She isn't going to protest his selfish reasons. Cassian is the most unselfish man on the planet, he could do with some selfish tendencies.
"Rey, little star, what are you doing my love?" What Rey is doing is attempting to climb into the laundry basket and, presumably collect another blanket for her small mountain, but really she is just halfway in with her legs kicking idly in the air like she can work herself into the basket through kick power alone.
"Rey..." Jyn sighs happily into a laugh, slithering around to melt off the couch and sit next to Cassian on the floor and watch their ridiculous daughter.
She indulges him so easily, it still takes a lot of getting used to - but he does immediately plot making her a crown. He'll have to gather up enough poinsettias. "Okay. I will have it by dinner."
Cassian beams at the sight of her trying to propel herself into the basket. "She does have very powerful legs," he remarks solemnly, even more delighted when Jyn sinks to the floor beside him. He kisses her temple and tugs her in against him. "Ten credits says she makes it in."
"I would never bet against our daughter." Furthermore she would never willingly engage in a bet with Cassian. He would win, somehow. That is a fact of reality.
Rey slips forward into the basket as Jyn leans against Cassian, utterly unconcerned that some injury will befall Rey in a basket of blankets. The baby chirrups a noise like she is surprised to find herself in this position! How did this happen! It does not take long for her to lift her face from the blankets, bleating unhappily that her crown has fallen off again.
"Darling, what did you expect?" She looks at her parents accusingly and bleats again, a disgruntled trill. They did this! "Put it back on, love."
"I would, depending on her mood at bedtime." Sometimes she just refuses to go to bed, until she passes out from pure exhaustion. It's great. Their baby is as stubborn as both of her parents and she can barely talk yet.
He does not bother to hide his own delight and quiet laugh when her success at climbing into the basket is marred by her suddenly missing crown. "I want to see if she can find it. Come on, little star, use that smart brain of yours."
Rey frowns, deeply displeased that her parents are just sitting there, ignoring her! The utter audacity of them!
In all honesty, Cassian just likes the warm feeling of Jyn pressed beside him, and their daughter is very clever. She'll find the crown, he can wait. She paps at the blanket, digging her little fingers in like claws and scrunching her nose in concentration. She grabs it forcefully with her hand once she spots the red flowers and shakes it like a maraca.
"That's my clever girl. Can you put it on, Rey?" Their baby squints at her mother suspiciously, shaking the crown again, but she seems happy enough now to sit in the basket and what the petals and leaves moving every time she gives it a shake. She is a good, if willful, baby; smart and curious and independent and exceptionally loving, wildly in tune with her parents moods still.
Maybe that is why she was looking at Jyn suspiciously.
With her head resting against Cassian's shoulder and watching their daughter entertain herself in a basket of what had been neatly folded laundry, Jyn quietly asks: "Do you ever think of having another?"
They hadn't thought about the first! They're still undercover, they're still in the dead center of Imperial control, it is just as dangerous, and honestly, having a baby did not do wonders for Jyn's mental well being. But now they are a team, they are a family, and she doesn't want Rey to grow up the way they did, alone. A sibling is a friend built right in, that is what Hadder has said about Tanith. (Also that she painted his hair when he was a butthead to her but Jyn assumed he had that coming.) Rey would always have someone on her side.
Eventually, Cassian thinks, she might figure out how to get it on her head. Rey is ridiculously smart, clever girl is not a nickname born strictly out of affection. She loves their attention, but she's just as good at keeping herself occupied with the right tools, like the aforementioned laundry basket. The older she gets, the more Cassian continues to think she just got only the best parts of them both.
He's too busy watching Rey play that Jyn's question catches him completely by surprise. He pauses, then looks over at her, as if wanting to make sure he heard her correctly.
Another. Another child.
He needs to be honest with her. "I have not. I am always just thinking about... her." He hadn't wanted any kids before Rey, he hasn't thought about any more - though not necessarily this time because he doesn't want them. They're still on Coruscant, every day is a danger; he knows he wants a life with Jyn forever, but it's still hard for him to consider the finer details when his present feels so risky.
"Why?" He sounds curious more than anything. "Have you been thinking about it?"
"I have." A beat. "I'm not pregnant again, don't worry."
She feels nervous now, and unintentionally like a bad parent because she isn't always thinking about Rey. She knows Cassian doesn't mean anything by it, he is the first person to stand up for her worth as a mother. But Jyn's guilt is constant and occasionally overbearing.
"What if this assignment never ends? Our end date is indefinite, one or both of us could be here until Rey is adult. I don't want her to be alone." Cassian's mother had died when he was six, Jyn's when she was eight. The likelihood that Jyn dies young is incredibly high. At least with a sibling, Rey wouldn't be alone, she'd always have a teammate. Something neither Jyn nor Cassian ever had.
Maybe she'd be better than them if she had a sibling.
In the basket, Rey studies he crown with a look of concentration, quietly saying "papa, papa, papa" over and over again like she is making a song out of her favorite word. Papa comes most easily from her and it doesn't bother Jyn. At all.
He realizes if she were pregnant, the idea isn't quite so terrifying this time around.
Cassian can tell when her nerves strike, and he gives her shoulders a squeeze. "That was not to say we cannot be thinking about other things," he says quietly, knowing she may have internalized his comment on how he tends to only think of Rey - he'd meant it more in a children and babies sense.
But he's very quiet as Jyn expounds further, on the idea of siblings, on how their own childhoods were so lonely, the mission, everything their lives continue to entail with the empire around them. It's easy to forget sometimes as they watch Rey play that they're only here because of a mission, passing on information that could easily get one or both of them killed.
That leaves Rey abandoned, just like the both of them were.
He also realizes he doesn't want to be here until Rey in an adult, but that's another conversation.
"You want her to have a sibling," he says quietly, and it's not hard to see why. He's already considering it deeply, despite it never quite crossing his mind before. Rey's quiet papa song filters through and he thinks... it might be nice. If there is one thing he knows for certain, outside of any mission, it's that they are it together. "But is that something you want for yourself, too? Not just for Rey. You."
Not for a cover or for mission parameters or mission failures. For her, as a person, does she want another baby? Rey had been an accident, and even if it had been from a tactical standpoint for him to go along with it at first, he doesn't want any other kids to come about that way.
"I hated being pregnant, I hated labor, I wasn't good at being a mum, but I don't know if that was all just because it wasn't something I wanted, because we were play-acting at our farce of a marriage. Force, I hated it so much, I hated how proud the General was." Draven's a pragmatic man, she understands, she appreciates that about him because she can guess his choices based on the most practical avenue, but part of her still despises how the pregnancy was treated as a boon to the cover.
"But I love Rey, I love you, I love our family. I don't know if I just want to erase the memory of it all, but I do think about it. A lot." She shrugs, tucking in closer. She's been speaking at Rey, sort of, nerves keeping her from looking up at her husband. It's not a sham marriage anymore but it's not like they've had a conversation like this before.
She's only hiding against him a little, but at least she's talking.
The fact that she is talking is a very good thing and he is glad she brought it up. Whatever comes of this conversation, she initiated it and wanted to tell him about something she was feeling and thinking about. She might be hiding and talking at Rey instead of him, but she's getting it out and that's the important part.
"That was my next question. If being pregnant again was something you wanted to go through again." They're raising Rey together, but Jyn is the one who carried her inside her all those months, the same is true for a second baby, and it's a lot for a person.
"It's okay to think about it. It just means you are thinking about... our family. But before we decide if we want to make our family bigger, to give Rey a sibling, you should figure out what you want for yourself and your body. That is important too."
A beat. "There is a lot that would be different a second time, I think." It had been a very awkward nine months, and he'd done what he could, but it wasn't like the experience of growing Rey was entirely a happy one for either of them, not with the mission looming over them, not with the way Draven's words constantly circled in his head too, not with the complete disgust he'd had for himself for so long for bringing this reality to a mission. "I would just want it to be... our choice. Unrelated to anything about what we are doing here."
"It would be our choice, if we chose it," Jyn agrees which is all that is letting her even approach this conversation. She doesn't want to be pregnant, sure, that wasn't the best time of her life but there were circumstances around it that made it terrible. Those circumstances have changed.
She and Cassian are a team now.
"I didn't like being pregnant because... of us." They were not in a good place! They were in, decidedly, a bad place. But now they're not. They're still on a mission, they're still in danger, but there is no one else she would rather be here with, there is no one else she would trust to protect herself and their daughter, and this mission.
She glances up at him finally, expression soft and thoughtful. "We're not the same people. This home that we have built is not the same toxic space that it was. I don't think it would be as difficult, knowing that you have my back this time."
There is something very appealing about it being their choice. It makes the idea of it less intimidating.
He gets it when she says us. It was not a good time in the lead up to Rey being born, it wasn't even good the first few months of her life. It was stressful and tiresome and they were both still so very angry. But it isn't like that now, not at all.
When she looks up at him, he meets her gaze; how could he not when she finally directs all her attention at him? "Just the regular kind of difficult," he says, offering her the tiniest of smiles. He squeezes her shoulder. "Our home is better. We are better. Rey is safe with us. If you think you can go through all that again, I suppose the only question left is really just... do we want to make our family bigger?"
And how strange it is to realize the truth of that. If everything else is in the clear, it really does come down to their choice as a team. "Do you?"
And that's terrifying in and of itself. She never expected to have a family, much less want one. Rey chirrups happily as she plays and Jyn feels her heart swell with love and affection she also never expected to have.
"Is it a terrible idea?" They've talked about the reasons it may not be but Jyn trusts Cassian to break it to her if it is genuinely a bad idea. He's always so supportive but she knows he won't let them do something absolutely insane.
His stomach rolls over, though it's neither in a good nor bad way - just a nervous way. She wants another kid. He never felt prepared for the first one.
"It is a risky idea." That's a mild way to put it. "But everything we do here is a risk. I would not call it hyperbole to say we are always in danger, but at the same time, we have made it safe as can be."
He looks over to Rey, who finally plops the crown back on her head and shrieks with delight, the sound turning into a cacophony of giggles. It's one of the best things he's ever heard.
"I do not think it is much different in that sense, one child or two."
Jyn nods slowly, thoughtful, watching their daughter as she snuggled against her husband. Actually maybe that is what they should consider first, before they really tackle if they can handle another baby.
"Babe. I know we sort of skipped all the actual dating and proper courtship or whatever it's called and you did propose to me and it was lovely and I am looking to marrying Cassian Andor, but are we... dating?"
It's very complicated! They're in love! They're going to get married! They also, you know, skipped all the run up to that kind of stuff. She'll get back to their nebulous maybe baby in a second, she wants to really suss out what the label is right now. Dating? Engaged? Married? Datengagied? No... that's not a thing.
Cassian huffs out a little laugh. But it's... a valid question, as much as it doesn't seem like it should be. They have a child! That should be enough of an explanation, and yet... it is not.
"Yes?" He should really sound more sure of himself, but now he's thinking about it! Lest she think he's confused about his feelings, he leans in to kiss her very briefly. "Dating is applicable, even if we have not gone on a real date. We are... together. You are my partner. It is hard to think of something that fits perfectly."
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ohnofeelstho2017-05-14 03:23 pm
no subject
She isn't going to protest his selfish reasons. Cassian is the most unselfish man on the planet, he could do with some selfish tendencies.
"Rey, little star, what are you doing my love?" What Rey is doing is attempting to climb into the laundry basket and, presumably collect another blanket for her small mountain, but really she is just halfway in with her legs kicking idly in the air like she can work herself into the basket through kick power alone.
"Rey..." Jyn sighs happily into a laugh, slithering around to melt off the couch and sit next to Cassian on the floor and watch their ridiculous daughter.
no subject
Cassian beams at the sight of her trying to propel herself into the basket. "She does have very powerful legs," he remarks solemnly, even more delighted when Jyn sinks to the floor beside him. He kisses her temple and tugs her in against him. "Ten credits says she makes it in."
no subject
Rey slips forward into the basket as Jyn leans against Cassian, utterly unconcerned that some injury will befall Rey in a basket of blankets. The baby chirrups a noise like she is surprised to find herself in this position! How did this happen! It does not take long for her to lift her face from the blankets, bleating unhappily that her crown has fallen off again.
"Darling, what did you expect?" She looks at her parents accusingly and bleats again, a disgruntled trill. They did this! "Put it back on, love."
no subject
He does not bother to hide his own delight and quiet laugh when her success at climbing into the basket is marred by her suddenly missing crown. "I want to see if she can find it. Come on, little star, use that smart brain of yours."
Rey frowns, deeply displeased that her parents are just sitting there, ignoring her! The utter audacity of them!
In all honesty, Cassian just likes the warm feeling of Jyn pressed beside him, and their daughter is very clever. She'll find the crown, he can wait. She paps at the blanket, digging her little fingers in like claws and scrunching her nose in concentration. She grabs it forcefully with her hand once she spots the red flowers and shakes it like a maraca.
no subject
Maybe that is why she was looking at Jyn suspiciously.
With her head resting against Cassian's shoulder and watching their daughter entertain herself in a basket of what had been neatly folded laundry, Jyn quietly asks: "Do you ever think of having another?"
They hadn't thought about the first! They're still undercover, they're still in the dead center of Imperial control, it is just as dangerous, and honestly, having a baby did not do wonders for Jyn's mental well being. But now they are a team, they are a family, and she doesn't want Rey to grow up the way they did, alone. A sibling is a friend built right in, that is what Hadder has said about Tanith. (Also that she painted his hair when he was a butthead to her but Jyn assumed he had that coming.) Rey would always have someone on her side.
no subject
He's too busy watching Rey play that Jyn's question catches him completely by surprise. He pauses, then looks over at her, as if wanting to make sure he heard her correctly.
Another. Another child.
He needs to be honest with her. "I have not. I am always just thinking about... her." He hadn't wanted any kids before Rey, he hasn't thought about any more - though not necessarily this time because he doesn't want them. They're still on Coruscant, every day is a danger; he knows he wants a life with Jyn forever, but it's still hard for him to consider the finer details when his present feels so risky.
"Why?" He sounds curious more than anything. "Have you been thinking about it?"
no subject
She feels nervous now, and unintentionally like a bad parent because she isn't always thinking about Rey. She knows Cassian doesn't mean anything by it, he is the first person to stand up for her worth as a mother. But Jyn's guilt is constant and occasionally overbearing.
"What if this assignment never ends? Our end date is indefinite, one or both of us could be here until Rey is adult. I don't want her to be alone." Cassian's mother had died when he was six, Jyn's when she was eight. The likelihood that Jyn dies young is incredibly high. At least with a sibling, Rey wouldn't be alone, she'd always have a teammate. Something neither Jyn nor Cassian ever had.
Maybe she'd be better than them if she had a sibling.
In the basket, Rey studies he crown with a look of concentration, quietly saying "papa, papa, papa" over and over again like she is making a song out of her favorite word. Papa comes most easily from her and it doesn't bother Jyn. At all.
no subject
Cassian can tell when her nerves strike, and he gives her shoulders a squeeze. "That was not to say we cannot be thinking about other things," he says quietly, knowing she may have internalized his comment on how he tends to only think of Rey - he'd meant it more in a children and babies sense.
But he's very quiet as Jyn expounds further, on the idea of siblings, on how their own childhoods were so lonely, the mission, everything their lives continue to entail with the empire around them. It's easy to forget sometimes as they watch Rey play that they're only here because of a mission, passing on information that could easily get one or both of them killed.
That leaves Rey abandoned, just like the both of them were.
He also realizes he doesn't want to be here until Rey in an adult, but that's another conversation.
"You want her to have a sibling," he says quietly, and it's not hard to see why. He's already considering it deeply, despite it never quite crossing his mind before. Rey's quiet papa song filters through and he thinks... it might be nice. If there is one thing he knows for certain, outside of any mission, it's that they are it together. "But is that something you want for yourself, too? Not just for Rey. You."
Not for a cover or for mission parameters or mission failures. For her, as a person, does she want another baby? Rey had been an accident, and even if it had been from a tactical standpoint for him to go along with it at first, he doesn't want any other kids to come about that way.
no subject
"I hated being pregnant, I hated labor, I wasn't good at being a mum, but I don't know if that was all just because it wasn't something I wanted, because we were play-acting at our farce of a marriage. Force, I hated it so much, I hated how proud the General was." Draven's a pragmatic man, she understands, she appreciates that about him because she can guess his choices based on the most practical avenue, but part of her still despises how the pregnancy was treated as a boon to the cover.
"But I love Rey, I love you, I love our family. I don't know if I just want to erase the memory of it all, but I do think about it. A lot." She shrugs, tucking in closer. She's been speaking at Rey, sort of, nerves keeping her from looking up at her husband. It's not a sham marriage anymore but it's not like they've had a conversation like this before.
She's only hiding against him a little, but at least she's talking.
no subject
"That was my next question. If being pregnant again was something you wanted to go through again." They're raising Rey together, but Jyn is the one who carried her inside her all those months, the same is true for a second baby, and it's a lot for a person.
"It's okay to think about it. It just means you are thinking about... our family. But before we decide if we want to make our family bigger, to give Rey a sibling, you should figure out what you want for yourself and your body. That is important too."
A beat. "There is a lot that would be different a second time, I think." It had been a very awkward nine months, and he'd done what he could, but it wasn't like the experience of growing Rey was entirely a happy one for either of them, not with the mission looming over them, not with the way Draven's words constantly circled in his head too, not with the complete disgust he'd had for himself for so long for bringing this reality to a mission. "I would just want it to be... our choice. Unrelated to anything about what we are doing here."
no subject
She and Cassian are a team now.
"I didn't like being pregnant because... of us." They were not in a good place! They were in, decidedly, a bad place. But now they're not. They're still on a mission, they're still in danger, but there is no one else she would rather be here with, there is no one else she would trust to protect herself and their daughter, and this mission.
She glances up at him finally, expression soft and thoughtful. "We're not the same people. This home that we have built is not the same toxic space that it was. I don't think it would be as difficult, knowing that you have my back this time."
no subject
He gets it when she says us. It was not a good time in the lead up to Rey being born, it wasn't even good the first few months of her life. It was stressful and tiresome and they were both still so very angry. But it isn't like that now, not at all.
When she looks up at him, he meets her gaze; how could he not when she finally directs all her attention at him? "Just the regular kind of difficult," he says, offering her the tiniest of smiles. He squeezes her shoulder. "Our home is better. We are better. Rey is safe with us. If you think you can go through all that again, I suppose the only question left is really just... do we want to make our family bigger?"
And how strange it is to realize the truth of that. If everything else is in the clear, it really does come down to their choice as a team. "Do you?"
no subject
And that's terrifying in and of itself. She never expected to have a family, much less want one. Rey chirrups happily as she plays and Jyn feels her heart swell with love and affection she also never expected to have.
"Is it a terrible idea?" They've talked about the reasons it may not be but Jyn trusts Cassian to break it to her if it is genuinely a bad idea. He's always so supportive but she knows he won't let them do something absolutely insane.
no subject
His stomach rolls over, though it's neither in a good nor bad way - just a nervous way. She wants another kid. He never felt prepared for the first one.
"It is a risky idea." That's a mild way to put it. "But everything we do here is a risk. I would not call it hyperbole to say we are always in danger, but at the same time, we have made it safe as can be."
He looks over to Rey, who finally plops the crown back on her head and shrieks with delight, the sound turning into a cacophony of giggles. It's one of the best things he's ever heard.
"I do not think it is much different in that sense, one child or two."
no subject
"Babe. I know we sort of skipped all the actual dating and proper courtship or whatever it's called and you did propose to me and it was lovely and I am looking to marrying Cassian Andor, but are we... dating?"
It's very complicated! They're in love! They're going to get married! They also, you know, skipped all the run up to that kind of stuff. She'll get back to their nebulous maybe baby in a second, she wants to really suss out what the label is right now. Dating? Engaged? Married? Datengagied? No... that's not a thing.
no subject
"Yes?" He should really sound more sure of himself, but now he's thinking about it! Lest she think he's confused about his feelings, he leans in to kiss her very briefly. "Dating is applicable, even if we have not gone on a real date. We are... together. You are my partner. It is hard to think of something that fits perfectly."