He wasn't so far gone that the touch didn't make him start upright and reach for a weapon (that wasn't there). But doing so set off blasterbursts of pain through his abdomen and made dizzy bruises blacken his sight. He managed enough lucidity to remember what had happened and recognize Jyn Erso, and so let himself crumple back down.
"You came back," he breathed, possibly nonsensically. And, apparently, alone.
Jyn could have taken care of herself if need be, but she was glad that it hadn't had to come to that. She just paused in her ministrations, pulled her hand back, and waited until the panic had passed and he settled back onto the pallet, which she was sure wasn't helping the pain he was already in.
"Yes, I did", she replied, reaching for the canteen of water that she'd made sure to bring along. "Come on, I'm sure you're parched."
Absokarkinglutely. Trying to go upright again was a terrible idea, so he tried turning a bit onto his side—which was better, as long as he didn't narrow the focus of weight too much. It wouldn't be exactly dignified, but he'd be able to drink without everything spilling out.
Jyn felt for him, she truly did. It seemed that no matter which way he moved, he was still in tremendous pain. She did her best to accommodate him with the canteen, but there was no stopping a little spillage from occurring.
"Can you tell me what happened?", she asked, glancing down at the supplies she had on hand, pondering her next action. "Do you remember what made you crash?"
She sighed, eventually brushing some stray hair out of her eyes, her expression not dour, just concerned. "You think we can get your shirt off? I won't know the extent of your injuries unless I can see for myself."
So she wasn't among those who'd been searching for him? Didn't already know why he'd crashed?
Well, at worst she'll know he's lying. Though he could equally be too disoriented and concussed to remember. Go with that one. "I'm not sure. Some kind of malfunction…"
(Not gonna just give up that the Imps shot him out of the sky. That would lead to asking why.)
Getting his shirt off was another painful prospect. Still, probably a good idea. Setting his teeth to avoid making noise, Cassian pushed himself again somewhat upright, and accepted any help she'd give in opening and removing his shirt.
During this, partly to give himself more to focus on than just ow, he managed through his teeth: "Broken ribs. No trouble breathing, which is good; no pneumothorax. Possible spinal trauma—hard to move my legs. Concussion." Several words at the end got clipped off when he bit down against the pain. His knuckles were white and lower lip bleeding as he lowered himself back down.
He was thinner than he looked clothed. The bruises blossoming on his torso were in accord with his self-diagnosis. Anything actively bleeding was relatively superficial. More striking were the older scars: A pocking of shrapnel on shoulder going over to his back. The shine of blasterburn on his side. What looked like old knife wounds on his chest and forearm. Some faint, geometric surgical lines. Callouses from restraints around his wrists. And a jagged, raised mottling running down his side disappearing under the waistband of his pants. (It looked like someone had tried to dig something out of his side with an instrument not meant for the job. But what really made it the worst: it was stretched. He'd gotten it before he was finished growing.)
She had searched for him - and she had been the one to find him, too. Jyn still didn't have an answer as to why they were in their current situation, but for the moment, she still thought that he was in a much better position than he would have been had anyone else come across him first.
Jyn nodded her understanding of the explanation - as bare as it had been. Of course he wouldn't want to tell her the truth of the matter, knowing that she was one of the Imps that had shot him down, not knowing her, not trusting her, only allowing her to help because there was no other choice. "You're lucky you didn't crash in the desert. If the sun and sand hadn't gotten you, the more feral scavs would have."
She helped where she could, steadying him when he seemed wobbly, deft fingers making quick work of undoing and removing his shirt, and it was only when she was able to take in the full picture of the man in front of her that she understood - partly - what kind of hardships he had faced. She took a shaky breath and set to the task at hand of unwrapping the thermal bandage so she could then wind it around his chest, to try to keep those broken ribs in place.
"I can't do anything about your spine - ", she stated apologetically. "It's not like I can sneak you into medbay, and you're in no condition for that, anyway. But I'll do my best with what I've got."
For a time, after the bandage was secured and she set to working on cleaning the bloody scrapes and other contusions in silence, Jyn paused and raised her eyes, a little knot of concern knitting her eyebrows together. "Is anyone going to come looking for you?"
Sneak you into medbay… So she was with them. There were no other organizations' facilities in walking distance. Did she not know why they'd been gunning for him? Or… what?
Being tended to, however rudimentarily, felt… good. Part of him thought he should resist any sense of relief or welcome of it. That part got pretty quickly shouted down. He stayed impressively still while she worked, not wincing, not resisting; head bowed, eyes closed. Like he trusted her implicitly.
(Well… trust, for him, had always been a technical term. You could trust certain people to function certain ways; trust certain situations, lines of causality, to unfold along certain lines. Right now: he didn't know her motives, but he knew he had nothing to lose.)
"Not likely, no," he murmured.
He finally moved: his hand came up and clasped hers, interrupting its work on his ruptured skin. "Jyn Erso. Are you planning on turning me over to them?" It would be one of the few explanations that made sense: get him stabilized then get full credit for delivering an interrogatable captive.
Jyn was indeed one of them. But that was why she was here, after all, as a sort of punishment for beginning to question what they were doing. And no - she was so far down the totem pole that she had not been given any reason other than 'find the trespasser'.
There weren't many trespassers and Jyn was intelligent enough to know that he, most likely, had been looking for something in particular. Nobody just came across this base, and nobody just sought it out.
She worked in silence for a bit, grateful for how still he kept, even though she was sure the antiseptic burned, no matter how gently she attempted to do it. She wanted to finish as quickly as possible - if he was concussed, he'd need to get more rest ... and she wondered if she could manage a whole night spent away from her quarters. Wouldn't it be necessary to wake him periodically to make sure that he wasn't addled?
For the moment, he seemed to trust her not to do anything untoward, since he clearly wasn't in the best position to fend her off. Still, she tensed as he unexpectedly took her hand, her attention immediately shifting from the work at hand to meet his gaze and hopefully hint that she had no malice in mind for him. "No", she answered, her voice soft but steady. "Not unless you're planning on trying to hurt me."
It was a stupid question for him to ask, he belatedly thought. How else was she going to answer?
But it was incredibly tempting to believe her. Not just for the desirable outcome, but because… … …
…
…he wanted to believe her.
(Says which? Really? No… surely. No.)
Her microexpressions suggested earnestness. But he was suddenly inclined to doubt his own analysis. Objectivity was always impaired by wanting something.
Maybe to try and offset this sudden irrationality—snap himself out of it—it finally clicked. "Erso." Where he'd heard that before. "As in Galen Erso? Leading galactic authority on crystallography and energy enrichment; currently part of Imperial weapons development?"
She wasn't trying to placate him with the answer - it had been completely truthful. No, she had no plans to turn him ... but if he attempted to get violent with her, maybe there would be no other choice. But in his current condition, that didn't seem like much of a worry.
It was clear in the way her expression shifted and changed - first falling completely, and then almost being hidden completely behind high walls that had gone up immediately in the wake of her father's name leaving his lips.
Jyn's hands trembled minutely, but she tried to keep herself together as she tried to suss out how or why this perfect stranger would even know that. Maybe she should have given an alias instead. Maybe it would have been the safer option.
Wanting to believe her, thinking her earnest, noting the tells (expression shift, manual tremor) that he'd struck a nerve, gave him the uncustomary desire to be truthful in return.
If that was a symptom of his head injury, it shouldn't be acted on. If it wasn't, it should still less be acted on. (If it wasn't, she was even more dangerous.)
"Gabrael Willix. I liaised with the deepdock on Ord Mantell*." —which was indeed the last place he'd used this alias. So, if she checked, there'd be a data trail. It placed him as a fellow Imperial, or Imperial-adjunct; just not necessarily a close or thoroughly loyal/pious one. That yielded itself to any number of theories why he'd've been shot down now. "Sorry. I've just seen that name attached to a lot of shipments that came through."
Usually, when people asked about her father, they wanted something. Surely, it was understandable that Jyn felt a little ... wary when his name had popped up seemingly out of nowhere.
The explanation seemed plausible enough, though, and while the tension in her shoulders did not dissipate, her expression did soften, not completely, but enough to suggest that she believed him.
"Alright, Gabrael Willix - ", she answered, taking a moment to regroup before she returned to the task of cleaning his wounds thoroughly. The last thing either of them needed was an infection taking hold. "Almost done. I don't have much in the way of meds for you yet, but what I do have should help with any pain you're still feeling."
He'd been playing things all wrong for low-level government agent Willix—not making more fuss about pain, to start—but better to stay consistent than overcorrect now. He closed his eyes and put back his head, simultaneously satisfied she'd believed him well enough and feeling sick to his stomach for the same reason.
"You're saving my life," he said softly. Not because he thought she didn't already know, but to prove that he did.
Jyn truly didn't find anything odd about Gabrael's reactions - he'd gone through an awful shock, after all, it made sense that the full realization of the crash hadn't quite manifested. He'd probably feel the pain much more when the morning came, and all the adrenaline (and what little pain meds she'd been able to bring) wore off.
She shook her head and then averted her eyes for a moment - a quiet one - before glancing back up, conflict more than clear in the furrowing of her brow, the set of her mouth. "Don't thank me yet. If anybody else finds you, I doubt they'll be quite as hospitable."
"That won't be on you." (Unless, for the umpteenth time, she was just toying with him; but if so, the best countermove would probably be guilt.) "And won't undo what you've done so far."
Endgame remained a question—either way: if she was tricking him or if she was genuine. Because if he wasn't to end up in Imperial hands— "Do you know what became of my ship?"
Jyn didn't argue the point, but the hard set of her lips suggested that she did not agree. It wasn't so much that all of her work would've been in vain, it would be that for once in her life, she had tried to do something - the right thing - and had failed, directly contributing to the loss of a life.
Although, if she were caught aiding and abetting, she'd be right there with him.
"There was already a team stripping it by the time I arrived. By now, the scavs have gotten to whatever was left. It's bones by now."
Without someone coming to find him, there were limited other options for escape.
"Ugh." He tried to think. …And couldn't: too many intangibles. First things first. He couldn't do anything until he was back on his feet. Once he was, he'd figure out his options. "Oh well. Couldn't get far right now anyway."
"No", she replied, her attention devoted to ensuring that she cleaned away as much sand and grit and anything else that might've caused an infection should it not be taken care of as soon as possible. "You barely made it in here, and that was with my help."
Jyn paused in her action - waited for a moment, and then continued right where she had left off. It might have stung and even caused more pain, but it was a necessity.
She should have expected the question, but the tightening of her shoulders was probably enough indication as any that she didn't like it. "Dr. Erso's daughter asked the wrong questions and crossed the wrong people - they're calling this reconditioning, but I consider it more a banishment. Can you keep standing for a few more moments? I want to get one of the blankets I brought down so you have something to lie on."
Jyn dug into her pack and grabbed the blanket, shook it out and folded it again as quickly as she could - she wouldn't make him stay standing if he was dealing with a concussion as well as possible spinal injuries. She didn't want to exacerbate those types of injuries.
"It's not much, I know - ", she apologized as she spread it out on the surface of the pallet. "But it's all I could get on short notice. I'll try to get another, and maybe something you can use as a pillow."
She gestured for him to sit again, watching closely before delving back into her pack. "I brought some nutrient bars, too, in case you get hungry."
"It's much more…" than I'd have on my own right now. But he has to stop talking to close his eyes and let the world stop spinning. Hopefully she gets it.
The thought of eating makes him feel ill, but it's important; he should make himself shortly. "Thank you."
He eases himself down—doesn't lie down fully, while she's here, but leans against the wall; puts back his head and closes his eyes.
"What kind of building is this?" Looked like a storage shed, but…?
She knew. It didn't look like he'd managed to rescue anything from the wreckage of his ship, so even though what little she brought felt so paltry, it was better than nothing at the very least.
The knot between her brow furrowed a little deeper as she watched the slow descent, the way he rested against the wall and closed his eyes, and even though they were strangers (why are you helping him you don't even know him he could be the enemy are you stupid stupid stupid) the urge to help was still strong.
But Jyn made no move other than to sit on the floor with a sigh, pulling her knees up and resting her chin atop them, which probably made her appear every bit her age, not at all like a threat.
But then, she didn't want to seem like a threat.
"Storage", she confirmed, with a quick nod of her head. "I don't know what's in the crates. It's been too difficult to bypass the security encryption."
...
"This is the least-used one, though, so there's little chance of anyone other than me making a surprise visit - ", she paused then, considering whether or not to continue. "Your rifle is still within easy reach, just in case."
That made him open his eyes and glance around until he spotted it. Right, his rifle… he was kind of amazed she hadn't taken it. This truly seemed like… she wasn't Imperial and he wasn't… well, suspicious.
He made no move to reach for it, though; not with her so near. "Thank you," he could only say again; meaning it more and more, and with a little more amazement, each time.
He felt a bit dirty, ascribing motives to her, but the role obliged him to say: "I'm not very high on the chain of command on Ord Mantell… I'm not empowered to negotiate much at all. …But if I get out of this, and can find a way to thank you…"
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-07-04 08:44 am (UTC)"You came back," he breathed, possibly nonsensically. And, apparently, alone.
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Date: 2019-07-04 09:02 am (UTC)"Yes, I did", she replied, reaching for the canteen of water that she'd made sure to bring along. "Come on, I'm sure you're parched."
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Date: 2019-07-04 09:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-04 06:59 pm (UTC)"Can you tell me what happened?", she asked, glancing down at the supplies she had on hand, pondering her next action. "Do you remember what made you crash?"
She sighed, eventually brushing some stray hair out of her eyes, her expression not dour, just concerned. "You think we can get your shirt off? I won't know the extent of your injuries unless I can see for myself."
no subject
Date: 2019-07-05 02:54 am (UTC)Well, at worst she'll know he's lying. Though he could equally be too disoriented and concussed to remember. Go with that one. "I'm not sure. Some kind of malfunction…"
(Not gonna just give up that the Imps shot him out of the sky. That would lead to asking why.)
Getting his shirt off was another painful prospect. Still, probably a good idea. Setting his teeth to avoid making noise, Cassian pushed himself again somewhat upright, and accepted any help she'd give in opening and removing his shirt.
During this, partly to give himself more to focus on than just ow, he managed through his teeth: "Broken ribs. No trouble breathing, which is good; no pneumothorax. Possible spinal trauma—hard to move my legs. Concussion." Several words at the end got clipped off when he bit down against the pain. His knuckles were white and lower lip bleeding as he lowered himself back down.
He was thinner than he looked clothed. The bruises blossoming on his torso were in accord with his self-diagnosis. Anything actively bleeding was relatively superficial. More striking were the older scars: A pocking of shrapnel on shoulder going over to his back. The shine of blasterburn on his side. What looked like old knife wounds on his chest and forearm. Some faint, geometric surgical lines. Callouses from restraints around his wrists. And a jagged, raised mottling running down his side disappearing under the waistband of his pants. (It looked like someone had tried to dig something out of his side with an instrument not meant for the job. But what really made it the worst: it was stretched. He'd gotten it before he was finished growing.)
no subject
Date: 2019-07-06 02:33 am (UTC)Jyn nodded her understanding of the explanation - as bare as it had been. Of course he wouldn't want to tell her the truth of the matter, knowing that she was one of the Imps that had shot him down, not knowing her, not trusting her, only allowing her to help because there was no other choice. "You're lucky you didn't crash in the desert. If the sun and sand hadn't gotten you, the more feral scavs would have."
She helped where she could, steadying him when he seemed wobbly, deft fingers making quick work of undoing and removing his shirt, and it was only when she was able to take in the full picture of the man in front of her that she understood - partly - what kind of hardships he had faced. She took a shaky breath and set to the task at hand of unwrapping the thermal bandage so she could then wind it around his chest, to try to keep those broken ribs in place.
"I can't do anything about your spine - ", she stated apologetically. "It's not like I can sneak you into medbay, and you're in no condition for that, anyway. But I'll do my best with what I've got."
For a time, after the bandage was secured and she set to working on cleaning the bloody scrapes and other contusions in silence, Jyn paused and raised her eyes, a little knot of concern knitting her eyebrows together. "Is anyone going to come looking for you?"
no subject
Date: 2019-07-06 05:13 am (UTC)Being tended to, however rudimentarily, felt… good. Part of him thought he should resist any sense of relief or welcome of it. That part got pretty quickly shouted down. He stayed impressively still while she worked, not wincing, not resisting; head bowed, eyes closed. Like he trusted her implicitly.
(Well… trust, for him, had always been a technical term. You could trust certain people to function certain ways; trust certain situations, lines of causality, to unfold along certain lines. Right now: he didn't know her motives, but he knew he had nothing to lose.)
"Not likely, no," he murmured.
He finally moved: his hand came up and clasped hers, interrupting its work on his ruptured skin. "Jyn Erso. Are you planning on turning me over to them?" It would be one of the few explanations that made sense: get him stabilized then get full credit for delivering an interrogatable captive.
Sorry for slow, I'm having ridiculous computer problems :0/
Date: 2019-07-06 04:17 pm (UTC)There weren't many trespassers and Jyn was intelligent enough to know that he, most likely, had been looking for something in particular. Nobody just came across this base, and nobody just sought it out.
She worked in silence for a bit, grateful for how still he kept, even though she was sure the antiseptic burned, no matter how gently she attempted to do it. She wanted to finish as quickly as possible - if he was concussed, he'd need to get more rest ... and she wondered if she could manage a whole night spent away from her quarters. Wouldn't it be necessary to wake him periodically to make sure that he wasn't addled?
For the moment, he seemed to trust her not to do anything untoward, since he clearly wasn't in the best position to fend her off. Still, she tensed as he unexpectedly took her hand, her attention immediately shifting from the work at hand to meet his gaze and hopefully hint that she had no malice in mind for him. "No", she answered, her voice soft but steady. "Not unless you're planning on trying to hurt me."
no worries bb!
Date: 2019-07-07 03:43 am (UTC)But it was incredibly tempting to believe her. Not just for the desirable outcome, but because… … …
…
…he wanted to believe her.
(Says which? Really? No… surely. No.)
Her microexpressions suggested earnestness. But he was suddenly inclined to doubt his own analysis. Objectivity was always impaired by wanting something.
Maybe to try and offset this sudden irrationality—snap himself out of it—it finally clicked. "Erso." Where he'd heard that before. "As in Galen Erso? Leading galactic authority on crystallography and energy enrichment; currently part of Imperial weapons development?"
<3!
Date: 2019-07-07 06:16 am (UTC)It was clear in the way her expression shifted and changed - first falling completely, and then almost being hidden completely behind high walls that had gone up immediately in the wake of her father's name leaving his lips.
Jyn's hands trembled minutely, but she tried to keep herself together as she tried to suss out how or why this perfect stranger would even know that. Maybe she should have given an alias instead. Maybe it would have been the safer option.
Oh, well. No turning back time now.
"I call him Papa, but yes. Who's asking?"
no subject
Date: 2019-07-07 06:36 am (UTC)If that was a symptom of his head injury, it shouldn't be acted on. If it wasn't, it should still less be acted on. (If it wasn't, she was even more dangerous.)
"Gabrael Willix. I liaised with the deepdock on Ord Mantell*." —which was indeed the last place he'd used this alias. So, if she checked, there'd be a data trail. It placed him as a fellow Imperial, or Imperial-adjunct; just not necessarily a close or thoroughly loyal/pious one. That yielded itself to any number of theories why he'd've been shot down now. "Sorry. I've just seen that name attached to a lot of shipments that came through."
no subject
Date: 2019-07-07 07:05 am (UTC)The explanation seemed plausible enough, though, and while the tension in her shoulders did not dissipate, her expression did soften, not completely, but enough to suggest that she believed him.
"Alright, Gabrael Willix - ", she answered, taking a moment to regroup before she returned to the task of cleaning his wounds thoroughly. The last thing either of them needed was an infection taking hold. "Almost done. I don't have much in the way of meds for you yet, but what I do have should help with any pain you're still feeling."
no subject
Date: 2019-07-07 07:10 am (UTC)"You're saving my life," he said softly. Not because he thought she didn't already know, but to prove that he did.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-07 02:44 pm (UTC)She shook her head and then averted her eyes for a moment - a quiet one - before glancing back up, conflict more than clear in the furrowing of her brow, the set of her mouth. "Don't thank me yet. If anybody else finds you, I doubt they'll be quite as hospitable."
no subject
Date: 2019-07-08 08:26 am (UTC)Endgame remained a question—either way: if she was tricking him or if she was genuine. Because if he wasn't to end up in Imperial hands— "Do you know what became of my ship?"
no subject
Date: 2019-07-08 09:11 pm (UTC)Although, if she were caught aiding and abetting, she'd be right there with him.
"There was already a team stripping it by the time I arrived. By now, the scavs have gotten to whatever was left. It's bones by now."
Without someone coming to find him, there were limited other options for escape.
Damn.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-09 05:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-09 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-09 05:59 am (UTC)He still wanted to know her endgame. "How does Dr Erso's daughter wind up on Jakku?"
no subject
Date: 2019-07-09 06:16 am (UTC)She should have expected the question, but the tightening of her shoulders was probably enough indication as any that she didn't like it. "Dr. Erso's daughter asked the wrong questions and crossed the wrong people - they're calling this reconditioning, but I consider it more a banishment. Can you keep standing for a few more moments? I want to get one of the blankets I brought down so you have something to lie on."
no subject
Date: 2019-07-09 06:29 am (UTC)He could keep standing. And he knew what she was talking about.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-09 03:07 pm (UTC)"It's not much, I know - ", she apologized as she spread it out on the surface of the pallet. "But it's all I could get on short notice. I'll try to get another, and maybe something you can use as a pillow."
She gestured for him to sit again, watching closely before delving back into her pack. "I brought some nutrient bars, too, in case you get hungry."
no subject
Date: 2019-07-12 04:07 am (UTC)The thought of eating makes him feel ill, but it's important; he should make himself shortly. "Thank you."
He eases himself down—doesn't lie down fully, while she's here, but leans against the wall; puts back his head and closes his eyes.
"What kind of building is this?" Looked like a storage shed, but…?
no subject
Date: 2019-07-12 06:10 pm (UTC)The knot between her brow furrowed a little deeper as she watched the slow descent, the way he rested against the wall and closed his eyes, and even though they were strangers (why are you helping him you don't even know him he could be the enemy are you stupid stupid stupid) the urge to help was still strong.
But Jyn made no move other than to sit on the floor with a sigh, pulling her knees up and resting her chin atop them, which probably made her appear every bit her age, not at all like a threat.
But then, she didn't want to seem like a threat.
"Storage", she confirmed, with a quick nod of her head. "I don't know what's in the crates. It's been too difficult to bypass the security encryption."
...
"This is the least-used one, though, so there's little chance of anyone other than me making a surprise visit - ", she paused then, considering whether or not to continue. "Your rifle is still within easy reach, just in case."
no subject
Date: 2019-07-13 10:36 am (UTC)He made no move to reach for it, though; not with her so near. "Thank you," he could only say again; meaning it more and more, and with a little more amazement, each time.
He felt a bit dirty, ascribing motives to her, but the role obliged him to say: "I'm not very high on the chain of command on Ord Mantell… I'm not empowered to negotiate much at all. …But if I get out of this, and can find a way to thank you…"
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