AN: This chapter goes out to endlessdaze for voting so much! Thank you. <3
Why did Cassian say any of that? He's thought about killing Talia? For what? The cause? Draven's orders? He didn't know which sounded worse.
On top of all that, the thought of killing a child made Cassian's chest tighten, especially because of how much Talia opened up to him. If he were in her shoes, he had no doubt in his mind he'd done the same as she did.
But he wasn't in her shoes.
He was in his own. His own worn down, rough, lived in shoes.
Cassian stood still in the middle of his room, completely unmoving. His brown eyes stared down at the ground, moving slightly from side to side as he contemplated what he had almost done.
Kill a child.
He told the truth to Talia. All of it was true. He couldn't have lied about what he thought.
What he didn't reveal is that some part of him would change if he had carried on with the mission. Some part? No. A huge part.
Cassian had done a lot of things he wasn't proud of.
Assassinations? It was easy for him to take the life of someone behind a mask. Reconnaissance? He didn't have to go in and do anything. Just monitor. Those were nothing compared to the more intense missions that hung on the back of his mind.
Two years ago, he had been on some outer rim planet. Small Imperial base that stored kyber crystals. One of the civilians wanted to get their collection back and assisted him on getting inside. Knew their way around like it was the back of their hand; it used to be an abandoned factory. Everything went wrong when the planet's rebel faction stormed the building as well and planted a bomb before they all got captured. Cassian escaped, and on comms, talked the civilian through on how to disarm it. Or so they thought. Cassian watched from a hill as the outpost blew up with everyone still inside.
One of the worst things he hated to do was when he sabotaged an Imperial ship a couple years back. The whole thing tore itself apart into tiny pieces when it attempted to go into hyperspace. All that was left was debris and bodies. Some were still alive, writhing in the vacuum of space. They spotted Cassian's ship in the short distance and attempted to wave to him. Move their mouths and beg for help. Cassian nearly vomited, yet couldn't tear his eyes away. It took the longest minute for them to slowly, and finally, stop moving, skin as blue and crystalline as one could see. That's what happens when someone messes with a hyperdrive. Cassian vowed to never witness another sabotage again.
And by the stars, he would never utter to another soul what happened on N'Zoth. Some nowhere desert planet in between Jedha and Coruscant. Went on a mission to assist a fellow rebel. In the firefight itself, Cassian shot everywhere. He was surrounded. One turn too many at the end, he launched a dagger through the air. It landed in the neck of his friend. Cassian didn't cry out. He didn't have the energy. All he could do was hold them in his arms, apologizing repeatedly until they passed. Blood stained his hands, and remained in his mind every time he looked down. When he got back to base, the rebels honored them for not making it back. None of them knew Cassian was the cause.
Could he stand to let another child go through the same things he did? Go through the pain? The extreme losses? Killing a piece of himself every time he had to do something horrible? Being left alone, time and time again because that's how this life is? One where no one wanted to be with him because of it, to make him so hard and angry that he doesn't let anyone in? How could he subject someone so small and bright to a future like that?
For the cause.
Always the answer.
Never gets old.
But to Cassian, it started to. It started to get so desperately old that his heart sunk. Yes, there was hope they could destroy the Empire. They could do it if they all coordinated and played their cards right. Except there was a line. One Cassian dangled himself across. Following orders was not always right for the cause.
Cassian shook his head out like a wet bantha, attempting to throw the thoughts out of his head. Yet, they clawed right back.
The child killed dozens.
What was it? Payback? He couldn't reach them, so he did the next best thing and blamed it on the rebels? Did an Imperial put him up to it? Some gangster waiting to turn that planet into a powder keg for some sick agenda? Oh no, did he think of it himself?
The last thought caused bile to rise in his throat.
If Cassian had shot him when he had the chance...
No. Don't do that. Don't blame yourself. Don't. For the love of everything in this galaxy, don't.
That child had a choice, and so did Cassian. No matter what, he had to stand by his decision. Cassian was not some indecisive spy that lets others get the better of him. He took orders. Hell, Draven trusted him enough to let him make orders of his own.
And yet, even as the resolution held strong, he couldn't help but feel a deep sadness.
One that brought him back to the one too many times he had been abandoned.
His mother left him without a word. No goodbye. No transmission in an attempt to talk to him. Nothing. Her mission was so important for them, and yet she didn't want to make an effort to talk to her own son. She never did again.
Another mentor, Mida Hollins, up and left the rebellion one day. Went off on a rant that they weren't going to send her to do this specific mission. Went against everything she believed in. Word came in later that one of the assassins took her down, but not before she killed four of them. Her own friends. Her own fellow rebels.
Then there was Lee Gaspar. Best escape artist Cassian had ever seen. That man could find a way out of a mirrored room and make it seem like a magic trick. Well, until he was captured during a mission. The Imperials spared no expense in torturing him immediately. Cassian had gone against Draven's wishes and gone after him, but it was too late. There wasn't much of him left when he got there. Hardly enough to stand on his own and make sense of everything around him. Lee barely knew his own name. It had taken every bit of energy Cassian had to put him out of his misery.
That child Cassian and Talia tried to save might have gone through the same thing, or something terribly similar.
That's what killed Cassian on the inside. There were two sides to every credit, and even then, nothing was ever black and white. Life was complicated.
And round and round in circles Cassian's mind went.
The same thoughts spread into other possibilities, and those possibilities spun right back around to the same few outcomes. Saving the child from the Empire. Killing the child for the Rebellion. And there was that tiny glimpse of hope that maybe, just maybe, the kid could have his own life.
It aggravated Cassian. Made his blood downright boil. If there was anything he hated more than the Empire, it was feeling boxed up in some kind of cell. That cell, despite his heroic effort to try to remain sane, was in his mind and influenced by his emotions.
Always at war with himself.
Was he good?
Was he bad?
Couldn't have been worse than the Empire. But was he close?
And that's when Cassian felt it.
A tear ran down his cheek.
He hadn't realized he even started tearing up. Jeez, his eyes were blurred immensely. Cassian blinked a few times, but new tears replaced the old ones. And it was then that he felt his chest heave, allowing the smallest, tiniest cry to leave his lips.
Cassian didn't want to cry.
No.
Please.
Yet the tears kept coming.
At least it was better than another panic attack, thank the stars. It only reminded him of the times he had cried, or more likely wanted to with every essence of his being.
Times where he would wake up from nightmares. Stare at the ceiling. Feel all of these stirring emotions inside of him, only to bottle them back down.
Times during countless nights where he couldn't sleep, so he flew to another planet to distract himself. Made his own missions. Got any intel he could, or made friends—acquaintances, really—in just the right places.
Times he'd stare at himself in the mirror and wonder what happened.
Times he thought throwing himself into a mission with actual conversations involved would help. They never did. Not even the ones where he had to seduce someone. It all felt empty. Void of any actual emotion to the point where he wanted to cry and break out of the hard shell that held him together.
Times where he'd be flying through the emptiness of space and just cry on his own. He stopped doing that when he nearly impacted on a fresh-out-of-hyperspace Imperial cruiser. Instead, he opted in for drifting in space and screaming at the stars to save his soul. If his soul could be saved, anyway.
The things he'd done had affected him, yet all he did was bottle it up deep down inside. Talia was right. He did. And in that bottle was years and years of repressed memories, emotions, and things he wished he never did. But he had to. He followed orders.
That's what good soldiers do.
Cassian cried violently, the tears streaming out of his eyes like a waterfall. The rise and fall of his chest was jagged, heaving every time to take in fresh air, only to pour it all out again. His fingers wound up in his hair and tugged. The slight tinge of shock wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to make him stop crying, or get rid of the pain inside.
He couldn't scream.
Couldn't shout like his body yearned to.
Cassian swiped his arm across his desk, knocking everything off of it in one go. Papers and small items clashed against the floor, the echo ringing in his ears. He launched everything he could. Papers. Pens. Blankets. Hell, even his pillows crashed against the walls that contained him. A part of him thought this was what that jail cell looked like in his mind.
He didn't want to think more on that.
Instead, he focused on a new realization. This was the first time he had allowed himself to cry, given the choice, in a while. It felt...horrifying. Therapeutic. Downright horrible. So horrible that he crumbled in on himself and slid down the nearest wall. The blaster in his waist holder poked him in the leg, so he took it out, weighing it in his hand.
As Cassian cried, he began to believe it was not for the child anymore. It was for himself. How he was raised. How he was thrown into a war that never should have had so many consequences. How many horrible actions he might have to commit in the future.
The screams that replayed like a wind on the breeze in his own head haunted him. A choir of voices of people he's killed, all in agony because of his actions. Would Talia and Kaytoo's voice be added too? Is that what his nightmare was trying to tell him?
On top of that, those innocent thirty lives that were erased because of one attempted good deed. It was his fault. Because of him, they were taken and it smeared the rebellion's name. What kind of rebel was he if he couldn't provide for the cause? Stoke the flames instead of diminishing it?
And why, for the love of everything in the galaxy, did he have more questions than answers?
Kaytoo stepped into the destroyed room, but Cassian didn't notice. The captain blankly stared at the blaster in his hand, tears falling down his rugged face. More thoughts crossed his mind, but none he'd ever share. They were his monsters to face alone.
War was no place for a child.
Cassian knew that more than anyone.