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Bodhi Rook defects from the Empire with little more than the clothes on his back, Galen's message tucked securely in his boot, and a folded scrap of paper in his pocket.

Saw Gerrera's people don't even bother taking the paper when they search him. It's such an archaic little thing, and the words on it mean nothing to them. The knowledge of its presence is a tiny flicker of light in the dark that becomes Bodhi's world in the Catacombs of Cadera.

The first move he makes after Cassian jars him back to life following his encounter with Bor Gullet is to press his palm over the pocket. He can just barely feel the paper there, and he draws strength from that, too.

Fast forward to Eadu and everything going to hell – he tries to tune out Cassian and Jyn's argument aboard the shuttle. Galen is dead, and Bodhi can barely feel pain. Mostly he floats in shock. He'd known how unlikely it was they would be reunited, but this is different. He'd never imagined the reality of it. The paper crinkles between shaking fingers squeezed into a fist. It's all he has left now.

By the time Bodhi is linking the shuttle into the communications system on Scarif, he just feels done. He's tired and in pain. He's lost Jedha. He's lost every link to his old life. He just wants to rest, to have out of all this madness and grief.

So when the thermal detonator lands in front of him, he feels a strange sense of relief. I'm coming, Galen, he thinks, and his fingers trail towards the pocket which holds his totem. They never make it.

---

Days later, a member of an Imperial clean-up force will find Bodhi Rook's body and rifle through his pockets. He will find a crumpled, stained piece of paper with six words of Aurebesh on it.

Working late. Make yourself at home.

The Imperial will toss the paper away without a second thought as he continues with his duties. He will never know what that insignificant item meant to the dead man before him. He'll never know about a night long ago when Bodhi came in to Eadu with a load of kyber crystals, how he let himself into Galen's quarters with the code the man he'd grown so unexpectedly close to had given him.

The Imperial won't know how Bodhi smiled when he found the note lying on Galen's bed, paper untracable in a way datapad messages weren't, the way the pilot's heart swelled at the simple knowledge of Galen inviting him into his home, into his life. He won't know how Bodhi kept that note and those feelings with him through everything, how even in his darkest moments what it stood for gave him strength.

Even Galen himself didn't know, and no one else ever will, but it doesn't matter now.