#ibohe

He can feel something in the darkness.  A surface under his fingertips.  He touches it.  Firm. Not hard but firm.  Neither warm nor cold.  Motionless; not something alive.  When he moves his hand, curls his fingers, his nails find a faint texture beneath them.  Roughness, very delicate, structured, something interwoven, woven.  Fabric.

He can’t open his eyes, because dead men do not see.  Then he does; and sees nothing.  Lies in the dark, remembering with a brilliant vividness the young woman walking away from him, her straight back, swinging hips, sweet beauty going into the dark.  He’s there now in the depths of darkness and it still isn’t over.  He wonders how long it truly takes to die.

His breathing seems to be quite steady, and the pain has vanished.  So there’s that at least.  Interesting to know.  Dying, in these final stages; not painful.

He wonders if all the men he’s killed had a split second of this stillness in them, this quiet, troubled peace, before their shot hearts stopped.

On his left there’s something that isn’t darkness.  It looks, weirdly, like the outline of a door, with a light behind it.

Gabriel would laugh if he had the strength or the breath left for it.  The door to heaven, right there, shut in his face.  Fair enough.  It’s hardly a surprise to learn he didn’t do enough to merit redemption. Even now, even from here on the wrong side, the light beyond the door is strangely beautiful.  Thin lines like the angels’ lances, violent unearthly light of paradise, cutting through the endless night.  Even if he didn’t make it, then, heaven does exist.

Curious how comforting that is.  It’s not for him, but it is there, for others.  Blessed Mother of God and the words float up into his mind and he can’t remember the next line but even the start of the prayer sounds sweet Blessed Mother of God

Blessed Mother of God

Is this my consolation?

If this is all, I am content

Darkness

**

The next time he wakes, he sees a regular door, and daylight; and he’s in a small grey room, in a bed, with a pillow beneath his head.  Things bleep.

His left side and his hand both hurt.  He has no idea why his hand hurts.

It isn’t until a nurse comes in, and he tries to say “What happened?” and cannot speak that he realises he’s been intubated.  One of the beeping machines is helping him to keep breathing.

It’s really true, then. He’s alive.

“Ah, good morning,” says the nurse when his desperate eyes meet hers.  “Good, good.”  He blinks at her.  She nods her head though she cannot possibly know what he’s trying to say; checks the machinery, leaves him alone again.  He lies looking up, staring at the reality of not being dead.

Later, for the rest of the day, doctors and other nurses come and go, and in between their visits he stares up and sees the plaster panels overhead, the support struts, the light fitting with the plain fabric shade. In his hearing all they will say is courteous, neutral, encouraging things, like relax, you need to rest and it was touch and go for a while there but you’ll pull through and excellent, normal blood pressure.

Someone must have called an ambulance.  The man behind the counter, perhaps.  How wonderful after all his dark deeds to owe his life to some ordinary act of compassion, a little man at a diner counter making a telephone call.

And someone must be footing the cost of all this.  Félix, presumably, the sonofabitch would do a thing like that, after all.  No doubt he’ll refuse ever to speak to Gabriel again, but he’ll still pay his hospital bill; out of some sick sense of honour, or to prove his ownership, one last time.

On the second day he has a visitor.  Not Félix, not any of the crew, but Doña Cecilia.  He can see the shadows of her guards outside, one on either side of the door, but she comes in alone and stands looking down at him.   Gives him a faint smile from on high, like the royalty she is.

“So, young Archangel, you’re still with us, then.  You have a little breathing space.  Time to think things through, eh? - make that decision we talked about.”

She doesn’t stay long, and doesn’t tell him anything about the rest of them.  That’s bad, he thinks, with a coldness settling in his chest alongside the pain that seems to live there now.  It could mean many things, and none of them are good.

They take the breathing tube out two days later.  He wonders what to ask, now that he’ll be able to speak again.  Outside this little grey room, he has no idea of the shape of the world anymore.  No idea even of who is living and who is dead.  All he knows is that he should have been among the latter, and somehow he is not.

The doctor supervising the extubation asks him a couple of pointless questions, inspects his stitches, listens to his chest and abdomen, congratulates him on being alive; leaves.  The nurses renew the dressing on his wound, check his catheter  and the drip in his arm, give him sips of water from a cup like a baby’s beaker and promise him a first taste of solid food that evening.  Soup, they say, as though it were manna.  It sounds like manna.  Chicken soup with vegetables.

It’s then that he decides to ask one question; the only one he has some hope will be safe.  His voice sounds like sawdust.  “Please, who called the ambulance?”  

“Señor?”

“How did I get here? – the guy in the diner, did he call an ambulance, was it him?  I’d like to thank him, when I get out.”  

Saying that much has made everything hurt, and the nearer of the two nurses touches his hand gently.  “I don’t know, Señor, but I can find out for you. Would you like that?  Now you need to rest, you’ve had a tiring day.”

Strange to be petted, so, and spoken to like that; as though he’s a sick five-year-old, not a grown man and a murderer.  

He nods, whispers a thank you, accepting her authority and her kindness.  Stares up at the ceiling when the two of them leave, and is asleep within minutes.

**

“I found out the answer, Señor.  To your question.  I checked the records and apparently it was an anonymous caller.   A young woman, calling from a cell-phone.”

Blessed Mother of God, is this my consolation?  If this is to be all, I am content.  I remembered her, and she did not forget me.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, thank you, thank you…

“It’s nice to see a patient smile like that,” one nurse is saying to the other as they leave the room. “He looks happy to be alive for the first time.”

**

Doña Cecelia comes again the next day, and the rest of his questions are answered; and after that conversation, he lies shaking and unable to sleep, long into the night, in the darkness.

**

By the time Gabriel stands in front of a mirror for the first time and looks at himself with his bandages and dressings off, Félix and the boys, and the Señora, are all long buried, and he knows that there has been a guard on the door of his room the entire time, not just when Doña Cecelia visits.  The same guard who is now outside the hospital bathroom where he’s being prepared for his shower.  He’s too weak to do the job for himself safely (and though his spirit bridles at hearing that, he has to admit the doctor is right; he can barely stand unaided after these weeks bedbound and inert).  He must bear being manhandled and washed by a stranger; like a small boy, like an orphan.  It’s a peculiarly precise embarrassment.

He hangs on to the handles in the tiled wall with shaking arms, looks straight ahead, refuses to acknowledge the humiliation.   Thanks the nurse afterwards.

The mirror had steamed up within moments.  He’d had enough of the view anyway.  Always lean, he’s now painfully thin; cheekbones jutting, muscles wasted and slack.  Yet his beard has grown well.  He looks like a revolutionary out of a kids’ history book; gaunt and angry, savage-eyed, and superbly moustachioed.

The scar on his abdomen is huge; easily four times the length he’d anticipated when he first felt the wound.  Where the knife went in there’s a ragged three centimetre slash but that’s just the start; it extends above and off to the side now, neat surgical incisions.  Its whole length sutured up with stitches black as boars’ bristles, delicate as lace.  

It itches and aches, and it feels as though every organ inside hurts too, despite the analgesia.  

The cannula in his hand itches too, and the skin under the tape holding it down is inflamed.  It won’t be taken out for another three to four days.  They’re still pumping antibiotics into him through it.  The consultant tells him smoothly that he should focus on making a good recovery instead of grumbling about a few square centimetres of rash. Partial splenectomy, traumatic injury to the large and small intestines and the left lobe of the liver, a punctured lung, and massive blood loss; plus a chip out of the anterior end of one rib. He had to ask for explanations of some of the medical terms, but now he knows, he’ll remember.

“You nearly died,” Doña Cecelia tells him firmly.  “Next time don’t be so slow.  I shouldn’t have to keep telling you these things.  It’s time to get out of this life, Gabriel.”  She stands over him, looking down her regal nose; although her voice is kind she’s never lowered herself to the level of giving him so much as a pat on the hand.  “I’ll pay to keep you alive,” she tells him now “because you were always a good boy to me and I don’t like the idea of your handsome face wasting into dust just yet. But I won’t give you a job, after. You need to understand that.  You were Félix’s man and I don’t want that association.”  

“Of course, Doña Cecelia. And thank you.  I am forever in your debt, beyond anything I can ever hope to repay.”

“Really?  Well, since you put it so nicely, you young gallant. So - don’t be an idiot, then.  Live, and make a new start.  Since that idiot Félix made you his residuary heir and his poor whore of a wife predeceased him, you aren’t without resources.”

“I don’t want to carry on that business.”

“I should hope not! That isn’t what I’m paying good money for.  You’d be back in this place, in the morgue, within a week, the way things are at present. Why do you think I have a man stationed outside here right now, eh?  The business has as good as collapsed anyway.  But the properties he owned, those still have solid value.  Think about it; make up your mind what to do, and then do it.  Action has a magic of its own.  Didn’t some poet say that?  So act.”

“I will, Doña Cecelia. I know what I’m going to do.”

She smiles at that.  “Tell a lady your plans?  I’d like to think of you going out from here soon and finding yourself a life that won’t kill you.  What are you off to do, then?”

It was becoming painfully clear that this might end up being the last birthday they were all able to share together. Cassian’s health had been declining for some time - a lifetime ago, it seemed, he could take a blow with the best of them, shake it off, and go about his business with hardly a thought. He’d survived three years as a child soldier on his homeworld after the loss of his entire family. He’d had concussions, broken bones, he’d been shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, and battered until he was bloody and bruised. He’d spent two months forced to work the diamond mines of Arkania, and once, memorably, he’d almost been blasted into stardust before being rescued with only moments to spare, Jyn by his side. But his luck could not hold out forever. Neither could his precarious health.

So, although he protested every step of the way when it came to opening presents, he delighted in every one, his eyes shining with all the love and appreciation and happiness that his weary body held for his son, and his daughter, and their spouses, and all the grandchildren he’d come to know and adore with every fiber of his being. If this birthday was to be his last it would be as perfect as perfect could be.

As he napped, youngest granddaughter tucked safely in the comfort of arms more used to holding sniper rifles, Jyn sat in their small kitchen - a kitchen that used to echo with the laughter of their children, their little miracles - with her daughter, finally allowing herself to feel every little bit of the strain of holding back her emotions and trying to put forth the image that everything was fine, especially for the sake of her grandchildren. She was older now than she’d ever imagined being, and weary, and tired deep into her bones. Essa reached for her mother’s hand, and held on tight. She’d always been particularly observant, much like Cassian. She knew very well that this might be the last opportunity she had to spend any little bit of time with her father …

… And with her mother, too.

“Mama … “, she began, immediately too choked up to continue.

Jyn squeezed her daughter’s hand reassuringly, and offered a smile. “It’s time.”

Both had never assumed that they’d live to see thirty, much less their eighties. They never thought that they’d see a time in which they could possibly have the semblance of a normal life, and yet, they’d cultivated a home together, far away from war or the bustling cities they’d both come to loathe. They never thought that they would ever be parents, but they had a daughter and a son, and despite the crippling fear that they didn’t know what they were doing, their kids grew up healthy, and happy, and loved. And grandchildren! It seemed, at times, still a dream.

At 22 & 26, Jyn and Cassian came together in a desperate attempt to know each other even though there was no time in which to do so. A lifetime - in a moment, they both imagined what having that time together would entail. A quick ‘I love you’ exchanged for the first time in the moment before one or the other was called away for duty. Rolling around in too-small bunks as they explored and memorized each other, a small marriage ceremony that their friends wouldn’t be there to see, the wailing of a newborn infant… a life spent together - the life spent together they’d never have the chance to discover, the good, the bad, and everything in between.

They held each other tight on the beaches of Scarif, awaiting their imminent demise together in a blaze of light and heat, unsure of whether or not they’d even managed to complete what they’d come there for in the first place. But they were together, and in the end, that was all that mattered.

However improbable, they found themselves rescued by the very last U-Wing that was sweeping the planet for any survivors, hauled aboard unceremoniously, and uncertain that they’d even make it out before the blast reached them. But they reached hyperspace, and they were relatively safe, but Jyn was being taken from Cassian’s side, and he found himself almost going berserk in his frantic need to be with her, finally put out by a stun bolt, her outraged, frenzied cries the last thing he heard before slipping into unconsciousness.

They woke up together in medbay, and they knew that it was a miracle that they’d even survived at all. Jyn, easier treated than Cassian, refused to leave his side throughout the duration of his recovery. She was there after every bacta tank treatment, holding his hand, gentler than she ever thought she had the capability to be as she reassured him that he’d get through this, even when he felt his lowest. “All the way, remember?”, she asked, and what little hope remained in his bones grew just a bit stronger in response. He might have been held together with pins and plates and wires, but he was alive. He had a long, hard road ahead of him, but with Jyn by his side, he’d make it through.

They’d figure out the rest as they went. He and Jyn were good at that.

At 23, Jyn Erso slipped into Cassian Andor’s quarters and his almost too-small bunk with the whispered admittance that her nightmares were so prevalent, so real that she couldn’t find rest anymore. At 27, Cassian Andor welcomed her into the circle of his arms, and vowed to never let her go. And for the first time in a long, long time, she slept. For the first time in a long, long time, so did Cassian.

But when Jyn and Cassian found themselves in the middle of a heated argument while stalking down the frozen pathways of Echo Base, others within hearing proximity immediately turned and headed the other way entirely. Their arguments were legendary, on par with the princess and the smuggler and the near knock-down, drag-out brawls that were the stuff of awe. Even in her anger, Jyn kept pace with Cassian, still at odds with the new limitations placed upon his body and the new position he’d had to occupy within the Rebellion itself. His frustration, she thought, was borne of that, and not anything that she’d done in particular, at least until the moment that he threw his arms up in his irritation and muttered something about her being ‘totally reckless’. Then she whirled around and faced him much like she would an enemy, without fear, adrenaline racing through her veins, the high flush on her cheeks not entirely the cause of the deep, bitter cold.

“I don’t need you, of all people, calling into question my ability to complete this mission! It’s hardly my fault that you’re not capable anymore - !”

Blessedly, Jyn managed to stop herself there, lest she say anything more that she would regret later, anything that would hurt Cassian more than she already had. And she knew him well enough to know that the darkness in his eyes was anger, certainly, but was also hiding something entirely different, too.

“It’s not that - “, he started, the tremble in his voice betraying the emotions that must have been churning below the surface of his forced calm. Suddenly, he lunged forward, catching her by the arms and holding her steady as he caught her mouth in a heated, almost distraught kiss. “Don’t go where I can’t follow.”

“Cassian”, Jyn breathed, almost terrified to disturb the stillness settling around them. “Don’t you know that I love you too much for that?”

He should have known. She should have made it clearer. She’d never let him forget for as long as they both lived.

At 25 & 30, Major Cassian Andor and Lieutenant Jyn Erso found themselves in the midst of a marriage ceremony made all the more unconventional by the fact that it was performed in the medbay, the bride confined to bed ever since her extraction after a mission gone bad. Most of her team had survived intact, but Jyn herself had turned out to be the biggest casualty, caught in a firefight that resulted in heavy damage to her arm - so heavy, in fact, that no amount of bacta treatment was going to save it from the damage that had been caused. Jyn had woken from surgery to find a brand-new mechno-arm in it’s place, and Cassian by her side, so relieved that she was alive and still with him by the grace of the Force that the only thing he could do was ask her to marry him.

And despite it all, the healing that she knew was to come, along with the frustration and anger and loss … all Jyn could say in return was “yes”.

So maybe it was … unorthodox.

When had she and Cassian ever had anything even resembling normal, anyway?

At 32, Cassian Andor found himself cradling a tiny, wailing newborn in his arms with no idea what he was doing, if he even knew how to be a father, why Essa wouldn’t stop crying no matter how gently he rocked her, how softly he murmured reassurances to her that yes, the world was big and scary, but not to worry, he and Jyn would help her get used to it, would love her and protect her and teach her everything they knew, all the while wondering and worrying if Jyn was going to be alright after a medic hurriedly told him that there were … complications, ushering he and the baby from the delivery room to the little private room that they’d call theirs for the next few days.

By the time Jyn was brought into that quiet, private room, Cassian had managed to lull tiny, angry Essa Erso-Andor into what he hoped was a peaceful sleep, her little snuffling noises indicative of the fact that she probably wanted her mother. Cassian understood - he wanted his wife, too, or at least to have the chance to ensure that whatever complications she’d suffered from weren’t serious enough to take her away from them when they obviously needed her now more than ever. But when she opened her hazy green eyes, and he met them with his own, he knew; everything was going to be alright.

“... The baby?”, she asked, her voice trembling. A baby. She had no idea why she even thought she could handle being a mother when sometimes, being a wife was still difficult enough. A sense of impending doom had hung low over her ever since the moment that she’d found out that she was pregnant. What right did she have to bring a new life into a world that was still turned upside down from war and fighting and loss?

But then, Cassian gently transferred the sleeping Essa from his arms to Jyn’s, and as she looked at her daughter for the very first time … Jyn understood completely. Her heart swelled as she took in the shock of thick, dark hair, the dusky color of her skin, the way her tiny fingers curled around Jyn’s, and she knew that she could never love anything as much as she did the child in her arms.

She looked to Cassian, and although her eyes were shining bright with tears, she still smiled as radiantly as she ever had before. “Our family.”

Family. They’d lost so much, Cassian and Jyn, lost everyone they’d ever loved. Certainly, having this one little thing for themselves wouldn’t tempt the gods of fate to try to steal this away from them, too.

At 32 & 37 and in the middle of renovating Jyn’s old home on Lah’mu to fit their needs, Jyn and Cassian welcomed the newest addition to their little family. Quiet, observant, Eron seemed to be the exact opposite of Essa, their wild child, always eager to search out the next adventure.

“He’s so small, Mama!”, she offered, staring down into the clear gray-blue of her baby brother’s eyes, staring up at her as though he was considering her intently. Maybe he was …

Jyn couldn’t help but laugh softly in return, reaching out to smooth her daughter’s messy curls away from her face. “Yes, he is. Soon enough, he’ll be big enough to play with. But until then, we must watch after him to make sure he grows up big and strong like you. Can you help me with that Essa? Can you be a good big sister?”

“Of course, Mama!”, Essa replied, standing just a bit straighter, shoulder jutting out proudly. “I can do anything!”

Cassian laughed as he swooped in, plucking Essa up and into his arms, raising an eyebrow quizzically, stepping out of the way of the med-droid they’d borrowed (liberated) from the Rebellion when they’d decided to step away - they’d need it, after all, they’d have two headstrong children running around soon enough. Luckily enough, Jyn hardly needed it this time around, thankfully, she didn’t experience any complications. Labor and delivery had been quick and easy, and Eron was the very picture of health. “Come on, Essa, let’s go fix something to eat. Mama and Eron need some time to rest. We’ll visit again in a bit, yes?”

“Yes, Papa!”, Essa squealed, almost immediately clapping her hand over her mouth as if to hold back her ever-present excitement. As if it could be held back.

In Jyn’s arms, Eron blinked, and wrinkled his nose in distaste, but did not cry. And not for the first time, Jyn wondered how she’d ever gotten so lucky to have all of this for herself - a husband that was devoted to her, happy, healthy children, a life.

She knew that she would do anything to protect them.

At 35, Jyn found herself holding tight to her two terrified children as a typhoon battered the black sands and rocky outcroppings that was their home. The three of them huddled in what she hoped was the safest room in the house, breathless with fear every time a high gust of wind rocked it to its foundation. She tried, though, to reassure Essa and Eron that everything was going to be fine once the storm passed.

But the longer it raged on around them, the harder it was to keep positive about the situation. Especially since Cassian wasn’t with them - he’d been out checking traps when the storm had rolled in. And although Jyn tried to be calm for her son and her daughter, the longer he was away, the more frantically she worried for him. He’d been through worse, certainly, but there was always the chance that his luck had finally run out.

She was almost in tears by the time the door banged open and he rushed inside, fighting with the wind in order to get it closed and locked behind him again. But when he finally managed, and he turned to face them, soaking wet, disheveled, a bleeding cut above his eye, Jyn thought (not for the first time) that he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Even at 40, and older than he thought he had any right to be. She hardly had a chance to breathe before he strode to his family, wrapping his arms around all three, holding tight.

“You came back … “, she managed, her voice trembling with barely restrained emotion.

“Of course. All the way, remember?”

At 45, Cassian found himself staring at his datapad, holding it a little closer, and squinting. Hadn’t he read this paragraph already? He only glanced up in annoyance when he heard Jyn’s soft, snorting laughter from across the room.

“What are you laughing at?”, he asked, his gruff voice only just a facade for the fondness that lied beneath.

“You’ve got glasses, you should wear them”, she retorted, sticking out her tongue teasingly, totally unbecoming of a woman 4o years old, hardly caring about that fact.

He’d gotten older, a hint of silver coloring the dark strands of his hair, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes deeper now, more pronounced, but then, she’d gotten older, too. Just a touch rounder now, softer in ways she never could have imagined. But she was still happy, which was the only thing that mattered, in the long run. Despite everything they’d gone through to get here and now, they were still more content than they ever thought they’d feel

… Even with a teenage daughter to worry about. Especially a teenage daughter who was dead-set on going away to school after her fourteenth birthday. It was enough to give Jyn and Cassian more gray hair.

He scoffed, shaking his head, adjusting the brightness of his datapad all the higher. Soon, Jyn thought, it couldn’t get any higher. “Over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged”, she cooed sweetly, and Cassian growled, dropping the pad to his side in favor of standing (not as quickly as he used to be able to, bad knees and back constantly wreaking havoc on him), and stalking toward her with the most serious of serious expressions on his face.

“I’m not afraid of you”, Jyn laughed, her eyes shining bright, leaning against Cassian all the further as soon as his arms wrapped around her, his familiar embrace still a comfort after all these years.

“No?”, he asked, leaning down to peck a kiss to her lips, finally, the hint of a smile quirking his lips up at the edges.

“No. But I love you more than I ever have before. And I think - “, she paused, her smile shifting into something wicked. “We should take advantage of this nice, quiet house while we’ve got it, don’t you?”

Cassian didn’t even dignify Jyn with an answer, just removed an arm from where it was curled around her hip, swatting her rear gently. Sometimes, she thought, reluctantly taking the first step away, trusting that he’d be with her, as always, that she would never get enough of the way it was so easy for him to make her heart pound in her chest.

Even after 15 years of marriage, two children, and enough ups and downs for innumerable lifetimes.

At 50, Cassian Andor practically stared down the nervous young pilot that Essa had brought home to visit during holidays - the same young man that she’d messaged home about the very first week she’d been away. He was kind, and sweet, and treated their daughter like she was a princess, and currently, he was sitting in their kitchen looking all of five years old again, almost as though he’d been caught stealing sweets when he’d been told no time and time again.

And for as much as Jyn was amused by the sight of her husband intimidating the poor boy into wanting to disappear into the floor, there really was no need for it anymore. The boy was in love, anybody could see.

“Alright, that’s enough of that”, she said, breaking the silence, leading Cassian to glance at her with a disapproving glare that she shrugged right off. “Essa’s outside - you can go.”

He practically leaped from the stool, his smile bright and beaming, and Jyn laughed as she watched him rush outside, to the relative safety of Essa’s company. Although, truth be told, Essa could be remarkably like her father in many ways.

“Would you stop?”, she asked, barely sparing Cassian a glance as she puttered around the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner that they’d all helped prepare together. “He’s a good boy.”

“A good boy?”, Cassian sputtered, sounding personally offended by the thought. “He’s a - a … pilot! You know what pilots are like!”

Jyn laughed softly, shrugged, and turned to face her husband more fully. “I do. You’re a pilot, too.”

“That’s … that’s different!”

“He loves her, Cassian. You know that, you can see it as well as I can. I wouldn’t be surprised if he asked for permission to marry her. Just - give the boy a break, okay?”

Cassian sighed in defeat, eventually making his way over to Jyn and pulling her close into a hug. She always did love any chance she could take to find herself safe within the circle of his arms.

“Yes, querida. As you say.”

At 55 & 60, Jyn and Cassian found themselves grandparents for the very first time, but not the last. As the years passed, more grandchildren joined the family, until there was practically a herd of children running wild along the beaches of Lah’mu whenever they visited, as often as they could manage. Jyn always felt ages lighter whenever the children were around, begging for hugs, or treats, or for stories, of which she and Cassian had quite a few.

And all she could hope was that they’d have the chance to live in a world that was not torn apart by war. She could only pray to deities and to a Force that she wasn’t entirely certain that she believed in that they wouldn’t have to go through the same trauma and atrocities that she and Cassian had faced not all that long ago.

As she kissed each grandchild in turn, and told them that she loved them, she knew that all the loss and sacrifice that she and Cassian had experienced long before they were ever born was, in the end, worth something after all.

At 70, Cassian’s health began it’s slow decline, starting with a pneumonia that settled in his lungs and never seemed to go away. A fall on the rocks near the beach had led to a broken hip, and that broken hip seemed reluctant to heal, leaving Jyn’s once vibrant husband to require a cane to walk even the shortest of distances.

And although she never said as much out loud, not wanting Cassian to feel like he was a burden to her, the strain of taking care of him took a toll on her, too. But she loved him with all of her heart, and she would continue to take care of him for all the days of his life .. and hers, too.

There was no life without Cassian. She’d accepted that fact decades ago. And although he tried to be strong, she knew that their best days were long gone. The best thing that she could do for him - for her, too, was to make those remaining years as comfortable as possible.

At 80, Jyn slowly climbed into bed with Cassian, long after the house was clear from the cacophany of the entire family visiting, sighing heavily as she carefully curled in as close as she dared, offering a tired smile as she noticed the way he watched her through exhausted eyes.

“It’s time”, he murmured, a fear in his voice that she’d rarely heard from her strong, stoic husband, and she nodded, swallowing hard, barely holding her tears at bay.

“I’m scared”, he breathed, and she squeezed their shaking hands in reassurance. She was scared, too, even though they’d stood strong through worse situations. This was … taking a step into the unknown.

At least they’d be taking that step together.

He had to know that there was no life for Jyn if he wasn’t in it. He had to know that her heart was so inextricably entangled with his that once it ceased beating for good, so would hers.

“Don’t be”, she whispered, leaning close to capture his lips in one last kiss. “I’m with you, all the way.”

Cassian and Jyn had lived a long life, and it had been a life well-lived. When Cassian Andor’s heart slowed and stopped beating, he was ready, and he was content.