[Something in Jyn realizes that - on the peaks and ranges of pleasure and sorrow - the intensity of memory, of secondary thought stolen borrowed from someone else is blinding. Searing. As hot white bright as the light had been on Scarif as she felt the disintegration of epithelial cells and all that lie underneath, as she felt the calcium in her bones liquefy and float into the ether, becoming one with The Force or the Universe or maybe Nothingness in its purest form.
She isn't consciously aware of the difference, not while distracted and focused so intently on the sharp press of his hips against hers, the sudden bluntness at his being met with their limit of being able to go no further, no deeper. The friction inside of her consumes her much like the light on Scarif - reminds her vaguely of the same heat, the same brilliance - and she vaguely wonders whether they won't simply explode or implode or something-plode at the culmination of all of their efforts, at the highest peak before the fall, before the crash, before the delicious descent.
Jyn remembers the blossoming of color and heat in her cheeks as her fingers gripped his arm, the way his bone and muscle shifted beneath her hand, the immediate pull of both of their eyes to the source of contact and the agony she felt pulling herself away. The lingering, aching, gnawing pain in her chest as she alerted the others, trying to focus on the mission, on the words she knew they'd needed to hear from her in that precise moment, all the while trying to ignore the burning sensation in her hand and the stronger heat at her core. She remembers forcing herself to stay in the hold, finally beginning to feel the oppressive weight of what she could lose in those moments, on that kriffing planet, and knowing all of it lay in Cassian's eyes, the way he looks at her, the way he makes her feel. And ignoring it. Swallowing it. Knowing the sound of his footsteps coming down the rungs by instinct alone, and wanting nothing more to drown herself in his eyes while pulling away at the same time, falling into old practices of self-preservation and fear. Dislodging her tongue from its cocoon in her jaw and using the lingering warmth left by his gaze to fuel the words that came next: "Saw Gerrera used to say one fighter with a sharp stick and nothing left to lose can take the day."
Jyn remembers never wanting to so acutely rip someone's throat out as she had Cassian's after Eadu. Body and bone and soul drenched, quivering, frozen. Fingers and hand still blazing with the evaporating heat of her father's body in her lap, her cheek streaked with blood and ash that only she could see where he'd reached up to touch her face. "It must be destroyed." "Look at you. I have so much to tell you." She needs someone, anyone to blame for the way her father's presence had been ripped so violently out of her life, not just then - not just on the platform, but all of it. From the moment she'd been born on Vallt, to the weeks he'd go by without even acknowledging her, to the toys she'd wake up to in her bed as though it could substitute for his embrace and affection, to hiding in a bunker and praying for Papa to come and find her, save her, hold her. "Everything I do, I do to protect you. Say you understand." Empire, Rebellion, she doesn't care who'd done it. She doesn't care who'd been the one to ultimately clench its fist around her father's throat 'til all the air had been squeezed out. And Cassian's there, an easy target. With those infuriatingly dark eyes, the quick manipulation of his tongue to turn her words against her and discredit her reaction. So she spits out her acid, she aims straight for his heart, for his core, for his essence, and is unapologetic about it. She lets him get close, can feel the breath on her face, and resists the urge to slam skull against skull and do something with the black hole she has inside. She crawls away, into the cargo hold, and - finally alone (again, always alone) - begins to cry.
Jyn remembers feeling drunk on the sound of her Papa's voice. It's been years since she's last heard it, and she's always wondered if her memory of his face, the vibration of his vocal chords, the tension of his mouth is as accurate as she recalls. He looks so tired. He looks so empty. He looks like a man who's lost everything and more, who's only been fueled and driven by the revenge into which he's placed all faith he still carries, all memories of his wife and daughter, all memories of the life he'd never been able to have. The life he had stolen away from him as much as she had had. She remembers the sharp pain of her knees hitting the stone ground, no longer able to support her sinking weight, pulled down first by the pit in her stomach and her heart close behind. She remembers a hand at her wrist, looking up and expecting to see Papa or Saw, the way she'd hoped and dreamed in both of those kriffing bunkers, years apart. But finding Cassian's face instead. Somehow saved and pulled by the desperation in his tone, his pull. Unable to drag herself out of the darkness, but willing to go to follow his light.
Jyn remembers the spark of recognition and familiarity, the glow of the lightboards casting him in a pallid color that could never do him justice. Unable to place the connection, unable to draw the line from the clean-shaven man with the closely cropped hair, struggling against a beast who wasn't going down without a fight, from whom she'd stolen the next week's meals straight out of his pocket to the hardened, broken man before her who looks well beyond his 26 years of age, from a lifetime of war and fighting and death and fallen comrades and fortified defenses; instead, sees flickers of the boy she once loved with dark, endless eyes and long tendrils of coal-black hair that she loved to run her fingers through. She wonders, silently and somewhere out of her consciousness, what it might be like to do the same to Cassian.
Jyn remembers the darkness. She remembers the bursting flame of adrenaline and its almost-immediate extinction, aware of every bone and vessel and ligament being broken torn destroyed shattered under their fists. Orbital bones and zygomatic bones go first, a sound that rattles her teeth and breaks their knuckles. Mandible displaced, broken; masseter muscles torn. Nasal fracture, most likely causing long-term damage. Teeth loosened. Platysma over-stretched and mostly likely torn. Calculated injuries, torn ligaments and tendons, ruptured vessels, shattered bones; easier to focus on and easier to measure than the hole where her heart had been, the bleeding and bloody fragments of whatever might've been left still oozing, dripping with the blood rushing from both nostrils, split lips, lacerated skin. She remembers nothing except the gentle embrace of a bed. Sharp stings of something being applied to the cuts in her skin, wondering if there's any skin left. In and out of consciousness, of awareness, thinking maybe Hadder had shown up after all and found her and would be there when she woke. If she woke. Waking up to an empty room, eye still swollen but still intact and still where it should be; fuzziness, motion where they shouldn't be, lurching nausea and pain and fried up nerves from too much damage. Faint whiff of sterilization, not only from her injuries but - from something else. She knows the smell. Knows the scent of Imperial uniforms and cleaning standards. Remembers the mix of it with her Papa's clove aftershave. Had he found her? Had he found her and left? Could he have done such a thing? Staring into an empty room, no trace of whomever had been there, whomever had saved her, except the lingering smell of antiseptic and the heat of her skin where he'd touched her.]
I love you. [Her voice rings out clear, purposeful. Still coated in the throes of pleasure and passion, arms and limbs still clinging to him as though it might keep her from disintegrating like back on Scarif, but still cutting through the air - words she will never say without clear intent behind them. She repeats.] I love you, Cassian. [Make no mistake of who she is talking about; make it clear that it's him. It's them. No matter of what they couldn't change or who they couldn't be. They are here now, together, despite (in spite?) of it all.]
[action]
stolenborrowed from someone else is blinding. Searing. As hot white bright as the light had been on Scarif as she felt the disintegration of epithelial cells and all that lie underneath, as she felt the calcium in her bones liquefy and float into the ether, becoming one with The Force or the Universe or maybe Nothingness in its purest form.She isn't consciously aware of the difference, not while distracted and focused so intently on the sharp press of his hips against hers, the sudden bluntness at his being met with their limit of being able to go no further, no deeper. The friction inside of her consumes her much like the light on Scarif - reminds her vaguely of the same heat, the same brilliance - and she vaguely wonders whether they won't simply explode or implode or something-plode at the culmination of all of their efforts, at the highest peak before the fall, before the crash, before the delicious descent.
Jyn remembers the blossoming of color and heat in her cheeks as her fingers gripped his arm, the way his bone and muscle shifted beneath her hand, the immediate pull of both of their eyes to the source of contact and the agony she felt pulling herself away. The lingering, aching, gnawing pain in her chest as she alerted the others, trying to focus on the mission, on the words she knew they'd needed to hear from her in that precise moment, all the while trying to ignore the burning sensation in her hand and the stronger heat at her core. She remembers forcing herself to stay in the hold, finally beginning to feel the oppressive weight of what she could lose in those moments, on that kriffing planet, and knowing all of it lay in Cassian's eyes, the way he looks at her, the way he makes her feel. And ignoring it. Swallowing it. Knowing the sound of his footsteps coming down the rungs by instinct alone, and wanting nothing more to drown herself in his eyes while pulling away at the same time, falling into old practices of self-preservation and fear. Dislodging her tongue from its cocoon in her jaw and using the lingering warmth left by his gaze to fuel the words that came next: "Saw Gerrera used to say one fighter with a sharp stick and nothing left to lose can take the day."
Jyn remembers never wanting to so acutely rip someone's throat out as she had Cassian's after Eadu. Body and bone and soul drenched, quivering, frozen. Fingers and hand still blazing with the evaporating heat of her father's body in her lap, her cheek streaked with blood and ash that only she could see where he'd reached up to touch her face. "It must be destroyed." "Look at you. I have so much to tell you." She needs someone, anyone to blame for the way her father's presence had been ripped so violently out of her life, not just then - not just on the platform, but all of it. From the moment she'd been born on Vallt, to the weeks he'd go by without even acknowledging her, to the toys she'd wake up to in her bed as though it could substitute for his embrace and affection, to hiding in a bunker and praying for Papa to come and find her, save her, hold her. "Everything I do, I do to protect you. Say you understand." Empire, Rebellion, she doesn't care who'd done it. She doesn't care who'd been the one to ultimately clench its fist around her father's throat 'til all the air had been squeezed out. And Cassian's there, an easy target. With those infuriatingly dark eyes, the quick manipulation of his tongue to turn her words against her and discredit her reaction. So she spits out her acid, she aims straight for his heart, for his core, for his essence, and is unapologetic about it. She lets him get close, can feel the breath on her face, and resists the urge to slam skull against skull and do something with the black hole she has inside. She crawls away, into the cargo hold, and - finally alone (again, always alone) - begins to cry.
Jyn remembers feeling drunk on the sound of her Papa's voice. It's been years since she's last heard it, and she's always wondered if her memory of his face, the vibration of his vocal chords, the tension of his mouth is as accurate as she recalls. He looks so tired. He looks so empty. He looks like a man who's lost everything and more, who's only been fueled and driven by the revenge into which he's placed all faith he still carries, all memories of his wife and daughter, all memories of the life he'd never been able to have. The life he had stolen away from him as much as she had had. She remembers the sharp pain of her knees hitting the stone ground, no longer able to support her sinking weight, pulled down first by the pit in her stomach and her heart close behind. She remembers a hand at her wrist, looking up and expecting to see Papa or Saw, the way she'd hoped and dreamed in both of those kriffing bunkers, years apart. But finding Cassian's face instead. Somehow saved and pulled by the desperation in his tone, his pull. Unable to drag herself out of the darkness, but willing to go to follow his light.
Jyn remembers the spark of recognition and familiarity, the glow of the lightboards casting him in a pallid color that could never do him justice. Unable to place the connection, unable to draw the line from the clean-shaven man with the closely cropped hair, struggling against a beast who wasn't going down without a fight, from whom she'd stolen the next week's meals straight out of his pocket to the hardened, broken man before her who looks well beyond his 26 years of age, from a lifetime of war and fighting and death and fallen comrades and fortified defenses; instead, sees flickers of the boy she once loved with dark, endless eyes and long tendrils of coal-black hair that she loved to run her fingers through. She wonders, silently and somewhere out of her consciousness, what it might be like to do the same to Cassian.
Jyn remembers the darkness. She remembers the bursting flame of adrenaline and its almost-immediate extinction, aware of every bone and vessel and ligament being broken torn destroyed shattered under their fists. Orbital bones and zygomatic bones go first, a sound that rattles her teeth and breaks their knuckles. Mandible displaced, broken; masseter muscles torn. Nasal fracture, most likely causing long-term damage. Teeth loosened. Platysma over-stretched and mostly likely torn. Calculated injuries, torn ligaments and tendons, ruptured vessels, shattered bones; easier to focus on and easier to measure than the hole where her heart had been, the bleeding and bloody fragments of whatever might've been left still oozing, dripping with the blood rushing from both nostrils, split lips, lacerated skin. She remembers nothing except the gentle embrace of a bed. Sharp stings of something being applied to the cuts in her skin, wondering if there's any skin left. In and out of consciousness, of awareness, thinking maybe Hadder had shown up after all and found her and would be there when she woke. If she woke. Waking up to an empty room, eye still swollen but still intact and still where it should be; fuzziness, motion where they shouldn't be, lurching nausea and pain and fried up nerves from too much damage. Faint whiff of sterilization, not only from her injuries but - from something else. She knows the smell. Knows the scent of Imperial uniforms and cleaning standards. Remembers the mix of it with her Papa's clove aftershave. Had he found her? Had he found her and left? Could he have done such a thing? Staring into an empty room, no trace of whomever had been there, whomever had saved her, except the lingering smell of antiseptic and the heat of her skin where he'd touched her.]
I love you. [Her voice rings out clear, purposeful. Still coated in the throes of pleasure and passion, arms and limbs still clinging to him as though it might keep her from disintegrating like back on Scarif, but still cutting through the air - words she will never say without clear intent behind them. She repeats.] I love you, Cassian. [Make no mistake of who she is talking about; make it clear that it's him. It's them. No matter of what they couldn't change or who they couldn't be. They are here now, together, despite (in spite?) of it all.]