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It is night. All the orphans have been fed and rocked, tucked in and sung to, convinced of their place in the universe, in the hearts of their tenders. Now it is just them and Jyn in the dining structure enjoying caff and sweetbreads while the sputtering droids go about their work around them.
Jyn has her elbows on the table, dust across her face, loose tendrils of hair everywhere, looking as much like one of the bedraggled orphans as ever. She looks at them over her cup, grins in the mischievous way she has that can rival Chirrut’s smirks, and Baze feels something like trepidation rise in his chest at the sight of it. “Question,” she says in her crisp, formal Jedhan.
“Answer.” Chirrut’s smile is gums and bright eyes and pleased as a lothcat who has caught two birds in one try. His mirth does not falter even when Jyn groans.
Baze should sigh, should chide him, should tease, but has no desire for it. Instead just feels his heart glow inside his chest, more flowers unfurling at the domesticity of the moment. This, truly, was all he ever wanted. Not a war. Not a cannon on his back and the threat of death always at his fingers, sorrow on the tip of his tongue, and pain in his eyes. No, it was always this in his dreams. A home with Chirrut full of children and faith and love. The voyage here has been strange and sad and long, but he has gotten here after everything.
“No,” Jyn says, fake annoyance evident in her tone. “Stop that. I have an actual question.” Her eyes and smile remain full of glitter, sharp like glass, hardy as the flowers that grew in the stones of the temple walls against all odds. Baze has taken to calling her after them occasionally, a term of endearment that she does not decline.
Baze remains quiet, one hand around his cup, the other on Chirrut’s leg under the table. Chirrut just inclines his head as if to tell Jyn to go on, and she has learned their gestures enough by now to understand the meaning.
Her smile, slowly hidden behind her cup as she raises it to drink, is as sharp as any knife but still soft enough not to worry about, and Baze cannot help thinking, once again, how like Chirrut she is really. “Who loved the other first?”
“I did,” they answer in unison, and Baze turns to frown at Chirrut who has also tilted his head slightly, petulant, stubborn.
“Dearest, surely you are not suggesting that you managed to coerce me into loving you when you were shyly stealing glances at me and not talking about your feelings.”
“If you’re suggesting that you tricked me into loving you…”
“Tricked? That sounds like you’re suggesting it was a bad turn of events.”
Jyn’s laughter cuts them off and it is like the tinkling of a music box running down, sweet but full of something bitter that she has no control over underneath. “You two want me to leave so you can spar this out?”
Baze recognizes the look on Chirrut’s face, knows the intent behind it, and it is all he can do to keep from laughing and giving it away as Chirrut seems to orient himself, likely focusing on Jyn’s kyber, before reaching out to tweak her nose the way he would with one of the orphans. “Mind your elders,” he chides with no heat in it before settling back against Baze’s side.
Jyn rolls her eyes, but the sound she makes is pleased, someone who has found a place after too long without one. “Maybe act like one, and I’ll remember,” she teases before attacking another piece of sweet bread.
“Besides,” Baze says, fingers patting Chirrut’s thigh, “I did love you first.”
His husband’s protests are lost in Jyn’s peals of delight. Baze just smiles.