Chapter Text
When the first euphoria fades, that's when the doubts begin. There are so many questions she has, with so many fraught answers, and she knows not how to begin asking them. For all the joy and the instant familiarity, for all that she recognizes him, he is essentially a stranger to her. And likewise she to him. They have spent only the smallest part of their lives together when they were never supposed to be without one another.
"You're thinking so loudly." Cassian mused, pressing the pad of his thumb lightly to that crease between her brows just like he used to when she was little and the smallest things upset her because she was so small and not used to the world yet.
"It's nothing." She dismissed, more reflex than anything else. With a life like hers has been, one learns to keep close. "Your friends seem nice." The way that kind-faced young man had been so scandalised at her refusal to wait outside like some unwanted messenger made her almost giggle out loud in retrospect.
"He saved us all, you know." Cassian scrubbed a hand over his face, a faraway look in his eyes. "Flew that shuttle around a battlefield and scooped up everyone he could. We never- I wouldn't be here right now if not for Bodhi. I'd never have gotten to see you again."
"I'll thank him tomorrow." The light in his quarters is dim; it must be getting late. It already wasn't early anymore when she made her entrance. They're both lounging side by side on the cot like they used to when they were so much littler than now. But unlike then, it's becoming difficult to hold each other's gaze. There's too many uncertainties swirling in his dark eyes; they are a mirror with edges sharp enough to cut.
"I don't know where to begin." He admitted after a long while. "I want to ask you so many things. I need to know so many things."
"I wouldn't know where to begin either." Should she start from the beginning or from the end and go backwards? Maybe just pick one instance from the wild tapestry of her life so far and start jumping around until the full picture emerged? And she had so many things to ask him, too. Some of them she was afraid to learn the answers to. "Just... start with something simple."
"Have you ever been to Morlana One?" This is odd; she'd expected him to ask how she managed to find him. Had he not, after all, spent the last five or so years evading everyone and everything possible? Captain Andor, Fulcrum, renowned master spy, imperial warrants in nearly every system?
"Never." She shook her head. "Never even been to the Morlani system until a few days ago. Oh, that reminds me!" Kerri jumped up and darted for the door.
"Wait!" Cassian wasn't as nimble as he used to be since Scarif and the injuries he sustained there. He struggled to his feet, heart thumping at the prospect of letting Kerri go again.
"I'll just be a moment-"
"No!" He hadn't meant for that to sound so frazzled, then again he finds he doesn't care. They've only just been reunited; he can't be separated again so soon, not for a single moment. Her face softened.
"Alright, come on then, old man." But her smile was strained as she bounded back and hooked her arm into his. Once he was upright it was easier going, but she still had to slow her steps some for him to keep up. She walked them both through the long - and by now mostly empty - corridors of the base and towards the hangar, where she made a beeline for a swoop bike parked near the entrance. The red paint of the emblem was chipped, but still recognizable enough.
"You really were a Cloud-Rider." Kerri looked up from where she was rooting through the compartments to look at him.
"Yeah, why would I lie about that?"
"No, of course. Forget I said anything." He had become too accustomed to lies in his line of work, it seemed. The bike was huge; he wondered how his tiny sister could even begin to maneouvre it. But then again, she wasn't quite so tiny anymore, and there was a lot he didn't know about her now.
"Aha!" Kerri emerged from where she had all but dived head-first into the spacious compartment, holding aloft a cloth-wrapped item, maybe a forearm's length wide. She walked back to where had just been standing, dumbly, and thrust the package into his arms. "Your friend on Ferrix gave me this for you."
It felt... soft. Squishy. He had no notion of what it might be. He'd left every thing behind all those years ago; there was no time to be preoccupied with mere items when the lives of his friends were on the line. He had not been back since.
"Open it." She rocked back on her heels, brows drawn up in open curiosity. At four or five years old she would have peeked.
"You don't know?" He wondered what had happened to the house after no one lived there anymore. Had it been boarded up or had someone in need of shelter made it their new home?
"No, she just gave me the package and said to give it to you when I found you."
"She?"
"Bix Caleen. I found a lead that pointed me to that system, and to Ferrix. Got her name from an old ISB file and somehow gained enough of her trust for her to tell me whether my hunch was right. After that it was just a matter of reaching out to some contacts until I tracked you down here."
Cassian's head swam with thoughts he was too tired to untangle. He'd come back to it another day, after he'd slept and processed the surprise some more. For now, he resolved to simply be glad that Bix was alive and had returned home. He wondered whether any of the others had. Brasso, or B2-EMO or Jezzi, or young Wilmon Paak. He had a promise to keep to them, still.
"Well, open it. I'm curious." Kerri prompted again. Dutifully, Cassian obliged and started undoing the string that held the wrapping together. The first thing that emerged were its spiral horns, then its shaggy brown fur.
"Oh." Involuntarily he cradled the stuffed toy to his chest. Just like he'd done countless times before, mostly when no one was around to see. He remembered bringing it around to Bix's house once, when he was twelve and had wanted to comfort her after the unexpected death of her mother.
Kerri's expression was unreadable; something glimmered wetly in her eyes before they shuttered on any emotion and became hard and impenetrable. He sensed that there were hurts she carried with her that would need careful digging to get to.
"Do you want to hold him?" When they'd been little they hadn't had toys that weren't made from the twigs and rocks and leftover parts of technology. Playing had not been a luxury often afforded to them. As back then, as always, his first instinct was to share. Kerri shook her head.
"Nonsense, it's yours." She slapped the side of her swoop bike. "Don't worry about me; I have my own toy now."
"Kerri-"
"It's fine." She hefted a bag out of her bike's side compartment and onto her shoulder. "Where can I sleep tonight? I don't need much, just a quiet corner on the floor is fine. Is there a utility room somewhere perhaps-"
"Kerri!" He said again, more forceful this time. She turned from where she had begun walking away. Her lip quivered just as subtly as her voice just had. Cassian paused for a moment, unsure what to say to her. What could he offer that would help, perhaps even to pull back down the walls she had pulled up around herself? "I went to Morlana One, that's why I asked. Some five years ago."
"What does that have to do with anything, Kassa?"
"I went there to look for you. I looked for you whenever I could, Kerri. I- ...I looked for you. I never gave up hope. I need you to know that."
"You did?" Her lip quivered more now, and the image was so familiar to him too. Suddenly she's six again or even younger, and all he wants to do is to wrap her in his arms until she stops crying, until she doesn't even start, because that's what a big brother does, isn't it?
"Of course." He makes his voice as soft as it will go, inches closer and offers himself up with arms open. She used to not even reach up to his shoulders, but she does now as she drops her satchel and throws her arms around him and squeezes, squeezes, squeezes so hard it constricts his ribs. Not that he minds. He wraps his arms around her and doesn't ever want to let go again. "I'm sorry I didn't find you."
"Ah, well, you helped me find you instead." Kerri mumbled into his neck. "And you saved the whole galaxy, which I also live in, so I guess we can call it quits."