#mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name

[mosylufanfic]

Linen and Kisses

For Fluffbruary! The prompts for today were table | blush | laundry. Thanks to @toooldforthisbutstill for sharing the snippet of a marriage contract that inspired this.

Linen and Kisses

The music had switched from Wagner to Nine Inch Nails, so Cassian knew his girlfriend was taking a break for at least a few songs. She couldn't listen to anything with words when she was working, she said because languages got tangled up in her head, so she had massive playlists of classical and instrumental music to blast as she was head-down in some manuscript or other. 

He went out to the kitchen and found her filling the kettle. The ravages of her morning's work spilled out over the table, multiple dictionaries and her battered old computer and printouts with penciled notes and highlighted words. 

"What language today?" he asked.

"Japanese," she said. 

Before meeting her, Cassian had considered himself reasonably multilingual. Spanish, English, and about halfway to fluent in French. It was two-and-a-half times more languages than most people spoke in this country. 

But Jyn was fluent in all those and more. She worked as a freelance translator, and since moving in together, he'd gotten used to having half the bookcase filled with dictionaries and having to guess which language she was using to talk on the phone and why. 

French, Japanese, Arabic, Russian? Some connection of hers on another continent.

Spanish, with a lot of laughing? Probably his sister. 

Danish? Her father, and there would be cursing afterwards.

"Are you done?" he asked. "Or just taking a break?"

"Done for now."

"Good, I was going to start lunch. Any requests?"

"Edible," she said, starting to clear up her mess. "Thanks." She hooked her arm around his waist and leaned up to kiss his cheek. She got taciturn when fighting with a particular translation - well, more taciturn. 

By the time she'd cleaned the table off, he'd gotten some of his homemade tomato soup in the microwave and assembled a couple of cheese sandwiches for grilling. She leaned against the counter as he cooked. 

He rarely liked having someone in his kitchen, but Jyn was the exception. 

"What's wrong?" she asked, breaking a corner off the cheese block and tossing it in her mouth.

"Nothing," he answered, a hair too fast. "Why do you ask?"

She eyed him. "I dunno, you just seem a little tense."

"Because you're eating all the good cheese."

"Oh no," she said, cutting off another corner. "Whatever will happen if we run out of cheese? We might have to go down to the store. How awful."

He waggled his spatula at her. "That's the good stuff. You don't get that at a fucking Walmart."

"Snob," she said, and took another corner. "And anyway, we don't get anything at fucking Walmart because you're banned for talking to the cashiers about unionizing."

"Only because I wouldn't let you vandalize the store manager's car."

"Is slashing tires really vandalism?"

"I think you'll find, yes."

She shrugged. "They never would have caught me."

The microwave beeped, and she pulled out the bowls, just in time for him to plate the sandwiches. With the addition of cutlery and tea in heavy mugs, lunch was served. 

He wasn't fool enough to think she'd been distracted or deceived, and if he had been, the canny look she shot him would have disabused him of that notion. The woman knew him far too well. 

"So," she said. "What've you been up to this morning?" She dipped the corner of her sandwich in the soup. 

It was as good an opening as he could have hoped for.

"Messing around online," he said, digging in his back pocket. "Actually, I found something and did some practice translating, but I'm not too sure if I got it right."

"French? Your French is coming along."

"It's not as good as yours," he said, and she nodded in agreement. "Can you read it over for me? This is the original here. Something from a marriage contract in the middle ages."

 She narrowed her eyes at him. "You trying to get me to work for free?"

"Good point. What's your price?"

She leaned across the table and kissed him firmly on the lips. "There." She took the paper from his hand and unfolded it. "Mmm. Hmm. Awwwww."

"There's a part I didn't quite get," he said. "About the laundry?"

"Linen," she murmured. She'd majored in European history, and it still emerged from time to time. "Underthings. What you wore next to your skin underneath all the - " She flapped a hand. "Velvet and brocade, if you were rich, or wool if you were poor."

"Ye Olde Fruit of the Looms," he said.

"Mmm. But it was still expensive because everything was spun and dyed and woven and sewn by hand. Cheap clothing is a really modern concept." She looked at the contract again. "This is a legally binding promise that she'll have the things she needs, always."

"Practical," he said. 

"And kisses," she added. "It's a really sweet turn of phrase. Linen and kisses." She smiled over it for a moment, then looked up. "What was your translation?"

He dug in his pocket and passed it over. He tried to eat a little soup as she read it through, comparing it with the original, but had to put the spoon back in the bowl and hold his mug tightly.

She read it aloud. “I swear to protect you from poverty, to cover your back with linen and kisses, to watch over your sleep and bring you all the delights of this world as long as I walk it with you.”

Her eyes paused on the last line, spaced a little below the rest of his translation. She lifted her eyes. "This wasn't in the original."

He knew what it said without her having to read it aloud. "No," he said. "But it fits."

She looked at it again.

Jyn, will you marry me?

"I know we've only talked about it a few times," he said. "And I don't have a ring or anything. I thought you'd probably want to pick something out yourself. But I - " He gestured. "I read that. And it felt like a sign."

He didn't normally go in for signs. Neither did she. But reading that had felt like - oh, this. This is what I want. And she's who I want it with. 

She set the translation on the table and he looked at it, wondering if he'd been too hasty. If she was about to let him down gently, or not very gently, or - 

She got up, came around the table, and settled herself in his lap. His arms came around her instinctively, pulling her close.

"Oui," she said, smoothing her thumbs along the edge of his beard. "Need that translated?"

He let out all his breath in a rush and rested his forehead on hers. "Listillo," he muttered, and she laughed until his mouth covered hers. 

The soup and the sandwiches were stone cold by the time they got back to eating them, but he found he didn't mind. She smiled at him over her soup, clearly not minding it either. 

"So you'll cover my back with linen, will you," she said. 

"And kisses," he said, stretching over the table to press one to her lips. "Don't forget the kisses."

FINIS

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #rebelcaptain fluffbruary #star wars #search your feelings you know it to be queue

[yavemiel]

Top Ten Fic Recs

Tagged by  @callioope and @justkeeponthegrass thanks guys!

This says top ten fic recs and I was like ‘I guess I can limit myself to ten’ and now having started going through them I’m like ‘ahahahahahahah NO’ so without further ado, split into three categories, here are thirty-nine of my favourite Rebelcaptain fic recs, listed in no particular order, because you see how easy it was for me to cut down the list I have, there’s no way I could chose between them. The only concession I could make was to keep it to one per author, but know that if one is on the list, all the rest of their stuff is amazing too! All the links are to AO3 and I’ve tagged the authors on Tumblr when I know their handle, but if you spot one of yours and I’ve not tagged you, let me know! :) Recs are below the cut because this is a LONG POST.

List One (>20,000 words, complete)

- floating, sinking by @shu-of-the-wind (shuofthewind), NR, 188k words [One of the quintessential Rebelcaptain fics, which tells an AU version of A New Hope. The character voices are so spectacular in this, every point of view is perfectly written, and it’s so SO believable. Cannot over-recommend]

- to treat everything as if it were a nail by @things-with-teeth (thingswithteeth), M, 103k words [What if Jyn had been found on Lah’mu and been taken by Krennic? This fic answers that question spectacularly, which such depth and character strength you kind of forget it’s not how it happened in canon]

- gray areas (series name cassian andor nonsense) by @theputterer (theputterer), T, 371k words [This series is a love song to Cassian Andor. If you’ve been looking for the tragic backstory that explains how he got where he is in Rogue One, THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR. Bring tissues. Also goes well beyond Rogue One into what might have happened to Cassian and Jyn in this universe, an unbelievable epic]

- Won’t You Let Us Wander by angel_deux, T, 243k words [I have so much love for this series, it’s Cassian/Jyn focused but the other characters are so amazing as well, particularly Leia. It’s basically 243k words of Cassian and Jyn working through their respective issues and building a family and a team as they go and it is a delight.]

- The Words Would Only Rhyme by @betweentheheavesofstorm (betweentheheavesofstorm), T, 51k words [I really love this story, Jyn has visions and it takes a completely different tack to canon AND has ‘fake relationship’ one of my favourite tropes ever and I really don’t think I can do it justice without spoiling it, so just take my word for it and read it] - as the fates unwind by Jaxin, T, 45k words [A look at what might have happened if Lyra had lived to bring up Jyn, it’s been a while since I read it, but the thing that sticks in my memory about this one is the characterisation, it’s Spot On]

- Intersections by Caedus501, T, 139k words [This series is spectacular: intersections is a great name for it, it basically retells the history of Cassian and Jyn if they had run across each other in various guises during their pasts, and how that would affect the events of Rogue One. Excellent writing.]

- For A Good Time Call by @jynsanity (jormaperalta), T, 28k words [This is SUCH a feel good fic, sweet and funny, I can’t tell you how much I love it. A modern AU where Jyn writes her name on the wall of a bar and Cassian texts her, and it works so well.]

- in the spaces by @gizkasparadise (nymja), E, 27k words [I come back and re-read this fic so often, I really feel like it’s one of the truest to canon characterisations out there: Jyn and Cassian are so committed to the cause, but also to each other, and the conflicts that that causes are obvious and heart-breaking and perfectly perfectly written.]

- spes semper mihi adest by @rain-sleet-snow (rain_sleet_snow), T, 27k words [this is another one that I’ve re-read so much, it’s amazing, following Cassian and Jyn all the way through the original trilogy in a way that really makes you believe they probably were running around in canon. Also has a lovely coda set during The Force Awakens called but sometimes it rhymes which I would also highly recommend]

- In the Shadows by @hurricanedancer (StormDancer), M, 21k words [The White Collar AU you never knew you needed! I love this one, the characters work so damn well in their transplanted home, particularly Jyn as the ex-criminal trying to go straight but chafing at her bonds.]

- long way home by @realitycheckbounced (noelia_g), E, 25k words [I love this series, it’s so feel-good, and the relationship between Cassian and Jyn is so joyful!]

List Two (>20,000 words, WIP)

- Resistance is Built on Hope by @chronicolicity (ChronicOlicity), T, 133k words [A stunning WWII AU which actually follows the plot of R1 pretty closely within that setting, fabulous writing and characterisation, and a really really great slow burn relationship between Cassian and Jyn]

- Jagged Edges by @mediumsizedfountain (jncar), M, 105k words [Essentially a story about the survivors of Rogue One learning to live with the consequences and finding their place within the Rebellion, and about Cassian and Jyn figuring out where they stand with each other, a really lovely read]

- In a dark time, the eye begins to see by @imsfire2 (imsfire), NR, 87k words [I love this story so much: Cassian is an artist and Jyn is his muse, but it’s more a canon divergent fic than an AU, as the events and motivations of Rogue One are still very much centre stage] - Chaconne by @ibohe (ibohemianam), T, 221k words [This is one of the first series I truly fell in love with in the fandom and it remains a firm favourite now! A great take on a possible backstory for Cassian, and a look at how he and Jyn might work through their issues together after the war, with a generous smattering of EU influence throughout. I especially love the way they’re written together in domestic scenes in this series: their issues and foibles are all still there but they’re so happy in each other nonetheless] - Whatever I Do (I Do It To Protect You)  by @callioope (Callioope), T, 62k words [Another look at what might have happened if Lyra had lived to raise Jyn, first within the Partisans and then within the Rebellion, and a beautiful, BEAUTIFUL slow burn relationship between Jyn and Cassian]

- per ardua ad astra by @anghraine (Elizabeth (anghraine)), T, 58k words [I don’t want to give too much away about this fic, but essentially, Cassian, Jyn and Bodhi end up on the Death Star and this is the story of how they manage to survive that and infiltrate one of the most secure parts of the Empire. This is so well written and seems so plausible as a continuation of canon!]

- And The Next by @mienuxbleu (ienablu), T, 52k words [This is essentially Groundhog Day Rogue One style but infinitely, infinitely more heart-breaking! It’s so well thought out and so engaging, and you really really get a fantastic insight in Jyn’s character]

- The World Through a Scope by @ruby-red-inky-blue (guineapiggie), T, 46k words (One of my favourite modern AUs, in which Cassian and Jyn meet in the waiting room of their counselor’s office and are drawn to each other despite their respective issues, before finding out that their lives are far more closely entangled than even they realised. A real gem!]

- The Germans Wore Grey, You Wore Blue by @justkeeponthegrass (randomdreamer01) [This is a collection of WWII AUs that are mostly unrelated, and they are so SO well researched and well written, you really get a sense of the history behind the stories, and the characterisation is always spot on]

- only fools rush in by @andromeda3116 (andromeda3116), T, 36k words [I love, love, LOVE this AU, it’s a modern setting and basically has all of my favourite things rolled up in one: fake relationship, bed-sharing, protectiveness, pining: it’s an absolute delight!]

- The Remembrance of Pain (Time Will Explain) by @operaticspacetrash (Jaded), T, 22k words [I could have chosen literally any story by this author and gushed about for a few paragraphs, she never puts a foot wrong! This particular one is a Persuasion AU set in the Star Wars universe, and it’s brilliant, so well conceived and written and you can really feel the shared history and the pain between Cassian and Jyn]

- the light by @ssimpleandclean (Irelando), E, 71k words [A fabulous post Scarif series that runs through what our favourite crew might have been doing during A New Hope, and then continues to describe their adventures and their coming together as a family long after that, great read!]

List Three (<20,000 Words)

- Talk Tonight by @rapidashpatronus (RapidashPatronus), T, 1213 words [I cannot overstate how much I absolutely love this story. The subject matter is so tough and so important, but the ending is hopeful, and honestly, every time I read it (which is often), I come away crying but uplifted. Everyone should read this one.]

- Counting Weeds by @rapidashpatronus (RapidashPatronus), T, 8021 words, WIP [I said only one per author, but I literally couldn’t chose between this and Talk Tonight, so I’m breaking my own rules, surprise surprise: I adore this story. It’s so original, the characterisation is so great, the OCs are a delight, just...gah, everything! Definitely one to subscribe to!]

- I fought the war (but the war won) by @incognitajones (ephemera), E, 9075 words [Ahhh my favourite AU ever: the MSF AU that I didn’t know I needed until it showed up and now I re-read on a near weekly basis! I can’t describe how well this works, Jyn as a roving war reporter and Cassian as a harried MSF doctor, it honestly has to be read to be believed, and their relationship is just perfection.]

- This Here Now (it’s where we touch down) by @mosylufanfic (mosylu), T, 1772 words [Jyn and Cassian become farmers and put down roots and are happy and this is one of my favourite stories, I always feel warm when I read it]

- the sharp edge of survival by @longclaws (with_the_monsters), T, 3950 words [I think the summary of this fic does it far more justice than I ever could: “They're heroes, now, but the not the type of heroes the Republic wants. Not bright and clean and effortlessly Light. Not able to sit still or give up the fight. The fight built each of them, after all. Made them what they are.“ It’s painful and beautiful and excellently written and you should all read it.]

- where my caution should be by @venusmelody (ivyspinners), T, 1242 words [I don’t want to say too much about this one for fear I’ll give the ending away, but suffice to say it’s 1242 spectacularly written words that will rip your heart out in the best possible way. Bring tissues.]

- the road that sets into the sun by @thegirlwholied (lyin), G, 5190 words [A beautiful story set in the EU, about how the end of the war might have looked for a Cassian and Jyn in that slightly different universe. The ending of this one in particularly is just so hopeful and beautiful!]

- the quiet we hold by @dazy-laze (ithacas), NR, 12228 words [Cassian and Jyn both suffer from PTSD after Rogue One and go somewhere quiet to recover. This is such a lovely story, painful in parts, but in a good way, and watching Cassian and Jyn heal together is a joy.]

- when we were young and crossed the stars by @leralynne (katsumi), G, 4008 [Jyn joins the Rebellion at a much younger age and grows up around Cassian. I love this story so much, it weaves their backstory seamlessly and their relationship is so believable.]

- my knees are cold (running home) by @jynersq (jynersq), T, 7302 words [Cassian and Jyn recover together after Scarif, both physically and mentally. I really love how much they look after each other in this story, warms my heart every time I read it]

- all the rest by tomorrowsrain, T, 8334 words [This fic is the best written aftermath of torture I think I’ve read, it’s heart-breaking and difficult but beautifully written and ultimately hopeful.]

- a person can be a home by @ladytharen (mollivanders), T, 3047 words [A really gorgeous look at Jyn and Cassian’s developing relationship in the aftermath of Scarif, the characters are so perfectly written here and their relationship progresses so naturally, I love it]

- The Last Poem of Jedha by @schweinsty (schweinsty), T, 15486 words [This is actually a Bodhi-centric fic with the Rebelcaptain firmly in the background, but there was no way I could leave it off a rec list because it is AMAZING. I am in awe of the world-building for Jedha, the description of a culture and a way of life and the poetry and literature and everything, it’s just...read it, you will not regret it]

- cast some light by @brynnmclean (brynnmclean), E, 16049, WIP [This verse is spectacularly NSFW in the best possible way, it is hot like BURNING, but also with excellently written character voices and really great interactions, such a favourite of mine!]

- Trading Favours by @mellamymake (caramelle), E, 7206 [Another one for the ‘hot like burning’ club, this is roomates-to-lovers modern AU via friends-with-benefits and I love it, it’s so well written and humourous, always makes me smile!]

And that is it, finally the end of the list! Happy reading! :)

#rec list #rebelcaptain #rogue one #awesome fic #talented people

[mosylufanfic]

A Mere Trifle

My first contribution to Rebelcaptain Fluffbruary! The prompt I went with was "dessert."

A Mere Trifle

Bodhi opened the fridge. "Oooooh," he said in delight. His roommate made sweets and desserts to relax, and Bodhi was usually the beneficiary.

"Don't you fucking touch the fucking trifle!" Jyn yelled from another room.

"Why not?" he yelled back, but set the bowl of trifle back where he'd found it.

"Because I'm saving it for poker night, you glutton."

Bodhi raised his brows at nothing. Poker night was at theirs tomorrow night, and while most everyone brought food, it was more along the lines of grocery-store chips and dip. Not a dessert of multiple layers and steps and approximately thirty thousand calories. 

He grabbed the leftover Chinese instead, gave it a sniff, and concluded it probably wasn't going to kill him. Eating beef and broccoli out of the container, he went to the other room where Jyn scowled at the computer screen full of her photos that she was working on. "Not even a nibble?" he asked pitifully.

"Nope."

He licked sauce off his thumb. "It's got all berries and whipped cream and custard. You seriously expect me to resist?"

"Yes, I do, or I'll shave your head in your sleep."

Bodhi put a protective hand over his ponytail. "You're a cruel woman, Jyn Erso."

She bit her thumbnail, narrowing her eyes at two virtually identical images of an empty lot. She twiddled a setting and suddenly the tiny yellow flowers blooming amongst the lanky dried grass burst into focus. "You've known that for years," she said. 

-

Poker night started around seven, or whenever enough people straggled in to get a decent game going. Bodhi expected the trifle to come out as they set up the table and pulled mismatched chairs in from all over the house. But only the two party subs that Jyn had picked up on her way home from work made an appearance. 

"It's got to stay chilled," Jyn claimed when he asked about it. 

"Uh . . . huh," he said, but had to go answer the door before he could needle the truth out of her.

It was Melshi, who came armed with various chips. "You ready to lose?" he crowed, setting a bag of tortilla chips next to the subs.

"No, but you'd better be," Bodhi told him. 

"Big talk. Beers in the fridge?" Melshi asked.

"Yup."

He opened the door, grabbed a beer off the door, and paused. "Holy shit, Jyn, did you make that?"

Jyn was across the room in a split second, smacking his hand. "Don't touch!"

"Why not?" he whined, cradling his hand.

"Cos I said so." She slapped the door closed. "Go stuff your face with a sandwich. Veggie's on the left side."

Melshi sighed heavily and went to pile his slice of veggie sub high with peppers and mayo.

Leia and her brother came in next, then Kay, then Luke's truck-driver friend, Han, and his large, hairy roommate, Chewie, and then Shara and Kes from down the hall. About half of them mentioned the trifle, and every time, Jyn refused to let them get it out.

It didn't escape Bodhi's notice that Jyn's head snapped around every time the door opened. It also didn't escape his notice that Cassian Andor, who worked at the paper where Jyn sometimes picked up photo gigs, wasn't there yet.

People skipped poker night for work, holidays, hot dates, classes, and exhaustion. Usually they put it in the group text. Bodhi checked his phone. 

"Nobody's canceled," Jyn said without looking at her own.

"Right," Bodhi said, grinning to himself, and arranged his bingo chips. "Okay, who won the last game at Han and Chewie's?" 

"Me," Kes said, raising his hand, and taking the deck to deal. 

Two rounds in, Jyn was looking very downcast, but she still snarled like a Doberman whenever anybody went near the fridge. 

"We ever gonna get some of that dessert?" Han whispered to Bodhi.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Bodhi whispered back.

The doorknob rattled, and Jyn got half out of her chair before the door opened. She sat back down as Cassian came in. "Hey," he said, brushing snow out of his hair. 

"Hey," Jyn said casually. "Thought you weren't going to make it."

"Sorry," he said, shrugging out of his coat. "I kept thinking I was almost done with the article and then I wasn't. How much has Melshi lost?"

Melshi flipped him off. 

"Not enough yet," Jyn said, and got Melshi's finger next. "Did you get anything to eat?"

"No, and I'm dying. Tell me there's something left."

She waved a hand at the subs, mostly decimated on the counter. He put one of each kind on his plate and added mustard, then piled the rest of his plate high with potato chips and the baby carrots that Luke had brought. 

"Should be beers in the fridge," she added. "Oh, and I forgot about a dessert I left in there, can you get it out?"

"Ohhh!"

"So he gets some of that first?"

"I see how it is, Erso!" 

"That's who it was for?"

"Well well well!"

Jyn scowled. "Okay, the lot of you can go fuck yourselves."

"What?" Cassian asked, popping his head up over the fridge door and looking at all of them quizzically. 

"Nothing," Jyn said. "Everybody here is a fucking moron, that's all. You find it?"

"With all the whipped cream? Wow," he said, pulling it out. "This looks amazing, Jyn. Is this the thing you were telling me about last week? Whatsits. Trifle?"

"Oh, yeah, it is," Jyn said as if it was a massive coincidence.

He looked at her for a moment, a little smile playing around the corners of his mouth. "I can't believe it survived this long with these animals."

Melshi opened his mouth, then yelped as if a Doc Marten had met his shin with force. 

"Well, like I said, I forgot about it," Jyn said. 

Bodhi looked across the table at her and mouthed, You're so full of shit. She ignored him, a blush spreading up her face. 

Cassian sat down next to her, juggling his plate of sandwiches and a serving of trifle in a bowl. "This is really good," he said with his mouth full. "I mean, really. Wow." He nudged Luke. "Get some of this, it's incredible."

"Thanks," Jyn said, shrugging, dealing the next hand. "It was nothing."

FINIS

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #fanfiction #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #Modern AU #fluffbruary #star wars

[mosylufanfic]

And we're done!! The last chapter of the Actors AU features text convos, movie reviews, fannishness, interviews, and happily ever after.

Thank you to @moprocrastinates for giving me this idea for RCSS, and for being so patient as I wrote the whole thing over several months because it refused to be confined to a one-shot. Thank you to everyone who followed it and especially those who caught my multitudinous Austen easter eggs.

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #star wars

[mosylufanfic]

The Actors AU has returned from hiatus, and with an accelerated schedule! Since I have the last four (FOUR) chapters all finished, I'll be posting on Wednesdays and Sundays until it's done.

In the newest chapter, Jyn and Cassian both attempt to have a nice night at the charity event. This will almost certainly go according to plan.

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #star wars

[mosylufanfic]

In the second-to-last chapter of the Actors AU, Cassian shares a little more of the last eight years with Jyn, she gets a tour of his ridiculously amazing house, and they do a lot of kissing and cuddling.

This weekend: a schmoopy epilogue!

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #star wars

[mosylufanfic]

This week in the Actor AU, reactions to Han's fall, Cassian goes back home, and somebody unexpected turns up in New York. (It's Jyn, you guys. It's Jyn.)

Also, I'm taking a break from regular posting until I can wrassle the last two, maybe three, chapters into good shape.

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #star wars #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name

[mosylufanfic]

5 times Melshi and Cassian talked about Jyn Erso (and one time they didn't have to)

Canon compliant you guys - or at least, it doesn’t directly contradict canon. Whatever you choose to think at the end is up to you.

5 times Melshi and Cassian talked about Jyn Erso (and one time they didn't have to)

1. Before Wobani

Ruescott Melshi was on his way down the hall when a familiar form caught his eye. 

"Keef," he called out. "Briefing's this way."

Cassian didn't even roll his eyes at the fake name, the one Melshi had known him by on Narkina 5 and still used to tease him. "Change of plans."

"Is the mission off?"

"No, it's on. We need this woman. But I'm not going."

They'd been planning this breakout for a week now. "What's up?"

"I have to meet one of my contacts. He's getting - squirelly. But I'll send Kay with you."

"All right," he said. Infiltrations and exfiltrations were his specialty. Cassian was coming because he needed the woman for something important. But he'd never been an intrinsic part of the plan. Kay, yes, Cassian not so much, even if they generally came as a matched set. "I'll bring her back. No problem."

"Good. Ah, listen - I've read her arrest records. Don't underestimate her."

"Because she's in Wobani? You and I both know how people end up in places like that. I'm not worried." He considered. "Maybe I am. She might get a look at this face and fall in love with me."

It coaxed a crook of his lips, a huff of a laugh. Cassian had never been a particularly jolly guy. But lately he'd been getting tired, drained-looking. The spark of rage that burned in his eyes was getting dimmer and dimmer.

Melshi had seen the same in his fellow operatives over the years, usually just before they burned out, either quietly or spectacularly. Worry wormed in his stomach as he watched his friend walk away. 

2. On the Way Back

Melshi cursed long and fluently as the medic fixed his nose. "Crazy fucking woman."

The crazy fucking woman in question was in restraints at the back of the troop transport. They hadn't planned on it, so they were the decoy restraints that they'd used when stopping the Wobani transport, hastily reprogrammed to actually work. She sneered at him. 

"I told you I was getting you out," he said. 

"I don't know you," she snapped back. "Why should you do anything for me?"

"Good question," he muttered. 

"Melshi," one of his team called out. "Captain on the comm."

Cassian frowned at him through the comm screen. The bruises were probably coming in, dark and nasty, visible even through the bluish distortion of the screen. "Trouble?"

"Yeah, from that nutjob you wanted me to pick up."

Cassian's brows rose.

"She hit me in the face with a shovel."

"I told you not to underestimate her. Did you let her know we were getting her out?"

"Yeah, and then she hit me in the face with a shovel!"

His lips quirked. "I guess you're safe from her falling in love with you."

"Kriff you, man," he said, pleased to see a flicker of Cassian's dry humor for once. "What's your ETA?"

They compared notes and found that they'd be back on base about a day before he would. "We'll put her in a holding cell overnight," Melshi suggested, touching the bruises gingerly. "Maybe that'll stop her from assaulting anyone else."

3. After the Interrogation

When Cassian saw him in person, he said, "Damn."

"It was a big shovel," Melshi said grouchily. Not to mention she'd prefaced it by slamming her boot into his nuts. No need to mention that, though.  Now that more people on base had seen Jyn Erso, he and the rest of Extraction Team Bravo were getting a lot of shit about getting beat up by one tiny woman. "Is she going to help?"

"She agreed. She had to be bribed, but she agreed."

Melshi knew better than to ask what Cassian needed her for. "Well, good luck, then. Don't give her any weapons."

Cassian grunted, still looking out over the shuttle bay. 

"What?" Melshi said. "You worried she'll turn you in for the reward or something?"

"Not that," he said. "I didn't get the sense she had any love for the Empire. She just didn't care about anything we had to say."

"Well," Melshi said. "Lot of people don't care." It burned him too, sometimes, how people could look away, look past the Empire and everything it did, as long as it didn't affect them. And then when it did, they were shocked. 

"It's more than that. She seemed determined not to care. No matter what we said." 

"Lot of people like that, too."

Cassian shook his head. "I know that. It just bothered me. That's all."

4. Before the Council Meeting

There was no official announcement, but gossip spread around the base faster than the clap. Andor had come back after weeks out in the stars with something. Something big. Or maybe it was the woman he was hauling around. Or was it one of the strays they'd picked up?

Anyway, it was big enough that they'd called in the Council.

"What's that going to do?" one of Melshi's men grumbled, and he privately agreed. 

Melshi ran Cassian to ground in the datasec room, where he was paging through screens. "What's the project?" he asked, ready to be rebuffed.

"Trying to figure out who's on base," Cassian said. 

"Why?"

He looked up. "We might need to put together a team. Quickly."

"Well, I'm in," Melshi said.

"You don't even know what it is."

He shrugged. "Hasn't stopped me yet. How's the crazy girl? Is our team going to drop her off on some nice safe asteroid somewhere?"

"She's speaking to the council when they get here."

"She," Melshi said. "She's speaking to the council." He'd assumed it would be Draven, with whatever Cassian had brought back. The woman he'd brought back from Wobani hadn't been interested in talking to anybody. 

"Mmhm." He paged through some more screens, brows drawn. He paused, took a note, and paged on. 

"About what?"

He looked up. "Go and see."

The spark behind his eyes was a blaze.

5. After the Council Meeting

The same blaze burned in Jyn Erso's words as she exhorted the Council to do something besides squabbling and doom-saying. It was hard to say which one of them had lit it in the other. 

He was all the way in the back, up against the wall with the other spooks and assassins and saboteurs. The type that the Council didn't like to be reminded existed. Which was fine, because that was where they liked it. 

Melshi looked around the room at who was nodding agreement and who was shaking their head and looking grim, and he knew how it would go in here. He also knew what kind of team Cassian needed.

He glanced around, saw a few of Bravo Team looking at him, and jerked his head toward the door. They followed him out. 

"Andor's getting a team together," he said quietly. "If you're out, that's fine. Won't hold it against you. If you're in, go find anyone else who would be, too."

They scattered. 

It took some searching, but he found Cassian in a storeroom, picking through some boxes for what looked like the most portable weapons, talking on his comm at the same time. 

He hung up and looked at him. "You heard?"

"Yeah." His blood was still chilled at the idea of the Empire with a weapon like that. He went down to check the box. "No, you want these," he said, shoving another one over to him. "They make a lovely boom. Stormtrooper bits all over."

Cassian didn't reach for it. "You still in?"

"More than ever."

"We might not come back. We probably won't come back."

"Keef," Melshi said. "I know. I'm in."

Cassian nodded. 

"Your crazy girl coming with us?" 

"She doesn't know about this. Yet."

"She said that thing you always say. In the meeting."

"What thing?" He checked his messages and nodded to himself, then shot off another one.

"You know the one. About hope."

His hands stilled. He smiled a little. 

+1 In the Shuttle Bay

The team Cassian had scraped together out were clustered in the shuttle bay, getting the details. Some had been in the Council meeting, some hadn't, but everyone knew Cassian, and they all knew he wasn't the kind to go in guns blazing unless there was no other choice. 

Melshi saw Jyn Erso come storming out of the council meeting. He reflexively checked for shovels, then nudged Cassian. "Your girl's here."

He looked over his shoulder to where she was talking to the other strays that had gotten dragged back with them, then turned and started walking toward her. 

Even though the team he'd pulled together was all around him, and their strays were all around her, and the business of the shuttle bay was all around all of them, Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso might have been the only two people in the entire cavernous bay.

"They were never going to believe you," he called out. 

"I appreciate the support," she snarked. 

"I do," Cassian the spy said, simple and true. "I believe you."

Her face went slack with shock, and for the first time it occurred to Melshi to wonder what kind of life she'd had, that her first instinct on getting sprung out of a place like Wobani was to attack her rescuers and try to escape on her own.

Her eyes roved over the team Cassian had brought her as he spoke, more naked truths spilling out of his usually tightly closed lips. His words dug into Melshi's belly, all the ugly realities of the life they lived, and the burning flame of why underneath it. 

She didn't say anything in reply, but the pilot still in his beat-up Imperial uniform did, talking about the practicalities of the shuttle they had to work with. She looked at him, then back at Cassian, with a little smile and the tiniest of nods.

He took that for the agreement it was and dispatched his team - her team, now - with barked orders. 

Melshi looked back as he picked up the carton of grenades he'd recommended in the storeroom. Cassian was standing very close to Jyn, their faces tipped toward each other. It would actually be a little sweet if they weren't all going to almost-certain death.

But when they were inside the shield gate at Scarif, she spoke to them directly. She was no orator. Her words, by themselves, were blunt and a little fatalistic. But it was the flame in her eyes that lent them power.

"We'll find those Death Star plans. We'll find a way to find them."

He believed her, and he could feel the same belief stealing through the veins of all the battle-scarred soldiers in the shuttle with them. 

A dead man's voice whispered in his ears. How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us.

"We'll take the next chance," Jyn said, "and the next, until we win, or until our chances are spent."

We will never have a better chance than this.

Cassian had always been good at that. Finding a person who could change the tide, who could rouse people to action. Jyn and Kino seemed different on the outside - an angry young woman, a careworn older man - but the blaze in their eyes was the same.  

Ruescott Melshi had been living on borrowed time since the moment his feet had touched the electrified floor of Narkina 5. He'd followed Cassian Andor out of that hell, and now he'd follow him into hell on Scarif.

It felt right that this was how his time would come due.

FINIS

#Ruescott Melshi #Cassian Andor #Jyn Erso #rebelcaptain #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #NaNo stories #love me a 5+1 #star wars

[mosylufanfic]

Rebelcap Whumptober Day 2

I went with the prompt in the title because I just loved it so much!

I’ll call out your name (but you won’t call back)

The first thing he heard was the monotonous beep of a heart monitor, slowly speeding up as he came to full consciousness.

The first thing he realized was that he couldn't move his arms or his legs.

"Easy!" said a voice. "Easy, easy. It's not permanent. We had to give you a paralytic."

He stared up at the strange face hovering over his. Twi'lek, he registered. He wasn't a prisoner of the Empire, then. 

Of course, that didn't mean he was among friends, either.

"I couldn't have you thrashing around and undoing all my hard work," the Twi'lek went on.

He made a questioning noise.

"I had to  brace your back to keep the spine immobile, remove your spleen and your appendix, set several ribs and vertebrae, and pump in a lot of synthblood. You're not entirely out of the woods but you may be seeing daylight. Do you know where you are?"

Scarif, he thought, but no. That was where he'd been. 

The last thing he remembered was kneeling on the beach, Jyn in his arms, holding onto her as his internal injuries and the shock wave of the boiling ocean raced each other to kill him first. And the burning point of her kyber crystal, pressed between them - 

How he had gotten from there to here was a mystery he couldn't even begin to solve.

Jyn. Where was Jyn? Dead? Somewhere else in this facility? He tried to look around but there was some kind of brace keeping his head immobilized. All he could see was a rough pourstone ceiling, pitted and stained with age, and some of the area around the foot of his bed. That wasn't any more informational - just pourstone wall and a jumble of medical-supply crates, long expired if their labeling was anything to go by. 

"You're on Tamsye Prime," the medic informed him. 

Tamsye Prime, he thought. Why was that important? Why was that ringing the most distant of alarms?

When he tried to reach for it, pain burst in his midsection like a bomb, and a groan escaped his throat.

"Sorry, let's get these meds dialed up." A couple of clicks, and something cool began to spread through his veins from a spot in his elbow.

"What are you doing?" said a second voice. "She wanted to know when he woke up."

"I'm checking him first." A straw nudged at his mouth, and he instinctively jerked his head away. "It's water," the medic said.

He considered pulling away again, but his throat was dust-dry and a coughing fit might tear him open. And this medic didn't seem the type to poison him after working so hard to put him back together. He accepted the drink, holding most of it in his mouth to trickle as gently as possible down his throat.

"Right away, she said."

"I'll comm her in a moment."

The painkiller started to take effect, blurring the knife edges of the pain into spiky clouds. He thought about asking for it to get dialed down again. He didn't like to be fuzzy. But he wasn't sure he could form coherent words.

Jyn, he thought. Jyn.

A click and a buzz and the second voice said, "Yeah, he's awake."

"Kriff you," said the medic.

"I'm not presenting my ass to be kicked along with yours," said the second voice. 

He lost time then, awareness blurring in and out until a door swished open. The mysterious Her.

"Everybody out," said a voice. It had the mechanical edge of a vocoder, distorting it from original. 

Shuffling and murmurs as people exited. 

"Everybody means everybody," said the vocoder'd voice. 

"Kest - " the medic said in a pleading voice. 

"Do I have to say it again?"

A pause, and one last set of footsteps, and the hiss of the door. 

He scrabbled through the clouds in his head to pull his thoughts together and work out what to do. 

Was this Jyn?

The aggression tracked. But why would she be wearing a vocoder? Unless she was trying to disguise herself from whoever it was that had them. 

"You awake?" said the voice, now clearly addressing him. 

He let his eyelids flutter in confusion that wasn't entirely feigned. 

"I'm turning down your painkiller drip so you're clearheaded enough to talk," she went on. "Of course, that means the pain will come back, too. If I like what you have to say, I'll turn your meds back up."

No. It couldn't be. Not talking to him like this.

He was pretty sure.

He waited long enough for the clouds to clear to the edges and then allowed his eyelids to slide open.

"Took you long enough," said the voice.

She was staying to one side of his head, correctly guessing that with his neck braced, his field of vision was severely limited. Anything he could use to guess at age and species were disguised by the vocoder, of course. Gender, too, if he hadn't heard the pronouns the medics used.

But he had the feeling that, like many inexperienced interrogators, this one was letting the vocoder do the work and didn't realize the kind of information he could extract from what it left behind. 

Like a Core accent, there in the syllabic emphasis, the rising and falling tones of the sentences. 

Like - 

No, it wasn't her. 

He didn't think. 

"What's your name?"

He flicked through aliases like flimsicards. "Aach," he managed. "Clem Aach."

"Hmm. Where do you come from, Clem Aach?"

"Ogem," he said. Mid-Rim, far enough away from Scarif so that if the Empire were searching for them - and the Empire had to be searching for them - it might throw these people off the scent. 

"How did you get here?"

"Crash," he said.

"Crashed in what? We didn't find any wreckage. Anywhere. "

He made a puzzled face, as if the lack of his entirely fictitious spacecraft was a surprise to him as well. "Crashed," he said again. 

Silence for a moment, as if she thought he might change his mind about that. He waited it out with the patience of one who used silence like a scalpel. 

Soon, much sooner than he would have, she went on, "I was the one who found you. In a rock canyon just outside our perimeter."

"Thank - you," he managed. A little politeness sometimes went a long way, and if he played this right, they might think he was some gormless civilian in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"You were saying a name," the voice said. 

"I was?"

"That name is why I brought you back. You think we waste resources on every broken wreck of a being we find in the wastes? I want to know where you heard that name."

"Don't know," he lied. "Maybe - delirious?" That was possibly not a lie. Given the extent of his injuries, and his lack of memory, he could have been delirious. He hoped he hadn't dropped anything other than Jyn's name.

Because who else would he have been calling out for?

"Handy," the voice said. 

Stalemate. He wasn't willing to betray Jyn's identity, she wasn't willing to give him anything to go on. 

And yet, his captor had already heard him. If he admitted to it, maybe they could get somewhere. Even if "somewhere" was knowing how he'd ended up here. 

"Could - have - could have been 'Jyn,'" he said. 

Silence again. This time, calm and considering, like she was working out which of his fingers or toes to slice off first. "Jyn Erso," she said.

Hells. He had said her full name. Maybe in response to someone. That wasn't like him. 

Reluctantly - "Maybe."

The footsteps again, traversing the length of his bed. Slowly, his interrogator stepped into view. 

It was Jyn.

And it wasn't.

Her face was different - rounder in some parts, sharper in others. Her mouth was softer and fuller, most of the lines and shadows around her eyes missing, some scars vanished, only smooth skin in their place. And there was no recognition in her eyes as she looked at him. Just suspicion. 

Her eyes cut to the heart monitor, whose high beeps matched the sudden galloping pace of his heart. "So you do know who I am," she said.

He made a noise of partial assent, still staring dumbfounded. If the girl in front of him was a day older than sixteen, he'd walk into the nearest Imperial base and give himself up right now. 

"Good," she said. "We've got that out of the way." She stepped out of his line of sight again, and he stared at the ceiling, trying to feel his way through a situation that had suddenly gotten a lot stranger - and it hadn't been particularly normal in the first place. 

Tamsye Prime.

Sixteen-year-old Jyn. Clearly not going by her original name, and not willing for anyone else to hear it, even in the Partisans - for that had to be who the others had been. 

Impossible. 

The dial of the medication clicked again, two times. Three. Downward, as there was no cool rush into his elbow again. 

"Now," she said very softly. "Who sent you?"

FINIS

Inspired by the woooorrrrrrld of difference between Felicity Jones as Catherine Morland and Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso.

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #rcwhumptober #fanfiction #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #Cassian is extremely beaten up #and among strangers #but don't discount our boy yet #star wars #search your feelings you know it to be queue

[mosylufanfic]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso Characters: Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Actors, the one that got away, Inspired by Persuasion Summary:

Eight years ago, Jyn Erso was a unknown actress. Then she got a lead role and fell in love with her famous co-star, Cassian Andor, and miraculously, he fell in love with her back. But not all love stories have a happily ever after.

Now, the tables have turned. Jyn is a star and nobody even knows Cassian's name anymore. Then she learns that he's going to be her co-star again. An entire summer shooting a movie with her ex?

But it's fine. This doesn't affect her at all.

She's over him.

-

<sweeps dramatic cape aside> Hello, @moprocrastinates! Happy Secret Santa!

I loved your list of prompts so much I combined multiple of them, including the exes still in love and the movie star AU. Of course, exes still in love always makes me think of Jane Austen's Persuasion, and well . . .<jazz hands>. I hope that this chapter and the *cough cough mumble* chapters following it put a smile on your face.

#Cassian Andor #Jyn Erso #rebelcaptain #fanfiction #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #rebelcaptainsecretsanta #rebelcaptain secret santa 2023 #star wars

[mosylufanfic]

GUESS WHO'S BAAACCCKKK

I have finished writing this fic, and I'll be posting it on Sundays barring sudden internet outages, editing emergencies, or sneak attacks of imposter syndrome.

In our newest chapter of Lost and Found, Flashback!Jyn struggles with pregnancy and also with the idea of having a baby in prison. In the present, changes are afoot.

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #fanfiction #star wars

[mosylufanfic]

Rebelcaptain Whumptober Day 18

Today we're going with the prompt "tortured for information." With a tinge of Lab Rat from the alternate prompts list. Bwahaha.

Feeding the Bite

Jyn floated at the very top of sleep, like oil on water. Her thoughts pulled apart and then together again, twisting and tangling around themselves . . . 

With a hard thunk, light slammed through the dark. She snapped awake, with a jolt that rattled her bones, and blinked up at the ceiling, cold and grey except for the hard white beam of the lights. 

Shadows approached, and she jerked. Restraints at her wrists, her ankles, her midsection, her forehead, held her hard in place. 

"Is she awake?"

Damn. 

But the mechanical beeps of monitors and machines would have given her away in any case. She twisted her head, trying to work out the limits of the restraints. She had some field of vision, enough to see that there was a uniformed figure on either side of her bed.

She stared at the uniforms and let her lip curl in seething hate. 

"Test four," said a voice, and a hypospray pressed to her neck 

She thrashed, but the hypospray emptied into her veins before retreating. 

"Does she have to be restrained?" said a second voice. 

"Yes."

Clearly they were playing Good Imp and Bad Imp. It was an old game. She knew it well. 

"That much, though?  It just doesn't seem - "

"Don't underestimate this one. There's a reason she's tied down like that."

She caught her breath, bracing against whatever drug they'd injected her with. Heat and cold crawled after each other down her veins, her stomach pitched and flipped. She breathed against it. 

Faces hovered over her, blurred by whatever drug they'd injected her with. She blinked hard until they swam into focus again. 

"That's ninety seconds. Plenty of time for her to start feeling it," Good Imp said. 

"Go ahead, then," Bad Imp said. 

"Sergeant Erso."

Her stomach rolled. They knew her name. Her rank too. Fuck. 

Good Imp's voice was gentle, like he actually cared. "Do you know where you are?" 

Specifically? No. In general? She was clearly in enemy hands. 

She stared stonily, and yanked at her wrists, her ankles. The cuffs yanked back.

If possible, her thoughts were cloudier. They slipped and slid like frantic fish, impossible to catch hold of.

Good Imp said, "It doesn't have to be like this. Just calm down and we can undo the restraints."

"That wouldn't be a good idea," Bad Imp muttered. "Sergeant, do you remember when you woke up before?"

She didn't. Everything before a few minutes ago was a blur. 

Further back - before before - there was a place, warmth and laughter and family and love - 

That place was clearly not here. 

"You broke a nurse's arm and an orderly's nose."

She smirked.

"Sergeant Erso, do you know where you are?" Bad Imp said. 

She clamped her jaws shut. Fuck if she was going to tell them anything.

"You're among friends," said Good Imp. "We're not your enemy. Please, help us and we can help you."

She stared up at the lights, which were bright enough to push tears from the corners of her eyes. But she wasn't going to look at either one of her captors. 

Bad Imp said, "Where were you before this?"

Wanted her to give up the base, did they? Hah. They'd have to work a lot harder to pry that out of her.

"We're on the same side," said Good Imp. "You have information we need. There are other prisoners still back there. Please, Sergeant."

She spat.

A door whooshed open, somewhere off to the side. Murmuring. 

"What is it?" Good Trooper said. 

"The husband's here," Bad Trooper said. "Just arrived."

"Bring him in," Good Trooper said. "Maybe that'll do the trick."

Husband.

It was a good word, both soft and sturdy, a word she could reach out and brace herself on.

The swish of a door, and footsteps, and then - 

"Jyn," said a hoarse, tired voice, and she managed to turn her head in that direction. 

That uniform. She hated it with a loathing that boiled up her throat like bile. 

The man in it had dark hair, and dark eyes, and dark shadows under the eyes, but there was a spark in them, a way he looked at her . . .

A name hovered just out of reach. 

"Jyn?" he said. "You know me," he said. "I know you know me."

She stared at his face, tracing the lines of it. The familiar lines of his mouth and nose, the angle of his jaw. 

He reached out, and Bad Trooper hissed a warning that he paid no mind to as he brushed his knuckles down her cheek. 

The world slipped and slid around her. That touch - that voice. They belonged to before . . . the other place she barely, dimly recalled.

Then everything snapped into place.

"Jyn," he said coaxingly, his hand opening to tenderly cup her face. "Jyn, look at me."

She turned her cheek into his palm, and his face relaxed. "Yes," he said. "You remember, don't you?"

"Yes," she whispered back.

Then she twisted her head and sank her teeth in the meat of his hand.

He let out a howl of shock and pain, but she clamped her jaws tighter and tighter until the skin parted under her teeth and her mouth flooded with the metallic taste of blood. The room rang with shouts, and hands tried to grip her jaw, but she kept her gaze focused just on him, letting him see the hate burning inside her.

He met her gaze and pushed his hand harder into her mouth, grinding her head back into the headrest, until she had to let go. Then he yanked his hand free and cradled it to his shirt. Blood began to spread in a lurid patch on the fabric.

She coughed and gagged and then spat her mouthful, spattering him with more bright red droplets, and snarled, "That's nothing compared to what you did to me."

-

When the door to the med wing opened, Bodhi leapt to his feet. They'd had to argue for almost half an hour to let Cassian see her, and Bodhi had been left to worry himself into a tailspin out here.  "Cassian! What - how is she?" 

He braced himself for horrific injuries, traumatic mental effects, maybe even - 

"She doesn't recognize me," Cassian said. 

"What do you mean?" Bodhi looked down at Cassian's hand, swathed in bandages that hadn't been there an hour ago. "Wait, what happened? Is that blood on your shirt?"

"I mean, she doesn't know who I am."

To anyone else, his voice would have sounded flat and informational. Bodhi heard the depths of despair in it. He set his hand on his friend's shoulder. "I'm sure it's temporary. How long did they have her? Probably confused - still thinks she's a prisoner - "

Cassian shook his head, the ever-present lines on his face carved as deep as a canyon. "She doesn't - anything. She doesn't recognize anything."

"Amnesia of some kind?" Bodhi ventured.

"No, different. She thinks this is an Imperial base, that we're her captors. She sees Rebel uniforms and thinks they're Imperial, sees me and thinks I'm her torturer. And nothing I say can make a dent. It's like - " He blew out a breath. "It's like a switch got flipped and turned everything opposite for her."

Bodhi almost fell back into the chair. The old scars from Bor Gullet, buried in his psyche, seemed to throb. "How?"

Cassian lowered himself to the chair next to him, moving like an old man. "There's some kind of unknown compound in her system. They caught it on the scans."

"A drug?"

"Yeah. Not one we know. They're working on synthesizing an antidote, but back engineering those is always hard. And we don't know what kind of conditioning went with it, what kind of scars it'll leave - "

"I - I'm sure it's temporary," Bodhi said again. "You know Jyn. She'll fight her way out."

Cassian looked at his bandaged hand, and shadows moved over his face. "That's what I'm afraid of."

FINIS

A/N: I know this is like the third RCWhumptober story with this trope! Why is this such a good trope??

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #fanfiction #rcwhumptober #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #heh heh heh #star wars

[mosylufanfic]

In the very last chapter of Lost and Found, there's one last family reunion, and Cassian tells a bedtime story.

. . . and that's the end!

Thank you to everyone who read and loved this story. Even though I didn't answer any replies, I treasure every single comment so much, and everyone who read too.

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #star wars #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name

[mosylufanfic]

RCWhumptober Day 29

I decided to use an alternate prompt for today, "aftermath of failure." This isn't as whumpy as some of my others, but they're both suffering.

Visiting Hours

For the fourth time in as many hours, Jyn was fighting with a reception droid. "I need to see him. I need to."

"The patient is a level four," the droid said stolidly. "Level four is not permitted non family visitors."

By this time, Jyn was very familiar with the leveling system of the Alliance medical ward. Level one meant you were in for a squirt of bacta gel, maybe an antiviral shot, and back to your quarters. 

As far as she could tell, level five meant death's door. 

A doctor came through one of the doors. They were Mirialan, their facial tattoos faded, the way they got without upkeep. The doctor themself looked as faded as their tattoos, deep purple shadows under their eyes. "What's this racket?" they said. 

"This civilian is insisting on seeing a level four patient. I have stated repeatedly that it is not possible."

"It's possible, you're just being a prick," Jyn fired back. 

"You're Jyn Erso," the doctor said.

She set her jaw. She couldn't read the tone of their voice. Was it contempt? Anger? "I need to see him," she repeated.

"Level fours are permitted fifteen minutes with a family member," the doctor said to the droid. 

"This is not a family member," it said. "The patient has no family listed."

The doctor looked at her searchingly. "Given that, I think we can fudge it." 

The droid made a very annoyed sound, but twisted its body back to face the door, pissily ignoring Jyn.

She tried not to think of another pissy droid. You are continually unexpected. 

The doctor jerked their head at Jyn. "In through here. Decon chamber first."

“When does my fifteen minutes start?” she asked, following them.

"I'll let you know." They hit the button to seal off the decon chamber and Jyn screwed up her face. It was a sonic process, stronger than the sonic showers that she'd used all her life but no different in theory. Still, the enclosed chamber made her teeth itch.

They let her out on the other end and escorted her down a sterile white ward, beds cloaked in plastic on either side. Some of them were from Scarif, she knew.

Not enough of them.

She swallowed hard.

The doctor stopped her in front of the last bed in the row. "Listen," they said quietly. "The only reason, and I mean the only one, that I made this exception is because he's been asking for you."

"He's conscious, then."

"Yes. He won't look so bad. But don't let that fool you. His injuries are primarily internal, and they are severe."

"I know. I was there."

"He has a long way to go before we can downgrade him even to level three. So I wouldn't tell him anything too . . . upsetting."

She gave them a flat look. "What am I supposed to talk about, doctor? The weather?"

They pressed their lips together and unsealed the plastic. "Fifteen minutes starting now," they said. "There's a button on his bedside table. If you need anything, hit it. Someone will respond."

Do you think anyone's out there?

I do. Someone's listening.

At the rustle of plastic, Cassian's eyes turned toward her. He couldn't move any more than that. He was braced six ways to Centaxday, immobile so his shattered bones and his lacerated insides could knit up. Deep shadows like bruises ringed his eyes, and his skin was pallid under the bruises and the stubble. "Jyn," he said hoarsely.

She mustered up a smile, or an approximation of one. "Hi," she said. "Don't you look like shit."

He smiled back. "The plans," he said haltingly. "Nobody - will tell me - "

"Let's not talk about that right now," she said. 

His eyes fastened on her face, and after a moment, he made a noise of assent. "Who - did we - lose?" he asked then.

"Um. A lot," she said. "Seven made it back."

That was it. Seven out of thirty. Twenty-three dead on the blood-soaked sand, their bodies turned to ash by the Death Star's vicious eye.

"I don't know most of their names," she said. "I didn't really have the time." And she hadn't thought she would make it back, so it hadn't seemed important. On this side of things, it felt massively important to know who'd given their life for her last-ditch rogue mission.

"S'okay," he muttered. "I'll hear."

"That one guy, you know the one? From Wobani? I hit him with a shovel."

"Melshi," he said.

"Yeah, that's it. He's somewhere around here." She gave a general sort of wave, indicating the medical wing. "Level two, I think. He got us off the beach. Stole a shuttle, got us back here."

Cassian's eyes widened. "Bodhi?"

She felt her mouth tremble. "Got hit with a grenade or something. It took out our shuttle, that's why Melshi had to steal one. Someone pulled him out. He got back alive, but he's - it's bad. Level five bad. He's been in bacta since we landed. It's all - it's all very touch and go."

He absorbed that. "Baze," he said. "Chirrut?"

"On the surface," she said, and didn't have to say anything more.

It felt wrong that they'd left them there. Jyn didn't know what kind of burial rituals Guardians had, or Jedhans for that matter. She felt sure it hadn't included being vaporized by the blast of a planet killer. 

"They wouldn't - have wanted - to be without - each other," Cassian said. 

She nodded. "And. Well. You know what happened to Kay."

"Backup," he murmured. "Kay always - backup."

It wouldn't do much good without a chassis, and knowing that pissy droid he'd broken his backup into pieces and hidden it through seventeen databases just to make trouble for them. But it made her smile a little. "Well, that's something."

They sat in silence for a time. Jyn could almost hear her fifteen minutes ticking away.

"You," he said. "How - are you?"

She gestured at herself. "In one piece. Got banged up, but nothing some bacta gel couldn't handle." She rubbed at the edge of the bed. "They're not sure what to do with me. Not like I can get court martialed or something. Surprised they didn't shove me in the prison cells again, honestly."

Especially after -

Well. 

"Glad you - stayed," he said. 

Mon Mothma had offered her the shuttle - "that was the agreement," she'd said in her calm voice - and Jyn had rejected it with a firmness that hadn't seemed to surprise the other woman at all. 

"Where would I go?" she said rhetorically.

His hand lay on the covers near his hip. He turned it palm up in a motion that looked like it hurt his whole body.

She put hers over it - "don't" - and saw the little smile. She rolled her eyes and left her hand where it was. 

"Jyn," he said. "The plans."

"I don't - it's not - " 

"Please," he said. "Please."

She looked over her shoulder, through the cloudy plastic. No doctor to wag their finger at her.

And maybe it was selfish of her, but she desperately wanted to talk to someone. To share this pain that rode in her chest like a stone. 

She shut her eyes and took a few shaky breaths. When she opened them again, he was watching her, eyes urgent.

"One of our ships did receive the transmission," she said. "I don't remember what it was called but there was someone important aboard. A princess or something."

"Leia," he said. 

"Yeah, that was her. They sent a message they were on their way. But they got waylaid. A Star Destroyer. Over some dustball on the edge of nowhere. I'd never even heard of the system." She frowned. "-tooine, something."

"Dantooine?" he said, brows pulling together in concern.

"No, not that one. Tatooine. That's it. Like I said, never heard of it."

"What - happened?"

She was stalling. She knew it. 

"They took the ship," she said. 

He sucked in his breath. "Did anyone - "

"Everyone aboard was either dead or captured. The ship itself was destroyed."

"The plans," Cassian said. 

"Nobody knows," she said. "Maybe they were aboard the ship, maybe the Empire took them back - we don't know."

If only she'd kept them. If only she'd grabbed the data cartridge out of the transmission station. But she'd thought it was all right, with all those ships in orbit backing them up, and Cassian had looked as if he was about to collapse. Her first thought had been him. 

"They're gone," he said.

She nodded dumbly. "And there's more."

"How?"

"We got news today. Alderaan." She could barely say. "The Death Star attacked Alderaan."

"Like Jedha?"

"Worse," she said. "Much worse. The whole planet."

"The whole - "

"Yes," she choked out, and saw the horror dawn in his eyes as he took that in.

It was stardust, shattered to nothingness. A whole planet. Not one like Jedha or Scarif, either, that could be covered up or written off as a mining accident. They'd flicked their fingers and destroyed Alderaan, a Core world with a population in the billions. With that one stroke, the Empire had established that it could do whatever it wanted and nobody could stand against it. 

And the plans . . . the plans they'd worked so hard to find, sacrificed so many. Saw, her father. Bodhi and Baze and Chirrut and Kay, and everyone else who'd died on Scarif or come back in pieces. They'd fought so hard, they'd lost so much, and - 

"It was for nothing." She felt a tear, hot as lava, slide out of her eye and carve a burning path down her cheek. "It was all for nothing."

FINIS

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #rcwhumptober #I need to write so much fluff now #star wars #search your feelings you know it to be queue

[mosylufanfic]

This week on the Actors AU, Jyn and Cassian make their appearance on late-night, Cassian talks about what he's been reading, and Jyn goes out for drinks.

And then it gets really cinematic.

#Jyn Erso #Cassian Andor #rebelcaptain #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #star wars

[mosylufanfic]

5 Times They Almost Met (and after they did)

Merry Christmas, @koltarmi! You asked for “the red thread of fate” and here is what I came up with! I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I was also delighted to remember that red was the color of the Force and Force worshippers, as per the costume designers on Rogue One.

5 Times They Almost Met (and after they did)

When she was very small, and still believed in magic and the Force and that her mama and papa would always be there, Jyn heard about the red thread for the first time.

Her mama, who often wore a red sash when they were at home, used it to tickle her nose. "The Force," she said, "binds the universe together. It's a thread through all of us. And sometimes it pulls - " She looped her sash around her daughter's waist and tugged so Jyn tumbled, giggling, into her lap. "People together."

"Like you and Papa," Jyn said confidently, weaving her fingers through the fringe on the ends of the sash. 

"Yes, like me and your papa." 

"Can you see it?" Jyn looked around herself as if she could spot thin red lines tracing themselves in the air around her. 

"No, only its effects. It'll pull you toward the people you're meant to know, over and over again. You might walk by each other in the street. Meet their eyes across a room. Something they do will affect you, but you won't know it was them, not yet. Then you'll go your separate ways, not knowing how important that person is going to be to you until the day you finally meet, the way you were meant to do."

Jyn snuggled into her mother's arms, eyes still searching the air for invisible threads connecting her to people she would one day know.

"Lyra," her papa said. "If you tell her things like that all the time, she's going to start to believe them."

"Good," Mama said. "That's the point."

17 BBY

Papa was hard-faced and silent, and Mama was tense, and both those things made Jyn's tummy hurt. She was whiny and pouty until Papa snapped at her and Mama snapped at him and then she curled up in a ball in the corner of the speeder's seat and shoved her hot face into the squeaky cushion. 

Papa sighed and put his heavy, warm hand on her head. "Stardust," he said. "I'm sorry. None of us want to be here. Hang in there and we'll be gone soon."

"Why did I have to come?" she muttered into the seat cushion. "Why couldn't I stay on the ship and play?"

Nobody answered her. When she looked up, her mama and papa were looking at each other with that grown-up expression of things they weren't telling her. She sighed and hugged Stormy, tucking him under her chin. 

After another eternity of dull silence, she sat up and pressed her face to the window to see out. They'd spent so long in hyperspace that even the dull, grey, rainy outside was interesting to her. 

"Who are they?" she asked, pointing at the line of men winding away toward the hills in the distance. They were all wearing the same kind of blue jumpsuits, their shoulders and hair darkened with rain. 

"Prisoners, darling." 

"What did they do?"

Her mama's eyes tightened at the corners. "I don't know. Shh."

When her parents said Shh like that, Jyn knew to shut up immediately because if she kept talking, someone other than her parents might not like it. Like probably the guard - no, she'd got the word wrong, the guide - who was driving their enclosed speeder and wore a big heavy gun on his hip. 

The guide said, "They're going mining for us, little girl."

Jyn scowled. She wasn't little. She was four, and she could put on her own clothes now and everything. 

"The hyperbarite?" her mama said.

"Nothing else worth mining in those hills."

"It's industry standard to use droids to mine hyperbarite," Mama said. "Due to the dangerous nature of the mining process."

"But these are much cheaper," their guide said, and laughed. He laughed a lot, at things that weren't funny. Jyn didn't like his laugh. There was something mean about it.

Mama didn't laugh. She looked angry, her brows pulled together.

Papa said, "Lyra," very quietly, and then neither of them said anything else. 

Jyn stood up on her knees and put both hands on the transparisteel. Nobody told her not to, so she watched out the window. Then she saw the boy. 

He wasn't her age. He was a big boy. But not grown-up. Almost grown-up, maybe.

The almost-but-not-quite-grown-up boy had a big pot in his hands. It looked heavy, and every so often as he walked, a little something would slop over the edge. 

His dark eyes met hers through the window. His hair, as dark as his eyes, hung dripping wet and curling around his face. He was wearing the same clothes as the grown-up prisoners, the cuffs of his pants rolled up but still dragging in the mud, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

"Mama," she said.

"Yes, darling."

"Why is that boy here? Where are his mama and papa?"

"I don't know, sweetheart." Her mama reached out and scooped her into her lap. "Don't look."

Jyn put her head on her mama's shoulder and looked out the window for the boy again. But he was gone.

On the ship back to Coruscant, her parents had a hissed argument while Jyn was in bed, with occasional words leaping out like fishes. "Prisoners . . . a boy! A child! Fourteen if he was a day!" "Can't . . . Krennic . . . " "We have to - "

And a month after they got back, they left again, fleeing Coruscant with only her very favorite toys and some clothes shoved in a bag. But she was all right with that, as long as she was with her mama and her papa. 

5 BBY

It was supposed to be a quick job. Stand around with a blaster, shoot anyone who got too close. Get a cut of the take. Not really a cut, if the size of it was anything like she'd heard. More like a shaving.

But that was fine. She hadn't done the hard work, after all. And even a shaving would feed her for a week or so, which was more than the contents of her pockets would do now.

Jyn Erso was sixteen years old and on her own, and behind the hard expression on her face, she was terrified, all the time. Every moment. She was hoping this job, and the handful of credits it promised, would soften the sharpest edge of that terror.

Her lip hurt where it had split. But that short, nasty fight over a picked pocket had caught the attention of her current employers, who'd peeled her off the street and said, "Want a job, kid?"

She knew full well that they'd almost tossed her back anyway. She looked too small and delicate and, well, young. Nobody here had ever heard of the Lion of Onderon, or his Cub. This was as good a way as any to start establishing her rep, before the world outside the Partisans ate her alive.

But the so-called quick job had stretched out to two hours, then three, as they waited around in a cantina for the call from Balyag's contact. She hadn't minded it at first, as they'd bought a round of drinks, and she'd eaten three bowls of bar snacks down to crumbs. But she was getting antsy. 

At a table against the wall, her employers muttered to each other. The other muscle hired for the job muttered to each other too, especially after one of them detoured close enough to the back table to overhear the conversation.

Jyn wouldn't unbend far enough to ask, but she tipped her head to hear the conversation. 

"Where are they coming from?"

"Aldhani, they said."

"They're late."

"Had some trouble. They stopped to get medical."

"How long?"

"Another half a day."

"Half a day?" Jyn tossed her drink back, scooped up the crumbs of the fourth bowl of bar snacks, and said, "Kriff this." She made for the door. 

The man who'd hired her stepped into her path. "Where are you going?"

"Got another job." She didn't, but she'd found this one. She could find another. "I can't afford to be sitting here with my thumb up my arse."

"We paid you good money to sit around with your thumb up your arse."

She glared up at him with all the ferocity that the Lion's Cub could muster. "You haven't paid me anything, karkface. Now let me through or I'll cut my way through."

5 BBY - a month later

When Jyn saw the prices in the bar, she winced. She'd avoided the city center where all the tourist traps were, but apparently the locals' cantina was as jacked up as the rest of this stupid planet.

Still, she bought herself the cheapest beer they had. If she was going to try and pick up work, she couldn't get kicked out by an annoyed bartender.

The being behind the bar gave her something that might have been a sympathetic glance and refilled a bowl of bar snacks, pushing it down toward her. Even knowing they were probably thirty percent salt to make her thirstier, Jyn pulled it closer to herself. Food was food to her echoing belly, and there’d been many a day when bar snacks were all that filled it.

He turned and started wiping down the bar. When the door swooshed open to a gorgeous woman with explosive curls, he called out, "Windi! Haven't seen you around lately. What did you, pick up some tourist?"

"Yeah, but he hoofed it yesterday morning. Went out 'for a walk'" - she made quotes with her fingers - "and that was the last I saw of him. Rental kicked me out today."

"Easy come, easy go," the barkeep said, not without sympathy. "Working the beach again, are you?"

"Yeah." She took out a deck of fortune cards. "Let me practice on you?"

"Oh, you've told my fortune plenty of times." He nodded down the bar. "That one there, she could use some good words about her future, I think."

Windi turned to her, smiling a bright, sparkling smile. “Well? Want some help with the mysteries of the universe?”

Jyn shot her a suspicious glance. "How much?"

She looked her up and down. "Free for you, little bird. I'm rusty. I need the practice."

Jyn considered, then shrugged a shoulder. What could it hurt? Saw always said - 

Never mind Saw. He certainly wasn't thinking about her. 

"What's your name?" Windi asked, shuffling the fortune cards with a dexterity that Jyn tried not to be impressed by.

"Kestrel," Jyn said, plucking the name out of the air. 

The other woman's sharp eyes flicked up to hers. She smiled a little. "Maybe I'm not so rusty. Here." She held out the deck. 

Jyn didn't take it. "Why?"

"Needs your touch, little bird. Shuffle them, cut them a couple of times, and think hard about what you need."

She shuffled, staring a hole in them. Just cards. Just stupid fortune cards. But - I need food. I need money. I need security. 

"Three card spread, I think," Windi said. She plucked them from the middle of the deck and laid them out in a line, face-down.

The first was a tower, lightning striking the top, figures falling from the windows. "This is your past," Windi said sonorously. "You've had a shock. Something broke, something was destroyed. Your world fell apart."

She gave Jyn a sympathetic look.

Jyn avoided her gaze, trying not to think of Mama falling into the wet grass. 

"But you're strong. You can begin again. As many times as you need." She traced her fingers over the back of the second card. "For the present . . . " She flipped it over. The picture was upside down, showing a wizened old man in a cave. It was hard not to think of Saw again. "The hermit. You're alone."

Jyn couldn't help herself. She snorted. She hadn't needed the cards to tell her that.

Windi smirked at her. "You're angry and resentful. Not without cause, I think. Still, you need time to come to terms with what happened. Maybe with your past." She tapped the tower. "You also don't let your feelings surface."

"Believe me, that wouldn't do anyone any good," Jyn said caustically.

"Maybe, maybe not." She fluttered her fingers over the last card. "And now for your future." She flipped it. "Ahhhh," she breathed. "The Galaxy."

It was a work of art, this card, all glinting paint and clusters of stars, and two fat babies reaching up for it. 

"Let me guess," Jyn said. "I'm gonna roam? Lots of glamorous travel?"

"Nope. You're going to achieve your goals."

Her goals of having food in her belly and a roof over her head? Well, fine. All right then.

"The Galaxy, upright, means success and happiness. You're going to celebrate, and be celebrated. Lots of joy." She smiled. "It's a good future."

Jyn suppressed another snort.

Windi considered the cards. "All major cards," she said. "Some say that means you're at a crossroads in your life, and you really need to pay attention to what they're telling you."

"Do they?"

"But I always think it means your life is going to have huge effects." For a moment, the glittering, twirling Galaxy card reflected in her eyes. "Things look dark now, but you, little bird - you're going to rise like the dawn."

Jyn swallowed hard. "Nice," she said. "Nice scam. You make a lot of money at that?"

"Oh, enough." She scooped her cards back together and shuffled the deck again. "What's your line of work?"

"Fighting, mostly."

"Fighting," Windi echoed. "I don't know how you got here - "

"Ship," Jyn said. And a captain who thought he was entitled to more than he was paying her for. 

"Mhm. This isn't a fighter's town.This is a scammer's town, and unless you've got some scammer's skills, the bucketheads'll have you in front of some judge and packed off to an Imperial prison for the rest of your life before you can say boo. You've got good hands. Ever done three card monte?"

"No?"

She held up the card with the queen on it. "Watch the lady."

She taught Jyn the card game, including the deft movement necessary for hiding the lady away before you started moving the cards around. 

"Why would you teach me?" Jyn asked once she'd got a handle on it. "Now I'm competition."

"No," Windi said. "You, with that sweet innocent little face - "

She felt herself flush hotly. "My face is not -"

"Oh, it is, and nobody will ever expect you to be running a distraction while I pick pockets."

Enlightened, Jyn gave a short grunt. "Then I get half of the total."

"Twenty percent."

Jyn got up. "Good luck with that."

Windi laughed. "Okay, little bird, forty percent. I'll be doing the hard work. Let's go."

Jyn considered it and decided forty percent wasn't bad. The hard bit would be the patter. But Windi said she could insult people. That would be fun. 

As they walked toward the beach and the tourists all waiting to be fleeced, Windi grumbled about the man who'd left her high and dry.

"Never known a Keef who wasn't a dumbass," Jyn contributed. She'd never known a Keef, period, but she did know that women who'd been dumped by men enjoyed hearing them bashed. 

Windi sighed. "Stupid name, but he had money. And he was good in bed." 

Jyn shrugged. Her experiences with that, thus far, had been unimpressive. 

Windi gave her a sly smile. "Just remember, little bird, nice guys finish last."

3 BBY

Shouts echoed behind her, and Jyn's eyes darted around for a hidey-hole that she could still escape from if cornered.

Stupid, she cursed herself as she ran. Stupid, stupid! Check around for their backup before trying to kick the shit out of a stormtrooper, even if he'd been trying to shake her down for bribe money first. 

There! If she wasn't mistaken, that alley fed out onto a busy street on the other end, and even if they saw her go in, she could lose herself in the crowds when she went out.

She swerved, her shitty boots skidding on the icy streets, and scrambled into the alley.

Fuck.

She'd been mistaken.

It was a fucking blind alley too, one end boarded up into a dead end.

She allowed herself two seconds to curse in rage before clamping her lips shut and tuning her ears to the sounds of her pursuers. Who were - yeah. Closer. 

Dead end indeed.

She looked around frantically and found a ladder, stretching up the side of the building next to her. But the lowest rung was just above her flailing fingers. Hissing to herself, she backed up as far as she could, took the few steps the alley permitted at a run, and leapt.

Her right hand slipped but her left hand closed around the lowest rung. Her body swung and slammed into the brick wall, forcing a grunt from her lips. She braced her feet on the wall, got her right hand on the next rung up, and hauled herself up as fast as she could go.

Not quite fast enough. 

A voice echoed. "I've got this one! You all, take the others!"

Just shy of two floors off the ground, and about eight floors from the roof. She swung herself around the ladder and wedged her body in between it and the wall. Her heart slammed itself against the cold rung pressed to her chest. She breathed as slowly as possible, mouth open to let the air drift in and out without making a sound.

Was she far enough in the shadows? Did her drab clothes blend with the dimness? Or did she stand out like a moth on a snowbank?

She slid her hand into her jacket and curled it around the butt of her blaster.

The officer stepped into the alley, eyes flicking around. He was young, with a sharp line of beard running down his jaw and chin, and a crisp olive-green uniform, slightly crumpled and rumpled with all the running. 

Don't look up, she chanted in her mind. Don't look up. 

Funny that he hadn't brought troopers with him. Didn't that type always want backup?

He looked down at the ground. Her throat knotted as she realized that her boots had left scuff marks on the plascrete. 

His dark eyes roamed upwards. Jyn's stomach folded in on itself, her throat tightening up. Her finger clenched on the trigger of her blaster. If she shot him, she'd give away her position - but if he shouted out, that would give away her position too. 

He turned away. "Nothing down here," he called out.

She kept her finger on the trigger until his footsteps had faded away. Then she shoved the blaster in her jacket and scrambled for the roof.

She'd been so damn lucky he hadn't seen her, she told herself once she was well away. So damn lucky. 

His eyesight must be shit, though. She could have sworn he'd looked right at her. 

3 months BBY

"Can you shift it or not?" Jyn said.

The woman behind the counter of the shitty little market stall looked over her magnifiers. "I can shift it," she said. "Problem's the timeline. I can take it on consignment. Could probably get two hundred, maybe three hundred with the right buyer."

"Consignment? You mean I'd have to come back here for my money?"

"Never said that. You got a holonet account I can drop your credits into?"

She snorted. "Not on your life." She'd sliced into enough of them not to trust any holonet based money account. She believed in cold hard credits, and occasional cred-cards, with little enough on them that losing them wouldn't be a disaster.

"Well, if you want credits on the table today, I can do you a hundred fifty."

"A hundred fifty?" She reached out for the heat sink. "I'll find that three-hundred-credit buyer on my own, thanks."

The woman shrugged and flipped one of her long braids over her shoulder. "Good luck with that."

Jyn wavered. The smirk on the other woman's face told her that she'd have a far more difficult time finding a buyer than this woman would, market stall or not. She scowled. "A hundred seventy-five, and a fifty percent discount on whatever I need from here."

"Twenty percent discount."

Jyn hissed through her teeth and slapped the heat sink back onto the counter. 

"Watch the merchandise," the woman said absently, crouched down to unlock what was probably a safe. "If I have to repair it, I'll knock it down to one-twenty-five."

Jyn poked around the stall, feeling as if she ought to make use of that twenty percent discount now that she'd argued for it, but mindful of not using up too many of her hard-won credits. 

A burly man ducked into the stall and she felt herself go tense. But he walked past her and up to the counter, leaning over it to kiss the woman hello. 

"What are you doing here?" the woman asked, kissing him back. "Something happen down at the docks?" She leaned back, studying him as if counting all his limbs.

"Don’t worry, love. I just knocked off early. Got a special cargo come in." He gave her a significant look. 

She frowned at him, then her eyes widened. "He said he couldn't make it for a visit until after - " She rested a hand on the swell of her belly.

Jyn didn't know why anyone would bring some poor kid into this craphole galaxy, but whatever. It wasn't her lookout. 

"Work brought him through,” he answered. “Thought he should stop by in case he couldn't later. He was going to come with me, but I told him things were too hot around here. He's at the house, but he can't stay. Probably just for dinner."

They both looked at Jyn. She pretended to be examining a case of vibroblades, just as deaf as could be.

"Let me get rid of this customer and I'll close up."

She poked around the shelves for a few minutes, just for the look of it, then brought a couple of pieces up. Whoever it was that had come into town for dinner, the owner of the stall was eager enough to see him that she actually gave an extra five percent on a vibroblade when Jyn pushed for it.

Unfortunately, it got taken off her when she was arrested and tossed in Wobani. But it had been a good deal, anyway. 

5 ABY

"Look at us," Jyn said, settling into her seat. "All respectable. Flying under our own identities, even."

Cassian shivered. "Don't remind me."

She tossed her leg over his knee, grinning into his face. "Not too late to fake our scandocs and double back to cover our trail."

He snorted, acknowledging that he was being ridiculous. 

It was strange to be taking regular transport, after years of bugging out on whatever transport the Rebellion could scramble up, having multiple extra identities on their persons at all times, and tensing up every time they saw stormtroopers. 

Almost like peace. 

She'd never known peace. Neither had he. Watching it dawn on the horizon was mildly unsettling. 

"These friends of yours," she said. "How long did you say you knew them?"

"Since I was young," he said. "Brasso was like a big brother to me when I first got to Ferrix."

"And Bix was your first love."

"Mmmm. They've been married - damn, it must be seven years now."

"Hmmmm." She rested her cheek against the window and watched the planet retreat below them.

He slid his arm around her. "Bix might've been my first love," he murmured, kissing her ear, "but you are my last."

She elbowed him. "Stop being mushy somewhere I can't jump you. And I know that."

He kissed her ear again. "Then what are you worried about?"

"I - " She slouched into his side and muttered, "What if they don't like me?"

Normally she would have said kriff anyone who didn't like her. But these were good friends of Cassian's. He'd taken time to see them more than once over the course of the war, when free time was something he had to scrape together like smeared clay. They were his last connection to the planet where he'd spent his teens. He'd lost so much over his lifetime - multiple homes, his entire family twice over. This couple was all he had left of his past. 

If they didn't like her, he'd be caught in the middle.

"They already do," he said.

"What'd you tell them?"

"Only all the best stories. But you've met them."

She sat up, frowning at him. "No, I haven't. When?"

"You remember Ganji Moon?"

"I went so many places, Cass." And she'd rarely wanted to remember any of them.

"Water moon," he said. "They mine and fish out in the ocean and bring it into about three or four different islands to get exported off-planet."

She shook her head at him, smiling incredulously. Cassian's head for details was so astonishing, and sometimes he thought everyone else remembered like he did.

"It would have been a little before you went to Wobani. You traded a heat sink at a market stall and bought a vibroblade."

A vague memory came swimming back. A woman with long braids and a huge belly, and her man, a massive cargo worker of some kind. "I - maybe. Yeah, could be. She haggled like a demon, that woman."

"She said the same about you. Bix is a hustler. She appreciates hustle."

She poked him. "Why didn't you say something before?"

"I wanted to see if you'd recognize them. Thought it would be a funny story. I didn't know you were so worried about meeting them."

"I wasn't worried. Exactly."

"Mmm."

She slid him a sidelong look. "How'd you know we met, anyway?"

"I was in the area the same day because I was tracking you."

"Me?" Right, yeah, right before Wobani, he would have been. 

He nodded, mouth curling up at the side. "I took a gamble and stopped by for a few hours. Their first son was due in about a month and I didn't know what the war was going to do. I showed them your holo because I thought Bix might run into you. She did a lot on the grey market then. They both recognized you as her last customer before Bix closed up the stall to come see me."

"You're joking."

"Nowhere near. I went running to the market and then the spaceport, but you were gone. I caught your trail, but didn't catch up to you again until you were in Wobani."

She shook her head. "You mean if you'd come with Brasso to the market the first time, we might have met that much earlier?"

"You would've bolted," he said. 

"Well, yeah. But who knows what would have happened from there."

He took her hand and kissed it. "Chirrut would say everything happens the way the Force wills it. Near misses and all."

"My mum used to say something like that," she said. "That the Force drew people together over and over until they finally met." She rested her head back against the window, smiling at him. "Wonder how many times we've almost met?"

"It can't have been more than that one time," he said. "It's a big galaxy, and that was when I was looking for you."

She shrugged. "Who knows, right?"

FINIS

#rebelcaptainsecretsanta #Cassian Andor #Jyn Erso #rebelcaptain #fanfiction #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #andor-compliant #star wars #5+1