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It’s the sound of beeping that wakes Cassian up, slicing through the peaceful darkness and shoving him into wakefulness. His head aches , a sharp staccato beating at his left temple. Groaning, he blinks away the crust that had formed on his eyelids while he’d slept, the medbay blearily coming into view after a few seconds.
Though he recognizes Hoth’s medical wing, he still takes stock of his surroundings, just in case. White walls, curtains sectioning off his bed from the rest of the room, heavy blankets pulled up over his legs to keep him warm. There’s an IV sticking out of the back of his hand attached to a stand at his left. Injury-wise, he suspects that he has a concussion – the pain in his skull, the gaps in his memory, and the dimmed lighting would explain that. And to his right…
To his right, Jyn rests slumped over in a chair, looking uncomfortable as she dozes.
To be honest, he’s surprised to see her. While they’d been close after Scarif (codependent, some called it – not like he minded), she’s been drifting away from him these past few weeks. He doesn’t understand why and doesn’t have an explanation for her sudden frosty behavior.
He may be a lot of things, but he’s not an idiot. Out of all of their friends, she’s only been avoiding him. They used to sit together at meals every day, but now she takes her food elsewhere. They used to spar together, but now she prefers to take her frustration out on a punching bag. He knows the problem must be with him, but he doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve it.
Eventually, he’d stopped trying. It hurt too much to continue chasing after a person who wanted nothing to do with him.
(It still hurts. It hasn’t stopped. Whenever he sees her now, it feels as if his chest is caving in. She has so much of an influence on him, but it’s clear he means nothing to her.)
Cassian shifts, turning his head slightly to squint at her through the darkness. She looks – well, to him, she always looks good – but she doesn’t look healthy. There are dark circles underneath her eyes that he can see even from a good number of feet away, and her posture looks defeated, broken. Never has he seen her looking like that, not even after the Council had told her they wouldn’t be sending troops to Scarif.
“Jyn?” he rasps, throat sore from lack of hydration. “Jyn.”
She startles awake, almost falling out of her chair. One hand unconsciously reaches for her blaster on her thigh holster before she realizes where she is. Immediately, the tension releases from her body as she relaxes.
(Once, she’d told him that she feels safe with him. He wonders if that still applies.)
“Cassian,” she replies, pushing her hair back over her shoulder. She leans forward but doesn’t come to him. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” he answers reflexively, but at her unimpressed look, he adds, “Sore. My head hurts.”
“I bet.”
His tongue darts out to wet his cracked lips. She doesn’t offer him any other information, but he doesn’t need it. What happened on the mission is already starting to trickle back. He’d been hit in the temple with the butt of a blaster and Kay had dragged him back to the ship. He doesn’t remember much after that, but it’s easy to fill in the blanks with assumptions.
What he doesn’t remember is Jyn. She hadn’t been on the mission, so why is she here now?
He turns back to her, only to find that she’s staring at him with an intense gaze. What does she want from him? Surely visiting him here had just been out of guilt, to make sure that he isn’t going to die. Even though he hasn’t seen much of her lately, he could never say she doesn’t care.
He sighs and says the inevitable. “I’m fine, Jyn. You can go now – I’ll be okay.”
Jyn blinks. “Do you want me to go?”
“Well, no, but I – “
“Then I won’t go.”
Cassian makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, wishing that he could sit up and look at her properly. Whatever she’s doing is only going to hurt him more – if she stays and leaves him again right after – and for his own sake, he’d rather she doesn’t.
“I don’t get it,” he says sharply, causing her head to jerk up at his tone. “We haven’t talked in weeks, Jyn. I don’t know why you’re here, pretending to give a shit about me – “
“Don’t,” she snarls out, cutting him off. “Don’t you think for one second that I didn’t – that I don’t care.”
Her intensity leaves him reeling. He has been thinking that – she hasn’t given him a reason not to.
“What did I do?” he asks desperately, not sure how else to respond to what she’s presented him with. “If you tell me, then I can fix this.”
I miss you, is what goes unsaid.
“What have you – you haven’t done anything , Cassian. It’s me.”
That, for some reason, makes him angry. All this time, he’s been wallowing in his own sadness trying to figure out what he’s done wrong and she can’t even give him a proper answer? It’s not you, it’s me? Stars.
“So you’ve been taking out on me, then? Is that it?”
“I was scared!” she nearly shouts, standing up from her chair and sending it clattering backward. Her chest heaves with each breath she takes. “I was kriffing scared , okay? So I couldn’t…”
One look at her tells him he won’t be getting any more answers from her. She looks wild, looks like there’s a storm trapped beneath her skin. Instead of asking why she’s scared (he has his suspicions), he scoots all the way over on his bed and opens his right arm in a silent invitation.
For a second, he thinks she’s not going to accept it, but she does. Gingerly, Jyn curls up on the bed next to him, shoving her face between his shoulder and neck, taking deep and shuddering breaths.
Having her so close with fresh injuries probably isn’t the best idea, but he doesn’t care about the pain. He buries his nose in her hair, inhaling her scent. “I missed you,” he whispers, not expecting a reply but feeling one breathed out over his collarbone. It doesn’t need to be said; he understands.