"Don't be a hero alright, dumbass?" The words are muffled into Cassian's shoulder but you figure the message is received given the fact that he laughs.
He doesn't let go and instead just hugs you tighter as the thrum of engines begins to grow around you. The take-offs for the day are starting but you don't want to give him up yet. This is a terrible idea keeps circling through your head and a seed of dread is threatening to take root in your stomach. Cassian hasn't done an assignment without you in months, let alone a solo mission, so to say you're not keen is an understatement.
Eventually, Cassian lets go and you feel his absence sharply. To stop yourself from wrapping your arms around your middle, you stuff your hands into your pockets and watch him walk up the ramp into the ship. With a final salute and a brazen grin, the hatch is closed and you force your feet back so that the punch of take-off doesn't knock you over. As his X-wing rises higher and higher before eventually disappearing into the sky, you feel that seed begin to grow.
You're broken out of your daze by the loud thud of a repair manual against the desk near your hand. With an undignified yelp, you start in your chair and would have fallen to the ground if not for the steadying hand on your shoulder. After regaining your balance, you send an irritated look at Bodhi as he moves to sit next you.
"What was that for?"
"Well Y/N, I had to stop you pining somehow."
"I am not pining!"
Bodhi gives you look that tells you he's less than convinced, "When's he get back?"
"Later today," your tone is prickly yet quiet.
Bodhi's smile says it all.
"Shut up."
His grin grows and you bury your face into your arms. Bodhi might forget his words sometimes, but he is as sharp and observant as ever.
"It's not like that, Bodhi," your words are muffled by your hands and the desk but you're sure that he can hear you.
From the pat on your shoulder and then tap of leaving feet, it seems he has chosen to ignore you. You go to shout after him when a comms alert appears on the control panel before you. Grinning, you flick the incomings switch.
"How you doin' Ca-" You're cut off by the sound of laser cannon fire.
"Y/N."
There is a desperation and careful calmness to his voice that is completely out of place. You are instantly on edge.
"Shit! Where are you, Cass, I'll get reinforcements immediately!"
"You can't, Y/N."
"What the fuck, Cass?! I-"
"I'm deep in Imperial territory, it-"
"There has to be an X-wing somewhe-"
"We can't afford another loss-"
"There's one j-"
"Y/N, stop!"
His coolness cracks with impatience and anger, "Y/N, there is no time and there's too many fighters! There's no point loosing another pilot!"
He breaks off while the sounds of a dogfight flood the comms. By this point, people are beginning to swarm and a hive of activity is swelling but all you can hear is breathing; his laboured ones muffled by gunshots and your own threatening deafen you.
"Please Cassian. Please don't," You can't help it, your voice cracks.
He doesn't respond for a moment, then another, then "I'm sorry."
You go to respond when the screech of static fills the comms. You check the instruments, desperate (praying) for a fault, a problem on your end. There's nothing. There's just no transmitting comm anymore.
Everything is static. The world holds there for a second, just a snapshot of noise and encompassing absence and emptiness and black and white and numbness and nothing and everything-
Someone turns the comms off, the static stops and the world resumes. Everything comes flooding back like a fucking tsunami.
Your breathing is not your own anymore, it belongs to a drowning traitor. And someone is
screaming
but you don't if it's someone else or you or just in your mind. And your hands go to your hair and suddenly your body is compressing in and out and in and out and in and out like bellows. And there's hands on you and voices and so much noise but the only person who matters, the only one who has ever mattered, isn't here. Because he's dead, because he's dead, because he's dead.
Because he's dead.
Cassian.
Cassian.
You try to stand, to run, but your knees give out and then you're on the floor and you're sobbing. Tears and sobs and guilt pour out of you like lead and hands keep trying to fucking touch you and you lash out because you are not physical enough, not solid enough, not real enough, not human enough to be comforted or touched or to exist and everything needs to stop.
Suddenly Bodhi is there and trying to pick you up off the floor but you fight back. There are too many things and too many confessions welling up inside you and if someone moves you now, you will shatter like glass (or hope or life or love).
Between choking breaths, you have to tell Bodhi (you have to tell him) what you can now never tell Cassian.
"I love him, Bodhi. I love him and he's gone and he's not coming back and I love him anyway."
The words are bawled and choppy and incoherent and retched but Bodhi knows. He knows as he collapses next to you and clings to you despite your struggles. He knows as he sobs and murmurs to you as the words repeat again and again and again while you rock. He knows that there is nothing he can because he's not Cassian; he just isn't.