A.N. Prequel to Rogue One and my own story Don't Leave Me Now.

Well here we go! I couldn't resist a Cassian and Kay story since I love their friendship and I didn't give it as much screen time as I would have liked in my previous story. So this is my version of how Cassian and Kay first met. I have not read the novel, I have only seen the movie (multiple times... I love it) so this is my own version that fits with the movie but I have no idea if it fits with the book. So please be aware of that. This story is designed to fit with the limited information we are given from the movie and, as a result, this can absolutely be read without ever reading my other story (the one that follows this one) Don't Leave Me Now.

In my universe of Rogue One, this story takes place in 8BBY.

Also, the sequel to Don't Leave Me Now is in the works! I hope to start posting that in the next few weeks.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Such sadness.

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You're crazy, a voice whispers in his head. You've finally reached the breaking point and, not only did you go beyond it, you absolutely PLUNGED past it.

He ignores the unwelcome truth.

You are going to get yourself killed.

"Hush!" he hisses aloud, trying to silence the voice that sounds strangely like one of his fellow rebels, Vorin Yevez, who's always trying to sneak his way into Cassian's life as a friend, despite Cassian's repeated attempts to discourage him. "I am dead anyway if this doesn't work, so I literally have nothing to lose!" he exclaims, refusing to acknowledge that it doesn't bode well that he's talking to himself… the blood loss must be getting to me, he muses distractedly, this time confident that it is his own conscience talking and not one influenced by his comrade.

Darkness permeates the room, broken only by the glow of the emergency lighting, which bathes surfaces in red, including Cassian's hands. Of course it's the light that's turned them crimson, not the blood. Shadows coalesce around the hulking form lying before him, making it difficult for him to see in order to finish his desperate gamble, but his hands have worked with machines and wires all his life; he won't let a little something like lack of proper light stop him.

His fingers slip on the metal and he winces as the sharp edge bites deep into his skin, but he doesn't stop. The blood that oozes out of the cut doesn't deter him, in fact it makes no difference to him as it only adds to the blood already there. Instead, he quickens his movements. After all, he is working under a deadline. A literal deadline.

He's concealed from Imperial detection for now, but any moment he knows the doors to this room are going to open to reveal a horde of Stormtroopers. They know a rebel has infiltrated their base, but they sustained heavy casualties in their first confrontation with him—he made sure of that once his cover had been blown, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake as he tried to escape—and are now proceeding with more caution. They aren't certain of his exact location, so they've begun to search room by room. Their discovery of him is inevitable, but he knows this small monitoring area he slipped into a half hour earlier won't be searched for quite some time. He'd chosen it for a reason, as it's a low level station not related to security and therefore won't be a priority, but he'd gotten more than he bargained for when he first entered the room.

xxXxx xxXxx

(Thirty minutes prior)

Slipping into the small room with the hope of using it as a temporary hideout, he expects to encounter a technician or two and is prepared to end their lives. For the sake of the Rebellion, he tells himself, already hardening his heart. What he isn't prepared for is a seven foot tall Imperial security droid. That changes everything.

He knows for certain that the only thing that saves his life is the fact that he is still in Stormtrooper uniform, having used an alias and a disguise to infiltrate the base in order to obtain the Empire's data on their numerous mining operations across the galaxy—operations the Rebellion hopes to exploit, as supplies are desperately low. He'd successfully obtained the information, but unfortunately, a soldier had grown suspicious of him and demanded that he come report to the base's General. Naturally, Cassian had refused, which is what lead him to flee and enter the room with the droid.

The droid looks up at him the moment the door opens, registers the still smoking blaster burns to his left shoulder and right hip, and demands, "Why are you not in medical, Trooper? Your vitals are not ideal and my scans show significant damage to two areas of your body. Your presence is not required here."

"Yeah, no kidding," he mutters, "I'd rather not be here anyway."

The droid stands slowly and begins to approach him, suspicion obvious in the tread of its step. Cassian moves sideways casually in order to allow the door behind him to close, sealing them off from the rest of the base and providing a modicum of privacy. Humans he could have killed quietly and—as much as he hates to admit it to himself—easily. He long ago perfected the art of ending a life in the name of the Cause, no matter how much it makes him die a little inside every time. He's only eighteen, but he's had more than ten years of practice. However, he has no idea how to kill a droid silently—and silence is key because if he uses a blaster, it will certainly draw unwanted attention to the room and frankly, he needs a little time to rest and reorient himself in order to come up with an exit strategy. Thinking quickly on his feet—something he's gotten very good at over the course of his life—he eyes one of the standing consoles in the room and improvises.

When the droid reaches for him, he dives beneath the console, grabs onto a cable's rubber insulation—hoping to the Force that his memory is correct and he's grabbed the right one—and rips it out of its port, exposing the wire at its end and plunging the room into momentary darkness, until the emergency lighting kicks in two seconds later. Cable in hand, he whips around just in time to witness the droid's arm swinging to slam into his face. Instinctively, he jerks his right hand up in order to block the blow and he succeeds, which is both fortunate and unfortunate. It prevents him from getting his jaw broken, as his forearm takes the brunt of the impact and the Stormtrooper helmet takes the rest, cracking under the force of the blow—huh, guess this stupid, cumbersome head gear is good for something after all, he muses distantly—but the bad news is that it most definitely breaks his arm. And I thought human punches could hurt... they don't hold a candle to the force behind a droid's metal hand. The strength of the collision of Imperial steel with Rebel skin throws him to the floor, his body impacting with a hard thud, forcing all of the breath from his lungs.

"You're the Rebel spy they're looking for," the droid accuses, reaching for him once again. "Well I won't allow a traitorous rebel to muck up my station."

Despite the fact that his lungs are still spasming and desperately gasping for air, when the droid is inches from seizing his arm, Cassian thrusts the end of the wire forward into the crevasse of the droid's elbow joint, praying to the Force that it will work. For once, his prayers are answered and electricity surges through the droid, short circuiting it instantly. When he pulls the cable back and lets it dangle beneath the console, the droid's blue eyes grow dark as it crumples to the ground.

Collapsing to the floor in order to catch his breath and catalogue the damage report, he quickly determines his right hand—his dominant hand, unfortunately—will be absolutely useless, the agony of bone grating on bone immediately making itself known and causing him to growl in frustration. Not at the pain—though it is excruciating—but at the fact that his chances of successfully escaping have just diminished by half. He's adept at using his left hand to shoot, but not nearly as accurate as with his right, and having only one hand to help him escape, well, that will definitely be problematic.

He takes a moment to get the pain under control, adding it to the growing list—burned and bleeding right hip and left shoulder, bruised jaw, broken arm… thank the Force I at least don't have a concussion. He's lived with pain for over ten years—dealt with it constantly, it seems—and has reached the point where he can fairly effectively separate his mind from the ache in order to accomplish his mission, at least temporarily. It's always a risky game, though, because while separating himself from the pain means he can do things he needs to in order to complete his mission and fight for the Rebellion, it also means he forces his body way beyond its physical limits, which has serious consequences. But he's always accepted those consequences, long ago realizing he'll die at a young age, serving the Alliance. At first that concept had bothered him, but as he'd grown older and lost everyone he'd ever cared about, he's grown to recognize it as fact. He has no one left to live for and, if by his death he can ensure the Rebellion lives on, he won't hesitate. After all, what is his life compared to the lives and freedom of every living being in the galaxy? Besides, a rebel can't expect to lead a long and comfortable life when fighting for the Rebellion, fighting for the hope of the entire galaxy.

But death is not an option right now and neither is capture, because he still has a mission to complete and if he fails, the Rebellion will never get the information they desperately need. He can die the moment he lands on Dantooine, for all he cares, but not a minute before. So he gets the pain down to a manageable level and immediately goes about attacking the problem of how the heck he's supposed to escape—because he has to escape. With an untold number of Stormtroopers between him and freedom, his right hand useless and his left usable but hampered by the blaster wound on his shoulder—which sends fire racing down his arm every time he moves—the prospects do not look promising. That is, until his eyes land on the droid he just short circuited, and the craziest idea begins to form in his head. If he can manage it, he has a pair of hands in front of him, not to mention the fact that the droid's Imperial affiliation means Cassian could potentially walk right out of the base with the droid leading the way, as no one would suspect that the rebel spy they're looking for managed to reprogram an Imperial droid—if he actually manages to reprogram it.

xxXxx xxXxx

(Present)

So that is what had led to his current situation, sitting and tinkering with the droid he'd "killed," desperately hoping he can reprogram and reboot it, because it's probably his only chance at getting out of here. Yes, it is quite possible he will effectively kill himself if he turns the droid back on and the reprogramming hasn't taken, but Cassian is realistic and knows there are really only four possible ways the next hour is going to go for him, only one of which has even a chance of him completing the mission. One, he can wait here and eventually Stormtroopers will find and kill him. Two, if the Troopers don't find him first, the blood loss will probably kill him just as effectively. Three, he doesn't successfully reprogram the droid and it kills him. And four, he does successfully reprogram the droid and they both manage to escape… and even then, his wounds still might kill him. So really, I'm dead anyway, he thinks, bringing him back to his earlier mental argument.

His left hand slips again, causing his torso to twist and jar his broken arm. He grits his teeth, tucks his right arm more firmly in his jacket in a futile effort to stabilize it—he'd discarded the damaged trooper uniform earlier, it's bulk only pulling on his injuries—and continues. Failure is not an option. Failure has never been an option in Cassian's life. From the time when he was six years old to now, failure always means someone dies. Failure means the Empire wins—not necessarily total victory, but a victory nonetheless. And that is something he can never accept. Of course, that doesn't mean he's always successful. No, he is bitterly familiar with the harsh sting of defeat, of the monumental self-loathing that always comes with letting someone down. The first person he ever truly failed was his mother. And she had died. It didn't matter that he was only seven years old when it happened, because where and when he grew up, seven years old with a year of war already under your belt meant you were a veteran. And a veteran should have been able to save one of the people he cared about most. But he hadn't. He quickly learned as a child soldier that emotion—particularly tears, but happiness as well—made you weak. Made you vulnerable. And so he locked everything away, nailed it down tight and never let it out. As a consequence, he hasn't cried since her hand slipped from his for the last time. He's grieved, yes, but never in any external manner.

He vowed from that day forward that he would never fail someone again, but he can't even count how many times that vow has been broken since then, how many people he's let down and failed. Each time it happens, he focuses even more on hardening his exterior and edges, gradually building a wall between him and the world, always presenting a mask of cool calculation. The more he acts like he doesn't feel anything on the outside, the easier it is to pretend he feels nothing on the inside, to pretend that the horrors of what he's done don't whisper in his ear every time he lets his guard down. It makes doing unspeakable things for the Rebellion more bearable. He never forgets and he never forgives himself, but he will always do it again if given the chance, because the Alliance is worth it—the Alliance is worth everything to him now. Even though it hurts him deeply, it's a pain he embraces, because the day he stops feeling remorse and grief over taking a life will be the day he knows he's lost, the day he becomes just like the Empire he despises.

It makes him one hell of an operator—his ability to suppress his emotions—and that is partly what helped him climb the ladder in the Rebellion so quickly. While he's been a part of the movement since the beginning of the Clone Wars, he didn't join the organized core group of the Alliance until two years ago. He lied about his age at first—claiming he was already nineteen—and, given his confident attitude and considerable experience, no one questioned him. Eventually it came out that he was only sixteen, but by that time his post as an entry level data analyzer had turned into an entry level role in Intelligence and he was too crucial to the Rebellion's information gathering network. They couldn't afford to let him go, as his fluency in numerous languages, his chameleon skills, his unflappable calm and, most importantly, his dedication to the Rebellion first, made him invaluable.

The mission that had both garnered the respect of his superior officers and solidified his place in the Resistance such that they didn't even consider letting him go once they discovered his true age, was when the Intelligence Captain had one of the Sergeants take Cassian on a routine lower level mission in order to test out his field skills and see if he could maintain his cool. It had been Cassian's first off base mission with the Alliance.

Things had gone south very quickly and had been headed towards a security breach of catastrophic proportions, until Cassian had gone off script and improvised. The Imperial Lieutenant they'd been talking with (under the guise of being interested in joining) had grown suspicious of something the Sergeant had said and accused him of being a traitorous spy. The Sergeant had vehemently denied it and attempted to assuage the Lieutenant's fears, but to no avail. The Lieutenant had pulled out his blaster, aiming it at the Sergeant before directing his attention to Cassian, demanding to know if he was a spy as well. Up until that point, Cassian had kept his body language relaxed and his face hard, but the moment the gun had leveled on his Sergeant, he knew the game had needed to change. So he'd pulled out his most heartless and cutthroat personality and turned on his Sergeant, yelling at the man for pulling him into this mess and even going so far as to physically assault him. Cassian had admitted to the Imperial Lieutenant that he'd had no idea of the Sergeant's intentions when the man had paid him to accompany him to this meeting. Then Cassian had proceeded to rage about the Sergeant's vile, disgusting beliefs and thanked the Lieutenant for revealing the man's true colors. He'd taken it a step further on a hunch, growling at the Lieutenant that if he shot the man, he'd be doing Cassian a favor. Then Cassian had snarled that actually, it would give him great satisfaction to do the deed himself if the Lieutenant would be so generous as to allow him to end the scum's life.

His performance had worked and he'd gotten both himself and the Sergeant out of there uninjured, with the Empire none the wiser to their presence, as the Lieutenant had agreed to let Cassian remove the rebel spy from his presence and dispose of him. The Lieutenant had also promised he would not say anything to upper command, so he wouldn't have to go through the paperwork involved in explaining a suspected rebel and his untimely death.

That mission cemented his position as a valuable and respected asset to the Rebellion and resulted in a promotion to Sergeant Major, a position which allows him to design and control his own missions.

Which is how he ended up in a deadly situation in the Imperial base on Roche.

He pulls his mind from memories, turning his attention back to the task at hand: he's reached the final wires he needs to splice together in order to reboot the droid. Now or never. Either you die very suddenly or very slowly. Time is running out. Sweat beads on his brow, his eyesight keeps getting fuzzy every few moments, and he's sure that if he could look at himself in a mirror he would see his skin is positively gray. He can feel his body gradually going into shock despite his mind's best efforts. The constant grating pain in his arm combined with the blood loss—he's still bleeding sluggishly from both wounds, not having had time to attempt any sort of makeshift bandage—is gradually overcoming his ability to compartmentalize. After all, there's only so much abuse a body can take before it has to shut down, regardless of one's strength of mind or willpower. He knows there is no way he is getting out of the base without the droid's help.

He has nothing left to lose. He hasn't let anyone get close enough to him for them to grieve his loss, because given his line of work, he's always known there's a strong possibility that each mission could see the end of him and he saw no point in forming attachments when all it will do is cause pain. No one will miss him if he dies, not beyond feeling the military loss of an asset. Though a small part of him wonders what Vorin will think if Cassian doesn't make it back from this mission. The two young men haven't known each other very long, but the blond has been doing everything he can to worm his way beneath Cassian's thick, impenetrable walls in order to become friends. He'd get over it quickly, I'm sure, he tells himself, before letting out a breath and steeling his nerves. Well, no time like the present.

He connects the wires. A hum immediately emanates from the droid's core systems as Cassian sits back to survey his handiwork. The metal body twitches, fingers on its left hand curling into a fist. Given the movement, Cassian decides to stagger to his feet and pull out his blaster, figuring if he's about to be killed, he will die on his feet.

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A.N.2. I couldn't find out much about Roche and if there's ever been an Imperial base there, so in my universe there has!

And there's the first chapter! I'll be back soon with the rest. Let me know what you think?