Chapter Text
There are nights that Cassian wakes up screaming, and he knows all Jyn can do is hold him until his screams turn into sobs and he exhausts himself into some semblance of sleep. It’s as if during the war, he could box it all up and pretend that it didn’t exist; now that the war is over, the last decade comes crashing over him like a tidal wave. He weeps for his fallen comrades, for his mother, for his sister. He doesn’t get to decide what he mourns all day and night, for the grief sits in his bones and makes itself known when and how it wants.
It’s a terrible thing, but he misses the war. He misses having a purpose and a mission, something that didn’t require him to sit in the quiet with his thoughts.
Other nights, when the horror of his past isn’t quite so daunting, he just doesn’t sleep. He gets up and walks around the home he’s built with Jyn, brews a half-pot of caf just to give himself something to do. He stands in the doorway of Teza’s nursery, praying to whatever powers that be that her future is as beautiful as she is. Sometimes, he’ll go outside and walk up and down the rows of koyo that fill the space between their homestead and the Dameron ranch. Sometimes, Kes joins him, and he understands why Jyn was so insistent on being near him and Shara.
The easiest nights are when Dameron brings out the moonshine and they get drunk as if they’re still young and able to recover quickly. He never regrets those nights, because they come with laughter and stories of their youth that he finds hard to share even with Jyn. He and Kes spend a few moonlit hours coping together every once in a while, that’s all. It isn’t ideal, sure, but it doesn’t happen too often, either.
He misses Jeron. Misses Bix a little bit, too, if only because she’s the last thing he has that ties him to Ferrix, to his formative years.
He misses Melshi. And Kay. He misses Brasso, on some of his worst nights, because that never would have happened if he’d been given the right plans, if that incompetent group of wannabe rebels hadn’t wasted his time, if the Imps hadn’t—
No. No, he can’t go down that road. If he starts thinking of what ifs, he’ll never stop. He’s had to pull Jyn out of enough of those to know better.
On one of the restless, non-screaming nights, he hears Jyn’s soft footfall on the clay tile before he registers that she’s really there. She puts her hand in the center of his lower back, worms her way under his arm so that it’s resting on her shoulders. He can’t resist letting his face fall into her hair, can’t help but breathe in the scent of her, cool earth and fresh soap and the salt spray of a sea that doesn’t exist here. When he’s had his fill, he kisses the top of her head and rests against her.
“I never thought I’d be so anxious about peace,” she murmurs, both of them staring out the window above the sink into the dark, dense Yavin jungle. “Thought after Jakku, I might be happy that all the fighting was done.”
“Rebellion is easy when it’s the only thing you’ve ever known,” he replies.
She leans into him and stifles a yawn. “Gonna have to learn how to be a person all over again.”
A soft chuckle escapes his lips, and it feels nice to be laughing sober, for once. “It will definitely take some getting used to.”
They’ve done alright for themselves, though, he thinks. He’s so used to his prosthesis now that there are moments he forgets he ever lost a limb; though her body still aches more often than either of them would like, Jyn’s pain isn’t as sharp as it used to be. They still have to remind each other to eat, still have to prepare for those rare moments that their bodies forget that they’re safe in their home, but it’s more good than it is bad.
He lets her guide him back to bed, though they pause as they pass the nursery. It’s something they tend to do together, sneak glimpses of Teza when they can. They do know, after all, that it won’t last forever. All children grow up someday.
Jyn squeezes his hand. “All good?”
Cassian nods. “Think so. Just—give me another minute.”
For two people who have dedicated their lives to each other in every way but name, they’ve spoken precariously little about the possibility of having more children. He’d like to say that he’s neither for nor against it, that he’d be happy with whatever Jyn wants, but that’s not the whole truth. Of course he would respect her wishes, but it would be a lie to say that he doesn’t sometimes dream about a child with her eyes and smile and his nose and hair, or some other random but darling combination of features.
They would have beautiful children, he thinks.
But Jeron and Teza, they’re enough. Even if he doesn’t see his son in person more than once a month, he cherishes every moment they have, in-person or over holo-call. And he knows no greater joy than making Teza laugh or smile, except perhaps for watching Jyn make her laugh or smile.
“You’ll feel better in the morning,” she whispers.
“I know,” he replies, turning away from the nursery and smiling tiredly down at the woman he loves. “Things are always better in the light.”
After managing a fair two hours of rest, Cassian wakes to an empty bed but finds that his boots have been moved to where his feet needn’t even touch the floor to put them on, on top of the little knotted rug at his bedside. He slips them on, along with a clean shirt, and shuffles out to the kitchen, where Jyn is blessedly not cooking.
He comes to stand behind her at the conservator and kisses the spot behind her ear that he knows makes her week in the knees. “Good morning,” he hums against her skin. “Thank you for the shoes.”
“Mmm, morning.” She reaches back to scratch at his scalp affectionately. “It was nothing.”
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about trying to cook again.”
She laughs, unburdened, unbothered, and closes the conservator. “No, I think the one burnt bantha steaks incident was enough. Just wanted to see if we had something I could snack on before Kes comes over with Poe.”
Cassian lets Jyn turn around in his arms until she’s facing him and can snake her arms around his neck and kiss him properly. “Another play-date, already? Those two will be thick as thieves before long.”
“Oh, you say that like they aren’t already. Are you sure you’re still alright with going to market with Kes? I know it can be tiresome.” She glances down at his leg, the false one, but otherwise keeps her expression neutral.
Always so attentive, he thinks, imagining how else she might be attentive later in the day, perhaps well into the evening. He grins, both at her and the thought of what they might do. “You just don’t want to be left alone with the terrorists.”
Jyn pulls back, half-humored, half-affronted. “Excuse you, I was one of the best terrorists the Empire had ever seen.”
“Is that right?” he asks, backing her gently up against the wall, one hand bracing against it above her head, plenty of room for her to slip away if she needs.
“Mhm.” She raises her head proudly. “You don’t want to know my ‘trooper kill count before I met you."
Of course, he does know her ‘trooper kill count, and she knows it. But they can pretend he doesn’t, if it suits the moment. He licks his lips, stares down at hers. “You’re a terrifying creature, Jyn Erso.”
Her hand rises to fiddle with the fasteners of his shirt. “That may be the highest compliment anyone has ever given me,” she breathes, clearly no longer thinking about anything but what’s right in front of her.
He can’t blame her—his focus, too, has shifted. He ducks his head down and stops just short of slotting his lips against hers. “I’ll have to work on that,” he breathes against her lips just as she surges up to meet him.
Kissing Jyn is a free-fall that ends with a soft place to land. She likes it when he grabs at her, when he gets needy. The simmering heat of passion excites her, as do the rough callouses on his hands from years of life and living. There’s no good reason for either of them to have made it this far, but it’s not a gift they take for granted anymore. Closeness, a steady hand and sure gaze, is something they hold far more than dear.
Though, they do occasionally forget about the toddler in the nursery who likes to babble loudly when she wakes in the morning.
Cassian laughs, breathless. “The princess awakens,” he jokes.
Jyn rolls her eyes as she slips away and around the corner to the nursery. “You better not get her used to that,” she calls over her shoulder, “you already spoil her too much.”
He turns and presses his back against the wall to catch his breath; he can’t wipe the smile off his face no matter how hard he tries. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
A faint chime rings out from the front of the house—saved by the bell, he thinks as he goes to open the door and greet Kes and Poe.
Already, Kes’s eyes are rimmed with dark circles, there’s a small stain on the breast of his shirt, and Poe’s got a carton of sweet roll-flavored blue milk in his tiny fist. He sets his son down, and as soon as the toddler is on the ground, he’s galloping off to find his favorite Auntie Jyn and Cousin Teza.
Kes pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales very slowly. “Please tell me you’re still doing Market Day with me.”
“Yes? Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I was worried Teza and Poe might have conspired to kill us via sleep deprivation,” Kes says, hardly an ounce of humor in his tone.
Cassian shrugs. “I don’t know what else you expected from the boy who takes after his mother.
“Maybe for him to take after me,” he laments, pouting a bit. It’s such a childish behavior that Cass almost feels like he needs to pat his friends head and say, there, there.
“Ah, well. Who says he doesn’t?”
“Oh, he definitely does,” Jyn hollers from hallway. The men both watch as she lumbers across the house with Teza in her arms, Poe aggressively attached to her leg, and a tight smile on her face. “Why else would he be so obsessed with me?”
Cassian could come up with a number of answers to that, but he knows that the quip is more for Kes’s benefit than his own. In a time when he couldn’t be the person Jyn needed, when he was too caught up in his own issues to see the things that were right in front of him, Kes Dameron made it his mission to be her family, and Cass could never be more grateful.
Jyn drags the children along to kiss him goodbye, while both Poe and Kes—really, Dameron, what an influence you’re having on your son—make playful gagging noises and Teza reaches to give her own kiss goodbye.
“Goodbye for now, treasure,” he whispers to his niece before kissing her forehead. Then he turns to Jyn. “See you tonight.”
She smiles, so small he could blink and miss it. “See you tonight,” she says back.
The two men depart the Andor-Erso homestead and climb into Kes’s landspeeder, a modified hauler from the days when the Rebellion called Yavin 4 its home base. Now, instead of weapons or supplies, the bed of the speeder is filled with crates of koyo. The land the fruit grows on is technically under Dameron’s stewardship, and Cassian and Jyn are content to take forty percent of the sale, so long as they provide labor during the harvest. With Shara patrolling the skies as a part of the lunar defense, Kes likely wouldn’t be able to manage the farm on his own.
The journey to market is quiet except for the oldies tunes playing on the speeder’s radio—mostly late Republic era music, folksy numbers that started out as protest songs about the war with the Separatists that would lose their meaning until they became background noise during the Imperial era. Funny, though, that Cassian hears the notes and lyrics now and thinks that the Rebellion might have enjoyed co-opting a few for their own cause. But the leaders of the Alliance, back when there was one, when they needed one, weren’t focused on propaganda so much as survival.
He recalls something he said, some throwaway line that meant more than it should have in the moment. You’re coming home to yourself.
Huh. Maybe he had been the propagandist.
As they unload the truck, carrying crates to their stall, Cassian wipes the sweat from his brow. “Maybe in a few years, Poe will be big enough to help.”
Kes leans over and rests his hands on the edge of a crate for a moment before looking up with a dry, dry look on his face. “Force willing.”
Market days are simple, mostly routine sorts of days, with the typical group of local and settler families coming to revisit the stall each time there’s a new crop of koyo. He’s learned more ways to prepare it and ways to incorporate it into dishes than he’s ever learned ways to kill a man. To be fair, only one of those skills really serves him now.
During a lull in customers, he glances over at Kes, whose eyes are zeroed in on the central square. He follows his friend’s gaze to a solitary, middle-aged man, dressed in dark, though nondescript, clothing. The stranger has a look to him that sets Cassian on edge, the sort of look that denotes expectation. Following the stranger’s line of sight now, he sees a much younger man, hardly more than a boy, move toward the center of the square.
The next few seconds occur over a thousand years, and yet also all at once. Cassian and Kes both seem to find that their feet move before their brains even register it’s happening. Neither has a blaster on them, because, of course, those days are meant to be over. Still, Cass is good with his hands, and Kes has the machete he uses to slice the koyo open to show more reluctant buyers the ideal nature of the fruit. A beating or a blade, either will work in a pinch. But they aren’t fast enough to stop the young stranger from reaching out into the crowd and pulling an old woman to him, a knife at her throat.
“Nobody move!” the boy—for that’s what he is, a boy—shouts. The woman he holds hostage whimpers as the crowd panics and attempts to disperse.
It doesn’t take long for Cassian to realize that they’re outnumbered as more men in dark clothes with blasters come out of the woodwork. Enough of Yavin’s people have run that there’s sure to be a security presence here soon, but not soon enough. Never soon enough, when someone’s life is on the line.
“Let her go,” he says quietly to the boy, whose whole body vibrates with adrenaline and fear. He knows the feeling well.
The boy spits at Cassian’s feet. “Traitor! All of you, traitors to the emperor!”
His hostage closes her eyes and mutters something none of them can hear, but he bets it’s a prayer.
“The emperor’s gone, son,” Kes says, the same fatherly tone he uses with his actual son when the boy is frightened leaking out behind the firmness of his words. “It’s the New Republic now.”
“They should have destroyed this place when they had the chance,” the boy seethes, the knife pressing further into the flesh of woman’s neck, puncturing the skin enough to draw a little drop of blood that slowly becomes a tiny stream.
The men in dark clothes begin to close in on them. Cassian exchanges a single, prolonged look with his friend before they leap into action.
It’s been a hot minute since he’s been in a proper brawl—at least since Ghorman, if not before then, since he’s not entirely sure that Ghorman really counts as a brawl, anyway. The man who attacked him there wasn’t trying to win a fight; he was trying to pulverize him until there was nothing left. The point being, he’s a little rusty when it comes to a fight. But his strength? Carrying Teza and Poe and the koyo crates? Building his home? Well, he’s never been stronger.
The first man goes down with a simple right hook to the face, the sign of a pathetic former Imperial officer if he’s ever seen one. So much of the fighting for the Empire took place behind screens, especially for the officers. He’d put credits down on the fact that less than a third of them have seen actual combat. The second goes down a little more roughly, and it takes a couple of gut punches to render him breathless enough to knock over. Still, it’s another case of soft hands. Not a day’s hard work in their lives, he swears.
There are four more, or there were. Kes takes down one with his machete straight into the gut, and another by knocking him supine and slitting his throat. He’s never been in the middle of active combat with Dameron before, and from the looks of it, that might just be a good thing. Not that he’s judging—he knows as well as anyone that anyone who fought for the Rebel Alliance, especially in the early days before Hoth, carries with them the terrible things they did for the cause. Of course Kes hasn’t escaped that fate.
Four down, two to go, until number five is shot by a rogue blaster and number six is on his knees with his hands in the air, surrendering to the incoming law enforcement.
Kes turns to the boy with hands outstretched, palms up; the boy is frozen in place with his hostage. “Think you can let her go now, son?” he asks. “Just put the knife in my hand, we can all walk away from this.”
Well, that’s the first time Cassian has ever seen Kes Dameron lie.
The boy seems to know it’s a lie, too, as he finally clocks the security forces closing in. Though he removes the knife from the old woman’s throat, he doesn’t let her go. Instead, he holds fast as he drags the blade across his own throat. His last words pay homage to a sickly, dying thing.
“For the Empire!”
As the blood sprays from his throat, Cassian can’t help but wonder if the boy knew that the Empire didn’t even give a damn about him at all. Doesn’t seem like he did.
What a damn waste.