AN: Thank you as always to aewgliriel for the Star Wars knowhow

Chapter 36: Little Talks(Cassian/Jyn)

It's pathetic, I knew I did from that first moment we met.
It was…not love at first sight exactly, but - familiarity.
Like: oh, hello, it's you.
It's going to be you.
Game over.

― Mhairi McFarlane, You Had Me At Hello

Nurse Temple lost her patience with all of them standing in the hallway not long after that. She insisted that Cassian and Jyn needed to rest and in her words, "I don't care where you choose to sleep but I will drug you both into a coma if you don't go and lie down somewhere. "

And so Cassian was eventually shepherded off along with Jyn, but not before this Lando Calrissian introduced himself to Cassian with enough swagger to put Han Solo to shame.

When Cassian asked about Han, Leia visibly paled and shared a look with Jyn that put the captain on edge.

C-3PO had said he was happy to see Cassian, and that Jyn had missed him. Jyn had blushed and ducked her head, while K-2 made a sour comment about removing C-3PO's vocal emitter.

Leia had leaned in to add, "It is nice to see you well, she really did miss you," and soon after that, Cassian was in a bed in Jyn's room. A second bed had been pulled into the room and pushed beside the first so, in Nurse Temple's words, she wouldn't have to untangle them later.

Cassian didn't even realize how tired he was until his head hit the pillow. The moment he no longer had to hold himself up, exhaustion crashed into him.

He fell asleep the instant Jyn had laid down beside him, one hand plucking at the fabric of his sleeve.

When he wakes up several hours later according to the chrono, the mattress beside him is empty and he immediately sits up, his heart pounding through his chest.

"They just wheeled her away for another bacta treatment," K-2 says blandly and Cassian startles a second time as he notices the droid sitting awkwardly in a plastic chair that's too small for him.

"Oh," is all he manages in reply as he recalls where he is and what's happened in the last few hours.

And yet he's still breathing too fast, unable to shed that knee jerk panic at her absence.

She's fine, he knows she is. She is safe and well aboard this med-ship.

He just wants to see her to be sure.

"I estimate they'll bring her bacta tank in here within the next 5.3 minutes unless she's being difficult," K-2 adds.

Cassian sighs, nodding to K-2 and scrubbing his hand through his hair.

"Cassian, you are showing signs of distress, should I call for the nurse?" K-2 asks and Cassian leans forward to press his face into his hands, ignoring the way the movement pulls at the injury to his side.

"No," he says after a minute, "It's just been a long week."

K-2 has no response to that and sits quietly, watching Cassian as he takes several deep breaths. This is stupid, he can't panic every time she's out of his sight.

Except somehow while she was out of his sight they got separated and now she's here with bruises around her neck and shadows in her eyes.

It's stupid to think he could have prevented that, but still...

"It is unusual for you to display this level of…" the droid hesitates glancing back at him and then away, "Attachment."

Cassian stares at Kay, he opens his mouth to respond but the droid beats him to it.

"She also displayed signs of distress," K-2 says and Cassian freezes.

"I thought you were dead," she had said.

He has to look away and swallow hard against the bile rising in his throat.

He's not sure if Kay is intentionally trying to distract him or not, but it works when he says, "You should also know that my last memory backup was from before our mission to Jedha."

Cassian turns back to stare at the droid, speechless and agape.

Under his stare, K-2 fidgets, "Jyn found that knowledge to be… Significant," he says slowly.

Cassian sighs, letting himself lie back on the bed and closing his eyes.

"I had a feeling it might have been something like that," he mutters, "We didn't have much time on Yavin IV before Scarif."

Something in him aches to think of the memories that this K-2 is missing. There would have been no way for him to remember Scarif. But Jedha and Eadu…

A new thought occurs to him with a jolt and he sits up again to look at K-2.

"How did Jyn manage to bring you back?"

He doesn't say aloud that he had long given up on bringing the droid back. He had grown accustomed to mourning him instead. The backup drive that lived in his pack was more of a keepsake than an actual item to be used one day.

He's not ready to admit that out loud yet.

In response to his question, the droid's unblinking photoreceptors meet his gaze and then look away.

"I believe there was an altercation with this KX droid," he says, placing a metal hand to his chassis, "I was unarmed so I can only be certain that the blaster injury to her shoulder was someone else's doing. But I believe I may have damaged her," the droid pauses again, avoiding Cassian's gaze, "And once I was myself again I was not… Gentle."

And Cassian feels like there's a stone lodged in his throat.

"How did she convince you?" he asks and now K-2 looks at him, leaning forward slightly in his seat.

"She knew precise details of how we met. Right down to my estimates for our survival from that planet."

Cassian had thought a lot about Wecacoe over the last two years. He had talked to her about it a few times in passing.

It startles him to realize just how closely she must have been paying attention.

"She also says you have many friends now," K-2 adds and Cassian huffs out a laugh.

"Compared to before, I guess I do, yeah." he mutters

"I suggested that we leave Bespin after she reactivated me and she refused," K-2 continues conversationally, "She said she had to recover the others who are also your friends and then she made me hide and let herself get taken by storm troopers."

Cassian can imagine it all too well, and the image makes him grit his teeth. There was no way he could have been there to make any of this easier for her.

And yet he wishes for exactly that with every fiber of his being.

At that moment, the door opens and Jyn's bacta tank is rolled in. The med techs take set her up in the corner of the room and leave as quickly as they came.

Something in Cassian's chest loosen at the sight of her, even if she looks so small and fragile floating in that strange slightly greenish liquid.

Cassian reaches for his crutches with a grimace and K-2 doesn't say a word as he gets out of bed and hobbles towards her bacta tank. There's nothing he can say, but he rests his hand against the glass of the tank, fingers pressing against the cool smooth surface of it.

Inside, Jyn looks almost sickly in that greenish light. It makes her bruises stand out more starkly, like her skin is too thin, the dark circles beneath her eyes look like they were stamped there.

"At one point, she stood between me and one of Lando's armed guards," K-2 says abruptly, staring at the tank. "I find her behaviour to be highly unpredictable."

That makes the corner of Cassian's mouth quirk up the slightest bit.

"You've said something like that before," he says and K-2 looks back at the tank.

"Apparently so."

Neither of them speak for several minutes.

Eventually Cassian has to lie down again. He's still too tired to be upright for long and he's still viciously sore. The crutches tug on his half healed side and his knee aches from any movement despite the brace on it. He manages to get back to the mattress and he didn't notice K-2 get up, but the droid is there to wordlessly help him back into bed as sleep is already tugging at him again.

"I'm really glad you're back, Kay," he murmurs as a blanket is pulled up over him.

"I am glad to be back, Cassian," is the quiet reply.

He forces his eyes open for a moment longer to look back at Jyn in the tank. Her hair is loose and floats like a halo around her.

It hasn't fully sunk in yet, that they are all alive and they made it.

Eventually it will sink in.

He falls asleep with that thought, and the image of her floating like something spectral and celestial. Like something lost in space.

This time when Jyn floats, she dreams of him. Of his face and of a hand pressed against the glass like he could reach through it to hold her.

When he wakes up again, Jyn is laying beside him, asleep and shivering and smelling faintly of bacta. The lights are low and it looks like K-2 has powered off for the moment.

In the dim light, he can make out the edges of her expression, taught and tight.

He debates if he should wake her up or let her sleep and he watches her frown deepen.

Her mouth moves, the softest pained sound escaping her in the shape of the word,"No."

He reaches out to touch her, to wake her, to do something.

His hand clenches, hovering over her, uncertain of what to do.

After all this time, he still hesitates.

She lets out another sound, almost a yelp, and he lets his hand fall on her arm.

"Jyn." He says her name softly and he can feel her freeze, her whole body becoming one hard line of tension before her eyes fly open. It takes her a second to see him and take in their surroundings.

Then in one breath, her body sags, loose and boneless, back against the pillow.

"Cassian," she murmurs, still trembling, her eyes landing heavily on him and she says his name like a prayer, or like the answer to them.

And neither of them say another word for what feels like an eternity. They just lie there, eyes locked safe on the other, just breathing into the silence.

Cassian swallows hard before he finally asks, "Jyn what happened?"

What happened?

So much happened, and the enormity of it hangs on Jyn like a weight that she can hardly bear.

Too much happened.

She shuts her eyes, breathing out slow before she can look at him and say, "I don't even know where to begin."

"Back on Hoth," Cassian replies, eyebrows furrowing and the edges of his mouth turning down, "Back when the attack happened."

Even now he seems so certain, so steady.

Stars, she had missed those stormcloud eyes.

But Hoth, where does she even begin with Hoth? She squeezes her eyes shut and takes another deep breath before she replies, "I panicked."

Cassian doesn't flinch, his gaze is doesn't falter. She's the one who has to look away, her fingers finding frayed threads on the edge of her sheet, she chooses to look at those as she picks the rough edges apart, one thread at a time.

"I went looking for all of you, I wouldn't leave until I knew…" She trails off and she sees Cassian almost freeze.

She won't accuse him of leaving her behind, she won't make a scene about it. It means they're alive and the fact that she feels wounded by it is ridiculous.

Still, the thought that she can be so easily left by them feels a bit like finding out a piece of her heart is made of glass after it shatters.

Her fingers are still finding more loose threads on that sheet, tugging them out one by one. Cassian reaches out to wrap his hand around hers where she still has a piece of loose thread between her fingers.

For a moment he doesn't speak, he just holds her hand and she can feel the callouses on his palms when his grip tightens.

"I… We had no idea you weren't on the transport until when it was taking off, everything was so chaotic and I was… Delayed…" He trails off, biting the inside of his cheek and now it's Jyn's turn to frown at him.

She doesn't even have to ask when his eyes flick to her, one quick glance and then away again.

"There was a cave in and I got knocked out. The only reason I made it to the transport was because Draven decided to go back and pull me out of the rubble."

He sounds almost ashamed.

"I never would have left if I had known I was leaving you behind," he says so fervently it makes her ache to hear it. She squeezes his hand and he keeps talking.

"The only reason I even knew you were alive was because Chirrut said he could sense it…" He trails off, his gaze turning distant. "Bodhi didn't even find out about it until he docked his X-Wing on our transport… He told me Luke had left to complete his Jedi training."

His eyes slide back to Jyn's, she can see all the unspoken questions there.

They have so much to talk about.

The story gets teased out slowly, words laid out one by one with so much pain left unsaid in every fold and syllable. She tells the story like one might expose a wound to air.

She tells him how Han pulled her out of Hoth. "I was so angry with him after I saw the base collapse. I blamed him for it," she says, her mouth twisting into a jagged line.

"I'm glad he got you out," Cassian whispers, moving a little closer, still holding her hand. There's a different pain edging the lines of her now. Something else around her eyes and she averts her gaze for a moment.

"I was, too… Eventually," she says and it still sounds so bitter, but he waits, knowing there's more to be unfolded.

Even in the dark, Cassian knows exactly where the bruises are around her neck, knows where her shoulder moves too stiffly, and where she pressed a hand to her ribs when she sat in that hoverchair.

Slowly he learns what caused all of it.

She tells him about the circuitous flight to Bespin, about meeting Lando, and the man's betrayal.

When she speaks about sitting at a table with Darth Vader, the words abruptly die out. Like an invisible gag was placed over her mouth. She swallows hard and Cassian moves a little closer, trying to leave her room to pull back if she needs it. She doesn't.

Soon enough they are on their sides facing each other, with just enough distance to still be able to make out the other's face in the dim light. The rest of them curves towards the other like an outside force is pulling them together, their legs meet in a tangle, their hands form a complicated knot that rests between them.

She tells him about being separated from the others on Cloud City, about seeing the KX Droid and deciding she wanted one of them to survive this station. She tells him how she got blasted through the shoulder trying to escape the troopers holding her and her fight with the droid before she could subdue him enough to insert the memory backups.

"It was… Hard to convince Kay," she says softly and Cassian nods.

"K-2 told me, he says you had to bring up Wecacoe to convince him," he says with a small smile and she nods.

Cassian reaches up to brush a hand through her hair and says, "I don't think I said so before, but thank you… For bringing him back."

She looks down, on hand rubs at her eyes and when she speaks it comes out raw, "It wasn't exactly for selfless reasons, I just…" she looks at him then, "I wanted some of us to survive… Some of you..." she trails off, biting her lip and Cassian let's his hand rest against her cheek. He can feel the damp of tears on her skin and he says, "I've heard worse reasons for doing a good thing."

And that makes her laugh soddenly, more tears leaking out and pooling beneath his fingers as she reaches up and curls her hand over his where it rests on her cheek.

"I mean it when I say, thank you for bringing him back," Cassian says again and she nods slowly, biting her lip.

"He didn't even listen when I told him to hide," she mutters.

"He is a terrible listener," Cassian replies and she nods again, taking a deep breath before telling him about the cell where they were kept. About Han being tortured and C-3PO being taken apart.

She tells him about Lando's deal that was meant to protect her, Leia, and Chewie and send Han off with a bounty hunter to Jabba the Hutt.

She tells him how K-2 snuck back and somehow tricked the storm troopers standing guard outside their cell. How he was there with her the whole time.

When she tells him about Han, the tears begin anew. She tells him about Han and Leia, about Han standing up to Vader for her.

Her hands flutter towards her neck and the bruises there,

"He saved me, Cassian. And they took him. We know he was alive after they froze him but for all we know they might kill him when he gets to Jabba's," she says, low and fast.

Cassian can only hold her hand a little tighter as she looks him in the eye.

"We're going to have to get him out of there."

She goes on to tell him about escaping Bespin, and about finding Luke.

And when there's nothing left to tell, he pulls her close and wraps his arms around her.

He has a thousand apologies on his tongue. I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry this happened.

But she just presses herself to him like a seam and murmurs into his chest, "Now it's your turn."

And so he sighs and tells her about a bar, a deadly game of Sabacc, and a second battle station's plans.

Jyn listens to him, and thinks about how she finally feels like she's been pieced together again with him beside her.

When she thought he was gone, she had so many regrets it felt like she would never recover.

And when his story is done, Jyn pulls back just enough to look up at him, still so close that he's almost blurred in the dim light. Little more than dark eyes that look back at her with so much feeling she might burn up on the spot.

Instead when she leans back into him, one hand fisting in the fabric of his shirt, she whispers a truth that's been knocking at her chest for two years.

Something she had regretted never saying because it needed to be said. It was something that had to be known if only so they knew where they stood.

She buries her face in his chest and whispers so quietly it might almost be lost to the hum of the ship's engines.

"I love you."

And his face is pressed into her hair but she thinks she can feel him smile as he presses a kiss to her forehead.

"I love you, too," he murmurs into her skin and now she pulls back to see his smile. It looks like sunlight and she's warmed right to her fingertips and the tips of her toes at the sight of it. She smiles back sharing sun for sun and she feels incandescent.

They eventually fall asleep wrapped around each other.

And the next morning Nurse Temple has to untangle them, but she doesn't seem too annoyed about it.

AN: I have been saving the quote that opens this chapter for AWHILE. I don't really have much else to say I mean maybe Cassian and Jyn should not be curling up like that with their injuries, especially Jyn but like SCREW IT IT'S CUTE.
Also there are like 30 characters and I could have spent time writing out each and every greeting but I decided to be economical and buzz through some of that. Next up is gonna be some Luke and Bodhi I think.
This chapter would have happened a lot sooner but I was tired this week and then Stranger Things season 2 happened and I HAD TO WATCH ALL OF IT IMMEDIATELY. (The chapter title is kind of a reference to the Of Monsters and Men song :)