Author's Notes: I just wanted an excuse to write Cassian being jealous and then realized that I've never written Han/Leia before, so why not throw all of it together. For the record, I find Cassian terribly charming, but our boy has his angst. On another note, I need to stop doing this to myself when I have a thousand other things I need to write.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and continue to suffer through unhealthy coping mechanisms.
It had been three days since he had seen Jyn.
Not that he was counting them or anything. It merely occurred to Cassian as he was walking to the mess hall to get something to eat for breakfast. He had almost voiced this thought aloud, but then caught himself at the last minute. He didn't know exactly what K-2 would say, except that it would be something that was far too... K-2 for him to deal with so early in the morning, so he kept his mouth shut and forced it out of his mind. Cassian was good at shoving thoughts away, filing them to be handled later or ignored completely.
It just happened that, like she was in person, thoughts of Jyn were difficult and hard to ignore.
He wasn't feeling particularly hungry, so he only grabbed a strange-looking piece of fruit and then left the room. K-2 followed him, strangely silent except for the clanking of his metal footsteps, and Cassian considered himself lucky. It was hard to deal with K-2 talking his ear off some days this early. Luckily, nothing had really happened in a while. Or perhaps it was suspicious. Cassian couldn't be sure; he had trouble deciphering between the two these days.
All he knew was that he hadn't seen Jyn because she was off on a mission. She would have told him or he would have been with her. She was around here somewhere; he just didn't know where and that bothered him. But then he didn't have a say in what she did in her spare time. He didn't give her orders. As if she would fully listen to him anyways. She'd just tilt her head to the side and give him a quirk of her lips, call him "Captain" in a melodramatic voice. No, she was free to do whatever she wanted when she wasn't under orders.
Only...it had been three days .
They'd been on Hoth for over a year now, but he had only been cleared for active duties and missions again a few months ago. Apparently, some people in the Rebellion had finally decided to take the toll that war brought on seriously. It had aggravated Cassian to be grounded for so long, but then, he was good at following orders he didn't like. Maybe not as good as he had been before he'd crossed paths with Jyn, but still good.
Thinking that he could go to the shooting range to relieve some of the stress that doing nothing caused him, Cassian made a left in that direction - and then immediately froze when he saw two people in the hallway.
There was Jyn. She was in her normal, favored outfit, her vest covering her chest almost protectively, the blaster she'd taken from him (the second one) strapped to her thigh. She had a scarf on like she'd worn in Jedha, probably because the hallways in the Hoth base were so damn cold. Cassian was wearing a thick jacket, gloves, and scarf as was usual for him. Her hair was falling into her face. She'd either neglected to put it up, preferring to cover her ears, or hadn't gotten to it yet. He didn't see her with her hair down often. It was dark, thin, with tendrils that gave him the urge to tug but never did.
He would've gone to her immediately without thinking, except that she wasn't alone. Standing in front of her, far closer than typical, was the Han Solo, one of the heroes of the Rebellion. The man didn't need to wear the medal he had been given by Princess Leia in order to look confident. He oozed the stuff - from the way he held himself to the way he smirked. Even his clothes, as careless as they looked at first, spoke of a bold persona. What was it that Bodhi had said? That Solo had a lot of swagger? Cassian hadn't understood it at first, but he saw it now.
And it was all being directed towards Jyn.
She was leaning back against the wall, head tilted up towards him and eyes on his face as he spoke to her in a low enough voice that Cassian couldn't make out what he was saying. She looked interested, never once blinking or looking away, and didn't move away when Solo stepped even closer, laying a hand on the wall beside her, halfway pinning her in. A smile even crossed her face when Solo said something else, the kind of smile that made Cassian's stomach clench if he thought about it too long.
The fruit in his hands was completely abandoned as he stared at the scene unfolding between them. Solo and Jyn, looking to the world like they only saw each other in the hallway when people were passing on by. Neither of them seemed to notice the strange looks that were thrown their way. Cassian's breath hitched in his chest when he saw Solo reach out to tug on one of her strands of hair; he nearly crushed the fruit in his fist when she let out a light laugh in return.
Perhaps if it had been later in the day, if he'd been more awake or his judgement less clouded, if it hadn't been three days , Cassian would've noticed other things. He would've seen the way that, while Jyn didn't move back or away from Solo, she never moved towards him either and kept still instead. Maybe he would've seen that she never physically responded to Solo's close proximity or remembered that her genuine laugh was never light. He might've noticed that while Jyn's face was interested, her gaze was entirely too cool.
But Cassian, being the kind of man that actively turned away from his own desires and wants, did not see those things. He saw what he couldn't have - what he wanted but was supposed to ignore for reasons he couldn't always explain - what he should look away from because he didn't deserve it. He wasn't a hero. He wasn't the kind of man that a woman fell for. His hands were too dirty to hold someone, even someone as rough and tumble as Jyn, who had been with him through hell and back. He didn't have swagger or charm. He had orders and that was what.
"Would you leave that poor girl alone?" a voice called from the other side of the hallway. All three of them jerked their heads in the direction of the voice, only to see that it was Princess Leia herself. She was wearing her usual white, but it was her practical Hoth uniform. A truly disinterested expression was on her face as she folded her arms and frowned at the scene.
"Why?" Solo countered, his smirk broadening in something almost hopeful, and Cassian couldn't help but notice the way Solo's entire focus was on the Princess. Any previous thoughts of Jyn were gone. Cassian knew because it was exactly how he had felt when he had been staring at Jyn seconds ago. "Feeling jealous?"
"More like pity," Princess Leia responded dryly, swiping the smirk right off Solo's face. He didn't look crushed so much as flabbergasted. "She's been through enough torture as it is, hasn't she?"
Jyn bit her lip in an attempt to hide a grin, but Solo took one glance at her and knew right away that all his flirting and scheming had been for nothing. If there was one thing that Cassian knew about Jyn, it was that she didn't fall for charm. She had no use for it - unless it was part of a mission. Charm, in her opinion, was only a tool to be used for spying missions. It wasn't her forte either, so she didn't much like it in others. It rang false. Cassian was only charming when the cause called for it and it had never called for it concerning her, not even in the beginning.
"Well, I'll be damned," Solo harrumphed, though he didn't sound very insulted by Jyn's disinterest.
"Your tricks can't fool everyone," Princess Leia pointed out.
She brushed past him, putting Solo out of her mind and effectively on his ass. He scratched the back of his head, confused as to how his tactics didn't work, but his eyes were on the Princess. Jyn wasn't the focus. She had never been the focus, Cassian realized with a start; it had all been about another woman, about the Princess. How could he have not seen that before? How had been so blind? Normally he was good at spotting such small details; quickly reading a scene and assessing the situation was one of his talents.
Cassian blinked when he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to look at Princess Leia in the face. She wore a comforting smile, but he thought he saw hidden mirth in her eyes. "Ma'am?"
"Of course, they can fool some people," the Princess said. The amused look wasn't quite gone from her face when she turned to glare back at the man that had caused this entire problem. "Shame on you, Solo, for causing Captain Andor such distress."
Squeezing his shoulder reassuringly, Princess Leia strode off without another word, leaving both Cassian and Solo gaping and Jyn muffling laughter with a gloved hand to her mouth. A frustrated look came over Solo's face as his brows furrowed and his lips twisted into a frown before he called out to the Princess and stormed after her. His loud voice was still shouting when Cassian finally glanced at Jyn and found her staring at him, the smile obvious behind her hand now that she wasn't laughing. It caused her eyes to glow brightly.
Jyn slowly dropped her hand to her side. "Are you alright, Cassian? You look, well, distressed."
Cassian snapped his mouth shut and huffed. "I'm fine."
"If it's any consolation, Cassian," K-2 put in, "there was less than a four percent chance of Jyn sleeping with Solo."
" K-2 ," Cassian stressed, eyes widening furiously as he turned to face the robot. Four percent, really?
"You shouldn't let things with such small statistical possibilities bother you," K-2 pointed out. These were the kind of statistics that Cassian did not enjoy hearing from his droid companion, except they were the only kind that K-2 seemed capable of figuring out and telling him these days. Just a week ago, K-2 had given him the probabilities on Jyn giving up before Cassian "made a proper move on her" and it had been all he could do to not reprogram K-2 right then and there. They hadn't been high, of course, but that wasn't the point.
Cassian returned to look at Jyn and this time did not look away. Neither did she. They stared each other down, but not in an angry way. He could've been mad at the way she'd not pushed Solo away or turned down his advances, but he knew that was illogical and it wasn't his place. She clearly hadn't been interested in him. Besides, he wasn't mad at her, not when he missed her so much. That was what bothered him the most.
Sensing that his presence was no longer needed, K-2 gave a mechanical huff and turned around to leave them alone, his footsteps disappearing down the hallway. Cassian still didn't tear his gaze away from Jyn. Slowly, her expression turned soft - not quite fully open, but not really hiding anything either - and she walked up to him.
"It's been three days," Cassian said, though he hadn't planned on saying it. The words had just come out of his mouth. He could've disliked the way she had that effect on him - drawing things out of him that he normally would've kept locked away - but some days it felt like a relief was lifted from his chest. That he could do things like that, say things he said to no one else, was both a gift and a curse that she'd given him and he didn't quite understand.
"Really?" Jyn asked. "I hadn't noticed."
But he could tell that was a lie by the way she stared up at him, focused and intent. It was nothing like the way she had looked at Solo. She had most definitely noticed.
He wanted to tell her that he'd missed her. He wanted to tell her that he only kept track of the days she wasn't around because they felt out of place. He really wanted to run his fingers through her hair and kiss her. He didn't do any of those things of course. It wasn't his place. He didn't know what to do with those wants. They felt dangerous, like grenades with thumbs held over the detonators. He'd always been taught to ignore selfish desires. Then again, Jyn did not like to be ignored and he was loathed to ignore her anyways.
"Want to watch the sunrise with me?" Jyn asked him, letting him off the hook. It was like she could read all of the wants in his eyes and see that he didn't know how to move forward with them, so she switched paths to make things easier for him. She didn't make things easier very often, so he was apt to seize the opportunity when she did. It was a miracle in itself. Or maybe, judging by the way she hesitated herself - the slight shaky breath she let out after posing the invitation - she was rattled too.
"I didn't take you for the sentimental type," Cassian teased, knowing full well that it was a lie. He thought about the kyber crystal necklace that always hung around her neck and the little trinkets back in her bunk that she had been on her birthday from the Rogue One crew. Hard around the edges as she was, Jyn liked to remember.
Knowing that he was joking, Jyn shrugged her shoulders. "Not really, but I've heard it's better to watch with someone else. Makes you appreciate things more." She reached up, hesitated for a moment, and then tugged on his scarf. For some reason, he did not think that was what she'd originally meant to do. "I've learned to appreciate bright horizons a little more after Scarif."
Cassian's hand found hers before she dropped it. His heart thumped slowly in his chest, despite the fact that it should have been racing. He understood what she meant though. He appreciated hope more after that day. He thought of his life as more than just fodder for the Rebellion. And he thought it was only appropriate that he watch the sunrise with Jyn this morning, as she had been there on the day a bright horizon ended his old life and transformed it into something new, terrifying yet infinitely better.
Maybe K-2 had been right about those probabilities. What was he waiting for?
"We better hurry before we miss it," Cassian said. "Sunrises pass by fast here."
As did life. Jyn smiled. As did life.