"They prefer to surrender."
"And you?"
"She wants to fight."
She did want to fight. For the first time in her life, Jyn Erso actually wanted to fight. After years of feeling the burdens of her fathers and their crushing legacies thrust unnecessarily onto her shoulders, she finally felt that she was not only able to but also eager to carry on their journeys. No, she wasn't continuing Galen's fight or Saw's fight – Jyn had outlived the pair of them, and it was now her fight. It was her battle.
"So do I. We all do."
Bodhi's voice resonated with frustrated impotence. Jyn recognized the emotion; he too was someone who had spent so long refusing the fight. Now both she and the cargo pilot were ready… but they were also stuck. They'd taken too long, and now the rebellion was finished.
"The Force is strong," Chirrut chimed in, confidently cryptic as always. Jyn repressed a smirk. She had only known the man a few days, but she already knew well enough to trust that he was less naïve than his faith might appear to make him.
"I'm not sure four of us is quite enough." Jyn didn't mean to sound so defeated, but despite knowing that Chirrut was pulling his faith from somewhere beyond her comprehension, she couldn't understand how the Force or anything else would solve the conundrum the cowardly senators had created.
"How many do we need?" Baze said, matter-of-fact as was his way. He glanced over to Jyn, but didn't seem to be quite looking at her.
Puzzled, Jyn responded, "What are you talking about?"
Baze waved his arm, pointing at something behind Jyn.
Her head turned slowly, and her body struggled to follow as she noticed an almost sheepish-looking Cassian Andor moseying up towards her with a crowd of what looked like almost two dozen other rebel fighters behind him.
"They were never gonna believe you," Cassian said. If it had been closer to their first meeting, the way it came across, the "I-told-you-so" implied in his words, would have felt like an emotionless slap. Now, it felt more like a friend who understood that she had to undergo the challenge regardless of the overwhelming odds.
"I appreciate the support," Jyn replied sardonically, almost curtsying. She knew Cassian meant no offense, but she wasn't in the mood for whatever bullshit sparring match he had to offer her. She was both too riled up and too beaten down.
"But I do."
Jyn's face remained passive, but she felt a sudden well of emotion rise up in her as she examined Cassian's face. He looked at her with what was at least mild admiration, something she doubted the hardened rebel captain displayed to practically anyone. Jyn was already feeling emotionally exhausted from the display she had given to the senators and generals minutes before, and the sudden surge of pride, defiance, and solidarity was enough to knock her flat. She stood tall, regardless, but she could feel her eyes stinging, and it took what had been many years of practice to contain her tears.
Cassian moved away from the group behind him and took a few steps closer to Jyn. "I believe you."
His voice was naked, honest. Granted, for the spy he was, most things he had said to Jyn so far had been truthful, but there was always an agenda about his words. He had been trying to convince her or himself or someone else. He'd been trying to communicate a plan, to take charge, to lead the way. Now, however, Cassian was showing his support, he was lending his voice to hers, and he was doing it free of charge.
Jyn wasn't sure she could believe it, and, whether or not she did, she had no idea what to say. Filled with adrenaline that felt like it was on its last legs, she looked him up and down. She had to hold her breath to stop herself from crying. She felt so weak, but the way Cassian was looking at her… it made her feel strong.
The silence in the hangar bay bled into long eons. Baze and Chirrut and Bodhi and the rebel fighters – they weren't really there. All that existed was Jyn and Cassian. She had awoken to her true purpose, and he had awoken to his; it just so happened that their purposes were in tandem, uniting them across what had so far been lifetimes apart. The only things that united them were their stubbornness and drive, and now this shared space apart from time or any existence anywhere in this galaxy or any other.
Eventually though, that space was gone, and they were back on Yavin IV, in the Rebel Alliance Headquarters, in the hangar bay, surrounded by rebels.
"We'd like to volunteer," Cassian said with a half-glance back to the handful of rebels behind him. Like the ragtag team that had united on Jedha, they looked like they were at the ends of their own harrowing journeys, running on fumes, but ready to keep fighting no matter what.
Jyn took the group in as Cassian looked back at the men standing behind him, saying, "Some of us…" he broke off gently before starting again, correcting himself, "well, most of us," he turned back to Jyn. They looked each other in the eye as he continued, "We've all done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion." Unspoken were all those terrible things Jyn could only imagine Cassian had done and the one thing she knew he had chosen not to do: assassinate her father.
He could have. According to some of his superiors, he probably should have. She saw in his face now, though, that he wasn't exactly ashamed, but that he understood that he had been asked to do a terrible thing when he was ordered to kill Galen Erso. Jyn didn't know whether or not he regretted making the choice to disobey orders – she had a feeling he didn't, however, by the way he looked at her like she was some beacon that offered better choices, as if she were suddenly responsible for all these men making what was finally a good rather than terrible thing. It was an immense responsibility, but Jyn had fortunately just recently realized that she could handle it.
"Spies, saboteurs, assassins." Cassian glanced back at the men behind him, recognizing that he was just like the rest of them, and that they were all harbingers of destruction and tragedy.
He looked back at Jyn for his next words, however – "Everything I did, I did for the Rebellion." Again, no shame. Jyn accepted his words, accepted his request for absolution. She understood; after all, she had seen Saw and his men perform so many destructive acts – hell, she too had partaken in those acts – and she also knew that doing bad things did not a bad person make. She couldn't forgive any of them for their sins, and maybe no one could, but they could be accepted.
Her eyes had wandered to the crowd of men behind Cassian, taking in their expressions, trying to see which of them were looking for redemption, but she snapped her attention back to Cassian as he once again took a few steps closer to her.
"And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget," Cassian paused momentarily, and his glance turned downwards. Jyn could see him already getting lost in reliving those many things he wished he could forget, but he continued, "I told myself it was for a cause that I believed in."
That was the reason Jyn had become so disillusioned once Saw had dumped her at sixteen. After all the terrible things she had witnessed and done, and only for a man she trusted to abandon her, well, no cause seemed worth all the negative effects the Rebellion had brought upon her. Nothing could justify her father's capture and abandonment, her mother's murder, and Saw's betrayal.
She was finally learning better, however, and was beginning to see how all the horrors in her life might actually be worth something after all.
"A cause that was worth it," as Cassian put it.
Jyn's eyes were still shining with the tears she couldn't seem to soak back into herself. Were they from all the emotion she was feeling? Perhaps Cassian's emotions were seeping into her – his eyes were dry, but she could feel the pain and pride he was exuding, and it seemed to have migrated into her soul. Maybe she was just so exhausted from all the events of the past few days, including losing both of her fathers so quickly and frustratingly. There were so many reasons, but she couldn't quite figure out which one was the culprit of her staggering emotion.
Cassian's monologue continued, however, and Jyn couldn't help but continue to receive his words as he poured them into her, "Without that, we're lost."
Lost like Jyn had been since Saw had dumped her, no, since her father had left her and her mother had died. Lost like Jyn had grown comfortable being and afraid to leave behind. Lost had become Jyn's habit, and she had grown to openly refuse companionship or support. She didn't know how not to be lost. But then, how had she, Jyn Erso the perpetually lost, suddenly become surrounded by those with such clear missions as the men she had been joined by in the past few days? Had they, perhaps, made her feel found?
"Everything we've done would have been for nothing." Cassian made a small sound of disgust. One of the first things Jyn had figured about Cassian was that he was stubborn, and it was obvious here and now how his stubbornness would never allow him to let that happen. "I couldn't face myself if I gave up now."
Jyn hadn't been able to face herself for a long time. Even literally – Jyn had hated to see her reflection in any mirror or reflective surface for so long. Every time she saw herself, she would start to ask what kind of person she was, and every time she would realize that she didn't have an answer. She could see that Cassian was afraid of going through the same kind of existential crisis that Jyn had spent her adult life avoiding.
"None of us could," Cassian concluded, shaking his head gently, looking almost pleadingly at Jyn, willing her to understand. She understood all too completely, and she looked back at the rebel fighters beyond Cassian and knew that they too understood.
Silence prevailed again, and as Cassian and Jyn looked not only at but also into each other. They recognized in one another that understanding; they both needed a mission. Jyn had withered away for so long without one, and Cassian had been too afraid to ever live without a mission to even imagine that life. Now faced with that prospect, Cassian seemed to be looking at Jyn for the first time as if finally recognizing whom she had been when they first met and why. It felt as if the burden she'd been carrying was lightened at that; Jyn didn't have to defend herself to him anymore. He could finally see.
"It won't be comfortable," Bodhi's tentative voice broke in, and it snapped Jyn from her eye contact with Cassian as she blinked several times, now miraculously able to vanish the tears that had been threatening to fall for minutes now. "It'd be a bit cramped, but we'd all fit."
Jyn glanced back at Bodhi, who shrugged at her and then looked to Cassian and said, "We could go," as if they had any other choice.
Jyn felt a smile creeping up her face, and she looked back to Cassian who was suppressing a smile of his own as he turned around to his fellow rebels and said, simply, "OK. Gear up. Grab anything that's not nailed down."
He didn't need to say it twice; everyone started moving, Chirrut and Baze standing up and joining the Rebellion's own rebels as they traipsed about the hangar bay hoarding supplies. Regardless of the activity, Cassian encouraged it with a captain's authority, chanting, "Go, go, go!" as Jyn nodded to Bodhi, signaling the pilot to get himself busy as well.
"Jyn," the surprising voice of K2SO chimed in. He stood still amidst the flurry of rebels stripping the hangar bay apart in their quest for weapons and supplies. "I'll be there for you," he said, a surprisingly soft quality to the usually harsh droid's voice. She smiled at him, but wasn't surprised a moment later when he added, "Cassian said I had to." She almost laughed as K2 stalked off to join the rest of the rebels, his punch line complete, but several paces in front of him, Cassian turned back from his reprogrammed droid to face Jyn, and his approach towards her froze her in place momentarily.
Cassian was right in front of her when Jyn stepped around him, noticing as his body mirrored hers, filling in the space she had just vacated.
"I'm not used to people sticking around when things go bad," Jyn said with an air of casualness that didn't quite fit the weight of what she was saying. She tried to pack the words with all that she meant – thank you for believing me, thank you for understanding me, thank you for accepting me, thank you for believing in me – and hoped that Cassian would understand just how much he had come to mean to her in such a short amount of time.
He leaned in a bit, and for a moment Jyn wondered if he was going to kiss her right there in the middle of all the activity, in the middle of the hangar bay, in the middle of their preparation for the Big Fight, but instead he smiled and said, "Welcome home," and Jyn could feel him responding to her with the same nuance she had intended moments before – thank you for believing me, thank you for understanding me, thank you for accepting me, thank you for believing in me – and when he pulled away only a single step, it felt like too much.
With all the hubbub happening around them, Jyn was filled with a new rush of adrenaline, but she didn't use it to join her comrades in their preparations but instead gently put her right hand in Cassian's. He glanced down and then back up at her, but Jyn had already turned away from him and was heading away from all the action. She didn't need to pull him along with her; he followed willingly, his hand gripping at hers gently but with purpose, letting her lead him, no explanation necessary, into a small, recently-emptied storage room off the hangar bay. They had noiselessly slipped away from their fellows who now seemed to be on a different planet at the very least.
Jyn looked down, feeling almost embarrassed; she didn't know what to say, as there was no explanation she could voice. She didn't need to say anything, however, as Cassian fully understood, which, of course he did. After everything they had been through, they had made it here together, on equal footing, in a place of full understanding of one another.
Cassian's left hand was in Jyn's right, and he maneuvered so that their fingers intertwined, grabbing lightly and intimately at one another. His other hand's forefinger brushed Jyn's chin, lifting her face to look into his. He was smiling affectionately at her, and she smiled back before leaning up to close the space between them, her lips brushing against his for a moment, then again, and once again, now unable to pull away as Cassian's mouth tugged on hers and his right hand nested halfway up her back to pull Jyn against him.
At first, their kisses were near silent, not borne of passion but of the connection that had been growing between them every second since their meeting. They knew all the worst parts of each other and not only understood but also appreciated how integral those aspects were to one another. Cassian's warmth filled Jyn's senses, and it was as if she had never been exhausted at all, like there hadn't ever been any death or destruction encumbering her soul, like the only thing there ever had been or would be was this person who wasn't trustworthy at all but whom she could trust with her very being if she had to.
Their fingers fell apart as Jyn instead eagerly pulled at Cassian's neck with both hands, her mouth now desperately drawing his breaths into her, and she felt him respond in kind, his hands falling to her ass, tugging her up into him as his lips fought with hers, his eyelashes brushed her cheeks, his hair swept against her forehead. Their touches had become feverish, filled with all the determination they had for the fight ahead of them and knowing that it was their unity that would bring them to it – and would hopefully bring them through it as well.
Cassian's mouth moved from Jyn's lips to her cheek to her neck, and she bit her lip, her breaths on his ear, as he nipped at the thin skin on her neck and moved his hands to push her vest from her torso. Jyn let go of him long enough for her vest to fall to the ground before biting his earlobe and pushing her chest against his strongly enough to accidentally push him back against the wall. With a grunt of surprise, Cassian paused to look at Jyn, and then he chuckled at her guilty smile before taking his turn to push against her enough to return the favor, pressing her up against the opposite wall.
Jyn couldn't stop the soft gasp that escaped her mouth, which seemed to encourage Cassian to lavish his mouth's attention on her clavicle and his hands on and around her waist. Jyn reached up to shove off Cassian's jacket, and his hands joined hers in assistance. Once the layer was removed, Cassian took Jyn's right hand and kissed her on her pulse before working his way up to her elbow and then returning to her mouth. She eagerly thrust her tongue into his mouth and felt his moan against her as her hips ground against his and her hands toyed with the hairs at the nape of his neck.
Cassian's hands roughly worked at Jyn's belt, pulling her holster loose and dropping it to the ground after which he removed his own belt and holster. With the clank of his blaster hitting the ground, he pulled away from Jyn momentarily to search her face, making sure they were still in tandem. His eyes searched hers, and she smiled at Cassian. Jyn felt lighter than she'd felt since she was a child, which was ironic given the pressure that lay on her shoulders today. They were moments away from embarking on what could very well be a suicide mission, but it was a mission they were both fully committed to, much like the moment they shared now.
Jyn and Cassian neither rushed nor delayed in removing the rest of their garments, taking in the sight of one another's physical bareness as they similarly laid their souls naked to one another. It was ridiculously poetic how, on so many levels, they were uniting and, once free of any physical or psychological barriers, Cassian guided Jyn onto her back on top of their discarded wardrobes, hands reverently caressing her pale skin, eyes concentrated on hers. Once settled, Jyn helped guide Cassian's length into her, and their eyes stared deep into one another as they moved together, flowing into each other, building a rhythm that came inexplicably naturally for both lovers. Their pace increased, and their breathing – not in unison but harmonious in its dissonance – quickened as Jyn felt herself building towards climax and could tell Cassian was right there with her.
In the moment she came, and the moment shortly thereafter that he did as well, Jyn felt unlike she ever had before – an overwhelming sense of peace and perfection of self, as if this were another moment where she was simply growing closer to precisely whom she had always supposed to have been.
After, as ridiculous as she knew it sounded, the only thing Jyn felt right saying was, "Thank you." Cassian had granted her a sense of completeness, and she had a sense that she had been able to provide the same for him. In response to her words, Cassian kissed her on her eyelids and whispered back his own, "Thank you."
They dressed with no shame or awkwardness but with the confidence of knowing that everything that had happened so far had been right and with conviction that everything that would come would also be so. And, when they returned to join the rest of the rebels that would soon begin the mission to Scarif, nothing had changed because Jyn and Cassian had already been one for a long time, perhaps even before they had even met one another, and they would be one for the rest of their short time.