1. Plan a vacation.
Bodhi knew how Jyn and Cassian felt about beaches. When he suggested they take a vacation, he chose to withhold the fact that it was going to be at the beachiest beachy planet of them all (that still existed of course): Spira. He remembered the sound of Baze's laugh as he told Bodhi how he and Chirrut weren't going.
"Are you sure you guys don't want to go?" The beach wasn't overly crowded, and the day was great. Jyn was drinking some iced cocktail with Cassian under the shade of their villa. It smelled citrusy.
"No thanks, Bodhi," Cassian replied. "You enjoy yourself."
Bodhi shrugged, but really he was just thankful things went as expected. He was really hoping they wouldn't want to go. "And what are you going to do?"
"Try to understand how we survived." Jyn said as she took a sip from her drink. Cassian tilted his head towards and agreed.
He wasn't ready to give up yet. "And that's it? No comming Baze or Chirrut back at Yavin 4?"
"Don't say where it is," Cassian hissed. "And make sure you don't get too sunburned."
Jyn sipped her citrus-scented drink and added, "Or sunburned at all."
Bodhi rolled his eyes. "Yes, mom. Yes, dad." He would've turned around to see their reactions, but the ocean was calling him with its compelling waves.
2. Go home.
"Bodhi, I actually really don't mind," Cassian argued.
He shook his head. "Nonsense. Last time I took a trip, I brought you guys with me. I feel guilty about it now."
"Bodhi," Chirrut added, "Beaches didn't agree with any of you, each for a different reason."
That was obviously the plan behind going to the beach. The sunburning wasn't exactly on Bodhi's to-do list, but he got Cassian and Jyn on some semblance of a vacation together (though most of it was just them fussing over Bodhi. Karabast!)
Bodhi shrugged. "Jedha agrees with the three of us though. I just feel bad leaving Cassian behind alone." He really didn't.
"I said I'd be fine, Bodhi." He really wasn't.
Baze, Chirrut and Bodh were all going back to Jedha, for reasons unknown. Of their legendary Rogue One crew, Cassian and Jyn were the only ones left. (Not that it would be a bad thing.)
"No, you won't be fine," Bodhi retorted. "You would've been a complete loner without any of us, especially since Kay-Tu. At least let me call Jyn to keep you company."
Cassian sighed. "Fine." It was probably the mentioning of K-2SO that drove the answer from the captain.
"Good," Baze chuckled as he loaded the transport. "Because they already commed her anyway." Chirrut shrugged and pointed at Bodhi.
"His idea."
3. Talk to strangers.
Bodhi Rook had a knack for meeting important people at meal lines.
"You're the Imperial pilot, right?" It should have been obvious with his freshly washed flight jacket. Bodhi chose to keep the insignia, to remind him of the person he used to be and how much he's changed since then.
He shrugged. "What gave it away?" He turned around and was visibly surprised to see the princess of Alderaan behind him. "You're Princess Leia."
She nodded. "Yes I am." She had just come back from captivity aboard a Star Destroyer. There was a smudge of dirt over her face and that same expression Bodhi had when Jedha City was destroyed.
"You're the princess who lost the plans we worked so hard for," he added. It was meant to be a joke, but there was a hint of passive-aggressiveness beneath it.
Leia laughed. "I got them back."
"They're still a bit miffed about it though," Bodhi nodded to Jyn and Cassian, who were expertly dancing around each other since they came back from their day at Jedha.
Bodhi and Leia watched them for a while, as they skirted edges and turned pink when they bumped into each other.
"Have they always been like that?"
Cassian sheepishly apologized as Jyn nodded and repeatedly said sorry. "I actually don't know." They only started after Spira.
4. Explore in fashion.
"What are you wearing?" Jyn snorted. Bodhi folded his arms over his chest, as if they were a good armor. He knew—from Scarif—that they really weren't. "You look stupid."
He rolled his eyes. "You don't think Cassian looks stupid when he wears it, and he wears in the most impractical locations." Like a sandstorm, or just a rainstorm.
"Well, that's because it suits him," Jyn explained. Bodhi raised his eyebrows and began to strut around the narrow passage of the ship's cabin, posing in Cassian's fur coat as Jyn laughed on the floor, the holorecords gone unnoticed.
Cassian, who looked to be a fresh awakening, entered the cabin. "What's happening here?" He paused to stare at Bodhi. "Why do you have my coat?" He didn't even ask why Bodhi was modelling around the ship.
Bodhi shrugged. "Jyn dared me to take it from your berth while you were asleep." Cassian usually trusted Bodhi. He was lying though.
Her eyes widened. "I did not."
5. Smuggle alcohol into Yavin 4.
Shara Bey demanded a good price. Of the twelve bottles Bodhi had seized, she had five stowed somewhere on her ship so that she would help Bodhi sneak in the bottles through the tower. "Good luck, Bodhi," she smiled.
Jyn found him on the way to his room.
"Bodhi," Jyn's eyes went wide. "We're not supposed to—"
"There are many things people are supposed to do, Jyn Erso," Bodhi smiled. "Like listen to orders instead of going rogue. Or staying in their room instead of sneaking out to go to Cassian's because you can't sleep. Some rules were just meant to be broken."
There was a speechless pause as Jyn flushed. "How do you—touché, my friend. Touché."
They invited Cassian and Chirrut, while Baze volunteered to watch over them. They were in their ship, which Bodhi and Cassian had gotten somewhere. Somewhere… Bodhi was too drunk to remember.
He was halfway through his bottle—and they all had each their own—when he thought of something. "How about we play a game?"
Jyn shoved the lip of the bottle to her lips. "What kind of game?"
"It's like truth or dare," he replied.
Chirrut added. "But with the secret Jedha version rules, that only we know." For some reason, Chirrut didn't seem that intoxicated.
There actually was no Jedha version, but he and Bodhi seemed to get along with their objective. "If you don't do the dare or answer the truth," he took a deep breath then hiccupped. "You have to kiss someone!" Bodhi said it giddy like a child.
"If you don't," Chirrut smiled, "you have to take two shots and an article of clothing off." He points his glass at Cassian. "Starting with your ridiculous coat."
"And if I don't?" The captain said.
Bodhi giggled slightly, "Then truth or dare?"
Cassian shucked off his fluffy fur coat. Jyn took the coat and hugged it softly.
"Smells just like you," she commented. All Bodhi could smell was alcohol.
They kept taking drinks as Jyn continually took up more and more dares, each getting worse by the shot. Cassian avoided everything, to say the least. His boots were on the floor next to his coat. Bodhi just kept drinking, because he fought for those bottles of gin and he was going to drink them.
Bodhi didn't remember what happened after that.
According to Cassian, Chirrut kissed Baze for longer than the five seconds, so he had to do a punishment and ended up just doing it again. Then they realized that Baze wasn't really part of the game, but didn't try to punish Chirrut any more than he'd like.
Bodhi was dared to unwire and rewire a protocol droid, while imperially drunk. For some reason, Han Solo's Wookiee friend always eyed him with disgust since then.
"What did you do?" Bodhi asked in his hungover stupor. There were tales of Baze and Chirrut, and him. He know what Jyn got up to, since he was the parent of all those terrible ideas. Cassian, as far as Bodhi was concerned, avoided everything.
"We got drunk," the captain replied, though he seemed to avoid the eyes of Jyn.
Chirrut and Bodhi laughed on their beds in the med center. Baze grunted unamusingly over them. "If you don't flush the alcohol out of you, the Alliance will leave us all here."
6. Help Jyn.
Bodhi realized at some point in his life that he would never be able to say no to anyone in the Erso family. Especially if they had those eyes.
"I can't do it," Bodhi whispered. His breath came out in clouds of fog as the chill of Hoth froze the warmth from him.
Jyn set down the broken droid on the icy floor. "I saw you rewire a protocol droid."
"I was drunk," he complained. "And so were you." It had been weeks, but Bodhi still never fully recovered the memories of that night.
"Bodhi, please," she pleaded. "It's for Cassian."
He shivered the cold away. "I want to know why." Say you love him. Just say you love him already. All the stars above, just admit it.
"He's my friend."
Bodhi snorted and rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine." Chirrut walked in on them a few days into the project, though he left with a promise not to tell Cassian or anyone else.
7. Celebrate name day.
Bodhi shared Chirrut's sentiments. It was in Cassian Andor's worst interest to tell them of his name day three days before the Alliance would dispatch its fleet all across the galaxy. Bodhi wasn't able to get anything fun for a celebration.
They didn't have all their supplies back at Hoth to finalize Kay-Tu-Point-Oh. (There wasn't actually anything left in Hoth to begin with.) "I can run my own diagnostics, Jyn Erso," K-2SO 2.0 muttered. He smacked the box on the table with his three-fingered hand… for the fourth time of this test.
Jyn rolled her eyes. "Your reflexes are absolute kriff." Bodhi replaced the box as K-2 duly smacked it down again.
"They appear to be fine." The droid's gaze shifted to Bodhi.
Bodhi shook his head. "I am not putting that box back." The droid was acting like a lothcat. He was just glad it didn't start to purr.
Jyn groaned and threw the screwdriver behind her, narrowly missing Bodhi. "I'm not good at this." She stepped away and looked at Bodhi. "I'm going to go talk to Chirrut. Can you fix this?"
"Captain Andor is most capable of repairing my impulse response," K-2 stood up. Jyn turned back around and pushed the droid back on his seat.
"No-no-no-no-no," Bodhi disagreed. "I can do it."
"Good luck," Jyn bid. "Make sure to tie a ribbon around Kay-Tu's head." Bodhi had an image of a robotic lothcat with a bright red ribbon tied around its neck.
8. Celebrate a holiday.
They were cruelly stationed at Fest, a frozen little place. The upside to it was that Cassian was born there.
"Happy Empire Day," Bodhi greeted. The date had been seared into his skull at some level. He had to know the day, or he wouldn't be able to call himself a proper Imperial defector.
Jyn looked up from her cup of caf. "Not celebrating, Bodhi."
The logo on Bodhi's jacket had long since faded past the years he's been wearing it. Didn't change his beginnings. Now Bodhi sympathized with why Cassian always wore his heavy fur coat.
"Why couldn't we be anywhere warmer?" Baze asked as he and Chirrut entered their living room. It wasn't much of a living room. Every part of the warehouse looked the same with their bleak gray walls and bright industrial lights.
Chirrut smiled. "Like a beach?" Bodhi could see Jyn roll her eyes, but she was smiling under the curves of the plastic cup.
Cassian entered the room with his magnificent fur coat. He looked fairly well-rested. Maybe he was just used to the cold. Bodhi and Jyn spent the time in Hoth working in a warm droid workshop instead of learning to get used to the environment.
At the mention of beach, his eyes met Jyn's; and Bodhi just watched as a silent conversation played in their eyes. "Good morning," he said. Cassian walked a few steps, before taking the warm cup of caf in Jyn's hand and taking a sip.
"What day is it today?"
"It's day sixte—" Chirrut began. He was counting the days since they first arrive on Fest. "Empire Day," Bodhi quipped in interruption.
He set Jyn's cup back down in front of her. "Not celebrating," he and Jyn said in unison.
Jyn finished the rest of the caf. "You can just make your own, you know."
9. Celebrate in general.
One of the rebels gladly handed Bodhi a bottle of jet juice. "Long live the New Republic!" They chanted. Another rebel took Jyn by the hand and spun her around. It was great to see her smiling, her eyes twinkling in a way Galen's never did.
The first part of the war was over. He didn't need to fly starfighters or deliver Jyn and Baze to where they had to blow something up. He didn't need to do anything anymore.
"Long live the New Republic!"
He watched as the rebels released the remaining detonators into the air, creating beautiful blasts of fireworks under rowdy music. The adrenaline from the fight earlier was wearing away, leaving Bodhi tired and inconclusive.
He found Chirrut seated on the boarding ramp of their ship, with their friends and family. The crew of Rogue One was his new family.
"Long live the New Republic," someone yelled again.
Jyn pulled him by his hand and asked him to dance. "Come on!" Chirrut jabbed him sharply in the leg.
Bodhi felt his knee buckle. "Not drunk enough yet." He would've really just danced anyway, if not for Chirrut. "Go dance with Cassian."
The captain shrugged and didn't await for Jyn to pull him up and lead each other to the main party at the Village.
If Bodhi squinted hard enough, and brushed his hair from his face, he could be very sure that they kissed.
10. Mine for rocks.
"She already has a necklace, right?" Leia asked Bodhi. "We're here to get another crystal, for the ring."
Bodhi shook his head. "And you think it'll be here?"
"Luke got one." The princess noted. "For his lightsaber."
"I still think we should consult Cassian on this matter," K-2SO said. "He will not appreciate us going rogue."
Leia sent her glare over to Kay-Tu. She was probably not used to a droid with a mouth. "It's either you help us get a good ring or you write the proposal speech."
"The probably of a positive reply is highly likely, Commander," the droid replied. "Neither the speech nor the ring is actually necessary."
"It's for the romantics. Kay," Bodhi explained. "So let's go find a kyber crystal." He hoisted the pickaxe and handed it to the droid.
K-2 made one of his infamous sighs. "You mean I find a kyber crystal." The sound of Chewbacca roaring from the other room could be heard, as Han had just beaten him in another game of sabaac.