CONGRATULATIONS!! So happy for you!! For the rebelcaptain quotes “There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.”

skitzofreak:

He sees it coming a moment before it happens – the robed strangers stride out in the center of the square, right in front of the slow-rolling Imperial tank (idiots, Cassian has time to think, idiots standing out in the open point blank before a damn tank, where does Gerrera get these people? More importantly, how does he keep them?) and Jyn Erso is suddenly pressed tight against his side and he can feel her drawing herself into a tight coil, a lothal-cat in the second before it springs, a cannon whining as it preps to fire. He has time to tense himself, his mind racing as he looks for cover, but before he can find it, the Partisans draw rocket launchers from under their tattered robes and unleash all the hells into the square. Instantly, a cloud of smoke and grit billows up and fills the market, and Cassian squints as Jyn rams into him from the side, shoving him bodily towards an alcove in between the buildings. She stumbles in after him, her back already to the wall opposite and her blaster already drawn (his blaster, but he’s absurdly glad to see it in her hands right now).

Blaster bolts in red, and yellow flash through the air, ripping chunks out of the old stone buildings and screaming, fleeing people around them, throwing gravel and blood in various colors up into the hazy air. A series of red cannon shots strike the wall just around the corner from where Jyn is cautiously leaning out; she flinches back, and without thinking, Cassian reaches out and grabs her elbow, tugging her sharply back and away from the corner. She turns to stare at him, and he drops her elbow and shuffles slightly away, as surprised at himself as she is. But then, he still needs her alive for the mission. If Gerrera finds him here with the bolt-riddled corpse of his former protege, Cassian’s a dead man, too. 

He’s still running this rationale through his head (along with a dozen different escape plans and a few choice curses) when Jyn suddenly jerks, looking out into the man-made storm in the market square. He sees her tense again, coiled in and ready to spring, and he lunges forward to grab her but he’s moved too far back in his haste to distance himself from her before, so he’s too late to grab her before she dives into the chaos. Cassian’s heart drops into his gut and he shouts after her – what is she doing, has she gone utterly mad? – and then he sees her dive down and throw her arms around –

Oh, oh no, it’s a child, a little crying girl with tear stains on her dirty face and her little fists clutching at Jyn’s scarf around her neck, and Jyn curls her body around the child and runs for the opposite side of the road. The little girl wails and buries her face in Jyn’s shoulder – she’s six or seven, he guesses, so small and helpless and scared in the face of this brutal violence. Jyn’s arms are tight around her, and even through the haze he can see her mouth move as she runs, her eyes wild but her hands gentle – it’s okay, it’s okay, hush, I’ve got you, you’re safe – and for a terrible, visceral moment, Cassian is not on Jedha anymore but on Carida, six years old and running terrified through the burning debris and screaming blaster bolts of the rioting streets, looking for his Papa, his feet stumbling and his eyes blurred with smoke and tears. But there had been no one to pick him up, to hold him close and whisper even a few meaningless reassurances – 

– Jyn makes it to the wall, and a terrified woman dashes forward and pulls the child into her own arms, and Jyn doesn’t wait for her to offer thanks, she simply shoves the woman’s shoulders towards the nearest exit and then turns back to Cassian (she turns back to him, when she could just bolt down the street after the woman and the child, she could just run away but she stays, she stays) and right then, right there, Cassian feels his heart constrict and his breath catch. Her eyes are fierce and certain, afraid but determined – she dashes back towards him, but has to pause and duck behind the burning tank to avoid crossfire. Over her head, he suddenly sees a Partisan stand up, unpinning a grenade and clearly judging the distance between his position and the tank. Between the grenade and Jyn Erso.

Cassian raises his blaster and fires without even thinking about it, because there is nothing to think, nothing to debate – Jyn is going to survive this, he knows it suddenly with a deadly, cold certainty. She is going to survive this if he has to shoot every fucking Partisan in this square and all the ‘troopers too. There’s no time to examine this new and iron-hard conviction, and he wouldn’t even if he could. It’s enough for him that it’s there, that when the Partisan falls to his shot and the grenade detonates far away from Jyn’s vulnerable back, she turns and looks at him again. He nods – it’s okay, I’ve got you – and is rewarded when she tightens her jaw and bolts again across the short distance, almost barreling into him again as she makes it to the relative, temporary safety of his alcove. They can’t stay put, of course, not with more Imperial tanks thundering down the nearby streets and the Partisans swarming the area, but for just one instant, Jyn is leaning against his side and in Cassian’s mind a voice whispers I’ve got you – 

– and then Jyn grabs onto his arm and tugs, and he follows her out into the madness again.