Jyn shrugged, a halfhearted attempt to downplay the whole thing. She didn't want to ruin this again with her own stupidity; she didn't want to leave him thinking about the fact that she'd had a whole life with him that he hadn't experienced. Now that he knew, it seemed better not to dwell on it. But at the same time, dodging his questions had completely backfired before, and she had no real intention of doing so. None of this was a secret. It just was difficult to talk about, even — or maybe especially — with him.
"Well, it seemed like a good idea when I got it," she said. "And then it didn't seem like a good idea anymore, so I got rid of it." Too flippant, not convincing enough. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, focusing on the gentle touch of his hand and the warmth of his body near hers in the cool water. "It was sort of a... post-getting married impulse. So, when that ended..."
“Ah… I’m sorry.” He said it for the relatively light reason of bringing it up, and to release her from the obligation of discussing it. Putting his arms around her, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, trying not to entertain the sudden thought of having stolen her hope. He was glad she’d said it, though, rather than stay evasive, and hoped the warmth of his embrace might communicate that.
Again, Jyn shrugged, but leaned into him, his response the best she could have hoped for. She didn't want him to have to apologize — he wasn't the person who left her here, even if that person had also been him — but it seemed like an acknowledgment as much as anything else, and that was enough. The details weren't important. Now he knew the broad strokes, and could likely fill in some of the rest from there.
"Of course," she replied, looking up at him, once more intending to convey with her eye contact that what she had to say was entirely genuine. "I don't think there's anything I'd keep from you. It's not always easy to find the words, or to talk about things, but... If you ask, I'll answer."
What she didn't say — and hoped he would understand anyway — was that there was no sense of obligation to it. She wanted to tell him things. That was strange for her, and still difficult to get her head around. "Although, if we're trading questions now, I think it's my turn."
Of course, there were countless things that Jyn wanted to know. Given what she'd just told him, though, and in the interest of not devolving too far into unpleasant stories when she still hoped they could have a nice afternoon, she went with what seemed like an easy option.
"You did say last night that you'd tell me about getting your ass kicked over a piece of sky kyber."
He found himself wishing she would delve into less pleasant stories. Continuing to avoid them would just start to chip away at the pleasure with tension. And perhaps he was partly trying to keep creating these good moments to be safe settings for such conversations.
Well, talk about it later if they had to. For now, he exhaled and nodded. "It was my first mission for the Rebellion. A robbery of the Empire. I wasn't fully committed yet. I was a mercenary. My… handler gave me a sky kyber necklace as collateral. I tried to keep it secret but I did a bad job. The rest of the team had been together for months, I came in at the last minute, and they had a hard time trusting me. One of them saw the necklace and nearly cut my throat to get it, to prove I was a fake. I told them the truth and they accepted it because they needed me. Ironically, that guy proved to be more in it for the payoff than I was."
Too many things filtered through Jyn's head at once, somehow all encompassed in the fond expression she kept fixed on him. Mild surprise at the story itself and the irony of the kyber in question also having been a necklace, relief that the asshole who'd tried to kill him over it hadn't succeeded, belated worry about him having been in that situation at all before she reminded herself that he'd probably had people to worry about him then. The concept was still a foreign one to her — like hearing him speak in Myo the other night, the language itself identifiable but the words themselves entirely unknown. She was so glad he'd had that. It was just difficult to wrap her head around what that must have been like.
Was that why he'd been so tight-lipped about his past when she'd known him before? She had no way of knowing. It didn't matter now anyway, with him here and telling her these things, and her still wanting to know as much as she could. For as alike as they were, though, that was maybe the biggest difference between them. He'd had people who stayed, people who cared. She tried not to wonder if she would be able to live up to that.
"It's hard to imagine you as a mercenary," she admitted, smile lopsided and gentle in a way it tended to be only for him. "Or not fully committed yet." He'd alluded to as much just minutes ago, but given how dedicated to the cause he had become by the time she knew him, it was still such a change, and a fascinating one at that.
"Yeah. I had a 'don't look up' period, too." After saying it, he glanced at her with some anxiety. "Again… I know you've forgiven me, it's just… another way I was such a mudcrutch to you after Eadu: making us out to be so different when really our life trajectories haven't been." The mirror hurts. "I guess it's interesting."
"I mean. I could say the same to you," Jyn said, her expression scrunching guiltily. It was interesting, painting that whole argument in different shades than she'd perceived it before. With as long as it had been for her, and with as consumed by grief and rage and betrayal as she had felt in that moment, she only remembered fragments of it now anyway: the way she'd sharpened words to stab at him, trying to do as much damage as she could, to make someone else hurt like she was hurting, and his telling her that she wasn't the only one who'd lost everything. She remembered being too full of emotion to argue her point well, and the way she'd sobbed afterwards, away from all of the others, for the first time in longer than she even knew.
He looked worried, and she didn't want him to be, so she brought one hand up to cradle the back of his head, wet fingers sliding into his hair, and kissed him. It was brief, and she dropped back a moment later, but she hoped it would tell him just how beyond forgiven he was.
With a heavy exhale, she shifted her weight. There was really only one thing for her to say in response to all of that, and it wasn't an easy one. "Fact," she said. "The first mission I went on alone for Saw... It was me, and a rifle, on top of a cliff, waiting for some Imp to come by. I did what he'd sent me there to do. So... What I said to you... It wasn't really any better than what you said to me. And I am sorry, Cassian."
His fingertips came to her jaw as he returned the kiss, bowing his whole upper body into it. His hand drifted into the water when she drew away.
It was different, (maybe it shouldn't be,) the target being a known enemy versus… but he appreciated her fact. "More than forgiven. As I said… when I think badly about it, it's what I said to you. But I should stop bringing it up. There's nothing more to say about it other than making us both feel unnecessarily worse again. I'm sor—" He caught himself and managed a bit of a smile. "—so I won't."
His aborted apology drew a small smile from Jyn in turn. The subject was one about which she knew they could talk themselves in circles and never really get anywhere. She, at least, had had a long time to be able to think about it, and then not need to do so anymore, having settled, no longer wrecked with emotion, into an opinion. The order to kill her father was wrong, and so was the Alliance bombing that finished the job instead. But Cassian hadn't followed that order — had, in fact, risked himself to save her even after she'd outlived her usefulness to the mission, yet again. The venom of the ensuing argument was far more feeling than fact, and she thought she knew the source of it for her.
Even then, she had trusted him so quickly, so easily, and then feeling as if she'd had that trust betrayed was angry at herself as much as at him. That seemed like something that would fall into the category he'd just described, things that would make them both feel unnecessarily worse again, so she didn't. More important was knowing that that broken trust had been long, long since repaired.
"More than forgiven," she echoed with a solemn nod, not wanting to seem like she was brushing him off. Then, in an easy, fluid motion, she drew her legs up, arms spread out to her sides so she could float on the water's surface. "Now, come on, is it your turn or mine?" She'd asked the last question, but she had also offered a fact unprompted, so it was hard to say for sure. It didn't actually matter, the game their own and the rules disposable, but it seemed like a good way of steering them away from the subject of that argument for now.
Exhaling a laugh, Cassian twined his hand loosely with hers so he could pull her through the water in slow, gentle figure-eights.
He rifled through the mental file of her previous Facts he'd wanted to follow up on.
Jyn Erso isn't her legal name here. …But he could guess what it was, now, couldn't he… She'd lived in and burned down a house. …Could he guess that one, too? It felt somehow manipulative to ask. It didn't seem fair to bring up things he'd picked up while she was dreaming… He still often felt like she was holding back, but he'd decided, and promised, not to push.
It was just hard not to think that—
"Status report," he said at last. "I feel like if I could only ask the right question, I'd solve something. But I know it doesn't work like that."
This, his hand in hers as he moved them through the water, her eyes half-closed against the sunlight and limbs loose, was as much a sign of trust as anything else that had occurred between them so far. Simple as it might have been, it spoke volumes that she could be so at ease around him. Normally, any one of these things would have set her on edge — her clothes discarded on the rock where they'd been sitting, her knife with them, which left her unarmed, someone else guiding her movements, however limited the scope of them may have been. Instead, Jyn wasn't even thinking about any of that. She was aware, inasmuch as she always would be, but she didn't have to be alert. She could just be with him.
Within that, there was a fine line to walk. Knowing him, not wanting to be disingenuous and pretend that she didn't know him, also not wanting to take advantage of information she'd gained from, technically, someone else, all of it was a delicate balance to try to strike, not unlike the way she drifted on the surface of the water now. So far, at least since telling him that he'd been here before, she hadn't found it nearly as difficult as she would have expected, but the idea of it was there throughout everything, especially when he said things like that.
"I can hear you thinking," she said, gently, wryly teasing. She stayed as she was, weightless in the water, as she considered his words and how to phrase her response. "There is no right question. But there's no wrong one, either. Anything you ask, I'll answer. Might not solve anything, but it'll be out there, at least."
He had to admit it to himself: maybe he was afraid to push because he didn't want to do to Jyn what he'd felt, sometimes, Bix did to him. Now, of course, maybe he should consider he'd been unfair to her, since he was feeling in that position. Where she'd push and he'd say Why are you doing this? Well, perhaps she'd felt that whatever-it-was was just as present, maybe moreso, by not talking about it, and talking about it at least had the possibility of finishing it.
It was a strange turn. He'd never for a moment compared Jyn to Bix. Suddenly it was himself he was comparing.
"Fact, I guess," he said, mouth curving at least a bit. "I still feel sometimes like you don't say things because you don't want to ruin my day. If that's the only reason, please say them. But I also said I trust you, and I do.
"So… question: I keep forgetting to ask. You said there were other people here who know about what happened back home. Can I meet them sometime?"
It was a fair point, one that Jyn very easily could have made herself if their positions were reversed. She was trying, determined, really, not to impose before-him on now-him, and the number of years it had been since she'd previously been with him made that much easier than it might have otherwise been. Now, though, she couldn't help the way some of their conversations in those first few months, as they were just figuring things out and retroactively getting to know each other, came to mind. More than once, she'd asked him not to shut her out when he dodged or downplayed something.
She wasn't trying to do that now, but he did have a point. There were things she hadn't said because they seemed too heavy for whatever the particular moment was, but that determination wasn't hers alone to make. Left to her own devices, chances were good she wouldn't bring up any of it. She didn't want him to have to push her, or even to feel like he was doing so, but sometimes she needed a little prompting.
"Of course," she answered. This question was easy. "The ones who're still here are all from before us, I think, but there's probably still plenty they could tell you." She breathed in deeply, her chest rising and falling with it. "And all right. It's still... It's not always easy for me to know how to say things. But I will try. I am trying. I trust you, too."
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"Well, it seemed like a good idea when I got it," she said. "And then it didn't seem like a good idea anymore, so I got rid of it." Too flippant, not convincing enough. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, focusing on the gentle touch of his hand and the warmth of his body near hers in the cool water. "It was sort of a... post-getting married impulse. So, when that ended..."
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…along with: “Thank you for answering.”
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"Of course," she replied, looking up at him, once more intending to convey with her eye contact that what she had to say was entirely genuine. "I don't think there's anything I'd keep from you. It's not always easy to find the words, or to talk about things, but... If you ask, I'll answer."
What she didn't say — and hoped he would understand anyway — was that there was no sense of obligation to it. She wanted to tell him things. That was strange for her, and still difficult to get her head around. "Although, if we're trading questions now, I think it's my turn."
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“Of course. Anything.”
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"You did say last night that you'd tell me about getting your ass kicked over a piece of sky kyber."
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Well, talk about it later if they had to. For now, he exhaled and nodded. "It was my first mission for the Rebellion. A robbery of the Empire. I wasn't fully committed yet. I was a mercenary. My… handler gave me a sky kyber necklace as collateral. I tried to keep it secret but I did a bad job. The rest of the team had been together for months, I came in at the last minute, and they had a hard time trusting me. One of them saw the necklace and nearly cut my throat to get it, to prove I was a fake. I told them the truth and they accepted it because they needed me. Ironically, that guy proved to be more in it for the payoff than I was."
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Was that why he'd been so tight-lipped about his past when she'd known him before? She had no way of knowing. It didn't matter now anyway, with him here and telling her these things, and her still wanting to know as much as she could. For as alike as they were, though, that was maybe the biggest difference between them. He'd had people who stayed, people who cared. She tried not to wonder if she would be able to live up to that.
"It's hard to imagine you as a mercenary," she admitted, smile lopsided and gentle in a way it tended to be only for him. "Or not fully committed yet." He'd alluded to as much just minutes ago, but given how dedicated to the cause he had become by the time she knew him, it was still such a change, and a fascinating one at that.
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He looked worried, and she didn't want him to be, so she brought one hand up to cradle the back of his head, wet fingers sliding into his hair, and kissed him. It was brief, and she dropped back a moment later, but she hoped it would tell him just how beyond forgiven he was.
With a heavy exhale, she shifted her weight. There was really only one thing for her to say in response to all of that, and it wasn't an easy one. "Fact," she said. "The first mission I went on alone for Saw... It was me, and a rifle, on top of a cliff, waiting for some Imp to come by. I did what he'd sent me there to do. So... What I said to you... It wasn't really any better than what you said to me. And I am sorry, Cassian."
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It was different, (maybe it shouldn't be,) the target being a known enemy versus… but he appreciated her fact. "More than forgiven. As I said… when I think badly about it, it's what I said to you. But I should stop bringing it up. There's nothing more to say about it other than making us both feel unnecessarily worse again. I'm sor—" He caught himself and managed a bit of a smile. "—so I won't."
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Even then, she had trusted him so quickly, so easily, and then feeling as if she'd had that trust betrayed was angry at herself as much as at him. That seemed like something that would fall into the category he'd just described, things that would make them both feel unnecessarily worse again, so she didn't. More important was knowing that that broken trust had been long, long since repaired.
"More than forgiven," she echoed with a solemn nod, not wanting to seem like she was brushing him off. Then, in an easy, fluid motion, she drew her legs up, arms spread out to her sides so she could float on the water's surface. "Now, come on, is it your turn or mine?" She'd asked the last question, but she had also offered a fact unprompted, so it was hard to say for sure. It didn't actually matter, the game their own and the rules disposable, but it seemed like a good way of steering them away from the subject of that argument for now.
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He rifled through the mental file of her previous Facts he'd wanted to follow up on.
Jyn Erso isn't her legal name here. …But he could guess what it was, now, couldn't he…
She'd lived in and burned down a house. …Could he guess that one, too? It felt somehow manipulative to ask.
It didn't seem fair to bring up things he'd picked up while she was dreaming…
He still often felt like she was holding back, but he'd decided, and promised, not to push.
It was just hard not to think that—
"Status report," he said at last. "I feel like if I could only ask the right question, I'd solve something. But I know it doesn't work like that."
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Within that, there was a fine line to walk. Knowing him, not wanting to be disingenuous and pretend that she didn't know him, also not wanting to take advantage of information she'd gained from, technically, someone else, all of it was a delicate balance to try to strike, not unlike the way she drifted on the surface of the water now. So far, at least since telling him that he'd been here before, she hadn't found it nearly as difficult as she would have expected, but the idea of it was there throughout everything, especially when he said things like that.
"I can hear you thinking," she said, gently, wryly teasing. She stayed as she was, weightless in the water, as she considered his words and how to phrase her response. "There is no right question. But there's no wrong one, either. Anything you ask, I'll answer. Might not solve anything, but it'll be out there, at least."
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It was a strange turn. He'd never for a moment compared Jyn to Bix. Suddenly it was himself he was comparing.
"Fact, I guess," he said, mouth curving at least a bit. "I still feel sometimes like you don't say things because you don't want to ruin my day. If that's the only reason, please say them. But I also said I trust you, and I do.
"So… question: I keep forgetting to ask. You said there were other people here who know about what happened back home. Can I meet them sometime?"
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She wasn't trying to do that now, but he did have a point. There were things she hadn't said because they seemed too heavy for whatever the particular moment was, but that determination wasn't hers alone to make. Left to her own devices, chances were good she wouldn't bring up any of it. She didn't want him to have to push her, or even to feel like he was doing so, but sometimes she needed a little prompting.
"Of course," she answered. This question was easy. "The ones who're still here are all from before us, I think, but there's probably still plenty they could tell you." She breathed in deeply, her chest rising and falling with it. "And all right. It's still... It's not always easy for me to know how to say things. But I will try. I am trying. I trust you, too."