NURSE


I'm glad to say that, over the course of my career, only one patient ended up more injured whilst under my supervision than when they were admitted. It most certainly wasn't my fault.

My first patients during the War. I was a volunteer, had just arrived before the Battle of Scarif. These two were the only ones who returned from the Citadel Tower; the only survivors of Rogue One.

The remainder of the fleet - so many ships were destroyed above the tropical planet - would not be expected for several days, so for a brief time they were my only patients in the hospital in the Great Temple of Massassi. Standard protocol for a retreat was to scatter so that the Empire would not be able to track them back to the base. The Togruta pilot who brought them was therefore dragged off to be questioned as to why he had so suddenly disobeyed all orders, all procedure, and had returned so swiftly. I can't imagine they got much information out of him; he looked like he'd been drugged. The doctor said the last time he saw someone look like that they'd encountered a Jedi.

There are many reasons why I never forgot these two, not least because of the reasons above. I remember so much so clearly, from the moment I set eyes on them in the hangar.

The woman - she looked so much older than me, but she was my age, we were still just girls - looked away from the man once, to look over her shoulder fiercely, as though ready to stand against any threat that would harm him further. Her face filled instantly with relief when she saw my white uniform, and then immediately returned all of her attention to him.

"… Cassian, come on, we're home, please don't…" She broke off with that beg. I think she was trying not to cry, her whole face was grimacing.

Cassian - the man looked older than his years too - was slumped in the co-pilot's seat, and woke when we moved him on to a stretcher with a loud grunt, his jaw clenching against the pain. Blood was dribbling out of his nose; the girl had it on her hands, thus had it on his hand that she was holding on so tightly to. She didn't let go all the way to the medical bay, running with a limp, babbling the whole way.

"… You're not kriffing dying on me now, Cassian... think... think of how annoyed K would be…"

He gave a spluttery laugh at that, grimacing at the pain his own mirth rumbled out of the injuries in his torso, his knuckles whitening around her fingers, making her wince too.

"Jyn... I wonder… what the… what odds K-2 would give me…?" He wondered aloud, wheezing. Broken ribs, I suspected, putting too much pressure on his lungs after the jump into hyperspace.

She laughed despite herself, the laugh hiccoughing out of her. "You've never cared for his odds. He really would be annoyed with you, if you started giving a damn now." He tried to smile in response, but then the stretcher hit a bump on the floor, and his eyes rolled from the excruciation and passed out.

What an odd pair.

She had to let go of his hand when we lifted him from the stretcher to the scanner bed, refused to go far as doctors milled around his unconscious body. I turned to her, tried to encourage her away so I could look over the leg that she was limping on. She looked like... she was a wreck. Her brown hair was plastered to her forehead from sweat, blood and dirt. She had cuts and scrapes sported on every visible inch of skin. I think she realised that her hand was shaking, because she kept clenching it to try and make it stop, and it wasn't working. I suspect she wanted to vomit, because she kept swallowing hard every now and then. She yanked her arm away from me once, then twice, then shoved me back, not looking at me once. "No, no, I'm not leaving aga-" Again? I tried to calm her, reassure her, but a medibot was approaching, its arms reaching out to grab hold of her.

She finally took her eyes away from him when she spun to backhand the robot, hitting it so hard on its metallic head that it nearly lost balance, but she instantly bit back a scream, clutching her wrist, having broken it. She still didn't let us touch her, and we were reluctant to in case she injured herself - or one of us - further. She just stood there, waiting to find out if her friend was okay, sweating from the pain of her new injury.

She stood there, in considerable pain, for hours. A sucker for punishment, or... the man being operated on must have meant a hell of a lot to her.

Senator Mothma and General Draven came, the latter frowning at Jyn's presence before the two mutually ignored each other, whilst the former seemed relieved to see her. One of the surgeons came out to give an early update on Captain Andor's condition; he'd been shot in the side by a blaster, blessedly only scraping past with burns, but the worst damage was from several falls; he'd broken and/or fractured his femur, tibia and fibula, had several broken ribs on both sides. Most concerning was that he'd hit the back of his head, so they were going to have to operate to relieve the pressure. On top of which they'd lost count of the number of bruises he had everywhere else. He'd live though, the surgeon reported confidently. They would put the leg in a cast, sessions in the bacta tank would help with the ribs, and whilst he would walk again, it was unlikely that he'd be able to run the same.

When the surgeon said Cassian would live Jyn fell to her knees with a relieved whimper, her strength finally spent. For a chilling moment I thought the General seemed disappointed about the prognosis, but he thanked the surgeon and left. It would not be the last time I saw commanders struggling with selfishness as they realised that their comrades wouldn't be able to help them fight anymore. Finally Jyn turned her attention away from the Operating Room door where her friend was, and blinked up at me as though finally seeing me for the first time.

"Umm…" she started, for the first time uncertain of herself. "I'm sorry about… before. Err…" And she looked down at her arm that she was cradling, the leg that she wasn't sitting her weight on. I simply nodded - I was petrified of her, after the force of the glare that she'd sent General Draven's direction that had halted him from approaching her - and helped her to her feet and led her to the nearest bed. I suspected she would refuse to go any further.

I found that the Force had been on her side; she'd sprained her ankle, had indeed broken her wrist. Other than that she was littered with scratches, the odd deeper cut, bruises... a lucky escape really. After they sent Captain Andor for his first bacta treatment one of the surgeons reset her wrist, bound it up in a cast and a sling, and I cleaned up her other wounds with antiseptic and the odd stitch, put ice-packs on her ankle, gave her some painkillers. In the captain's absence however I saw the shock take hold, saw her mind vanish elsewhere; she barely noticed the surgeon working on her wrist, and I doubt that it was anything to do with the local anaesthesia.

She was instantly alert however when they brought Captain Andor out, limping forward towards his bed. I wisely didn't stop her, just stayed close incase she lost her balance. She practically barked at the doctor to tell her whether he was alright, and the doctor immediately spluttered out that the outlook was positive, that the scans were showing normal brain activity, that he would probably wake up in a few hours, but that there would be long weeks of physiotherapy to get him back on his feet. Jyn glared at her still. The doctor finally got the hint, and said the three words she needed to hear the most.

"He'll be fine."

Again, the tension in her shoulders eased instantly, and she nodded a few times, thanked the doctor so quietly I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't hear her. The poor woman escaped as quickly as she could after seeing that the patient's monitors were working as they ought. A steady heart beat echoed in clinical, reassuring beeps.

The man who was unconscious before us looked shockingly different to the man who had come in. His head had been shaven, was an ugly mess of surgical tape, making him look fragile. His chest, covered with black bruises and dressings to his injured side, rose and fell. A blanket preserved his dignity over his crotch at least, but his right leg was framed with splints and bandaged from thigh to ankle. His toes peeked out from the blanket; seemingly the only part of him that had got away unscathed. He had a drip attached to his hand, sensors on his pulse. The blood hadn't been wiped from under his nose properly.

I'd been trained to deal with this. I had done a residency in a hospital on Hosnian Prime, but it still... it shocked me. This is war, I thought. This is what surviving looks like. I had to remind myself that those who died often looked even worse, though of course there was no comfort in any of it. People shouldn't be made to look like this at all. People shouldn't be torn apart like this.

I knew by then that there was no point in trying to get Jyn to move away, so I went and got a chair. By the time I got back she was holding his hand again with her good hand, gingerly tucking the blanket up around his shoulders with the fingers of her cast hand, the sling hanging empty round her neck for a moment. She smiled tersely at the sight of the chair, sat down heavily, scooted it closer to him. I went to fetch another, to put up her swollen ankle, fetched more ice. I paused as I headed back; her injured hand was hesitating over his face, and then she tenderly stroked his forehead with the backs of her fingers, where his hairline was.

She'd intimidated a general into retreat, put a dent in a medibot, intimidated the entire medical staff into tiptoeing around her, and more or less ignored me when I came to prop up her ankle. But for Cassian Andor as he slept, frail and defenceless, she was all gentleness. She let go of his hand only to take a tissue and wipe away the blood from under his nose, dabbed at the moisture left on his cheeks from the bacta.

It was a different story when he woke. I saw her jump to her feet - his hand must have been twitching in hers - and he croaked out her name as he woke, trying to move every inch that would obey into trying to find her, panicking. Her good hand was instantly on his shoulder, trying to hold him down.

"Cassian, you need to stay still, stop - stop moving!"

He froze for a moment, seeing nothing but her, and seized her shoulders too, petrified for her. "Jyn… what… argh…"

He sunk backwards as the pain hit him, one hand clutching his burnt side, biting his lip, his fingers fisting in Jyn's shirt. She let go of his shoulder, grasped his remaining hand with hers. "We're safe. We're back, at the base. We're… we're home."

The fight fled out of the captain, and he breathed hard against the pain, his eyes wide and darting around his surroundings. The doctor appeared and started checking the captain's wounds, checking that he hadn't made things worse. The poor man looked down at himself in the bed; the blanket had fallen down his chest again, thankfully pooling around his middle, kicked off his bruised but unbroken leg. He saw the tube stuck in the back of his hand, raised it timidly to his shorn scalp. The doctor answered his unspoken question, started listing his injuries, the success of his surgery, and a broad summary of the therapies he'd undergo now. I'd read his medical notes as we waited for him to wake; there was a lot to read. He'd been shot and stabbed and beaten so many times it didn't surprise me that it didn't seem to particularly phase him. He'd been shot before, broken bones before. All in a day's work.

The doctor gave Cassian a shot for the pain, and headed away with the simple advice to rest for now. Alone at his bedside, Jyn summed it up with a sardonic smile. "You managed to kriff yourself up quite nicely."

He humphed out a laugh, winced as it jarred his ribs. He then frowned. "Did… did they get the…?"

Whilst he was asleep, Senator Mon Mothma had returned alone, her ethereal presence setting her apart from the medical team despite the matching white of her robes. She'd spoken to Jyn quietly, but… well, I couldn't help but overhear. It sounded like they, Jyn and Cassian and many others, had been on a mission on Scarif to find something of extreme importance. I guessed when Jyn sighed with relief that whatever it was they'd found it and got it to the Alliance - I heard Princess Leia's name - but guessed by the worried looks on both women's faces at the end of the conversation that something might have gone wrong. When she left, Mon Mothma spoke to me gently. "Whatever those two need, please make sure they get it."

Jyn nodded, holding back on their uncertainty for now. "Yeah, they got them. They're on their way back with them. We did it…" Her voice cracked on the last, smiling down at him in relief, in awe. They'd survived...

She was pretty when she smiled. I'm absolutely certain that I wasn't the only one who thought that either.

The captain smiled back, relieved too. His hand had slipped down Jyn's arm to her elbow whilst the doctor had been there, and I saw his thumb rub into her arm, making him frown as he noticed her slung up wrist. He swallowed, his throat still dry. As I prepared water, I heard him ask her, "what… what happened to your hand?"

I could almost hear her grin. "Promise me you won't laugh?"

He was already clutching his sore ribs when I got there with the water, laughing and wincing in turn. His hand was back in hers again.

They were still talking by the time my shift was over, late at night. He'd slept for a bit, when the painkillers took effect. She'd dozed in the chair next to him. When he woke, she did, feeling the shift in his hand again. He must have asked her how her ankle was, asked to see, as she then gingerly lifted it on to the edge of his bed, and they both grimaced at how swollen and black the bruises were. The extra elevation however must have felt more relieving; she shifted her chair to sit more comfortably, closer to him, her leg lifted up next to his, his hand on her knee ensuring her balance. I saw the shifts in their conversation. I think he must have asked if anyone else had survived, must have already known the answer. Several tangents later they were smiling again; I overheard her quote someone, "congratulations, you are being rescued". A friend perhaps. Even those in mourning can still make jokes. We have to.

I heard later that she was given a commission - gossip in the canteen told that the council were mixed about Senator Mothma's insistence - and given her own quarters, but I swear she spent barely any time in them. During the day she only left the sick bay when she was directly summoned to. It wasn't until I did a string of night shifts that I found out she would leave for the night when the captain insisted that she go get some sleep, threatening her with self-injury and later her own injuries as his therapy progressed, but during the night she'd often come back, looking exhausted but wired. Nightmares, I guessed. I did ask her, but she evaded the question, so at first I just always remembered to leave a chair for her, then told her to sleep in the neighbouring bed whenever it was available. She declined my offer of sleeping pills. A couple of times the nightmares woke her up again, her hand either searching under her pillow or for something or someone in front of her.

A few days after they arrived, when the hospital was full of others bearing injuries from the Battle of Scarif, Jyn came back from a summons. Pale as death, at his insistence she told Cassian about Alderaan's complete destruction, and burst into desperate sobs. I don't think he'd ever seen her cry before - I wonder how long they had known each other? Must have been years - appeared more shocked at the sight of her gasping for breath as tears poured down her face, suffering so much her body trembled with it, than with the news itself. He pulled her into his arms, not for a moment caring about his sore ribs, or the awkward position it put them in; him sitting up in his hospital bed, she bent over the edge to cry into his shoulder.

He told her "it wasn't his fault", over and over. It was when he told her "it'll never happen again, we're going to destroy it" that something changed in his face, and he swung himself over the edge of the bed, and practically ordered her to help him stand. For once she did as she was told, with only the briefest of hesitations, and they took a few awkward, slow steps, him hopping, barking at everyone to keep away when they went to interfere, careful not to put his cast leg to the floor, wincing as each hop jostled his ribs. When the pain got too much he stopped, looking proud nonetheless that he'd managed to make it that far, looked down at Jyn, tucked under his arm holding his weight, and pulled her properly into his embrace with his other arm, both of them burying their faces into the shoulder of the other, as though this had been the purpose all along.

Eventually she coaxed him back to his bed. That night she didn't leave, and no one asked her to. She woke screaming in the middle of the night; Cassian had to shout her name even louder for her to hear him.

Their bruises purpled, and yellowed, then faded altogether. His hair returned, a dark fuzz over his scalp, making him look more like a soldier. With time, although earlier than the doctors would have liked, the captain was testing his weight back on his good leg every day, Jyn blackmailed into being his crutch, having had enough of bed rest. When Princess Leia returned to the base, the only survivor of the Tantive IV on board the Millennium Falcon, Captain Andor checked himself out. Jyn got him a wheelchair, and helped him to his quarters. I was afraid that that would be the last I would see of them, but as engineers poured over the plans of the Death Star, the Alliance's new hope, she brought him back for all of his bacta and physiotherapy appointments, whether he wanted to or not, regardless of the meetings they were missing.

I saw them a few times outside the sickbay, he on crutches or in the wheelchair, her wincing from her sore sprain but walking normally as we'd advised her. Nothing particularly interesting, I suppose; just in the canteen eating together, and heading to meetings through the corridors of the Great Temple. I never saw them separately; he was dependent on her in order to get around, but I remember so clearly when they brought him in, the ferociousness in her at the slightest suggestion that she leave his side. That dependency ran both ways.

I saw them at the celebration. People were dancing in the hangar. One of my other patients from Scarif, an engineer from one of the surviving Hammerhead Corvettes who'd been hit with shrapnel when one of the consoles exploded, asked me to dance in thanks. As he twirled me round I spotted them...

She was giggling up at him, holding him up to dance too, turning him on the same spot so he didn't put any weight on his healing leg. He was grinning down at her, then just smiling, then...

My dance partner spun me round again...

And when I saw them again his lips were melded to hers, his arms holding her chest-to-chest around her shoulders, fingers in her long, loose hair as she clung to his waist.

I've always felt like I wasn't the only one watching them… that someone - no, not one, a few - were smiling too.

I hope they stayed together, looked after each other as the Rebel Alliance trekked across the Galaxy looking for another place to call home for a time. I wish I'd seen it.


Last edited: 25/05/2017