Chapter Text
It all goes wrong too fast for her to do anything, and she’s going to kill whatever mudcrutch fed them bad intel for this mission, if she can salvage it. Or at this point, get them out alive.
She’s on the second floor of the tavern– too far away to interfere, when it happens. Cassian’s close, so close she can feel it. He’s bought the mark a drink and they’re chatting. She’s watched him move closer and closer, until he touches her shoulder–
And then another man appears out of nowhere and gets in Cassian’s face. Jyn can’t hear what either of them are saying, but the newcomer has at least several centimeters and five stone on Cassian. Hands raised, Cassian backs up and keeps a bland smile plastered on his face for as long as he can, but then the man takes a swing and Cassian ducks.
The man stumbles into another table, sending drinks and plates of food crashing to the floor, and before Jyn can do anything, the entire establishment is rioting.
She tries to move, run down and help, get out before they draw too much attention, but sentients on the balcony pile in around her to watch the fight and she’s trapped.
She’s almost maneuvered over to the stairs when Cassian, trying to weave his way to the door, is too slow and the original man catches his bicep. Even caught, Cassian eludes a few ham-handed blows, but the man only becomes frustrated and to Jyn’s horror, grips Cassian by the wrists and slams him into the nearest wall.
Cassian’s head snaps back, then he crumples to the ground, unmoving.
Jyn swallows a scream and gives up on caution, shoving her way down the stairs and behind the bar, where the wispy bartender is cowering below the taps.
She only has to search for a second before she finds the fire alarm. She pulls it without hesitation and thanks the Force when the sprinklers trigger as well and there’s a mad dash for the door as everyone’s drenched in freezing cold water.
As soon as there’s a clear path, she picks her way over to where Cassian fell. He’s awake, thank the Gods, and is half propped up on his hands, but his shoulders are swaying in a way that seriously worries her and he hasn’t attempted to stand up.
“Endel? Endel, are you okay?” They’re mostly alone, but she can’t risk using his real name when they’re still in the middle of an op.
His brows pinch and he searches her face. “Jy–”
“It’s Weyfel, Aalya Weyfel. Your co-pilot, remember?”
To her horror, he only squints, then squeezes his eyes closed and sways so much he nearly topples forward. “Sorry… dizzy…”
Kriff. Kriffing fuck. She holds his shoulders and catches a glimpse of the back of his head, where a trickle of blood runs down his neck. “We have to get out of here,” she says. “Come on.”
Bracing her legs, she takes both his forearms in her hands and practically drags him to standing. In a manner horribly reminiscent of their escape from Scarif, he leans heavily on her shoulders as she stumbles out of the bar into the night.
Her mind is racing and she’s trying not to panic. It’s definitely a concussion, and a bad one if he almost said her real name. The mission is undeniably a bust, and if he has a hard time remembering their cover, getting off this planet will be an accomplishment in itself.
As quickly and unobtrusively as possible, she sneaks them past the crowd still shouting in the street and they start moving towards their motel. It’s a short distance, but Cassian leans so heavily on her he feels like dead weight, and she’s breathing hard by the time the building’s in sight.
She gets excited, takes the last corner too fast and Cassian gags, throwing up on the pavement at their feet.
“Oh fuck.” She steers them around the mess and ushers him to their room.
Once inside, she gets him flat on his back on the bed, sweeps for bugs, and digs out their medkit. She immediately scans his head and neck for hematomas or fractures, and breathes a sigh of relief when they come up clear. But Cassian still appears worryingly out of it. He hasn’t said anything since they were in the bar, and stares, unfocused, at the ceiling as she works.
She sits on the bed next to him and shines a penlight into his eyes. “What’s your name?”
He squints and pushes her hand away (although not before she notes his pupils are the same size and react normally). “Cassian Andor.”
“What’s my name?”
“Jyn Erso.”
“What planet are we on?”
He hesitates. “Ord Mantell.”
Shit. “No, that was the last mission. This is Tanaab.” She takes a deep breath, prays he just needs a reminder. “Remember our covers?”
He thinks about it, then frowns and shakes his head. “I don’t remember. Jyn, what happened?”
“You were talking to the mark and some di’kut came up and made trouble. Let me check the back of your head.”
He grunts and allows her to help him sit up.
“I think some of those fuckers in recon missed something. The report never mentioned a boyfriend or a bodyguard. Shit, there’s some blood.” Although it’s mostly dried, red flakes come off on her fingers as she runs them through his hair.
He winces when she finds a sizable lump near the top of his occipital bone. He sways and she lets him lie back down.
“Okay.” She sits back and fiddles with the penlight in her hands. “I’m calling it. Let’s comm Bodhi.”
“No, Jyn, we’re not finished.”
“Seriously? Our intel’s clearly bad, we lost the mark, and you have a concussion.”
“I’m fine.” He presses his hands to his temples. “Just give me a few hours.”
“You can’t even remember your cover.”
He growls. “A few hours. I’ve had concussions before. Just let me sleep it off.”
“And then what?” Jyn stands and begins digging through her bag for her comm. “Do you really think this is salvageable?”
He sets his jaw. “A few hours.”
She knows that look. “Fine. Three hours.”
If he’s really fine, that will be enough.
Cassian sleeps for over six hours, and when he finally stirs it’s almost midnight, and Jyn’s already paid for another night at the motel.
She makes him drink from his canteen and asks another round of questions. He gets the basics right this time, where they are and their cover names (on the second try), but can’t seem to keep the details of their mission straight, and can’t remember what happened at the bar.
“Access codes,” she says for what feels like the tenth time that evening. “We needed the mark’s access codes.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“She’s a data analyst. We needed to look at that data.” She lets out a breath and counts to ten in her head. “Do you remember what the data was about?”
He doesn’t answer for a while, staring unfocused at the duvet under his hands.
“Cassian?”
He blinks. “Sorry.”
“You have to focus.”
“I’m trying.” He glares at his lap and rubs his temples. “It’s hard to concentrate.”
After all that sleep, he still looks tired, and she can see pain lines forming in his forehead and around his eyes.
She sighs and gets up, stripping off her grimy outer layers and getting ready for bed. “It’s fine. Go back to sleep.”
He slumps backward, frustration mixing with exhaustion on his face. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” She slides onto her side of the bed and holds his face with her hand. “It’s not your fault.”
He’s silent, but she can tell he doesn’t believe her.
“How did you do it before?” she says.
He doesn’t open his eyes, but she can see them moving behind his eyelids. “Do what?”
“You said you’d had concussions before. How did you get through those missions?”
He sighs, and she can see his mind processing her question, working at a fraction of the speed she’s used to seeing. When he understands, the answer is immediate and she should’ve expected it.
“Kay.”
Of course. She shouldn’t have brought it up. She’s never forgotten the look on Cassian’s face when Kay sacrificed himself on Scarif, and after too many failed attempts to cobble together enough K-X parts to get his backup online again, Cassian avoids talking about it whenever he can.
“Sorry.” She pushes off the bed without making eye contact. “I made contact with Bodhi,” she says, gathering some of their stuff from around the room and throwing it in their bags. “He’s flying into Pandath tomorrow, it’s too conspicuous to fly into the spaceport here.”
She hopes Cassian will put it together– he remembered where they were the last time he woke up.
He pinches his lips. “That’s 50 klicks away.”
“We’re taking a public transport. It leaves at 0900 tomorrow.” She regards him carefully. “Will you be okay to travel?”
“Yes.” He lets out a long breath. “I’ll have to be. If we’re calling off the mission, we shouldn’t stay on planet.”
His head rolls to the side soon after and he’s asleep again, but not before Jyn hears the bitterness in his voice.
Cassian is difficult to rouse the next morning, but Jyn’s already packed everything and checked out, so all she has to do is help him change and get them out the door. Which is not an insignificant task, Cassian’s moving much slower than usual and irritable, resisting the simplest requests.
“Let me carry the heavier bag.”
“It’s fine, I can carry it.” He reaches to take it off her shoulder
She pulls away. “So can I, just let me do it this time.”
“I can do it.”
“But you don’t have to, so stop acting like a child,” she says, already frustrated that he still insists on pretending he’s fine.
That only makes him angrier. “If you stop treating me like one.”
She glares. “Let’s just go.” She walks out the door with the heavier bag still on her shoulder and doesn’t check to see if he follows.
She feels a little sorry for him when they reach the sidewalk and begin the short walk to the local transport station. He squints in the daylight, even though it’s cloudy, and winces at every louder-than-average sound.
Jyn reminds him of their cover what feels like ten times, but is still relieved that no one at the transport station looks twice at their scandocs, or asks any nosy questions. Cassian operates as if he’s in a fog, agreeing hazily to whatever direction she gives him and staring blankly for seconds at a time whenever she asks him a question.
“How are you doing?” she says, low next to his ear as they wait for the transport, sitting on a bench in the shade.
“…Fine,” he says, although he’s bent over with his elbows on his knees and head in his hands.
“You’re sure?” Her voice rises only slightly over a whisper and he winces.
“Headache.”
She sighs and digs a few more painkillers out of her bag, although she suspects they’ll do very little. She knows from experience the only thing for concussion-induced migraines is to wait them out, and nothing will really get better until she can get him into a dark, quiet room on their ship.
The public transport screams into the station and Jyn double-checks all their gear. Sometimes these things have a designated quiet compartment. Maybe she can find it and Cassian can get some rest.
She doesn’t, or there isn’t one at this time of day, and they end up in the same compartment as a loudly bickering couple. Jyn listens long enough to learn it’s over something unbearably stupid, then does her best to tune it out as white noise.
But Cassian doesn’t have that luxury, and although his eyes are closed and he seems relaxed leaning against the windows, Jyn can see he’s in pain.
Frustrated and feeling helpless, she leans over and says, “Is there anything I can do?”
“No.”
“Are you s–”
“Jyn, stop.” No other part of him moves, his shoulders held tense and rigid and his eyes stay closed.
“I’m just trying to help,” she hisses.
“Well, you can’t.” He opens his eyes, still squinting against the light, and glares. “There’s nothing you can do right now, this is just going to suck.”
Jyn’s mouth snaps closed and she tries not to pout. But I hate seeing you in pain.
They fall into silence again, although it’s a good deal less comfortable than before. Jyn obsessively checks the chrono, counting down the minutes until they reach Pandath.
With forty minutes left, she allows herself to hope they’ll make it without further incident, until the transport hits some turbulence and the whole compartment shudders and rocks. Two seconds later, they’re hit with another one and Jyn feels the floor dip under her. Combined with the fields of grain rushing by out the window, her stomach turns unpleasantly.
A third shock has her gripping the seat beneath her, and when she looks over Cassian is positively green. Jyn rips open her pack and rummages around until she finds a mostly waterproof bag where they normally keep sensitive tech. She dumps the contents loose into the pack and shoves the bag under Cassian’s chin just as he begins to retch.
Of course, he hasn’t eaten anything in over twelve hours, so he just spits out strings of bile while Jyn runs a firm hand between his shoulder blades.
She presses her canteen into his hands when he seems to be finished, deathly pale and sweating.
He drinks in small, measured sips, and doesn’t argue when she makes him finish it.
She thinks perhaps the fight is leaving him, which has her both relieved and all the more anxious, because it means he’s feeling worse. He actually shudders the next time the compartment hits a spot of turbulence.
There’s a loud exclamation from behind them, and the couple’s argument from before seems to pick back up.
Jyn swears a blue streak in Mandalorian. “Two more decibels and I’m shoving my truncheons so far up their asses they’ll taste durasteel in the back of their throats.”
Almost imperceptibly, Cassian shakes his head and murmurs, “I’m fine.”
She nearly sees red, and if it weren’t for the concussion she’d grab him by the shoulders and shake him. “What do you mean you’re fine? You are not fine! You haven’t been fine since yesterday morning!”
He starts to protest, but winces at yet another shrill voice from behind them.
“That’s it.” Jyn leans over and digs through the pack again. She finds her scandocs and a datapad and begins furiously typing code. “This ends now.”
“Jyn–” Cassian tries to catch her arm but she’s already moving.
She walks up to the arguing couple projecting the most intimidating presence she can, and shoves the scandocs in their faces. Tanaab Imperial Law Enforcement.
The compartment suddenly becomes much quieter.
Cassian peers over when she returns to their seat. “Impressive.”
She reverses the crude overlay and tosses the scandocs back into her bag. “You’re welcome.”
She doesn’t really expect a reply– it was as much for her own peace of mind as Cassian’s, and he can grovel later for all the other ways she’s saved their asses on this Force-damned mission.
But he swallows and says, “Thank you,” in a soft, remorseful tone that breaks her every time.
So she puts her arm around him and wraps a hand around the back of his head, fingers brushing lightly over his temple and running through his hair in steady, even strokes.
The chrono now reads ten minutes until their arrival in Pandath, but Cassian doesn’t see because his eyes are closed again.
“Almost there,” Jyn murmurs, soft and close to his ear. “Almost there.”