step off the ledge and risk it all again

When Jyn first heard about Christmas from Rey a long time ago, a memory she only half-remembers for how much she'd had to drink at the time anyway, she hadn't expected it would be like this. Even before the month begins, there are signs and decorations going up, stores advertising the holiday like their very livelihood depends on it, seasonal drinks and candies and other such things to be found nearly everywhere. Part of her wants to think it's silly, indulgent. Rey compared it to Life Day, and that may not have been entirely wrong, but it all seems like so much more, too. She'd never have so much as taken part in anything like this before she got here, at least not before her family left Coruscant and her whole world turned upside down. For all that she would like to write it off, though, there's a part of her that can't help but be charmed by the whole thing — the lights, the scents in the air, the words to the stupid cheery songs that seem to be playing in every damned store that she doesn't understand most of the references in.

She still doesn't think she has much of a grasp on what the holiday is supposed to be. That won't stop her from wanting to take full advantage of it. She can, after all, for the first time in such a long time, and she's tried to start thinking of such instances as something to take advantage of rather than something to keep at a distance. Maybe she deserves this. Even if she doesn't, Cassian and Bodhi do, and if she's going to call a place her home, she may as well act like that's actually the case.

As such, she's on something of a mission when she texts Lincoln and asks if he wants to meet her, sitting on a bench on the corner of a block of shops near what she's heard called a Christmas tree lot. Trees are just one more piece of an increasingly unclear puzzle, but some of the decorated ones she's seen really are lovely, and she thinks, well — she could do that. She just might need some help, and she can't go to Cassian or Bodhi for that when she wants to surprise them. Besides, she can't buy them any gifts if they're around, either, and that's another thing that she could use some input on. She already has some ideas, but she's mostly going into this blind, and she expects the same is true for Lincoln, too.

Her gloved hands are wrapped around a warm cup of coffee, something too sweet but fragrant with peppermint and delicious all the same, as she waits, a cookie in a paper bag in her lap that she's been taking small bites of, savoring its sugary taste. As with any occasion, the food is one of the most important parts, and she isn't letting any of this go to waste.

As she really ought to have expected, things escalate quickly.

Trouble has always followed her around, after all, and maybe Jyn has always been a little incapable of staying out of it. There's no other reason why she should be out tonight, taking advantage of this twelve-hour span they're calling the Purge, in which nothing is illegal so people are doing everything that would be under other circumstances. She could have stayed inside, stayed safe — but then, she doubts anywhere is really safe tonight, and that's a feeling she knows well. Nowhere ever has been, not for her. She'd known the same would apply to Darrow eventually, its facsimile of peace nothing that could ever have held up. In that way, this is a bizarre sort of comfort. She's been tense for days, waiting for this, and after a lifetime spent looking over her shoulder, it feels right to be doing so again. In its own way, this is a world at war now, and that's all she's ever known. She doesn't think she could stand it — doubts the voice in the back of her head that sounds suspiciously like Saw would let her — if she sat this out, tried to lie low.

Besides, it isn't as if she needs to go starting anything serious. At first, she just does simple, little things — slicing into the ATM that dispenses cupcakes and tossing them all into a bag, then, when that proves not to be enough of a challenge, slicing into an actual ATM. She acquires a few weapons, nicer than she could afford otherwise, half just for the sake of doing it. Once a thief, always a thief, she supposes.

The same could be said for being a soldier, and that in itself would make all of this worthwhile. The skills she spent so many years learning and honing aren't ones she can afford to let go of; she needs to keep them sharp, and this is the best opportunity to do so she's had yet. There's always something of a thrill in being underestimated, anyway. Saw taught her early how to use her size to her advantage, to seem unassuming to catch any opponents off-guard, a lesson she teaches two men on a street corner wondering why a tiny little thing like her is out on Purge night. Neither is conscious by the time she walks away, barely short of breath, her typical bun still in place.

She could stay out all night doing this, and would probably relish just about every second of it. What's different from what she's used to, though, is that she has somewhere and someone to go back to now, and there's only so much playing with fire she really wants to do with that being the case.

Perhaps ironically, Jyn is nearly back to the Bramford when a shout down an alley catches her attention through the chaos. There's a girl, younger and smaller than her, pinned against a wall and outnumbered, and that strange protective instinct that Jyn has always wanted to pretend doesn't exist and never been able to ignore kicks in. She's got another fight in her. She's taken out more 'troopers than this with nothing more than her truncheons before.

"Hey!" she yells, loud enough to get their attention, to distract them enough for the girl to get away. "Pick on someone closer to your own size, why don't you?"

They turn and bare their teeth, and Jyn realizes belatedly that they're fangs. It's entirely possible that she's underestimated this situation.

When she goes back to Cassian's, she sleeps for what feels like the first time in a long time. It's an exaggeration, of course — she's slept, just not well — but even so, those few hours she spends curled up in his bed, warm morning light filtering in through the windows, are more restful than any she's had over the last few months. That isn't much of a surprise. Since they first got here, Jyn has slept better in Cassian's bed than she has in her own, and that's without so much hanging overhead, the worry that she'd ruined everything simply by trying to protect herself, doing what she's always done. At least on one count, she hasn't. That's still both a relief and difficult to process. When she left her apartment today, wandered out to the beach before the crowds come as she so often does, she'd been alone. For months, she'd been convinced that Cassian couldn't possibly want anything more from her than they already had. Now, they're— She's not quite sure what they are, but they're something, and that's enough.

He isn't the only person with whom she has damage to try to undo, though, and Jyn knows, when she wakes up a little while before Cassian is supposed to leave for work, where she has to go next. This isn't something she can put off. It wouldn't be fair to, nor is it something she would want to. Still, she's more nervous than she probably ought to be when she leaves, promising vehemently that she'll be back later. Running into Cassian this morning had been a coincidence — a painful one, maybe, at least at first, but perhaps easier, in a way, than having to work up the will to go back unprompted, even if she'd meant it when she told him that she always intended to. This uncertainty, this self-consciousness, she can barely stand it, but she owes this to Bodhi. She's made him wait long enough. She just hopes it hasn't been too long.

On her way to his apartment, she stops on a whim in a bakery she knows they both like, emerging a few minutes later with a box of four cupcakes, all different flavors. It isn't as if she thinks showing up with baked goods will actually make a difference, but it seems right even so, bringing a peace offering of sorts, an apology better than whatever she can stumble through. In front of his door, she stops, paces a few times, frowning deeply to herself, then finally forces herself to stop and knock, taking a deep breath as she waits. Putting this off any longer isn't going to make it any easier or any better. She might as well get it over with.

She's distracted. Sloppy. A dozen other things that she can hear in Saw's admonishing voice in her head, and the frustration Jyn feels at the fact of that only seems to make them all even more the case. Grantaire isn't at all like her erstwhile father figure — he's a friend, really, inasmuch as she considers herself having any of those at all — but she still doesn't like being off her game. It happens so rarely, it takes so much to get her so unfocused, that when it does, she knows there's really a problem.

And there is, of course, albeit one of her own making. It's been weeks now since she's seen Cassian, her self-imposed absence continuing to stretch on. Rather than getting used to it, as was the point, not wanting to rely on him, or on Bodhi, needing to be ready in the likelihood that she'll be left again one day, just as she always is, she's mostly found it increasingly difficult. She gets even less sleep than usual when she's alone in her own bed rather than in his, and the more time passes, the more convinced she is that it wouldn't do any good to go back anyway, that he probably wouldn't even want her to. She never intended to stay gone forever, and she still doesn't, but it weighs on her more than it should. Anyway, the sleeplessness itself accounts for her not being in the best state to be sparring right now.

Saw would say that isn't an excuse, but Saw isn't here, and Saw has plenty to do with the fact that she expects abandonment now at every turn, feels like she has to brace herself for it. The surge of spite she feels at the memory of that is at least a welcome change of pace from being so annoyed with herself.

"I think I might need to call it a day," she admits, pushing her damp bangs away from her sweaty forehead. She hasn't gotten anything wrong, at least; if her form or her movements were incorrect, she would push through the fog in her head until she managed to get them right. Instead, she shoots Grantaire a small, self-deprecating smile. "Clearly I'm not exactly at my best right now."

It takes longer than usual for Jyn to make her way to Cassian's. She ought to have expected as much, really, between the amount of time she's spent looking at her phone, trying to type out text messages, and the fact that she's used to coming from her own apartment, not some party in some garage. Just orienting herself is a bit more difficult than it should be, but she has no intention of or reason to admit as much. She made no mention to Cassian of when she would be there, just that she would, and drunk or not, she isn't so far gone that she can't read street signs or figure out her way around. It's a survival instinct, as much as anything else; she didn't make it on her own as long as she did by sheer chance. When she thinks about it like that, when she acts on sheer determination, it isn't as difficult as all that.

Even as she walks to his building, she knows this is probably a bad idea. She'd been too open, too vulnerable, once memories started hitting her at that party, and that's usually a danger with Cassian as it is. To be with him now, she can't be sure of what she will or won't say around him, what usually buried impulses she might try to act on. There's no one she trusts more than Cassian, and that includes herself. Whatever it is she feels when she's around him, she might not have a word for, but it's getting increasingly difficult to pretend it's not there. She doesn't know now if she'll be able to manage it at all.

She also just can't quite bring herself to care, when the alternative is going back to her own apartment — too empty, as she told him — and being lost in her own head, with so much threatening to overwhelm her already. Being around Cassian might be dangerous, but he's safe, and with her walls lower than usual, that's all that counts. Even when she's forcing herself to keep a distance, even when she's too scared of what they're doing and what it might mean, she tends to want to be around him. Now she thinks she might need to, a weight still heavy in her chest, lungs aching like they're filled with smoke. There's no one who could understand that like he does. He's the one who was there.

Outside his apartment, she fumbles for the key he gave her, then gives up, leaning her forehead against the door. "Cassian?" she calls, not caring that the woman across the hall, who already seems to disapprove of her, will probably hate her all the more for it. "It's me."

She manages to keep it together until she's alone, at least. Under the circumstances, Jyn is willing to take whatever approximation of a win she can get. To let her guard down and show vulnerability around anyone would have been out of the question, but to do so in front of someone who knows her, who looked at her that awful way Poe had looked at her, would have been even worse. There's a part of her, of course, that had wanted nothing more than to smash every expectation he had of her, unwilling to remain on some pedestal the Alliance posthumously put her on, knowing that she would only disappoint, but there's only so far she can go to that end. Some days, it's quieter than others, but she can never really rid herself of Saw's voice in the back of her head, reminding her of all those years of training, of being taught not to show weakness.

And this certainly would have been that. On her own, she can't breathe, her chest constricting painfully, unable to get it out of her head. He'd respected her, he said. He'd heard stories. He'd looked at her with nothing short of awe, when the very Rebellion that let him hear about her couldn't have been more willing to chew her up and spit her out. She got them what they wanted and it still wasn't enough, still didn't let them see her as anything more than a criminal and an Imperial's daughter. Any good she did was in spite of them, not because of them, and yet, and yet—

Jyn needs to move, needs to do something to shake this tension coiling under her skin. She doesn't think about it, she just does it, and somehow isn't surprised when she shows up in front of Cassian's building rather than her own, carried there by instinct. More often than not, that's where she spends her time anyway, and whether he's in or not, she doesn't think she could stomach the distant but unmistakable sound of the ocean from her own apartment right now. As it is, she can already barely hold herself together. She might hate the idea of letting Cassian see her like this, too, but he's seen her in the wake of plenty of nightmares by now. This, at least, won't begin to compare.

Not bothering to knock, which she usually doesn't anyway, she pulls a pin out of her hair to pick the lock, leaning back against the door and exhaling heavily once she's closed it behind her. She feels winded like she's been running, and maybe she has — not literally, but from whatever idea of her Poe and who knows how many others managed to get of her, whatever recognition was laid on her after she died, which she didn't do for them. Hands curling into tight fists at her side, she realizes then that she should maybe announce her presence, just in case, and calls out, "Cassian?"

Mostly, she's gotten used to the dreams. It's like Cassian told her in the hospital, they don't go away, and she wouldn't have expected them to, either. That would be too neat, too easy, in a way that her life has never been. They were starting to come for her, the dreams, even before Scarif, anyway, before she had to face the certainty of all of those deaths and watch Cassian seem to die and confront the man in white, the ghost who haunted her for all those years, and sit on the beach knowing that her own end was coming at the hand of her father's weapon. She hadn't minded it, dying — at least she'd done it for a purpose, at peace, held by someone she cared about for the first time in years — but when she sleeps, it's never as simple as clutching to Cassian and watching the ocean burn white. Her imagination, never really all that impressive otherwise, always makes it worse.

In this one, they do make it out to the beach, which they don't always. The Death Star looms large ahead of them in a way it didn't in real life, and Bodhi and Chirrut and Baze are there, too, animated corpses standing on the sand and watching with her, Cassian's arm heavy around her shoulders. The ground is covered in bodies, and she knows with a sickening certainty that she killed them all. The strongest stars have hearts of kyber, corpse-Chirrut tells her, though she hears the words in her head without him having to move his mouth. Under her shirt, her crystal burns white-hot against her chest, searing her flesh, and in that same instant, the Death Star fires, its beam emerald green, then washing the world in white.

Cassian offers her no words of reassurance this time. They all turn towards her instead, watching her like she's the planet-killer and not that big, awful monstrosity in the sky. She killed them all. They followed her, and this is where it brought them, and there's no escaping it now. Her father's body is in front of her, drenched like it was on Eadu, and though there are only moments left, she kneels in the sand beside him, wanting, needing, to hear his last words again.

His frail hand finds her cheek and she holds it there. Stardust, he says, and she nods, thinking he means her. He doesn't, nodding instead towards the horizon. My Stardust.

I know because it's me.

The others are on the ground now, dead for real, staring up at her with sightless, blaming eyes, and she's left facing the Death Star, her mirror self, her father's other creation. All they do, both of them, is destroy. The world on fire around her, the Death Star fires square at her this time, its green light striking her mother's kyber crystal, and it shatters, and she shatters with it. Stardust, her father says again, though he's already gone, and she is, fallen to infinitesimal pieces, debris floating up to space like she saw as they flew away from Jedha, hearing as she does, Say you understand.

I understand, Papa.

Usually, when Jyn wakes from a nightmare, it's with a gasp in her throat and sweat on her brow. Some nights, she's quiet enough that she just tucks herself closer to Cassian, waits for her breathing to slow and her heartbeat to steady, and tries to go back to sleep. Others, he wakes with her, and she tells him she's fine even though they both know it's a lie, and she doesn't speak of it again when the sun comes up. This time, though, there are sobs wrenching themselves from her throat, a sensation that's become so unfamiliar that it takes her a moment, in her barely-awake haze, to recognize them for what they are or notice that her cheeks are already wet. She hasn't cried like this, not even for the dead, since the flight back to Yavin 4, tucked in the engine compartment of the cargo shuttle where no one could see or hear her. Before that, she'd been a child, with her parents still to comfort her.

Now — now, she's sharing Cassian's bed, his body just inches from hers as she draws away and sits up, pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her forehead on them, and she can't stop, can't breathe. Pressing her palm to her mouth does little to muffle the sound of her crying. Already, she hates herself for it, cheeks burning with embarrassment under the tracks of tears. He sleeps, she's fairly certain, about as lightly as she does. There's no way he won't know. This is one thing, no matter how sick she feels at the thought of it, that she won't be able to hide.