When the U-wing pulled out of hyperspace, they were suddenly thrown into one of the worst storms Rowan had ever experienced. With a violent jolt, they sunk heavily through the clouds, and Cassian cried out in alarm as Rowan grabbed hold of a stumbling Bohdi just arrived in the cockpit and the back of Cassian's chair. The inexplicable sorrow she had expressed after disappearing deep into Jedha City had turned inevitably to her usual daring and reckless attitude when presented with this fast-paced danger.
As the world about them, dim, cold, and rainy, flashed past the speeding ship, Cassian navigated with skill brought upon by fear. One wrong move, and they would be sent hurtling into one of the many rock formations twisting high into the sky like some ominous giant from another world, shadowy and vague in the sleeting rain, but no less threatening.
About Rowan, chaos ensued. One glance behind revealed Chirrut huddled in the corner, repeating the comforting phrase he resorted to in all risky situations; Baze standing tall, having grabbed hold of one of the toughened leather loops hanging from the ceiling, glaring out at the canyons of Eadu as if he could destroy all those rocky edifices with one glance from his fiery eyes; and Jyn struggling to stay balanced upon her seat, lost in rumination that was likely focused on her father.
K-2's voice broke through Rowan's observations. "20 degrees to the right. 10 degrees up." The droid didn't shout, but the hasty firmness of his usually casual and sarcastic tone brought her back to the present. In response, Cassian quickly jerked the ship to the necessary position, and Bohdi fell into Rowan once more. Grunting, she pushed him back to the center, between K-2 and Cassian.
"No, no, no, lower! Lower!" Bohdi roared, pulling at Cassian's seat as if it would persuade him more.
Irritated, K-2 glanced at the pilot. "Are you sure this is the way?"
"Th- They have landing trackers. They have patrol squadrons. You've got to stay in the canyon. Keep it low!" Bohdi begged, and Cassian met the pilot's eyes for a moment of shared trust.
"Watch your right!" Rowan suddenly shouted, bracing herself against the wall as she noted the rock wall suddenly emerging from the fog of rain and mist, the rock wall they were headed straight for.
Cassian jerked the steering to the left, and Rowan toppled into Bohdi, sending them both to the ground in a pile. Groaning in pain, they extricated themselves from one another and pushed each other back to their feet as K-2 announced, with the same urgency, "There's a 26% chance of failure."
"How much farther?" Cassian roared over the next clap of thunder, and the ship rocked dangerously.
"I don't know... I'm not sure, I never really come this way, but we're close, we're close. I know that." Bohdi grunted as he pulled himself back upon his shifting feet and gripped hold of the backs of K-2 and Cassian's chairs.
"Well, now there's a 35% chance of failure," K-2 spat sarcastically.
"I don't want to know, thank you," Bohdi shot back, terror spurning him to anger.
"I understand," K responded, appeased.
Bohdi wasn't listening. "Now!" His roar caused Rowan to start in surprise. "Put it down now!"
"The wind...," K-2 warned, but Bohdi was having none of it.
"If- if you keep going, you'll be right over the shuttle depot," he explained, his eyes wild with fear and hope.
Rowan broke into the conversation then, yelling out another warning, but too late. The four in the cockpit heard the fatal grinding and crash of the U-Wing's engine smashing into one of the rocky walls of the canyon, and the ship lurched forward, slowly careening toward the unseen earth below as it lost its momentum.
"Hold on tight!" Cassian roared to the back as Rowan grabbed hold of Bohdi and the back of Cassian's chair, lowering herself on tense muscles to a crouched position. "We're going down hard!"
It was then the crash happened. Through the windshield of the U-Wing, Rowan watched the earth rise angrily to meet them, a deep black shadow of rock and moss and rain combined. She winced involuntarily when they landed, the nose bouncing along the ground and once more sending Bohdi tumbling into her, before they were sliding forward, the belly of the ship grinding against the unforgiving rock and sending up sparks like fireworks in the dead of night.
The inhabitants didn't move when the ship stilled its violent crawl; even Cassian remained frozen in place, unwilling to move, barely breathing. Rowan and Bohdi froze in their attempts to separate in the fall. Behind them, the others stared with wide eyes out the door's window, all waiting for what they did not know, all frozen in either relief or terror, they knew not what.
It seemed an eternity until the emergency lights flickered on in the ship, illuminating the darkened interior with a warm red light. And still, the group simply breathed. In the cockpit, Cassian worked himself into a position to stand, and did, his face seeming even more careworn than it had been before. From her huddle with Bohdi on the floor, Rowan met his eyes and nodded. The time for hesitation was spent. With a groan and many protesting limbs, Rowan helped Bohdi and herself to their feet, following Cassian into the belly of the ship.
The noise of the outside world slowly became apparent to their shocked senses, the pouring rain a wild drumbeat against the ship, the gusting winds dangerously rocking it with each particularly strong force. Rowan looked about herself at the others and saw that they, too, were hesitant.
Cassian's eyes were tired as he shifted through a cupboard beside him in the hall, finally finding a large raincoat lined with fur. He slipped into it as he spoke to Bohdi, his voice still shakily silent.
"Do you think you can run diagnostics?"
Bohdi's "yes" was mumbled, unintelligible, as he moved on uneasy legs to the cockpit and slid in beside K-2, who had turned to watch the proceedings. Cassian pulled goggles from the same cupboard, along with a flashlight.
"I'm gonna go check the engine, see if we can save it," he told Rowan, who was gazing distractedly out the window at the canyon in which they had landed, as if amazed she had lived to see it. His voice broke her from her reverie, and she turned to him, nodding, and muttering an "okay" with a cracked throat.
She moved forward as he moved to the door, slid it open, and leapt out into the cold and rainy night of Eadu. The rocks crunched beneath him, and she caught only a glimpse of him before he had slammed the door closed once more and disappeared into the dark. The quiet of the ship was deadly, broken only by the muttered conversations of K-2 and Bohdi in the cockpit. Rowan chose instead to examine the emergency stores at the back of the ship, assuring both herself and the others there that they would be able to survive, even if they had lost communication with the outside world.
It was some time, measured by the stillness of the ship and the pounding of the rain, before Cassian returned, shaking the rain out of his hair and moving with controlled anger to the weapons stores at the side of the ship. From the hall to the cockpit, Bohdi watched his entrance with curiosity, and flinched when the door slammed closed. Rowan met his eyes, and read there that the time had come. The moment lasted a second, and then Cassian had looked to Bohdi.
"Bohdi, where's the lab?" His voice was urgent, forceful.
"The research facility?" Bohdi clarified, looking up from his work in the hall and adjusting the headset over his ears to better hear Cassian.
"Yeah," Cassian returned, jerking a blaster from its storage on the wall, "where is it?"
"It's just over the ridge," Bohdi answered, moving forward as Rowan began to adjust her own weapons, following the lead of Cassian's eyes. Wordlessly, they'd decided that she would come, too. She had to.
"And that's a shuttle depot straight ahead of us?" Cassian looked up from his adjustment of the blaster. "You are sure of that?"
Confidently, Bohdi answered, "Yes. We'll have to hope there's still an Imperial ship left to steal."
Wordlessly, Cassian nodded to him, and then took in the rest of the group, the hodgepodge of participants that had been suddenly dragged along upon this journey. As he finished switching the blasters settings into what Rowan now recognized as a sniper configuration, he spoke. "Here's what we're doing. Hopefully, the storm keeps up and keeps us hidden down here. Bohdi and Rowan," he gestured to them respectively, "you're coming with me. We'll go up the ridge and check it out."
He turned to leave, followed by a silent Rowan and a baffled Bohdi, but was interrupted by the one person neither Rowan nor Cassian wanted to speak.
"I'm coming with you," Jyn interjected, stepping forward from her corner with a desperate expression on her face.
Rowan refused to turn, only glancing at Cassian's expression as he turned. Restrained irritation lurked in his eyes.
"No, your father's message, we can't risk it. You're the messenger." He scrambled for an answer that would appease her. Both Rowan and Cassian knew it wouldn't suffice.
"That's ridiculous," Jyn protested, and only now did Rowan look back. "We all got the message. Everyone here knows it."
"One blast to the reactor module and the whole system goes down," K commented, as if proud of himself. "That's how you said it: 'the whole system goes down'."
Cassian's frustration boiled over. "Get to work fixing our comms!" He roared at K, and then paused as the shocked ship watched him. Rowan's eyes had fallen once more to the floor. Repentant, Cassian breathed and spoke with a restrained calm. "All I want to do right now is get a handle on what we're up against. So, we're gonna go very small and very carefully up the rise and see what's what. Let's get out of here," he said finally, glancing at Rowan.
With a shrug, she gestured out the door and indicated she was following. The three filed out, Rowan at the back as Cassian and Bohdi muttered their plan of attack softly beneath their breath. With the wind howling about them and the rain like bullets slamming into their skin, they made their slippery and stumbling way up the ridge. With nothing pressing to focus on, Rowan's mind slipped back into its spiraling repetition of Eros's words in the Holy City. The god had never been one to be charming to her, and this particular occasion had not been any different; his words had been just as scathing, just as much a reminder of her wrongs.
The thrill of adrenaline faded just as quickly as it had come, and Rowan's once agile steps turned to the trudging movements of one weighted down by the world about them. Before her, Cassian and Bohdi moved with caution, alert; she simply followed doggedly, unaware they had stopped until she bumped into Cassian at the top of the ridge.
Startled, he steadied them both, and Rowan swallowed past the pit in her throat to thank him. His hands lingered compassionately on her shoulders as he peered within her eyes, a gentle pity in his. She returned it as best she could, knowing full well the psychological cost this mission would leave upon his conscience.
The two had knelt down between large black rocks jutting from the canyon wall, and Cassian had pulled from his satchel his binoculars, looking through them with all the avid, hasty interest of a man desperate to keep moving. She had no doubt he was.
"You see Erso out there?" His voice was quiet, as if some unseen force urged him to whisper. He handed the binoculars forcefully to Bohdi, who took them in hand and began his own observations. Behind them, Rowan lowered herself to sit upon the rock, cringing a little at the way the chill of the rock seeped through her flesh, into her bones.
Overhead, there was suddenly the roar of incoming engines, and Rowan threw herself to the ground as Cassian pulled Bohdi down and out of sight. As the massive black ship passed above them, Rowan shuddered. Something was on board that ship, something familiar but unnamed. She tensed, the hair on her neck standing on end. Near her, she could see that Cassian had reacted just the same. As they rose to their original crouched positions, she met his eyes, and shared dread hovered between them, before Bohdi broke the silence.
"That's him," he whispered, nudging Cassian to get his attention. Cassian's eyes lingered upon hers for a moment, and then he looked to the pilot, urgency taking over once more as he accepted the offered binoculars and listened to Bohdi's directions. "That's him, Galen, in the dark suit."
It was a moment before Cassian found him, and his shoulders tensed, though his expression was relieved. He turned abruptly to Bohdi.
"Get back down there and find us a ride out of here," he commanded the stunned pilot. Bohdi hesitated and was pushed in the direction they had come by Cassian.
"What are you doing?" His voice seemed betrayed, and Rowan tried to ignore the pang of guilt deep within her gut. But hope ran deeper. She knew Cassian would not go through with his orders; he would be unable to bring himself to, so it was with an assured look that she patted Bohdi on the shoulder and jerked her head down the path.
"You heard me," Cassian told him, and Bohdi met his eyes, anger brimming deep within.
"You said we came up here just to have a look," he protested, and Rowan regretted that he hadn't caught the hint early, for Cassian's torment reeled once more in his expression.
"I'm here," he hissed, "I'm looking! Go. Hurry!"
Bohdi didn't meet Rowan's eyes, didn't see her one last attempt at consolation, before he was stumbling and skidding down the way they'd come. She watched him for a moment, peering through the darkness and the rain for a time until she was sure he had gone. She had a feeling his return would be one of dread to the others down below.
With a sigh, she lowered herself to a rock near Cassian, choosing to watch his expression rather than the illumination in the distance that indicated the landing pad of the research facility. From here, she could only see that there was where the ship containing the unnamed threat had landed.
Cassian's face was intent, his eye pressed against the view-screen of the blaster, his binoculars discarded. His breath was short, his finger trembling over the trigger, the raging inner war revealing itself in his tortured hesitation. The lines within his features were hardened, tight with conflict. Rowan watched, concerned over her friend, the one she had come to know and trust so well over the past few days, the one that had come to suffer so much over the past few days. She could sense the battle he fought, the war against his conscience, the war to preserve his discipline in the face of overwhelming revelations about himself and overwhelming decisions placed firmly in his hands.
It seemed to her that the world held its breath in fright as she watched, and she finally forced her mind to divert itself, taking hold of the discarded binoculars and peering through them to focus in on the landing platform far away. Sure enough, the ship had landed. From it had emerged a man she knew from her former travels as Director Krennic and his posse of Stormtroopers. They faced down a collection of scientists, wincing against the pouring rain, surreally illuminated in their white lab coats by the fluorescent lights of the landing pad. Before them all stood Galen Erso, confidently conversing with the Director.
Beside her, there was suddenly movement and a breath, releasing a profound tension. Rowan looked up from her examination of the platform to see Cassian leaning back against the rock across from her, his head leaned back, his eyes shut tight, his breathing slowing. She shifted down from her position to sit equal with him, watching him closely across the gap. The moment had come.
"You knew I wouldn't do it, didn't you?" His voice suddenly broke through the drumming of the rain as Rowan's eyes fell to the ring upon her finger that she twisted in circles.
Smiling, she raised her eyes to meet his own, watching her kindly, an understanding glimmering there that wasn't there before. She shrugged and responded with a "yeah". Satisfied, Cassian breathed deeper and leaned back once more against the rock, allowing himself one more moment of peace before he straightened and looked upon her again. Confused by the resolution in his actions, Rowan herself shifted, meeting his gaze, her brows knitted in an unspoken question.
"What happened?" His voice was kind, but she feigned puzzlement. "On Jedha," he clarified, "when we got separated. Who did you meet?"
"Eros," Rowan answered, throwing as much relaxed calm into her demeanor as possible, all the while forcing the name past the ball in her throat.
"What did he say?" Cassian made no effort to hide the concern in his countenance.
"Nothing he hasn't said before," Rowan returned, shrugging off the weight she bore. When Cassian's expression requested more elaboration, she gave all she could, saying simply, "Run-ins with love aren't always happy," with a smirk that informed Cassian, not unkindly, that the conversation on the subject ought to be over. Nodding in something of agreement, Cassian let the conversation fade to silence, letting his head fall back against the rock once more as the rain fell in sheets about them.
The moment, quiet and peaceful, was broken violently by Cassian's radio bursting to life.
"Cassian!" K's voice called, and Rowan had never even happier to hear it as she lifted the binoculars and looked through them once more, searching for the figure of Galen Erso once more. "Cassian, can you hear me?"
"I'm here! You got it working!" Cassian exclaimed, nearly laughing with relief before he froze at Rowan's expression. She herself had frozen in terror, her hand suddenly going to her blaster, her eyes wide in alarm as she was confronted with a sight that she should have anticipate but hadn't. K-2's next words sent a spasm of fear running through her.
"Affirmative yes, although we have a problem," K explained. "There's an Alliance squadron approaching."
Rowan cursed and lunged for the radio as Cassian grabbed the falling binoculars. "No! No, K! Tell them to hold on! Jyn's on the platform!"
But too late, for both Rowan and Cassian could hear the incoming fighters soaring high above, soon to launch a barrage of bombs upon the defenseless platform. Calling Jyn a list of names she would only have previously ascribed to Hera, Rowan leapt to her feet, Cassian close behind, and the two made their way, scrambling madly through the rocks and the sludge along the canyon wall, knowing full well that the worst could easily happen before they reached the platform so far away. They could only trust to Jyn's skill to hold out for at least a little longer.
With hearts pounding, they raced against time, slipping and sliding on the rocks slicked by the endless rain that poured about them and marred their vision of the path ahead. Looking to her left at the fight that was soon to ensue, Rowan stumbled, tripping over a particularly jutting rock and losing her balance on the path. Cassian cried out and grabbed hold of her, steadying her shaking limbs against his own. It was then, over the heaved breaths of their exhaustion, that they heard the first Alliance bomb find its place on the landing pad.
The explosion sounded through the night, rocking the earth beneath them. After, they heard the piercing screams of the wounded, and it was this sound that spurned them onward, at a mad pace along the canyon, the distance between them and the research facility growing ever smaller, but far too slowly. Finally, they rounded the curve they had been following and shot forward across the steel platforms, matching their pace as they hurried toward the flashing, flaring lights of alternating red and green as the Rebellion attacked and the Empire resisted.
The roars of the engines, the screams of the wounded, the whistling course of the bombs, their earth-shattering booms as they hit their targets, all formed a cacophony of noise. Dazzled by this and the brilliant lights of bombs and fire that rose up about them as they got closer and closer to the site of destruction caused Rowan and Cassian to slow their pace just a little. Having the element of surprise, their first Stormtrooper was gunned down easily, then the others, till their path was nearly clear.
Leading the way, Rowan took a sharp left at the landing platform, leaping over a pile of dead officers, refusing to look into their faces, forcing herself to keep moving through the chaos surging about her. Stormtroopers radioed back and forth, a confused mixture of alternating commands and last-ditch warnings to the cannons layering the outer face of the facility. Rowan bypassed all this, noticing then that Cassian had not followed her as closely as usual, jogging slowly, methodically behind her, his weapon poised to destroy any and all threats before they came close to either him or Rowan. Satisfied, she returned to searching the platform for Jyn, hoping beyond hope that the woman that had caused her so much trouble was not dead.
"Papa!" Jyn's voice rose suddenly above the sea of noise, and Rowan froze in her tracks, stumbling a little as she looked desperately for the voice's source. "Papa, it's me. It's Jyn..."
She was quieter now, but Rowan had found her, knelt beside a limp figure, sprawled out upon the ground: Galen Erso. The two were near the blast site that had disfigured the steel of the landing platform. The other ship, the one sporting Director Krennic, had long since fled, and the pad was silent aside from the Stormtroopers still roaming disorganized about the place, shocked by the sudden attack, and Jyn's comforts of her father.
Rowan jogged to a stop a few feet away, keeping a respectful distance. She did not need the vision of the bodies littering the area around them, nor the fires blazing maliciously but restrainedly in their flesh, to know that Galen Erso was dying. She could feel his spirit leaving his flesh, and she knew that soon he would be at peace. She could only hope that her father would give him a place befitting his assistance to the Rebellion, unsung as it was.
Cassian arrived then, moving to retrieve Jyn, but Rowan held out a cautioning arm, her eyes growing sorrowful as she remembered the many families she had seen separated by death during the wars she had fought. The thought of her own father alone was enough to bring back the lump of tears lodged in her throat.
When Cassian shot her a confused look, she shrugged and said simply, "he's dying."
To this, Cassian nodded, and the two did their best to focus their attention on anything but the words spoken between the father and daughter, choosing instead to look about themselves and analyze their best route to the ship. Likely, it would be the way they had come, though Rowan didn't look forward to slipping and sliding for nearly half a mile.
"Over there! Take them down!" The words broke like a gunshot through their reverie, and Rowan knew that Galen's time was up, his life had receded, and they would need to make a quick getaway if they wanted to survive.
With well-trained reflexes, Cassian leveled his blaster at the incoming Stormtroopers and fired in rapid succession, killing them both in a moment. Rowan was already on the move, leaping over bodies and ducking beneath the blasts of other Stormtroopers alerted to their presence as she hurried toward Jyn, begging for her father's life.
"Come on!" Rowan roared over the miniature explosions as the bullets hit the railings beside her. "We've gotta go, Jyn! Come on!"
She threw herself the last few feet and grabbed hold of Jyn's shoulders, shaking her to face the present reality. The woman looked up angrily to Rowan, ravaging grief marring her features.
"I can't leave him!" Jyn forced out the words, her eyes fiery. Rowan tugged harder, throwing her weight backward and forcing Jyn to her feet. Still, the woman resisted, and Rowan wrapped her arms about her torso, heaving her backward and forcing her to keep moving away from the body of her father. "I can't leave him!" At her scream, Rowan flinched and grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to meet her eyes.
"Listen!" Rowan forced through her teeth. "He's gone; he died an honorable death, but he's gone. And we'll be with him soon if you don't keep moving."
With a roar of anger, Jyn spun on her heels, following the figure of Cassian retreating backward from the landing platform, his blaster firing rapidly upon the approaching Stormtroopers. Rowan ducked beneath a blast and lunged after Cassian, whipping out her own blaster and joining him as they backpedaled down the path they had come. The Stormtroopers clumsily followed, but their numbers were few and their senses disoriented; Cassian and Rowan slipped away easily, leading Jyn the way they had come.
No one spoke on the journey back. Rowan's shoulder still twinged from the effort she had thrown into extracting Jyn, and her heart still raced from the fight. She kept her eyes fixed upon the ground, choosing to focus herself upon getting to the ship rather than the undertone of anger coursing through her veins. For a side mission as she searched for Luke, this was far too involved, and the weight of his dagger in her boot, ever present, seemed simply a guilty reminder of how she had failed him.
Trudging before her was Jyn, looking sullenly at the ground, despair and grief rending her heart in two as she imagined life without the hope of her father and raged against Cassian and Rowan's obvious guilt. She pulled her coat tighter about her soaked body and tensed her muscles, forcing herself to breathe until they reached the ship.
And leading them all, Cassian fought against his premonitions of the future, his anger with the past, his frustration with the present. Yes, he had chosen to spare Erso's life, but for what? The man was still dead, the blood still on his hands. His steps suddenly acquired a stomping tone as he fought back against the despair threatening to overwhelm him and the shame that burned like a coal deep within his chest.
It was a relief to all three to see the transport ship Bohdi had stolen fifty yards ahead as they came over the ridge, its lights a brilliant white against the dark they had grown so accustomed to since their landing here. Involuntarily, Cassian sped up as they reached it, ignoring the mud that splattered about his boots as he jogged through the clearing and hefted himself into the warmth of the ship's belly. Behind him followed Jyn, and then a soggy Rowan, who exhaustedly pulled herself into the light and groaned at the lack of food cupboards in the new ship.
"Okay, K-2, let's go!" Cassian called up the ladder to the cockpit when the door had slammed shut. Rowan looked about to count heads as the ship rose shakily from the ground and Cassian began to extricate himself from his rain gear. Baze lounged on the slanted wing of the cargo bay doors, Chirrut was poised regally upon one of the two benches in the center of the ship, gripping his staff firmly, and she could only assume K-2 and Bohdi were in the cockpit above them. Her eyes then landed upon Jyn, glaring murderously upon Cassian. Rowan tensed, her hand falling to her blaster.
Unknowing, Cassian went about his business, removing his heavy jacket and slipping it into the uniform hamper stretched across the wall opposite to the door. "Ion thrusters low until we've cleared the storm," he called to K as he finished his storage of the jacket and moved to slip on his pilot's gear. Still, Jyn seethed behind him. Rowan held her breath.
"Understood," came K's faint reply.
"You lied to me." Jyn's voice suddenly broke through the deadly quiet of the ship.
Startled but unsurprised at her statement, Cassian looked up, adjusting his blaster. "You're in shock," he told her.
Jyn took a step forward, her fists clenched. "You went up there to kill my father."
"You don't know what you're talking about," he said, unwilling to meet her eyes, turning back to extricate his pilot's jacket from the hamper.
"Deny it," she hissed.
"You're in shock," Cassian returned, his voice stern, "and looking for someplace to put it. I've seen it before."
"I bet you have." She threw the statement like a dagger. Rowan winced and frowned irritatedly. "They know!" Jyn gestured to the others in the ship. "You lied about why we came here, and you lied about why you went up with her." Here, Jyn shot Rowan a nasty look, and Rowan resisted the urge to fire something back at her, knowing full well it was the grief behind her words.
Cassian's patience broke; in an abrupt movement, he stepped forward, forcing her to meet his gaze as his lip curled in anger and disgust. "I had every chance to pull the trigger. But did I?" His voice was deadly calm, before he turned on the others in the ship. "Did I?" It was a demand that caused all but Chirrut to look to the floor.
Cassian moved to the ladder, but was interrupted by Jyn's hurled accusations. "You might as well have," she snarled. "My father was living proof, and you put him at risk. Those were Alliance bombs that killed him!"
Cassian whirled about, roaring. "I had orders! Orders that I disobeyed!" He forced himself to calm. "But you wouldn't understand that."
Jyn seemed taken aback. "Orders? When you know they're wrong?" She took a backpedaling step and mocked triumphantly, "You might as well be a Stormtrooper."
Cassian smirked, his eyes seething. "What do you know?" Again, he forced her eye contact, taking another step forward. Rowan watched closely, her eyes knit together in concern. "We don't all have the luxury of deciding when and where we want to care about something," he told her. "Suddenly the Rebellion is real for you. Some of us live it. I've been in this fight since I was six years old," he hissed. "You're not the only one whose lost everything. Some of us just decided to do something about it."
As Cassian moved away, headed with finality for the ladder, Jyn fired her only words left. "You can't talk your way around this!"
Cassian looked up, but didn't meet her eyes, focusing instead on Rowan's as she remained barely in the threshold of the door, watching the proceedings closely. He jerked his head to the ladder, indicating his need for her assistance, and she moved through the others toward him before he finally addressed Jyn's statement.
"I don't have to," he said simply, and started up the ladder. The silence behind him was still uneasy, the monster of Jyn's anger still not yet appeased as he called to K in the cockpit. "Yavin 4! Make sure they know we're coming in with a stolen ship," he instructed, before looking back down to the others. "Anybody else?" he demanded.
The silence lost its tension as Baze muttered a "nope" and leant back against the wall, closing his eyes and resting. Rowan followed Cassian into the cockpit where K-2 and a disoriented Bohdi waited.
"We're on the way," K said in greeting, and Rowan nodded to Bohdi. The pilot still seemed unsettled, but he'd heard the conversation below and chosen to pacify his hurts. He greeted her with a small smile, and she moved to the corner, relishing in the seat that had been placed there. She watched Cassian slip into his own seat, replacing Bohdi, and remembered all that had happened during their wait on Eadu, and regretted that others could not see the man he truly was. Exhaustedly, she shoved the weighty thoughts aside and leant up against the wall of the cockpit, letting her eyes slide closed.
"You know," she muttered with a smile, "I never did get that day off."
With Cassian's suppressed chuckle, her gin widened, she relaxed into the corner, and fell quickly into a dreamless sleep.