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Oh, how you wish you had never laid eyes on him!

The ‘him’ in question is, of course, Cassian Andor. You’ve known him for a year now-- though you had heard of him long before you met him-- and you’ve had feelings for him for almost as long.

You’ve never really told him this though, and when all of your mutual friends had started insisting that he felt the same for you, you’d eventually begun to believe them.

More fool you.

Really, you suppose you’d waited too long to make a move, because on the night of the New Year’s Eve party when you’d been determined to tell him how you felt, you’d seen something that had shattered all your hopes.

And since then your world seems to have shrunk to Cassian- only Cassian and nothing else.
Almost a month has passed since that night and yet, every free minute of your days, you can do nothing other than let it play through your mind-- the image of him kissing another girl, of him holding someone else in his arms-- play through your mind on repeat and let yourself break down.

It’s not like he cheated on you or anything, there had never been anything between you in the first place; it was always just you and your stupid hope. But ever since that night, you find that it gets harder and harder to be around him, to hang out with him the way you used to before, so you start to pull away.

You throw yourself into your work-- and there is more than enough of it to occupy all of your time-- and take to eating your meals either at your station or in your room, instead of at the cafeteria.

And every night, as soon as your shift ends, you retreat to your room, shutting yourself up with a book and some chocolate, where more often than not, you end up staring into space and thinking and occasionally letting yourself cry. Tonight is no different.

Or so you think, but just as you’re about to finally fall asleep, you’re jerked awake by a knock at your door.

“Just a second,” you call, scrambling out of your cocoon and pulling on a sweater. A quick glance in the mirror tells you that while you don’t exactly look fine, you don’t look like you’ve been crying your eyes out either.

Satisfied, you square your shoulders and take a deep breath, unlock the door, pull it open. And find yourself face to face with the very man who had been the reason for your downward spiral in the first place.

It hits you hard- the sight of Cassian, warm eyes and tremulous smile, and it’s all you can do to stop yourself from gasping. One awkward minute passes in silence, followed by another, before you pull yourself together yet again, for the second time in as many minutes, and try to behave normally.

“Hey,” you greet, managing a wry twist of your lips that you hope passes for a smile, somehow managing to sound something other than heartbroken, “did you need something?”

He seems a little taken aback by your apparent nonchalance, and it makes you think that maybe he does realize that you’re mad, and he hadn’t been expecting normalcy after all. And for a minute he simply stares at you, eyes filled with a strange mix of guilt and anger.

“I’d like to talk to you,” he says, and it’s your turn to stare uncomprehendingly at him. “Can I come in?” he asks finally when you show no signs of responding.

It takes you yet another long minute but you manage a jerky nod in response, stepping aside to let him in.

You can’t deny that you had started imagining this scenario in one of your many weak moments- Cassian coming to your room and asking to talk, the pair of you actually working things out. You’ve always stopped yourself there though, never letting yourself think that somehow you might end up together at the end of that talk.

But you’re thinking it now as you step aside and let him into your room. And it’s all you can do to make yourself take a couple of deep breaths, and attempt to calm your heartbeat.

As you shut the door and turn to face him you find that he is looking around, making a cursory survey of your living quarters.

“Sit,” you say, gesturing to the single chair at the desk before perching on the edge of your bed, facing him.

He’s still looking around even as he takes your invitation, gaze flickering over the empty walls, the half-open door to your closet, the wastebasket filled with wadded up tissue paper. And you wonder if he’s really that scared to just look at you and get this over with.

“What did you want to talk about?” you ask finally when you can’t take it anymore, and he wrenches his gaze back to you, his hands clenching momentarily on the armrests before he forces himself to relax.

“I wanted to ask- that is, I-” he falters, looks away for a long minute, staring at the rain pattering against the window, and when his eyes meet yours again, they are strangely fierce, “are you angry with me, ___?”

It only takes you a second to decide that you will give him the truth, you have had enough of being careful, had enough of second-guessing everything you say to him, enough of over-analyzing every single interaction with him. Enough of hiding.

Besides, you suppose it’s only fair that you open up to him, considering that it’s all you want him to do for you.

“Yes.”

He laughs, of all the possible responses to that, he lets out a relieved laugh and leans back in the chair, eyes softening. And it’s such a bizarre reaction that you’re left speechless.

“I’m sorry,” he rubs one hand over his eyes in an exhausted manner, “I don’t mean to be rude. I’m just glad we’re at least talking about this, instead of pretending that everything’s fine.”

It’s your turn to laugh now, and you do, feeling-- strangely enough-- as if some fraction of the weight on your shoulders has been lifted away.

“Yeah, we’ve both been doing a wonderful job of that, haven’t we?” you say, through the ghost of a chuckle.

He nods almost too enthusiastically, a faint smile curving his lips, and he leans forward a little as he speaks.

“Okay, now would you tell me why, exactly, you’re angry?” you’re already opening your mouth to retort, and he seems to sense your indignation at the question because he hurries to explain himself before you can launch into an outburst, “I have my suspicions about the reason, ___, but I don’t want to make any assumptions. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place, remember?”

Immediately, you deflate, he is right after all.

“Fair enough,” you admit, before drawing a deep breath and preparing to tell him the whole cringe-worthy story, “I saw you with that girl at the New Year’s Eve party.”

He hunches in on himself before you’ve even finished speaking, and the guilt is beginning to drown out everything else in his eyes. It’s enough to make you consider not saying your next words, but now that you’ve started, it’s like a dam has burst and you don’t think you can hold them in for much longer, so you steel yourself and continue.

“And it hurt, Cassian, I wasn’t expecting it to, not that much, but it did.”

“So Jyn was right, I’m the reason you’ve been sad,” he sounds almost broken as he says this, and you want to reach out to him, want to offer him whatever comfort you can, but you don’t. Because you realize that you’ve basically confessed your feelings for him and you’re suddenly embarrassed.

“No, you’re not,” you tell him finally, determined to salvage what you can from this conversation, “we’re both adults here, Cassian. And if it’s anyone’s fault- it’s mine, for letting myself have these feelings for you. Especially when I should have known that you didn’t feel the same. Do you understand? I misread things- that’s on me. You owe me nothing, this is not on you.”

It’s all a bit jumbled up, just like your emotions at the moment. So you take a deep breath and prepare to try again, to somehow explain yourself better, but before you can even begin, Cassian speaks up, and what he says… its something you’d barely dared to hope for, and it makes any attempts at clarification unnecessary.

“But I have feelings for you too, ___.”

For a second you’re breathless, hardly able to wrap your head around his words, and then your anger rushes back, demanding to be felt, to be voiced.

“So why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I’ve told you, I didn’t think you cared. At least not since that night. And before that- well, there was always a part of me that thought you were far too good for me.”

“I’m not! ___, of course I’m not,” he pauses, looks away and lets out a long sigh, and when his gaze returns to yours he looks strangely defeated, “I didn’t say anything because we’re in the middle of a war, ___. And we both swore to put the cause before everything else. Even ourselves, especially ourselves.”

Those last words are soft, heavy with regret, and it’s almost enough to make you backtrack, to let this all go and tell him that you can just be friends again. But you cannot, because what you saw on New Year’s Eve-- the thing that sent you into this spiral in the first place-- is still unanswered for.

So while there is a part of you that knows it’s unfair, knows you shouldn’t be this angry at him, this bitter, it doesn’t seem to matter, because you are angry, and you’re so tired of holding back.

“What about her then? Your girl? On that night, at that party, where was this absolute devotion to the cause then?”

“She’s not my girl!” his response is sharp, immediate, and again it takes him a minute to regain his composure and a minute more for his eyes to grow soft with regret, “that night, kissing her, it was a mistake. I was lonely and all she wanted was one night and I thought it might do me some good, might help me stop pining over you. But I was wrong, and I knew that as soon as I kissed her and I stopped things right there. ___, nothing else happened. It was my mistake, I’m sorry.”

You are speechless, you had been prepared for any number of things but such a sincere apology-- when there is no need for any-- is not one of those.

“Oh,” you’ve almost stopped breathing now and your chest is tight with anticipation.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, visibly deflating, and his eyes are filled with something that looks dangerously like hope, “can you forgive me for hurting you?”

So you take a deep breath, pull yourself together, and start to let go of the many small grievances you’ve been clinging to.

“No, because there’s nothing to forgive,” you tell him, tone firm enough to make it clear that you will not stand for any contradictions, “and I’m sorry too, Cassian, for the way I’ve been behaving over the past few weeks.”

He sighs, and smiles a smile so sad that it hurts you just to see him look that way.

“And where does that leave us?”

“I can only tell you where I want it to leave us- because we swore an oath to the Rebel Alliance, to do all the cause demands, we didn’t swear not to fall in love, or to be monks,” you pause, take a deep breath and force yourself to continue holding his gaze, “and Cassian, we may not be together, but I love you anyway. So I guess what I’m saying is that I’d like to be with you.”

You fall silent, waiting for him to respond with bated breath but the minutes continue to pass and he only looks at you in silence, gaze heavy with some unreadable emotion.

“But of course, I understand if you don’t want that,” your voice breaks over the words and you find that you can no longer look at him, so you fix your gaze on your own hands clenched together in your lap and continue, “it’s just- I might need some time before we can go back to what we were, to being friends, assuming you want even that.”

You’re whispering and faltering over that last sentence, eyes pricking with tears, and just as you’re about to give up and ask him to leave, he reaches out and takes your hands in his. And you look up to find that he is leaning in, his face mere inches from yours, warm breath hitting your lips and his eyes swim with tears just as yours do, but he is smiling, cheeks dimpled, and he doesn’t look so sad any more.

“I think I prefer the first option,” he is whispering too, and your heart has started trying to beat it’s way out of your chest now, “I’m sorry I took a while to realize it.”

You let out the breath you’ve been holding in a shuddering gasp and then you find yourself smiling too, smiling and leaning into him and tipping your head up, gaze flicking from his eyes to his lips and back as you speak, “In that case, Cassian, stop apologizing and just kiss me, would you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, eyes warm, practically dancing with happiness, and your heart skips a beat even as his lips meet yours in a kiss that is everything you’d asked for, and more.