fulcrum3 | The City posts

His fingers curled to hers. Not claiming or confining. Just brushing.

"I'll have to get used to that," he said. "The 'long time' of it for you. I can't imagine. I could hardly stand an hour here not knowing—" where you were… No, don't swallow it, say it: "—where you were. Or anyone."

He tried to let that stand alone, but he couldn't. He had to ask: "I know what the welcome packet says. But have you been able to find out anything from home?" If they heard us? If they won?

Jyn couldn't imagine it either. Strange, probably, after spending so long without him, but it would have been different if she'd shown up here alone. She didn't want to consider where she might be now, what her life would be like.

"The first thing I did was look for you," she admitted, glancing down at where their fingers were curled together. She didn't need to add — not now, not yet — that she'd soon found him. For now, this truth would be enough, and it was true. The first words out of her mouth were asking after him. Not anyone. Just him.

Finding out anything else had come much later. Complicated and fucked up as all of this may have been, at least he wouldn't have to wait to have some of that weight lifted off his shoulders. "I have. The way people show up here... like you did, like I did, out of nowhere... There's not always order to it." She could use this, maybe, but there were more pressing things first. "There are a few people here from before us, and there've been a few from after us." Bright-eyed, she gave him a tremulous smile, an expression not altogether unlike the way she'd looked at him as they sent the transmission. "It worked. They got the message."

For a moment, he stared at her, frozen.

Then he exhaled into an incredulous, sun-blinding, world-moving smile.

Then his fingers closed with hers, he put his face into their joined hands, and wrackingly wept.

"Oh, hey," Jyn breathed, concerned even though the reaction was damn well warranted. It still made her heart ache, made her want to pull her hands away so she could go hold him instead, terrible idea though it might have been. Just watching him made it that much harder for her to maintain her careful composure, and she had a feeling that if she started crying now, she might not stop. The jumbled mess that was her current mental and emotional state needed some sort of outlet, threatening to burst out of her at any moment, that all it would have taken was the slightest provocation.

She couldn't do that now. This moment was his, earned so, so many times over in ways she'd only ever garnered bits and pieces of. So, instead, she clutched his hands tightly, what she hoped in her own awkward way would be reassuring. "I know. I know."

He'd never let go like this with Bix. He'd rarely done so with Maarva. But what was "this" when no such thing had ever happened before… or with someone like this beside him…

Okay. Okay. He let it run its course. Better now than twist eternally or explode. And though it wasn't a thought he'd fully conceived, not a determination he'd consciously made, he was going to try, with Jyn, to say things, not swallow them. That had started over Eadu, and he'd never stop making up for that; and led to something far more critical on Yavin, and then an unprecedented level of interreliance and seamless interreaction on Scarif… He didn't want to sabotage that now that he knew they could have it. And find out if they could have it in peace, not just in war.

So, as his breathing slowed from swallowed gasps, she might be able to make out the words in it:

"Melshi. Sefla. Jav. Arro. Calfor. Casrich. Farsin. Pao. Rostok. Stordan. Baze. Chirrut. Bodhi." And the clearest, tremoring through his body, "Kay."

He used the names to school his breath and finally raise his head. Tears stopped but his eyes still shone with them as he met hers and squeezed her hands. The look in his eyes was… something… From a life fractured, this look was just a quick spark of… whole.

(People weren't so quickly unfractured, but they'd found good help in one another to remember or imagine an alternative)

He knew he kept saying it, but it was the only possible thing. He murmured, "Thank you."

Edited 2025-05-09 02:34 (UTC)

It didn't take Jyn long, just a few names into the list, for her to realize what he was doing. A good deal of her childhood and adolescence had been spent in the company of soldiers, and even the members of Saw's weathered, battle-hardened company took the time to remember their dead. At first, she hadn't quite understood that, her own losses too great at too early an age to wrap her head around the idea of commemorating longer and longer lists of people who'd known what they were getting themselves into. Later, she'd come to close herself off so much that it didn't matter, because she didn't have people to remember. Eventually, perhaps cynically, she'd landed on it making sense for others, just not for her.

In so many ways, though, Scarif was different. Most of the people Cassian named were his dead, not hers, and yet she felt some of that weight all the same — them, and any others who'd died on Scarif's beaches or in its skies. The people in Jedha City, and on Alderaan, something she couldn't bear to tell him about yet. Everyone who'd followed her into battle, or been killed by her father's weapon, the brutal legacy she'd spent most of her life trying to outrun.

By the time he got to the ones she did know — Baze, who'd called her little sister, Chirrut, who'd called out for her across a crowded Jedha square like they were old friends, Bodhi, who'd been here and gone and become her kriffing family, Kay, who'd sacrificed himself for them and the mission in the end too — her own breathing had gone shaky and shallow, her eyes glassy despite her best efforts. Most days, she could hold it all at a distance, having grown as accustomed to living with and being the only survivor of it as anyone could. With Cassian here, though, freshly arrived from the beach where they'd died together, it was all too close to the surface again, as was so much else.

"You don't have to thank me," she said, grateful that her voice wavered only a little. "I get it. And I'm here."

Again, the impulse to kiss her hands; again, he touched his forehead to them instead. Then stayed there a moment too long and exhaled a laugh. "Kriff. I could go back to bed."

With a will, he squeezed her hands and sat back up. He'd barely touched his food. He should get down a little more. After that— "I don't know where to start. I want to hear everything about it. I also would like to hear your take on—" He nodded to the welcome packet still lying open nearby "—all this. I'm not going to just take their word for it. And I should probably go out and get supplies—more clothes, more food. Check out this apartment they've given me. Which there's no way I'm staying at." He caught himself. "I don't mean I have to stay here forever if that's… not… best. I just… you know."

[ooc: Handwave whatever exposition you want?]

In that moment, given everything, Jyn didn't trust herself to know what was best. Or, maybe more accurately, she was of two minds about it. Best was giving herself distance and time, a chance to get her head on straight and reinforce her crumbling walls. Best was having him here with her, as close as she could get. It was impossible to make sense of, and she had a feeling that if she tried to play it off again by reminding him that he could stay as long as he needed, he might, rightly, point out that that wasn't what he'd said.

"Don't want to stay in a place that some unknown magical city entity assigned to you, because that has trap written all over it," she finished for him instead, guessing that that was at least part of it. Was she also part? Reason suggested that she must have been, and yet it felt too hard to believe, too selfish to want when she didn't know what she wanted. "There is plenty of room here. Plus—" She gestured to the food, which she had resumed eating. Not only was it quite good, considering what little he'd had to work with, but she could always eat, regardless of any emotional turmoil. "—You cook a hell of a lot better than I do."

As for the rest, she shrugged. "I don't really know where to start either, except, I guess, with... It is pretty much all exactly what it looks like. Weird, but safe."

He gave another exhalation-laugh, just air and eyes. First: Thank the stars, yes, he wanted to stay with her. Second: That sounded like the Jyn Erso he'd first met (It's not a problem if you don't look up), content with a level of examination and functioning that, at the time, wouldn't have been enough for him. At the moment, though, 'Weird, but safe' was perfectly good enough. He trusted her judgment that if there were more to examine, she wouldn't leave it there. For right now: one world—one Galaxy—at a time.

"Then please tell me everything about… what happened. At home." All it took was a second universe to finally make the first 'home'.

Jyn nodded, unsurprised that that was his priority. After leaving behind a galaxy at war and a rebellion on a tipping point between surviving and falling apart, of course finding out more took precedence over these strange new circumstances. The cause they'd fought and died for was his far more so than it was hers, anyway. She was an interloper in it, a soldier whose personal war briefly aligned with the larger one, never having the chance to find out if it could have been more than that.

Had she lived, she never would have stopped fighting the Empire. She didn't so much have an allegiance to the Alliance, though, as she did to him. If she'd stayed, as she felt sure she would have, it would have been on Cassian's account as much as anything else.

"I only know bits and pieces," she told him, expression turning apologetic for a moment before she paused for another bite of food, buying herself just another moment. "That they got the message, the plans. Found the flaw." Just like her father said. Even now, that anger — at not being believed, at the knowledge that the attack on Scarif might have gone differently if the Alliance had acted, the council as cowardly as Saw ever said they were — still simmered under the surface, kept at bay now by the harder truth she had to tell him. Her eyes went a little darker, almost vacant. "Destroyed the Death Star. Not... before the Empire used it again."

Edited 2025-05-09 06:08 (UTC)

He blanched. His mouth reset into its habitual downturn. His shoulders squared. If he'd been standing, he would be at attention. The last rather than the first rolled preemptively through his eyes, but it barely helped. He said only, "Tell me."

She couldn't look at him with this hanging overhead. Not because she was afraid of what she might see in his expression — she knew, or at least felt reasonably sure, that there wouldn't be blame or disappointment directed at her — but simply because the weight of it still bore down on her too heavily. Jyn knew that she wasn't truly responsible for her father's crimes. Whatever else she thought of Galen Erso, she understood now, to an extent, why he'd done what he did. But knowing a thing and feeling it were very different, and she felt as if that blood was on her hands.

He'd built a planet killer and named it after her. The worst part was that it felt like it fit.

Eyes cast toward the table, her voice small and almost apologetic, she answered, "Alderaan."

Alderaan?!

Core planet. 'Planet of Beauty'. Starblossoms and snow owls.

Bail and Leia Organa.

Cassian had gone there once undercover to deliver a message to Bail and encountered Leia in the gardens. She was playing with her aunt's pet pittins: Fluffy, Winky, Taffy, and AT-AV (All-Terrain Attack Vehicle). Guess which one Leia had been allowed to name.

The pittins were gone, too.

The one thing Cassian didn't feel was disbelief that the Empire would do it. Of course they would for a powerless world like Jedha; but a beloved place like Alderaan… Yes, he knew they would. He'd known that even before Ghorman.

The only thing that kept him from tearing this ship apart with his bare hands, the way he'd tried the Republic ship when he was nine, was that it was Jyn's. But he didn't really want to. He didn't want to scream or pick a fight with something that would hurt him. His shoulders slumped and he went limp in his chair, a fresh tear rolling down his cheek. He was numb… he was nothing.

(It didn't occur to him to link this to her, nor even Galen. For him, their mission had swept that account clean. His reaction was solely for the Empire. Hopefully, he would have the wherewithal to tell her.)

"Any survivors?" he said at last.

Jyn shook her head, mouth pressed into a thin frown. "No one on world," she replied. As far as she could tell, there was no world anymore, Alderaan thoroughly destroyed. Even having witnessed firsthand the effect her father's weapon had on Jedha, it was difficult to imagine — not that the Empire would have done such a thing, because of course they would, but that it could happen at all, a planet obliterated in just a flash of light. Not for the first time, a litany of if onlys rolled through her head — if only she'd taken her father's message, if only the Alliance had believed her, if only they'd saved a few minutes somewhere in there — but they were all useless now. The only thing left to do was remember, and carry some of the weight of those innumerable dead.

"The princess wasn't," she offered, not so much an afterthought as a clarification that felt important. It didn't change the scope of the tragedy, but at least there was someone to speak for the Alderaanian people, to make sure that the Empire couldn't just write it off or spin it in their favor as they had done with so many other atrocities. "There, I mean. She's actually the one who wound up with the plans, somehow."

Beyond that, Jyn was unclear of the details. All the knowledge she did have was pieced together from what scraps of information she'd acquired over the last few years, a vague composite both tragic and relieving. The latter didn't make up for the former, but it did help some, knowing that what they'd done made a difference.

[ooc: I shoulda saved it XD]

There was a strange phenomenon, looking out at space: it looked flat. The human mind cannot process infinity. One most impose limits to perceive vastness.

It was like that now. Trying to process the grief of a whole planet's worth of people… he had to seize on something smaller.

As Cassian had said the names of the Rogue One unit, he finally found something to say.

"I went to Alderaan once, undercover, to deliver a message to Bail Organa. I met Princess Leia in the Palace Gardens. She was playing with her aunt's pet pittins." He glanced back at the bunk, where Beany still slept. "They were named Fluffy, Winky, Taffy, and All-Terrain Attack Vehicle. Guess which one she'd been allowed to name.

"It does count, that she survived. Offworld survivors will need her. As will the Rebellion."

His mouth tightened, looking at nothing. What he hadn't been able to say for himself, he said for Jyn. "Instead of being a first, it was the last. Thanks to your father, and us: the thing's destroyed."

Edited 2025-05-09 21:45 (UTC)

Listening to his story, Jyn couldn't help but crack a smile — bittersweet, still, with the weight of the subject at hand, but at least it was one small bit of levity in the face of everything else. That sounded exactly like what she remembered of Leia, too. She'd always looked so proper during their brief childhood meetings, especially in contrast to Jyn herself, with her straggly braids and ill-fitting hand-me-down soldier's attire, but it was clear that underneath her pristine white clothing was someone as impassioned as her father. And while Saw had never had anything kind to say about members of the Rebel council, Jyn had at least respected Senator Organa, even before he became one of the few who voiced support of her pleas to go to Scarif for the plans.

His was just one more senseless loss. Cassian was right that it was infinitely better for Alderaan to be the last use of the Death Star than the first, and there was comfort in that, but she doubted it would ever stop hurting. She didn't think it should.

"And thanks to them," she added, in reference to Cassian's earlier list of names. She let that hang in the air for a moment, then took a deep breath. "I actually met Leia a few times, when we were younger. Saw used to bring me to meetings with him. But I guess that must have been in my file, too."

"It wasn't, actually. But it makes sense. You've had contact with the Rebellion longer than I have."

Cassian sat hunched for a moment, looking down at nothing. Abruptly he sat up, then stood up, pushing his plate away. "I need…" …something…

He'd had more than his usual fullness of sleep yet still felt like he'd just been in combat. Some of that was hearing this news. Where did he go when feeling like this, in the past? Always, he'd be trying to get 'home'. Or if he didn't have one, at least somewhere secure. Well, he was there now: definitely secure, and in spite of knowing it was premature, and trying not to, being with Jyn did feel like home.

But he couldn't keep sitting here. The low hang of the freighter felt suddenly stifling. And he couldn't go back to bed. And he couldn't go to the cockpit and wrap himself in an army blanket in the pilot's chair blasting mindless radio chatter until he fell asleep. And he couldn't crawl into one of the smuggling holds and pull the hatch behind him. Technically, he could, but he wouldn't; not with Jyn, and not without knowing Kay was there to potentially pull him out.

So, it was doing the next thing.

"…Does this thing fly?" He'd be surprised if it did. "If not… I think I need to go for a walk. Something. Do things. Get out in the sky." If she was right that this place was safe, and he believed her. He would always believe her. "Will you come with me?"

Edited 2025-05-10 00:12 (UTC)

"Of course," Jyn said. The urge was one that she understood well — that she'd been about to act on when she lowered the ramp and saw him there, that was part of what kept her away when she'd promised to be here. As comfortable as she had come to be living on the ship, there were times it was just too stifling not to get out. The product of a life spent on the run, she supposed, or else a long-held discomfort in small, enclosed spaces. She had no way of knowing what he was thinking, but somehow it didn't surprise her that he felt a similar impulse now.

And wherever he was right now, she wanted to be. She ached with the fact of it, his seeming so close and yet so far. Over and over again, she tried to tell herself that the most sensible thing would be to give herself some distance, enough to let all of this sink in, if nothing else, but she couldn't quite make herself listen. If he wanted her with him, that was where she would be. Regardless of what may have changed between them in the time he'd been here before, the bond between them predated any of that, and she had already learned that trying to deny it was futile.

"Ship's grounded, and not for lack of trying. Come on, let's go get some air."

Grateful, he managed a slight smile, just the corner of his mouth. He picked up their plates to store both in the conservator. (He'd familiarized himself with the kitchen thoroughly.) He shut its door with his bare foot, then went to put on the Imperial boots.

Just having this much of a plan was already helping him. He was able to call to her in a more normal voice, as he pulled on the boots, "Maybe first thing we'll replace are these. …And I'm still serious about a bonfire."

Edited 2025-05-10 00:48 (UTC)

"Oh, so am I," Jyn was quick to respond. "I take bonfires very seriously." It wouldn't change where the clothes had come from or the battle they'd been through, but it might at least feel good, a minor catharsis after the horror of Scarif. Even for her, years removed from it now, it never felt very far behind her, was still there waiting as often as not when she slept. With Cassian's arrival having unearthed so many emotions around it, she suspected they would be back in full force over the coming nights.

It was a price she was more than willing to pay to have him here and safe.

"And, yeah, we'll definitely replace the shoes."

So shod, he stood back up, eyes shining at her with gratitude—still, that she was here, alive, talking to him. Now, it felt all right: he put out his hand in invitation. "Lead the way?"

This was a bad idea, but it was apparently a day for bad ideas. Jyn took his hand without hesitation, the feeling of it warm and familiar and right in her own, and gave him a tiny smile. Such minor contact, not even the most they'd shared today, shouldn't have been enough to set her heart racing. Really, she thought she'd shut this part of herself down. It seemed painfully unfair that he could, without even realizing it, wake it up again.

"Come on," she said, leading them to the ship's exit. Outside, it was quiet; the Falcon was easy walking distance from the city itself, but situated, having crash-landed years earlier, in the countryside north of it, little else in the immediate vicinity. Off to one side was her small garden. All of it made her suddenly self-conscious, as if it might seem like she'd gone soft. "Rain's stopped, at least."

He took it all in as if for the first time. Training dictated he'd looked everywhere as he approached, but he'd been in such shock, still—

—from Scarif? No, couldn't actually blame it on that. Perhaps he could be forgiven for finding the spontaneous… what… teleportation, falling through space-/time-, being snatched from death, all a bit tunnel-vision-inducing. But really, he'd been focused on her.

He had noted the distance from the city and the surrounding countryside, enough to feel about as safe as he ever had in the junkyard. (Both choosing to live in downed ships. No, stop that.) The garden just seems like a good idea.

"Good for a fire," he agreed, giving her another of his repertoire of tiny, real smiles. "Maybe after we come back and things have had a chance to dry off. Where to now?"

"Up to you," Jyn said with a shrug, turning to look over at him as he looked at everything else. Once, she'd have tucked herself against his side and rested her head against his shoulder without a second thought. Now she could at least ignore that old instinct, instead just taking in the sight of him, the line of his profile, his jaw. He really was here, which meant he was alive and safe. It was still hard to believe, like a dream that she might wake up from any moment, although she'd already ruled out that possibility.

She kept her hand in his as casually as she could, as if she'd simply forgotten to pull away.

"You're the one who wanted to go out," she pointed out, almost teasing. "D'you want to go get clothes and all that now? Or just stay close to here, or look around, or something?"

His thumb ran unconsciously along her hand, as he also failed to pull away.

"I thought we'd go into the city," he said, "but maybe I'm not ready for that. Maybe you could show me around here?" First know your own ground was a battle precept, but also, he just wanted to know more about how Jyn had been living.

One of those thoughts sat on him that he realized he should say aloud. It was one that felt more difficult than We want to volunteer. Which meant he absolutely should say it. "We only know each other at war. If you want… I want to start to learn… to meet you in peace."

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