Captain Cassian Andor, head of the Jaeger Program's Strategic Analysis and Intelligence division, meets Ranger Bodhi Rook for the first time in the wake of the worst military disaster since the program's inception.
The PR mavens are spinning it as a glorious, heroic defeat against a Kaiju of unprecedented size and strength. But Cassian knows the truth isn't nearly so pretty or heroic. The Class 3 Kaiju Scarif may be dead, but the Jaeger Rogue One is also nearly completely destroyed and both her pilots are in the hospital, Jyn Erso from crush injuries suffered when she was dragged out of the conn pod and nearly drowned and Bodhi Rook from the mental assault of solo piloting.
At least they're both alive, Cassian tells himself as he slips through the hospital's halls. It could have been much worse.
Rook and Erso's room is easy to find. The two armed security officers standing outside the door are conspicuous, a visible deterrent to try to keep Ranger groupies from disturbing the heroes' recovery.
Cassian willingly surrenders his ID to the guards and waits patiently while they run a thorough check. They wave him through the door after a few minutes, and Cassian braces himself for the conversation he's about to have.
His first glimpse of Rook and Erso in person is quite different from the mythic heroes trumpeted by the press or even the strong, capable Rangers their files suggest.
The hospital bed makes Erso look even smaller than she actually is, and there's something discomfiting about the way she looks so pale and empty in her unconscious state. Rook, who also seemed so passionate and arrestingly beautiful in the footage Cassian has seen, looks just as empty, like there's been something irreparably broken inside him. He's sitting in a chair tucked in between the wall and Erso's bed, rocking gently. One hand clutches desperately at Erso's and the other flutters aimlessly, tugging at his hospital scrubs, drumming on his knee, twitching through his hair.
Cassian approaches slowly but makes sure that his boots make enough noise on the tile floor so as not to surprise Rook. The other man doesn't look up.
Cassian pauses at the edge of Erso's bed, looking across her still form to Rook, then settles into the other chair. Normally, he wouldn't let go of formality so easily in front of anyone, but he doesn't think Rook will respond well to someone looming over him.
"Ranger Rook," he says.
Rook twitches but doesn't look up. Now that he's closer, Cassian can see the man's mouth moving, repeating a phrase over and over under his breath. Cassian can't make out the words.
"Ranger Rook," he says again.
He doesn't sigh when he gets no response. He'd almost been expecting it. The medical report forwarded to his office had highlighted the extreme abnormalities in Rook's brain scans. The doctors had speculated that the scan had been the result of highly unusual electrical activity residual from the solo drift and physical damage caused both by said solo drift and the trauma of having his drift partner torn out of his mind.
They'd used the word miracle when describing his survival.
"Bodhi," Cassian says gently, softening his voice to be as non-threatening as possible. "Bodhi, I need to know about Scarif."
Cassian isn't sure whether Rook's jerked response is because of his name or the Kaiju's. The ranger's head raises enough that his eyes meet Cassian's for a moment, then dart away.
"Ranger Rook, my name is Cassian Andor. I'm with—"
"Strategic Analysis and Intelligence," Rook says, words tripping over themselves as they tumble from his mouth. "I know. I read your reports."
Cassian blinks, taken aback. Of course he knows that his reports are available to the Jaeger pilots, but he's never met a pilot that actually read them. Strategic analysis is not usually the milieu of men and women whose job it is to have fist fights with alien monsters while wearing 280 foot tall, 7000 ton metal suits of armor.
"I'm here to talk to you about the events surrounding the Scarif mission," Cassian says, choosing to ignore the (intriguing) tangent.
This time he knows that it's the Kaiju's name that makes Rook curl in on himself. He thinks for a moment that he's going to lose Rook to the mental distraction, but the man stays present.
"What do you need to know?" he asks.
Cassian ignores the tremble in his voice.
"What happened?" he says. "Why did it…" He trails off, trying to find a kind way to ask his question.
"Why did it kick our asses?" Rook asks.
Cassian blinks, surprised at the other man's fire. He nods.
Rook sighs. "It started like any other fight," he says. "Get in position. Make sure the civilians are evacuated. Wait for the Kaiju. Fight. It wasn't until…"
He pauses, swallows, and takes a deep breath.
"It wasn't until it tore off our arm that we knew something was different." He rubs at his left arm, though the skin is bare.
The burns from the drive suit are embedded into Erso's skin, but Rook must still feel the echo through the ghost drift. Cassian remembers that Rook and Erso's ghost drift has always been unusually strong for pilots that aren't blood related or having sex with each other.
"It was stronger than any Kaiju we've ever faced," Rook continued. "Not strong enough that Rogue One shouldn't have been able to handle it though. What got us was that it was smart. It wasn't fighting the Jaeger, it was fighting me and Jyn."
Cassian leans forward, suddenly alert. "You think it was aware of you as pilots?" he asks.
Rook nods, one firm incline of his head.
"Why else would it go after the conn pod?" he says.
"We've seen Kaiju go after conn pods before," Cassian says. He doesn't doubt Rook's conviction that there was something different about this attack, but he wants to see where Rook will take his theory.
Rook shakes his head. "Not like this," he says. "We've seen them try to crush conn pods, detach them, rake them apart. But this one… but Scarif… it was trying to get inside. It peeled open the conn pod and reached in and yanked Jyn out. It was aiming for her. Us."
Cassian lets the words wash over his mind. It's a terrifying thought. The Kaiju have always been giant, destructive, horrifying monsters, but they've never seemed intelligent. The idea that they can think, can reason is bad. The idea that they know a Jaeger's weakness is her pilots… that's worse.
He's dragged out of his spiralling fears when Rook speaks again.
"One minute, Jyn was there. In my mind. Then she was gone." He swallows and Cassian can see his throat working. "It was the worst thing I've ever felt. I thought she was dead, but we were one mind and I thought… I thought I was dead with her."
There's a long, weighted pause. Cassian feels as if the whole world has gone silent.
Rook's next words come out as a whisper. "I'm still not sure we're not. Dead."
Cassian has to swallow himself and feels his heart ache for the other man. He knows theoretically, though not personally, how much drift partners mean to each other, and he can't imagine what it must be like to have half of you torn away like that.
"Have you ever drifted?" Rook asks suddenly, seeming to read the direction of Cassian's thoughts.
Cassian shakes his head. "No. I never found anyone compatible."
He doesn't know why he said that.
He doesn't normally tell people about his attempts to be a Ranger, preferring to keep his past hidden and his motivations mysterious. He doesn't let people see the little boy who lost his family in a Kaiju attack on Mexico City, who longed to strike back at the monsters that took everything from him. Who could never find someone who fit in his mind, someone he could share everything with, someone he could fight beside.
There's something about Bodhi Rook, though, that makes Cassian want to open his chest and show the other man his heart. He can't keep his mental distance from the man, no matter how much formality he tries to inject into the conversation.
He shakes the thoughts from his mind and looks up to find Rook — to find Bodhi — focused intently on him.
"I hope you find what you need," Bodhi says. His gaze swings back to Erso's still face. "And that it doesn't get taken from you."
Impulsively, Cassian reaches across Erso's unconscious body to take Bodhi's free hand. The other man goes completely still, wide eyes jumping between Cassian's hand and his face. Cassian waits until Bodhi's eyes finally rise to meet his.
"You did good," he says firmly, squeezing Bodhi's hand gently. "And you're both going to be alright."
Bodhi doesn't say anything, but he squeezes Cassian's hand in return
They sit there in silence for a long time.
