The City posts

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[To be linked to the game comm]

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Jyn shook her head, mouth pressed into a thin frown. "No one on world," she replied. As far as she could tell, there was no world anymore, Alderaan thoroughly destroyed. Even having witnessed firsthand the effect her father's weapon had on Jedha, it was difficult to imagine — not that the Empire would have done such a thing, because of course they would, but that it could happen at all, a planet obliterated in just a flash of light. Not for the first time, a litany of if onlys rolled through her head — if only she'd taken her father's message, if only the Alliance had believed her, if only they'd saved a few minutes somewhere in there — but they were all useless now. The only thing left to do was remember, and carry some of the weight of those innumerable dead.

"The princess wasn't," she offered, not so much an afterthought as a clarification that felt important. It didn't change the scope of the tragedy, but at least there was someone to speak for the Alderaanian people, to make sure that the Empire couldn't just write it off or spin it in their favor as they had done with so many other atrocities. "There, I mean. She's actually the one who wound up with the plans, somehow."

Beyond that, Jyn was unclear of the details. All the knowledge she did have was pieced together from what scraps of information she'd acquired over the last few years, a vague composite both tragic and relieving. The latter didn't make up for the former, but it did help some, knowing that what they'd done made a difference.

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[ooc: I shoulda saved it XD]

There was a strange phenomenon, looking out at space: it looked flat. The human mind cannot process infinity. One most impose limits to perceive vastness.

It was like that now. Trying to process the grief of a whole planet's worth of people… he had to seize on something smaller.

As Cassian had said the names of the Rogue One unit, he finally found something to say.

"I went to Alderaan once, undercover, to deliver a message to Bail Organa. I met Princess Leia in the Palace Gardens. She was playing with her aunt's pet pittins." He glanced back at the bunk, where Beany still slept. "They were named Fluffy, Winky, Taffy, and All-Terrain Attack Vehicle. Guess which one she'd been allowed to name.

"It does count, that she survived. Offworld survivors will need her. As will the Rebellion."

His mouth tightened, looking at nothing. What he hadn't been able to say for himself, he said for Jyn. "Instead of being a first, it was the last. Thanks to your father, and us: the thing's destroyed."

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Listening to his story, Jyn couldn't help but crack a smile — bittersweet, still, with the weight of the subject at hand, but at least it was one small bit of levity in the face of everything else. That sounded exactly like what she remembered of Leia, too. She'd always looked so proper during their brief childhood meetings, especially in contrast to Jyn herself, with her straggly braids and ill-fitting hand-me-down soldier's attire, but it was clear that underneath her pristine white clothing was someone as impassioned as her father. And while Saw had never had anything kind to say about members of the Rebel council, Jyn had at least respected Senator Organa, even before he became one of the few who voiced support of her pleas to go to Scarif for the plans.

His was just one more senseless loss. Cassian was right that it was infinitely better for Alderaan to be the last use of the Death Star than the first, and there was comfort in that, but she doubted it would ever stop hurting. She didn't think it should.

"And thanks to them," she added, in reference to Cassian's earlier list of names. She let that hang in the air for a moment, then took a deep breath. "I actually met Leia a few times, when we were younger. Saw used to bring me to meetings with him. But I guess that must have been in my file, too."

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"It wasn't, actually. But it makes sense. You've had contact with the Rebellion longer than I have."

Cassian sat hunched for a moment, looking down at nothing. Abruptly he sat up, then stood up, pushing his plate away. "I need…" …something… 

He'd had more than his usual fullness of sleep yet still felt like he'd just been in combat. Some of that was hearing this news. Where did he go when feeling like this, in the past? Always, he'd be trying to get 'home'. Or if he didn't have one, at least somewhere secure. Well, he was there now: definitely secure, and in spite of knowing it was premature, and trying not to, being with Jyn did feel like home.

But he couldn't keep sitting here. The low hang of the freighter felt suddenly stifling. And he couldn't go back to bed. And he couldn't go to the cockpit and wrap himself in an army blanket in the pilot's chair blasting mindless radio chatter until he fell asleep. And he couldn't crawl into one of the smuggling holds and pull the hatch behind him. Technically, he could, but he wouldn't; not with Jyn, and not without knowing Kay was there to potentially pull him out.

So, it was doing the next thing.

"…Does this thing fly?" He'd be surprised if it did. "If not… I think I need to go for a walk. Something. Do things. Get out in the sky." If she was right that this place was safe, and he believed her. He would always believe her. "Will you come with me?"

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"Of course," Jyn said. The urge was one that she understood well — that she'd been about to act on when she lowered the ramp and saw him there, that was part of what kept her away when she'd promised to be here. As comfortable as she had come to be living on the ship, there were times it was just too stifling not to get out. The product of a life spent on the run, she supposed, or else a long-held discomfort in small, enclosed spaces. She had no way of knowing what he was thinking, but somehow it didn't surprise her that he felt a similar impulse now.

And wherever he was right now, she wanted to be. She ached with the fact of it, his seeming so close and yet so far. Over and over again, she tried to tell herself that the most sensible thing would be to give herself some distance, enough to let all of this sink in, if nothing else, but she couldn't quite make herself listen. If he wanted her with him, that was where she would be. Regardless of what may have changed between them in the time he'd been here before, the bond between them predated any of that, and she had already learned that trying to deny it was futile.

"Ship's grounded, and not for lack of trying. Come on, let's go get some air."

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Grateful, he managed a slight smile, just the corner of his mouth. He picked up their plates to store both in the conservator. (He'd familiarized himself with the kitchen thoroughly.) He shut its door with his bare foot, then went to put on the Imperial boots.

Just having this much of a plan was already helping him. He was able to call to her in a more normal voice, as he pulled on the boots, "Maybe first thing we'll replace are these. …And I'm still serious about a bonfire."

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"Oh, so am I," Jyn was quick to respond. "I take bonfires very seriously." It wouldn't change where the clothes had come from or the battle they'd been through, but it might at least feel good, a minor catharsis after the horror of Scarif. Even for her, years removed from it now, it never felt very far behind her, was still there waiting as often as not when she slept. With Cassian's arrival having unearthed so many emotions around it, she suspected they would be back in full force over the coming nights.

It was a price she was more than willing to pay to have him here and safe.

"And, yeah, we'll definitely replace the shoes."

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So shod, he stood back up, eyes shining at her with gratitude—still, that she was here, alive, talking to him. Now, it felt all right: he put out his hand in invitation. "Lead the way?"

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This was a bad idea, but it was apparently a day for bad ideas. Jyn took his hand without hesitation, the feeling of it warm and familiar and right in her own, and gave him a tiny smile. Such minor contact, not even the most they'd shared today, shouldn't have been enough to set her heart racing. Really, she thought she'd shut this part of herself down. It seemed painfully unfair that he could, without even realizing it, wake it up again.

"Come on," she said, leading them to the ship's exit. Outside, it was quiet; the Falcon was easy walking distance from the city itself, but situated, having crash-landed years earlier, in the countryside north of it, little else in the immediate vicinity. Off to one side was her small garden. All of it made her suddenly self-conscious, as if it might seem like she'd gone soft. "Rain's stopped, at least."

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He took it all in as if for the first time. Training dictated he'd looked everywhere as he approached, but he'd been in such shock, still—

—from Scarif? No, couldn't actually blame it on that. Perhaps he could be forgiven for finding the spontaneous… what… teleportation, falling through space-/time-, being snatched from death, all a bit tunnel-vision-inducing. But really, he'd been focused on her.

He had noted the distance from the city and the surrounding countryside, enough to feel about as safe as he ever had in the junkyard. (Both choosing to live in downed ships. No, stop that.) The garden just seems like a good idea.

"Good for a fire," he agreed, giving her another of his repertoire of tiny, real smiles. "Maybe after we come back and things have had a chance to dry off. Where to now?"

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"Up to you," Jyn said with a shrug, turning to look over at him as he looked at everything else. Once, she'd have tucked herself against his side and rested her head against his shoulder without a second thought. Now she could at least ignore that old instinct, instead just taking in the sight of him, the line of his profile, his jaw. He really was here, which meant he was alive and safe. It was still hard to believe, like a dream that she might wake up from any moment, although she'd already ruled out that possibility.

She kept her hand in his as casually as she could, as if she'd simply forgotten to pull away.

"You're the one who wanted to go out," she pointed out, almost teasing. "D'you want to go get clothes and all that now? Or just stay close to here, or look around, or something?"

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His thumb ran unconsciously along her hand, as he also failed to pull away.

"I thought we'd go into the city," he said, "but maybe I'm not ready for that. Maybe you could show me around here?" First know your own ground was a battle precept, but also, he just wanted to know more about how Jyn had been living.

One of those thoughts sat on him that he realized he should say aloud. It was one that felt more difficult than We want to volunteer. Which meant he absolutely should say it. "We only know each other at war. If you want… I want to start to learn… to meet you in peace."

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Oh, it was going to be an absolute kriffing miracle if she could get through this without crying.

It felt too good, all of it, from the way his thumb brushed the back of her hand to the words that followed. In that moment, so simple but so suffused with meaning, it suddenly mattered less that they once had known each other — built a life together — in peacetime than that he might want to get to know her now. Jyn couldn't explain it. Given the way things had progressed when she first arrived, it should have stood to reason that he might have some of those earliest feelings again in some form. Instead, it was breathtaking, as surreal as all the rest of it.

Words weren't her strongest suit even at the best or easiest of times, and nothing about this was easy, except in the ways that it was too much so. She didn't want to say nothing, though, or leave him waiting, so she nodded. "I'd like that," she said. It seemed painfully insufficient, but it was a start. "I'm still not very good at peace, but... yeah. I'd like that, too."

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They'd both built their own shields (their prisons) too strong and too high to vanish just like that. For a moment on the beach, they'd been gone. That meant it was possible. Cassian didn't try to hug Jyn now, but he squeezed her hand, and his eyes wholly smiled.

"So," he cleared his throat, and flashed a grin. "Show me around this garden?"

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"There's not much to show," Jyn said, her smile small and self-deprecating. She obliged easily, though, winding toward the little garden, her hand clasping Cassian's. "I started it... a couple of years ago, I think. Herbs, mostly. Something useful."

The garden at the house, their house, had been bigger. She hadn't been back since the night she burned it down, but she had no doubt that it had all long since withered and died. This one had been meant to be a fresh start for herself. There was probably some kind of metaphor there.

"I'd already been living here. On the ship, I mean. I honestly don't remember when that happened."

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’A couple of years’?!

Any thought of teasing her, or praising her, or asking about Galen’s farm (yes, that had been in her file), all vanished. Cassian looked at her with horror. “Jyn… how long have you been here?”

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"I told you, a long time," Jyn said, shrugging with an ease that she didn't actually feel. He would see through it, she was almost certain of that. She wasn't making very much effort to hide the truth of it anyway — how uncomfortably daunting it was to have been in any one place for so long. Before Darrow, the longest she had lived in any one place since her childhood was six months. Even going back further, they hadn't lived on Coruscant or Lah'mu half as long as she'd been here.

Sensing that the warmth of the moment was about to dissipate completely, she glanced at the ground, scuffed the toe of one shoe in the dirt. "I don't really keep count." She thought through the few figures she did know, a couple of years since she started the garden here, two years and change she was with him, a long stretch of time in between, and came up with a rough estimate. "More than five years, less than ten."

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Once again, his face went grey. Then he stopped to think it through.

There was a time when all he'd wanted was to get away from the war to somewhere peaceful and quiet. There was another time when he'd judged Jyn poorly for seeming to want nothing but that, after he'd grown to find it unimaginable to take it for himself when others couldn't have it. Maybe this place was that. And she'd surely earned it.

Just, the idea he'd gotten that she'd been here all alone. But no, she probably hadn't; there were others here. …The disconnect of timing… they'd both left from Scarif and somehow arrived so differently…

"We got so separated," he said at last.

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"Yeah," Jyn agreed, soft and rueful. "We did."

He didn't even know the half of it yet, a fact that made his saying so now that much more powerful. Before Scarif, they'd known each other for only a matter of days, and under the absolute worst of circumstances. She was all too aware of how she felt about him, despite all of her attempts to shut that off, and likewise could say with certainty that he once, in what amounted to a different lifetime, had felt the same about her in turn. Still it was difficult to wrap her head around the idea that their having been separated would matter to him now, maybe because it had never mattered to anyone else.

"I still can't believe you're really here."

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He turned to face her and took both of her hands.

"I'm really here." A slight smile. He hadn't smiled so much in a long time. With Jyn, since the data tower, it was becoming a rule. "The alternative is, I'm dying and this is a final delusion of dispersing neurons. But if so, you're not the real one. And I can't imagine that. I couldn't just invent you. …To be safe, why don't you tell me something I couldn't make up."

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"You mean you would have made up me being here for years, with the garden and the pets and the ship?" Jyn asked, brow arching in amused skepticism. Again, the expression and wry lilt in her voice lacked some of the bite she would normally have wanted them to have. His hands around hers were to thank for that. Stupid, so unforgivably kriffing stupid, for such a small gesture to so thoroughly get under her skin. "

"I can't tell if I should be insulted or flattered."

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He breathe-laughed, this one very nearly voiced. "You're right. I could never come up with the name 'Sprinkles'."

A hesitation. "For the rest… there could be some wish-fulfillment there. All I wanted on that beach was for you to live. If you've been happy."

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If you're happy, Jyn...

There was no way he could have known about that part of her father's message. His not having seen it had been a point of contention, all those years ago, one of those if onlys she'd rattled off in her head earlier. It was the part that most stuck with her, though, now twofold painful: first, because when she'd initially heard it, she had never once been happy, then, here, because she had found happiness for a little while and then lost it. The former, as it turned out, was infinitely preferable to the latter. At least then, she hadn't known what she was missing. At least she hadn't yet been foolish enough to let herself believe that was something a person like her could ever have.

It cut just as deeply now, not least because it was a statement that expected an answer rather than a recorded hologram. "You aim higher than I do," she settled on in response. She didn't know how to say if she had been happy or not. This, being true, seemed like the best way of handling it. "I'm here. I'm alive. And it's not a bad life. I never really thought I'd see what a world without war was like."

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Born in prison, early childhood on Lokori… (her file, again.) They'd both been in the war since first memories. Between the Clone Wars and the Rebellion there had supposedly been a period of peace, but those like Jyn and Cassian had lived the reality that unofficial actions never stopped and it was really all the same war.

"A city without war, at least," he said. They still didn't know why the city was cut off from everywhere else. To Cassian's mind, of course, the first suggestion would be planetary disaster. "I think I'm ready to see more of it now. If it's not too late to get started."

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"No, let's do that," Jyn agreed, letting go of one of his hands so she could start walking again, this time toward the path that led into the city proper. It was selfish, far too much so, to be drinking in whatever minor contact she could get. What was more, she would probably hate herself for it in short order. As she'd thought a few moments ago, having a thing and then losing it was infinitely harder than never having it at all, and she'd kept so many of these feelings buried for so long that she'd almost forgotten what they were like. She was only going to get herself hurt like this.

That still didn't stop her.

"You said to tell you something you couldn't make up," she added, mostly for the sake of not lapsing too much into silence. The last thing she needed right now was to be alone with her thoughts. "Want to hear a little about the ship? That's definitely couldn't make this up territory."