#definitely not the finished product here it's kind of awkwardly written tbh

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

Sneak for TWTaS's final chapter (!!!!)

“Full disclosure, this is a weird gift. You’re hard to get gifts for. So I panicked and got you a coffee mug, which is… arguably worse, but –“

“You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Yeah, I know. But you got me something for Christmas. And I wanted to. So –“ She pushes a mug with a lopsided bow around it into his hands, with a nervous, apprehensive look on her face.

It’s black, or very nearly black, in the dim light of the kitchen lamp, and dotted with tiny stars. He smiles, turning the cup around in his hands, and feels instantly transported to a (freezing cold) November night, side by side on a blanket in the middle of nowhere, staring up into the cloudless sky.

It might be his favourite memory.

“It has stars on it,” he says, brilliantly, and she smiles.

“Uh-huh. It shows constellations when you put hot coffee in it. So you can learn them, for next time.”

He puts the cup down on the table and tugs at her hand, pulling her closer, and smiles down at her. “I liked learning them from you, though.”

“God, you’re such a sap,” she mutters, puts her arms around him and rolls her eyes at him for good measure. But he doesn’t miss the faint blush on her cheeks, and he knows she relished in it – she likes teaching, generally, and the stars and constellations, all those names her father taught her as a child, are clearly something she treasures, despite everything.

“It’ll be a refresher, then.” She winds out of his arms, curls up on her rickety chair and pours coffee for them both.

“And this is a weird gift?” he asks, still smiling softly down at the mug.

“No, that’s the normal part. Look in the bag.”

He picks up the small satchel on his plate with a frown and shakes out a simple, coin-sized pendant. It’s an unremarkable thing, not much to look at, really, just a brown-grey speckled splinter of stone enclosed in clear resin.

He takes a moment to inspect it, trying to decode its relevance, before ceding defeat and asking, eyes still on the stone: “What… what is that?”

Jyn truly blushes, this time. “It’s a piece of – of metro tile. They’re… they’re doing renovations on Line 2.” She shrugs uncomfortably and rearranges the pieces of toast on her plate. “A friend of a friend of one of Saw’s old guys knows the contractors, they grabbed a piece for me. Ermita station, I think he said. Like I said, it’s – this guy probably thought I was insane for asking, but –”

“I remember them,” he says softly, turning the pendant in his fingers, watching the flecks of brown shimmering in the light. “The tiles.”

“I wanted… It was the only way I could think of to get you something from the city. Food would’ve just gone bad and –“ She shrugs helplessly. “I guess it was this or one of those stupid tourist t-shirts. Like I said, it’s – it’s weird, I know, but I… I thought it’d be like, a piece of home, right? I know you don’t have much.“

This is an understatement. He has a novel with the pages cut out, some pictures, a list of names, an army knife, a gun, a passport, and the shoes that he wore the day he left. Everything else he owns, he bought in the States.