Chapter 7: Going Back

Cassian wakes up in bed and rubs his eyes to clear up his vision. His eyes widen when Jyn is nowhere to be found. The spot next to him is vacant, for the blanket was shifted, indicating that Jyn left bed earlier. "J-Jyn!? Where are you?" Cassian asks himself in his mind. Half worried, Cassian struggles to put some quick clothes on from Galen's closet and starts to walk all around the Erso house looking for his Sergeant.

"Jyn!" Cassian calls out. No answer. "Jyn!" He calls again. Still, silence looms the atmosphere of the small Erso home. Cassian goes to check the kitchen, but no luck.

However, Cassian notices a bright glow from the corner of his eye. It is so eye-catching that he knows exactly what it is. Cassian turns to the kitchen table to see that Jyn had left her kyber crystal necklace there. It glows bright.

"I wonder where she went…" Cassian wonders out loud. He tries to think of where his lover could've gone to on this lush, sparse planet that barely had any habitants. "She couldn't have gone far."

But after a few moments of thinking, Cassian has a slight clue of where she might be. He doesn't really know where exactly she is, but he felt the Force through him, and it gave him a slight clue of where Jyn is. Cassian heads to the basement downstairs and switches on the ceiling light to find that Galen's 2-seater speeder is still parked in there. "I'm coming, Jyn." Cassian mutters to himself as he grabs the keys to the speeder and hops in to start the engine.

Cassian drives by the crop fields, scanning all over for Jyn, but she isn't anywhere to be found. Though, SE-2 was at one of the water vaporators collecting some water, which was good. "Hmm…." Cassian thought. Then, an idea came up in his mind. "The beach!" Cassian blurts out as he turns the speeder around to head towards the beach that they were at the previous day.

Once Cassian arrives at the roaring waves of the sky-blue tides, he hops off the speeder and surveys the entire golden shoreline for the short, brunette twenty one year-old woman that he desperately loved so much. Still, she is nowhere to be found. He only ends up finding the footprints left from their visit yesterday. Cassian sighs and rubs his forehead from worry and frustration. "Jyn…where are you? I need you right now." Cassian mutters in a desperate tone.

But something tells Cassian to look somewhere down west of the Erso home. He can feel it in his heart. He looks up from the ground and into the ocean. "Guide me." Cassian mutters out loud to the Force, before running back to the speeder and taking off in a flash.

As the Intelligence Officer drove west down some green fields, he decides to turn on the radio. He just let it run until there is one topic that greatly caught his attention. So, he listens carefully.

"The Empire's so-called Death Star is still lurking through space and poses as an extremely major threat to every planet and every person in the galaxy. The Rebel Alliance has yet to take action or resolve the issue at hand. Will the Rebellion save us? Or will it fail and watch the whole galaxy blow to pieces? Lives are at stake." The news broadcaster announces on the radio.

Hearing that, Cassian's heart sank. He felt dead. He felt helpless. Although he and his team were able to send the Death Star plans a few days ago, nothing has happened as of now. The Death Star is still active, and it will be any minute before it starts destroying other planets, just like it did to Jedha and Scarif. What greatly terrified Cassian the most is that there could be a possibility that the Death Star could destroy Lah'mu any day if it isn't destroyed in time, and this really worried him. The Erso home was Cassian's safe haven too, and he would hate for his second chance with Jyn to be taken away in the blink of an eye.

"Oh..ggrrhhh…" Cassian chokes. He feels like crying, but he holds it in his throat. He floors the accelerator pedal hard to speed up the speeder towards the location the Force was guiding him to.

Cassian eventually arrives at a rocky ridge that acted as a dead end. He is confused because he is very sure that Jyn is there, but it did not look like the kind of place Jyn would be. Cassian hops out of the speeder and paces around the area with his hands in his pockets. He waits and waits for long moments, but he is persistent.

Suddenly, Cassian hears a subtle noise coming from nearby. It comes from near the pile of rocks in front of him. Cassian squints and focuses his hearing: he hears that a sound is coming from near the rocks but below the ground. It sounds like a voice. "Wait a minute…" Cassian mutters.

He proceeds towards the rocks when suddenly, a rock 'lifts' off the ground and Jyn appears with a brown bag and a glowing object. Cassian's eyes widen in surprise: it appears that Jyn came from underground, and the rock served as its cover in disguise.

"J-JYN!" Cassian yells, with arms out wide. He walks to her.

"Hey Cassian." Jyn greets him, slinging the brown bag over her shoulder.

"W-what….what are you doing here!? Down there!?" Cassian asks confusingly. "You had me worried all morning!"

"Relax, Cassian. I was just exploring a…" Jyn looks back at the underground hole that she appeared from. "…a very familiar place."

Cassian places his hands on his hips and sighs. He looks down at the glowing object she held. "What is that?"

Jyn holds out the object in front of him. Cassian takes it and examines every inch of it. It had a constant pulsing orange light. "That's my lantern that mother gave me when I was a girl. And that…" Jyn points at the underground's entrance hole. "…was my hiding spot whenever my parents were in danger and ertrbeing hunted by the Empire. It did happen actually…" Jyn explains, with her voice fading softly near the end.

Cassian eyes Jyn for a moment before nodding and understanding what the lantern was used for. He hands Jyn back her lantern and leads her to the speeder. "I drive. And you walked all this way? This is about fifteen miles away from the house." Cassian complains as he turns on the engine.

Jyn shrugs her shoulders after she loads her bag and lantern in the speeder's storage compartment. "I knew you'd find me, Cassian. Since being abandoned at fifteen, and being a former criminal, I am one heck of a walker, Captain Andor." Jyn says with a dirty smirk.

Cassian scoffs when Jyn tells him that. He loves it. It makes him smile at her.

Not a lot of time passed since they left Jyn's emergency childhood hideout. The skies were not cloudy at the moment. It was hot and sunny, and the winds blew over Jyn's and Cassian's heads as the speeder dashed through the green fields, acting like a natural fan in the hot weather. As Cassian looks over at Jyn, who was reclined back in the passenger seat, he smiles at the sight of her sleeping. Jyn looked flushed and exhausted. The strands of hair on both sides of her face blew with the wind, and it made her sleeping figure look more serene.

"She looks cute when she sleeps." Cassian thought to himself as he shifts his focus back to the fields and navigated their way home.

Once Cassian arrives home and parks the speeder in the basement, he glances over at Jyn, who is still sleeping in the passenger seat. Being the gentleman he is, he gives the care and love to his girlfriend by carrying her in his arms and bringing her into the house, being careful not to run into the walls. Jyn is pretty short and light-weight for her age, as Cassian could feel on his arms. He carries Jyn to their bedroom and gently places her on their bed. Cassian takes the moment to observe Jyn's sleeping figure. Her eyes were closed. Her chest & abdomen rose with her breaths. Her head was laying on its side on the pillow. Cassian loved the sight. It was another beautiful thing he loved about Jyn. She looked beautiful to him wherever she is. Cassian bends down to kiss her cheek before going to Galen's closet.

Deciding to change his shirt, he switches to a dark blue shirt. But, before he could turn around and leave Jyn alone to nap, something in the closet caught his eye. His jacket and pants from the day they sent the Death Star plans was in there. And his blaster pistol was inside its holster.

It got Cassian thinking on the spot. He looks at his blaster pistol, then he glances over at the sleeping Jyn, then back at his pistol.

He then recalls the radio broadcast he had heard earlier in the speeder about the Death Star still active. Cassian sighs heavily, massaging the bridge of his nose. He was now irritated.

Cassian quietly leaves the room and goes to the kitchen to grab a drink. Upon taking a few sips, he just stood in the kitchen, thinking. Just thinking. He closes his eyes as his head tilts down. His mind was now clouded with thoughts and worries.

((()))

Cassian sits there at the kitchen dining table, watching Jyn chop some vegetables for their supper that evening. She was the one who did the kitchen work, as most women in the galaxy do. Cassian would help her, but not at the moment. He was bombarded with thoughts all day long, and it was aggravating him to his nerves. Cassian would go to the ends of the universe for Jyn. But…he just needed to know something from her.

Gathering the courage to talk to Jyn, Cassian finally stands up from his chair and slowly makes his way towards her, hearing every chop of the knife with every step he took. Jyn notices him, and looks up at him. Jyn smiles slightly and brushes aside one of the fringes on her head. "Captain."

"Jyn….I…." Cassian starts, but struggles to. He tries not to make eye contact with Jyn since she does indeed frown the moment he has trouble starting off.

"I…..I need to talk to you. It's important…" Cassian says softly. He notices Jyn laying the knife down on the countertop and placing her hands on her hips. She knew this wasn't going to sound like a good conversation.

"Yes?" Jyn asks, looking at Cassian directly in the eye. She holds a blank expression on her face. She was getting nervous.

Cassian sighs in an attempt to relieve the pressure. "Look Jyn….I know a lot has happened lately, and it's only been several days since we've met. Several days since we died and were given a second chance."

Jyn nods to acknowledge his statement. "Hm. Go on."

"I greatly value this strong, powerful love between us, even though we've only known each other for a few days….but this whole….farming life…isn't there more out there than this?" Cassian asks.

At that moment, Jyn feels somewhat offended, but she tries to keep her nerves calm this time. "….What do you mean?"

Cassian shakes his head and sighs. "Jyn….it's been a few days, and I heard on the radio that the Death Star is still not yet destroyed."

Those words struck Jyn like a blaster bolt. Her heart sank to her chest. Her eyes began to shift downwards to the floor. She sent those plans. The Rebellion has that information. They know the Death Star's weak spot. They did all that work, and it's still not destroyed. This made Jyn frightened and worried.

"N-N-Not….d-destroyed?" Jyn's voice begins to crack.

Cassian makes his way around the kitchen counter and places his hands on Jyn's shoulders. "Jyn, listen to me. Hey, look at me."

Jyn looks up at Cassian. She is about to cry, yet she also feels half angry in the inside for the lack of action by the Rebellion, the very military power that she and Cassian work for.

"I don't mind this farmer's life here. I will live it with you all the way through. But this war isn't over yet. OUR mission….is not completed yet, believe it or not. If you want to live our second chance in a time of peace, we need to make sure that nothing stands in our way." Cassian declares.

Jyn still has a look of fear and worry in her eyes. "What are you saying, Cassian?"

Cassian has waited all day long to ask her the question. "Shouldn't we be back there, aiding the Rebellion once more? Shouldn't we be there helping them end this conflict and fully restore peace to the galaxy?"

Jyn's heart begins to race. "B-But Cassian…what about our life here?"

"Jyn, it'll always be here. But shouldn't we be taking care of a more serious matter?" Cassian asks.

Jyn shakes her head. "Cassian, it won't be that easy!"

"I know, but-" Cassian says, but Jyn cuts him off.

"We just died several days ago! We can't just show up at Yavin 4 like nothing happened, Cassian! Even if we did survive Scarif, the Empire would have a bounty on us by now!" Jyn begins yelling.

"We still have a mission to complete, Jyn! Our mission wasn't over yet!" Cassian yells back, but not as loudly as Jyn.

"Wasn't it!? Hm!?" Jyn shoots him a glare.

There was a long pause between them. They stared into each other's eyes with serious faces.

"We belong there, Jyn. The Rebellion is our home." Cassian says in a more softer voice now.

"You want to talk about home!?" Jyn raises her voice, indicating that Cassian's statement irritated her in a way.

Cassian shakes his head. "Jyn, if we don't help now, their deaths would be in vain."

And it struck Jyn. Those words that came from Cassian's mouth angered her because she knew exactly what Cassian was referring to: Imwe, Malbus, Bodhi, K-2SO, and her parents. It got the former criminal's blood flowing with anger and frustration. But she tries to hold in her anger. Instead, she speaks in an aggressive voice. Her eyes were wide, her face held a very serious & slightly angered expression, and she shook her head side to side slowly while eyeing Cassian directly in the eye. "CASSIAN….DON'T YOU DARE BRING THEM UP IN THIS. DON'T YOU DARE."

Realizing he is treading on thin ice, Cassian tries to calm her down. "Jyn, I love you."

Jyn scoffs and shakes her shoulders out of his hands, and turns around to walk away to their bedroom angrily. "I need to think about this…" She says in a voice that sounds frustrated.

"Jyn!" Cassian calls out to her, but she refuses to comply. He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead in frustration from the heated conversation with his Sergeant, his only Stardust, his partner. As much as he loves her, he did not want to risk their home being destroyed by the Death Star or the Empire.