Work Text:
“You’re going to do this save the galaxy thing alone?”
Cassian smiled raising his drink towards his friend. “Of course. Other people just slow you down.”
Kes Dameron laughed. He clinked his drink against his friends before finishing it. “You can’t fight everything alone, you know.”
“Is that your drink talking or that infatuation you have with that pilot?”
Cassian rolled his eyes at the smile that had taken over Kes’s face. It was a genuine smile full of hope and joy. It was innocent. Cassian didn’t have time for innocence anymore. No one did.
“It’s more than that I think. She’s amazing, “Kes said.
“Aren’t they all? She’s no different than any of the other women in this cantina,” Cassian said.
Kes looked over at his friend and shook his head. “She is different. She somehow makes all of this make sense.”
Cassian raised an eyebrow. There was no way that a woman could attempt to make sense out of anything that was happening. Every day that passed just seemed to make it more apparent that things were deteriorating. “Explain.”
Kes sighed deeply and ran his hand through his hair. It seemed that he was struggling to find the words. “Every time that I think this isn’t worth it and all of this suffering is worthless she just reminds me why we are fighting. We talk about a future. Until I met her I hadn’t even thought about a future.”
Cassian laughed. “What future could there possibly be?”
“We’ve talked about getting married and maybe having children. A son who can grow up and not have to deal with this. We’re sacrificing for that future.”
“Good luck with that fantasy, friend.”
Cassian laughed at his friend’s idea of the future as he walked back to the bar for another drink. He couldn’t even think about the future when he wasn’t sure if he was even going to make it through the end of the day.
He turned back to look at his friend and noticed that his spot had been taken by Shara Bey. Standing at the bar he watched the two of them interact. Kes must have just told her a joke since she had thrown her head back genuinely laughing. Her hand rested on his arm, and they looked like a unit.
Kes finished his drink quickly and walked out of the cantina without saying anything to them. He didn’t want to ruin their moment.
He thought of everything that he had done for this war. The lies. The people he had killed. The people he would end up killing. The destruction that seemed to follow him everywhere he went.
He walked away from the cantina and deciding that he had a new reason for his war. It was for the future that was starting to grow inside of that cantina. So one day he would be able to proudly tell a little boy that his father was a hero.