A third time, he turns his face to press it into her. Hiding his face. His tears on her skin: a libation. Kissing the base of her breastbone right over her heart, to hold on to her (urging, pleading, rescuing). (Himself)
He can't say it aloud.
He can't.
He can't.
He has to.
Not moving the rest of him, keeping breath and heart and muscles and body calm… nonetheless he so carefully shifts, gently, silently pulling himself out of her. It would feel like such… violation… desecration… of her body and her choice, to say this of the man she'd just let inside her… and to forestall the dreaded but understandable possibility that she might in a moment push him violently away.
Not for the first time. You shouldn't have started but worse now to stop.
"I'd done the opposite every time before. I killed the man who told me about Galen. About Bodhi, about the planet killer. His name was Tivik. He set you and me, all of it, in motion. He was a man I'd recruited. I'd trained him. He'd sacrificed so much for our cause. He was on our side. I was holding his shoulder telling him it would all be okay when I shot him in the back. I did it so one of us… so I, could escape. So I wouldn't be caught. …No. That's wrong. I could have saved myself anyway. But I couldn't have saved him. Leaving him alive would leave him to Empire. Who'd kill him anyway but first get him to tell them everything he'd told me. I could have stayed to die with him. That would have been right. It would also make all his sacrifices worth nothing. There had to be a messenger. So what he gave would matter for anyone else.
"The tactics always made sense. Every time. It was the right move. When I killed others. When I deserted more. Every time it was for the big ideal. Every time it was breaking the smaller ones. Trying to build a better world by making it impossible for myself to ever belong in it.
"Yes. You were right. I followed orders knowing they were wrong. I did things without needing orders even though they were wrong. They were the right move for the cause. They were wrong under the cause—exactly what the cause was trying to fight against.
"Would I do which again…? Kill or desert an ally? I had so many. I'm a war criminal, Jyn. If we'd lived, if the Rebellion won, I'd never get to live in the world we'd fought for. I wouldn't be allowed to. I wouldn't try to."
Several dimensions and universes away, there's a file marked with his codename in the archives of Temple Base. His history and training and roster of missions and actions and certifications and a death report signed by Draven himself—who'd written by hand a final rank: de facto Commander/First officer of Rogue One.
[There's an identical designation for Jyn Erso. Since no one would ever know, and people would argue forever after, which had been which: which one commander, which one first officer. Some like Draven would never be able to prove but would privately know that both had been both. To/for/with each other.]
And there's a medical file. Of preexisting conditions treated and excised and cured on his first joining the Rebel Alliance, on injuries sustained and procedures performed over the course of his career with them. And two redacted lines about a series of self-inflicted damages and a near-fatal palliative overdose.
"Would I do it again."
His hand, still warm, still gentle, but a little more apprehensive, on her shoulder, still with the stitches and new scars from ripping itself over rocks. Not on Dantooine or Yavin or Scarif. Here in the canyon.
"No. Never again.
"Would I kill the man I'd been to serve with you again."
These next words will haunt him later. Tonight. Over the weeks to come. It's too much pressure to put on another human soul. To be not just another human but to be one's salvation. And she isn't… he doesn't need her to try to be… she doesn't do the work for him… he doesn't want her to be some Jedi or Saint. He wants her to be exactly another human. …But she was salvation, because she's what happened to him to make it change before even he realized or chose it.
But she may realize that.
What will back up on him later
is whether that can possibly be enough. Possibly resemble justice. Cosmically, in the nonexistant "balance". To consider one self-sacrificial act, giving his own singular life, could possibly equal the many lives he took on the way. His doesn't count for more just because it's his own. If just because he gave his life now means he can possibly be allowed to live a new one as if he is somehow reborn, as if he gets to just start over. As if he can ever be allowed to forget. To be happy.
But that's all for the head and the universe. Right now he can only say what's for her in his heart.
"Saving you saved me. Who I was had to die. On Scarif or anywhere. He wouldn't deserve to be here with you. With anyone.
"If I'd be lucky enough. If you'd give me the chance.
"Over and over. Siempre y para siempre. Always."
* * *
And after another moment, he shifted to move himself up, put his face nearer to hers, move his arm—a bit tentatively, with palpable fear, in case everything he just told her makes her not want to be held by him now… but without quite lighting upon her, the arm hovers, waiting, another offering: after taking so much from her, asking for her comfort and acceptance and protection… now offering his comfort and strength if she needs some back. If she touches to pull it toward her, he'll hold her. If not—you just told her you're a war criminal and murderer, she may kriffing well want some space—he'll leave her free.
(He doesn't pull away, doesn't leave her, but won't try to keep her with him. Give her more choice.)
But he keeps the panic that he may have just ruined everything at bay. Don't compound, this time. He keeps his breath and heart and body calm.
And his voice, when he murmurs; calm if quietly shaking: "I'm sorry. I'm making a pattern. I'm stopping it. I don't want us to associate sex with terrible revelation. New rule for the list. Applies only to me. If I feel compelled to pour my heart out to you after making love—if you can ever possibly want it from me again—it has to be a nice story."
(Even if not one of his own. Because cosmos-willing they're going to have many more wonderful moments together than either had had in their previous life. If, once again, he hadn't just ruined everything.)
no subject
He can't say it aloud.
He can't.
He can't.
He has to.
Not moving the rest of him, keeping breath and heart and muscles and body calm… nonetheless he so carefully shifts, gently, silently pulling himself out of her. It would feel like such… violation… desecration… of her body and her choice, to say this of the man she'd just let inside her… and to forestall the dreaded but understandable possibility that she might in a moment push him violently away.
Not for the first time. You shouldn't have started but worse now to stop.
"I'd done the opposite every time before. I killed the man who told me about Galen. About Bodhi, about the planet killer. His name was Tivik. He set you and me, all of it, in motion. He was a man I'd recruited. I'd trained him. He'd sacrificed so much for our cause. He was on our side. I was holding his shoulder telling him it would all be okay when I shot him in the back. I did it so one of us… so I, could escape. So I wouldn't be caught. …No. That's wrong. I could have saved myself anyway. But I couldn't have saved him. Leaving him alive would leave him to Empire. Who'd kill him anyway but first get him to tell them everything he'd told me. I could have stayed to die with him. That would have been right. It would also make all his sacrifices worth nothing. There had to be a messenger. So what he gave would matter for anyone else.
"The tactics always made sense. Every time. It was the right move. When I killed others. When I deserted more. Every time it was for the big ideal. Every time it was breaking the smaller ones. Trying to build a better world by making it impossible for myself to ever belong in it.
"Yes. You were right. I followed orders knowing they were wrong. I did things without needing orders even though they were wrong. They were the right move for the cause. They were wrong under the cause—exactly what the cause was trying to fight against.
"Would I do which again…? Kill or desert an ally? I had so many. I'm a war criminal, Jyn. If we'd lived, if the Rebellion won, I'd never get to live in the world we'd fought for. I wouldn't be allowed to. I wouldn't try to."
Several dimensions and universes away, there's a file marked with his codename in the archives of Temple Base. His history and training and roster of missions and actions and certifications and a death report signed by Draven himself—who'd written by hand a final rank: de facto Commander/First officer of Rogue One.
[There's an identical designation for Jyn Erso. Since no one would ever know, and people would argue forever after, which had been which: which one commander, which one first officer. Some like Draven would never be able to prove but would privately know that both had been both. To/for/with each other.]
And there's a medical file. Of preexisting conditions treated and excised and cured on his first joining the Rebel Alliance, on injuries sustained and procedures performed over the course of his career with them. And two redacted lines about a series of self-inflicted damages and a near-fatal palliative overdose.
"Would I do it again."
His hand, still warm, still gentle, but a little more apprehensive, on her shoulder, still with the stitches and new scars from ripping itself over rocks. Not on Dantooine or Yavin or Scarif. Here in the canyon.
"No. Never again.
"Would I kill the man I'd been to serve with you again."
These next words will haunt him later. Tonight. Over the weeks to come. It's too much pressure to put on another human soul. To be not just another human but to be one's salvation. And she isn't… he doesn't need her to try to be… she doesn't do the work for him… he doesn't want her to be some Jedi or Saint. He wants her to be exactly another human. …But she was salvation, because she's what happened to him to make it change before even he realized or chose it.
But she may realize that.
What will back up on him later
is whether that can possibly be enough. Possibly resemble justice. Cosmically, in the nonexistant "balance". To consider one self-sacrificial act, giving his own singular life, could possibly equal the many lives he took on the way. His doesn't count for more just because it's his own. If just because he gave his life now means he can possibly be allowed to live a new one as if he is somehow reborn, as if he gets to just start over. As if he can ever be allowed to forget. To be happy.
But that's all for the head and the universe. Right now he can only say what's for her in his heart.
"Saving you saved me. Who I was had to die. On Scarif or anywhere. He wouldn't deserve to be here with you. With anyone.
"If I'd be lucky enough. If you'd give me the chance.
"Over and over. Siempre y para siempre. Always."
* * *
And after another moment, he shifted to move himself up, put his face nearer to hers, move his arm—a bit tentatively, with palpable fear, in case everything he just told her makes her not want to be held by him now… but without quite lighting upon her, the arm hovers, waiting, another offering: after taking so much from her, asking for her comfort and acceptance and protection… now offering his comfort and strength if she needs some back. If she touches to pull it toward her, he'll hold her. If not—you just told her you're a war criminal and murderer, she may kriffing well want some space—he'll leave her free.
(He doesn't pull away, doesn't leave her, but won't try to keep her with him. Give her more choice.)
But he keeps the panic that he may have just ruined everything at bay. Don't compound, this time. He keeps his breath and heart and body calm.
And his voice, when he murmurs; calm if quietly shaking: "I'm sorry. I'm making a pattern. I'm stopping it. I don't want us to associate sex with terrible revelation. New rule for the list. Applies only to me. If I feel compelled to pour my heart out to you after making love—if you can ever possibly want it from me again—it has to be a nice story."
(Even if not one of his own. Because cosmos-willing they're going to have many more wonderful moments together than either had had in their previous life. If, once again, he hadn't just ruined everything.)