#okay also inspired by my interest in how uncompromising ideologically cassian is

[anghraine]

“the sea that divides us” - fic

I meant to write this one through RO (well, to the point where they escape, obviously) and not post until I got there, but... *shrug*

fandom: Star Wars

characters: Baze Malbus; Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor (as Cassia), Kaytoo, Chirrut Îmwe; Jyn/Cassian (pining), Baze/Chirrut (grumpy marrieds)

verse: the queer Rogue One AU, of course, featuring f!Cassian :D

length: 2860 words

stuff that happens: Baze and Chirrut both love Jyn from the start. It’s Baze, though, who likes Cassia. After Eadu, that’s a problem.

This was driven about equally by a) the anon who first asked me about f!Cassian, ty, b) everyone who has enabled me along the way, c) the great fics I’ve gobbled up in the last couple of weeks, particularly @brynnmclean​’s and @incognitajones​’s, d) my interest in the different ways that Baze and Chirrut relate to Cassian and being generally charmed by You Are My People Now murderdad Baze, e) my firm opinion that some transition must have taken place between Jyn and Cassian’s fight and their arrival on Yavin as partners, and f) asthma trouble, because this AU is my happiest of happy places :D

THANK YOU ALL. Except the asthma.

“Does he look like a killer?”

“No. He has the face of a friend.”

If asked, Baze could not have explained what he saw in Cassia Andor’s face. It was sharp, hard, unsmiling, her gaze alternately suspicious or vacant. Not friendly by any stretch of the imagination. Nor was she friendly; at best, she snapped out commands without pausing to question whether they would be followed.

The face was attractive, but that had never been something to sway him. Certainly not in a woman. Her half-shy, wholly charmed looks at Jyn went further, snuck throughout the long week to Eadu.

Within those few days, he cared about Jyn as much as he had anyone but Chirrut. Baze made quick judgments and lived by them, and his snap judgment of Jyn was of a quiet firebrand fighting to survive without losing herself. He couldn’t have seen more of himself in her had she been his sister by blood; in Jyn’s circumstances, he would have been—Jyn. But in his own, he had Chirrut, and she had no one. Without thinking too much about it, he found himself sticking near her in silent solidarity.

Not quite as much as the captain did, however. The two girls constantly hovered together, amorphously concerned and not appearing to much notice.

(“Women,” Chirrut corrected, and Baze scoffed in the face of his evident amusement.

“Children, the lot of them.”)

From his supportive lurk, he couldn’t have missed Cassia’s stolen glances had he tried. He wasn’t sure how Jyn managed it, in fact. But in fairness, Cassia—who rarely missed anything—seemed no less oblivious to Jyn’s stares.

(“We’re watching a farce,” he grumbled.

“I’m not watching anything,” said Chirrut.)

Then, they reached the Imperial facility on Eadu, and … well. That happened. Baze sided with Jyn as far as he did anyone; she wasn’t right, exactly, but he remembered the bodies of the Temple’s dead too well to blame her. Cassia could spare some modicum of forgiveness for a woman she had exploited, a woman whose father had just died in her arms. Still, it didn’t alter his opinion of Cassia, either. He also remembered those last years as a Guardian, clinging to unbending faith under the grip of the Empire. That kind of conviction was not a forgiving thing, and it burned at both ends.

Captain Andor had not burned up yet, but she was well on her way. Baze knew the signs; he’d been there, and found only Chirrut on the other side. Cassia would find what? The droid? More than Jyn had, to be sure—except Jyn had herself, stubbornly whole. Cassia, cool and clear-headed, seemed to exist entirely in fragments.

“The face of a friend, eh?” Chirrut asked that night, because he always had to have the last word.

Baze thought of just agreeing—he was tired, long day, they only had three to the Rebellion, which he did not recall volunteering for—but his soul revolted.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “You’re the one who said she carts a prison with her.”

Chirrut sobered. “She does. I’m sorry for her. But this woman is more dangerous for that, not less. It doesn’t make her a friend.”

“She’s a nice girl,” insisted Baze, halfheartedly pretending that most of his attention lay with unwrapping his repeater cannon. He had space for it. On both ships, Cassia had consigned them to the one set of full quarters available—unnecessarily, but he wasn’t about to give it up to any of these twenty-something children. “They both are, underneath.”

“Far underneath,” Chirrut said. True enough. “The captain, anyway. That nice girl just about put a blaster bolt through an innocent man’s head.”

“So have I,” said Baze.

To his immense satisfaction, his husband had no answer to that. Baze, who could not care less about Galen Erso in himself, undressed and crawled into bed in an excellent mood. He closed his eyes, vaguely soothed by the clatter of Chirrut’s staff and the rustle of his robes as he tossed them aside. He’d always been incurably careless.

Baze was just drifting off when Chirrut spoke again.

“I hope you’re right.”

Longing for sleep, he grunted. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“They have choices waiting for them at the Rebel base, both of them.”

“Probably,” said Baze.

“Choices that could change the galaxy.”

He opened his eyes just so he could roll them. “Uh-huh. Go to sleep.”

All right, he didn’t believe Chirrut’s nonsense. Awake, though, he knew only too well that this Death Star business was galaxy-changing. They had to bring that thing down. For Jyn, that meant playing nice with the Alliance, and for Cassia, backing her up. He certainly didn’t pretend that his or Chirrut’s word would go far, much less an Imperial pilot’s. And the droid would tear out its own wiring if Cassia told it to.

Choices, after a fashion. It didn’t require any Force delusion to see that. And both seemed somewhat uncertain prospects at the moment. Jyn and Cassia spent the two days after their fight sulking on opposite ends of the shuttle.

Not that they said so. Jyn sat in the quiet, meditating with her crystal. Cassia talked over hyperspace lanes with Bodhi and K-2SO, and calculated coordinates.

Sulking.

Chirrut mumbled some absurdity about them finding their own paths in their own ways. But nobody had time for that. Baze stalked around the shuttle, never eager for conversation, less eager for whichever one somebody needed to have with their fearless leaders. When he ran into Cassia’s droid, it was almost a relief.

“Baze Malbus,” K-2SO intoned. “You have walked the same route seven times in the last hour.”

Baze didn’t bother responding.

With a distinct note of irritation, it added, “Is this merely a pointless waste of time and energy, or do you expect to achieve something by it? I can tell you that the odds—”

Ignoring this, he said abruptly, “Can you tell me the odds of the captain apologizing?”

Its eyes flashed, recalibrating. “That depends on more factors than you could contemplate.”

“And?”

“Without additional input, nineteen percent in generic circumstances. That number does not incorporate data relating to espionage activities. I assumed you only referred to her present role.”

“That’s right,” Baze allowed.

“Of course.”

“And how likely is an apology to Jyn?”

The droid managed to infuse deep indignation into the slight shift of its head. “What for?”

Baze and K-2SO stared at each other for long seconds. Finally acknowledging that he was unlikely to outwait a droid, Baze said,

“Galen Erso’s death.”

“Cassia did not end his life,” said K-2SO. “In violation of a directive from the acting head of Rebel Intelligence, I might add. If Jyn Erso cannot grasp that fact, it is her failure, not Cassia’s. I rate the chance of the captain apologizing at four percent.”

“That’s your analysis? Or a hunch?”

“I am a strategic analysis droid,” K-2SO snapped, its usual slouch straightening up. “I do not have hunches. Not that you deserve the details, but three percent is the margin of error I allowed for unknown variables. The raw probability is one percent. Rounded up.”

Baze eyed it skeptically.

The droid said, “Apologies indicate regret.”

“The captain likes what she does?” From what he’d seen of her, he found that extremely unlikely. Even Chirrut knew better—well, particularly Chirrut.

“It seems that your ears are decaying with your brain cells,” said K-2SO. “I did not say that. She intensely dislikes our work. But she does not regret doing anything that furthers the aims of the Rebellion. She certainly does not think she should waste our valuable time and power sources on useless guilt.” Unnecessarily, it added, “And neither do I.”

“Surprise,” Baze muttered. “So how, exactly, was Erso’s death going to further the aims of the Rebellion?”

K-2SO paused. “It wasn’t. That’s why she didn’t do it.”

And Jyn had nothing to do with it. Sure. But he didn’t feel the need to hear Jyn or himself insulted by a hunk of metal and grease, so he only replied,

“You’re telling me that she’s got nothing in that prison of hers that wasn’t for the Rebellion?”

“I don’t know what you mean by prison,” said the droid, primly. “The Empire has never caught us. But she does not do anything that isn’t for the Rebellion.”

“Never?” asked Baze, out of purely disinterested motives that had nothing to do with another young woman on the shuttle. He cleared his throat. “She doesn’t watch out for anyone unless they’re useful?”

The droid tilted its head. “Why would she?”

“Then nobody’s going to be watching out for her when she isn’t,” he said.

It managed to draw itself up into further heights of indignation. “Cassia is always useful. And she has me. I am superior to any collection of organic matter.” Muttering to itself, K-2SO swivelled and stalked off.

A jealous droid. Wonderful.

Unfortunately, Baze suspected that its judgment of their captain could be trusted. Jyn, the injured party, had a much better chance of hearing good sense.

Hearing was perhaps an overstatement. He wandered to her end of the shuttle, and stationed himself in her general vicinity. Neither said anything for a good ten minutes, though the stiff line of Jyn’s shoulders relaxed. A little.

“He must have had all sorts of information,” she said at last.

Baze eyed her from his corner. “Eh?”

“My father,” said Jyn, quite conversationally. “Imagine all the things he could have passed onto the Rebellion. Do you suppose she ever thought of that?”

“Perhaps,” he replied. The Force couldn’t be real. If it were, surely he would not be having this conversation. “Maybe it’s why she didn’t take the shot.”

Jyn’s eyes settled on him, hard and focused. “Did she send you?”

“No,” said Baze. Then he scowled. “No one sends me anywhere.”

Though she remained impenetrably grave, the wariness in her face faded. “Someone should let Chirrut know.”

Baze snorted.

They fell silent again, more comfortable with quiet companionship than speech. Beyond that, no sure approach came to Baze’s mind. Another few minutes passed before either roused themselves to speech.

“So you believe her?” Jyn asked.

“Yes,” said Baze. He would have left it at that, would very much have liked to leave it at that, but at Jyn’s ambivalent scowl, forced himself on. “I’ve seen the captain upset before, in Gerrera’s cell. But she kept a cool head.” Until she realized Jyn might get crushed to death, anyway. “She didn’t at Eadu. She was angry, unreasonable. Something shook her.”

Jyn exhaled. Tucking the crystal away, she said, “I suppose so. It could have been what happened, though. It was chaos down there.”

“She’s an assassin, Jyn,” said Baze, as kindly as he knew how. “For a cause, but—a Rebel spy. For decades, if we can trust her that far.”

Her mouth twisted. “So what’s one more dead Imperial to her?”

“I didn’t say that,” he replied, though … yes. Pretty much. “Back in our cell, she told us that she’d never been in one before. If that’s true, she’s good at what she does. Very good. A raid on an Imperial facility wouldn’t rattle her. But she was rattled.”

“Orders,” muttered Jyn. “That’s what she said.” She sounded unimpressed, but not as uncompromising as before.

Maybe.

“She’s a good soldier girl,” Baze agreed dryly. It was true enough, though; Cassia seemed to receive and deliver orders with equal intention of seeing them obeyed. “I don’t imagine they’d keep her in the field if she weren’t.”

Jyn flinched. But she said in her usual firm tone, “No place for rebels in the Rebellion?”

“They keep their secrets close, everyone knows that.” He folded his arms, knowing he stood on shaky ground and disliking it. “Their spies know enough to carry out orders, and I’d bet not a drop more, unless they run over it themselves. Rogue pilots, maybe. Rogue spies, no.”

“Cassia knew more,” she insisted. “She was the one with the intel this time.”

Baze, following his instincts, kept his mouth shut.

“If that’s why she didn’t shoot—” Jyn paused, hands and lips compressed.

He didn’t risk a direct answer. “For what it’s worth, the droid’s opinion is that she decided your father’s death wouldn’t help the Rebellion.”

Jyn, given the opportunity to deflect onto K-2SO’s many failings, ignored it. She stared up at him with pale cheeks and wide green eyes, looking impossibly young.

“That would mean that Cassia believed me. Believed that Father didn’t deserve to die. She didn’t … she … ”

“Captain Andor is the only one who can answer that,” said Baze.

Jyn didn’t seem to hear. “If she trusts me, then—they’ll listen if she backs me up. Her commanding officer’s a general and the leader of the Rebellion introduced her to me. We have to get those plans.”

With some skepticism, Baze listened to the exact conclusion he’d hoped she would reach. “True.”

“And …”

Jyn seemed content to let the sentence trail into the infinity of space. He cleared his throat.

“And?”

Colour flooded her cheeks. She tilted her chin up, hope and determination hardening over her face.

“Trust goes both ways.”

Baze had the good sense to leave Jyn to her epiphany. Considerably more doubtful about Cassia’s end of the business, he arrived in the cockpit to find Bodhi gone and Chirrut perched in the co-pilot’s seat, amidst various switches and signals and technological paraphernalia. He looked both ridiculous and smug, and Cassia more haunted than usual.

“What did you do to the pilot?”

“Nothing,” said Chirrut virtuously. “The poor man fell asleep.”

Cassia lifted her gaze to Baze. “Bodhi just about collapsed once he had nothing more to do. He’s had a long few weeks.”

“One way of putting it,” muttered Baze.

“I know these routes, anyway,” she went on, “so I can manage well enough from here.”

Remembering their escape from the Death Star’s destruction, he said, “Right. Where’d you stash him?”

“The captain carried him to a bunk,” said Chirrut. He tapped his staff against the floor, the familiar rhythm both irritating and soothing. “I didn’t see it.”

Baze rolled his eyes. Chirrut aside, he couldn’t envision it. Bodhi Rook might not be a large man, but neither was Cassia Andor a large woman. At most, she stood at the tallish end of average, a good few inches shorter than Baze. He suspected she’d lost muscle mass lately—all her regulation clothes hung on her—but her frame would never have been anything but narrow.

“Carried?”

“He was still conscious,” Cassia said. “More or less. I helped him.”

Unperturbed, Chirrut smiled. “The captain is stronger than she seems.”

Cassia slanted him a wary glance. Since Baze would have felt exactly the same in her position, and often did in his own, he let it pass.

Behind him, the door to the cockpit slid open. He half-expected the pilot had already woken, but no: it was Jyn. Good, he thought.

Maybe good.

Jyn slouched into the chamber. She didn’t seem to have thought beyond that; for one long and intensely uncomfortable moment, she and Cassia just stared at each other.

“Any news?” she said.

“No,” said Cassia, her gaze not so much as twitching from Jyn. She wet her lip. “There won’t be, barring a disaster.”

“Good, then.” Utterly stoic, Jyn folded her arms. “Nothing from the Force either, Chirrut?”

The Force doesn’t work that way, Baze almost said, but closed his mouth on it. It wouldn’t work that way if it were real, which it wasn’t.

“No,” Chirrut said. With a tap of his staff, he rose to his feet, while choices that could change the galaxy ran through Baze’s head. Chirrut had his own concept of truth. “Thank you for your time, captain. I enjoyed our conversation.”

“I’m delighted,” said Cassia. If Baze had ever heard a drier tone, nothing came to mind.

Chirrut beamed in her direction nevertheless, nodded in Jyn’s, and headed to the door. Without a word, Baze trailed after him, only pausing once to glance back.

Jyn had flung herself into the co-pilot’s seat, the rigid set of her shoulders just visible from the angle of the chair. Cassia remained in her own seat, her body stiffly upright, and the entirety of it tilted towards Jyn.

The girls might be all right, after all.

“You enjoyed your conversation with the captain,” Baze said, once they accumulated a good distance from the cockpit. They’d never lost money underestimating Imperial craftsmanship.

Chirrut, graceful as ever, seated himself on the nearest bench.

“We had a nice talk.”

“I thought you didn’t like her,” said Baze.

“I never said that.” Chirrut leaned his head against the wall of the shuttle and smiled. Of course he did.

With nothing better to do, Baze sunk onto the bench beside him. It occurred to him that Bodhi was asleep somewhere, Jyn and Cassia busy brooding at each other in the cockpit, the droid off doing whatever it was it did. There was nobody here to draw conclusions or scent vulnerability. Not that Jyn and Cassia … well, they’d see about Jyn and Cassia. If they lived long enough.

Very casually, he slung his arm about Chirrut’s shoulders.

“You’re an old fool,” he said gruffly.

Chirrut, not bothering with subtlety, leaned against him. “You should know.”