A/N: I realized I totally forgot to mention in the last chapter that I of course had to throw in a dancing scene with Jyn/Cassian (I mean, it's so iconic in Beauty and the Beast! haha) but yeah, it had to be in a dream. I could not think of another way they could possibly be dancing at a labor camp, hah. :)

Hope you enjoy this chapter!


Chapter 11 - Bittersweet and Strange

Slowly, Jyn runs the brush across the shelf multiple times and ensures a thick coat of ivory paint is applied. The mundane chore reinforces the fact that she needs to get out of this labor camp. And soon.

Perhaps, she just needs to pull a similar move that Aston Metri and the other prisoner did...she could knock out a stormtrooper, take his weapon, and run off. But those two were only half successful, considering Aston's friend was caught and killed.

She'd need to be a bit smarter in her escape. Maybe she could do something similar, but in a way where her escape wouldn't cause much commotion. It would be better if they escaped undetected.

They.

She and Cassian had not yet explicitly discussed escaping together...but she guesses it was implied? With their shared history, it seems likely. She needs to discuss it with him.

But first, he needs to return from whatever awful mission Avena forced him to do. She hopes he's safe and that he hasn't been injured.

And when he does return, before they discuss anything else, she would need to finally hear his explanation regarding Avena and learn if it has anything to do with her in any way. She's fairly confident that she has something to do with it, especially considering she has to act like she despises him.

At the sound of pattering footsteps coming toward her, she pauses her painting and turns her head to look behind her. She's shocked to find those footsteps belong to Cassian and nearly drops her brush.

He stops a short distance away from her with a sullen look on his face. She opens her mouth to speak, eager to bombard him with questions to get all the answers she wants. But when she sees Cassian glance at the other two nearby prisoners painting, she stops herself. She also remembers the stormtrooper who's been keeping watch over her area so she scans their surroundings. When she looks toward the entryway, she finds the stormtrooper approaching her.

"Get back to work," he orders her upon seeing that she has stopped painting.

Jyn hastily turns around to return to painting, but she stops when she hears Cassian speak.

Cassian clears his throat. "Officer Ludu has requested to speak with her. She needs to come with me."

Hearing Avena's order, the stormtrooper just nods his head and continues his walk to watch over the other prisoners to ensure they're doing their tasks properly. But Jyn is left panicking over what Avena wants with her now.

Putting down her brush, she looks to Cassian, who gestures with a nod towards the corridor to follow him. Jyn falls into step beside him as they walk.

As they stride down the hallway for a few minutes, she realizes they're not heading to the building's exit at all. "Where are we going?" she asks quietly.

"I'm looking for…" Cassian begins to whisper as he whips his head back and forth, seeming to search for something. "There it is," he says as they turn the corner down another corridor. Then at the entryway to a room, he gently grabs her hand and leads her into it after another quick scan of their surroundings.

But Jyn discovers it's not really a room at all. In the dim lighting, she sees it's a nook that will likely become some sort of storage closet when the facility is completed. There's so little space that there's hardly enough room for both of their bodies. Jyn moves her body so she's facing Cassian, and they're so close they can feel each other's breaths.

At Jyn's puzzled look, Cassian abruptly lets go of her hand. "You're back," she states, not really knowing what else to say.

Cassian nods with a smile. "The order that Avena wants to talk to you was a lie. I wasn't sure if the lie would work. But I...wanted to talk to you."

Relief comes over Jyn over the fact that she doesn't have to go see Avena. Their privacy now also gives Jyn the chance to ask for the answers she's been waiting for. "Am I the reason you go along with her orders?" she asks bluntly.

Cassian stills, and a gloomy expression comes across his face. "Jyn, I…"

"Tell me," she pleads. "You promised," she adds softly.

Cassian takes a deep breath and runs his hand against the back of his neck as he looks at the ground for a moment. When he looks back up at her, he hesitantly reaches out to grab both of her hands. The contact sends a bit of jolt through her body. His gaze seems to suggest he's wondering if it's fine that he's holding her hands. She reassures him with a gentle squeeze in return, but her body remains tense as she awaits what Cassian is about to tell her.

"You're aware that Avena wants revenge for me murdering her brother. She wants to ensure you despise me by having me appear as an Imperial and committing horrible acts. And if I don't go through with her orders for me...she'll hurt you," he says, and Jyn thinks she sees a slight shiver go through Cassian when he speaks. "When you were shot by that prisoner and I tried to help you, she denied you bacta patches. She made you watch me kill that prisoner, and if I didn't shoot him, she threatened to shoot you in your other arm. When you were sent out in the forest with the beasts, it was because Avena knew I had given you bacta patches. She was punishing you for everything I had done for you, and she threatens to punish you every time I want to disobey her orders."

Jyn removes her gaze from Cassian's and instead looks down at their hands.

"What did she make you do the past few days?"

Cassian takes another deep breath. "She forced me to kill some rebel sympathizers," he reluctantly whispers.

Jyn lets go of Cassian's hands and folds her arms across her chest. "You've killed people...to protect me?" she wonders confusedly, still not looking up at him.

"Jyn, look at me," Cassian pleads, gently and desperately. His tone causes Jyn to lift her head back up. "Avena knows that you're...you're important to me."

"How could I be so important to you? You said I was just a comrade."

"Jyn, you're..." he begins, with the gaze of his brown eyes burrowing into hers. "...you're all I have."

She can tell he wants to reach for her hands again with the way his palms are outstretched between them. But she wraps her arms tighter around herself. She's gotten answers...but somehow she still can't comprehend all this.

"You didn't have to go through with her orders. If she wanted to use me to force you to kill, you could've refused and just let me undergo her pain!" Jyn says angrily.

"But if she couldn't use you to force me to do whatever she wanted, she would've ended up killing you!" Cassian heatedly replies.

She remains silent, but Jyn's certain Cassian can hear the pounding of her heart in her chest.

"If you were in my place," Cassian calmly continues. "And you...cared about me, what would you have done?"

She doesn't even need to imagine if she cared for him...because she knows she does. And if she was in his place and she remembered their history, would she have done the same and do anything to protect the only person that she cared about? When everyone else she'd ever cared for was dead?

How else could she have handled such a predicament?

She discovers that she probably would've done the same as Cassian.

After a pause, she replies in a soft voice. "I'm sorry. I...I'm not used to people sticking around when things go bad."

Cassian's lips nearly curl up to form a small grin. "I will not abandon you, and I'm going to make this up to you. I'm going to help get you out of here," he tells her genuinely.

Bewildered, she tilts her head to the side as she looks up at him.

Cassian opens his mouth to explain in further detail, but the sound of footsteps stops him and causes his stare to shift to the entryway. He briefly peeks his head outside the nook before turning back to Jyn.

"We have to go," he says. "It sounds like someone is coming this way. I'll take you back to your station."

Jyn nods in agreement before following him out into the corridor. He leads her in the opposite direction of the nearing footsteps.

"I'll find you again sometime later to discuss an escape plan," he murmurs to her before they reach the area where she had been painting.

Jyn nods once more, before leaving his side to pick up her paintbrush and return to her task. She tries to digest everything he's told her today. She still can't wrap her mind around all that he's done and all that he's suffered...for her. That someone cared enough about her to do all that for her. It's a bittersweet feeling.

Overwhelmed, she tries not to dwell on these thoughts as she paints.


After speaking with Jyn the day before, Cassian had hoped to talk to her at dinner that evening. But when he arrived in the cafeteria, he not only spotted Jyn, but also both Avena and Rolfe. It wasn't safe to talk to her with them nearby, let alone discuss a way to escape.

He had shared a brief glance with Jyn, then gave pointed look at the turned backs of Avena and Rolfe in the room, hoping Jyn would understand why he wouldn't be sitting with her. And it seemed she did, as she given him a nod in return then returned to eating her food.

She had looked somewhat distressed when she first caught his glance.

He couldn't blame her. He had just told her that day of how he'd gone through with Avena's cruel demands in order to protect her. She's probably wary of him now, knowing that he's a monster.

Their close proximity to one another yesterday was reminiscent of their closeness in the elevator on Scarif, and he found himself wanting again to kiss her. But he reminded himself that while he may have feelings for her and wish for something more than friendship with her, she doesn't feel the same for him. Who could? But at least she knows that she's important to him and that's she's not alone. When he heard her say "I'm not used to people sticking around when things go bad," he'd nearly smiled brightly at the memory of her saying those words to him back on Yavin IV.

She's definitely still the same Jyn.

Now, he needs to focus on getting to talk to her again about a possible escape plan. He hopes he'll be able to see her soon while at the facility to oversee prisoners completing painting tasks. He arrived with a small group of prisoners earlier that morning, but more are expected to arrive soon via turbo-tank.

He can only pray that Jyn will be coming with the second group. Then perhaps, he'd be able to find an opportunity to steal her away to talk….

At that moment, he hears the rumble of the tank coming from outside. He makes his way to the front entrance of the facility and finds the tank screeching to a stop. Other Imperial officers approach it to monitor the prisoners disembarking.

Among those exiting the tank, he sees no sign of Avena and Rolfe. They hadn't come with the group he arrived with earlier that day. He still doesn't know if Avena has informed any of the other Imperial workers of who he really is, but considering many of them have treated him respectfully, he assumes they don't all know.

But he does manage to spot the face of the one he is hoping to see. After she jumps off the tank to the ground, her green eyes find him immediately.

Somehow, seeing her never fails to make his breath hitch.

She's among the crowd of prisoners making their way to the entrance, and Cassian quickly tries to think of a place where they could slip away discreetly.

She doesn't break eye contact as she approaches, and as she nears him, Cassian reaches out to grab her upper arm and gently pull her out of the crowd. "You're needed to do some light painting on the exterior," he lies and attempts to make it sound like a convincing order to those around them as he says it.

With her beside him now, he places his hand on her back in between her shoulder blades to guide her toward the corner of the building. As they briskly walk away along the wall of the building, no one questions Cassian's order at all, nor seems to be watching them.

They follow along the long length of the building in silence. Once they finally reach the corner, they turn around it, and Cassian slides his hand down to her lower back and then to her waist to tug her close and bring her body up against the wall so she's now facing him.

When he realizes that her body has tensed a little from the contact, he instantly pulls his hand away as if he's been burned. "I'm sorry," he tells her quietly.

"No, it's fine," she replies kindly, but sounding a little unsure.. "It's…" she trails off.

"What is it?" he asks, concerned.

"When you were gone, I had a strange dream...and it reminded me of that."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"It was just a lot of jumbled up memories...well things you told me, like Death Star plans, Krennic, Avena," she pauses. "And then you and I were dancing in a ballroom," she adds as a slight blush creeps over her face.

"Dancing?" The thought makes him smile, yet fills him with sadness. Dancing with Jyn sounds like too much of a luxury for it to ever truly occur in their life that's filled with war and death.

Jyn nods and seems to have a similar train of thought as him when she sadly says, "If only things were different."

If only they lived in a galaxy where he didn't have to use every bit of his energy and then some in trying to destroy an empire. One where he didn't have to murder people. One where he wasn't a monster.

Cassian nods, then pushes the daydream of dancing with Jyn out of his mind. "Right now, we need to focus on getting you out here," he says in a hushed tone. "There's another hangar not far from here where the Imperials keep two older ships as backup. It didn't seem like they have anyone guarding it. Only the group of us on the mission were at the facility attached to it."

"Where's it located?" Jyn asks with a quizzical expression.

"It's in a wooded area near the forest where we were attacked by the beasts." Searching for an area of mud on the ground, Cassian spots one not too far from their feet. He kneels low beside it, and Jyn follows suit.

With his forefinger, he draws some triangular shapes in the mud to represent the trees of the forest and a square to represent the hangar. "The forest is over here, and the hangar is there," he says as he gestures to the map he's drawn. "The next time we have to work in the fields, we could escape through the forest, get to these ships, and fly off this planet."

Jyn looks thoughtfully at him. "We'd definitely would need weapons with us to defend us from the beasts in the forest. And would we just attempt to discreetly make our way to the forest?"

"I'm not sure yet. I wanted to see what you think."

Her face brightens a bit as he says it, and they both return to standing against the wall of the building. Cassian uses the bottom edge of his Imperial uniform to clean off the mud on his finger.

"I think we should do what Aston - that runaway prisoner - did, except...better," she states with a slight grin. "We should knock out two stormtroopers in a spot where no else can see, then put on their armor and take their weapons. Then it wouldn't be so unusual if we were two stormtroopers heading to the forest...as long as Avena isn't there."

Cassian nods in agreement with her ideas. "And we could use a rock or whatever farm tools there are that day to hit them in the head with."

"Sounds like a good plan."

"Let's think it through on our own and see if we're forgetting anything," he tells her. "But I think it's a good plan, too."

He can see the glimmer of hope shine in her eyes and can't help but let that hope swell within him too that they'll finally soon both be out of this mess.


A/N: So it's kind of a miracle this got posted today? If you live in the US, you've probably heard about the hurricane/storm which hit Texas...well, that's where I live! Luckily, it's not too bad in my area...still got power and no major flooding (so far)! But all this craziness may delay the next chapter, and I hope you can forgive me! :)