Chapter Text
1653 DAYS WITHOUT LUCK
What will you do when they catch you?
What will you do if they break you?
If you continue to fight— what will you become?
⁂
01. Nameless One
“This one! Get it open!”
It was a matter of minutes before the alarm caught up on them. They needed to be fast— faster than this.
Under the corridor’s cold nightlight, the group of Pathfinders silently deployed into position. They were highly trained SpecForce commandos, carefully selected for the impossible mission. There wasn’t going to be another shot at the extraction. Ever.
The fried-circuit plea of the door echoed into the stillness of the scene as the panel slid to the left with automatism. Taking a step forward, Major Cassian Andor penetrated the pitch-black cell. The mounted light on his blaster rifle provided him with a focal point to search the room. The cruel ray of light fell on the prisoner’s face just as she jumped off of her bunk in fear, ready to take down the unknown threat. Commotion ensued.
Cassian had to dodge a furious attack. He jumped on her. They both fell back over the metallic frame of her bunk. He grabbed her arms with force, blocking a fist ready to collide with his jaw. She didn’t like the restraint, fought even harder to smash his face with a sharp elbow and almost knocked him out.
“Jyn!” he growled in haste. “Jyn, stop! It’s me. It’s Cassian!”
If he couldn’t quite see her face in the dark, he felt the painful protest of her body and the wave of shock that startled her. She stopped moving all at once, frozen in place, hard muscles and itching breath. Somewhere in the back of his brain, Cassian could still hear the ticking sound of each passing second, bleeding him with urgency.
“Cassian— ?”
Something deep inside tried to rebel at the sound of her voice. She was alienated, rasp, distant and unfamiliar. Yet, he had known that voice. Yes, he had. But he couldn’t let emotions take over him now. It all had to wait for a better place and time.
“Yes.”
“Cassian?” she repeated bluntly, unresponsive.
Then, suddenly, all things broke loose and her posture changed in the blink of an eye, caving in. Instead of fighting him, she reached out, desperately. Jyn held onto him in a tight embrace, a sound of misery ripping her voice apart. He wasn’t strong enough to deny her. He hugged her firmly, heart furiously beating.
Still, they had to move.
Without breaking contact, Cassian dragged her to her feet once more. He hadn’t known the condition he would find her in, if he could find her at all, and had been prepared to act accordingly. At least, she was in no need of immediate assistance and that was a small advantage weighing on their fragile balance. He would take it.
“Come! We have to go, now!”
He was already making a move to barge through the exit.
“No!” Jyn almost screamed. “Wait!”
There was not a single reason in the entire galaxy he could fathom for waiting. He almost dislocated her shoulder when he tried to stop her. Yet, Jyn was already turning around to reach her bunk. Whatever she wanted to retrieve wasn’t worth her life, nor the lives of the rescue team, and Cassian felt a surging wave of anger burning his throat.
What’s wrong with you?
Obviously, he already had a answer. After so much time in captivity, she might have been delusional. If he had to sedate her to force her into cooperation, he would do it without question.
“Come with me,” Cassian ordered as a final warning.
“Take her! Get her out!”
Cassian’s mind blacked out for a nanosecond, completely disconnected. Why should he get her out when he wanted to get Jyn out? Who was even that her? Why didn’t he ask the question? Why didn’t he brush it off and tell Jyn he had come for her, not for anyone else? As cruel as it was, they couldn’t afford to rescue any other prisoner. They certainly couldn’t afford the dead weight either. But Cassian Andor blatantly kept his mouth shut and balanced the small child Jyn shoved into his arms the next moment.
Mother of the kriffing moons.
He exhaled once and felt a frightful pair of tiny arms trembling around his neck.
“Move it! Go!” he ordered.
And with that, Cassian accepted the responsibility when really, he should have not.
⁂
The extraction wasn’t going as smoothly as he had hoped for, but they could take it. The Pathfinders were determined to hold the line.
The prison facility was located on Shingra, near the rocking surface of the inhospitable territory. If they had to wander outside without protective gear, they would most likely be dead in a matter of hours. Humans couldn’t handle the harsh conditions of the Outer Rim’s planet, nor the deadly species populating it. Thus, the only salvation was the shuttle programmed to pick them up on their way out to escape to hyperspace. Their action window was short and tedious, and definitely not renewable. But first, they had to get out.
Cassian kept his attention focused on his surroundings, alert, efficient.
He was using one of his arms to hold the girl against his chest, the other to fire back with the A-300 blaster rifle. Glad for all the forced training and the broken arms and the numbness of his brain when he absorbed the recoil of the weapon in a way he should have not. Jyn was just ahead of him. He wasn’t letting her slip out of his field of view.
She had been given a blaster to defend her own life, and she sure remembered how to use it. She glanced back at him a stressful amount of times. She should’ve not. She was only setting herself vulnerable to a fatal shot. She did nonetheless, and Cassian knew she wasn’t really looking at him—which made him concerned.
Not now. Not here.
To his left, one of the squad’s members caught a blaster shot and stumbled against a duraglass wall with a grunt of acute pain. A pair of friendly hands forced him back up onto his feet, pushing the bleeding man with the rest of them without stopping. He struggled, looked down, but clutched to the other Pathfinder and kept on moving.
Cassian was panting under exhaustion. The low-pitched alarm was chilling to the bones, crude, cold, dooming—matching the pounding of his heart in his chest.
At the next corner, he dodged to the right and his back hit the wall full force. He barely felt the pressure around his neck, barely noticed the panic of the small child—because he didn’t have time to think about it. Just keep Jyn alive. Exfil. Fly. Gone.
“Move forward! Move!”
“Melshi, cover!”
Cassian pushed himself off the wall and started running again. Two meters away from him, Jyn took another glance over her shoulder instead of focusing on her own survival and he could have slapped her for being so blasted stupid.
“Stop looking!” he yelled. “I’ve got this!”
We’ve done this before, I’ve been there for you when everything was going down. I’ll do this for you. Force be damned, I won’t fail you. Trust me.
He thought she did, maybe.
Through smoke and enemy fire and crimson shots, they blew their exit path off with an explosive device. Hot burning air got sucked into the facility like a vacuum chamber. The prison guards yelled more orders, trying to contain the spreading chaos. Melshi threw another set of grenades in their direction. Someone screamed a warning. They braced for impact.
Cassian turned his back to the detonation and absorbed the impact with a rapid shift of position. His eyes watered in the abrasive air. He turned around and moved the girl higher on his side without much care. Already, someone was forcing Jyn through the gaping hole opened in the prison’s outer wall. On the other side of it, only darkness was accounted for to greet them, unwelcomed.
The moment her foot collided with foreign soil, she yet took another look at him. She was fearful, and she parted her lips with a pleading sound that never reached his ears.
Fuck you, Jyn. Why can’t you allow me the faith? Why can’t you pretend I was there even when it took five blasted years to make it up. Fuck you, I’ll show you—so I can keep lying to myself in shame.
“Straight ahead!” Melshi screamed over the swirling turmoil.
⁂
The wounded soldier collapsed onto the U-wing flooring, holding his flank with a painful grimace. Someone promptly kneeled next to him. He took a shot of anesthetic to the leg. They tried to control the bleeding, to assess the situation. Slowly, the urgency of the rescue started to dissipate to let them focus on damage control.
Cassian ran numbers in his head. No one had died just yet. No one had been left behind— not this time. He had Jyn. He had a plus one that wasn’t part of the initial plan.
The spacecraft jumped into hyperspace before he had time to reach the other side of the cargo area. On the pilot’s seat, Kaytoo had memorized Cassian’s orders with an inorganic rigor. White flashes of stars melted away on a black canvas through the frontal viewport, washing away any remnant memories of the Imperial prison. Cassian finally took another burning breath, despite the resistance of his body. He wasn’t ready to unravel the events—never would be, but she was quicker than him.
Jyn went straight to him. Not for me, really. She ripped the small weight out of his arms and he let her do so. There, standing still under the flying red light, Cassian took another look at her. A real, insightful, spy-trained one, and she looked back into his eyes like a ghost from another life. Really looking at him for the first time today.
She was very different from his memories, yet exactly the same. A contradiction that was only born from years of separation and guilt. So many things to discuss, so little strength to do it.
Her chin shivered a little, but she didn’t say it.
—You left me behind
— I hate you
— You came back
— Thank you
— Are you with me
— Fuck you
— Go away
— Stay.
“Andor.”
“Yes,” Cassian turned around on impulse. Stern face, dark voice, stained heart.
“Transmitting report to the Alliance?” Melshi asked.
“Go ahead. Tell them we have secured our objective. Pulling back to base.”
“Roger that.”
When he looked back at Jyn, with enough emotional distance to be able to handle it, she had turned away from him. She settled back into one of the seats and tightly held the small girl on her lap, trying to ease out the silent cries he could barely hear. She closed her eyes with a painful frown of relief, something deep and wounded. Something he would’ve liked to mend, but wasn’t allowed to. She ran a trembling hand over the dark brown hair tucked into twin braids.
No, not now. Cassian shut his brain off.
He made his way to the commands with a short and rapid walk and fell next to Kaytoo, getting a hold on the spaceship, even though he didn’t need to.
“You have satisfactorily completed every objective,” his friend told him with a slow, lifeless voice. “Jyn Erso has been rescued from an Imperial high-security detention facility after 1653 days and three hours twenty-two minutes of captivity. Congratulations, Cassian.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled with a dark tone. “What a hero.”
“Pieces of evidence that you only refer to yourself as such in a derogatory manner lead me to believe it was a sarcastic remark. Which is quite misleading because, factually, you can be considered as a hero since—”
“Yes, Kay,” he cut out bitterly. “I got it.”
“Oh. It was sarcasm then.”
“Indeed,” the man snorted.
“Would you like me to tell you the probabilities of complete mission failure and/or gruesome death you just overcame to highlight the situation in a more pleasant way?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well, it was high,” Kaytoo told him nonetheless. “Very high.”
⁂
A medical team waited for them on the tarmac. They quickly took charge of the most critical patient and transported the blastershot Pathfinder towards the medbay. Others suffered from less serious injuries. Melshi had sustained a slight burn to the side of his face during the explosion, but he refused to be admitted just yet. Jyn Erso and the nameless girl she had brought back with her were both directed into the medical unit under close-range protection from Special Forces.
Cassian didn’t follow them—couldn’t, wouldn’t?
Instead, the major was required to debrief the classified mission with his CO. Melshi was still by his side when he finally found General Davits Draven inside of the Jagomir’s rebel HQ. This one was called Resolute Base—different name, same war.
“Casualties?” the man in his late forties asked.
“Basteren took a blaster shot, he’s still holding up.”
“Others?”
“Minor injuries.”
“Good,” Draven nodded, his attention entirely focused on the datapad in his hand. “What about Erso? How is she?”
Cassian put extra effort into modeling the tone of his voice, hands folded behind his back.
“Stable enough.”
“That girl is a tough one,” the general said. “But years without seeing a sunrise can fuck with anyone’s mind. Make sure to keep an eye on her during the first few weeks, we don’t need an incident. Guess you want to stay around for that?”
Cassian was still reflecting on the term incident, and the meaning behind it, when Draven let out a low growl of impatience.
“Andor. Talking to you.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Alright. I’ll ask Cracken to send you to Counter-Intel. You’ll be put in charge of base surveillance so you can keep a foot on the ground until further notice. Now,” Draven trailed off, finally rising piercing blue eyes to meet Cassian. “What’s with the plus one?”
The crude light reflecting from the digital screen emphasized the general’s circumspect expression.
“Not entirely sure yet, Sir.”
“Did you take that initiative or was it Erso?”
“I—” Cassian paused, closed his mouth again, speculative. He knew why those questions were asked. “I did,” he finally answered. “The girl was in the same cell when I came in and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving a witness behind.”
Draven snorted right into his fucking face.
None of them were fooled, they knew better. Nonetheless, the general didn’t make any further comment and simply nodded, dismissing the subject—for now. Once they were registered into official Alliance reports, lies were no more than alternative truths and any event could be rewritten at convenience. Right now, Cassian was convinced he was rewriting it in Jyn’s best interest and he would fiercely defend it. Defend her.
He owed it to her.
“Erso’s presence on Resoba is declassified, but keep it quiet for now on. We don’t need more discontentment.”
“With due respect,” Melshi suddenly growled. “Those cowards can suck it dry.”
“Duly noted, Lieutenant.”
Cassian was keen to share the opinion of his friend, but thought it was best not to mention it.
“Alright, rack out. I got shit to do,” Draven concluded with a solemn—tired—tone. “You’ll file me that report later, Andor.”
Cassian was glad for the delay. He needed it to sort through this.
The two men exited the HQ without a word. Outside the main commanding room, Cassian spotted the tall and towering silhouette of a single KX-series security droid waiting for him by the end of the dark hallway.
Resolute Base had nothing to do with the Massassi outpost on Yavin 4. Here, practicality was the main and sole design of the infrastructures.
The base had been established after the Rebel Alliance was driven from Arda I by Imperial forces. The initial construction had been conducted in haste, mainly from modified pre-fab buildings. During the following years, more barracks had been added to the mix, rapidly developing into a larger maze of metal and recycled materials. The layout of Resoba was confusing for newcomers, but Cassian had spent the last two years on Jagomir, clad between cold rains and everlasting humid days.
Besides, it would’ve taken more than that to disorientate the master spy—and his infiltrator friend alike.
“Are you done with Operation Eventide?” Kaytoo asked when Cassian reached him.
“Yes.”
“Are we staying on base? Your gear is still on board the UT-60D. Do you want me to retrieve it for you?”
“I’ll do it later. Draven is switching my posting to base surveillance.”
“Ah. That’s convenient,” Kaytoo noted with a genuine voice.
Cassian thought so himself. But of course, his droid wasn’t done with the subject.
“Are you going to see Jyn Erso now? I’d like to accompany you. My last interaction with her is very outdated, I think it’s customary to renew those types of demonstrations now and then.”
The following silence was unbearable as the three of them finally walked out in the open under clouded skies, emerging not far from the main landing area. The ambient humidity penetrated Cassian’s uniform with a cold, chilling touch, only matched by the invisible anguish creeping over him.
“I need you to drop my rifle at the armory,” Cassian told Kaytoo. “The scope needs to be recalibrated.”
His companion wasn’t enthusiastic about it, tilting his inexpressive head with somehow just enough spite piercing the glowing white orbs of his circuits to express his discontentment. He would still do as Cassian had asked, but Melshi picked up that exact same stick to poke over the wound.
“Aren’t you going to see her? I thought—” The man paused. “We both know how things really went down in there.”
Cassian let out a brutal sigh and ran a hand through his dark brown hair.
“If there is any reprisal from the Empire... I don’t want Jyn to be targeted by the Secessionists. Enough shit on our plate.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Melshi told him.
“I know what you’re saying and… I don’t know.”
The two men exchanged a telling look. Nearby, a spaceship was being prepped for departure, dragged onto the wet tarmac by a motorized engine. None of the people around had ever heard about Operation Eventide, because if they had— well, rumors on base were flying quicker than an X-wing.
“Alright,” Melshi finally decided, shaking his head slightly. “Whatever you need, brother. You know where to find me.”
“Get that burn checked by a medic,” Cassian ordered. “And not tomorrow.”
“What about after tomorrow?” he smiled ironically.
With that, the two rebels parted ways. Melshi—to SpecForce's meeting room. Cassian—to medbay alpha. Yes, he would go. Not tomorrow.
The walk was shorter than he would’ve liked.
The alpha unit was situated below ground level, preventing it from being vulnerable in case of an aerial strike. When Cassian entered, the place was quietly running along with daily tasks. Not a lot of patients on sight. Two medics gave him a salute of acknowledgment as he walked past them, alongside a green corridor illuminated by warm lights. A few doors down, he stumbled upon a smaller area which required higher security clearance, where he thought Jyn had been admitted.
Surely enough, he was greeted by Doctor Lorren Morrick who ran the place with his team. Cassian and he had met several times during the years, and had become accustomed to each other. They weren’t exactly cut to fit together but they tried to maintain their level of interaction as somewhat cordial.
“How is she?” Cassian asked without introduction.
Morrick was an intelligent man. He would know why Cassian was here.
“I’m sorry, Major. I’m not allowed to talk about the patient.”
Facing the gray hair medic with an unreadable expression, Cassian clenched a fist behind his back in a rigid posture. The aseptic, sterile odor of the place took him by the throat, triggering traumatic memories he would’ve gladly discharged from his brain. He hated medbay, and hated, even more, the fact that he wasn’t the one laying on the other side of that smokescreen panel today.
The only time—with her, in his arms—after Scarif… Seeking comfort, alive, by whatever odds, by whatever sun. That was the only time he had been relaxed enough around the white blouse medics. But now, Cassian was watching the scene from the outside and he hated it with every cell of his being. He wondered how Jyn was feeling in here, desperate to find out, and his voice hardened.
“General Draven just declassified the information. Don’t make me drag his ass down here.”
He could’ve been more polite. Not today, though.
Morrick didn’t take umbrage at it, which was nice enough of him. He reached for a datapad and replaced a pair of glasses over his strong nose.
“Not terrible, all considered,” he read to Cassian with a clinical tone. “We’re going to need to treat multiple deficiencies and rebuild her immune system. She suffers poorly healed fractures and we need to realign the fifth intercostal. Other than that… I’m confident she’s going to make a full recovery. Physically.”
That last input weighed heavily on Cassian’s shoulders.
“She has received a sedative while we were waiting for the initial scanning,” the man pursued. “Should be in the black for a few hours.”
It was a small comfort, at least, to know that Jyn would be sleeping it off for a while. Her body probably needed the break as much as her mind. How did someone recover from years of deprivation? While she was knocked out, she couldn’t wonder about Cassian either, and that was… charitable.
Don’t let her wake up alone in yet another strange place.
Wouldn’t he?
No, not alone.
“What about the girl?”
Morrick drew his eyebrows higher towards his balding hairline, still eyeing his report.
“First blood results aren’t great,” he said. “She needs to undergo extensive viral procedures before she can come in contact with a full crowd. She’s underweight and lacks muscle development. Shouldn't be irreversible given some time. We still need to access her cognitive functions but she’s out of it for now. She was very distraught and has been sedated as well.”
Cassian tried to remember the small, fragile arms clutching around his neck inside the prison.
“They’re both given IV fluids to compensate for the dehydration and we’ll be pushing nutrients soon enough.”
“Good.”
A short silence followed his tense voice and Morrick gave him an annoyed look, probably wondering if Cassian was about to do his job for him.
“Anything else, Major?”
Cassian knew he needed to ask the question, but the words were excruciating to articulate. It took all of his self-discipline to— just say it, be done with it.
“Did… Erso give birth to her?”
“She did.”
Somehow, he already knew.
Cassian felt sick. He felt like someone had just stabbed him with a combat knife and was happily rearranging his guts without care. He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white and barely managed to nod, one time. Without another word for Morrick, he then turned around and stormed out of the medbay.
He couldn’t even reach his quarters before lashing out.
In the middle of an empty corridor, Major Cassian Andor suddenly attacked the nearby wall. He threw a punch against the metal frame, earning a loud echoing bang, and then another—didn’t stop. Before he knew it, he was raging and hyperventilating and bruising his fists.
It had been over ten years since practical, collected, unemotional Cassian was gone this bad—so much that nearby people even stopped walking to watch him in concern, startled. But none of them gathered up the courage to interrupt his furious backlash. They would certainly mention his name over lunch, gossiping and speculating on the dreadful reason behind the soldier’s furry but blast, did he not care.
I should’ve found you sooner. I swear I’ve tried, but what does it matter? It didn’t make a difference. All your life, still without a voice, and now— I didn’t leave you behind, I would’ve died to trade places. It should have been me on Yavin.
Cassian finally rested his forehead against the cold surface, eyes closed. His hands were now throbbing painfully, skin torn over his bleeding knuckles. He frowned in silence, muttered unintelligible curse words, silent pleas.
He couldn’t keep the devastating thought away.
Was she raped in there? Cassian wailed a sound of despair, banging his head against the wall to release the pain somehow. —is it mine? Did it matter now? Did it change anything? They had done it that one time, after Scarif. He barely remembered it through the blur of events following and the dosage of painkillers flooding their systems. Then, six months of blockade on Yavin 4, another time. But she would’ve been three or four months along when she was captured. It didn’t add up. Even so, the child looked too young to be his.
It would’ve been easier for him, knowing it wasn’t his child that he had never known even existed until tonight. Something sharp ripped his chest apart, realizing what a bastard he was. How could he ever feel relief if it meant she had been hurt?
How low can you get and still pretend to care? Jyn would never.
— Are you with me?
— All the way.
Yes, yes, always. Except when it matters the most. Except when I'm scared. Please, put me out of it. It wouldn’t be so bad if you're the one pressing the trigger.
— Cassian?
— Take her! Get her out!
She had trusted him with everything she had. She had trusted him and he had to make up for it. He didn’t deserve any of it. Would never deserve the soul of Jyn Erso. But Force be damned, he would stand there and beg for it.
He had to make sure she was safe. That he could do, would do. He would protect her from anyone, anything, himself included if he had to.
1653 days to repay.
And I swear, never again you'll find yourself behind bars while I’m still breathing.