Chapter Text
Cassian Andor had waited for any number of transports in his time. He’d stood just like this in the hangar bay, waiting on a map, on a name, on a fellow intelligence officer he needed to rendezvous with in order to continue or begin a mission.
Until now, he’d never waited on a person, one he wanted to see just for the pleasure of seeing them, holding them, kissing them -
He swallowed hard and shifted his weight.
Until now.
He swallowed again, lecturing himself to be calm and collected. She’d been gone three weeks and four days, after all. A lot could have changed. It wasn’t as if they’d actually talked about anything that last night.
Maybe the only reason she’d come to his bunk the night before she’d left had been pre-mission jitters.
It was certainly why he’d opened the door and let her in. Although jitters seemed too small and silly of a word to apply to the sudden raw terror that she would leave and never come back. He would never know what it was like to kiss her, hold her, sleep with her in his arms -
It had seemed so easy on Scarif. So simple to fall into step, to work in tandem, to turn to each other at what they believed was the end of the road.
But ever since they’d woken up in the hospital wing, she’d pulled away, or he had pulled away, or they had pulled away from each other. He spent his days electrifyingly aware of her and the distance between them, waiting for the smallest sign that he could come close again, and wondered if she was waiting for a sign too.
Two weeks after her departure, K-2 had said to him, “Would you like to know the statistical probability that Sergeant Jyn Erso will return safely? It is excellent.”
Paradoxically, the comment had made his stomach sink. “When has Jyn ever fit one of your algorithms, Kay?”
“My algorithm is evolving,” the droid had huffed.
Cassian wanted her to return, of course, although somehow it had never occurred to him that she wouldn’t. She’d made it off Scarif - one little Pathfinders mission wouldn’t do her in.
He wanted to her to return, but more, he wanted her to return to him, and settle the question that lingered unanswered ever since she’d left, like a visible cloud around him.
Her alarm had gone off early, waking them both. She’d groaned and buried her face in the pillow a moment, then crawled over him muttering, “It’s fine, it’s me, go back to sleep - ”
He hadn’t, of course. He’d lain and watched her pull her clothes on, yawning, her hair falling around her face in the dimness of his room, a sick apprehension in the pit of his stomach that she would leave for her mission without a backward glance.
He should understand. He’d never been someone who could afford backward glances, or assignations any longer than one night. He’d lived with vague regret over that, until he was on the other end, and then the regret had sharpened like a tooth.
She’d twisted her hair back into its usual bun, holding it anchored with one hand, scowling slightly as she looked around for her hair tie. Her eyes had landed on him, and she’d gone still. It was very hard to read her expression.
He’d said, “Jyn,” just to be able to say her name to her one more time.
She’d gone to her knees next to his bunk and put both hands on his face, letting her hair fall down again as she kissed him.
That kiss had stayed on his mind all these weeks, throughout the business of the Rebellion. Even when he was on a brief mission of his own, headed out alone to perform recon on an Imperial outpost, she’d haunted his brief snatches of downtime. He’d hoped she would have come back while he was away but when he arrived and found only Bodhi waiting, a mixture of disappointment and relief spilled through him.
His friend had said right away, “She’s not back yet, but the last report is all good. No casualties.”
He hadn’t even pretended he didn’t know who Bodhi was talking about. For a spy, he felt that he was blindingly obvious, all his feelings writ large on his face when he looked at her. It was a terrifying thing, knowing himself to be this open and not being able to close himself up again.
Not that he was trying too hard. Waiting for her transport to land like a lovesick fool. He told himself, Even if the answer is no, it’s still an answer, and I’ll be content with that.
He knew himself to be a liar.
The transport thumped down and steam billowed from the hydraulics for a second. He let himself be bumped and shoved toward the back of the waiting group, watching the disembarking soldiers.
She came down the gangplank in the midst of the Pathfinders, quiet and self-contained in the midst of their boisterous homecoming. His heart lurched at the scrape along her hairline, but he catalogued the way she moved, her stride loose and easy, her arms swinging with no apparent hitches to indicate a bruised shoulder or cracked ribs.
She looked around the hangar, her eyes passing over the spot where he stood, and he felt his stomach sink with dread and confusion. Because they were friends and comrades at least, even if nothing more, and why was she looking past him?
No, he realized suddenly. She wasn’t looking past him deliberately. She didn’t see him. He hadn’t realized how far back he’d drifted, a spy’s habit of blending into the background.
He started to move forward, but checked himself. He was so wrapped up in all the huge things he felt, but he had no idea what she felt.
He was a spy, wasn’t he? It was his job to work out what other people missed, to peel back the layers of the obvious, to assemble the facts from his targets’ myriad tiny tells.
So he spied on her, setting his own thoughts aside to take her in and see what his observations told him.
She was healthy, she’d been successful, all that much was obvious. But what was she looking for as she looked around the hangar?
Whatever it was, she didn’t see it. Her shoulders slumped infinitesimally, her mouth folded down at the corners, her lips pressing together. Her step fell heavier as she continued down the gangplank.
Two women were kissing hello a few feet away. She looked at them, then looked away, down. She hooked her hand on her opposite elbow, as if hugging herself.
She looked small, and lonely, and as if she’d very much wanted someone to meet her and kiss her hello.
Anyone?
Or him?
He took a few steps forward, into the light, and saw her turn toward him.
Her eyes went big, and her lips parted, and then she was looking at him like she had once before, on the top of the data tower on Scarif, when he’d shot Krennic in the back.
You’re here, that look said. I didn’t think you would be but you are, and you’re the person I most want to see.
His heart stuttered in his chest.
For months he’d been telling himself that it was the intensity of the moment that made her expression so meaningful in his memory. The life or death stakes, the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance -
But this right now was a nothing moment, a few Pathfinders coming home from a mission that had gotten something small and quiet done on a planet far away, something whose ripples might not be felt for a long time. He hadn’t risked death and she was perfectly fine and yet -
You’re here, her eyes said. It’s you and you’re here.
She had come home, and she’d come home to him.
He smiled at her, because she was here too, and walked toward the base of the gangplank. Her smile wobbled, and it hit him that she was nervous. Jyn, nervous to see him.
For the first time in three weeks and four days, he remembered that If she hadn’t said anything that night, then he certainly hadn’t either.
He didn’t know what to say, so when she stood before him, he did something very uncharacteristic and said the first thing that came to mind. “Welcome home.”
She reached out, took him by the lapels and pressed her mouth to his, finally answering all his questions, and the answer was yes.