Cassian Andor Masterlist

The One That Got Away (Part 5)

Synopsis: Reader is Force-sensitive. As the First Order reigns Kylo Ren had captured her during one of the missions and tried to bring her to the dark side, yet he failed the first time. In fears that Kylo will hurt her and the ones, she loves Y/N breaks Cassian's heart and disappears. Two years down the path circumstances make them meet. Cassian is determined to get the reader back, but she has her own mind set to make sure he never wants to see her again.

Pairing: Cassian x Reader; Platonic!Poe x Reader

Genre: omg there is so much angst I can't oh god

Warnings: some sexual implications, but I don't think anything else

Word count: 4164 (strap in lads, this is a long one)

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Y/N had her back turned towards the entrance. She vaguely heard Bodhi switch on the comms and tell Mon Mothma, that their system had gone haywire, but now should be working just fine. All her senses were tuned on the footsteps of the man coming her way.
Clank, clank, clank, they echoed through the room and around her. The girl couldn't believe what she was about to do. All the pain that she'd gone through and for nothing. She did acknowledge the fact that somehow she hadn't been successful in making Cassian hate her, but the thought swirling in her mind, of what she was going to do to him, Y/N wished Kylo had killed her.
He had stopped a few feet away from the girl and allowed Y/N to dictate the pace. She knew his approach to her was that of a wild animal's, that could flee any second. Cassian was terrified he'd lose her once again because he knew Y/N better than she thought.
Cassian recognised her fight-or-flight instincts as he'd observed her in battle, when they'd gone on missions together. He'd looked after her in the aftermath of a mission gone wrong. Even though Y/N put on a smile, while back home she didn't talk about the failures, didn't mention how it made her fell. And at nights he could feel her being awake. He'd even caught her sneaking out to the nearby lake, but he never made Y/N talk about it. Maker knows, Cassian himself was one closed-off person, but he had never imagined that something so bad could happen, that Y/N would flee for good and disappear like smoke in the wind.
Her Y/E/C eyes finally turned towards him. She had crossed her arms, despite the protests of the injured shoulder. For a second they stood there looking at each other. Two people completely and utterly in love, yet with goals set at the opposite ends of spectrum- Cassian had never been as determined to get his one and only back by his side while Y/N turned her mind to completely eradicating any feelings of love Cassian could have towards the girl, even if it meant using the Force to bend his mind...

"I want you to know, that nothing I will tell you, will change who we are to each other." Her tone was cold and calculated.
"Okay," Cassian thought to himself, "two can play this game," as he set his mind to make Y/N remember how much they love one another. He didn't reply, just nodded for her to continue. He'd let Y/N give him finally the reason she left, the reason she'd given away their possible future and then he'd fight nail and tooth to prove nothing she'd done could ever make him stop loving the girl.
"We are two rebels fighting for the survival of the Resistance and nothing more. Whatever we had is in the past. And so is Y/N. My name is Naili and from now on you will address me as that or commander Delaqour."
She had rehearsed this because Y/N knew without making her stance clear, after saying the true reason she left, her whole facade would crumble. In all honesty, she wished nothing more than to shed the persona of Naili and leap into Cassian's arms. Guilt twitched in her gut because she knew he'd open them up and catch her without hesitation. She could still see how much Cassian cared for her and she had to will away tears.
"Do you remember my last mission?" her voice had softened as she let her mind slip to a time even the Force couldn't scrape out of her brain.
"Of course," Cassian's tone had levelled with hers, "it had gotten compromised right away and you were left without a way back on that planet. Those two weeks were a nightmare."
She hated the sincerity in his voice. "Well, that is what I made Mon Mothma tell the base. Truthfully when she found out what was happening I'm almost a hundred percent sure she would have come to the same conclusion without me trying to coax her into it."
Cassian wasn't surprised by the fellow rebel's involvement. He'd known of Mon Mothma's importance as she assigned the missions and oversaw the most integral ones. She had told the Captain that a rescue team had already been sent your way and that Cassian had nothing to worry about. She'd warned him because of the high First Order activity it would take a bit longer and your comms had been completely destroyed.
And Cassian had been a mess. Two weeks with almost no sleep filled with worry. He knew you were tough and would push through but still, his mind went to the worst thing imaginable- that you were dead. But what came out of your mouth chilled him to the core.
"Instead of me being unable to finish the mission because my ship was shot down and there was no way of communicating with the base," the girl shuddered at the memory and let out a strangled sight, "I got captured by the First Order, more specifically Kylo Ren."
That possibility hadn't even crossed Cassian's mind. Yes, of course, people got taken, tortured, killed by the First Order, but he'd never allowed himself to think that could've happened to you. Y/N, the strongest woman he'd ever known and the smartest one at that.
The girl had moved to sit down on one of the long metal benches lining the ship's wall. Y/N could barely contain herself as she let her mind plummet into the horrors that had happened to her while being a captive of Kylo Ren himself.
"My ship, it got intercepted by the Order. I couldn't do anything, somehow they had overwritten the commands and nothing on my control panel worked. I knew what was going to happen. Best scenario was torture then death. So in that second I told Mon Mothma what was happening and made the decision for her not to send out anyone after me. I knew I was a goner regardless of how many squadrons came after me. It was no use to sacrifice the lives of others for one person. So I made it my last wish, which I made sure she followed through as I made her give an oath to me," she looked up to see that Cassian had moved to the opposite bench, "and I made her tell you the story you know. After I wouldn't come back, she was instructed to say that the planet had been blown up by the Order and the rescue squadron hadn't gotten there in time."
He couldn't move or speak. It felt like not only led had been poured into his body, but also ice as she marched on with the story. "I expected to be brought to a prison or something. Most to see that ginger bastard of Hux, but," she couldn't help the bile that rose in her throat as she said the name, "Kylo Ren decided to visit me."
"At first it went exactly as I knew it would. He pulled apart my mind piece by piece, memory by memory for almost a week without stopping. It felt like it was a week, I'm not too sure about it. At some point time just ceased to exist."
"But then something changed. He-he became different. He had found something in my brain that got his undivided attention and even I didn't know what it was. Not a memory or a forgotten dream, something else."
"He kept tugging at it, prodding and while doing all of that the only words he kept repeating were "you are stronger than you know, stop fighting it." I mean what kind of encouragement would a captor give to his prisoner, like it doesn't make any sense." There were silent tears now slipping down Y/N's cheeks as a dry laugh escaped her.
"And then he finally unravelled the coil. The reason Kylo had stopped his search for anything dealing with Resistance and focused on the small part in my mind is that he had unlocked the Force in me."
She didn't dare look up at the captain. "I didn't know I had it. I had never felt it calling to me, had never felt it be disturbed, there was nothing, but Kylo had somehow found that tether and pulled it free."
"I had never felt so much power before and I had never been more afraid in my life. I had no idea what to do with it, how to control it but more importantly how to resist it. With Kylo being inside my mind constantly I didn't have any free will but to allow him to pull the string more and more and more.... and the more he pulled the longer it got and we realised it was endless. You couldn't cut it, you couldn't rip it and it just kept going."
"I wasn't stupid, I knew what that entailed for me. With the amount of power Kylo and even I sensed in myself, he'd make sure I could never leave. At first, he promised to train me, to help me harness it, but we both knew I'd never give in. He'd seen it enough in my brain, so he slowly started to drain it from me..."
"It's pain that no one can ever understand. I've-I've never been one to believe in souls, but the only way I can describe it is like your being, the core of you, being shredded to pieces. Ripped out of you piece by piece, tendrils hanging off and then those are cut into even smaller ribbons."
Now Y/N was letting the tears fall freely, she didn't hold them back. "I have never wanted to die more in my life than I did in that second."
Cassian was too stunned to move. His girlfriend, the love of his light, the one that gave meaning to everything was Force-sensitive, incredibly powerful one too. And Kylo Ren had tried to take away that part form her. Cassian could almost feel the pain radiate from Y/N as her mind went back to those moments. His blood was boiling. Now he'd added a second goal- to kill Kylo Ren with his bare hands for what he'd done to Y/N and for taking her away from him.
"Then he stopped. I didn't believe it at first when I heard it, my brain was so fuzzy I thought I misheard the fire-crotch Hux, but they'd found a piece of the map to Luke Skywalker. Kylo immediately switched his attention to that, but he made a promise to come back."
"I didn't wait. The second he was gone I gathered all strength that I had left in me and it wasn't much. He had unravelled the Force so I used it. I made one of the troopers guarding release me and give me his uniform. The other I compelled to strap the man in my place and give me his gun. Then I erased their memories."
"It's the scariest thing I've ever done. To hold ones mind in your palm like that... I could feel them, their memories. With one swipe I could have made turned them into complete blank pages, they wouldn't be able to remember how to breathe let alone their names. And I wanted to do it so bad. I wanted to hurt them and render them useless, but that is what Kylo did to me, or almost did..."
"Without dwelling much on it, because I could feel he grip on reality slipping I found a Tie-fighter and whizzed away. I did the usual- disabled comms, tracking systems and so on. I found a planet that supported the Order and ditched the ship and clothing there. The rest... you can figure out on your own."
Cassian though that it was the end of the story as he stood up, but Y/N piped up again. "I didn't realise it at first. Because of the Force now being awake in me, I thought it was normal, but I started to have these dreams, or at least I thought they were. I saw Kylo, never the place where he was or heard who he was with, only him. And one night we spoke. He had made a connection while trying to take the Force away from me."
"We could talk, communicate with each other. Never know where we are or who is right beside one another, it was just the two of us..."
While saying this last part Y/N had lowered her gaze to her boots. They were worn out, stitches of the soles coming apart, the tongue flapping over the lacing. "I'm the reason Kylo Ren destroyed D'Qar and now have put Yavin4 and possibly the whole Resistance in danger. He's coming after me."
She whispered the last sentence. Cassian finally knew and in a way, Y/N felt this large block roll off her chest, for the first time in little over than two years she was able to, take a breath of relief. There were still the secrets she'd vowed to never tell a living soul, especially of how Kylo had given the large scar, that adorned her chest, but this one had been the hardest. It had started her downward spiral and what had prompted her to make the rash decision to break Cassian's heart in order to protect him.
Y/N didn't try and play dumb. She knew that with this Force connection Kylo would find her sooner or later, which meant finding Cassian. And she'd never let that happen, even if it meant sacrificing the only good thing in her life. So she had initiated fights. Tried to play herself off as the jealous fiancée, made herself be assigned to as many missions possible, so Cassian would start arguments of her not being there. Everything and anything to diminish what he felt for her so that when she left he would feel nothing but relief.
Of course, she found out her efforts had been futile only a month in after she'd left when Y/N had overheard someone in a cantina she had visited talk about a handsome man with a beautiful accent looking for a girl fitting her description. When she'd gotten to her "home" the first thing in her hands was a pair of scissors and she'd chopped all her hair off. She changed her stance, how she walked, even some speech patterns, but time and time again Cassian had found some breadcrumbs, Y/N hadn't been able to sweep away. A year in her hiding he had found her, he had seen her face and had recognised who it was.
She had been hiding on the Ring of Kafrene when Cassian and the Rogue One team had landed. But so had the First Order, Kylo leading them in tow. She hadn't learned fully how to repress the Force and when Kylo looked at Cassian he could feel the importance of the man to the girl.
Without thinking she had ran to the captain and pushed him out of the lightsabers way. The searing hot pain started from her neck, it travelled down her collarbones, slicing them in half and trailed a path in between her breasts. Face first she had fallen to the ground and Cassian's panicked gaze would have been the last thing she'd see if a girl hadn't disarmed Kylo.
Later on Y/N would find out the name of the woman was Rey and she'd come along with her friends on the Millennium Falcon with none other than the handsome smuggler Han Solo himself.
With her last bits of strength as Cassian had pulled her to his chest, she willed all the Force in her, the thing that had made her hurt the man she was in love with, to make Cassian forget.
Forget that she was on Kafrene, forget that he had seen her, but most importantly forget that she'd almost died saving him. There would be no chance of his safety if Cassian knew. Moments later she had succumbed to the pain.
Six months Y/N had spent in a coma and when she'd awoken the smiling face of the best pilot in the Resistance was what greeted her. In that moment Naili Delaqour was born, but even with this new identity and the past she'd created, Y/N could never truly become someone else.
Her hand moved to her neck, right where the long slash started, only to find Cassian's rugged palm already pressed there. "You know you could have told me. I would have helped you, I woul-"
"You would've what?" she snapped. "What would you have done, Cassian? Helped me learn how to control it or helped and hid me from that psychopath?"
His grip tightened moving to cup her cheek. "I don't know, but we would've figured it out, we always did. And we will now."
"No," Y/N stood up and shook his hand off. "You won't. But I will. I have sacrificed enough for you and I won't let you throw away everything I've done to keep you safe."
She didn't mean for the truth to escape like that, but deep in her gut Y/N knew that Cassian had never believed her. "I know you were lying to me. That you weren't okay and that every single thing you said before leaving was nothing more that one big lie." He affirmed her suspicions.
"I didn't press on, didn't want to make you even more uncomfortable. But if I had known that you would disappear like that, I would have made you talk to me and we would have figured it out."
"Y/N," he had once again cupped her cheeks. She averted her gaze but didn't pull away. His touch felt too good, and her self-control was slipping.
"Don't call me that," she whispered.
"But that is your name. Not Naili or commander Delaqour, but Y/N L/N. Mi Alma..."
The girl's breath hitched at the nickname. Cassian always called her by some sweet name in a language she didn't know, but that one was special. That one he whispered in her ears as they both were tangled together under the sheets, succumbing to pleasure. He called her that when Cassian was terrified for her when something went wrong and she got injured, praying for Y/N to pull through it. The sweet name rolled off of his lips when their happiness had hit the highest point. It was hers and no one else's.
He was so close, his nose brushed against Y/N's. She felt his breath fan over her while the brown eyes looked at her with such intensity she felt like he already knew the deep secrets she's been hiding, rendering her bare before him.
When Cassian leaned in the part of her brain that had still retained some control screamed for her to pull away, push him away, but she didn't. His lips were still just as soft, if not even softer. Her body almost turned into a puddle as her knees gave out, but Cassian's other hand had found its place on the small of Y/N back and pulled her impossibly closer.
Her fingers wove through his hair and pulled at it slightly eliciting a groan from the man. She had never felt as complete in these two years than now. She never wanted for this to stop. Cassian's tongue found its way into her mouth and she didn't even fight for dominance. Her brain was mush and her heart had never beaten so fast she feared it would break, yet been so whole at the same time.
It wasn't until both of them needed to come up for air Y/N saw the errors of her actions, what repercussions this would cause.
"Well figure this out, mi Alma, I promise. I'll never let anything bad happen to you."
"I know," silent tears slipped down her cheeks as her Y/E/C met Cassian's chocolate ones, "that is why I hope that one day, whether I'm alive or not you can forgive me."
"What?" Cassian's brows furrowed in confusion.
Y/N took his cheeks in both of her hands, closing her eyes. And then she slowly let the tendril that had been encased inside her for almost a year slowly unroll. She felt the Force grow through her body almost like it'd been waiting to be unleashed. It encased her from the inside, moulding to every crevice an nook. It traced her laugh lines and the ridges of her fingerprints. On and on it went until there was nothing the Force wasn't touching. There was a stronger tug in the back of her mind, that connection she shared with Kylo Ren, but immediately she wrapped a chain around it and sealed it behind a wall.
Cassian was panicking as he wiped away her tears when their eyes met once again. "Corazon, please, what is going on?"
"You won't remember that I did this."
"No," he breathed, "stop, we can figure it out."
"You will remember what I told you. You will remember that I'm the reason Kylo Ren destroyed D'Qar and now will be probably coming to Yavin4. I'm the reason for all the pain and suffering. And when you'll look at me," Y/N wished to have Kylo's lightsaber in her hand so she could push it through her heart and end her life, "you will look at me with nothing but hatred and disgust. You will allow me to tell the rest of ou-your friends this story on my own because I can't protect you."
"This is the only way I can make sure you're safe because as long as you love me, I know you will never stop fighting for us, but I need you to. I won't survive without you. The only thing that kept me going these two years is the fact I knew you were alive, but with Kylo coming after me... I will do anything to keep you safe," she was choking back sobs.
It had been so foolish to kiss Cassian. That moment had mended all the broken pieces, but what she was doing now, Y/N wasn't sure there would be dust left for the wind to sweep away. "Because I know you would go to the ends of the galaxy to save me. And I can't have that. You mean too much to me. So now any time you think of a memory of us it will make you hate me. You'll feel the pain I wanted to cause you, you'll despise who I am as a person and what I've done to you and Jyn, Bodhi, Baze and Chirrut and even K-2. I will be nothing more than a deserter to you..."
No physical pain could amount to that of what Y/N was feeling in that moment. They both stood like that for a moment longer until Cassian pulled back from her grip. When she looked at the love of her life she was relieved to see it had worked. His eyes were so cold and full of hatred it felt like a knife twisting in her already shambled heart.
"Good to know that you've kept such important information to yourself for this long," he spat at her, words laced with venom, "it's not like you are endangering me and my team with just your presence."
He moved to go back to the main part of the ship before looking back at the girl. "After this war is over and the Resistance's survival is not in peril anymore, I never wish to see your face on Yavin4 again." Cassian squared his shoulders and exited the weaponry.
"I'm so sorry, Cassian," she whispered into the air, "I love you so much..."
And Y/N let her heart bleed out.