Jyn hummed in agreement as he rolled away from her, watching with heavy-lidded eyes. "I'll be right there," she promised, knowing that he wouldn't rush her. Really, though, he had the right idea. Whatever jokes she might make about the hardships of her past, lying on a rock was not exactly comfortable. It was just a matter of working up the will, and with it the energy, to move.
At least his moving away helped with the first part. She gave herself another few deep breaths, then braced her hands on the rock to push herself up so she was sitting. Making sure he was nearby, she slid into the water as well, with considerably less grace and more of a splash. That was, after all, close enough to what she'd been thinking about doing before they got very enjoyably sidetracked, and now, she had no reason not to act on that impulse. The temptation to try to make him laugh was just too strong.
Mission accomplished: he did laugh, and splashed her back, and ducked underwater to catch her and lift her up. In the following roughhousing, he never pulled or held her under.
At last, they lay again entwined on a grassy stretch of shore, looking up at how the sunlight dappled through the leaves.
On the grass, which was unsurprisingly much more comfortable than the rock, Jyn curled into Cassian's side, her head resting on his chest, a little higher than his heartbeat. As familiar as this had become, how she often fell asleep at night or awoke in the morning, she still savored the warmth of him beside her and the way their bodies curved together. If the fact of that still terrified her, this wasn't the time to dwell on it. She was lazily content in this spot they'd found for themselves, alternately looking up at the trees and looking up at him.
"Yeah," she answered, her voice soft. It didn't take much thought. "I do. And... being able to fly." They were, as she meant them, different things. She'd never been a dedicated pilot, didn't have a particular attachment to being out among the stars the way others did, but it was strange being so grounded. More than that, though, she missed the freedom in knowing she could just pick up and go, an entire galaxy ahead of her to get lost in. That was still true even now that she had a new reason to want to stay where she was. It was the principle of the thing. "Do you?"
She wasn't surprised that he agreed, or that he brought concern for others into it. Maybe it made her selfish, that she had only been thinking in regards to herself. If that was the case, though, she was fine with it. She'd learned young that she had to focus on her own safety.
"I'm not good at being stuck in one place," she admitted, fingertips idly tracing along his chest as she spoke. She wasn't always good at this, either, being open, offering up deeper, underlying truths, but with him, she really did want to try. "Being here is the longest I've spent in one place... ever. Twice over."
Her fingertip might skim the blaster scar in the hollow of his shoulder and breast where Krennic shot him.
His fingertips, in turn, traced over her shoulder.
"What have you been doing here, all this time?" So far, his knowledge of her time here was too focused on his doppelgänger, not enough on her. "Not that gardening isn't good. I'd just be surprised if that fully occupied you."
"No, definitely not," Jyn answered with a quiet huff of a laugh. Her fingers did, in fact, find what she knew to be the freshest scar, the memory of those few seconds — his calling up to her, the shot, the fall — too seared in her mind for it to be anything less than unmistakable. It may have happened years ago, but she still saw it again as often as not when she slept.
She lifted her head just long enough and far enough to press her lips there against that scar for a moment, then settled on his chest again.
"I don't even know, now. How do you sum up what you've done over however many years?" Her voice was light, at least, as she considered what might bear mentioning. "Mostly I try to keep moving however I can. There's a boxing gym where I go if I feel like I need to hit something. Which is a lot. I had work, for a while. A friend started up self-defense classes for 'at-risk youth' and asked me to help. But that stopped when he disappeared. Try to keep the ship in good shape, even though it isn't going anywhere." She shrugged. "I think a lot of what I've been doing is just trying to figure out what to do with a life like this."
Her shrug made it thud heavier. "That makes sense. I used to fantasize about a life without war… but I realize, the fantasies weren't very detailed. Like, what I'd actually do."
Cassian craned his head to look at her. "Those self-defense classes. Is that something you'd want to do again? I could help. I like the idea of… helping kids make sure… they have more control of what happens to them."
Jyn blinked at the question, evidently having never considered the idea. At the time, there hadn't been any reason for her to. In a life practically defined by loss, she learned a long time ago that the best thing, the only real thing to do at such times was put it away. The exceptions to that were few and far between: the necklace from her mother, the ring from Cassian, the sketch Lincoln did for her once. But the classes, they'd been Lincoln's project, something he had put together from the start and brought her along for. With him gone, it just ended.
What Cassian was suggesting was different. It would be something new, a fresh start — similar, but not the same thing Lincoln built. Sort of like the two of them, in a way. That made it feel more feasible.
"I wouldn't mind doing it again," she said thoughtfully, her own head tipped back to look at him in turn. "I liked doing it. Just wasn't something I felt like I could keep up alone."
Cassian's arms tightened a little around her. Maybe he was picking something up in her voice, maybe just letting the when he disappeared catch up to him. As if Jyn hadn't lost enough people in their own universe. "Tell me about your friend?"
Perhaps counterintuitively, Jyn smiled the tiniest bit at that. The loss of Lincoln — one of the first and best real friends she'd ever had — still hurt, that was inevitable, but it didn't have quite the same sting of abandonment. She wasn't sure why. Maybe she'd just reached some mental capacity for that.
"His name was Lincoln," she answered. "You'd have liked him, I think." In the back of her head, it struck her as a sign of progress that the words instinctively came out that way: you would have rather than you did. "He was from a different... universe, or whatever. Brought up to be a fighter, like I was, but he was also... kind. Gentle. Liked to draw and to help people. Being somewhere at peace suited him."
Cassian was caught between reactions: the warmth of Jyn's description—her enduring capacity for affection—and the cold of that same dread—that anyone could just disappear.
'At peace'. If this is the price of peace…
The universe—any universe he could imagine—was a murderer. Anyone could die at any time in millions of ways. Was this any different?
Yes.
Don't lose her for fear of losing her… don't ask her a question then not handle the answer…
In this moment, it was too difficult. Cassian turned onto his side to envelop her fully in his arms and just… held on, unable to hide from her his heart suddenly pounding—the silent panic attack.
It took only moments — faster than she could formulate a question in her head, never mind start to ask it — for Jyn to sense, or at least guess, what was happening. His heart suddenly beating harder, faster, gave it away. She knew that feeling too well not to recognize it in some capacity. Hell, some part of her had ceaselessly been there since he reentered her life. Having him here meant she could lose him, and the prospect was unbearable. Talking about a friend she'd had and lost must have brought it to the forefront for him again, making her that much more grateful that she hadn't slipped and referred to Cassian having known Lincoln before.
Right now, this wasn't about her. She held onto him in turn, as close to soothing as she could get, taking deep, steady breaths in the hopes that it might help him a little. "Yeah," she murmured. "I know."
If will and depth of feeling were enough to keep a person here, she would never have lost him in the first place. She didn't know how to say that without it somehow coming out wrong, but she hoped he knew it all the same.
He breathed with her and slowed… steadied… steady…
“I’m an asshole,” he managed at last. “I did want to hear… I still want to revive his idea. I think we could make it work. I think it could be really good.”
Taking a moment, his forehead pressed to hers, Cassian said finally, “And I’m going to get a handle on this.”
"Are not," Jyn countered, deliberately childish and contrary, hoping to give him even just the tiniest bit of levity. She punctuated the statement with a brief, soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. "To the first part. It's still new for you. I've had years to get used to it. Reacting to that doesn't make you an asshole, it just makes you human."
For her, it was sort of like she'd stiltedly tried to describe it to him some time earlier: scar tissue, a wound that was no less severe or dangerous but that couldn't be felt to the same extent anymore. She'd lost so many people. It would always hurt, but there was a numbness to it at the same time, a sense of expectation.
Of course, Cassian was an exception to that. If losing him once had wrecked her, she didn't want to think what losing him again would be like.
"I think we could, though. Make it work." Again, a tiny fragment of a smile, hopeful and encouraging. "If you're sure you won't get sick of me. Living with me, sleeping with me, and working with me, that's a lot."
It was a fair point, they had been spending literally all their time together, as if constant contact might protect them against parting.
But Cassian knew it wasn't only paranoia, keeping him rapt to her side. He loved being with her. He loved that they could spend time in the same room not talking, barely looking at each other, doing their own tasks; and then, at any moment one could make a comment and they were in sync again. He loved learning gardening from her, teaching her recipes, tinkering together with the ship, walking this little world. He loved that they were occupied with these peaceful tasks. He was addicted to holding her. He loved making love with her. He loved when one read to the other or they listened to something together. They'd yet to have a fight, which would either be very terrible or highly unlikely, because he loved that their disagreements were usually resolved with actual logic and/or Jyn's particular dry humor. He didn't love when either of them wept or screamed, but he loved that they were able to do so with each other and able to be there for each other.
"You're right," he said, pressing his grin into her hair. "Gonna be hard pressed to find more hours to spend with you."
It was strange, how two fully contradictory feelings could exist at once. Jyn knew with an almost strange certainty that behind the teasing, the sentiment was genuine. He was the one who'd suggested resuming those classes as something they could do together, and anyway, it wasn't as if she was keeping him captive on the Falcon with her. She wanted him there, of course, but she wouldn't have stopped him if he wanted to be elsewhere, to live or to sleep or just to spend time. He hadn't given any indication that he was bored or frustrated with the arrangement, and neither had she. As far as she was concerned, they had a hell of a lot of time to catch up on. They were, in some ways, still getting to know each other.
Of course, in the ways that mattered most, they already did, that instinctive understanding that began to bloom, wordless, between them somewhere between Yavin 4 and Jedha. Now they were filling in the gaps with their respective details and facts.
Alongside that certainty was the quiet fear that he would get sick of her. She had never been worth keeping around to anyone before. Maybe, once the newness wore off, he would begin to lose interest. Maybe his past here with her would be too much after all; maybe she wouldn't be able to give him the kind of life he wanted, that he'd once dreamed about with someone else.
She could drive herself crazy with all of the hypotheticals, and she didn't want to do that. This wasn't the time, with him warm beside her and at least sounding like he was smiling again, which was what she'd wanted. They couldn't promise forever, but she could take him at his word that this was what he wanted.
"Good thing the animals like having you around," she teased, and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. "Well, and good thing I do, too."
"Oh skies, if they didn't… I guess they'd get the ship," he kissed her temple, "and I'd get the apartment," he kissed the other one, "and you'd have to ferry back and forth."
He'd kept the apartment for official purposes. That was where any mail to him was sent and he picked it up once a week. He knew it was pointless paranoia—again, whatever had brought him here was so powerful, it would hardly be fooled by what was on paper, and Jyn hadn't kept the location or her habitation of the Falcon a secret—but it just went against Cassian's whole nervous system to openly state to the public and the powers that be where he was actually living.
For the self-defenses classes, there'd be a lot to figure out, but brainstorming could wait until they got home.
Yes, Jyn, home. Which is exactly what he'd wanted. And you've already achieved.
"Oh, that would get very tiring," Jyn said, letting out another soft laugh. She would, of course, never have let it come to that. She didn't know what she would have done instead, but that was irrelevant. For a moment, she nearly made a joke about cordoning off the Falcon, part for him and part for the pets, but even in jest, that did seem too much to evoke captivity. They both had too much bad experience in that regard.
She still was curious to know more about his, and made a mental note to ask later. Not right now, but soon, perhaps. It was one of the more surprising details she had learned from him this time around, and she wanted as many of those as she could get.
"I really do, though," she added, opting for sincerity instead, her voice softening. "Like having you around, on the ship. Feels... right."
"Yes…" He rested his lips on her forehead and enjoyed the feel of her, the smell of her, for a few moments.
"I had a dream one night that we'd gotten off Scarif in the Falcon—don't ask me how it was there—and flew away together. That was the whole dream. Just surviving and flying together through the most beautiful stars and nebulas, and knowing we now lived together on the ship. I hadn't had such a beautiful, peaceful dream in so long. Then to wake up on the same ship with you beside me… It was… joy."
Jyn smiled, slight and wistful, at his description of the dream he'd had. "I like that," she said. "I would've liked that." Had they actually gotten off Scarif, it was hard to imagine him actually leaving the Rebellion, and hard to imagine herself leaving him. If she'd stayed, it wouldn't have been solely for him. Whatever problems she had with the Alliance, and there were many, their cause and hers were still aligned. Without Cassian, though, there was no one there she trusted, no one to stay for.
What she really would have wanted, though, was exactly what he described. The two of them, a ship to call home, and the galaxy ahead of them. At least they had the first two parts of that here, and no Empire to contend with. She wasn't for a second about to complain when this was so much more than she expected to have again. Still, it was a nice thought.
"For a while," she admitted, because he'd asked her to say things and she really was trying, "before you got here, I'd have dreams like that sometimes. Not the ship, or Scarif, but you and me. Together. Happy." She nestled just a little closer to him. "Those were always harder than any nightmare. Getting to feel that... then waking up after."
He held her closer, adjusting to her movement, again aware of how exposed he was in terms of heartbeat. That was okay. Let her feel and know. "I understand that." Dreaming someone was alive, okay, and with him, only to wake up and they weren't could be like losing them all over again. He'd had it with Kerri, with Clem, with Maarva, with Brasso, most recently with Melshi and Kaytoo. In a way… "In a strange… maybe awful… way, I find it reassuring. That I still get those." He hoped saying that wasn't insensitive to her dreams.
Jyn hummed in quiet understanding. It was a little bit like what she had said about frequently going out to the beach, a subconscious twin of that self-inflicted pain. Harder to bear, though, when it wasn't something that she could choose or control. For a moment, she considered her words, but there was one thought she kept coming back to. It was the kind of thing she wasn't sure if she should tell him or not, that might prove to be too much, too upsetting. Those were exactly the sorts of things he'd been trying to encourage her to say, though, so she decided to take that chance.
"Can... Can I say something about before?" she asked, gaze lifting to his face. Even without specifics, she trusted he would know what she meant. "You can say no."
Again, Jyn gave him a tiny smile, this one an apology more than anything else. She wasn't going to say she was sorry when she hadn't actually told him anything yet, but there was no way to make these conversations any easier. Some part of her remained half-convinced that it would prove to be too much. If it did, she wouldn't be able to fault him. Probably better to find out sooner rather than later, anyway.
But, for now, she was going to say what she'd intended to — a sort of fact in its own right, albeit introduced outside the bounds of their usual fact-swapping game. She had promised she would try. This felt like trying.
"When I first got here," she said, "you know, with... him... we hadn't been to our apartments yet, and started joking about what they'd be like. I think we were nervous to see them. Or be separated. Or both. And didn't want to say it. So we listed off ridiculous things they might have. Floors made of hardwood from Endor. Countertops of Naboo marble. A view like the upper levels of Coruscant." She said all of this quiet and not outwardly emotional, much like the way she had first told him about her history with his previous self, a restrained quality in her voice, almost as if she was trying to pull the words back into herself even as they left her mouth. As she went on, though, her voice got a little quieter, a little less steady. She had never talked about this with anyone before. She would've tried not to think about it if her subconscious hadn't made that impossible.
"But then we started adding to it, when we thought of ideas. All of the little luxuries that people like us never got to have. A featherbed. A giant bathtub, with hot water that wouldn't run out. That sort of thing. Not a joke anymore, but a fantasy." Her teeth pressed hard to her lower lip. "In a lot of the dreams I'd have, later, once I was on my own, that's where we were. That... imaginary home. I guess I was wrong, earlier, when I said I'd never pictured what peace would look like. That was the first time I started to."
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At least his moving away helped with the first part. She gave herself another few deep breaths, then braced her hands on the rock to push herself up so she was sitting. Making sure he was nearby, she slid into the water as well, with considerably less grace and more of a splash. That was, after all, close enough to what she'd been thinking about doing before they got very enjoyably sidetracked, and now, she had no reason not to act on that impulse. The temptation to try to make him laugh was just too strong.
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At last, they lay again entwined on a grassy stretch of shore, looking up at how the sunlight dappled through the leaves.
“Do you miss flying?” he found himself asking.
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"Yeah," she answered, her voice soft. It didn't take much thought. "I do. And... being able to fly." They were, as she meant them, different things. She'd never been a dedicated pilot, didn't have a particular attachment to being out among the stars the way others did, but it was strange being so grounded. More than that, though, she missed the freedom in knowing she could just pick up and go, an entire galaxy ahead of her to get lost in. That was still true even now that she had a new reason to want to stay where she was. It was the principle of the thing. "Do you?"
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"I'm not good at being stuck in one place," she admitted, fingertips idly tracing along his chest as she spoke. She wasn't always good at this, either, being open, offering up deeper, underlying truths, but with him, she really did want to try. "Being here is the longest I've spent in one place... ever. Twice over."
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His fingertips, in turn, traced over her shoulder.
"What have you been doing here, all this time?" So far, his knowledge of her time here was too focused on his doppelgänger, not enough on her. "Not that gardening isn't good. I'd just be surprised if that fully occupied you."
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She lifted her head just long enough and far enough to press her lips there against that scar for a moment, then settled on his chest again.
"I don't even know, now. How do you sum up what you've done over however many years?" Her voice was light, at least, as she considered what might bear mentioning. "Mostly I try to keep moving however I can. There's a boxing gym where I go if I feel like I need to hit something. Which is a lot. I had work, for a while. A friend started up self-defense classes for 'at-risk youth' and asked me to help. But that stopped when he disappeared. Try to keep the ship in good shape, even though it isn't going anywhere." She shrugged. "I think a lot of what I've been doing is just trying to figure out what to do with a life like this."
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Her shrug made it thud heavier. "That makes sense. I used to fantasize about a life without war… but I realize, the fantasies weren't very detailed. Like, what I'd actually do."
Cassian craned his head to look at her. "Those self-defense classes. Is that something you'd want to do again? I could help. I like the idea of… helping kids make sure… they have more control of what happens to them."
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What Cassian was suggesting was different. It would be something new, a fresh start — similar, but not the same thing Lincoln built. Sort of like the two of them, in a way. That made it feel more feasible.
"I wouldn't mind doing it again," she said thoughtfully, her own head tipped back to look at him in turn. "I liked doing it. Just wasn't something I felt like I could keep up alone."
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"His name was Lincoln," she answered. "You'd have liked him, I think." In the back of her head, it struck her as a sign of progress that the words instinctively came out that way: you would have rather than you did. "He was from a different... universe, or whatever. Brought up to be a fighter, like I was, but he was also... kind. Gentle. Liked to draw and to help people. Being somewhere at peace suited him."
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'At peace'. If this is the price of peace…
The universe—any universe he could imagine—was a murderer. Anyone could die at any time in millions of ways. Was this any different?
Yes.
Don't lose her for fear of losing her… don't ask her a question then not handle the answer…
In this moment, it was too difficult. Cassian turned onto his side to envelop her fully in his arms and just… held on, unable to hide from her his heart suddenly pounding—the silent panic attack.
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Right now, this wasn't about her. She held onto him in turn, as close to soothing as she could get, taking deep, steady breaths in the hopes that it might help him a little. "Yeah," she murmured. "I know."
If will and depth of feeling were enough to keep a person here, she would never have lost him in the first place. She didn't know how to say that without it somehow coming out wrong, but she hoped he knew it all the same.
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“I’m an asshole,” he managed at last. “I did want to hear… I still want to revive his idea. I think we could make it work. I think it could be really good.”
Taking a moment, his forehead pressed to hers, Cassian said finally, “And I’m going to get a handle on this.”
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For her, it was sort of like she'd stiltedly tried to describe it to him some time earlier: scar tissue, a wound that was no less severe or dangerous but that couldn't be felt to the same extent anymore. She'd lost so many people. It would always hurt, but there was a numbness to it at the same time, a sense of expectation.
Of course, Cassian was an exception to that. If losing him once had wrecked her, she didn't want to think what losing him again would be like.
"I think we could, though. Make it work." Again, a tiny fragment of a smile, hopeful and encouraging. "If you're sure you won't get sick of me. Living with me, sleeping with me, and working with me, that's a lot."
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But Cassian knew it wasn't only paranoia, keeping him rapt to her side. He loved being with her. He loved that they could spend time in the same room not talking, barely looking at each other, doing their own tasks; and then, at any moment one could make a comment and they were in sync again. He loved learning gardening from her, teaching her recipes, tinkering together with the ship, walking this little world. He loved that they were occupied with these peaceful tasks. He was addicted to holding her. He loved making love with her. He loved when one read to the other or they listened to something together. They'd yet to have a fight, which would either be very terrible or highly unlikely, because he loved that their disagreements were usually resolved with actual logic and/or Jyn's particular dry humor. He didn't love when either of them wept or screamed, but he loved that they were able to do so with each other and able to be there for each other.
"You're right," he said, pressing his grin into her hair. "Gonna be hard pressed to find more hours to spend with you."
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Of course, in the ways that mattered most, they already did, that instinctive understanding that began to bloom, wordless, between them somewhere between Yavin 4 and Jedha. Now they were filling in the gaps with their respective details and facts.
Alongside that certainty was the quiet fear that he would get sick of her. She had never been worth keeping around to anyone before. Maybe, once the newness wore off, he would begin to lose interest. Maybe his past here with her would be too much after all; maybe she wouldn't be able to give him the kind of life he wanted, that he'd once dreamed about with someone else.
She could drive herself crazy with all of the hypotheticals, and she didn't want to do that. This wasn't the time, with him warm beside her and at least sounding like he was smiling again, which was what she'd wanted. They couldn't promise forever, but she could take him at his word that this was what he wanted.
"Good thing the animals like having you around," she teased, and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. "Well, and good thing I do, too."
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He'd kept the apartment for official purposes. That was where any mail to him was sent and he picked it up once a week. He knew it was pointless paranoia—again, whatever had brought him here was so powerful, it would hardly be fooled by what was on paper, and Jyn hadn't kept the location or her habitation of the Falcon a secret—but it just went against Cassian's whole nervous system to openly state to the public and the powers that be where he was actually living.
For the self-defenses classes, there'd be a lot to figure out, but brainstorming could wait until they got home.
Yes, Jyn, home. Which is exactly what he'd wanted. And you've already achieved.
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She still was curious to know more about his, and made a mental note to ask later. Not right now, but soon, perhaps. It was one of the more surprising details she had learned from him this time around, and she wanted as many of those as she could get.
"I really do, though," she added, opting for sincerity instead, her voice softening. "Like having you around, on the ship. Feels... right."
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"I had a dream one night that we'd gotten off Scarif in the Falcon—don't ask me how it was there—and flew away together. That was the whole dream. Just surviving and flying together through the most beautiful stars and nebulas, and knowing we now lived together on the ship. I hadn't had such a beautiful, peaceful dream in so long. Then to wake up on the same ship with you beside me… It was… joy."
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What she really would have wanted, though, was exactly what he described. The two of them, a ship to call home, and the galaxy ahead of them. At least they had the first two parts of that here, and no Empire to contend with. She wasn't for a second about to complain when this was so much more than she expected to have again. Still, it was a nice thought.
"For a while," she admitted, because he'd asked her to say things and she really was trying, "before you got here, I'd have dreams like that sometimes. Not the ship, or Scarif, but you and me. Together. Happy." She nestled just a little closer to him. "Those were always harder than any nightmare. Getting to feel that... then waking up after."
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"Can... Can I say something about before?" she asked, gaze lifting to his face. Even without specifics, she trusted he would know what she meant. "You can say no."
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But, for now, she was going to say what she'd intended to — a sort of fact in its own right, albeit introduced outside the bounds of their usual fact-swapping game. She had promised she would try. This felt like trying.
"When I first got here," she said, "you know, with... him... we hadn't been to our apartments yet, and started joking about what they'd be like. I think we were nervous to see them. Or be separated. Or both. And didn't want to say it. So we listed off ridiculous things they might have. Floors made of hardwood from Endor. Countertops of Naboo marble. A view like the upper levels of Coruscant." She said all of this quiet and not outwardly emotional, much like the way she had first told him about her history with his previous self, a restrained quality in her voice, almost as if she was trying to pull the words back into herself even as they left her mouth. As she went on, though, her voice got a little quieter, a little less steady. She had never talked about this with anyone before. She would've tried not to think about it if her subconscious hadn't made that impossible.
"But then we started adding to it, when we thought of ideas. All of the little luxuries that people like us never got to have. A featherbed. A giant bathtub, with hot water that wouldn't run out. That sort of thing. Not a joke anymore, but a fantasy." Her teeth pressed hard to her lower lip. "In a lot of the dreams I'd have, later, once I was on my own, that's where we were. That... imaginary home. I guess I was wrong, earlier, when I said I'd never pictured what peace would look like. That was the first time I started to."