Chapter Text
i.
Memories keep him awake more than he cares to admit.
They conjure themselves unbidden, slithering through the iron bars of his mind. And just before they burrow, just before they brand his brain, just before they emerge from the shadows and he can recognize them — images of bright eyes and petal ears, sound bites of gentle coos, memories he wants to keep locked like a treasure — they vanish like vapor.
Sometimes he tries to chase them, like a valuable quarry. But even illustrious bounty hunters like Din Djarin know what it’s like to lose. Especially at night, when memories morph into vicious nightmares... and he becomes the prey.
If he ever does sleep, he sure as hell never rests.
And no one would catch wise. That’s the beauty of beskar. Because — despite the deep purple rings circling his wrinkled eyes, the constant dry and chapped state of his lips, and the uncharacteristically unkempt stubble on his jaw — when he walks into a room, everyone only sees the harsh glint of metal armor, the precise swagger in his gait, the loaded blaster at his belt. A Mandalorian: legend coming to life. And everyone quakes in their boots.
Everyone except you.
After he had left Gideon’s light cruiser, helmet replaced on his head — an imposter’s crown — he’d expected to say his goodbyes and carry on the way he always did before everything changed, before the kid. Alone.
He hadn’t known his next move. But picking up another stray? Not part of the non-existent plan.
Yet here he is, coasting in hyperspace aboard his cold, newly bargained light freighter, watching his crewmate modify the jammers.
“Hand me that driver, will you?” You huff, wiping sweat off your brow.
He had found you on Tatooine almost three months ago, fighting off some spice-high lowlife in a dark adobe alley. He remembers seeing you throw a heavy punch to the man’s jaw, extending your other trembling hand toward his throat before softly shutting your eyes, brows pinched in gentle focus.
Something about you had felt familiar, something he couldn’t shake. Your outstretched arm had sparked a memory of tiny green claws. And it had all happened so quickly. You had your eyes closed, the man had reached for his blaster, but Din had always been the faster shot.
Smoke had wafted from the man’s chest, your eyes had opened in shock, and Din had disappeared before you could thank him.
Instead, you had managed to stow away on his ship that same night and hire yourself as his new crewmate.
“I have nowhere to go. No home, no family,” you had explained, eyes glistening. When he’d scrutinized you, he only found a small bag slung over your shoulder and a short, chewed-on pencil tucked behind your ear. “I’m a good worker. I can cook and I’m a decent pilot, a better mechanic. And I’m… crafty?”
“I work alone.” He’d said it so surely, but a cloud of sadness had hovered over the words as he’d forced saliva down his dry throat.
“You don’t have to. I can be a valuable asset to you. Take some weight off your shoulders. Be someone to talk to.”
You had glanced at his stoic frame, his silence filling the room like a smoke grenade.
“Well, you don’t have to talk. But I can be helpful.”
There had been something in your eyes, or maybe even beyond them… something in you, something so achingly familiar. He’d felt it floating around the ship, radiating off your skin, seeping through his beskar armor. And he’d sighed because he couldn’t have stopped his next words from tumbling off his tongue if he wanted to.
“Just don’t touch anything.”
He remembers how you’d gasped, your arms wrapping tightly around his torso without a second thought. And he’d just stiffened like solid carbonite, not allowing himself to dwell on how warm and soft you felt, and he’d gently pushed you off, disappearing into the cockpit.
You’re still chatting away as you continue tinkering with the jammers. You’re definitely a talker. But to him, everyone seems that way when silence is his chosen weapon of survival.
Below that primary qualification of ‘someone to talk to,’ he’d realized almost right after you joined his crew of two that your resume checked out. You’d been invaluable on this new, unfamiliar ship — helping him modify it until it had some of the Razor Crest’s best qualities. Some.
When small memories like that start flooding in and try to take him under headfirst, he thinks it’s better to be alone. At least then, he can decide whether to sink or swim. So, he excuses himself to the cockpit and you hum in acknowledgment, continuing your chatter despite being your own audience.
He spends a lot of time here in solitary silence, staring at the stars as they reflect off the tiny metal ball that hangs from a string on an unused lever. It’s the only token he has from that life — the days of flying the Crest system to system with a giggling child in the backseat.
More often than not, you find him here exactly like this: helmet hung low, a silver sphere pinched between two gloved fingers, millions of confined thoughts racing through his mind faster than hyperspace and clawing at his skull.
When you find him like this, you try not to speak. Just sit in the co-pilot’s seat and watch the stars with him.
And as he studies the little gear knob from his past life, the one question that passes through his mind the most is:
What can you do when the reason you’re hurting is likely the only thing that can heal you?
ii.
After many months on the freighter, you’re sure of two things when it comes to your new crewmate:
First, the Mandalorian doesn’t talk much. Or ever, really.
But you quickly get used to your questions — and there are many — being answered with a curt “yes” or “no,” sometimes a grunt or sigh thrown in when the question is just right. You don’t mind too much, it’s enough to get you familiar with the way the ship works and you always know what to expect from him.
When he’s not outside hunting a quarry on some Maker-forsaken outer rim dustball, leaving you inside to tamper with the ship’s outdated systems, he’s usually on one side of the freighter and you’re on the other. If he seems busy, you leave his food outside his quarters, and later, you find his dish empty and washed in the storage cupboard. And when you’re fighting for sleep in your bed, you hear his footsteps echoing all night long. But there are times when you both find yourselves in the small, shared space of the cockpit, when your desire to see the corners of space beyond Tatooine becomes too great to stay away. In those moments under the domed viewport — faced with a myriad of vibrant hues and tremendous textures and infinite stars — he doesn’t speak and you can’t find the words, giving way to a tranquil, transfixing silence neither of you wants to escape.
The second thing you’re sure of is: the Mandalorian gets hurt, a lot.
You can’t count the number of times you’ve watched him drag himself and an unconscious body onto his ship or holed himself up in the fresher, hissing in pain as he tended to his own wounds.
But this time, he comes back and collapses outside of the ship, unable to even pull himself up the ramp, much less the dead weight of the quarry. There’s hardly a thought in your mind as your feet scurry to his side, sprawled across the ground beside his target. You don’t wait for permission before you’re reaching for the gloved hand pressed firmly to the side of his stomach.
“No,” he grits out between his teeth, groaning when the tiny word seems to tear him apart where he’s already been gashed. “The quarry.”
You frown, almost rolling your eyes at his stubbornness. Always the job first.
Still, no arguments pass your lips when you turn to pull the heavy, unconscious Trandoshan by his bound wrists. It takes all of your strength to drag him up the steep incline of the freighter’s ramp, through the main corridor, and into the supply closet, Mando’s makeshift prison. You’d asked him about it before, one of your many questions, wondering if he should consider more secure holding quarters. And he’d responded with a surprisingly long (for him) statement, “Not as good as a mobile carbonite freezing system, but it does the job.”
After chaining up the quarry’s hands and ankles and locking the closet, you nearly trip over yourself while sprinting back to the groaning Mandalorian. You kneel beside him, pulling the hand pressed against his stomach over your shoulder to lift him on his feet. A harsh, metallic scent suddenly fills your lungs, drawing your gaze to the blood-stained palm of his glove dangling over your shoulder. You do your best to ignore it, refocusing your energy on lugging him into the ship. As soon as you reach the top of the ramp, your strength gives out, sending both your bodies collapsing to the floor with a dull thud. It’s a challenge disentangling yourself from his heavy limbs but once you manage, you quickly turn to examine him before his hand stops you again.
“Gang on our tail,” he rasps, coughing then groaning in pain. “Get us out of here.”
Your lips press into a straight line, a war waging behind your furrowed brow as you decide whether or not it’s smart to leave him alone, bleeding on the floor of the main hold. But his hand shakes as he squeezes your wrist in what you think is meant to feel comforting. You release a deep sigh before getting up to close the ramp and set coordinates in the cockpit.
When you return minutes later with a medpac, you find him stretched out on his back, his neck arching with a groan, and his glove clutching his stomach once more. You kneel beside him to assess the damage, reaching your hand to his waist before he grabs you again.
“You don’t have to,” he grunts. “I can do it.”
“I know you can,” you say, gently removing the glove trapping your wrist. “But so can I. And I can actually move my limbs at a normal, painless speed, get the job done quicker. So, please, let me.”
He sighs, giving a quick nod of his helmet before allowing you to partially remove his armor.
You start with the breastplate, remove the thick padding over his stomach, then grab the ever-present pencil behind your ear and use the dull end to lift the edge of his brown undershirt, just enough to reveal the knife wound in his side.
“What happened?” You gasp, quickly gathering antiseptic, a laser cauterizer, and bacta patches from the medpac.
“Ambushed,” he grunts, wincing as you clean the cut, your breath sliding across his skin as you lean in close.
“I’ve sustained some pretty bad knicks myself. Nothing as bad as this,” you joke lightly, switching the antiseptic for the cauterizer. When the laser touches his skin, he gasps and curls in on himself as you burn the wound closed. Instinctively, you grab his hand, the one not stained with blood, and interlace your fingers with his on the ship’s floor, letting him squeeze your palm as a distraction. “Nothing I couldn’t fix up. When you’re surviving on your own, you have to learn how to take care of yourself.”
“I know,” he says quietly. I work alone, he’d said when you met.
Even through the shadowy visor of his helmet, you feel his eyes on yours and stare back openly. But as always, you only see your own warped reflection in the silver gleam of his beskar.
“It helps to have the proper supplies,” you chuckle, tearing your eyes away from his helmet to finish closing up his wound. “This bacta patch should fix you up real good.”
After smoothing the gel bandage against his skin, your fingertips linger only a second too long on the exposed warmth of his tanned stomach. You pull down the hem of his shirt, starting to reach for the pieces of iron covering his arm but feel him stop you by squeezing your joined hands.
“They only got one jab in,” he says, his voice sounding more relaxed, almost cocky. But when he sees the worry on your face, his thumb sweeps lightly across your hand and he squeezes once more. “I promise. I’m fine.”
“You’d better be,” you warn, shaking your joined hands in front of your face like a cranky geezer. “Because I’m not carrying two unconscious bodies off this ship when we land.”
He huffs out a short breath, only wincing slightly at the movement. Without another word, you pull his arm around your shoulder once more, limping him toward his sleeping quarters to rest. But you stop just outside the door, not wanting to encroach on his privacy.
“Thank you,” he whispers, leaning his hand against the doorway.
“Your gloves,” you say, his helmet tilting in confusion when you stare at his hand pointedly. “Let me clean them for you.”
He tries to argue but you won’t have any of it, simply extending your palm out toward him until he reluctantly pulls at the yellow leather tips on his fingers and hands them over.
“You can leave your shirt outside your quarters, too. I don’t want you stinking up the ship with your bloody clothes. Wash up. Get some rest. And be more careful next time,” you say, smiling and walking backward as you talk.
“I’ll do my best,” he says, and you swear you hear a ghost of a smile in his voice.
Before you can question him on it, he presses the button to his quarters and slips inside.
iii.
Time seems to pass quicker on the Mandalorian’s ship since the Trandoshan incident. And this man of few words quickly becomes a man of… just slightly more than a few words. Nevertheless, as his crewmate, you’ve learned quite a lot more about him.
One, he never stays in one place for long. He’s a bounty hunter, of course, and he takes multiple jobs at once. That means, together, you visit at least four different planets in the span of a few weeks, expertly flying around New Republic and Imperial scanners without a hitch. Two, he likes your cooking, a lot. You can tell because, by the end of the night, after a soft “thank you” buzzed from his helmet, his dish would always be licked clean — two dishes when you’d made his favorite. Sometimes, he’d even surprise you and try to recreate your recipes, generously leaving bowls of delicious food at your door. But he never eats where you can watch, enjoying the meals in secret and quietly washing up for you when you’re on the other side of the ship and can’t argue with him about it. Three, he doesn’t remove his helmet when you’re around, maybe even when he’s alone. “This is the way,” he’d mumble on occasion, a Creed that sounds like a foreign language even falling from his lips. Four, although he says he works alone, you see the way his helmet leans toward you when you speak and notice how his knees point in your direction when you sit side by side in the cockpit, gravitating toward you yet deeply cautious of drawing too close. And five, he’s lonely. You know because you’ve carried the same sadness in your chest almost all your life.
Several months on his ship have opened him up to giving more detailed answers to your numerous questions, and you take each opportunity where you can, desperate to unveil new pieces of his mind.
Tonight, Mando is particularly relaxed after capturing the last of four bounties, coordinates already set to turn them in. An empty bowl of bone broth sits beside his first helping. He leans back comfortably in his pilot seat as the stars shine off his chest plate and you ask about his past adventures.
“Has it always been just you?” Your voice comes out as a whisper, not wanting to disturb this content stillness, but thinking of all the times you’ve found him sitting alone in the cockpit clutching onto a silver ball.
He’s silent for a moment, thinking over his words. He doesn’t turn to face you when he answers, “No. There was... a child. Not long ago.”
You think back to when you had first met him, how he’d said, “I work alone,” how those words had seemed devastatingly true — in the way only a person who’s lost everything could say them so honestly.
“Yours?”
A beat. “Yeah,” he answers, a small crackling sound coming from his helmet. “Yes, a foundling. But he was as my own.”
“What happened?”
The cockpit stays silent save for the dull tones of the control board’s beeps and ticks. Mando reaches for that silver sphere, leans forward in his seat, and he holds it to the crown of his helmet.
“I... had to let him go.”
His voice breaks over the vowels, just slightly but you hear it: the familiar shattered sound of loss. It radiates off of him in waves, penetrating your skin and crawling through your bloodstream until your own heart aches for the ghost this child left behind.
“What was he like?”
He’s quiet again and you wonder if you’ve crossed a line. But suddenly, Mando swivels his chair to face you, the silver ball clutched tight against his chest, and he chuckles. It’s fleeting but it’s a sound you’ve never heard in all your months aboard his ship. A lovely sound you’ll never forget.
“This was his favorite toy,” the Mandalorian says, lifting the ball in the air for you to see. “He was a stubborn kid. Always getting into trouble.”
You smile, begging him to continue.
“He could do things I couldn’t even imagine. He saved me, in more ways than one. We were a clan of two.”
“A family,” you agree.
He stills for a moment, ponders your words, and hangs his head. “Yeah, a family.”
“What’s his name?”
“Grogu.” You can almost hear the smile in his voice. “His name is Grogu.”
“Grogu,” you whisper, testing the name on your tongue. “Can you describe him for me?”
You pull out a small, worn booklet of parchment from your pouch and the short pencil from behind your ear. His helmet tilts toward you curiously and you can almost imagine his eyes squinting behind the visor.
“Remember when I said I was crafty? Not a load of bantha crap,” you chuckle, waving the pencil at him. “I made a trade with some stingy Jawas to get these relics.”
He nods, quietly examining the antiquated drawing pad.
“Tell me,” you plead.
His helmet’s gaze drops back to the silver ball and he sighs a wistful sound.
“Grogu was — is special. A green, wrinkly, big-eared... very special little kid.”
“A green, wrinkly child?” You ask, looking up from the paper.
Mando laughs again and you can’t help but smile too. He describes Grogu like he’s a father mooning over his son’s first steps. You’ve never heard him talk so much, so joyfully yet sorrowfully all at once. There’s a wistfulness in his voice, a rasp that tells you he’s not used to putting it into words, at least not out loud, but he still wants to honor Grogu with every word he has. As he speaks, you can feel — almost see the image of Grogu in your mind. It’s crystal clear like your brain is reaching out and can somehow access every archive in Mando’s memories. It’s like a trance and you have to physically shake your head to release yourself.
“He means a lot to you,” you say, a matter of fact, tearing off the weathered page and giving him your quick sketch, your hand resting on one of his pauldrons. “I’m sure you mean a lot to him.”
Mando silently turns back to the controls, his fingers still clutching the little ball as he grips the page in the other hand.
He’s especially glad to have his helmet at this moment because he feels water pooling behind his eyelids as he stares at the uncanny drawing.
“That’s him,” he whispers, looking upon his boy. It’s almost an exact likeness, although in grayscale (he’ll have to find you other colors somehow). But it means everything to see Grogu again, even on a page, after months of only seeing him in fleeting dreams and distorted nightmares.
“Thank you,” he says, his hand with the drawing joining your hand on his pauldron.
You smile as he neatly, delicately folds the paper and tucks it into the small pouch on his shoulder harness, keeping the drawing close to his heart. You sit together in comfortable silence as the ship drops out of hyperspace.
“I guess you weren’t lying when we met,” he finally says.
“What do you mean?”
“You are… crafty,” he chuckles, his fingers tenderly stroking the leather pouch on his shoulder. “And you’re a good person to talk to.”
iv.
The Mandalorian doesn’t ask you to stay on the freighter while he works anymore.
He doesn’t want you with him while he hunts, can’t afford the distraction. But he doesn’t want you to feel trapped either. So, he tells you to explore villages and draw landscapes of forested planets with the set of pigmented chalks he’d sweetly gifted you after finishing a job one day. (“I saw them at some backwater trading post. Thought you might like them,” he’d shrugged.)
He doesn’t say it out loud but you know he trusts you even more now, trusts you won’t get into trouble, trusts you can take care of yourself if it finds you anyway. And he knows you appreciate it after being stranded on Tatooine your entire life. Each time he lands on a new planet, he sees entire galaxies reflected in your awestruck eyes and he gains a new page of artwork to add to his growing collection.
His latest quarry leads the pair of you to Felucia, on the hunt for some scum who — according to the Mandalorian — is probably hoping to harvest the planet’s Nysillin, a valuable healing herb, to trade for hefty credits.
Felucia is a beautiful world you could never have even conjured in your dreams. A dense jungle of flora extends toward the upper atmosphere, kissing the yellow-tinted clouds and glowing orange and teal when night falls. Vibrant purple fungi tower high above the ferns, providing shade that did little to combat the damp heat.
You felt a strange energy running through your veins the moment you stepped off the ship, blaming it on the humidity instantly sticking to your skin like honey, a welcome discomfort compared to the sands of Tatooine.
On Tat, the sand made a habit of blowing and whipping around your ankles, scraping slashes and slivers into your skin. You’d hardly ever felt it, soft skin having evolved into a numb armor over many years on the desolate planet. Even as crystal particles would fly into your eyes, fill your lungs, nestle into your hair — you’d hardly felt it.
Sand is nothing compared to the sinister shudder that would run down your spine as you’d make haste through dark alleyways. The hairs on the back of your neck would rise and stiffen. You’d feel it more than you’d see it: the mass of darkness constantly looming over your shoulder, disfigured shadows merging with yours on the sand. And a voice would ask you each time: are you willing to do what you must to survive?
You almost had that night you met the Mandalorian. You remember your attacker’s voice like you just woke up from a nightmare, coarse and rough, burying itself under your skin like the Tatooine sands. His hands had felt slimy and sticky like the Felucian air as he’d gripped your waist. That same question of will had rung in your ears and your soul had urged you with a whisper: “Survive.” Your hand had quaked as you’d lifted it and focused your thoughts on your attacker’s throat.
Then, before you could save yourself, you’d heard blaster fire and exhaled a staggered breath, gazing upon the Mandalorian as your hand had dropped limp at your side. You never turned back.
Now, you explore more systems than you knew existed, a Mandalorian warrior at your side, filling your weathered drawing pad with sketches of worlds beyond imagination.
Felucia would be a quick job, he’d assured you when he’d left. Easy and clean. Besides, no matter how beautiful the planet seemed — you couldn’t afford to stay longer than one rotation.
The Mandalorian had warned you of carnivorous plants and mysterious beasts. He hadn’t asked you to stay on the ship, but you knew he’d feel better if you kept close by. In the low shrubs and behind sky-scraping stalks, a deep grumble echoed through the jungle — something hungry and menacing. You stayed far from the sounds, choosing to explore the other colorful flowers that lived nearer to the ruddy soil, not straying too far into the mystifying wilds. You scribble away in your booklet, airways filled with a fresh petrichor that reminds you of a watery star system the Mandalorian brought you to a couple of months back. Your chalks fly across the tiny page as you capture this planet’s inimitable beauty as best you can.
Hardly four hours pass before you hear the Mandalorian’s heavy footsteps returning. Behind him trudges a stout man, wrists in binders behind him as he follows the bounty hunter in defeat.
“You’re getting slow, Mando,” you say, grinning when he comes to a stop in front of you, hands on his hips, a slight tilt to his helmet.
“What are you drawing?” He asks, ignoring your previous comment. He kneels beside you, silently studying the chalk-smudged red flower on the page as you stroke the final flourishes of your sketch. You hand him your booklet, noticing how the quarry leans over Mando’s shoulder to sneak a peek as well.
“Beautiful,” Mando says, tone even, as if speaking a fact instead of opinion.
“Well, it’s easy to see beauty when it’s all around,” you answer, cheeks heated as you gesture to the plant life surrounding you.
“It is,” he agrees, tenderness seeping into his modulated voice. When you look up at him, his visor is already trained on your face, unwavering as you crouch eye to eye with each other.
“Hate to break it to ya,” the quarry says, coughing dramatically behind you. “But all this ‘beauty’ wants to eat us alive, so I suggest we get off this hellhole before we all become dinner.”
The Mandalorian sighs, tearing his gaze to probably glare daggers at the quarry.
“Makes you wonder what you were doing on this ‘hellhole’ in the first place,” he says, sarcastic to a fault.
“It wasn’t my choice,” the quarry argues, lifting his hands in defense. “I’m here to do a job, just like y—”
A shrill, deafening screech cuts through the jungle like a blade and the group of you shrink at the violent sound.
“Let’s go,” Mando says immediately, helping you on your feet and pushing the quarry into the freighter.
You watch from the ground behind him as Mando runs in to lock the quarry inside the storage closet, turning only when the screeching sound suddenly stops. Your eyes squint as you try to find a sign of movement in the dense jungle.
“Watch out!”
Before you can register the anxiety in the Mandalorian’s voice, you’re knocked on your back into the red soil by a hulking creature.
It towers over you, casting you completely in its shadow as it slowly stalks forward. Your vision blurs as the horrifying monster draws closer — wrinkled white skin stretching the expanse of its belly and blue spine-covered leather painting its face and shell-armored back.
“I’m guessing this is the rancor you were telling me about?” You grit through your teeth, inching away like a pathetic crab along the shoreline. Drool leaks from the rancor’s jagged teeth in dangling strands as it reaches long, webbed claws toward you.
Before they can reach your body, you see the Mandalorian’s whipcord wrap around its arm. On the other end of the cord, Mando yanks the rancor away from you, rapid blaster fire whizzing through the air, hitting the beast with deadly precision. But the blasts bounce off its thick, impenetrable skin as it continues prowling toward you with renewed anger.
“Good guess,” Mando grunts, flying above the rancor with his jetpack, shooting at it in quick succession.
The rancor turns its attention away from you to the shiny flying pest blasting at its leathery skin. It’s at least six times the Mandalorian’s height but seems worlds larger from your view on the ground.
“Stars, I thought you said these things were peaceful!” You shout.
“The Felucians don’t mind them. You must have scared it with your aggressive craftiness,” he quips, and you imagine what his smirk might look like under his helmet, even as the rancor approaches closer.
Mando launches miniature whistling explosives at the beast, but they do little to deter it. He throws grenades but the rancor swats them away like insects. It stomps toward the Mandalorian, its maw gaping wide as it releases a petrifying roar.
“Mando!” You scream when the rancor’s claws grab him by his jetpack, plowing his body into the ground with brute force.
The Mandalorian groans as he tries to stand back up, falling on his back when his bones prove too weary to support his weight.
“Get to the ship,” he rasps, voice crackling through the helmet with static. He raises his arm, flamethrower igniting at the rancor’s face, making it fumble backward with another roar. Only seconds later, the fire sputters and dies out. “Dank farrik!” He curses, reaching for his hopeless blaster once more before the monster’s claws slap it from his hand. “Get to the ship!” He yells.
Rooted to the ground like the surrounding plants, you’re helpless bantha fodder as you watch the rancor slowly creep forward, stretching to its full height above the Mandalorian. It feels like you’re sinking in quicksand — your feet and your mind hopelessly going under.
Then, you hear a soft voice ask a familiar yet distorted question:
Are you willing to do what you must so he survives?
You don’t hesitate. Anything, your soul resolves.
Steadily braced on two feet, you throw out your hand like a whip, focusing all your energy and emotions toward the blue beast. It sends the rancor flying backward like a ragdoll, wailing as it crashes through the thick jungle, loud cracks echoing from the mist as its body breaks every plant in its path. It lands far away with a heavy thud, but you feel it in your veins when it immediately gets on its feet, vengefully sprinting back toward you.
“Can’t say it isn’t persistent,” you mutter.
“How? You—” Mando grunts, a thousand questions on his tongue that will have to wait.
“I’ll explain later,” you huff, yanking his arm over your shoulder and pulling him to the ship. “We need to get out of here.”
“What’s happening?” The quarry yells from inside the locked compartment when he hears footsteps boarding the ship. You drop the Mandalorian onto the floor of the main hold rather unceremoniously, a metallic clanging sound ringing through the freighter. You punch in his code to retract the ship’s ramp before running to the cockpit. Outside the freighter, the rancor’s screeching grows louder and your fingers flit across the control panel to get the ship in the air. The engines whir to life and you swear it’s the second most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.
With one final glance at the glowing jungle outside the viewport, thunderous roars softening into a low rumble, the ship finally launches out of Felucia’s atmosphere. Sinking back in the pilot’s seat, you let out a breath you’ve been holding for what feels like years. A labored dragging sound echoes behind you and you snap your head back, instinctively on defense.
But your shoulders relax when you see the Mandalorian gripping the walls of the ship as he attempts to limp closer. You run to his side, carrying his weight as you lead him to sit in the co-pilot’s chair.
“You need to rest,” you whisper, standing in front of him to quickly scan his body for signs of a major injury. “Looks like you got away with just a few shallow cuts and bruises. Nothing a bit of bacta can’t soothe.”
Your words come out like the rapid firing of his blaster before a gloved hand on your wrist stops you from speeding off.
“What happened back there? How did you...” He asks, his visor lifted at an uncomfortable angle to meet your eyes.
Your lips press into a straight line, brows pinched in worry as you turn away from him to rummage through the medpac.
“I don’t...” you start, letting out a long exhale as you gather your words. “I don’t know. Since I was a kid, I’ve been able to do things I can’t explain — move things without touching them.”
You turn back to him, bacta in hand as you study expressionless beskar.
“Sometimes, it frightens me. I have no idea where it comes from or why it happens or how to control it. I never do it around other people. I didn’t want them to know,” you admit quietly, dropping your gaze to his vambrace, wordlessly asking if he still trusts you to remove it. He nods, visor watching you with masked curiosity as you roll back his sleeves and expose bruised, tan skin. “I’m afraid of what could happen if people knew.”
You don’t tell him how you don’t sleep well most nights, your thoughts eating away at your mind as you wonder if your abilities are the reason why you’ve always been alone… if they drove your family away before you could understand and just explain.
It stays silent while you tend to his wounds, applying bacta wherever your hands coax sharp hissing sounds from his helmet. His armor lies on the floor of the cockpit, sleeves pulled up to his elbows and the hem of his shirt lifted just enough to reveal a shallow cut and smattering of bruises on his abdomen. It’s not the worst you’ve seen and the bacta seems to already be easing most of the discomfort, allowing him to sit up straighter.
You leave him for a moment to allow him to tend to the bruises on his legs himself, walking to the supply closet to make sure the quarry is secure in his makeshift prison. When you return, you sit in the pilot’s seat, facing the zooming stars as if they hold the answers to every terrifying question you’ve held inside for so long.
You almost don’t hear the soft way the Mandalorian calls your name. It takes all your strength to pivot your seat in his direction.
“Do you remember when I told you about the mudhorn?” He asks.
You nod. The story of the mudhorn, of course you remember. After he’d first told you about his child, he seemed eager to tell you even more tales of their adventures across the galaxy. The mudhorn felt like their origin story, the birthplace of his connection to Grogu.
“I didn’t tell you the whole story,” he says quietly, piquing your attention. “Grogu saved me. Not the other way around.”
You stare at him dumbfounded. “But how? He’s just a baby.”
Mando stands from the co-pilot’s seat, testing his leg’s stability before walking to the control board, leaning back on it, his knees brushing against yours.
“Grogu had powers too. He could heal people. And he could move things without touching them,” he mirrors your words, making your jaw drop as you take them in. “Just like you. I was quested to bring him to others of his kind.”
“You mean?” you ask, and he doesn’t miss the flash of hope in your eyes.
“Yes. There are others like him — like you.”
You listen with rapt attention as he unravels the legend of the Jedi — a fierce warrior he’d met named Ahsoka Tano and the hooded figure who had single-handedly defeated a platoon of Dark Troopers and became Grogu’s new mentor. He tells you the few fragments of what he knows about laser swords — lightsabers — the bright colors he’s seen them radiate. But he leaves out the heavy weight of the darksaber locked away in his weapons cabinet. Besides that, he tells you everything he knows, which he regrets isn’t much.
“The Force?” You ask in confusion.
“The Force is what gives you your powers,” he says, reciting the words like folklore passed down through generations. “It is an energy field created by all living things. To wield it takes a great deal of training and discipline.”
Ahsoka’s words have been imprinted on his brain since she first spoke them.
“I can take you to a place where you can communicate with them,” he whispers. Truly, he doesn’t want to do as he says, doesn’t want to repeat the heartache he’s still not fully recovered from. He wishes he could snatch the righteous words out of the air before you hear them. But he knows what it would mean to you to find others, a family when you’ve had none your whole life. “The… Jedi, I mean. On a planet called Tython. If you want to be trained.”
He imagines a familiar hooded figure leading you by your hand, leaving him behind.
“I… I’d like to hear what they have to say. Get some answers,” you say. “If you’ll take me.”
“Of course.”
You stand up, allowing him to take his place in the pilot’s chair.
“After we drop off the quarry, I’ll bring you to Tython.”
His breath stops when he sees your hand reach out to cradle the side of his helmet. His eyes screw shut, imagining the plush warmth of your palm caressing the skin on his cheek instead.
“Thank you, Mando,” you say, a gentle smile on your lips.
“Din,” he offers, grinning beneath his helmet when your chin tilts in silent questioning. “My name is Din Djarin,” he clarifies. “But you can still call me Mando if you want.”
You smile, so wide and so bright it could blind him.
“Thank you, Din,” you say, unexplored galaxies sparkling in your irises. For the first time, he lets himself daydream what it’d be like to discover each one of them with you, for as many years as you’ll give him. Even as he fears his time with you is ending. “Thank you for doing this for me.”
As you walk to your sleeping quarters, the soft sound of controls beeping and ticking in the ship, you don’t hear when he whispers:
“Anything.”