Sofia is sufficiently distracted by the whale, and Cassian would be too if his gaze didn't rise up to meet hers. She looks awkward and unsure and he wants that to go away.
He smiles at her, a little shyly. She got a whale tattoo, because of Sofia. All her tattoos connect to her family, it's not hard to make that connection. One year ago he was alone in a tiny apartment with an infant, and now he is living with Jyn in a unit that has a real sense of... permanence. She literally got a representation of that inked onto her body, in a much more visible place than the others.
"It does," he tries. "She clearly loves it."
But it's not entirely about Sofia, so he leans in and kisses her cheek. His smile widens. "I like it too."
Sofia is still patting her arm idly and babbling whale under her breath and it makes Jyn's heart melt, even more so when Cassian tells her he likes it. No offense to Sofia, but Cassian's opinion matters than hers right now.
Mostly because Sofia's opinion is so easily swayed.
"I love her." Maybe, probably even him but that idea is too much to handle so she doesn't even think about it. Tries not to think about it. Thinks about it all the time.
She is so completely enamored by the whale that Cassian files it away as a distraction to use another time if necessary. Baby being difficult?? Whip out the magic arm whale.
His heart sort of stutters for a second when Jyn says she loves Sofia. On one hand, it makes sense, because she's a baby and it's very difficult to not feel some kind of affection for them. On the other, Jyn loves his daughter. Enough to say so aloud.
"She knows it, and she loves you too. I know she does."
Sofia adores Jyn, she has from nearly the start. The first week or so after she was gone, her absence was very much noticed by both Andors. But hearing Jyn say she loves his daughter makes him feel a little bit more in love with her too.
It's a lot, it's so much, especially for Jyn who finds herself ill equipped to feel or process or confess love even on the best days -- Bodhi tries to get it out of her all the time but the most she can manage is "you too" in response to his "I love you".
But it's easier with Sofia, who loves without condition, who always clambered into Jyn's lap when she felt shitty like she knew something was wrong. Tiny baby hands trying to pat Jyn's cheeks into a smile.
The smile she offers Cassian is weak, mildly confused (because how does one accept love, even from a baby) but grateful she isn't being rejected by either of them and she looks down at Sofia again, interrupting her whale watching to lift her hand and smooth her dark hair back. She presses a kiss to the top of her head.
It is very much a comfort just knowing that Sofia loves him no matter what. Both because there is someone who will always love him and because he must be doing something right if she can be such a loving baby.
Sofia blinks at Jyn. "Llama?" She recognizes that word!
Jyn's smile is a little weak, and it makes him think he should reign in a little of his own very bright feelings in worry he will overwhelm her? He can't turn them off, but he does bite his cheek to stop his smile from continuing to widen.
"A toy," Jyn clarifies, breathing out into a smile as she looks back up at Cassian, some of the nerves having faded. "It's in my bag. On the porch. And now I regret not letting Bodhi bring them inside."
But she wanted her private reunion and Bodhi had already done too much picking her up at the airport. Now she is just going to have to suffer with going to get them. She sets Sofia down and orients her toward the door. "Sofia, your llama is at the door. Do you want to go help us let him in?"
Sofia streaks off with her stompy toddler march and Jyn laughs again as she reaches over to grab Cassian's hand. "Come on, you heard the girl."
He can't help the laugh that follows Sofia's tromping over the floor. He squeezes Jyn's hand and tugs her along. "Follow the leader with a toddler can be exhausting, I am not sure you really want to start a game of it right now."
Sofia has reached the door by the time they get there too, and she's reaching up very determinedly for the doorknob which is very much out of reach. "Llama! Llama!" Excuse you, parents, where is this llama?
Cassian scoops her up with one arm, because he doesn't want to let go of Jyn's hand, and together he helps her open up the door where Jyn's bags await. She wriggles around in his arm, bucking against her papa, and he sets her back down. "All right, all right! Calm down, mija."
Sofia lunges for Jyn's bags, but she doesn't know how to work any of the zippers or buckles, so she just starts tugging idly on straps and patting at the outsides. "No llama!"
"Si, llama. Uno momento, ballenacita. Sé quieta." Sofia doesn't stay still at all, rustling the bag like a piglet snuffling around for truffles. Jyn reluctantly releases Cassian's hand in order to stoop down and unzip the bag for the little girl. She doesn't unearth the llama for her though, letting Sofia dive in and continue snuffling around for her present.
Stepping back, she moves back to Cassian, taking his hand again while Sofia pulls out clothes and one hiking boot and scarves and blankets and a notebook that spills open with letters and pictures falling out over the porch, all to find her llama. Jyn doesn't seem to mind, though she does lean down to pick up one of the pictures and pass it to Cassian.
It's their prom picture and she looks at it fondly. "Look at us. Your stupid tie matches my dress."
She does not stay still or quiet, chirping back another "No!" while she practically vibrates at the suitcase. She digs and tosses and Cassian sighs, because his daughter is always messy. Determined, but messy.
Jyn picks up the picture, and he can't help the smile that beams onto his face when he sees it. "I was so proud of finding one that matched! I think abuelita still has it."
They look so young and it feels like ages ago, yet here they are now, back on her front porch holding hands. He looks at her and his smile turns into more of a grin. "You carried this with you?"
"I carried a bunch," Jyn corrects, stooping down to gather the rest up. Cassian and his grandmother when he made captain, their crew at graduation, Saw and Steela, Lyra and Galen on some research trip somewhere -- Jyn's dark hair barely visible peeking out behind Galen's head indicating she is in the backpack carrier, her and Bodhi as children hugging each other or trying to put each other in a headlock, a picture of Cassian and Sofia sleeping on her couch. "But yeah, I brought it with me."
Her fingers squeeze his hand. "We've gone up a lot of mountains together."
He gets little flashes of the photos as she collects them, and he wants to take a closer look at them all, but he supposes there will be more time when his baby isn't making a mess. He thinks he spies one more recent, one of him and Sofia, and it makes him feel warm.
Cassian squeezes her hand back, smiling softly at her. She took him with her, up mountains. Her literal dream job. "One day we will go up a mountain together for real."
Sofia shrieks with delight and yanks out her prize at last. "Llama!"
Cassian sighs fondly as she runs her tiny fingers over it, sitting down with a thumb on the porch. She has her toy, she doesn't care about what else came out of the suitcase. "At least she is not saying no."
Her attention is drawn quickly to Sofia, happily inspecting her new friend, sitting on one of Jyn's bras. It's the cutest image Jyn could imagine, bra included.
She looks back up at Cassian, looking just incredibly lovestruck. "I'm glad you were here for me to come home to."
"Good. Not all of us have mountain climbing expertise." Especially with a baby! Though she'll probably be a little older by then. Cassian assumes it'll take him some time to gather up the money for it, though... it'll be easier now, without rent.
It is 100% the cutest, which is why Cassian pauses and stoops down to take, like, three pictures of the sight. His phone is about 75% baby.
He meets Jyn's lovestruck gaze with one of his own, warm and bright and straight up basking in her presence. "I wanted to be here when you got back. I would like to... keep being here, for you to come home to."
He's obsessed with her daughter but she understands the impulse: when Jyn isn't looking at Cassian, she is looking at Sofia.
"That was sort of the point of making you move your whole life into my house, yeah. This wasn't mean to be a one and done thing, Cassian." Like duh. She wasn't going to make him move into her home for one homecoming and then kick him out. It does make her feel all warm and loved that that means he doesn't mind her coming home again, "Thank you for supporting my job."
For not making her choose between the job she loves and the people she loves.
"I know that. I know there is a permanence involved, but this just... reminded me I am glad to be here."
He offers her a tiny smile. Her house is a mess, it's in a state she's probably never dealt with before, all their friends know he's there, but he wouldn't change a single thing. "I would always. It is literally the perfect job for you. Thank you for deciding to give us a chance anyway, even when you are traveling."
Her work is important to her, thus it's important to him. He can hold the homestead while she goes off doing what she loves. It's not hard! She'll come home, to him.
He is. He is worth all the travel and extra paperwork and jet lag and visits to customs. Coming home to Cassian and Sofia is worth all of that and more. He is her home, again, and coming home finally feels like something she wants to do. Coming home finally means having something to come home to.
Something warm bubbles in his chest. You're worth it. He hopes so. He hopes all of this is worth it, because he knows nothing about this is easy. They found their way back to each other after a decade, he wants it to be worthwhile. For the long term, this time.
"I can take your suitcase if you will wrangle up the little whale."
Aforementioned little whale is still enamored by the llama, but she's also struggling to pull the bra out from underneath her because apparently it's the perfect hat for a llama. She tucks the cup right on its head and trills happily.
"Deal." Jyn moves forward to scoop Sofia up, llama and bra included. "Well, what do we have here? Un sombrero para llama? He looks very handsome, I think you made the right choice."
Jyn doesn't care about Sofia playing with her bra, honestly. It's maybe a little UM out on the porch for the world to see -- or the rest of the street, though there is loads of space between her house and the ones on adjoining sides, and she does hang them on the line to dry... did she just talk herself out of caring if anyone saw Cassian's daughter playing with her bra? Cool.
With Sofia babbling in her ear about her new llama in cheerful baby talk, Jyn strides back into her house, sweeping through like, well, like she owns the place. Once inside she plops the baby down on the ridiculously soft rug, sinking down to lay next to her and give the other side of the bra a little tug. "And what is this side for?"
Sofia babbles idly as Jyn carries her inside, uncaring about propriety, it means nothing! She is very delighted to be back on the rug, even more so because Jyn is there with her. When her mama tugs on the free side of the bra, she giggles and pulls it on top of her own head. Because duh, it's simply a two side hat, meant to be shared! Now she matches with her new friend.
Cassian carries Jyn's bags inside, leaving them just beside the door. They'll take care of it later, right now he just wants to be with girlfriend and daughter. There's plenty of time to unpack, but Sofia with a bra on her head is Peak Homecoming. "What an interesting hat you have there, conejito."
"Hat!" she repeats, arm wrapped tight around the llama.
Cassian sits down on the rug, leaning over to press a kiss atop Jyn's head. "I can't decide if it looks better on her or you."
"Hopefully me but purple is a very flattering color on her."
Stretching out, she pokes the llama's belly, smoothing down some of his fluffy fur. "He's made from the wool of an alpaca, a llama made from a llama, and his name is Tupac Amaru the third, named after the leader of the 1780 Indigenous peoples uprising. Se llama Amaru, Sofia. Do you like his name?"
Maybe they can call him Tupac, but Sofia cheerfully shouts "AMROO" which is close enough so Jyn thinks she might support the name.
As she draws her hand back, she reaches out to touch the little felted dolls she had sent for Valentine's Day, running her fingers over the little family tucked safely under the blanket. She'd sent along another doll for Easter, at Abuelita's prompting, and it makes her heart warm to see the doll equivalent of Sofia tucked between the Cassian doll and Jyn doll in their little bed.
"You both pull it off in very different ways," he grins.
Amroo it is!
Sofia is very preoccupied with her llama and new hat, idly glancing over at Jyn when she touches the dolls, but she seems to trust Jyn with her toys enough to just continue babbling at dear Amroo.
"I was thinking about getting her one for Christmas. I know it is a long ways away, but she manages to do a lot with them right now without a house. The rug is their house - or it could be a pool, sometimes it looks like she makes them swim with her whales." A beat. "She loves those dolls. They are her favorites."
"We could build one, to match this house." Because why buy it when they could build it from scratch. They have tools in the shed and in the basement, she is sure they can get wood somewhere for cheap. The shed is also full of old paint from the house so it could even fully match inside as well.
Carefully, Jyn frees the dolls from their little bed, drawing them into her lap and smoothing back doll Sofia's felted hair.
She sighs happily, leaning over with the dolls in her lap to grab Sofia's face and kiss her cheeks. "I love you Sofia Carina Inez Andor."
He grins a little bit. "I suppose by the time we are finished, it would likely be Christmas." They're both busy on and off, it can be an ongoing project.
He likes the idea though - working together with Jyn to create a house for Sofia to play with for years to come. There is something permanent about it that he doesn't want to put a name to.
The real Sofia puffs out her cheeks when Jyn kisses her, scrunching up her nose with a little laugh, then holding up the llama. "Amroo."
Jyn offers Tupac Amaru III a perfunctory kiss on the head, not nearly as much enthusiasm as was bestowed upon Sofia herself. "Love you too, Amroo."
Her head tilts to look up at Cassian, watching the smile on his face as he watches his daughter exist. She'd spent most of her youth in love with him, delighting in being loved in return, enough that she knows the feeling intimately. It was easy back then, emboldened by the immortality of youth and her own natural inclination to recklessness.
She knows the feeling still because it's still there, or is there again. She doesn't know, maybe it was a volcano lying dormant and now it's active again. Maybe you don't ever stop loving your first love.
Life and age have stoked some fear in her -- abandonment, which he had never; loneliness, which she never feels with him -- that tempers a fair share of the reckless abandon of her youth. But not enough to keep it from slipping out as she looks at him.
Satisfied with the smooch to her llama, Sofia goes back to playing with him. She's chattering away, presumably giving him some kind of backstory, before she makes him hop up and down over the rug. It's an interesting process, given their heads are still connected by Jyn's bra.
Cassian is about to pull out his phone to record a video this time, when he freezes in place, gaze lifting from daughter to Jyn. His mouth opens in a tiny 'o' of surprise.
It's not just in her words, it's in the way she's looking at him. He recognizes it from years gone by, but it's more now. Finding her again despite everything, the ease they fell back into - he wants to run with those feelings all over again with her.
"I love you too," he says, surprised at how easily it falls from him. Maybe he never stopped. He reaches for her hand and tugs her closer, enough that he can lean in and steal a kiss, carrying on the tradition that evidently comes with declaration of love.
He loves Jyn. It feels good to be honest about it again too.
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ohnofeelstho2017-11-27 11:07 pm
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He smiles at her, a little shyly. She got a whale tattoo, because of Sofia. All her tattoos connect to her family, it's not hard to make that connection. One year ago he was alone in a tiny apartment with an infant, and now he is living with Jyn in a unit that has a real sense of... permanence. She literally got a representation of that inked onto her body, in a much more visible place than the others.
"It does," he tries. "She clearly loves it."
But it's not entirely about Sofia, so he leans in and kisses her cheek. His smile widens. "I like it too."
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Mostly because Sofia's opinion is so easily swayed.
"I love her." Maybe, probably even him but that idea is too much to handle so she doesn't even think about it. Tries not to think about it. Thinks about it all the time.
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His heart sort of stutters for a second when Jyn says she loves Sofia. On one hand, it makes sense, because she's a baby and it's very difficult to not feel some kind of affection for them. On the other, Jyn loves his daughter. Enough to say so aloud.
"She knows it, and she loves you too. I know she does."
Sofia adores Jyn, she has from nearly the start. The first week or so after she was gone, her absence was very much noticed by both Andors. But hearing Jyn say she loves his daughter makes him feel a little bit more in love with her too.
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But it's easier with Sofia, who loves without condition, who always clambered into Jyn's lap when she felt shitty like she knew something was wrong. Tiny baby hands trying to pat Jyn's cheeks into a smile.
The smile she offers Cassian is weak, mildly confused (because how does one accept love, even from a baby) but grateful she isn't being rejected by either of them and she looks down at Sofia again, interrupting her whale watching to lift her hand and smooth her dark hair back. She presses a kiss to the top of her head.
"I got you a llama too, do you want to see it?"
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Sofia blinks at Jyn. "Llama?" She recognizes that word!
Jyn's smile is a little weak, and it makes him think he should reign in a little of his own very bright feelings in worry he will overwhelm her? He can't turn them off, but he does bite his cheek to stop his smile from continuing to widen.
"Another tattoo or a toy?"
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But she wanted her private reunion and Bodhi had already done too much picking her up at the airport. Now she is just going to have to suffer with going to get them. She sets Sofia down and orients her toward the door. "Sofia, your llama is at the door. Do you want to go help us let him in?"
Sofia streaks off with her stompy toddler march and Jyn laughs again as she reaches over to grab Cassian's hand. "Come on, you heard the girl."
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Sofia has reached the door by the time they get there too, and she's reaching up very determinedly for the doorknob which is very much out of reach. "Llama! Llama!" Excuse you, parents, where is this llama?
Cassian scoops her up with one arm, because he doesn't want to let go of Jyn's hand, and together he helps her open up the door where Jyn's bags await. She wriggles around in his arm, bucking against her papa, and he sets her back down. "All right, all right! Calm down, mija."
Sofia lunges for Jyn's bags, but she doesn't know how to work any of the zippers or buckles, so she just starts tugging idly on straps and patting at the outsides. "No llama!"
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Stepping back, she moves back to Cassian, taking his hand again while Sofia pulls out clothes and one hiking boot and scarves and blankets and a notebook that spills open with letters and pictures falling out over the porch, all to find her llama. Jyn doesn't seem to mind, though she does lean down to pick up one of the pictures and pass it to Cassian.
It's their prom picture and she looks at it fondly. "Look at us. Your stupid tie matches my dress."
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Jyn picks up the picture, and he can't help the smile that beams onto his face when he sees it. "I was so proud of finding one that matched! I think abuelita still has it."
They look so young and it feels like ages ago, yet here they are now, back on her front porch holding hands. He looks at her and his smile turns into more of a grin. "You carried this with you?"
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Her fingers squeeze his hand. "We've gone up a lot of mountains together."
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Cassian squeezes her hand back, smiling softly at her. She took him with her, up mountains. Her literal dream job. "One day we will go up a mountain together for real."
Sofia shrieks with delight and yanks out her prize at last. "Llama!"
Cassian sighs fondly as she runs her tiny fingers over it, sitting down with a thumb on the porch. She has her toy, she doesn't care about what else came out of the suitcase. "At least she is not saying no."
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Her attention is drawn quickly to Sofia, happily inspecting her new friend, sitting on one of Jyn's bras. It's the cutest image Jyn could imagine, bra included.
She looks back up at Cassian, looking just incredibly lovestruck. "I'm glad you were here for me to come home to."
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It is 100% the cutest, which is why Cassian pauses and stoops down to take, like, three pictures of the sight. His phone is about 75% baby.
He meets Jyn's lovestruck gaze with one of his own, warm and bright and straight up basking in her presence. "I wanted to be here when you got back. I would like to... keep being here, for you to come home to."
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"That was sort of the point of making you move your whole life into my house, yeah. This wasn't mean to be a one and done thing, Cassian." Like duh. She wasn't going to make him move into her home for one homecoming and then kick him out. It does make her feel all warm and loved that that means he doesn't mind her coming home again, "Thank you for supporting my job."
For not making her choose between the job she loves and the people she loves.
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He offers her a tiny smile. Her house is a mess, it's in a state she's probably never dealt with before, all their friends know he's there, but he wouldn't change a single thing. "I would always. It is literally the perfect job for you. Thank you for deciding to give us a chance anyway, even when you are traveling."
Her work is important to her, thus it's important to him. He can hold the homestead while she goes off doing what she loves. It's not hard! She'll come home, to him.
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He is. He is worth all the travel and extra paperwork and jet lag and visits to customs. Coming home to Cassian and Sofia is worth all of that and more. He is her home, again, and coming home finally feels like something she wants to do. Coming home finally means having something to come home to.
"Come on, let's get her and my junk inside."
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"I can take your suitcase if you will wrangle up the little whale."
Aforementioned little whale is still enamored by the llama, but she's also struggling to pull the bra out from underneath her because apparently it's the perfect hat for a llama. She tucks the cup right on its head and trills happily.
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Jyn doesn't care about Sofia playing with her bra, honestly. It's maybe a little UM out on the porch for the world to see -- or the rest of the street, though there is loads of space between her house and the ones on adjoining sides, and she does hang them on the line to dry... did she just talk herself out of caring if anyone saw Cassian's daughter playing with her bra? Cool.
With Sofia babbling in her ear about her new llama in cheerful baby talk, Jyn strides back into her house, sweeping through like, well, like she owns the place. Once inside she plops the baby down on the ridiculously soft rug, sinking down to lay next to her and give the other side of the bra a little tug. "And what is this side for?"
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Cassian carries Jyn's bags inside, leaving them just beside the door. They'll take care of it later, right now he just wants to be with girlfriend and daughter. There's plenty of time to unpack, but Sofia with a bra on her head is Peak Homecoming. "What an interesting hat you have there, conejito."
"Hat!" she repeats, arm wrapped tight around the llama.
Cassian sits down on the rug, leaning over to press a kiss atop Jyn's head. "I can't decide if it looks better on her or you."
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Stretching out, she pokes the llama's belly, smoothing down some of his fluffy fur. "He's made from the wool of an alpaca, a llama made from a llama, and his name is Tupac Amaru the third, named after the leader of the 1780 Indigenous peoples uprising. Se llama Amaru, Sofia. Do you like his name?"
Maybe they can call him Tupac, but Sofia cheerfully shouts "AMROO" which is close enough so Jyn thinks she might support the name.
As she draws her hand back, she reaches out to touch the little felted dolls she had sent for Valentine's Day, running her fingers over the little family tucked safely under the blanket. She'd sent along another doll for Easter, at Abuelita's prompting, and it makes her heart warm to see the doll equivalent of Sofia tucked between the Cassian doll and Jyn doll in their little bed.
"She needs a dollhouse."
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Amroo it is!
Sofia is very preoccupied with her llama and new hat, idly glancing over at Jyn when she touches the dolls, but she seems to trust Jyn with her toys enough to just continue babbling at dear Amroo.
"I was thinking about getting her one for Christmas. I know it is a long ways away, but she manages to do a lot with them right now without a house. The rug is their house - or it could be a pool, sometimes it looks like she makes them swim with her whales." A beat. "She loves those dolls. They are her favorites."
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Carefully, Jyn frees the dolls from their little bed, drawing them into her lap and smoothing back doll Sofia's felted hair.
She sighs happily, leaning over with the dolls in her lap to grab Sofia's face and kiss her cheeks. "I love you Sofia Carina Inez Andor."
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He likes the idea though - working together with Jyn to create a house for Sofia to play with for years to come. There is something permanent about it that he doesn't want to put a name to.
The real Sofia puffs out her cheeks when Jyn kisses her, scrunching up her nose with a little laugh, then holding up the llama. "Amroo."
Where is her llama's kiss??
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Her head tilts to look up at Cassian, watching the smile on his face as he watches his daughter exist. She'd spent most of her youth in love with him, delighting in being loved in return, enough that she knows the feeling intimately. It was easy back then, emboldened by the immortality of youth and her own natural inclination to recklessness.
She knows the feeling still because it's still there, or is there again. She doesn't know, maybe it was a volcano lying dormant and now it's active again. Maybe you don't ever stop loving your first love.
Life and age have stoked some fear in her -- abandonment, which he had never; loneliness, which she never feels with him -- that tempers a fair share of the reckless abandon of her youth. But not enough to keep it from slipping out as she looks at him.
"And you."
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Cassian is about to pull out his phone to record a video this time, when he freezes in place, gaze lifting from daughter to Jyn. His mouth opens in a tiny 'o' of surprise.
It's not just in her words, it's in the way she's looking at him. He recognizes it from years gone by, but it's more now. Finding her again despite everything, the ease they fell back into - he wants to run with those feelings all over again with her.
"I love you too," he says, surprised at how easily it falls from him. Maybe he never stopped. He reaches for her hand and tugs her closer, enough that he can lean in and steal a kiss, carrying on the tradition that evidently comes with declaration of love.
He loves Jyn. It feels good to be honest about it again too.
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