Author's Note: I am BACK, guys! I am still alive! *waves enthusiastically* Now, as you can tell from my body of work, I'm not really good at writing multi-chapter stories, and I've never managed to finish any of my original novels before. This is going to be my most ambitious fanfiction project yet, so PLEASE be kind and stick with me. Leave me your thoughts whenever you can, and hopefully I'd be able to see this whole thing through!

This story is dedicated to Kobo. The idea of Jyn as a female pilot was born out of one of her comments regarding the WASP. The WASP will be showing up in a later chapter, and although they are not the main part of this story, I hope you're going to be happy with what I've decided to do.

Reviews are (almost) better than a House Stark family reunion. So please leave one if you can!

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

Leonardo da Vinci

Prologue

or

"We That Are Young Shall Never See So Much"

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Today is the day I die.

This was the thought that crossed Cassian Andor's mind when he heard footsteps descending on the floor above his cell, waking him up from his fitful sleep. For the briefest of moments, he thought the sound was the rain, pelting gently against a window pane. But then he remembered that basements had no windows, and the walls were so thick he would never know anyway.

The footsteps belonged to two men, he could discern. One was walking quite fast, his steps sounding hurried and light to Cassian's ears. The other man was rather more cautious, his steps distinctly more firm and measured. They were his executioners, Cassian knew; the Gestapos never bothered with their prisoners at this time of night unless it was for execution. Cassian simply hoped that neither one of these men was Hans. The young German had been nice to him, kind even, the only friendly face he had seen since they put him in this godforsaken place. He felt guilty enough over what he had already put the boy through, and no boy that young should ever have to execute someone in cold blood.

But you did once, a voice whispered, and Cassian nearly laughed. But he pushed the thought and the memory away as quick as it came. Unhelpful. Irrelevant. There were cracks in his palms - peeled-off skin and crusted-blood - when he lifted them to cover his face.

The men would be carrying guns, Cassian assumed. At least he hoped they would be. It would be quicker that way, for all three of them - the executed and the executioners. Cassian pitied his fellow prisoners who had gotten the shovels and the axes more than he could say; that was not a good way to die. Sometimes, late at night, when the memories and the dreams were choking him until he could not breathe, he thought he could still hear them screaming as they died.

"I am ready to die," Cassian Andor said into the dark void.

It did not shock him that he had said those words out loud; for weeks and months now, he had been talking to himself like a mad man. What shocked him, however, was that he did not know if he had uttered those words in Spanish, in English, in German, or in his broken, garbled French. It wouldn't matter anyway, he quickly reminded himself. Death has no language, and he was a soldier and a spy; he had always been ready to die. And he had been expecting to die here ever since they put him in the back of that truck. Ever since he heard the first four notes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony on Radio Londres all those weeks ago through the bars of his cell. Invasion was liberation for France, but it was not liberation for him.

The footsteps were coming down the stairs now; Cassian could hear the scrapings of the men's boots against the wood. It will be soon.

"I am ready to die," he said again.

What was it that Jyn had told him once? You can do more. Well, he had tried to do more. He had done more. And he could only hope that she would be proud of him, wherever she was. He only wished that he could see her one last time. The thought of her made him sadder than the thought of dying ever could.

The men were now at the end of the corridor. Thud, thud, thud, went their subdued footsteps. Soon, the door of the room would be thrown open, and they would drag him out from his cell and into the freezing cold of the French winter. He did not have much time.

So Cassian Andor closed his eyes and pictured faces…the faces of those he had loved: his friends', full of joy as they laughed on a burning beach; his mother's, blurred and hidden in shadows; his long dead father's, wearied but defiant; and hers…hers most of all…how she had looked in the dim light of a street lamp all those years ago. The warm, yellow glow had framed her face just right, and she had stared down at him from the top of the steps, her eyes shining as bright as torches. She looked beautiful in the half-darkness.

Yes. Yes, I am ready.

The lock turned, as quietly and meticulously as the night, and a small, cracked smile stretched across Cassian Andor's haggard face.

Yes. Today is the day I die.

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Author's Note: Yes, I know this little prologue makes no sense whatsoever, but it will later, I promise!

A quick note: the titles of all the chapters are going to be quotes from William Shakespeare. This is because I am still a pretentious English Lit student at heart.

PLEASE leave me your thoughts or any questions you might have. I always love reading and replying to your comments!

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Up next: "Steal Me Awhile From Mine Own Company" - in which we go back to the very beginning.