Jyn

A Light at The End

She didn't cry alone in the dark, not the first time. She knew she had done what she was supposed to do: stay low, run, hide, stay quiet. And then wait. She knew Saw would come for her, and she had believed, then, that he would find her parents and bring them back to her. She hadn't realized when she watched her mother fall that there would be no getting up again. Jyn had no reason to fear, but she had grown cold and lonely while hiding in the dark. Eventually Saw's face appeared in a halo of light and she climbed up into his warm arms, and then she was waiting, always waiting for him to bring Mother and Father back to her.

Hope erodes slowly in the young, and it took some time before Jyn believed Saw when he told her there was no going back; that her mother was gone forever, and she would only see her father if she was captured by the Imperials who would hurt her in ways she could not yet imagine. It was years, in fact, before she was truly convinced of this. Saw was there when the truth finally crashed over her, and he watched as her face crumpled and then split open in a voiceless cry. When she reached her little hands out to him for comfort he grabbed her wrist and pressed the handle of a knife into her palm. She opened her eyes in surprise and he pointed at the life-sized doll in Stormtrooper armor that his soldiers used for target practice. There was a moment of hesitation as she shuddered, but then she leapt on the doll and slashed at it until it was in pieces. After she exhausted herself with violence, Saw gathered her to his chest and let her cry until she slept. Her hand remained clenched around the knife, and its blade gleamed bright in the darkness.

Several years later she was scavenging with a group in the mountains when the ground gave way under their feet and they all tumbled down the side of the hill amongst the sliding rocks and debris. All except Jyn, so much smaller than the rest, whose body slipped into a newly opened crevice in the mountainside. Her initial scream was swallowed up in the noise of the landslide, and when she hit the ground of the cave into which she had fallen the air was knocked from her lungs and she could only gasp as her limbs twitched helplessly. The ground shifted some more above her, and then she was in total darkness. This time no one was coming for her. Saw didn't know where she was, and no one else cared. She felt then that she would die alone in the dark, and for the first time she acknowledged the bitter wish that had been seething within for years - that Saw had never come for her. Why hadn't he let her fade away as a child before she understood what death was and had time to think about the pain that awaited her? If he had just let her die then she wouldn't be here now, remembering that last day when her mother chose to die at her father's side instead of living by hers; how she had been left to run and hide in a hole like a dumb animal that only exists to be someone else's prey. Now she would be crushed below the mountains, her body reduced to a smear of blood and dust. Her mind continued to whirl downwards into despair, and by the time Saw found her she was sobbing mindlessly. When he tried to lift her up she screamed and thrashed at his face with her fingernails until he sedated her so that she could be carried out. Jyn never spoke of it again, and Saw – usually so strict about supplies – never begrudged her the light she carried into her bunk every night.

Many years after that, much longer than Jyn had expected to live, she held her father in her arms as he died. She had just started to let herself hope that she would see him again, and then, in almost the same moment she found him, a bomb had ripped them apart. His body was bleeding and broken, but his eyes were familiar, so familiar and full of love. She clung to him as if she could hold onto the life that was seeping away. She felt a breath shudder out of him and his body stilled. Jyn's mind went black. She could still see the world around her, but something behind her eyes had closed. She couldn't think, couldn't make sense of anything. After finally being reunited with her father he had left her, again. She was alone. Again. Something raw was opening up inside of her and screaming. Her chest burned, maybe she was screaming, she couldn't tell. Something was pulling her arm, pulling her away from her papa. A voice pierced through the roaring noise in her mind, ordering her to move. It was Cassian, he was the one pulling her, taking her away. She tried to resist him, to fight against him, but he was stronger than she was and she hated him for that. She had hated every one who had ever pushed or pulled her somewhere she did not want to go, but in this moment she had never hated anyone as much as she hated Cassian – Cassian who had looked furtive and guilty as he left the ship, Cassian who had his rifle in the sniper position as he snapped at Bodhi to follow him into the rain, Cassian who was taking her away from the only person left who loved her and whom she loved, whom she had always loved despite what she said. His grip on her arm tightened as he hauled her away from the flames through the rain to their stolen ship. She was clumsy as they ran, stumbling so much that he stopped for a moment to look her up and down.
"What's wrong," his voice rang harshly in her ears, "are you hurt? Were you hit? Show me. Jyn, show me!" She shook her head at him and he said a word she did not recognize but that sounded like a curse. He spun around and yanked her along behind him as he started to run again. She didn't know how much time passed before she was pushed into the open door of a ship. There was shouting and movement, and then the door closed and silence fell with the darkness. In the quiet her thoughts finally fell into order, and she knew what had happened. She knew whom to blame. The lights buzzed softly as they blinked on, and Jyn's eyes found Cassian.

Not very many hours after that, they were on Scarif in a storm of chaos and death. She had sent the plans. Bodhi had promised they would get out. She trusted him. Cassian had followed her onto the tower and shot Krennic. She didn't know what would happen to him, and she found, to her surprise, that she didn't much care. Now she was standing in a lift with a severely injured Cassian who was leaning heavily on her. She shifted so as to get a better grip on him and heard him smother a groan in his throat.
"Sorry," she muttered, but his arm tightened around her shoulder. She looked up at him. He was so close that she had to tilt her head back to see him properly. The lights in the lift flickered erratically. When they were on she could see him staring into her face and could almost read the thoughts behind his eyes, and even in the dark she imagined that she could feel the weight of his gaze on her. She saw longing there, she thought, for the time they didn't have, for the words that would never be said, for all the things that might have been between them. She wondered what he saw in her eyes. One last flicker, and the lights were off. She used to be so scared of the dark. She gently pulled herself even tighter against Cassian as she felt his head bend down to hers. His cheek was rough against her skin, but she pressed closer still.

…

Jyn stares into the oncoming wave of fire and smiles as she realizes there will be no darkness for her ever again. The memory of her father's eyes rises in her mind, and her mother's necklace presses into her skin. For the first time, she is grateful that Saw came to find her so long ago. She thanks him, and she thanks her friends for the time they have bought her, these last precious minutes. She wishes that she could see them again. Cassian's arms gather her closer and she feels the beating of his heart against her chest. He is warm and safe and will never leave her. She holds him with all of her strength. She had been frightened for so long, but there is no fear now, only the hope that carried them here, and the light that surrounds them both. Death is not dark, it is bright, brighter than anything she has ever known, and she thinks she hears her mother's voice. Trust.