independent bodhi rook from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. written by bee.

wherever he is wandering, alone upon the earth - let all our singing follow him and bring him comfort. some flowers bloom when the green grass grows, my praise is not for them; but the one who blooms in the bitter snow - i raise my cup to him

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• biography
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if he could remember jedha before the empire occupied it, bodhi might have wished for it back as keenly as his mothers did. the remnants of before linger at every turn - half-destroyed statues and the massive temple he never stepped foot in always served as looming reminders of a world that had been stomped out when bodhi was too young to really remember. his few memories of before are nothing but haze, so far-off they could be dreams mistaken for truths. the jedha bodhi knows is the one filled with the sound of trooper's boots on beaten dirt pathways, one controlled by the tight fist of the empire. the kyber mines don't pay well, and watching his mothers go without food to keep him and his sisters fed weighed heavy on bodhi. there are few ways to earn credits on jedha that are not tied into the mines - a job bodhi is strictly forbidden from taking by his mothers. rather than disobey them, he decided to seek out some of the less than legal methods of helping keep his family fed and housed. betting on fights in dark alleyways, joining in risky airspeeder races, doing errands for some of the sketchier occupants of the holy city - there was little bodhi would not do. what he was best at was sabacc, due to a combination of skill and sheer, dumb luck, bodhi was able to keep food on the table and promise his mothers he hadn't headed down into the kyber mines.

what he really wanted to do, though, was become a starfighter pilot. to be able to go off-world, flying something more powerful than an airspeeder, and earn enough credits doing it to keep his family on jedha fed - it seemed like his best option, even if his mothers looked t him with something tight around their eyes when he tells them he has enlisted. they tell him not to go, that their memories of jedha before were decimated by the empire and that it will destroy him, too. it's too late, though, and he must leave jedha for the terrabe sector service academy. maybe, if he had known that this was the last time he would see his family, bodhi would have tried to find a way to delay the future, if only for a little while.

it isn't as easy at he hoped.

two years are spent fruitlessly, training and testing over and over again, feeling less and less hopeful about his poor test marks in comparisons to the other people aiming for starfighter training. skill with an airspeeder does not, it seems, translate to the skills needed to keep a level head and a steady hand in a tie fighter in combat situations. his test scores in combat simulations never hit the number necessary to pass and gain admission into starfighter training. he had to start over. redirecting himself after two years of trying. bodhi wouldn't give up on flight, even if the high-paced terror of space combat was not his strong suit. two more years were spend at the service academy in flight training programs, and while he was never the top of his class, bodhi graduated and gained the rank of ensign. it wasn't the daring adventures he imagined a starfighter experienced, but piloting cargo shuttles was close enough.

the job meant he met a lot of people he otherwise never would have found. some were friends, most were not. the worst planets were the ones he was chased from while under fire by persistent groups of rebels. the empire does not make making friends easy - those working within do not want to risk disciplinary action, and those outside are sometimes too wary for much more than a quick game of sabacc. it was a somewhat lonely existance, but one he had already grown used to at the service academy - being the boy who offered silent prayers to the force before drifting to sleep did not gain him many friends.

bodhi found an outlier to this lack of company in a scientist named galen erso. staying in one place for any period of time was a luxury bodhi did not have, but a nasty storm grounded him on eadu for nearly an entire standard week. he had expected his time at the base to be long and solitary, but erso treated him with a kindness bodhi had not seen since jedha. the week ended all too quickly, but the realization of how lonely his shuttle felt on long trips between imperial bases settled into bodhi's bones. erso kept in though, though, and every delivery to eadu included talking to the man over a cup of caf in the cantine. for a long time the talks were entirely innocuous - what planet they were from, where bodhi was off too next - but after close to a year galen began shifting the topics.

the latest atrocity the empire had committed. what had been done to galen's family. what the kyber crystals being stripped from jedha were being used to build. they no longer spoke in the cantine, instead stealing moments of conversation on landing decks and the silent hangar bay at odd hours of the night - places no one would overhear or listen in. it was the only version of the galaxy bodhi had ever known, but galen spoke so passionately about what could be that bodhi felt something within him twist into knots. what had bodhi been actively aiding by deliverying crates he had never bothered to look into? the guilt that wormed its way into his gut was overwhelming, and galen asked for a favor that bodhi could not imagine refusing - deliver something to a group of rebels on jedha. he couldn't imagine refusing, but he also felt a different kind of dread sink into him at the idea of following through. the partisans are not the sort to appreciate the help of a turncoat - even a turncoat with an important message of some sort by someone who was once a friend.

he goes, of course.

jedha itself is a blur. as soon as he steps foot on familiar sands there is a price on his head - IMPERIAL DEFECTOR BODHI ROOK is worth quite a few credits, it seems, and before he can even think about getting to the partisans with the message he must first avoid bounty hunters and the probing eyes of anyone who sees him. this is his home, but he longs for the safety of his familiar shuttle. he longs for it even more once gerrera's people are finally found.

bodhi knew they wouldn't trust him. he was ready to explain himself to them, to saw gerrera, to tell them all how galen erso has helped him see that he needs to be better, has told him in hushed voices about the horrible things being done with the kyber crystals and what might happen if they do not move quickly enough and listen to the message. they don't trust him, and they do something to make sure they can. he had heard of mairans before, though never seen one. in truth - he had thought of them as some sort of myth, or at least something long ago driven too far from people to be much worried about or thought of. he was wrong to brush it off, though. bor gullet leaves no stone unturned. every thought - every memory - evey shred of bodhi is torn to the surface and devoured, ripped from his skull and, for a while, taken away completely.

he still isn't sure how long he was in that cell - his memories of the time between bor gullet and coming to with cassian andor in the cell beside his are never reclaimed. a tremor remains in his hands and his mouth feels gummy and dry all at once for a long while after. perhaps it is just the bor gullet, or perhaps it is the weight of what his life is now finally hitting his shoulders that leaves bodhi with unfocused eyes and a ringing in his ears - a wanted criminal, an imperial traitor, reviled by the empire for betraying them and hated by the rebels for ever enlisting. there is no good end for someone like bodhi rook. there is no future there that is not paved with pain like that inflicted on him by bor gullet and saw gerrera; if it hadn't been the rebels torturing him, it would have been the empire. at least this way he did not betray galen, too. at least this way he meets cassian, jyn, k2-so, chirrut, and baze. they are the best part of the rest of his life.

jedha city is destroyed, and in the wreckage bodhi can hear galen's voice. it sounds like his daughter's, too, and bodhi thinks of how happy galen will be to know she's alive - she's safe. he had confessed his fears, once, that his little daughter was killed or is in some horrible amount of pain at any given moment. she'll be able to speak to him, to tell him herself that she is alive, and bodhi guides them to eadu. trying to force himself to imagine a happy ending for the erso family is beyond difficult - it's impossible. if the empire knows what bodhi took with him to jedha - they must, given what they did to the city, to bodhi's family and the countless others living in the holy city - the empire will seek out who gave him the message. they will trace bodhi back to galen, and this ragtag group of rebels he finds himself flying with will be lucky if he's still alive by the time they reach the research facility. the empire works fast, after all, especially when it comes to tying up loose ends. he spends the whole time cassian and jyn are off the ship with his shaking hands in his lap and silent prayers for his mothers and sisters moving his lips. chirrut and baze murmur to each other and he can tell they're talking about him.

galen is killed. the blows don't feel like they land anymore. jyn says he died in her arms and bodhi wills himself to be glad that the man died in some type of peace, with his beloved daughter with him. it feels too hollow to be anything meaningful. everyone that ever cared about bodhi is dead, now all he has is this group of people around him and the sinking, choking fear that overtakes him at the thought of flying straight towards the rebel base. he has been tortured by rebels once, and while bodhi knows that saw gerrera was an extremist that these rebels did not work with, he cannot help how his shoulders tense and his throat works at the possibilities.

there is not a cell waiting for him when they reach alliance high command, though he does not miss the way some of the rebels glare at him and hiss that he ought to be in one. it's nothing he didn't expect. they don't want him here - they feel just as uncomfortable at his existence in these halls as bodhi does. cassian and jyn are swept into countless meetings and debriefings - cassian called to them and jyn...bodhi isn't sure if she was requested or if she nosed her way in, but he doesn't stick around for long enough to find out. rather than linger in the halls or stay in the cramped room the alliance has put him in, bodhi takes to the flight hangar. some of the other pilots are more sympathetic, or at least not so outright hostile. they leave him alone but they don't mumble about the imperial scum in a way that makes his breath catch in his throat and his hands tremble. bodhi does tune ups on some of the ships and sits in the familiar hum of engines and pilots joking with each other, sharing words you would have needed to be there the first time to really understand.

the alliance officially grounds all of them. bodhi knows they aren't quite sure what to do with him, but they definitely aren't about to let him traipse off on a mission with the little clutch of would-be-rebels that he has found himself among. he also knows that jyn erso is her father's daughter - orders from someone in a debriefing room won't stop her from continuing. the fact that cassian andor agreed was more surprising. it was better to just go - they had to get those plans, they had to do something, and bodhi was not going to leave them to go on an unsanctioned mission without him. bodhi had to follow through with what he started; what galen had started.

he names them rogue one.

bodhi isn't built for combat. his hands shake around a blaster and his heart hammers too hard against the inside of his ribcage for him to be much help on the ground. so he does what he can; he stays in the ship they had slipped in on, redirecting imperial officers with false reports piped into their helmets and their ships. he listens to his...he hasn't known them long enough, really, but bodhi thinks of them as his friends, die. k2-so first, sacrificing himself for jyn and cassian. chirrut next, then baze. bodhi is sure the force will see them through to whatever awaits, though he still feels his chest constrain at the thought of the last of the guardians from jedha - the last of jedha city, with him - leaving this galaxy so violently.

they need to disable the shield in order to let all of this - all this death, all this destruction - mean anything. galen's voice rings in his head. bodhi knows they'll see him running to the transmitter, but if they don't get the shield down there's no hope. so he does what he has to do. he listens to his heart. he does something about it without hesitating.

This is for you, Galen.

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verse one ; otherbodies have done it before
( aka ; bodhi survives scarif - set during the original trilogy )

he didn't plan on coming back. when they left alliance high command for scarif, bodhi was certain he was heading to his death, though he was at least sure he would die for a good cause. the memory of the grenade is a distant one - managing to pilot a ship off of scarif even further. remembering things has never been quite the same after bor gullet, memories he once had hazy and difficult to recall. the lower portion of his left leg was blown off in the explosion - the medics say it's a miracle he was able to make the jump back towards high command in the state he was in - and has since been replaced with a robotic limb that spans from knee to foot.
they don't really know what to do with him. bodhi's smart enough to realize that. they hail him and all of rogue one as heroes, but that can only go so far to wipe away the distrust that still flashes in some people's eyes and sends sharp spines of bitterness through bodhi's skull. it isn't just because of his previous affiliation that they do not let him pilot ships; his hands have a permanent tremor and his ears still haven't stopped ringing fully.
it doesn't feel like heroic work to linger at high command, doing general upkeep maintenance on ships he longs to fly. it feels like he's at the academy again, waiting for a chance to prove himself. hopefully that time will come soon.

verse two ; desperate for the light
( aka ; bodhi survives scarif - set during the Sequel trilogy )

perhaps it was foolish to expect that he would be able to live the rest of his life peacefully. after everything settled and the galaxy seemed to be at peace, bodhi returned to the remains of jedha to try and pick through the pieces and carve out a new home from what once was. the jedha he knew was not the one of beautiful temples open to all and the feeling of the force in the streets, but bodhi knew the stories told to him by his mothers, and chirrut and baze, and he would not let them die without a chance at being remembered.
it was his plan to remain there forever, in the new jedha city - and he remained for a long while - until something sinister started gathering. it was a feeling in his gut that this fight wasn't over, not really, and when some old friends from the alliance contacted him - what choice did he have other than return?
the resistance is a different beast than what he recalls; full of new and old faces, all weary with the same determination he remembers from the first war.
bodhi is no combat pilot. he never was, not even after he was cleared to start shuttling cargo for the alliance, but he is skilled - skilled enough to teach a new generation of pilots and mechanics the basics in as short a time as possible. the resistance needs pilots, and pilots need trainers.

verse three ; more than what i've already become
( aka ; during the events of rogue one )
to be written, but you know - rogue one!