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He nearly has to drag her out.
If she were any less of a lady, maybe she would have dug her heels in. Made a scene by kicking and screaming. Shoved him and made a break for it…
That’s not very Senator-like behavior, actually.
Andor - because use of his first name feels too familiar, too friendly - has a hand at her shoulder, the other at the small of her back (pressing with a bit more force than she prefers) until he’s steered her clear of the barricade of reporters and other people that Mon Mothma had little taste for.
It’s not until they’re in the back of her private car, both of their visions dotted with the afterthought of camera flashes and Coruscant city light that she shoves him off of her.
Assaulting your protection detail is not very Senator-like behavior, either.
Her mouth is a thin line as looks out of the tinted windows, the frenzy dying down until their next feed. Likely another one of her spineless, careless opposition, who seemed to think that tightening the government’s fist on petty crime would bring the country one-step-closer to the utopia their particular political alliance promised.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the look of Andor’s gaze reflected back to her, disapproval set deep in his features. Mon pretends not to notice.
Normally, Mon had no trouble rebelling. Sure, she has to be careful how she does it, but aside from the singular — “so far!” she hears Senior Senator Bail Organa huff — assassination attempt, very few seem to pay much mind to her little outbursts.
It wasn’t until recently, when a bullet narrowly missed her and shattered her car’s rear window, that she’d been assigned a personal security detail.
His full name is Cassian Andor, which Mon would say was actually a very nice name if not for the fact that she had scowled the whole time that Erskin introduced them.
In truth, it wasn’t Erskin’s fault, he was just her aid and the bearer of bad news. Still, that didn’t save neither him nor Andor her withering glare throughout the entire briefing.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” she’d hissed when she saw Bail next. It had come to an immense shock to her that it wasn’t Bail who had sent Andor to her. More so, it had shaken her a great deal to learn that Cassian Andor had actually not been assigned by the Senate at all.
It’s in one of those private moments between Andor and Mon that she’d asked him about his allegiances.
“Andor… Cassian, I have a question to ask you,” she’d started, blue eyes imploring and wide over the rim of her mug.
It was the only time she’d used his first name.
He had looked over to her from where he was perched by the window, haloed by the lights of the city.
“Mothma… Mon, I might have an answer for you,” he’d replied with a hint of a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth.
It was the only time he called her by her own.
(Before then, it was always “Senator Mothma,” or just “Senator” if he was feeling particularly bold.)
To this day, some months later, she doesn’t know what it had been. Perhaps the fact that they had been alone in her kitchen, light pollution competing with the stars just over the skyline… or was it that he’d prepared her tea, just as she liked it, because he knew it would help her fight off the nightmares she pretended not to have… or even the softness of his gaze and voice as he expressed vulnerable concern for her, rather than exasperation of a harried child-wrangler…
Whatever it was that night when she’d asked him about his loyalty, she’d trusted his answer.
No matter who had sent her, his loyalty was to her.
That was the sort of romanticized nonsense that got politicians killed, Mon had told herself the next morning.
Still, his hands holding hers around her half-empty mug, voice so earnest and raw, Mon had very little choice in her heart but to accept it.
Did that make her a fool?
Perhaps. She hasn’t had him turn on her yet.
He would have had fair cause to today, though, the way she had snapped like a petulant child at a reporter who knew just the sort of question to get at a Bleeding Heart like Senator Mothma.
Like a film - cue to camera flashes and hurried questions and Andor pulling her away from the fray (‘of her own making,’ she’s sure Leida would say, disappointedly.)
Another thing her fourteen-year-old daughter might advise is “media training.” Something Mon would advise would be to not have an attitude first thing in the morning.
“Looks like we can’t all get what we want.”
…
“Senator Mothma,” he says - again? - breaking her well and truly from her spiral of thoughts.
“What? What is it?” She asks, turning to him. Shaking her senses free of whatever latest reverie she’d let them tumble down.
Andor opens the car door. The view beyond it is her own front door.
“We’ve arrived.”
Mon blinks twice before she nods, follows Andor out of the car. Doesn’t accept his hand to help her, even though it would probably have been helpful in her three-inch heels.
A small part of her misses Perrin’s excited “We’re home!,” eliciting cheers and applause from a younger Leida, and — well — a younger Mon. Mon never gets cheers or applause when she brings Leida back from her father’s all these years later. “We’re home!” Mon would finally realize, was a special spell that only Perrin could cast.
It’s nighttime. Back in her home state of Chandrila, she might not have been able to see the twenty-feet to her own front door. The sky was never so aglow with artificial lights in Chandrila. Signs in homage to modern-day idols and types of celebrity.
Here, she can see Andor’s silhouette perfectly. Carefully waiting for her before proceeding to let them in.
“We’re home!” she thinks to herself.
Nope. It’s just her. Leida only visits. Andor was an extended-stay houseguest. And Mon…
“I’ll make some tea,” Andor says, moving to take Mon’s coat.
Every night — unless she pulled an overnight at the Senate — the same dance. She never takes his hand, she never offers her coat. Their nightly olive branch, if her schedule permits, is her cup of tea by the window. Which, she might add, always has him in the view now, considering the fact that he’s on lookout and the way to “look out” was through the window.
Mon used to hate the view.
Moments later, he hands her her favorite mug — (Every night, it’s her favorite mug) — and perches himself on one of her decorative bar stools. (Good. At least someone uses them.) The same place every night, directly breaking Mon’s line of sight from the Senate Building.
At first, she’d complained about it. Well, alright, at first, she’d complained about a lot of things Andor did.
He stood too closely. He breathed too loudly. He moved too quietly that she never knew when he was going to sneak up on her! (“I thought you heard me coming,” he’d say, innocently, as if he wasn’t guilty of nearly causing her an episode of cardiac distress.)
Now, though, she doesn’t have those same complaints.
Now, though, they’re sat quietly in the kitchen. No words between them, only the echoes of past conversations to comfort her in the silence. She wonders if he hears them too.
He glances over to her. She smiles back silently, sips her tea.
Maybe she got a bit too worked up. Maybe he had to be a bit firm with her for her own good. That was another dance they practiced, an etude they perfect every new day.
At the end of the day, it all comes back to this. Her apartment in Coruscant under dim kitchen lights, nothing but them and the expanse of the city beyond the glass.
Mon used to hate the view. Now, though… it’s familiar. And, dare she say it, safe.