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you speak of signs and wonders
There had been a time when Jyn had believed in soulmates.
In a way she still did, but now she kept thinking that it was wrong to desire something so much, that it was wrong to desire something that was not equal and was not a right for everyone. In their society loving was difficult and complex: often non-bonded couples where seen as something illicit and provocative and opposite to nature, which of course was an idiotic thought.
Anyway, there had been, in fact, a time when she had believed with all her heart.
She was just a kid at the time and she was still living with her parents, her beloved, beautiful, madly in love father and mother. She knew they were soulmates and the thought of a preordained destiny never bothered her too much as it had always been that way. Besides there were strong forces, political parties mostly, that were directing the public’s attention towards the holiness of such a bond. She was too young to follow politics back then, but she knew that those people existed as her father himself was one of them, or at least he was a member of the main party promoting the importance of soulmates.
It took her a while to understand that not everything was as pretty as it seemed and that her father, Galen Erso, renowned scientist e politician was not, in fact, a supporter of those theories. It was on a rainy day, a few months after they left the big city to start a new life in the countryside, when he took her on his lap and told her: “Jyn, my love, my stardust, always remember this: don’t let anyone tell you who you should fall in love with, not someone else, not a fancy mark on your wrist. Love should always be free as it is your will.”
She didn’t understand, not in that moment and it took her years to properly comprehend her father’s words; it took her years, her parents’ death and a fresh start with a much rougher and sharper man, Saw Gerrera, an old rebel who had never found his real place in the world.
Saw was many things, but he surely wasn’t cut to be a father, yet he tried anyway and he tried his best as he grew to loving Jyn as she was his own daughter. Nevertheless, he was a stern man, always caught up in his own personal battle, too busy fighting the system to realize that he wasn’t living in the sixties anymore and the times were changing.
Jyn, on the other hand, soon realized that his anachronistic fight towards everything was more than useless, but she kept loving him. He was the father she had lost too soon, the guide she was in need of when she was a little child, and she was grateful for everything he had done for her. Besides, there was a point she agreed with him on: everyone should feel free of falling in love with whomever they wanted.
It wasn’t easy, not in a world that kept telling everyone that the only proper form of loving was the one that involved soulmates; and it was hard, so hard to understand that there were more possibilities, that there was a choice.
Jyn had been wearing a wristband for as long as she could remember. Well, not exactly for that long, but it was at least ten years since she first wore one – and the very first wristband was a present from Saw, and she was twelve or maybe thirteen and it was so very pink that she had laughed and complained because it was way too feminine for her tastes. Now that she was twenty-four Jyn still had it. She kept it hidden in a drawer, right next to a bunch of family photos and other memories of her past that slowly but inexorably fell into oblivion.
Anyway, she was still wearing a wristband, even today, and it was getting more and more frequent to see people wearing similar ones. It was a silent form of protesting against a society that was getting more and more eager to experiment, to find new ways of loving. The new political party, for instance, was pressing for freedom of love which should have been considered a basic human’s right. Jyn didn’t really wanted to have anything to do with that, of course, she had had her fair share of battles when she was younger, well more like just a teenager in a rebellious phase, but she considered herself done with fighting.
It was a sunny day of spring, one of the first of the year, the tepid rays warmed her pale skin as she looked once again at the screen of her phone. What bothered her that morning was the message she had just received from Bodhi – which was also the main reason she couldn’t properly digest her breakfast and was now getting irritated.
Bodhi was the closest thing she had to a brother, he was her house mate and her friend; yet he was also, sometimes, a pain in the ass. Because Bodhi was a believer.
Not a believer as in a religious sort of thing, yes, he also was a Muslim, but that was not the point. Bodhi believed in both: fighting the system and finding true love, he believed that both the things could be done and should have been done. And, gosh, to hear him talking about soulmates and the joy of the search and the happiness of the first encounter, and at the same time to see how deeply convinced he was about being free to choose who to love and how to love, it was just so inspiring and Jyn could never say no whenever he asked her to come with him to one of the meeting of the society he was affiliated with.
Even though she disliked them, even though she didn’t want to get involved anymore; she just couldn’t say no to him. He was family and more importantly he could be incredibly persuasive despite his shyness and the anxiety in his voice.
The anxiety was the main reasons she often went along – and the one she’d follow that day too – knowing his past problems dealing with panic attacks she didn’t really wanted to leave him alone.
“First of all, we are not a society, but a committee, we fight for human rights and I honestly hope that at least you believe in those”.
The man was standing right in front of her, his thick Mexican accent was still resonating into her ears as she rolled her eyes and glanced at Bodhi. Her friend shrugged, he knew that look, it was the very same one Jyn used every time she met someone so unbearable and annoying that she’d rather had been stupid, so that she could have pretended not to understand what they were talking about.
“Name’s Jyn Erso, by the way,” she replied with a hint of a smile, “and I can’t stress how much I don’t give a single fuck about what you do here”.
“Oh, the famous Jyn Erso, daughter of Galen Erso, member of the Empire party, if I reckon. Well one hell of a time ago. Bodhi told us about you. I’ll see you later, and trust me, by the end of this meeting you will care”.
He disappeared into the crowd and Jyn snorted, more pissed than she actually wanted to show.
“Who’s the handsome asshole?”
“I suppose you are not talking about yourself?” Bodhi asked sarcastically.
“Thank you, a real friend. Wait, have you seriously been talking about me? What the fuck man!”
“Nothing that bad, Jyn, I swear. I never mentioned your family though, he probably knew because of his role, you know? Politics. Anyway, handsome uh?”
“Asshole, uh?”
“Ok, ok, got it. He’s Captain Cassian Andor, used to me in the Military, not anymore. His tattoo showed up while he was fighting in Iraq and as it come out it burned so much he actually though he had been shot”.
“A genius”.
“Actually, he is, well, not a genius per se, but he’s incredibly clever and brilliant. He has two PhDs, one in chemistry and one in behaviour analysis”.
Jyn suddenly fell silent; there was just one thing she hated more than rebels and it was psychologists. She was convinced she had the right to dislike them since, since her parents’ death, she had been visiting one shrink after the other in an endless attempt to overcome her trauma. Which, by the way, she never did.
In the end, she had found herself with a consistent amount of money less and a few more issues with people, she still had her traumas – which she kept close to her heart, like small treasures – and she gained an even deeper hostility towards possibilities, in particular those regarding her future soulmates. A soulmate was someone she would have inevitably ended up trusting, loving, caring about and she didn’t really want to care about anything or anyone, it was so much easier that way; and yes, sometimes it was hard as hell, but at least no one could hurt her, not again, not ever.
As Cassian jumped on the stage, with a cranky smile and his loose t-shirt, she raised her eyes, inadvertently following his every movement as her head was still lost along the trail of her thoughts.
Cassian had been looking at her a long time before starting his speech, before even jumping on stage and starting the meeting; he just wanted to observe her for a while before he’d lose her in the crow. He was incredibly good at loosing interesting people when the hall was completely full, he wished he was half as good at loosing annoying people, but he wasn’t. So he took his time, meanwhile the first word she spoke to him, when he had offered her a leaflet, still echoed in his mind.
No, thanks. I don’t believe in your pro human society mottos, soulmates, destiny and shit.
He had been reading those words for years; at first, all he could perceive were waves of hate every time his eyes stopped on the elegant and small writing encircling his wrist like a think black bracelet. He had hated them so much, every single word, with fervent ardour and the desperate need of a man who wanted to be free more than everything else. It took him a while to really understand why he hated his soulmate’s tattoo so much, and it wasn’t because of the bonding, it was because of how it had happened.
He still remembered the hot desert and the small bushes, the horrors, the noise; and when the goddamn thing come out he had shot thinking he was being shot at. Not the brightest moment of his life, but one of the most vivid in his memory, in his nightmares. He had been associating the tattoo with the war for a long time and he couldn’t prevent himself from hating it and the concept behind it.
Now, after years, everything was different, he was different. Yet to finally meet her, to find the bearer of those words right in front of his eyes, well that was not something he was expecting. He had imagined their meeting before, and as he had thought she had a wristband, he wasn’t sure she had ever seen her tattoo in her entire life, yet not even once he had thought he’d find her during one of the committee meeting.
It wasn’t because of her that he had entered the movement for human rights, but sure as hell the words had made him thought about the horror of the Iraq’s war and the things he had seen and hadn’t been able to change or prevent. And when he had finally been able to ease his mind from those painful images of war and death and hate, when he had finally managed to get rid of his anger and of the rage he had felt every time he had looked at his wrist, he had decided to do something better with his life.
He had decided he wanted to help, not only himself, but everyone he could.
So, now there he was, talking about human rights to a room filled with people eager to listen to him, enchanted by every single one of his words, all of them except for Jyn Erso.
A peculiar individual, she was stubborn and he could tell as he had meet before people with the same look that she had, with the same scars he was sure she was hiding from the world; she appeared majestic in the middle of the crowd, despite her undignified pose and the smirk on her face. She was still looking at him with her defiant eyes, almost mocking him for believing in something and he couldn’t really understand if she didn’t believe that a change was possible or if she was simply an asshole, which of course was also an option.
He strongly hoped she wasn’t.
Bodhi Rook was quite a lucky man.
The world was filled with people that were both more handsome and richer than he was, but that didn’t really matter as he had always considered himself lucky: he was loved, he had a caring family, friends that loved him and a good job. At the end of the day his life was positive and nice and Bodhi love it, almost always.
There were times when he really, really wished he was someone else. Usually those were times he dreaded life and started to think how little and insignificant he was, those were the times of anxiety and panic attacks, but they were not the norm and he knew it. There were also other times, fewer and more rare when the main reason of distress where his friends themselves; they didn’t cause him anxiety though, he was reconciled with the fact that almost all his friends where, in a certain and annoying kind of way, idiots.
When Cassian reached to him, after the committee meeting, asking if he could arrange an encounter with his housemate, Bodhi realized he was done. And he was because Jyn had made really clear what she taught about the ‘cocky, arrogant, handsome dreamer of unrealistic shit’, her words, not his. So, yes, she might had thought Cassian was kind of cute – and quite honestly everyone thought that all the time, even Bodhi was charmed by his melodic Mexican accent – but she still didn’t like him.
In the end, Bodh was a lucky man, but that day he was strongly wishing he was someone else.
When the doorbell rang he hoped Jyn was still too busy screaming at the soufflé which was not supposed to grow in that direction (the direction being down) to decide to open the door or at least too busy to immediately realize who was actually coming to dinner.
“Is your friend here already?” she groaned, with a subtle desperation in her voice.
“He’s very punctual,” replied Bodhi, trying to look casual while he run towards the door.
She was expecting an unknown face, someone she’d never met before, her expectations were quickly shattered. Jyn snorted as soon as she heard the voice of the newcomer. Of course, it was him, of course, she’d been able to avoid talking to him after that stupid meeting and now here he was, in their house, presenting himself with a stupid cake and his social crap. Wait, a cake? Did he seriously bring them a cake? After all, maybe that Cassian guy wasn’t that bad.
She turned off the stove, saluting her soufflé goodbye and promising herself she’d never cook again, which was something did all the time as she was a sort of a disaster in the kitchen, a truth she didn’t want to admit to herself – mostly because, even after all this time she still could remember how good and expert was her mother as a chef.
She breathed in, wishing they had opened the wine already, and got out of the kitchen, smiling faintly. Cassian waved at her, springing in his feet as he slowly approached her; he looked funnier and prettier than she remembered him, yet he still had that smirk on his face that annoyed her instantly.
“If I knew it was you, I would have gone out” she muttered, leaning on the door jamb.
“Rude” said Cassian, but he discovered he was actually amused.
He was up for a challenge and trying to get to know Jyn better was a hard one. She was stern and stubborn – he didn’t know yet, but, growing up with Saw, she couldn’t have been any different; yet Cassian was a believer, and he believed there was more to her than the cynical, disillusioned persona she wanted to show to the world.
“So I guess you didn’t like the meeting,” he mocked her.
Jyn passed him the wine and raised an eyebrow, as she waited for him to open the bottle.
“You are smart, no, I didn’t”.
“Care to share why?” Cassian asked, “because you really seem to dislike me”.
“That’s good, because I do. And you know what else I don’t like? Dreamers. You dream of something impossible to achieve, you talk about love and human rights, but you do nothing concrete to achieve them, there’s no strength in your words just hope that things will change. Well, let me tell you something, there’s no such thing as magic in this word, either you act or you accept things as they are. And to be quite blunt about it, you and your pretty group of friends have zero chances of changing things”.
He looked at her from the corner of his eyes, apparently too busy pouring the wine to actually prepare for a rebuttal; when he passed her a glass filled with red, dense liquid, he finally looked up and said: “It seems to me you are not against free love or human rights, but just against fighting for them. Which sounds idiotic to me”.
“I don’t really care how it sounds to you, Captain”.
“Please, don’t”.
Cassian frowned and stepped back; it was an unintentional reaction to her words, which she noticed. Bodhi noticed too and, in a moment, he was standing next to them, moving on the topic of conversation onto small talks: the weather, Cassian studies and work, Jyn’s internship.
He tried to ease the tension he saw into his friend eyes the same way Cassian or Jyn would have done for him. Sometimes it was way too easy to click the wrong buttons when it came to Cassian, way easier than it was with Jyn or even with him, because Cassian’s wounds were fresher and still he could remember every second of what being a captain meant.
Overall it wasn’t a bad evening, it was pleasant in its way; seeing Jyn and Cassian constant banter made Bodhi think that they could, somehow, be friends. It would have been a form of friendship based on sarcasm and terrible jokes but it could have worked, well, unless one of them started talking about something the other didn’t want to discuss. Again. He just wished that the both of them would have been more honest; he didn’t want Cassian to think of Jyn as someone despicable, nor he wanted Jyn to believe that Cassian was living in his own bubble of dreams. None of those things were true, but he was aware that interacting with them was not easy; in particular, Jyn could have come off as not caring, disillusioned and way too harsh when, in reality, she was just too hurt to bother.
Jyn waited until her friend took off to wash the dishes and she finally got some slack from his overprotective glare; sometimes Bodhi was the older brother she never had and thus he tended to easy every tension and tried to prevent her from fighting the world. As he disappeared into the kitchen, she turned toward Cassian and smiled.
It was the first real smile she had given him since he had entered the room a couple of hours before and Cassian couldn’t help himself from smiling back. They were sitting on the sofa, a comfortable blue navy piece that Jyn love with all her heart, she leant towards him and softly spoke.
“I’m sorry”.
“For what?”
“Calling you Captain. Bodhi told me you were in the military and I didn’t think properly before talking. I just wanted to mock you”.
“You couldn’t have known, but I appreciate the though. I usually don’t like to linger in my memories. I lost friends and, worse than anything, I almost lost my faith in humanity”.
“It seems to me yours is stronger than mine”.
Cassian laughed.
“I was lucky. I had the chance of meeting a lot of wonderful people when I came back. I was given the chance to start again”. He stopped. “I guess, I should apologize too, I shouldn’t have insisted with the soulmate topic. I found it funny to challenge you on that from the moment I met you. You know, with your wristband and everything”.
Jyn grunted.
“I figured. But to be completely honest – and promise you won’t tell Bodhi – it’s not that I hate the idea of soulmates per se, I just don’t like the idea of someone else choosing for me”.
“It still strikes me how you cannot appreciate what we do in the committee”.
“I’ve had my fair share of battles, I don’t usually tell this to everyone, but I grew up with Saw Gerrera”.
“Are you kidding? The leader of the Rebels movement? The political party?”
“Yup”.
“No wonder you are sick of fighting, but you’ll have to admit he’s an extremist. He’d fight everyone and everything if he was given the chance”.
“I know, which is why I got away. Growing up with him I slowly started to become like he wanted me to be, I was his pupil and slowly but steadily I started to fight his battles. Back then I wanted to fight the whole world. Until one day I realized I was tired of fighting and losing. And I don’t want to be judged by you, by anyone for this, Cassian. This constant fighting only brought me pain”.
“Is that why you are so against soulmates? Because you fear you’ll suffer?”
“No, because I want to choose. Imagine you’ll meet your soulmate one day, you expect great things and that person, boy, girl, doesn’t really matter, it’s the exact opposite of what you have imagined”.
“I know how it feels. Mine’s a bit of an asshole”.
“Oh” Jyn got silent for a brief second, uncertain of how that information was making her feel “So you found him?”
She was attracted by Cassian, it was chemistry more than an actual fondness because she didn’t know him enough to say that she actually liked him. To be fair, even if she had found herself appreciating this handsome dreamer as a human being and not just because of his looks, she would have never admitted it.
“It’s a her, but as I said she’s a bit of an asshole”.
And for some reasons, still unknown to her, she felt relieved.
“That’s precisely my point. You meet someone you don’t even like and some unnatural force tell you they are your soulmate and what do you do? You ask her out, not because you want to, but because you feel compelled to. You have to. At that point it becomes a duty, not a pleasure, it’s an imposition, not a discovery”.
“Or I could just be curious,” he smiled, “you see, I think you are missing something here. Whether it’s because of chemistry or it is because of a tattoo, people will always be in search of something else, something more, someone who’d complete them and make them happy and whole. They always have been. If there is a Force, a unnatural superior Force suggesting me that a certain asshole is the perfect match for me, who am I to disagree? Who am I to give up before even trying?”
“Apparently an incredibly smart dude with a cute Mexican accent?”
“Nice try, but no; although it’s nice to know you like my accent. Point is, I’m no one, I’m in no position to deny the universe a try. Trying doesn’t cost you anything. Worse it could be he, or she, ends up being a wrong match for you and you realize the universe was wrong”.
He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and sip the wine, then started once again, staring at Jyn with an intense gaze, caught up by his own words.
“Take my adoptive sister’s parents. According to the universe they were soulmates, but in the end his father did one hell of a mistake got sent to prison and her mother died; the universe can screw up, there is no such thing as perfection, anywhere. Yet Leia still believes in soulmates - and in human rights, but that’s not the point now. You can believe in love, every form of love, and be a perfectly decent human being”.
“I-“
“Think about this, do you happen to know any soulmates couple?”
“Well, my parents were soulmates, and two of my closest friends, Baze and Chirrut, they are soulmates, they got married I think around ten years ago, not long after their tattoos got revealed”.
“Is the idea of having something similar to what they have, or had, considering your parents, so terrifying and horrible?”
“I- No. It’s not, but the point it’s not whether it’s terrible or not, the point is I want to feel free to choose whomever I want”.
“Then you could always choose not to fall in love with the person the universe choose for you, can’t you?”
“I guess I do,” Jyn muttered, confused. She was starting to think that Cassian wanted to get somewhere, but she was still missing the point.
“Perfect! Then let’s have dinner”.
Cassian looked at her, he was smiling – not just smirking as usual, but a huge, proper smile and he looked even prettier than before, something she found extremely irritating.
“We just had dinner,” she laughed, pointing at the empty table.
“Not now, Jyn. Somewhere else, some other day, just the two of us”.
She looked more confused than she actually was.
“Are you asking me out?”
“Yes, Jyn, I am”.
She jumped on her feet and looked at him, he was still sitting on the blue couch, looking as relaxed as he had ever been.
“What about trying to go out with your soulmate and shit?”
“What about that?”
“Didn’t you say that you had to at least try?”
Cassian didn’t answer, but he sighed theatrically. With a slow gesture, he unbuttoned the sleeve of his shirt and then proceed to take off his wristwatch. Jyn followed the process with eager eyes and shivered, she didn’t notice but she was holding her breath, like she was witnessing a unique and unprecedented event. And, in a certain way, she was.
“Have you ever seen yours?” Cassian asked, his voice was soft, almost kind and Jyn knew something was coming.
“No, never. I know it appeared sometime after my sixteenth birthday, but I never stopped and read it. Even when I shower, I’m used not to watch my wrist. Never”.
“Then, are you sure you want to read mine?”
“Are you giving me permission?”
“I don’t think you need permission for anything that you do, Jyn Erso”.
She laughed, he was starting to understand her, at least a little bit.
“So can I read it or not?”
“You can, but only if you are ready for the consequences”.
“No big deal, I’m great at avoiding them”.
“Asshole”. He laughed.
As he said the word Jyn laid her eyes on his wrist and both her and his voice echoed simultaneously in her mind.
No, thanks. I don’t believe in your pro human society mottos, soulmates, destiny and shit.
Mine’s a bit of an asshole.
Her right hand run to her left wrist and she stepped back, hit by the sudden awareness that it was her. She was his soulmate. And probably he was hers. That was the reason for all that talking and it was probably why Bodhi invited him to dinner and-
“Did he know?”
“What? Who?”
“Bodhi” she was being aggressive now and there was a not so hidden rudeness in her voice, like she was scared. And she was.
“No, I didn’t tell him”.
Jyn’s brain was working faster than usual and she felt so tempted to take off her wristband, she wanted to know, but at the same time she didn’t. What if it was just a bad joke, what if something different was written on her wrist, what if it was true? Her nails pierced her skin as she frowned.
“Jyn? Jyn, look. This means nothing, I just wanted to try. Okay? You don’t have to say anything, to prove anything or to show me your tattoo. This is purely me being egoistical and self-centred and wanting a chance, wanting to try”.
She smiled faintly, relaxing a bit.
“So, would you come out with me?” he asked again, smiling “I can cook you dinner, I’m really good at cooking”.
This time Jyn laughed and nodded.
“Is there something you can’t do?”
“Actually, a lot of things, but I don’t want to spoil you the fun of the discovery”.
She didn’t reply, lost in a passing thought, something annoying she couldn’t really quite catch. It took her a few seconds to realize what was bothering her, then she stepped forward, crossed her arms and looked at Cassian with a raised eyebrow and a sarcastic smirk.
“So, what was that thing about your soulmate being an asshole?”
Cassian laughed.
“Don’t worry Erso, you have all the time in the world to prove me wrong”.
“Or to confirm your hypothesis”.
“Eh, not sure it was just a hypothesis. I’m pretty sure you are a bit of an asshole”.
“True words spoken out of true love, I reckon”.
They both laughed.
“Is Friday okay for you?”
Jyn nodded in agreement: “Seven thirty, be punctual, don’t bring flowers”.