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Jyn lost her father the same day she lost her mother, on a stormy evening when she was eight. But unlike Lyra Erso, Galen Erso was not dead, only missing.
Saw Gerrera was the one who taught her to fight. Saw Gerrera was the one who pushed her to leave the Partisans; to join the Alliance, as a slicer.
No one trusted her, the half-feral daughter of Saw Gerrera. No one within the Alliance spoke to her, even after she graduated basic training and gained a place in Intelligence.
She met Cassian Andor when he was assigned to desk duty after a failed mission in Jenoport. He was assigned as her partner in a coding project, for a weaponized computer virus that would disable most standard alarm systems.
There was an edge of competition between them, from the beginning. They were both brilliant, talented programmers; and neither was accustomed to working in such close quarters with another.
They fell into a rhythm quickly enough, each taking strides with the code and trusting the other to shore up the flaws. They were both driven to complete the virus; Jyn to prove that she had earned her place in the Alliance, and Cassian to atone for his mistakes during Jenoport.
Jyn learned that Cassian ran his hands through his hair when he was stressed, that he bit his lip when he was concentrating. He learned that Jyn wrung her hands when she was nervous, but that there was very little she couldn’t make happen once she set her mind to do so.
They were friends, he supposed, or something like it. Something where they saw each other every day, worked together in a cramped space. Something where they joked and laughed and threw their hands up in despair, where they grinned in triumph when the simulations ran successfully.
Then there finally came the day when the code was complete, when the virus was finished and ready for use. Jyn pushed herself away from her desk, blinking blearily at the computer screen.
“It’s done.”
Cassian leaned in over her shoulder, hit the enter key and watched the simulation run itself to completion.
“That’s it,” he breathed, turning to meet her infectious grin with a triumphant smile of his own. “We did it.”
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Cassian had never thought that he would make it back here, to London.
He’d thought it was a dream, when the pathfinders broke him out of his cell. He’d thought he’d finally crossed the line and lost his mind to all the drugs they’d pumped into his system.
The temperature was getting colder, autumn edging toward winter. The air was chilly, a brisk wind biting even through the thick material of Cassian’s jacket.
(It had been cold, in his cell, but dark; and the autumn sunlight filtered through the leaves, illuminated his world in a way it hadn’t been for nearly two years.)
Kay towered beside him, as they walked. Every couple of moments he would turn his head, open his mouth as if to say something, but he always closed it again before speaking.
Cassian didn't know what to say, either. He had questions for Kay -- what had happened, while he was gone? What had changed, in five years?
What hadn’t changed, in five years?
( What about Jyn? )
He didn't let himself think about that last one. Wherever… she was, now, surely she had moved on, just like he’d told her to.
He could ask Kay about her, he supposed. Find out if she was still with the Alliance, if she was still slicing her way to destroying the Empire, or if she had left and found a more peaceful life.
Jyn deserved a peaceful life. She deserved every good thing that the Force could give her, every chance at the life the Empire had taken away from her.
He’d hoped that he could be a part of that, once. But five years was a long time.
It was far too long, to expect her to wait for him.
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She met up with him at a bar that evening, in celebration -- just the two of them, for once, without the relative buffer of Bodhi and Kay. It was dark and loud and crowded, the sweaty sea of people forcing Cassian to sit far closer to her than she’d normally expect.
Not that she was complaining. His eyes were golden, in the dim light, his hair falling over his forehead in a way that made her want to run her fingers through it.
She wasn’t completely sober, when she kissed him, but she was a far shot from drunk. She was cognizant enough to know what his lips felt like against her own, to lean in to the feeling of his arms circling around her.
He pulled back, shock and concern coloring his gaze. His hands moved to cup her face, gently tracing the curve of her jawline.
She pushed forward, intending to kiss him again, but missed and ended up brushing against the side of his cheek instead. Her face settled in the crook of his neck, and she instinctively nibbled against his earlobe.
(He liked that alot , if biology had anything to do with it.)
“Do you really want this, Jyn?” he asked, his voice tight and controlled. His hair was mussed, his face flushed, but there were shadows hiding in the depths of his eyes. “I… I need you to tell me that you do.”
“Yes, Cassi. I want you,” she whispered, latching on to the side of his throat to suck dark marks on the skin there.
They didn't stop touching for the rest of the night.
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Cassian died on a normal day in October.
Draven didn't even tell her when it happened. She’d had to hack his classified file to find out -- had to bypass the considerable security and malware that Draven had in place against cyberattacks, just to see three red letters in the bottom right corner of his profile.
MISSION STATUS : complete
OPERATIVE STATUS : K.I.A.
It was like a gut punch, a cold dose of nothingness shoved down her throat to roil in her stomach. She felt like she was falling, slowly and quickly; like the world was moving on from that moment so much faster than she could.
She stared at those letters for at least ten minutes, glaring at their tiny red forms, willing them to change -- to be a glitch, a mistake, a ploy to throw off anyone who tried to access Intel’s records.
She reloaded the page countless times; even closed the drive entirely and painstakingly hacked her way through all over again.
The letters did not change.
(He was not dead. He could not be dead, not Cassian, not Cassi; there was a mistake, somewhere. He hadn’t died, he hadn’t left. He’d promised he wouldn’t.)
She’d spent weeks in denial, screaming at Draven at every opportunity. Kay and Bodhi took turns keeping watch over her -- afraid she’d do something terrible, or tragic.
(But he’d promised that he would come back.)
She burst into tears, on the day she opened her door to find Galen Erso standing behind it, because it meant that what Cassian’s file had said was true. But she’d invited him inside, let him hug her and even hugged him back eventually.
(Cassian had saved Papa’s life. He’d gone in with orders to kill, and given Galen another chance to escape. He’d stayed behind, in an Imperial lab, as it imploded; all to give Jyn the chance to see her father again.)
She got used to it, eventually; to the cold void in her gut. To the shock of hurt whenever someone mentioned him, and waking up in tears after dreaming that he had been right there, beside her.
(She found a ring, in his apartment when they cleaned it out. It was a simple gold band with a single inlaid stone, beautiful and elegant. Kay said that it had belonged to Cassian’s mother, before she died.)
(Jyn gave it to Papa, to keep safe, because she couldn’t bear to look at it.)
Cassian Andor had been dead for two years, now. She’d long ago given up on any hopes that he was still alive.
And she’d cried and cried and sobbed, and thrown fists at the universe and the Force for doing this to her; for taking him away, forever, because there was just no way he was ever going to return to her now.
That’s why she didn't believe it, when she thought she saw him standing on the sidewalk outside of the Alliance. That’s why she stopped in the middle of the walkway, forcing other pedestrians to move around her as she stared.
This is it, came a harsh voice in her mind that sounded suspiciously like Saw’s, as she watched him turn to speak to Kay beside him. This is the moment when the grief finally drives you mad.
He must’ve seen something out of the corner of his eyes because he turned to face her, the dull November light throwing his features into sharp contrast against the planes of his face. His eyes widened in shock, when they took in the sight of her, and he took a stumbling step closer before he stopped and just stood there, dumbfounded, waiting.
Waiting for her.
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He was gone when she awoke the next morning, with nothing but a note left on the table and scrambled eggs still barely warm in a pan on the stove.
(She had the faintest recollection of waking early, feeling the absence of his warmth and protesting loudly. She could remember the feel of his lips pressed to her forehead, of having the covers pulled back over her exposed shoulders before sleep dragged her under again.)
He was gone for two weeks, stuck undercover in the small Icelandic town of Fornax. Jyn told herself that she was not nervous, that he hadn’t responded to her messages; that their friendship was strong enough to survive even if he thought that what they’d done was a mistake.
When Cassian finally returned, it was with a half-corrupted datastick of stolen information and a bullet lodged in his chest.
Jyn raced down to the hospital because they were friends. She fought to stay by his side, and refused to leave when even Kay was denied entry to his recovery room.
It was almost one in the morning by the time she was allowed to see him. Her heart lept into her throat, at the sight of his pale, limp body; because he could have died, had the bullet been a little farther to the left and punctured an artery. Because he was one of her only friends.
Because she loved him.
(That realization wasn’t nearly as startling as it should have been. And when he woke days later, disoriented and slightly confused but still able to know who she was, she told him just that.)
(And he said “Welcome home,” for some reason, but she understood. She understood now, why people risked so much just for the chance to return to their homes; because she knew what she would risk to return to Cassian.)
(And then he kissed her again, and she kissed him back, and neither of them seemed to be able to stop.)
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It was her. It was Jyn.
Her hair was longer, than he remembered, and a little bit darker. But she still wore the same dark wool coat, still had the same dull green scarf looped around her neck.
She’d frozen, looking at him in shock, as if he were a ghost or spectre; an impossible reminder of someone she’d thought long gone.
He took a step forward, but stopped, unable to continue.
It had been five years -- five years -- since he’d seen her face, since he’d heard her laugh. He’d missed her so much his insides had ached, his chest empty and cold in the absence of her warmth.
But he’d told her to move on, and there was no reason to expect that she hadn’t. So, if Jyn Erso wished to speak with him -- and he couldn’t help but hope that she would, hope that she would talk to him at least once more, if only to allow him to say good-bye -- he wouldn’t expect…
He wouldn’t expect her to have waited for him. That was unfair.
Five years was a long time. And Jyn could have had anyone she wanted, even when she was still half-feral from Saw’s teachings.
It was a miracle enough, that she’d chosen him once. He could hold on to that.
(He’d survived three years undercover and two years imprisoned by the Empire, but it did not feel like living. Seeing Jyn Erso, in her life without him, realizing that she might have found someone else -- someone better, for there were very few who were not better than a traumatized spy responsible for countless deaths -- it felt more like death than surviving.)
(It must be love, if it hurt like this. But love should not hurt like this -- should not repay hope with despair, or survival with another kind of death. If loving someone could hurt like this, when they moved on, then Cassian wasn’t sure how it could ever be worth it.)
(The simple truth was that of love and death, Cassian Andor understood far more of the latter.)
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They were in love and happy for two glorious years before the past caught up to them.
Jyn knew the look in his eyes, the look he got when he was assigned a mission. He’d started accepting fewer of them, recently; enough to the point where Draven had nearly resigned himself to leaving Cassian assigned to desk duty for the foreseeable future.
And Jyn half-expected him to turn this latest mission down as well, but then she saw the mission objective--
Terminate or extract Galen Erso, as the operative deems fit.
--and she knew that he was going to take this one. And that it would most likely result in his death.
(she’d told him, late one night, that her father was still alive. That some part of her wished she could know him, could get the chance to know him -- even if another part of her hated him, for leaving her behind.)
(Cassian had understood what she meant, and promised to help her
They didn't do anything but lay together that night, not even sleep. They just held each other close, relishing the contact and the warmth for what was almost certainly the last time.
Jyn gripped him as hard as she could, imprinting her nails into his skin in the hopes that it would be enough to ward off time, to stop the universe from moving forward and taking him away from her.
(It wasn’t.)
She buried her face in the pillow when he went to get dressed that morning, so that he would not see her tears.
But he noticed -- of course he did, he was Cassian fucking Andor -- and he came back to her, cradling her face in concern.
“Hey,” he murmured, stroking her cheek gently. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay.”
She shook her head shifting her gaze away, but he brought her face up to look at him.
“Yes, you will, Jyn. I’ll be gone, but… you’ll still have Bodhi. And Kay, although you might not realize it quite yet. And maybe… maybe someday I’ll come back, and you’ll see me again.”
“Cassian,” she whispered, but her voice cracked halfway through his name and she just kissed him feverishly instead, putting everything she couldn’t say into their embrace.
(I love you, I’ll miss you, I wish you wouldn’t leave me why are you leaving please don’t go--)
He pulled back after a moment, smoothing his fingers down the side of her face before letting go. His eyes were sad, as he looked down at her.
“I don’t expect you to… wait for me. And I know--” he raised his hand placatingly, at her broken expression “--that… that you still love me, right now. But I just… if you ever stop, and you want someone else, I understand. You’re going to have to move on, if I don’t make it.”
“I’m not moving on, Cassi,” she murmured against his lips, stepping forward into his space again. “And if you were me you wouldn’t either.”
(It wasn’t long before he had to pull away, to walk away and drive away and then fly a thousand miles away, to where his infiltration of the Empire could begin.
It took him three years to get to Galen Erso and devise a plan of escape, and he was trapped in an imploding lab at the end of it. Cassian Andor died that day, as far as anyone could determine; for there are no lists of the anonymous inmates that the Empire keeps buried underground.
He spent two years there, alone in the darkness of his cell, and he dreamed. He dreamed of Jyn, of what their life could have been if he had just stayed with her, in London and the peaceful lives they’d been so very close to.
There had been a ring, hidden in his sock drawer. It had belonged to his grandmother, and his mother; and he had hoped that one day it would belong to Jyn as well.
He wished he could have given it to her, that they could have truly spent the rest of their lives together. He wished that he could have escaped with Galen, if only to see her one more time before he died.
He wished and he wished and he dreamed of her, but nothing changed in his dark, empty cell.)
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She didn't even realize that she had started walking until she stood directly in front of him. He watched her warily, but not with hostility.
He looked nervous, more than anything, and that thought alone was enough to make her smile.
She moved her hand to cup his jaw, stroked her fingers alone his cheek and felt the harsh scrape of stubble against her palm. He was tense, under her touch, but slowly relaxed; until she dropped her hands down to rest featherlight against his shoulders.
“You came back,” she whispered, and he smiled.
“I… yeah. I came back.”
“Please tell me this isn’t a dream,” she could feel tears prickling at the backs of her eyes, but she could remember countless nights spent thinking that he’d finally returned to her, only to wake up and realize that the bed was as empty and cold as it had been every other night since he’d left. “I never moved on. I tried to, but it was always you; please, if this is a dream, don’t wake me up.”
His arms wrapped loosely around her waist, strong and warm against the chill November air.
“It’s not a dream, Jyn, I came back. I came back home.”
Home , she thought, and that one single word was at the same time far too much and not enough to describe the way that having Cassian returned to her made her heart beat faster.
She leaned forward, slowly, not once breaking eye contact as she kissed him again for the first time in five years.
(He kissed her back, like he’d been thirsting for water for so very long, and she was the oasis he’d finally stumbled across.)
“Welcome home,” she whispered, relishing the feel of her lips moving against his.