Chapter Text
Recap: After a tabloid publishes rumors that Cassian may be cheating on the crown princess, he writes Jyn a note to explain. Jyn, being Jyn, likes to deal with things more face-to-face.
Jyn makes herself known at his bedroom door with a soft rap of the knuckles against the solid hardwood. She arrives wrapped in her soft terry dressing gown, her brown hair tied in a messy braid, her feet bare, her toes unvarnished.
Cassian’s been ready for bed but unable to sleep for the past hour, and he’s suddenly glad for the insomnia.
“You could have just told me in person,” shes says, waving the unfolded pages of his apology. Her eyes are bright and clear, and he steps close enough to her that he can see the way the color shifts from green to hazel in the hazy light of his bedside lamp. He reaches for the letter that she seems to be offering, but when he grabs it between his fingers, she doesn’t let go.
“I’m glad you came here to tell me that,” he says, because he is, and their fingers brush. He blinks at her, surprised.
“Well,” she says, and her lips are still stained pink with color, berry kissed and parted just slightly. “Well.”
He dreams of her that night, of her pale shoulders shed of her dressing gown, of her lips on his skin, of his hands skimming across the flat of her belly and sliding down to grasp her by her hips. In his dream she smiles at him, coy and confident, and his heart races at the sound of her voice.
But it makes Cassian wake angry and confused and alone, and he lies in bed for longer than he should thinking about his wife—and the future queen—and about how they’ve only kissed once on the lips at their wedding, and how the rest of the times have consisted of pecks on the cheek for public consumption.
Once that was fine, once it was acceptable. It was part of their agreement, their marriage. But he sits up, swallows hard, and thinks about the touch of her hand and the smile on her face and how it isn’t fine anymore, not for him, except that it’s still part of their agreement, part of their marriage, and he doesn’t know what to do next if he can do anything at all.