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His eyes get softer than she could have ever imagined; wistful, tender, even. It's a stark contrast to her war-hardened heart. She expects rough and calloused skin, like hers, as his fingers reach out and tangle with hers, but Cassian's hands are warm and gentle and -
and the flames always catch up with them, and the blast is so loud, so vivid, Jyn feels it in her very bones. He opens his mouth and tries to say something - she thinks she hears "I'm here," but she can't be sure. He always leaves her first; she begs him to say it again, promises she's here too, that she'll stay with him until the end; she clutches at him, molding her body to his in a vain attempt to shield him from the explosion, but he sighs his last breath against her neck and -
Jyn wakes to strangled sobs that catch in her throat, making her taste bile and salt in her mouth. Light-headed, she rises from her cot, just enough to put her head between her knees and breathe in, breathe out. It's not the first time something like this has happened - almost every night since they narrowly escaped Scarif, she's waken from nightmares that feel so real, Jyn can't help wondering how they made it. It just doesn't make sense. She still remembers the way the flames licked at her body; how tight Cassian's arms around her felt. The Rebels have tried to explain it to her; how they managed to get there on time and rescue them, how Chirrut is still recovering at the medbay, how K2's body armor has been damaged but they have good hope to fix him. Bodhi is already up on his feet, ready for the next mission. Baze is ready for anything. And Cassian...
She hears the tune of his soft, slow breathing, before her eyes land on his shape on the cot across from hers; even in the dark she's grown so accustomed to him she'd recognize him among a hundred others. Jyn presses her eyes shut again, tries to synchronize her breathing with his; in and out, until his reassuring presence lulls her into a sense of somewhat safety. Against her ribcage her heart stops hammering and slows to a more bearable beat - he's alive. She brushes her fingers against the rough patch of singed skin at her temple, the rib that hasn't fully healed at her side - Cassian matches her. His injuries might be worse than hers but he's alive, he's alive, and the selfish part of her she's tired of concealing wishes she could just hide him somewhere.
Those are scary thoughts. Saw spent years warning her against her own emotions, and how they could be her downfall someday.
He never told her that someone's name and voice and touch could be just as deadly.
Jyn balances her legs off the cot, and the floor creaks just a little when her foot touches the floor. There's a tremor in Cassian's breathing then; Jyn holds her breath and stays still, waits for him to start snoring again - waking him in the middle of the night when she feels like she's one minute away from crying is the last thing Jyn wants. Slowly she extracts herself from her bed and silently slips out of the room, and into the cold, desert hallway. She never crosses path with anyone this late at night; Jyn's pretty sure that the facility is perfectly secured, but somehow the corridors are clear of any presence on her way from their room to the rooftop. She's not sure of what her reaction would be if she ever were to run into Baze or Bodhi; what she'd tell them, if they would even ask, or simply understand and let her walk it off. For the life of her Jyn doesn't understand why these men have grown to look at her as a friend, why they care so much - caring is a delicate, fragile thing, a weapon and a weakness both, she's learned.
Some nights, she almost wishes they'd find her, though. Just so she'd be allowed the choice, not to fight or run, but to stay, for once. To say the things she won't when Cassian gives her that look, soft, caring, concerned eyes boring through her, making her feel naked and vulnerable in a way Jyn has never let anyone or anything do before. He never pushes - he lets her avert her gaze, retreats when she can't deal with his proximity, all without any words spoken between them.
They don't talk about Scarif. They don't talk about the fact that they were ready to die but didn't, that she sees him dying in her arms every time she closes her eyes, that she cares too much when she shouldn't, can't afford the luxury. That she's heard of the capture of Princess Leia and that she's terrified he'll be volunteering to join the rescue mission. That she's terrified of the way he makes her feel.
They don't talk. They share living quarters because Yavin is small and the rebel base even smaller, and when asked if they minded, Cassian made that face that just screamed that he didn't want her out of his sight. Jyn doesn't want to ponder on the implications, because then they'd have to talk about that, too.
In spite of it all, things work smoothly between them - she'll let him check her wounds every once in a while, and her arm finds its way around his back on its own accord when she feels he's about to wobble one second before he actually does. Instinct. She doesn't have to overthink it. She's so tired, anyway. She lets Cassian care a little, while keeping him at bay - in the long run, she hopes he'll understand it's for the best.
The fresh air hits her face first as she reaches the top of the ladder; then, a couple of droplets. Rain. After the burning sun in Scarif, Jyn welcomes it gratefully. She remembers playing with her father in the rain, back at the farm, when grinning and laughing until it hurts was something she didn't have to question. The memory is vivid in her mind, the scene ready to be played if only she allowed it.
But it belongs to someone else, to a young girl Jyn no longer feels connected to. Her father - her parents are gone and this life she had a million years ago is gone, too. Now she's some kind of hero they say, they all are, and the words of praise or gratitude people have been uttering to her for the past weeks while shaking her hand or trying to catch a glimpse of her feel as alien to her as everything else. Her burned skin. The camaraderie everyone seems to feel for her. Her own feelings for her teammates, and their captain.
Cassian. Even the rain can't wash him off of her, apparently.
She sits on the roof for a while, still. It's only during that brief time during sleep and wake, just before dawn, that Jyn feels like she can breathe and just be for real. For a moment, she feels like she understands Chirrut a little; the Force is not with her, but she is with herself, and to be herself completely after everything is something of a miracle. "Never change," she recalls her father's words, and bites her lip before the tears start flowing.
They do, though. They always do. She hasn't cried like this since Saw abandoned her but since Scarif she's cried every time she's come to that roof, letting the walls crumble for just an instant, before she locks everything up again to face the next day. It's the only thing resembling normalcy, this routine of hers.
Normalcy usually doesn't include someone draping a jacket over her shoulders. "You were gone longer than usual," he says, his voice nothing but a murmur but so loud in the quiet of the night.
She doesn't tremble at his touch, nor does Jyn react to Cassian's presence. The fact that she didn't hear him coming stuns her into silence - anywhere else in the galaxy, her carelessness would have meant death. Cassian lowers himself into a sitting position beside her, not too close, but close enough that she can feel the shudder running through his body.
The idiot.
Jyn turns her head, pretending to focus on a patrol securing the outside fence of the base. The fur of Cassian's jacket is soft against her cheek, and the fabric smells like him, something strong and sharp and soft at the same time.
(She has no idea what Bodhi smells like. Bravery, perhaps. Chirrut; faith. And Baze, Baze is strength. K2 is oil and loyalty. Cassian is something else entirely. Cassian could have killed her father, almost did. But he didn't. There's a storm in his eyes and a sweetness to his smile, and if Jyn isn't careful, she could make a home of them.)
"I didn't want to intrude, but," Cassian starts, then pauses. She looks at him, at last; focuses her gaze on his chin, the scar high on his cheek, anywhere but his eyes. She becomes a little fixated on the way his throat catches as he looks for his words. "You were gone so long, I started to -"
"I didn't want to wake you up," Jyn interrupts him, like it's the point. They both know it's not. She never wanted him to know she escaped at night - fled from him, really. He's just too much sometimes. "It's that damn floor."
Cassian chuckles, a low, amused sound Jyn wants to capture and bottle in for later. "Yeah. Makes one man feel like ten," he teases, and she laughs, too, because why the hell not. They're alive, after all.
Rain catches on his eyelashes, and she becomes fixated on that, too. His face is a blur but she sees the little drops so distinctly, can count them, and he's beautiful, she can't deny it, and she wants to kiss him all of a sudden, or maybe it's not so sudden, after all. Jyn's been wanting to kiss him since that long ride in the elevator. Wanting to kiss someone when you feel like you're about to die is not exactly the same thing as wanting to kiss them every day, in the aftermath, Jyn's painfully aware. She's never wanted that before. She can't say that she hates that her life is now divided between before and after Cassian. It's another warm, stupid feeling Saw never took the time to explain.
It's a feeling, a child's intuition, that she remembers from another life, in the way her father looked at her mother. That's not for you, she tells herself again and again.
But then Cassian looks at her from under his lashes, and she feels warm, not from the furry jacket, but from that gaze alone, and it should scare her, every line in the book says so, but it doesn't. This is what they do - they don't talk, not in words but in looks, in gazes that linger just long enough, brief, fleeting moments where their guard is down, before they go back to being themselves. Cassian cares about the cause more than she's cared about anything in so long, but, deep down, Jyn feels like they might be more alike than she first thought upon meeting him.
And perhaps that's why he's waited this long to push, why he's let her be for weeks, taking the cold shoulder, the little nods, the silence between them, heavy like a ghost in the room. She doesn't dare name that thing between them, that pull she cannot fight, no matter how much she pushes sometimes. It's too much and nearly not enough at the same time. "I had a dream," she offers simply.
Cassian nods, like he knows exactly what her dream was about, and maybe he does. "You want to talk about it?" he asks, soft, tentative, almost like he's certain she'll rebut him.
She expects herself to - but the words spill out before she can try and lock them in. "I saw you dying again," she says, and the brutal truth hits her like a ton of bricks. She keeps imagining all the ways she could have lost him in her nightmares, but it's not the blast that undoes her; it's the very idea of losing him that's unbearable to her. It was almost a blessing, thinking that her father was dead for all these years - Jyn doesn't know how to reconcile with the fact that caring is opening yourself to hurting when things come to an end.
They're alive, but they could be dead tomorrow for all she knows. She'd told them they had no choice but to fight, and it had sounded right at the moment, raw and real, like the inevitability of their death. Living seemed easier when death was just around the corner, then.
Living long enough to care about people, and let them in, was never part of the plan.
"It still feels surreal, uh?" he says in lieu of an answer, sounding just as incredulous as she feels. "I thought we were dead. I felt dead. But, Jyn, I'm not."
"You're not."
"Neither are you. We made it, Jyn," he says, gentle, hopeful. His fingers are so close to hers - when did he get so close - she could grab them with no effort. "It makes no sense but we made it. I'm not dead, I swear."
"That's something a ghost would say," she exhales, the small puff of air whitening in the cold.
"You talk to many ghosts?" Cassian asks, and it's supposed to be light, she figures, but there's just this thing in Cassian's tone that says, you can tell me, please, trust me, and the thing is, she does.
But she's exhausted, and the sight of him shivering under the rain, yet ready to listen to her talk all night throughout morning, is too much. Her fingers reach for his, twine around them tightly. She wants him to know she's not saying no, not ever, only not now. Her thumb finds the small dent in his skin around his knuckles, where she held onto him so tightly when the medics tried to take him away she left her imprint. That's real. Cassian's real, and he's here, and she feels stupid, all of a sudden, coming up here every night when she could have just talked to him.
He squeezes her fingers, lifts their joined hands as if he were about to kiss her palm. Instead, he places them above his heart. His heartbeat is slow and steady, and if she's not careful, Jyn knows she'll let the rise and fall of his chest lull her into uncharted territory.
Why that would be a bad idea, Jyn isn't sure she still knows.
They stride silently back to their quarters. Jyn catches a glimpse of Baze through the medbay window, sitting at Chirrut's side. She decides she'll ask him how he does it, fight like he's unafraid, while caring about someone else more than he cares about his own life. She'll ask him, soon, tomorrow even, because who knows how long any of them has? How long before they part ways, how long until luck runs out? He called her little sister, and that's what brother and sister talk about, don't they?
"Chirrut is strong," Cassian notes, and if Chirrut is faith maybe Cassian is hope. And perhaps hope is everything they have. Everything they need.
"The strongest."
They fall silent again. Cassian unlocks their door and Jyn is shrugging his jacket and her wet clothes off before he can close it. She's lost any sense of modesty after spending five days in the intensive care section of the medbay with him. Cassian has the decency to only stare at her for a long second before he looks away and mirrors her, stripping his layers until they're both standing in just their underclothes.
Jyn stares at him unabashedly. His scruff has grown into a full beard. The burn scar on his bicep has faded to a soft pink. A drop of rain falls from his messy hair, and rolls down his neck, his torso, down to the sharp line of his hips. She follows it, and she wants, more than she's ever wanted anything in her life.
It's been lonely, this life of hers, running from everyone and everything; Jyn reckons Cassian would know the feeling. There's a bond between Chirrut and Baze, a sort of intimacy that only comes from knowing one another inside out, in the way they fight seamlessly together, and understand each other without a word. She envies them, a little. Even Bodhi has found a cause to connect to, to transcend himself. But she and Cassian - they're of the same kind.
"Cassian," she speaks his name, low and hoarse, tasting it on her tongue. She can no longer blame it on shock or adrenaline, how it rolls so easily, like she's known him forever instead of a few weeks.
He lifts his chin up, looks at her - a little tired, a lot torn. There's a war inside of him, Jyn knows; she was too mad then to ask, to care, but six years-old...six is an awfully young age to join a rebellion, and she knows why, can't ignore why. It's heartwrenching, how alike they can be.
She says his name again, but his eyes are on her, not looking at her, and then he's reaching for a towel, coming at her. "Your hair, it's damp," he says as he wraps it around her neck. "You'll get sick."
Jyn wants to laugh. She's seen him die a dozen times and he's afraid she'll catch a cold, the fool. Her grin softens as Cassian starts applying the towel against her neck, her hair. He's soft in a way she's never let herself imagine. Her eyes flutter close at his touch; she's never let herself realize how starved for human touch she's been, either.
"I'm so tired," she murmurs in the minute space between them, and her sigh heaves against his neck. Jyn doesn't know if she leans into him, or if it's Cassian's hand at her neck that presses her into him, but his skin is warm - so warm - and his fingers are combing through her hair, gentle, soothing, and she thinks she hears I'm here, I've got you, and she's heard these words before, sweet promises, lies, but tonight Jyn's too tired to fight.
She doesn't remember falling asleep.
She doesn't remember putting on a shirt that's too big for her, or braiding her hair. It's a bit loose, damp curls tickling at her neck, where she feels someone's breathing fanning over her skin.
Cassian. She doesn't remember sharing a bed with Cassian. Probably because their quarters come with two bunks, and because it's a terrible idea, his arm slung around her waist, not too tight but snug enough to convey what it means: I'm here, I've got you, you're not alone.
She traces his arm with her fingers. "You're alive," she whispers, and she wants to laugh, and scream it into the void. The Empire wanted them dead, tried and tried to kill them, but they're alive, all of them, and no one in the Galaxy will ever remember their names but Jyn will remember this. Not giving a damn, and then caring too much. Cassian not taking the shot. Bodhi making her believe anything's possible if you only dare.
You're alive, she keeps whispering, and if Cassian wakes at one point, and holds her tighter, and echoes her words, then maybe that's one dream she's okay not waking from.
In the morning things feel different. Perhaps that's what happens when you've spent the night rolled up into someone, Jyn reckons. She wakes again, this time bumping into Cassian's shoulder. He's facing away, his face pressed into his pillow, his hand just barely touching her hip. But when she tries to roll away his fingers tighten around her. "Don't," he moans, and that's dangerous, the vulnerability in his voice, how he's letting her see it, feel it; how she wraps herself into it, wants to let him in the same way.
She stills. "Okay." Okay is not good, is not right - but it's all she's got. "Okay," she repeats, and burrows closer, rubs her nose against his shoulder, presses her body to his side. She remembers her mother leaning her forehead into hers, rubbing noses, smiling; her father would kiss her mother on the cheek, along the line of her temple and jaw. Jyn remembers, and it's a flood then, memories and feelings and touches she'd long locked in a corner of her mind, never to be opened, never to be thought of. "Go back to sleep, Cassian," she whispers, and feels a thrill at how much better his name sounds when it's uttered against his skin.
He says something, her name, perhaps, and then she feels his body relax, soft and pliant as he drifts back to sleep.
Cassian sleeps for another three hours, she thinks. She hears Bodhi pass their door on his way to the council meeting, like he does every morning; the other pilots coming back with news. She's committed everything to memory, like she's always done. For survival. Now, though, she recognizes the eagerness in Bodhi's footsteps; the strength in Baze's. If she really focuses, she can hear Chirrut murmur in his sleep.
As she listens to Cassian's breathing, a slow and steady lull that almost pulls her under again, she misses K2.
When Cassian emerges, Jyn's first thought is that he looks far too soft, too gentle, to be waging a war. He'll never give up, she knows; there's no dutiful wife waiting for him somewhere in the galaxy, no house he's build with those skilled hands he longs to see again.
"Jyn," he says, low, deep, husky, and maybe home isn't a house somewhere in the galaxy, or two arms wrapped around her on a beach on Scarif. Maybe home is the way he says her name like a hello, and not the thousand goodbyes she's been used to.
She likes the way her name sounds in his mouth, cared for, safe. Like a new beginning.
Chirrut wakes.
They work on fixing K2 together, as a team. Cassian is the only one knowing what he's doing, but Bodhi has been around enough Imperial droids to be of help, too. Jyn only hands a wrench or stays at Cassian's side, a hand on his shoulder, slowly massaging the tense muscles when it feels like there's nothing he can do.
She learns that K2 is the closest thing to a friend Cassian has; she sees it in the careful way he treats him, like he's someone with feelings and not just a piece of metal. She sees how wrong she was to ever think of him that way.
It takes them a week, but K2 finally stirs, so human-like, as his program starts processing.
(He sees her, and rolls his eyes. "Do you want to know the -" he starts, but Jyn interrupts him, wraps an arm around him and says, "Don't ruin the moment, K2. Just shut up," and they all laugh, and they're home.)
They can't stay on Yavin forever, Jyn knows it.
She also knows that the rest of the team, her Rogues, will not leave until they do; that Cassian won't leave on another mission until she accepts the offer from Mon Mothma - Sergeant Erso, no less. Jyn doesn't allow herself to entertain the thought of what Cassian would do, if she ever were to say no, if she decided to leave and go somewhere Lord Vader, the Empire, and the war can't find her.
She stubbornly refuses to think of asking him to join her.
They've heard of the young Skywalker - a boy, really. She knows he'll need help; but Jyn can't help hoping he'll find it elsewhere. For the first time in so long, since she was a young girl herself, too, Jyn feels like bidding a farewell to arms. She's lost her father, twice, and Saw, and she's so tired of losing people she cares about, no matter how much she resists it.
It's because her team cares about her that she's still alive, she won't ever forget it.
She finds them with Mon Mothma, and leans against the doorframe, catching a couple of sentences before K2 outs her. "Jyn is hovering at the door."
She says it before she can keep the words in. "It's Sergeant Erso for you, K2. If the offer is still up," she shrugs, like it's nothing.
Bodhi's grin, Chirrut's proud nod, the encouragement in Baze's eyes - it's nothing compared to the way she can feel Cassian's body hum with bottled energy, how he's trying to keep a neutral face, but fails miserably. He's six, all of a sudden, before the war, before death and darkness, and it's his softness that makes him strong, Jyn finally understands.
"Well, Sergeant," Mon Mothma says, "I'll leave you with your Captain, then."
That night, Bodhi and Cassian playfully fight about whose planet produces the finest alcohol while sipping on the worst beer Jyn's ever tasted. But they're alive, and they're having fun in the middle of an impending war they might not all survive, so it doesn't matter. All that matters is the way Cassian's mouth curls when he smiles, the dip at the corner Jyn wants to kiss so, so desperately, she aches.
So she does.
She presses her lips at the corner of his mouth, tastes the beer, the soft sigh he exhales, her name, before Cassian tilts his head and finds her lips. It's not loud or explosive like Jyn's used to, nothing like the quick, rough kisses she's shared with strangers. It's love like she remembers, not like she's waiting for the world to explode, but soft, and quiet. Peaceful.
It's a strange thing. She's so used to running, Jyn's never asked herself what she was running from, exactly. But as Cassian's hand moves to cup her cheek, his fingers tangling in her hair, she feels like maybe it's time she stop and lay some ghosts to rest.
(The guys pretend not to see them sneaking out. K2 doesn't get the message, of course - he's K2, after all - and calls out to them.
"Don't ruin the moment," Chirrut scolds him.)
She's laughing against his mouth as Cassian unlocks their door, and it feels so stupidly good, kissing a grinning mouth. Jyn never wants to stop.
Her knees hit the bed, and Cassian's on top of her, kissing her, his beard tickling her skin as he bites the tender spot beneath her ear, and that's it - maybe heartache has made them who they are, but it's not the only thing they have to be. War is coming but Cassian's given her a new hope, something tangible, something real to hold onto. The nape of his neck as he dips lower, trailing kisses down her body as he goes. His shoulders when he thrusts in. His hand, their fingers linked around her head when he leans down to kiss her, long, slow, and deep.
They can come at them, she blissfully thinks. If that's what they want, then the fight for him is all she'll ever know from now on.
the end