The last time Bodhi pulled into this hanger with a ship full of Rebels and the lingering cold of Hoth in his lungs, he'd been alone. This time, Cassian is sitting in the co-pilot's seat — not because he's doing any of the work, but because Jyn had forced him to kriffing sit down and stop straining your broken ribs — and Jyn is braced against the back of both seats. Bodhi can see them both out of the corner of his eye and every time he catches them moving at the edges of his vision he feels a bubble of relief lifting up from his stomach.
Bodhi might've felt awkward about his need to keep them close if they hadn't been just as determined to remain in his orbit.
The ship comes to a stop with a gentle thump and Bodhi lets his shoulders slump in relief. It's finally starting to feel real that Jyn and Cassian are back with him, back with the Rebellion. It won't feel like home until he can get them alone in their shared quarters and finally talk to them without anyone listening, but for the first time in weeks he feels like home is in reach again.
Jyn squeezes a hand around his shoulder before helping Cassian lever himself up from his seat. Bodhi scrambles to help and, surprisingly, Cassian allows the assistance. He's steady enough once he's on his feet, but he doesn't let go of Bodhi and Bodhi begins to think that maybe Jyn and Cassian missed him as much as he missed them.
They make their way back through the shuttle, already empty of Pathfinders, and Cassian only unwinds his arms after allowing Jyn and Bodhi to help him down to the hanger floor.
"Debrief," he says, "then we can talk."
Bodhi can already see him pulling his impervious, inscrutable spy armor back around him.
Jyn snorts. "No," she says, "I'll do the debrief. You aren't going anywhere until you've gone to Medical."
Cassian furrows a brow. Jyn raises an eyebrow in return and Cassian folds. Bodhi can feel the tension running out of Cassian's body from where their shoulders are pressed together.
Bodhi then finds himself under Jyn's warm gaze.
"Look after him," she says.
Bodhi smiles and nods.
"See you soon," he says and tips his chin towards the sergeant waiting conspicuously a few feet away.
Jyn grimaces, sighs, and heads off.
Bodhi and Cassian both watch her go, then Bodhi presses his shoulder against Cassian's.
"Medical," he says.
Cassian sighs but turns with Bodhi and keeps pace with him across the hanger.
"On the way," Bodhi suggests, "you can tell me why you need it."
Cassian casts him a sidelong glance, but Bodhi doesn't budge. A smile tugs at the corners of Cassian's mouth and he starts to talk. Bodhi lets the sound of the other man's voice wash over him and basks in the feeling of knowing that he's home.
By the time Jyn is released from the debrief, Cassian has been cleared by Medical and Bodhi has gotten the other man settled in his quarters. Cassian is still recovering from the injuries he took on Hoth, a combination of cold, rationing, and lingering weakness from Scarif preventing his body from healing at anything more than a crawl. If it were anyone else, Medical would have kept them for observation at least. But both Medical and Bodhi have learned from long experience that Cassian is decidedly not a good patient and that, wherever possible, he should be allowed to recuperate in the privacy and calm of his own space.
Bodhi's in the process of trying to cajole Cassian into laying down when Jyn steps through the door. Bodhi and Cassian both send pleading looks in her direction. Jyn grins at them.
"You don't have to lay down," she says to Cassian and Bodhi is about to object when she continues, "but you do have to sit down and stay there."
Cassian frowns but allows Bodhi to nudge him onto the narrow couch on one side of the tiny room. The space is not built for three. There's only a single bunk, decently wide for one person but the only way they'd fit three would be literally sleeping on top of each other.
(Which Bodhi is resolutely Not. Thinking. About. If he does, he'll never get through this conversation.)
Command hadn't been willing to issue Rogue One their usual shared quarters when two thirds of the team was missing and presumed dead. The only concession they had been willing to make was to issue Bodhi the kind of officer-grade single room he would never have rated on his own.
(Which had almost been worse because it had been a constant reminder, in it's pressing silence, of what —who — should have been there.)
Bodhi shakes himself determinedly from his thoughts. Now is not the time to be sad. Jyn and Cassian are here; they're alive and with Bodhi and home and he still has the chance to tell them.
He perches on the edge of the bunk and watches his two favorite people finally shed some of the tension they've been carrying for weeks. Jyn flops down on the couch next to Cassian and lets out a breathy sigh of relief, slumping back as much as she can in the hard cushions. Cassian too lets himself slump, and Bodhi can see him taking deep, deliberate breaths and letting the tension run out of his shoulders.
Now, Bodhi thinks. Tell them now.
It would be so easy to say nothing. To let the three of them slide, without comment, back into the comfortable way they orbited around each other.
So easy but something Bodhi isn't willing to let himself do.
He's not going to waste another chance.
Which does not mean he knows how to start the conversation. He hasn't practiced, not willing to let himself dwell. He has no idea what to say, but he laces his fingers together, grips hard, takes a deep breath, and lets his heart do the talking
It worked years for a lonely cargo pilot who risked striking up a friendship with an even more lonely Imperial scientist.
It will work now.
"I was thinking," he says, slowly and deliberately, "while you were gone. About the things I've never said to you, that I might never get the chance to say."
He forces his eyes up from the decking. Cassian and Jyn are watching him intently; there's nothing but warmth in their eyes.
"Things about us. Things about us that we don't talk about but…" He falters, takes a breath, and pushes on. "But that we all know. I want to talk about it."
Cassian and Jyn trading knowing looks and Bodhi thinks for a short, terrible moment that — isolated and abandoned on Hoth, alone but for each other — they've already figured this out and it doesn't include Bodhi.
Then they each reach out to grab one of his wrists and yank him off the bunk, over the gap, and onto the couch between them.
He's not entirely sure how it happens, but he ends up wedged between them, his shoulders pressed against theirs.
"We had a long time to think too while we were… away," Jyn says.
Bodhi curls his fingers around hers. They're here now, even if it will take a lot of reminding before his brain finally believes it.
"You're right," Cassian says. "We don't talk about this. And we should."
Bodhi turns his head to meet Cassian's gaze. The other man's expression is warm but uncertain.
"What do you want, Bodhi?" he says.
For a moment Bodhi freezes. He started this conversation and he knows what he wants the result to be. He just doesn't have the words yet.
Jyn snorts. "Don't make him do all the work, captain," she says, and squeezes Bodhi's hand.
He squeezes back. "It's okay," he tells her. He meets Cassian's gaze. "I want us," he says. "All three of us." He turns and finds Jyn watching him warmly. "I want all three of us. Together. In any way we can be."
She grins back at him.
"That's what we want too," she says and Bodhi's heart leaps.
He looks to Cassian and finds the captain smiling at them both.
"All together," Cassian says.
As Bodhi suspected, the bed is definitely too small to fit three people in any configuration except laying on top of each other. But with their limbs tangled together and the comfort of each other's warmth a steady reminder that they're all here, Bodhi decides he wouldn't have it any other way.