Seconds

Their embrace is so close that she can feel his heart beat erratically against hers. He is bleeding out on her, soaking through her and into her, and she closes her eyes.

Time speeds.

...time stops.

Harsh lights, chrome, the beeping of machines and pain so excruciating it becomes something abstract.

She curls on her side and vomits, hair sticking to cold sweat.

She is alive.

She could almost wish she were not.

Being alive hurts.

It is only him and her left. The others are gone, and she is still not convinced he will not soon be gone too, even though he is one of the truest fighters she has ever met. There are so many machines around him, so many wires in him, and what she can see of his face looks like death held in stasis.

Even so, she could almost envy him. He sleeps still, while she is awake, accompanied by only guilt and the tiniest sparks of joy, grief and faintly glowing embers of pride. She does not know what to do with such a skein of clashing emotions, cannot possibly hope to untangle the threads of them all, and it leaves her angry and fractious.

So she waits for him to wake, she haunts the sick bays at night, shuffles around and around the hallways with a white face and wild eyes and lips pressed thin with pain, but she refuses to stop moving. She walks in circles because if she starts walking in a straight line then she will walk straight out of the base and leave, and she owes him so much more than that.

She owes him everything, and she almost hates it but accepts it too.

So she stays.

For now.

She does not want the company of others, and she does not listen to the tales of miraculous rescues and escapes and victories. Of heroic deeds, hers, his and others'.

They are only words careening in the air above her head.

Rebellions, oppressors, battles, gaping black holes where cities and worlds should be ... none of it matters. Not now. Not anymore.

The only cause she has left is to see his eyes.

And she is losing track of time.

Sometimes things inside her go quiet for long enough that she is able to sit still by his side and watch him fight.

She thinks that the landscape of his face is the most captivating world she has ever seen, and she has seen many. She will touch the back of his hand even though she thinks she has no right, and she wills him to live with all of her might. She would bargain his life for hers if only she knew how. But mostly, mostly she is just terrified.

Because people like her, people like him, they do not deserve a second chance. So she does not know what to do with the one handed her now, but she is pretty sure she will drop it.

She always break things.

When he finally wakes she is not ashamed of the tears that are falling from her eyes into his. And the smile he gives her, through pain so harsh he has to clench his teeth, is one of the most beautiful and exhilarating and frightening things she has ever been given.

Because it is for her, and only for her.

She does not know what to do with what she sees in his exhausted eyes. It is another gift and she will smash this one too, she is sure.

"I missed you while I slept."

There might be longing there, in his voice, but she does not know what longing feels like, looks like, tastes like, she knows only survival.

She cannot answer, and he does not seem to expect her to.

"The others?"

She shakes her head, jerkily, once. "Just us."

He nods even though she can see how it hurts. "Just us."

Just them, picking through the pieces and sharp jagged splinters of what is left, but right now that does not matter because she cannot stop looking at him. At his too long hair and his drawn, brave face and eyes that says so much but still struggle with the words.

He reaches out with great difficulty and touches her cheek and his fingers are rough, they do not know how to be anything else.

It burns, his touch burns, and her heart feels too small to hold him.

So when he falls asleep again she turns and now she walks in a straight line. She walks out of there and she leaves, because she is always leaving and she knows of no other way to be.

She is miserable as she runs, flits and hops between worlds, trying to muddy her trail, hating herself, not knowing how else to exist.

Thieving, breaking, hating, moving.

She has lost too much. She has lost everything. So she dropped the last thing that meant something before it could be taken from her too.

She is a coward, and she laughs whenever she sees herself in a mirror.

He finds her.

May be that she has spent her life running, but he has spent his as a hunter and a spy. It takes a long time, but in the end he hunts her down.

He corners her. He waits for her in her room above a shady cantina somewhere in the Outer Rim. She could almost be impressed if she is not so terrified of what he makes her feel when he backs her into a wall. It is difficult, but she meets his eyes. His face is even sharper now, more shadows, more lines, and it is harsh and it is angry but there is softness too, just a little; she sees it in the heaviness of his lids and the quirk of his lips.

He does not say anything; he grabs her and pulls her hard into him before she can run again. When his lips meet hers it is like a clap of thunder and she begins to believe in beauty. She tastes mysteries on his tongue, and greed, and lust, and completeness and fire and home.

Welcome home.

It feels so good to give in.

She moves into him as hard as she can, it is impossible to get close enough, and she arches her back when he tears her tunic in two, mouths her neck, her collarbones, her breasts.

He holds her soul between his teeth.

She did not know that anything could feel like this, did not know that the only thing she could ever want is his bare skin against hers.

He is a gruff man and he does not know how to be gentle, he wields her like his blaster and loves her like he kills, and she has never known pleasure like this. She did not know that having him inside her would thrust all her broken pieces right.

His eyes burn hotter than a thousand lethal stars as he moves within her and guides her back.

Home.

Afterwards they lie tangled on her bed, he with a hand on her wrist, like he needs to feel her heartbeats, like he is afraid she will run once more. She will not run from him ever again, but she struggles to form the words to tell him.

He drags a knuckle along her cheekbone, pulls her closer, and there is no place in the universe she would rather be than held still and safe within the world of him.

He makes her meet his eyes and it does not hurt like it used to.

"Let's...you and me. Escape. For a while. Just a little while. We're soldiers and we will return but let us be something else, just for a moment. Let's dream. Just us."

She smiles then and it is genuine and unfamiliar and feels beautiful on her face.

I'm home.

She takes his hand, strokes his cheek.

"Yes."

...time starts.

Time speeds.

She opens her eyes again. She looks at the wall of fire storming towards them and she smiles, just a little. What could have been was something beautiful.

She clutches him harder, holds him closer, will hold him into eternity as he will hold her.

His lips against her ear, soft, and the merest whisper of words wrapped within a sigh.

"I don't want to die, now."

…and they become stardust together.

A/N: So first time I saw Rogue One I fucking hated it. Yeah. I don't know either. Then last week I saw it again and now it's all I can think of. Go figure. So here's a rough little ditty that I churned out while struggling mightily with another fic for a different fandom.

It was inspired by a crushing line from the novelisation. Broke my black little heart, swear to god. "With one second left until total shutdown, K-2SO chose to mentally simulate an impossible scenario in which Cassian Andor escaped alive. The simulation pleased him."

So I wrote Jyn doing what Kaytoo did.