In Another Universe…
“What are you thinking about?”
She looked at him for a moment before turning her gaze back to the night sky. “Just what Chirrut and Bodhi were talking about earlier.”
The war was won. They had done their part and been given more than enough credits to settle on a quiet outer rim planet. One not worth enough to have been touched by the empire. Grassy fields, occasionally bloomed with flowers, surrounded their home before giving way to forest. At night, kyber bugs lit up what the stars couldn’t reach. Earlier that day, they had gotten a surprise visit from Chirrut, Baze, and Bodhi. After they left, Jyn made her way out to the hills edge to unwind and was joined by Cassian soon after.
He had to think for a moment about what she was referring to.
“You mean the whole ‘multiple universes’ thing?”
She nodded. “Yeah. My father would talk about it sometimes.” She paused and he waited quietly until she decided to continue. “We would lay out just like this and he would talk about the trillions of other universes where versions of ourselves were. How in another universe, that version of ourselves weren’t hiding. There was no war. No need for bunkers or drills to hide.” She paused again before saying, “In another universe, my parents are still alive.”
The arm he had around her tightened. They lay in comfortable silence a few minutes after that. The sounds of night and rhythmic movements of the kyber bugs had lulled him into a comfortable daze. He could’ve easily dozed off until he heard her speak again.
“Do you think, in another universe, we died on that beach? That we got the message sent but just didn’t have enough time to leave?”
He was much more awake now than he was a moment ago. “Jyn…”
“Do you think, we meet in each universe or are we strangers in some?”
He took her hand with the one around her before answering.
“I think, there’s a universe where I don’t make it to age 10.”
She looks at him with concern but stays silent as he continues.
“I think there’s another universe where my sister is alive. Where I don’t reprogram K2. Where I am able to see my mother before she dies. Where I leave the rebellion to live a quiet life with a woman I thought I loved. Where I am not a killer. But in each of those universes, I mourn for those versions of myself.” He turns to look at her then. “Perhaps we still cross paths in some. Maybe we just miss each other in a market. Maybe I see you from afar before boarding a transit. Maybe I get to know you earlier and we brave the trials as children of war. Maybe I meet you at the end of my life, whether that be in old age or not. Maybe we do die on that beach without ever getting the chance to love and know each other. But I don’t mourn for those versions of myself. Because they got a moment of you, which is more than the other versions. I know the versions of myself, including the ones where I’m convinced I’m happy, go their whole lives feeling as though they’re missing something. As if they never feel content.” He pauses again before saying, “In every universe I don’t find you, my soul never rests.”
She wants to cry. Maybe, she already is. She isn’t sure if it’s for those versions of themselves he talks about, or simply for the truth of his words she can see on his face. He looks at her like she personally holds all the universes. Like she put each individual star in the sky. Like he can see the very thing that makes her, her. She understands though. She thinks she might just look at him the same.
Like two souls who have finally found peace.
✨Notes✨
I don’t write much but this wouldn’t get out of my head. 🙃
Reposted cause I posted on my other account 🥴
