Chapter Text
“Stand by, Rogue One, we’re on it!”
The signal stutters out, after that, but Bodhi can hardly bring himself to care. They got the message. He did his part.
“This is for you, Galen,” he says, closing his eyes, briefly.
He allows himself half a moment to feel relief, to be tired, then opens his eyes. He’s the pilot. He’s quick. He’s a good pilot. He can still save Cassian, save Jyn, maybe, if –
A grenade bounces into the cabin. Bodhi looks at it for a moment, not processing what it is. By the time his brain starts working again, it’s too late. At the end, he thinks – I’ve done my part. I’m the pilot. I’m done.
There is heat, incredible heat, and then – nothing.
Then, he jolts awake, sits up in a panic, slams his head into something hard and metal, and finds himself tumbling onto the floor, blissfully cool and slightly gritty with dirt and dust. He blinks once, twice, trying to rid himself of the blaster fire obscuring his vision. It clears, and he sees –
Well. This isn’t what I was expecting.
Then he rolls over, convulses, and vomits. He doesn’t roll quite fast enough, and is rewarded with a mess down the front of his jumpsuit.
He manages to rise to unsteady legs and stumble into the fresher, collapsing with his cheek against the steel basin. He vomits again, then again, until he loses count. At some point, he grabs a towel, tries to wipe himself clean. It doesn’t work, and he gives up when more convulsions come.
When it finally passes, he leans back against the wall, pushes hair back from his sweaty brow, and closes his eyes. He feels like shit. Feels like – feels like stim withdrawal. A laugh forces its way out of his chest, unbidden. He thinks, this isn’t fair. All that, just to – he’d been clean, by Scarif, long past the withdrawal. And now –
He looks around. It’s an Imperial ship. A cargo ship. He feels panic begin to rise in his veins, then stops short as he realizes – this is his Imperial cargo ship. His body knew before he did; he knew, instinctively, where the fresher was, and where the towels would be. Because they were where he’s always kept them. Looking around now, he sees more; things that wouldn’t be on any other ship. A letter, handwritten on flimsi, from his sister. It’s been folded and unfolded so many times that the creases have begun to wear thin. His mind spins, blankly, trying to come up with her name.
Dirty socks, his dirty socks, not regulation. Thick and warm. He’d bought them on his first leave. He hadn’t known, when he signed up, how cold space would be.
A sharp chirp jolts him out of the strange reverie, and he looks down, to the radio-comm clipped to his vest.
Approaching Destination, Exiting Hyperspace in five standard minutes, says his own voice, the message he’d recorded years ago, his wake-up call for long trips.
Bodhi blinks. This can’t be real. He’s lost his mind, just like – just like –
He forces the thought down, makes his way to the cockpit. His charm, hanging above the controls. From the temple. It had felt like such an act of rebellion, when he’d tied it on. Felt like standing up against the Empire. He almost wants to laugh, knowing what he knows now.
The ship drops out of hyperspace, abruptly. He looks down. The nav charts have him on a course for Eadu. Of course. If he’s trapped in his own head again, where else would he go?
He resigns himself to his fate, sits, and settles into a familiar routine. Even out of his mind, Bodhi Rook knows how to pilot his ship.
He goes through the process by rote memory, doesn’t even flinch when Imperial security asks for his landing codes. He rattles them off, not letting himself worry what will happen if they don’t work. This isn’t real anyways, so it hardly matters.
They work.
He lands and lowers the ramp. He hears footsteps and nearly jumps. The inspection crew, of course. Somehow, he hadn’t expected his mind to fill in such mundane details as footsteps. He stands, walks to greet them. They barely acknowledge him, bent over the cargo. Kyber, he knows now. He hadn’t known, before. Hadn’t wanted to know.
Galen Erso is with them.
Bodhi feels his heart stutter, doesn’t even try to control his breathing. Galen glances his way, briefly, then his attention is back on the kyber. Bodhi falls heavily against the wall behind him. Barely a glance, but long enough to know that Galen hadn’t recognized him, hadn't known him. He thinks back to the temple, to the Guardians – they’d never said anything about an afterlife or – or punishment, but what else could this be?
One of the stormtroopers, standing guard, notices his distraction. “Alright there, pilot?” he barks out. It doesn’t sound like a question asked out of concern.
Bodhi nods, shakes his head, chokes out something about stims, and retreats into the ship. Let them think he’s overtired, overworked, disrespectful, drugged out of his mind. What does it matter now?
He sleeps fitfully, waking intermittently, panicked and sweating, then collapses in exhaustion again. He’s unsure how much is from the withdrawal and how much is from – is from – he hasn’t slept, since Jedha. Hasn’t tried to.
When he finally wakes, for good this time, he hauls himself up and strips out of his jumpsuit. There’s dried vomit smeared all over, in his bunk, too, but he can hardly bring himself to care. The sonic is cold and miserable, like sonics always are, but it hardly matters.
When he’s dry and dressed in a clean jumpsuit, he notes, somewhat absently, that the inspectors and cargo are both long gone. There’s a datapad in the hold; the manifest. He opens it. The inventory is marked as reviewed and accepted, signed by – Galen. Of course. The line for pilot signature is blank, but there is another file attached. A medical exception. Signed by Galen Erso.
For a moment, Bodhi is hopeful; perhaps Galen recognized him, perhaps he was helping. But then – he remembers that blank glance, and the hope fades. It’s only Galen being kind, as always. Bodhi wants to cry. Then he realizes nothing is stopping him, so he does.
Eventually, hunger wins out over misery. There are rations in the galley, but he’d rather have warm food.
He manages to get to the mess without making eye contact with anyone, still feeling raw and overstrung. This, he knows, is from the withdrawal. He can get stims here, on the base. He’s done it before. He considers it for half a second, then decides against it. It isn’t worth it, to add something else to his mess of a brain, right now.
He grabs something warm and spicy, a stew he vaguely recognizes. At the register, he freezes. Fumbles blindly for his meal credit, his ident chip, anything. His pockets are all empty.
A voice behind him says, “I’ll get it.”
The voice is warm and familiar, and Bodhi wants nothing more than to close his eyes and sink into it. He doesn’t look up. Can’t make himself look up.
The droid tending the register says nothing, but accepts Galen’s ident chip without question.
“Sit with me?”
Bodhi forces himself to look up, looks away. Can’t look at his eyes, not now. He nods. Shakes his head. “Thank you.” His voice sounds hoarse. Raw. “I should-“
“Come,” Galen says, already walking away.
Bodhi can’t help but follow. What else could he do?
They sit. Bodhi looks at his tray, attempts to straighten his back. He feels heat behind his eyes and tries to blink it away.
“Have you been to medical?” Galen asks.
Bodhi looks up, another mistake. “No,” he says. “I’m feeling better. Sir.” He can hardly remember how to address an officer. He shouldn’t be addressing an officer. But it’s –
Galen breaths out, quickly. Bodhi knows it is a laugh. He shouldn’t know that, not when Galen is little more than a stranger –
“Clearly.”
Bodhi shakes his head, makes himself pick up his spoon, take a bite. He thinks of Cassian. Is this how it feels to be a spy? He hopes Cassian made it out, hopes they all did. He thinks of the ones who didn’t, the ones he saw die. Blinks. Looks down at the stew.
“Is it good?” Galen asks.
Bodhi almost jumps. He looks up, then cannot look away from those eyes - achingly familiar, but blank of recognition. Still, kind. Always kind. He blinks, trying to remember what Galen had asked him.
The edge of Galen’s eyes crinkle – something in between worry and amusement. To a stranger, it would look like nothing at all. But Bodhi is not a stranger. “The stew,” Galen says. “Is it good?”
Bodhi blinks, looks down at the stew. “Yes,” he says, after a long moment. Too long.
Galen hums, says nothing else. They eat in silence. It’s almost familiar. Bodhi finishes first. “I – I should go,” he says. “Thank you. Sir.”
Galen nods, and Bodhi feels his eyes on his back as he walks away.
He takes refuge in his ship. There are no shipments waiting for him. His schedule is suspiciously blank. But, he supposes, it’s too much to ask of his damaged subconscious to reinvent Imperial shipping schedules, too.
Suddenly, strangely, he thinks of the Guardians. Baze. Chirrut. I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.
He checks the ship for bugs. Paranoid, perhaps. Overly so? Maybe once. Not anymore. Not when –
He sits, cross legged, recalling the times he’d visited the temple as a child. Hands on his knees, palms up. He closes his eyes, sees horrible things. Opens them again, decides that open will have to do.
I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.
He finds himself rocking, as if to an invisible melody.
I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.
Bodhi’s never been much of a believer. But, on Jedha – on Jedha – he has to stop, allow himself to grieve. It’s a long time before he can make himself finish the thought.
On Jedha, everyone’s sort of a believer, whether they care to be or not. There’s something about the nature of the place. He thinks of it now, feeling some of the jitters seep out of his bones. The food has helped, he thinks. He doesn’t know when he last ate. If this were a hallucination, it wouldn’t much matter, he supposes.
He’s not so sure anymore. It certainly feels real. The ship feels solid, the metal cool beneath his legs. He can still taste cheap synthetic spices on his tongue, from the stew. Galen had felt real, but then again - Galen often felt real, in Bodhi’s mind. Perhaps he wasn’t the best measure.
He wishes, briefly, that Kay were here. Bodhi is too strung out to do any sort of analysis, never mind that it was never his strong suit anyways.
He thinks, treacherously, that a hallucination wouldn’t leave crusty, dried vomit for him to clean up. Even his mind isn’t so cruel, or so detailed.
Most likely, most probably, this is some kind of pathetic, life-flashing-before-his-eyes hallucination, running through his head as he dies, slowly and painfully, on Scarif. He ought to just load up on stims and curl up in his bunk to die.
But, in the unlikely event that it isn’t – that he could – well. It’s almost definitely a hallucination, so it doesn’t really matter, anyways.
He goes about normal life, falling into routines that feel like a lifetime ago, though there wasn’t so much time between Jedha and Scarif. He avoids Galen Erso.
He gets new orders, completes them. Shuttles himself across the galaxy and back. In the downtime (there’s a lot of downtime), he reads his sister’s letter. Rekha. It pains him that he’d had to read her name to remember it. He’d like to blame the holes in his memory, but – the letter isn’t exactly fond. It’s old, and unanswered. He remembers, eventually, that he hadn’t seen her in years, even before – everything. He’s not sure why he kept the letter, really. He shoves it into a storage panel and forgets about it.
He doesn’t think about Jedha or Bor Gullet or the weapon or Scarif or Rogue One or – anything, really. He looks longingly at packets of stims, clipped to the belts of other pilots, but –
It’s going well. He’s almost convinced himself that this isn’t a hallucination, but rather some sort of eternal punishment, reminding him of the part he’d played in the Empire’s plans. Almost. Until he’s walking towards the mess, as usual, and overhears two people talking, quiet and angry. He stops, has no desire to get involved in arguments. But then – Galen’s voice. He steps forward, leaning into the shadows, to listen. He thinks, again, of Cassian.
“You’ve seen my reports –” Galen says. He sounds exhausted.
“I don’t care about the reports,” hisses the other voice. Bodhi doesn’t recognize it. “I want to know what’s actually going on, Erso. You can’t convince me you’re getting slow in your old age.”
“Orson,” Galen says, with a sigh. Bodhi imagines the look on his face, a tired hand rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I am working as fast as I can. The scale of the project…”
The other man – Orson – scoffs. “We both know you can do it, Galen.” He spits Galen’s name like a curse, and Bodhi feels a prickle of anger beneath his skin.
“Of course I can,” Galen responds, sounding offended. Bodhi wonders how much of it is fake. “But it will take time.”
“Time we don’t have,” Orson growls. There’s a sound, muffled, like he’s hit Galen in the chest, or the shoulder. Then, footsteps, taking him in the opposite direction.
Bodhi is frozen, unable to move. Because this - this never happened. Before, he never – he backs away as quietly as he can, flees to his ship.
Once hidden away from cameras and prying eyes, he has another – he doesn’t know what to call them. Breakdown. Panic attack. Episode.
He doesn’t know how much time passes before he comes back to himself, breathing still erratic and heart beating too fast.
He scrambles for his datapad, finds the list of officers on base. He has access to very little, as a lowly cargo pilot, but the Empire is nothing if not formal. He’s expected to know all of the officers on base by name and face, in order to show proper respect. He’s never thought to look at their first names, before, never cared. But, sure enough – Orson Krennic, Director. Not stationed on Eadu, but marked as a frequent visitor.
Slowly, he sets the datapad down and sinks to the floor, letting the cool metal ground him. A thought comes to him. He tries to ignore it, but – what if? He’d heard the name Krennic, but he’d never met the man. Never heard his voice. Never known his first name. What if –?
He tries to push the thought away, tries to ground himself in reality. But – in reality. He’s already considering this reality. Isn’t that evidence enough? What if –
If he’s wrong, what does he risk? Disrupting his hallucination?
If – he thinks of Jyn, returning to the ship, drenched, with tears on her cheeks and fury in her voice. Galen, dead. Cassian, a sniper rifle on his back.
He thinks of Scarif, thinks – what if…? He doesn’t dare finish the thought, not even in his own head. He’s not so naïve as to believe there’s privacy even there, not anymore.
He spends a lot of time convincing himself it’s crazy, then more time convincing himself that it doesn’t really matter. Maybe he should just accept that he’s crazy now. Does it matter? And if – if, if, if…does he really want to bet against what if?
He thinks of Jyn, standing strong and fearless. Rebellions are built on hope, she’d said. He thinks – he thinks maybe she was right.
He starts seeking out Galen, after that. In the mess, he searches, meets his eyes across the room. It hurts, but he forces himself to smile. The smile, at least, is genuine.
When Galen comes to inspect the cargo (he comes himself, why does he do that? Had he always done that? Bodhi can’t remember, and is frustrated by the holes in his memory, holes left by —), Bodhi smiles at him. Lets their hands brush when he passes over the manifest. Says, “Officer Erso,” inclining his head, when they finish.
He pays attention and notices when Galen begins to notice him back.
Galen surprises him, one day, sits with him in the mess. Bodhi looks up, blinks. “Sir.”
“Pilot,” Galen says, face carefully blank. “Your name?”
“Rook, sir. Bodhi Rook.” His first name wasn’t necessary, wasn’t exactly a proper Empire response, but he finds himself wanting, desperately, to hear Galen say it.
He doesn’t. Instead, he hums, considering him. “You watch me.”
He'd noticed more than Bodhi had expected. His mind spins. What can he say? He thinks: I love you, I know you’re sabotaging the weapon, I’ve lived this before, I’m going to save you, I’m going to fix it all.
He can’t say any of this, obviously. Can’t scare Galen away, not now. Instead, he says nothing, continues eating, lets Galen make his own assumptions. They wouldn’t be wrong. He can’t hide his affection, doesn’t even want to try, so – let Galen read it as simple attraction.
He allows himself to look up, briefly, and meets Galen’s eyes. They study him. It should be uncomfortable – it had been, the first time. Bodhi had felt like a creature under a microscope, and it had made him fidget. Now, though…he soaks it in, lets Galen study him for as long as he likes. He sees the moment Galen notices – almost immediately, of course, Galen was never anything less than brilliant – and watches as his eyes darken, almost imperceptibly.
Bodhi looks away.
Galen leans back, slightly. Bodhi stops himself from leaning forward, following him. Galen stands and leaves without saying anything else.
Bodhi keeps his eyes on his plate, does not watch him go. He thinks that Galen was always like this, cautious. But there are so many holes in his memory. He isn’t sure. He thinks of Jyn, her caution. Wonders if she had learned it from Galen or if they had both developed it separately.
Wonders if they’ll live long enough for him to figure it out, this time.