#also hopefully this will relieve some of the writer's block on my rom com

[callioope]

What’s a writer to do when work has a delayed opening?

Write a scene from the Rebelcaptain Anastasia AU she swore she’d never write. Oops?

“I don’t see the point of this.”

Draven closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “You’ll be introduced to Ers--to your father at the Governor’s Ball. Where there will be dancing.”

“But I don’t have to actually dance,” she insists, dropping her hands and stepping back from him. She spins away like he’s burnt, and of course he can’t blame her for that. She crosses the open space of the cargo area towards her canteen of water. “He’s a weapons scientist, not a politician. I doubt I’d run into on the dance floor. I’ll be better off finding him lurking off the side or in a corner somewhere...”

“Like me,” are the words Draven assumes she’s holding hostage on the tip of her tongue. She wants Galen Erso to be like her, she wants a thread of commonality, as if it would prove she’s actually related to him. 

This means everything to her and absolutely nothing to Draven. Galen Erso has been looking for his lost daughter for years; he has sat through countless interviews with greedy and ambitious women all vying for--who knows, the prestige and luxury of living with one of the Empire’s most esteemed scientists?

Yes, Orson Krennic is offering a large sum for any who can help find Erso’s lost daughter, but that’s not likely to go to the daughter herself. 

And it’s also not what Draven cares about.

Draven just needs Liana to achieve an audience with Galen Erso, hopefully find some intel, and--make sure Cassian gets a clear line of sight on him.

(Draven knows who he is, is well acquainted with the worst aspects of himself. It stopped bothering him a long time ago, that his job requires the usage of people like tools, that it wears them thin. He does what he has to, has no illusions that his sacrifices contradict the very ideals the rebellion is striving for. Someone has to make the choices. Someone has to make the sacrifices.)

“Yes,” Captain Andor says from his own corner, where he leans against the wall. “Hunt him down on the side of the room, interrupt a conversation, tell him you must speak with him urgently, in private--how will that go?”

Liana glares at him over her canteen, but says nothing.

Andor pushes off from the wall, comes towards her. “The dance floor is a great cover for information exchange.”

Setting the canteen aside, Liana snorts. “Sure, if I want the whole world to overhear us.”

“It will be crowded,” Andor says, holding out his arms. He twitches his fingers, indicating for her to join him. Huffing, Liana shoots Draven an exasperated look, arched eyebrows questioning, pleading. But he nods, because why not? Andor just might be the one person that frustrates Liana more than Draven himself, but there’s a reason Draven holds the captain in such high esteem.

Rolling her eyes, she acquiesces, but not before sending Draven another look--this one betrayed. 

“Crowds are noisy,” Andor continues. “But even if they weren’t...” He leans down, whispers something in her ear that Draven can’t hear.

She attempts to press her lips together before a laugh breaks out, and her exasperation melts away into surprise as she meets Andor’s eyes.

Oh no, Draven has the prescience to think. But his worry is not about whatever Andor might have said to prove Draven couldn’t hear them. Something Liana would believe would make him angry.

“Kay,” Andor says. “Play the music.”

Draven has seen Liana fight; that she’d have the talent for dancing if she just tried seemed like a foregone conclusion. Draven is right about most things.

Andor leads her across the cargo bay floor they’ve taken over, and something just clicks. She’d stepped all over his feet, she’d tried to lead, she’d come within inches of punching his face, somehow (possibly intentionally). But Andor and Liana work as a team, as one, gliding across the floor, spinning so gracefully it’s like they’ve choreographed a damn routine. 

“I calculate a sixty-three percent chance this is going to be a problem.” Looking over, Draven finds Andor’s droid has joined him at the wall, it’s face pointed towards the dancers.

The music stops, but for several seconds, the two of them keep spinning. Oh, for Force’s sake--

“The music’s stopped,” Liana says, pressing her hand into Andor’s shoulder.

Draven cannot remember how long it’s been since he’s seen the captain caught off guard.

“So it has.” He stops moving, and the two just stare at each other. 

“I feel a little light-headed,” she says.

Andor nods. “Gravity generator must be faulty,” he says.

Draven clears his throat.

Their hands separate; they step back from each other.

“I’ll go check on it, sir,” Andor says, and he disappears from the cargo bay.

“I’ll, um,” Liana looks around, “see if he needs help.”

She follows.

“Seventy-four percent chance this will be a problem,” the droid says.

Draven stares after them. “I never should have let them dance.”