✔ᵉⁿᵍˡⁱˢʰ a.k.a. Part II - Endgame✔

31

Last honour. Here we were at the point of respect and decency. Normally Jyn would not even begin to think about whether she was going or not, but here it was the case. To pay one's last respects to someone, alone, when one had known each other for twelve years and had become friends, should never be out of question.

Even an hour and a half before the beginning of Tony's funeral and subsequent funeral service, Jyn was still sitting on the couch and kept thinking about whether she should go or not. Ready dressed and ready to leave she had been for a good half hour but she didn't get beyond the point of leaving. There was an essential reason not to go than to go.

Some people know you better than you do. So Jyn shouldn't have been 'surprised' at all when her doorbell rang; Aaron started to shake his head because against his hopes she actually opened the door and gave a puff when he closed it behind him.

"In the old days, all criminals, like thieves and murderers, had something like honor and respect, and now? None of that", Aaron snaps and with every further step, he provocatively taps with his index finger on the table top where Jyn sat down and stared into space before him, "All that was before. A time before monsters existed."

"Changing times", which many people like to forget unless it's connected to a tragic event, like aliens in New York, since hundreds of people were affected, and not just one person or group, "To what do I owe the honor of your visit?"

"The consequences, the decisions of our actions", in other words, consequences, but instead of leaving it at these words, Aaron tapped her forehead, "I've known you too long not to know what's going on up there. Once they know you, they know that your self-confidence is not what everyone believes, and you, more self-doubt than most of the people we know. You can hide from the world, but you will never escape yourself. You will always have to live with yourself. With you and your choices. Come now. We have to go."

It didn't matter that Jyn gave Aaron a gloomy look, because in the end she would be at the funeral; paying her last respects to her longtime friend and saying goodbye, no matter how this would happen or in which way.

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Despite the fact that Aaron and Jyn had started quite late, there were very few cars at the Starks' forest house. Three to be exact, one of them belonging to Tony.

Jyn did not want to get out and even less wanted to be here. Only after a while, looking at the wooden hut in silence, she finally got out because there was no way around; leaned against the car because she didn't want to be among the first and looked at Aaron who stood in front of her and looked briefly at the terrace.

"What happened?" to get around that depressed silence for now, because there was enough of it right away, anyway, and hoping Aaron would tell her something that would make his story better than hers, "You never talk about your wife, why you lead this life, and in doing so you accuse me of much more than that. What happened to her?"

"A traffic accident. An ordinary traffic accident", not what Jyn expects to hear from Aaron, but it doesn't always have to be spectacular, "One evening she wanted to bring something to eat quickly after work, was probably thinking and didn't notice the red light when crossing the street. A car hit her."

"Was she at least dead on the spot?", it should be clear how Aaron reacted to Jyn's question, but her expression didn't change at all, "You said she died in the accident. I don't think anyone else did. Better immediately than later and torture yourself without meaning to."

"Was that always a problem for you, that you probably shouldn't ask some questions, and if you do, watch out how you do it?", this had been a decent number even by Jyn's standards, but what was Aaron wondering, because, against Jyn's conviction that people don't change, but only time and circumstances, she had changed quite a bit in the last years, "Good that we know each other. She died two days later in the hospital. It's been ages now, though."

Death changes people. Some more, some less. Some maybe completely.

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Everybody wants a happy ending, right? But it doesn't always roll that way. Maybe this time.

I'm hoping if you play this back, it's in celebration. I hope families are reunited. I hope we get it back, in somewhat like a normal version of the planet has been restored, if there ever was such a thing.

"Can I interrupt for a moment", Jyn asked cautiously, not knowing what all the reactions would be, and slowly approached Pepper, who turned to the door as she said, "I just wanted to drop these off.

"Thank you. I just wanted to drop these off. Happy got another message from Tony that she wanted us to listen to", with all the flowers and flower arrangements that Pepper must have received in the last few days, Pepper should have had enough by now, but it wasn't flowers that baffled her, but that Jyn already had the impression that she didn't want to be here, "You want to leave again?

"I think it would be best", alone, as Jyn could see through a window behind Pepper, outside, there were numerous people dressed in black and of them, all of them should at least be her sympathetic ones, "As public enemy number one, I am rather less welcome, nor do I want to annoy anyone with my presence. Today is the worst day ever to provoke trouble."

"In the last few years you've been here almost weekly, which should be reason enough to stay", yet it didn't change the fact how Tony and Jyn split up, "Tony always said you would always decide the same way you decided before, no matter what would happen in the end. I got five wonderful years with him and Morgan, which would not have happened if things had gone differently in space. We have to live with our choices, no one else, so it doesn't matter what any of them think you're here because Tony would have wanted you to be here."

God, what a world. Universe now.

If you told me 10 years ago that we weren't alone, let alone you know to this extent.. I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised. But come on, you know.

The epic forces of darkness and light that have come into play. And for better or for worse, that's the reality Morgan's going to find a way to grow up in. So I thought I'd probably better record a little greeting, in the case of an untimely death on my part. I mean, not that death at any time is timely.

This time travel thing we're going to try and pull off tomorrow, it's going to scratch my head about the survivability of it all. Then again, that's the hero gig, part of the journey is the end. What am I even tripping for? Everything is going to work out exactly the way it's suppose to.

I love you three thousand.