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Jyn spent a large fraction of her short life yearning for what she used to know. She had to relearn how to trust and cultivate relationships. She rewired her brain for survival. Everyone and everything is replaceable, that’s how she raised herself. Her life was in constant motion, changing through the war she wanted no part in. One her father wanted no part in.
Every night she replays the last few days of her life before it was taken from her. Even the days she spent with Saw weren’t enough to fill the hole in her soul. She knows her father is alive, and it should placate her. But it doesn’t. Knowing that her father is working for the Empire makes her feel even worse.
She lies to Cassian and says she doesn’t want anything to do with politics. A part of it is true, though. She’s never had much time to worry about what side of the war she was on. But she does worry about it, only for her father’s sake. Her parents were strong-willed, with strong beliefs and a firm hand on one side of the war. They could afford to do that.
Jyn has to bend and shape herself to take on whatever life throws at her. She needs to be fluid. She doesn’t have courage, not like that, to put blind trust in something. In a way, she envies Cassian, who she thinks is an asshole for being so strict with his beliefs, yet, it’s admirable that he is so passionate about a cause that he’ll die for it.
Death scares Jyn. She’s been face to face with death her whole life but it’s never made her any less scared of it. She wants to live, as naive and innocent that is. There’s a great deal of things she hasn’t experienced or even had the chance to try because a great chunk of her life was spent holding a pistol or behind bars.
Weirdly, this whole experience has made her grow fond of K-2SO. Granted, he’s a lump of metal with absolutely no real backbone to him, but he’s… something. It makes Jyn feel all stupid and warm when K-2SO cares enough to pat Jyn on the shoulder when she opens up about her mom’s death on the way to Scarif.
Then the stupid robot that can’t do anything right but be target practice dies and locks the door for them. And it breaks Jyn’s heart. She doesn’t know where everyone else is, if they’re okay, if they’re fighting for a cause they believe in like Jyn always wanted to. She’s panicking again when she sees Cassian hit the metal grate, clutching his side in pain, Krennic standing above him. Stupid Krennic who stole everything from Jyn, who stole her father, her childhood, her mother’s life.
Chirrut knows everything. Jyn’s never been a talker, so it’s convenient to have somebody who just understands how she feels. She hasn’t slept well for a while. Maybe the last time she ever shut her eyes in complete peace, it was fifteen years ago when she was able to receive her mother’s warmth. Jyn clutches her mother’s necklace closer to her chest at the memory. Chirrut places his hand on top of Jyn’s patting her knuckles like he’s an elderly woman. It warms her heart.
Baze is like a rock. An older brother. He’s always warm, his hugs are even warmer. He tugs Bodhi and Jyn tight, like he’s scared they’ll leave, or get scared of him. Underneath all that armor and long locs, he’s nothing but love. He’s warm, he’s strong, he’s resilient.
Watching Baze and Chirrut bicker is nothing short of amazing, the way Chirrut slaps Baze’s hand when he’s being particularly nitpicky about something, or the way Baze attempts to sneak up on Chirrut (he fails) and ends up getting hit in the shin by Chirrut’s staff. The two have a peculiar relationship. Jyn almost wants to ask, but they work together in such quiet fluidity, that it’s evident enough that they’ve had this relationship for a long time.
Jyn finds herself melting in the final team huddle Baze brings them in. Those warm hands will become cold for eternity when he takes his final breath, bullet holes piercing his fleshy armor as he erodes away, no longer a rock.
Bodhi wears his heart on his sleeve. He chats to Jyn about her father, bright-eyed and passionate, bright and brilliant. He saves them a million times with that smart brain of his. It’s nice to talk to somebody her age, she realizes. She never had that. She doesn’t realize how lonely she’s been, and how nice it is. To have somebody to talk to. Bodhi giggles when she tries on his clanky pilot goggles. He talks about what it’s like becoming an imperial pilot, about how scary the generals are, and his family. Bodhi talks, and talks. He fills the void with meaningless chatter. And in a room full of quiet people, it’s a blessing.
Minus K-2SO, of course. The two bicker until Bodhi threatens to rewire K-2SO so that he’s completely stupid.
“I’ll make you into a dustpan, how about that?” Bodhi slaps K-2SO in the copilot seat. The robot winces, as if it even hurts. Jyn giggles from her seat, and hears Cassian snicker to her left.
Cassian.
Jyn hates Cassian the most out of all of them. She thinks that he’s selfish and single-minded. Jyn never claimed to be a saint, but she thinks Cassian’s heartless at times. How is it possible to be so passionate about a cause that you’ll kill, die, lie for it, yet you can’t find compassion in the smallest of things?
Cassian glances at Jyn when she looks over at him, and he has a small smile on his face, quickly wiped off when she catches his gaze. They were both smiling. It’s stupid. Cassian looks at Jyn like he’s sorry for what he almost did to her father, and somehow the message gets across.
“You look ridiculous in that outfit.” Jyn jabs when he tugs on the imperial uniform.
“Oh please, like you look any better.”
“I look dashing.” Jyn rolls her eyes. Cassian digs his elbow into her side as he straightens his collar.
Jyn gives Cassian a reassuring kick to his ankle when K-2SO stops responding, the locked door only doing so much to give them time. She can feel the panic and dread under her skin, but Cassian's presence in itself calms her.
And when he emerges from behind Krennic’s shot body, Jyn cornered, she feels strange, sickly, like she wants to cry. Because it’s the same scene she’s replayed over and over again in her dreams. Krennic gets shot and falls to the ground and Jyn brings her mother and father in for a tight embrace. Instead, she runs to Cassian’s arms.
In the elevator back down, they know what’s coming, and the light shining in from the cracks of the vent shutter against Cassian’s face. And she realizes she really is dying for this cause, she’s dying for a cause that she believed in, like her father before her.
Cassian’s hug is tight, warm, and full of tenderness. It’s the last thing she’ll ever feel before she disappears into the void.
She misses Chirrut, Bodhi, K-2SO, Baze, Saw, her mother, her father. She missed her friends. She’s dying for the Rebel Alliance. And she’s hugging Cassian. Her life, as miserable as it was, was a great one. She only had two days to truly live, to experience friendship and companionship, and everything in between. She felt her nerves come to life under her skin and let herself smile as much as she wanted to, until her cheeks hurt from the foreign exercise.
She wishes, selfishly, that she could’ve had more time to properly relish it.