Pieced Together

Jyn floated, too light for dreams, too heavy for stupor. Lights flickered behind her closed eyes, but she didn't see.

Cassian swore when his hand came away from Jyn's side coated in thin sheen of red. The clothes she wore were thick and fitted, and they'd acted as a kind of binding to staunch the bleeding until it got too bad to hide. It was impossible to tell how deep the wound went, or whether the physical exertion of fighting and the long trek to the hideout after the fact had only exacerbated the injury.

She'd passed out, a small mercy only because it stopped her from snarling at anyone who tried to get close, and she was still breathing. One of the few good signs in a day full of things going from bad to worse. "Is there somewhere we can take her?" he asked.

No one answered him.

"This is absolutely ridiculous," Kay snapped, clearly in the middle of an argument. "The girl's our responsibility — our operative — now get rid of these restraints before I use your teeth to do it myself!"

Kay pushed his way forward — dropping a coil of severed rope to one side — and felt efficiently for Jyn's pulse, then the temperature of her forehead. "What happened?" he asked. "Was she shot?"

"Grenade." Cassian was thinking, fast. Foolish, impulsive. Not her, him. After the explosion, he'd taken her word for it that she wasn't hurt. Maybe Jyn herself hadn't even noticed — being as single-minded as she was, and he had no doubts whatsoever that Saul Guerra would have consumed her attention, made it impossible to notice a worsening injury until it was too late.

But there wasn't time for that. He was mentally cataloging what medical supplies he had on him — apart from some bandages in his pack and a palm-sized case of sulfa for emergency disinfection in his jacket, the bulk of the supplies were still at the morgue, and Han wouldn't have stayed, knowing they'd missed the meeting time. Cassian didn't fault him for that, what he did fault was the circle of strangers — so-called resistance fighters — standing mutely by while one of theirs bled out.

Maybe that was the point. Jyn wasn't one of theirs anymore.

"Is there somewhere we can take her?" he asked, looking from one unresponsive face to another. No one answered, and he realized there was only one person who might still save Jyn.

Saul Guerra, who was watching the scene in front of him with an expression of impenetrable calm.

"Is there somewhere Jyn can go?" Cassian demanded, not shouting, just close to it. Silence, and he tried again, searching for pressure points, short and succinct ways to make helping Jyn worth his while.

The man was stunned and hiding it well, but this was his adopted daughter appearing out of nowhere, changed and hostile with unresolved bitterness, now in a precarious condition because of a wound none of them had managed to anticipate. Whatever Guerra was now, he wasn't the fearless guerrilla general who'd thrown German order into turmoil in Brittany, or ordered the assassination of a high-ranking Nazi official just hours before. He was a man who'd been assaulted by a personal shock — seeing Jyn suddenly after years of no contact — and suddenly faced with the prospect of losing the only person he might have truly loved apart from the cause, right in front of his eyes.

"She's your daughter," he said fiercely, and something in the man's impassive gaze seemed to splinter like a coat of ice.

His scarred hands clenched and unclenched around the staff he leaned on, and he turned suddenly with purpose, starting to walk.

"Come," he ordered, the sound of his solid staff disappearing into the stone archway. "Follow me."

Kay didn't seem to think the sudden shift into helpfulness was particularly trustworthy, but he frowned, supporting Jyn's head, clearly resigned to not having a choice in the matter. Cassian slipped his aching arms beneath Jyn's knees, passed the other under her shoulders, and lifted her carefully off the ground. She weighed less than he'd expected when she wasn't fighting him to get free — somehow the thought scared him worse than the wound in her side.

"Just a little longer," he said to Jyn, knowing she couldn't hear it. "Just hold on."

Then they followed Guerra into the stone maze.

Jyn shifted, and one arm slipped from the canvas cot she was on, her rust-colored fingertips curving against the dusty floor. Cassian had to force himself to keep going with what he was doing, not to stray anywhere close to the makeshift operating table until he'd gotten what he needed. The job at hand was searching through his and Jyn's packs after the rebels had finally turned them over, along with the store of supplies the resistance fighters had only grudgingly made available — because Saul had given the order. Moving quickly and silently, he dumped anything that needed sterilizing into the small pot of water heating over the portable burner and carried the rest over to the side of the cot.

Guerra wasn't in the room; he'd gone to give more orders, tame the opposition to outsiders being allowed to use their precious resources — unsupervised, no less. Cassian preferred it that way; having someone Jyn clearly hadn't wanted close by felt like a conflict of interest, a distraction. Better that he stayed away for as long as possible.

Cassian returned Jyn's limp arm back to her side, but that was the extent of comfort he could provide. They needed all hands on deck, and Cassian didn't trust anyone but himself and Kay to help. Chirrut and Baze had saved their lives (that was true, and he didn't dispute it) but this was Jyn.

Neither of them had been part of the plan to take Jyn from the prison transport truck. To tell her that her father was in fact alive, not dead as she'd believed. Neither of them had been with her at the training camp. Neither of them had boarded the plane that flew all three of them into France. It was an unspoken connection — for Cassian at least — and it ran less on obligation, but on responsibility.

He couldn't abandon her now.

The smell of carbolic soap clashed with the rusty tang of blood — new and old — and Kay, his hands smelling strongly of disinfectant, carefully rolled back the hem of Jyn's shirt to see the wound.

This didn't surprise Cassian. Kay was a stickler for manners and decency, but he also had a sense of priorities, and the ability to detach from the situation at will, in a way Cassian had never really managed to learn. It was field treatment, pure and simple. Apologies could wait for later — if Jyn even cared, which she probably didn't. There were more scars on her abdomen than Cassian had been prepared for, cuts that healed as silvery lines, and something that looked like a burn. There were probably more hidden beneath her clothes and never talked about. He knew the feeling.

Blood from the wound had seeped into the fabric, giving the illusion that it was worse than in reality. The actual injury was no more than an inch long, located to the side of her ribs and oozing slower now.

"What a thoroughly stubborn girl. Trust her to collapse instead of telling us that she was bleeding," Kay muttered, swiping at the site of the wound with gauze. "The fragment might have nicked one of her ribs, but it doesn't look like it managed to puncture her lungs, that's good news. But we're going to have to turn her — I need to see if the fragment made it out the other side."

Cassian took Jyn's shoulders and waited for Kay to signal. They'd done this before, after all. On the silent count of three, he lifted, rolling her towards the wall and holding her steady while Kay probed at the skin. "Can't feel an exit wound," he said. "Unusual for close range detonations."

"She grabbed a German officer and used him as a human shield," Cassian said, and saw Kay's mouth twitch in something like pride. "He got the worst of it."

"Of course she did," he said, gesturing for Cassian to lay Jyn down flat again. "Now this is the grisly part."

"You don't have to tell me," Cassian said, already checking his flashlight. "Just hurry."

"Right you are." Calm as ever, Kay dried the pair of forceps he'd picked out of the hot water and started to probe at the tear in her flesh. "You do know that there's an 82% chance that a wound like this will lead to some kind of infection, don't you?"

"I survived mine," he said. "It's not impossible."

Kay inclined his head, still feeling for the fragment. "I suppose you have a point," he murmured, as though speaking any louder would cause the fragment to burrow deeper. "Stubborn girl. Now I think…I've got it. Hold very still now."

Cassian heard a noise, and looked over his shoulder. For a man built as tall and broad as Guerra, he had the quiet tread of a pawed cat, and he nodded at Cassian, not saying a word.

There was a gruesome squelch and Cassian looked back around. The fragment was clenched between the forceps, almost black with clotted blood and flesh, and Kay smeared it onto a piece of gauze with relish. "There. Can't cause further trouble."

Thunk. Thunk. "How is she?"

Guerra's English bore an undercurrent of some indefinable accent, possibly a combination of all the places he'd traveled and lived, but his voice carried the suggestion that it could flare like a lion's roar, just as quickly as it might quiet to a low hum.

"The fragment's been extracted, sir," Kay said, reaching for the disinfectant now. "All we can do is suture and dress the wound and hope for the best. But I'd expect a fever as the body fights the infection."

"You speak like a doctor," Guerra was eyeing Kay with the measuring gaze of someone curious. In some strange, reverse way, having Jyn's blood on their hands seemed to have softened him towards them, like it was proof that they weren't enemies.

"My parents wanted me to become one, but that's about as far as it gets, I'm afraid," Kay said. He sprinkled powdered sulfa into the wound and picked up the gleaming suture, all the while watched by Guerra.

"And you?" Guerra's attention was on Cassian now, while Kay worked quietly and quickly in front of them. "What did your parents want for their son?"

The turn in conversation was borderline absurd, certainly inappropriate, but to Cassian it felt like a test. "I don't know what they wanted," he answered, with his sparing honesty. "They died before they could tell me."

Kay — aware of the story in detail — glanced at Cassian, but refrained from comment. No one spoke until Kay had finished a row of neat sutures and nodded his head in a signal that they could start dressing the wound. Cassian helped sit Jyn up again while Kay wound a roll of gauze around her middle.

He had to be on the bed to do it, and Jyn's head rested heavily on his shoulder, her face turned towards his neck. He could feel the sweat on her skin soaking through his clothes, the heat off her exposed skin and the smell of her — ash, metal, blood…a girl who could fight wars and fight on, until the last breath. She was steadier now, the rhythm of inhale-exhale deepening, like she was sleeping instead of being merely non-responsive, and he felt strangely self-conscious, yet simultaneously defiant at this closeness, despite being in front of Guerra.

"Done," Kay announced, and after a second's hesitation, Cassian laid Jyn carefully back onto the pillow again. There was only a coarse blanket to cover her with, but he pulled it up anyway to shield the bandage from view, and they both moved back with a mutual huff of relief. It was just starting, the process of recovering from a potentially infectious wound, but for now it felt like they'd done well.

Guerra nodded, his catlike eyes lingering on Jyn for only a moment more, then he turned and seated himself on the empty cot across the small room. Unlike the rest of his men, Guerra kept his long coat draped around his powerful shoulders, as though to always be prepared for an attack, but as the folds fell back to show his arms from fingertip to elbow, Cassian saw that the skin had been obliterated by permanent burns, resembling the moving extensions of a scar rather than healthy limbs. The sight would have made him feel sick, if he wasn't more focused on the situation at hand.

This was the famed Saul Guerra.

"Who are you?" he asked, smoothing his scarred hands across the staff resting in front of his knees. "Who are you, really?"

Cassian was standing at the head of the cot where Jyn slept, and he looked sidelong at Kay, who nodded.

"My name is Captain Cassian Andor," he said, and gestured to Kay, seated at Jyn's bedside. "This is Major James Kay. We're operatives for the Resistance."

"The Resistance?" Guerra said, immediately touching on the distinction. "So are we."

"Well, that's not currently true, is it, Mr Guerra?" Kay said bluntly. "We know that you were recently presented with an invitation to join General De Gaulle along with the other factions of French freedom fighters, but you declined. In a manner of speaking."

"When two men both fight against the same enemy, why does it make a difference whether one takes orders from a General all the way in England, and another to a dreamer living in the mountains?" Guerra queried.

"It shouldn't," Cassian said, starting to see elements of Guerra in Jyn. "Not if both men truly fight for the same cause."

"You know as well as I that General De Gaulle does not see it quite so simply," Guerra said. "I am a madman to them, am I not?"

Neither Cassian nor Kay answered the question, more so because it felt like Guerra hadn't been asking, not really.

He inhaled deeply, and dropped the end of his staff solidly against the stone floor. "But it can wait. Now is not the time to talk of complex matters such as this — you're both tired, and I wish to sit with Jyn for a while. If you are both in need of transport, I'm sure passage can be arranged to wherever you need to go."

Cassian tensed, and so did Kay. "Why would we be going anywhere?" Kay asked, clearly suspicious that it was Guerra's way of saying they weren't welcome in the resistance stronghold.

Guerra only smiled slightly. "You are Resistance operatives, are you not? I'm sure that I have delayed your mission. You need not be delayed any further — simply inform my captain of where you wish to be taken, and we'll do our best to ensure you make your schedule."

Cassian reached out and put his hand on Kay's shoulder. Guerra didn't know that he was the mission, only that Jyn had demanded a meeting with him — equally a possibility because she'd thought her teammates were about to be killed.

He didn't see a reason why Guerra needed to find out from anyone except Jyn herself, especially since his stance didn't seem to have changed. Cassian could wrestle with Guerra's riddles and circular questions to the best of his ability, but Jyn had been right — Guerra needed something more, something higher, in order to justify a change as monumental as merging with the greater Resistance factions.

Which meant they needed time.

"With all due respect, Mr Guerra, Jyn Erso is our responsibility," Cassian said. "We recruited her, we were responsible for training her, and we won't be going anywhere until she wakes up."

"We may require the use of your transmission equipment to inform our superiors of the unexpected turn of events, but I am in full agreement with Captain Andor," Kay added, his hands folded. "We stay until Miss Erso recovers. At your discretion, of course."

After a pause, Guerra nodded. "As you wish," he said. "I myself concur with Captain Andor. We have a common enemy, and more importantly — it seems as though you have worked to save Jyn's life. You have my thanks for that."

"Even if I killed one of your men?" Cassian said frankly, because if he was going to stay — it would have to be addressed.

Guerra's cat eyes flashed at the question, his fire flaring in a striking resemblance to Jyn when she was challenged. But a second later, it was gone. "I am informed that my soldier was careless. He endangered Jyn's life. It is unfortunate, but I would choose Jyn over the alternative."

Yet you abandoned her, Cassian thought, a sentiment he made sure was kept carefully hidden from Guerra's searching eyes. Hidden, not forgotten. He'd seen the way Jyn fought back when she thought Guerra was trying to help her. The wounds ran deep between them.

There's a part of her that is broken beyond repair, and it's because of you.

Guerra moved towards the doorway. It was roughly shaped, and the only thing functioning as a partition was a worn but thick curtain that he pulled aside now. "Your two friends are waiting for you at the north camp — just outside," he said. "I'll see to it that you all have beds there, and access to our transmission equipment."

It was unmistakably a dismissal, and Kay moved to answer it. "She'll need a saline drip, and someone to monitor her condition," he said, and Guerra nodded.

"I'll make sure of it."

Kay gathered up the packs in one hand and walked to the door, only noticing when he reached it that Cassian was slower to respond. He rolled his sleeves back down and took his bloodstained jacket from the back of the cot, resisting the urge to brush Jyn's forehead as passed.

Guerra had known her longer and better than Cassian ever could, but there was a part of him that didn't want to entrust her care over to an unpredictable stranger like him.

"Thank you," Guerra said, taking the seat Kay vacated and pulling a basin of clear water towards him, along with a rag. "That will be all, Captain Andor."

In the end, it was Kay tugging on Cassian's arm that made him leave, and the curtain fell on Guerra tending to Jyn in stoic silence.

A piece of firewood broke off from the larger log and scattered with a fall of amber sparks, glowing like molten lava at the heart of the circle of stones. Cassian watched Baze reach a stick into the fire to stoke the embers without much interest. The focus of his attention was sitting on the dusty floor of the cave along with him, a whirring transmitter-receiver radio currently tuned to pick up one of the F-section's designated frequencies. He kept one hand resting on the metal surface while it continued to hum, holding the headset to his ear with the other.

Snatches of music played through the static, but not the one he was waiting for. Every few minutes, he glanced at the curtain just down one of the cavern paths, as though it might move aside and Jyn would step out, paler but smiling, announcing that she was starving — and more importantly — all right.

It had been two days since she'd passed out. Around twelve hours since she'd started drifting in and out of a fever. Slightly less than that since Kay had stubbed out his sixth cigarette of the day and announced that Cassian would leave Jyn alone to sleep, under the threat of deeply unpleasant consequences if he didn't listen.

So now she was just resting, and they were waiting for her to wake up.

Not solely because they needed her for the mission, to convince Saul Guerra and compensate for the spectacularly bad turn events in Nantes had taken, the assassination they hadn't planned for but still hadn't been able to stop. Cassian didn't need superhuman foresight to know that the German reprisal had been swift, and vicious.

He told himself that first and foremost, he needed to know was whether they were likely to fail completely in their mission.

But he also needed to know that Jyn was going to be all right.

Kay caught his eye, and Cassian shook his head. He didn't look surprised, even if they had the good luck of using the transmission equipment belonging to Guerra's faction, receiving the messages — especially with the kind of signal they were likely to get here — would take some time. They'd sent their transmission yesterday, today was receiving the response, if any.

So far, it didn't seem forthcoming.

"You haven't eaten, Captain Andor," said Chirrut.

Cassian glanced up. Chirrut was sitting on a rock beside him, his head tilted inquisitively as though he'd meant it as a question. The staff he held was slim and elongated compared to the one Guerra used, the latter being heftier and warped naturally like the branch they'd made it from. Chirrut's was graceful, polished smooth like an old-fashioned bow, even though the surface was scored with nicks and dents where it had been used for a fight.

Chirrut tapped the ground in front of Cassian's feet, as though to call his attention back to the one-sided conversation, and he stirred. "I have, a bit," he said. "I'm not hungry."

In fact, the bowl of half-finished stew was sitting exactly where he'd set it down and promptly forgotten about the matter, and Cassian couldn't really find the appetite to finish it.

Apart from listening to the transmissions, he was absorbing all he could about state of Saul Guerra's resistance. Few agents he knew had ever made it past the door to find one of their hideouts, much less the main stronghold, and met the leader in question face to face. It was…impressive, in its own way, though he doubted General Draven would agree. He'd call them disorganized, content to live on the fringes of existence and call themselves noble vagabonds along the lines of Robin Hood and his band of thieves. Cassian saw things a little differently.

Their choice of location was bold, but advantageous. The mountains were best known only to a few, and even fewer locals would be brave enough to wander. They had the higher vantage point, and escape routes were abundant, if they were to be discovered. The tunnels were also vast enough to allow them to abandon one sector completely and rebuild in another, almost like the severed heads of a hydra. In terms of comfort, the mountains were cold, and the living standards were by nature meant to be crude, though the faction had succeeded in making comforts to mitigate the harshness of stone and earth. They made individual caves into pockets that resembled barrack assignments, putting teams together in their respective clusters. Everyone slept in bedrolls and in flapped tents — cots were only for the infirmary or maybe Guerra's residence.

Sleep wasn't problematic, supplies were. Routes would have to be constant and stockpiles carefully managed, and they'd need separate camps for vehicles to be on constant watch — those couldn't be stored within the caves, but would have to be in the forest itself.

Still, every location had its weaknesses, and Guerra had founded himself a stronghold in spite of it.

"Jyn was breathing easier the last time I saw her," Chirrut said, referring to sight with a complete lack of irony. "I've been praying for her recovery. I think she'll wake soon."

Cassian made a non-committal noise in response. He'd gotten well acquainted with Chirrut's strange — sometimes nonsensical — relationship with his religion, even though what he assumed was some branch of Christian faith seemed to constantly be expressed in the vaguest terms by the man himself, as though he was content to refer only to a so-called Higher Power with exactly that amount of specificity.

"I told HQ yesterday that we met you and Baze," Cassian said. "We'll see what they say about whether you'll have to stay with us."

"See, Chirrut?" Baze rumbled, from across the fire pit. "He can't wait to get rid of us. You've irritated him with your rambling."

Chirrut seemed unbothered, even amused by his friend's skepticism. "Baze doesn't believe prayers will work to aid Jyn's recovery."

"Because it can't, and won't," Baze interjected.

"He knows it's possible," Chirrut said, calmly, "because once, he believed too."

Cassian shut his eyes, mentally preparing himself for another round of articulate bickering courtesy of Baze and Chirrut, an exchange that always ended up straying between the dredging up of personal (and obscure) incidents in their shared history, and quasi-theological-philosophical discussion.

The argument lasted shorter than he'd steeled himself for, because Cassian heard something, and immediately threw up his hand. Kay shushed the other two, and let Cassian have the silence he needed to write out the code phrases as he heard them. Ink was getting on his fingers from how fast he was doing it, but Cassian didn't care, and neither did they.

No one spoke when he dropped the headset and started to translate the scribbled code. As he wrote, checking his work as he did, Cassian felt his heart sink.

Oberstleutnant S confirmed kill. Twenty hostages dead in C prison camp. More taken from Nantes. Estimate fifty.

There was more, but Cassian stopped — he made himself stop — and let the feeling of guilt spread inside him, filing the nooks and crannies of his consciousness with the dark, still water that came from knowing he'd caused irreparable damage.

There won't be people left to save if all you're ordered to do is strike deals and talk in backrooms, Jyn had said. She'd been angry, lashing out at the restrictiveness of their orders that meant they could only look down and keep moving while non-mission objectives met their fate.

His fist clenched on top of the machine, and he was tempted to bring it down with a crash, but after a deep, slow breath, he pressed on — he had to. The next part he nearly skimmed through, writing out a minimal, almost clinical recounting of the German response to the assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Schmidt, all while he resolved to compartmentalize the guilt for later. He wouldn't push it aside and forget. He'd make sure it got its day, just when he wasn't surrounded by people, and they weren't waiting for news.

Threats of reprisals made. Ten French for one German, innocent or guilty no relevance.

G must NOT take responsibility for assassination. Mission now imperative. Unite, or we lose France. Two Nantes operatives will remain with R team, provide any assistance necessary. Please confirm receipt.

Cassian had reached the last part, and he paused, because it had been marked as a personal message by the use of his agent designator. He spaced out the fresh message, decoding it at the bottom of the page so it would be easy to tear off once he was finished reading.

Fulcrum —
Orders regarding Outsider still stand. Injury may be convenient opportunity to establish further trust. Unification must succeed, whatever the cost. Awaiting your personal report.
— D

Cassian read through the message once more, like it was possible to change the words, then tore the page across from right to left with sudden venom, as though a reminder of his orders was a kind of corruption, something that tainted the whole just by being. But Cassian balled his part of the message up in his hand and thrust the remaining sheet of paper towards Kay. He got to his feet while his friend read through the news, hands on his hips. He didn't want to stay here, not where he was. He wanted quiet. He wanted to be alone.

Baze raised his eyebrows, and Chirrut just waited. Kay was still reading, and Cassian held off long enough for him to finish, nod, before he broke the news. "It looks like you'll be staying with us for a little while more," he said. "Welcome to Rogue team."

Baze's first response was to tear off a piece of stale bread. "That's a terrible name," he said, munching on the food.

"Good to know," Cassian answered, just as flatly.

"Where are you off to?" Kay asked, watching him stride towards the mouth of the cave.

"A walk," Cassian said shortly.

He dropped the crumpled sliver of paper into the heart of the roaring fire as he went, and watched just long enough to make sure it burned.

"Cassian —"

"Don't worry, Major," Chirrut said, in a voice as tranquil as still water. "He won't go far."

Cassian had, in fact, taken a walk. He'd gone about as far as the exit tunnel outside the north camp, the ones that descended into the central passageway. The geography of the Guerra faction's hideout had every appearance of a labyrinth, but Cassian was sure that there was an internal logic to the system — or else everyone would be as lost as he surely would be, if he ventured beyond the north camp.

Maybe Jyn would know her way around. She'd been their Golden Thread so far, where deciphering the labyrinth of Guerra's mind was concerned.

Lingering in the tunnels with no apparent purpose had its risks as well. Whichever entranceway he passed was usually flanked by one or two resistance, maybe more, and they watched him with hard, unwelcoming eyes. He didn't doubt that word had spread about what he'd done in Nantes, and the retaliation should have been brutal and swift, but judging by how he'd gone without attack since his arrival, Guerra's order must have been the differential factor — for himself, Kay, Chirrut and Baze.

Cassian thought it best to keep moving. He was approaching the entrance to the team's camp again, but he didn't feel like going back, not now.

So he paused at the curtain screening Jyn's recovery room from view. He shifted the curtain aside with one arm, noting with silent relief that Guerra wasn't sitting with her today.

Cassian glanced at the camp again, just to make sure Kay wasn't watching. Baze wouldn't care, Chirrut probably already knew, leaving Kay's unpleasant consequences (a lecture, probably) as the only factor requiring him to be careful. But no one was facing the entrance, so he took his chance and ducked through.

The air was a little different inside the small stone alcove that functioned as an infirmary. It lacked the smokiness of the camps, but was colder for the absence of a fire. It was darker too, with only the unsteady light of oil lamps — even then, used sparingly — to illuminate the windowless space.

There was only one burning on a shelf, casting a broad orange glow across the stone. Cassian checked the saline drip hanging up by the bed before he sat down in the empty chair by the cot, settling in despite the formality of telling himself that he was only going to stay for a while this time.

Jyn looked smaller when she slept, as though the reason for the disparity was linked to her presence, her animation, the fire that had burned bright from the second he'd laid eyes on her. She also looked as young as she was, just eighteen, lying in bed with the wounds — and faded scars — of a full-grown soldier.

Cassian grimaced, and took his hand from Jyn's forehead after feeling her temperature. She was still running a little hot, but it was no worse than before. More time, more sleep — besides changing the dressing on her wound, the fight was hers. They'd done all they could.

The scrap of paper he'd tossed into the fire was the furthest thing from his mind, even though it made his throat tight, having to wrestle with the integrity of what he was doing. His orders treated a measure of trust as a utilitarian thing, and Cassian didn't need to be told of the irony in Jyn questioning his apparent dedication to following them.

Only she didn't know about this particular command, and Cassian didn't want her to ever find out. He saw the weight of what he held with regards to Jyn, whether she'd meant for it to happen or not. To her, trust was far from a tool serving a practical purpose, something that could be traded like cheap currency.

To her, it was a wound of its own. It kept the people around her at a distance, it caused her to turn inward while lashing out at anyone who strayed beyond the boundary line, like the easiest thing to do was be the outsider she'd always been.

Small wonder it had become her code name.

Cassian folded his arms in front of his chest and shifted his body into a more comfortable position. It would be better to lean against a wall instead of a chair back, but in some strange, nonsensical way, Cassian didn't want the first thing Jyn saw when she woke up to be an empty room, not after everything. She clearly had an expectation that no one could be counted on except herself.

It was almost his business these days to prove her wrong, and not because he'd been given orders to make an asset trust him.

Cassian had lived his life following orders like those, and this was something else. Because gaining an asset's trust — like so many he'd successfully managed to before — didn't mean reciprocating with trust of his own, and it was past time he admitted that his wants where Jyn was concerned were independent of anything General Draven might order him to do.

He'd trusted her judgment about their approach in Nantes, leaving Kay behind despite the fact that having him with them might have made the fight at the tavern less dangerous. He was putting his trust in her right now — by not trying to manipulate Guerra himself with his knowledge of the single pressure point that mattered, trusting that she would be the one to ensure the mission was a success.

Trust and faith.

It was straying from his orders, though not outright disobedience. Testing the implicit limits of what he could and couldn't do, and now he was in the gray. More importantly — it was too late for him to turn back now.

Strangely enough, the knowledge perturbed Cassian less than he thought it would.

Jyn felt like she'd dreamed, she just couldn't remember. They lurked at the back of her mind, along with scattered images of things — people — that may or may not have been real. It was like lying at the bottom of a river, swept along by currents out of her control, only intermittently resurfacing at moments that were out of her hands.

There was the blurred sight of a scarred hand dabbing at her heated face with a cold cloth, one that she'd wanted to shrink away from, but hadn't had the strength to. So she'd just closed her eyes and let the water swallow her again.

There was a soothing, deep voice that sounded almost like Chirrut's, forming words that bore some resemblance to prayer.

Her mother's soothingly cool touch on her face, and her father propping Jyn up with his arm, sitting up beside her with a book in his lap. No — not real — it was from all the times she'd been sick, occasions just by themselves because of how rarely they came about. Her parents used to drop everything to sit at her bedside, anything she wanted, stories, food, toys, back when…

No — no.

Jyn sank again, and it seemed like an age before she resurfaced again, this time to an unknown place. The sandy color of the ceiling above her head stirred a memory somewhere, a thread that her mind — feather-light, thin as a wisp — drifted to follow.

Marrakech. She was fifteen. She'd collapsed into bed with a fever after two days in the blistering hot sun, trying to evade the dealers in Casablanca who were after her blood.

No, that wasn't right. Her forehead creased, as she began to probe the various sensations at her limbs, which didn't seem to be entirely willing to do her bidding. There was something in her arm, what —

Jyn's head turned on the pillow, seemingly by the force of gravity acting on its immovable weight, rather than out of human effort, and she took in the needle taped to the inside bend of her forearm, connected to the rubber tube that snaked up to a suspended clear bottle of fluid…

What the —

Jyn seized whatever reserves of strength she had left and groped with her left arm to try and pry the needle loose. She'd just been about to rip off the band securing it to her skin when something caught her eye in the general background. Something she hadn't expected.

Cassian was seated in a chair beside the cot, looking distinctly the worse for wear with bruises not quite faded on his skin, cuts that were fresh scabs — but also asleep, his eyes closed and a jacket draped over his knees.

Jyn stared at him in a silent, extended moment of confusion. Then it was like she'd been energized by a snap of electricity, and her gaze — followed a little more sluggishly by her hand — went to the area of the blanket that covered her lower body. The material nearest to her ribs was raised slightly by something running beneath it, and twinged in protest when she applied pressure to the spot.

Bandaged.

It all came rushing back. She winced at the remembered flash of a grenade going off, and thud of the rough landing, like being picked up and thrown, the dead body on top of hers until she'd shoved it off…

Cassian. Jyn's hand went to her face, and she felt her cheeks and neck, a flush rising as she wondered if she'd imagined all of it. Had he been the one who held her after she collapsed? Why did he shout? At who?

More questions than answers.

"You're back," Cassian said — suddenly enough that she'd have started if she could.

All the rustling and shifting must have woken him, and Jyn looked over again, feeling incredibly small in her current state. Because he wasn't supposed to be there. They were on a mission to salvage the Resistance, and waiting for one agent to recover from an injury was wasting time they wouldn't get back. Because the smart thing to do would have been to focus his efforts on the task at hand, which meant meeting Saul Guerra at any given opportunity to try and change his mind. Cassian was smart, and so was Kay. They could do it without her, yet —

Cassian was sitting at her bedside, despite being under no obligation to do it.

There was no way he could have known, but Jyn was glad she wasn't waking up alone in an empty room, like she'd done for years.

Her voice rose in her throat, but everything about her mouth was dry, and she had to swallow a few times before speech felt like a remote possibility.

"You look terrible," she croaked, and he gave a huff of laughter at her first choice of words.

"No surprise there," he answered, and Jyn felt her lips clumsily try to mirror his expression, even though the muscles in her face seemed to have forgotten how. The twisted grimace didn't last long and she had to lie back again, her surroundings spinning from the effort.

Upon seeing her struggle to speak, Cassian had immediately reached towards a shelf and retrieved a metal water canteen. He unscrewed the top now and — murmuring an apology — helped support her head as she took a shaky sip.

"What — what time is it?" she asked hoarsely.

Her voice still sounded like an invalid's — which she hated — but it wasn't something she could fix outside of rest and recovery.

And she had questions.

Cassian shook his head. "That doesn't matter. What do you remember?"

Based off his response, she guessed that it had been a while. Which begged the question — what was he still doing here? But Cassian was waiting for her answer (maybe concerned about a possible head trauma), and Jyn winced. "Grenade," she said. "Missed it. My fault."

"No it wasn't," he said evenly. "Good thing we had the supplies to treat it. You've been ill — you're still running a slight fever, actually."

"Oh." Jyn didn't know quite what to say. She'd always treated physical illness, short of anything that hampered her ability to walk, as something to be de-prioritized until a more opportune moment.

But this didn't seem like good timing at all.

Jyn stared hard at the ceiling, trying to decide whether she'd imagined Saul caring for her during said fever, or whether he'd tried — in some perversely careless way — to make up for his shortfalls as an adoptive parent. Maybe it was guilt.

Or maybe there just hadn't been anything to take up his time. Did fanatical resistance factions have days off?

"So," she said, after a long, slow breath. "You've met Saul."

Cassian seemed to be playing for time before he answered her implicit question, and reached for a basin of water she hadn't noticed before, wringing out a damp rag and putting it on her forehead with surprising fastidiousness. She'd assumed that anything related to missions and official orders wouldn't receive the same level of attention, but he even made sure to fold it to fit the width of her forehead, and smoothed down the corners with his fingers.

Then he sat back again, seemingly satisfied, and smiled a little, looking at the cot frame, rather than directly at her. "He's an interesting man," he said. "Charismatic. I can see why he has as many followers as he does."

"And the mission?" Jyn asked. "Did he —"

Cassian was thinking again, choosing his words. "We confirmed where each side stands," he said. "Same enemy, but that's as far as it went. I didn't think it was a good idea to push it at the time — Guerra was clearly worried about you. His mind wouldn't have been on the negotiation."

Jyn found a small, mirthless smile at that. "You should have pressed on," she said flatly. "I'm sure Saul wouldn't have minded."

"I would have," Cassian said, simply. "I was worried too."

Then, a little too late, he added, "we all were."

"What time is it?" Jyn asked again, trying to steer the conversation back towards the mission. To do her part even though she'd already slowed them down, advise him on how Saul thought, what he might be able to say —

Cassian's understated smile was one of the warmest things Jyn could bring to mind, and as though he could tell what she was thinking, he touched his hand to her forehead again, not because of her fever this time, but maybe — and she wasn't sure — maybe because he wanted her to stop worrying about anything except herself.

"Doesn't matter," he repeated gently. "Sleep. There's all the time in the world."

Jyn wondered if he remembered what she'd said to him — after her nightmare. It must have been a day ago, maybe even less.

This is why I sleep alone.

In her physically weakened state (which she still hated), Jyn must have given something away in her expression, because Cassian tipped his head to one side. "Unless you want me to go?"

He was teasing her, and in a strange, giddy way, Jyn didn't mind. She didn't want him to know — yet — how important it was, this. How something so outwardly small, trivial, could mean almost the world in terms of change.

Her world, anyway.

"No," she said, so softly that she wondered if he heard her. Then, a little louder: "Stay."

There weren't a lot of things Jyn remembered, exhausted by the fever and everything else, but she did remember Cassian sitting at her side when she drifted off to sleep again, feeling safer than she had in a good long while because she knew she had a friend.