so i am Proud of this chapter even though it's a bit shorter than i'd hoped...

also rogue one plot officially starts next chapter hold on it's gonna be a wild ride

Chapter 8

"Hello, Jyn."

Ice wraps around her, settles heavy and sharp on her shoulders, locking her lungs in place and stopping her heart; she cannot move, cannot breathe, the world warping and twisting around her as though her name was the catalyst for some massive chemical reaction.

(he knows, how does he know, how could he possibly have learned-)

"I've been in very deep cover recently, on a mission," Cassian continues, and his tone is nonchalant-as though he has no idea what he's just done to her-but beneath his words is steel and his eyes are flinty, watching her oh-so-carefully. "Didn't learn as much as I'd hoped-at least, not about the most important thing-but I did become acquainted with a very interesting man. He told me some… intriguing information. I must say, considering that he's the creator of what seems to be the biggest weapon in the galaxy's history, Galen Erso really is a surprisingly nice guy."

(galen-no, that's not possible, how-)

"Papa? You-you saw Papa?"

She hears her voice from far away, a desperate yet horrified whisper, strangled by a tangled noose of emotions she doesn't feel-cannot feel-and yet something sharp and dangerously close to hope claws its way up her throat and bursts out without her permission.

"He's-alive? Papa is-he's not-I thought-but you saw him, you talked to him-"

Cassian doesn't answer, just reaches out and suddenly his hand is wrapped around her upper arm like durasteel, and he's dragging her with him through the corridors-

"What are you doing?" Jyn finally snaps out, some of her sense returning from behind the thick fog of shock descended upon her mind. "What the hell-let go of me, Cassian!"

He only grips her tighter.

She swings her left arm around, hand clenched in a fist, but he just abruptly increases his speed, yanking her off-balance. The punch doesn't land.

"The more you struggle, the harder this will be on you," he says, rigid and controlled, nothing but ice and knives in his voice.

(this?)

"What is this?" she demands harshly, twisting away from the spy. She's good-of course she is, Saw trained her-but so is he, and she's at a huge disadvantage. If she could just reach her blaster-

but no, she doesn't want to hurt him, not like that; she just wants him to let go.

The door to Draven's office hisses open, and Cassian storms in.

The general looks up, surprise and confusion in equal measures coloring his face until he gets control back. "Andor-what's this?"

"Have Aurae Hallick sent here, please, sir," Cassian responds. "I've become aware of some… rather interesting pieces of information considering these two women that I think you need to hear."

"Let go," Jyn says through gritted teeth.

Draven does something on a datapad sitting on the desk in front of him, then looks up again, pressing his lips together. "Andor, in the last two years Hallick has become an invaluable part of our Intelligence team. I don't know what you're doing-"

The door opens again, cutting him off, and Lyra steps in.

"Liana, you're home?" she starts, then freezes at the scene in front of her. "What's going on?"

She looks calm, confused and worried certainly, but mostly calm.

Jyn can see the barely-masked tension racing through every muscle, the way her mother is prepared to draw a weapon and fight the instant it seems like words won't work.

"While I didn't learn as much about DS-1 as I'd hoped, sir, I was able to build something of a friendship with Galen Erso," Cassian begins.

Lyra freezes, face abruptly turning white, green eyes widening in horror.

"One of the interesting things he told me was that he recognized my partner when we met on Coruscant."

"What?" Jyn exclaims, throwing Cassian an accusing look.

He ignores her. "General Draven, sir, may I formally introduce you to Lyra and Jyn Erso, wife and daughter of the most brilliant scientist in the Empire?"

Silence, heavy and choked with shock, horror, fear, and a thousand other emotions Jyn cannot name.

Into that silence, Lyra says, eloquently, "Shit."

[=|=]

Things have certainly gotten more complicated, Lyra reflects, than she had ever expected them to be two and a half years ago. She'd had faith in Jyn's slicing skills, confident that their new identities would stand up to the Alliance's background checks.

The irony is that they did.

Jyn's and her identities weren't discovered by anything more than sheer, dumb luck-just like Krennic found Galen on Lah'mu by accident. The parallel sends a foreboding shiver crawling down her spine.

"We have to run," Jyn says, pacing.

"Jyn…" Lyra sighs. "Eventually we'll have to face who we are. It was by the will of the Force that Galen and Captain Andor met, and our identities were revealed."

Jyn rolls her eyes at the mention of Cassian Andor's new rank, then presses her lips together. "I don't want to leave-I like the Alliance-but don't you understand what's going to happen?" The girl takes a deep breath, clearly taming an impulse to shout. "The guards outside our room aren't just standing around for fun, you know. Mothma might have some sympathy for you, but I've been exposed to sensitive information by being in Intelligence. For all they know, I could've been a double agent. There's no leniency for me. The Alliance can't afford it."

Jyn turns again, her hand going to the crystal around her neck.

"Jyn-" Lyra tries.

"You remember what happened when Saw realized that his Partisans were figuring out who we were," Jyn interrupts, clenching the kyber crystal tightly. "Left us behind on a mission-in the middle of a war zone, too."

"Jyn," Lyra says, again.

"We're dangerous, Mama. The Empire wants us. Saw knew it-the Alliance certainly does, too."

"I told Saw to leave us behind," Lyra snaps, when her daughter pauses to take a breath.

Jyn freezes.

"The Partisans were having too much of a violent influence on you, Jyn, sweetheart, and there were whispers about who you especially were. It was too much of a risk-I couldn't take the chance that the Empire would learn about you."

Something in Jyn's frozen green eyes makes Lyra think she perhaps should not have mentioned this fact, but how else could she convince her daughter that the Alliance is still safe?

"You lied to me," Jyn says, her voice perfectly calm.

"Not entirely," Lyra hedges. "Saw did leave us-"

"But he might not've."

(definitely should not have mentioned it)

"It was only a matter of time," she says, her voice rising sharply, full of anger and fear. "We would've been left behind anyway, eventually, or one or both of us might've died-"

"You lied to me," Jyn says again, and that flat voice is edged now with something dark and dangerous.

Lyra swallows.

"You're my mother." Jyn walks towards the door, every step precise and controlled. "I trusted you."

"Jyn-"

"Why, Mama?" she demands, spinning around, pressing her back against the door. "Why did you lie to me? What could possibly make you think that it would be a good idea? You know how much I hate it."

"I-"

Lyra shakes her head, eyes wide, unable to find the words. "To protect you," she finally settles on, but it's a feeble excuse and she knows it. "Jyn, sweetheart, you're still too young to really understand-"

Jyn makes a strangled sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "I'm seventeen, Mama, and one of the best spies in the Alliance, and I've been a soldier since the Empire took Papa when I was eight. I haven't been young for years." She pauses. "I have to-think. I can't stay here right now. I'm sorry."

And then she spins away, out through the door, before Lyra can say anything more than her name.

(definitely a terrible idea)

[=|=]

She lied.

Jyn shoves past the two Rebels standing guard outside the door of the room she shares with her mother, unable to suppress the hurt-and betrayal-that surges through her at the knowledge. Lyra, Mama, the one person she trusted in the galaxy, and she'd lied.

She buries the hurt beneath a tidal wave of anger, and it's the fury and rage that sustains her as she storms through the corridors towards the hangar.

But she cannot stop wondering.

(what else did she lie about?)

(what if the aliases were never in danger?)

She breaks into a run at the entrance to the hangar, sprinting for her small ship-little bigger than an x-wing, it has a tiny 'fresher with no shower and a closet-sized room that's almost entirely filled with a cot-like her life is in danger.

(her life isn't, no, but her sanity certainly is)

Jyn pulls the lever to lower the hatch, and catches a glimpse of Cassian-now a captain, thanks to his bravery on the long mission or some other bantha crap she didn't bother to listen to-striding after her. His face looks like it's been carved from stone.

She ignores him.

"Jyn Erso, where the kriffing hell do you think you're going?" he snaps as he catches up to her.

She stands on the edge of the ramp, unashamedly using the height advantage to meet his eyes. "She lied to me," she snarls, low and hard and feral, "and I know Draven's going to accuse me of being a double agent, and I'm not but why would he believe me? So I'm leaving now, and you cannot stop me."

Cassian raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, but something in his face softens. "I believe you, Jyn," he says quietly, and his voice caresses her name.

(she refuses to like that)

(she doesn't quite have a choice)

Something shakes, wavers on the edge of shattering, and she cannot show such a weakness-

"Do you now," she says, then, harsh and cold. "You know what, Andor? I think you just want me to stay. And maybe I would believe that you have your own reason for trying. But you never told me goodbye."

She turns, walks the rest of the way into the ship, and closes the ramp. Moving as though in a dream, she enters the cockpit, starts up the engines, and then carefully takes off.

Cassian stands where she left him, motionless, and he's still there when he disappears from her sight.

[=|=]

Cassian swears, loudly, and slams a fist into the wall.

"Shit!" he snarls, punching the wall again. "Andor, you fucking idiot!"

"Cassian, statistically, your actions have shown you to not be an idiot."

"Shut up, K," he snaps back. "Go tell Draven that Jyn's gone and I'll be along in a minute to figure out what the kriffing hell we're going to do about it."

"Do not punch any more walls," the droid advises as he leaves.

As soon as K's out of sight, Cassian clenches his fist and drives it into the wall with all the force he can muster, then kicks the wall for good measure.

The only thing this accomplishes is splitting his knuckles open and possibly breaking a toe.

He isn't limping when he walks into Draven's office, and he's managed to wipe off some of the blood on the back of his hand, but K still notices. Cassian shoots the droid a venomous glare, silencing K before he can speak, and turns to Draven with a stiff salute.

"Sit down, Andor," the general says with a sigh. "We have a lot to talk about."

[=|=]

Galen Erso scrubs a hand down his face and sighs. It's done-the message to Saw. All that's left to do now is to deliver it.

It's taken him two years to build the flaw in the reactor, but he's finally accomplished it, and not a moment too soon. Krennic's been getting impatient lately.

Galen groans and rubs his eyes, suddenly exhausted. He wishes, vaguely, that Cassian Andor was still around, to take his message to the Alliance. The Alliance, after all, has more men and more ships than Saw's Partisans do-

But no.

The Alliance is spineless and weak, cowards every last one of them. High Command would not have the courage to do what must be done. Saw, on the other hand, has more courage-and sheer recklessness, Galen has to admit-and will certainly not fail.

The Death Star must be destroyed, or the Empire will rule without ceasing over the galaxy for the foreseeable future. With the Jedi all but obliterated, there is no force-or Force, for that matter-in the galaxy that could stand against the power of the Death Star, if it is not destroyed.

Not for the first time, Galen's stomach roils, guilt thick and heavy in his mouth. He shoves it away, reminds himself that there was no other choice.

(like always, the excuse falls flat)

He sighs, heavily, and forces himself to his feet.

"Bodhi," he calls out, in a voice that tastes like ashes and blood.

The cargo pilot enters the room, twisting his fingers together nervously. "Are you ready, sir?"

"Yes." Galen takes a deep breath, holds out the holo. "I need you to take a message to Saw Gerrera of the Partisans, on Jedha. Tell him it's from Galen Erso and that it's urgent."

Bodhi nods, takes the holo, then backs away, eyes wide and wary.

Galen scrubs a hand across his face, again, suddenly feeling every one of his years piled on his shoulders, dragging him down. The temptation to just lie down, sleep, give in and give up, tugs incessantly at him-but Krennic will be suspicious, and he has to protect the scientists beneath him.

(he doesn't let himself think about the others he needs to protect)

(it hurts too much)

Galen sucks in a sharp breath, holds it, and lets it out slowly, straightening his shoulders. He must go on, no matter the cost. The message has been sent. Saw will see it, and he will act.

And maybe, just maybe, if he is extremely fortunate, his Stardust will see it too.