The blizzard comes up unexpectedly when they're only an hour from the cave system. They're on their way back from scouting the ongoing Imperial presence in the abandoned Rebel base, and Cassian is beginning to regret insisting that he come. His still-bruised ribs started aching miles ago and his back has begun to remind him that it never fully healed after Scarif.
But after Jyn's reckless raid on the emergency stockpile, he hadn't been willing to let her go out again without him.
It had led to several days of shouting and angry silences until they'd finally compromised on a short scouting mission.
(In the back of him mind, Cassian admits that his insistence has nothing to do with trying to stop Jyn from doing anything reckless. He couldn't stop her even if he tried and he knows that no matter how reckless her actions look, she never does anything without thinking it through.
His insistence has everything to do with being unable to contemplate the idea of her dying alone.
He's determined to be there for her, even if his presence won't do her much good.)
((Even further back in his mind, in a place he's only just beginning to admit to, he thinks that this wouldn't be a problem if Bodhi was here. Because if Bodhi was here, then there wouldn't be a chance of either of them dying alone.
And if Bodhi was here they wouldn't be fighting about it, because he would have slid in and made them talk to each other without shouting.
Bodhi's absence is an ache just as strong as the idea of losing Jyn.))
Cassian is the one to notice the warning signs of the rising wind and lowering visibility. For all that every Rebel stationed on Hoth had learned to read the planet's capricious weather for the sake of survival, Cassian's instincts had been tempered years earlier. He may not have been on Fest since he was a child, but there were some things you never forgot, and how to recognize a gathering blizzard was one of them.
He tugs on the sleeve of Jyn's parka and, when she looks over, gestures to the landscape around them.
"Blizzard," he says. "We need to get back."
She doesn't even hesitate before nodding and they pick up the pace. A warmth seizes Cassian's insides at the show of trust; he knows it's hard to earn from her and even three years later he still treasures the fact that she decided to trust him.
(He doesn't let himself think about the other reason her trust and her attention makes him feel warm inside. There's no time for that. Especially in the middle of a blizzard.)
The wind rises quickly around them, howling past their ears and blowing snow into their eyes. Without asking, they reach out and clasp hands. It's difficult to do in their heavy mittens, but they can't risk losing each other in the snow.
Cassian activates the navigation beacon strapped around his wrist and they trudge on as snow piles up around their feet and the landscape disappears into an indistinguishable see of white. He can't see anything in front of him; he can barely see Jyn only a foot away from him. Only her hand in his assures him that she's still there. The pulsing of the beacon on his wrist is the only guide they have.
He's not sure whether she falls first or he does, but there's a confusing moment of unseen ledges and flailing limbs and white and wind and Cassian finds himself sprawled in the snow. Alone.
Jyn's hand is no longer in his. He can't see her through the snow.
He doesn't spare any breath for the litany of denials racing through his mind. No no no no, not Jyn. He scrambles to his feet and shouts.
"Jyn!"
The wind tears his words away so quickly he can't even hear himself.
"Jyn!"
For a moment he stands frozen, mind blank and heart pounding. Jyn is gone and he doesn't know how to find her. He makes himself breath, drawing in a lungful of bitingly cold air and forcing his mind to settle. He knows that standing in one place in this kind of weather is a bad idea, but he also knows that if he moves in the wrong direction, Jyn will be gone forever.
She'd insisted that he take their only nav beacon.
He should have fought harder against that, but it had been the compromise she demanded in return for an end to their argument about Cassian going scouting with her.
He shakes off those thoughts. They're not helping him now.
He can barely feel his feet and shivers wrack his body. He thinks. The memories are jumbled but he remembers feeling the ground shift under his feet. Remembers them both going tumbling down the unexpected slope. Remembers Jyn's hand sliding from his as he went rolling past her.
Back up then, he thinks.
He can't see the hill, the snow is too blinding, but he can feel the slight changes in slope under his feet. He aims himself as directly as possible back up and begins to trudge carefully through the snow. Every few steps he stops and calls her name.
It feels like hours later when he pauses. There's something… different. A snatch of noise that isn't howling wind. He wants to think it's Jyn, looking for him just as he's looking for her. He thinks it might be a hallucination.
It's not on the route he's been treading back up the slope. If he follows it, he could be walking away from Jyn. He could end up getting them both killed by wandering off into a blizzard.
He turns and goes. He might be hallucinating, he might be imagining things, he might be dooming them both, but if there's a chance that it's her, he has to take it.
He follows the snatches of sound, calling her name and never feeling like he's getting any closer. His body aches and his mind feels slow. He wants to lay down and curl up and sleep, but he can't. Jyn, he tells himself. Find Jyn.
He nearly walks past the shape huddled in the snow.
He stops and stares, frozen brain unable to think. It's her, curled into a ball and nearly buried by snow. He stumbles to her and reaches out to shake her shoulders.
Please, he thinks, don't let me be too late.
Thick mittens and parkas keep him from feeling any warmth from her body. He can't tell if the slight movement he feels under his hands is her breathing or his imagination.
She looks up. Her face is white with cold, but her eyes are the same arresting green.
He crushes her in a hug, and his trembling is part cold and part relief. He wants to hear her voice but the wind is too loud.
They stumble to their feet, both unable to stand on their own and leaning on each other just to keep upright. He adjusts the nav beacon on his wrist and they start walking.
Somehow, they make it back into the cave system. They stumble through the twists and turns to where their shelter is hidden. Cassian's mind is blank of anything but the feel of Jyn in his arms, the weight of her leaning into his strength and lending her own in return.
They collapse through the door of the tent. Jyn has the presence of mind to zip it closed as Cassian unlaces his boots with numb hands. They've both stopped shivering and in the back of his mind, he knows that's a bad sign.
They need to get warm.
Jyn joins him as he shucks he snow-caked outer clothing, tossing her own onto the pile growing in a corner of the tent.
They're down to their last, innermost layers when they curl up together in the same sleeping bag. Face to face, their breath mingles and Cassian can feel the press of her body against his. The shivers return and then ease as their bodies warm and Cassian can think again. He pulls Jyn close and tucks his face against the snow melting out of her hair.
"I thought I'd lost you," he says, and now the trembling is the release of fear.
"I waited," Jyn says, pressing her forehead briefly against his collarbone. She pulls back just far enough to meet his eyes. "I knew you would come for me."
Cassian breathes through the punch of emotion and touches her face. Her cheek still feels cold under the rough skin of his palm. Her eyes burn into his and he can't think of anything but getting as close to her as possible. Of giving her all of him. Of accepting all that she'll give him in return.
They've been dancing around this for years, but now their reasons for hesitating — the war, their team, their own insecurities, the fear of disrupting the family they had clawed into existence — feel like nothing more than fear.
He almost lost her today. She almost lost him in the Imperial attack. Neither of them knows where Bodhi is.
He doesn't want to wait anymore.
He can't.
He doesn't know which of them moves first, but there's a moment when he cocks his head in question and she dips hers in response, and they move together.
Cassian always thought that kissing Jyn would be like kissing fire—wild and uncontrollable and heat that could warm you and burn you at the same time. He hadn't considered the gentle care that lives in her heart, protected by an armor of violence and calculated distance. Her kiss is the gentle warmth of a fire banked for the evening, glowing embers and radiating heat.
He's lost in the feel of it, the gentle press of her lips against his and the spark burning between them.
They kiss once, twice, and pause, pressing their foreheads together and breathing each other's air. They won't go any further tonight, he knows.
"Bodhi," he says, and feels her nod.
"Not without him," she says.
He tightens his arms around her shoulders as she wraps her own around his waist and tangles their legs together. Warmth glows inside him and he feels a smile tug the corners of his mouth.
Nothing will be the same now, but he feels no fear at having taken this plunge. It feels right, like something has finally slotted into place after too long out of alignment.
When they make it back to Bodhi, they'll have their last missing piece back and they can finally have the conversation they've been dancing around for too many years.
Cassian's smiling as he tucks his face into Jyn's hair, and as he slides into sleep he lets himself dream, for the first time, of the three of them, together, as he never dared to think he might get to have.