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dilf-din · 8 months

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Yeehawgust Day 24: Uranium Fever

Rogue One/Rebelcaptain

WC: 2630

Characters: Jyn & Cassian

Rating: T

Warnings: whump and angst, major character death, depictions of illness (cancer), language. This is fucking sad.

A/N: whatever the opposite of a fix it fic is, that’s what this is. I’m used to only writing happy endings, so this was a challenge to get through. I crode several times. But there are so many allusions to their happy middle, and the soulmate-ism is intense. Author does not claim responsibility for emotional damage.

In a lot of ways, Jyn and Cassian had lucked out, beaten the odds. If Kay only knew how many more missions they would make it back from, he would’ve short circuited. They had dodged blaster fire and fists and tyranny and unspeakable tragedy, always together, always hand in hand. They survived war, and then they survived another. One apart, and the second together. Whatever had led them to each other, whether fate or the Force, they didn’t question it. They bowed at its altar every night and thanked it for its blessings. Everyone knew they belonged together. One glance was enough to clue in any onlooker. The pair with fire in their eyes for everyone but each other. Their looks were reserved for tenderness, for adoration and devotion.

Jyn was never the kind of person to need anyone or anything. Living a life abandoned led you down one of two paths: you either gave up or fought like hell to become something. Claw tooth and nail out of the pit you were forced into, emerging covered in blood and sweat, dirt and tears. Jyn was a fighter.

She was cunning, sharp as a blade. People flinched when Cassian walked into a room, but they would lay their weapons down with a single look from Jyn.

Jyn lived her life like there was nothing to lose. She was used to things being taken from her. The one good gift she ever received was Cassian. She never imagined meeting someone who understood her on such a fundamental level. Of course, the hand she had been dealt had led her into the lives of many others who had lost things at the hands of the Empire. She looked at the Death card she was dealt as a child, ripped it to shreds, and buried it. Every piece of it had followed her for decades, claiming the lives of everyone she stood too close to for too long.

It had been years since she felt the reaper’s bony hand around her throat or searched for his shadow lurking in the corner of every room she entered. She was getting complacent, letting her guard down. She actually started to believe that she would get her happy ending. What a childish thing, to believe in fairy tales.

It started with a cough. A dry one, the kind no one worries about. “Probably just the weather,” she had reasoned. Cassian nodded, not seeing a reason for it to raise any red flags. Then the cough stayed through winter and into spring, rattled the bones in his chest till he felt his heart would give out.

“Maybe you should see a doctor,” she suggested lightly over dinner one night.

Cassian nodded again. It had been months. It should’ve cleared up by now.

“Tomorrow,” he smiled. She reached across the table to squeeze his hand. Both of them dancing around the hole that showed up in the middle of their house, getting deeper every day. If they skirted around the edge of it, it was easy enough to overlook. It wasn’t that wide yet, nowhere near two meters deep. And besides, they weren’t quite sure the other even knew it was there. So they ignored it, focused their attention on flowers and kisses and slow dances, letting love lead them through with a firm grip.

Cassian sat on the cold, steel table, drumming his fingers anxiously. He hated doctors, distrusted them, but he wanted to ease Jyn’s mind. She never pushed him to do something he was uncomfortable with unless it was out of love. His dear Jyn, he owed much of his healing over the years to her, both mentally and physically. Like an expert guiding a rookie through defusing a bomb, she held him steady while they disconnected wires and identified emotional triggers. She made him feel like his mind was a safe place to be for the first time in a long time. He owed it to her to get this cough treated, eliminate any fears she might be harboring.

His thoughts were interrupted by the doctor opening the door. He was a Mon Calamari with bright white scales and long whiskers. His eyes were a sharp, glassy blue.

“So sorry to keep you waiting. I’ve been looking over your chart for a while now, and I’m just not making sense of everything before me. Do you mind if we run a few tests?”

Cassian shifted nervously, “Is there anything you think is wrong?”

“I just want to rule out a few things,” he said diplomatically, “Tell me, have you lost weight recently?”

Cassian thought for a moment, ran a hand over his jaw and noticed it didn’t feel as full as usual.

“Maybe?”

“Loss of appetite?”

“A little here and there.”

The doctor typed quickly into the holopad.

“I’ll set some tests up and have you out of here in no time.”

Cancer. Cassian stared blankly out one of the small windows on the shuttle ride home. The old ship creaked and shuddered as if it was on its last leg. Cass couldn’t ignore the irony, feeling like he himself was being held together with duct tape and hope. It was a fine diagnosis, really. He didn’t mind going out this way, but he had no idea how he would tell Jyn. He debated not telling her, but she would just kill him when she found out. He couldn’t hide it forever. He wasn’t even hiding it now.

Cassian was also given a Death card at a young age. The Shaman had pulled it off the top of the deck and placed it into his shaking hands. He and Jyn had spent their entire lives trying to outrun the fate they knew would befall them one day. But damn it, if they didn’t have a good time running together.

He walked through the door, a new heaviness around his shoulders as he tried to shake the cold from his bones. The warmth of the fire in the living area drew him in like a disoriented moth. He kicked his boots off and dropped his jacket in the middle of the floor, crouched on the hearth and closed his eyes, letting the hot air press kisses to his pale skin, bringing him to life bit by bit.

“Cass?”

Just the sound of her voice drew a lump to his throat.

He heard the shuffle of fabric as she picked up his jacket and laid it over the back of the sofa. She was behind him in seconds, warm hand on his cheek.

“It’s still so chilly out,” she remarked, “So, how did it go?”

He was quiet for a long time. Should he beat around the bush? Rip the stitches open and bleed all over the both of them?

“Cass?” she asked again, kneeling to meet his gaze. Her brows were knit together in worry.

“Cancer,” he breathed out, barely a whisper.

“What?”

“Cancer!” he all but shouted, “I have fucking cancer, Jyn.” He gave a wry smile. “Survived the Empire just to get torn apart by my own body.”

Somehow, she seemed unshaken by the news, a determination set in her eyes.

“Okay,” she said calmly, “We can get through this. What did they say about treatment?”

“It’s too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s. Too. Late.” he enunciated every word, reaching into his pocket with a trembling hand and pulling out a sheet of paper. He shoved it into her chest and stared into the flames though the smoke was beginning to burn his eyes.

Jyn unfolded it to see a scan of Cassian’s abdomen absolutely lit up white. Clumps of tissue she could tell didn’t belong clinging to every surface and organ system.

“I, I don’t understand. How did this happen? How did we not know?” her voice surprisingly calm still. She was in shock, he reasoned.

“He said he sees it a lot in mechanics, people who spend too much time messing around with reactors and hyperdrives. Guess all that money I made pawning parts wasn’t worth it anyway, was it?” he leaned his head back against the cool stone and laughed bitterly.

“They said it’s too late?” she searched his face trying desperately to understand the new reality they were just handed.

His eyes pooled with tears as he finally mustered up the courage to look at her, his Jyn.

He took her hands in his, and with a trembling voice began, “I only have a few months left, Jyn, and I want to spend them with you, not hooked up to machines and tubes and needles.”

As much as it killed her too, as much as it set every cell in her body on fire with hatred for the Empire, she nodded. He was hers, but his life was his own. She would never dream of begging him to suffer for her sake.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” she said with a small smile.

His heart ached impossibly as he gazed at the woman in front of him. Deep wrinkles were starting to form at the edges of her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She had gotten her first grey hair a few months ago. She hadn’t made a big deal out of it, but Cassian had cooed and drawn her into his arms, talking about how beautiful she would be when her hair was all but silver. He didn’t deserve her. And she didn’t deserve this. And all of a sudden, he was filled with rage and sadness, being torn in opposite directions by their vicious pulls. He had asked her to do the impossible, and she had said yes without hesitation.

She drew his head into her hands and locked her eyes with his, “I’m with you till the end.”

It came quicker than either of them had anticipated. They felt like they wasted so much time on the front end. How many times they had not treated every touch with a holy reverence, been short with their words when work was too much. If they could take it all back, go back to the start, they would treasure every second even more.

Cassian quit his job. They took a lot of walks until he couldn’t. His movements slowed quickly over the following weeks, so they spent a lot of time sitting. They picked a bench outside their neighborhood beneath a lantern that glowed bright yellow against the grey washed winter days.

It was just a short walk. Jyn stood steady while he clung to her arm, bundled in his thickest coat and scarf. Her breath teased of ghosts floating away on the wind while they made their way to their usual spot. It was across the street from a park. Though it was cold, the kids still gathered after school let out to play in the dusting of snow and kick a ball around.

“We never got to have that,” he said softly one day, nodding his head in the direction of laughter while his hands clutched a barely sipped on mug of tea. His fingers reveled in the heat. “I’m glad they get to,” he smiled sincerely.

Jyn couldn’t help but think that their bravery had a part to play in this, that the mission that brought them into each other’s lives had set the course for the Galaxy to look the way it did today. With children laughing and running freely, everyday people going about their lives without the shadow of tyranny to block out the light. Her hand reached over to squeeze his. They sat in comfortable silence, reminiscing on their life together. It was sad work, but, oh, there was so much joy shared between the two of them. So many years of making it out by the skin of their teeth. It was about time for their luck to run out.

Jyn looked at the man next to her, pushed past the unrecognizable resignation in his eyes, the downward turn of his lips, and saw the boy she fell in love with. The leader of the rebellion who wouldn’t take no for an answer, who forged his own paths and never backed down from a fight. He was tired of fighting. Jyn knew that. Anything she could do to soften his transition between worlds, she would do without question.

She stayed up late reading to him a lot. They awoke many mornings on the couch, partly from them both dozing off, and partly from him not wanting to face the stairs at the end of the day. He sat in the crook of her legs with his back against her chest, and she would run her fingers through the length of his hair, though it was much shorter now than it was in their youth.

Morning’s light would creep in through the curtains, dance across the sharp angles of his cheek and nose. Jyn didn’t get much sleep when they stayed like this. She was afraid of missing any more than she had already. She would watch his features take shape, listen to the steady rhythm of his breath, and try to imagine a world where she didn’t get to fall asleep with it as background noise like she had grown so used to. His breath was as second nature to her days as her own.

They would eat a small breakfast. She would help him wash up, pull thick socks over his feet. The tasks grew in number as the days they had left dwindled. Soon he stopped eating altogether, stopped leaving the couch.

The day it happened, they both knew. Looked over at the hole that had now widened into a full grave. To Jyn, it looked like her own death sentence. To Cassian, it looked like coming home.

Jyn pressed kisses up and down his jaw as he dozed. When the afternoon light faded, so did his. She saw Death’s cloak in her periphery, swallowed down the fear of what’s to come.

His brown eyes fluttered open, having lost the spark that she loved so dearly. She knew he was no longer himself, that it was time to let him go.

“I’m so tired,” he slurred.

“I know, my love,” she whispered through tears, “You can rest now. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

Cassian smiled faintly.

“Kiss me?”

She pressed her lips to his, felt them move beneath her own. His exhales becoming ragged against her cupid’s bow.

“Jyn?”

She pulled back to look him in the eye. His hand found her cheek and cradled it the way he always did when he had her full attention.

“Come find me again,” he whispered, the last glint of a sparkle danced across his eyes like a shooting star. She made one final wish, for him to be free of his pain.

“I love you,” she said through tears.

“I love you, my Jyn,” his eyes became heavy once more, and when his last breath left his lungs, the world grew ten degrees colder.

Her body shook with sobs as she clung to his lifeless form. She stayed there for days, unable to pull herself away, not wanting to admit which touch would be the last. She thought of the way she had wept over her father’s corpse. Only this time, there was no one left to drag her away. No one to convince her that there was still something to fight for. Cassian was all she had. She had spent twice as many years by his side as she had on her own. The emptiness of the future fell over the room like a blanket, keeping her in place, covering everything she knew.

And so, after one final fight, Jyn Erso was alone again.

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