctor made a move forward.
“Careful, Captain Andor. You’ve just finished the last bacta treatment, but you injured your spine. Try not to move too much.”
“I’m fine,” he waved her off, trying to ignore the black spots that fuzzed the edge of his vision for a moment.
“What, did she want to kill you too?” Syndulla’s mouth quirked in a grin, “What’d you do to her?”
He fell silent, and when he finally spoke his voice was quiet, sad and very serious, “I almost killed her father.”
Hera blinked at him. Remorse? She’d watched this man murder without a second thought. For no other reason than to avoid leaving a witness, even when that witness had proven their loyalty to the Rebellion. She’d watched him ruthlessly kill enemies she and her crew would have left alive. He’d nearly left her and her crew to die, written off as a necessary sacrifice. This was not the sort of man she would expect remorse from. Then again, he knew Kanan and Ezra's secret. They had revealed it trying to save his sorry hide, so maybe he had some decency, because as far as Hera could tell, he had never once told a soul.
“Almost?” she echoed, her voice quiet.
“Orders. She didn’t even have to know… but I didn't do it. Or couldn’t do it. Draven wasn’t very happy with me,” his voice was cracked, hollow, despite his brittle laugh, “I probably shouldn't have told you that. I think he’ll continue to be disappointed.”
He didn't sound like he cared if Draven was disappointed. And while she hadn’t known him for very long, or very well, that didn't sound like him. Everything she knew about Captain Cassian Andor told her that him choosing to disobey a direct order from a superior officer, from the superior Intelligence officer, was… unprecedented. Out of character. And to not care if that officer was upset about it...
It made her wonder just who this Jyn Erso really was, and how she managed to inspire such a change of heart. Or maybe that first impression of him years ago, before the Albarrio mission went wrong, before the charm fell away and he showed what she thought were his true colors... maybe that hidden gentleness hadn't been an act; maybe that sad, lonely, determined man who cared too much, maybe that was who he had really been all along.
It also made her wonder just what Draven, who was waiting eagerly outside the door to debrief his injured officer, would have to say about this little revelation. If Andor was going to start being difficult… well, that didn’t bode well for him. Or Erso, for that matter.
The silence in the room was making Hera uncomfortable, so she changed the subject abruptly, “It’s strange, seeing you without that menace of a droid.”
She'd meant it as a joke. The rest of her crew had bristled at the very sight of K-2SO, but Hera had had a temperamental rust bucket of her own for a partner for too many years to bat an eye over it. But her tone must not have carried right, or maybe he just wasn't in the mood for a joke. Either way, she sensed immediately this was the wrong way to direct the conversation. Andor stiffened, his jaw tightened and he clenched one fist. Angry.
No, he was livid.
“If it hadn’t been for Kay, we wouldn’t be alive now,” he snarled at her, “All the others who went down there to help us, you’d call them heroes, wouldn’t you? Kaytu gets that respect too. Do you hear me, General? Imperial paint or not, he was one of us.”
“Okay,” Hera said softly, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
He relaxed a bit, as if he realized as soon as the words left his mouth that he had overreacted, and a sheepish look crept onto his face, “Besides, you’re one to talk. I still have a scar from where that little monster of yours electrocuted me.”
Hera grinned.
“Your crew. Everyone is alright? Everyone made it?” he asked, more serious this time.
“Yes. The Ghost, too, though she’ll need an overhaul, and we’re probably on Imperial radar again,” she shrugged and stared at the floor, “I’m sorry about your team.”
“They at least got the plans,” he sighed, relief coloring his tone, "Have they decrypted them yet?"
He wasn’t expecting the stricken look on her face. He hadn't expected her to hesitate.
“They lost the plans!” Jyn was what could only be described in Basic as spitting mad. She’d been stomping around the tarmac and kicking cargo containers for the better part of an hour, and Sabine Wren wasn’t sure she blamed her. She’d seen from afar, as they waited for the Phantom to return, the destruction on Scariff; she’d seen some of the casualty lists. The numbers were high. Too high. And that was to say nothing of what was now being reported over the Holonet about Alderaan. With all that had been lost in getting that information, to know that Princess Leia was an Imperial prisoner and that the plans were gone, hidden somewhere they might never be found, which did no one any good... and she’d heard enough about Jyn’s impassioned speech to the council from Hera to know what she, personally, had lost to the Empire, all over this battle station project.
Her father. Her mother. Her childhood. Nearly everyone who’d ever stayed, who’d ever come back for her. They’d all died for something she thought was a surefire lock, and now it wasn’t. Now, they might never destroy it.
Yeah. Sabine would have been spitting mad too.
It didn’t help that, as soon as she had been cleared from medcenter, Jyn suddenly found herself being turned away every time she wanted to see her partner. She never called Captain Andor that, of course, but there were some people who just went together. She hadn’t spent a lot of time with Andor during that disastrous mission in the Albarrio Sector, and whatever she thought of someone who could be that comfortable around an Imperial KX unit, even if he had done the reprogramming, maybe that was why she and Ezra had never really had much of an opinion about him, but he had struck her as someone a lot like her; tough, ruthless, but lonely. Sabine had changed a lot, after meeting Hera and Kanan, after joining their crew. She suspected that Jyn and the others had done much the same to him.
For an instant, Sabine tried to imagine if she was in his shoes. Everyone dead, except maybe Ezra, or Zeb; the two of them left to cling to each other in the wide galaxy, without their family. She'd survive, of course. She'd live. But it would never be the same. She would never be the same. She would feel...
Lost.
She shuddered a little at the thought.
Jyn was more like Ezra. Impulsive, foolhardy, the first to jump headlong into the abyss just to see what was down there. And this stillness was driving her crazy. She’d spent an hour yelling at the door to the medcenter, demanding they let her see Andor, who by all accounts was still unconscious anyway. She was obviously used to people being so annoyed by her they just conceded to her demands so she would just stop.
The Rebellion hadn’t been so considerate. One of the generals, someone Sabine vaguely recalled interviewing her and Zeb and Ezra at some point early on in their joining the larger rebellion, had stood between her and the door, smirking at her like he’d won some kind of battle.
He had let Hera in, though. She’d asked to see him first, though Sabine had no idea why.
Then that General had told Jyn about the Tantitive IV. He’d had the decency to seem a little sheepish about it, at least.
“She’s still angry?” Ezra appeared from inside the cargo hold, sitting on the edge of a crate next to her.
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“Yeah,” he sighed heavily.
“It would help if Hera could get her into the medcenter,” Sabine rubbed at the back of her neck, which had developed a crick occasionally since Scariff. Ezra gave her a pointed look and grinned.
“Or we could get her into the medcenter…”
“And how exactly do you propose we do that?”
He pointed out where she was still rubbing at her neck, “You obviously were injured in the battle. It just takes time, sometimes, for some injuries to show themselves, right?”
She rolled her eyes. This logic was dubious at best, and wasn’t likely to get them past a medical droid, much less an actual doctor. Still…
“It has been getting worse,” she finally conceded in a deadpan, “I suppose I should get it checked out. What good friends I have, looking out for me.”
Ezra shot her a grin and launched off the crate, “And those good friends will even walk you over there, just to make sure everything’s okay.”
Sabine watched Jyn tense up as Ezra approached; then relax, only to look back at the Mandalorian with an incredulous look that quickly morphed into a grin.
As they shouldered past a few passing pilots on the way to the medcenter, Jyn even offered up a whispered ‘thank you’.
“Don’t thank me. He’s the idiot who came up with the plan,” she nodded towards Ezra.
Jyn grinned, but it quickly faded as they came around a curve and found guards on the door. Sabine glanced at the other woman.
“On second thought, thank us if this works.”