i can barely breathe when you're here loving me

[kestreldawn]

WHO: Jyn Erso
WHERE: Jyn/Cassian's Cabin
WHEN: March 2
OPEN TO: Cassian Andor
WARNINGS: Mention of self-harm, mention of depression
STATUS: CLOSED

---

Jyn's not used to gifts, in any shape or form. There's something about them that makes her feel uneasy (if she were to examine more closely, it'd be linked to a deep feeling of "undeserving," but she's yet to make that connection). Galen used to bring her presents, when she was small - he'd come home with a new toy for her almost every week, slip it under her tiny arm while she slept so that it would be there with her when she woke. A poor substitute for Papa, but better than nothing, she always thought.

But that was different.

That was the least that he could do, even though his presence would've been the best sort of gift for young Jyn.

This - waking up to find boxes on the table with her name scrawled across in unrecognizable penmanship - feels intrusive, violating. She stares at them for a long while before she even reaches out a hand, letting her fingers skim the outside of it as though searching for a trap - searching for the wire that will electrocute her if she tries to pry it open, or the sharp end of a needle covered in poison.

Once she deems them to be innocuous, she opens the smaller one first.

Inside, she finds a small toothbrush and toothpaste - not enough to last more than a couple of months, if she's particularly careful of how much she squeezes at a time - and a black multi-tool. The former items get laid on the table while she spends a few minutes examining the latter, pulling and swiveling and discovering all of its parts, before slipping it into her pocket.

She lifts the lid off of the second to discover an assortment of useful items, pulling each item out one after the other, setting them aside on the table. When she reaches the bottom, it's then that she sees it - the necklace. Her fingers instinctively reach up to her throat, where the one her mother had given her had hung for so many years. It hadn't survived the fountain (or was it that it hadn't survived Scarif?), and she'd ached for the weight of it against her throat, the affirmation of it - even if she didn't necessarily believe in its power.

Jyn can see upon visual inspection that it isn't exactly the same - the crystal is a different shape, a different size - but it's hauntingly similar. Her eyes dart around, half expecting to see a mysterious figure pop out from behind a door, the giver of the boxes, wanting to capture her reaction. Of course, there's no such person - but it doesn't stop the tremor in her fingers, the percussion of her heartbeat inside of her skull, against her chest - as she reaches out, lets her fingertips skate the clear, hard surface of the thing. She removes it from its now-empty cradle, lets it rest against the flesh of her palm.

Trust the Force, she can hear her mother say - or at least she think it's her mother. She's forgotten the sound of Lyra's voice, and had long ago. She can see her face, see the pain and ferocity behind her eyes, see the silent agonizing goodbye in them. Her fingers curl around the pendant - eyes closing, breathing labored - knowing there's only one thing to do with a gift like this.

Comments

[kestreldawn]

His request draws her out of the doorway, slipping through to crouch down beside him. She can only imagine what might be inside the box, seeing the paleness of his skin, the fright in his eyes, the twitch in his fingers. She's only received one gift before - some hair elastics and a hairbrush (which she'd originally thought he'd procured for her) - and isn't entirely sure how it all works. She wonders if horrific mementos of the past could be somehow "given" as a "gift," by whomever - or whatever - was being so generous.

She reaches into the box and rummages, fingers feeling the cold metal of -

A multi-tool.

Very similar to the one pressed against her skin in her trousers.

She inspects his, then adjusts herself - sitting on her bottom beside him - reaches into her pocket. She takes out her own multi-tool and holds them on each of her palms, side-by-side.

"It seems our gift-givers had similar ideas," she murmurs.

[candor1]

His eyes flash up from the tools to seek hers. Big dark eyes under a creased brow—looking incredulous or lost or… a bit… kicked.

"I don't know what they want with us," he said, in a voice so faint it's like wind down a hallway.

At the back of his mind: I sound like Finnick.

But in this detail, Finnick's only been more open (with Cassian at least) about what everyone fears. Should fear. …Does.

It's Cassian that's been one of the exceptions. Seeing this place as reward or salvation. Not initially, but since Jyn arrived.

…It is like being kicked. Bitten. Like a beloved pet or partner suddenly turning against you.

Blue's eyes as she met his across Narede's and Dorosz's bodies on the shooting ground. Before her hand moved toward the self-detonator and her lips voicelessly formed the word 'RUN'

Kay's unprecedently… not really but sounding… emotional voice: 'CLIMB'

A reminder: for as much of Finnick's paranoia that may be insupportable, unproveable… so is Cassian's hope. That this was meant to be could be what he and Jyn had been denied.

That's not what happens in war. It's just not what happens.

"I don't want to carry a weapon again. Ever."

The pocket knife, fine… one could do more damage to another being with a found rock as with that tiny blade. He wasn't going to avoid all tools or physical objects again. But this… he'd seen mechanics at Base One with such things. But he'd also seen agents with them. The tools inside could be for fixing machinery… but there was so little machinery here…

They could equally be for…

…
…
In some of his dreams he tortured her
…

…

But she has her own.

I'm never fighting her. Never. I don't care what you do.

You won't be able to make me. I didn't before.

Please let that be true.



Shaking his head raggedly, he touched his forehead to her shoulder.

"I used to be able to stay so calm," he says, muffled, against her sleeve. "Here there's nothing to fight and I'm cowering at shadows…"

…because here there's nothing to fight. Nothing that's presented itself, become manifest, made itself understood.

…It's what he's been doing with Jyn, too. Perhaps what he's been unable to cope with is that there aren't problems to solve. As that's never been the case before. The opposite from everything he worked and adapted to. His brain now can't stop trying to anticipate or solve them regardless. So it's inventing them. Self-fulfilling them.

…Lacking a common, external enemy, the internal ones can arise.

"I don't want to fight you," he whispers, still into her arm. His hands are clasped together but still visibly shaking in his lap. "Not ever."

[kestreldawn]

They? she thinks to ask, but bites the inside of her cheek instead. She recalls bits and pieces of Kira's conversation with her - the shifting nature of his gaze as it darted around the room, as though he expected there to be ears and eyes within the grain of the wood, waiting for him to speak too much, reveal too much - before descending upon him like a wild animal.

"I don't think we arrive through the fountain," he'd said. "The bottom is solid, and the water doesn't heal injuries. I think they do something to us--drug us maybe, to keep us asleep, while they put us in clothes and heal us. Then they put us in the fountain when no one is around, and we wake up." She'd asked him who 'they' was then, too, the way her tongued itched to ask now. He'd said they'd never found anyone. Used the term "overseer." She'd felt the bile rise up in her throat like a volcano when he'd first shared the information with her, but now it only produces a faint gurgling underneath the surface. She isn't particularly pleased with the idea of being someone's prisoner, someone's pet in a cage, but -

At the same time -

It's allowed her this - it's allowed her Cassian.

She's been afraid to question it too much, been afraid to demand too many answers out of fear that it'll lead to retribution in the form of his absence. A permanent kind.

At the weight of his forehead against her shoulder, she gently places both of their multi-tools down by her feet, shifts herself so she's behind him - chest pressed to his back, legs straddling his hips - and wraps her arms around him with strength and steadiness. She rests her chin on his shoulder and kisses his temple.

She runs the tip of her tongue along the ridges of the roof of her mouth, biting back a comment about how it feels like he already is fighting her, in his own way. An empty bed, a vacant gaze, a falsified smile - they all felt like their own blaster bolts, aimed squarely at her chest.

But she knows what he means.

Of course she knows.

"Our prisons are the ones we carry within us," she says softly into his ear. "We've spent lifetimes building them; we can't expect to be able to escape them so quickly." Her eyes drift over to the multi-tools. "We're children of war. Everything we've ever done has been to fight, and to survive, and to kill. But we don't have to live like that anymore." She turns, shifts her gaze to the side of his face, presses her lips to the back of his shoulder. "These don't have to be weapons, if we don't want them to be."

[candor1]

I'm so tired Jyn please let me rest in you
do it turn around and get lost in her
there's nothing wrong with it she's chosen it
soldier, Agent Fulcrum, turn your jodido self around

She's so unbelievably right.

Chirrut is there with them, not for Jyn to know in saying but Cassian to know in hearing it: the echoing words. And Chirrut repeats his admiringly affectionate assessment of Jyn: She shines

And Cassian knows she's right…

…oh… …damn…

He knows all of this.

He's known it for so long. He's worked with veterans time and again. And agents and volunteers and soldiers who should have gotten to be veterans but had to keep going. Who worked through—he worked them through—exactly what he's experiencing right now.

Intensive adaptation to overspecialized conditions can save you from those conditions, but become maladaptive, turn self-destructive, if one succeeds in overcoming—changing—is taken out of—those conditions. They don't translate anywhere else.

(An ulcer: when the stomach loses its lining and begins digesting itself)

Even this downward spiral, his nightmares and paranoia and withdrawal, he suddenly realizes (and should have before), is textbook. Jyn's arrival, for which he'd been waiting without hoping but it actually happened, made him so happy. Even without all that unexpected and… frankly… incredible sex (Jyn has no basis for comparison but Cassian does and doesn't know how to tell her how acutely there is no comparison to her), his body chemistry would still have been flushed with natural stimulants. Giving him joy to a degree and duration he'd never built up to before and so for which he was utterly unprepared.

He should have anticipated that such a high is quite usually followed by a crash.

Adrenaline and serotonin draining away leaving a steeper deficit than before.

…But the good news of all that. It was temporary. He only had to outlast it.

Nor did he have to credit the thoughts his brain tried to supply to explain the feelings that were in fact biochemical.

…And stop trying so hard not to hurt her that the endeavor was karking hurting her.


Identifying the problem can help… it's not always enough… by its nature one can't likely think their way out of a mental problem.

But, as he'd been told, and had time and again instructed others: One can try to behave their way out.

If you force yourself to go through the motions of treading water, it doesn't matter whether you want or believe it or not. You will stay afloat.



When she put her arms around him, he'd curled his fingers around them. Lowering his face to her arms. Trying not to cling so hard as to bruise. His body trembling… caught between wanting the comfort she was offering, so badly, and feeling… like… he should… resist it. Not accept what he wanted and she was offering.

But for kark's sake, Why? What is there re: "should" beyond what they both want and full willingly give?

She finishes speaking. And all the realizations above flood into him. And he hears her… and knows she's right.

And. As gently as she spoke, as bravely as she'd protected him from his own effect on her, he heard in her voice, felt in her body, the unspoken too.

Don't try so hard not to hurt her that you hurt her.

This battle, Capitán Idiota, is not the right cause.

This once, the right move is surrender.


A tear falls down his face onto her arm.

And with a shudder like breaking free of carbonite, he turns and grabs her in his arms, burying his face in her hair.

His shuddered breaths may or may not contain words. "Lo siento. Lo siento."

[kestreldawn]

When the false premonitions had come to her, first on the elevator on Scarif, she'd pictured a thousand versions of what could happen, if only:

A life dedicated to the Alliance, to destroying the Empire one ship at a time;
Or a life holed away on a desolate planet in the Outer Rim, the life untouched by war her father had wished for her;
Or a life eventually full of the wails of babes, the laughter of children (though she now knows such a thing would have been impossible);

A life, at the end of which, weathered, calloused hands would come together -
Staring into the setting suns -
Satiated, satisfied, content.

She hadn't pictured, hadn't imagined, hadn't conceived that the war would follow them. That no matter how 'untouched' their surroundings, that the war would be kept alive and horrific inside of their minds, their souls, the fabric of their beings.

But now, feeling the strength in Cassian's grip on her arms - the tremor in his body - the desperation and fear and turmoil - she knows it's still in them. That they will continue to fight those wars, with themselves and with each other, until the day they will lay down their arms, shed their armored casings, reveal the soft, pink flesh underneath -

And it's a world, a life she desperately wants.

She hushes soothing sounds as she tenderly rakes the hair at the back of his head. She hears the words - runs through the list of the few he's taught her - realizes they aren't there. As with all the others, there's something in her that already knows their meaning - but it cannot seem to communicate with the rest of her.

"What does that mean?"

[candor1]

He opens his mouth to answer. But it takes a few minutes before he can breathe steadily enough to actually do so.

At which point, he gets some degree of hold of himself.

The feelings don't need respecting. They lie to you. Behave your way out.

He sat back, eyes closed, focusing on his breathing, though his hands didn't need sight or focus to find their places: one holding her shoulder, the other finding the curve of her face. So anchored, so braced, he took one more long, low breath, and opened his eyes to look in hers.

"It means 'I'm sorry'," he said. "And I am. I haven't been good to you these last… however long it's been. You just helped me figure out why. And that I can stop." Another low, controlled breath. When it doesn't come naturally, make it. He simultaneously tightened his hand on her shoulder and gentled his touch on her face.

This time he repeated, not from involuntary regression or to hide behind a language she couldn't respond to, but to teach her the phrase—another bridge across their pasts and subconsciouses—and atone for hiding and withdrawing and emphasizing he would change it. "Lo siento. 'I'm sorry'. I'm sorry, Jyn."

I'm sorry to be cut of this fabric. Made by the war.

[kestreldawn]

She thinks back to the Captain she'd met on Yavin IV - the way he'd watched her with those dark eyes, cool and detached and unfeeling. She knew, then, that he saw her as nothing more than an expendable pawn in the greater scheme, the greater plan of the Alliance.

She thinks back to the man she'd met back then.

Sees, feels, hears, smells the man in front of her now.

Loves him, so deeply and so incredibly and so profoundly, for both versions she's been lucky enough to know.

Feels an overwhelming gratitude to see this side of him, however broken and damaged and defunct he might feel (she feels it in herself, too - down to the breath in her lungs).

Her brows gather at his apology, his admission of guilt. An empty bed, a vacant gaze, a falsified smile .. This war of hearts and fractured pasts is one she's ill-equipped to survive, and she doesn't want to fight - not anymore, not with him. She'd laid down her weapons at his feet the moment she'd burst through the door of the cabin.

She rests her hand atop his on the side of her face, using her other to swipe her thumb across his lip.

"I'm with you," she whispers, tapping forehead to forehead. "Don't treat me like I've already left."

[candor1]

Actually he'd seen her as a threat.

The worst he'd ever faced.

Because she was so instantly recognizably, viscerally like himself.



He closes his eyes, his face against hers, mind whirling now to try and work out a safeguard… so he could promise her he never would again and actually be confident he could keep it…

…huh.

For all that it was forged in war, in an overspecialized environment, damned if the strategic mind couldn't translate after all.

His eyes opened.

He sat back.

He looked at her a moment in dizzying thought.

Then abruptly straightened. Not full formally, but… with a bit of his old air of command.

In apparent nonsequiteur, Cassian said, "Before we landed on Scarif, Lieutenant Sefla told me he'd promoted you to sergeant. Is that right?"

[kestreldawn]

Jyn's hands fall from their faces into her lap with a light thud as he moves, expectant eyes carefully considering him - watching the evolution of his body, his face, the glint in his eyes.

She sees the way he slips back into the jacket of who he once was, narrows her eyes to figure out why.

His question isn't what she's expecting, and the idle blinks that follow with a soft parting of lips are proof of that. Her mind scrambles, fumbles, trying to catch up - he asked you a question. Lieutenant Sefla. She tries to picture his face, tries to hear his voice.

"Uh - he," she starts, tripping over her words as she eventually nods. "Er, yes. He did. He promoted me. Though it was mostly for show, I think. Why, er, why do you ask?"

[candor1]

Cassian lowers his hands as well.

They're steady now.

"Sergeant Jyn Erso," he said, calmly, formally—with just enough self-awareness of the incongruity of the situation that a bit of warmth finally returned to his voice. "With the authority I hold as captain of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, I promote you to the rank of Commandant."

He simultaneously squared his shoulders—but instead of saluting her (that would be too far), he took her hand again.

"Which means," he said, dropping the ceremony, between just them once more, "you now outrank me.

"So. Next time I start getting delusions above my station. You can remind me whether you want to be near me, what you want to do with me, and how any of that makes you feel, is your choice. Your judgment. Not mine. And if reminding doesn't work… you can command me."

His eyes search hers, letting some of his vulnerability and worry there show, to see if she's comfortable with it. If she understands. That it isn't to create the kind of power imbalance he's been afraid of imposing on her only in reverse. Nor that she is now responsible for him in other ways or always has to be the strong or dominant one. Just that it's a technique. That would likely be unidirectional since he's the one so programmed by military structure; she's more free and fluid than that. And for this purpose, it would help her free him.

Trying to articulate that, he gets near: "Since I can't seem to shake those structures anyway… we can try to make them work for us?"

[kestreldawn]

Aside from the fact that it had come so late in the game and had mostly (at least, Jyn suspects) been to make her feel like she had more control than she really did, she's never really been one for titles. Saw certainly never really used them - everyone was an insurgent, everyone was a soldier. She'd had a certain .. elevation of status, due to their relationship and connection with one another, but it wasn't ever doled out as something official. Hearing Cassian call her "Sergeant" with such bravado in his voice immediately sparks something in her brain that makes her back straighten - her chin flick back slightly.

His promotion leaves her feeling .. confused - but the touch of his hand brings her back, gaze falling down to their fingers for a moment before rising to meet his eyes again (she wonders if the leap of her stomach will ever stop whenever they meet).

She isn't quick to respond, needing to allow the thought, the idea, the responsibility float in her cranial cavern for a few moments. Stretches and flexes her jaw as she chews on her lip. Sees - immediately - the vulnerability in his eyes.

"It'll - be difficult at first, I think," she finally says, slow to release each word from her mouth, "I didn't even really want the rank of Sergeant when Sefla gave it to me; the whole concept of rank never made its way into Saw's group." She gives her head a slight shakes as though to realign her thoughts, her words. Places one hand on the side of his neck, thumb tracing his jaw line. "But - I'll try. If it's going to help, if it's going to give me the wings I need to fly over the canyon, of course I'll try." A pause. "All the way."

She feels the crystal burn in her pocket - keeps her hand and gaze on him a moment longer before sliding her fingers into the pocket and pulling out the necklace. Eyes fall to it as she continues to speak:

"This was one of the items in the box. I think - I think it's meant to be like the one I had. I don't know if I ever told you - that it was my mother's. She'd given it to me the last time I saw her on Lah'mu," she explains, voice falling to a breath. Even now, the memories feel like a searing steel blade in her chest. "But - I don't want it. I don't need to cling to what I lost." She meets his eyes, their light soft and flickering like a candle. "I want you to have it. If you'll take it." Her lips twitch with a smirk as she adds, "Or I could command you to take it, I suppose." Of course, she'd rather not - she rather he accept willingly, of his own volition. She won't force him.

[candor1]

He leaned his face slightly into her touch, eyes staying on hers. The canyon… She didn't mean their new world… he felt a pang realizing what she did mean. But held her gaze.

He would have followed the trajectory of her touch—all the way—to her: to frame her face the way she was his and let himself go fully to kiss her. But something in her expression and pose said she wasn't finished thinking or speaking or deciding, so he waited and watched.

He wasn't expecting… the story (…at last; the importance of the necklace to her being had been obvious from first sight of it; but it had been irrelevant to their work, so he hadn't tried to find out; even as his interest in her beyond the mission had grown, it would never have occurred to him to be remotely his business; hadn't thought to dream it ever would) of the crystal necklace.

To be offered the object itself…

Cassian had lived out of one duffel or another all of his life. …Not even the same one. Forget about personal talismans: he hadn't even owned the bags themselves, let alone the gear in them. He packed impersonal and he packed light. Anything he'd had as a child was from the Empire and been left with them. Anything he'd actually kept or brought with him from the Insurgency had been antibiotically cured or surgically cut out of him on joining the Alliance. Anything after that was on loan for and from the Rebellion.

He supposed his BlasTech, concealed sidearm, compact security kit, captain's insignia, identifier transponder, and its hidden suicide pill had been his. The things that never left him even as everything else was constantly used up or swapped out. He hadn't felt exactly emotionally attached to them. For all the acquisition of each marked a certification, an achievement, and had been given to him by Draven, that hardly made them fatherly tokens.

It might not be the actual crystal from Jyn's mother. But it wasn't the object itself that carried the meaning. And Jyn had just imbued this one with that meaning. (A last gift from a parent. Deathless protection and love. How he'd raged for a while against the utter absence of such things from his own.) And she wanted to give it him.

Slowly, almost nervously, Cassian reached his hand to hers, resting the very ends of his fingers on her crystal in her palm.

Her joke betrayed an important concern… and partly because it absolutely should be addressed, but more partly because he hadn't yet formed what on Fest he was going to say in answer to the rest of this, Cassian said, in a slightly (not bad, just) strange voice, "Don't worry that I won't make my own choices from now on. The rank thing… think of it as an escape code to break out of a feedback loop." (Droid programming terminology probably not too helpful; rephrased—) "A reverse safeword. It won't have effect unless you invoke it specifically. You know… start by calling me by my formal title and it'll activate yours. It's you giving me a safety net to stop when I'm falling, when I try to anticipate your decisions regarding yourself in relation to me. My decisions regarding myself in relation to you… those will still be my own. I know you'd never try to make them for me. And I know you want to trust them when I do."

His fingers remain suspended a moment, then close around the crystal. But keeps it and his grip on it in her hand still, running his thumb along her skin.

"I've never had anything like this before. It's a precious gift. I'll treasure it. …It might even help me. Thank you."

[kestreldawn]

The droid analogy is lost on her, completely. She blinks blankly a few times, visibly relieved for his second explanation - one that makes sense. That it isn't to control him (something she doesn't want to do, ever) or to create some kind of power imbalance. That it isn't to elevate her in their relationship or degrade him. If anything, she thinks, it'll give her even more autonomy over herself .. only with Cassian, too.

"I want us to be equal - always equal," she says quietly, letting the thought linger before turning her attention back to the necklace. "It isn't exactly the same," Jyn begins to explain quietly, a tingle of electricity darting up her hand, arm, shoulder at the trail of his thumb. "The shape is - it's different, not as smooth or worn down. And it's missing the inscription that was on it." It didn't matter that it wasn't exactly the same, she knows this - but for some reason, she feels the need to explain. She swears it turns into its own flame at random points, could've sworn it singed her skin without a trace on more than one occasion. She remembers clutching it when they'd approached Scarif, listening to Bodhi try to talk his way through the gate.

"I don't know where she got it. I think she'd just - taken it, from somewhere. I'd asked her about it once, before bed time, but she never really gave me much of an answer." Her gaze goes unfocused, lost somewhere around their hands, the mind behind it travelling through the forest of memories. Her tongue goes stagnant, seems to paralyze itself despite wanting to continue. It's a story she's not told anyone - not Saw, not Maia, not anyone. Cassian hadn't invoked the tell me something rule, but she sees no reason to withhold the information.

Not that it matters, now.

It's not as though her mother's been alive at any point in the recent past.

"The last time I saw her was on Lah'mu, when Krennic found us. She and I were supposed to run for the bunker my father had made. He'd - he'd called it a game, would have me run and find it and called it our 'hiding spot.' But I'd always known it was something more than that, even if he never used a title. I knew it wasn't just for fun. I knew he was - was training me, for the day I'd have to use it." She tightens the grip on his hand to keep hers from trembling, lids falling to lightly meet their lower counterpart. "But at the last minute, she'd taken the necklace off, put it around my neck, told me to trust in the Force. And she went back - she went back with a blaster and shot Krennic in the arm, before -"

Her jaw tightens, molars against molars, feeling like they might very well shatter.

"He ordered his men to kill her." Eyes open - find his, glossy and brimming. "I watched her fall to the ground, heard my father cry." Perhaps there's a piece of Jyn that's always harbored the guilt that she didn't - couldn't - do anything to save her. That she'd inherited her spirit and love of adventure and fiery temper but had no mother to soothe her, embrace her, love her. "I don't want this to be a reminder of that, or of her. I want it - I want you to choose its meaning now. My only request is -" The corners of her lips twitch with a lopsided smile. "Make it something happy."

[candor1]

He adjusted the grip of their hands, palming the crystal to be safe but not a barrier between them; giving as much of he could of firm, warm support through the hold of his hand on hers. Hurting for her. Giving her pain all the attention and space it's probably never been allowed before to take.

Krennic is a name he knows from the files, but only now matches to the person: that was The Man in White. The man he'd shot off of Jyn's back as she faced him down. The man he'd held her back from killing.

He looks down at the crystal, gives a slight smile of thoughtfully processing her words. A frown takes over though…

He moves his other hand, protectively wrapping it around the crystal. The returns his gaze to their joint hands, travels up her arms to her face.

"I will. …I have to get something out of the way, first…?"

It felt like stealing the moment from her… but it was also possibly holding his end of the deal. Tell me something. A story for a story. One of mine for one of yours.

Waiting for a sign of assent from her, he took a slow breath.

"I was selfish to stop you," said Cassian. "On the citadel tower. I'm sorry. I… needed to keep you. With me. I knew I didn't have much time left—" didn't matter if the Death Star had arrived, he was injured internally from the shooting and the fall and the climb; even if Jyn had gotten him onto a ship, he was pretty sure he would have been dead before they reached med aid. "—and I wanted it to be with you. And if there was a chance you could get away, there was no time for…" He stopped himself, shook his head. "…no. It was more… I know you'd killed before. But I didn't know if you'd ever killed outside of battle. Someone who was helpless. Where it was… personal. Intimate. That's very different. —The way you were able to speak to the Council, and speak to me…" After Eadu… "I assumed not. There wasn't much time, but it was more… I just didn't want to lose who you were, as I'd known you. And doing that might have changed you."

He shakes his head slightly, not breaking their gaze. "But it wasn't my call." Repeating, "It was selfish. In the face of all he took from you. It wasn't to protect you. It wasn't judging right or wrong." As if he were in a position to do so for her. "It was all for me."

Maybe… maybe there had been an element of not wanting her to sacrifice her own last moments to revenge, either. But that could too easily be justification after the fact—especially knowing as he did now that the Death Star would fire and neither would get away—so he didn't say it.

[kestreldawn]

The respect and gentleness with which he handles the crystal warms something deep in the pit of her. That something from her life - from her old life - could mean so much to him so rapidly. That he understands the gravity of it - even though it's nothing more than a fragment of stone, at the core of it. Her eyes float down to his lips as he begins to speak - wanting to find them with her own - but corrals the impulse to respect his story, his willingness to share.

Once the silence settles around and between them again, she raises a hand to the side of his face, lets it land there with the delicacy of a butterfly - then slides it back to his shoulder blades to embrace him. Let their heartbeats create their percussive melodies together.

She closes her eyes, feels that same explosive tightness in her chest squarely over her heart - a heart so full of love, and gratitude, and softness, and respect, and awe, and ..

"It was the right call to make," she finally says on a breath. "I would've lost myself. I'd .. I'd never killed a civilian before, in all the years that I fought under and beside Saw. In all the years I'd spent as a vagabond, and a criminal, and a thief - I'd never once killed a civilian." A slight pause. "Though I would've argued that Krennic was anything but." She shakes her head, stray tears free-falling to the back of his shirt. "You saved me from a path I wouldn't have been able to come back from."

[candor1]

He runs his hand through her hair, holding her head, turning his face to kiss the side of it. I'm so glad. Thank you for letting me keep you. Thank you for staying with me.

Much as he wanted to keep holding her, warming her, especially to make up for his recent pointless spell of windchill… he sat back. Keeping one hand on her face, bringing the other up between them so he could look again at the crystal. See this time not just its significance but its practical realities. Yes, the cord was long enough without adjustment. Taking his hand momentarily from Jyn's skin, he used both to put the cord around his ducked head. Raised it, met her eyes, with an expression somewhere between reverence and a smile, and tucked the crystal between his shirt and skin. "You'll know where it is," he said, "if you ever need it back." In the meantime… he'd work on figuring out how to tell her what it meant to him. He'd already chosen—or it had chosen him. And yes, it was happy.

i just remembered casper "can i keep you?"

[kestreldawn]

Her eyes float down to the crystal as his do, seeing all of its inconsistencies from the one her mother had placed around her neck so many years prior. It doesn't matter that they're not the same. It's the meaning of it. Lyra had given it to Jyn as a talisman meant to shield her from harm (Jyn wants to argue that having her actual mother would have done that better, but that's the bitterness talking), and perhaps Jyn means something similar.

There isn't the shadow of the Empire looming here, no threat of war, but -

Please, stay safe. Please, stay with me. Please. Por favor. I can't lose you. I'm sorry I'm weak, I'm sorry I'm not strong enough to do this alone. Lo siento, lo siento ..

She watches him slip it on, follows it into its hiding space - close to his skin, close to his warmth, close to his heart. Exactly where she wants to be. Lifts her eyes to meet his and shakes her head.

"It's yours now."

Awwww YES

[candor1]

He placed his palm over the crystal over his heart. Leaned over to kiss her. Murmured against her lips, "Sí. Y soy tuyo. And I'm yours."

[kestreldawn]

"If it - ends up bothering you, jabbing you, or is just - uncomfortable, you don't have to wear it," Jyn suddenly blurts out, a twinge of pink rising in her cheeks. "It'd mostly stay tucked underneath my clothes, but there were a few times where it'd almost choked me. Got caught on something or twisted and tightened." She doesn't know why she's giving him an out now. At least not consciously.

Underneath, in the constantly tumultuous waters of her mind, she silently offers him -

you can still say no;
you can still back out;
you can still leave;
(pleasedon'tholykriffpleasedon't)
I won't blame you if you do.

"You aren't obligated."

[candor1]

Cassian could hear, feel, see the subtext… decided to counter it with offering her an exit in return. Not out of the relationship, nor the gift, but out of the emotional moment. Sometimes one could combat trauma with humor, ice with warmth.

"It can't be more intrusive than a blaster," he murmured, smiling. "You don't want to know some of the places I've had to hide one of those." —On second thought: "Unless you have stories about that you want to trade…"

On impulse, he snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her to him abruptly, breathtakingly, like a dance move. "If anything, I'm more worried about it jabbing into you." And demonstrated how that might happen by pressing their chests together as they kissed.

(The crystal did indeed jut into them… but he, at least, didn't mind.)

[kestreldawn]

Kriff, she loves him.

To the very fabric of her existence, as it ripples in the wind of whatever benevolent universe decided to give them this - this life, this chance, this future. When she feels it tearing, when the frayed ends and shoddy patchwork begins to go threadbare, he's there - needle in hand, ready to sew her back together.

Her brow lifts at his suggestion as a laugh escapes her disguised as staccato puffs of air.

"I don't have any of my own, but please - do continue," she manages to blurt out, voice quivering with the laugh she's trying to tamp down. But it comes out on the heels of a sharp gasp at sudden and sharp pull of her body towards his, and she thinks she may end up nothing more than a puddle of Jyn-like ooze on the ground. The crystal is there - she feels it, but it doesn't hurt; it feels solid, it feels real. A grounding token, of sorts.

One hand to his cheek, the other on his shoulder. She dares a tiny nip of his bottom lip as she separates them, taps their forehead together. Keeps the beautiful humor of the moment by adding,

"Stars, you stink."

[candor1]

"¡Muchas gracías!" he laughed. When he had access to a barracks amenities, his personal upkeep tended to be inspection-impeccable… but this past week he'd admittedly fallen into will be on stakeout camping in these clothes for two weeks mustn't think about it shutdown. He should do something about that.

—But first.

"Another moment." He sat back—though keeping his hand lightly at her waist—and reached down with his free hand to pick up the second box. From inside, he scooped a small pouch into his palm and showed it to her.

"It felt like I was being offered a choice," he said. "I think I was putting too much symbolism on that." The universe doesn't really do things so personally. Everyone was too small for that. "But… it would be nice to… learn how to… help something live. But I don't know anything about this. You lived on a farm once…?"

The pouch was full of gardening seeds.

[kestreldawn]

A bright bell of laughter leaves her at his response; that's a phrase she knew and remembered. She playfully rolls her eyes up and to the side, but the adoration behind them never falters, never wavers.

They track his movements as he rummages through the box at his feet, quickly scanning over the pouch once it's produced. They linger there while he speaks, her mind beginning to fabricate a thousand different possibilities of what could be contained inside. The mention of a farm makes her seek him out again, eyes narrowing slightly with concentration and slight confusion.

With quick, nimble fingers, she unties and loosens the pouch to see the seeds inside. She takes a couple in between her fingers, feels the familiar firmness of them. Different plants, she imagines, but enough similarities to transport her back to Lah'mu. There's a distant, lazy smile on her face as she remembers.

"My father was actually not nearly as good a farmer as he was a scientist," she recalls, her tone light. "Many of the plants died our first few months there. He'd spend more time trying to theorize about moss and bacteria than trying to cultivate the plants themselves. But he eventually got better at it - er, sort of. I'd sometimes end up ruining the plants while I'd play in the fields with my dolls. Inadvertently, of course. The agricultural droids would have to roll in after, repair all the damage." She blinks herself back to the porch, to her place opposite him, eyes coming back into focus. Smiles at the sight of him. "I don't know how much I remember, but we're relatively intelligent; I think we can figure out between the two of us."

[candor1]

Yes. Everything else was workable as long as it was the two of them. He smiled in amusement then relief and leaned forward to kiss her again. Murmured, "Thank you. …Let's go inside. I'll clean up."

But on the verge of standing, hesitated once more. Then nodded and held out his hand… for the multitool. "…I'll take that back."

[kestreldawn]

She's forgotten she's even holding the thing - offers a bit of a sheepish glance before placing it back onto his outstretched palm before standing. She gathers his boxes in her arms before walking back inside, placing them down near hers. One hand goes to her waist as she considers them both, gestures towards them.

"They had some other things, aside from the multi-tool and necklace," she explains. Her gaze lingers - eyeing them as though a bomb, ticking and blinking, set to explode at any moment. "Do - do you know where they come from?"

[candor1]

He shook his head. "Our unknown 'hosts'. Or 'captors'. Or… whatever they are." He hefted the multitool experimentally. Gave it a spin in his hand. Ran his fingers over several of its grooves. And decided not to push himself too hard. He'd see what functions it concealed later. For now, he slipped it into his pocket, the seeds into another. And also stood. Taking the boxes (with their final gift: a mercifully unambiguous teeth cleaning set) up with him.

"I get the feeling," he said, "we're either an experiment or pets. Maybe both. Maybe it's as simple as… them wanting to see how our kind survives without much tech. What we seek and build for ourselves when nothing is provided. I don't know. Since whatever had the power to bring us here must be at a technological level so far beyond ours…" He shrugged slightly, seeming simultaneously uncomfortable with the admission of willing defeat (he, an intelligence agent) yet also the slight relief of having been decommissioned. "They saved our lives," he said, "and brought us back together. And waited to do so until there was nothing else we would be able to contribute or experience where we came from. I consider that fair trade. I'll be their specimen to be so with you. In the absence of further facts… I'm choosing to assume benevolence." Choosing hope.

[kestreldawn]

His theories echo what Kira had told her. She remembers the way her stomach lurched at the thought of being a pet in a cage - she'd spent too much of her life in one, had thought she would die in the one on Wobani. It incited a visceral reaction in her - and she'd almost vomitted the little food he'd given her all over the floor. She feels the same sort of gurgle in her gut now, though it's not as violent as it had been the first time.

His conclusion brings her focus back to him, her feet padding towards him to allow her hands to take his affectionately. She raises them, brings his palms to her waist and rests her forearms on his shoulders. Wades in the dark pools of his eyes while lighting his face with hers.

"Hard to complain when it's brought me to you," she murmurs quietly. "And to think, there's no rebellion here to build." Rebellions are built on hope, she remembers. "Of all the strange sort of cages I've found myself in, this is by far the best - though having you in any of the others would've made it better."

[candor1]

He sets the boxes aside as she comes to him, very glad he has when she takes his hands and sets them against her. He follows the gentle guidance with his whole body, moving all he can without breaking eyeline against her.

"It could be deluding myself," he said. "But I don't know the last time I felt more free."

[kestreldawn]

"Funny, isn't it?" she asks, pulling them together, cheek pressed to his shoulder. "To be a caged thing, yet feel more free than when we'd been back there?" There, meaning home - though she always hesitates to use the word. It's where she's from, it's where she's born, it's where she'd lived her life - but there was no sense of longing inside of her. Perhaps for something silly, something superficial - a comm, a holodrama, a ship - but nothing below the surface. She had nothing to return to, if she could.

No, home is here.

Home is wherever Cassian happens to be. It wasn't confined to physicality and structures and architectural feats.

"It's a bit scary," she whispers, "But I'm less afraid with you at my side."

[candor1]

"I'm more afraid," he murmured back, lips and breath tingling the words against her hair. "But it's good. Not being afraid meant I could take all the chances I had to because I didn't mind if instead I died." In a fairer world… But the alley with Tivik was mercifully far away now. From the cabin with Jyn. "Being scared means I care again. I have something I'm actually worried to lose. And which I don't want to leave."

[kestreldawn]

Her body softens - from crown to sole - under the security, strength, love in his words. They echo to her heart, her spirit - they know those feelings well. Know what it's like to live recklessly and with abandon, never fearing death or destruction. Know what it's like to force all offers of something more worthwhile, something to cling to far away - knowing they'd force her to care.

And yet, at the end - she had been afraid.

"I didn't want to die," she blurts out before she can wrangle her tongue in to behave. "Back on Scarif." Eyes close, remembering - searing heat, blinding light. Muscle and bone and heartbeats. "Because you'd finally given me something to care about. Something to want to live for, and with. I'd never had that before."

[candor1]

"I didn't want you to die either," said Cassian. Knowing it might be the odder thing to say, but also truer. He'd been ready, for himself. It was a better ending than he'd expected, dared to dream of… deserved. But Jyn… "It was so… cosmically… unjust. That you'd had so much taken from you by the war, and gave up more so others could have it better, but you would never have 'better' back. You deserved more. I hated that you'd never get to… I don't know. Sit on a beach like that without the massive shockwave."

It's surprisingly easy (almost funny) to say. Considering how the reality behind the flippant words still recurrently blinded his dreams.

"And…" fairness, evenness, reciprocity: "I was ready to go for myself… you were giving me a better death in every way than I could have ever had alone. But I did wish… that you could have… other… moments… in a life… was sorry you couldn't… and sorry that I couldn't help give any of them to you."

…With a surging impulse he would have attributed to Chirrut and other (though, because of Chirrut, now thought more affectionately than in the past) religious nutjobs, Cassian was suddenly tempted to run out into the snow, run out to the waterfall, let the elements batter him and shout his thanks to the Beings of this place. For providing exactly that.

[kestreldawn]

"I hadn't really had much else to give, at the end." The words leave her mouth, but the chambers of her heart know the truth: the little she did have, they'd taken it: her father, any hope of a rekindled relationship to make up for lost time, her freedom, her free will, and then, in the end, her life. Of course, they'd also given her something she'd never have anticipated or expected: Cassian.

"You'd made me believe in a cause," she adds softly, "Something I'd never had before. When - Back on Jedha, when we found Saw - before you came to pull me away, he asked if I could stand to see the Imperial flag across the galaxy." She pauses, the strain of his withered voice echoing in her ears, even now. "I told him it wasn't a problem if you never looked up." A quiet laugh of incredulity at her own stupidity. "And I'd meant it. At least then I did." She pulls away to search for his eyes, fingertips trailing the delicate skin at the cliff of his jaw. "But you changed that."

And it was because of him that, for the first time, she'd wanted to live. Wanted to pursue a life not shadowed and dictated by war, and death, and destruction. Wanted the quiet life her father had teasingly taunted her with in his hologram. Wanted it with Cassian.

"It's hard to ever feel anger towards this place, even if there are .. overseers or watchers, when we're both here together."

[candor1]

He trembled a bit, holding her close and kissing her face. I made you believe in a cause that killed you.

…No, the Empire did that. They'd taken back some of her own.

He hoped.

…He knew. He wasn't getting this guilt or doubt from her. Only himself.

It had been years since he'd allowed himself to indulge either such feeling.

Progress…? turning to humanity again…?

He tilted his face closer into her fingers, letting the shiver become more at her touch. Met her eyes, hoped his own weren't being too …emotive? …transparent.

"Sometimes I'd wonder," he said quietly. "If we weren't just doing the same work as the Empire. If the reason we fought was because life is precious and every being deserves to have the best they can… but we were just ruining lives too… "

He shook his head. No. The long view. Sacrificing the present for the future was sometimes the best resort.

"I sometimes think true freedom is only being able to be able to pick your own fights," he murmured. "There's always going to be something. If you're lucky, you make your own. Rather than give yourself to…"

He sighed. "I don't know what I'm saying. …Ignore me. I don't think I can keep thinking about it now."

He snugged his arms around her tighter and inhaled the scent of her hair. "Since we get to have a now. …I thank whoever they are for that too."

[kestreldawn]

Cassian's words swirl around in her skull for a few moments, ricocheting off the walls of her skull. Doing the same work as the Empire. Hadn't that been why the Alliance had pulled away from Saw and his methods? He'd become too radical, too hell-bent on destruction. He stopped caring whose lives he was taking in the name of his cause.

Had they really been no better?

No. They hadn't created a planet killer to demand fealty. They hadn't destroyed cities and planets with a singular beam under the falsehood of order and obedience. Perhaps they'd done things they should have gone about differently, but they were nothing like the Empire.

Perhaps a conversation for another time - if and when they'd felt up to it.

"Are you giving me permission to ignore you?" she teases, latching onto something lighter - something happier - rather than the darkness that always seemed to be lingering and lurking at their backs. "Is that an outstanding offer, or only applicable now?"

[candor1]

If/when they had the conversation later… No. You're right. There are all the important differences. The Empire did what they did to consolidate their own power. Wanted to keep it going forever. The Alliance did what we did to stop them from doing that to people forever. Imperials were self-serving, didn't care the cost of life for their gains, and to defend it, would send others to die for them. No one in the Alliance wasn't willing to give their own life to try and make things better.

It's just that… the result for the individual lives might be the same. Whatever leads up to it, whatever the cause, the motives, death is still death…

…the Alliance was different… maybe it's just me that…

No. I can't. I can't.



He appreciates what she's doing. Choosing lightness. Choosing banter. For his sake as well as (maybe at the cost of) her own. He wants to thank her for it and honor it, go along with it.

He just… can't remember, right now, how.

Perhaps he does manage to follow her example, if onto a completely different train of thought. But managing to have one at all and latch onto it.

"What would we have called each other?" he whispered. "If we'd never been soldiers. If there wasn't war. If we just… met. Would I have a nickname for you…?"

[kestreldawn]

"If we'd never been soldiers?" she echos, the mere thought of it so far removed from her life, her memory, her being that it takes her more than a few moments to gather her footing. Every version of herself, every instance of who she could have been, all lead back to the war - all sprint down the same, familiar path to the cold durasteel of a blaster against her hand, or the unfeeling chill of a truncheon. The ache of a fist, the shattering of bones and teeth. She can't separate herself from the wars and battles she's been in, can't picture her arm without a blaster at the end of it.

And yet -

Here they are.

No blasters to speak of. No wars. No Alliance, no Empire. Cleansed, forgiven (?), redeemed, by something or someone or the Force or something else entirely. If this was the life she had led from the start - if she'd grown up in this village, had been sung to sleep by the lullabyes of her mother, had been encouraged by the brilliant light in her father's eyes - who would she have been?

"It would depend if we even liked each other," she quips, tongue still curling and curving around the sarcasm she shares only with those closest to her. "But we'd just met .. knew each other outside of Captain and Rebel and all." She murmurs a pensive note. "If I didn't like you, I'd probably call you Cass Trash. Or Trashy Cassy." She does her best to stay dead-pan and even-faced as she says this (a twitch of her lips betrays her). "If I did like you .. I don't know; what sorts of nicknames do friends give each other?" Her frame of reference is unfortunately narrow for things like this. "What would you call me?"

[candor1]

He sputtered with such explosive indignation that he had to prop himself up on one arm. (As with "Beeny", the clouds were instantly dissipated.)

"I said if we weren't soldiers!" he protested, pressing his hand to his ribcage to stop the laughter. "Those nicknames are lethal."

Would they have liked each other… maybe the same pattern would hold. No at first but yes eventually, both for the same reasons. The ways they mirrored one another. And the ways they didn't.

That covers literally everything, pointed out a mental Kay.

Refocusing… All right. He has had to play at endearments. Tries to remember patterns. …But his model is Admiral Grendreef's family and they weren't purely civilians nor anyone he wants intruding even mentally into their home…

"Jynnie," he says, giving into it. "Possibly."

And then embarrassed, "…Or Princesa if we were kids trying to annoy each other." For some reason, he had a feeling being called "princess" would annoy mini-Jyn tremendously.

[kestreldawn]

"Trashy Cassy? I don't see anything particularly wrong with that," Jyn continues, striking a thoughtful, contemplative glance towards the ceiling, as though talk of theorems and equations were infiltrating her mind instead of silly nicknames. "I think I like Trashy Cassy better than Trash Cass. It's a little catchier, don't you think?" She turns to him with bright, doe eyes - innocent, unassuming. A complete rouse.

"Jynnie." It sounds and feels strange on her tongue, but not too foreign or unknown to settle down at the back of it, curl up like a pet in front of a fire. "You're better at this than I am." At the use of what she can only assume translates to 'Princess' in Basic, the doe-eyes of moments earlier grow spikes, flicking to his face with indignation. "Yes. That would have annoyed me. A lot." She pokes his ribs lightly. "Do you have a middle name?"

[candor1]

He gives her the most pleading sad-Wookiee look in his repertoire. (Damned if his eyes didn't seem to triple in size.) "Please never say 'Cass' or 'Cassy' again unless you're angry with me. I'll understand the severity of my transgression."

And yet they both seem to like 'Jynnie'. Hearing her say it only makes it nicer. He wondered if and how his name could possibly break down into something like that, since direct equivalence didn't have the same effect. Adding versus subtracting syllables…? it wasn't something he'd ever really analyzed before. Analysis probably not the point.

The nearest he could think of was when Grendreef's daughter and son had called him "Jorah". Started as a mispronounciation of "Joreth" which had then been deliberately adopted. It had been more about how they said it. Like he was someone they were so delighted to see, whose appearance heralded good things (like presents, messages, story- or playtime) rather than dread or doom.

Maybe his real name couldn't allow that possibility.

…No. Demonstrably false. When Jyn said it, unaltered and sincere, it transformed his entire existence.

The only nickname he needed was his real name in her voice. Maybe he could tell her somehow.

But thank goodness he doesn't have to figure out how, yet, because she's moved on. Thank you.

Back to a(n almost playful) grimace, Cassian answers, "Jeron." (Pronounced almost like the Alderaanian [and, coincidentally, Earth] bird, but with the slightest throaty catch to the aspiration, a flip to the 'r', and a long 'o'. ^cHEH-ːroʊn.) "After my father."

Echoes abounding. Jeron Andor had been from the Yavin System. Hence the childhood foundation in Yaval that remained in Cassian's natural speech, that any Fringe insurgent of the same cultural background (a fair lot; Yavin was a big system whose native civilizations were more ancient, and so their cultural and linguistic descendents had spread far) had maintained in child Cassian's language acquisition. Hence the feeling of eeriness when the Alliance moved its base to Yavin IV, the odd feeling of belonging he'd had there, that he'd never felt on Carida—or when, as a teenager, he'd finally set foot (again?) on Fest. He had to assume Fest had been his mother's world. But he'd felt no familial resonance there.

The name of the world I come from means 'rock'. And it deserves it.

He tended to say he was "from" Fest when asked, to maintain Yavin IV's security, and in utter rejection of Carida as any such thing. But for all it was the last Alliance base he'd been to (first he'd been brought to was Dantooine), and the most continuous time he ever spent there tended to be in med bay (which looked the same no matter which planet it had been plunked down on), it had felt more 'home'-like than any place he could be said to have 'lived'.

"How about you?"

[kestreldawn]

"You asked what I might've called you had we known each other growing up. But .. duly noted; I will reserve my very bad attempt at coming up with a funny nickname for you for when you've done something reprehensible," she teases, groaning internally at how quickly she folds under the weight of his purposefully pathetic gaze. It's unfair, that he has such a foolproof trick in his arsenal. She knows that no attempt on her part to do the same would have a similar effect - and she puffs out a little breath of air at the injustice of it all.

The trill of his tongue at the peak of his middle name makes something in her stomach flutter. She wonders, then, about the name Jeron - it's clear linkage to his father, the little she knows of the man through the stories Cassian's shared. She wonders, listens for the inflection in his voice of anger, or hatred, or love, or sadness. She wonders, for a brief moment, what her own voice sounds like when she mentions Galen - if there's a flicker in her eyes to betray the neutrality she so often clings to at the mention of him.

"Jeron." Her attempt falls flat, right onto its face. There's no delicacy, no rolling r's, no throaty catch to start it. She tries again, with a moderate amount of success. "Jeh-ron." The r's still undulate the way she wants, but it's closer. "Maybe there's a nickname to be found between your first and middle name. And .. no, no middle name for Jyn Erso," she replies, "Though I often wonder why. Or what my parents might've chosen if they'd given me one. I think it'd have to be two syllables, to sound right with my last name."

[candor1]

…Likewise, Jyn manages to transform a name he's always hated—

(not because he hates his father; he doesn't remember the man well enough to feel anything so strong; he just thinks Cassian Jeron Andor sounds terrible. Ungainly. Who repeats that many similar syllables on purpose…?)

—into something… rather… …attractive.

(The way she wraps her mouth around it… and the way she's interested enough in something about him to take the time.)

"Try making it closer to a 'd'," Cassian offers re: pronounciation, feeling warmed as he touches a finger to the side of her mouth.

"Shall we make one for you?" He propped himself back against the nearest piece of furniture, gathering her close to his chest, her back pressed to him, so he could rest his cheek to hers. "What was your mother's name?"

Lyra he knew from reading the file they'd amassed on her before extracting her from Wobani. He never tried to call it to mind but it was there. Still. He didn't want to assume how to pronounce it—not did he want to take it from her. He wanted to hear how she said it, learn it from her the way she did Jeron from him, only if she was willing to give it.

[kestreldawn]

Jyn's silently muttering his name over and over - half on her lips, half in her mind - when his suggestion comes in. The muscles around her mouth tense with thought and concentration, but instantly relax at the touch of his skin, instead spreading into a lazy, lop-sided smile. She breathes out the pronunciation a few more times, quietly to herself, before she clears her throat and attempts again:

"Jeh-rrrron." She winces, hoping she hasn't just decimated the name with her second verbal attempt. She spent too long on the rolling of the r's, but she's at least made them move and flutter with her tongue. That's an improvement of some kind. Small, perhaps, but there's a radiance in her eyes at having accomplished the sound. As though to excuse herself from ruining the name, she adds, "I'll work on it."

She lets her head find the front of his shoulder, body melting against his. Mention of her mother takes her by surprise, and her throat swallows in preparation. She inhales, exhales her mother's name like a breath.

"Lyra." Leer-ah. "I don't think she had a middle name, either, come to think of it. My father did, though." She pauses, letting the image of his face float through her mind like an apparition. "Galen Walton Erso. All two syllables, which I always thought sounded strange."

[candor1]

"That's just how I feel about Jeron Andor," Cassian agrees, eyes still streaming a bit with laughter from her last stab at it. Okay, he can't hate the name anymore. Not thanks to Jyn. "They sound all right on their own but stick them after Cassian and the meter is garbage."

He'd hoped asking after her mother again wouldn't be painful. His arms tighten again around her, apologetically, protectively. But with the crystal nestled painlessly under her arm and against his chest, it seems… perhaps she's already been invited to join them…? and he can try to help her stay. In a way that's welcome. Reinforcing her memory, not her loss.

"All right," he said. "Give me a minute." He starts running iterations through his mind. It's the worst way to come up with an alias if you get to prepare in advance; but it can be handy if you need to think of something on the fly that will then stick. The best lies are the ones based on truth, that you don't have to reach for to recall.

Component parts—building blocks. Lee. Ra. Gae. Len. Wall. Ton.

"Jyn Gaera?" he suggests. Avoids the double two-syllable trap with Erso by sounding like three in his mouth: GUY-air-lah.

[kestreldawn]

"If they'd been switched - Jeh-rrrrron Cassian Andor - I think they sound more symmetrical," she thinks aloud, then turns her face to kiss the edge of his jaw lightly. "But I like your name the way it is, garbage meter and all." She thinks of Trashy Cassy relating to "garbage meter" and devolves into a series of laughs that she can't quite explain.

The fading rumbles begin to quell in her belly as she settles back comfortably against him, tucking his arms a bit tighter around her torso, pressing forehead to neck. Exists with the echoes of his heartbeat against her skull, against her spine and lets them envelop her while his mind busies itself with coming up with another name for her.

Only this one, she'll cherish. This one will be made out of affection and frivolity, rather than necessity and death. A beautiful juxtaposition, she thinks, that he'd not only been the one to make her proud of her name, the one she'd been running from all her life, but that he'd also be the one to create her next "alias," in this new life they've created together.

"Oh," she breathes, tilting her head back to gaze up at him with suns in her eyes. "I - I love that," she murmurs, twisting herself to bring up a hand to the side of his face, trails her fingers lightly. "Though I don't think I'll ever be able to do it justice the way you do."