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They limped their way to the turbolift and he knew he didn’t have long. Something inside him was broken—probably multiple somethings—and he felt parts of him shifting with every step. He should be in pain but it was far away, distant in a way that told him he’d passed the point of no return.
After all the fatal wounds he’d inflicted on others, it was finally his turn.
Jyn—she might still be able to make it. Find a ship and survive this. Once they reached the bottom, there’d be a landing pad nearby. But her arms were all that kept him upright and she seemed in no hurry, content to hold him closer than anyone had in a long time.
She gazed at him, expression open and softer than he’d yet seen, naked concern for him in her eyes. Concern for them both—they succeeded but at what cost?
Do you think anybody’s listening?
I do. Someone’s out there. She’d sounded so confident, so certain, and it was enough for him. Even if he had the strength to worry, something about her words carried weight enough for him to almost believe her capable of bending the galaxy to her will.
He wasn’t going to make it out of this but he hoped, if Jyn was right, what he’d done might matter. That he could go to death in peace.
Whether he deserved it or not.
If these were his last moments, they were better than he’d imagined. He could be grateful for that: a mission completed, the woman beside him who made it possible, who brought him here. If what they’d done prevented another Jedha, it’ll have been worth it. And Jyn, who was still a mystery in so many ways, had stayed at his side, arms around him, holding him up.
He refused to close his eyes and miss a moment of the dwindling minutes, choosing for once to focus on the present.
He’d lived his life the past, acting on behalf of a future he’d never see. With his body failing around him, what did a past or future matter? Taking a breath, he let it all go: people he’d known and lost, people he’d failed, people whose lives would be lost if the Death Star wasn’t stopped.
All that mattered now, as he bled out somewhere inside, was this woman who looked at him as if he hadn’t failed her.
Two days ago, he’d been a hair’s breadth from killing her father. Now she was all that held him up. There had been a lot of sharp turn arounds in his life but this was the most dizzying.
Or maybe that was blood loss.
He held her gaze and they stared at each other, unflinching; there were things he understood in her eyes and things he didn’t. He tried to imagine what she might be thinking, wondered what she saw when she looked back at him. So many questions he wanted to ask, truths he wanted to share. Secrets he wanted to draw forth.
He didn’t know her. But he wanted to.
Too late.
“You can make it. If there’s a ship, you should—”
She cut him off. “I’m not going anywhere without you. If I’m not dying here, you’re not either.”
For the first time in a long time, he realized, he truly didn’t want to die. Not now, when it felt like he held possibility in his palm, delicate and small but more real than it had been since he was six years old.
But he wouldn’t lie to her.
“I think it’s too late for that.”
She stared at him, the changing light in the turbolift playing on her face, striking her eyes then casting her in shadow. When she’d smiled before, the first he’d seen on her, it transformed Jyn from a woman of legend—fueled by fire and drive—into a woman of flesh and blood. Approachable and ordinary. Someone he might’ve known and understood.
But something shifted within her, concern falling away to renewed determination. Now she seemed out of his reach again, something unknowable and distant. Her eyes focused on a purpose he couldn’t see, burning anew.
“No,” she finally said, a tone in her voice he can’t place. “It’s not.”
Her hand slid from its place at the back of his neck to his front, pressing against a spot just below his ribs. Not too hard, but enough that it twinged where he was hurt. As if he had an exterior wound where she could stem the blood flow.
That’s not how it works , he wanted to say, though he appreciated the sentiment.
Then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and went still.
“Jyn—”
“Shut up.”
He did as told. His thoughts drifted, too hard to hang on to any one at a time, Something about the turbolift seemed to have stopped time, giving them this moment together. The reality of their fate held at bay as long as they remained in this space. It gave him time to study the way her lashes lay on her cheeks and the scrap at her temple that bled sluggishly. A deep bruise had forming along her hairline—was it from Eadu? Where else was she injured?
Warmth began to fill him, starting from where her hand rested against him. First the heat of her body, then it spread, growing warmer with every passing second. At first, it was something he could dismiss as the cold of his blood loss next to the warmth of her life. A sign of his impending demise. Until it grew too much for him to brush aside. Somehow, it cut through the pain and left a pleasant tingling in its wake.
He’d lost a lot of blood. Maybe it was all in his head, a desperate wish for a second chance now that he’d found someone who felt—so familiar. So much like him, even though he wished otherwise. For her sake, if nothing else.
(Maybe she was all in his head. Conjured up to shepherd him through what was to come. Or torture him. With the what-could-have-been.)
The heat intensified, almost burning, like a sharp cauterization fusing together the broken pieces inside.
He realized whatever was happening wasn’t in his head when he could stand straight without pain for the first time since his fall. The dizziness and cold of blood loss faded even as the warmth receded, leaving him feeling—normal. Aching and bruised still but no longer dying. Even the haze in his mind cleared, slowly, like fog burned away by the sun.
What the fuck?
The best bacta tank in the galaxy didn’t heal that fast or that thoroughly. He was a rational man who didn’t believe in miracles. But he couldn’t deny the facts in front of him. The facts inside him.
Before he could dwell on it further, Jyn fell forward, slumping against him.
“Jyn!” He grabbed her shoulders to catch her. then slid one hand to her back, cradling her against him.
Was she hurt worse than he thought? Had she hidden some wound from before he was able to get to the top of the tower? He should’ve asked, should’ve taken into account how her injuries from Jedha and Eadu might compound. Had something else happened before he’d gotten to the top of the tower?
The hand on his stomach fell to his waist, fingers clenching in the fabric. Her forehead rested on his chest, muffling the sound of her voice. “Can’t fix it all, sorry. You’ll live, though.”
“What?”
Her words shouldn’t make sense. At any other time, they wouldn’t. Except—when he took stock of his body, they were the only thing that explained why he was no longer dying of his wounds.
She’d healed him. Somehow.
“How did you—?”
The opening of the turbolift doors interrupted his question. Reminding them of the outside world, the Death Star’s presence hovering in the sky, and the reality that their team was likely dead. No one had responded to his comms.
Jyn wobbled but straightened, still tucked under his arm and using her shoulders to help him stand. He didn’t need it anymore but he remained where he was, careful to keep his weight off her now while still holding her close to his side. He liked having her there far more than he should.
She was a stranger. Moreso than he’d imagined, with some sort of power the likes of which he’d never seen and couldn’t explain. Was it the Force? Something that had haunted their steps the past week, something he’d never believed in or given much thought to? An obscure religion from a people slaughtered years ago had never factored into his life before recent days. Suddenly, its shadow was everywhere he looked. The mystery of his miraculous recovery pricked the part of his brain that could never let go, that needed to know . To understand.
But it didn’t matter. Healed or not, the likelihood they’d survive for him to worry about the hows was slim. The Death Star’s destruction came toward them every second they stood on this world.
The sound of their death roared in the distance as they stepped out of the turbolift, into the dying sun. Bodies littered the beach, Imperial and Alliance alike, and at the edge of the trees, he spied the downed forms of AT-ATs, the wreckage of an X-wing still aflame from its crash. Evidence of a battle he’d missed while inside the tower, hints at the fate of the men who’d followed them here. Never to leave.
They’d done what they came for. Was it worth it?
He’d never know. Not if they died here. He’d never get the chance to know the woman at his side, whose quiet, steady presence filled the gaping hole at his side he’d never realized was there until it was gone. Like she was always meant to be there.
He didn’t believe in fate. The galaxy—life—was chaos and disorder they stumbled through to the best of their ability. If the Force existed, it had never granted him any favors or shown a penchant for justice. He couldn’t believe that their paths led them here with intention, as if it was destined or preordained, but here they were all the same. Side-by-side, facing death on the horizon.
There is no horizon, he heard Kay’s voice. Kay, broken and silenced where they’d had to leave him behind. One more sacrifice. One more loss. Kay came here for him and he deserved better than to die while Cassian himself still lived.
Death was all around them, spelled out in the stillness of the air, the smell of charred bodies and foliage, burning fuel, and overheated metal. In the turbolift, he’d been ready. He’d let go of the past and known, in his bones, this was it. He’d have died that way, at peace with all that he’d done because it’d led to this mission, this task that would undo none of his sins yet mattered nevertheless. In some small way, made everything else he’d done a bit more bearable.
Except he was no longer dying. And as his pain faded and renewed life flowed into his veins, he realized that for the first time in years, he wasn’t ready to die. There were things he wanted to do and a potential he needed to live to see. Even if it didn’t last, even if the war took them shortly after. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
She couldn’t redeem him but she’d saved him. She deserved so much better than to die here, at the end of a short, brutal life.
I’m not used to people sticking around when things go bad. He dropped his arm down so it wrapped around her back instead of her shoulders, supporting her as much as she’d been supporting him. Embracing her, to say I’m still here. We’re still here and he was ready to fight for whatever time he—they—could get.
“There should be a landing pad. Just over there,” he nodded his head toward Jyn’s left, away from the beach. It called to him, the bright light and crash of the waves, but he turned away, feet sturdy beneath him. Jyn shifted, putting herself between him and the bodies of two Alliance soldiers they passed—too small herself to really hide them from view but he appreciated the effort. It kept him from dwelling on their faces, their injuries,
“Think there’ll be a ship left?” she asked, staring forward toward their destination. The tower stood between them and the landing pad; there was no way to know what awaited them on the other side but the wounds inside him no longer hurt and she believed someone got the plans she sent.
Hope had carried them this far.
“I do.” She glanced at him with a slight quirk of her brow. Less skeptical than it had been on Jedha, when he’d spoken of hope, and more amused. “We’ve gotten this far.”
He’d told her rebellions were built on hope and they weren’t empty words. Rebellions relied on desperate people willing to take leaps of faith, to risk everything on a maybe . A someday . But it’d been a long time since he’d had any hope of his own. He’d been moving forward on sheer momentum, unable to alter course after all these years. Each risk taken, not on the slim possibility of success, but because there was nothing else he knew how to do.
Until Scarif. And minutes ago, he’d been bleeding out internally, ready to die. Now he wasn’t.
So he could have a little hope.
—————
Tell no one. Ever.
Saw’s warning came on the heels of every lesson her parents ever taught her: don’t get caught. Don’t show off. Don’t trust anyone.
Her earliest memories were her mother, meditating in the quiet of their bedroom on Coruscant. Tears caught the light where they dried on her cheeks and she cradled her lightsaber in her hands. Then the lightsaber began to float, then spin, then fracture into dozens of pieces that swirled like a galaxy around a bright, shining star. Except it wasn’t a star at all but a glowing, jagged crystal.
It was the first and last time Jyn saw her mother’s lightsaber. Forever after, the kyber crystal rested on a necklace, hidden beneath her shirts. Only after they left Coruscant did her mother speak of what it meant.
Not at first. As they fled from planet to planet, spending weeks and months on the run, her mother would tell her stories of the Jedi. The Jedi were the heroes, wise and calm and devoted to helping others. Trusting in the power they possessed but well aware of its dangers. Guardians of truth and justice in a crumbling republic.
One particular story told how a young Jedi knight fell in love with a scientist. Torn between duty and passion, she ended up following her heart, leaving the Order behind. But never forgetting where she came from and the power gifted to her.
Jyn was never stupid enough not to make the connection to her mother. Her grief in the betrayal of the Jedi hung over her like shroud, worn for the rest of her life.
The Force guides us, Jyn. Always. Trust where it leads you.
The Force led her here. To Scarif. To this elevator and this man, dying beside her.
And he was dying. Even if, by some miracle, Bodhi was waiting outside with a ship, Cassian would never make it back to base. His presence in the Force—once so prevalent, so all-encompassing and warm—was fading, preparing to change, to dissipate into the broader tapestry of the universe.
I am one with the Force and the Force is with me. She’d heard Chirrut’s prayer in the ship as they approached. It wasn’t one she’d ever heard—not that she’d ever had much chance to learn—but it resonated now. All around her, outside the turbolift, in the air, the Force was loud with death, riotous as the life around her shifted, lost, became something else. Chirrut and Baze, Bodhi and the team that came with them—they were too far for her to feel individually, if they were still around, but something in her knew better than to hope. She’d learned early on the way battles felt, how death seeped into her periphery and grew, the way life ended and the Force sought to reestablish balance. Battles were loud on their own, but even when they ended, even as the bodies laid still and forever silenced, the Force remained tumultuous, a storm of death and loss as everything the people had been was violently, suddenly, ripped away and dispersed.
She hated it. The pain of it, the noise, seeping into her skull and throbbing in time with her heart would last for days. And here, now, the planet itself screamed beneath her feet, a vibration quaking through her bones.
Every inch of her ached. It would be so easy to stumble to the ground and let the wave of destruction from the Death Star take them both away. The Force was all around her and what difference would it make to let go? Let herself drift off into it, lose the parts of her that hurt and grieved and bled?
She was ready. Life had never been promised to her and she’d done what she set out to do. Not much more to ask for, really.
It wouldn’t be the worst death. In fact, dying with this man who’d come back for her, not once but three times, even after she’d fulfilled her purpose to the rebellion, might be the best death she could ask for.
No one had ever come back for her before.
But he was in pain. He hid it well, gazing at her like she mattered, like he cared , like he was glad to see her—but her arms around him felt the tension in his muscles, the weight of him relying on her shoulders to remain upright. Her thumb, resting on the back of his neck, brushed the soft skin over his spine as if she could soothe the pain away.
Maybe she could.
She’d never done it herself. There were stories Cal used to tell, of Jedi who learned to use the Force for healing, to ease pain. He hadn’t known how to do it—not that they’d had much time together for him to teach her before he’d had to leave the Partisans—but it was possible. Someone, once upon a time, stumbled across a way to wield the Force for healing and if there was a first, there could be a second.
Her training with her mother consisted mostly of listening, of feeling, as they’d sit and her mother guided her through meditation. She didn’t remember a time without the
She could feel the pain in him, if she closed her eyes and concentrated. Sense where the wounds were slowly killing him inside, almost picture them if she tried.
He’d fallen and made his way all the way up to the top of the tower, hunched over in pain, to help give her the chance to send the plans. The least she could do was try.
So she put her hand on his abdomen, closed her eyes, and hoped the fucking Force was listening. There was plenty of life left in her to share and why not share with him? She used the warmth of her own life to stem the flow of his as it left him, willing the shifting Force around him to still, to maintain it’s state and keep him whole. For a little longer.
The Force obeyed. It didn’t always, but this time, she felt it swirl around them—within her, within him . She imagined the wounds closing, healing, broken pieces coming back together and knew they were.
Dizziness struck her as soon as it was over, the world suddenly unmoored from its anchor to waver around her. Their roles reversed: Cassian’s arms the ones holding her upright as she fought through the feeling of significant blood loss—because that was exactly what it felt like, it wasn’t a sensation one forgets. A chill swept through her, from the inside out, and she sucked in a breath.
It was done. He’d be bruised and aching but the wounds that would’ve killed him were healed over as if months had passed. Muscles and skin and organs knit back together to form a whole.
“Can’t fix it all, sorry,” she murmured into his chest. She’d prefer to see his eyes again, studying whatever look might be on his face, but the world needed to stop spinning first. “You’ll live, though.”
For now.
“What?” He paused, hand tightening its grip on her shoulder. “How did you—“
She didn’t need to hear the end of the question to know where it was going. There’d be even more questions to come but the opening of the turbolift as they arrived at the base of the tower brought them both back to reality. The turbolift spilled out onto a narrow platform and then to the beach itself, to a paradise ravaged by war. Golden sands, clear waters, and the glow of what could almost be a sunset on the horizon marred by the broken, bloody bodies of soldiers; the charred, smoking remains of the ships; and the burning trees along the skyline.
The sunset that wasn’t a sunset at all.
Cassian might live from his wounds but not for long. If there was any hope for them to live past the next few minutes, they’d have to act fast.
She wouldn’t bet on her being able to do anything fast at the moment but she’d done more with less before.
Maybe. Possibly.
Ok, probably not. But she sure as shit wasn’t going to let herself be what slowed them down.
She hadn’t healed him to save them. She’d done it to spare him more pain, because seeing him struggle to breathe wore undermined any attempt to be at peace with their fate. It’d been a fix to ease his suffering if it was within her power, not give them a chance to get away.
But now they had a choice. The door opened, they stepped out into the daylight, and Cassian steered them away from the beach. Toward a landing pad.
“Think there’ll be a ship left?” The battle and the Death Star’s looming threat might not have provoked a mass exodus of Imperial personnel, but its shot across the sky certainly would have.
“I do.” When she glanced his way, he offered her a small smile. “We’ve gotten this far.”
And their feet kept moving, one step at a time, toward what may or may not be salvation.
The farther they got from the quiet of the turbolift, the farther she felt form that Jyn, the one who stopped moving for a handful of moments, who wondered what might have been and imagined, just for a second, some other future than the one spread out before her. Riding the high of victory, of pulling the lever and seeing the man in white fall, she’d forgotten the only vow she’d ever made.
Tell no one. Ever.
I’m sorry, she thought to the memory of Saw, stern and unforgiving. He’d drilled the lesson into her again and again, over and over until the thought alone of the Force set her fight or flight instincts into hyperspace. She’d never broken her promise to Saw, nor the promise to her parents long before, that this secret they shared wouldn’t be spoken. She’d kept whatever abilities she had to herself, even when it might’ve made her life a little easier. Even if it might’ve saved her in the short term.
The risk was too great.
And she’d thrown it all away to heal a man she barely knew. Shown off so blatantly she’d never be able to wave it away and pretend a trick of the mind. Especially not for a man like Cassian, whose will was as strong as her own and who saw far more than he let on.
If they died, it wouldn’t matter. But if they didn’t?
She couldn’t think about that. She couldn’t regret her actions, either. Would they have made it this far at all if she hadn’t? Perhaps they should’ve died on the beach and the secret, with her.
The roar of the Death Star’s blast grew louder.
They matched strides, arms wrapped around each other’s backs providing enough mutual support that they managed to cross the distance, rounding the corner of the Citadel tower. In front of them, battered but whole, sat a Lambda-class shuttle. Not a living soul to be found besides themselves.
It was too easy. And excruciating, forcing herself up the ramp with one arm tied up on Cassian, the other wielding a blaster in case of unwanted company. Her hip screamed with each shift of weight, her shoulder ached, and the pump of her blood reverberated like the beat of a hammer inside her skull. If someone ambushed them, she wasn’t sure how useful she’d be.
But she had a spy and a blaster and the Force on her side. She liked her odds.