The landing pad was just as busy as usual when Cassian and Rowan arrived, her frustratedly shoving earbuds into her stubbornly resistant bag.
"You know you're not gonna need those, right?" Cassian gestured to her, and she groaned, giving the earbuds one last shove before yanking the zipper closed on the bag.
She looked up, suddenly realizing he had spoken to her. "Hm? Oh! Probably not, but you never can tell, ya know?"
Cassian smirked and looked back in the direction of their ship, his eyes scanning the chaotic mess for Draven, whom they had been commanded to meet. Rowan helped as much as possible, trusting in the revulsion of her gut to reveal to her the man she so hated to see. It finally did, and she couldn't help but make a face when she saw him, standing beside a young woman. She pointed the pair out to Cassian, who thanked her, and the two readjusted their path in the direction of the general and the woman, who was revealed to be none other than Jyn Erso upon closer inspection.
"Captain Andor. Miss Castellan." Draven greeted them with a cold nod when they were close.
Rowan raised her eyebrows and gave a look as to say: "well, you can't expect everyone to change." Cassian was the only one to notice it, and he suppressed a chuckle. He had a feeling Rowan's hopes for Draven's future kindness would never be realized.
"General." Cassian spoke a greeting for the both of them.
"I hope you both slept well." Rowan seemed impressed with this show of familiarity, but her face fell when the general moved on quickly. "You know the mission; we need access to Galen Erso and information on the Death Star. I cannot convey to you the importance of this; it must be a success-"
Draven's unnecessary ramblings were cut off by Jyn. "And my father," this she emphasized as if to combat the coldness of the general, "when we return, will you grant him asylum?"
Nothing moved in Draven's eyes. "We will do our best." He turned back to Cassian and Rowan. "Now go, and may the force be with you."
He walked with them to Cassian's U-Wing, but as they came close, he placed a hand on Cassian's arm, separating him from Rowan and Jyn, who continued onward, noting Draven's obvious intent to speak with Cassian alone in his expression. Rowan knit her eyebrows together in confusion and concern, watching Cassian and Draven speak over her shoulder as they moved forward. When it became evident that the conversation would last at least a little longer, she returned her attention to the ship and her footsteps. Jyn glanced to her, concerned, and noted the thoughts that seemed to flicker behind her shadowed eyes.
K-2 was already in the ship when they arrived, and Rowan exclaimed her joy at this loudly.
"K!" She shouted enthusiastically, laughing. "How are ya, mate?"
K seemed to smile. "I am wonderful, Miss Rowan. How are you?"
Rowan smiled, mischief and daring giving her an ironic look. "Dead exhausted, but good, thanks."
Jyn had slipped into the ship during the proceedings, glancing at the droid, recognition flashing across her features. K-2 turned to her as Rowan jumped in and threw her backpack to the floor. Beside her, Jyn fished through hers. Rowan noticed the blaster that Jyn readied, but said nothing, only twitching the corner of her lip upward in appreciation.
"I'm K-2SO." The droid introduced himself with much of the same pride he'd had when speaking to Rowan for the first time. "I'm a reprogrammed Imperial droid."
Rowan smirked and looked to Jyn for her reaction. The same confusion and admiration were in the woman's eyes.
"I remember you," Jyn said, fixing her eyes on the droid.
There was silence, and Rowan looked back to her bags, sifting through them for Luke's knife. When she found it, she moved to slide it into the pocket inside her jacket as Jyn seated herself in the seat beside and a little behind her. Thinking better of it, Rowan sheathed the knife in an inner pocket of her right boot while the conversation continued between Jyn and K-2.
"I see the Counsel is sending you with us to Jedha." Rowan couldn't help but notice the criticism that slipped into the droid's voice like an undertone. She looked up, curious.
Jyn seemed to have noted it, too, for her response was guarded. "Apparently so."
"That is a bad idea. I think so, and so does Cassian." K said mysteriously.
Rowan flinched. "Dang, K. That awfully harsh for somebody you've just met, even for you."
Jyn's eyes fell to Rowan, who was crouched facing K now, one arm supported on her knee, as if she had been about to stand. Rowan's eyebrows were knit together in concern. "Is something up with you buddy?" She asked the droid.
"Maybe so." K said ambiguously. Rowan thought she saw the droid shrug imperceptibly. "But what do I know? My specialty is just strategic analysis."
Rowan gave a small laugh at this and raised her eyebrows amusedly, rolling her eyes as she stood. At that moment, Cassian entered the ship, and K seated himself in his copilot position. Rowan noticed Cassian's eyes were more veiled than usual, and knit her eyebrows together in concern as she sat and adjusted Luke's knife in her boot that it might be both comfortable and reachable.
"You met K-2?" He asked Jyn, who nodded.
"Charming." She returned, sarcasm lathered into the word.
Cassian immediately noticed something was off and glanced to Rowan, who gave a wry smile. He wrenched his eyes back to Jyn, before he slipped on his pilot's vest. "He tends to say whatever comes into his circuits." He explained, just as he had explained it to Rowan. "It's a byproduct of the reprogramming."
"Maybe they should have put in a filter." Rowan muttered beneath her breath. Only Jyn heard it; Cassian had slid into his seat. Rowan was glad to see a shadow of a smile pass over Jyn's face. She returned it, hers more of a helplessly amused expression.
"Why does she get a blaster and I don't?" K-2 spoke up, suddenly breaking the silence that had fallen.
Cassian's posture immediately went tense as he stood, confusion and doubt etched into his expression. Rowan watched him, unsure of what to do. "What?" He asked, a threat buried deep in his voice. He held out his hand, wordlessly commanding Jyn to give him the weapon. She didn't, fiddling with it instead.
"I know how to use it." She protested. Rowan noticed her grip grow tighter upon the blaster.
"That's what I'm afraid of." Cassian's voice got noticeably harder. "Give it to me." He commanded. Rowan went back to fiddling with Luke's knife.
"We're going to Jedha. That's a war zone." Jyn reasoned, pulling the blaster closer to her.
Cassian gave her a slightly incredulous expression. "That's not the point. Where did you get it?"
"I found it." Jyn returned, dancing about the question. Next to her, Rowan's lips curved in a barely noticeable smile as she restrained her laughter. She was impressed. K-2 was not.
"I find that answer vague and unconvincing." He vocalized his opinion from the cockpit.
Rowan chuckled lowly at this, and everyone in the ship looked to her. She shrugged helplessly, and the tension returned. Cassian simply rolled his eyes, the threat leaving him, but not the hesitancy.
"Trust goes both ways." Jyn persisted, and Rowan hoped she'd at least told Mothma that.
Cassian sighed almost imperceptibly with acceptance and slid into the pilot's seat. Shreds of tension still hung over the four like clouds, though, and K wasn't oblivious to this.
"You're letting her keep it?" He asked Cassian, sounding offended. "Would you like to know the probability of her using it against you?"
Cassian shot the droid a look as if to say, "Not now."
"It's high." K continued, ignoring Cassian.
"Let's get going." Cassian interrupted.
"It's very high." K hurried to get in the last word. Cassian just gave him another look, and the ship rose into the air, the door sliding closed and immersing the four into the dim light of the ship. Rowan felt her heart rate slow when the tension finally began to dissipate, but only after Jyn fell asleep and they were far into lightspeed.
No one spoke for a majority of the ride, Cassian obviously uncomfortable with Jyn's presence. Rowan got bored after a while, though, and moved to the front of the ship, standing behind Cassian and K-2, holding onto their chairs for stability and struggling not to about thinking about the months she'd spent in prison on Jedha.
She was examining the dashboard of the ship intently when Cassian interrupted her thoughts, sensing something was wrong.
"You okay?" His voice was a little weak from stubborn disuse.
Rowan struggled to pull herself from her reverie. "Hm?" She looked down into Cassian's eyes. "Working on it." She answered his question grimly, halfheartedly.
"We're not going to go near the prison, if that helps. We just need to find the sister of one of Saw's rebels." He seemed to read every thought that filtered through her head.
Her throat tightened when her fears were mentioned out loud, and she forced herself to regulate her breathing. She could feel the lashes that ripped open her back, the electricity that spiderwebbed about her body, the agonizing, searing pain that surged through every one of her blood vessels with the toxins they had injected. The screams had been disembodied then, bursting from her throat like an animal, so rending that the officers not interrogating her had left the room, sweat dripping down their necks.
Her vision was lost in the dark corridors; she remembered being dragged, limp, from "Speech Therapy", to her cell. She had been supported by her armpits by the stoic Stormtroopers down the hall, her feet dragging behind her. She wasn't unconscious, but the haze of pain that darkened her vision gave her the impression of being so. Her limbs ached with the residual toxins, but each bump in the rough underground tunnels sent pain stabbing through her body in every single blood vessel she possessed till she felt like her body had been filled with fire.
Cassian woke her from the vision; she'd fallen against the wall of the corridor to the cockpit, and he'd stood, shaking her by the shoulders. When she came to, he was watching her closely, his eyes boring into hers.
She breathed deeply, shakily, strengthening her position. She noticed with consternation that she was trembling violently. Her eyes snapped to reality and met Cassian's. "How long was I out?" She choked.
"Not long." He answered. She rubbed her eyes in response, red and sore with emotion, and looked at Cassian's feet, close to hers.
"Hey..." He whispered. "You okay?"
He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she watched it for a moment, before her eyes moved slowly to his face. Wonder filled her features, before it drained slowly, to be replaced by sheer exhaustion.
"Evidently not." The laugh was grim, dark, ironic.
Cassian simply hugged her, wrapping his arms about her trembling frame, pouring as much comfort as he could into it. Rowan choked with emotion as she returned it, burying herself as far as possible into him.
All the while, despair sunk into her heart. It overwhelmed her, this life. She'd cut herself off from it, as if she were a different person than the one that had been tortured slowly, painfully, in those cells; a different person than the one that had woken one morning to find Luke missing, a note of apology left behind; a different person than the one that had raged desperately against the world, hysterical in her attempts to find Luke; a different person than the one that had been fighting wars at the age of twelve. And she'd succeeded for a while, until moments like this crashed about her.
She clung to Cassian like he was an anchor in a storm and she were a small, broken ship, tossed about by the winds and rain and waves. He seemed to understand this, for he only let go when she withdrew a few minutes later. He watched her carefully when she leaned back against the wall. Color had returned to her face; the tremors had receded.
"What was Draven telling you before we left?" She asked, and her voice was noticeably weak.
Cassian's eyes never met hers. "I'm to kill him."
Rowan glanced at Jyn, checking for any and all signs that she might be faking her sleep, but she wasn't. Jyn was fast asleep. Rowan's eyes returned to Cassian's; he was obviously uncomfortable.
Rowan nodded her understanding. There was nothing she could say that he hadn't already thought through.
The silence was heavy until K interrupted it.
"We're here." The droid said, and they pulled out of lightspeed.
- - -
"We're here." Romulus announced.
At the back of the ship, Luke groaned, his eyes flickering open unwillingly. His head hurt, pulled from its much needed rest so quickly. He rose a little, before spots flickered to life before his eyes, and he laid back down, another groan escaping his lips. After waiting a handful of seconds, he pushed himself to a seated position, and then noted the grim tone that he had heard in Romulus's voice. Even Clover, sitting in the copilot's seat, was strangely quiet. Luke struggled to remember a time when Clover hadn't declared his opinion on anything.
"What's wrong?" He asked, confused, standing and stumbling to the cockpit to stand behind Romulus and Clover, who were both staring out at the planet below.
They didn't answer.
"Oh." The word fell from Luke's lips when he beheld the planet. "That's what's wrong."
From where they orbited above the planet's surface, they could see ships zooming about, laser bullets flashing in a variety of colors from their guns. And beneath all of this, men and, occasionally, women hurried in masses or individually, blasters firing in their hands. The sands of Jakku were littered with the dead; trading stalls and tables had been turned over. Fires burned and flickered up occasionally in the remains of what little permanent structures the planet had once contained. It seemed they had pulled out of lightspeed and into the middle of a battle.
"What do we do?" Clover's voice was filled with restrained panic.
"That..." Romulus faltered, eyes wide as he watched the chaos beneath. "Is a good question."
Behind them, Luke's heart dropped.