AN: Sorry guys, I'm going though some stuff and I don't know when the next chapter will be out. Thank you for your understanding

"They got a distress message from Rogue One. From Cassian."

"What?"

Cora's eyes widened and she could feel the colour leave her cheeks. She felt the same as she did when she got the news that they wouldn't be coming back. The same draining of emotions, the same shift in the universe that left her completely out of balance.

"They got a distress message on the short range comm. Said they had left Scarif with a defective ship and were asking for pickup." Doctor Crane scratched his unkempt beard. "They being Cassian, Jyn Erso and the imperial pilot, Bodhi Rook."

Cora had to close her eyes for a few moments and press her hands to her face, trying to convince herself that this was real life and not another very vivid hallucination.

"What's their status? Do they require medical attention?" she eventually asked, remembering protocol. Her voice was croaky.

The doctor looked amused. "We'll see when they get here. There is a medic on the rescue ship, and the message didn't sound particularly distressed… but we all know Cassian."

Cora nodded. It was a weird feeling. As days passed, she'd forced herself to think of Cassian in past tense, struggling to convince herself that he wasn't alive anymore. And now, all of a sudden, it wasn't the case. Her hands were shaking, so she forced them flat on the table surface.

"Will you join us in welcoming them?" asked the doctor.

"I… I have to leave," she said, trying to gather whatever was left of her composure. "My ship is leaving today."

Doctor Crane snorted. "They don't need you yet. They can handle a week without you. After all, there is no med bay set up yet, you'd have nothing to do."

"Accidents can happen, Doctor," Cora repeated what she'd told him the first time he opposed to her being assigned to that specific outpost; and then the next time; and the time after that and so on.

It wasn't a secret that what had happened to Alderaan had shaken the old doctor to the core. In the blink of an eye every living member of his family was gone. Just like that. Gone. They didn't have the opportunity to fight back, most of them never knowing what had happened. And the Doctor… one moment he had a family to keep him going and the next he was alone.

So it was easy to understand why he became twice as protective towards the remaining members of the med bay. They were the only family he had left. He'd been against Cora leaving to another outpost from the very beginning, and she had a lot of convincing to do before he gave her his blessing, accompanied by a melodramatic sigh. Technically she didn't need his permission, it was her decision to make, but she wanted his approval. He was her family just as much as she was sure she was part of his. So she did her best to convince him to let her go. To this day he still grumbled about it.

"A med droid will be able to handle that perfectly well," he said with a scoff and Cora smiled.

"Yeah, but I'll be much better at it. And besides, I'll be able to help with the setting up of the med bay. So I won't be completely useless."

The doctor looked at her with a piercing gaze, as if he was trying to read her mind. Or her soul. Cora wanted to tell him they were both screaming, but she knew he already understood.

"They might arrive on base before your ship is set to leave," he said, glancing at the clock.

"I'm technically relieved of my duties on this base," she said, trying to sound cheeky, but failing miserably.

"As if anyone cares about those kinds of formalities."

"Some do," she replied, looking down at her hands. She knew she was just making up excuses, but she was scared. Scared of getting her hopes up in case this was just another dream, scared of seeing him as hurt as she imagined him to be, of letting him see the state she was in. Scared of him giving her the cold shoulder once again. She wasn't even sure what frightened her the most. "Besides, I'd probably just be in the way."

"The moment I'll doubt your competence I'll kick you out of the med bay myself," he said, and Cora believed him. "But I didn't ask you to be there in your professional capacity."

Cora dropped her gaze. "That means I will be even more in the way."

"Cora…" The look of pity in his eyes almost made her choke.

"I don't…" She shook her head. "I need some air," she said, jumping to her feet, feeling like the room was starting to compress around her. "I really need some air."

Doctor Crane watched her leave the med bay, but didn't do anything to stop her. She walked briskly through the corridor, punched in the code and exited on the platform. The air was heavy with moisture, but it didn't come as a surprise anymore. The unpredictable weather on Yavin IV had become familiar and dear to her. After all, this was the most time she'd spent on a planet since she'd left that dreaded boarding school.

She was going to miss it, she thought, leaning on the damp stone wall and looking in the distance, at the sea of green treetops. She'd gotten so used to her life on this base that she'd forgotten that this was just a temporary home and its time had run out. They had to move on. She had to move on as well. Without Cassian…

But Cassian wasn't dead, she had to remind herself. This wasn't a dream, she hoped—sometimes the lines were even blurrier than this, but she could feel her nails biting into the flesh on her wrist—yet it still felt hard to believe. Just like his death was so hard to accept, his coming back to life was just the same.

She should have been happy about it. Hell, she should have been overjoyed, this was the answer to all her prayers in the past few weeks, but she was just numb. Maybe it was the medication, after all she was taking it to numb the mental anguish. She assumed it had left her completely desensitized.

Her hand went to her neck, where Cassian's necklace lay hidden under the fabric of her shirt. With surprisingly steady fingers she took it out and opened it to reveal the photo they had taken together on Samarkand. She hadn't touched it in a long time, she couldn't bear to see his face anymore. She only showed the picture to Leia on the night of the celebration, right after the Death Star had been destroyed.

Cora hadn't gone to the award ceremony, or the celebration that followed. She felt like she didn't have anything to celebrate. Yes, she was alive, but she couldn't really feel thankful for it. It would have been torture to go watch other people get medals, when more than half the work had been done by Cassian and the Rogue One team. Maybe they got their own medals, posthumously, but what good would that do?

Instead she spent the night with Doctor Crane and a bottle of 'the good stuff' in the med bay, and were later joined by a beautiful and royal looking—but just as shaken—Princess Leia. They looked back on their life until then, the people they'd lost, things they'd been through.

Doctor Crane had known Leia since she was very little, being a close friend of her parents'. Cora felt a little out of place at first, coming from a completely different world as them, but they made her feel welcome. Although reluctant at first to share her side of the story, she eventually opened up, despite fearing the same hostility she had faced from the members of the council when she had joined the Rebellion. But Leia didn't judge her for her upbringing or her family, nor for her role in the Empire.

Even when she got drunk and needed some air, Leia joined her on the platform and listened to her recollect her time spent with Cassian and the other rebels. She let her cry on her shoulder and also shed a few tears while the rowdy sounds of the celebrating rebels resounded through the night. A connection had formed between them that night, and if she wasn't sure Doctor Crane had adopted her the moment she stepped foot in his med bay the first time she left her cell, she was sure he'd done it then. They were family. Bruised and broken, these rebels were her family.

And some were coming back from the dead and she still couldn't believe it. Cassian was coming back.

Was he though? Was he really coming home, and if he was, what was he coming back to? Not to her, that much she was certain of. Besides, she wasn't much to come back to either, she almost retched looking at herself in the mirror.

So leaving wasn't such a bad idea after all. She needed space, she needed time to think. It took her so long to get her head around his death, it would probably take just as much to change it. A change of scenery would definitely do her good. Besides, it was just for half a year, after that they'd appoint her to the main base or another outpost. Maybe her heart would have the time to heal until then.

Cora stayed on the platform until the rain started picking up, then she sneaked inside, trying to avoid anyone she knew. Luckily, Doctor Crane was nowhere in sight, so she could go into the med bay to pick up her bags without having another awkward conversation. She took a peek at the clock and realized she'd lost track of time once again, and now her ship was about to leave. She hadn't even said goodbye properly. Well, it was too late now.

She left in a hurry, surrounded by people who seemed to also be hurrying outside for some reason. For the first time ever, the elevator was full to its capacity. She wondered where everyone was going, because she was sure the base wasn't going to be evacuated that day.

She watched them gather on the landing strip with curiosity. Were they waiting for something to happen?

"They're coming back!" someone said to her, their face breaking into the most dazzling smile she'd seen in a while. And then it clicked. Rogue One crew—or at least, what was left of it—was coming back, and they were going to be greeted as heroes. Cora stopped in her tracks, with the duffel bag flung over her shoulder and a medical bag in her hand, looking at the piece of gray sky, letting the rain fall over her.

Cassian was coming back. Cassian was finally coming back. After days and days of crying and begging, he was returning. It still felt like a dream. Hell, maybe it was a dream, but as always she hoped with all her heart that he was okay.

"So you've decided to join us after all," said Doctor Crane, patting her shoulder.

"My ship is leaving," she replied, wiping a tear as sneakily as possible. "I'd better go." The hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"They'll wait for a few minutes, don't worry about it," he said with a smile which was met with a worried look from Cora. "Listen, I'll let them know that you'll be here greeting them, I'm certain they'll understand. Besides, they'll probably want to see them return before they head out to Naos, there's no rush."

Cora looked along the landing strip where everyone was gathered. Ships were still taking off from other sides of the base, and she doubted everything would stop just because Cassian and two others were coming back. Eventually she nodded and smiled back. If anyone was able to get the ship to wait for her, it was Doctor Crane. And the least she could to was to be there to greet Cassian. She owed him that much. Despite her conflicting feelings, she had to do this. She'd have enough time to think the rest over once on Naos.

She took her place in the crowd without advancing to the front. She could see Aidan with his team of medics ready for anything that might need their attention, Mon Mothma behind them, looking as poised as ever. Leia was there too. Draven was away, as far as she could tell, and most of the council members had already left the base.

Minutes seemed to pass slower than ever. Cora kept looking at her watch, debating whether to stay or to go to her ship before Doctor Crane passed her oh his way to the team of medics, and winked. It didn't do anything to calm her nerves, but she did her best to stop fiddling with her watch from then on. At least she knew the ship would be waiting for her, so she could at least say hi before she left. However, she still nervously played with her tracker bracelet, the one she still wore by force of habit, not because she had to.

Oh, how much had changed since her imprisonment. How much she had changed since then.

It took a while until the murmur of the crowd was drowned by roaring of engines. Cora finally looked up to see one of their own ships landing. It wasn't the stolen cargo shuttle that had left for Scarif—it couldn't be, she realized, this had to be the rescue ship sent after them. She pressed a hand to her lips and waited.

The ramp opened to reveal a couple of crewmen, and then Cassian walked out. Cora's breath caught in her throat and the world started spinning. He was alive. Alive and almost well, judging by his limp and the more pronounced curve of his back. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with some surgical intervention and physical therapy, she thought before realizing it wasn't her job anymore. She was leaving. She was just Cora Enoch here to greet her ex lover who'd come back from the dead.

He was standing at the top of the ramp looking around with the same sharp look in his eyes. His hair was longer and unrulier than ever and his stubble had grown into a full beard. He had dark circles and his skin looked a little waxy, but he was alive. Alive and walking and breathing and… and safe.

But how long would it take until he'd do it all over again? How long until 'The Cause' would require him to sacrifice everything once again, to throw himself into the unknown, with no promise of ever making it out alive? How long until his luck ran out?

She couldn't do it. She couldn't. Not again, not anymore.

She couldn't go back to what had once been. From now on she knew she wouldn't be able to ever watch him leave without thinking that he'd never come back. She'd mourned him once, she was certain she wouldn't be able to do it again— she wouldn't let herself do it again. And besides, he'd made it clear she wasn't that important to him. If she had been in denial and didn't read that in his actions, his words before he'd left made it perfectly clear. What was the point of running to him only to be met with a cold shoulder? Or even worse, an embrace and a smile, only to be discarded once again when she'd be in the way. Cause she knew that's what she'll always be.

No, she wouldn't do it.

She was happy he was alive, as happy as her bruised soul allowed her to be, but she couldn't face him. She was too fragile, too unstable, too fucked up. She needed time to think. She had to get away.

Cora turned on her heels and almost ran to the other side of the tarmac, where her ship would be waiting.