I have a very difficult degree, I really do. That's why this story may yet take me an eternity to complete. I apologize for the insane wait, but I'm determined to finish it, no matter what it takes (which, judging by the snail's pace of the plot, might actually be forever).

Thank you for all the feedback and support! It's genuinely helped move this along, knowing someone out there is waiting for the next part. Constructive criticism is a treasure and I want shower you with gratitude for it!

I apologise for focusing so much of the plot on the Feels, all the Feels between Cassian and Jyn but the truth is, that's just the way I see their first few days on the Enterprise turning out. I promise there is a plot beyond that, but playing around with people's inner thoughts and their interactions with others is probably the most fun part of a crossover like this. Action is imminent, don't you all worry.

Merry Christmas everyone :)

Chapter 7: Sobriety

Cassian's vision spun slightly as he gazed at the multitudes of unfamiliar stars on the viewing screen. He'd drunk more than he'd intended during his conversation with Baze and the dreamlike aftermath during which his thoughts had taken twists and turns in a labyrinth he'd long intended to avoid.

Everything- the history of his alternate self, the person known as Baze Malbus, thoughts of Jyn and fate danced through his mind, making his head spin. He felt excited and sad all at once, the prospect of finding new friends thrilling and the thoughts of loss of both people and worlds awakening a grief deeper than he'd felt before. He was aware that a lot of the turmoil in his mind and heart was mostly due to the alcohol, but it did nothing to dissipate the sudden onrush of emotion.

He was hit, suddenly, by the image of Jyn's face in the elevator on Scarif, how close she'd been, how many unspoken words passed between them in those minutes-moments. He wondered if she ever thought about it the way he did, as heat pooled in the base of his stomach. He would have felt ashamed, but he could do little to deny the fact that despite their incredible predicament, much of his brainpower in the past few days had been dedicated to thinking of nothing but her and their last few moments on Scarif. The world- worlds- be damned, Cassian Andor's biggest problem right now was the unshakeable need to bury his face in the softness of Jyn's hair, to feel his arms around her again as they'd been in the medbay.

He shook his head, trying to snap himself out of his ridiculous reverie and stood up. The world was slightly hazy and while he knew he wasn't too drunk to make it back to his room, he was definitely drunk enough to think up something stupid that would torture him for the rest of eternity.

He stumbled as he walked, trying to remember every biting, cynicism-laced piece of advice K-2SO had ever spoken on their many missions together. We're very unlikely to actually make it to our destination and you're trying to show off your piloting skills in an asteroid field. I'm increasing our chances of failure to 84% and may I remind you it's gone up by 30 in the last five minutes.

He wondered what K-2 would say to him now.

He no longer paid attention to the stares and whispers that followed him as he marched slightly too quickly down the white halls back to his new quarters, focusing only enough to remember when to turn. He could feel exhaustion building up as each step became more and more sluggish—

"… hope to see you tomorrow at the mess! I definitely wouldn't be dealing with everything as well as you are."

Cassian's blurred vision settled on a pair of individuals standing at the end of the hallway, next to what he recognised as the doors to his temporary (permanent?) home. He stumbled very slightly as he stopped, feeling an immediate urge to be both right next to them and as far away as possible.

Jyn's face, turned to face a strange young man in golden uniform that Cassian couldn't recognise, was serene, almost happy when relative to the absolute cold and defiant look it usually carried. She held out her hand and Cassian immediately noticed the other man's eyebrows twitch up, as though he wasn't quite sure what to do with the gesture. Finally, he grasped her outstretched fingers and smiled.

"Thank you, Hikaru." Jyn spoke in a low tone. The man named Hikaru nodded, slightly stiffly but with a wide smile and then turned around to leave.

Cassian almost jumped, taking a quick step that would hide him from the pair behind a whitewashed corner, his heart hammering. He wasn't sure why his reaction was so intense, perhaps it was because he'd expected Jyn to have been asleep and seeing her up and about had surprised him. The heat- stoked by the alcohol and coursing through him like a forest fire- flared as he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Maybe in some other reality, he thought as he listened to Jyn's doors slide open and shut. Maybe the Jyn and Cassian of this world were so-called soulmates, but his was not a life to invite happiness. This Jyn's existence had been marred by murder and deceit, the last thing she needed was more of it in the shape of Cassian Andor, spy and soldier. He forced the dim haze of lust into the recesses of his mind and sighed, knowing his hangover in the morning will be the only thing to remind him of the intensity of his feelings. It would be best to forget it entirely.

He stepped out into the now-empty corridor and paused in front of her door, his fingers shaking slightly with the urge to knock. He grasped them with his other hand and turned away. It would be his first night without Jyn Erso's breath in his ear, he told himself. It would be the first of many.

00000000

Jyn woke the next morning with a lightness in her heart she'd not felt in a long time. It was not enough to lift the dark thoughts of her dead father or the burden of her self-imposed mission, but it was enough to give her some breathing space.

The people here are good.

Nyota had spoken to her at length about the missions that the Enterprise had completed, the tragedies and the victories. She had a wonderful gift of putting people at ease with what seemed like a complete lack of effort- friendly and intelligent, knowing exactly what to say and when. Jyn absorbed the information like a sponge. She may have even cracked a smile and a chuckle at the tale of Scotty's antics during the Tribble crisis, at which point the Engineer himself had appeared from around the corner and given them a sheepish grin. 'Ye cannae blame me for being honest. The Enterprise is my wee bairn, I'd defend her honour til my dyin' day. The Captain of all people should understand!'

Together they made their way around the Command Room, where she'd nodded respectfully at Kirk and attempted to decipher Spock's cool-yet-warm eyes. She shook hands with ensigns Chekhov and Sulu, both of whom seemed more than eager to make friends. They'd both finished their shifts and decided to accompany the women to one of the mess halls where they all sat down for a cup of warm tea (surprisingly reminiscent in taste to the tea she'd had in her rations when training with Saw) and a sweet substance called 'chocolate', which she'd immediately taken to.

Jyn took a liking to the mild-mannered Hikaru Sulu, though perhaps that was because he did not spend every other minute loudly proclaiming the superiority of all things created by the Russians (apparently a culture from the home-planet of many crewmembers, Earth) like Chekhov did. She found out he was married and had adopted a child. They spoke at length and she found herself genuinely smiling at the man's overpowering love for his family and his dedication to the mission.

When she felt herself yawning, Nyota smiled and called it a night, with Hikaru accompanying Jyn to her quarters as they continued discussing manoeuvrability of spacecraft the size of the Enterprise- a topic she promised to revisit as soon as she had the time, because the technologies in this universe were fascinating. Once she'd finally made it into her room, she realised that for the first time in years, her mind had not truly been on high alert, that the usual pain and defiance she harboured as a second skin had been absent for hours.

The people here are good and there is still hope, perhaps even for my own home.

Perhaps it was not her fate to remain with Nyota, Anton, Hikaru and Scotty. Perhaps the dizzying depths of Galen Erso's dead eyes would haunt her until she fulfilled his final wishes. But for once she could breathe, just for a moment, and see the goodness her father had wanted to protect, an example of a world she could fight for. Perhaps until Kirk figured out a way to send her back, she could get to know this universe better.

Jyn got up, showered, inhaled the steam. Her face looked back at her in the hazy mirror, worn and tired, despite the respite of the previous night. She sighed and turned away.

Once presentable, she pondered checking on Cassian. There was an itch in the pit of her stomach and she recognised it as a longing for his presence when she slept, comfortable as she'd become with his presence in the medbay. It was a strange feeling, one she was unfamiliar with, but then many things had happened to her in the past few days that she'd been unfamiliar with previously, so she didn't pay it much mind.

She knocked on his door. No answer. Concern began to worm its way into her mind, but she swallowed it down. Maybe he'd woken up a while ago and decided to explore the ship as she had the night before. It was extremely likely.

And yet…

And yet she found she wanted to see him, to share with him some of the stories she'd heard. Again, she swallowed down the feeling, confused by her own desires. She shouldn't learn to depend on his company too much if she was to leave him behind in this Universe. She shouldn't…

I'm not used to people sticking around when things go bad.

Welcome home.

Jyn turned away from the door, its silence now suffocating. She'd spent years alone and she wasn't about to stop today.

0000000

The mess was a hive of activity. Cassian's eyes could barely make out individual people in the sea of blues and reds, with specks of other colours where officers decided to wear casual clothes on their time off. He'd woken up, as predicted, with a skull-splitting headache and a foggy memory of his conversation with Baze, as well as strange echo of jealousy and lust. Luckily he'd discovered how he could acquire a dose of painkillers after a longwinded and confusing conversation with the replicator machine ("No, don't call Doctor McCoy, I was just joking about the bucket-load of painkillers.") and found that felt immensely better after a shower.

He considered checking if Jyn was awake, but memories of the previous night and his subconscious desires made him reconsider. He needed a little more time to deal with his unchecked emotions before he made a fool of himself, so he decided to meet Baze and Bodhi alone and take his mind off the entire thing.

Speaking of which, he hoped he'd find them soon since he could already feel the multitude of stares being aimed at him increasing almost exponentially. He remembered that everyone on the ship was aware of his predicament and that some of them were bound to feel the same way Baze had before he'd cleared it up over some wine.

"Cassian!"

Luck was on his side for now.

He turned, starting slightly at Baze's clean-cut look yet again, despite having spent hours in his company the night before. It truly was a different world. Nothing, however, could have prepared him for the shock that other-Bodhi would deliver.

Gone was the haunted, wide-eyed look of the ex-Empire pilot. His beard and moustache were clean, styled, his hair cropped short. He looked handsome, nothing like a rebel or a soldier, more like a prince of some far-off planet. His gaze was intelligent and it seemed to bore straight through Cassian's skin and into his very soul. But it was not unkind, merely cautiously curious. Cassian found himself struck speechless.

"Hello, Cassian-who-is-not-Cassian." he said, his lip curling slightly in amusement. "Baze has told me a lot about you. I suppose you were lucky to have run into him at the bar of all places- a far more likely location for him to listen to things you have to say than any other."

Baze smacked handsome-Bodhi in the shoulder but his grin was wide.

"Told him you liked the wine, that's how I knew you'd be as good a man as our old friend." Baze grunted. "And that you took teasing about Jyn much better than he would, which makes you alright in my book."

Cassian swallowed the sudden lump in his throat.

"I am happy to finally meet you." he managed. "The Bodhi Rook I knew was a true friend and hero."

Bodhi laughed "Don't set the bar too high my friend. I've barely been an officer aboard the Enterprise for a month. Most people here have survived planets exploding and galactic terrorists trying to exterminate them."

"And yet you wouldn't have any other ship." Baze winked.

"What can I say, I like a challenge."

Cassian found himself smiling at the camaraderie, something in his heart pulsing with a dull ache at the memory of the two men from his universe. They may not have shared the same friendship or history, but it felt like their connection transcended worlds. He relaxed as they made their way over to the replicators to grab some breakfast and find a seat.

"Where's Jyn?" Baze finally asked. "I would have thought you two would be attached at the hip what with being the only people from a whole other universe here."

Cassian almost choked on his scrambled eggs. "I didn't want to wake her up." He managed.

Baze gave him a questioning look, one that made Cassian sure that his words sounded almost as bullshit as they actually were.

"Well we should arrange a date with all of us, including when Chirrut comes back from his mission. I want to meet this soldier version of Jyn Erso, see what your strange world has made of my favourite woman on the ship."

"True, ours could have easily moved mountains if she set her mind to it, I would be curious to see what her counterpart can do in this situation." Bodhi added, an undercurrent of sadness in his voice that he couldn't quite hide. Cassian was once again reminded that two people were dead instead of them and his stomach gave a sick twist.

"I'm sure you'll meet her sooner rather than later." He muttered, hoping he'd get over his stupidity in that same amount of time.

Once they were done eating and the conversation had gone on for longer than an hour covering everything from Enterprise adventure stories to familial spats back on their home planet Earth, Baze stood up and stretched.

"Either of you feel like a bit of defence training at the Kirkbuster gym? Been a couple of days since I'd last had the chance to give a good whooping."

Bodhi groaned and Cassian blinked "Kirkbuster?"

"Yeah, that's the lower gym where Kirk and Spock usually do their insane fitness-and-spar sessions. Not sure who first coined the name but I like it." Baze chuckled. "What do you say?"

Cassian, for lack of anything else to do and out of sheer curiosity, agreed.

It was a decision he almost immediately regretted.

It's not that he couldn't hold his own in a fight, he'd been a spy and fighter for most of his life. But it seemed like Baze truly was a master of the art. It was only when he'd landed on his back for the eighth time and after he'd been forced to take off his shirt due to the sheer amount of sweat glistening on his bruised muscles after dodging and jumping what seemed like fifty dozen punches and kicks, that he surely admitted defeat in the face of such an insurmountable force.

Bodhi, to his credit, seemed to take this as a normal occurrence, choosing instead to do some cardio training on the standing bikes without so much as a hint of amusement at Cassian's inferiority. It was a small comfort.

"Gotta say, princess, you're doing way better than the Cassian I remember." Baze grinned, sweat running down his forehead. "I'm genuinely enjoying myself trying to land a hit on someone so quick."

He lunges one more time and Cassian's body goes taut, ready to parry.

He never gets the chance. Suddenly his attacker freezes, his eyes wide, staring at something behind Cassian's shoulder. And then he hears a quiet voice, laced with disbelief.

"Baze…"

He turns to find himself face-to-face with a wide-eyed Jyn and Cassian swallows. Their eyes meet. In that moment Cassian knows, that no amount of sobriety will ever save him.