"I did," Jyn said, feeling warm all over, safer in his arms than she'd been anywhere else. "Wouldn't have known to call it that. I mean, what the hell does someone like me know about love?" She at least liked to think, or maybe just knew on some deeply buried level, that she had been loved at various points in her past. Galen and Lyra, Saw — they had loved her as well as they were able. It was just that that love never made any real difference, never amounted to anything but her alone and abandoned and increasingly bitter for it.
But Cassian... He'd come back for her time and again, risking himself and his mission when it was neither practical nor necessary. He hadn't said it back then either, and she probably would have balked at it if he had, but he'd shown it a dozen times in half as many days. She knew that on some deep level, too, and yet even with his having referred to it before (even with the relationship she'd had here with someone who was him but wasn't him), it was still breathtaking to think about him feeling that way about her.
"But when you came to volunteer... what you said." It hadn't been I love you, but to her, it had meant the same. "And on the shuttle after." Momentarily elated, she'd run to him without thinking, and had they been alone, had there been more time, maybe she would have chased that impulse— "And on the tower. You must've been half-dead already, I don't even know how you were still standing. But the sight of you there..." She felt her face heat, which made her extremely frustrated with herself, but no less determined to press on. "I remember thinking it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life."
She rolled her eyes again at herself, lightheartedly self-deprecating. "We're doing this all backwards, aren't we? Falling in love first, then moving in together, then getting to know each other."
Yes, he'd gone through different kinds of loving her in that short time. Needing to keep her alive and with him, being constantly surprised by how they complemented each other, respecting who she was and what she could do, growing to trust and rely, recognizing that where she walked was where he wanted to go, even caring enough to fight; seeing in one another a humanity they thought was lost, and, in reflection, accepting and healing their own… But more, so much more… the blazing admiration and attraction and everything else that could be in the word 'love'.
And yes, he'd literally been half dead: the fall hadn't killed him but the climb had, he'd just known he'd be able to run out the clock enough to do what he needed to, to help Jyn, which was all he'd wanted to do with literally the rest of his life. He didn't want to say it even now, though, to cast that darkness over the moment. Because he'd, they'd survived after all and that, no matter what other dreads he had about this place, was the ultimate gift.
Something else struck him as she spoke, now… everything she'd just said, going back to the beginning, and the lightness with which she was saying it… She was speaking as if this was their first time around. Like it was for him. No way in hell was he going to comment on it; it was just a moment, not a contract, but he found himself storing it as a precious, welcome ache in his heart. Navigating the Other was going to be an endless challenge, never to be willed away or forgotten, but this felt like some kind of… moment of… healing?
So Cassian hugged her and kissed her face, quick and intense, and said, "This might be a problematic way to think about it. It was only a few days. Try to believe me, I know how important time is, how it takes a while to learn anyone, for enough situations to happen… But the situations we did go through… it did feel like I knew you, in actions. Felt like why I fell in love. Every act you took, every choice I saw you make—not just the correct ones but the right ones. Not a lot of people get to prove themselves in a lifetime as much as you did to me, and I hope I did to you. Learning more is a gift, would become a problem if we didn't do it over time, but I think we—we recognized each other."
It probably was problematic. Unsurprisingly, though, it was so much in line with Jyn's own thoughts on the matter that she didn't care. She may not have known all of the precise details about his life, as evidenced by the fact that she was still learning them now, but in the ways that mattered most, she knew him, deeply and instinctively. Whether it was recognition, projection, some inexplicable sense of connection, or probably all of the above...
She knew that he gave his life to and for the cause, that she'd never seen anyone so fervently dedicated to it in a way she'd long since lost sight of for herself. She knew he spoke of hope even when it didn't sound like he had much of that left himself, and that from the moment he let her keep the stolen blaster, he was the first person there with the Alliance to treat her like a person rather than a prisoner. She knew he reprogrammed and befriended an Imperial droid that most probably wouldn't have wanted to get within five feet of, that he gave as good as he got in an argument (angry as she might have been after Eadu, she respected that), and that was even before getting into all of the things he'd done for her, specifically. Risking himself and the mission by shooting one of Saw's people in order to save her. Running into the crumbling catacombs, onto the bombed-out and covered with stormtroopers platform, not judging her for being an emotional wreck barely aware of her surroundings in either case. Knowing the council wouldn't listen to her, but not deterring her from trying — just gathering an army for her, despite the venom she'd spat at him in the shuttle back to Yavin.
Climbing up the tower when he should have been dead, and it couldn't have been just for the mission when she was the one with the data tape but also for her—
The way he looked at her in the lift going down to the beach, not saying anything but not needing to, a lifetime and then some between them—
Yes, she knew him. In every way that counted, she knew him. And it wasn't surprising, exactly, but it was goddamn powerful to hear him put it so simply now, looking at her with that breathtaking warmth in his dark eyes.
"You did," she promised, the words an exhale between them as she nodded. "So many times over. And... yes." She didn't know how better to agree than that. Everything he said, she felt the same. "Don't get me wrong, I want to know anything you'll tell me. But I know you now. And I knew you then." One corner of her mouth twitched up slightly. "Might've only been a few days, but a lot did happen in those few days."
His mouth twitched up in answer. Still sincere, much more light, agreeing: "After all that, it's hard to imagine minding too much if we didn't like the same holos or wanted to sleep on the same side of the bed. Pretty much everything can be worked out. …As long as your pets like me and you like my cooking."
He did sober a little, thinking of all the things they still didn't talk about. That did eat at him… but he'd determined not to push.
Still, he could, more somberly, say: "And the heavier things… the… aftermaths. I think we're doing okay there. There are things I worry about, but I trust you'll tell me if… I trust you."
Jyn nodded again, once more turning to her usual means of meeting his gaze so he would know she meant it. She didn't really think he would doubt her anyway — as he'd just said, he trusted her, and it was crazy that she so readily trusted that in turn — but some things were too important to brush off. This was one of them, even if a part of her wanted to seize on that first part and talk about holos and sleeping arrangements and his cooking.
She would double back, she decided. For now, her hand lifted to his face, thumb gently stroking his cheekbone. "I think we're doing okay there, too," she said. Those heavier things, the aftermaths, were innumerable, and there was no easy way through them. So far, they'd been facing them as those subjects arose, which seemed like the best thing to do. That was exactly why she felt she needed to respond more directly to what he said, rather than letting it go. "Anything you're worried about, you can tell me. I'd rather know than have you keep it in. Like you said to me, right?"
He regretted bringing it up—I fear you don't say anything because you don't want to ruin my day—but knew, if she'd done so, he'd want her to answer completely.
"It's nothing tangible," he said. "Not necessarily real. Just… are you sure you want to be bogged down now with things that have all to do with me, not you, not really us?"
He knew what she'd say but he needed to put it that way.
Maybe he could hope it wouldn't burden her but instead free her to tell him hers.
"Of course," Jyn replied without hesitation, leaning in to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. It was probably insane, actually, how much she wanted that. She liked all of the lighter things they could do and share together, ones there had been so little of in the rest of her life. Being able to talk and laugh with him, fall asleep in his arms at night and wake up there in the morning, watch him while he cooked, help him get used to reading English characters and try to pick up words in the other languages he knew — those were all like tiny miracles. If that was all she was looking for, though, she wouldn't be trying to get it with someone who she knew had as many jagged edges as she did.
He wasn't the person she had married, and yet some of those vows still held true. For better or for worse. She wanted the good and the bad. Wanted to know him in all the ways those few days spent together in their galaxy hadn't given them a chance to. Wanted him to be able to turn to her — not just as a romantic partner, but as a friend. Somehow, that felt like something even more vulnerable.
"You can tell me anything. Always. And I'll always want to hear it."
He wondered if he'd died after all, to be able to talk like this. But of course, it wasn't that, it was her.
He closed his eyes, breathed her in, and, with as great an effort as he'd ever made, lowered the partitions. And, very deliberately, spoke.
"I worry that right now I'm doing to you something I used to think my ex wife did to me. That I keep picking things apart. Which makes me worried that things that made me unhappy in my marriage were just me after all and I'm going to carry them through to you.
"I'm worried of talking about her too much and making it seem like I'm comparing, when I'm not. Or if I am, it's myself I compare. Never you.
"I'm afraid that I'm him and afraid that I'm not. I'm afraid of hurting you the way he did.
"I don't believe it's true, but if this was only trauma-bonding or infatuation, what a horrible betrayal of you that would be.
"I don't believe this is true either, but if my need to serve and believe in something shifted from the Rebellion to you, that would be a burden and a distortion, not letting you be… a person.
"I'm still afraid of hurting you in my sleep, even though I know you can stop me. But I don't want you to have to.
"I'm afraid you'll die or disappear, and my fear of that will put too much pressure on you when the only way of coping with it I can imagine is… to follow you.
"…But I'm not afraid of finding something in my past that I can't share with you and think you won't accept, and that's remarkable.
"And I think, I hope, sharing this was correct, and that's… that I even could… thank you."
Jyn listened, eyes wide and attentive, taking in everything he had to say. It was all she really could do — hear him out, show him how much she did want to hear these things, even when it wasn't easy, even when it hurt. More than once, she was tempted to interrupt and had to bite her tongue; just as often, she was struck speechless, grateful he continued and in so doing gave her a few moments more to consider her own words. At least the last thing he said provided her with an easy response, one she didn't need to think about at all before offering.
"Don't thank me," she said, a ghost of a wry smile on her face. She hadn't done anything, after all. From her point of view, there was nothing to thank her for. "Thank you. For telling me."
This, too, she meant utterly. Deciding what to say next took a bit more thought, her expression scrunching slightly in a way she suspected he would already have come to recognize as being indicative of her weighing her words, trying to determine what she wanted to say and how to say it.
"I didn't say this a few minutes ago, but I guess maybe I'll say it now," she settled on. Her hand was still on his cheek, his skin warm against her palm. "The other moment that I must've already loved you, even if I didn't know it. When you fell—" Her fingers dropped lower, grazing the scar from that blaster shot again. "There was a moment I almost let go and went after you. I couldn't, obviously. The plans. And you'd said keep going. But almost."
I get it, is what she meant. She still didn't entirely know how she had survived losing him before except through sheer stubborn force of habit, and too many sunrises sitting out on the beach, wishing she'd had the end with him that she was supposed to.
"There's a lot here to answer. But here goes. I do know there's nothing in your past that would change how I feel about you, or run me off. And I think you'd say the same about me. I honestly could not care less if you hurt me in your sleep because I know you would never hurt me consciously. I think you'd say the same about that, too. I only worry about what it would do to you if that happened. I think you'd never forgive yourself, and that scares me."
Already she'd gone in a direction she hadn't intended. Frowning slightly, she bit her lip as she tried to reroute herself. "I don't think you need to worry about talking about your ex too much. I think... It's not easy to hear, but... I think it might help. To know more. And maybe not... feel like... worry that..." Now, finally, she looked away, insecure in a way she hated expressing, but sort of thought she had to. "That I'm a second choice."
Maybe, in spite of everything they'd both just said, she already was. Force knew she had been for everyone else, throughout the entirety of her life.
"As for him... I stand by what I said before. You're sort of the same, because you're still you, the person I fell in love with, and you're also not, because you didn't live any of that. Somehow that's still the one thing that makes sense to me."
His dark eyes widened at the idea of her letting go on the data tower. He didn’t interrupt but just held her tighter.
“That makes sense to me, too.” And it did relax his shoulders.
“And you’re not second choice,” he said at once. “That relationship ended. My biggest regret on that beach was that you and I would never get a chance to begin. I’ll tell you anything you want to know about her. Her name is Bix. We knew each other from childhood. Without that history, I don’t know if we would have been friends or lovers, on and off, at later times. I think maybe not. Especially the last time; she’d been seeing someone else who was killed and we escaped a massacre on our homeworld together… I kind of think a lot of it was driven by worry, wanting each other to be saved, which neither of us could really provide. We argued a lot. She left me because I was so tired, I talked about leaving the Rebellion for her and she disagreed. Maybe I agree with her but I don’t have to like how she did it. But all you really need to know is that you have nothing to prove. And where I arrived by the time I met you was completely different from where I’d ever been with her. I never… interrelied with her in fourteen years the way you and I did in five days.”
Immediately, Jyn wished she hadn't said that, although she tried to stop that thought before it could fully take root. He'd asked her to say things, even if they were difficult or upsetting. Doing so didn't come naturally to her, but she was making an effort. Still, she wasn't sure it had come out right, and though she didn't interrupt, letting him finish as he had done with her, taking in what he had to tell her, she was quick to offer a clarification when he finished.
At the same time, she tried not to feel a little dizzy at the prospect of fourteen years. How the hell could she ever live up to that?
"It's not because of you that I'd worry about it," she assured him. This time, she couldn't quite look at him, mouth pulled into a frown. Talking about him was easier than talking about herself. Talking about them was easier than talking about anyone in her past. She could reason herself out of having to do so by thinking that he knew all of this already, but that wasn't the point. If she wanted him to know her, she couldn't just take all of that as a given. "It's... You know. Everyone else. Historically speaking—" Here her voice turned cuttingly wry, although the sharp edge of it was directed at herself, not at him. "I've always been second. At best."
He'd been the first person to show her otherwise. It wasn't really a surprise for him to be telling her that was the case now; it was just difficult to switch off a lifetime's worth of expectation. "And I know that's not you. Obviously it doesn't bother me that you were with someone. We both had lives before we met each other. Just... habit, I guess. And not knowing making it all seem bigger."
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no subject
But Cassian... He'd come back for her time and again, risking himself and his mission when it was neither practical nor necessary. He hadn't said it back then either, and she probably would have balked at it if he had, but he'd shown it a dozen times in half as many days. She knew that on some deep level, too, and yet even with his having referred to it before (even with the relationship she'd had here with someone who was him but wasn't him), it was still breathtaking to think about him feeling that way about her.
"But when you came to volunteer... what you said." It hadn't been I love you, but to her, it had meant the same. "And on the shuttle after." Momentarily elated, she'd run to him without thinking, and had they been alone, had there been more time, maybe she would have chased that impulse— "And on the tower. You must've been half-dead already, I don't even know how you were still standing. But the sight of you there..." She felt her face heat, which made her extremely frustrated with herself, but no less determined to press on. "I remember thinking it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life."
She rolled her eyes again at herself, lightheartedly self-deprecating. "We're doing this all backwards, aren't we? Falling in love first, then moving in together, then getting to know each other."
no subject
And yes, he'd literally been half dead: the fall hadn't killed him but the climb had, he'd just known he'd be able to run out the clock enough to do what he needed to, to help Jyn, which was all he'd wanted to do with literally the rest of his life. He didn't want to say it even now, though, to cast that darkness over the moment. Because he'd, they'd survived after all and that, no matter what other dreads he had about this place, was the ultimate gift.
Something else struck him as she spoke, now… everything she'd just said, going back to the beginning, and the lightness with which she was saying it… She was speaking as if this was their first time around. Like it was for him. No way in hell was he going to comment on it; it was just a moment, not a contract, but he found himself storing it as a precious, welcome ache in his heart. Navigating the Other was going to be an endless challenge, never to be willed away or forgotten, but this felt like some kind of… moment of… healing?
So Cassian hugged her and kissed her face, quick and intense, and said,
"This might be a problematic way to think about it. It was only a few days. Try to believe me, I know how important time is, how it takes a while to learn anyone, for enough situations to happen… But the situations we did go through… it did feel like I knew you, in actions. Felt like why I fell in love. Every act you took, every choice I saw you make—not just the correct ones but the right ones. Not a lot of people get to prove themselves in a lifetime as much as you did to me, and I hope I did to you. Learning more is a gift, would become a problem if we didn't do it over time, but I think we—we recognized each other."
no subject
She knew that he gave his life to and for the cause, that she'd never seen anyone so fervently dedicated to it in a way she'd long since lost sight of for herself. She knew he spoke of hope even when it didn't sound like he had much of that left himself, and that from the moment he let her keep the stolen blaster, he was the first person there with the Alliance to treat her like a person rather than a prisoner. She knew he reprogrammed and befriended an Imperial droid that most probably wouldn't have wanted to get within five feet of, that he gave as good as he got in an argument (angry as she might have been after Eadu, she respected that), and that was even before getting into all of the things he'd done for her, specifically. Risking himself and the mission by shooting one of Saw's people in order to save her. Running into the crumbling catacombs, onto the bombed-out and covered with stormtroopers platform, not judging her for being an emotional wreck barely aware of her surroundings in either case. Knowing the council wouldn't listen to her, but not deterring her from trying — just gathering an army for her, despite the venom she'd spat at him in the shuttle back to Yavin.
Climbing up the tower when he should have been dead, and it couldn't have been just for the mission when she was the one with the data tape but also for her—
The way he looked at her in the lift going down to the beach, not saying anything but not needing to, a lifetime and then some between them—
Yes, she knew him. In every way that counted, she knew him. And it wasn't surprising, exactly, but it was goddamn powerful to hear him put it so simply now, looking at her with that breathtaking warmth in his dark eyes.
"You did," she promised, the words an exhale between them as she nodded. "So many times over. And... yes." She didn't know how better to agree than that. Everything he said, she felt the same. "Don't get me wrong, I want to know anything you'll tell me. But I know you now. And I knew you then." One corner of her mouth twitched up slightly. "Might've only been a few days, but a lot did happen in those few days."
no subject
He did sober a little, thinking of all the things they still didn't talk about. That did eat at him… but he'd determined not to push.
Still, he could, more somberly, say: "And the heavier things… the… aftermaths. I think we're doing okay there. There are things I worry about, but I trust you'll tell me if… I trust you."
no subject
She would double back, she decided. For now, her hand lifted to his face, thumb gently stroking his cheekbone. "I think we're doing okay there, too," she said. Those heavier things, the aftermaths, were innumerable, and there was no easy way through them. So far, they'd been facing them as those subjects arose, which seemed like the best thing to do. That was exactly why she felt she needed to respond more directly to what he said, rather than letting it go. "Anything you're worried about, you can tell me. I'd rather know than have you keep it in. Like you said to me, right?"
no subject
"It's nothing tangible," he said. "Not necessarily real. Just… are you sure you want to be bogged down now with things that have all to do with me, not you, not really us?"
He knew what she'd say but he needed to put it that way.
Maybe he could hope it wouldn't burden her but instead free her to tell him hers.
no subject
He wasn't the person she had married, and yet some of those vows still held true. For better or for worse. She wanted the good and the bad. Wanted to know him in all the ways those few days spent together in their galaxy hadn't given them a chance to. Wanted him to be able to turn to her — not just as a romantic partner, but as a friend. Somehow, that felt like something even more vulnerable.
"You can tell me anything. Always. And I'll always want to hear it."
no subject
He wondered if he'd died after all, to be able to talk like this. But of course, it wasn't that, it was her.
He closed his eyes, breathed her in, and, with as great an effort as he'd ever made, lowered the partitions. And, very deliberately, spoke.
"I worry that right now I'm doing to you something I used to think my ex wife did to me. That I keep picking things apart. Which makes me worried that things that made me unhappy in my marriage were just me after all and I'm going to carry them through to you.
"I'm worried of talking about her too much and making it seem like I'm comparing, when I'm not. Or if I am, it's myself I compare. Never you.
"I'm afraid that I'm him and afraid that I'm not. I'm afraid of hurting you the way he did.
"I don't believe it's true, but if this was only trauma-bonding or infatuation, what a horrible betrayal of you that would be.
"I don't believe this is true either, but if my need to serve and believe in something shifted from the Rebellion to you, that would be a burden and a distortion, not letting you be… a person.
"I'm still afraid of hurting you in my sleep, even though I know you can stop me. But I don't want you to have to.
"I'm afraid you'll die or disappear, and my fear of that will put too much pressure on you when the only way of coping with it I can imagine is… to follow you.
"…But I'm not afraid of finding something in my past that I can't share with you and think you won't accept, and that's remarkable.
"And I think, I hope, sharing this was correct, and that's… that I even could… thank you."
no subject
"Don't thank me," she said, a ghost of a wry smile on her face. She hadn't done anything, after all. From her point of view, there was nothing to thank her for. "Thank you. For telling me."
This, too, she meant utterly. Deciding what to say next took a bit more thought, her expression scrunching slightly in a way she suspected he would already have come to recognize as being indicative of her weighing her words, trying to determine what she wanted to say and how to say it.
"I didn't say this a few minutes ago, but I guess maybe I'll say it now," she settled on. Her hand was still on his cheek, his skin warm against her palm. "The other moment that I must've already loved you, even if I didn't know it. When you fell—" Her fingers dropped lower, grazing the scar from that blaster shot again. "There was a moment I almost let go and went after you. I couldn't, obviously. The plans. And you'd said keep going. But almost."
I get it, is what she meant. She still didn't entirely know how she had survived losing him before except through sheer stubborn force of habit, and too many sunrises sitting out on the beach, wishing she'd had the end with him that she was supposed to.
"There's a lot here to answer. But here goes. I do know there's nothing in your past that would change how I feel about you, or run me off. And I think you'd say the same about me. I honestly could not care less if you hurt me in your sleep because I know you would never hurt me consciously. I think you'd say the same about that, too. I only worry about what it would do to you if that happened. I think you'd never forgive yourself, and that scares me."
Already she'd gone in a direction she hadn't intended. Frowning slightly, she bit her lip as she tried to reroute herself. "I don't think you need to worry about talking about your ex too much. I think... It's not easy to hear, but... I think it might help. To know more. And maybe not... feel like... worry that..." Now, finally, she looked away, insecure in a way she hated expressing, but sort of thought she had to. "That I'm a second choice."
Maybe, in spite of everything they'd both just said, she already was. Force knew she had been for everyone else, throughout the entirety of her life.
"As for him... I stand by what I said before. You're sort of the same, because you're still you, the person I fell in love with, and you're also not, because you didn't live any of that. Somehow that's still the one thing that makes sense to me."
no subject
“That makes sense to me, too.” And it did relax his shoulders.
“And you’re not second choice,” he said at once. “That relationship ended. My biggest regret on that beach was that you and I would never get a chance to begin. I’ll tell you anything you want to know about her. Her name is Bix. We knew each other from childhood. Without that history, I don’t know if we would have been friends or lovers, on and off, at later times. I think maybe not. Especially the last time; she’d been seeing someone else who was killed and we escaped a massacre on our homeworld together… I kind of think a lot of it was driven by worry, wanting each other to be saved, which neither of us could really provide. We argued a lot. She left me because I was so tired, I talked about leaving the Rebellion for her and she disagreed. Maybe I agree with her but I don’t have to like how she did it. But all you really need to know is that you have nothing to prove. And where I arrived by the time I met you was completely different from where I’d ever been with her. I never… interrelied with her in fourteen years the way you and I did in five days.”
no subject
At the same time, she tried not to feel a little dizzy at the prospect of fourteen years. How the hell could she ever live up to that?
"It's not because of you that I'd worry about it," she assured him. This time, she couldn't quite look at him, mouth pulled into a frown. Talking about him was easier than talking about herself. Talking about them was easier than talking about anyone in her past. She could reason herself out of having to do so by thinking that he knew all of this already, but that wasn't the point. If she wanted him to know her, she couldn't just take all of that as a given. "It's... You know. Everyone else. Historically speaking—" Here her voice turned cuttingly wry, although the sharp edge of it was directed at herself, not at him. "I've always been second. At best."
He'd been the first person to show her otherwise. It wasn't really a surprise for him to be telling her that was the case now; it was just difficult to switch off a lifetime's worth of expectation. "And I know that's not you. Obviously it doesn't bother me that you were with someone. We both had lives before we met each other. Just... habit, I guess. And not knowing making it all seem bigger."