Archive of Our Own

Endor is only the beginning of the end, but standing under the falling debris of a second Death Star that almost came to be…it sure feels like it’s all over.

To be more exact, Cassian Andor is running top speed through a tangled treeline trying to reach the Ewok village where the other rebels that were fighting on the ground have all come to congregate after the battle.

His leg and back are angry at him for the sudden intensification of movement—he’s a colonel now, meaning he’s now more in charge of planning Intelligence missions rather than participating in them in the field—but he doesn’t care.

He’s been based on Home One ever since the evacuation of Hoth. That’s where he was when they began the plan to attack on Endor and while the numerous teams went to the ground.

He hasn’t seen Jyn since their brief kiss goodbye in his quarters when she shipped out.

(“I wish I was a better pilot,” Jyn said at the time, more into his neck than to his face. They’re embracing on his bed that morning, wary of the time ticking away before Jyn will have to leave.

“I want to blast that damn thing out of the sky myself.”

Force, how she’d been angry when they found out another Death Star was being built. She’d made a mess of his quarters then, punching and kicking everything in sight until she was a mess of tears in his arms.

Cassian says “I know,” and runs a hand through her still down hair, because that rage had filled him too, once or twice.

Jedha. Scarif. The lost soldiers. All that work to stop the first Death Star only for another one to come back such a short time later. It felt like an emotional violation—something none of them had ever considered pulled the rug of peace they’d made with the events right out from under them. Imperial bastards.

He’s said that out loud, he realizes, when Jyn lets out a laugh against his collarbone and kisses him there.

“Cassian?” Jyn leans an elbow up on the mattress, looking down at where he’s still pajama-clad and flat on his back.

She runs her fingers up his undershirt back and forth, making him shiver slightly. They’re both warm from their previous contact, but the feeling of her fingers tracing his bare skin never seems to wear off. She then goes over his shirt to the neckline, pulling his wedding necklace towards her, and tracing the Arubesh engraving with her fingernail.

Jyn Erso.

He keeps it near his heart—both to keep her with him symbolically and to match where her own ring is looped right next to her mother’s kyber crystal.

“Do you think we’ll be happy?” Jyn asks, her mouth neutral but her eyebrows furrowed in thought.

“I’m pretty happy right now,” Cassian replies.

Not just because of their tangled legs or the way she looks first thing in the morning with her hair in an uncombed tuft, but because he often thought he’d never live long enough, be this happy, love someone so much. Yes, their current predicament is a fragile kind of joy—she will have to leave and go to Endor and this may be the last moment with her that he gets to have—but overall, he’s happier than he used to be by a long mile.

She smacks him on the chest, a playful gesture that actually makes a thumping sound and leaves him momentarily breathless. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” He brings her fingers up to his lips, pressing a firm kiss to her palm. “I’m happy now, Jyn. In the middle of a war to save the galaxy, when things are the worst they’ve probably ever been in this war since before you came along.”

“You think it will last, then.”

“You don’t?” He tries not to feel insecure.

He’s taken such time to show her that he’s not going anywhere. He’d rather be miserable with her than happy anywhere else. That was the whole point of their marriage, aside from getting medical permission to be with each other after a mission went wrong.

She bites her lip, shaking her head back and forth. “I want to be happy. I am happy now, but it’s—all we’ve ever known is this war, Cassian. I don’t know what comes next.”

“Neither do I,” he admits, cupping her face in his hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “We’ll figure it out together.”

Jyn nods, groaning at the alert on her comm to report for duty within the hour.

He lets her go.)

Cassian has to stop running at a full sprint when he sees the camp just a few paces ahead. Jyn’s helped him stretch out some of his more troubling injuries, but without her he’s rarely taken the time to properly care for them himself.

He lets out a few hard breaths, trying to compose himself despite being covered in sticky sweat from the jungle planet’s atmosphere and all of the running. Not like Jyn will care since she’s likely been out on a battlefield against stormtroopers and Imperial officers all this time.

(If she’s survived, his mind thinks treacherously before he can stop it.)

Bodhi’s actually the one that finds him first, greeting him with a massive bear hug and some very loud whooping noises that the other pilots echo with glee.

“Thank the Force, Cassian! I mean, I figured you were okay since we were still getting transmissions from Home One, but—well, it’s another Death Star, so.”

Cassian smiles, appreciative of Bodhi’s concern. He gives Bodhi’s back a few firm thumps while still in their embrace.

“It’s good to see you’re okay too.” He steps back, the question practically diving off his tongue. “Jyn?”

Bodhi smiles so wide that Cassian swears his own lips are about to split open from the pressure. “She’s with—oh, kriff, where did she go?”

Cassian’s entire body lightens. Jyn’s alive. She’s here.

Bodhi’s turned his gaze to the treetops now, where Solo and General Organa seem to be smiling and laughing in a way he’s never seen before. (He’s more used to their arguing vibrating the icy walls of Echo Base, but who wasn’t?)

“Ah, there she is,” Bodhi points across the masses of people to a couple of tanks that people seem to be filling their canteens with.

Jyn is chatting with Kes Dameron while they wait in the messy line of beings. “I have no idea what’s in this stuff the engineers are serving, but it’s certainly livening people up.”

Cassian does in fact know what’s in the tanks then—there’s no real recipe or name, it’s pretty much just home-brewed mystery alcohol. It’s been a house specialty on bases ever since someone from the old Atollon base started passing it around to their fellow rebels. Many pilots claim it’s great for stripping the paint off of repurposed Imperial ships.

“Thanks, Bodhi.” He claps Bodhi’s shoulder before jogging over to Jyn.

Somehow—like she has the power of the Jedi, only for him, in this moment—she sees him coming. Jyn hands her canteen to Kes despite his stuttering protests and meets Cassian in the middle.

It’s a dramatic thing, this reunion in the middle of the Endor celebration. Something people will likely bring up to Cassian and Jyn relentlessly in the future.

(They got married quietly, with little fanfare. Only Rogue One attended. No one else but their superiors on base knew for months.)

Jyn wraps her arms around his neck, he wraps his arms around her waist, and it’s almost like dancing with the way they sway in place while still connected. Their grips are half bone on bone, their sharpest parts melding into an encapsulating warmth Cassian knows to call home.

It is not the end of the war, but it is a start.

The war truly ends on Jakku.

Jyn is not there on the planet when it happens. She only hears about it when the team that went to help Solo take back Kashyyyk—including her—docks back into Home One.

Solo isn’t there—he’d gone off to wherever Leia is the moment they’d finished on his own ship. (Because Han Solo—known notable scoundrel throughout the galaxy—is a father to a real living and breathing child. Wonders truly never cease.)

It’s always a different experience coming back to a base after a mission away. Things are always changing in the Rebellion—including its current changeover to a Republic. It’s hard to know what will be happening.

She certainly didn’t anticipate another all-out celebration so soon after Endor. There’s cheering as they step onto the docking bay accompanied by a jaunty tune blaring over the station’s loudspeakers.

She pulls aside Wedge Antilles, one of the pilots they’d taken to Kashyyyk, who had arrived back earlier than the transports of ground teams. He’s currently in the middle of being hugged by any living being that’s close to him, an infectious smile on his face.

“What’s going on?”

“Inferno Squad just reported in from Jakku,” Antilles says, pulling her into an embrace she isn’t prepared for.

He only lets go when he realizes he’s pushing painfully against her sore ribs. “Mon Mothma made the announcement—the Empire has surrendered! They’re going to sign the Galactic Concordance!”

It’s there she stands, frozen for a moment when Wedge leaves her yelling something indistinct to another one of his pilot friends.

The Galactic Concordance: the proposed peaceful end to the war. The opportunity to sign was given to multiple powerful Imperial leaders who refused to take the out and stop the fighting of a losing battle.

The war is officially over, and all Jyn Erso can do in this moment is cry. It’s silent, her tears falling against her tactical vest in the cacophonous mess of a Rebellion—Republic celebration.

At first comes the fear. What is it like after war? How will she survive it? All she’s known is the feel of truncheons in her hand and blood running out of blaster wounds. What is she going to do now?

Second comes the answer: Cassian.

She breaks into a sprint, stripping heavy gear from her person in a way that is entirely against regulation and every sort of sorting system the stupid AP-5 unit in the cargo hold continually insists on. Helmet, vest, extra ammo, stun grenades—it all lands in a pile by the transport that’s only growing bigger as more people hear the good news and run off to find their own loved ones.

Initially, Jyn tries their bunk, but that would be too easy, of course. All that’s there is the flimsy excuse of a bed he clearly hasn’t slept in and scraps of metal in a heap on the desk that they’re hoping may one day become a new K-2 unit (if they can ever get the time to really work on the project and bring his last saved memory file back online).

She runs to Control next and finds him standing at one of the communication stations with headphones on.

“Yes—all units stay in the field for now. The Imperials that are left won’t let this loss go so easily. We’ll need to continue attacking their forces until the threat is completely neutralized.” Cassian pauses, hearing something on the other end that makes his mouth twitch into a frown. “Yes, I know, Sergeant. But there will be nothing to celebrate if we can’t successfully clean up the remnants of the Empire. We can’t let this win ease us into a false sense of security. We’ll call with updated orders as soon as we have them. Stay safe. Home One Command, out.”

Cassian sighs, obviously displeased at having to tell their fellow soldiers that even the end of the war isn’t the end. The Empire’s claws are too deep within the galaxy for anything as frivolous as packing up and going home so quickly.

She decides that means he deserves at least one moment of celebration while he can get it.

Jyn curls her arms around him from behind, burying her face in the warmth of his back.His muscles tighten at first from the surprise, but relax when he puts his hands over hers around his stomach.

“It’s over,” she says.

“So they say.” He takes a moment to remove the headphones connecting him to the station and turn around to face her. “You’re home.”

“So I am,” she parrots in his same tone, leaning up to kiss him gently on the lips.

It’s not a reunion kiss of passion and fire, but something more delicate. Disbelief, relief, and security wrapping around them and through them at each other’s touch.

“You don’t seem excited.”

It’s almost funny, how his face switches from that blank default expression to something only minutely more emotive, pointed directly at her.

He kisses her again, this time deeper and with a kind of communicative intention. “I’m always excited to see you back safe.”

She frowns, unimpressed. “No, I mean about the win. This place is a madhouse and you’re over here at communications. You don’t even work here.”

Cassian shrugs. “Someone has to do it.”

She’s about to speak again—about to tell him not to put more work on his shoulders when she has distinctly different plans for them back in their room after joining everyone else in the all-out party—when he suddenly picks her up off the ground, settling his arms against her back in a lock and spinning her around while she laughs in surprise.

Playful Cassian can be hard to wheedle out, but it seems he’s taken it upon himself to make her less worried about him by making her laugh. That she can deal with.

When he’s had his fill, he settles her back on the ground and cups her cheek with his hand. “I didn’t really want to celebrate with anyone else.”

She honest to Force scoffs, grinning cheekily when he blushes and glares weakly. “I didn’t know you were such a smooth-talker, Andor.”

He sighs as if heavily burdened, mostly amused that she’s making a joke out of him being sincere. “Only for you.”

She shakes her head. He pinches her butt, making her squeal with laughter and bring him closer.

“My poor husband, the spy without a shred of game. No wonder it took you so long to kiss me—”

“Shhh.” He cuts her off with a smile, kissing her again in the crowded control room like no one else is around.

She submits to his request, wrapping her arms around his neck and settling into starting what she hopes will become oh so much more as the night goes on.

If this is what winning feels like—if this is the end of the war—she wants nothing more.

The true end—the dismantling of the Rebellion and rebuilding into the New Republic—is both painstakingly slow and surprisingly quick.

Home One is still a base, but many bases previously under Imperial control transform into official New Republic Military outposts. By the hundreds, the halls that were once cramped to the hilt slowly empty with people finally returning to their home planets and families with a generous military commission.

Cassian stays around to continue assisting in the military’s affairs, organizing and prioritizing still active Intelligence missions and the assets assigned to them. Jyn helps out where ever she can, in a rare case bereft of new assignments and filled with free time she isn’t yet sure how to use.

Living on Home One turns into temporarily visiting Hosnian Prime for multiple weeks. Well, Cassian himself was asked to come. Jyn had demanded to come with little to no resistance from anyone involved, particularly Cassian. They’d missed each other so much over the weeks and months separated by duty.

They get to eat meals together again like they had when Jyn had first been rising up the ranks. At night they make love—slow and filled with lackadaisical experimentation and so, so much joy. When the nightmares still come, they stay up putting together and coding their hopeful new K-2 candidate.

Cassian’s filled with a satisfaction—a peace he’s never experienced before. He’s still doing his work—still eager to help straighten out the New Republic’s kinks and make things run smoothly. There’s just not that same pressure. The pressure that the Empire’s on their tail, that lives will be lost if he doesn’t fill out a report within an hour of receiving it.

He thinks he may even be smiling more, considering how much he looks to his side to find Jyn smiling at him, just like she is now. They’re currently in the mess hall, eating actual food instead of rations. It’s a pleasing sort of adjustment to notice. He has two meetings left in his day, but he’s very seriously considering being late to the next one in the hopes of finding a quiet place to put his tongue in Jyn’s mouth.

“Colonel Andor,” a familiar voice says before he recognizes exactly who it is.

He’s getting a little rusty, maybe, and he doesn’t mind at all. When he unlocks his gaze from Jyn, it’s to find the placid gaze of General Hera Syndulla directed down at him.

“General Syndulla,” Cassian greets, standing and holding out his hand to shake.

The famous General and ship Captain is from the very early days of the Rebellion. He’s known her since he was a much younger man, and has been lucky enough to work with her a handful of times (unknowingly including on Scarif).The Twi’lek gives him a raise of her tattooed eye brow.

“Hera," he corrects.

“Better,” Hera says, taking the seat across from him. “Hello to you too, Jyn.”

“General,” Jyn says, not as familiar with the woman across from her.

“I know you’re booked today, but I wanted to personally deliver this message to you as soon as possible.” Hera taps at a datapad, turning it around to let Cassian look at the words on the display. “It’s an offer.”

Cassian skims the document quickly, Jyn’s chin digging into his shoulder as she also reads along.

“Hell of an offer,” Jyn mumbles, adjusting back in her seat with a long exhale when she’s finished.

“The posting wouldn’t be permanent. I’m not sure how long this place will last as an official headquarters, to be honest. With everything in the New Republic still coming together, it’s been hard for everyone—including me—to see family, settle, that sort of thing.” Hera shrugs like it’s not a big deal, but Cassian’s always been good at reading faces.

It’s hard to be away when you actually do have a home and family to return to. It’s only by complete chance of breaking the right woman out of prison and sticking to her side that he’s carried the little family he’s gained along with him most of the time.

“Bureaucracy is the price we pay for victory,” Cassian states defeatedly, thinking of how their rebellion is having to establish itself so quickly into an entire galaxy-wide government.

Only five years ago even winning one battle seemed impossible. They hadn’t prepared well enough, perhaps, to win an entire war.

“I’d much rather be shooting stormtroopers,” Jyn grumbles, which makes Cassian grin.

She can’t grasp how settled he’s become in his promotion. She’s always been too hands-on—literally.

“Those were the days,” Hera says with a wistful, coy smile on her face. She takes the datapad from his hand.

“You can think on it if you want. Though General—Senator Organa seemed adamant about getting you to accept. I imagine she’ll hike down here with Ben on her hip herself if you take too long.”

“Understood.” Cassian shakes Hera’s hand again before turning to Jyn at his side. She’s quiet for a minute, picking at the remnants of food on her tray and deep in thought.

“So,” Jyn finally says. “General of Hosnian Prime’s New Republic Military Intelligence Branch, huh?”

“Jyn…” Cassian trails off.

He doesn’t know what to say. It’s something they’ve discussed—this after the war that seems to escape their belief despite living in it every day—but it’s never been so real as it is now. If not the military, then what? If not Hosnian Prime, then where? Join Baze and Chirrut on Takodana? Visit the ashes of her family’s homestead on Lah’mu? Retrace his family’s steps in the ice-slicked streets of Fest? Planet-hop in a spacecraft until they find somewhere new?

“Don’t.” Jyn places a hand on his thigh under the table, squeezing gently. “Don’t try and guess what I want or what I’m thinking, just—tell me what you want.”

“I don’t know.” And that’s the truth. “I won’t go anywhere—stay anywhere without you. Not anymore. I’ve had enough of that.”

“You want a home,” Jyn affirms, smile so soft and sweet and knowing.

For a long time the Rebellion was his home. Since before they married, it has been wherever he’s with Jyn. Now, he wants something more concrete. A real place where they can stay, return to, be together and make their own past scattering Kay’s new body parts all over the floor and sticking up flimsi letters from their friends on the walls.

“Yes.” Cassian grabs Jyn’s hand, tangling their fingers lazily. “But I also don’t want to leave the work that we’ve started here, Jyn. We were there the last time the Alliance needed to change the way they did things. I want to be there this time too.”

Jyn nods slowly, leaning in towards him until their lips gently bump together. She puts her hand behind his head, their foreheads touching while she combs through his hair a few times.

“We’ll figure it out. All of it, somehow.”

When they separate, he moves to get up and head to the meeting he’s surely now late to, but she stops him with the hand still distractedly against his leg. Jyn has a distant sort of look on her face, no longer looking at him but somewhere behind him.

When he turns his head to follow her gaze, he happens to see Shara Bey and Kes Dameron—obviously visiting from the settlement on Yavin IV—with their son Poe at a nearby table with a few others.

Jyn turns then, watching him watching them, and smiles. “I might have an idea.”

Cassian and Jyn’s first domestic argument is ridiculous, but Jyn is slightly proud that they’re no longer yelling about dead fathers and duty any longer.

Then again, she’s not exactly happy that they’re wasting time arguing about how to put a bookshelf together.

“I don’t understand why you’re making this so difficult!” Cassian says, throwing the datapad with building instructions aside to raise his arms at her and make some kind of dramatic point.

“You’re the one that wanted to build a bookshelf when we don’t even have more than five physical books!”

Honestly, they barely had anything to unpack when they arrived to their new home on Yavin IV at all. They had a table to eat at and a bed to sleep in. They’d never needed more before, and she couldn’t wrap her head around what had possessed him to spend his hard-earned credits on this inane wooden object.

“It’s—“ He puts his hands together and presses the sides of his closed palms to his face, almost as if in prayer. “Jyn, this is our home. One day, we’ll have more things to put in it. It barely looks like we live here as it is.”

“You told them we needed an entire house when there are only two of us!”

“Not forever, Jyn!” Cassian snaps out.

There’s a few seconds of silence. The chimes hung above the porch brush together in the wind. Trees near the living room window scrape against the glass. They’re both breathing a little heavy, and suddenly Jyn remembers that they have neighbors who might overhear them screaming about a stupid bookcase.

“I—“ She looks away from his eyes and down to the mess of screws and wood at her feet. “I didn’t realize you were thinking about…that.”

She sneaks a peek up at him through her hair.

“Don’t you?” he asks, somewhere between concerned he’s in the wrong and still slightly upset that she’s not as in sync with him as they often are.

Cassian turned down the offer on Hosnian Prime. He instead offered to help establish the New Republic Military Base coming together on Yavin IV in the old Massiassi Temples. He was still promoted to General—Leia had insisted—but he’s joining other former Alliance members in a quieter life where their military skills can still be utilized without being in the thick of it.

Jyn effectively exited the New Republic Military entirely. She’s in agreement with Cassian—she’s done taking missions and being gone for long stretches.

But settling down in that official way—a real home, filling it with children—maybe she’d grazed over that aspect. They’d talked about it in passing once or twice—particularly after a pregnancy scare that had turned out to be a bad case of the flu—but, well. Adjusting to not being a soldier anymore was a lot on its own. Trying to fit into this community as the heroes from Scarif was another.

Then again…

“I have this dream sometimes,” Jyn whispers, still barely looking up at him despite slightly wanting his physical touch against her to push the words out. “I’m back on the beaches. Lah’mu. And then I see myself in the water, but it’s not me. Her skin’s a different shade, her hair is darker, but her eyes…It’s—she’s ours.”

She smiles something half-hopeful and slightly frightened at Cassian. A child of their own. Exhilarating. Terrifying. Surprising. Wonderful.

His expression changes to something soft and almost regretful for doubting that she’s thinking about their future too. He opens his arms and she drops down into them, perched in his lap and warmly enveloped by him in seconds, surrounded by an unfinished bookcase that she dislikes with a passion.

“I love that,” Cassian simply says.

She nods into his neck, but says, “We’re never going back there.”

Cassian pulls her away so that their eyes meet. “Understood. No family vacations to Grandpa Erso’s homestead.”

Grandpa Erso. She wishes her father was here. She thinks of Chirrut and Baze, how they’ve promised to visit soon and host a housewarming party against her and Cassian’s will.

“Our kids will have so much family around they won’t care about some old farm.”

“Kids, hm?” he questions, noting the plural with a teasing little smile.

She rests her head against his shoulder, enjoying their position even if she knows that with his back he likely won’t be able to stand it much longer. “So many we’ll never have to build a bookshelf ourselves again.”

“We’ll be a strictly datapad family,” Cassian affirms before pressing a firm kiss to her head. “After we finish this. I refuse to be outsmarted by a karking bookshelf.”

Jyn sighs dramatically, flopping herself straight across Cassian’s crossed legs and laughing when Cassian attempts to roll her off.

K-2SO’s first attempt at gratitude towards one of the two people that worked to fix him a new body is to try and kill Jyn.

More specifically, he pins her high against the wall of their unofficial office space by the throat, knocking a holo-frame off the wall in the process. Jyn struggles against his metal fingers—now working in perfectly oiled condition—kicking her feet against the wall so hard that Cassian hears it from their bedroom and sprints down the hallway to see what’s wrong.

“Jyn!” Cassian shouts, barely even noticing that his once-beloved droid is now functioning for the fact that he’s got Cassian’s wife in a choke-hold and she’s reaching out for him across the room. “Kay, stop!”

“Jyn Erso has clearly escaped you, her on-base security detail,” the droid states in his familiar monotone cadence. “I am only disabling a security risk to the Yavin IV facility.”

“What—!?” Jyn chokes out, only to be grasped tighter by K-2SO in response. “C—Cass—“

“Kay, I am ordering you to put her down!”

The droid’s optical sensors move momentarily, processing him for a moment before letting Jyn drop to the ground with a thump. Cassian’s heart smashes against his chest, worrying about old injuries and the height before he can even take the four steps to her side.

“Are you—“ Cassian doesn’t get to finish asking, as he has to put everything into stopping Jyn from ripping apart the K-2 unit she so lovingly helped put together.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Jyn yells, tears in her eyes both from being choked and—by the look on her face—from being attacked by someone she’d implicitly trusted not to hurt her.

“Jyn—“

“Cassian, I do not understand why I am not allowed to restrain the prisoner. She obviously has the ability to overpower you. There’s a 95 percent chance that she will do so again.”

“I’ll overpower you, you ungrateful little—!”

Cassian pulls Jyn back again, this time forcing her to turn and face him by cupping her chin with his hands.

“Hey—Hey, it’s alright, okay? It’s gonna be okay, he’s just confused.” He squeezes her hands in his, thankful for Kay’s apparent decision to remain silent. “That back-up is six years old. He thinks—“

“He thinks I’m a prisoner,” Jyn says, coming to the realization for something he’d forgotten to plan for.

More accurately, he didn’t think what Jyn was doing in the other room while he’d been folding clothes was anything that would actually start the droid again. They were close, yes, but he thought he’d be there to stop something like this from happening.

Cassian nods, then looks up at Kay, who’s simply staring down at him as if waiting for his next directive. “Kay, whatever I said about Jyn—forget it. New orders: Jyn is no longer a prisoner, and she is not to be harmed, no matter what.”

“I do not understand. My memory banks have not recognized any updated files on Jyn Erso. She is still currently wanted by the Empire.”

“You need an update,” Cassian says, smiling for the first time at the fact that he gets to say that again.

Because Kay is back. Trying to attack Jyn, yes, but just like he’d been before their journey to Scarif. “A lot has happened since I last saw you.”

Kay tilts his head. “I find that hard to believe.”

Kay has not experienced the passing of time in the same way Cassian Andor has. He has to adjust parameters to account for six years shut down.

Particularly he is without the memories of details he feels are needed to make a complete assessment of how they got from Point A—Jyn Erso is their prisoner, K-2SO and Cassian are to escort her to Jedha to meet the mission’s target, Saw Gererra—to Point B—the rule of the Empire has ended, the war is over, Yavin IV is no longer the Alliance’s primary military installation, and Cassian Andor has now legally betrothed himself to Jyn Erso.

Cassian tried to explain everything to him while wrapping Jyn’s bruised neck with gauze. K-2SO had not meant to scar the woman, but organic flesh was often more delicate than expected. Kay himself believed it was acceptable to ignore that fact when dealing with a prisoner. But Jyn Erso was no longer a prisoner.

His point being—he must observe this new world to properly understand it as Cassian so clearly wants him to.

Each day in the Andor-Erso household begins the same:

Cassian wakes first. This much is similar to the memories K-2SO still possesses. Cassian would always rise early from his bunk, prepare himself with the expected military precision, and K-2SO would accompany him throughout his daily schedule of meetings and mission briefings until they boarded a vessel off planet or the end of the day came.

Except in this new house, it’s a different morning over six years later, and his audio receptors dial into the bedroom from his place in the living area to an interruption in Cassian’s dressing routine.

“Jyn,” Cassian says, his voice low and far away.

“Hmm?” Jyn barely replies, the rustling of blankets accompanying a sound of movement.

“I’m leaving. Are you coming in with me today?”

“Mmm. No. I told Shara I would look after Poe this afternoon since she and Kes are both going to base today too,” K-2SO hears the sound he knows far too well—organics pressing their mouths together. “Besides, I still don’t know what I want to do here yet. Seems pointless to keep coming into the base to help when I’m technically not working for the New Republic anymore.”

“I thought you were enjoying the whole freelance helper thing.” More kissing sounds. “But I am sure you’ll figure it all out.”

Jyn groans. “If you’re not staying to finish what you started, I’m going to go back to sleep now.”

Cassian chuckles breathily. “Okay. I love you.”

“Love you. Have a good day.”

Cassian comes down the stairs next, his clothes worn in such a way that Cassian still looks like the man K-2SO remembers but for a few errant grey hairs and wrinkles that show his progressing age.

“Morning, Kay,” Cassian says, tapping K-2SO’s chassis in a familiar, affectionate way that K-2SO cannot feel but appreciates all the same.

“Hello, Cassian.”

K-2SO watches Cassian pry open a pear with one of the knives near the kitchen sink, obviously in a hurry to leave the house unlike the past weekend where Cassian and Jyn had slowly prepared a meal and ate it together.

“How is it going?” Cassian asks, aware of K-2SO’s current mission: observe and assimilate.

“I do not understand why Jyn Erso is not part of the military anymore. Her updated record as a Pathfinder shows a surprising success to failure ratio. She is not an older female incapable of using most artillery. She could still serve a purpose.”

Cassian shrugs. “She wants a different purpose. We both spent our whole lives fighting. The war is over. That means the fighting is too.”

“There are still minor Imperial factions across the galaxy according to the New Republic active case file database.”

“And there are other people out there to fight them, too. This is the life we chose, Kay. I’m still with the New Republic because that’s where I want to be. Jyn will find her place soon too. Until then, we should be supporting her.”

K-2SO doesn’t exactly know what Cassian means by that, but he nods his head anyway. “I will try.”

“That’s all I ask,” Cassian says distractedly, throwing away the core of his fruit. “Stay with Jyn today, Kay. I’ll be on paperwork all day, so there’s not much for you to do. I think Poe would love to hang out with his favorite reprogrammed Imperial Droid.”

“I do not enjoy blaster noises being made at me by that small organic.”

Cassian laughs, walking out the door towards the speeder parked outside. “Don’t worry, I’m sure Jyn will protect you from the big, bad, four-year-old with a stick lightsaber.”

“I highly doubt that.”

Jyn wakes up to the sound of wind rustling the curtains of their bedroom.

More specifically, Jyn wakes up freezing—it’s far too cold and what passes for winter on Yavin IV will come through the settlement within the next few months, or so she’s told—and reaches out her arm to her very favorite natural heater only to find his side of the bed empty.

She’s not bothered by sleeping alone. Yes, she sleeps better with him near, but they survived long months without the other’s comfort in the night. It's still a new and comforting privilege to tangle their limbs and sheets together during the night, despite the war being over for a little over a year now.

She curls further into the blankets and listens to the native wildlife rustle around in their backyard until it begins to lull her back into sleep again.

“Jyn, wake up,” says the voice attached to the cold fingers shaking her shoulder under the covers.

“M’ not asleep,” she replies, burrowing her face into the loose strands of hair on her pillow and wishing she hadn’t said a word when the covers are swiftly yanked away from her grasp. “Bodhi!”

“You’re going to be late, and I’ve already yelled at you from outside the door multiple times!”

“You know, this whole thing doesn’t have a strict schedule or anything.”

Bodhi shakes his head, defeated. “According to Chirrut it does.”

Jyn rolls her eyes and flops onto her back instead of actually leaving the bed, crossing her arms behind her head and really looking at Bodhi for the first time this morning. He’s dressed up in a black suit that’s clearly been tailored to his frame and isn’t something he’d already owned himself. He shuffles his feet under her scrutinizing gaze, drawing her attention to the black leather shoes that look polished and shiny.

She sits up, pulling Bodhi close by the jacket. She takes the tie around his neck and readjusts it slightly, dusting his shoulders off when she’s done.

“You look very handsome, hm? Trying to impress someone?”

His look goes from appreciative and loving to a simple accessing squint of his eyes. “Go get dressed, you troublesome little nerfherder.”

She pokes his chest with her finger. “I am not little.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Also, last I checked I don’t have anything to dress into yet, sooo—“

Bodhi simply points to the closet, where a plastic bag hangs with a box underneath, both of which were not there the night before. “If you’re not out in thirty minutes, I’m sending Leia in after you.”

Jyn holds up her hands in surrender. Not that she doesn’t love the former commanding officer-now-senator, but the woman has enough on her plate without having to corral Jyn into wearing a dress Leia gave her in the first place. (Which, well, she’s pretending not to feel weird about accepting it since Leia had called it a belated wedding gift and Jyn didn’t really have anything else appropriate for the occasion.)

Jyn lazily drags herself through her morning routine. Shower. Dry hair. Brush teeth. Tame hair into something resembling her usual style, even though it’s getting a little too long now to do so easily.

She adds this time the step of make-up, dragging the kohl pencil around her inner eye lines. It’s the most she’s ever really felt the want to do, and despite how Leia and Shara have shown her the other liquids and powders in their own arsenals, she figures she can do whatever she wants because it’s her wedding day, after all.

Well, wedding vow renewal day.

(“Would you want to marry me again?” Cassian says one night while they’re eating dinner.

Kay stands not far away, piping in on their conversation whenever he feels the urge. It used to annoy Jyn, but she sees the smile on Cassian’s face at his friend returned and now finds it more amusing than irritating.

Jyn, with a massive forkful of food perched in front of her mouth, squints at him. “Did Chirrut put you up to this?”

“I’m serious, Jyn.”

“That’s not an answer, but I’m going to reply anyway. Yes, Cassian, I happen to quite enjoy currently being married to you, so I suppose for the sake of whatever you’re getting at I would marry you again.”

“Good.” Cassian looks down at his plate for a moment before looking back up at her in an uncharacteristic display of nervousness. “That’s—I was thinking…we could renew our vows. You know, here. Have a real wedding, invite everyone this time.”

Jyn scoffs. “Our wedding was very real, Cassian. Double real—we had an officiant and a priest!”

“One of those was legally appointed by the Alliance and the other was Chirrut, Jyn.”

Jyn crosses her arms defiantly. “Still.”

Cassian grabs her hand across the dinner table, the joking tone gone. “Jyn, I…there was a time where we didn’t think we’d live long enough to be married for more than six months. I want to do this right—like everyone else got to do while we were too busy fighting for their freedom.”

Jyn leans back in her chair and tilts her head at him. He’s more of a romantic than he’ll likely ever admit. Yes, this was all likely a “harmless” suggestion from Chirrut meant to get them all together again, but Cassian was probably only asking her about it because he really did want to have the entire pomp and circumstance.

“I suppose five years married without killing each other is nothing to sniff at,” Jyn answers, leaning across the table to kiss him and narrowly missing accidentally shoving a bowl off the table with her chest. “But you’re not allowed to go all clean-shaven like you did for that one fancypants undercover assignment.”

Jyn lightly combs his facial hair with her fingers and frowns. “You have too much babyface under there.”)

She wasn’t exactly sure what the ceremony would entail other than she and Cassian standing up in front of the people they used to serve with and exchanging vows, but it for sure included the dress Leia had promised would be perfect.

Since it was a slightly more traditional wedding than their last, Jyn was to wear blue—dark colors were traditional for brides getting married on Fest, since in the plains of white snow it made them stand out. Or so Cassian said to her once, recalling once seeing his mother’s dress in a holo and asking about it as a child.

Jyn hadn’t exactly told him she would be following that tradition today. Cassian had seen every other of the few dresses she owned. Part of the tradition was also the surprise of her walking down the aisle in a new dress, Leia and Shara had said.

She opens the bag hanging on her closet door and inspects the hanging dark blue fabric. She uses her fingers to trace the cut—the dress is strapless, but there are rings of blue that will loosely hang around her arms. The top is separated from the skirt by a small white chain of jewels—what they actually are Jyn isn’t sure, but her experience as a thief makes her think expensive. The skirt is long. It will trail after her across the grass in their backyard where the ceremony is being held, likely ruining the fabric’s pristine color.

She holds the dress up in front of her chest, the soft skirt brushing against her bare feet on the bedroom floor.

Jyn thinks about the look on Cassian’s face at seeing her in something so ornate. She smiles.

Cassian Andor is not nervous.

Many people say things like that to calm themselves down, but Cassian has earnestly never been less nervous in his life. Well, maybe that’s a stretch, but it’s a near thing.

After all, this is a simple act between he and Jyn. They’re already married. This is just a celebration of that commitment throughout the hardships they’ve had to endure. Honoring the losses of the people that should have been there for the first occasion as well as those lost before this second one by coming together.

Currently, he’s more amused than anything else. He’s standing at his place at the end of the aisle, checking in with some of the guests that have come from far away and also with those who are his neighbors from just around the corner.

Next to him is Kay, brooding.

Poe had insisted that if he had to suffer through the experience of wearing an annoying bowtie to the ceremony, Kay was not allowed to be exempt just because he was a droid. So there Kay stands to his left, part of the groomsman party, wearing a red bowtie over his plating. This, Cassian thinks, might be the ridiculous sight that finally makes some people in the neighborhood stop fearing their droid.

Bodhi interrupts his conversation with Hobbie, a pilot that defected along with Wedge back in the day who he knows only minimally. “I think we’re finally ready.”

We, Bodhi says, meaning Jyn likely rolled out of bed ready while Chirrut fussed around their home throughout the morning getting everything together and ordering Bodhi and Baze around to do his bidding. Well, as much as one could order Baze to do anything.

Really, this whole thing was Chirrut’s idea, as much as he’ll never confirm as much to Jyn. It had just been advice. Getting everyone back together. Rogue One, the original wedding party. Cassian had taken it upon himself to make it something a bit bigger, and Chirrut had fully organized getting half of what used to be the Alliance together for a vow renewal ceremony on a planet that used to be their base. The man had a gift at getting his way that even Cassian, super-spy, hadn’t been able to master.

Before Cassian can reply, Chirrut slowly approaches their makeshift altar area in the grass, somehow gathering the attention of passerby as he ambles past. By the time he’s reached Cassian, there’s almost a complete silence from the guests.

“If you will please take your seats, gentlebeings, the ceremony is about to begin.”

Cassian watches the crowd condense into their seats or where they were unable to acquire enough, stand primly at the edges of the rows.

The ceremony’s start has no musical accompaniment. Bodhi, Kay, and Chirrut, already upfront, take their places. Rogue One is a united front, including in this event, even if Cassian and Jyn themselves are the focus.

First Cassian sees Baze. He has a moment of trouble with the back door—Cassian really needs to replace that thing—but he then makes it out fine and holds the door for Jyn behind him.

Baze holds out his arm, Jyn grabs on with a smile, and in the quiet, the silence only broken by the brush of the trees, Cassian hears himself gasp.

Jyn’s dress. Force, not just Jyn in a rare moment choosing to wear a dress but that dress. That dark blue dress, on the love of his life, representing a tradition from his home that he hadn’t even thought about on this exact day five years ago.

Cassian thinks he might be crying, because he’s looking at Jyn as a sharp point in a mist of undefined otherness. It is only Jyn walking towards him, smirking in satisfaction at whatever look must be on his face. Oh, how he loves that look. How he loves Jyn Erso.

He thinks once this is all over that she’ll make fun of him, that he cried at seeing her after knowing her in every way, shape, and form imaginable after seven total years of partnership. He will never regret it. He cannot control it. He’s so tempted to run down the aisle and swoop her into his arms that he thinks about asking Kay to hold him in place.

Instead, somehow he restrains himself until the moment she’s an arms length away. His hand is a vice around her own.

“You like it?” Jyn asks innocently, doing a little half-twirl that swishes the skirt back and forth over the shoes that appear to be flats she may or may not have borrowed from Leia.

He smiles because he really has no control over his face at this point. He realizes he’s been covering his own mouth in shock since he gasped a minute ago. He moves that hand not holding hers and nods, hugging her.

Jyn laughs a little “Aw,” before she can seem to stop herself, laughing into his shoulder when they embrace.

A few people in the audience cheer and whoop. He hears a couple of sniffles too.

“If we’re finished with the theatrics,” Chirrut says, causing them to remember where they are and break apart with embarrassment.

Cassian holds both of Jyn’s hands, and Chirrut continues. “We are gathered here today by an extension of the Force’s will—to commemorate the long and difficult path that Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso took to find each other. When these two first wed, it was in an empty room on one of the Alliance’s many mobile bases in the years before they came to Hoth.”

Cassian and Jyn share a smile. He remembers that base. Tiny and forgettable, some backwater moon, but populated with what few thousand people could fit in its walls. They’d woken up all of Rogue One in the middle of the night as well as the base’s designated officiant to make sure no one else would be in use of the conference space because of the late hour.

“The road for Cassian and Jyn has not been easy. In fact, when I first saw them together on Jedha, I sensed Jyn wanted nothing more than to abandon Cassian in the nearest ditch.”

The audience laughs, and Jyn looks apologetically at him, which he waves away. He was using her to finish his mission. She wanted to run far away from the war. He can’t blame her.

“But Cassian and Jyn persevered. They survived the Death Star on Scarif. They fought together and apart in the Galactic War. To its very end. Still together, Jyn and Cassian have shown great strength and heart in adapting to the changes their life has brought. And we are here today to renew their commitment to each other throughout whatever the Force may bring.”

Chirrut nods at them, speaking again to the audience. “When Cassian and Jyn first wed, there were no rings. Baze and I had them made as a gift shortly after by a trusted friend and jeweler who survived the devastation on Jedha. Now, as a symbol of their recommitment and to start this chapter of their new life together, Cassian and Jyn will once again exchange rings.”

Jyn starts first, reaching under his collar and pulling the silver chain over his head. She unclasps the necklace and removes his ring, taking his held out hand and placing the ring on his finger.

He reads the engraving for the millionth time.

Jyn Erso.

Cassian then repeats the process for Jyn, taking the cord that holds Jyn’s kyber crystal from around her neck and untying it so that the ring slips off and into his palm. He then reties the cord and places it back over her head before putting her matching ring on her finger.

He reads her engraving upside down.

Cassian Andor.

He looks out into the crowd for a moment. He sees Leia, Han, and their son Ben, and thinks about the extra rooms in the house. He sees Shara, Kes, and Poe, and thinks to fill them. He sees their friends—the people they fought next to for years—and allows the difference of being here at a celebration with them to sink in. He looks back to Jyn and she nods, as if she’s thinking the same.

“May the Force be with you on your journey throughout the rest of your lives. You may now kiss your spouse.”

Cassian kisses Jyn to the uproar of cheers in the background and thinks of nothing but the future ahead of them.