Chapter Text
JYN
Med Bay had been under guard since their unexpected return from Scarif.
Bodhi’s quick thinking and (unexpected, if she was being honest with herself) abilities as a pilot had gotten them off the planet, and away from the Empire’s attack squads well enough. They’d been the last ship to return, Bodhi pulling double duty at the controls; Jyn in the bay, holding Cassian’s head in her lap and furtively wiping the blood dribbling from between his lips on the cuff of her shirt. Medics had arrived, peeled Cassian from her grip, and left Jyn and Bodhi slumped against the ship. Eventually the slender man had moved to her side, wrapped her arm over his shoulders, and hobbled them both along in the wake of the medical team doing their best to save Cassian’s life.
Jyn had spent several hours being examined from head to toe; no one would tell her anything but she really hadn’t expected them to. When it was all said, and done, she was a rogue rather than a rebel, and had never been one of them. Nobody gave her any instructions at her discharge other than to stay off her wrenched ankle (and on the crutches provided), and a small packet of pills for the pain. Bodhi, they were keeping overnight for treatment of his burns. Cassian was nowhere to be found, and she doubted anyone was inclined to tell her where the wounded, near-death Intelligence Officer was being kept.
In the end, Jyn had limped in the direction of the mess hall; there she’d settled with a cup of caf, a bowl of some sort of cold soup, and the packet of painkillers.
She’d sat there for long enough that the soup had risen to room temperature, and the caf had gone cold. Long enough to draw attention to herself. Long enough to wonder what the fuck she was still doing here when a voice at her elbow growled, “Erso, is it?”
With a quick swivel, she turned to stare at the junior intelligence officer. He lacked any of Cassian’s suppressed warmth, and something in his demeanor told her he’d never rise to a rank as trusted or talented as her – her what? Her friend? Her partner? Jyn didn’t actually know what to call Cassian Andor. Their relationship had sprung up so unexpectedly, so deeply, that she didn’t know how to cram him back into the box of acquaintanceship. She realized, belatedly, that she hadn’t answered the man – and his limited patience (shouldn’t he have more for this line of work? Cassian did.) was running out. Jyn jerked her chin down in an abrupt nod, and slowly stood. He didn’t offer her the crutches leaned beside him, so she took them herself.
Their walk was long enough for Jyn to feel the ache in her armpits from the pressure of the crutches, but brief enough that she wasn’t even winded when she found herself standing in Command once more – staring at Mon Mothma and General Draven.
“Well,” Jyn said curtly. She was sore. She was worried. She was still sick about the dead they’d left behind. She didn’t really want to be dealing with the people in this room. They were not the Rebellion, not to her, and they never would be. “I assume you wanted to see me?”
Draven’s mouth popped open to speak, but thankfully, it was the senator who spoke first.
“We owe you a debt, Jyn Erso. You may have incited rebellion within the Rebellion-“ Jyn appreciated the play on words in what she assumed was a concession to Draven, who looked likely to pop. “But in doing so, you’ve given us a great gift…at a cost to yourself.”
There was sympathy in Mon Mothma’s voice, and in her steady gaze. She was better at people than Draven was, and it made her more tolerable to work with. “We can arrange a transport for you, anywhere you like. Once the plans are returned to Command, we’ll see to it that your father’s creation is destroyed.”
She could leave, Jyn realized. Go anywhere she wanted. The Alliance, with its rules and its orders and structure would never sit well on her shoulders; Jyn knew that. Still, whenever she tried to think of where she might go she could only picture Cassian appearing at the top of that tower, coming back for her. All she saw was Bodhi Rook’s desperation to reach them, to haul them into the bay of the ship. He had come back for them. Two men. Two unspoken promises kept. Jyn wasn’t sure what they were doing next, but she couldn’t leave them until she knew.
Jyn wet her lips.
“If it’s all the same, I’d rather wait…until Captain Andor is stable.” She steadily ignored the surprise in Mon Mothma’s expression (pleased, she was sure of it) and the displeasure in Draven’s.
They’d assigned her a room (a closet, really, but it more than sufficed; Jyn had slept in far worse places and likely would again,) and she had the impression she was meant to stay there.
Which brought her back to the fact that Med Bay had been under guard since her unexpected return from Scarif. Bodhi was in there, and Cassian. Her first approach had been rebuffed; she didn’t have the clearance to enter Med Bay. Clearance be damned, Jyn wasn’t a soldier to sit idly by and let that go unchallenged. She was a rogue more than she was a rebel, and no one had stood between her and what she wanted – not for long, anyway. She’d returned with a truncheon.
Careful blows left two armed guards unconscious against the floor, and Jyn slipping into Med Bay with an unrepentant expression on her face. Maybe they’d eject her from the base. Maybe she’d find a way back in. You didn’t keep a woman with her talents out without expending a lot of resources; she expected they’d see it her way eventually.
Cassian she located first, floating in a bacta chamber. Jyn couldn’t tell how bad he was, but they hadn’t just shoved him off in a bed somewhere to die, and that was comforting. So she found Bodhi Rook, sleeping under the influence of medicine. His steady breath was comforting; she pulled a chair close, eased the boot off her bad foot, and propped it on his bed (she’d ditched the crutches somewhere already) and settled back in her chair.
The deep breathing of Bodhi Rook lulled her into the first real sleep she’d had since before Eadu. When the soldiers of the Rebellion found her there later, quiet orders trickled down the ranks to leave her where she slept.