"Look at her. Isn't she cute?"
"She hardly cried at all."
"I think she looks like Jyn."
"Yeah, but she has brown eyes."
"What color are Jyn's eyes?"
"Green, I think. Or hazel."
"Oh. What color are Luke's?"
"Blue."
"Then how does she have brown eyes?"
Voices murmured above the baby, so new to the world she hadn't even been given a name. She was attempting to sleep, but kept opening her eyes at the sound of the voices. The deal had been that the students could be around the new baby unless she started to cry, in which they'd be booted from the room and the baby would be left in the comfort of her mother.
"I think Ben's mom has brown eyes, doesn't she? And she's Luke's sister."
"I've got brown eyes," Ben chimed in. He was the baby's cousin. The other students considered this, and took it as a good enough reason for the baby to have brown eyes.
"I think the baby's eyes look a little green."
"What's that Jyn was calling her? Ray of sunshine, or something?"
"A little ray of sunshine, yeah."
"No name yet?"
"Nope. Not yet."
One of the students—Ben, who was about eleven—tentatively reached into the cot, trying to touch the baby. Another student, a girl of about fourteen, reached out and grabbed the boy's hand before he could.
"Don't, she might cry."
"She's my cousin," the boy argued.
"Ben, don't," another student of about seven seconded.
Despite what the other students said, Ben reached in and rubbed the baby's belly, a bit too rough. The baby's face scrunched up, and she began to cry.
"I knew it."
"Sorry," Ben apologized.
"Mae." Jyn's tired voice came from the bed she was resting in across the room. Mae, who was the oldest of the students at fourteen, turned to look at her teacher's wife. "Would you please bring her to me?"
As the other students got up and filed out of the room, Mae gently reached into the cot, speaking to the baby as she did so. "I know, sweetheart, you don't want me to pick you up, but I'm bringing you to your momma, okay?"
The baby girl squirmed in Mae's arms, flailing her limbs as if she wasn't used to having so much wiggle room. She still cried only a little, but it was a pathetic cry that warranted sympathy from Mae. Mae approached Jyn's bed, and carefully handed the baby over.
"There's my little ray of sunshine," Jyn said as the child was passed into her arms. "Thank you, Mae."
"Anytime, Ms. Jyn." Mae grinned before turning to leave.
"Oh, and Mae?" Mae stopped to turn over her shoulder. "Could you please tell Luke to come in here?"
"Yeah, sure," Mae said before leaving the room.
This left Jyn alone with her still nameless daughter. The baby girl's crying had ceased, and she was left happily sucking on her fingers in her mother's arms. Jyn smiled at the sight. "My little ray of sunshine." She stroked the baby's soft cheek with the edge of her forefinger.
Shortly after, her husband entered the room. He had a smile on his face; he had met his daughter the night before, but had not spent the night with her or Jyn. He approached his wife and planted a kiss on her cheek, before greeting his daughter with a kiss to the forehead.
"She start crying?" he asked as he took a seat on the edge of the bed.
"Yeah. Ben tried to pet her stomach, but he was a little too rough." Nevertheless, the baby seemed to have recovered from the small incident, and was drifting off to sleep in Jyn's arms.
"Still no name?"
"No," she admitted. "I've just been calling her a ray of sunshine. And you are a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" The second half of the statement was directed at her daughter.
Her husband was silent for a moment. "How about we call her 'Rey'?"
"Hmm?"
"You keep calling her 'ray of sunshine'," he pointed out. "We could spell it with an 'e'."
"Like the way Mae spells her name?"
"No, like 'R-e-y'."
"Rey," Jyn tested, then smiled. "I like it. Little Rey."