Archive of Our Own

The shuttle off of Scarif was almost too late. Jyn and Cassian had come to an agreement about their deaths, unspoken though it might have been. It wasn't exactly an ideal end in Cassian's mind, but for years his friends had been sacrificing their lives and more to fight the Empire. Maybe it was just his turn now.

He was just starting to accept this when a loud, tinny voice cut through his thoughts.

"Hello, humans." Cassian winced as he looked to the direction of the noise. "I'm not here to kill you – although perhaps it would have been more amusing if I pretended that I was. Oh well."

A beaten and scuffed shuttle was hovering above them, and it took him a second to recognize the pilot, but Jyn was shaking his shoulder in disbelief. "K-2! It's K-2!"

"What? But – "

"You know, contrary to how it may seem, we do not actually have all the time in the galaxy." The droid brought the shuttle down a few meters above the ground and extended the runway. "Now get on before I realize I've made a terrible mistake."

The two of them scrambled to their feet – Cassian a tad slower than Jyn – up onto the ship, and into the cockpit. If this were a normal close-call mission, Cassian would have given K-2 a rowdy hug and made some dumb joke. But as they sped away from the planet – on the way back to Yavin 4, K-2 informed them – he found himself unable to speak. His mind was going a parsec a minute, and he probably should have been thinking about anything even remotely related to the Rebellion, but all that was running through his mind like some crazed mantra was: I can see Bix again. I can see Bix again. I can see Bix again.

Right after, he felt a hot wash of shame and guilt overcome him – because, of course, he was furious with the Empire. Because even though they'd stolen the plans for the new weapon, he knew he couldn't prevent Scarif's impending destruction. Because this was just another entry in the long list of people he couldn't save, places he couldn't protect.

"Cassian?" Jyn's quiet voice broke him out of his spiral. "You alright?"

Blinking, he turned to her. "Ah, I – yeah. Just a little shocked we managed to make it out, that's all."

She let out a small laugh. "Me too." Her smile stayed for a moment before faltering, and Cassian could see the same exhaustion, the same hanging-on-by-a-thread resilience that he'd seen in so many resistance fighters in his life. He used to see it when he looked in the mirror – he was just better at hiding it now.

"Why don't you go to the back and get some rest?" he offered. "I'll let you know when we get to Yavin."

It seemed like she was going to resist for a moment, but her shoulders slumped and she sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thanks."

As she left, Cassian crossed and sat next to K-2, wincing at the bruise on his side and what must have been at least a few broken ribs from when he fell in the data center. He looked over at the droid.

"Do you know where Bix is?"

K-2 was silent for a moment before replying, "I do."

Cassian nodded, his heart still clenched with equal parts relief and anxiety. "Is she – is she okay?"

"She's fine, Cassian."

His eyes closed and his head fell back against the headrest. "Oh," he sighed. "Oh, that's… that's great, K-2. Thanks."

"I expect there is a not insignificant probability that she will be quite happy to know you're alright, too."

Cassian let himself smile a bit, but he ran a hand over his brow. "I hope so."

They didn't say anything else for the rest of the trip, but Cassian held onto K-2's words, and when he let his eyes close, just for a moment, there were no visions of massacres or the mangled corpses of his loved ones. His mother would call that progress, so he guessed he would, too.

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Their arrival at the Rebel base was a welcome reunion. The rest of their squad – and the friends they'd made on Scarif – had been rescued by a ship that had left soon after Rogue One had.

Vel was happy to see him again, in her way. Mon greeted them with a warmer-than-usual handshake, grateful that they'd gotten the weapon plans out in time. Cassian was genuinely happy to see them again, really, he was – but the only person he wanted to talk about any of this with was Bix.

He waded through the throngs of people waiting to congratulate them, smiled and shook hands with countless people whose faces he didn't recognize and names he didn't know. Was she here? Had she come back? If she wasn't here, where was she?

He knew one person who could tell him.

"Hey, hey." He flagged down Erskin from a nearby conversation. "Have you seen K-2?"

"K-2?" Erskin's nose wrinkled as he looked around before nodding toward one of the doors. "Hmm… I saw him about 20 or 30 minutes ago outside talking to Kleya. Maybe he's still there? Kind of hard to miss a droid that's a few heads above the rest of us, in any case."

Cassian managed a small laugh and thanked him before heading outside. It took him a few moments of scanning the base's uneven landscape before he spotted K-2. He was talking to someone else now, but they didn't seem very interested in what he was saying, so as Cassian figured he was going to do them both a favor.

"There's my favorite rescue pilot!" Channeling Luthen, he forced a big grin and clapped the droid on his shoulder before turning to the other person. "So sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if I might borrow K-2 for a minute?"

"Oh, of course," they rushed out, smiling briefly at the droid before all but running away. Cassian did his best not to snort.

"You almost had me convinced," K-2 drawled. "I have a sneaking suspicion what it is that you want from me."

"Where is she, K-2?" He didn't care how desperate he sounded – it was nowhere close to how desperate he felt. "Please, I've just – I've got to know. Please."

K-2's expression didn't change – it never did – but Cassian could read it as well as any humanoid's. He was considering whether or not to tell him.

"K-2…" he started, but the droid interrupted him.

"Mina-Rau," K-2 said quietly. "She's on Mina-Rau."

Cassian blinked before laughing softly, looking up at the sky blanketed by the dense tree tops. "Of course she is."

He took a deep breath and cocked an eyebrow. "So? Let's go, then."

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They ended up taking a shuttle that was not technically approved for takeoff, but Cassian figured he'd gained a certain amount of leniency for striking such a significant blow against the Empire. And if not – hey, he wasn't sure he was returning to the Rebellion anytime soon anyway.

The trip wouldn't be too long, all things considered. Cassian would have napped if his heart wasn't pounding and his brain wasn't racing. Every possible outcome of seeing Bix again was running through his head at an alarming rate.

"Did you really mean it?" he asked K-2 while they were in hyperspace.

"Mean what?"

"That you think she'll be happy to see me."

"I don't think it," K-2 corrected him. "It is a statistical probability."

"Yeah, but are you just saying that to, you know… Make me feel better?"

K-2 turned and stared at him, saying nothing. Cassian's face burned and he turned back to looking out of the window.

"Right. Forgot who I was talking to."

They arrived at Mina-Rau a few hours later, and Cassian was at the bay doors almost as soon as they touched down.

"I will be waiting here for you if you might want to return," K-2 informed him, but he ignored it, all but launching himself into the high grass when the doors opened. He felt giddy, he felt sick – less than a day ago he had consigned himself to death and now here he was, standing on the same ground that Bix was. Breathing the same air. He let out a manic laugh as he ran toward the house that Bix had stayed at the last time she was living here.

It took a while, but he found it, and he nearly collapsed as he finally stopped running. He bent over, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. His lungs were burning and he was drenched in sweat, but he didn't care, he – 

"Cassian?"

He turned around so quickly that he almost fell over, and as he continued to breathe ugly, ragged breaths, there Bix was.

She was as gorgeous as ever, her freckles more pronounced and the haunted darkness beneath her eyes much lighter than the last time he saw her. Her face had filled out a bit and she was a bit tanner.

She was also holding a baby.

"Cassian, oh my god, what are you doing here? You – I thought – "

"You're here," he said before falling to his knees.

"Cassian!"

She rushed over to him, shuffling the baby to one arm as she reached the other out to him. He took her hand and couldn't suppress the hot prickle of impending tears at the contact.

"Bix, you're okay," was all he could think to say. "You're… you're okay."

She huffed out an incredulous laugh. "I'm okay? What about you? The last I heard about you was some grand mission to Scarif, and I thought… but you're here? Why are you here?"

"We did go to Scarif," he explained breathlessly. "And we did it. The mission worked. We got the plans, and we survived. And now… now I'm here."

Bix stared at him for a moment and shook her head, a small smile playing on her lips. "I should have known you'd find me. You are… something else, Cassian Andor."

He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to kiss her so badly, but – 

"So, ah," he nodded at the baby, who was bundled up so that only the top of its head poked out. "Are you watching it for someone, or…?"

Her expression shifted to something softer, almost apologetic, and she adjusted the baby so he could see its face.

"No," she said quietly. "She's yours."

Cassian's heart stopped and his throat dried, and he took a faltering step closer to look at it – at her.

She had dark hair, full lips and a defined nose. He could see so much of both of them in her face.

"Mine?" he whispered, reaching his fingers out to gently brush her hair off of her forehead.

Bix nodded. "Her name is Mar. I named her after – "

"After my mother?" The tears that had been threatening to fall were now making their way down his cheeks. "Bix, I – I didn't know – "

"I didn't want you to know." She smiled at him, and there was a tinge of regret in it. "You never would have stayed in the Rebellion if you did. They needed you – they still do."

Cassian shook his head fiercely. "No. No, not anymore. I have done my part."

"Cass – "

"Please," he said, his voice breaking. "Let me… let me be selfish. Let me have you. Let me have her."

Bix was crying too at that point, but she stepped closer and leaned her forehead against his, closing her eyes.

"Okay," she sniffed. "Okay. You can have us, Cassian. For however long we have, you can have us."

He nudged her head up and caught her lips with his, a little clumsy, a little dry, not at all the romantic reunion he was dreaming of, but so much better.

As they separated, he glanced toward the shuttle and held up a finger to Bix as he started running toward it.

"Where are you going?" she called.

"I'm telling K-2 to leave me behind," he replied over his shoulder.

As her laugh carried over the golden grass, he grinned and thought that maybe this, too, could be an act of rebellion.