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For all that Jyn (and probably everybody who has known her ever) claims that she’s the toughest neurosurgeon to ever grace Yavin Central, a flu can really bring her down and reduce her to a small, kind of pitiful lump of grumpy on her bed.
It’s not until he’s returned from his own shift to their meager little apartment just a couple blocks from the hospital that he finds her in her room sniffling and making small grumpy noises, as if she’s taking personal offense to her runny nose.
It would be funny if it didn’t concern Cassian a bit. He’s a doctor, he knows a simple flu is not as fatal as it probably feels, and that she’ll most likely bounce back as fiercely determined as before. But he’s not used to seeing her this defeated before.
All her stubborn refusal to be dependent makes him all the more concerned, this want in him morphing into a steady desire to take care of Jyn. Strong, stubborn-willed Jyn.
He knocks a couple times on the door and gives her a smile when her disheveled head appears from the cocoon of blankets.
“Cassian, you’re home.”
Her voice is scratchy and her eyes, from what he can see in the dark, are tired and half-mast. But his heart jumps at her words, at the tone of them. Like she’s been waiting for him. (It’s probably just that she’s sick and needs someone there with her. But his heart can hope.)
“Still not better?” he asks. He left her that morning at 100 F with a couple of paracetamol and a huge glass of water. He’s taken to texting her every hour or so just to make sure she’s okay.
She sniffs and shakes her head, beckons him to bed as if they’ve done this a million times before. He takes it, it’s not like he gets invited to bed by Jyn Erso everyday. Still, he sits gingerly next to her head, his hand, out of its own accord, reaching out to tangle his fingers in her greasy hair.
She frowns. “I’m disgusting.”
He smiles and keeps stroking her hair. “I don’t care.”
With that, she nuzzles further into his hand like a… cat. She closes her eyes and hums quietly. And then, out of the blue, she says, “Sing to me.”
He startles, but not enough to dislodge her comfort. “I… why?”
“You have a soft voice,” she replies, muffled by her comforter. His chest tightens. He is definitely not a singer, his voice is rough like gravel, but tunes come easy to him. He used to sing when he was a child, when he hasn’t yet reached puberty. For his mama, and his little sister, and his abuelita. But ever since leaving Mexico, he hasn’t sang for anybody. He doesn’t even know how Jyn knew.
“How –
“You hum in the shower,” she answers, a blush on her cheeks that is not from the fever, he knows. “And when you come home and want to make dinner, it’s usually my cue. You’ve had a good day. I’m always too late though, you never sing when I’m around.”
“I don’t…” he bites his lip and looks at her pleading eyes. “Jyn, it’s embarrassing.”
She tilts her head into his hand more and gives him a small smile. His heart stops. “But I want to hear you sing.”
He’s helpless to return that smile, helpless to give her what she wanted. Helpless for Jyn Erso, he is so damned.
And so he sits back on the headboard, continues running his fingers through her hair, and sings. He hums at first, and when she shifts closer, the words come out. It’s in Spanish, some love song he’s learned from his youth as it flowed softly through their crackling radio.
She’s asleep the moment the song ends and decides that when she’s better, he’s gonna tell her. And then he’s gonna kiss her.