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Though she's had months to prepare, it's still hard to believe that they officially start their program next week. Perhaps predictably, Jyn doesn't feel ready in the slightest, worries she'd thought she moved past and questions of her own competency bubbling back to the surface. Perhaps it is, at least in part, a result of how odd the past few months have been, her focus largely elsewhere. It isn't as if she's been ignoring this, but things have been rough to say the least, between the hallucinations Cassian was having and not telling her about and her father's arrival. The latter, she still doesn't quite know what to do with or how to talk about. It's been strangely preoccupying, her whole life here feeling like it's been turned on its head, though the ostensible changes are few.

If there's anyone she can talk to about it, she thinks, it's Lincoln. She just can't figure out where to start. It's easier to keep herself busy, checking equipment in the space where they'll be teaching, making sure it's all in good shape and ready to be used. Probably the best thing she can do for herself is throw herself wholeheartedly into it, keep herself busy and distracted. It worked for years, trying to hold the weight of her father's absence at bay. It's just the other way around now, in a sense.

"I can't think of anything else we need before we start," she says. "Though I could keep going over all of this and still think of five things as soon as people actually get here."

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"Someone might say you're overthinking," Lincoln comments from where he's organizing their boxing gloves and tape. With the money from the gala, they'd been able to get a good amount of new equipment, easily enough for them to both train with full classes, and he's making sure everything is separated properly according to size. The easier it is for the kids to grab, the smoother that part of the class will go.

They haven't really spoken much about Jyn's father. She knows Lincoln knows he's here, knows Lincoln had met him not long after his arrival, but beyond that, he's left it alone. She'll want to talk at some point, he's sure of that, but he thinks it's better if she comes to that on her own than is pushed toward it by him.

"We're okay," he promises. "We're prepared."

"Better overthinking than under-thinking," Jyn says with a teasingly petulant shrug. He's right, of course. They're probably as prepared as they'll ever be, and if anything else does come up, they'll deal with it then. It's not as if they won't be able to acquire anything they don't have or replace anything that isn't in working order. Things happen, and even the most foolproof plans hit the occasional bump. She knows that as well as anyone. It helps, though, having something tangible, something she can control, that aren't her stupid feelings. The less she has to deal with those, the better, not least because she can barely make sense of them at the best of times.

"I still expect you to tell me if I wind up being terrible at this."

"We'll see," Lincoln teases back, shrugging one shoulder up toward his ear, as if he can't really held responsible for that. There's no part of him that believes Jyn is going to be bad at this, despite what she's worried about, and he knows the only way she'll be convinced of that is when the classes start and she doesn't encounter the problems she expects.

Kids are different than adults. They're far less likely to give her problems. At least, not problems she won't be able to handle.

"Maybe I'll just let you suffer," he decides.

"You better not," Jyn says, teasingly petulant. She knows, of course, that that wouldn't actually be the case. This means too much to both of them for that; it wouldn't be worth jeopardizing the kind of work they're setting out to do. Besides, even if she's still not convinced that his faith in her isn't misplaced, she knows she wouldn't be here at all if he didn't think she could do it. She just still has to work on convincing herself of the same.

It would be easier if she weren't so distracted, but the things in her head aren't likely to go away any time soon, and the best thing she thinks she can do is find other things to focus on, like this.

"We had a deal, remember. I'm holding you to it."

"We did have a deal," Lincoln agrees. He'd never go back on his word to Jyn either, even on something like this, where he's been teasing her about it all this time. She's too important to him for that.

"So far I can tell you you're doing well," he says, although he knows they're not doing anything especially difficult yet. Organizing their gear and making last minute plans doesn't take a lot of effort, but he knows she is over-thinking, and he wants to assure her everything is going exactly as it's supposed to.

"You just seem a little distracted, that's all." It's not a judgment, but an opening. A way for her to talk if that's what she wants.

For all that Jyn prefers — tries, really — not to be too easy to read, it doesn't surprise her much that Lincoln can see through her so easily. Few people have ever known her as well as he does, most of them also here in Darrow, and in this case, she isn't making too considerable an effort to hide it. Of course she's distracted. With the state her life is in, it would be impossible not to be. Still, she feels a little guilty about it now, knowing that why they're here and what they're about to do is important, her expression turning just slightly apologetic as she shrugs.

"I won't be, when we have people here," she says, though she knows that's not why Lincoln is bringing this up. She has to remind herself of that — that he's probably concerned about her, not about her capabilities as a teacher — but she also knows that she can trust it. "I think it'll help, actually."

Beyond that, she doesn't have much sense of how to talk about the rest, except to keep it as simple as possible. "I've just had a lot on my mind."

"I'm not worried about that," he answers, though it's probably unnecessary. Jyn knows him well enough by now to know he's not asking because he's thinking she won't be able to do the job when the time comes. Everything he knows of her points to exactly the opposite of that. Her entire life could be falling apart and she would still step up and do what she'd promised to do, no matter what that might be.

It's a strength he admires, but also wishes she didn't have to have. People ought to be able to stop and take time for themselves, but in times of war, he knows it isn't possible.

"Your dad?" he guesses. It's not a hard jump to make. There aren't many other things he can see as causing Jyn to have a lot on her mind right now, especially when that's the more clear and obvious change in how things in Darrow have been. Lincoln hadn't spoken to him much and hasn't seen him since the day he arrived, but he expects Jyn has.

Were anyone else asking, except perhaps Cassian, a question like that would make Jyn shut down on the spot. Partly, it's just an old instinct, born of so long spent having to conceal her identity. More than that, though, the subject is tied to a vulnerability that she's never been comfortable expressing. It's always been easier just to close herself off, to feel only anger if she had to feel anything at all. Lincoln has gotten past so many of her defenses already, though. What's more, he's met Galen, odd as that still is to consider. If there's anyone she can be honest with, it's him.

"Mostly, yeah," she says, nodding. At least things at home have settled down, though there's a part of her that's still the slightest bit uneasy after what happened with Cassian in October, still waiting for something to go wrong. Maybe that would be easier to let go of if not for the twin blow of her father's arrival so soon after. "It's just... a lot."

Lincoln nods and is quiet for awhile as he stacks some pads in a cabinet, lining them up to make sure they don't topple over whenever someone opens the door. It's not something he wants to pressure Jyn to talk about if she's unwilling, but she had answered his question and maybe it's not that she's unwilling. Maybe it's that she isn't sure where to talk about it. Who might listen.

He'll listen to her, though, he always will. And he has to expect it helps that he'll be unbiased. Or at least biased in her favour.

"I can imagine. He was dead, wasn't he?" he asks.

He doesn't ask if she thought he was dead, because he'd heard the words coming from Galen. He knows what it's like, being in a situation like that, waking up in Darrow and knowing you shouldn't be waking up at all.

Jyn nods, quiet for a moment. It isn't, in this instance, like she has anything to hide, or even like she's weighing how much to tell him or not, what words to use. Even with Galen here now, alive after having died just like her and Cassian and Lincoln, it's hard to talk about. She doubts that will ever change, no matter how much time they have in this strange place, no matter what this second chance turns into. If that's its own problem — that she doesn't know what she wants it to be — then that's something she can mention later.

"He was dead," she echoes, her voice soft. "He died right in front of me. It was the first time I'd seen him in fifteen years." She still remembers it with painful clarity, which might be the most awful thing about it. If he's going to be here now, and alive, she shouldn't have to remember so vividly what it was like to watch him die.

"The funny thing is, I'd only just found out he was alive."

"That's a lot," Lincoln says softly. Octavia might be the best person for Jyn to talk to about this, given that she's been through the very same thing with him and has had to reconcile his death with the fact that he's here and very much alive. But he knows Jyn isn't exactly prone to talking about her feelings, especially with people she doesn't know well.

He hasn't been through the same thing, even though he died himself, but he can still be here for her.

"He was very concerned with finding you when we met," he says. "So I know I didn't get a good sense of what he's like, but I'm looking forward to getting to know him. If he's anything at all like you, I know I'll like him."

"I don't know what he's like," Jyn says, and if there's something a little petulant, a little wounded in her voice, she thinks she can trust Lincoln not to draw attention to it. That's part of her problem, she thinks. Having her father around makes her feel a bit like a child again, maybe because after she lost him, she stopped being able to be one. All those feelings she buried and never dealt with, she has to confront, and that isn't something she's remotely comfortable with. "I was eight, when he left. I never got to find that out."

Just like she is, in so many ways, so different from the girl he left waiting in the cave underground, she suspects the years have changed him, too. Now, she has a chance to find out how, but she isn't entirely convinced that she should take it.

"And if you'd asked me after that, I wouldn't have wanted to."

"What about now?" he asks. "There's no war, no outside influences to have to contend with. It might be easier to get to know him somewhere like this."

And he has a fair idea Galen would like nothing more than that. When Lincoln had mentioned her, his entire demeanour had changed and while it had been obvious he didn't immediately trust Lincoln, the fact that he knows Jyn had gone a long way to convincing the man to follow him.

Lincoln has to wonder if he would take the same opportunity were it presented to him. There isn't anyone in his life like Jyn's father, he had known both his parents well until they had died in battle, but there are people he knows he could afford to give a second chance to. Maybe even getting to know Pike would be worth it.

"I guess maybe that's the problem," Jyn admits, shrugging tensely. Just tearing the words from herself feels painfully difficult, and with anyone else, she would probably be getting indignant already. Owning up to any sort of weakness or vulnerability is something she expects she'll always be uncomfortable with. But this is Lincoln, and she actually trusts him, and maybe it will be better if she actually says some of this out loud instead of trying to sort through it on her own.

It's one thing she prefers not to go to Cassian about, too, if she can help it. If he asked, she'd be honest with him, and she wouldn't pretend not to be fine with anything, but she knows her father's presence is a touchy subject for him, too, and she doesn't want to add to that.

"I don't know what I want. I never had a choice before. Now that I do..." She doesn't know what to do with it. Part of her feels awful for that, cold and ungenerous, memories of her father's hologram still impossible to shake. Somewhere in her, though, is still the eight-year-old girl who watched her father leave with the men who killed her mother, then waited and waited in vain for him to come back for her. The sting of that abandonment will likely never fully fade.

Lincoln nods and sits with that before replying right away, knowing Jyn will understand and respect his desire to think it through before saying whatever comes into his head. He knows her father simply left her behind and while there may have been reasons for it, Lincoln can understand Jyn not necessarily being able to separate those from the feelings of abandonment. She had only been a child. She needed her parents.

"I don't think anyone is saying whatever you decide right off has to be the final decision," he says. "If you decide you don't want to get to know him right now, just tell him that and tell him it might change in the future. You're allowed to have complicated feelings about this. I don't think anyone would expect otherwise."

And if they do, they can talk to Lincoln about it. He'll be sure to remind them what they really ought to be thinking about.

If anything, Jyn can appreciate Lincoln's silence before he speaks. She knows he's thoughtful about what he says, and when words are far from her strong suit, she can't blame him at all for wanting to take a moment to choose his carefully. Better that than some flippant, halfhearted response. It's almost a relief when his answer does come, too. She wouldn't have assumed that he would think her awful for it, but it's nice to be met with a sense of understanding rather than someone thinking she's being unfair. Maybe she is too closed-off, but she became that way for a reason, and she can't just magically change it overnight now that her father has quite literally appeared in her life again after fifteen years. She doesn't know him. Just as importantly, he doesn't know her. They're strangers who just happen to be related. If that's going to change, it isn't going to be overnight.

"I think he might want... something more than I know how to give yet," she admits. He'd been so emotional that day he arrived, and while she can't say she blames him, it was still awkward to be on the receiving end of, especially when her every instinct tells her to bottle such things up. She didn't have the first idea what to do being looked at like that, any response from her seeming cold and unfeeling.

"You don't think it makes me awful? Not knowing if I'm ready for that?"

"No," Lincoln answers immediately. "That doesn't make you awful. I think... I can understand why he'd be so happy to see you, but he needs to give you some space and some time. He has to understand how long you've been sitting with this."

He's not sure how he would feel if his parents were to arrive suddenly in Darrow and he had a good, solid relationship with them right up until they died. He had been especially close with his mother and he still doesn't know how he would feel if she were to suddenly arrive in Darrow after so long.

"He has to understand you've had to move on," he says. "It's not as if you were waiting around for him to come back."

"I stopped waiting for him a long time ago," Jyn says, that touch of petulance creeping into her voice again. It still isn't directed at or because of Lincoln. It's just hard to avoid, her father's presence bringing back so many of the feelings she's tried to bury since she was a child, turning hurt into hatred because it was easier to grapple with. If she hated him, she didn't have to miss him. If she hated him, she wouldn't still be a scared little girl, waiting alone in the dark for someone who'd abandoned her. Better to put all of that behind her, to keep the cave sealed shut.

"And he... He might have been thinking about me all that time, but it's not like there was any way for me to know that. All I knew was that he was gone."

Maybe the best thing, the bravest thing, would be just to say that outright, but she's not sure she has it in her. It's not a vulnerability she shares with many people, certainly not the father who left her so many years ago.

Lincoln nods again, putting away more of the supplies and closing the cupboard doors when it's all finished. He leans against them, his arms crossed, then says, "You might need to tell him that eventually. Do you think... maybe writing it down would help. That way you could say everything you needed to say without worrying he might interrupt you and you can go back to it whenever you think of something to add."

He pauses, then says, "I don't think you owe him anything. I'm not suggesting this for his benefit, but for yours. You won't be able to avoid these things now that he's here, especially if he's looking to reconcile."

Lincoln doubts he's going to give up on her again any time soon. And he thinks something like that is only going to make things worse unless Jyn can at least explain that she needs some time.

"Not exactly my strong suit," Jyn points out with a shrug, though one corner of her mouth curls up just a little. "But maybe." For all that it may not be her forte, it would still be better than speaking to him face to face, trying to say what she needs to and only feeling guilty and too emotional for it. Given how much trouble she had saying anything at all when he first arrived, she doubts she'd be able to get much out anyway. Chances are, she would just freeze again, everything kept painstakingly contained to avoid getting too emotional, and that wouldn't get her anywhere. If they're going to have any kind of relationship at all, she has to be able to talk to him, but trying to lead with this doesn't seem like the best way to do so.

Considering that, she pauses for a moment. "At least I could try to figure out what to say, instead of being on the spot." She'd be able to rewrite it as many times as needed, to get Cassian and Lincoln to look over it first, to get some distance that she still sort of hates herself for thinking she needs. It makes her feel like a coward that she can't just face this head-on, but she's spent so long burying any feelings pertaining to her father that anything else probably just isn't possible. An emotional conversation is far more frightening to her even than any battle. "Have... some time with it for myself."

"Exactly," he answers with a nod. "You can take as long as you need with it, too, and if you need someone to tell him you need some time, I'm sure Cassian would be willing to do that for you."

And if Cassian can't for any reason, Lincoln will do it. He doesn't think he needs to say it, he thinks she knows he has her back, regardless of what she might need. The same can be said for Victra, although he knows she would rather not get involved in a family matter like this. For Lincoln, his entire clan was his family and so Jyn is his family. He'll do for her what he would have done for his parents or for Nyko or Octavia.

"You're not wrong for not knowing what you want," he says. "This is... complicated."

"Complicated sounds about right," Jyn says, huffing out a breath. Her feelings about her father were complicated long before he ever wound up here. He left her, but he loved her; he built a weapon capable of obliterating planets for the Empire, but he gave them a way to destroy it; he named his monstrosity after her, but at least he was thinking about her. Now he's here, and there's a choice in front of her that she was never supposed to have to make. No matter how awful she might feel, of course there's no easy answer.

"I don't want... to cut things off completely. And lose this shot. But I can't be what he wants me to. Not now, anyway." Thoughtful, she absently fiddles with the crystal on her necklace. "I don't think I would be, anyway. I'm not sure he'd like me, if he knew me." Of course, she thinks that's in no small part his fault. She wouldn't have turned into what she is now if he hadn't up and left her. Knowing that doesn't make the thought of it all that much easier.

Lincoln tilts his head at that, a clear disagreement, even if he doesn't say the words. As far as he's concerned, Jyn is one of the best people he knows and anyone who is allowed to be close to her should consider themselves very lucky. Her father would do well to feel the same, he thinks, no matter what has happened between them and no matter how changed he might find Jyn.

She's an adult now. Whether he'd left her or not, she would be a different person than when she was only a child. He can't be disappointed that she grew up.

"I think you're wrong about that," he says gently. "But if that's the case, that's a failing on his end, not yours."

"It's not like I can help it," Jyn says, about as close as she can get to an agreement. It's true, though. It isn't her fault if a paranoid old soldier was more of a parent to her than Galen or Lyra Erso, if fighting is the only skill she ever really acquired. She had to survive somehow. He didn't do anything for her on that front. Even now, she can't help the surge of anger she feels in thinking about it. Someone who abandoned her shouldn't get to judge what necessity turned her into. And a man who could build a weapon like the Death Star, however under duress he might have been, has no business thinking her too violent. She fought her way across the galaxy, but she saw what became of Jedha City. At least she never did anything like that.

"All I ever learned how to do was fight. You know that. I don't think he'd like that about me."

"That is not all you are," Lincoln answers, because although they're speaking of her father right now, he needs her to know that. He needs her to hear it, even if she can't believe it about herself yet. "I didn't ask you to help me with this because you can fight. I asked because you care. Because you want to protect people. Because you're loyal and fierce and you dislike injustice as much as I do. Fighting isn't the only thing you ever learned and if he were to ever think that of you, it would be clear to me and everyone else who loves you that he doesn't have the slightest idea what he's talking about."

And if Galen Erso does think that, then Lincoln is going to have a thing or two to say to him about his daughter. A thing or two to teach him. And a few choice words that may be a little less friendly than their initial meeting.

Caring is a weakness. Jyn knows better than to say as much when she doesn't really even think so, but it's an old instinct, something that's been drilled into her head since she was a child, one of the first things she learned in Galen Erso's absence. Lincoln treats it differently, and though part of her appreciates it, she doesn't quite understand it. He's not wrong, though. She does care. More often than not, she's tried to pretend otherwise, but that's mostly been to cover the fact that she cares more than she thinks she should. Apathy is as good a shield as any, feigned or not.

It doesn't change the fact, though, that she doesn't think she's what her father would want her to be, violent and uneducated and rough-edged. She never joined the Alliance, except at the end, when she was really just fighting for herself anyway. She thinks sometimes about his hologram, the few words she remembers echoing in her head — if you're happy, Jyn — and knows she was never that. Not until she got here. He said himself that this is the kind of life he'd wanted for her, and it couldn't be further than anything she knew before Darrow.

"If he knew about me, about... the life I've had, I think that might be all he'd see," she admits, the quietness in her voice betraying how much Lincoln's words do mean to her. "But... But he's the one who left. If he wanted something else, he could have been there."

Edited 2019-03-11 01:16 (UTC)

"He lost the right to try and dictate the sort of life you had when he left you with someone else," Lincoln answers, looking at Jyn with a soft expression. He doesn't really believe any parents have the right to do so, but he also knows they try to raise their children in the manner they want most.

But whatever Galen wanted most for Jyn disappeared when he left. Even if he was trying to preserve it by going. Lincoln can't pretend to understand his motivations for leaving or what the story behind his decisions may have been. He won't presume to try. Galen may have done literally the only thing he could and Lincoln respects that, but he also wouldn't respect any judgment of his friend on the part of her father.

"You'll never know, though, will you?" he asks. "Unless you give him a chance."

"Guess not," Jyn allows. Coming from anyone else, it would probably be all the more frustrating, but she knows Lincoln is with her on this. It's enough to keep her from getting angry over it, and anyway, he's not wrong. She won't be able to find anything out if she doesn't do so firsthand. If a part of her thinks it would be preferable not to find out one way or the other, she hardly sees how she could be blamed for that, either, when she never expected or, after a point, wanted to have a chance like this. She told Cassian once — the day she met him, when he was interrogating her on behalf of the Alliance — that she liked to believe her father was dead because it made things easier that way. She meant it, and not just because she knew who he was working for.

"It's all just so complicated. I keep feeling like I should be happier, but... There's too much."

"You don't have to feel any way," he answers. "Just feel what you feel without trying to change it to something you think you're supposed to feel instead."

It's not going to be the easiest advice to follow, but he knows she's only going to face more difficulty if she tries to force herself into something she doesn't feel. It's hard and he knows it, because even if she might not think it of herself, Jyn does want to make other people happy. She and Lincoln are alike in that way, even if one might not see it at first glance.

"He has to respect that," he says. "He can't expect you to force anything."

Because she's right, it is complicated. When Octavia had arrived and he had told her about Victra, it was all Lincoln could do, too. Respect what she felt and give her the space she needed.

From a logical standpoint, Jyn knows that he's right, of course. Excepting her time in various prisons, no one has ever forced her to do anything she didn't want to do, and she owes no debt to the man who abandoned her. He may have thought about her all those years, but he never tried to find her, never tried to send word. Of course she couldn't just welcome him back into her life as if that weren't the case. Of course no one in their right mind would be able to expect that from her.

She thinks about the way he looked at her, though, all emotion where she'd been carefully composed stoicism and falling apart inside, and she still feels like it's what's wanted of her, what she's supposed to do. She just doesn't know if she can do that.

"Thanks," she says quietly, more appreciative than that one word of gratitude would probably suggest and all the more self-conscious for it. "For saying that. For listening. There's not really anyone else I can go to about it."

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