After they jump to hyperspace, Cassian leaves K2 in the cockpit and makes his way toward the back of the U-Wing, where Jyn Erso sits in one of the troop carrier's jumpseats, cleaning her gun. She knows what she's doing, after all. Cassian smiles appreciatively, and sits down across from her. She watches him, guardedly, but she doesn't stop what she's doing. After a while, her gaze drops from him back to the components of her weapon. Cassian watches as she finishes carefully applying solvent to the blaster's barrel, trigger, ammo compartment. She snaps the box that holds the cleaner closed, and begins to reassemble the weapon.

"The droid said you thought it was a bad idea for me to come with you," she says, as she slides the gun into a holster at her hip. Did she "find" that too?, Cassian wonders.

He sighs, and leans his head back against the bulkhead behind him. "I usually work alone."

"Me too."

Cassian nods, as he studies the girl. She looks like hell, half-starved. Half-broken. Yeah, well. They'd picked her up on Wobani, after all. He doesn't know much about what goes on in an Imperial Labor Camp, but he doesn't have to know much to know enough.

"You've got an impressive list of convictions," he announces. Jyn shrugs. Cassian sighs. "Look, I don't care whether or not you think this is a good idea, honestly, but you're right that we're going into a war zone. If you're not all in, you're going to get yourself – and me – killed."

Something like a smirk plays across Jyn's features. "Don't you trust me?" she asks, in a voice entirely too deadened to sound innocent.

"I don't trust anybody. It's nothing personal."

He gets up from his seat and rummages around in an unsealed box, pulling out a couple of ration packs and handing them to her. She watches him, warily, making no move to take the offering. "It's not poisoned or anything," Cassian points out. To prove it, he uses his teeth to rip open one of the packs and pours most of the protein powder into his mouth. The "meals" really are better if mixed with water, but they serve their basic purpose fine even without. He throws the other pack at Jyn. It lands in her lap. She picks it up, carefully, turning it over in her hand but leaving it closed. "Eat something," Cassian begs her.

"I ate on the base," she reminds him. "Before the briefing." There had been food – real food – but she'd only eaten a little. There was an IV in her arm as well, and a medic asking probing questions that she hadn't answered. She understands enough to know that the Rebellion needs her alive, at least until she finds her father. And Saw. Both men abandoned her, what good will come from chasing after them now?

Captain Cassian Andor is still staring at her. He glances down at the food pack in her hand and Jyn wonders if he's going to try to force her to eat it, but he just shrugs. "Suit yourself."

Jyn tucks the food pack into the pocket of her jacket. "I'm not going to shoot you," she says. "If that's what you're worried about."

"That's not what I'm worried about."

Jyn looks down at her hands, where rough calluses run across her palms and the imprints of the heavy binders the Empire favors are still visible, red-white welts encircling her thin wrists. The medic had slathered some kind of healing ointment over her skin, but though it had taken away some of the burn, it did nothing to erase the marks. Cassian notices. Of course he does. He sits down in the empty jumpseat next to hers and takes her arm gently in his hand. Jyn draws in a ragged breath. He places his other hand over hers.

"Look, I'm... sorry?" he says, making it a question, the word unfamiliar in his mouth.

"Why?"

"For whatever the Empire did to you. I can understand why you want to fight them."

"I don't want to fight them. I don't want anything to do with this war."

"But the Alliance rescued you."

"I didn't ask you to!"

She is so, so sick of giving everything she has to buy her own survival. This game of quid pro quo. She has lost too many times. She has nothing left to lose. Alliance High Command swears to her that if she helps them in this mission, they will ensure that she stays free. The unspoken threat, of course, is that if she doesn't, they will send her back to the Empire. To Wobani, or some place worse.

Cassian pulls back, as if she had slapped him. Jyn crosses her arms over her chest so he can't touch her anymore.

"I told you this was a bad idea!" K2 says loudly, from the cockpit. "No one listens to me."

"Is he right?" Cassian whispers. "Is this a bad idea?"

Jyn shrugs. "I don't think it's a good idea. But nobody cares what I think."

"I care what you think."

Jyn shakes her head. "No, you don't."

"I have to," Cassian insists. "Like it or not, we're on the same team now."

"Fine."

"What was it like fighting under Saw Gerrera?"

Jyn shrugs.

Cassian waits.

"It was... hard," she finally says. "He's not a man who tolerates mistakes."

"Or differing opinions, so I've heard."

"Or that," Jyn agrees.

And yet, everything that he had taught her had kept her alive in a harsh galaxy. And by abandoning her, he had saved her. And he had been her father, when her own father became the enemy. But Jyn doesn't think of the Empire as the enemy. That's Saw's thoughts, still tangled in her head. Jyn doesn't believe in causes, not anymore. She just believes in staying alive.

"He won't listen to me," she tries to tell Cassian.

"Well, it isn't likely he'll listen to anyone else," the spy says plainly.

"Fine," Jyn repeats. She'll talk to Saw, if they can find him. There are a few things she wants to say to the man anyway.

Cassian nods, accepting her agreement as if there are no strings attached. There are so many strings attached that Jyn isn't sure she's capable of untangling them all.

"Do you have a father?" she asks Cassian.

He shakes his head. "No. Not anymore."

"Because of the Empire?" Jyn asks. Cassian shakes his head and doesn't elaborate. "Why do you fight them?"

"Somebody has to."

"Better you than me."

Cassian wonders how anybody can be that selfish. He looks again at her wrist, now covered by the sleeve of her jacket, and he looks into her eyes which are somehow both hollow and on fire, fever-bright, and he remembers how little she'd been intimidated by the Alliance's top brass. She isn't intimidated by him, either. Is it selfish to want freedom? How can it be?

"You're doing it again," Jyn comments.

"Doing what?"

"Staring off into space. Hearing voices, probably. I don't know."

"I'm not hearing voices."

"Glad to hear it."

"I'm just thinking."

"About me?"

"About a lot of things."

But yes, he is thinking about her. He leans his head back against the bulkhead and tries to watch her without being obvious about it.

"Stop staring at me."

Damn. He turns back to her, looking her directly in the eyes. Now that he's been caught in the act, he may as well push ahead. Jyn ducks her head, trying to avoid him, but Cassian gently takes her chin in his hand and won't let her break away.

At least until she pulls away with all the force that she can muster, slamming her head against the bulkhead behind her. Her eyes, when she opens them, are watery, filled with unshed tears.

Cassian bites his tongue, and reaches out in an attempt to comfort her. She'll probably have a bitch of a headache, in a little while. That's the last thing he needs from someone who is supposed to help keep his ass alive on Jedha.

"Don't touch me!" Jyn snaps. "What is wrong with you? Can't you take a hint?"

"I'm sorry," Cassian says softly. He can't remember the last time before today that he's apologized to anyone for any reason, but there is something about Jyn Erso that won't let him stop saying those words.

She softens a bit. She takes a breath and studies him with something like hope in her eyes. It is guarded, but it is there. Cassian Andor is used to seeing things that other people don't.

"I'm sorry too," she says softly.

"For what?" he asks, surprised.

She shrugs. "I could be a little nicer to you. You did rescue me, after all."

"I rescued you," K2 calls out.

"And you let me keep the gun," Jyn adds.

"Trust goes both ways," Cassian says steadily, repeating her own words.

Jyn nods. It's not quite agreement, but it's not disagreement either. She knows how trust is supposed to work, even now, even after a lifetime of broken promises. She does not trust Cassian Andor, but she is holding a gun and that makes her feel a lot better about the situation. Maybe she'll point it at Saw. That's a good place to start.

"You okay?" Cassian asks, and Jyn raises an eyebrow.

"What?"

"That look on your face got a little... scary."

"I wasn't thinking about you," Jyn says, as if that's supposed to make him feel any better.

"That's good," Cassian replies. He's still watching her far too closely, but Jyn has already decided she doesn't mind it so much. "Who were you thinking about?"

"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

Cassian shrugs. "If you don't want to talk about it, who says it's my business?"

"Didn't the General say you're an intelligence operative?"

"I'm not an interrogator, Jyn. And even if I was, we're supposed to be on the same side."

"You've been trying to get inside my head since you first saw me."

"Guilty. But that's not entirely my fault. It's a habit now, I can't turn it off."

"Is that why you keep apologizing?"

"Yeah. Probably."

"Stop apologizing. It's annoying."

"Noted."

"You're still thinking it," Jyn points out, a few seconds later.

Cassian shrugs. "It's still true."

"I don't need you to feel sorry for me."

"I don't," Cassian says, although he does. He doesn't pity her, anyway. He's sorry for what happened to her. It's a different thing. He's sorry for the kind of galaxy that takes the things it takes, without care or consequence. He's been fighting this war for a long time, but if he could offer her a way out of it, he would in a heartbeat. She's right, nobody cares what she wants. Rebel Command certainly doesn't.

He does. He does.

The knowledge flares through him, overwhelming in its intensity. He cares what she wants. And he wants her. It's a desperate need that fills him, it's been growing since he first saw her in the briefing room. He can't ever let her go.

He reaches out to take her hand and this time, she doesn't pull away.

This time she looks into his eyes and recognizes that he's finally come to the realization that's been obvious to her since the first time he glanced over at her in the Alliance's briefing room, trying to pretend like he was capable of looking right through her.

He only sees her.

Jyn takes a steadying breath. She knows that no one in the cold, unfeeling galaxy has ever looked at her the way that Cassian Andor is looking at her now.

He only sees her, and she's okay with that.

He let her keep the gun.

"Cassian," she says, and he holds his breath but squeezes her hand a little more tightly. "Don't be sorry."