The boy with the saddest eyes
A memory of a lost home … A friend
It didn't need much hardcore repair.
The heap of cold, leaden, dull steel was relatively unscathed compared to the much-damaged resistance droids … primitive the thirteen-year-old would describe them, needing so much upgrades and modifications to match the empire's ever growing arsenal of droids … those adapted from the former models built by his .…
He blocks that thought immediately.
There is a pair of eyes watching this boy from a far, they close in on him as his feet march towards him in steady strides.
"It is interesting this droid, isn't it?"
He nods his head in approval, stoically eyeing the man, searching his face carefully for motives, cracks, wants .. however, it seems the man has none … or maybe he hides them well.
The man laughs at him knowingly, it is a clear boisterous laugh though still so refined rather than rowdy
'The man seems of Status' he noted
"Their latest model, Resistance engineers couldn't do much with it, so they turned it off, what a waste, what is your name, young man?"
The straightforwardness of the man is striking and unnerving, he is with the alliance that he knows but who knows what he really could be?
He says nothing. He doesn't speak, it is the safest possible option, if the man is truly of importance, if he is trusted enough, he might get his name from the database ...
"Never mind" he smiles at him
The man walks towards the sturdy droid, he starts fumbling with its parts and wires
"Piece of dumb metal" he mutters under his breath
And against his best judgement he finds himself saying "Don't mess with the circuits, there are just fine"
"Ah"
He realises is mistake too late, he has been coaxed into a conversation.
"So, you know this much about droids"
"Basically, this one is modelled after K150 droids"
"the ones used in the clone wars"
He nods.
Something flashes in the man's eyes, an understanding, a realisation …
'He is a separatist, or at least he used to be'
"Imperials call this one K2SO4"
There is a moment of silence that passes between them before the older man poses a question
"Can you do something with it?"
Cassian hoped his face didn't betray how much surprise he was feeling.
"You are obviously well versed about Droids, it runs in your blood it seems" it was as close as the man could acknowledge his heritage, that of a defeated faction, nearly wiped out .. disgraced even.
"So, can you do something with this?"
"I…I think I can"
"It is yours then, you can start working on it, I will notify the officers"
He walks away from the boy, who remains as stoic as ever
"By the way" he glances over his shoulder "I am Bail, Bail Organa, and you should know that it gives you away, being over cautious, excessively tensed gives you away, I will comeback, see what you will do with the droid"
And so he spends hours, days after days talking to the machine, booting and programming this droid.
He pours his heart into the droid
He thought he would be too rusty, that his memory, his legacy will fail him, however, working on this machine comes like a second nature to him, like he was born to do it, he works on autopilot ... innately ... that he doesn't register what he is doing most of the time, but it works however.
So, when the droid comes out as Snarky as could be, he would only blame it on circuit glitches and him,being inattentive enough.
Or maybe that is how it was meant to be, a mixture of loneliness, kindness and homesickness would only produce something as similar to Kaytoo.
A memory of home …
A friend …
He'd learn that Bail organa was kind, a kind leader and man as much as he had learnt that not all people leading this rebellion were as kind.
He would learn to subside and subdue all qualms he has about whatever pragmatic he has to do, in the middle of the blazing urge for revenge, this madness of war that is so unkind to every one, to helpless women, crippled elderlies and orphaned children yet a part of him will never forget that maybe what he is doing might lead somehow to a kinder Galaxy, where people like Bail Organa could thrive.
Family patrimony.. siblings
His mind was in state of regression, in disarray … a mess, tatters, like a child in a middle of a war, a desolate child amid destruction, something similar, so familiar and similar.
Cassian has been there before.
He approaches the boy … no the man, initially with business like fashion, he would apply all the basic training he had received in dealing with traumatised soldiers, the training he never applies to himself, Kaytoo would denote.
However, the man is by far more traumatised than he initially estimated, this training won't work
'Barbaric' he shudders to himself as he thinks of Saw.
And he doesn't know how he will work with him, how he will put him together until this goddamn mission is over.
Surprisingly, he does.
Bodhi looks at him with broken eyes that disarm him, force him to retract whatever cloud shed across his eyes and the sadness Bodhi sees in there is enough to knock some sense inside him.
Bodhi sees something … something that they both share and communicate without any speech ... empathy, understanding maybe.
It is subconscious that gets him through with it, Repressed water washed memories of a parentless child in need of a father, a brother, a child dreaming of a hand, any kind hand to stroke his hair, to hold him through a galaxy torn apart, to pat him gently on the back and shelter him from the ugly world and tiny dots like Bail Organa, Like Kaytoo that holds him together.
In the end, he would realise that indeed, Bodhi has become his child, his sibling, his younger brother whom he would fend for and help as much as he needed some one to do for him, as much as he would have done for his own kins, for his own children.
An in turn, Bodhi doesn't fail him.
He stays through the end.
Bodhi has become Family.
Redemption
He instantly recognises it through the man's dark eyes.
The quest for redemption, a quest that has converged, materialised into Chirrut.
For Baze, Chirrut isn't just a friend, or mentor or even a brother. Chirrut is Baze's star, his aspiration.
The someone he wanted to become, had he not been hardened by life, by war.
Chirrut is Baze's tenet, his atonement, the unwavering faith he should have possessed but instead has waned along with many other things in the world.
That is why he stays with Chirrut, because Chirrut is his eyes, the insight, the thin string tying him to his dying faith.
He knows it because he seeks it with every breath he takes, Atonement, Cassian who had done so many a questionable deed, grey at best.
The moment had come however when Baze along with Chirrut have both perished and Cassian was left to wonder in his dying breaths if Baze had finally found his redemption, his reward.
Enemy … The Mirror
It is as though he smelt him.
'Separatist'
It floats in his all seeing orbs, his darting Paranoid eyes … It is instant distaste, tension emanating out of both of them.
'Hatred for the empire, it seemed, couldn't eliminate all transgressions that occurred in the past'
A mirror.
They could read it in each others' eyes … You are no better than me, you are worse,at least I am man enough to answer to my cause.
And it strikes him, appals him even when he contemplates all the ways they seem to intersect.
Jyn … Winter … Summer … lost time
She is obstinate, stubborn and leash less and he finds himself chiding her more often than should be, as though she is a child, but not as broken or as quiet as Bodhi, she is a pesky child … an annoying sister who sometimes though Banter with him, and the bantering comes just as easily like it flows with Kaytoo.
And if he were honest, if he were, he would say he enjoys it as much, patronising her, getting a rise out of her.
She doesn't realise the significance of this one kind deed she had done in front of him in Jedha when against better judgement she saved the small child.
He didn't expect her to in all Honesty, after all she was raised by Saw Gerrera, the notorious Saw Gerrera.
Except she didn't.
She was Good, she was kind and maybe Saw, the man he so thoroughly despised yet so thoroughly resembled wasn't as cruel or heartless as he imagined pragmatic but not as cruel, maybe he wasn't as cruel as he imagined himself to be … he wasn't a lost cause after all this time despite reluctantly giving up so much fundamental parts of himself like Saw.
In the aftermath, he would realise both of them and maybe Galen as well, looked at her with the same hooded Kindness, the same treacherous softness... albeit unlike Saw or Galen, he didn't leave because she had become his very own Chirrut, his very atonement, the ends to which the rebellion means … Kindness, Resilience ... Hope.
He doesn't look at her with sad eyes, not anymore, he looks at her with sparkling eyes, eyes that twinkle with so much delight and warmth that made Bodhi discreetly smile …
'Rebellions are built on Hope'
It is something he has never felt before when she looks at him this way full of admiration, of hope.
A look worth burning for … one that makes him think, he wouldn't even budge if she comes after him with a charged Blaster, he would deserve it after all.
'Trust goes both way'
And he knew he betrayed her trust.
However, it is a look he mulls over so long, one he collects and locks away along with his very few prised possessions, one he replays, he indulges … against his honed, closeted instinct of self preservation and reticence.
Maybe she is his very own personal rebellion.
And now that the sky is falling, that the world is closing in on them and his soul is seeping through, mingling with hers, he dares say that She was young Cassian's dream, the extended hand that would pull him out of warzone to those uncharted lands of peace, where maybe he would have been a farmer or an engineer, where he would have instantly fallen in love with her and would have built a home with her ... for her.
Now that they are being scattered to dust … Stardust ... he knows that the force has abstracted his entire life, the rebellion … in Rogue one ... in Jyn.
And he is grateful for that.