Cassian feels something odd and heavy and unfamiliar flood through him just then when he looks at Jyn. Obligation.
He’d almost forgotten that he’s a captain of Intelligence, in service to an armed insurgency against an unfathomable enemy. The imperfect and uncaring galaxy is seeping in, now, darkening the halo of light they’d languished in while the war had raged on without them. And there’s nothing they can possibly do about it.
Fear and dread frost over his nerves. Something like grief weighs behind his eyes. He realizes, to his peril, that he has grossly miscalculated: he’s fallen for a woman who is more liable to deck him than to follow orders. This woman who he wants to fight him. To gnash her teeth and steel her spine and haul him from the cliff’s edge.
But, sometimes, Cassian Andor has to be a fucking asshole. A goddamned captain of Rebel Intelligence. For the sake of the mission. For the sake of both of their lives.
And there’s far too many for them to fight on their own. Not unless they both wanted to end up dead. Or worse— sold to the highest bidder.
The Runners know him. They would want revenge. They would want his head. He has to make sure that he makes himself as tempting as possible. So much so that Jyn seems to be barely more than a distraction.