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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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"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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