"Come on, big brother. Aren't you going to give your little sister a hug?," Kerri said with an eager and shaky voice. "Don't mind him, he won't hurt us, as I said," she added in Kenari*, stepping forward with a smile and opening her arms.
Cassian kept looking at the man while he hugged Kerri tightly without lowering the blaster. His sister's warmth and scent enveloped him and once again he was reminded of their childhood together, before and after losing their parents. She had been too young to remember them properly, just vague flashes she described to him as best she could, but he did remember them vividly, although along the years, his memories too had begun to fade and blur little by little, and he couldn't do anything about it.
"I've missed you so much, my little flower," he admitted, letting himself be carried away by their reunion after such a long separation. "I never lost the hope to find you."
"Me neither," she admitted in return. "But I couldn't start searching for you in earnest until I escaped my captors and joined these people," she added, pointing at the man subtly with her head.
Cassian moved a bit backwards and kept his hands on her arms, staring into her eyes, which were so much like his. "Captors?," he asked, furrowing his brows.
She shrugged. "I'll tell you about it another time. Kassa, I'm so glad that you found those Andor people to care for you. I have my own family now, sort of: the organization. Let's call it that way. It doesn't have a name yet, such as he's said."
"Who is he?," Cassian inquired, feeling the man's unnerving eyes on them.
"We call him the Fulcrum," she answered vaguely. "He started all this. That's all I can tell you for now," Kerri added, accurately sensing his need for pressing for more details and cutting him off effectively before he asked more questions. Cassian would let her be for the time being, but he wouldn't make any promises for the future.
He then asked the question which was bothering him the most. "Why haven't you contacted me sooner, if you already knew about me?"
She bit her bottom lip and her gaze turned imploring. "I... I didn't want to become disappointed once again, so... I had to be absolutely certain that it truly was you before I made contact. It's been... complicated. Like he's told you, you haven't been easy to locate." At that, his expression softened, but then he recalled another detail.
"What about that undercover work at that brothel on Morlana One he mentioned to me? Is that the kind of work you normally do for them?" He couldn't help the protective tone, or the resentful glance he shot at the Fulcrum.
Kerri placed a conciliatory hand on his cheek. "Kassa, I do what I have to do in order to fight against the Empire. And what I do, I do it freely, by my own choice. Maybe you don't understand it yet, but maybe you will, someday."
Cassian thought about Jyn at that same brothel, resigned to the fact of having to prostitute her body out of necessity. And Kerri did it as part of a crusade to fight against the Empire? He shook his head, with the corners of his mouth turned down and his nostrils flaring in anger at the injustice of it all.
He hadn't been there to protect his little flower, to spare her all that sordidness, and who knew what else she'd had to endure. She'd mentioned some captors. Had she been enslaved? The slave trade had been a shameful issue during the Old Republic, but under the Empire it was even worse. The Empire not only looked the other way, but condoned it. How many millions of children were stolen to turn them into stormtroopers? How many young kids, teenagers and young adults were kidnapped and forced to work as sex toys in Imperial brothels and at the bigwigs' depraved secret parties?
Cassian had heard about all that, of course. And he'd seen firsthand what the Empire was capable of. Clem.
But he'd been too self-centered those last years to do something more serious than sneaking into some Imperial facilities to steal and spit in their food. Whereas his sister, his sweet little sister, had been earnestly fighting against them for the last two years or probably more.
That should put him to shame. But he didn't trust that organization, didn't like that man before him staring at him with cold, calculating eyes. He'd kept silent throughout all his and Kerri's reunion and their conversation in Kenari. Maybe that man didn't understand the language, but Cassian was sure that he didn't need to in order to catch their meanings. It was almost uncanny.
"I'm not a fool, Kerri. I'm aware this isn't simply a family reunion. And that he doesn't truly care about the Starpath Unit. What will he do if I decline your offer to join your organization? Is he going to order my execution for knowing too much?," Cassian pressed, hating himself for the light extinguishing in his sister's pupils.
"I won't allow that. If you aren't willing to join actively, I'll tell him you'll be my contact here. You can at least do that, won't you? He can work with that. With the fact that you'll be useful and will keep our secret. I need you in my life, Kassa. I know it's selfish of me, but now I've found you, I can't keep staying far from you. You're the only person I've truly loved since mama and papa died. You're the only one who makes me feel really safe. I can't lose you again," she confessed hastily, almost breathless, and she squeezed his hands.
He squeezed back. "You won't lose me, little flower. I'll help you with this organization and will do whatever you need of me, but you have to promise me you'll take care of yourself. I don't trust these people. And if any of those bastards hurts you or mistreats you, or treats you as if you're disposable goods, I'll kill them. I don't give a shit that they consider themselves martyrs for their sacred cause. You understand? You're the most important person to me. I don't care for any cause, I just care for my people."
Kerri smiled sadly. "As I said, maybe someday you'll understand. You have the fuse in you, but have yet to find the spark that will ignite it. Anyway, I love you, my big boy." She stroked his cheeks with tears in her eyes.
He stroked her back, equally teary. "I love you too, my little flower."
In that moment, Cassian believed to see something extremely fleeting cross the Fulcrum's pale pupils. But he surely just imagined it. He let go of Kerri and turned to the man. "You still interested in buying the Starpath Unit? For the agreed forty thousand," he negotiated, all business once more.
For answer, the stranger displayed the stacks of credits again. "Done. And I'll buy any valuable item you steal from them from now on. Sell them only to me. And keep your eyes and ears open."
Cassian nodded. A silent agreement passed between them.
"Come on, Kerri. We should go now," the man addressed her, not warmly, but not unkindly either.
"Just a minute," she required, and turned to Cassian, switching to Kenari. "I'll contact you through your friend Bix whenever I can, okay? Be patient and careful, and take care of yourself." She raised on her tiptoes to kiss him on his cheek.
He returned the kiss on her cheek, breathing her in. "You too." Then he realized something. "Can I tell Maarva about you? She looked for you for years, you know. And I have Bee too, and friends I trust with my life."
Kerri hesitated. "Okay. But don't divulge any information about the organization. Just tell them I'll come for a visit when I can, that I'm very busy, any excuse of the sort. I know it's lame, but it's the best we can do for now." She seemed to commit his features to memory, as he was doing with hers. "See you soon, brother."
"See you soon, sister."
And with that, she and the Fulcrum slipped out of the old warehouse, silent like ghosts, leaving him there alone with his fading shock and his joy and his fear.