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Well, this is great, Jyn thought bitterly.
This is just fucking great.
Cassian and Jyn had managed to elude the Stormtroopers chasing after them for several blocks. Thanks to Cassian’s quick thinking, the duo ducked into the sewers and resurfaced to an Alliance safe house to hide out for the night, but when Cassian said that the safe house was “modest living”, she certainly didn’t have this in mind.
The space was about the size of a low-range motel room, with a lonely cot, a small lamp, and two roll-up mats, presumably for any additional guests to sleep on. Dust covered every square inch of the place, and the bulb on the lamp was broken. There was a cardboard box flipped over on the ground- a make-shift table, Jyn noted dryly.
She dropped her pack to the ground and winced slightly in pain as a cloud of dust swirled around her. A blaster shot had grazed her side during the Stormtroopers’ pursuit, but she didn’t want Cassian to find out. She could power through it. They just needed to get back to Echo Base and she could get patched up then.
Jyn glanced at Cassian to see if he noticed. He hadn’t, luckily, as he peered out the windows cautiously with his blaster still at the ready. He could hear sirens in the distance, but after confirming that no one trailed them during their escape, he tapped into his comms.
“Kay, are you still at the spaceport?”
“Yes,” Kay responded almost immediately. “You told me to stay in the ship. The horizon is still here, so I decided to stay. Where are you two, anyway? You’ve missed the rendezvous.”
“The mission’s gone south,” Cassian replied. “We’re at a nearby Alliance safe house. But the Stormtroopers are still after us, so keep a low profile for tonight. I’ll send you the coordinates so you can get us at dawn.”
“Need I inform you the likelihood of being apprehended tomorrow regardless?” Kay inquired.
Jyn could practically feel Cassian roll his eyes so far back they could pop out at any moment. She bit back a snicker.
“Need I inform you the likelihood of our fatigue getting the best of us and we get apprehended tonight?” Cassian growled. “Just lay low and come get us in the morning.”
“Understood, Cassian. As you humans seem to say, ‘sleep well’.”
Feeling calmer about their predicament, Cassian finally shrugged his parka off and placed it on the cardboard box. He looked up at Jyn apologetically and said, “Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.”
She nodded once before bending down to pick up a nearby bed roll. Her lips pursed and she pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth to keep from crying out in pain.
The injury was starting to become too much. She needed to lay down and sleep it off.
Cassian placed a hand on hers. “No, you take the cot, I’ll have the mat.” He took the mat out from under her hands and rolled it out on the opposite side of the room.
“That’s ridiculous, you should be the one to take the cot,” Jyn argued, gesturing to the cot behind her. “I’m used to sleeping on the floor anyway- it’s all Saw was ever able to offer me.”
Cassian made no indication of switching sides of the room with her as he started yanking his gloves off to dig through his pack for ration bars. They hadn’t eaten in several hours, Jyn remembered, and suddenly became aware of how lightheaded she was feeling. “Just take the cot, Jyn,” he said. “You’ve been favoring your right side the whole time we were running and you haven’t said a word to me since.”
Dammit, he was right.
How long had he known?
Jyn glared at him. She’d been through worse. She can power through it. She did not need to be babied.
She tried to get up to approach him, ready to get in a heated debate. But as her torso scrunched from trying to get back up on her feet, she hissed in pain and sank back down to the dusty floor. The particles floated up into her nose and she entered a coughing fit.
Cassian’s head whipped from his ration bars to her. “Jyn.” Her name rang loud, commanding, and cut through the silence of the safe house with the precision of a fencer’s attack.
She looked up at him, her face completely defiant, ready to argue with a parry.
Jyn was not expecting to be met with the face Cassian had on now. His lips were slightly pressed together, the corners turned downward by just a flick. But the message in his eyes was clear, in spite of the sweaty strands of hair that fell in front of them- guilt.
“Please,” he pleaded, his voice soft.
Her shoulders slumped slightly at his show of vulnerability and she sat back and leaned against the cot in defeat. The dust that clouded up was settling around their silence, save for the sound of Cassian chewing his ration bars. She kept her breathing shallow to prevent her middle from expanding and tearing the injury even further. As a distraction, she tried to focus on the dim rays of light coming in from the city lights outside and watched the haze of dust waltz lazily down to the floor.
Jyn pushed up on her palms, but the pain in her side seared through her entire core.
She couldn’t get on the cot.
Her strength was draining, she could feel it.
But she wanted to climb up and sleep- it wouldn’t take much just to rise up a few inches to get comfortable. Try as she might, however, her body refused to do what her mind commanded, and Jyn felt her eyes drooping slowly. There was a warm comfort bubbling from within her, and she thought she could feel herself smiling at the sensation until she realized that Cassian’s face was suddenly just inches away from her own.
“Jyn?”
Cassian?
“Jyn!”
Why are you shouting?
She felt something cold press against her head. She hissed and turned her head to the side to get away from it.
It’s cold, stop it…
“Jyn, you have a fever.”
No, I’m fine, I just need to lay down on the-
Cassian grabbed the other bed roll and spread it out next to her. Gingerly, he pulled her onto the mat and rolled her onto her back. He then unzipped her coat and opened it up to reveal a huge blood stain, dark and sticky. He hastily reached for the med pack in his bag and uncovered a bacta patch. Hands shaky, he grabbed the left side of her shirt and pulled up to reveal the blaster shot.
“I’ve got you, just stay with me for a bit,” he begged. Cassian tore open his flask with his teeth and poured water onto a spare cloth to wipe away at the blood before pressing the bacta patch onto her cut. Jyn groaned at the sensation and she closed her eyes, her brow furrowed in pain. He could see a trickle of sweat forming at her hairline. After wrapping the gauze around her torso to keep the patch in place and hopefully stop the bleeding, he looked in the med pack for some kind of painkiller. Failing to find it immediately, he yanked the med pack off the ground and hastily shook the contents out until he heard the rattle and roll of a pill bottle. Cassian grabbed it and twisted the cap off a little too harshly, then pulled Jyn upright by the shoulders again, pill and flask ready.
He pressed the pill to her lips. “Jyn, please, stay with me. I need you to take this.”
Jyn was unresponsive. The heat of her fever from her lips traveled to his fingertips, and his heart practically froze with worry. He patted her cheek gently to try and keep her awake. “Jyn, please, take this. You’ll feel better.”
Cassian?
Jyn tried to open her mouth to say something, but in that instant she felt a hard pill being dropped onto her tongue followed by a rush of icy water. It took some effort to swallow, but once she did, her eyes fluttered open and she saw Cassian’s face.
Why so worried? I’m fine…
The lines on his face smoothed out and disappeared in relief. “You’ll be fine now. Just relax, and don’t move too much.” He lowered her back down onto the bed mat and he disappeared from her line of sight for a bit before returning with his parka. He placed it on top of her and wrapped the sleeves around her body, then stripped his vest off to make a make-shift pillow for Jyn. Cassian then got up and sat back on the bed roll on his side of the safe house, bringing his knees up to his chest and dropping his head in his hands.
It was his fault that the mission went as badly as it did- his contact, his very own contact, betrayed him. He invested so much time and placed so much trust into this that he should’ve sooner seen the signs that they were going to be ambushed by Imps. If he had any sense at all, he would’ve known something was up and they could’ve turned back and returned to Echo Base. Instead, he went against his better judgement and it ended in pursuit.
He didn’t even get the intel he was promised.
He had to shoot the informant dead, just in case. That was the price that needed to be paid. All to protect the secrets of the Alliance.
All at the cost of Jyn’s safety.
Cassian could feel his breathing getting shallower. Hyperventilation. His head started to ache and his face tingled from slowly going numb. Panic. It seeped in faster than he could push it back, and the guilt of his actions became more and more magnified in his mind, seeking to drive him mad, when-
“Cassian?” He heard the soft voice from across the floor.
Her voice was enough to pull him back to reality and bring him back down from his thoughts.
“…Yeah?” he responded, his voice restrained.
“Where are you?” she asked. The words were shaky with worry and panic.
“I’m right here, Jyn. I’m right here,” he soothed, but he didn’t move. He hesitated to approach her. He didn’t think he could look her in the eye after tonight, if he was honest with himself.
There was a moment of silence, marked only by Jyn’s breathing, but after a while the breathing became more labored, and she weakly cried out, “Cassian, it hurts…” Her right hand reached around the floor, searching for him.
Cassian caved in to her pleas and dragged his bed roll next to Jyn’s. He settled in next to her and closed his eyes, his mind flicking through ideas on how to soothe the fevered mess bundled next to him.
What would his mother do?
It was hard to think about, especially if he couldn’t really remember much of her in the first place.
Between forgetting memories of his own mother after 20 some odd years and inadvertently throwing Jyn into this mess, he was sure this was the guiltiest night he’s had in a while.
But suddenly, he did recall something his mom did when he was sick, if only a faint memory.
He propped himself up on one elbow and reached over to Jyn with his other hand. Slowly, gently, he raked his fingers down her hair. He continued to whisper words of safety and encouragement until the stress on her face eased away and she fell into a peaceful sleep.
Cassian leaned back down on the bed mat and breathed a sigh of relief. We can get through this, he thought. Just need to rest for now. He ran his fingers through his hair, as he does whenever he survives a stressful situation, and then rested them at his sides to prepare to drift off to sleep.
As his eyes drooped lower and lower, however, he found a rush of warmth at his side. He turned his head to see Jyn, facing him, curled up against his arm. His hand twitched nervously- he didn’t want to invade her space and hug her, as tempting as it was. But, in his guilt and concern for Jyn, he’d give anything right now to hold her close and protect her from whatever else has to be thrown at them. He owed her at least this much after all the trouble he put her through.
Instead, he smiled at her and turned his body to face her so that he could stroke her hair again. Jyn sighed contentedly and rustled under his oversized jacket, thick and fluffy and blue. Cassian felt her pinky brush lightly against his hand, and when he hesitantly moved his hand even closer to her own as an offering, Jyn instinctively looped her pinky with his.
It almost felt like she was asking him to promise to stay with her.
The heat rose in Cassian’s cheeks and the tips of his ears, but he didn’t mind this, not at all. He scooted just a little closer to Jyn and before throwing his arm around her body to pull her close. As he lowered his head down on the mat again he buried his nose in her hair and took in her scent.
It smelled like home.
He slowly joined Jyn in drifting off to sleep, their pinkies still locked.
I promise I’ll stay, he thought to himself, his final words before drifting off for the night. I’m with you, all the way.