No he shouldn't have been with them, but Jyn knows that is her own care for him talking and so she doesn't voice that. Obviously Jyn cares more about Cassian than strangers because she is human and maybe not a good person. Should he have been with them? Jyn doesn't have any of the facts so she can't say it would have changed anything.
Maybe three people would have saved them all, maybe it would have killed them all. Jyn doesn't know but she is glad he wasn't with them, as cruel as that may be. She's always been more selfish than selfless. Her fingers shift a little, spreading apart as if inviting him to actually hold her hands, not just cover them.
"That wasn't your part of the mission though." It couldn't have been or Cassia would have been with them. She knows how he works within the confines of a mission, he's had to reel her in from intervening when she saw someone else's part going wrong, remind her that slipping away from her particular role in the dance could compromise the entire mission even worse.
It's a little delayed, but he slides his fingers through hers when she spreads them, winding together even as she keeps holding his face. His one hand is stiff and knuckles a little swollen from punching the ship, but he can't bear to pull away from her now that he's finally touched her.
"Placing them was part of my mission. It wasn't - they were never supposed to die. But they did, and why do I get to be the lucky one?" There is something cynical on the last words, because the only lucky thing he feels right now is having Jyn with him. He doesn't want to die at all, but he does marvel at how many times he escapes while others don't. It isn't that he should have been with them in the building so much as wondering if he should have died too.
"Rhel Kolbrun and Tiric Gundo. Someone else should know their names too." A beat. He feels like he needs to defend himself from being so effected, a decade of - for lack of better words - sucking it up. "I have lost agents before. I'm always prepared for the possibility."
"Cassian." Slowly, she draws their clasped hands down into her lap, pulling his hands closer to her, like she can pull him closer to her, sooth some broken edge with her presence alone. She finds this a devastating failure because she's setting impossible standards for herself.
"Is this lucky?" Her voice pitches up a little in disbelief. "If it were it wouldn't hurt so much to get out of bed in the morning because you hate everything about yourself, second guessing every single decision and choice you've ever made until you feel physically ill. There is nothing lucky about surviving, Cassian."
That was maybe too bitter to be helpful and she puffs out a short sigh before trying again. "You have a heart, losing people shouldn't be easy."
He lets her pull his hands, watching the movement with an ounce of nerves, like if he gets too close to her everything will be ruined. She's wrong though, because Jyn does sooth him. And maybe that's part of why he avoided her too, the sinking feeling that he didn't deserve to be soothed.
Cassian looks up at her again, and she's right on that front. It's not luck, and he does hate himself; some days it's not so bad, on the days he gets to smile at her or Bodhi, or laugh with Chirrut, or drink with Baze. They remind him that even if surviving is a challenge, there are pieces that help. He never had that before.
It doesn't mean he can't recognize the bitterness in it because he feels it. It's overwhelming right now, especially after hearing it so plainly, like she's completely read him for filth. "The alternative is not lucky either."
It's the strangest pinch of a feeling, not wanting to die but still feeling like you've escaped death too many times. Cassian knows how to survive both the world and things he does, but the cost of it is still killing him slowly.
"It's supposed to be, in this." He squeezes her hands a little. Does he have a heart? It's a good question. "Even when you are the reason why it happens. To do this work, I need to be prepared to cut any losses."
"Being prepared isn't the same as being heartless." Once both his hands are settled in her lap, she extracts one hand to reach up and hold his shoulder, firm. She also wants her hand free in case he tries to look away and she can hold both of his hands with her one. Honestly, when it comes to Cassian, she can do anything if it will make it just a little bit better for him.
"You didn't go into that mission hoping Rhel and Tiric would die. I know you. You had plans and contingencies and escape routes and every single thing planned so that all of you would make it back alive. You did everything you could to protect them." That's just not a reality of war, it's their reality. Ever-present loss chipping away at the shoddily erected walls they'd built up around themselves.
The unfortunate fact of letting each other in, letting Bodhi and Chirrut and Baze in, means that their walls have ceased being secure. It would be easier to do the dirty work, she thinks, alone. But what good would their even be in surviving in that case?
"It hurts because you're not a storm trooper, Cassian."
That's probably why he was alone for so long. Spy work is easier when your only friend is a droid. The more time he spends with Jyn, with the rest of them, the more he finds himself at a loss in coping. When he could avoid most people, he didn't have to be vulnerable. His walls kept him safe, and even though he's a different kind of safe with them lowered, he feels like a mess of a man.
Realistically and logically he knows everything she tells him is true, but it's so unusual to hear another voice reminding him of it. Most of the time the little guilty voice in his head just reminds him how awful he is. Rationality gets thrown out the window.
He shudders under the words. You're not a stormtrooper. He knows that too, deep down, because he knows the Rebellion is the moral choice, even if he can't always do moral things. That's how war works.
Maybe the hurt is what separates him from the blind obedience of a faceless army. But when the way she threw it in his face after Eadu wouldn't stop echoing in his ears, to hear the reverse of it now is like a weight lifted. Some of it.
He does look away, closing his eyes, and he almost, almost, touches his cheek to her hand on his shoulder. It's like he's still refusing the comfort of more contact. "I set off the bomb ten minutes earlier than planned. The entire operation would have been discovered if I hadn't." His voice is matter of fact until the pause, dragging on awkwardly. When he finally continues, it sounds like he's going to choke on shame. "They were not out yet."
Jyn remembers the blood pouring from Saw's body on Tamsye Prime, soaking her with sticky warmth. She remembers Jari's screams and frantic entreaties before they were cut off entirely. The reassurances from Akshaya and her Hadder before the heartbreaking silence and realization. Blue, who trusted Liana Hallik the expert forger. Blue who Liana sold out to the Imperials for her own freedom. Cassian isn't the only one who dwells on the people that have died because of him. He and Jyn happen to have the same coping mechanism -- not.
Saw had told her once that war was a massacre. She didn't realize then it was more of an emotional massacre.
"We all know the risks," she says quietly, feeling grief and anger war inside her. As much as she wanted to haul off and deck Saw when Maia died, she wants to do the same to Draven now because she knows it comes down to his decisions to send Cassian on these missions. It kills her that he's killing himself like this, for the rebellion.
That old bitterness flares bright. How much do they have to lose before they've done enough?
He can't bring himself to look at her, too afraid of what he might see. Her voice is quiet, unjudging, but Jyn has her own masks and unreadable expressions. There is anger in her frame, which is the part he seems to hone in on above the more mournful parts, because it's easy to assume any anger is aimed at himself.
Even if she isn't angry with him, she's angry with the Rebellion, and he hates to make her feel that way. Another point in favor of his former isolation: no one to worry he's scared off the cause.
"I always do," he says, resigned. Everything in his life always seems to come down to had to, needed to. Cassian always does what he has to do.
It's not even the first time he's killed his own people before, or done something that led to their deaths. He's beaten and killed informants. The bomb from this mission was full of civilian casualties. He's pointblank killed civilians before, witnesses to his work, to prove he wasn't a spy to Imperials, excuse after excuse that was valid to the Rebellion but carved out pieces of himself. Sabotage and torture and blackmail, all on his resume.
Not so easily locked up anymore though. Unable to be erased from the datafile he assumed he had instead of a heart.
Cassian feels like he's losing his touch, and it scares him in a very existential way. He's not proud to be a skilled murderer, but it's all he's known for so long.
His words are clipped like he's giving some sort of report, but his tone gets lower, quieter, coarse like he's losing his voice. "They were good agents. I killed them. There were civilians inside with them. Wounded. Children. The moon will be ours. The Resistance was centralized, officially aligned to us. It was a success."
So why does he feel like he's going to start hyperventilating?
It's sharp, firm, and she lifts her hand to his cheek again, forcing him to look at her. Her jaw is set angrily, but her eyes are soft.
"Saw left me on Tamsye Prime. It's a planet in the Outer Rim. The Empire shipped ore there to be processed in their manufacturing factories, they made parts for Star Destroyers -- what we thought were parts for Star Destroyers." Time and gained knowledge proved differently, of course, the looming reminder of the Death Star making Jyn's stomach turn over. "The planet, the entire planet, was stuck in a debt system with the Empire. The entire planet was akin to slaves. Entire families and they can't fight back because then the Empire will slaughter their children in front of them, to remind them of their power."
There are some stories Jyn just doesn't tell, the full heartbreak of being left behind by Saw is one of them and so she leaves it at that.
She swallows, lips pursed before she breathes out a slow steadying breath to get to the point of the story in the first place. "They may have lost family today and it will be a heartache, yes, but what the Empire could have done to them would have been infinitely worse." Her thumb smooths over his beard, voice cracking at the pain in his eyes. "I've been in an Imperial prison, Cassian, I know what they're capable of."
It takes her manhandling him to look, and even then he can't look passed her jaw at first and the way it sits angrily. It's only when she starts talking about Tamsye Prime that he finally meets her gaze and exhales at the softness of her eyes. His breath comes in hard, but at least it's not the rapid fire of a panic attack.
The way she talks about the planet, her arrest, it has him moving, lifting his hand up to cradle her cheek, because he can't touch her for himself but Cassian can do it for her. Even while he can barely hold himself upright, he wants to comfort her too.
Jyn's prison sentence was for life, but she served only six months before the Alliance broke her out. Cassian knows what happens in their prisons too. He's been inside them, both with short purposeful prisoner stints and undercover with Imperial identities.
If there is anyone who can understand him right now and this chasm he's standing over, it's Jyn.
"I have told myself again and again these same things. That the Empire will always be worse. And I know it is. That's why I do this. It's why I fight them."
The Empire is always worse. It is and he knows that. It's been drilled into him for years, but hearing it from Jyn is different. She hates what he does. She threw it in his face before. But she's still here, telling him the Empire is worse, and it's a strange comfort to breathe in. For the good of the galaxy is a slippery slope, but maybe he hasn't fallen completely off track. His breathing slows down.
His shoulders sink in, not so much defeat as exhaustion. He finally lets himself lean into her hand on his cheek. His voice is quiet like he's afraid to admit it, and he is, but if he can't be vulnerable with Jyn, that's the scarier part of his life now. Losing her is more terrifying than facing himself. He doesn't want to go back to being lonely, even if it was easier to turn off his emotions that way. "But I'm tired, Jyn. I'm so tired."
He's finally given into her touch and Jyn immediately takes advantage of it, pulling him forward so she can curl her arms around his shoulders, enveloping him in a hug, mind racing with a silent to do list. Number one on it is telling Draven Cassian needs more than three days leave.
He needs a week, a least. She and K2 can whisk him off base, they can call it a mission, go someplace Cassian can still gather intel for stress relief and so he doesn't feel like he's wasting his time, but where his only obligations are to relax for once and indulge. Han had told her about a forest planet, lush and green with plants she's never even heard of, back when he was trying to flirt with her, a neutral planet outside of reaches of galactic politics. He'd called the castle there a safe haven of sorts if they ever wanted to get away for a while. She'd pulled her blaster and suggested his downtime would be better spent recovering from massive blood loss in the medbay and Han had never brought it up again.
It didn't mean Jyn had forgotten this supposed smuggler's safe harbor, where even Jedi had hidden once upon a time.
He stiffens when she hugs him, those few seconds still feeling unworthy, but she says I know and he finds himself sinking wholly into her arms. Starved.
There are no judgments, there's no rush from her to get back to work. It's pure acceptance and acknowledgement of how he's feeling without trying to change his mind, without trying to put the Rebellion first, and he can't really remember the last time that happened when he was in this state, if it's ever happened at all.
Her kiss is affection he finally doesn't fight, closing his eyes with it. He ducks his head into the crook of her neck and shoulder and slides his arms around her back, more of a cling than a hug but at least he's not pretending he doesn't crave this anymore. Cassian shudders, overwhelmed by the sense of being cared for despite her knowing what he's done. Jyn's embrace is proof that to at least one person he deserves comfort.
I know.
It's validation he never sought and never needed before, but he's going to take it from her now and hold on. She knows and it's okay, it's okay that he's tired. It's two words but it tells him he doesn't have to be anything other than tired right now. He doesn't have to figure out immediately how to get better, how to function, he doesn't have to be a Captain. He can just be Cassian with Jyn, settled in her arms and maybe it's not enough for coping forever, but it helps now. She puts him first and so few people have ever done that.
He loves her. He loves her so much and the feeling helps combat all the worst things he believes about himself, because he has to have a heart to be so in love with Jyn Erso. She doesn't deserve anything less.
His arms tighten around her and he breathes out again, slower, safer, slowly settling.
He's relaxing and Jyn is afraid she's going to ruin it. She wants him to relax, she wants him to be calm and be able to sleep, but she also wants to take care of the practical side of things now.
She lets the quiet linger a long while more, waiting until his breath matches hers, smoothing her fingers carefully though his hair. Her fingers keep moving when she finally breaks the silence with her quiet voice.
"Cassian, I'm going to leave for ten minutes and while I'm gone I want you to do two things for me. Just two things." Only two things, because she doesn't want to push him too hard, but she is going to make him take care of himself while she is taking care of things he can't take care of. She needs to talk to Draven now before he thinks to put Cassian on some other mission the moment his handful of days leave are over -- she honestly doesn't care if she wakes his damn ass up.
There is immense comfort to being in her arms. She runs her hands through his hair and he listens to her breathe and it's the closest to peace he's felt since the bomb went off.
Cassian hears the words I'm going to leave and finds his grip around her tightening before she even continues. It doesn't slacken, not even when she explains, but his breath keeps steady and slow. He's not sure what he even feels capable of right now except laying here against her. He doesn't want to let her go, but he does trust her, which is probably the only thing that allows him to consider it.
"What things?" He can't say okay, not until he knows what she's asking of him.
The way his arms tighten around her makes her heart break, but his question makes her feel better. Not only is he talking still, but his instinct to need to know everything is still strong. Her fingers don't stop combing though his hair, but she smiles as she presses a kiss to the top of his head.
"I need you to bathe and to shave. You'll feel better. When I'm back we can sleep."
She isn't asking a lot because she doesn't think it's fair, now when the Alliance is asking so much of him all the time. But he's proved to her time and time over that being clean helps clear the mind and if it works for her she can't help but think it probably works for him too.
It's advice he give to Jyn, advice he gives to all manner of people, because cleaning up is a mechanical enough routine to accomplish, a feat to focus on instead of all the terrible things floating in your head.
He's still unresponsive for a few long seconds though, the movement of her fingers steadying, his grip on her still unrelenting.
"Okay," he says finally, if only because she's listened to him before, and he doesn't have it in him to argue. He's washed off most of the blood and grime already, but shaving he can do. He forgot about that.
"Where are you going?" He thinks it might help too, just to know where she is. Even if she doesn't want to tell him her plans, she could tell him virtually anywhere and he'd be at ease.
"I'm going to medical to get something for your hand." It's going to get worse the longer it goes untreated, even if it's just a tube of bacta gel and something to wrap it in and she doesn't think he's going to let anyone else tend to him. He's also done that for her when she punched a medical droid, close enough to a ship.
She can easily grab that stuff once she's done demanding his time off from Draven.
The steady movement of her fingers continues, she isn't going to move until he does, isn't going to try to pry herself out of his arms when he clearly doesn't even want her to move, much less leave him even if only for ten minutes.
Oh, right. He punched the ship. Only now does the sting of it register and he should probably let her go get something for it, otherwise he knows he isn't going to bother. Until he can stand upright again, Cassian has no intention of leaving his room. That's standard, when he's come back from missions like this. Locking himself away till he's a functional human being.
Even so, he lets her keep running her hand through his hair, taking a few more minutes of comfort from it before he shifts, letting his grip loosen as he pulls back to look at her face.
I love you he thinks again. He disentangles slowly, but lets himself cup her cheek and run his thumb over it. "Okay," he says, the verbal sign that it's okay for her to leave now. He's a little marveled to be cared for like this.
He finally pulls away and Jyn lets her hand finally fall from his hair to his knee, smiling softly as his fingers touch her cheek. At least the Alliance hasn't broken this part of him.
She lean forward to kiss him, gentle and careful. "Don't shave too much." Let's not get crazy.
Her smile feels like coming home. He can't make himself smile back, but she's still smiling at him even after what he's done, so that has to mean something. He feels not quite lighter, but maybe like he'll be able to sleep tonight.
Cassian returns her kiss on instinct, but it's half-hearted. "Don't take too long."
"I won't." She kisses him once more before standing up and then once she's standing, she leans down to kiss his hair, murmuring "I love you" softly before she turns to slip out of the room.
The first thing she does is find Draven. She doesn't know where his personal rooms are, but she finds one of his Intelligence officers and demands he find the General for her, waiting for him in the war room. Surprisingly, he doesn't make her wait very long before he joins her and Jyn spends a full four minutes yelling at him though he seems to realize that she isn't yelling at him or even the Alliance, she's just yelling because the fact that their lives are so broken is inescapable. He lets her yell. When she is finished and demands Cassian's leave be extended, Draven finally relents when she offers her idea of spending that time at Takodana so they can still relay intel to the Alliance and maybe even stealthily recruit new people even though the planet is neutral. She wants Draven to pose it to Cassian himself, as a mission, with all of Rogue One, so he won't realize he's being put on vacation until they get there.
Somehow they come to an agreement. Maybe Draven is just swayed by the idea that Jyn hunted him down to achieve this objective considering her disdain for him is well known. It's softening somewhat now.
It only gives Jyn a minute or so to sprint to medbay to grab the things for his hand and back to the room. She literally runs down the hall, typing the password into the door in a hurry. She fucks it up and it beeps at her in affront until she puts it in correctly, frowning as the door slides open to let her in.
"The medical droids are so unhelpful." No, they just don't like you because of your excessive violence, Jyn.
He still sits on the bed for a minute or so after Jyn leaves, but he doesn't feel as completely useless now, and he knows she's coming back soon. It always seems to surprise him a little when she tells him she loves him aloud. With a sigh and an ache in his bones that isn't related to recent injury, Cassian slides off the bed and towards the refresher.
He stares at his face in the mirror, the circles under his eyes and the beard that's longer than he likes to keep it. He shaves, like Jyn told him to, focusing on the monotony of the movements and slowly trimming his beard back to normal.
His eyes are on Jyn instantly when she walks in, and he feels cleaner, even if he still doesn't feel totally human. But he looks at her fondly from where he's back to sitting on the bed, which is better than empty. "Please tell me you did not punch one again," he says, voice still hoarse and tone not as teasing as he'd like, but at least it's not overwhelming existential dread. Just 50%.
"I did not," is her immediate protest, moving to perch on the bed next to him, settling the gel and bandage next to them. "They just insist on asking me so many questions whenever I'm in there. It's none of their business what I need anything for."
It's exactly their business though. Still, it's better talking about her constant disagreements with the medical droids and doctors than her agreement with Draven.
Her fingers lift to brush across his cheek again. "Hello, handsome."
Relief fills him when she sits beside him again, and the mundane medical ramblings feels so normal that he listens to every word like it's some epic story. "It is technically their business," he says idly, determined to not collapse into her all over again, even though he really wants to. He probably will.
He leans in towards her hand when she touches his face, still starved for any affection. Part of him is still afraid to reach out to her first. "I love you too." It's belated, but it's very important to him to say it back right now.
Jyn ignores his technicality because she knows he and they are right but that doesn't mean she has to ever admit it aloud, even if just to Cassian. Oh no, no. She's not here for that.
She smiles when he leans into her, smiling wider still when he returns her declaration of love. It feels like A Lot now, on top of how she never gets ytired of or less thrilled hearing it. Cassian never needs to stop saying it as far as she is concerned. "Good. I'd hate to be alone in it."
She draws her hand back reluctantly but she reaches out for his injured hand and pulls it into her lap, setting to work applying the gel and wrapping the bandage around it, mostly to keep the gel from getting all over everything else.
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ohnofeelstho2017-03-22 07:37 pm
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No he shouldn't have been with them, but Jyn knows that is her own care for him talking and so she doesn't voice that. Obviously Jyn cares more about Cassian than strangers because she is human and maybe not a good person. Should he have been with them? Jyn doesn't have any of the facts so she can't say it would have changed anything.
Maybe three people would have saved them all, maybe it would have killed them all. Jyn doesn't know but she is glad he wasn't with them, as cruel as that may be. She's always been more selfish than selfless. Her fingers shift a little, spreading apart as if inviting him to actually hold her hands, not just cover them.
"That wasn't your part of the mission though." It couldn't have been or Cassia would have been with them. She knows how he works within the confines of a mission, he's had to reel her in from intervening when she saw someone else's part going wrong, remind her that slipping away from her particular role in the dance could compromise the entire mission even worse.
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"Placing them was part of my mission. It wasn't - they were never supposed to die. But they did, and why do I get to be the lucky one?" There is something cynical on the last words, because the only lucky thing he feels right now is having Jyn with him. He doesn't want to die at all, but he does marvel at how many times he escapes while others don't. It isn't that he should have been with them in the building so much as wondering if he should have died too.
"Rhel Kolbrun and Tiric Gundo. Someone else should know their names too." A beat. He feels like he needs to defend himself from being so effected, a decade of - for lack of better words - sucking it up. "I have lost agents before. I'm always prepared for the possibility."
no subject
"Cassian." Slowly, she draws their clasped hands down into her lap, pulling his hands closer to her, like she can pull him closer to her, sooth some broken edge with her presence alone. She finds this a devastating failure because she's setting impossible standards for herself.
"Is this lucky?" Her voice pitches up a little in disbelief. "If it were it wouldn't hurt so much to get out of bed in the morning because you hate everything about yourself, second guessing every single decision and choice you've ever made until you feel physically ill. There is nothing lucky about surviving, Cassian."
That was maybe too bitter to be helpful and she puffs out a short sigh before trying again. "You have a heart, losing people shouldn't be easy."
no subject
Cassian looks up at her again, and she's right on that front. It's not luck, and he does hate himself; some days it's not so bad, on the days he gets to smile at her or Bodhi, or laugh with Chirrut, or drink with Baze. They remind him that even if surviving is a challenge, there are pieces that help. He never had that before.
It doesn't mean he can't recognize the bitterness in it because he feels it. It's overwhelming right now, especially after hearing it so plainly, like she's completely read him for filth. "The alternative is not lucky either."
It's the strangest pinch of a feeling, not wanting to die but still feeling like you've escaped death too many times. Cassian knows how to survive both the world and things he does, but the cost of it is still killing him slowly.
"It's supposed to be, in this." He squeezes her hands a little. Does he have a heart? It's a good question. "Even when you are the reason why it happens. To do this work, I need to be prepared to cut any losses."
no subject
"You didn't go into that mission hoping Rhel and Tiric would die. I know you. You had plans and contingencies and escape routes and every single thing planned so that all of you would make it back alive. You did everything you could to protect them." That's just not a reality of war, it's their reality. Ever-present loss chipping away at the shoddily erected walls they'd built up around themselves.
The unfortunate fact of letting each other in, letting Bodhi and Chirrut and Baze in, means that their walls have ceased being secure. It would be easier to do the dirty work, she thinks, alone. But what good would their even be in surviving in that case?
"It hurts because you're not a storm trooper, Cassian."
no subject
Realistically and logically he knows everything she tells him is true, but it's so unusual to hear another voice reminding him of it. Most of the time the little guilty voice in his head just reminds him how awful he is. Rationality gets thrown out the window.
He shudders under the words. You're not a stormtrooper. He knows that too, deep down, because he knows the Rebellion is the moral choice, even if he can't always do moral things. That's how war works.
Maybe the hurt is what separates him from the blind obedience of a faceless army. But when the way she threw it in his face after Eadu wouldn't stop echoing in his ears, to hear the reverse of it now is like a weight lifted. Some of it.
He does look away, closing his eyes, and he almost, almost, touches his cheek to her hand on his shoulder. It's like he's still refusing the comfort of more contact. "I set off the bomb ten minutes earlier than planned. The entire operation would have been discovered if I hadn't." His voice is matter of fact until the pause, dragging on awkwardly. When he finally continues, it sounds like he's going to choke on shame. "They were not out yet."
no subject
Jyn remembers the blood pouring from Saw's body on Tamsye Prime, soaking her with sticky warmth. She remembers Jari's screams and frantic entreaties before they were cut off entirely. The reassurances from Akshaya and her Hadder before the heartbreaking silence and realization. Blue, who trusted Liana Hallik the expert forger. Blue who Liana sold out to the Imperials for her own freedom. Cassian isn't the only one who dwells on the people that have died because of him. He and Jyn happen to have the same coping mechanism -- not.
Saw had told her once that war was a massacre. She didn't realize then it was more of an emotional massacre.
"We all know the risks," she says quietly, feeling grief and anger war inside her. As much as she wanted to haul off and deck Saw when Maia died, she wants to do the same to Draven now because she knows it comes down to his decisions to send Cassian on these missions. It kills her that he's killing himself like this, for the rebellion.
That old bitterness flares bright. How much do they have to lose before they've done enough?
"You did what you had to."
no subject
Even if she isn't angry with him, she's angry with the Rebellion, and he hates to make her feel that way. Another point in favor of his former isolation: no one to worry he's scared off the cause.
"I always do," he says, resigned. Everything in his life always seems to come down to had to, needed to. Cassian always does what he has to do.
It's not even the first time he's killed his own people before, or done something that led to their deaths. He's beaten and killed informants. The bomb from this mission was full of civilian casualties. He's pointblank killed civilians before, witnesses to his work, to prove he wasn't a spy to Imperials, excuse after excuse that was valid to the Rebellion but carved out pieces of himself. Sabotage and torture and blackmail, all on his resume.
Not so easily locked up anymore though. Unable to be erased from the datafile he assumed he had instead of a heart.
Cassian feels like he's losing his touch, and it scares him in a very existential way. He's not proud to be a skilled murderer, but it's all he's known for so long.
His words are clipped like he's giving some sort of report, but his tone gets lower, quieter, coarse like he's losing his voice. "They were good agents. I killed them. There were civilians inside with them. Wounded. Children. The moon will be ours. The Resistance was centralized, officially aligned to us. It was a success."
So why does he feel like he's going to start hyperventilating?
How can Jyn still be here beside him?
no subject
It's sharp, firm, and she lifts her hand to his cheek again, forcing him to look at her. Her jaw is set angrily, but her eyes are soft.
"Saw left me on Tamsye Prime. It's a planet in the Outer Rim. The Empire shipped ore there to be processed in their manufacturing factories, they made parts for Star Destroyers -- what we thought were parts for Star Destroyers." Time and gained knowledge proved differently, of course, the looming reminder of the Death Star making Jyn's stomach turn over. "The planet, the entire planet, was stuck in a debt system with the Empire. The entire planet was akin to slaves. Entire families and they can't fight back because then the Empire will slaughter their children in front of them, to remind them of their power."
There are some stories Jyn just doesn't tell, the full heartbreak of being left behind by Saw is one of them and so she leaves it at that.
She swallows, lips pursed before she breathes out a slow steadying breath to get to the point of the story in the first place. "They may have lost family today and it will be a heartache, yes, but what the Empire could have done to them would have been infinitely worse." Her thumb smooths over his beard, voice cracking at the pain in his eyes. "I've been in an Imperial prison, Cassian, I know what they're capable of."
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The way she talks about the planet, her arrest, it has him moving, lifting his hand up to cradle her cheek, because he can't touch her for himself but Cassian can do it for her. Even while he can barely hold himself upright, he wants to comfort her too.
Jyn's prison sentence was for life, but she served only six months before the Alliance broke her out. Cassian knows what happens in their prisons too. He's been inside them, both with short purposeful prisoner stints and undercover with Imperial identities.
If there is anyone who can understand him right now and this chasm he's standing over, it's Jyn.
"I have told myself again and again these same things. That the Empire will always be worse. And I know it is. That's why I do this. It's why I fight them."
The Empire is always worse. It is and he knows that. It's been drilled into him for years, but hearing it from Jyn is different. She hates what he does. She threw it in his face before. But she's still here, telling him the Empire is worse, and it's a strange comfort to breathe in. For the good of the galaxy is a slippery slope, but maybe he hasn't fallen completely off track. His breathing slows down.
His shoulders sink in, not so much defeat as exhaustion. He finally lets himself lean into her hand on his cheek. His voice is quiet like he's afraid to admit it, and he is, but if he can't be vulnerable with Jyn, that's the scarier part of his life now. Losing her is more terrifying than facing himself. He doesn't want to go back to being lonely, even if it was easier to turn off his emotions that way. "But I'm tired, Jyn. I'm so tired."
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He's finally given into her touch and Jyn immediately takes advantage of it, pulling him forward so she can curl her arms around his shoulders, enveloping him in a hug, mind racing with a silent to do list. Number one on it is telling Draven Cassian needs more than three days leave.
He needs a week, a least. She and K2 can whisk him off base, they can call it a mission, go someplace Cassian can still gather intel for stress relief and so he doesn't feel like he's wasting his time, but where his only obligations are to relax for once and indulge. Han had told her about a forest planet, lush and green with plants she's never even heard of, back when he was trying to flirt with her, a neutral planet outside of reaches of galactic politics. He'd called the castle there a safe haven of sorts if they ever wanted to get away for a while. She'd pulled her blaster and suggested his downtime would be better spent recovering from massive blood loss in the medbay and Han had never brought it up again.
It didn't mean Jyn had forgotten this supposed smuggler's safe harbor, where even Jedi had hidden once upon a time.
Her lips brush his temple softly. "I know."
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He stiffens when she hugs him, those few seconds still feeling unworthy, but she says I know and he finds himself sinking wholly into her arms. Starved.
There are no judgments, there's no rush from her to get back to work. It's pure acceptance and acknowledgement of how he's feeling without trying to change his mind, without trying to put the Rebellion first, and he can't really remember the last time that happened when he was in this state, if it's ever happened at all.
Her kiss is affection he finally doesn't fight, closing his eyes with it. He ducks his head into the crook of her neck and shoulder and slides his arms around her back, more of a cling than a hug but at least he's not pretending he doesn't crave this anymore. Cassian shudders, overwhelmed by the sense of being cared for despite her knowing what he's done. Jyn's embrace is proof that to at least one person he deserves comfort.
I know.
It's validation he never sought and never needed before, but he's going to take it from her now and hold on. She knows and it's okay, it's okay that he's tired. It's two words but it tells him he doesn't have to be anything other than tired right now. He doesn't have to figure out immediately how to get better, how to function, he doesn't have to be a Captain. He can just be Cassian with Jyn, settled in her arms and maybe it's not enough for coping forever, but it helps now. She puts him first and so few people have ever done that.
He loves her. He loves her so much and the feeling helps combat all the worst things he believes about himself, because he has to have a heart to be so in love with Jyn Erso. She doesn't deserve anything less.
His arms tighten around her and he breathes out again, slower, safer, slowly settling.
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She lets the quiet linger a long while more, waiting until his breath matches hers, smoothing her fingers carefully though his hair. Her fingers keep moving when she finally breaks the silence with her quiet voice.
"Cassian, I'm going to leave for ten minutes and while I'm gone I want you to do two things for me. Just two things." Only two things, because she doesn't want to push him too hard, but she is going to make him take care of himself while she is taking care of things he can't take care of. She needs to talk to Draven now before he thinks to put Cassian on some other mission the moment his handful of days leave are over -- she honestly doesn't care if she wakes his damn ass up.
"Is that okay?"
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Cassian hears the words I'm going to leave and finds his grip around her tightening before she even continues. It doesn't slacken, not even when she explains, but his breath keeps steady and slow. He's not sure what he even feels capable of right now except laying here against her. He doesn't want to let her go, but he does trust her, which is probably the only thing that allows him to consider it.
"What things?" He can't say okay, not until he knows what she's asking of him.
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"I need you to bathe and to shave. You'll feel better. When I'm back we can sleep."
She isn't asking a lot because she doesn't think it's fair, now when the Alliance is asking so much of him all the time. But he's proved to her time and time over that being clean helps clear the mind and if it works for her she can't help but think it probably works for him too.
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He's still unresponsive for a few long seconds though, the movement of her fingers steadying, his grip on her still unrelenting.
"Okay," he says finally, if only because she's listened to him before, and he doesn't have it in him to argue. He's washed off most of the blood and grime already, but shaving he can do. He forgot about that.
"Where are you going?" He thinks it might help too, just to know where she is. Even if she doesn't want to tell him her plans, she could tell him virtually anywhere and he'd be at ease.
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She can easily grab that stuff once she's done demanding his time off from Draven.
The steady movement of her fingers continues, she isn't going to move until he does, isn't going to try to pry herself out of his arms when he clearly doesn't even want her to move, much less leave him even if only for ten minutes.
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Even so, he lets her keep running her hand through his hair, taking a few more minutes of comfort from it before he shifts, letting his grip loosen as he pulls back to look at her face.
I love you he thinks again. He disentangles slowly, but lets himself cup her cheek and run his thumb over it. "Okay," he says, the verbal sign that it's okay for her to leave now. He's a little marveled to be cared for like this.
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She lean forward to kiss him, gentle and careful. "Don't shave too much." Let's not get crazy.
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Cassian returns her kiss on instinct, but it's half-hearted. "Don't take too long."
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The first thing she does is find Draven. She doesn't know where his personal rooms are, but she finds one of his Intelligence officers and demands he find the General for her, waiting for him in the war room. Surprisingly, he doesn't make her wait very long before he joins her and Jyn spends a full four minutes yelling at him though he seems to realize that she isn't yelling at him or even the Alliance, she's just yelling because the fact that their lives are so broken is inescapable. He lets her yell. When she is finished and demands Cassian's leave be extended, Draven finally relents when she offers her idea of spending that time at Takodana so they can still relay intel to the Alliance and maybe even stealthily recruit new people even though the planet is neutral. She wants Draven to pose it to Cassian himself, as a mission, with all of Rogue One, so he won't realize he's being put on vacation until they get there.
Somehow they come to an agreement. Maybe Draven is just swayed by the idea that Jyn hunted him down to achieve this objective considering her disdain for him is well known. It's softening somewhat now.
It only gives Jyn a minute or so to sprint to medbay to grab the things for his hand and back to the room. She literally runs down the hall, typing the password into the door in a hurry. She fucks it up and it beeps at her in affront until she puts it in correctly, frowning as the door slides open to let her in.
"The medical droids are so unhelpful." No, they just don't like you because of your excessive violence, Jyn.
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He stares at his face in the mirror, the circles under his eyes and the beard that's longer than he likes to keep it. He shaves, like Jyn told him to, focusing on the monotony of the movements and slowly trimming his beard back to normal.
His eyes are on Jyn instantly when she walks in, and he feels cleaner, even if he still doesn't feel totally human. But he looks at her fondly from where he's back to sitting on the bed, which is better than empty. "Please tell me you did not punch one again," he says, voice still hoarse and tone not as teasing as he'd like, but at least it's not overwhelming existential dread. Just 50%.
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"I did not," is her immediate protest, moving to perch on the bed next to him, settling the gel and bandage next to them. "They just insist on asking me so many questions whenever I'm in there. It's none of their business what I need anything for."
It's exactly their business though. Still, it's better talking about her constant disagreements with the medical droids and doctors than her agreement with Draven.
Her fingers lift to brush across his cheek again. "Hello, handsome."
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He leans in towards her hand when she touches his face, still starved for any affection. Part of him is still afraid to reach out to her first. "I love you too." It's belated, but it's very important to him to say it back right now.
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She smiles when he leans into her, smiling wider still when he returns her declaration of love. It feels like A Lot now, on top of how she never gets ytired of or less thrilled hearing it. Cassian never needs to stop saying it as far as she is concerned. "Good. I'd hate to be alone in it."
She draws her hand back reluctantly but she reaches out for his injured hand and pulls it into her lap, setting to work applying the gel and wrapping the bandage around it, mostly to keep the gel from getting all over everything else.
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