The sand gritting against their knees fell away. The kyber crystal that hung from Jyn's neck caught a shaft of light and shone brightly. The blinding flare faded into twilight. As Jyn and Cassian clung to each other, they were pulled apart, their cells blown away, caught in the scorching drafts that flung them far through space, across nebulas and through stars.
There was no pain. They had forgotten what that felt like. When they woke, they realized they had no eyes, no mouths, no bodies. The hands they had used to hold each other, guide each other towards each seized chance until they had finally run out of chances, were gone.
They were and they were not. Through themselves, they could hear an echo of Chirrut's prayer: I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.
"So this is what death feels like." Jyn had always believed there was nothing after death. It was easier that way.
Cassian was close to her, closer even than their final moments on the beach. "Perhaps. Do you feel the others?"
Jyn focused. Bodhi was there, Chirrut and Baze. Even Kay, who she could swear was saying, "I told you I could survive in space."
"Look, over there." Cassian drifted from her and Jyn followed, growing closer to him that she might see what he saw.
It was another space battle, or maybe the dying breath of the battle that had taken them. Though they did not know how, they recognized it as the ship that carried the Death Star plans, that precious cargo that had cost so much.
Bodhi became a more tangible presence. A sadness radiated from him. "They're not going to make it."
"They will," Jyn assured him. "They have to."
"Rebellions are built on hope," Cassian said, and she smiled to hear those words again.
Bodhi nodded, felt himself drift before pulling himself back to them, to that moment.
The plans were saved, but barely. They tried to follow, but the planet with the twin suns and the triple moons pulled too strongly, and they lost their way.
"I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me," Chirrut prayed.
The Tatooine sand rippled in the whisper of their presence. A jawa, shuffling along with a bag of scrap metal jangling over their shoulder, paused for a moment and seemed to stare directly at them before hurrying on, making a sign across their chest as they did so. Jyn wondered what it meant.
They wandered until, through the Force, they heard her voice: Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.
The current of the Force brought them to an old man's hovel. There was the Princess Organa no less small, no less beautiful as a holographic image.
A younger boy watched her, his eyes soft as he looked for those places far away, as he dreamed about helping her, keeping her hope alive.
"I wonder," Cassian whispered.
This boy had not seen war. He had not known heartbreak and devastation. He had had a life, a childhood. The people who loved him still lived.
Cassian's presence faltered beside her, and Jyn reached out to him, steadying him, supporting him the best she could.
The old man asked the boy to come with him. Bodhi shimmered softly behind him when he said he couldn't get involved, that it was too far away. "I hated the empire too," Bodhi whispered. "But we must do enough."
There was something that cracked around him, like flaws in stone. Jyn stared curiously, while Cassian drifted towards him. "You did enough, Bodhi."
The flow of the Force pulled them from the old man and the boy. Their connection became farther, and Jyn panicked.
"We will always find each other in the Force," Chirrut said, his presence faint. She felt him for a moment, and then he was far from her.
Cassian found himself on a moisture farm. He felt the sand tremor before he saw them. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing he could to stop it, to stop them. There was nothing he could do to protect the boy from the first steps he was about to take, the world he was about to enter, the mission he was about to devote himself to as if he ever had a choice.
"You've done enough too," Bodhi said. "We've done enough. We have," he repeated.
Cassian wondered if it were true, if it even mattered anymore if they were all dead, if he was dead.
"It does matter," Jyn said, "and it is true."
Their presence ebbed in the Force, and a sharp cry from millions of voices pulled them together again as they witnessed the destruction of Alderaan.
"We were too late," Cassian said. Jyn couldn't speak.
She reached for the kyber crystal at her neck. It had been a constant presence, thrumming as if it lived with every heart beat and every breath, but it was gone, and could comfort her no longer.
"It's not too late," Chirrut said. "There is still hope. I trust in the Force."
"Rebellions are built on hope," Jyn said, to remind Cassian, even if it was easy to doubt. She could still believe it though. With Cassian beside her, it could be possible.
But, as they watched the battle of Yavin, it seemed so futile.
"We must help him," Baze said pointing towards the X-Wing the farm boy flew.
Chirrut's smile was a definable presence. "I knew you would find me."
"I thought I could finally rest in death," Baze said. "But perhaps this isn't so bad."
They followed Baze to the X-Wing that fled through the metallic canyon, dancing across the aiming scanners of the enemy computers.
Bodhi lifted his head. "I'm not needed here. I need to speak to the other one, the smuggler. He must come back!"
Then Bodhi was gone, but they could feel him still.
The old man was with the boy, urging him to trust the Force. He smiled at them like knew them, and then they knew that he was Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knight, and that the boy was Luke Skywalker.
Luke took a deep breath, eyes closed. They gasped at his pull, and they understood what he asked of them. They lent him their will as he reached through the Force, trusting it, trusting them, to guide him so that his aim was sure.
The Death Star became no more because Luke had finished what they had begun, had stoked the candle flame of hope they had tended so carefully into something bright and beautiful.
"It wasn't all for nothing," Cassian said. Relief thinned his presence, as if for the first time since he was a boy he allowed himself to rest. He slipped into the flow of the Force, surrounding her, surrounding them as the Force brought him and the others deeper and deeper into itself like the tide.
Jyn hesitated. It was easier for her to sense Cassian, as bright as the crystal that had burned against her heart. It would be alright, she realized. They were safe now. They would not be abandoned here.
As she allowed herself to drift into the push and pull of the Force, she whispered Chirrut's prayer. "I am one with the Force, the Force is with me. I am with them, and they are with me. I will be with you-always."
I have a terrible memory and I could have sworn that Chirrut's prayer was, The Force is with me, and I am with the Force. However, Google is proving me wrong apparently.
Bodhi's lines are largely inspired by the Rogue One novelization, which I have yet to read. However, Tumblr tells me the last line is this: "He'd done enough. It was okay."