Jyn's mouth thins into a line, eyes falling back to the ground. She didn't want to have to talk about her choices and here she is, talking about her choices anyway.
She owes Cassian that, she decides. "The war took your family away from you, I couldn't do the same thing."
Jyn's own losses were still too fresh for her to think too much about her family, preferring to focus on Cassian's legacy instead. "You've fought for so long, maybe I thought proving that you were capable of something so perfectly good would... put us back together. But you were never around to tell and then I couldn't-- I couldn't keep waiting. It was unrealistic, all of it."
Out of everything that either of them have said today, this might be the part that really breaks him. The war did take his family - then he ruined the new one he found, only to have Jyn... try to help him find it again, despite how completely terrible he was to her.
He starts crying, but he doesn't quite realize it. She kept the baby because it was his, it was theirs together, even if she doesn't seem to be talking about Javi as hers too.
She wanted them to come back together. He should have stopping running sooner. She was still waiting, even after weeks turned into months.
"How can you think he would learn anything but kindness from you when you would do something that selfless? Even as I failed you again and again you still..."
He draws in a sharp breath, trying to keep it under control because he doesn't want to lose control. "I am sorry."
"Selfless?" She practically barks it out, disbelieving. She gave her baby up! It feels selfish. It feels horribly, debilitatingly selfish, she hates herself for giving Javi away like a misbehaving puppy. Someone else is taking care of her baby because she couldn't handle it.
How is the selfless?
Jyn is a piece of huttshit and she shakes her head, refusing to accept Cassian's apologies. She glances away, wanting to stop herself from getting caught in comforting him. It felt to natural and warm with his arms around her and she can't let herself fall into that. Not again.
She literally carried a baby! One she did not have to! Because she thought of it as Cassian's family! He wouldn't call it selfish for giving him away, even if it was definitely not selfless either. But as she has clearly said already, neither of them are in a place to care for a child. He remembers Baze's very specific phrasing quite suddenly: they were looking after him for a while.
She is tired of his apologies and he needs to stop, but they just keep pouring out, because he doesn't know what else to say.
He still doesn't think he can move. He doesn't know what to do with anything.
"I do not hate you." Part of him is still mad she hadn't told him, but she gave him a very good counterpoint: it's not like he gave her the chance. It's a strange battle in his body right now, trying to oppress his emotions and disentangle them at the same time. "I told you I would not."
It's spoken into the looming silver trees that line every street, like the nature will accept her hate and turn it into fertilizer. She wouldn't have been surprised if Cassian hated her too, she deserves it. She did the same thing to her child that her parents, that everyone, did to her.
But she finds it impossible to ignore Cassian's tears anymore, sinking down to her knees with purpose now, gathering his hands in hers. "Come on. It's easier with alcohol. Let's get a drink."
Before he leaves, because Jyn still can't fathom that he hadn't already planned on it.
He supposes that's something they've always had it common, but they were... better, for a little while. It feels worse now, like because they knew what it was like to feel happier, losing it makes it harder.
He startles when she takes his hands, because he might have already had his arms around her, but he initiated the contact. Cassian hasn't been touched this carefully in a very long time. He feels like he forgot how to react to it.
She could have offered virtually anything and he would agree if it meant getting to stay with her longer. "Okay."
"You did what was best for the galaxy." She murmurs it as she coaxes him to his feet, not letting go of his hands right away once he's standing. It still feels natural to hold his hands. God, he's so tall, how had she forgotten that?
Well, it's been nearly a year...
She swallows, drawing her hands back. "If you have questions about--" She can't spit out 'our baby' so instead she gestures idly toward her midsection. "You can ask."
"Do you know how many times I have tried to tell myself that?" It was a mantra, and it worked for a while. But the galaxy took and took and left him with nothing, not even Jyn. They finally won, but Cassian thinks he might have lost himself in the process.
He misses her hands as soon as she lets go, feeling a little wobbly on his feet. Standing, walking, right. He's got to do that.
His eyes are drawn to her hands, especially when she moves them. He knows what she's implying, and he's sure he has a lot of questions but the first one is just -
"Are you okay?"
He missed all of it. Maybe it took a real physical toll on her.
But she works herself to exhaustion and then sleeps fitfully so when she wakes up at four am, she starts the whole process over again. She certainly isn't helping herself in that aspect, but when she stops and breathes then she has time to think and... that is worse. She'd rather be tired than crippled by depression and anxiety and loneliness.
She doesn't say that, of course, but tired seems to be all encompassing.
She looks tired. It was probably the first thing he noticed about her, but it was a different kind of fatigue than what she carried with her before. It doesn't quite answer his question wholly, but at least it tells him she's... better now, if not mentally and physically exhausted.
"Was it - was the birth... okay? Were there any kind of complications? For you or him?"
He wants to ask if anyone was there, but he's not sure he could bear the answer if it was a no. He's sure if Baze knew, he would have been there, right?
Her arms fold over her chest as she starts walking toward the barracks, assuming he will follow her. They used to follow each other across the galaxy but then he'd started going places she couldn't follow.
"He was early, very small. He's nearly three months old." And the size of a newborn still. "It's had little effect. He can eat and breathe and scream." Force, she remembers the wailing. "He's just small."
Javi is nearly three months old. He has had a son for almost three months. Five months ago he came closer than he ever had to taking the lullaby, unknowing as to what was there waiting for him. He supposes that answers the when was he born question.
There's about three seconds pause before he follows after Jyn easily, mostly because he was distracted by this new information. Following her is still a nonissue.
"He... seemed very small."
He saw Javi. He touched Javi. He thought the baby just looked small because Baze was so large, but Cassian supposes he really was that little. But he's... fine. He's healthy and loud and a tiny little boy equal parts he and Jyn both.
He would have been there. He should have been there. "I forget they can be that small."
"They're babies," she answers simply. Babies are small by design. Her body wouldn't have been able to handle a large baby anyway. She barely kept him in there long enough to fully bake, much less thrive.
"He's perfectly healthy." Which seems impossible to her, considering she was the one carrying him and while Jyn's body has kept her alive and surviving for nearly her whole life, she never believed it could keep another human being alive at the same time. She'd always assumed she'd never be able to get pregnant if it ever came up and then suddenly, there she was.
Her shoulders slump a little, holding herself tighter. She's so tired of life.
Jyn is made out of tough stuff. Maybe her body has been wrecked by war, but it's strong and wonderful, it makes perfect sense to Cassian that she would be capable of seeing a baby through, even if neither of them thought it was a real possibility before.
He is healthy and safe and that's all Cassian could hope for. But he also notices the way she seems to sink on herself, biting back on the urge to wrap her up in his arms again.
"That's good."
That's dumb to say, probably, but he doesn't know anything else about Javi and he doesn't even know how to ask. He wants to ask after Jyn more too, but he's afraid to press too hard there.
There's a certain irony in naming her son after her father -- a man who abandoned her, left her to a strong, brave, and gruff man. She'd hated Galen for half her life for leaving her, but she hates herself now so maybe she and Javi will have that in common when he's older.
Baze will have more to work with than Saw. He has Chirrut and they will have peace.
She breathes out slowly, not quite a sigh. "It's only the women in my family that don't have middle names."
"Javi Walton." He says it aloud before he really thinks about it, testing the name on his tongue. For the few minutes he saw the baby, it seems to fit. His own middle name is for his father too, it always seemed like children on Fest were named somewhere for their mothers and fathers. "For any reason, or just because? Most children on Fest get some kind family name in the middle."
Galen might have left Jyn behind, but he still saw her collapse in an emotional heap both after his message and after seeing him. She still loved him, complications and all.
The whole mission was to get to Bodhi to get to her father. If Galen Erso wasn't involved, if Saw wasn't involved, there would have been no reason to plurk Jyn out of prison and she would have died there, having poured her blood and life into building a weapon her father had helped create. If her father hadn't been involved, Jyn wouldn't have had a family legacy to change.
She shrugs without answer. No reason for the name, clearly.
The quiet stretches, a protracted silence, before Jyn licks her lips and quietly answers, "Javi means home."
She named him home. She wanted him to be a home, to bring them both back home. He wonders if she really has given up, if he should try again, when she literally named their baby home. It has to be something hopeful, but at the same time it's incredibly... sad.
Cassian closes his eyes for a moment, trying to stave off another big wave of emotions. There are so many of them, wrapped up in the woman he still loves and the child they made. His heart breaks for all he missed, for all he could still miss, for the life he ran from but desperately wanted.
"Home," he says softly, maybe a little brokenly. "You named him home."
Javi was born of a mistake, plain and simple, but he wasn't born from a lack of love. Simply love that was overpowered by war and fear. Part of why Jyn gave him up was that she was afraid Javi himself would be overwhelmed by Jyn's fear -- she couldn't rest all her hopes of happiness on a tiny human being who couldn't even hold up his own head. That's too much to put on any child.
"It was pretty, I didn't realize what it meant until later. When he was born, it fit." He looks like a Javi, he looks like home to Jyn.
It still doesn't quite feel like a home. He can't rely on an infant to be a home, it would be unfair. He doesn't want a home without Jyn either. Home is a tricky concept, evidently, but there is something about Javi that almost makes it feel attainable. Even just... the concept of him existing, proof that they loved each other once.
"It does suit him," he says quietly. He wants to see the boy again, like maybe it will help him make sense of everything. "If I did find a new home," he starts, nerves on fire, "it still would not be the same without you."
Jyn refuses to look at him for a long while, steeling herself. She will not wilt under the weight of her affection for him still, she refuses to be some desperate girl clinging to a love that spurned her. Their love was meant to be a partnership, a team, and he had taken her partner away from her, broke up her favorite team.
She does eventually glance over at him. "I'm not... a ribbon you tie around a tree to mark your path and find your way. You can't leave me behind and then ask me to come with you again once you've decided it's time to go back." Even looking at him makes her resolve crumble, but she refuses to keep this in a moment longer.
He had broken her heart every time he left. Taken her home and her best friend away from her and it wasn't fair.
"You can't hate yourself more than you love me anymore. I am worth more than that." She doesn't feel like she is, not really. But Javi is. Javi is worth more than all of that.
He doesn't really dampen under what she tells him, because it's all true and it's all things he should have been more aware of. He knows he does not get to come back and expect anything from her. He's lucky she's talking to him. "I know. I did not... I did not come here under any assumptions about us. I am not asking you to come back to me, because I know I am still not okay. I just wanted you to know I was done running from it."
Maybe part of it was punishing himself, but it was unfair of him to hurt her in the process. He spiraled and she was a casualty. It's true that he never stopped loving her, but at some point he stopped feeling worthy of it again, he couldn't handle himself anymore.
She suffered all his trauma and depression on top of her own.
Very quietly, "Yes. You are worth more than that."
He resists the urge to apologize again. "We were home, together. I know I took that from you too every time I took it from myself. I cannot undo the damage, but maybe I can do better and avoiding causing more."
Jyn wants to stop and look at him, but she doesn't want to stop either so she keeps walking, head jerking in a nod to indicate that she'd heard him. She's still sorting out a lot of things and she takes the rest of the walk in silence, knowing Cassian won't try to fill it.
She used to love that they could exist in silence together.
When they finally reach the barracks, she weaves through the halls until they reach a room neatly labeled with masking tape and J. ERSO printed on it in thick black letters. She pauses, turning around to face him, eyes sad.
"What do you want? Not what you think you deserve or what you think you can have, don't think. What do you want, Cassian?" It felt, for so long, that he just wanted to run away from her, but maybe things have changed.
He does fall silent when she does, though it's partially for his own benefit too. He needs the quiet to just think, to have those few moments without any words to let his brain try to process... everything that's just happened. Nothing settles by the time they get to her room, especially because he's surprised she's brought him here. When she offered him a drink, he just assumed... a bar or cantina.
The answer to her question is surprisingly simple. His judgement was cloudy, he self sabotaged, but what he wanted and what he always loved was always standing right in front of him, at least as long as he was standing there too.
The way she looks at him breaks his heart, but it's not like he hadn't done that to himself and done it to her already first.
The door clicks open and since Jyn was half leaning on it, she stumbles inside with a startled noise. It's embarrassing but at least now she can have a few moments to think about what Cassian said and try to put it all together.
She continues inside, sitting on the edge of her bed, slumped and looking as exhausted as she feels. Jyn's piddling rank does afford her a desk and chair but the chair is piled with laundry (clean???) so there isn't any other seating. The room is a mess and not her normal untidiness. Clothes are scattered across the floor, there are empty drinks bottles everywhere and wrappers for junk food and protein bars on the floor like confetti.
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ohnofeelstho2018-09-24 07:35 pm
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She owes Cassian that, she decides. "The war took your family away from you, I couldn't do the same thing."
Jyn's own losses were still too fresh for her to think too much about her family, preferring to focus on Cassian's legacy instead. "You've fought for so long, maybe I thought proving that you were capable of something so perfectly good would... put us back together. But you were never around to tell and then I couldn't-- I couldn't keep waiting. It was unrealistic, all of it."
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He starts crying, but he doesn't quite realize it. She kept the baby because it was his, it was theirs together, even if she doesn't seem to be talking about Javi as hers too.
She wanted them to come back together. He should have stopping running sooner. She was still waiting, even after weeks turned into months.
"How can you think he would learn anything but kindness from you when you would do something that selfless? Even as I failed you again and again you still..."
He draws in a sharp breath, trying to keep it under control because he doesn't want to lose control. "I am sorry."
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How is the selfless?
Jyn is a piece of huttshit and she shakes her head, refusing to accept Cassian's apologies. She glances away, wanting to stop herself from getting caught in comforting him. It felt to natural and warm with his arms around her and she can't let herself fall into that. Not again.
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She literally carried a baby! One she did not have to! Because she thought of it as Cassian's family! He wouldn't call it selfish for giving him away, even if it was definitely not selfless either. But as she has clearly said already, neither of them are in a place to care for a child. He remembers Baze's very specific phrasing quite suddenly: they were looking after him for a while.
She is tired of his apologies and he needs to stop, but they just keep pouring out, because he doesn't know what else to say.
He still doesn't think he can move. He doesn't know what to do with anything.
"I do not hate you." Part of him is still mad she hadn't told him, but she gave him a very good counterpoint: it's not like he gave her the chance. It's a strange battle in his body right now, trying to oppress his emotions and disentangle them at the same time. "I told you I would not."
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It's spoken into the looming silver trees that line every street, like the nature will accept her hate and turn it into fertilizer. She wouldn't have been surprised if Cassian hated her too, she deserves it. She did the same thing to her child that her parents, that everyone, did to her.
But she finds it impossible to ignore Cassian's tears anymore, sinking down to her knees with purpose now, gathering his hands in hers. "Come on. It's easier with alcohol. Let's get a drink."
Before he leaves, because Jyn still can't fathom that he hadn't already planned on it.
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He supposes that's something they've always had it common, but they were... better, for a little while. It feels worse now, like because they knew what it was like to feel happier, losing it makes it harder.
He startles when she takes his hands, because he might have already had his arms around her, but he initiated the contact. Cassian hasn't been touched this carefully in a very long time. He feels like he forgot how to react to it.
She could have offered virtually anything and he would agree if it meant getting to stay with her longer. "Okay."
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Well, it's been nearly a year...
She swallows, drawing her hands back. "If you have questions about--" She can't spit out 'our baby' so instead she gestures idly toward her midsection. "You can ask."
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He misses her hands as soon as she lets go, feeling a little wobbly on his feet. Standing, walking, right. He's got to do that.
His eyes are drawn to her hands, especially when she moves them. He knows what she's implying, and he's sure he has a lot of questions but the first one is just -
"Are you okay?"
He missed all of it. Maybe it took a real physical toll on her.
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But she works herself to exhaustion and then sleeps fitfully so when she wakes up at four am, she starts the whole process over again. She certainly isn't helping herself in that aspect, but when she stops and breathes then she has time to think and... that is worse. She'd rather be tired than crippled by depression and anxiety and loneliness.
She doesn't say that, of course, but tired seems to be all encompassing.
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"Was it - was the birth... okay? Were there any kind of complications? For you or him?"
He wants to ask if anyone was there, but he's not sure he could bear the answer if it was a no. He's sure if Baze knew, he would have been there, right?
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"He was early, very small. He's nearly three months old." And the size of a newborn still. "It's had little effect. He can eat and breathe and scream." Force, she remembers the wailing. "He's just small."
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There's about three seconds pause before he follows after Jyn easily, mostly because he was distracted by this new information. Following her is still a nonissue.
"He... seemed very small."
He saw Javi. He touched Javi. He thought the baby just looked small because Baze was so large, but Cassian supposes he really was that little. But he's... fine. He's healthy and loud and a tiny little boy equal parts he and Jyn both.
He would have been there. He should have been there. "I forget they can be that small."
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"He's perfectly healthy." Which seems impossible to her, considering she was the one carrying him and while Jyn's body has kept her alive and surviving for nearly her whole life, she never believed it could keep another human being alive at the same time. She'd always assumed she'd never be able to get pregnant if it ever came up and then suddenly, there she was.
Her shoulders slump a little, holding herself tighter. She's so tired of life.
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He is healthy and safe and that's all Cassian could hope for. But he also notices the way she seems to sink on herself, biting back on the urge to wrap her up in his arms again.
"That's good."
That's dumb to say, probably, but he doesn't know anything else about Javi and he doesn't even know how to ask. He wants to ask after Jyn more too, but he's afraid to press too hard there.
"Did you give him a middle name too?"
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There's a certain irony in naming her son after her father -- a man who abandoned her, left her to a strong, brave, and gruff man. She'd hated Galen for half her life for leaving her, but she hates herself now so maybe she and Javi will have that in common when he's older.
Baze will have more to work with than Saw. He has Chirrut and they will have peace.
She breathes out slowly, not quite a sigh. "It's only the women in my family that don't have middle names."
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Galen might have left Jyn behind, but he still saw her collapse in an emotional heap both after his message and after seeing him. She still loved him, complications and all.
"What made you decide on Javi?"
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The whole mission was to get to Bodhi to get to her father. If Galen Erso wasn't involved, if Saw wasn't involved, there would have been no reason to plurk Jyn out of prison and she would have died there, having poured her blood and life into building a weapon her father had helped create. If her father hadn't been involved, Jyn wouldn't have had a family legacy to change.
She shrugs without answer. No reason for the name, clearly.
The quiet stretches, a protracted silence, before Jyn licks her lips and quietly answers, "Javi means home."
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She named him home. She wanted him to be a home, to bring them both back home. He wonders if she really has given up, if he should try again, when she literally named their baby home. It has to be something hopeful, but at the same time it's incredibly... sad.
Cassian closes his eyes for a moment, trying to stave off another big wave of emotions. There are so many of them, wrapped up in the woman he still loves and the child they made. His heart breaks for all he missed, for all he could still miss, for the life he ran from but desperately wanted.
"Home," he says softly, maybe a little brokenly. "You named him home."
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Javi was born of a mistake, plain and simple, but he wasn't born from a lack of love. Simply love that was overpowered by war and fear. Part of why Jyn gave him up was that she was afraid Javi himself would be overwhelmed by Jyn's fear -- she couldn't rest all her hopes of happiness on a tiny human being who couldn't even hold up his own head. That's too much to put on any child.
"It was pretty, I didn't realize what it meant until later. When he was born, it fit." He looks like a Javi, he looks like home to Jyn.
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"It does suit him," he says quietly. He wants to see the boy again, like maybe it will help him make sense of everything. "If I did find a new home," he starts, nerves on fire, "it still would not be the same without you."
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She does eventually glance over at him. "I'm not... a ribbon you tie around a tree to mark your path and find your way. You can't leave me behind and then ask me to come with you again once you've decided it's time to go back." Even looking at him makes her resolve crumble, but she refuses to keep this in a moment longer.
He had broken her heart every time he left. Taken her home and her best friend away from her and it wasn't fair.
"You can't hate yourself more than you love me anymore. I am worth more than that." She doesn't feel like she is, not really. But Javi is. Javi is worth more than all of that.
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Maybe part of it was punishing himself, but it was unfair of him to hurt her in the process. He spiraled and she was a casualty. It's true that he never stopped loving her, but at some point he stopped feeling worthy of it again, he couldn't handle himself anymore.
She suffered all his trauma and depression on top of her own.
Very quietly, "Yes. You are worth more than that."
He resists the urge to apologize again. "We were home, together. I know I took that from you too every time I took it from myself. I cannot undo the damage, but maybe I can do better and avoiding causing more."
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She used to love that they could exist in silence together.
When they finally reach the barracks, she weaves through the halls until they reach a room neatly labeled with masking tape and J. ERSO printed on it in thick black letters. She pauses, turning around to face him, eyes sad.
"What do you want? Not what you think you deserve or what you think you can have, don't think. What do you want, Cassian?" It felt, for so long, that he just wanted to run away from her, but maybe things have changed.
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The answer to her question is surprisingly simple. His judgement was cloudy, he self sabotaged, but what he wanted and what he always loved was always standing right in front of him, at least as long as he was standing there too.
The way she looks at him breaks his heart, but it's not like he hadn't done that to himself and done it to her already first.
"I never stopped wanting you."
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She continues inside, sitting on the edge of her bed, slumped and looking as exhausted as she feels. Jyn's piddling rank does afford her a desk and chair but the chair is piled with laundry (clean???) so there isn't any other seating. The room is a mess and not her normal untidiness. Clothes are scattered across the floor, there are empty drinks bottles everywhere and wrappers for junk food and protein bars on the floor like confetti.
The room looks how Jyn feels: it's given up.
"Okay."
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