Sinners' Worth
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, everything is with their rightful owners.
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You ask about my conscience, and I offer you my soul
- from "Blaze of Glory" by Bon Jovi
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In the silence that follows the explosion on Jedha they just narrowly escaped, their little ship feels even more crowded than it probably is, and Jyn errs restlessly through room after room until she finds one that she thinks she can spend the rest of the flight in without going insane.
It's not empty, either, but of all the people on the ship, she thinks she can probably take the obnoxious, ruthless intelligence officer the best, because at least that one knows how to keep his mouth shut, and in the end, you just can't have everything.
His dark hair is grey with dust and so is the rest of him. Jyn wonders if he's as used as she is to the taste of dust and sand in his mouth, and realises he's probably more familiar with that than with the taste of insta-bread.
That man threw grenades out there with all the care that a toddler throws pebbles, and she's known since she first saw him that he'd put a blaster bolt through the head of anyone who stands in his way, his own mother probably if that's what it came to.
The only thing that mildly surprised her today is the realisation that he looks at them after, not just to see if he's hit his mark but to remember their faces. Like he wants them to haunt him.
Like he wants them to take from him what he took from them.
It surprises her, that he'd willingly carry this load. She didn't imagine people like him would fight the numbness when it would make everything so much easier. Maybe he needs to do this so he can tell himself he's one of the good guys, or some other idealistic nonsense, even though he didn't strike her as sentimental so far.
For a while, they just sit there, pointedly staring at the wall opposite, but then her curiosity gets the better of her.
"Why risk your life to get me out of there?" She doesn't look at him, partly because she's a little embarrassed having to admit that he did, in fact, just save her life, partly because she knows he can't be compelled to be any more truthful just by someone staring at his face, so she might as well not. "I'd played my part. You lot should see the bigger picture, right?"
At first, she thinks he's just decided to ignore her, then he sighs softly and says: "The truth?"
She throws him a look after all, only to find he's still fixing the crates stacked against the wall opposite.
She doesn't think his question warrants an answer.
"Two years ago, I was hiding in an imperial prison unit," he says, in a quiet, flat voice. "There was a little girl in the cell I snuck into. She cried when I came in, I didn't really speak her language but I think she thought her parents had come to save her or something."
She can't help but wonder where the hell he's going with this, and why he even tells her.
"The cells had pulse sensors."
Jyn knows these things. They don't build them anymore; they only do their scan once every minute, and they only register how many hearts are beating, they don't distinguish between patterns – which means they're fairly easy to trick, provided one is willing to break another prisoner's neck.
"You took her place," she says, and nods. "What's that got to do with me?"
"I figured if I could save someone for a change, I could try."
She shakes her head. "You don't even like me. You don't know me."
He looks back at her for a moment. "I know I broke a crying little girl's neck to save myself, and you were nearly blown to pieces because you tried to save one."
"You did what you had to," she says, not to give comfort – if he needed that, he'd be in the wrong business, and besides, he clearly gets by without her pity either way – just because it's true.
"If you want to come off as a halfway decent person, you'll want to dial up the disgust," he says with a humourless smile, and flicks a small piece of debris out of a crease in his jacket. "There. You heard the sob story."
"I'm not a good person," she says in a harsh voice. She's not sure why it bothers her so much that he thinks she's someone worth saving, but it does. It bothers her that he thinks she doesn't know the feeling, that she doesn't know what it's like to regret something so much you'd give a leg to go back and change it – and still knowing that, if you could go back, you'd do it all over again anyway.
"You're someone with less blood on your hands, I think that's a start."
Now she's starting to feel angry about how stubborn he is. "I don't even know how much blood there is. I don't know how many I got killed. I've never looked back to count." That's probably the most shameful thing she has to say about herself, and she has no idea why she feels the need to share it with Captain Noble Cause of all people. It's not even out of hope he'll just look down on her enough to leave her alone.
He eyes her for a moment, in that motionless way he has. "And you think that makes you weak."
"Yes," she says firmly, because she might keep her flaws to herself where she can, but she's not big on denial.
More bits of debris crumble between his fingers, then he says, in a flat, honest voice: "It does."
He doesn't sugar-coat things, and she realises much to her dismay that means there's something that she likes about Cassian Andor.
"It also makes you human."
With that, he gets to his feet and walks out, leaving her to stare after him, puzzled and deeply annoyed. This man turns out to be a very unpredictable bundle of contradictions, and he's far too honest for a spy. (That's what puzzles her.)
And then it is one thing to be attracted to a man who for a change looks like he knows how to operate a razor and a shower, and quite another to like an Alliance spy who flat out used her to fight a war she never intended to pick a side on. Hell, if she doesn't watch out, she'll end up trusting him. (That is what annoys her.)
Damn that man. Damn all of them to the outer rim and back, she thinks grimly and lets her head drop against the metal hull of the ship. As if she hadn't been in enough trouble already.
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