Aldera, Alderaan
5 BBY

Jyn Erso was tired. Technically speaking, Nari MacVee was tired, but under the Nari alias, she was Jyn Erso, and Jyn was a level of exhausted she hadn't known existed. She'd grown up with Saw Gerrera, who had trained his soldiers mercilessly, adopted daughter included, from sunrise to sunset. But this...

In the tiny flat she occupied in the capital city of Aldera, Jyn stood at the tiny counter in her tiny kitchen, staring blearily at the instant caf currently dissolving into the one clean mug of hot water she had available. Raising bloodshot green eyes, she glared at the stack of dishes in her minuscule sink. Her flat didn't rate an autowasher, since she was a seventeen-year-old nobody charity case.

She needed to wash the dishes. But she could barely summon the energy to make caf at the moment. Maybe when she'd drank that…

The apartment was a single room with attached 'fresher (a shower, toilet, and sink in a space Jyn thought could charitably be called a closet). It was clean, and decently constructed, but wasn't anything special. There was room for her bed, and small table with two chairs, and the little "kitchen" tucked in the alcove formed by the enclosed 'fresher. That held a small conservator, a small food prepper, and a sink, cupboards above to store dishes-three plates, two cups, two mugs, a bin of eating utensils-and a few dry and canned goods. The place was simple, small, and lightyears better than anywhere else she'd called home in the last nine years.

She'd been living here for almost five months, since the charity organisation had helped her find the place and some work she could do from home. Not that she'd been able to do much of that in the last three days. Fortunately, her boss understood.

Deciding the caf was as dissolved as it was likely to get, Jyn gave it a stir and took a swig, wincing at the acrid bite of the bitter brew. Better than nothing, she reminded herself.

An indignant squeak sounded behind her, and Jyn went through a confusing rush of emotions in about five seconds: annoyance, fear, indescribable joy. She swallowed another mouthful of caf and set the mug down, turning to the source of the sound.

Beside the low bed sat a small, expandable crib. Inside that crib, swaddled in pink, was her daughter.

Jyn crossed over to the crib and carefully lifted the baby into her arms. The doctors had kept Auren in the hospital for four months, though she'd only been a month early. She'd been premature, severely underweight-as had her young mother-and had had some respiratory problems at birth. Jyn hadn't been able to nurse her at all, pumping her milk for those few months, and she was now formula fed.

"Hi," she said softly, to the red, scrunched up face of the annoyed infant. "Hi, baby. Don't worry, Mama's here. What is it? Are you hungry?"

Auren flailed a fist and yelped angrily. The young woman wasn't sure how to interpret that, so she laid the baby on the bed, unwrapped her, and checked her diaper. No need to change that, yet, so she must need food.

Holding Auren to her shoulder, Jyn moved to get one of the pre-made bottles out of the conservator that she'd mixed up earlier and stuck it in the food prep unit as Ezri, Auren's nurse at the hospital, had shown her. Meanwhile, Auren's unhappy grunts began taking on the pitch of actual cries. Jyn bounced her a little, wincing as the baby latched onto her sleep-tangled hair.

It took a few moments to carefully prise the now-chubby fingers out of the long, brown strands. "Don't pull Mama's hair, poppet," she said. "Breakfast is coming. I'm going as fast as I can."

Auren wailed in response. Jyn had never been more grateful for soundproof walls than right then. She'd also never felt more alone.

It was just her and her baby against the galaxy. Well, alright, Ezri had become a friend and there was Breha, but she couldn't exactly say that Breha was someone she could rely on.

One didn't rely on the queen of a planet when one was, well, her.

But Jyn's mother was long-dead and her father might as well be. And Saw, well, Saw had abandoned her. So he was basically dead, too.

The idea of even trying to track down Auren's father was a really bad joke. Jeron of no last name and the pretty brown eyes had been a fun distraction one night. Jyn had stolen his blaster and his credits. She didn't expect anything from him now, even if she was of a mind to find him. Which she wasn't, no matter how lonely and helpless and scared she felt right then. Of course, that had been her default setting since she'd learned she was pregnant, but then again, so had it been for most of the last decade, since her mother killed and her father taken away. And angry. She was angry a lot, but never at Auren. At herself for being stupid, at Jeron for being as negligent as her, at Saw and Mama and the man in white. But never, ever at her baby.

The timer finally went off, and Jyn fetched it from the small prep unit. It was funny, but even with her limited supplies here, she was eating better than she had at nearly any point in the previous eight years. She still hadn't quite learned to properly cook, but it was on her list of things to do.

She tested the heated formula, found it a good temperature for the baby, and shifted Auren in her arms so she could give her the bottle. The infant's indignant cries cut off abruptly, replaced by furious sucking noises, the baby's face still red and wet with angry tears.

Jyn smoothed her daughter's dark curls with her fingertips. "There, now, isn't that better?"

The truth was, the young woman barely had any idea what she was doing. From the moment she'd decided to keep the baby, she'd devoured every bit of literature on human child rearing that she'd been able to find. She hadn't been much for reading while with Saw, but she wasn't with Saw anymore, and she had something so much more important to do now.

Auren relaxed in her mother's arms, her little body going limp as she drank her formula. Jyn moved to sit on the bed, back to the headboard, and bent her knees up to cradle the baby more.

She only had vague memories of her mother now, gone nine years. More than half her life, Lyra Erso had been dead.

"What would you think of me, Mama, if you could see me now?" she asked aloud, voice barely a whisper.

Auren's eyes opened, big and brown and lushly lashed. She could be fanciful and pretend that the baby had Lyra's eyes, but Lyra's had been a cool brown, almost black. These were warm like melted chocolate.

"At least you have my nose," she told the infant. "Your papa's nose wouldn't suit you at all. Though the last time I saw him, his nose was purple. Silly boy got punched in the face, trying to protect me."

Stupidly, it had worked as a really terrible pickup. Not that she regretted it, especially since she had ended up with the child in her arms.

"He's probably off seducing other girls," she sighed. "But we don't need him, do we, poppet? You and me, that's all we need."

Her gaze fell on the blaster she kept under her pillow, the butt of the pistol sticking out a little. Alderaan was peaceful, largely pacifistic, though small personal arms were allowed. Nari McVee's story was that she was hiding from an abusive ex. The queen herself had said it was alright for her to possess the blaster and her truncheons.

How was it that she knew the queen? That still blew Jyn's mind.

The blaster had been Jeron's, or whatever his real name was. She'd taken it when she'd woken that morning, a little over a year ago, along with a handful of credits from his pocket and, unknowingly, the most precious treasure she could have ended up with.

Auren's tiny fingers flexed on the bottle and she blinked slowly, sleepily. Jyn pressed her own finger into the baby's grasp and Auren's grip tightened around it.

The door chime sounded. Before Jyn could rise from the bed, it slid open and Ezri Shan bustled in. It wasn't like Jyn to give people access to her living space, but Ezri wasn't just anyone. She was practically a second mother to Auren, the nurse who had been taking care of her since her birth.

Ezri was taller than Jyn, with dark skin and hair, and slanting, pale gold eyes. She wasn't any more Alderaanian than Jyn, born on Brentaal IV. She'd told "Nari" one evening that her family had come to Alderaan when she was twelve, escaping the Imperial occupation of her planet.

So had Jyn, though she hadn't told Ezri that. Not that Jyn had a planet.

"Sorry I'm here so early," the other woman said. She was both taller than Jyn and a few years older, four or five at most. "My shifts changed at the hospital, and I thought I'd stop by on my way home and see my two favourite girls."

Ezri set down a bag that seemed to hold groceries and came over to sit by her. "How are you today, Nari?"

"Tired." As if to prove it, she yawned wide enough to pop her jaw. "She's cried most of the last two days. I've barely slept."

The nurse held out her arms. "Why don't I take her for a bit, so you can shower?"

"Don't you need to go home?"

"Not right now. I had a short shift and I'm off for two days. Go, get that shower. Then you can nap while I make you some breakfast. You're still nothing but skin and bones. What have you been living on?"

"Caf," Jyn answered honestly. She finally let Ezri take the baby. "Can I nap first, then shower?"

Ezri snorted. "Go ahead. You might fall over in the shower, from the look of you."

Nodding, Jyn crawled back into bed. Despite her usual caution at sleeping near others, she was out almost before her head hit the pillow.

When she woke again, Jyn had a moment of disorientation. The bed was soft, the apartment was quiet with no screaming child. She sat up, blinking, and saw Ezri sitting at the small table with her datapad.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," the nurse murmured, as she looked up. "You haven't moved for the last five hours. At one point, I wasn't sure you were breathing."

Jyn scrubbed a hand over her face and groaned. "I still feel a bit like I got hit by a landspeeder. But the double vision's gone."

"Good. I fed Auren again and I did your dishes. You should go take that shower now. It will help."

"You didn't need to-"

"I know. But you're my friend and I'm concerned." Ezri pointed to the 'fresher.

Smiling to herself, Jyn did as she was told. After gathering one of her few changes of clothes, she stepped into the 'fresher and turned the shower on. In the tiny mirror over the sink, she eyed her reflection. Her waist-length brown hair was tangled. Her eyes looked bruised and her ribs were still shadows under her skin. She needed to eat more, though she wasn't as skinny as she'd been when she'd met Jeron.

He'd bought her food, entertained her, then given her a night she wasn't likely to forget in this lifetime. She flushed just remembering it, then scolded herself for mooning. Why was he on her mind so much today?

That was easy, actually. Auren's resemblance to her father was becoming more apparent every day. Looking at her reminded Jyn of him, the little she'd known, anyway.

She tried to push him out of her mind as she stepped into the stream of hot water-real water, not a sonic shower!-tried to think of the work she needed to do for her employer. It was easy work, legitimate versions of programming things she'd done for Saw. And it didn't take her nearly as much time as her employer anticipated. She still billed for the full time, because her work was quality and she should have been asking for twice as much.

Once washed, Jyn dried off and changed into a light green tunic over dark green pants. A lot of Alderaanians still favoured full dresses and robes with capes, but it was fashionable to emulate the style the young princess, Leia, and though the girl wore formal dress for events, she was frequently spotted in pants, so it had become a trend. Jyn was grateful because it made her stick out less. There was no way she was going to wear a skirt.

Ezri was in the middle of changing Auren's diaper when Jyn emerged from the shower. "What do you say we get some fresh air, and some lunch?"

Jyn nodded, fisting her hand around the still-damp tail of her hair. "As long as I can find some place to cut my hair."

The older woman arched a dark brow. "You want to cut all that off? Why?"

Gesturing at Auren, Jyn said, "Someone is grabby. It'll grow back."

Ezri shrugged. "Okay. I'll get your girl ready while you find your shoes."

0 ABY

"Alderaan was destroyed two days ago."

Everything Jyn had eaten that morning threatened to come back up, and she bolted from her bed, running for the toilet despite the pain in her hip. She dropped to her knees and retched until all that was left were dry heaves.

Alderaan. Breha. Ezri.

Everything gone.

When would this war stop taking from her? She had nothing left to give it.

You have Cassian, a voice reminded her in the back of her mind.

No, she thought fiercely, and grief coalesced into fury. Not him. I lost Auren. I won't lost him.

And when Draven darkened the door of the 'fresher, she let the fury loose.