"Fetch."
No positive response.
"No Mothma, the ball's that way."
"I think you fell down at the first hurdle by calling the dog Mothma, Jyn," said Bodhi Rook through the telephone.
"Kaytwo," Jyn replied, wandering around the garden. "I suppose I should say Kay… the name was his idea."
"You fell down at the second hurdle, then."
"He is good at strategic analysis."
"He was good strategic analysis," said Bodhi. "Now he tells people about the weather. He's not a droid any more, remember."
Jyn sighed.
"Yes, I suppose I do, though... it doesn't mean he's lost those skills. but who knows with all this, I suppose..." she searched in her head for a different topic, but Bodhi beat her to it.
"Do I need to bring a towel?" he asked.
Jyn picked up the ball slobberingly offered to her and threw it across the flat's garden.
"I would just in case," she said. "The third one in the house is for the dog."
"Towel it is," Bodhi replied. "Do you want me to bring you anything from the city?"
Finding Bodhi had been nothing short of a miracle. Chirrut's headline tale of discovery had been noticed by another, by one Bodhi Rook that had emerged out of nowhere in London and took a chance that the monk discovered in Hong Kong might just be his long lost friend. Bodhi was now living in London, was due to take his citizenship test next week but had enough money to get a train down to visit Jyn and Cassian. He was not as lucky as Kay, who by his telling had become so much of a local celebrity that people had been more than enthusiastic to help sort out his citizenship and social security issues.
"I was told," said Kay. "That apparently things would be faster for me because I was what they call - wait, let me check - white... male and... straight."
Jyn had asked him why all of those things were meant to make things easier for him.
"I'm not entirely sure," she remembered Kay saying. "But they said that's what I was and it helped. Apparently the last one is a categorisation of your sexuality."
Jyn had asked him to explain more about that too.
"Well," Kay had said. "Apparently they feel it's a necessary thing to categorise here. I was a bloody robot a month ago, remember? How the hell should I know if I'm any of those damn terms they keep on saying I am?"
But he had been making friends, and that had made both Jyn and Cassian happy.
Whilst every new friend Jyn met had elated her, made her feel re-connected with people that she was sure would have been close friends with had they survived… in this new world… she felt that for some reason Cassian did not feel the same way when she told him about Bodhi's discovery. She knew by now not to pry: knew that if Cassian didn't want to tell you something he wouldn't. But nevertheless, she hoped that whatever was making him feel uncomfortable would be dispelled or dealt with by the time Bodhi arrived that evening.
"You know what, Jyn," she heard Bodhi say on the other end of the line. "I'd best finish packing if I'm going to show up at yours with anything other than the skin on my back. I'll see you later, yeah?"
"Yeah," Jyn replied. "Give us a call when your train has left Waterloo."
"Roger that. Bye, Erso."
Jyn hung up the phone and turned go inside, the little dog following her up the stairs and back into their flat. Cassian was reading at the kitchen table, and only when she came closer did she realise that it was a cookbook. He nodded as she came in: and there it was again, a smile that was more tense than glad.
"Pasta," he gestured to the pages. "I bought the sauce and everything. Thought we could make him a nice meal."
"That sounds good," she replied, joining him at the table. "What can I do?"
"Oh no," he said. "I'll do all the cooking."
"Well I can help with something," said Jyn, remembering her parents at the table together, one chopping, the other stirring.
"No," he said quickly. "I want to do it."
So Jyn sat on the couch that even as she listened to Cassian chop food. She twirled the phone in her hands, lit up when she saw Bodhi's message that the train had left the station.
"He'll be here in forty-five minutes," Jyn announced. "Shall we go get him?"
"You go," said Cassian quietly. "I'll meet you when you get back."
"Are you sure -"
"I have to finish the sauce," said Cassian. "I want to make sure it's hot for when he gets in."
Jyn frowned, but she didn't question it.
"Okay," she replied quietly, and bent down to attach Mothma's lead onto her collar. "I'll see you later then."
Jyn felt uneasy as she walked down the road with the dog, and she mulled Cassian's actions over in her mind, hoping she'd be able to understand by the time Bodhi showed up.
He had been the one that found Bodhi, been the one that had faith in the pilot, brought him back to himself. Bodhi had been quiet, selfless, had stood by Jyn even when people were questioning their faith in the whole enterprise. Perhaps he even knew Bodhi better than she did. So why would Cassian look less than delighted upon finding their friend was alive? Jyn stopped in the street, realisation dawning. Up ahead was the train station. She checked her watch: Bodhi's train should be getting in soon. It made sense now, or at least it did if she hadn't figured it wrong, and this time she was fairly sure she hadn't.
"Jyn!" she heard a voice cry, and she looked up.
There he was.
They talked all the way home, all the way back to the flat. He was happy in London, had been advised on taking engineering courses as it would help him capitalise on skills he already had.
"I just told them I remembered being a pilot," he said, as Jyn unlocked the door. "You know, I think I might like being a pilot in this world too. I might go to a flying school or something instead. There are pilots that fly people around for pleasure - pleasure! I think I'd like to do that."
"That sounds great, Bodhi," said Jyn, who thought there might be no better job for the kind and thoughtful man.
Jyn pushed the door open.
The food was hot on the table, steam rising off in curls from the plates laid out for them. Cassian stood by them, a smile on his face.
"Hey Bodhi," he said.
"Cassian!" said the other man, striding forward and hugging his friend. "It's great to see you."
"I want to apologise," said Cassian quietly. "For Eadu."
Bodhi frowned in confusion.
"You were trying to help us," Cassian pushed on, as Jyn quietly unhooked Mothma's lead and pretended not to be listening. "And I used that… used that to lead an innocent man to his death."
Bodhi put a hand on Cassian's shoulder.
"It's all in the past, Cas," he said. "And Galen… I think Galen would have understood too."
The two men stood in silence as Jyn poured herself a cup of tea.
"Well, this looks amazing," Bodhi finally said.
"Yes," said Jyn, finally feeling she could interject. "Let's eat."
