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“So…” Galen says, very carefully. “How have things been going? With…Cassian.”
Jyn cuts her father a look from where she’s hunched over a datapad. “They’re fine.”
“Ah. Yes. Good.” Galen has a datapad of his own, but it doesn’t look like he’s actually using it. It’s not like Alliance Command is just going to hand over a datapad to Galen Erso, formerly of the Imperial Science Division. Jyn is fairly certain Cassian scrubbed this one to within an inch of it’s life before giving it to Galen. Most days, she is not entirely certain she blames him.
Just as she begins to think that that was the end of Galen’s line of inquiry, he persists with: “It’s only that…well. You two have been…together. For so long. And yet I hardly ever see you in the same place anymore. If my being here has brought tension between you–”
“We haven’t been in the same place because we had to flee Yavin,” Jyn says, very pointedly keeping her calm. “And he has to go where Intelligence assigns him.”
The unspoken implication hangs in the air very loudly between them: Because Cassian needs to prove his loyalty now. After retrieving you, retrieving the Death Star plans without permission from Command. He had a near perfect record, and doing all that tarnished it.
“Ah. Yes.” Galen stares fixedly at the screen before him. “That would explain it.”
The silence between them is wire taut. Jyn looks at her datapad without comprehending any of it.
Since they stole the Death Star plans, stole her father, and seemingly half of Jedha along with him, the Alliance has been…strained. Yes, the sudden influx of recruits has been a Force-send. They’re not so confident that they can afford to turn away so many beings, most of whom worked for the Empire in some fashion in another—and know the best ways to dismantle it. However, along with the Death Star plans, her father, and half of Jedha, Jyn brought with her…Saw. And his Partisans. Not to mention an entire order of monks, lead by one Chirrut Îmwe and his glowering partner Baze Malbus. Suddenly the Alliance had to feed, clothe, house and arm all these people, and tensions have been..high. To say the least.
Jyn has found herself in the inexplicable position of being the liaison for all these assembled beings and factions, and has been hastily promoted to the rank of sergeant-at-arms. There’s something darkly funny about it, given all of Saw’s former (and current) rantings against joining forces with the Alliance. Technically this makes Cassian her superior officer, a fact that Jyn simply refuses to think about. Things are already tricky enough between them since they returned from Eadu with Galen in tow, only to find the entire Alliance base overrun with Jedahan defects, Partisans and an entire coterie of monks.
“Perhaps I could speak to him,” Galen says and it takes a moment for the suggestion to pierce through Jyn’s thoughts and fill her with horror. “If he knew I had no intention of causing trouble between you–”
“No,” Jyn says, more forcefully than she intends, and her father almost flinches from it. “No,” she repeats, a little more calmly. “P–Galen, we’re fine.” After all this time, she still finds it hard to call him “Papa.” She wishes she could, but she can’t. The word sticks in her throat. Maybe she should be pleased that Galen really has bought into this fiction that they’ve sold to the rest of the Alliance; that she and Cassian are…together. It means that the precedent they’ve set is working. But all Jyn can think of is how it would look if her Imperial scientist father attempts to lecture Cassian, a Rebel Alliance spy and captain, about how to treat her, a former Partisan now Alliance officer. The sheer mortification of the thought makes her want to steal a ship, change her name, and vanish into the farthest corners of the Outer Rim. Just as an example.
“We’ve just been busy,” she goes on, now putting down her pad. “It’s normal for people like us to go long stretches without seeing each other. It’ll be better when he comes back.”
If he does, a coldly pragmatic voice mutters in the back of her mind, and Jyn stomps on it mercilessly. Cassian has broken very few promises to her; the only one he’s kept so far is that he comes back, every time.
Conversation ends when Bodhi arrives, closely followed by the small retinue of mouse droids he’s somehow accumulated since joining the Alliance. Jyn suspects it’s because Cassian showed him how to repair them; Bodhi’s status as a former cargo pilot means he’s still waiting to be cleared for combat. In the meantime, Cassian’s taught him droid repairs and Jyn’s taught him how to slice code. He’s developed a knack for both, and he’s one of the only people who is comfortable around both Jyn and Galen. Everyone else gives them a wide berth.
“Jyn,” he says, slightly out of breath from his light jog over to them, “come to the bay, quick. There’s a incoming ship that’s transmitting Cassian’s call sign.”
“So soon?” Jyn asks, as calmly as she can, gathering up her things. He’s only been gone for four weeks.
Bodhi’s hands twist in the sleeves of his flight suit. “That’s why I’m letting you know.”
Galen looks up from his datapad, concern flickering over his features. Jyn can’t look at it; when was the last time any parent worried over her? “Come on, then,” she tells Bodhi.
She isn’t expecting Galen to follow them to the bay, but he does. He no longer wears his Science Division whites, but he still draws stares wherever he goes. Jyn’s broken a few heads of beings who try to spit words like “Imperial” or “traitor” at him, as if they weren’t all in the same position, but sometimes she wishes he would just…not be in her line of vision. Constantly.
The U-Wing lands in the bay, none the worse for wear. It is Cassian’s ship, which only exacerbates Jyn’s worry. His mission was supposed to last at least a month. For him to be back so soon is either a sign that something has gone very well…or very wrong.
Once the ship powers down, the passengers disembark. Jyn can see Kay-Too, the hulking, lamp-eyed bastard, and feels only slightly better see that the droid appear to be in one piece. Cassian would never let anything happen to that droid if he could help it. She resists the urge to stand on her toes, only folds her arms across her chest and roots herself to her spot, anchoring down her anxiety.
Cassian is the last to disembark, shouldering a battered bag. Did he bring something back with him? He’s a bit of a packrat, Jyn knows, but to come back early for it…Something big, she thinks. She’ll have to ask. Jyn can feel Galen’s presence at her shoulder, a quietly anxious figure. Oh gods, is he going to talk to Cassian? At this present moment, Jyn can’t imagine anything worse.
Cassian sees them and Jyn can see his eyebrows tick up ever so slightly at his…welcoming committee, motley as they are. But he doesn’t hesitate to approach them, though Jyn can see him eye Galen warily. Jyn really does not give herself time to consider what she’s about to do. The implications of it hover in the back of her mind, but if she pauses to think about it, it becomes too bright and too large. The galaxy in an moment.
“..Jyn,” Cassian says cautiously.
He doesn’t really get to finish his sentence, or say anything at all really, because before she can talk herself out of it, Jyn launches herself up onto her toes (he is somehow shorter than her father and still too damn tall), grabs him by the shoulders and plants a kiss right on his mouth. She practically has to yank him down in half to do it, but their mouths do connect, more or less correctly. Maybe their teeth clack together more than they should, but Jyn’s not really one to quibble about the finer details.
At first she doesn’t feel anything, other than the startled shape of his lips against hers, but then Cassian’s hand settles high on her back and he pulls her into his body. He doesn’t string out the kiss, but Jyn feels him drag his hand down her spine and keep her close to him for a breath, and then another, and then one more. Then he carefully eases her so her feet are resting fully on the ground, and he straightens up, his other hand resting on her shoulder, along with the one on her back.
“Hello again,” he says, not even a little breathless, even calmly practiced, as if she greets him like this all the time. Jyn can’t explain why, but his calm makes her want to do…something. Bite him maybe. Anything to rattle him. “Has everything been fine here?”
“Yes. We’ve been fine,” Jyn says, her own hands resting on his chest. His heartbeat is reassuringly steady under her hand. “You’re back early,” she blurts out, not very elegantly she fears. “Is everything alright?”
“Mostly,” Cassian says, shifting the bag on his shoulder. “Let me report in to Command, and you can hear all about it.”
Jyn nods, letting herself shift into his side. Only to realize Kay-Too is indeed looming up behind Cassian, somehow managing to radiate disapproval for a non-organic with no face.
“Well,” says Kay, dourly. “That’s new.”
*
Cassian is no stranger to compartmentalizing. It’s one of the first things that Luthen taught him. But in this strange new turn his life has taken, he finds that too many components in his life refuse to be tucked away into neat little boxes.
There’s the sudden flood of new recruits from Jedha of course, that Command is scrambling—though certainly they would never use that word—to accommodate. It isn’t just cargo pilots or cooks; it’s bookkeepers and seamstresses and people with families. Cassian has seen children under the age of ten being taught how to handle blasters. He can’t examine that too closely without feeling something clench in his chest like a fist.
There’s the detente between Saw’s Partisans and the rest of the Alliance, which feels dangerously fragile most days. A hairsbreadth from disaster at all times. If it hangs together at all it’s because of Jyn, and her relentless efforts to keep the more belligerent members of her former fellow Partisans in check.
Jyn is one component that refuses to be categorized, no matter how hard he tries.
He’s still not sure what he is to her yet, or she to him. The cover that they’ve come up for themselves has taken on a life of it’s own, and while it has proven useful, it’s also provided any number of…concerns.
Namely, the kiss.
Jyn’s mouth had been firm and unpracticed on his, but her lips were soft. As a kiss, it hadn’t even lasted more than a moment or two, but it had taken his brain a full five minutes to come back fully on line, and even then, he hadn’t missed the look Galen Erso had sent him. The last time any father glared at Cassian like that, he’d been sixteen and trying to sneak out Bix’s window without anyone noticing. But Galen was too far practiced at wiping his features clean, so Jyn missed it by the time she had turned back around to face him.
Now he watches Jyn broker some kind of agreement between the Pathfinders and Partisans, her truncheons not quite out, but getting there. It doesn’t matter that she’s dealing with a Twi’lek with nearly a full head of height on her and a human male who looks like he crushes rocks with his bare hands. Jyn doesn’t look remotely intimidated, her voice sharp and clear as she makes them both heed her. If anything, the two beings she’s dealing with are eyeing her warily. He tries not to be too visibly satisfied with that.
“She is doing well,” a serrated voice rasps behind him and Cassian deliberately shifts out of his at-ease stance into his at the ready one. “Is she not?” Saw Gerrera continues, leaning more heavily on his staff than Cassian has ever seen him. “My lion cub?” There’s a brittle kind of pride in his voice when he speaks of Jyn. Saw hasn’t been hiding his grief that Jyn barely speaks to him of her own accord most days. When Jyn does deal with Saw, she gives him a brusque sort of courtesy, the sort you give a doubtful ally. Not the adoptive father who raised you.
“You can hardly call her a cub now,” Cassian replies evenly. “She’s been a woman grown for years.”
Saw lets out a bitter huff of a laugh. “You think I don’t know that, Captain? I raised her.”
“And lied to her,” Cassian says, cool and sharp as a hidden blade. “For all those years.”
Maybe regret comes and goes across Saw’s weathered features. His shoulders don’t slump any more than they already do. “Do not speak to me of lying, boy. Are you not Luthen’s pupil? You sow deception every time you move your lips.”
“For the confusion of our enemies,” Cassian says, refusing to let his irritation at this hypocrisy show. Ideological differences aside, they cannot afford to alienate Saw. But this persistent reminder does not stop him from adding with undue amount of vicious emphasis, “I have never lied to her.”
“Not yet,” says Saw coldly. “But you will.”
Cassian can feel his lips start to peel back from his teeth, every one of them feeling too sharp for his mouth. For a moment he considers refuting Saw’s words, but when Jyn’s voice snaps through their stalemate, sharply dismissing the two males. Cassian looks over to see the Twi’lek Pathfinder rolls his eyes to the ceiling, but joins the Partisans warily, his hand no nearer to its blaster than it should be. Jyn gives her shoulders a little shake, a fighter stepping out of the ring. Then her gaze catches Cassian’s and something in her lightens, just a little. Then she sees Saw and that lightness vanishes almost immediately.
Cassian feels the loss like a sudden vital fuse being blown. He doesn’t glance back at Saw, doesn’t waste anymore words on him. Let the Lion of Onderon draw his own conclusions. Instead he approaches Jyn, moving into her space in the way he’s now learned how to–covering her blind spot. He’s not bold enough to step close to her and…just plant a kiss on her in front of the rest of the troops, much less Saw. But when Jyn tilts her head back to meet his gaze, he follows his instincts and asks her, “How did it go?”
“Well enough,” she replies, glancing over her shoulder to send a pointed look at the two groups. “I didn’t have to crack anyone’s skull this time, so we can count it as a win.”
“Always a good indicator,” he agrees and she turns back to him.
“What about you?” she asks, frowning slightly over in Saw’s direction. “Was he giving you problems?”
Cassian lets his hand lightly cup her elbow, carefully fitting his fingers around the bend of her joint. “Nothing I can’t manage,” he says, and bends his head, pressing his lips to her forehead, just below her hairline. A light touch, just like before, but he feels the way she responds, the soft intake of her breath on his throat, the way her shoulders go down. His skin ripples with the knowledge of it.
“Is this okay?” he asks her quietly, the movement of his lips hidden by her brow.
“What—yes, it’s fine,” she whispers back, lifting her chin just a little. His mouth finds itself in the divot between her brows. “Good—um, good thinking.”
“Thanks,” he says and then straightens, moves to his accustomed space by her side. “Show me what they’re working on? In case they need reminders.” He pretends not to feel Saw’s gaze boring into his back.
*
Like a cold, news of any kind travels fast in the Alliance base. Rebels and Partisans alike are gossip-hungry little gremlins, and somehow the notion that the two of the heroes of Scarif (a ridiculous name, Jyn thinks) are now actively showing affection and in public, no less…
Well. Tongues, mandibles and limbs are wagging.
Since Jyn is by all accounts an officer now, with all the privileges (such as they are) that the rank entails, she should be spared the sideways glances, the nods in her direction, or the nudges that seem to crop up every time she and Cassian so much as breathe the same air. But of course, she is not. If anything, it adds fuel to whatever rumors are swirling around them both. None of it is said directly to her face, but she’s got a pair of eyes and ears that work. Cassian should demonstrate to the new recruits how to gossip more discretely.
Cassian seems to take it all in stride. After breaking out her father, breaking into Scarif, Jyn doesn’t think anything short of an armada of star destroyers with Vader himself at the helm could make Cassian turn a hair.
None of this helps their current situation.
Jyn’s not sure why, but for some reason Cassian is absolute loth catnip for every granny, auntie, or middle aged mother of any species they come across. He’s charmed half of the mothers from Jedha, by dint of constantly repairing their washing machines. But even when he shows up without doing any kind of repairs, they all fuss over and coddle him, from setting aside certain hard-to-get snacks to offering to set him up with their grandchild/nibling/broodkin….If things don’t work out between him and that fierce Partisan, of course.
One of them, a strong-willed matriarch who on any other day, Jyn would actually like, has been particularly vocal about if that dear boy Cassian wasn’t so attached to That Partisan (Jyn can hear the capital letters in it), she’d set him up with some nice grandchild of hers. “Someone needs to look after that boy,” Granny Gog says, giving Jyn a pointed look while the other aunties snort or avert their gaze. “A real partner would know that.”
Jyn’s not in the habit of challenging old women to fist fights, but she’s giving serious thought to rethinking her stance. “I am his real partner,” she says, measuring out every word like she’s choosing a weapon. “And how I look after him is no one’s business but ours.”
A series of knowing glances is exchanged around the knitting circle. “You can’t just hand a man a blaster and call it a day,” says Granny Gog severely. “You have to show him you want him around.”
Jyn raises an eyebrow, leaning one hip against the pile of crates that always seems to accumulate in a gathering like this. It’s one of Cassian’s favorite poses, for the purpose of setting the other being at ease. “Granny, should I be taking tips from you how to drive a man off?”
Raucous cackles from the older women greet this statement, as the younger ones duck their heads to hide their grins. No one gets away with sassing Granny Gog in her own community, and they’re all enjoying watch her and Jyn spar verbally. Far from being offended, Granny grins widely, showing disturbingly strong teeth for a woman her age. “Take this advice from me, girl: the quickest way to a man’s heart—”
“Up and under the ribs,” Jyn suggests but Granny just cackles witchily.
“Poison in his beer, girl!”
“Blaster to the chest,” says one of the aunts, grinning maliciously.
Jyn is glad to divert this conversation away from her and Cassian, as gruesome as the subject matter is, but her relief only lasts for a moment: the man himself appears, clearly looking for her. “Jyn? Draven wants a debrief.” He pauses, seeing Jyn’s conversational partners, and while he doesn’t quite sketch a bow, but he does duck his head in an endearingly boyish manner. “Hello Grandmother.”
Muffled giggles rise from the spectators as Granny Gog says slyly, “Oh hello, Captain Andor. When was the last time you saw your girl?”
Cassian gives Jyn a mild glance. “Why, I only saw her just this morning, Grandmother, over my pillow when I awoke.”
Jyn resists the urge to raise her eyebrow at the lie (she has her own quarters, another privilege of her rank) and instead lifts her chin as the contingent of grandmothers and aunts sigh like the wind through reeds. “That’s practically forever for you young people,” says Granny Gog, her grin widening menacingly. “Why don’t you give your girl a kiss, Cassian? Put some roses in her cheeks.”
“I don’t need roses in my cheeks,” Jyn says testily, as Cassian replies much more mildly, “If Jyn wanted me to, she would say so.”
More barely stifled grinning and giggles. Granny Gog just continues to grin like a predator sensing the latent struggles of prey.
Jyn huffs out a breath, turning to face him. Clearly they aren’t going to get out of this one without some kind of demonstration. She should be used to it by now, the notion of being so close to him, but it still gives her an odd fluttering sensation in her belly and chest. An uncomfortable amount of winged creatures have taken up residence beneath her sternum and she needs them to go away, immediately.
Cassian tilts his head, his face quietly expectant. He won’t push her for anything she can’t give, and Jyn is slightly heady with that realization. How much power he gives her, in ways so small and numerous that she’s only just starting to count them. So it’s not that hard really, to step closer, into the space that his body occupies, and now it feels practiced, familiar, easy, to rise to her toes and press her mouth to his.
Cassian lets one hand rest on the small of her back, the lightest of pressure. It spins out for no longer than a moment or two before Jyn starts to sink back down, even as Cassian leans forward to catch her lips one more time. As though he can’t bear to be parted from her. As an act, it must sell it to their audience, if the hooting, sighs, snorts and giggling is any indication. But it all seems to come from a great distance away, Jyn notes, like they’re behind a curtain and the rest of the world is shut out.
Cassian straightens, glances at the group of women behind them over Jyn’s head. “Come on Grandmother,” he says, as boyish as Jyn’s ever seen him. “Take pity on us next time. I’m very modest, you know.”
“No you aren’t,” Jyn contradicts him automatically and he raises an eyebrow at her, sucking at the insides of his cheeks as he does so. Something about the way he does that makes his cheekbones stand out unfairly, which is why Jyn suspects he does it.
The winged creatures in her stomach seem to be multiplying. She doesn’t know what to do about it and that should alarm her. Shouldn’t it?
*
“Sooo…” Bodhi carefully eases himself down next to Cassian. “You and Jyn. That’s…happening.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” asks Cassian, up to his elbows in engine maintenance. He likes Rook, he really does. It’s hard to dislike anyone as scrappy and nervy as he is, and who is still so kind. But Bodhi seems to have appointed himself Jyn’s envoy, or at the very least her spokesperson. Apparently her whisking him out of the Partisans, landing them in the middle of the Alliance base with nothing but his word has won Jyn Bodhi’s undying loyalty. Cassian approves. Jyn deserves to have some completely, wholly on her side.
And you aren’t? A persistent thought murmurs, in a voice disturbingly like Saw’s. Cassian sets it aside.
Kay makes a noise with his circuits that could be construed as disapproving. “I have expressed my reservations about it. Approximately one hundred and thirty-five terms.”
“That many?” Bodhi asks dubiously.
“Not counting the hints I drop,” sniffs Kay.
“Don’t ask,” Cassian advises as Bodhi opens his mouth, clearly wanting to pursue this line of inquiry.
“She seems to be happy though,” Bodhi persists. “She actually smiles around you. She barely smiles at Galen, most days. Though. It is getting better.”
“I’m glad,” says Cassian composedly. “That they’re starting to become closer.”
“So am I, but that has nothing to do with my original question,” says Bodhi. “You and Jyn. You really are…together. Properly.”
“Again, why wouldn’t we be?” Cassian asks, working his wrench around a particularly stubborn coil.
“Here,” says Bodhi, leaning forward. “Let me help, these engines are always a pain to reconfigure.”
Never one to turn down a pair of helping hands, Cassian makes room for Bodhi under the engine. There’s a few moments’ silence, only punctuated by the clanks and grunts and Bodhi swearing in Jedhan when the skin of his hand gets pinched. Cassian is almost lulled into thinking Bodhi’s going to let the matter drop, when Bodhi says, almost conversationally, “She told me. About your…arrangement. When she was getting me away from Saw and the Partisans. She said the two of you had kept this secret for the better part of three years and you’d never once faltered or broken, and that I should trust you on that.”
Cassian breathes out, slowly, as Bodhi persists, “So I know that you know that Jyn’s trust matters. She doesn’t give it away lightly. And if it matters, then really, what’s the point of pretending you’re not in this for real?”
“It’s not like that between us,” Cassian refutes, but the words feel flat and rote in his mouth.
“Really?” Bodhi asks dubiously. “Then that little display the other night, it’s not like that?”
It takes all of Luthen’s mantras and teachings for Cassian to keep control of his facial features. He’s certainly undergone worse interrogations than by gentle-voiced Bodhi.
The other night in question, someone had brought out the moonshine that Cassian’s pretty sure comes from a still out of an X-wing’s engine. The usual tension between Alliance and Partisans had eased, loosened up by the general revulsion drinking the rotgut usually brings on. The cooks from Jedha in the mess contrived to make little cakes soaked with thick, sweet syrup and plied the crowd with them generously. Soon the whole bay was laughing and chatting, a rare moment of lightness that was becoming all too brief now.
Cassian hadn’t even really been doing anything, not really. Jyn had somehow swiped an entire boat of them, fresh and piping hot, and brought them to Cassian, grinning like a lothcat with feathers in her teeth. He’d grinned back and they sat on one of the benches to share them.
The entire time, they’d been sitting next to each other, Jyn leaning further and further into him. He hadn’t been thinking of the cover, the story or the beings around them. He’d been thinking of the scent of blaster oil clinging to Jyn’s hair, the way the lights of the bay made her grin flash like summer lightning over the prairie plains of his childhood on Ferrix. How well her body curved into his. He rested his cheek on the fall of her hair and his lips had brushed against the crown of her head. Just to hear that soft intake of breath from her again.
“Listen,” says Bodhi, shaking Cassian from his recollections. “If the other night was just…another part you’re playing, then maybe you should tell her that. Because she really trusts you. I don’t think she would’ve given you Galen’s message or coordinates if she didn’t.”
Cassian looks into the tangled innards of the engine. Strange how much easier that was to pull apart.
“And I think you should think about it too,” Bodhi goes on quietly. “Because I don’t think you’re playing a part anymore. And haven’t been for a while.”
*
In what Jyn is beginning to think is one great big cosmic joke, she and Cassian get separated again. He gets assigned to retrieve one of the Alliance’s people in a very high ranked position; they wouldn’t have asked for extraction if the situation wasn’t dire. So Cassian and Kay-Too are headed out to bring their agent home.
Jyn tries to make herself useful, she really does. She goes over every bit of Cassian’s equipment, makes sure his blaster and scope have been well cleaned and ready to be converted. She gets into a bitch fight with Kay because he tells her that he is “more than capable of looking after Cassian’s gear,” and she snipes back at him until Cassian tells them both to knock it off.
“Ridiculous,” he mutters, as he continues to pack, as Jyn and Kay glower at each other from across the room. “The pair of you.”
Jyn bristles, but she sits down on the edge of the bed away, doing something that Cassian would call “unnecessary” with his datapad. Look, if she can add some code to make it a little harder to crack, than he should accept it as the gift it is.
Cassian sighs, puts the last of his gear away and turns to face her. Jyn puts down the datapad to look back at him, her face set in uncompromising lines.
From the other side of the room, Kay lets out another of his disapproving grinding noises. “Is this some form of organic communication that I need to become familiar with?”
“Go run diagnostics,” Jyn suggests, not taking her eyes off Cassian.
“‘Run diagnostics’?” Kay echoes indignantly. “I could toss myself in the trash compactor and that would have the same amount of efficiency.”
“Kay,” says Cassian, “will you check on our coordinates please? On the ship.”
“The ship,” Kay repeats, flat as a concrete plate.
“Yes. The ship.” When Kay stubbornly refuses to move, Cassian adds, “Please.”
Kay lets out a loud, disgruntled grinding noise. “Since I am the only around here who does my job.” He rises with a series of clanks that somehow manage to sound put upon and stalks out of the room, the panel sliding soundlessly shut behind him.
Leaving Jyn and Cassian alone. For the first time…she’s not sure how long, actually. She’s close enough to really look at him, take notice of the lines around his eyes, the stubble rasped across his cheeks. The hollows and planes of his face. He studies her with the same amount of intensity, though certainly he is much better at keeping his features composed than she is.
“How long do you think this extraction will take?” Jyn asks, breaking the silence. Trying to shift to a mutual topic, and not measure the exact length of his eyelashes.
“Hard to say,” Cassian replies. “They’re taking a leave of absence from their post. Kay and I are going to meet them midway; make it look like a ship malfunction.”
“You’ll want to scramble their ship’s control panel,” Jyn says, reaching out for the datapad next to her. “I can give you a code for that–”
Cassian’s hand settles gently on her wrist, stopping her. Jyn looks at him, startled and what it is he sees in her face makes his grip tighten, just a little.
“Jyn,” he says quietly, “you know, if you don’t want to…continue this arrangement we have anymore…I wouldn’t stop you.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to continue it?” Jyn asks, keeping her voice level. He can undoubtedly feel how her pulse has picked up under his thumb.
Cassian hesitates, choosing each of his next words carefully. “If there was someone…if you ever felt like this was no longer the best choice for you…then you would be within your rights to end it.”
“My rights?” Jyn echoes incredulously. “And you’ll just step back and leave, if that’s what I want?”
“I am trying,” Cassian says with forced patience, “To respect your choice. Whatever it is. Is there any other way I’m supposed to react?”
“Yes,” Jyn says, now itching for a fight. With what, she’s not entirely sure. This notion of someday not wanting Cassian. “Do you go around kissing every informant you get into an arrangement with, or am I just lucky?”
Something kindles in Cassian’s eyes, something that makes Jyn’s heart race. “And what would you do,” he murmurs, “if I told you ‘yes’?”
She’s not really sure what his game is here, what kind of misguided notion he’s trying to carry out, but if there is one thing that Saw taught her that Jyn carries in her bones, it’s how to tell when someone is lying. And if there’s anything she’s learned over the last three years, it’s how to tell when Cassian is lying. His words are too practiced, his manner too smooth. It’s the voice he uses with informants and Imperial marks, but never with her.
Jyn leans forward, close enough for their faces to almost touch. “I’d call you a liar,” she tells him defiantly, looking him dead in the eye. He meets her gaze without flinching; another one of his tells. Other liars turn their gazes away when someone interrogates them; Cassian holds it. “You want to know how I know? Because if that were true, you wouldn’t let me do this.”
She kisses him then, fiercely and without pretense, no audience or story or cover to sell. Just them, because she wants him, has wanted him, all this while. She leans into him, pushing herself closer, trying to maintain her balance so she doesn’t tip them both over. This problem is abruptly solved by Cassian gripping her hips and moving her back on the bed, so her back is against the wall and he’s half leaning, half kneeling on the bed, kissing her back so hard Jyn might laugh in triumph. I knew it. All of those sideways glances, touching the small of her back, the lips at her hairline, the stolen touches under the guise of “the cover”...
Like any good Partisan, Jyn does not squander her victory. She loops her arms around Cassian’s shoulders and yanks him closer, managing to hook one leg over his in a fighting move she has yet to teach him. Cassian grunts, low in his throat, one hand flying to her thigh, keeping her there. “Jyn…” his voice is a ragged, breathless rasp. She hides her grin in the crook of his neck.
He says her name like he’s afraid he won’t get the chance to again. “Jyn. This is…I’m not…” he stumbles for a moment before finally clarifying, “This has to be your choice. Because you want this, us. Not because you don’t have any other options.”
“There’s been a lot of talk about my choices,” Jyn gets out, still breathless. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Cassian asks, wariness creeping in.
Jyn curls one hand in his hair, yanks just enough to make their faces level. She does not imagine the way his eyes go wide at the tug. “What do you want, Captain Cassian Andor?” she challenges him. “Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.”
Cassian rolls his lips together, bites the inside of his cheek. One of the few tells Luthen didn’t train out of him completely. “I want…” he looks down at the way their bodies fit together. “I want…I want you,” he finally gets out, a dam finally coming down. A break in the prison wall. “I’ve spent three years wanting you, and telling myself it was just for a cover.” He meets her gaze now, dark eyes burning. “I was satisfied with that. Just seeing you in moments, in snatches. Getting you what you needed, receiving your information. I told myself to be content with that.”
He sends her a wry look. “And then you started the whole kissing thing, and I realized that I wasn’t satisfied with that. Not nearly as much as I thought I was.”
Jyn gentles her grip in his hair, now carding her fingers through the strands. “Originally, the kiss was for the cover,” she admits. No point in denying it. “Because G–my father was fretting about you and me. If you were treating me right, if it was real. And after I kissed you, I realized that even then, I had no doubts about you. You were–are the one thing I’ve never doubted.”
Something in his face cracks further. “Jyn,” he whispers, their foreheads pressed together now. “Jyn, I may yet lie to you. I may yet let you down, disappoint you. One more person who failed you.”
Jyn swallows hard, accepting the possibility. “You might. I may do it to you, one day. But…Cassian, I’m willing to take the chance. On you. On us.”
His breathing stays harsh as Jyn persists, “You told me welcome home when I chose to stay with the Alliance. And you said that you were with me, all the way. Were you lying then?”
“No,” Cassian says, almost inaudibly. “I was not. I think that was…the most truthful I’ve ever been in my life.”
Their position is getting awkward now; Cassian’s hip and knee can’t take half kneeling on the bed. So Jyn eases herself up right, rearranges them so Cassian is sitting on the bed, his back to the wall, and she’s pressed up against his side. She tangles their hands together, one of her knees resting on his thigh. “I trust you,” she tells him and he presses his face to her hair. “And you’ll trust me. That’s the only way it works between us.”
He lets out a long, quiet sigh, burying his face in curve of her shoulder. “Trust,” he murmurs. “I can work with that.”
Jyn takes her turn to press her lips to his hair. “Good,” she murmurs. “Good. Now that we’ve got that settled, you’ll let me add that code to your datapad.”
A laugh stirs the skin of her neck, making her shiver. “I see this was all a cunning ploy to get me to use your codes.”
“We’ll call that an unforeseen benefit,” Jyn replies and grins like a fool at the ceiling when Cassian laughs again, low and delighted and maybe a little abashed. Wondering at his own good fortune.