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When Jyn returned to the ship with something bundled in her jacket, an expression on her face both sheepish and defiant, he knew the answer to his next question was one he really, truly, didn’t want to know.
“What is that?”
Her arms tightened around the bundle as she pressed it to her chest. She widened her eyes and cocked her head in a mockery of innocence. “What’s what?”
“Jyn.”
She looked down at the mysterious lump in her jacket as if she’d never seen it before. “Oh, this? Just something I picked up in the market.”
He raised a brow when she lifted her head. Bowing to the inevitable, she loosened her grip and let the top of her jacket fall open, revealing—ears?
He took an involuntary step closer. As he got a better look, the shape of the bundle in her arms became clear. Two high, pointed ears, covered in a blend of orange and white fur, attached to the wide, grinning face of a tooka cat. Without a care in the galaxy, the creature purred as it slept in Jyn’s arms, head tucked against her breasts.
It looked comfortable. As if sensing him, the cat peaked open one green-gold eye for a glimpse of the newcomer then shut it again, unconcerned, and nuzzled its head closer to Jyn.
Cassian was decidedly not jealous. Not of a cat. But it did, he thought, look very comfortable.
“Jyn,” he repeated, more emphatically now that he knew what it was she’d brought onboard.
What was she planning to do with it? They lived most of the year on a ship. A comfortable one they’d renovated with expanded living quarters that were practically luxurious compared to the way they’d lived for the past six years of war, jumping from base to base. But it was still a ship.
She met his gaze this time with a plaintive stare, one that pierced his defenses far better than her attempts at wide-eyed innocence.
“It was hungry,” she said, effectively killing any protestations he’d been about to raise.
Jyn had a soft spot for the hungry. On more than one occasion, he’d caught her sneaking credits or food into the hands of scrawny children in the streets. She kept extra rations in her spare boots and made sure Bodhi never left without sufficient stores.
She’d never needed to say it for him to understand that at some point, she’d gone hungry long enough, and consistency enough, for it to have left marks. Given the intel they’d gathered that spoke of Saw Gerrera’s only weakness—the foster daughter he’d raised in his shadow—Cassian was willing to bet it wasn’t on Saw’s watch. It would’ve been during the time after, when she was on her own.
Asking her to let the cat go now, when his heart ached for the starving, abandoned girl she’d been, was impossible.
“What are you going to do with it?” was all he could bring himself to ask.
She stared back at him, her eyes narrowed as if daring him to raise all his doubts and potential complaints. But she said nothing, arms tightening their hold once more, and it was all the answer he needed.
————
He enjoyed the quiet of the galley in the early morning. Or what passed for early morning in space, where time meant nothing beyond what meaning they assigned it. They both tried to keep a regular schedule when in transit but while he’d adjusted to early mornings during the war, Jyn took advantage of any opportunity to sleep in now that they could. Early mornings were his quiet time to read through whatever newest briefing they’d received from the Reconciliation Office, sip his first cup of caf, and learn to bask in the suddenly unhurried pace of his life.
They kept busy but it wasn’t the same. A lifetime of running, brought to an abrupt halt.
Neither of them was adjusting well. They sniped at each other over small things: her temper flaring bright and hot and fierce before fading just as fast; his, slower, quieter, a passive fury that underscored their interactions for days before he either erupted or let it go.
Close quarters weren’t new to them. They’d spent the war at each other’s side, partners after Kay’s death on Scarif. He, Jyn, and Bodhi formed a unit—Rogue One—until Bodhi finally gave in and signed up with the fighter pilots in the months leading up to Endor.
But neither knew how to live without the war, the ever-present threat of the Empire. It had them both on edge.
There were conversations they needed to have. The avoidance was beginning to weigh on them both.
They’d fallen in bed together at some point. (He remembered exactly when, down to the date and time in the sector. He’d spent two weeks on Home One after the evacuation of Hoth, scouring the incoming reports of casualties and too-short lists of survivors for any hint of her name. A rush of joy and relief at the sight of her in the hangar, battered but alive, the terror at what he’d almost lost—he didn’t remember who kissed who first. Thankfully, they’d been one of many reunions and easily overlooked in the chaos.) Once begun, neither put a stop to it even as missions continued on, the war escalating
He didn’t know what they were now. Somewhat more than friends: lovers, partners, next-of-kin. They’d converted the crew cabin into a single bedroom with a bunk they shared and by unspoken agreement, they’d both signed on with the Office of Reconciliation after being discharged. But they’d never talked about things like feelings or a future.
Though she knew him better than anyone—dead or alive—and vice versa, there were things they didn’t talk about. Subjects they skirted around with a silent understanding not to broach the peace.
What they were, what they were doing was at the top of the list.
Just as he settled in with his datapad, mug, and a plate of leftovers from dinner the night before, a sudden, heavy weight landed in his lap. It took all his training to not draw a weapon. He no longer wore his blaster but he kept a knife in his boot from the moment he put them on, before he even got out of bed—an old habit.
Instead he held himself still, assessing the sudden arrival.
It was the damn tooka cat. Without care, it perched in his lap, head cocked to the side as it looked up at him. He wasn’t sure where the thing had passed the night, though he vaguely remembered waking at some point with a foreign weight near their feet.
“What do you want?” he asked it, knowing it couldn’t answer even if it was so inclined.
Its tail swished across the fabric of his pants and it tilted its head back to the table, eyes on his food.
“You can’t eat that.” Not that he knew what cats ate. He’d never spent much time around animals, other than tauntaun and those were—unique.
Although he wasn’t sure why not. It was the same reconstituted protein that fed all kinds of beings throughout the Alliance. He’d added some spices but nothing too strong this time.
The cat’s eyes seemed to double in size as it gazed back at him in an expression not unlike Jyn’s when she wanted something. It managed to look pitiful despite its perpetual grin.
Sighing, he reached over the creature to pull the plate closer to the edge of the table, within its reach.
“If you get sick, Jyn is cleaning it up,” he told it.
But the cat ignored him, happily shoving its face in what was supposed to be Cassian’s breakfast. The creature’s enthusiasm soothed any lingering annoyance at the disruption—he had a soft spot for the hungry, too, it seemed.
As he watched, the cat craned its neck to reach farther on the plate, its weight shifting and redistributing to maintain its balance on his leg. Something was off in the movement, though. There was an awkward stiffness unusual for cats, keeping its front left leg immobile while situating itself around it.
Injured and hungry.
“Getting to know each other?”
Cassian jumped. Such sudden movement startled the cat, who leapt from his lap and took off, darting around Jyn’s legs and out of sight. Surprisingly fast despite the noticeable limp in its gait.
Injured, hungry, and skittish.
When he looked up, Jyn stood in the entry to the small galley, braced against the doorway with a grin bright on her face despite the fatigue around her eyes. Even now, a year after the war, sleep was its own form of battle that left its scars if you knew where to look.
A rough night, then.
As much as he cursed his inattention that allowed her to sneak up on him, he appreciated the gleam in her eye that said she hadn’t missed his reaction. Either she’d woken up in a good mood despite the lack of sleep or catching him off guard still brought her gleeful pleasure, even after all these years.
She dropped down on the bench beside him, a smile dancing at the edges of her lips.
“It ate my breakfast,” he said, pushing his plate toward her as if she might want to finish up the remaining chunks of protein.
“It’s a he.”
When she yawned, cutting off whatever else she planned to say, he shoved his mug of mostly-untouched caf her way. She grabbed it, nearly shoving her face in the liquid as she gulped it down. Real, fresh caf the likes of which neither had known until Leia placed a cup in their hands the first time they landed on Chandrila after Endor. It was one of the few luxuries they indulged in and Jyn took her morning cup seriously.
“Verlan was able to track down the missing paperwork,” he told her, reaching for his datapad to fill her in on the messages that had come through while she was out the day before. “It looks like the shipment made it to Naboo.”
She squinted at him as she set down the mug. “Aren’t you going to ask about Tooky?”
“You named him Tooky?” Naming the cat implied a permanence he hadn’t wanted to ask about. Not yet. Not if it meant a more involved conversation about a future neither one of them had dared to mention.
Instead of answering, she ducked her head and stood, crossing to the pot of caf sitting on the warmer and pouring another cup. She grabbed another mug and filled that one too before placing the new mug in front of him and resuming her place on the bench.
After a few sips of her fresh caf, she met his gaze. “When we first fled Coruscant, it was—lonely. We didn’t stay any one place long and there was a lot of just—empty time. In space and random safe houses. I asked if we could get a cat.” Now she looked away, eyes tracing over the contours of the narrow kitchen. “It wasn’t possible of course. But they did their best. Mama made me a stuffed tooka and I wasn’t particularly great at naming things so. Tooky.”
“You want to keep him.”
She shrugged. That was all the answer he needed. Jyn never asked for things she needed—much less things she wanted—but she took on a certain—unusual—vulnerability when called out on her wants.
A ship was no place for a cat. Although what did he know? There were plenty who claimed it was no place for people to live, either, and yet here they were.
Was this a sign she was lonely? That she wanted to leave and settle down somewhere? Or was he reading too much into it? Maybe this was just Jyn, picking up more strays as she had throughout the war. People like the Guardians, drawn to her magnetism.
“We’ll need to pick up food when we land. I’m not sure what they eat but this probably isn’t good for him.” He gestured to his plate.
Instead of the small, genuine smile he was hoping to receive, Jyn turned to stare at the doorway through which Tooky had run. “Is it fair to him? Trapped in a ship?”
“Are you trapped?” The question came out before he could think twice. His voice was low, soft like the conversations they sometimes had in the privacy and intimacy of their bed. Ones they never acknowledged outside the bounds of their shared quarters, where the words came more easily and truths spoken felt less like bleeding wounds.
Finally she looked at him, jaw set in the defiance she wore like a mask. “I can open the door. I can leave. At any time.”
He knew. It kept him up at night.
“I choose to be here,” she continued after a pause that let him know she was studying his reaction. “Because it’s home.”
Home. He liked the sound of that. In all the time he’d known her, she’d never said the word. Avoided it, even.
He’d lived seven years with this woman, longer than he’d known or stayed with anyone. He knew the sound of her puttering around their quarters at night as she dragged out the process of going to bed (like a child, Baze said once, fighting the pull of sleep. It was more complicated than that. Jyn didn’t resist sleep, she feared the stillness of the in between. She pushed and pushed herself until exhaustion won, leaving no time for laying awake with her own silence). He knew the quiet moments between them as they worked on their data pads across the table in the galley, the steadiness of her at his side against the violence and threat of the galaxy.
Now he got to learn other things too, in this time of peace. The crackling of oil in the pan as he cooked and Jyn’s gentle humming each time she prepared tea the way Chirrut taught her. Her lazy mornings, no longer dressing for battle the moment she rose, and the collection of droid parts piling up on a workbench in the hold where he whiled away the empty hours. (There was the chassis and central processing unit of a KX series droid he’s scavenged from confiscated Imperial facilities the end of the war. Scrap metal, the Alliance mechanics told him. Maybe it was—maybe he was grasping to for the irreplaceable in a lifetime of losses. But he’d try. He couldn’t not.)
Then there were the soft exclamations Jyn would make as she read through her supply of books. Leia had given her access to her private library and Jyn devoured them—any subject she could get her hands on from biology to history to astrophysics. It was a new hobby she’d picked up as the need to constantly clean knifes and blasters fell by the wayside when they were rarely used.
He loved watching her read because she rarely read quietly. It was a show that revealed parts of Jyn she’d kept hidden for so long. Her normally stoic face turned expressive, sharing her every thought at the information she found in the texts: sometimes shocked, often amused, occasionally indignant or outraged. She huffed or smiled or muttered under her breath and he could never look away. Feeling like a voyeur, a thief stealing precious glimpses into a mind that continued to fascinate him even years later.
They were getting to learn the softness beneath their hard edges. There’d been glimpses and moments of vulnerability during the war but they’d needed walls to get them through.
They had time, now, to go slowly, to explore each other and be tender in a way he wasn’t used to. Youth and circumstance always made him impatient, hurried, grabbing for things while he had them because nothing ever lasted long.
If he’d ever imagined a home (and he had, once upon a time, before things went so horrifically wrong, before the war and the certainty that there was no future for a man like him), it would’ve been this. Quiet companionship with a woman he loved more than life, a place to call his own—their own—, something to occupy his time that gave him purpose.
In moments like this, it felt too good to be true. When Jyn looked at him with a soft smile that lit her eyes, infused with affection for a man who didn’t deserve it.
He matched her smile, knowing how much it meant to claim a place—maybe even a person—as her home.
“So let’s give him a home,” he told her. “Our next stop is Takodana. We can open the door and see what happens. It will be his choice. There are plenty of tooka cats already introduced to the ecosystem so there’s no harm if he decides this isn’t for him.”
She nodded but he wasn’t done. He reached a hand out to tuck some of her bangs behind her ear. A few months after the official surrender, she’d cut her hair off to chin length, trimming her bangs so they lay across her forehead. The look suited her, though it’d grown long again, almost where it’d been when they met. She tied it back when they were planetside but left it down, now, in the privacy of space.
“In the early days of space travel,” he continued, “people would bring tooka cats with them to keep pests under control. It’s how they got to be everywhere. Some people saw having a tooka aboard as good luck.”
“I can probably scrounge up some pests for him to hunt.”
“I think we can find something else to occupy his time without introducing rodents to our ship.” He shook his head, failing to hide his smile. “My point is that people have all kinds of pets in all kinds of homes. No reason he can’t be happy here, if he wants to stay.”
Tooky took that moment to reappear, his wide head peaking around the doorway to watch them with his keen, golden eyes. As if knowing they were speaking of him, he wandered in with a soft mrrow and the click-click-click of his claws on the metal floor.
“Hey, little guy,” Jyn said in a voice he’d never heard before, high-pitched and—cooing. “You still hungry?”
“He’s hardly little.” The cat weighed nearly as much as Poe Dameron had, the last time they’d visited. When seated, his ears reached Jyn’s knee. Cassian hoped the damn thing was at least fully grown.
He was skinny though, his sides sunken in. Not enough to show individual ribs but close.
Tooky took that as invitation to jump on her lap, landing on three legs instead of four. The fourth he held slightly elevated. In a remarkable show of trust for a wild animal, he let Jyn reach for the injured leg, her movements slow and deliberate. She gently turned his leg to reveal the inside. A thin, healing line of what must’ve once been a deep cut ran shoulder to paw.
“He got his leg caught in a trap,” she said, inspecting the wound. “I put some bacta on it and it seems to be healing okay.”
“He has a lot of trust in you already,” Cassian commented.
She shrugged, oblivious as always to the way she drew people—and apparently cats—in. From the beginning, winning the trust of strangers without seeing it, or appreciating what a miraculous skill it was. Doubting her own ability to connect with others after a lifetime of hiding, keeping a distance between herself and the threat of being known.
She shines, Chirrut told him once, even to those who can’t see it. They can feel it.
He took a sip of his Caf as he watched her scratch Tooky’s jaw, stroking up the sides of his cheeks. The cat preened and began to purr, a loud rumble that filled the stillness of the galley and made him want to close his eyes.
Instead he leaned forward, bracing himself with one arm around her back and his chin on her shoulder, curling over her small form to study the cat in her lap. Outside of their quarters, they were judicious with this kind of touch. He frequently found his hands drifting her way, brushing her arm, touching her back and shoulders, even clasping her hands. But hugging and cuddling and wrapping themselves around each other? That remained in the safety and darkness of their room
When he wrapped his other arm around her waist, hand brushing against Tooky’s soft fur, he crossed a line. Dragged this thing between them into the artificial overhead lighting of the galley and hoped it would survive the exposure.
Jyn leaned back against him, tilting her head toward his to knock it gently with her own. One hand was still caressing Tooky but the other came up to hold on to his arm. “Would you ok with it if he chose to stay? Having a cat around?”
He hummed and pressed a kiss to the skin above her collar. “Hey, I don’t share my breakfast with just anyone.”
Her cheek brushed against his head as she smiled. “You share with me.”
“You’re not just anyone.” He squeezed his arm around her, hearing the jest in her voice but also the uncertainty.
He wasn’t the most eloquent, not when it mattered. Not when it meant peeling back the layers he’d built around himself for survival and baring the soft underbelly that made him vulnerable.
But if he couldn’t say it now, when would he? The war was over. It was time to try imaging a future he never thought he’d get.
“You’re my partner,” he said in her ear, holding himself still and feeling the tension mirror in Jyn. Despite the sudden stiffness in her posture, she still rested her head on his and tucked herself back against his chest. They were both uncomfortable, both on edge, aware that the kind of partner he meant wasn’t the kind they’d used to refer to themselves for years. He spoke the word like a relief, like a treasure he could find no other word for. Because lover, best friend, favorite-person-in-the-galaxy didn’t cover it.
“If you want my breakfast, I’ll give you my breakfast,” he continued. “If you want a cat, we can have a cat. Whatever you want of me, you can have.”
She said nothing for a long moment and he waited, matching his breath with hers, deep and even. Her hand moved to grasp his where it rested on her hip, twining their fingers together and squeezing as if he might not have noticed her sudden grip.
“That goes both ways.” Pulling away just enough to face him, she meet his gaze and held it as she pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek—a gesture all the more intimate for its innocence. Not a precursor to sex or an affirmation of life or frustration or boredom—just affection.
“Good,” he whispered, returning the gesture with a soft kiss on her lips.
Tooky apparently tired of their preoccupation with each other, choosing to headbutt Jyn’s chest with a purr that demanded attention. She threw her head back and laughed with the sort of unrestrained joy he’d never seen in her. Her free hand, the one not holding his, came up to scratch under the cat’s chin, prompting a louder purr.
In another time and another place, he might’ve been annoyed with the disturbance. There’d been so few opportunities for softness in his life—always fleeting, always snatched away too soon. But this didn’t feel like an ending, or a moment stolen from fate before being snatched away. For once, he found himself basking in the kind of morning he’d never allowed himself to dream of, comfortable in the belief that there’d be more to come.
It wasn’t lack of fear. The ever present threat of loss still clung to him like a shadow. But they were a good team. They’d fought hard to get here and he had faith they’d both fight just as hard to keep what they’d gained.
An odd thing, faith. Something he’d lived without from the moment his parents died on Kenari and only regained at the side of this woman whose faith carried him from the beaches of Scarif, through the months of rehab, and the endless battles that followed.
This woman who chose to stay. Who saw something in him worth staying for.
He gave her hand one last squeeze then released it, pulling his arm away to grab his mug. His other arm stayed around her shoulders, tucking her at his side. She rested her head against him as her hand traced the shell of Tooky’s ears, causing them to twitch away. It didn’t seem to bother the cat too much because he knocked his head into her hand when she stopped.
After a few minutes of scratches—he sensed that Jyn was going to spoil this cat rotten—Tooky flopped himself down into a sprawl, haunches resting on Jyn’s lap with his front legs and head stretched across Cassian’s. Tooky kneaded his paws into the fabric of Cassian’s pants—he winced at the sight of the claws poking holes, they’d definitely need to trim those—and closed his eyes like he was settling in for the long haul.
————————
Tooky twined himself between Cassian’s legs, leaving a trail of orange fur against the fabric of his pants.
What was a little more? At this point, most of his clothes had enough fur to make another full-sized cat, especially on the jacket Tooky pulled off its hook to use as a cat bed. No matter how many times Cassian hung it back up, the cat found a way to abscond with it.
You can spare a jacket, Jyn told him. If he stays, we can pick something up for him in port.
He admitted, if only to himself, that the sight of the cat curled in his jacket, nose tucked in the collar, was endearing.
They’d landed on Takodana in the outskirts of a small refugee settlement a few hundred klicks from Maz Kanata’s castle. Founded in the early days of the war, a haven for those displaced by the Empire looking for shelter under Maz’s flag, it was now home to a number of ex-rebels as well. A thriving town of diverse people, speaking a mishmash of languages and sharing bits and pieces of culture like a patchwork quilt stitched together with whatever people had left.
It wasn’t home but it was a port of anchor and if they did ever settle planetside—someday, he thought they might—it would be here. Amongst people who belonged nowhere else but forged a place out of broken pieces, together. He liked the idea of that. Neither one of them would be an outsider in a community of outsiders.
Some day. When they were ready.
This morning was crisp and bright, the air fresh in his lungs after a week of recycled, artificial atmo. Tooky purred at his feet, audible over the sounds of Jyn haggling with the portmaster and the cooling hum of the engines. They had some shipments from the New Republic to deliver and supplies to buy that would keep them going for the next few weeks. Simple tasks but routine. He basked in the mundanity, still unable to shake his awe every time it sank in that this was his life now.
Tooky let out a plaintive mrrow, demanding attention. He didn’t always have the best timing—they’d had to start closing the door of their quarters to keep Tooky from showing up in awkward places at the wrong moment—but the cat’s presence had significantly cut down on the times Cassian lost himself in a downward spiral of thoughts, drowning in self-hate and doubt and memory.
He knelt, fingers finding the spot just below Tooky’s cheek that had the cat tilting his head back in happiness when scratched.
He’d been worried, when they landed, that their new companion would choose the dense forests of Takodana—or even the narrow streets of the growing settlement—over their metal home. Jyn had grown attached in a short time and he’d been the one with the brilliant idea of letting the cat choose between the outdoors and the confines of their ship. It would be a guilt he’d carry with all the rest, if the cat had left.
But since the moment the ramp descended, Tooky’d clung to them, following their every step and refusing to set a paw outside even when Jyn went to negotiate their docking fees with the portmaster. Instead, he stood at the top of the ramp with Cassian, waiting for their favorite person to return.
“Jyn would be sad if you left,” he told Tooky. The cat kept his eyes closed but purred louder and leaned into Cassian’s hand. “I’m not above bribery—”
“Is that—is that a cat?”
Cassian glanced up at the sound of Bodhi’s voice and grinned. The other man strode up the ramp to meet him, his long hair tied up in a bun on top of his head and at least a few days’ worth of scruff on his face. His mouth twisted in a bemused smirk as he stared down at the cat seated beside Cassian’s boot.
Giving Tooky one last pat, Cassian rose. “Tooky,” he introduced. “Jyn picked him up.”
Bodhi looked torn between laughter and confusion. “And you’re—keeping him?”
“If he wants us to, yes.”
When Tooky chose that moment to lay himself down across Cassian’s nearest foot and tuck a paw underneath his head, Bodhi raised a brow. “I think he’s decided to keep you.”
And Bodhi wasn’t wrong because Cassian knew he’d be stuck standing there until Jyn returned to draw Tooky back to her side. Like waking a sleeping Jyn, he couldn’t bring himself to disturb the peace on the cat’s wide, grinning face, especially as the cat’s ears relaxed into a slump, no longer attentive to the slightest sound around him.
Oblivious to the conversation above him, Tooky contented himself with watching the world go by below, tail swishing behind him in a gentle back and forth brush of fur on metal.
It was a lot of trust. Earned in such a short time—a week—despite the fact that few people ever trusted Cassian. They trusted what he could do, and his allegiance to the Alliance, but not him. On Ferrix, they eyed him warily, hovering around him the one time he tried to hold down a ‘real’ job. Maarva and Bix, waiting for him to mess up, knowing he would.
His role as spy and assassin spoke for itself—he could fool people with his aliases but Cassian Andor was a liar and a thief and a conman.
But he fed Tooky and scratched his chin and let him curl up beside him when he sat at his workbench. Apparently that was enough. It seemed simple yet it startled him nevertheless.
Bodhi narrowed his eyes as he studied Cassian’s face. “Things are going well then?”
“They are,” he answered, somewhat surprised by his own certainty.
He shifted his gaze to watch as Jyn turned away from the portmaster, headed back to the ship with a satisfied grin not unlike Tooky’s when they finally gave up on keeping him out of the bed at night. From the swagger in her step, she’d succeeded in haggling their fees down to less than she’d anticipated.
Bodhi groaned. “Tylo’s gonna give me shit for this for a month.”
“He didn’t have to agree to her price.”
The other man looked at him in disbelief. “Have you met Jyn? She’s terrifying.”
Feeling lighter than he had in years, Cassian smirked. “I know.”
That earned him another raised brow. “Does this mean you two have finally figured things out?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure,” Bodhi muttered in what passed for an aside but was obviously intended for Cassian to hear. “Next thing you know, there’ll be babies.”
Cassian’s eyes widened and he froze. As panic shot through him, he felt the weight on his feet shift. Glancing down, he found Tooky rolled on his back across Cassian’s toes, staring back at him with bright, golden eyes. Then the cat’s lids dropped, slowly, in a series of blinks that could only be described as lazy nonchalance.
The steady rhythm of Tooky’s purr, vibrating through his boots, helped calm him. The cat’s eyes held enough intelligence—and derision and affection and exasperation—to remind him of a world outside himself. His doubts, his fears, his guilt—they existed inside him and nowhere else. Tooky’s needs and pleasures were simple and there was something to be learned from that. Cassian was trying.
In the meantime, the distraction of a cat who required frequent attention helped redirect his focus when he needed it. There were some things he wasn’t ready to think about.
Children had never been part of his plans.
Then again, none of this had. Who knew what the future held?
“Maybe,” he said, satisfied at the way Bodhi choked on his inhale.