Stardust- A Jyn and Cassian Fanfiction

Chapter 1- Cassian

As I open my eyes, it all comes back to me.

The embrace, the light, the sudden darkness. I should be dead.

But am I?

I look around, and I'm in the same place as before, only ruined and burned. The water is black and most of it has evaporated from the intense heat. The Imperial Base is no more. I shouldn't have survived this.

Yet somehow, I'm still alive. How is this possible?

A few feet away from me, a motionless figure lies on the beach, but in an unnatural position. Jyn.

I run over as quick as my leg allows me to, and I hold her thin, petite body in my arms. Her eyes are closed, and her skin, much like mine, is red and raw from the intense heat of the Death Star blast. She doesn't seem to be okay.

Please don't let her be dead, I pray to something, anything, that might exist. I carefully touch my hands to her neck. After a long pause, a faint pulse taps rhythmically on my fingers. I exhale slightly, resting her head in my elbow, checking for breathing. To my relief, her soft breath makes a few of my hair strands flutter. She's not dead. Thank the Force. I don't know what I would do without her.

As I look around again, I quickly realize that we are going to have to find a new place to settle down in order to survive. Everything on this part of the planet was obliterated. There's no food or clean water here, and there's no chance of getting off the planet because all of the ships were destroyed, at least in this part of Scarif. In the distance, I can see where the destruction ended. Fortunately, we seem to be very close to where it stopped, and it probably should only take a day's walk to get there. I'm ready to go.

Jyn, however, clearly is not. As I hold her, she looks peaceful and utterly content. I haven't seen this side of her before. All I've ever seen is the tough rogue who whacks people with shovels and kills them with a single stare from her pale eyes. What I'm seeing now is crazily different from that perspective. I see a soft, sweet woman who cares, and trusts right now.

But how am I even able to see this? We were supposed to die. It was inevitable.

As I look at Jyn, I see her clear cyber crystal on her chest. That's the only thing that seems to be out of place, and I sense that the crystal has something to do with the reason we miraculously survived. My mind turns, trying to figure it all out.

"We should've died from the Death Star blast," I mutter, talking through my thinking. "But we didn't, and the only thing that seems odd is the crystal..." I trail off, thinking hard, but coming up with nothing. I'll ask Jyn later. Her father was a freaking genius and knew a ton about kyber crystals, so she'd probably know more than I do.

Dismissing the miracle of our survival for a minute, my attention snaps back to Jyn as she groans. Her eyes open, and slowly become focused. I lock eyes with her, and her own orbs widen with surprise.

"Cassian?" Jyn whispers tentatively.

"It's me, Jyn." I smile, holding her as if she were an infant.

"But...we're not dead."

"No, we're not."

"How in the Galaxy...?!"

"I have absolutely no idea." I chuckle. "But I'm not complaining."

"Neither am I." She grins.

"We have no way to get off the planet, and if we don't get to non-destroyed Scarif in forty eight hours we'll probably die of starvation and thirst. But hey, we lived through what was supposed to kill everyone and everything!" I say optimistically.