it's only you and me there through the rise and fall

Of the three of them who live together — her family, she mentally calls them, though she's still sometimes afraid to do so out loud — Jyn is the only one who doesn't work. She's alright with that, on a theoretical level. Most of the money she acquired during the Purge went to getting the house, but it's not like she doesn't still contribute, and it's also not like she has too much time on her hands. When she gets bored, she gets too restless, dangerous, paranoid, as if waiting for the metaphorical other shoe to drop. She got that from Saw, probably. The fact remains that she isn't overly used to idleness, and doesn't intend to change that here. There's Sprinkles to take on walks, there's a boxing gym where she's become a regular, and for perhaps the first time in her life, she has actual friends, people who want to spend time with her and with whom she can meet up.

Today, she's supposed to grab lunch with Bodhi while he's on his break and Cassian is on a shift of his own. They see each other plenty, of course, but she's already planning to be in the area, and he's offered to treat her, so there's really no reason not to. Except supposed to turn out to be the operative words there. She gets them a table, she sits, and she waits, checking the time on her phone with increasing impatience. The text she sends goes unanswered. He probably got caught up with work, she tells herself, but when she calls him, it doesn't ring or go to voicemail. Instead, it plays an automated message about that number not being in service. Jyn is fairly certain that she can feel her stomach drop, the world suddenly tilted on its axis, but stubbornly, she sets her jaw and tries his work. Maybe he forgot to pay his phone bill, or something. Maybe it got lost in the mail and she'll have someone's ass to kick for this stupid panic.

Only, when that call gets picked up, she's informed by a rather detached-sounding voice that he didn't show up for work this morning, which is stupid, it's crazy, she saw him, said she'd meet him later—

Jyn hangs up on the man on the other line and tries to ignore the way her hands are shaking when she dials Cassian's number, knowing that he won't answer while he's working, but wanting the reassurance of it ringing, of his voice on the voicemail message. She exhales finally, slowly, in desperate relief when she hears it, leaves a quick message to let him know that she's coming home early so he won't see only a missed call from her, then hangs up. Though she's only ordered a soda for herself, wanting to wait for Bodhi before she got anything else, she leaves a twenty dollar bill on the table to cover it and storms out.

In the alley she ducks into, walking as far back from the sidewalk as she can, she screams, loud and long, and slams her fist into the brick wall.

After that, she loses track of what happens, doesn't remember getting on a bus and going back to the house or fumbling to get the door unlocked. Her head is going in too many other directions at once, and just trying not to fall apart in public takes about as much effort as she can manage. Only one person has seen her cry since she was a small child. She has no intention of changing that today, even if she can't stop thinking of Bodhi on that beach, of the burns on his arm the day he arrived, of the fact that he followed her and fought for her and died because of it.

People talk about those who've disappeared going home, like there's something peaceful in it, something normal. Jyn knows better than that. This is no different than her mother in that field when the 'trooper fired his blaster, than Saw in the catacombs, than her father in the drenching rain on Eadu. There's no home for Bodhi to go back to, and she's been left yet again.

Of course she has. She always knew she would. She knew perfectly damn well how dangerous it was to let people into her life and her heart like this, and she did it anyway, and now she's paying the price again. Up until now, she's been lucky. It isn't as if she hasn't lost anyone — she still thinks sometimes about Liesel, who reminded her so much of herself, and about Korra, and about Rey — but she kept her family, and now, once again, that's splintered, slipping through her fingers despite how tightly she's tried to hold onto it.

The only thing to do for that is to give herself distance. Standing in the kitchen, something in her chest feeling heavy and tight with grief, she fetches the first aid kit and thinks about packing a bag. She'll leave a note this time, answer any calls that come in, but she can't stay. Lincoln would take her in, she thinks first, then dismisses that possibility. He's too close. Maybe she'll find some seedy motel, the kind of place she spent more nights in than she could count in the years between Saw leaving her and getting arrested on Corulag, and wait out the aftermath there. First, though, she needs to bandage her hand. The damage isn't too bad, no bones broken, the bleeding not too heavy, just bruises and split skin over old scar tissue. Today isn't the first time she's hit a solid object. It won't be the last.

Her dominant hand being the injured one, though, taking care of it is a longer process than she would like it to be, her movements clumsy. The emotion closing her throat probably doesn't help with that, either. As such, she's still at the counter when she hears the front door open, and Jyn winces, first angry with herself for not having left yet, then guilty for thinking like that at all. "I'm in the kitchen," she calls, so Cassian will know she's here. Somehow, miraculously, she manages to keep her voice even, though her relief at his presence is at war with not knowing how the hell she's supposed to face him like this. She told him herself that everyone leaves, and has known from the beginning that she would lose him eventually, too. That fear has never been as visceral as it is now, though, and the only response to it she knows is to run.