"No way!" said Jyn, her fingers enjoying the sensation of soft, warm fur beneath it.
"Yep," said a voice on the other line. "Over a million shares of my first time in front of the camera. They had to keep me after that. I'd say I was surprised, but when it comes to my charming personality it almost seems inevitable."
Jyn laughed as the small dog on her lap looked up and sniffed at the digestive biscuit that she was eating.
"No," said Jyn softly.
"No? No to what?"
"Not to you, Kay," said Jyn. "We got a dog. Cassian and I."
"You got a pet?" spluttered Kay through the receiver. "You got a pet!?"
"Yes…" said Jyn hesitantly. "Why?"
"Oh, nothing," said Kay. "They're not very useful, are they? They just kind of frolic around - I could make complex strategic decisions."
"You weren't ever a pet, Kay -"
"Of course I wasn't! I wasn't saying I was - Well, what's this animal you've purchased?"
"She's a small dog from a rescue shelter," said Jyn, smiling. "We're still trying to think of a name for her."
"Well don't be one of those people that name their dogs stupid names, like… I dunno… Imposter or something like that. You can't use abstract names."
Jyn looked up as Cassian walked back into the kitchen, hair wet from the shower. The dog looked up, tongue lolling, and jumped off her lap to greet him. They grinned at each other.
"Kay says we can't call her abstract names," Jyn said.
"Is that Cassian?" said Kay on the other end. "Pass the traitor over, will you?"
Jyn lowered the phone from her ear and held it out to the former Captain, who reached out to take it.
"Not jealous, is he?" he said with a twinkle in his eye.
"Not at all."
She crouched down to pet the little dog as Cassian paced around the room, chatting animatedly to his friend. The past few days had been brilliant, exciting, happy. They had come home from the day out in London worried about the interview, hopeful that they had found Kay, wondering how Chirrut was. So the next day she and Cassian had gone to a shelter and a couple of days later after a thorough assessment they had brought home this happy little dog that wagged her tail whenever you came home. A day later, the good news came. Citizenship had been granted, Jenny had come over to celebrate and both of them felt like a weight had been lifted off their shoulders. Chirrut had been raising money for a plane ticket to see them and he was already halfway towards his goal through the kindness of generous donors.
They had talked to Jenny about him, too, explained - without sounding too improbably strange - their situation. She had promised them that she would look into possibilities for him.
Now this. That strange, unrobotic, very human looking weatherman on the news named Kay Tousant was their old friend, merely in a different form. Cassian had been over the moon when they found out and had talked to him on the telephone every day for the past two days.
"Hey Jyn," said Cassian.
She looked up from the dog.
"Hm?"
"Apparently there's this program called - what was it Kay - Skype. It's called Skype and as long as you have internet you can make free calls to anywhere."
Jyn smiled and internally breathed a sigh of relief. She had to top up the phone this morning, had squirmed that it was the third time between her and Cassian's calls she had to top it up that week. Free calls sounded good.
"We can just set it up on the laptop," Cassian continued.
"I'll take a look," she replied.
Fifteen minutes later they were sitting in front of a screen looking at man with sandy hair, a hooked nose and penetrating eyes.
"I would not have imagined you to look like that in human form," said Jyn.
"I know - I mean I'm still learning the standards of beauty in this world, but I can't imagine I look too bad, can you?"
Cassian laughed.
"No, I can't," he laughed.
"Look, I've gotta get to work soon," said Kay. "But I'll talk to you both soon, okay? When I've got my paperwork and stuff sorted here I'm sure I'll get to find a way to see you both. These dollars they have as currency - they pay me an awful lot of it."
"You were always strangely lucky, Kay," Jyn replied.
"Well, let me know if you need any - there must be some way I can send some over."
Cassian and Jyn closed the video window and then turned at each other, beaming.
"Kaytoo as a human," Cassian breathed out softly. "Who'd have thought it?"
Inbetween them the dog yapped and Jyn laughed happily. For the first time everything seemed to be coming together. Slowly, but surely. Without thinking she pulled Cassian into a hug and she felt him laugh on the embrace.
She pulled away a fraction and suddenly realised quite how close he was. The smile was still on his face, as was hers, but the smile had changed, had suddenly turned nervous. She could see every fleck in his eyes, feel how warm his breath was, mingling with hers…
They both jumped as the telephone on the table rang and they sprang apart. Jyn's hand got there before Cassian's did.
"Hello?" she said, feeling an odd sense of loss mingling with the joy of hearing Chirrut's voice on the other end of the line.
"Yeah," she said, mouthing 'Chirrut' so that he understood. "I'm okay, you?"
"Oh! I have news too," she continued. "You go first - I - oh okay, well, we got a dog! But you go as well I can tell you all about her afterwards -"
She gasped so loudly that the dog who was pawing at her leg stopped and cocked its head, confused.
"What is it?" Cassian asked, his hands grasping her arm.
Jyn turned to look at him, wearing what must have been the fiftieth smile of the day on her face.
"You're not gonna believe this."
