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“You look sad when –– when you think he can’t see you.”
Jyn looks up, startled. She’s been so engrossed in cleaning her blaster that she hasn’t even noticed Bodhi sitting down next to her. She blinks once, twice, not even having heard what he’d said. “Huh?”
He jerks his chin over at Cassian, who’s talking to Leia about some sort of Alliance-related business.
She scoffs, shaking her head. As if that extremely vague gesture explains anything . “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Stop it,” he replies, bumping her shoulder with his own. Despite his words, there’s a small grin tugging at his lips. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“If you think I’m sad, then you’re wrong. I’m having the time of my kriffing life here.”
Bodhi ignores her snark, which he usually does these days. He’s come a long way from the scared, Imperial pilot fresh out of the Bor Gullet’s lair, and she couldn’t be more proud of him. She’s glad he’d stuck around; so far, the rebellion has proved to be good for him.
She, on the other hand? She’s surrounded by more people than she’s ever been in her life, and yet she can’t remember a time in which she’s felt so damn lonely.
It may or may not have to do with a certain Captain, who, despite Jyn’s heavy gaze, doesn’t seem to notice her staring. (Or –– really anything she does these days.)
Bodhi nudges her once more. His feet hover, not touching the ground, and he swings them slightly in the air. He looks innocent –– he looks happy. Force, she knows she doesn’t look like that; the face she sees in the mirror every morning is far from happy. “See? You’re doing it again. Looking at him and being –– being sad.”
“I’m not being sad,” she snaps.
He looks at her, his face so open and sympathetic that she breaks in seconds.
“Fine! Fine, okay!”
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he says as if his words aren’t a bald-faced lie. Pulling emotions out of Jyn is comparable to yanking teeth. “What’s going on between you two?”
Bodhi doesn’t like when any of their little ragtag group is upset with each other, so she’s quick to reassure him. “We’re not fighting or anything.”
“Then why are you sad?”
Excuses bubble up in her throat, mouth opening to deny his statement, but she can’t. She is sad, and yeah, the reason for it is Cassian. Leave it to Bodhi to get this information out of her; there’s no one else who can manage to slip through her walls and make her spill feelings she hadn’t even known she’d felt.
“After Scarif, we were close,” she sighs finally. It doesn't need to be said –– Bodhi had been there for most of it –– but it's worth stating anyway. “Like –– really close.”
“Attached at the hip,” Bodhi supplies, and she nods.
She continues. “But after that last mission on Sullust, it’s like…I don’t know. That I don’t exist in his eyes anymore. He won’t –– he barely looks at me anymore, Bodhi. I don’t know what I did wrong.”
Her voice cracks when she adds (and oh, how she hates that), “I miss him.”
“Oh, Jyn, ” he murmurs. “Can I –– can I touch you?” He holds out his arm, presumably to wrap it around her shoulders. She’s grateful that he asked, grateful that he noticed her aversion to being touched.
She huffs out a wet breath, then tries to laugh it off. “Sure, yeah.” She’s feeling selfish, craving the comfort that only physical touch can bring. “Yeah, go ahead.”
When he reaches around her and tugs her closer to him, she leans against his chest, closing her eyes. His hand, never staying still for too long, begins to run his fingers through her hair. Jyn slowly feels herself calming down.
She’s an only child, had grown up on her own with only her parents and a droid for company. She’s never really even had a family before Rogue One. But Bodhi’s always felt like a brother to her, and she finds comfort in his presence.
It’s almost scary, how much she cares for him. For all of them. It’s something she hasn’t run into before, having never gotten close enough to anyone for her to start worrying about their safety.
If anything ever were to happen to any of them, she knows she’ll never be the same.
“He asked me,” he says suddenly. “Cassian. He asked me to talk to you.”
Jyn picks her head up, looking at his face, trying to figure out –– something in his expression. “About what?” she asks warily, even though she thinks she already knows.
“About you,” he replies as if that’s obvious (because it is). “He’s –– he’s a spy, Jyn. He notices how you look at him and…and brood .”
“I don’t ‘brood, ’” she interrupts, frowning, but he waves her off as if to say semantics .
“He’s worried about you. I am, too. That’s why I agreed to talk to you,” he tells her, tugging her gently back into his embrace. “It’s, um. The Alliance –– it’s hard for you. And that’s –– that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be easy. We’re all trying to give you some space, so you can find your place here. That’s why Cassian’s been staying away –– um, he said he didn’t want you to feel pressured by him or anything.”
As if she hadn’t joined up for him . When he’d told her “welcome home,” she knew at that moment that she’d do anything for him, would follow him anywhere –– even to the Alliance .
“And after what happened on Sullust, you’ve been…” he struggles to find the correct words, and she lets him take the time he needs to do so, all the while cursing Saw in her head for what he did to him. “You’ve been distant. Withdrawn. We thought –– he thought –– that you needed time away from us to think. To decide.”
“Decide what?”
“If you’re were going to stay, or if you were, um, going to leave. He didn’t want to crowd you or…or make you stay if you didn’t want to.”
“I don’t…” she sighs, scrubbing at her face. “I don’t fit in here,” she settles on, finally. “I never will, either. I’m not like the rest of you, I’m just –– “ she shrugs, self-depreciatingly. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m too broken.”
“You’re not broken,” Bodhi says, exploding with a fierceness she hadn’t expected. She has to fight the tears that begin to form in her eyes –– when’s the last time someone’s cared enough to tell her that? “You’re not , Jyn.”
Still, it’s hard to believe him after years of conditioning herself to this fact. “Thanks, Bodhi,” she mutters.
He hops off the shuttle they’re sitting on, propping his hands on his hip. This conversation is over, it seems. “Come on,” he urges. “We’re going to talk to Cassian and fix this mess. Neither of you are talking to each other because –– because you each think the other doesn’t want to talk.”
Jyn groans, letting her head fall back against the durasteel of the shuttle. “I don’t want to,” she whines because she knows she’ll have to admit she’s been in the wrong. Her pride really can’t afford to take any more hits, not these days.
Bodhi raises an eyebrow. “You’ll feel better once you do,” he soothes, reaching out to tug her down. She lets him pull her to the ground, reluctantly following him (though dragging her feet) in the direction of Cassian. “And the sooner you make up, the sooner you can start –– start making out .”
It takes her a while to process what he’s just said.
“I don’t want to –– wait, what? ”
He laughs, tugging her forward. “You heard me, Erso. Let’s go get your man back.”
“He’s not my man!”
(He definitely is.)