For a split second, Jyn held her breath as he sat up, aware of his posture and curled fists, but she didn't move away. She'd known that she was running the risk of provoking an unintended response, and more importantly, she knew with bone-deep certainty that he would never consciously harm her. The only worry she had was for him, even more so when she saw his reaction. Under other circumstances — had they both been awake, at least — she wouldn't have hesitated to go to him. Right now, though, that seemed more likely to make things worse rather than better.
So, instead, she stayed where she was, pulling her legs under her so she was kneeling on the mattress and facing him, her hands not fully raised but still held palm out. Although he wasn't looking at her, the position was meant to be one of both safety and vulnerability: demonstrating herself as not a threat, and showing him that she didn't see him as one, either. She didn't know and wouldn't try to guess what had him so shaken, but with any sort of awakening like this, that seemed like the best place to start.
"Don't be sorry," she murmured, trying to keep her expression at least somewhat schooled. It broke her heart a little to see him like this, for him to have lurched away from her the way he did, but that couldn't have been further from the point right now. "It's all right," she said again. "You're all right."
He covered his face with one hand, scrubbed his eyes, and raised them more clearly to her.
He didn't matter. What mattered was—
"Are you all right?" Fast but with more grace than he'd left it, Cassian knelt back on the bed and touched her ribs and face, as if searching her for wounds. No; no smoking blasterburn, no bruise.
His touch as ever was so, so gentle on her, but there was still a wildness in his eyes—along with tears.
Jyn stayed very, very still as he touched her. Even though she still didn't know what had happened to have him in this state now, it was clear enough that, whatever the reason, it was something he needed to do. This more than anything else unsettled her, though — not because of him or his hands on her, but the fear and desperation she saw in his eyes, her own widening a little as she studied his face as best she could in the dark of their bedroom.
"I'm fine, Cassian," she promised, her voice soft and even. She knew he'd had nightmares about something happening to her before, and she could only assume this was more of that same, but it seemed a far cry even from the state he'd been in that first night, telling her that he'd dreamed about the data tower.
So slowly and carefully, she lifted a hand to his cheek, hoping he wouldn't pull away from her. "Whatever you saw... It was only a dream. I'm all right. I promise."
So far from pulling away, he leaned in and kissed her, tasting like salt.
The dream had been terrible, but much worse was that was he couldn't be sure how close he'd come—
He sat back, shaking his head like it was heavy. "I should… I nearly hurt you… I shouldn't sleep here…" Even as he wanted to lie down and hold her again so much it hurt.
"You didn't, though," Jyn replied, trying as hard as she could to keep the worry out of her hushed voice. It didn't seem like her place to say that she didn't want him to sleep elsewhere, that she didn't care and wouldn't have cared if he'd hurt her. She knew he would care, even if it was (and it would have been) inadvertent, something she had been entirely aware could happen in waking someone from such a brutal nightmare.
"If you're really worried, I'll... I'll move one of the mattresses back up or something, but..."
She suppressed the urge to cringe at her own words, the sound of her voice. Stupid, to be so close to asking him not to go, to hate the idea so much, but she had only just woken up too, and the moments since then had been so fraught. Still not wanting to say it, she thought back instead to something he'd said the first night they woke from nightmares together, and took a deep breath to steel herself and say what she really meant.
"I'm here. You can talk to me. Let me help. Please."
Jyn let out an unsteady breath of her own then, relief accompanying her growing concern and how much it hurt to see him like this. As he leaned against her, she wrapped her arms around him, one hand at his back, the other gently stroking his hair. She wasn't, or didn't think she was, much good at comfort, but for him, it came easily, awkward yet instinctive.
"If I needed to," she echoed, her voice sounding far away to her own ears. If it did happen, she knew it would be accidental, something that would hurt him more than it hurt her, but she could make this promise if it would help him relax now. If it would let him stay.
It wasn't a lie, either. She may have been away from war for a long time now, but she'd still kept herself in shape and her instincts as sharp as she could. If it truly did come down to that, she wouldn't be helpless. "I know how to protect myself." At least physically. "I would stop you."
He let out another miserable sound, but he didn’t have it in him to move away. It wasn’t right… not the right solution… was it identifying the right problem?
But she held him. And she’d said to talk.
“I was fighting a copy of myself not to leave you,” he said, muffled. “But defeating him, I killed you.”
Hearing himself aloud, he managed, “I wouldn’t pay a psych doc to analyze it.”
Another quick, audible inhale accompanied his words, but this time, Jyn's reaction was entirely for his sake. It sounded horrific, of course, but she was no stranger to horrific dreams. That he was left so ill at ease by it wasn't surprising. Had their positions been reversed and she been the one to have a nightmare like that, she was sure she would be an absolute wreck. As it was, though, hearing about it in the simplest of terms, she felt more for him than anything else.
She'd had countless dreams of him leaving her, countless dreams of one or both of them dying. They always hit hard. This one seemed particularly cruel, though, and irrational as it may have been, she felt suddenly guilty for it. He wouldn't have had that notion in his head if she hadn't told him about before. Not telling him had never seemed like an option, but maybe she should have just gotten him settled in and then kept a distance rather than burdening him with—
No, she couldn't go down that road, not so soon after such an abrupt awakening, especially not with him here in her arms. "I'm sorry," she murmured anyway. "Stars, Cassian."
Under his breath, with the same feeling of I am one with the Force, the Force is with me, Cassian muttered his own mantra. "I won't lose you to fear of losing you." He repeated it in every language he knew, including Basic again. So doing, he hopefully reminded her, too, that telling him was right, rather than keeping her own distance.
His arm around her was an unexpected relief, more of one than Jyn thought it should be. She didn't know, or maybe just didn't want to consider, why his suggesting that he sleep elsewhere had her so on edge, mentally braced as if for a blow. There was no reason to believe it meant he would leave. It was just the weight of everything catching up to her, probably, or some last vestige of a dream of her own that she couldn't consciously remember now, still clinging to her in the darkness.
She tried to focus instead on him and his words, ones she remembered him saying earlier, too. The sentiment was gorgeous, one that cut right to the heart of so many of her insecurities and the ensuing defense mechanisms she'd built up around them. It was so much harder to have something — someone — worth keeping and fear that loss than prevent it from happening in the first place.
"I'm here," she said again, still holding him close. "What you saw, it wasn't real."
His heart still throbbed in his throat, but at least it was slowing. He worked to match his breaths to hers.
“Or,” he said, “the more I fixate about that threat, the cost is … this. Us. So I should try to make peace. Which I knew. My subconscious just needs to catch up.”
"Easier said than done, isn't it?" Jyn asked with a heavy sigh, speaking almost as much to herself as to him. The subconscious, at least in her opinion, tended not to let go of anything, always lagging behind, grabbing hold of anything possible to fixate on. She still dreamed about her childhood, still dreamed about him even when he was long gone.
His eyes widened as he suddenly realized why she was apologizing. He reached for her face and stopped her words with a kiss.
"My dream is not your fault," he said as they parted. "I just can't believe I almost…" hit you
He was circling. They'd already established: she could stop him. He just didn't want her to have to.
But he also knew neither of them wanted to give this up. He would if it was just him. But he'd seen the panic in her eyes and knew: him leaving, in any form, was definitely not the solution. Don't do it to her again. Definitely not 'for her sake'. He wouldn't join all the people who'd already done so. Not to mention, everything they were just talking about.
"I don't know if it would pierce a dream," he said, "but we could try to… program in a safe word, or phrase."
Isn't it, though? Jyn wanted to ask, physically biting her tongue to hold the words back. Whatever he said, she was convinced that the fault for his dream had to be hers, at least in large part. She couldn't control his subconscious, but she was the one who'd given him the weight to bear of his former self's disappearance. Letting him pick up the pieces that someone else had left behind wasn't fair. Neither was listening to him blame himself for something that hadn't actually happened and that wouldn't have been a conscious choice even if it had.
"Cassian, I spent half my life around soldiers," she pointed out, shaking her head not in disagreement, but to counter his earlier point. "Most of them had been with Saw since the Clone Wars. I know what happens when someone gets woken from a nightmare like that. I almost didn't, but..."
She could still hear that awful, desperate sound he'd made, and she wasn't quick enough to school her expression and try to seem unfazed by it. "You were screaming," she continued, quieter now. "And I couldn't just leave you in it. That is not your fault. It's not anyone's fault." Idly picking at a cuticle, she let out a slow breath. "If you'd feel better having some word to use, we can do that. But please. Don't blame yourself for something you didn't even do."
It wasn't just fear of the immediate past, it was fear for the future… and fear of what he might do while still asleep… but that was even more imaginary.
The damning thing when fighting himself was when he didn't know which side to go with: which was wisdom and which defeat. So he decided to side with her.
Cassian nodded and rested his face between her neck and shoulder. "Okay. Thank you for getting me out."
"Of course," Jyn murmured, her hand lifting to the back of his head to absently stroke his hair again, an instinctive attempt to be soothing. For someone who tended to think that sort of thing didn't come easily or naturally to her, it was often there anyway, perhaps stilted but always earnest, and never as much so as with him.
It was like he'd said the first night here, just as applicable from her perspective. She knew he didn't need her to take care of him, but that just made her want that much more to do so in whatever small ways she could. And it wasn't at all about reciprocation, but: "You'd have done the same for me, wouldn't you? Even knowing I might... react without meaning to."
“Yes. Of course.” No hesitation, no doubt. He kissed her skin where it was closest and hugged her, starting to relax into her arms.
“I’m trying to think of phrases that might work. Or at least ones that would change a dream. My main codename was Fulcrum so you could always try that, tell me to stand down. Recognition key: ‘By the light of Lothal’s moons’.”
"I can try that," Jyn agreed with a nod, smiling faintly. This moment didn't seem like the time to mention that she knew his code name and the accompanying phrase because, in a different lifetime, he'd told her. For right now, it was irrelevant. More important was that she appreciated the trust indicative of his telling her now, and that if this would help him trust himself to still sleep in close proximity to her, she would do it.
"I'm really not worried, not about something like that. I trust you."
He caught that smile, and thought he understood it: She already knew. He also heard her words and his brow darkened because he didn’t trust himself. All this redoubled and knotted in him ‘til his head hurt. He closed his eyes and lay back, body open for her to come with him, not trying to compel her.
Jyn didn't hesitate to lie down with him again, curling against his side with her head on his shoulder. She felt fully awake now, too much for falling back asleep to come easily, but even if all she did was lie here, she didn't want to be anywhere but with him. Again, she had the thought that she was better at showing things than telling them. It wasn't as if she felt she had anything to prove here, but maybe the extent of trust she had in him would come through more clearly like this.
"Yeah," she agreed, quiet and almost fond, as she brought her hand up to rest against his chest, fingers splayed out over his heart. "Of course." For a moment, she was quiet, thinking through the facts she'd given him already and what might still be left.
"My father was a terrible farmer. That's not why I took up gardening — that, I just sort of fell into. But I think about it sometimes, how he was no good at farming, and... not being tied to that, I guess." Was that the fact she'd meant to tell? Was it enough of one? She wasn't sure. The softer, more carefully kept truth followed some seconds later, one she wasn't sure she'd actually told anyone before. "It feels good. Keeping things alive, for a change."
With anyone else, Jyn would have lied, or at least fallen back on sarcasm. With Cassian, she didn't want to go that route. Being dishonest with him felt inherently wrong, and it had practically from the beginning of their acquaintance with each other. Maybe not quite at first, when feeling so seen made her defiant and terse, but as soon as she realized she could trust him, the rest fell into place.
Now, it was only difficult to answer with the truth because of their current circumstances. She didn't want to force them back into a heavier subject when she could feel him finally beginning to settle down; she didn't want to mention the prospect of her own death when he'd just had a nightmare about killing her.
She settled on what she hoped wouldn't be too morbid a way of putting it. "I don't know what peace would have looked like," she replied. "Honestly, I... Before this place, I never really thought I'd see peace. And I'm still not very good at it. Peace, I mean. So, no, I definitely never imagined this sort of life for myself."
Cassian turned slightly to put both arms around her. It was, he realized, the answer he’d expected for her.
He remembered Mon Mothma’s promise, We’ll see you go free, and wondered if Jyn had ever believed it or allowed herself to anticipate. Even if it had come to pass, freedom didn’t mean peace. Or vice versa.
He thought of asking what Jyn would have done if it had played out that way… then thought of all the years it had been for her. He couldn’t catch up, but he could try not to get caught in the past.
“I never nailed down my dream,” murmured Cassian, “it was always a nebula of an idea… but you know, this feels right.”
Just as she was honest with him, Jyn trusted him to be so with her. She had no doubt that he meant what he said. What she was less sure of was if it was really true, or would continue to be. In the back of her head, she remembered him describing his relationship with his former partner as being his dream of peace, and again, she thought that she wouldn't be able to give that to him. The life she had settled into here was a good one, but the storm inside her would never die down completely.
If there was a time for that conversation, this wasn't it. She smiled faintly again, half-hidden against his shoulder. "It does," she agreed. That was just incontrovertible fact. "For me, too."
She nestled a little into him, focused on the now-steadier beat of his heart. "Do I get a fact now?"
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So, instead, she stayed where she was, pulling her legs under her so she was kneeling on the mattress and facing him, her hands not fully raised but still held palm out. Although he wasn't looking at her, the position was meant to be one of both safety and vulnerability: demonstrating herself as not a threat, and showing him that she didn't see him as one, either. She didn't know and wouldn't try to guess what had him so shaken, but with any sort of awakening like this, that seemed like the best place to start.
"Don't be sorry," she murmured, trying to keep her expression at least somewhat schooled. It broke her heart a little to see him like this, for him to have lurched away from her the way he did, but that couldn't have been further from the point right now. "It's all right," she said again. "You're all right."
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He didn't matter. What mattered was—
"Are you all right?" Fast but with more grace than he'd left it, Cassian knelt back on the bed and touched her ribs and face, as if searching her for wounds. No; no smoking blasterburn, no bruise.
His touch as ever was so, so gentle on her, but there was still a wildness in his eyes—along with tears.
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"I'm fine, Cassian," she promised, her voice soft and even. She knew he'd had nightmares about something happening to her before, and she could only assume this was more of that same, but it seemed a far cry even from the state he'd been in that first night, telling her that he'd dreamed about the data tower.
So slowly and carefully, she lifted a hand to his cheek, hoping he wouldn't pull away from her. "Whatever you saw... It was only a dream. I'm all right. I promise."
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The dream had been terrible, but much worse was that was he couldn't be sure how close he'd come—
He sat back, shaking his head like it was heavy. "I should… I nearly hurt you… I shouldn't sleep here…" Even as he wanted to lie down and hold her again so much it hurt.
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"If you're really worried, I'll... I'll move one of the mattresses back up or something, but..."
She suppressed the urge to cringe at her own words, the sound of her voice. Stupid, to be so close to asking him not to go, to hate the idea so much, but she had only just woken up too, and the moments since then had been so fraught. Still not wanting to say it, she thought back instead to something he'd said the first night they woke from nightmares together, and took a deep breath to steel herself and say what she really meant.
"I'm here. You can talk to me. Let me help. Please."
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You promised…
He took a shaky breath, exhaled a defeated groan. Hypocrite—he doubled forward, closing his eyes against her skin.
“You shouldn’t have to,” he said, “but you’d stop me? If I was about to hurt you—hurt me first if you needed to?”
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"If I needed to," she echoed, her voice sounding far away to her own ears. If it did happen, she knew it would be accidental, something that would hurt him more than it hurt her, but she could make this promise if it would help him relax now. If it would let him stay.
It wasn't a lie, either. She may have been away from war for a long time now, but she'd still kept herself in shape and her instincts as sharp as she could. If it truly did come down to that, she wouldn't be helpless. "I know how to protect myself." At least physically. "I would stop you."
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But she held him. And she’d said to talk.
“I was fighting a copy of myself not to leave you,” he said, muffled. “But defeating him, I killed you.”
Hearing himself aloud, he managed, “I wouldn’t pay a psych doc to analyze it.”
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She'd had countless dreams of him leaving her, countless dreams of one or both of them dying. They always hit hard. This one seemed particularly cruel, though, and irrational as it may have been, she felt suddenly guilty for it. He wouldn't have had that notion in his head if she hadn't told him about before. Not telling him had never seemed like an option, but maybe she should have just gotten him settled in and then kept a distance rather than burdening him with—
No, she couldn't go down that road, not so soon after such an abrupt awakening, especially not with him here in her arms. "I'm sorry," she murmured anyway. "Stars, Cassian."
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Under his breath, with the same feeling of I am one with the Force, the Force is with me, Cassian muttered his own mantra. "I won't lose you to fear of losing you." He repeated it in every language he knew, including Basic again. So doing, he hopefully reminded her, too, that telling him was right, rather than keeping her own distance.
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She tried to focus instead on him and his words, ones she remembered him saying earlier, too. The sentiment was gorgeous, one that cut right to the heart of so many of her insecurities and the ensuing defense mechanisms she'd built up around them. It was so much harder to have something — someone — worth keeping and fear that loss than prevent it from happening in the first place.
"I'm here," she said again, still holding him close. "What you saw, it wasn't real."
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“Or,” he said, “the more I fixate about that threat, the cost is … this. Us. So I should try to make peace. Which I knew. My subconscious just needs to catch up.”
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"Still. I'm sorry you..."
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"My dream is not your fault," he said as they parted. "I just can't believe I almost…" hit you
He was circling. They'd already established: she could stop him. He just didn't want her to have to.
But he also knew neither of them wanted to give this up. He would if it was just him. But he'd seen the panic in her eyes and knew: him leaving, in any form, was definitely not the solution. Don't do it to her again. Definitely not 'for her sake'. He wouldn't join all the people who'd already done so. Not to mention, everything they were just talking about.
"I don't know if it would pierce a dream," he said, "but we could try to… program in a safe word, or phrase."
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"Cassian, I spent half my life around soldiers," she pointed out, shaking her head not in disagreement, but to counter his earlier point. "Most of them had been with Saw since the Clone Wars. I know what happens when someone gets woken from a nightmare like that. I almost didn't, but..."
She could still hear that awful, desperate sound he'd made, and she wasn't quick enough to school her expression and try to seem unfazed by it. "You were screaming," she continued, quieter now. "And I couldn't just leave you in it. That is not your fault. It's not anyone's fault." Idly picking at a cuticle, she let out a slow breath. "If you'd feel better having some word to use, we can do that. But please. Don't blame yourself for something you didn't even do."
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The damning thing when fighting himself was when he didn't know which side to go with: which was wisdom and which defeat. So he decided to side with her.
Cassian nodded and rested his face between her neck and shoulder. "Okay. Thank you for getting me out."
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It was like he'd said the first night here, just as applicable from her perspective. She knew he didn't need her to take care of him, but that just made her want that much more to do so in whatever small ways she could. And it wasn't at all about reciprocation, but: "You'd have done the same for me, wouldn't you? Even knowing I might... react without meaning to."
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“I’m trying to think of phrases that might work. Or at least ones that would change a dream. My main codename was Fulcrum so you could always try that, tell me to stand down. Recognition key: ‘By the light of Lothal’s moons’.”
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"I'm really not worried, not about something like that. I trust you."
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“Tell me a fact,” he mumbled, “please?”
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"Yeah," she agreed, quiet and almost fond, as she brought her hand up to rest against his chest, fingers splayed out over his heart. "Of course." For a moment, she was quiet, thinking through the facts she'd given him already and what might still be left.
"My father was a terrible farmer. That's not why I took up gardening — that, I just sort of fell into. But I think about it sometimes, how he was no good at farming, and... not being tied to that, I guess." Was that the fact she'd meant to tell? Was it enough of one? She wasn't sure. The softer, more carefully kept truth followed some seconds later, one she wasn't sure she'd actually told anyone before. "It feels good. Keeping things alive, for a change."
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He brought his free hand up to hers and interplayed their fingers. He pressed his lips to her temple to murmur, “That makes sense.”
With a soft kiss there, “Did you ever imagine this sort of life for yourself? Would peace have looked like this?”
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Now, it was only difficult to answer with the truth because of their current circumstances. She didn't want to force them back into a heavier subject when she could feel him finally beginning to settle down; she didn't want to mention the prospect of her own death when he'd just had a nightmare about killing her.
She settled on what she hoped wouldn't be too morbid a way of putting it. "I don't know what peace would have looked like," she replied. "Honestly, I... Before this place, I never really thought I'd see peace. And I'm still not very good at it. Peace, I mean. So, no, I definitely never imagined this sort of life for myself."
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He remembered Mon Mothma’s promise, We’ll see you go free, and wondered if Jyn had ever believed it or allowed herself to anticipate. Even if it had come to pass, freedom didn’t mean peace. Or vice versa.
He thought of asking what Jyn would have done if it had played out that way… then thought of all the years it had been for her. He couldn’t catch up, but he could try not to get caught in the past.
“I never nailed down my dream,” murmured Cassian, “it was always a nebula of an idea… but you know, this feels right.”
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If there was a time for that conversation, this wasn't it. She smiled faintly again, half-hidden against his shoulder. "It does," she agreed. That was just incontrovertible fact. "For me, too."
She nestled a little into him, focused on the now-steadier beat of his heart. "Do I get a fact now?"
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