#i can totally see scenarios where jyn is a bit more... uh. accommodating

[anghraine]

“waking up in a minefield” - fic (2/4)

Yes, the first section said 1 / 2. Yet again, I am betrayed by my own poor judgment of how long these things are going to be >_>

(Not helped by perpetual dissatisfaction with this section. I keep poking at it and adding/deleting things, so I decided to just post it and actually work on finishing it.)

fandom: Star Wars

characters: Leia Organa, Bail Organa, Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor; Jyn/Cassian, hints of Han/Leia

verse: script AU (follows from threshold of a dream and part of the past, but now you’re the future, and overlaps with in tongues and quiet sighs)

length: 3k

stuff that happens: picking up from part 1/in tongues and quiet sighs, Jyn meets Leia.

It always felt strange to live undercover as herself. It felt stranger to know that she never would again.

Leia had done her work as Senator Organa of Alderaan—exploited her diplomatic immunity, picked up whispers and more among other politicians, periodically acted as courier. Now, the Senate was gone. Alderaan was gone.

She would be the daughter of Alderaan for the rest of her life. Princess Leia, interminably.

Leia supposed she’d leave the intelligence division. The opportunity created by the Senate seat was what had made her such a valuable agent. She knew her strengths, and wouldn’t be challenged by those who lacked them, but she knew her weaknesses, too; she could better serve the Rebellion in almost any other capacity. Besides, her face would be instantly recognizable throughout much of the galaxy, after this. And her father had always involved her in High Command. She would just have to take up his place now.

No time for sorrows, she reminded herself. The analysis must be nearly finished. She’d check on it herself if Draven hadn’t pulled rank and ordered her to medbay after the debrief. Ridiculous, at this point. If Vader—if the Imperials had done any serious harm, she would know.

Sure enough, the fussy droids milling about her just clicked and tsked about minor nerve damage. Of course she had that. It didn’t require the tank; they fixed her up with bacta patches, and ordered her to wait half an hour for a second test.

Bored within seconds of their departure, Leia poked her head out of the door, wondering if she could make her escape. But droids stalked up and down the hall, a team of them passing in and out of the room next to Leia’s. She felt a vague curiosity about that. Maybe one of the survivors of Scarif, though she doubted many of the wounded had made it out at all.

The entrance to the medbay itself was completely obstructed, but the hall did clear enough for her to slip out. With nothing better to do, Leia wandered out to see who else rated a private room.

As she surreptitiously pushed the other patient’s door from “ajar” to “open,” Leia saw a room identical to her own, but for the man and woman sleeping in it. The woman had curled her entire body into a chair; though not tall, she still looked uncomfortable, with one of her arms about her drawn-up knees and the other supporting her head on the armrest. She might well have been better-off on the floor. The man simply slept in the bed, face turned into his pillow, away from Leia and towards the woman.

Even across the room, at a difficult angle, he reminded her of—no, not—that couldn’t—

He stirred and turned his head to peer at her. “¿Infanta?”

Cassian Andor?

Once, Leia knew Andor only as the the most orthodox and unyielding of her handlers, for all that he was also the youngest. Throughout her year of training and three in active intelligence work, her opinion of him evolved from disdain to respect for the qualities she respected in herself: efficiency, determination, dedication to the cause above any personal inclinations. But she never respected him more than when her father caught her in a hall of the base, and said Andor went rogue.

Well, it took a few moments.

“Andor?” Leia had asked, incredulous. “Captain Andor? Went over to the Empire? I don’t believe it.”

It wasn’t that she couldn’t believe it of anyone. Andor, though? No. Her instincts always led her right, and she’d never picked up anything contrary to what he seemed: a man not precisely likable, but every bit as devoted to resistance and liberation as she herself could be. She had little impression of much else, except simmering fury whenever someone mentioned stormtroopers.

“No, no, not the Empire,” said Bail, looking horrified. Naturally, given that he’d entrusted her to Andor’s oversight for months on end. But his expression immediately warmed again, the comfortable weight of his hand settling on Leia’s shoulder. “He has an informant of sorts, the daughter of an Imperial scientist, who passed on the location of the plans to the Death Star. Her father told her that he’d sabotaged the whole project.” He shook his head, even as he kept his voice low. “It’s our only hope.”

His grim face would have told her High Command’s reaction, even if her own knowledge of them hadn’t.

“The council refused to do anything, didn’t they?” By strength of will, she kept herself from grinding her teeth. “I guess we’re the only ones allowed to take risks.”

“Captain Andor seems to have shared that view,” Bail said dryly. “It looks like he gathered a strike team while the girl distracted everyone, and they slipped away almost immediately afterwards.”

Leia could never have imagined Andor defying the Alliance—but if she had, that was exactly how she would expect him to do it. She rather regretted that she hadn’t gotten here in time to join the mission herself.

“So now we’re going to do something?” she asked.

“Raddus is ordering the fleet to back them,” said Bail. “That’s where you come in, Leia.”

She brightened, so obvious that her father grinned down at her, as he’d done so many times before.

“I’m meeting up with the fleet.”

“Yes,” he said unexpectedly. “The plans are on Scarif, in the Outer Rim. It’s practically next door to Tatooine, where I need you to go.”

“Tatooine?” Leia almost laughed. ���What’s on Tatooine?”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” said Bail.

Only long practice kept her eyes from widening. Her parents had regaled her with the old stories from the time that she was old enough to keep her mouth shut about them. General Kenobi?

He went on, “It’s better if you don’t fly directly to the planet. If anyone were to realize that something specific drew you there …” A different sort of horror, deeper, shadowed him. “We can’t risk it. And now the plans have to take precedence. The Tantive IV is ready to fly you to Scarif. You’ll need to receive any transmissions from Andor’s team, find General Kenobi, and bring both to Alderaan.”

Easier said than done, but Leia didn’t hesitate.

“I’ll find a way.”

Her father’s hand tightened. Leaning down to kiss her forehead, he replied, “I know you will.”

That was the last time she saw him.

Even Andor, as far as she knew, died on that unauthorized mission. She saw the Death Star attack the station, irradiating everything for miles around. These days, the shock of that seemed … never trivial, certainly, but almost innocent. A single Imperial station! But a Rebel team fought down there, and none of them could have made it out alive. She carried the memory of the dead with her into the Death Star itself, tucked them into her mind for a different sort of fight.

Today, she carried—Force, she couldn’t think of it. But infanta rattled around her head, her chest, a piercing shard that tore at her everywhere it went. Worse than princess by far.

Leia didn’t flinch. She was the daughter of the Queen of Alderaan, and though neither Breha nor Alderaan lived, she remained her mother’s daughter. If infanta meant nothing else, it meant that. And she knew perfectly well that it would mean something else. An image to raise sympathy and force remembrance and—she felt sick. Yet she might achieve more for the Rebellion as la Infanta de Alderán than she ever could with her blaster.

The Rebellion came first, always. She’d do anything, everything. She always would, but now there was no turning back.

“Infanta,” Andor said again, more certain. Appallingly weak, he pushed himself upright with the heels of his hands, looking surprised as he did so.

Leia set aside the wave of indulgent misery and strode over to the chair on his other side.

“Capitán,” she returned. “No estás muerto.”

Andor managed to seem amused without moving a muscle. “Estoy tan sorprendido como usted.”

Too dignified to wrinkle her nose, she flung herself into the chair and let her aching body slump. Andor didn’t look much better than she felt. Maybe worse. She’d never seen him so visibly fatigued, eyes heavy and skin drawn tight and pale. Narrowly escaping a Death Star blast could probably do that to you, though. Leia wouldn’t know. She’d only been on the other end.

“You look terrible,” she said. “What did you do?”

“Many things,” said Andor, dry as usual, though in the circumstances she doubted it was anything less than the truth. At her frown, he shook his head. “I only injured my spine.”

Leia barked a short laugh. “Only your spine?”

It was utterly characteristic, and utterly asinine. Andor himself would have lectured her for hours if she’d ever said anything remotely like it. Then again, the Rebellion needed her far more than him. Intelligence had many good agents, if few equal to Andor. His loss would be a blow, but not a devastating one. However, Leia had somehow turned into an icon of the Rebellion when she wasn’t looking. Even then, before she symbolized anything in particular, before she’d achieved much of anything in particular. Before—

“I am alive,” Andor reminded her. “Not many can say the same.”

Again, Leia’s stomach turned. She crossed her arms and glanced around for something else to latch onto. Anything else.

Her gaze landed on the woman in the chair, ragged and weary. Not a Rebel. Though she wore half an Alliance uniform, it fit poorly, the oversized trousers hacked off at the ankles. And her dark leather jacket had nothing to do with any uniform. Leia was pretty sure she’d seen it before: on Andor, in the field.

Huh. She was attractive enough, but not what Leia would have supposed to be his type. Though she had no way of knowing his preferences, if he had any, this woman … well, she distinctly reminded Leia of Captain Solo. Asleep and all. The scruffy hair, battered boots, carelessly tucked shirt, mediocre blaster in plain sight, the leather jacket—it combined into a familiar picture. More familiar than Leia wanted it to be, anyway.

She found herself saying, “No sabía que tenías novia.”

“¿Qué?” Andor seemed genuinely puzzled until she nodded at the woman.

Whatever answer Leia might have anticipated, she certainly didn’t expect to see his face light up as he turned his eyes to the stranger. In four years, she’d never seen him so human.

“Ah. No es mi novia.”

Though she couldn’t have said why, she felt vaguely disappointed. “¿Tu amiga?”

Leia didn’t know he had any of those, either. Sure enough, Andor paused to consider it.

“Quizás.”

Enlightening. “Bueno, ¿quién es ella?”

“Jyn Erso,” he said proudly, as if the name should mean something to her. As if it should mean something extraordinary, at that.

If she’d said compañera, Leia suspected she might have received a different answer. Who was this woman, if not a Rebel? And how had she gotten access to the base?

Jyn woke to a cramp in her neck and legs, and low murmurs not far away. The latter must have pulled her out of sleep, but gently; her mind drifted towards consciousness, unconcerned with danger or vulnerability. Even those times when she’d slipped into Cassian’s quarters and caught a few hours of rest in an actual bed, she always jolted awake into urgency, scarcely less exhausted than before. Here, contorted into a miserable medbay chair, she felt more refreshed than in days.

Their tones quiet and careful, the unknown others continued to talk. Not completely unknown, though: she’d recognize Cassian anywhere. He definitely sounded stronger. The other, a woman, spoke in a low but smooth voice, confidence in every syllable.

In that haze between sleep and alertness, it took Jyn a few moments to realize that she didn’t understand the syllables. Odd.

“Ya veo. ¿La hija del científico?”

Cassian said, “Sí. ¿Ha oído hablar de ella?”

She held herself still, not tense, just letting mind and body pass into their proper strength. Alderaanian, Jyn thought. You couldn’t go far in the galaxy without running into it here and there, though she’d never learned. She wasn’t good with language, and Basic got her anywhere that Alderaanian would. But she remembered that Cassian spoke it, as she remembered every word on that hellish voyage from Scarif. Whatever the subject of the conversation, and whomever the other participant might be, they talked in his native language.

“—líder de nuestra misión.”

“Pensé que eras el líder,” said the woman.

He paused, then said, “Somos compañeros.”

It sounded nice, Jyn thought, opening her eyes. Maybe she would learn, someday. As for now, she took advantage of Cassian’s focus on the other woman to study him through her eyelashes.

He did look better. Sort of. Tired and pale to be sure, but his eyes were alert, his skin had recovered its usual warm tones, and most promising of all, he sat upright without the support of the bed. No signs of extraordinary discomfort.

The doctor, she thought wryly, could live.

Jyn turned her attention on the woman opposite her. To her surprise, she was young—younger than them, even. The voice had sounded older. With still-round cheeks, thin brows, wide dark eyes beneath them, and brown hair in a floppy plait over her shoulder, she looked twenty at most. And she ought to have seemed soft, forgettable; instead, something fierce and hard in her face lent as strong a presence as Mothma or Draven.

Though Jyn didn’t move a muscle beyond the twitch of her lids, she somehow caught the girl’s attention.

“Oh, she’s awake,” she said.

Cassian immediately turned to Jyn, sober manner brightening into his usual intensity. “Are you—”

“Alive,” mumbled Jyn, stirring and blinking blearily around. She dared a small yawn for effect, since it was only half-pretense anyway. She’d had a very long two weeks.

“You could have slept in my quarters,” he said, plainly unconcerned with what this unknown Rebel might think of it. “You’ve already stolen my clothes.”

Jyn rather enjoyed the girl’s raised brows. Cassian’s frown, not so much.

“I have slept in your quarters,” she told him. “I didn’t feel like it today.”

The frown only deepened.

So he didn’t remember. Not everything, anyway. She felt a touch of relief at that. A touch of bemusement, too, that he not only didn’t realize he’d wanted her to stay, but didn’t seem to realize that he wanted it.

“You should at least have been given a bunk,” said Cassian. “How long has it been since we arrived? About a week?”

“The Rebellion’s had bigger concerns,” Jyn said. “Anyway, I don’t trust these people. They tried to get you to sign things when you were drugged out of your mind.”

“Who did?” said the girl sharply.

Jyn shrugged as she unwound herself from the chair and stretched. In a moment, her back gave a satisfying crack, while the girl sprang up, scowling. Much like Cassian, she held herself straight-backed and proud, maintaining every millimeter of her full height. Unlike him, however, that full height was … well, Jyn did not often need to drop her gaze to meet someone’s eyes. But this girl had to be at least a couple of inches shorter than Jyn, her diminutive figure not helped by the white tunic and trousers hanging loosely about her body.

Before Jyn could be questioned by a tiny, teenaged stranger, Cassian interceded.

“Infanta,” he said, “this is Jyn Erso, as I told you, who led our mission and transferred the plans. Jyn, this is Princess Leia Organa, of—”

“—Rebel Intelligence,” said Princess Leia firmly, sticking her hand out over the bed. Awkwardly, Jyn reached over and shook it, since she could think of no way to refuse. But she extricated herself as soon as possible and sat back down.

There were few people in the galaxy whom Jyn felt less desire to know than Leia Organa. With deliberate effort, she relaxed her jaw.

Cassian, meanwhile, managed to look both expressionless and startled. Clearly, he hadn’t expected the interruption, or at least its contents. Of course not: as far as she could tell, he hadn’t heard.

“Intelligence? Do you work together?” Jyn asked. She neither knew nor cared, but felt ready to grasp at anything that might redirect him.

“Not directly,” said Cassian. “Not any more, that is.”

He didn’t know why Leia was here, she realized. Here at the base, not just in this private room. The latter was a mystery to Jyn, too. Another angle from Mothma?

“General Draven felt I needed someone to hold my hand at first,” Princess Leia said. As stern as Draven himself could be, she added, “Captain Andor was the lucky victim.”

“Your work is important,” he said simply.

Fuck.

“Was,” corrected Princess Leia, before Jyn could think of a new detour. “Haven’t you heard?”

Jyn tensed. Cassian seemed to notice; while he didn’t return her gave, his attention drifted her way, to go by an infinitesimal shift towards her. Only then did she realize that she’d wrapped her fingers around his wrist again, tightly enough that even her short nails bit into his skin. It must hurt, if nothing to everything they’d been through lately, and Jyn thought about releasing her grip. She didn’t want to, though, so she didn’t.

“The Emperor dissolved the Senate,” said the princess. Her face gave nothing away, nor anything else—not a blink, not a twitch. Alderaan made them tough, apparently. 

Or had.

Forgot to add notes:

1) Infanta/la Infanta de Alderán: princess/princess of Alderaan; more explanation under the notes on the fic this sprawled out of.

2) Capitán. No estás muerto: Captain. You’re not dead. (Leia is truly a miracle of warmth and charm.)

3) Estoy tan sorprendido como usted: I’m as surprised as you [formal���more on that under the parent fic, too].

4) No sabía que tenías novia: I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.

5) ¿Qué?: What?

6) Ah, no es mi novia: Ah, she isn’t my girlfriend.

7) ¿Tu amiga?: Your friend?

8) Quizás: Perhaps.

9) Bueno, ¿quién es ella?: Well, who is she?

10) compañero/a: broader in usage than English companion—it can be friend/companion, but also partner, colleague, comrade, significant other, etc. Leia realizes that Cassian does have a significant relationship with Jyn; she just phrased the question too precisely.

11) Ya veo. ¿La hija del científico?: I see. The daughter of the scientist? (When Jyn is going, well, whatever they’re talking about—they’re talking about her.)

12) Sí. ¿Ha oído hablar de ella?: Yes. Have you[formal] heard of her?

13) —líder de nuestra misión: —leader of our mission.

14) Pensé que eras el líder: I thought that you were the leader.

15) Somos compañeros: We’re partners/companions. (As Leia suspected, he does accept the more ambiguous term—and while theoretically talking about their position in the mission, he says ‘we are partners’ rather than ‘we were.’)