you were only one ever managed to pickpocket me there didnt see you do it but was able to [run back the mental footage] figure out who it must have been afterward my important stuff in my boot so you didnt get anything i had to track you down for
but i [was kinda impressed so] kept an eye out for you didnt have your face - just height and clothes but was enough
next time i saw you was the night before shipping out for coruscant k-2 bringing getaway ship to coruscant directly - me transferring through 5.s for data trail wasnt in uniform but had just changed to imperial hairstyle - to be sward
[close-cropped, and, more distortive by far, clean shaven. Offsetting the phantom years that kept getting longer.]
didnt want to sleep - crawling out of my skin followed you to moeseffas looked like you were hunting guess for the two goons you picked a fight with
i was about to ship out for the highest profile assignment of my life already looked like my cover identity should not have drawn attention to myself
[Never would have. Only…
Add another one to the tally. Jedha. Eadu. Yavin. U-Wing. Five Points Station.
The only times Cassian Andor had lapsed in making sure the mission came first. Put a total or near-total stranger first instead. Put Jyn first instead. Based on even less knowledge of her than he'd supposed.]
but watched you fight them could tell you could have beaten them they were underestimating you - your abilities were exceptional but then you just
[He'd seen it before
—an insurgent on Sullust simply dropping his weapon and standing, with sudden transcendent calm, to be gunned down —one of his team on Chemvau when he made the mistake of looking back as he abandoned them, relaxedly leaning back onto a blade —the tension around Xilo's eyes and in her shoulders going suddenly slack, as her hand found the detonator and she mouthed at him: Run
he'd felt it himself hadn't succumbed but]
lost the will to fight - just let them pummel you i knocked one out with a chair - bluffed off the other - pretty sure you did want to die cause you just let me carry you out of there wouldnt let me take you to a med facility - wouldnt tell me where you lived took you back to my room - locked up my gear - and patched you up
[Her face had been beaten to a pulp, of course he'd never known her features; but how had he not recognized her stature, her frame, when he saw her on Yavin 4… the way she moved and fought on Jedha…?
Because it had been a different woman on Five Points Station. One aged beyond her years, in that moment far more extremely than Cassian; changed in carriage, stance, motion, practically in height; not yet hardened as she'd become on Wobani; withered and twisted and raw with…
…grief, he realized. Remembering from her story where she'd been right before then.
[private text] 2/2
you were only one ever managed to pickpocket me there
didnt see you do it but was able to [run back the mental footage] figure out who it must have been afterward
my important stuff in my boot so you didnt get anything i had to track you down for
but i [was kinda impressed so] kept an eye out for you
didnt have your face - just height and clothes but was enough
next time i saw you was the night before shipping out for coruscant
k-2 bringing getaway ship to coruscant directly - me transferring through 5.s for data trail
wasnt in uniform but had just changed to imperial hairstyle - to be sward
[close-cropped, and, more distortive by far, clean shaven. Offsetting the phantom years that kept getting longer.]
didnt want to sleep - crawling out of my skin
followed you to moeseffas
looked like you were hunting
guess for the two goons you picked a fight with
i was about to ship out for the highest profile assignment of my life
already looked like my cover identity
should not have drawn attention to myself
[Never would have. Only…
Add another one to the tally. Jedha. Eadu. Yavin. U-Wing. Five Points Station.
The only times Cassian Andor had lapsed in making sure the mission came first. Put a total or near-total stranger first instead. Put Jyn first instead. Based on even less knowledge of her than he'd supposed.]
but watched you fight them
could tell you could have beaten them
they were underestimating you - your abilities were exceptional
but then you just
[He'd seen it before
—an insurgent on Sullust simply dropping his weapon and standing, with sudden transcendent calm, to be gunned down
—one of his team on Chemvau when he made the mistake of looking back as he abandoned them, relaxedly leaning back onto a blade
—the tension around Xilo's eyes and in her shoulders going suddenly slack, as her hand found the detonator and she mouthed at him: Run
he'd felt it himself
hadn't succumbed
but]
lost the will to fight - just let them pummel you
i knocked one out with a chair - bluffed off the other - pretty sure you did want to die cause you just let me carry you out of there
wouldnt let me take you to a med facility - wouldnt tell me where you lived
took you back to my room - locked up my gear - and patched you up
[Her face had been beaten to a pulp, of course he'd never known her features; but how had he not recognized her stature, her frame, when he saw her on Yavin 4… the way she moved and fought on Jedha…?
Because it had been a different woman on Five Points Station. One aged beyond her years, in that moment far more extremely than Cassian; changed in carriage, stance, motion, practically in height; not yet hardened as she'd become on Wobani; withered and twisted and raw with…
…grief, he realized. Remembering from her story where she'd been right before then.
Who she'd been with.
The explosion that had gotten her there.
He stops.
Rereads what he wrote. Twice.
Not sure if he should…
…but did. Send.]