Author's Note: Forgive me. I don't know where this story came from. All I know is that it is sad, depressing, and so full of angst that you'd think I was an eleven year-old-girl writing in her diary. The story is weird, a total mess, pure sadness, and a bit experimental in some parts. For some reason, tragic Jyn/Cassian is just my jam. So proceed at your own risk.

Again, reviews are (almost) better than the Rogue One crew getting a happy ending. So please leave some if you can. Cheers!

Two thoughts, equally as terrifying:

What if I see you again?

What if I don't?

Margaret Schnabel

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The first thought that comes into Jyn's mind after she wakes up from getting shot is how thirsty she is.

Her tongue feels like it is stuck to the top of her mouth. Her throat is incredibly parched, as though it is coated with sand or granite. There is phlegm at the back of her throat, almost making her choke. Something is making a noise. Beep. Beep. Beep. She realises that it must be a machine; she can feel the tubes that are connected to her wrist.

I'm alive. I'm alive.

Even just drawing breath hurts. Her left side feels like it is on fire. When she trails her fingers across the skin there, they make contact with the gauze's coarse texture. Someone has taken the bullet out and stitched her up.

So the fucker missed.

She remembers it all as though it happened in slow-motion: the whizzing of the bullet as it ripped through the air, the curl of the man's mouth, and the hardness of the ground when her knees hit the floor. Bang. It had been easy, just the hooking back of a finger and she's down.

Wake up, Jyn. It is time to wake up.

She opens her eyes to an exceptionally white ceiling. Two fluorescent lights blink back at her. She is in a hospital bed, she realises quickly as her gaze drops down. There - a clock on the wall, a TV, the beeping machine to the right. She turns her head (heavy, drowsy, incredibly groggy) to her left and her eyes land on a figure asleep in the chair. Her breath catches in her throat.

Cassian Andor.

Cassian Andor. By her bedside. His hand inches away from her own. His breathing loud enough for her to hear.

Five years and he has not changed much. The biggest difference is how much more tired he looks, if that's even possible. His mouth still droops when he sleeps, his eyelashes still flutter in that way that makes her heart clench a little. His hair is shorter though; it used to come down to the nape of his neck, but now it is cut to just below his ears. One look at his face tells her that he hadn't shaved this morning. Her eyes quickly seek out the things that are him: the scar on his right knuckle, the barely-there mark just below his left eyebrow. He has on his usual long-sleeved cotton white shirt and black trousers and she knows that he must have come straight from the precinct. Sure enough, his dark brown leather jacket is draped across the arm of his chair.

(She remembers herself in that jacket. She remembers laughing in it, kissing him in it, him turning his smiling face to see her in it. His hand on the wheel - driving, driving - and she's just drinking him in.…)

The sight of him there in the chair makes her…well, it makes her a lot of things.

She must have made a sound because his eyes crack open. When he spots her awake, he looks relieved, then angry, and then something else that she can't quite read.

When she speaks, her voice rasps like nails on a chalkboard: "What are you doing here?"

He blinks, and then straightens himself up in his seat.

"Jyn, I'm still listed as your emergency contact."

Oh.

Fuck.

"I think I'm going to throw up."

He moves fast. In an instant, his hand is on the back of her neck, holding back her hair. A small rubbish bin is pushed into her hands. She retches into it, her vomit smelling strongly of medicine and god knows what else.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Water."

Again, lightning quick, he takes the bin away and produces a bottle from somewhere. He even manages to put a straw in it. She ignores the straw completely and tips the bottle back, practically slurping at every drop of water.

"This is embarrassing," she says finally, after he has taken the bottle away and given her a tissue to wipe her mouth with. "This is not exactly what I'd imagined meeting you again would be like."

(Yes, she has imagined. Even when she has told herself not to. Even when she has tried not to.)

He attempts a smile - a pathetic, ironic smile that fools neither of them.

"What? You in critical care? Me holding back your hair while you vomit into a bin? What part of this scenario is lacking in romance?"

Her mouth twitches. "The hair-holding was sort of romantic."

"Oh, I beg to differ."

"Well…" She shrugs, the gesture sending sharp pains through her body. "I've always preferred life-threatening situations to flowers and chocolates."

He smiles a little, but his eyes miss nothing; she knows he saw the way she winced when she moved. He leans in and his gaze burns with the need to explain.

"Jyn, they called me before you went into surgery. I thought-"

"I'm fine."

"Jyn, you got shot."

Of course he doesn't ask her what happened. That badge in the pocket of his jacket means he can't, but she also knows that he doesn't ask because he doesn't need to. Doesn't want to. She bites down the ache, the damn longing, and makes herself glare at him.

"I'm fine. You didn't have to drive all the way down here."

Because that's what he did, she knows. Detectives don't have much time to spare, but he drove down here anyway and it must have taken him hours. The fact that he did, the fact that he's still here, waiting… well, it means things that she doesn't want it to mean. Things that she can't have it mean.

"You can go now," she says, trying to keep her voice easy. "I know you're busy. Kay would be furious to know that you're here."

"He'll live. I gave him a call."

"I bet he was pleased."

"There was a victory dance. Or so I've heard."

Her mouth twitches again and it infuriates her. Pains her, really. Five years of work undone in a matter of minutes just because he can still make her smile.

"I should have remembered to change my emergency contact," she says, eyes dropping to her hands that are clasped in her lap. "They should have written down a reminder in our divorce papers."

Again. Like always with her. That small, pathetic, sad attempt of a smile playing on his lips.

The nurse flips the chart over.

"Jyn Erso," she says, looking down at Jyn through her blue-rimmed glasses. "You're lucky you're alive. The bullet went clean through. I'd say the guy was aiming for your heart, but he had one hell of a lousy aim."

"No one shot me," says Jyn. "It was an accident."

"Honey, you gotta do better than that."

"I am a licensed gun owner. I was cleaning my gun and it went off."

The nurse lifts an eyebrow and her voice drips with sarcasm: "And you shot yourself in the side?"

"Crazy things happen all the time."

She shakes her head wearily. "There are two police officers waiting outside to take your statement, honey. Lucky for you, your husband here - "

"Ex-husband," says Jyn quickly.

The nurse throws Cassian an uncertain glance. "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that -"

"We're divorced," says Cassian.

"Okay," says the nurse carefully, turning back to Jyn. "Your ex-husband here told them that they should come back tomorrow."

"They can come back tomorrow and I will still tell them the same story."

"You don't wanna press any charges?" she asks incredulously. "Honey, I understand if - "

"It was an accident," says Jyn, gritting her teeth. "Now. When can I get out of here?"

"The doctor will - "

"When?"

The nurse frowns. Her pretence of trying to placate Jyn is all gone now.

"Two weeks."

"Can we make it one week instead?"

"The doctor will be the judge of that."

Jyn huffs about it, complains about it, but the nurse (to her enormous credit) stands firm. She gives Jyn her medicine and leaves, but not before shaking her head at the two of them in a sad and frustrating manner.

"Who would have thought that getting shot would require so much paperwork," says Jyn dryly. "And thank you, by the way, about the police."

"You should try giving them some sort of statement," says Cassian.

"You know I can't do that."

"Lie, then."

She pops the pill into her mouth and swallows down the water. The bitterness lingers in her throat

"I'd rather not go on record. You, of all people, should understand."

She doesn't want to play this card - this guilt-assigning, invoking-the-past card. But a part of her (a small, deep and hidden part) is hurt that he is asking at all.

She hears him sigh as he leans back in his chair.

"Do you want me to call Bodhi?"

A beat.

"No."

Cassian frowns, worry creeping into his expression. "Why not?"

"He's doing his pilot license. This would just be a distraction."

"I don't think that's - "

"Trust me."

He has the grace to not press the point. But instead, he asks: "How is he doing by the way? Bodhi."

"He's…good. You should give him a call."

"I know. It's just…" He runs a hand through his hair. His shoulders tense in an uncomfortable way. "When the two of us, you know…"

"Broke up," supplies Jyn in a tight, strangled voice.

He winces. "Yeah. That. It felt like we…"

"What?" she scoffs. "Divided friends?"

"Well, yes."

He looks at her, daring her to contradict him. She doesn't and her eyes drop down to her lap again.

"Bodhi doesn't hate you, Cassian."

A brief, barely perceptible moment of pain flashes in his eyes.

"I know he doesn't."

And they lapse into silence again.

Since he has been here, it has been like this. Uncomfortable silences and then easy conversations, over and over in a loop, making Jyn's chest tighten continually. She cannot recall a situation which has made her feel so uncomfortable and yet so at home at the same time before. One minute, she is reading everything, studying everything about him; every movement, every gesture, becomes a monumental moment in itself. But then the next minute, she goes back to wishing that he would just leave her be again so that she could go back to forgetting (or trying to forget) that he has ever existed at all.

After a while, just because she still can't help not telling him things, she says: "I haven't talked to Bodhi in a while."

His brow furrows. "Why not?"

"Because he's been busy and I've been busy and, well…"

She trails off.

He looks at her, willing her to continue, but she realises that she cannot.

She's wrong. She can't tell him things. At least not everything. Not anymore. She can't tell him that she hasn't talked to Bodhi in ages because she has been running. That every time she talks to Bodhi she thinks about him and that everything that once had anything to do with them is now forever tainted.

"Life, I suppose," she tells him lamely instead.

He doesn't believe her; she can tell by the way his eyes narrow.

"You should call him," says Cassian quietly. "He misses you."

Her laugh is hollow. "How can you possibly know that?"

"Because I miss you too."

He eats now. It's not like he didn't eat before, but the old Cassian could get by on just three cups of mate and a pack of crackers a day. Now, he eats proper meals - burgers from the food truck outside, a pack of sandwiches from the cafeteria and pasta he has to heat up in the microwave.

(She doesn't cook. Can't cook, really, and he has never asked her to. But she wonders if he now has someone waiting at home who cooks for him.

The possibility destroys her more than she wants it to.)

"…I can't right now, alright, Kay?"

The tiny crack of light from his phone is the only thing she sees in the darkness. She slams her eyes shut again, pretending to still be asleep.

"No, you don't understand…Thank you for covering for me, but…"

…

"This is Jyn we're talking about, Kay. I can't leave her."

….

"It doesn't matter that we're not together anymore."

….

"Hold on."

She hears him go still. She is pretty sure that he is peering at her from his spot on the sofa and she wills her entire body not to move.

After what feels like an eternity, she hears him getting up and him making his way across the room. Then, the sound of the door opening and closing.

She is alone again.

The next morning, as she is stuffing the hospital's horrible yoghurt into her mouth, she tells him: "You should go."

His expression goes blank. Like always, he is much better at reading her than she is at reading him. It probably has something to do with what they do for a living.

"What?"

"I said," she mumbles, avoiding his eyes, "you should go."

"Why?"

She shrugs. "Because you have a life to get back to."

He reaches over and plucks the cup of yoghurt from her hand. He dips his finger in and then brings it to his lips, grimacing.

"This is disgusting."

"Cassian," she says, rolling her eyes, "I'm serious."

"So am I." He tosses the yoghurt into the bin. "We have to get you better food."

"I don't want better food." She draws in a sharp breath, almost biting the inside of her mouth. "I don't need better food. I need you …. to leave."

His expression is still blank, but his movement ceases. Uncomfortably, she pushes a lock of hair behind her ear.

"It's been good to see you, it has," she says hurriedly. Don't you cry, don't you cry. "But you need to get back to your job and I need to get out of here. And we both know we can't do those things if you're still here."

For what feels like the longest time, he doesn't move. Then, he nods - a slow, deliberate gesture that makes her heart sink. He seems hurt for the briefest of seconds, but she thinks she must have imagined it. Finally, his mouth tightens into a horrible, awful line.

"Okay," he says. "Okay."

"Cassian…"

But he gets up without looking at her and leaves, and she has to pretend that she doesn't want to curl up into a ball and weep.

(She dreams of the beach with the wind whipping through her hair and the ocean trickling at her feet. There is sunshine and music and the sound of her friends laughing. She can almost see Bodhi's face. He is the one behind the camera, smiling as he tells Cassian to put his arm around her andfor god's sake, Jyn, don't look like you want to rip his clothes off quite so much!

Snap. Snap. Snap.

She remembers the feel of Cassian's lips on her skin and the way he looks half-covered in her sheets.

And then they are in the car again, and she is in his jacket and he is looking over at her from the driver's seat, grinning like an idiot.

Their road goes on for miles.

I do. I do. I do.)

She wakes to the sound of rain pelting against her window.

He is back by her bedside, curled up and asleep in the chair. On the table next to him is a potted plant - a sunflower, squeezed into some sort of awful plastic container. In his right hand is the string of a balloon. The balloon is pink in colour and has Get Well Soon written on it in glitter.

The sight is so absurd and so bizarre that she lets out a small laugh. The sound jolts him awake.

"Good. You're up," he mutters. He straightens himself into a sitting position, his hand still holding the balloon.

"What is this?" she asks, pointing to the sunflower and the balloon. "Am I seven?"

"I got these from the shop downstairs." He cracks a tiny, ridiculous smile. "These are your 'get well soon' presents. To apologise. Before I leave."

She swallows. "Apologise? For what?"

He shrugs. "For turning up here. For messing everything up."

"You didn't mess anything up."

It is a lie, but not really. He knows it too, but the way he looks at her is not unkind. He gets up from his seat and ties the balloon to her bed. For a moment, they both watch as it bobs and dances in the air, almost scraping the ceiling but not quite.

Suddenly, he asks: "Jyn, what happened?"

"With what?"

"This."

He lifts her covers off and brushes his hand against her bandaged wound, his touch as light as a feather.

Her heart squeezes.

"I ran," she replies. "I ran, but I was too slow."

She'd thought that he would never ask. That he could never ask.

"Can you stop?" he asks, his voice now devoid of any playful trace. "You've stopped before."

When I had you. I stopped when I had you.

Her hand finds his and she grips it as tightly as she can.

"Cassian, you can't ask that of me anymore."

"Yes, I can," he says, and he grips her hand back just as tightly. "Next time they call me, I don't want to come and find you dead."

"Then I'll change my emergency contact so they won't have to call you."

"That's not the point."

He looks like he does every time he is mad at her; his lips become thin, his brow is furrowed and his eyes turn hard. He might be angry, but she knows that he has realised that he's fighting a losing battle. He fists his other hand into the bedsheets and sighs.

"Jyn, what happened to us?"

The memories are almost unbearable. She has to swallow down the lump in her throat.

"You stopped loving me."

"No," he says immediately. "No. Never that."

He has spoken so fiercely and so furiously that it makes her look up in surprise.

"Cassian…"

"Jyn, I let you go."

A touch of bitterness creeps into her tone. "You let me leave."

"You didn't want to stay."

"No, but I wanted you to follow."

The silence that comes after speaks for them both.

It is too late. Much too late.

"Well," he sighs, "I guess I don't know everything after all."

She can feel tears prickling her eyes, but she mustn't, mustn't cry. He will go now and it will be fine, like it had once been before she'd met him. She is used to this hollowing, empty shell of an existence now. Not having him in it... well, it is a loss that she can bear just as well she has borne other losses.

"We keep missing each other, don't we?" he says quietly. "You were here and I was there, and now I'm here and you're…there somewhere."

She chuckles softly. "I suppose that's the way we are," she says. And then, because she still can't help not telling him things: "I'm glad of it though. I know I don't act like it sometimes, but I am."

He smiles at her with such fondness and it makes her want to ask him to stay all over again.

"Can you promise me two things, Jyn?" he asks.

"What? Is till death do us part not enough for you?" she remarks dryly.

He laughs. "Well, the promises are much easier to keep this time around."

"What are they, then?"

"Promise me that you'll call Bodhi."

"Cassian..."

"Promise me."

She rolls her eyes. "Fine." She feels her voice growing stronger and she nods. "Fine. I'll call him. What else?"

"Keep me as your emergency contact."

"But you said - "

He waves a hand, brushing away her words as easily as he can make her smile, or say things, or do anything, really.

"Keep me as your emergency contact," he says. "I want to keep at least some of those vows we made. Remember?"

Of course she remembers. All she does is remember (even when she doesn't want to). And she thinks that she will remember until she ceases to remember anything at all.

I don't know what it is about you

that makes me

cry cry cry

as if I'm happy to be sad.

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Author's Note: Cassian is a detective in this and Jyn is involved in various shady criminal activities. I didn't say what she's involved in because, quite frankly, I have absolutely no idea!

I have my own reasons for why Jyn and Cassian's marriage didn't work out, but I didn't want to put them in the story. It is better for you to come up with your own conclusions (and perhaps share them with me *wink wink*).

The short poem at the end is written by me, but I want to say thank you to Tumblr for introducing me to those lovely words by Margaret Schnabel at the beginning of the story. Also, to Billie Holiday for keeping me upbeat during the writing of this sob fest.

Please let me know what you thought!