Chapter Text
Mon Mothma did agree to let Jyn attend the hearing, scheduled for three days later. The med bay discharged her on the day of the hearing, and Cassian brought her a hover chair, but she stubbornly insisted on walking.
He was ready to complain, but he couldn’t help enjoy the feeling of having his arm around her again, whole and healthy. Mostly healthy.
“Where are we going?” She questioned as she leaned (more than she needed to) against Cassian’s side.
“Our room.”
“Our?” She tried to cover her shock with a teasing tone.
He looked down at her with genuine apprehension in his eyes. “I have a private bunk. Did you want to sleep in the army barracks?”
Jyn stopped and grabbed Cassian’s collar, dragging him down for a kiss. He wound his arms around her, carefully not to squeeze too tightly on her injured ribs. He tamped down alarm at how much thinner her frame felt. Her injuries, even with the time in the bacta tank, had taken a serious toll on her body. He made a note to ask her what her favorite food was and to try and acquire it. Repeatedly.
When she pulled away his hair was mussed from her fingers and his pupils were blown wide. He felt her heart hammering against his. She laughed breathlessly. “No, I don’t want to sleep in the barracks.”
Cassian had barely closed the door to his room behind him before Jyn was pressed up against him again, slipping cool fingers around his belt, tugging up the hem of his tucked shirt. She found skin and shivered, dragging fingers through the dark trail of hair from belly button to the base of his cock. He inhaled sharply. All the thoughts he had about patiently working his way through her clothing layer by layer disappeared with Jyn’s insistent hands. He deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue into her mouth, sucking and biting at her bottom lip, relishing the way it made her eyelids flutter and her back arch beneath his hands.
She shimmied out of the rest of her clothes with some help, trying not to flinch when his hands skimmed her healing burns. Her scars. He pushed her gently back into his bed and she leaned on her elbows.
Naked, cheeks rosy, lips stained a bitten pink, she gazed at him from beneath half-lidded eyes. He felt dizzy with the rush of having her, here, like this. She pulled one foot onto the bed, bending her knee with the slightest arch of an eyebrow, spreading her slit open to him. His heartbeat was deafening as he drew closer, hovering over her hips, pushing between her legs. He kissed her, butterfly light, barely touching, again and again. She tipped her head back and he moved down her jaw to her neck, over her full, round breasts, kneading their softness while his lips dipped to the curve of her hip. He wanted to taste her.
He lapped around her folds, teasing and sucking at the hot, throbbing skin. She squirmed, her hips tilting to meet his touch. He flicked the tip of his tongue to her clit, eliciting a gratifying gasp from her. He pressed deeper, gliding around in circles with a pressure that was almost too light. Every sweep of his tongue sent heat shooting through her, fanning the need growing in her middle. He reached a hand up to cup her breast, rolling a hard pink nipple between his fingers as the circles he drew grew faster. Jyn keened and he looked up at her, expecting her neck to be curved back as she lost herself in the waves of indulgent pleasure. But she was looking at him, lips parted, breaths fast and short. Her fingernails dug into the covers of his bed. Her eyes thrilled him, their banded hues the closest to a fully sepia shade in the dim lighting. She didn’t look away, her lips curling in the suggestion of a delighted smile as she watched him lick her, tongue sucking at her clit. They challenged him on, demanded more. He slipped his tongue into her hot cunt and she gasped, her whole body shuddering.
“Cassian,” she cried out, collapsing back as he resumed his circles, her words melting into moans as he pushed her over the edge of ecstasy.
His lips found hers again, his mouth and chin wet with her own desire. He rolled her gently onto her good side, curling his body around hers, running a reverent hand down her neck. When he reached the top of her healing burns, she flinched, inhaling in a way that stung him. “Does that hurt?”
She shifted to look back at him. “No. But my skin is all ruined.”
He could understand why she might feel that way about her newly acquired scars. She had several more soaks in a bacta tank ahead of her, but even after that, most of the ripples and ridges along her side would never fade. Especially the circles from the acid burns along her arm. She would carry those forever. The Empire’s mark on her very body. It made Jyn furious, even sick. Her stomach turned. But Cassian was drawing a finger along the outside of her burns like tracing paper.
“Not ruined. Proof of all your strength, turned inside out.” He brushed a fingertip along each circle. Jyn willed herself to accept the touch, closing her eyes. His hands feathered over every ridge, every divot, every suture where torn flesh had met again. Much of her burns were healing completely, leaving behind new, pink skin. Fresh and untouched. Cassian lingered over these parts too, until Jyn was once again arching into him, her moans asking for more.
She ground the curve of her ass into his pulsing erection, forcing groans from him with every twist of her hips. He’d never wanted anyone so much. There had been other people in his past, men and women he remembered wanting. But he’d never experienced a wanting like this. They were tiny candle flames held next to the sun. Barely a memory.
He slipped a hand between her thighs, damp with her wanting, lifted her hips, and guided his cock inside her. They exhaled together as he plunged into her. Cassian nibbled along her neck as he wrapped hands around her breasts and began to gently rock his hips. She reached back with her arm, sinking her fingers into the dimpled muscles of his lower back, urging him tighter, closer. The muscles rippled under her fingers with every pulse inside her body.
Jyn had been with a few other men before, but it was always empty. Two anonymous bodies, grabbing at each other in a dark place, searching for a moment of forgetfulness. The loneliness came back too quickly and they would part ways, avoiding the other’s eyes.
Cassian was with her in every way. Inside her, penetrating into her core. His smell was on her skin and his taste was in her mouth, and his hands were on her body. She wanted to see him, all of him.
She pulled away, twisting in his arms before he could ask, and hooked a leg over his hips, pulling herself astride. He glided back into her and she leaned onto his chest, circling her hips until they were both gasping. He could tell she was tiring, and her burned leg felt stiff. He settled hands around her hips, letting her lean against his strength while he rocked, thrusting in and out. She nestled her face in the curve between his neck and shoulder, whispering into his ear in her honeyed voice. “You feel so good.” She nibbled at a soft ear lobe and he moaned, the sound hot and strong next to her face. “I love having you inside me,” she purred, grinding her hips to find more friction between them. He moaned again, whispering her name. “And I love feeling you come inside me,” she murmured. Cassian gasped, his whole body shuddering and curling around hers. She ever so slightly pulsed her hips as he spurted into her. He rested a hand on her back, chest heaving. She settled around him, enjoying the warmth of his still shaking body and the feeling of him resting inside her, completed.
He kissed her, wide and hard and desperately. They crawled under the covers and she tucked herself against his side, gently entwining their legs together. “How long do we have?” She asked, a sleepy trace to her voice.
Cassian looked at the chrono, the first thing he’d put in his room on Hoth. “Two hours and 14 minutes.”
She murmured incomprehensibly, eyes fluttering shut.
He pressed soft kisses along her hairline. “Sleep, mi estrella.”
But Jyn was already descending into blissful unconsciousness, Cassian’s ariose voice following into her dreams.
They walked quietly to the hearing, Cassian’s arm looped around her waist once again. Jyn could feel Cassian’s worry in his silence and the slight downward pull of his mouth. She suspected he’d never been in this kind of trouble before.
They shuffled into the hearing room and Cassian helped her settle into a chair. He took his place in the center of the room behind a circular table Jyn felt must have been chosen purposefully for the intimidation of its design. Set into a dais that was instead sunken into the floor instead of raised, Cassian and the others would have to look up at the ring of the council members at the hearing. Jyn leaned as far forward in her seat as possible to get Cassian in full view.
Iaan slipped into the room and took the seat next to her so quietly that Jyn barely noticed, jumping when he seemingly appeared beside her. The vague worry that always covered his face was full-blown anxiety; he gripped the edge of his chair, tapping uneven rhythms into the metal. Despite his unease, Jyn was relieved Mon Mothma allowed him to the hearing. Even after several weeks, he seemed a little like a lost puppy, moving uncertainly through his new routine in the med bay, always looking around with a slightly dazed expression like he wasn’t sure how he got there or what he was supposed to do next. The only time Jyn had seen him relaxed was when he was busy with a patient, or surrounded by their team. The wrinkles in his dark skin smoothed out, replaced by different lines - of concentration and competence. Of belonging.
Their. Our. Us. Jyn repeated the words in her head, realizing how quickly she had come to think of Cassian, Iaan, Helix, Kali, and even Rookie as an us. It could all be undone today. She berated herself for getting so attached – in what universe would their ragtag team be allowed to continue working together? A quiet panic stirred in her stomach, a feeling she thought she’d steeled herself against so long ago. Past-Jyn, of even a month ago, would have laughed in her face – a bitter, derisive noise. Attachment was a weakness, it only led to heartbreak. But she didn’t really believe that anymore.
She saw Senator Jebel approaching behind several officers, and her face darkened. As soon as his face appeared at the door, Mon Mothma stepped in front of him, motioning for him to move outside. He moved barely a step back and gave her a stony glare.
“What are you doing here Senator Jebel?”
“I’m here for the hearing.”
“This is a military matter. And this is not an open hearing.”
He jabbed a finger in Jyn’s. “You let her inside,” he said, his words approaching a whine.
Jyn couldn’t see Mon’s face but she saw the way her shoulders squared with the hardness of ice under her white robes. “This matter directly concerns her.”
“This is outrageous,” the Senator blustered. “Any Senator should have access to military hearings.”
“That’s not how the chain of command works and you know it. Or do you need a reminder of who is in charge of the Rebel Alliance?” Mon Mothma’s voice took on a steel-cold edge, her words like quick slices of a blade. His face reddened with every second but he left, throwing a murderous glare over his shoulder at Jyn.
She saw Iaan surreptitiously watching the exchange.
“My biggest fan,” Jyn snorted. One edge of Iaan’s mouth twitched up.
“Some people, especially those who have been with a cause for a long time, don’t like change. They can’t accept that the world they know, the world they’re comfortable with, is growing into a new creature.”
From the distant depths of his bright grey eyes, she saw memories churning. She wondered if his words applied to both their lives. She crossed her arms. “I don’t know why he picked me to channel all his anger at.”
Iaan tilted his head. “From what I hear, your arrival changed everything. The Alliance isn’t the same.”
Jyn quieted, studying the movements of the quickly crowding room while Iaan’s words soaked in. She didn’t feel like someone who’d changed the course of the Rebel cause. That kind of title belonged to someone more noble, someone without a dark past crisscrossed with scars.
Mon called the hearing to order with only a slow look around the room. A hush fell immediately as her gaze passed over them.
“We are here today to discuss the actions of the four sitting before you during their time on Hoth immediately following the order for retreat after the battle with Imperial forces. Captain Cassian Jeron Andor, please step forward.”
One by one, they recounted the mission from start to finish - everything that happened, what was said, what they did. Jyn had never been to any kind of procedural hearing, but before long the nervous tightness in the pit of her stomach shifted to numbed boredom as the council sifted through technical information such as time-stamped transmissions and flight logs.
Jyn shook herself out of her fog when Mon Mothma called the hearing committee into a closed deliberation. They seemed to take the air with them as they moved into a separate room, the click of the door closing behind them echoing in the now silent room. Very few people left their seats. Kali studied the floor with a white-knuckled grip over the edge of her chair. Helix’s legs jittered, shaking the table, until Kali’s foot shot out with a light kick to his shin. He glared at her, but his gaze held no rancor and she attempted a comforting smile back at him. Rookie shifted his arm across the back of Kali’s chair. Jyn waited for Kali to snap at him, but to her surprise, she let out a deep sigh and leaned back against his arm without so much as a sidewise look at him. Jyn’s eyes shot to Cassian. His lips barely moved in the suggestion of a smirk as he watched their exchange, before turning back to Jyn. They shared an amused look. Jyn supposed she wasn’t that surprised, she thought, as she fell headfirst into Cassian’s warm eyes. Enemies turning to lovers? It was almost predictable. Cassian’s gaze traveled thoughtfully along Jyn’s face as if he shared her thoughts.
The door creaked open and everyone straightened in their seats, heads whipping to watch Mon Mothma and the committee return to the room. Mon barely waited for them to sit before giving the verdict.
“This special hearing committee unanimously finds Captain Cassian Andor, Kali Ganga, Helix Adryn, and Marcin “Rookie” Hart, guilty of insubordination and disobeying direct orders from Alliance High Command.”
Mon sighed. “That said, I do not think the regular punishment for these wrongdoings would help the Alliance or any of you. We want to help our cause, not hinder it. You accomplished some impressive feats. Untested as a team, thrown together by circumstance, you performed admirably under battle.” Commander Pististio nodded towards them with a pleased look on his face.
“You broke into a base occupied by the enemy, helped rescue a severely injured team member, inflicted significant damage on the enemy.” Mon’s eyes flickered upwards, where scorch marks from the fire Iaan and Jyn created still decorated the ceiling and walls. “You managed to escape with everyone involved and brought back a new recruit on top of it. I would call that an excellent day’s work. Therefore, by special action of the committee, we’ve decided to channel your energies into a more productive venue.”
Murmurs rippled throughout the room. Jyn looked at Cassian, wide-eyed. He seemed as perplexed as she, although no one would know it by looking at him. The barest flick of one eyebrow on an otherwise neutral face gave him away to her.
“We’ve decided to create a task force within Special Operations for the six of you, should you all decide to join.”
Helix’s hand hesitantly went up. Mon fought a smile. “Yes, Mr. Adryn.”
“Can we keep our call sign?”
“Star Scout Six? It’s rather fitting. I don’t see why not.”
“No one has agreed to join this team yet,” Kali remarked, voice dry as always, eyes narrowed to arrow points. “Who would lead? Who would we answer to?”
“Captain Andor and First Lieutenant Erso would equally share responsibility for the team. They would answer directly to High Command.”
Jyn’s mouth parted and Iaan grinned at her. Apparently she had been promoted and no one had bothered to tell her. Mon looked Jyn’s way with a smile in her eyes.
Rookie spoke up. “Would I stop flying with my starfighter squad?”
“Only when you are engaged in a mission.”
Cassian broke eye contact with Jyn to ask Mon a single question. “Why?”
She regarded him thoughtfully. “The Rebel Alliance has moved to a new stage. Scarif changed things. The battle at Yavin changed things. We started a war. A true war. While we can no longer be a clandestine organization always sneaking around beneath the nose of the Empire, the era of the spy, the sabeteur, and the assassin are not over.”
The edges of Cassian’s mouth hardened at her words and his gaze dropped to the floor.
“We will ask you to be all those things, and more. But we ask you to do them together. I will no longer ask one individual to commit our darkest deeds and then carry it with them, alone.”
Cassian’s eyes rose again, shining softly. Jyn watched him with held breath.
“And more?” Kali questioned, the hard edge in her voice gone. “What’s ‘and more?’”
“Overseeing emergency relief to areas left in tatters by the Empire. Becoming the catalyst in a zone ready to explode into rebellion against the Empire. Rescue missions. Disrupting covert Imperial projects. Whatever we need. You’re a diverse group. You’ve proved capable of being resourceful and working harmoniously with no previous experience together.”
Helix glanced sidewise at Rookie, who was staring at Kali with a furrowed brow. Kali was chewing her lip and missed both of their expressions. “Harmonious” wasn’t exactly the word she would pick to describe them, but she wasn’t about to correct Mon Mothma.
Kali questioned again. “So are we a Mission Group or a Special Ops Team?”
“Neither,” Mon answered succinctly. “You will be something new, something that falls between the carefully controlled Mission Groups and the chaotic force of a Special Ops Team.”
“Not spooks and not specters,” Rookie murmured to Kali with a smirk.
“Poltergeists?” Kali responded slyly.
Iaan gently cleared his throat. All eyes swung to him and he froze, petrified. Jyn laid an encouraging hand on his arm. “We don’t really fit in that scout ship.”
One side of Mon’s mouth quirked up. “We’ll look into exchanging your ship for one more fitting to your new roles.”
Helix, Kali, and Rookie looked to Cassian. Cassian looked at Jyn. She gave him one deliberate nod.
Cassian’s voice rang out, clear and steady. “We fight.”
Helix whooped, jumping to his feet. He threw his arms around Mon Mothma, who rocked on her heels in shock before patting his back with an amused smile. Iaan practically lifted Jyn off the ground as he helped her to the rest of the group. Cassian was at her side in an instant, his arms around her waist. He didn’t say anything as he pressed his face into her neck and he didn’t need to. Jyn’s chest felt like it would expand until it burst. The rest gathered around them with shining faces. Jyn grinned at them all and then looked over Helix’s shoulder at Mon.
“So what’s our first mission?”