nextchance: (pic#11555787)
Jyn Erso ([personal profile] nextchance) wrote2025-05-04 09:10 pm
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like a row of captured ghosts over old, dead grass

It was raining. Had been, on and off, all day, thunderstorms the night before tapering into intermittent drizzle throughout the afternoon. Jyn hated that it left her slightly uneasy. It was only weather, after all. Maybe it was just the familiar restlessness that had been building in her for she wasn't even sure how long now, the sort that felt like an itch under her skin that was impossible to scratch. The Falcon was a decent-sized ship, but as rain pattered against the viewports, its rooms and corridors felt minuscule, like prison cells. She just needed air. Needed to do something, really. The weather ruled out working in her small-but-growing garden, and the way the dampness made her shoulder ache meant taking her feelings out on a punching bag would probably wind up being regrettable. She could be reckless, but she wasn't stupid.

That left her with going for a run, as good an option as any. It would at least be likely to help her shake that skin-crawling feeling. Her hair in a messy ponytail, overlarge T-shirt hanging off her small frame, she bent to scritch behind Sprinkles's ears and promise she'd be back soon. On another day, she might have taken the dog with her, but today, now, she needed the space not to be worrying about another being.

The dog, it seemed, had other ideas. As soon as she began lowering the exit ramp, Sprinkles made a run for it, yapping — well, really, howling — enthusiastically at the approaching figure. For half a second, Jyn held back an exasperated sigh, unsure why one of her few regular visitors would be worth such a fuss.

Then she realized that it wasn't one of those regular visitors. It was, in fact, someone she knew very well, someone she never expected to see again.

Jyn hadn't kept track of the time, hadn't counted the days as they turned into weeks, months, years. She knew from experience that to do so would only make her miserable, and she'd already been in Darrow for a hell of a lot longer than she had anywhere before. So she didn't, off the top of her head, know how long it had been since she'd seen Cassian Andor, and yet he was unmistakable. He probably would have been even if she hadn't spent two years sharing his bed, eventually sharing his name. Darrow being Darrow, she had assumed if she ever did see his face again, it would belong to someone else, the way sometimes tended to happen here. Even if she'd wanted to, though, she wouldn't have been able to even entertain the possibility of that being the case now. She knew him, but she knew those clothes, too, the remnants of a stolen Imperial uniform that helped get them onto the base at Scarif. There was simply no one else who would look like that, wear that, and show up at her metaphorical doorstep.

She was staring, she realized, frozen at the top of the ramp, the color drained from her cheeks, as if she was looking at a ghost. In a way, it truly felt like she was. Her voice came out smaller, shakier than she'd have liked, traitorously betraying a torrent of emotion that she didn't have the first idea how to begin sorting through.

"Cassian?"
fulcrum3: (Scarif . jyn . hands)

[personal profile] fulcrum3 2025-05-07 03:21 pm (UTC)(link)
He nodded heavily with relief. Then brought her hand to his face and pressed it to his forehead, his closed eyes. (Still not a kiss, not uninvited, but perhaps more.)

Gently, reluctantly, he released her hand, and folded his arm under his head. Here was a man accustomed to ship's bunks. Though often as not, when alone, he'd sleep in the pilot's seat in the cockpit, wrapped in an army blanket, with static blaring from the radio. Right now, his exhaustion was enough to overcome usual difficulties, and with Jyn's touch still resonant on his skin, he was out.