step off the ledge and risk it all again

It didn't take long for them to settle into a rhythm. Jyn wasn't sure if that was surprising, or if it wasn't in the slightest. For both to somehow be true shouldn't have been possible, and yet that was how it felt. Whichever of the two would win out, though, it also felt good, falling asleep beside him at night and waking with his arms around her, watching him fit into the life she'd carved out for herself here like a missing piece slotting into place.

She didn't actually want to think of it that way. That, in short, was the source of so much of her continued conflict and confusion: not wanting to rebuild a life with and around him when it left her so wrecked to lose that before. As usual, though, her heart had other plans. She never was as good at closing herself off as she liked to portray herself, and he was— well, him. Not the person who'd been here before, but still the person whom she trusted more than she had ever let herself trust anyone, who came back for her time and again. In a way, he'd done the same here.

He was still the person she fell in love with, although she still hadn't used that word. It hovered, always there on the roof of her mouth, but she couldn't allow it out. For the sake of her own self-preservation and for his sake too, not wanting to pressure him or lead him to believe that she saw him only as the one who'd been here with her before, which she at least didn't think she was. Besides, having had no restraint at all the first time around, maybe it was better for maintaining that distinction to take things slow and see what happened, even if it became more difficult with each passing day not to act on how she felt about him.

Things were... well, good. Jyn had trouble trusting that, but she did not have trouble trusting him, so she tried to keep her focus on the latter. Nights were still sometimes interrupted by bad dreams, and she was still working on catching him up about this place, but given where they'd both started — and, for that matter, where they'd both ended — that was all to be expected, and not enough to lessen that overall judgment. Things were good. It was working. She really, really wanted it to work.

When he mentioned wanting to explore, testing some of the city's limits, Jyn hadn't hesitated to agree. She'd told him maybe his second day here that she would help him figure it out in any way she could, and she would hardly object to the idea of getting out for a while. Even in the comfort of her ship, she got restless easily.

Having taken a moment to water the plants in her garden before setting out, she looked up at Cassian when he emerged from the ship to join her. "Ready to go?" she asked. "Are we heading east or west?"

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?"

When she'd first had the idea to do this, Jyn had been ready to walk right in and get it done without a moment's pause. She's always been as impulsive as she is cautious, and knowing full well that nothing could change her mind, she hadn't seen any reason to wait. The shop had been busy, though, too much so for a walk-in, and frustrating as it might have been, she'd begrudgingly made an appointment for a few weeks down the line.

Those few weeks have passed. In retrospect, it's probably not a bad thing, having had time to really consider what she's doing, but her thoughts on the matter are the same as they've been since the day she accidentally dropped her necklace down a storm drain. The ring Cassian gave her when he asked her to marry him is just a symbol, nothing that somehow stands in place of their entire relationship, but even something she treasures so dearly might not be with her forever. She wants something that can't be lost or taken from her, something tangible but permanent.

It's an odd subject for her, permanence, and a difficult thing to try to wrap her head around even now. Nothing in her life has ever fit that description before, and for a long time, she actively avoided it, making sure she had no attachments, that she stayed perpetually on the move. When it comes to anything physical, that's even more the case. A potentially defining mark would have been a dangerous thing before, making it easier to link one of her aliases to another, from which nothing good would ever have come. Maybe none of them would have led back to her real identity, but it still would have been a hell of a lot worse for the rest of them to be connected, defeating the purpose entirely.

Darrow is different, though. Cassian has reminded her of that on multiple occasions, and she knows he's right. The fact that she would actively seek out anything so lasting at all seems like proof of that. Whatever apprehensiveness she may have, she knows it's the result of old habits rather than anything else. It's certainly not enough to change her mind. Months ago, she said her vows and signed some papers and wouldn't downplay any of that for a second, but although this is for her, in a way, it seems almost like an even bigger commitment. There's no undoing this. And while it may be just one word inked on her skin, it's a weighty one, something she had forgotten entirely could exist until he reminded her of it. Except for her having gotten him to write it so she'll have it in his handwriting, it matches the inscription on the inside of his ring, which makes it mean all the more.

Her own ring is on her hand, though that isn't where she usually keeps it. With the position of the tattoo, though — against her ribs, from her side to under her breast — she can't wear a shirt to have it done, and so she's left her necklace at home, having far fewer compunctions about having someone see her body than having them see her kyber crystal. She can't claim anymore that Cassian is the only person who has in years, but that doesn't mean she's about to go showing it off.

Lying on her side while the artist gets ready to start, she looks up at Cassian, having not been about to do this without him here. "If you're going to try to talk me out of this, now's your last chance."

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.

The truth of the matter is, Jyn still really doesn't understand what the whole deal with Christmas is or what it's supposed to be. When it comes to decorating, she's only done what she's seen in stores or seen other people do, though she thinks that it's turned out alright, all things considered. The tree is still standing, despite a few near-mishaps with the lights and with Sprinkles, and she doesn't need to know why people put them up in the first place to like the way it looks in their new living room, casting a faint warm glow and still smelling like it did the first day she brought it in. Cleaning up once they get rid of it is probably going to be hell, but it will be worth it.

As far as she's concerned, it would be even just for this — Cassian's arms around her, the two of them curled up on the couch, Sprinkles nosing her way into a piece of wrapping paper discarded earlier. It still terrifies her sometimes, the moments when she catches herself thinking that she could get used to this, but she wants to, more than she would know how to say. Words have never really been her strong suit, anyway.

It's easier to turn her head enough to brush her lips against Cassian's shoulder, everything seeming for the moment calm and peaceful and still in a way she never really imagined she could be so comfortable with. Then again, she never would have imagined any of this for herself in the first place, from the holiday and all its odd trappings and traditions to where she is and whom she's with.

"Look, it looks like she's trying to wrap herself up, doesn't it?" she says then, a faint, fond sort of smile on her face as she nods in Sprinkles's direction. "I can't see that ending well."

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.

It isn't until they're nearly there that it dawns on Jyn just how strange this is. Though hardly exclusively, most of the time they spend together winds up being in Cassian's apartment, late nights and interrupted sleep and leftover takeout when they wake up. For a while, at least, after they got here, she would go and stay for days on end, though that much isn't exactly an option anymore. She doubts Cassian would object to her hanging around his apartment while he's gone, but she wouldn't be able to stand it, probably. It would feel too much like starting to take something that she wants too much to let herself have. Now, she comes over at night when she knows he'll be there and leaves when he does the next day, if not before. If it's a strange adjustment, she tries to pretend it isn't, tells herself that it shouldn't be. The very fact of that means this is for the best, after all, that she'd gotten too used to the way things were.

She still sleeps better in his bed than she does in her own, though, and finds that it's when she's around him that she misses him the most, as if his presence is a reminder of how unlikely this is to last.

This, at least, is a deviation from what is, or was, normal that's a little easier to swallow, as long as she doesn't think too much about it and what it could be but isn't. Still, when she tips her head up to look at Cassian, the café that's their destination just down the block, it's with an expression of mild, almost amused, confusion. "Remind me again why we're doing this?" she says. "Aside from the whole making up for the pets we don't have thing."

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.