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Cassian let himself part from the elevator wall propping him up, shifting his weight onto her. His body, hot and heavy pressed against her side. His arm was slung around her shoulder, his hand clasped in hers, squeezing every once in a while. Like a heartbeat, a constant reminder that they were still alive and breathing. The skin of his palm couldn’t meet her skin, couldn’t penetrate the glove she had on, but Jyn could almost feel it; a callous hand, the most gentle touch she’d ever been allowed to. Could feel him everywhere, even when it shouldn’t be so. His warm breath brushing against her cheek, the thrum of his heartbeat reverberating through his body, his gaze on her every once in a while. He was crowding her senses, and still all she wanted to do was pull him closer to her, because Cassian was still alive and the abyss didn’t swallow the last thing she could call an ally. Someone on her side. Someone of importance. To her as Jyn Erso, or to her as a Rebel in the Rogue squadron, was a question she tucked away hastily for another time. It didn’t matter. Not under the falling sky of Scarif.
The door to Bodhi’s ship opened, and she quickened her pace, dragging the nearly immobile captain with her. She could feel his breathing growing ragged, hear the grunts he tried so hard to hide, and wished she could give him the reprieve of a break. Take away the pain even for just a second, to get that pained wince off his face. But that wouldn’t save him, would it? They both knew it. The ground was shaking like the wrath of the Maker had come to grab them by their throats, their sins as her fuel. The smoke infused air was getting hotter by the minute, the threat of the heat bigger than any burning parts around them. It would only take minutes, and then that would be it for Scarif and everything resting their head on this beautiful, godforsaken planet. Pieces floating around in the vast expanse of the galaxy to the end of time, never to return home. Jyn had fought for too long, spending nights in the cold streets or cheap shelters with either an empty stomach or one filled so sparingly with anything but of luxury. Jyn had spent too many nights only fighting to stay alive day by day, no future and no home. This can’t be the end. Not for her. Not for the man who fought for the rebellion currently limping beside her.
“Jyn! We have to go! Now!” Bodhi’s voice was loud from inside the ship, heavy with desperation. To stay alive, mostly, Jyn caught that. But from the way his eyes moved between her and Cassian, eyebrows furrowed, she couldn’t miss the way concern was pouring out of the pilot. Desperation for them to stay alive. She couldn’t miss that.
She wasn’t weak. No, she knew how to threw punches, good at taking them, and no stranger to heavy lifting. But there was little she could do to increase her speed as of now, not with him getting worse by the second. Panic crept up slowly, but she fend them off. The Kyber Crystal necklace hung around her neck seemed to call to her, reminding her of the message on it. Her mother’s message. Trust in the force.
“Jyn,” his voice was rough, as if his lungs were filled with sand and something terrible was squeezing them. “You need to leave me.”
Those words didn’t surprise her, at least not enough to knock the wind out of her lungs and let the bewilderment take over long enough to distract her. It almost felt like a part of her had waited for him to say it, and the same part of her already had her answer stowed away in the back of her mind. Like she had rehearsed it more times than she could count from the moment he said he believed her. A million things could go wrong in the mission, and she understood the high stakes of it all. Had this been during the mission, before they completed the goal, she might’ve left him, would’ve done so even if it killed her, more than watching him fall had. But the mission was over, all there’s left to do that day was to go home. Leaving Cassian Andor? Not in a million lightyears.
“Shut up,” she said with much more ferocity than she intended, but she couldn’t regret it. He needed to hear it. Needed to know –remember– that she wasn’t a quitter.
“Run, Jyn, leave me!” he slowed his steps, planting his feet to the doomed sand of Scarif. His hand no longer squeezing hers, his arm loose in the way it began sliding away from her shoulder.
Jyn glared at him, yanking his arm back in place despite his pained groan. They were so close to the ship, to making out alive, to the uncertain future, but one that would hold them nonetheless. Her eyes were burning into his, penetrating the pleading gaze searching for her compliance. “Are you with me or not?!” she asked sharply, fighting the trembling of her lips. The same question she had asked him before, a question which answer she counted on him to answer just the same.
She could see his throat constricting, swallowing hard as he eyed her. Once again, that deep, age old gaze held hers. “All the way,” he replied with the same sincerity as he did before. He was still pleading; she didn’t bend easily.
“This isn’t the end. Not for me. Not for you,” at last, she tore her gaze away from his, and marched. The two of them, against the chaos raging around them, into their getaway vehicle.
She didn’t know if it was her adrenaline forcing her to be stronger and faster, nor was it her words that lit up something within Cassian. She didn’t let herself think about it, as long as the end result was the same; the two holed up in the ship at last. Bodhi immediately taking them away from the planet, away from the ruins that planet would be. Cassian all but dropped himself to the nearest wall to free Jyn of his weight as soon as the door closed, but Jyn didn’t let go of him. Her hands were on his arms, firm grip to keep him upright, as her eyes did a quick scan of the open space shuttled. Her heart dropped as she saw no one left, not even Chirrut and Baze, those fierce fighters. She would mourn them later, she swore silently. If not friends, they were allies, who believed in her, and who she believed. That was enough reason.
Looking over the window, all she could see was what was left of Scarif, so she turned her head away. Then, all that clouded her mind was Cassian. The two locked eyes, and Jyn couldn’t fight the grin growing on her face. Jyn wanted to blame it all on Cassian and his damned infectious smile, but she couldn’t find it in her to do so. The mission was successful. She was alive. He was alive. She was glad about it. The nightmares would claw at her later, eyes of the dead shaking her awake at night, but none of it mattered. A quiet, breathy laugh escaped his lips, and she squeezed his arms as she did the same. His eyes were so bright, and Jyn relished in it. The warmth and the light of Cassian Andor’s eyes. Not the numerous faces he’d had to put on throughout his life as a spy; just him. A silly part of her wished to never see him pretend anymore, for his eyes to stay as just Cassian’s.
His laugh stopped, but his smile never faltered, just like how his gaze bored into her, tearing her layers apart. Slowly, and ever so gently, he raised his hand. For a few seconds, it seemed like the hand was just up in the air for nothing, aimlessly reaching for something. The movement seemed unsure, until he took a strand of hair falling over her eye and tucked them behind her ear. His fingertips grazed her skin, so featherlight she would’ve thought it never happened, had it not been for the warmth it set off inside her. Silently, she wished for more, for the touch to be firm and for it to linger.
And then he was falling. His smile fading into nothingness, his eyes drooping low, and his legs gave out. Like a ragdoll dropped carelessly. Jyn called his name to no avail, struggling to lay him down to the floor. She cursed herself amidst the panic gnawing at her chest, hands scrambling to check for visible injuries, she should’ve known. That his injuries must’ve been worse than it appeared to be. That the blaster shot didn't only graze his flesh. That he just fell twelve stories and no ordinary man could just walk it off. He could’ve had a concussion, internal bleeding, every nightmare Jyn could think of.
“Cassian,” she tried again, fighting the trembling of her lips. She shook him hard, her heart reaching up her throat when no response was given. “Don’t you dare, Cassian. Don’t you kriffing dare!”
Jyn wasn’t a crier. She rarely let herself do so no matter how scared or tired she was, because it doesn’t fix a thing. But kneeling beside the unconscious Cassian, her hands flying up to cup his face, she felt tears clouding her vision.
“This isn’t the end, you hear me?” she stared him down with the bravest face she could muster, as if he could see, as if he would open his eyes anytime soon. Still, she fought the tears from falling. “Not for you. Not for you. Not for you.”
===
It took six days for Cassian to wake up. Jyn couldn’t keep track of the list of injuries the medic spouted at her, all she caught was a concussion, broken leg, and several fractured ribs. It wasn’t fair, how this much shit was handed to someone who’s fought so hard to do the right thing, even after he escaped a certain death. Like the universe couldn’t let him walk unscathed from the explosion of Scarif, and if they couldn’t have his life then they’d have the honor of giving him pain. She’d lived as a renegade long enough to know that life wasn’t fair, but it didn’t help her spit out the bitterness in her tongue. Like the stubborn taste of a terrible cough syrup that refused to leave her be.
She stayed by his side when she could. The rebellion needed all hands on deck, she had jobs to do, but no one would catch a whiff of Jyn Erso during her downtime unless they were in the medical bay. She didn’t speak to him, unless it was at night and she thought she caught his fingers twitch, then she would call his name and be disappointed that the soft lull of her voice didn’t draw him to consciousness. Bodhi would come once a day. His visits were short, but he’d have something for Jyn to nibble on. She didn’t know how he managed to get his hands on those snacks, but she appreciated it. They would have small talks, whatever job they had next and how Cassian seemed to be doing, and then Bodhi would leave and Jyn would stay.
It didn’t make sense to her, why she stayed on the bedside of a man she barely knew, plainly refusing the medics’ advices for her to get some rest herself. All she knew was that during her time spent apart from him, that distant distracted thought of Cassian would always haunt her. Every moment they’ve spent together during the mission, the lingering stares and practical touch they shared in keeping each other alive. The unexplainable dread of almost losing him that never truly went away, despite knowing that he was out of the woods and only needed time to heal. Her hands on his face, frantically caressing the skin growing colder by the minute. Calling his name with no response other than the humming of the engine across the galaxy. Not knowing if he was going to wake up or not, nor when. Jyn tried to scrub that memory out of her mind, but it was a stubborn deep red colored stain and it burned her. She tried to rebuild the hatch she relied on so much throughout her childhood and teenage years, but it had been destroyed a while ago, and she had Cassian himself to either thank or strangle for. The hatch would be a temporary fix that would fester and torch her from within down the line. But to feel her whole chest constricting as she tried to get work done because of him over and over again, she was so tempted to succumb to that fix.
It didn’t make sense to her, why she was so afraid of losing him. He was just another man on the same side of hers, wasn’t he? Maybe it was because he was the only one left –apart from Bodhi, but he wasn’t the one beside her sleuthing around the base– who experienced the horrors of the death star mission. Maybe it was because he was the first person to truly believe in her. The fact that he happened to be Cassian was impartial to all of it. Or perhaps, him being Cassian was the very thing that threw things off axis. Neither made sense as to why the thought of losing him turned her back into the eight year old hiding in that damp cave, waiting for papa and mama and fighting the gripping fear of loneliness, despite knowing that one was set for a life away from her and the other was dead on the grass.
It didn’t make sense to her, how he got her to pray. Jyn had never been a believer, but as he was being treated in the base, she begged to the Maker, to the force, for him to be okay. She didn’t know how to pray, didn’t know if they would take the words of a lowlife who had never believed, but she had that white Kyber Crystal in her clasped hands, and she did what it told her. Trust the force.
Then, he woke up in the middle of the night, bordering the seventh day of his unconsciousness. Jyn felt the bed move from the arms and her head that she had laid on it, and he was there, alive and conscious. His face was still sort of pale, covered with a thin sheen of sweat despite the cold night, and a small smile tugging on his mouth once he saw her looking up. She knew she didn’t look much better, sleep deprivation painting dark circles under her eyes, hair strewn to every direction. It didn’t matter. She was smiling like a child, grabbing Cassian’s outstretched hand into hers and squeezing. No gloves acted as a barrier between her skin and his this time; and each of his callous fit perfectly into the curves of her hand, no less scraped and damaged than his. Jyn couldn’t recall feeling a joy like this. It was nothing like the euphoric, slightly prideful, and final-kick-in-the-teeth joy she felt after the mission’s success. No, it was as if all this time something had tied a rope around her entire body, and right then and there, with Cassian’s smile directed at her, the rope vanished into nothingness. And maybe the bruises would appear later, but the wave of relief washing through her right then was enough.
“Jyn,” he called out to her, voice hoarse and croaky, as if his throat was sandpaper. He squeezed her hand, “Jyn.”
“I’m here,” Jyn said earnestly, and she had to bite back the odd impulse to say, I’m always going to be here. She knew it wasn’t true.
He just stared at her, the smile never leaving his face. Jyn could feel those brown eyes scanning her face, and if her face grew redder for reasons she didn’t want to delve into, she thanked the minimum lighting of the room for masking that part of her. She busied herself with preventing him from sitting up, rising from her chair and shushing him as his groans of pain came along.
“Easy, there. Those ribs need time to heal,” she pressed a hand against his shoulder blade, never letting the other hand part from his.
It wasn’t until it was done that she realized how close their faces were, and how she instinctively began leaning closer onto him. Just to be near him. Just to hear him breathe and hum, if nothing else. His free hand, slowly, and ever so gently, rose from his side. For a few seconds, it seemed like the hand was just up in the air for nothing, aimlessly reaching for something. And then, his fingers swept away the messy strand of hair covering part of her face. Jyn smiled, feeling her heartbeat double in speed and how hard it was getting to breathe. It was the same thing he did in the ship, right after Scarif. The same thing that burned her just the right amount.
Except his fingertips didn’t only graze her skin sheepishly like he was afraid touching her would fracture her. His hand was cupping her cheek, his thumb rubbing slow circles on her cheekbone. It was Jyn who remained vigil next to his bedside for six days, but she could see it in his eyes. She could read him better than she ever could; he was taking in her presence, and how she was alive. They both were.
“Your hair always gets in the way,” he mumbled, still sounding sleepy despite the long sleep he’d had.
But it drew a chuckle out of her, or perhaps she was just too damn happy already. Her hand left his shoulder and landed on top of the one on her cheek, squeezing once again. “If it bothers you that much, why don’t you shave it off my head?”
They were laughing, then. In the middle of the night, stranded in a hidden Rebellion base, the soft whirr of medical equipments being their only company. Cassian’s eyes still traveled her face, before they landed on her lips. He wasn’t trying to be discreet about it, and Jyn found herself feeling all sorts of emotions that she was certain would drive her heart out of her chest. Then, it was her who was staring at his lips. Chapped and pale, even with barely any light she could see it. She found herself wanting to close the distance between the two, but thankfully, before she thought too much about it, Cassian closed his eyes shut and sighed. Not a resigned one, just one of contentment and relief. He brought his head up slightly, pulling hers closer, and rested their foreheads against each other. That was the closest they’d gotten to each other that night. Jyn's Kyber Crystal pendant dangled between them, the bottom barely grazing Cassian's chest. The glint of it was unbeknownst to the two, who had their eyes closed, just drinking in each others presence.
Cassian’s recovery took much longer. He wasn’t pleased to get the news that he was practically chained to his bed, reviewing files after files and only doing investigations from the safety of the base. Jyn still came everyday. He would ask her about what she did that day, if there was any interesting things going on kept away from the “incapable sickly captain.” She’d tell him everything, watch him still be analytical about certain information, and then relaxing again. Lots of the time, he would still be reviewing his own files and doing small investigations, so she would help even though she knew she was no match for a spy of his caliber. Their conversations stayed fairly simple, a means to pass time and enjoy. At least on Jyn's end; Cassian would tell stories from his past, going as far as happy childhood memories. She smiled every time he told her those stories, imagining a tiny Cassian running around. Other times, they would sit in silence, basking in each others’ presence. At one point, Jyn managed to get her hand on a music player of sort, banged on it a couple times until it could work, and they’d spend time listening to the tapes Cassian had stashed over the years. Sitting side by side with their arms pressed against one another, nodding along to the tune, Jyn’s head on his shoulder. She’d help him get around, make sarcastic jokes about the whole situation without any bite to it. She’d grown soft, she realized.
She couldn’t stand to stay away too long, but she could admit that she spent less time with him. Facing him awake was miles different from watching him sleep.
It wasn’t that Cassian was bad company. He was the best company she’d had in a long time. It was that the burn began to become too much. The stares they shared, the touches of hands clasped together and shoulders brushing together, the simple words that meant and asked so much when there were so little being said, the disregard of every time they got to close to each other to the point of breathing each other’s breath. Everything was new to her, everything so good and exciting and yet so gentle… and it scared her.
How all of it could be gone in a snap of a finger.
It also scared her, how much she was feeling for Cassian, and how much she hadn’t known about him. She was aware that for her to know him, she had to let him in, too. She had to put in her own effort into asking and give him the chance to tell her. But she knew where that road of vulnerability would go, and if she lost him in the end, Maker help her, she would lose her mind. Perhaps she;d gone too long without care and affection, perhaps her feelings weren’t attuned to how a normal human being would feel them, but she knew the cost of caring and losing. The last time she let herself have something, have someone, he was ripped away from her. It still hurt to think about.
Cassian was no saint. He was a pragmatic man of many faces, of many sins, of many lives on his hands. But to Jyn, he was sacred, and she wasn’t willing to lose him and have him be the catalyst of her craze, something she knew she inherited from Saw despite none of his blood being in her veins.
She could so easily lose him, just like the ride back home from Scarif.
She also knew Cassian began to notice as soon as he was able to walk around with a crutch. How she would leave when the conversation started to tip toe the fine line of light to personal, how even though she still initially leaned into his touch she always abruptly pulled away too quickly, how she refused a lot of his offers to spend time together, how she became more and more of a ghost around the base unless she wanted to find him herself. She knew it wouldn’t take long for him to figure it out. He was the captain of the rebellion’s intelligence team, for Maker’s sake. The only thing left to ponder was whether he was going to chase her like each one of his wanted men and informants, or if he was going to become a ghost, too.
She knew which answer she should be wishing for.
(It wasn’t the one she found herself wishing for.)
(It also wasn’t the one Cassian granted, eventually.)
They were a long way from Scarif, rebuilding a new base in a faraway planet with less jungles and temples but enough coverage for them to slip into hiding. Bodhi was a captain and one of the most gifted pilots in the ranks, Jyn worked her way up and proved herself to be one of the best pathfinders the Rebellion had ever seen, and Cassian was promoted as a commander. Life went on, and Jyn found herself less often by Cassian’s side outside of work. She mostly spent her downtime with Bodhi, when he wasn’t busy himself, or tinkering with whatever scraps they had to pass time.
She wanted to blame the moving for her current predicament with Cassian, but she knew she couldn’t. Their missions often aligned, there was no reason for her not to pick up old conversations, or start one past the topic of their jobs. He still looked at her with the same intensity and used the same words to try to make her stay around. She saw him around more than the ideal amount, and yet she took the time to hide into herself instead. It wasn’t the hatch inside the cave, no, that had been broken ages ago. It was a pathetic excuse of a hole she dug with her bare hands, dirt burying herself alive while denying that breathing was a struggle. She had one hand sticking out. All she had to do was wipe away all the dirt on her, reach out to the nearest surface, and rise. Above her fears, guilt, and self pity.
But in the end, it was Cassian that pulled her out himself.
It was Life Day night, and the hall held a buffet for all Rebels as they celebrated the day of love, family, and friendship. Jyn had stayed for Bodhi and the food, but the crowd began to overwhelm her. All around her, people she didn’t know but she could count on. It was a bizarre concept to her. Some said Rebellion was like family to them, but she hadn’t felt it yet. What she felt was a pang in her chest, seeing complete family units. She didn’t know which one was it that pained her the most; the fact that she wished she could’ve celebrated a day like this with her own parents, or the grim thought that next year, that family unit might dwindle in numbers. So she left, after giving Bodhi a long hug and telling him to have the best night of his life. He had the smile of a little kid, and she couldn’t help but try to smile for him.
In the privacy of her small but cozy, plant filled quarters, she walked over to her bed. Her window was right next to it, giving her a clear view of the forest and mountains. Snow had poured harshly the last few days, but miraculously, it had been fairly calm that day. Miracle of the Life Day, she supposed. She didn’t bother to put more thought into that, she was just glad she could open her window momentarily to touch the falling snow without a bucket worth of it flew up inside her room. Her hand outstretched, the cold pricking her fingertips with no real bite. She let the air fill her lungs, before closing the window, pulling the creaky thing to shut entirely with a little more force than needed. The window slammed loudly, her hand still gripping the latch as her body rocked forward.
Barely any distance between her and the window, she saw the reflection of the starry sky, then. It was a little funny to her. She’d seen so much of the stars lately, flying here and there for missions, that she thought she’d grow bored of them. Now, hand pressed on the glass pane, staring at those shining wonders, she couldn’t be more wrong. Her life had been so close to the land, grounded and achingly real day to day for years on end. The stars in the sky seemed like the only escape she had. It didn’t change even after she’d gotten close to them.
Her father called her stardust, told her that she was the fragment of the brightest falling star that landed right into his life. His stardust, always surrounding him, always going to be the one thing he protected. Her mother told her that her Kyber Crystal necklace was more than just a pendant, it held the light of a star and the exact warmth you needed. Jyn liked to think that now, both of them were part of these starry motives surrounding her life and the childhood she had cut short. She found herself clasping the crystal on her chest, breathing in deep. She would never truly stop mourning for lost time with her parents, but she knew better not to shove them into that cave again.
Three knocks on her door caused her to turn around, puzzled to who in the world would be on her doorstep during Life Day. If it was a fellow pathfinder informing her about yet another non-urgent mission, Maker help her, she had some words she’d like to say to the person interrupting her long overdue break–
The man standing on her doorway wasn’t a fellow pathfinder she was ready to shoo off or anyone she didn’t mind socking in the face. It was the same tall man with a handsomely rugged face, looking as if he’d been a deer caught in a headlight as she opened the door.
“Cassian,” the name softly escaped her lips with a quiet gasp, a breath hastily sucked in to keep her composure.
“Hey,” he replied, his eyes not quite leaving hers. He had a fist pressing sideway against the outer wall of her quarters. She noticed it was a habit of his, even if she didn’t remember making note of it consciously.
“What are you doing here?”
Cassian didn’t wait to answer a question, but this time, he did, and yet his answer was absolute bantha shit. That was how she knew he wasn’t completely being honest. “No one should spend Life Day alone. Not if they could help it.”
“You saw me leave and you followed me back here,” she said it like it was a challenge, as if she was insulted, but she wasn’t. Not even in the slightest.
“I thought about it for a few minutes first. I didn’t tail you like a target, if it makes you feel any better,” he replied firmly, but there was an edge of remorse to his voice, reflected in the eyes staring back at her. Cassian’s eyes, ungraded and true to himself. She must’ve waited to long to say anything, because he quickly looked away and interjected, “If you want me to go, that’s fine. I’ll go.”
Jyn all but launched the answer out of her mouth like it was burning her tongue, “Don’t.” His gaze was back on hers, and she fought to keep herself from shivering. Opening the door wider, she stepped aside, adding, “Don’t just stand there. Get inside.”
It was the first time he’d stepped into her quarters. There wasn’t much of anything personal inside, but she’d taken a liking to plants, and it was as if he immediately knew when she looked at all the greens and colored little flowers in her room. He smiled a little, settling to stand near a potted Royal Fluzz she’d placed on a shelf, nicked from a planet she couldn’t quite remember.
“Why’d you leave?” he asked without facing her, his fingers delicately brushing over the soft purple petals stuck onto the stem.
“Didn’t much like the crowd. Already ate a bit of everything, too,” she shrugged, busying herself with pouring the warm tea she had kept in her kettle. It wasn’t sweet, but she knew it happened to be how he liked it, too. He mentioned it in the medbay. So, she didn’t bother adding sugar like she normally would to other guests, as rare as they came.
He chuckled, joining across her as she sat herself down on the small dining table, “That’s as far as Rebellion food’s gonna go.”
Sipping on their drinks, Jyn felt suffocated. Cassian wasn’t there for work. She had a hunch of the real reason, but she didn’t want to be the one who said it.
“What are you doing here?”
Setting his cup down, his face morphed into one of seriousness with fear nipping on its edges. “I told you why, didn’t I?”
The Life Day crap. It wasn’t an honest answer.
“Still, no point for you to be here. Your friends are enjoying the party.”
His eyes twitched slightly, dropping onto his hands on the table. She couldn’t see most of his face, but she saw the open frown plastered there. Jyn felt like she had said something so cruel, she might as well had twisted a knife inside him, that all she wanted to do was run, or worse, reach out to him.
“You’re a friend.”
That was the thing about Cassian. He could say something so heavy with so little words. She both hated and loved it.
“You know what I meant,” she shrugged again. She’d meant the friends he’d worked with for ages, friends he went out for drinks with, friends who could joke around freely with him without the tension they shared each time they stood in the same room.
“I don’t. Same way that I don’t know why you started avoiding me.”
So, he knew. Big deal. She’d known about that already.
(Then why does it hurt, still?)
“I’m not avoiding you,” she denied it, for lack of better reply. If for nothing, to stall.
The scoff he let out wasn’t angry necessarily, it was just pained. Somehow that was worse. “I’ve been reading people for half my life, I know what you were doing as soon as it started. I just can’t seem to figure out why. I’m a spy, not a mind reader.”
“Same thing, really.”
He went quiet, then. The look on his face, a frown so deep and heavy, caused regret to bloom in her chest. Had she pushed too much?
“I’m sorry, Jyn. About your father. What happened to him and the part I took in it,” was what he said, and she knew he meant it. Or at least, she believed so. The face he had was the face of someone she immediately wanted to trust.
But she didn’t need that. She’d forgiven him long ago, perhaps from the very moment he told her he believed in her and fought for her. Or maybe it was seeing him clawing his way up twelve stories to save her. Or maybe it was that night in the medbay, foreheads pressed against one another’s. As bizarre as it was, as much as she thought betrayals weren’t supposed to go that way, she forgave him.
“No, no, you don’t need to,” she stood up, feeling too worn out and vulnerable on the table. Her back was facing him, her eyes on the window.
“I owe you a big one. Even if that was a long time ago.”
“You never took the shot. I’ve forgiven you a long time ago. It’s not about that at.”
“Then what?”
She supposed the stalling was over, then.
Letting out a shaky breath, Jyn turned around. “On our ride back to Yavin IV, I thought I was going to lose you. It was the most scared I’d ever been,” she said at last, and it felt like forcing those words through a spiral of barbed wire. Her throat felt impossibly dry and bloodied at the same time. She turned around to face him, lips parted and eyebrows furrowed looking at her, and continued, “I don’t want to get close to you when I could lose you at any given time. I can’t go down that road, not with you.”
She counted on him to put the pieces together, the unsaid bits. The fact that she couldn’t go through it with him because he was different than anyone she had ever known and felt so much care, affection, and fear for.
He rose this time, but kept a distance from her, enough for her to breathe. “We could’ve gotten blown to pieces that day in Scarif, but we weren’t. We made it out. I could’ve died because of the fall, but I didn’t. I’m still here. You’re still here. We were given a chance, Jyn,” there was a certain edge to his voice, so faithful to this idea he had. Yet still, he was pleading without saying the words outright.
“A chance to put more good in the world, to fight for the right thing,” she supplied lamely, even if she wanted nothing more than give in entirely to his words.
He shook his head, “There’s got to be more to it. Because if not, what are you even fighting for? All my life, I’ve given everything to the Rebellion. My blood, my brain, my childhood, my family, my… everything I have in me, I’ve given it all to the Rebellion. I didn’t let myself have anything, and after a while nothing seemed important enough to be worth keeping. It kept me going, lit the fire inside me. Doesn’t change the fact that sooner or later, it would burn out, and that would be it from me,” and he looked so exhausted, Jyn wanted to cry, “When I thought I was gonna die, a part of me was angry, because I’ve finally found something that might’ve been worth keeping.”
It hit her, the weight he had been carrying with him everyday for his whole life. Started as a child soldier, two years younger than her when her life was flipped upside down. Switching facade after facade to complete missions. Everything for the Rebellion, the product of incredibly early indoctrination and his own fiery determination. How much had he sacrificed? How much had he refused for himself? How long had this languid torture been going for?
How different was he from her?
She swallowed down a hiccup, and whispered so low, she was afraid he wouldn’t hear. “I’m terrified.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“I have every right to be!” she snapped, eyes watering but not quite breaking yet, “I’ve wanted you ever since you woke up in that medbay, and I didn’t even know you. I don’t know you, even now. I know that’s my fault, but it doesn’t change the facts, does it?”
She wanted him. She’d always known, she just had to admit it to herself and to him that it was real. Saying it had made it so much more real than she could ever imagine, and it was both the best and worst thing she had ever heard coming from her own mouth.
Once again, he was quiet, before he took steady steps towards her. The air seemed to dissipate from the room with every inch he closed between them, but she didn’t stop him. He let Cassian walk to her, and watched when he would finally stop. Whether he’d walk away or stay or move forward again.
“You’re right, You don’t know me. And I don’t know you. There wasn’t the time. What I know is that you’re tough as nails. I know you’re stubborn beyond saving. I know you can take care of yourself. I know you’re a good person. I know I feel a pull towards you, and I know that you feel the same,” Cassian was towering her now, so close that she could see the fading, barely noticeable scars on his face, rather than just the recent ones. His eyes were trained on hers. “I know we’ve both been through the wringer more times than we’d deserved. I know I haven’t had the chance to do this, nor have you been able to do this without having it ripped away from you. I know it did a number on the both of us. I know all of that. But you wanna know what I believe?”
Her heart was thumping against her ribcage, but she asked with the same defiance, still,“What?”
“I believe that I’d rather have this, whatever we could have for as long or as short as we could, rather than never having experienced it at all. Because face it, it’s not just you who could lose me. I could lose you tomorrow, or in an hour, and I’d have to go on without you. But at least we’d have this. Force knows we’d gone too long without… without this.”
She didn’t bother holding back the tears after that. Turning her head away, she let her tears fall and her broken, quiet sobs to fill the silence. He wanted her as much as she wanted him, and he’d fought for her. Back on the planet that no longer existed, and once again now.
Maybe not so unexpectedly, Cassian’s face grew with concern, and he stepped closer, offering her his open arms. She found herself pressed against his chest, her head tucked beneath his chin, and his hand rubbing soothing circles around her back. “Jyn, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just me. You don’t have to hide.”
In moments with him, she could feel that hatch in her cave chip away little by little. The destruction of Scarif destroyed it completely. But then, he was pulling her away from the cave. Hand in hers as she tugged softly, swaying her to keep her eyes on him, and walking towards the sunrise. She didn’t need to hide anymore, not with him. Just like he never had to pretend anymore, not with her.
Cassian pressed his lips on the top of her head, a kiss so chaste but real, she buried her face further into his chest before pulling away. He followed her anyway, their foreheads pressed against one another. Her hands reached up to his cheek feeling them warm under her skin, and his hands did the same to her cheeks. They stood there, and breathed. It felt like a lifetime of contentment and simple joy before Jyn found herself tipping her chin upwards and captured his lips into a soft kiss. It was everything new and familiar at the same time, as if they had done this so many times before in another life and were fated to do it again in this life, and the next to come. He deepened the kiss, a hand moving to pull her impossibly closer by the waist at the same time her hand moved to rest on his chest.
After all the kissing and sweet nothings, they found themselves sitting on Jyn’s bed, watching the snowfall through the window. Legs knocking onto one another, his hand still holding hers and mindlessly rubbing circles with his thumb. Jyn never wanted the moment to end, that just for that night even if a meteor came to blow the place up, she wouldn’t let it interrupt her.
She felt his eyes on her, and stared back, smiling. She asked, “What do you want to know about me?”
“Everything. Anything.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
He shrugged, asking with the same smile still, “Well, what plant would you like to have next?”
“I saw a Poola Blossom once, that one would be nice to have around. Don’t know how I’d manage it, though.”
“That’s a nice pick,” the two laughed, like the fluorescent plant was something so funny. Then, his eyes traveled to the necklace around her neck, “You hold and look at that a lot when you’re thinking, or when you’re worried. Wanna tell me about it?”
That night, Jyn Erso told him many things about the Kyber Crystal with ‘Trust the Force’ engraved on it, as well as the fearless Lyra Erso who gave it to her. She told him many things about her childhood, and she would continue to do so. Just like he would happily share his own stories. Maybe neither had fully understood what Scarif did to them, nor have they moved on from it, maybe Cassian had gone too long without being true and honest to himself and another soul, maybe Jyn had yet to feel herself belong somewhere and had yet to convince herself she was allowed to have things for herself. But that was okay. They had each other to hold and talk to that night. They knew things could still be okay. No more hiding. No more pretending.