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Bodhi Rook is pretty sure he’s not cut out to be a Rebel.
It starts as a sneaking suspicion, a seed of doubt sprouting from an out-of-the-way corner of his mind. He’s no stranger to doubt, especially when it’s aimed at himself, so at first he does his best to ignore it. He hopes that if he doesn’t feed it with his attention, it will wither away. Sometimes it works like that.
Not this time. It grows anyway, fed on a steady diet of a hundred small failures. Getting shot on Coruscant. Having to be carried halfway across the city (never mind that, logically, he knows he can’t actually will himself to heal faster, it still feels like he failed somehow). Drawing on the Rebellion’s limited bacta supply when they reach Hoth, and a second strike for being grateful for it. Some part of him believes it would be nobler to suffer, let them save the bacta for someone in more immediate danger. But it hurts, and he’s weak, so he takes the bacta soaks without protest.
It wouldn’t be so bad if he had something to contribute. But while his fellow newcomers – Jyn, Chirrut, Baze – quickly get drawn into the rhythm of Echo Base, Bodhi can’t seem to find where he fits in.
He can’t fight like Jyn can. He’s never learned to throw a proper punch, and the idea of joining in the impromptu sparring matches she starts in the mornings fills him with dread and the faint ache of phantom bruises.
He can’t shoot, like Baze. Blaster training was only offered to those who qualified to fly TIE fighters at the Service Academy, and he’d only ever been licensed for shuttles.
He can’t inspire, like Chirrut. When he’s not sequestered with Luke, the Guardian seems to always have a half-dozen people gathered around him, laughing or listening with rapt attention to his stories of the Jedi or of Rogue One’s escapades.
He can’t lead, either, like Cassian, and he doesn’t have nearly enough of a knack for strategy to be able to keep up with Kaytoo. About the only thing he can do is fly, but it only takes an hour of listening to Red Squadron bicker about the best upgrades for their X-wings to remind him that he’s only ever been a mediocre pilot at best. And even though Cassian’s been letting Bodhi take the helm lately, Bodhi’s acutely aware that Cassian is just as good a pilot as he is, if not better.
He doesn’t blame his friends for his growing discomfort. Not one bit. He doesn’t even really doubt that they want him around. It’d be hard to, after they make such a point of trying to include him. Cassian brings him a parka much like his own, fills Bodhi’s drawers with thermal wear to ward off Hoth’s bone-deep chill. Baze shows up the very first night with a massive heap of blankets to add to Bodhi’s thin regulation sheets. Kaytoo solicits his help repairing the dings and dents in Rogue One’s sides from the fight in the spaceport on Coruscant, even though Bodhi’s pretty sure the droid is more than capable of taking care of it himself. Jyn shows up to have lunch with him every day, sweaty from her sparring matches or carrying a holopad from her meetings, and makes him laugh with her (probably disrespectful) impressions of the Alliance upper crust. Chirrut finds him when the cold gets to be too much and the absence of Jedha is a black hole in his chest, and tells stories of the kyber temple until Bodhi’s grief turns bittersweet enough to bear.
He’s grateful for all of it. It does nothing to stop that little seed of doubt from growing until it’s too big to ignore.
He’s superfluous, Bodhi realizes. Redundant. And the Rebellion is stretched far too thin to support redundancies.
He does his best to be useful anyway. He volunteers his time to anyone who needs it: spends a few hours in the kitchens (he’s not a good cook, but he can chop vegetables well enough), a morning in the medbay, an evening sorting scrap in the hangar, even spends one memorable afternoon fixing the western trash compactor. And all the while, the little voice in the back of his mind reminds him that anyone could do these things. Probably better than he can. Ultimately, he is what the Empire made him:
Replaceable.
He takes to hiding out in Rogue One, running diagnostic after diagnostic on the ship’s systems. Cassian told him what R2-D2 did to the computer, so he spends some time digging into the code, though he’s careful not to mess up the droid’s handiwork.
It’s there that Jyn finds him one night. He doesn’t realize she’s there until she speaks, and he nearly falls out of his seat in surprise. “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”
It is, to be fair. He’s not sure if he’s getting used to the cold or if it’s just that he’s numb enough by now not to care. “I’m, uh…” He gestures vaguely at the dash.
Jyn frowns. “It’s the middle of the night. Why are you even awake?”
Bodhi shrugs. She works hard enough without him dumping his inadequacies on her. Besides, he’s not sure he has words for the itchy, restless feeling that’s kept him from his bed the last couple of nights. “Where’s Cassian?” he asks instead, more for a change of subject than anything else.
“Asleep,” she says. Her expression turns wry. “We aren’t literally attached at the hip, you know. I can, in fact, go places without him.”
“I know,” Bodhi says hastily. “I just thought…”
Her face softens. “He needs the sleep,” she says quietly. “But you didn’t answer my question. Why are you up?”
“Why are you?” he counters.
Jyn purses her lips. “Nightmares,” she says finally, not quite managing to sound matter of fact about it.
Bodhi stammers. “Oh. Uh. I’m sorry?”
She shrugs. “Not your fault. And it’s nothing new.” Then, pointedly, “What about you?”
He looks down at his hands. She answered him so honestly, it doesn’t feel fair to deflect. But he can’t bring himself to answer.
After a moment, she relents. “It’s freezing out here. I’m gonna go hit something until I feel better. Wanna come?”
He cracks a small smile. “As long as you don’t hit me.”
“Only if you ask me to,” she teases.
They traipse across the bay together. Jyn leads him to a large room not too far away that seems to have been turned into an impromptu gym. It has mats spread across much of the floor, and a few punching bags hanging around the perimeter.
Jyn settles in at one of the latter, starting with a few slow, experimental blows. Bodhi watches, fascinated and a little envious at the way her body does exactly what she wants it to, delivering sharp, precise punches and kicks that set the bag creaking on its rope. Jyn may be small, but she’s a whirlwind of steely determination and fury. The bag doesn’t stand a chance.
She’s worked up a sweat by the time she slows down again, her hair escaping from its bun to hang loose around her face. She glances at him. “Want a go?”
Bodhi bites his lip. “I—don’t know.”
“You don’t know how to fight, or you don’t know if you want to?” Jyn asks.
“The first one,” Bodhi admits, cheeks heating a little with embarrassment even though she must’ve known that already.
“I can show you, if you want?” Jyn offers.
Bodhi hesitates. But no one’s around to see, and he trusts Jyn not to judge him. Mostly. So he nods.
It’s more complicated than he was expecting. Jyn shows him the right way to curl his fingers to keep from breaking them (thumb outside, tucked out of the way of the punch); which part of his hand to hit with (the first two knuckles); how to put his whole body behind the motion.
It doesn’t come naturally to him. The first few attempts are almost comical, or would be if they didn’t hurt so much. Then he gets one part of it, but by the time he gets a second the first has slipped away. Every time he pulls his hand back with a hiss or a yelp of pain, some part of him flinches, ready for Jyn to snap at him or throw up her hands in defeat.
She doesn’t. She corrects his form patiently, over and over, without an ounce of judgment in her eyes. It’s such a difference from Bodhi’s memories of flight school it almost makes him dizzy.
After an hour of trying, his hand is aching too much to continue. He’s landed a few good punches, though, and it’s a definite improvement from his first disastrous attempts. Jyn smiles at him. “Kinda therapeutic, right?”
Bodhi shakes out his stinging hand. It does feel good, he decides. It feels like a step towards accomplishing something. He nods, and wrinkles his nose a little. “It’d be nice if it didn’t hurt as much.”
Jyn snorts, a bit of a gleam in her eye. “Wait until you learn to fall. You won’t be able to sit down for a week.” She pauses. “If you want to, I mean. You don’t have to.”
“Don’t make it sound too inviting,” he grouses half-jokingly. Then sobers. “I should, though. Right?”
Jyn shrugs. “It’s your choice.”
He hesitates. “Is it?”
She studies him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he says, and searches for the words. “If I’m going to be a Rebel, I should learn how to fight. Right?” He looks down at his hands. “I bet you and the others are tired of fishing me out of trouble.”
It’s halfway to a joke, but Jyn’s face is deadly serious as she leans in to catch his eyes. “We’re a team,” she says. “Fishing each other out of trouble is what we do.”
“Seems kind of one-sided, is all,” Bodhi says quietly.
Jyn folds her arms. “What, Scarif doesn’t count?”
Bodhi opens his mouth. Closes it again. “Um.”
“And on Coruscant,” she continues, “Who was it again who made friends with the smugglers who got us off-planet?”
“That wasn’t just me,” he protests.
“It was mostly you,” she counters. “Or didn’t you notice Avan going out of her way to introduce herself to you? You, specifically.”
Bodhi frowns. When she puts it that way…
Jyn sighs. “Look. You want to learn to fight? Chirrut or I can help you. You want to learn to shoot? Cassian or Baze have got you covered. Hell, you want to fly an X-wing? Luke Skywalker would trip all over himself to teach you.” She smiles wryly. “It’s new to me, too, but you have friends, Bodhi. Use us. But don’t feel like you have to prove anything.”
He swallows. “What if... I spent years trying to be a TIE fighter pilot, and I was never good enough. What if I’m never any good at this, either?”
“You already are,” she tells him, with certainty. “And even if you weren’t, you’re one of us. There are a hundred fighters and pilots in this base, but you? You’re ours, Bodhi Rook, and we’re keeping you around as long as you want to be here.” Her eyes flicker up, over Bodhi’s shoulder, and she raises her voice. “Right, Cassian?”
Bodhi jumps and turns; Cassian leans on the doorframe, hair sticking up every which way, his poofy jacket and boots striking an odd contrast with his rumpled sleep pants. He yawns and nods. “Definitely.”
“Did you even hear all that?” Bodhi asks.
“I heard enough,” Cassian says, and grins. “Besides, Jyn’s usually right about this kind of thing.”
“Damn straight,” Jyn says, grinning too.
Bodhi looks between them. He’s still not quite sure if he buys it, but Jyn’s not one to fudge the truth for the sake of someone’s feelings, and Cassian’s made a point of being honest with them ever since Eadu.
He trusts his friends. If they believe he’s worthy… well. Maybe he can believe them, just a little.