Jyn was still trembling when he laid her down, her heart still beating hard and fast. None of that stopped her from curling slightly into him when he settled beside her, and neither did the rock beneath them. She breathed deeply, her arms bending up as if to lazily hold his there against her chest, and listened. For the moment, it was the most she was really capable of, and even if it wasn't, she liked hearing him speak languages that weren't Basic, especially when it was one they shared.
"Amor más que amor," she echoed, and nodded, turning her head just enough to brush her lips against his, a ghost of a kiss in contrast to the heat of moments before. That sounded right. If there was an actual word for what she felt, it didn't exist in any of the languages she knew, a feeling that defied sense and logic, that even years on her own and attempting to close herself off hadn't eroded.
A flicker of a smile curved her lips now, too soft to be fully teasing as she'd have otherwise intended. "Eres tan romántico."
The brushed kiss was just as sweet. Her words made him breathe a laugh. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation.”
It was starting to come back to him that they were on a rock, and it was starting to hurt his side, but he wasn’t ready to stop holding her. On the other hand, she might be ready to stop lying on a rock. “You okay? This isn’t a soft bed.”
"My lips are sealed," Jyn promised with an exhaled laugh of her own, nose brushing his before she kissed him again. This, she liked as much as any of the rest of it — just the two of them, close and affectionate, even if he wasn't wrong that their current location wasn't the most comfortable for it. The rock where he'd first perched her, where they were lying now, was convenient for what they had intended to do, but it was still very much a rock, and she couldn't deny that she was feeling it now.
Still, it was more than worth it. Trusting that he would know she thought so, she opted for humor instead. "You say that like I'm used to sleeping on soft beds," she pointed out, teasing. "I'm fine. Probably want to move before long, but I'm fine."
"True." Now wasn't the moment to reflect on the hard cots of prison or army barracks. He kept himself in the present by the sounds of the falls and her breathing, the feel of her body against his and the water on his feet. He nuzzled into her hair, cool on his closed eyes, tightened his hand gently on her opposite shoulder, felt her breasts rising and falling under his arm.
At last, the pain of his other arm, folded under him on the rock, was enough to break the moment. He kissed her cheek and murmured, "I'm going in." And he rolled carefully off, slipping into the pool with hardly a splash. The water felt wonderful after their exertion. He kept his head above so he could crane over and kiss her again.
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.
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"Amor más que amor," she echoed, and nodded, turning her head just enough to brush her lips against his, a ghost of a kiss in contrast to the heat of moments before. That sounded right. If there was an actual word for what she felt, it didn't exist in any of the languages she knew, a feeling that defied sense and logic, that even years on her own and attempting to close herself off hadn't eroded.
A flicker of a smile curved her lips now, too soft to be fully teasing as she'd have otherwise intended. "Eres tan romántico."
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It was starting to come back to him that they were on a rock, and it was starting to hurt his side, but he wasn’t ready to stop holding her. On the other hand, she might be ready to stop lying on a rock. “You okay? This isn’t a soft bed.”
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Still, it was more than worth it. Trusting that he would know she thought so, she opted for humor instead. "You say that like I'm used to sleeping on soft beds," she pointed out, teasing. "I'm fine. Probably want to move before long, but I'm fine."
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At last, the pain of his other arm, folded under him on the rock, was enough to break the moment. He kissed her cheek and murmured, "I'm going in." And he rolled carefully off, slipping into the pool with hardly a splash. The water felt wonderful after their exertion. He kept his head above so he could crane over and kiss her again.
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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."
no subject
'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.