Chapter Text
When the droids finally kicked her out of medbay during Cassian’s final round of surgery (“You’re intimidating the surgeons.”), she wandered the base, watching as rebels scurried back and forth, dismantling whatever could be evacuated in a timely manner.
She had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Not officially Alliance, not not Alliance, given the slight deference she’d received from those around base. But other. And known, apparently, as whispers followed her. So much for anonymity. A lifetime of keeping her identity to herself, undone in a few weeks. Their eyes made her skin itch with awareness and the need to run from whatever leverage her name might give them.
Decades of paranoia were hard to shake. What could they do to her now, after all? Her father was dead. The Death Star, his horrific creation, was gone. The name Erso might be a curse but she’s never been particularly well liked outside of a handful of people with thick skin and a stubborn streak.
She could leave. In the chaos, no one would notice one small hauler missing—or at least, not in time to stop her. The galaxy got smaller every year as the Empire tightened its grip, but it was still plenty big enough for one woman to disappear.
But for all her mind noted the possibility, it was never a real option. Her heart and feet were now firmly planted on another path. Perhaps the same path she’d always been on, only with a slight detour the past few years as she tried to escape it.
There was no escape. Nowhere she could flee that the Empire wouldn’t follow, where her fury and guilt might be extinguished.
So she spent her time loitering around the hangar, lending a hand with lifting crates and packing when people let her. If it helped her get a feel for this branch of the Rebellion, particularly at the ground level of infantry troops and the hangar grunts who were freer with their words than the higher ups, that was a bonus. No one could accuse her of outright spying if she was helping.
It was there she spotted a familiar dark head—one who absolutely should not be there. One she’d seen only a few hours ago, supine in medbay and sedated.
She stared across the hangar, eyes narrowed as they followed the figure’s movements. The man went through post-flight checks on a ship that looked like it belonged on a scrap heap. An astromech painted a frankly garish shade of yellow followed him around with a steady stream of beeps the man ignored.
It wasn’t possible. It had to be someone else, she told herself as she moved closer without drawing attention.
It shouldn’t be possible. And yet the resemblance was uncanny.
The closer she got, the more creeped out she became.
Had she missed something? Had she hit her head too hard on Scarif and knocked something essential loose?
She knew she wasn’t crazy. She’d left Cassian in the medbay, laid up without the ability to stand or walk around casually. So who the hell was this?
“Who—who the fuck are you?” she blurted out once she was only a few feet away.
The man turned, brow furrowing as he looked her up and down. “Do I know you?”
“Is this a fucking joke?”
“What?”
“You’re—he’s—you’re a twin?”
His frown deepened. “No.”
Jyn narrowed her eyes and studied him, unabashedly staring at the cut of his jacket—was his fashion sense genetic?—the color of his eyes, the beard on his jaw and the slight wave of his hair. Longer than Cassian’s. Thicker beard, deeper lines around his eyes and mouth, and a hunch to his shoulders at odds with Cassian’s military bearing.
But the resemblance was more than a passing similarity.
She furrowed her brow. “Are you sure?”
“I think I would know.”
Even the accent sounded alike. Mid-Rim, definitely.
“What’s your name?”
Finally he seemed to notice that she was serious. He paused and turned to face her fully. “Who are you?”
“Jyn Erso.” It was still odd to say but she barreled through because it was hers and she was done running from it. “What’s your name?”
“Keef Grigo.”
She snorted. “The hell it is. What is it really?”
“Ooris Lo.”
“Better but still no.”
“If you know my name better than I do, why ask?”
“Because you offer them up too easily. Besides you don’t look like a Keef. Or an Ooris. That’s a compliment, by the way.”
That stirred him from his grumpy defensiveness and like a switch flipped, he straightened, a smirk lighting his face. “I’ll take it as such. What makes you think I’m a twin?”
“What’s your name?”
“Persistent aren’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
He put his hands in his pockets and leaned back, assessing her with his eyes lingering on her oversized jacket. A certain jacket with a captain’s patch that didn’t belong to her but clearly Alliance-issued. (Hey, she didn’t have clothes of her own and with the evacuation, the commissary had already closed up shop. She planned to give it back. Maybe.)
“Captain Jyn Erso?”
“Does it matter?”
“I like to know who I’m conversing with. I’ve never heard of you.”
His prevarication was both admirable and predictable but she’d grown tired of waiting. She crossed her arms, found the nearest person hanging around, and shouted their way: “Hey, who is this guy?” with a gesture to the man in front of her.
Unsurprisingly, the person looked him over and shrugged. They glanced at her uncertainly. “No idea. Is—do you want me to get security?”
“No thanks.” She waved them away.
The man raised a brow at her. “What good did that do you?”
“Well, now I know you’re not well-known around here.”
“Less well-known than you, apparently. Which is odd because I keep track of who’s stationed here.”
“I’m a newbie. It’s rude not to introduce yourself.”
He gave a half-smile and shook his head. “I’m Cassian.”
The name hit her with a jolt like the shock of a stun-gun. She’d half-expected it, half-convinced herself it was impossible. All in her head, perhaps, seeing Cassian in every minor similarity. Which was a whole other problem to address later.
Or never.
“Cassian Andor?”
His smile disappeared and his stance straightened from its previous relaxed pose. “If you already knew my name, why insist?”
“Because it’s not possible. Captain Cassian Andor is in medbay as we speak, undergoing back surgery.” She crossed her arms. “So who the fuck are you?”
The shock on his face was almost satisfying.
——————
Did Cassian—her Cassian—know?
She contemplated the possibility as she waited at his bedside for him to wake. While his twin went off, likely to hunt down Draven, she prepared to tell the man she barely knew that there was another man with his face and name wandering around base.
The other Andor was in Intelligence, too. And apparently unaware of his counterpart.
How to break the news while Cassian was laid up, fresh from surgery and under the influence of whatever pain meds they were able to force down him?
No one had ever looked to her to deliver news with delicacy. Hell, to handle anything with care. It wasn’t in her nature and it’d never been a problem; the world she lived in had no room for softness.
She could guess the same was true for Cassian. Maybe straight forward was what he preferred. (It felt wrong not to know things like that about him—like she should already know but had forgotten. For the first time in a long time, she wants to know those things.)
When he finally stirred, blinking up at the medbay lights she’d lowered to a dim glow so as not to be as abrasive, he turned his head her way. Soft-eyed and drowsy, he smiled. “Jyn.”
“Welcome back,” she told him. “Doc said the implants are taking well and that should be the last of the surgeries. You should be up and about soon if you listen to their recommendations.” Which meant staying in medbay while the incisions healed and he was able to stand on his own. Months of PT she didn’t bother to mention.
“Still here?”
“Still here. Bodhi, Baze, and Chirrut were evacuated earlier today. They’re just waiting for you to be a little farther along from surgery to get you loaded up too.” She had no idea where or when the higher uppers were planning to send her off-world but they’d be in for a surprise if they thought it was anywhere but with Cassian. He’d had her back on Scarif, on Jedha—hell, even on Eadu. The least she could do was return the favor. As long as he didn’t send her away.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice raspy with disuse. He cleared his throat.
Reaching over, she adjusted the bed so he was propped at an angle. Once he was sufficiently upright, she offered him the cup of water with a straw, allowing him to drink without having to lift his head. After the past week—a tumultuous storm of grief, fear, rage, and bitter relief—she’d learned how to give him the care he needed, as the doctors and med droids were stretched too thin.
He was as good a patient as she imagined she’d be in his place: grumpy, resistant to help, and stubborn. But he kept it in, his expression saying more than his words.
He was also perceptive. Part of her marveled, the other part chafed at having someone read what she tried to hide so clearly.
“For another time. How’re you feeling?”
“Jyn.”
She raised a brow.
“I’m fine. Tell me.”
Stubborn man. She was probably running out of time, anyway. If the other Cassian was anything like this one, he’d have sought out answers which would lead him here. Her Cassian deserved to be prepared.
“I found something. Or someone. I think—I think you should know. If you don’t already.”
Cassian considered her for a moment, brows furrowed. His cloudy gaze began to sharpen as her words sunk in. “Who?”
“You.” Picking up the datapad from the table beside her, she handed it to him, screen open to the man’s file—hidden beneath layers of security, much like her Cassian’s, and included eerily familiar information. “Or at least, someone who looks very much like you and uses your name and is also from Fest. He’s in Intelligence.”
He stared at her, unmoving.
“Is this a joke?”
“No!”
He continued ignoring the datapad and she couldn’t decide if he believed her or not. She probably wouldn’t believe him, if the situation were reversed, though why would she lie about this?
“That’s not possible.” His expression didn’t shift but the air around him stilled, any warmth in their exchange falling away. “I’ve been with the Alliance for ten years. I’d know if there were another Cassian Andor.”
“Look,” she told him, datapad still in hand, holding it out toward him.
Switching his gaze from her to the pad, he waited several long seconds to take it.
“I’m not lying.”
That drew his gaze up to her. “I didn’t think you were. I just—” He shook his head.
“I threw this on you fresh out of surgery. I shouldn’t have put this on you—”
“I pushed—”
“But I think he’ll come here next. Once he hunts someone down for answers.”
That halted whatever he might’ve said next. Still staring at her, he took the pad in hand before finally glancing down. For several long moments, his eyes scanned the screen, only the white skin of his knuckles on the pad and his shallow breathing assuring her of his continued life.
“This can’t be real,” he insisted, though his tone said what if it is?
“I’ve seen him myself.” She paused, not wanting to ask the next question but needing to know. It didn’t matter in the long run—who was she to judge?—but it might help explain the current mystery in front of her. “Is—is Cassian your real name?”
That drew his gaze away from the datapad. Setting it down on his lap, he studied her. “Why didn’t you ask that first?”
She wondered that herself. “Because I think it is.”
“You have no reason to trust me.”
The ghost of Eadu hung between them, a dose of reality intruding on their tiny room after two weeks of living in a state of survival and recovery, buffered from the past and the future. The consequences. They’d managed to avoid it until now.
The grief still weighed on her. Her father’s death, Saw’s. The futility of it all. But the rage of the immediate aftermath had tempered to a simmering ache she’d carry with her for awhile. It was one she knew how to live with.
She had a choice, now. The Alliance bombs, not the Empire, killed her father. This man went in with orders to kill him and lied about it (although what was he supposed to do, tell her? She couldn’t hold the lie against him, just the willingness to follow through with orders to assassinate a man he knew wasn’t there by choice.)
He’d been with the Alliance for ten years and had earned himself a place of trust amongst the leadership. That meant loyalty and effectiveness.
If he’d wanted her father dead at his hand, he would have been. Instead he disobeyed his orders and with distance, she could recognize the details she’d deliberately ignored in her fury: the lost wild look of a man thrown off his path, the fracturing of a carefully crafted mask, and the risk he took following her to that platform to drag her away.
She didn’t know this Cassian Andor, but she wanted to.
That meant facing the parts of him she already knew—the spy, the assassin, the liar—and deciding she could live with it. Including, however brief, the intent to kill her father.
She of all people understood that sometimes it took unsavory choices to survive. Unsavory came in all shapes and sizes. It wasn’t even the killing she objected too—what a hypocrite she’d be—but the target and in his defense, he hadn’t known her or her father. He owed her nothing then or now.
I do. I believe you.
He gave her his trust anyway.
Trust goes both ways. She’d meant it more of a jab at the Alliance’s self-righteousness than a genuine offer of trust on her part but now—it applied.
She believed him too.
“You’d be surprised,” she told him. “I didn’t ask earlier because I know the answer. I just—had to ask.”
His nod came slowly.
“Cassian is the name my parents gave me. Andor is the name of my family going back generations. I don’t use it often, but it’s mine,” he said. “If it helps, that was the only lie I told.”
They both knew which lie he spoke of.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“No,” he acknowledged. “But I don’t want to lie to you.”
Good to know. Oddly, she trusted him.
“Sometimes I feel like we weren’t meant to survive. That beach—it wouldn’t have been a bad way to go. Better than anything I’d ever thought to get.” He hummed his agreement and laid his head back, watching her through hooded eyes. She continued, “But we did. No such thing as fresh starts really but maybe—this is a good place to go on from. To go forward.”
Tentatively, wary of some phantom beast that might bite for daring to take the risk, she reached out a hand between them.
She’d never been good with words, preferring action to fancy speech that never served her very well in the worlds she occupied. Flowery language made you stand out. She could only hope he got her meaning from the rambling mess of trying to coral her nebulous thoughts into words.
His hand met hers half-way but instead of shaking, he held on, bringing their joined hands to rest on the mattress beside him.
She liked that better. It put her hands in an odd position, not uncomfortable but foreign. The only time she held hands was in bed and that as a practicality, not connection. Or whatever this was, something comforting and warm and gentle.
No wonder it was foreign.
“Go forward?” he asked. “Does that mean you plan to be around?”
“Unless they plan to preemptively court-martial me for actions taken before enlistment, yeah, I’m sticking around.”
“They’re not happy. We put them in an uncomfortable position of having to retroactively sanction the mission to avoid bad optics. I’m on probation for the foreseeable future, but no court-martial.”
Putting one of their best agents on probation in the middle of an escalating war seemed like an ineffective use of resources but at least it coincided with his recovery, likely to take months.
No wonder Saw hated the Alliance. Their bureaucracy was ill-suited to winning a war. Squabbling politicians making decisions based on what it took to win a battle of words; they knew nothing about war on the ground.
“What does probation consist of?”
He snorted. “Extra supervision. A partner. And mandatory sessions with their head doc.” Then he gestured down to his legs, bitterness creeping into his voice. “Looks like I’m not going anywhere for awhile so it hardly matters.”
Remembering the weight of him as they shuffled to the elevator and out to the beach, the way he dropped to the sand barely able to hold himself upright, his pallor and broken body as they dragged him onto the ship, she shook her head. “You very nearly weren’t going anywhere ever again. This war isn’t going to end anytime soon. You’ll have plenty of time to get back into it and do your part.”
You’ve already done your part, she wanted to tell him but aware it wouldn’t sink through his thick skull. You’ve given so much more than most.
He frowned and shifted his gaze to the ceiling. “This man, this other Cassian—if he’s anything like me beyond the superficial, he’ll have gone to Draven.”
Taking the change in topic in stride, she shrugged. “Probably. He didn’t stick around to tell me. I have a feeling he’ll show up here sooner rather than later but if you aren’t ready to see him, I’ll keep him out.”
“Thank you.” He turned his gaze back to her, a softening in the muscles of his cheeks that might lead to a smile if he let it. “I’ll see him. It’s—I need to see.” He smirked. It wasn’t quite a smile but she liked it just as much. “But if he doesn’t show up soon, I might ask you to drag him in here.”
She matched his smirk and gave his hand a squeeze. “Aye aye, Captain. Just say the words.”
——————
Everyone stood in their own designated territories—or rather, Cassian sat in his, his bed angled upright while she stood in the corner closest to him, arms crossed and ready to lunge if need be; Other Cassian as far from them as he could get, leaning against the opposite wall; and Draven, just inside the doorway.
“Ah.” The general’s arms went behind his back, hands clasping as he cleared his throat. “Yes. I suppose it was inevitable this came to light.” Angling his head, he spoke to Other Cassian, “One of the reasons Luthen took interest in you to begin with was the name that flagged as belonging to one of our agents. Captain Andor—” He frowned then nodded his head toward Jyn’s Cassian. “—has been with us for over a decade. We were concerned when the name Cassian Andor came up in Imperial records far from anywhere he’d been assigned. That’s where we discovered you. There are surprising similarities—highly skilled, observant, talent with languages, excellent pilots, proficient with a blaster. It—provided an opportunity.”
“And why the hell didn’t you say anything?” Other Cassian demanded.
“First because you were Luthen’s agent, not mine. If I stayed out of his work, he’d stay out of mine. Since then, things have—consolidated. But by that point, we had a successful system in place and couldn’t risk losing it.” There was no apology on Draven’s face but no defiance either. Much like the way he’d faced her after Scarif, with no remorse for sending assassins after her father, yet braced for the repercussions nevertheless.
But while she studied Draven, Cassian and Other Cassian couldn’t drag their eyes from each other for long. Both tried to hide it but their shock was identical and hard to suppress. She didn’t bother with subtlety, alternating between glares at Draven and openly staring at the men she could only describe as twins.
Not quite identical. The other Cassian—fuck, what was she supposed to call him? This was going to get confusing—looked a few years older, his hair shaggier and the lines around his eyes more defined.
Andor, she decided. Andor lounged with a casual stance at odds with the military-bred bearing of Cassian. The similarities were uncanny but the differences made it easy to tell them apart now that she’d gotten over her initial impressions.
Had Cassian truly not known he had a doppelgänger out there, also in Rebel Intelligence? How fucked up was that?
“I’m from Fest,” Cassian said, his face carefully blank. Every part of him stilled, even blinking only when necessary. “Andor is a Festian name. My family is from Fest going back generations.”
Andor finally looked away from the men’s staring contest. “My—adoptive father was born on Fest. He had family there. His name was Andor.”
“He adopted you—did he name you Cassian? Or were you already Cassian?” As much as she didn’t want to disturb the strange ritual of the men observing each other, she couldn’t quash her curiosity. She wanted to force them both to sit and interrogate them until they got to the bottom of this.
The rest of her kind of wanted to sit back and watch how things unfolded. There was something satisfying about the dumbstruck look on Cassian’s face, though he tried to hide it. It was so different from the man she’d seen so far, another facet she got to uncover.
There was something concerning about it too. He must hate this vulnerability, especially in front of others.
Not that she knew the man. Not really. But vulnerability for people like them meant weakness and risk. If their positions were reversed, she’d hate it. And resent anyone around her who witnessed it.
It was wrong to put this on him now, when he was already at a disadvantage, physically impaired and laid up in medbay without means of escape. She should’ve waited, kept it to herself instead of announcing it to Andor up front. Maybe they could’ve put this moment off until Cassian was on his feet.
Too late now.
At her question, Andor frowned and looked away, eyes trailing to the chart beside the bed with Cassian’s (unclassified) medical information. Then they drifted to Draven.
He didn’t trust the Alliance. Or at least didn’t trust them with this part of him. Good to know, Jyn noted.
“They named me Cassian,” Andor admitted. “I don’t know why. Clem said it was a family name—”
“Clem?” Cassian lost his composure for a moment before wrestling his expression back under control. “My father’s brother was named Clem. Clem Andor.”
That got Andor’s attention. He stared at Cassian, eyes narrowing as he assessed the younger man, but said nothing, pursing his lips until they nearly disappeared.
“So you’re not related by blood, but you share a name because his uncle,” she pointed at Cassian, “named his adoptive son after you.”
“Ah, about that.” Draven’s voice reminded them of his presence, his arms coming up to cross over his chest. “You are related though the genetics don’t tell us exactly how. Less alike than siblings, more alike than would be the case several generations removed. We compared your identifying markers when Captain Andor—the elder—was brought on. We assumed, with both of you from Fest, were perhaps cousins.”
No one said anything for a moment, stunned.
“Wait—you knew they were family and didn’t say anything?” Jyn demanded.
“Get out.”
They all turned to Andor at his voice, the weight of the fury in his gaze causing Draven to raise his chin in a defensive move. Draven opened his mouth and Andor sneered, shoving his way past the general as he stalked out the door.
“Get out,” Cassian repeated in an eery copy of his—twin? Cousin? “Sir.”
The two men whose history she’d only begun to guess at shared a glance laden with the unspoken.
“For full disclosure,” Draven said, “we have an additional agent—fewer similarities but who could, from a distance, pass for one of you. His code name is Cassian Andor. Once we learned we could, for all intents and purposes, put you in two difference places at once, it became evident that a third would keep your movements impossible to track, with the Empire chasing after ghosts. I make no apologies for my actions; I did what I had to. But I regret the need for deception.” Then Draven nodded, turned with a sharp military snap, and left.
Silence settled over the small, private medical room. When Jyn glanced his way, Cassian was staring off into the distance, hands fisted at his sides. Laid up in the bed, angled to support his back, he looked young and lost in the clean white expanse of the room. The way his head fell back like its weight had grown too heavy to bear and his shoulders slumped made her want to reach for him, do—something.
Comfort wasn’t her strong suit. Maybe it wouldn’t even be welcome.
“Do you want me to go?” she asked in a quiet voice, not wanting to disturb him further if he needed time.
That drew his startled gaze as if he’d forgotten she was there. Instead of words, he shook his head. In a barely perceptible movement, he scooted over and rested a hand in the empty space on the mattress. It was a clear message she didn’t know what to do with. The way his eyes stayed carefully away from hers said he didn’t either.
Pursing her lips, she barreled forward, closing the gap between them until she stood at side of his bed, looking down at the space on the mattress barely big enough for one much less two. Cassian glanced up at her approach and they stared at each other.
What’re we doing?
I don’t know.
Well. As long as they were on the same page.
She gingerly sat at the edge of his bed, watching him for the slightest wince of discomfort. If the shifting of the mattress hurt him at all, he gave no sign—though the med droid passed by regularly with an injection of painkillers, Cassian had reprogrammed the dosage to a significantly lower level. The last thing she wanted to do was cause him additional pain.
Sliding her legs up on the bed, she leaned back on the pillow beside him, head facing up toward the ceiling. His warmth pressed against her side and her eyes closed, her body sinking into the bed. For the first time in a long, long time, she exhaled, the tension melting out of her as if every muscle simply gave up. The exhaustion of the past few weeks, the weakness in her own body from weeks in Wobani and too much abuse since they busted her out, finally catching up.
She wasn’t entirely sure she’d be able to get back up again.
They sat in silence for awhile, long enough that she wondered if he’d succumbed to exhaustion and drugs, falling back asleep. He needed it. But no, when she glanced over, he was wide awake, staring off into the distance.
She couldn’t blame him. How to let sleep pull him under when his life just got turned upside down? Finding out he had a relative he didn’t know about, that the Alliance not only kept it from him but exploited it.
Not to mention the sheer oddity of coming face to face with his doppelgänger, one who bore the same name.
If she’d resented Draven before, it was double now.
Everything I did, I did for the rebellion. And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget, I told myself that it was for a cause that I believed in.
The cause might’ve been worthy but the leaders who commanded him to do those things he wanted to forget—they’d betrayed him at a level that reminded her too much of Saw. For all they looked down their nose at him as an extremist, at least he hadn’t pretended to be something other than he was. His decisions harsh and calculated, heedless of the destruction he left in his wake or the lives of the individuals at his command.
The Alliance leadership proved themselves cruel in other ways.
“I had a large family,” Cassian started, a soft voice that barely left the space between them. “Uncles and aunts and cousins. They were always over. My mother was the youngest of seven; my father, he had two older half siblings and a younger sister.”
She turned her head to look at him, studying his profile as he stared up at the ceiling.
“Did you have siblings?”
“Yes. Two brothers and a sister.”
She reached over and grabbed the hand nearest hers.
“Two of my mother’s sisters left before I was born, and my uncle Clem—he left Fest when he was young, setting off to make his fortune, I suppose. He visited, once or twice. I think.”
“Your mother’s sisters, the ones who left—did they have children?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. “I never met them. They never came back that I know of. And then—my father and his oldest brother died first. The others followed not long after.”
“What did you do?”
“Those of us who survived the massacre—they called it a cleansing—fled into the mountains. One of my older brothers survived too, he joined the local resistance and I had nowhere else to go. He didn’t let me fight at first, but I helped out where I could, learned whatever anyone would teach me. When he died a few years later—I was nine, ten maybe—the resistance needed anyone they could get. When it was clear Fest was lost, a few people left, sought out a greater cause, and I went with them.”
“And you’ve been with the Alliance since?”
“For the most part. I left, once. But that’s—a story for another time.”
She liked the way he said it, like they had time. As if they’d have more quiet moments to share who they were, where they’d come from. It went against her every instinct: everyone who wasn’t her was a threat. But Cassian didn’t feel like one, warm against her side, the memory of him in her arms still vivid.
“You should rest,” she told him. The hand that held his squeezed, a silent I’m here, I’ll watch over you, it’s safe. She hoped he understood.
He tightened his grip in return and let his head fall back against the pillow, turning to look over at her. “I thought I was the last.”
Only two weeks ago—had it truly been so short a time since she’d been in Wobani, braced for death?—she’d watched the last of her family die. Two fathers, both lost long ago, gone now for the final time. If either of her parents had extended family, she’d never known them.
Would she feel less alone, to find a blood relative she never knew? Or was a stranger a stranger, blood notwithstanding?
As isolated as she’d been since Saw left her, the thought that somewhere in the galaxy, there were people who might mourn her should her death reach their ears brought a strange measure of comfort. Now that assurance was gone; the only people who even knew of her existence now, of Jyn Erso, were on this base.
How could you mourn someone you didn’t know existed?
And yet. What would she give to have—someone. Anyone. A tie to parents she barely remembered, someone who might know more about where they came from and who they’d been.
But she didn’t know what to say so she said nothing and bumped his shoulder with hers. Shifting to lay on her side, arm awkwardly twisted between them, she kept hold of his hand. This way she could see him better.
“Is it wrong,” he asked, “to want my name for myself?”
“No.” That was an answer she could give. Jyn Erso was a secret she carried with her, remnants of her parents and a time when she belonged, transient though they’d been. Unspoken for over a decade. But it was hers, the only thing aside from her necklace that truly was. If another Jyn Erso cropped up, she wasn’t sure she’d be handling it with as little violence as the two Cassians had so far managed. Already her urge to punch someone on his behalf made her palms itch.
“He’ll have to choose something else,” she told him. “I’m not calling both of you Cassian.”
He joined their free hands and brought them to rest on his chest. “So I get to be Cassian?”
“You are Cassian.” The warmth of their clasped hands and his side pressed against her, combined with the sheer relief of laying down, lulled her into closing her eyes. She’d learned to sleep anywhere she could because a warm bed was hard to come by. But she rarely managed it beside another person.
Dying beside him was one thing. A good death, but easy when there was nothing left to lose. Sleeping beside him shouldn’t come as naturally because sleep implied a waking. In sleep and waking, there was vulnerability.
Still she drifted off, safe and warm. The dark brown of his eyes the last thing she saw.