Stepping into the casino was a little bit like coming home, Jyn thought, the sounds and lights a soothing return to normalcy after a long time spent back at HQ. As well as she liked stalking Q-short-for-Quartermaster-but-call-me-Cassian’s many and varied labs, testing sites, and training grounds, she liked this just as much. There were only so many times she could be impressed by the creativity with which he stuffed bombs into innocuous items before it got a little old, she supposed.
Maybe if he failed every once in a while, it would still be interesting. But he never did. Unlike Jyn. Who, it turned out, could fail quite spectacularly when she put her mind to it.
Or fall anyway. She was certainly good at that. Just thinking the word made her whole right side throb in remembrance. Her skin still itched even, sensitive due to maybe one too many rapid regeneration treatments and a healthier dose of bacta than was strictly recommended by competent doctors.
But she was back. All the misuse and misapplication of HQ’s finest healers and healing supplies was worth it just for this. Taking down a couple of Black Sun recruiters? Jyn called that a good day.
And so, she decided, she’d celebrate.
Prematurely.
At the nearest bar. Which just so happened to be her intended destination anyway.
Lucky, that. She was nothing if not pleasingly efficient.
And she might never have been to this particular gambling house before, but that didn’t stop her from nosing out the correct target with unflinching accuracy, her feet carrying her almost of their own volition. Toward the back, near the gaming tables. A steady stream of people going to and coming from. Always.
A host passed, liquor-laden tray in hand, a smile on her face, a frank expression of interest in keen eyes—the sort that promised all of Jyn’s favorite activities and more. Smiling back, Jyn memorized her features and contemplated how she might find her way back to this section of the casino floor at the end of this and…
Son of a bantha—
It couldn’t be. Not him.
“Remember you have a job to do,” Cassian said, his voice a not unpleasant distraction in her ear, warm and steady and maybe a little disapproving, always aware of her propensity for trouble and people. But a distraction it was. So it had to go.
“Yeah.” She picked up her stride, wound through a handful of tourists. The woman with the pretty smile was instantly dismissed from her thoughts. Unfortunate, that. But desperate times… “That’ll have to wait, I think.” Or, more likely, this and the job were one and the same. And wouldn’t that be something? After everything she’d done for him.
“No,” Cassian replied, quick to figure her out—or figure something out—but not quick enough to do anything about it. “Erso, don’t—”
“Sorry, old friend,” she said, upbeat as she tore the comm from her ear. Tossing it to the floor, she ground it into the carpet beneath her feet. Luckily, her quarry was tall enough that the time it took her to ensure HQ’s technology was thoroughly destroyed didn’t disadvantage the tracking of him. He strode across the casino, unaware, the top of his head visible above a row of slot machines as he headed toward the same place she’d wanted to end up anyway. Another stroke of luck. By the time she got there, she’d definitely need a drink.
Picking up her own pace, she plucked her tracker from her dress, too, grateful M hadn’t seen fit to have one implanted on her while she was undergoing one of the many surgeries she’d needed to ensure she’d be allowed back in the field. If anyone would, it was him.
By the time she caught up to him, he was already leaning toward the bartender, the line of his back rigid even so, one black-gloved hand pressed against the bar top. Squeezing past a Twi’lek with no time in the galaxy for Jyn, she knocked her knuckles against the thick, waxed wood counter, a rarity even for a high-end casino like this one. “Excuse me,” she said, flashing her brightest grin in a bid to distract the bartender from taking a drink order from EMPIRE’s former director of weapons development. It worked, because it had never not worked. “My apologies. Do you happen to have Idlewil in your stores?”
With an expert’s precision, she fished a handful of chits in the local currency from a small pouch tucked into the neckline of her dress. They didn’t look like much more than scattered, matte bronze beads against the sheen of the wood, but it made the bartender’s eyes widen and then narrow as he collected them. For a man she’d just handsomely tipped, he wasn’t very friendly.
Far more importantly, Krennic’s hand shot out to grasp her by the wrist. Not least of all because she’d planned on making a grab for him first.
He still knew her. Even after all this time. Orson kriffing Krennic.
So, of course, she ignored him. For the moment. “I was told this establishment carried the finest array of—”
“We have it,” the bartender replied, dropping the scooped up chits into a pocket on his shirt.
“Good,” she said, willing as much charm into her voice as she could manage, waggling her caught wrist in illustration. “I’d like two glasses, please. One for me and one for my friend here.”
Krennic’s hand tightened, the bones in her wrist grinding beneath his fingertips. When she risked a glance at him, all she saw was his displeasure in profile and a hint of red creeping up his neck, obvious against the high collar of his white, white jacket.
Only once the bartender left to fetch the liquor did she speak again. Leaning close, she said, “You still prefer Idlewil, yes?” She twisted her arm, gripped at his fingers in turn. Turned what should have been a quelling gesture into an embrace of sorts.
“No,” he said, snide, ripping his hand out of hers. Which, all things considered, wasn’t particularly fair. He’d started it.
“Pity.” She tsked, turning slightly to scan the casino’s clientele. Overdressed, over-exuberant people. All out to have a good time. Not Krennic’s usual type, that was for sure. “I don’t like drinking with liars.”
She felt him shift at her side, his bicep brushing hers as he moved. “That must make drinking difficult for you.”
Shrugging, she twisted toward him. “I’ve done a lot of things I don’t like. It’s not as difficult as you’d think.”
His lips thinned and lifted in a sneer. “Clearly.”
“You’ve gotten clever in your—”
He sucked in a breath and released it as the galaxy’s most put-upon sigh. Before she’d convinced him she cared about him, back when she was playing nothing more than an awkward new hire for one of his research teams, he’d once told her he was tired of her nonsense. After she’d let her mouth run a little more than a cowering underling should have, of course. Seemed that hadn’t changed in the slightest. “What are you doing here?”
Unable to help it, she pushed herself into his space, getting onto her tiptoes, her back pressing against the bar as she shimmied into the scant inches between him and it. For all the world to see, she looked like a woman having a good time with the man she was meeting. And would that that were true. Still, he didn’t flinch and he didn’t push her. “I let you off the hook once,” she said, mouth curving into a smile. Despite the grin, her words were hard. Without missing a beat, she let her eyes drift to a man standing a few feet back, his attention glued to her. She winked and, just as she’d hoped, he dropped his gaze, cheeks blazing, and pretended he hadn’t been staring to start with. She and Krennic probably did make for a strange sight. “I’m the one who should be asking that question.”
She refused to let herself get distracted by the warmth he generated. And she refused to let herself remember how much she’d liked it before. “You should leave.” And though she phrased it as a suggestion, it wasn’t. You were supposed to find a hole somewhere and live out the rest of your life in obscurity. That was the deal.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” he replied, the words grating out between clenched teeth, his jaw tight. This close, she could practically hear the way his throat clicked when he swallowed. She certainly saw it.
“Considering my purpose here, I find that hard to believe.”
“Trust me when I say I’d rather be—”
The man she’d embarrassed looked her way again, something approaching recognition dawning on his face. And just like that, Jyn figured it out. Instead of punching Krennic in the face for it like she wanted to, because apparently it wasn’t his fault, she threw her arms around his shoulders and yanked him down. He didn’t go easily, spine stiffening at the unexpected motion, but quickly enough he got with the program—at least once Jyn kissed him, pulling her body against his, much to the displeasure of the individuals on either side of them if the sudden grumbles and an unfriendly, unfamiliar elbow in the ribs was anything to go by. But a good distraction was a good distraction. And apparently she was in the business of saving Krennic’s ass. Again.
Krennic, Force bless him, kissed her back, loosening up just enough that Jyn could maneuver them both away from the bar with neither of them tripping in the process. Jyn didn’t think too much about the quality of it—there were more important concerns at the moment—but she did register regret when she pulled away, offering an apologetic laugh as they neared the man who’d spotted them. “Feth,” she said, putting on a localish accent, loud enough for the man to overhear and for his benefit alone, “take me upstairs, huh?”
Krennic did as she asked, his hand falling to the small of her back as she slide her own around his side to settle on his hip. He didn’t even hesitate, betraying no confusion at the request.
When she looked back, she saw the man lift a comm to his mouth and, more importantly, he was shaking his head, shrugging. Confused.
It was good to know all her instincts hadn’t been lost somewhere in the fall.
It wasn’t so good to know how much she hated it when Krennic’s hand fell away once they were off the casino floor, extricating itself from her body as quickly as humanly possible as though he was worried about tainting himself if he touched her for too long.
She couldn’t bring herself to remind him that it was already far too late for that.
*
“I heard you were hurt,” Krennic said, “on Lothal.” The door to his room opened beneath his hand, the scanner mounted on the wall blinking its acceptance with a cheery blue light and a low beep. He gestured her inside and kept a wide berth as he passed her. His arms crossed as he turned toward her.
“How’d you manage to find that out?” Jyn asked, nearly snorting at the thought of Krennic learning about her misadventure. Why it would matter enough to him to mention it was utterly beyond her.
“I have a few contacts still worth the time and trouble.”
“And you wasted them on me.” Jyn’s eyes roved around the room Krennic had chosen for himself. It wasn’t nearly as ostentatious as she would have expected him to choose. Not that it was particularly quaint either. Her heels dug into plush carpet. And her mind had trouble settling on a color for the shimmersilk drapes. “How thoughtful. Perhaps they would have been better spent ensuring you didn’t end up within spitting distance of a determined criminal organization.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He rolled his eyes, mouth flat with displeasure, and gestured at the well-stocked bar in the corner. “Can I get you something?” he asked, ungracious despite the veneer of politesse in his words. He’d have done better to slow the delivery down a little though, make each word sound a little less like it was coated in venom. “Since you seem to have cheated me out of a glass of Idlewil anyway.”
“Whatever you’re having is fine,” she said, hand cutting a lazy swathe through the air, graciously ignoring the barb because otherwise she’d probably berate him for the brazen way he’d waltzed into this situation.
He tipped his head in acknowledgment and drifted toward the bar, twisting each carafe and decanter as though that would help him make a decision. With his focus on that, Jyn had the chance to study him—really study him—in a way she couldn’t do downstairs.
He looks older was the first thought that came to mind. His hair was a little grayer, the lines around his eyes a little deeper. But then again, so were hers. The life she’d led so far hadn’t exactly been kind to her either. And she, in turn, hadn’t been kind to it.
Her second was I haven’t been alone in a room with him in years.
Her third: shit and what are you doing, Erso and this is a bad idea.
“Do you even realize how much trouble you’re in?” she asked. For whatever that was worth. Already her mind was clicking away at solutions. Hopefully this time she wouldn’t have to put her life at risk to fix this. Perhaps she’d learned something on Lothal after all.
“It wasn’t a waste,” he said in lieu of answering, bringing her a glass of something that barely filled the bottom, amber pale and violently astringent.
Her nose wrinkled and she debated whether she wanted to drink what he’d given her or not. It might’ve been poison for all she knew. She certainly couldn’t tell what it was. But she trusted it wouldn’t kill her because he had a glass of the same thing in his hand and anyway, poison was never his thing. “What wasn’t?”
He lifted the glass to his mouth, eyebrow arching, and valiantly quelled the urge to cough with a quick brush of his hand to his chest. Jyn would’ve laughed if she didn’t have to do nearly the same thing a moment later, fire searing the back of her throat and down into her stomach, deeply unsettling. It saved him from saying what they both already knew.
“Did they tell you I was dead?” she asked, prodding instead at his information, the question inexpert by design. She was barely interested in sussing out who these informers might have been, but was willing to pretend she cared.
He didn’t answer for a moment, the silence hanging between them more distancing than Jyn the lightyears that had separated them before. “They didn’t know,” he said finally. It might have been the alcohol that did it, but his voice was hoarse, a little labored as he worked his way through the words.
“I could tell you,” she said. Not that it mattered much anyway. Her shoulder twinged when she rolled it, like it was trying to warn her off. But she was already ignoring the alarm bells in the back of her mind. What was one more thing?
“If I cared more, I would have found out.” But that was a lie Jyn would’ve spotted a parsec off. He would only have found out if he cared about the answer less. For such a smart man, he had a tendency to wear blinders about the important things. Hells, she would have spotted the lie even if there wasn’t the same hunger for knowledge, for other things, in his eyes that she remembered from—
Before.
Good to know she wasn’t completely alone in this.
He was the one who’d brought it up, but she found she couldn’t tell him that, yes, she had died. Technically. That her heart had stopped and half of the bones in her right side were lab-grown replacements was neither here nor there as well. And she didn’t tell him why she’d been on Lothal in the first place. It wasn’t official—she’d just… leave it at that. Better to not give voice to that particular bit of unsanctioned activity. Krennic wouldn’t appreciate knowing anyway. And Jyn liked to pretend this weakness didn’t exist anyway. “It wasn’t so bad. I had one hell of a holiday when I came back.” She smiled and it was just that little bit pained. She’d spent more than her fair share of that ‘holiday’ in an induced coma. “Could they tell you—”
“What?” The anger with which he barked that word didn’t take Jyn aback. She didn’t flinch. She wasn’t even surprised. But her own anger bubbled over and instead of offering him the apology she’d owed him now for going on six hundred and thirty two Galactic Standard days, she strode toward him, throwing her glass to the carpet. It rolled toward the wall, hit it with a dull thunk, and stayed put, knowing what was good for it. His glass went somewhere. She didn’t know. She didn’t care.
And though he had a good five inches on her—thank the Force for heels, she supposed, for it not being more at the moment and highly expensive, highly effective training—she was more than capable of shoving the bastard into the wall. Not hard enough to hurt him of course, but it certainly gave him a better reason to be pissed at her than this. “You don’t know a damned thing about a damned thing,” she said, forcing an evenness into her tone that felt unnatural. But it did the job.
Even the tips of his ears were pink now.
But the fun really started when she pulled her blaster on him. Finding a discreet thigh holster and a dress to obscure the line of it was always a challenge and always, always worth it. Jamming the muzzle against his jaw, she leaned her weight against him. “You are a threat to galactic security even when you’re not trying. Even when you’re not even aware of it.” She raised her eyebrows. “I should do the lot of us a favor.”
Then, he too, leaned, pushing the blaster even harder into his skin. “I wish you would.”
Scoffing, she dragged the blaster away, not quite careful enough to avoid scraping him entirely. He hissed as a red score bloomed on his chin and he lifted his hand to check the damage. He wasn’t even bleeding. “You’re a bastard.”
“And you’re a traitor who wants it both ways,” he said, unfazed. “Which of us is worse?”
“You.” Bending to stow the blaster, she looked up at him. Focused and steady, neither her gaze nor her hand faltered, the blaster sliding easily into the holster. “Always.”
And then she grabbed him by the collar of that suit, the white of it still pristine somehow, ridiculously so, and pulled him toward the bed.
He’d always gone willingly before. Even that last time. After she’d told him who she really worked for.
This time turned out to be no different.
*
The only thing she left behind this time was a piece of the hotel’s flimsy, its logo emblazoned in garish gold across the top, and a message written in her childish, impatient scrawl with an equally garish gold pen she’d found on the nightstand.
A warning and a threat both. She trusted him to figure out what it meant.
Do better. Make sure I don’t find you next time.
Next to the words, she drew a small black circle, the rays of a sun emanating from them. He would know what it meant. Everyone knew what it meant.
If she left the bodies of an embarrassed young man and his crony on the comm behind on the third floor, well, no one would miss them in the grand scheme of things. Not even the criminal organization from which they’d come.
And if it kept Krennic from being forcibly recruited into an organization that only wanted to drag him back into the kind of work that had gotten him into trouble in the first place, it was worth it.
Despite everything, she still didn’t want to turn him over to HQ.
And she certainly didn’t want to kill him.
She wasn’t even sure she could if it came down to it. Quite the dangerous realization for one of the Republic’s most dangerous agents. Were she a more introspective individual, that might have given her more pause.
But she was Jyn Erso, too, and she was willing to risk it.