It's been a longer time for Kira than for her, but he still feels like he's leading, maintaining the tether of hands and touches that--don't seem to reassure her, so much as remind her of things lost. She goes still, and he waits it out, for the moment it stops just being something gone, becomes something she can have again.

He can have this again, he thinks. He can trade bottles with a friend on a warm evening, he can push the cold of a dark night and a dewy morning away with them. Ty was more nervous than she seems, ten years of building up a moment, and unsure what to do when he had it in his grasp--but Kira's used to nervous, he's been nervous himself since he got here, sick to his stomach every time he thought about touching anyone like that.

Sitting on the bed with Jyn, the bottles left on the floor with their boots in a clumsy pile, he feels more like he's floating out of himself than like he might be sick. When he gathers up the hair at the back of her neck, when he leans in again to kiss her, he finds his body again. "I want to do this," he says in a hush, just under her ear, "but we can stop any time. It won't change anything."