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“It’s broken,” Jyn said flatly, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders though the cold had already burrowed its way into her bones. “Beyond repair.”
Cassian let loose a string of curses. “I reprogrammed an Imperial droid,” he muttered, pulling his gloves back on. “But somehow I can’t fix an outer rim heating system!”
Jyn tamped down the smile that tugged at her lips even as she watched him throw the hydrospanner into the corner. It hit the flimsy walls with a clank, and dust exploded as it made contact with the plaster.
“You do realize hydrospanners are meant for work on starships and not heating systems, right?” she said, rising to her feet.
His reply was simply this: “I hate the cold.”
Outside, through the single window in the cabin, Jyn could see a wall of white. The snow continued to fall, layers upon layers, foot upon foot. Sometimes the wind would shift and the temperature would fluctuate, turning the precipitation from flakes to sheets of ice. Taking the last bite of her ration bar, she licked her fingers, then made a face at the dry, chalky aftertaste. It was an understatement to say that they’d be stuck here for a while. It would be a small miracle if they could even push the door open when the sun came up in the morning.
Sent here to Abyssissa to rendezvous with a Rodian with information about the movements of the Empire near Geonosis, their informant had never shown up. They’d realize belatedly (and stupidly) why: the midnight blue clouds they’d seen when they broke through the atmo weren’t a forerunner to evening or even to a simple rainstorm. Abyssissa was an ice planet, and even if it was technically summer where they were, Abyssissa was an ice planet, and they had walked into a blizzard on an ice planet.
They’d manage to find this empty cabin on the outskirts of an abandoned mining settlement before the they ended up buried and frozen to death in the snow--their ship was too far away to reach safely on foot until the storm passed. But besides a window and door that shut enough to keep out a draft and the single musty bed pushed up against the wall, it had little other comforts.
Jyn began to shake, even under the cover of the blanket, which was at least appropriately thick for the climate. Her jacket had soaked through earlier when the first of the cold rain had fallen before it had switched to snow. It hung now on the back of their supply pack in the center of the room. Cassian was still dry thanks to his reliable blue parka that he took with him anywhere remotely chilly. She’d teased him about it in the past–-she wouldn’t be doing that anymore.
“We should get some rest,” he said once his temper had quieted and he had a moment to compose himself. “It looks like we’re stuck for the night.” Jyn watched his eyes wander to the single bed, saw the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. Then he turned his eyes toward her, and she felt her mouth go dry. He had an uncanny way of doing that, disarming her completely without a word or a touch. The newness of this sensation had yet to wear off. Even after almost a year of knowing one another, it hadn't even dulled. She knew, too, what it meant, how she felt--about him, about everything. But so far, she had refused to give it a name because he had as well. It was a personal impasse. She wondered how much longer it could hold.
“You’re shivering,” he said, startled, stepping toward her. The early evening light was fading, and the ice on the windows cast the last rays of beveled light onto the duracrete floor.
Jyn licked her chapped lips, let her mouth quirk up at the corner in a faint grin. “I hate the cold, too,” she said. She pulled the blanket tighter around her torso and moved toward the bed. When she sat down, it creaked, but it still felt more comfortable than the cots back on base. It had springs. It had cushioning. What luxury, she thought wryly.
Cassian allowed himself a low chuckle. The sound stoked the fire in her belly, and she felt warm for the first time in hours.
She looked up at him expectantly, not realizing immediately what she wanted from him until she saw that he remained rooted in his spot. She tried to ignore the racing of her heart. “Aren’t you coming?” she said at last. "To bed?"
He blinked slowly like a loth-cat.
“It’s cold,” she said, starting the painfully obvious and waving her hand, her wrist twirling in a circle. “And the best way to stay warm is . . .”
Cassian nodded, but he cast his eyes to the floor, dragging himself toward her. His seeming reluctance made her nervous, but she forced herself forward, unlacing her boots, letting each hit the ground with a thud. Then off came her socks, her vest, her tunic, and her trousers. Left in nothing but her undershirt and undergarments, she slid under the blanket and curled up, legs to her chest, her back to him. She heard the sound of him shucking off his clothes rather than saw it, heard the swish of him removing his parka, the soft sound of fabric being folded and placed on the ground. Cassian was as he always was: careful, neat; the counterpoint to her recklessness, her messiness.
The bed sagged, and Jyn felt Cassian slide in beside her, the heat of his body like a furnace at her back. She let herself relax then, stretching out her legs, her feet bumping into his shins.
She smelled the warm rush of his scent as he settled in and it made her smile. Jyn would always think of him as smelling of blaster oil and dirt, even if he was freshly showered or covered in grime. That scent was a permanent memory of him, stored under glass and fixed in her mind. But with him so close now–-close as they had been since they held each other on Scarif in preparation for what they had thought was the end of all things–-she picked up new notes: spice and soap, the smoky scent of U-wing exhaust.
The bed creaked again, and she felt him touch her back with his hand, this time deliberately. She signed again–-she was so full of sighs-–and turned her head to look at him out of the corner of her eye. Many things in her life had changed in the last few months, but some things–-some things still remained the same: he was still the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
He hovered over her slightly, his dark, sad eyes with a crinkle of the smile at the edges. She returned that smile and begged in her mind for the light to stay just a little longer so that she wouldn’t lose the image of him to the dark.
Cassian shifted closer to her on the small bed, and Jyn felt her breath catch in her throat. Her body hummed despite herself.
“Let’s get some rest,” he said, and he inched forward, brushing her hair aside and placing a soft, chaste kiss to her temple. It caught her by surprise, not just the kiss but the wave of emotions that surged through her and threatening to short-circuit her brain. There had been so many things, so many moments that had burned between them that they had simply refused to address for so long. And up until now it had been fine, been the accepted course of action and denial, but here, skin to skin, alone in this cabin, on this continent, on this planet, it suddenly seemed untenable to her.
Jyn twisted in his arms and rose slightly, propping herself up on the bed with her hands. “What was that?” she accused. Her voice trilled. It could not be helped.
He had touched her before–-touched her countless of times in different ways since they met–-but this was the first time he had kissed her. The touches she could explain away: platonic, practiced, or worried. But the kiss--chaste as it was, was still too intimate. It made her feel too much. She looked at him, expecting to see confusion at her anger-–feigned or real–-but was met instead by his steady gaze, soft and gauzy and lit from within. He had looked at her like that one before, she recalled: on the turbolift on Scarif, the light washing over his face.
Cassian sucked in his cheeks in the way he did when he was thinking. “I . . .” he began, but his next words died on his lips.
It couldn’t be left like that, though, she realized. She couldn't leave it or let it go. If that made her reckless, well, that only made her Jyn Erso. If he wasn’t going to do something about it, she would.
When she was on her own and on the run before she had been liberated from Wobani, she’d take any opening, any sliver of an opportunity to get what she needed or to where she needed to go. And yes, some things about her had changed, but this was not one of them. There was still a thread of light on him, and reaching out, she cupped his cheek in her hand and waited. Then she felt him move. He leaned into her palm, still holding her gaze.
Her resolved strengthened, and she was as she was, reckless and passionate, barreling ahead. If she was going to jump, she was going to go all in.
“This doesn’t have to mean anything,” she said huskily, her free handing curling against his skin where his undershirt rose up on his stomach. He let out a small gasp. “Or it can,” she finished.
“Jyn.” His voice was hoarse and thick, and it was too much to bare. She felt desire take her like a flood.
She fell into him, unable and unwilling to wait any longer. She chased his mouth with hers, his stubble scraping her cheek and making her gasp as he finally gave in to her too, his arms tightening around her shoulder blades, hauling her into him until there was no air left between them.
To drown in him, she thought, would be such a beautiful way to die.
As an adult, Jyn had only understood love as an abstraction; something witnessed, noted, and jotted down as a point of reference. To feel it, to be its focal point, seemed like a fiction, a story told by someone else about a person who shared her name and her face. But the way Cassian looked at her–-the way he looked at her now, the way he had looked at her for what seemed like always–-she felt what it meant to have it real; felt love as something concrete in her hands: smooth in parts, rough in others, but tangible, solid, and ever present.
How much longer could it hold? That was a question that she had asked herself again and again.
(His mouth was hot and wet against her collarbone, his teeth scraping the skin along the swell of her breasts. And Cassian, always so careful, so neat, was now anything but that.)
How long could it hold? She kissed him again and had her answer: no longer.