"Well, what do you want to do now?," Cassian asked cautiously when they finished breakfast in his family's ship. The cold outside was still quite biting at that hour and didn't invite to spend much time outdoors, so it would be better to avoid it for as long as possible.
He had brought a thermos with caf, bread, cheese and some fresh fruit he'd bought at his favorite local vendor. Jyn drank her caf and ate it all with relish. It looked like she'd learned to enjoy to the fullest and make the most of every meal, because in all certainty, with a life as hard as hers, and with no one taking care of her, one never knew when the next decent meal would be.
Cassian hadn't talked to Maarva about Jyn, or to anybody else he'd crossed paths with since the previous night, because he didn't want to overstep any boundaries. If Jyn didn't wish to make her presence known, she was entitled to her privacy and anonymity.
It had been difficult enough to find himself face to face with his perceptive mother and hide the fact that he'd been again looking for his sister, so it had been even more difficult to keep Jyn's presence on the planet a secret. Cassian knew that he hadn't fooled her about his supposed errands, but for some reason (maybe because she was more tired and less combative than it was usual in her, indeed he had worried for her health but she had dismissed his worries as if they were just a bothersome fly) Maarva had decided to let things be for the time being (and to Cassian's momentary relief).
She had advised him not so long ago to move on and stop his search. She'd told him bluntly that she was certain that his sister was but a ghost from the past. The three of them (Clem included, until he was so unfairly executed by the Empire) had kept their search for Kerri for years, with no results. That was the only thing that Cassian had resented his adoptive parents for: tearing him away from Kerri, separating the siblings inadvertently. They had saved him, but had left behind a little girl in a hostile world. Right after being taken away from Kenari, Cassian had spent many days raging and many nights crying himself to sleep, refusing to truly acknowledge the Andors or his new environment. He blamed them for Kerri's loss. But despite everything and himself (and especially out of loneliness), Cassian started to interact with the couple, started to learn and to open up, little by little. He started as well to understand that they'd only had good intentions when they had rescued him; they hadn't known at the time, or hadn't had time to realize that there might be people important to Cassian left behind on Kenari. It took him a long time to begin to forgive his new parents or accept their inconditional affection.
As soon as he was able to communicate rudimentarily in Basic, he'd expressed his concern for Kerri. To their credit, the couple had looked appalled at the revelation; the crushing guilt on their faces was enough to make Cassian truly soften himself toward them for the first time. From then on, probably because of their need to make it up to him, and because they genuinely wished Cassian's happiness, the Andors carried out a search as thorough as they were capable of with their limited resources and contacts, but Kerri was never found.
Cassian had never given up. After Clem was killed and Maarva fell into a deep depression, Cassian went on with his own inquiry.
The tip about the brothel on Morlana One had been one of the most consistent leads he'd ever followed, but of course he didn't get his hopes up much. He'd taken many blows and disappointments in his life and he braced himself for another dead-end quest, though keeping a flicker of hope. He couldn't extinguish that flicker. He owed it to Kerri. He needed it to keep on with his life.
In the end, he hadn't been closer to finding his sister, as the madam, the person who supposedly kept tabs on all the establishment's workers, ignored everything about Kerri, or so she alleged (if it had indeed been Kerri, what he was beginning to doubt), and even in the case that she knew more than she let on, Cassian was sure that the reluctant woman didn't want him poking his nose into the brothel for other reason than spending credits on company for the night and overpriced drinks. It wouldn't fare well for the business' image to have a sleuth sniffing at its grafts. That and the presence of the corrupt corpos (and Jyn warning him with her worried stare, strangely it had been her silent plead what truly had set the alarms off) had made him deem all that situation as too much trouble for one night, and his sound judgement had won. In other circumstances, he would have pushed the madam for more information and wouldn't have avoided a good brawl with a pair of bullies, but his inner voice, the one that he rarely listened to, told him that it was too dangerous to draw so much attention to himself and to upset those shady people. His quest would have to wait once more, and he would find another lead somewhere.
For a brief instant, it crossed his mind that Jyn might know something about Kerri, but then he discarded the notion. She'd only worked there for a few days and he doubted that the sex personnel and the bartender gossipped a lot about former employees about whom they surely knew from little to nothing. He had the impression that no one there established links beyond a superficial workplace camaraderie.
Jyn shrugged at his previous question about what she wanted to do next. "I don't know. Maybe take a look at the city, search for a place where I could work in and somewhere to spend the night. But you don't have to go to further trouble for me, I'm sure you have your own business to attend to and I don't want you to go on stepping out of your usual way for me." She looked stubborn and determined, and Cassian liked that. He held back a smile.
"Don't worry about that," he dismissed. "Today I was just going to work in some repairs at this scrapyard and ask a friend for a possible deal with a purchaser of hers, but all that can wait. It's not as if I'm a permanent employee anywhere," he commented lightly, trying to hide the undercurrent of self-deprecation.
Jyn glanced sideways at him, doubtful. "I'm not used to someone going to so much trouble for me without a hidden agenda. And I'm not sure that I feel comfortable with that," she confessed with a conflicted expression.
"Please," he found himself pleading softly. "Let me help you. I'm usually a selfish bastard, and for once I want to do something right for someone. Let's make a deal, right? I help you around here, and you help me be a better person for a few hours. What do you say?," he asked, teasingly offering her his hand to shake.
She hesitated for a second but then, with a grin, she shook his hand comically. "Deal."