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Chapter Text

Everything hurt. That was the only thought that crossed Din’s mind as he laid there in the darkness. It was the only thought his battered, exhausted brain could conjure. Everything fucking hurt .

His eyes wouldn’t open. They felt glued shut. Was he in danger? He felt like he was in danger, like he needed to get up and run. An explosion. Had there been an explosion? Had his ship crashed? He didn’t know. 

“Ni kar'tayl gai sa'ad.”

“ What does that mean? ” 

“It means I am now your buir, your father.”

“My father is dead.”

“I know, ad’ika . I know.

“How can I have two fathers?”

“Perhaps you will find out, in time.”

“I don’t want to forget him.”

“You won’t, child. Aliit cuyir ratiin . Family is forever. Remember this.”

There was something squirming in his arms. Something small. He tried to open his eyes again. They opened for a moment, at least he thought they did. He caught a brief glimpse of fallen rocks and dancing flames before they fell shut again. Everything felt odd and distant. Was he dreaming? Was this a nightmare?

He woke with a scream, terror coursing through his veins as he cried and cried and cried. Someone was with him, kneeling beside him, asking what was wrong. They didn’t have a face. If they didn’t have a face, how did he know they were real, living and breathing, not a faceless droid that was programmed to kill, destroy, murder-

“Shhh, ad’ika ,” the voice murmured. “You’re safe.”

But how could Din ever be safe again?

The height of the pain was in his shoulder. It burned like fire, and a small groan squeezed its way from his chest despite himself. His mouth was so dry it stung. His tongue felt too big, his jaw pounding. The ground spun beneath him. Why was the world moving? Why wouldn’t it be still?

He groaned again, and the bundle in his arms made itself known once more. It pressed against his chest plate and jostled his shoulder.

“Stop,” he tried to say, but his mouth wouldn’t even open. The bundle continued to shuffle.

Din stared into the visor of the face he would carry for the rest of his life. It was emotionless, cold, but he knew the Mandalorians stood for everything but that. The Mandalorians revolved around family, around foundlings, around taking others in and adopting them into their beautiful way of life. Din had lived with the tribe long enough to know how beautiful Mandalorians could be, the way they moved with their weapons as one, the way they survived as both individuals and a family, the way they protected and nourished the foundlings. The way they protected and nourished Din . 

He glanced around at the warriors surrounding him, and was sure of his choice. 

He put on the helmet.

Din forced his eyes open again. 

Grogu .

The kid.

He had to get to the kid.

Was he okay?

Din tried to pull back to look for him, but the slightest shift sent knives through his shoulder, whiting out his vision. He laid still until it was bearable again. He couldn’t get up. He couldn’t move. But he couldn’t leave the kid, not after he’d come all this way. 

He couldn’t leave him.

He’d promised to see him again.

He felt something warm and wet against his cheek inside the helmet, slipping down his cheek. Was he crying? Or bleeding out? 

He could only see out of the corner of his visor. Something was blocking his view. His helmet had shifted on his head, and he couldn’t fix it. 

He couldn’t move . 

Cara. 

Where was Cara? She’d probably be upset with him, he thought absently. 

He hoped she was okay. 

Where was he?

What happened?

The fire around him blurred in and out of focus. It spun around him, around and around and around. Din felt sick. He couldn’t throw up in his helmet. He tried to move again.

Nope. No moving. 

But he had to get up. He couldn’t give up now. His kid needed him.

“ Buir , listen to me, you need to get up. Please.”

“Go on… without me. I won’t make it.”

“No, no, you can make it, we can get help-”

“ Ad’ika . Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid, you’re just being dramatic , you’re fine! ”

“Din. It’s time to let me go.”

“I can’t, I can’t do this again, please, please , buir , please!”

The large hand clasped his own in a weak grip. The first time Din had held this hand it had been strong, stable, the sturdiest thing he had in his life, hauling him up from the cellar he’d thought to be his grave. Now, his grip was no more than the wisp of a feather against his glove.

“Please,” he whispered. 

“Be strong,” his buir said. “ Verd ori'shya beskar'gam. Remember that. Remember your aliit .”

“I will, buir, ” Din sobbed, tears streaming down his cheeks until his buir’s helmet became a blurry mess in front of him. “I will.”

The hand went limp in his own, and Din felt as alone as he had in that cellar all those years ago.

Chapter Text

Din pocketed the tracking fob and rose from his seat in the crowded cantina, handing a credit to the Trandoshan. He was close. Zorgal had been spotted on the outskirts of the town hours ago, presumably on a supply run. He shouldn’t be too difficult to track down.

Din made his way to the exit as subtly as he could, which was a challenge given the fact he was clad head to toe in shiny beskar. The room was packed with a variety of species despite the early hour of the day, and smoke curled between tables, obscuring his vision. Twangs of strings floated above the chaos as a band warmed up in the corner and a fight had broken out over a bet not long ago. The shouting had been enough to keep him on edge, but thankfully the whole thing had blown over relatively quickly. Some would call Din paranoid, but he’d been caught with his guard down enough times to know that nothing was ever a simple bar fight. 

He kept his vision set on the doorway despite the eyes burning into his back. He couldn’t afford to draw attention to himself, not now that he had a trio of Mandalorians on his ass for what was arguably the most powerful and influential weapon in the universe. It was in and out, a simple bounty, not flashy at all. A Morseerian tax evader hiding on Gamorr, of all things. The reward wasn’t much, but it would be enough to fuel and feed him for the next couple of days. It would be enough to keep him going, to keep him from slowing down and thinking about everything.

He couldn’t afford to slow down. 

He stepped out from the musty cantina air and into the street of the town. It was a nice day and Gamorr was a nice planet, with sprawling fields of lush farmland and thick forests. It sat just outside of Hutt Space and had never been truly civilized by the Empire due to the aggressive nature of Gamorreans, but it was still dotted with pleasant villages here and there. Well, pleasant if he ignored the seedy cantina that probably harbored more criminals than he could count on both hands. 

He followed the street to the edge of the town, ignoring the families he passed and the laughs of children that seemed to dance around him, taunting him, piercing right through his beskar and directly into his chest.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t doing such a great job ignoring it. 

The buildings of the town tapered off into apartments, and then shacks, and then Din was standing amongst miles of farmland. He flicked on the thermal sensor in his helmet and scanned the footprints littering the ground. Most probably belonged to farmers, but as he kept walking the cluttered prints thinned out until one pair was left, heading straight into the forest. 

Zorgal.

Din didn’t know why exactly a tax evader was hiding in the forests of Gamorr. It seemed silly, below his paygrade, but it was all Nix had to offer and he needed the credits. The trees were impossibly tall and thick, creating a canopy of leaves overhead that blocked out the sun and cast a cool shadow of the forest floor. The light was dim and the underbrush was substantial. Din had to admit, it was a decent hiding place. The prints wound their way through the forest, sometimes lost amongst bushes or sticks, but they always popped up again. He hiked his way through the woods for what felt like ages, swatting bugs away from his visor and untangling his cape from ragged branches. The year or so of prison for tax evasion didn’t seem worth the effort to hide so thoroughly. 

The convoluted trail went on for about four miles, at times going in circles or backtracking. No one had taught this guy how to hide his tracks. All he succeeded in was making Din look like an idiot, wandering in circles in the middle of the woods. 

Just when he was seriously considering giving up the bounty and heading back to his ship, he spotted the cave where the footprints finally, finally ended. He approached the mouth, flicking on his headlamp and was met with a deep tunnel. 

Spelunking it was, then. 

He had to bend over slightly to fit, which wasn’t ideal. If this came to a physical fight, his height would put him at a disadvantage compared to the shorter Morseerian. He made his way deep into the cave, periodically bumping his jetpack or the back of his helmet against the ceiling. This could’ve gone better.

A bang echoed through the cave and something bright slammed into Din’s chest plate, hard . The telltale smoke of a blaster hung in the air. With reflexes honed from years of training, he whipped out his own blaster and fired a warning shot. Zorgal was wanted alive. Another shot glanced off Din’s helmet. He reached out his arm and ignited his flamethrower. Orange light flooded the cave with a roar to reveal the Morseerian huddled in the corner, clutching a sack to his chest and madly waving around the blaster with the other. 

“Put the blaster down,” Din said. A shot hit him in the pauldron in retaliation. He lowered his blaster by a few degrees and pulled the trigger. Zorgal’s howl of agony drowned out the roar of the flamethrower. Din’s shot had found his thigh. The blaster clattered to the floor of the cave. 

“Please,” Zorgal whimpered. “Please, I swear I can pay it. I just need some time. A month standard, I’ll get the money, I’ll pay him back, please !” The begging cut off into a whine of pain as Din secured the handcuffs and hauled him to his feet. They moved slowly, with Zorgal limping as heavily as he was, and Din rolled his eyes. Getting back to the ship was going to be a bitch. Exiting the cave and being able to straighten up helped, but he was not looking forward to the four mile trek back to town. Why did the stupid Morseerian have to hide all the way out here?

“I know people. What are they paying for me? My guys can do double, I swear. I’ll even forget about you shooting me, okay? Deal? What do you say, Mando? Shake on it?” Din shoved him into a faster pace and he stumbled with a yelp. This couldn’t be over soon enough. Thankfully, he shut up. Never mind you didn’t even pay your taxes , Din thought. Some people . 

Zorgal was silent the rest of the way, seemingly having come to terms with his fate. By the time they left the woods and made it to the ship, the sun was setting. The fiery light shined brightly on the village, highlighting metal roofs and casting a warm glow on the fields. Vibrant shades of pink and orange streaked overhead, and a sense of inexplicable longing throbbed in Din’s chest as he looked up at the first stars dappling the sky. 

He was safe, he assured himself. He was out there, safe, doing what he was born to do. What he was always meant to do, long before Din came stumbling into his life. 

He realized he’d spent a moment too long staring up at the sky when he met Zorgal’s eyes. The mask and goggles obscured his features, but Din could sense an ounce of judgement there. He shoved him forward onto the ramp of the ship. He didn’t need the judgement of a sniveling tax evader that hid out in caves four miles into the woods. What a pain in the ass. 

He led Zorgal deeper into the ship and pressed him into the carbon freezing frame. 

“What’s this? Look, you can just chain me up, I swear I won’t try anything, really, I’ll just sit there. I mean I’m already handcuffed, what am I gonna do? Come on, Mando, I-” Zorgal was cut off with a satisfying hiss as his features turned to frozen carbonite. Finally, some quiet. 

Din climbed up the ladder to the cockpit. Maker, did he miss the Razor Crest. The Insurgent was a similar build, an SS-54 assault ship, but it wasn’t the same. The canons were the wrong pitch, the transition to hyper space was bumpy at best, and his sleeping chamber was missing a certain tiny hammock. Well, maybe that last part wasn’t the ship’s fault. 

The engines roared to life and he lifted her off the ground. The village grew smaller and smaller until it was a speck among a sea of green. The Insurgent passed through the atmosphere, shaking and groaning, but made it through all the same. Din punched in the coordinates for Carajam and turned away from the control panel. 

He slipped off the helmet with a hiss and let his eyes shut briefly. It had been a long six months. He felt like he’d doubled his age over the past half year, always exhausted and fending off migraines, just trying to make it through the next job, the next day. 

He was lonely.

He shouldn't be. Even as a foundling, he’d spent much of his time alone, trained to be independent since he was eight years old. He was used to traveling through the emptiest crevices of space, parsecs away from any other life form, yet he’d never felt as alone as he did now. 

He stood stiffly and headed to the small pantry. He’d only have a few sips, he told himself as he slipped a jar of tsiraki off the shelf. Just to help him sleep. 

The first sip burned his mouth and throat and warmed his chest as it went down. 

He couldn’t even taste the twentieth sip. 

He leaned his head back against the wall, wondering how he even got on the floor in the first place. The bright flashes of hyperspace lit up the cockpit and set off small sparks of pain behind his eyes. 

Din sighed, raising the drink to his lips only to be met with an empty bottle. 

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. So much for only a few sips. He lowered his hand, meaning to set the bottle carefully on the floor but it clattered out of his grip with a sharp thud and rolled across the cockpit. He’d get up in a second, after the world came into sharper focus and the floor stopped tilting beneath him. He’d get up. 

In a moment.

His eyes were shut now, and he could almost feel the phantom weight in the crook of his arm, could almost hear the soft breaths of a life form other than himself. 

“No,” he said. “Stop.” His brain did not stop. Instead, it drew his attention to the sphere in his pocket which was currently cutting into his thigh. He pulled it out without opening his eyes, rolling it around in his gloved hand. He felt something warm and wet on his cheeks, and as if this realization triggered something deep inside him, a sob tore its way from his chest. 

The ball clattered out of his drunken fingers and onto the floor. He heard it roll around, bump into something, roll some more. He should get it. He didn’t want to lose it. He couldn’t lose it, not after he promised. What did he promise? He’d promised something. It was important. And it had to do with the metal ball that he could no longer hear rolling around the cockpit. 

Din opened his eyes, his surroundings blurry, not just from his intoxicated brain. 

The ball was gone.

The elevator doors slid shut and just like that, Din’s world crumbled around him. 

Months of traveling, of hiding, of running, of fighting, and now it was done. 

Grogu was gone.

Din’s head throbbed from his encounter with the Dark Troopers and he blinked, willing the unshed tears to disappear. This was the plan all along. It was stupid that he felt this way. It was stupid that the little green kid with his big brown eyes had forced his way under Din’s armor and right into his heart. Grogu hadn’t cared that Din’s heart wasn’t big enough for two, he hadn’t cared that Din was cold and hostile and dangerous and nothing a father should be. He hadn’t cared that they lived in a dump truck of a ship, that they spent every day on the run, that any moment could be their last.

He was the first thing to love Din so fiercely, so unconditionally, and he was the first thing Din had loved so fiercely and so unconditionally right back.

And now he was gone. 

“Mando?” Someone asked from behind him. Cara. “Are you putting the helmet back on?” Her voice was soft, cautious, as if it could break him. He despised it. 

He looked down at his helmet. The emotionless T-visor stared up at him. Seeing it like this was off putting. It was wrong, it went against his entire purpose, but there it was. He bent and picked it up, staring into the visor for a moment before slipping it back on his aching head. It felt too tight, pressing on his cheeks and surrounding him on all sides. His breath hitched in his chest. He felt like he was suffocating, drowning.

  Maybe that wasn’t just the helmet. 

A warm hand placed itself on his left pauldron. “Hey,” Cara said. “Let’s get out of here, okay?”

“No,” Bo-Katan said. “I can’t let you do that.” 

Cara turned but Din kept his gaze fixed on the elevator door, as if any moment it would open and his little green kid would be standing there with his arms up, asking for Din to scoop him up and never let him go again.

  Why had Din let him go? On Nevarro, to the Imp? On Morak? On this ship?

Why was he always letting him go?

“What the hell do you mean by that?” Cara asked. 

“He has the Darksaber. I can’t just let him walk away.”

“You’re not really going to fight him now, are you?”

“I can’t afford to lose this weapon again.”

Cara crossed her arms. “You can’t even give it a week? He just lost his kid.” 

Din heard the distinct sound of a blaster slipping out of its holster. 

“I hope you understand someday, shock trooper, but this is bigger than all of us. I’ve been fighting far too long to reclaim my planet. It needs to happen. Now.”

Din knew he was in no shape to fight. He was almost certain he had a concussion with the way his head pounded and his stomach lurched, and there was no way he could focus enough to string together even a couple of punches. He was crying, for fuck’s sake. 

“Step aside. Or I’ll shoot you down too.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Din caught movement on the security cam. The Slave I had just dropped out of hyperspace.

“Cara,” Din whispered low enough that only she could pick it up. “Fett’s back. On my signal, start blasting and we run.”

Cara dipped her head slightly. Din could only hope that Fennec picked up on the situation. 

“Look,” Cara said, attention directed back at Bo-Katan. “We’ll come back. You two can duel it out then, but give him time. I thought you Mandalorians had a code of honor?”

The Slave I inched closer, closer, until it popped up on the docking bay security cameras.

Fett landed the ship. 

“Now!” Din yelled as he whirled around and fired two quick shots at Bo-Katan, hopefully enough to stun her and Reeves. He took off running to the elevator, Cara and Fennec on his heels. Blasts ricocheted off his armor, throwing him off balance and nearly sending him to the floor. The elevator doors slid shut behind him and the blasting cut off. His breaths came in sharp pants and his headache was quickly bordering migraine territory. 

“You okay?” Cara asked him, her voice low as if Fennec wouldn’t be able to hear it. She turned her head in an attempt to give them some privacy. 

Din jerked his head sharply to the right in an indication that no, he was not alright, not at all. 

“It’ll be fine,” he said. 

The doors opened, leaving no time for more discussion. They headed down the corridor at a brisk jog, Din’s head pounding in sync with each step. They passed heaps of imperial officers sprawled across the floor with still sizzling holes in their uniforms. The rescue mission felt like eons ago, when in reality it had only been a matter of minutes. So much had happened since Din stepped off that ship. 

They turned the final corner to the docking bay where Fett was already waiting with the ramp down. “Where are the Mandos?” 

“Leave them,” Fennec called out. Fett nodded and disappeared back into the cockpit as they scrambled into the ship. The rotating of the exterior of the ship did nothing for Din’s stomach as they left the imperial light cruiser and shot into hyperspace. He shut his eyes and leaned his helmet back against the headrest, heart pounding, trying not to think about how in a few short days he’d lost everything. His ship and all it contained, his kid, and even his creed, which he had sworn to uphold for the rest of his life. It was all gone.

He had nothing. 

Even now, wearing the armor made him sick to his stomach. Traitor , his conscience whispered. No matter how much he tried to justify it, that it was for Grogu, that other Mandalorians took off their helmets as they pleased, the guilt ate away at him. He had no more claim to this armor than Cobb Vanth back on Tatooine did. 

There was a hand on his knee. “Din,” Cara said. Din opened his eyes in surprise. She never used his name. Glancing around, he realized that Fennec had left. They were alone.

“What?” 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Din swallowed. “About what?”

“Any of it.” 

He didn’t know how to talk about feelings, and he knew Cara didn’t either. She probably hated this as much as he did, but he appreciated the effort. He didn’t respond right away, choosing his next words carefully. He knew he didn’t have to respond at all. Cara wouldn’t mind, but she deserved to know. 

“That wasn’t the first time,” he finally said.

“The first time for what?”

“The first time I took off my helmet. I had to back on Morak, to get the coordinates. It required a face scan. I took my helmet off in a room full of Imps. And Mayfeld.”

He could see the poorly masked shock in Cara’s eyes, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d been just as shocked himself. After all, only months prior he had nearly died because of his dedication to his creed. 

“You did it for the kid,” she said after a moment of consideration, and she sounded very certain with her words. Din wished he could be that certain. “The Armorer gave you that task. It was for the kid.”

He nodded, his throat too tight to say anything. And now the kid is gone , he wanted to scream. Now I have nothing . 

Her hand gave his knee a squeeze. “You did what you had to.”

“I know.” His voice trembled and his cheeks heated up with shame. She had never seen him like this, not even on the brink of his own death. No one had. 

“It’s okay to be upset, Din. You’ve just lost something incredibly special. Some one incredibly special.”

Din simply nodded once more, afraid he’d start balling like a baby if he opened his mouth again. Or throw up. Neither would be good. 

“Physically, are you okay? Gideon said you took on a Dark Trooper.”

He tapped his helmet, thankful for the change in subject. “Concussion, I think, but not too bad. It’s fine.”

Cara raised an eyebrow. “Sure, tough guy. I can’t see your eyes in there, but can you follow my finger?” She began to trace a path through the air with her index finger, zigzagging back and forth. Din tried to follow, but his eyes burned and his head pounded and suddenly there were four fingers zigzagging, and then eight, and then…

He shook his head. 

“Okay. Try not to sleep for a few hours and we’ll try again later.” 

“Okay.”

She gave his knee another squeeze. “Hang in there, okay? You’ve always got me. Everything will be okay.”

Din nodded, not wanting to tell her just how not okay he was, how he couldn’t be okay again, not with the gaping, Grogu shaped hole in his chest, tearing him apart from the inside out. 

Nothing could ever be okay again.

Chapter Text

Where was he? 

Where was he? 

The twinge of fear in Din’s stomach had quickly morphed into a deep, animalistic horror tearing through his gut as he flung open drawers packed with soft tan tunics, and overturned every table in the small hut.

Where was he?

Sweat trailed down his temples, and he could feel the uncomfortable itch of soaked hair pressed down by his helmet despite the crisp night air.

“Please. Please, ” he moaned, desperate for a sign, for anything . His heart thudded painfully in his chest until he was sure his ribs would crack. His throat was constricting bit by bit, as if some cruel enemy was reaching out and clamping its fierce hands around his neck. But this enemy was not one that could be fought. This wasn’t some game he could win. He could look, and look, and look. He could travel to the end of the galaxy and back, search every crevice, every nook, every hammock hung haphazardly above a cramped cot that was now a pile of ash on Tython.

He would never find him.

Din slumped to the ground in a heap, every inch of his body shaking from adrenaline or grief or exhaustion, or who knows what. It was useless. 

“He made his decision,” a voice said off to his right. The voice was level and quiet, a stark contrast from Din’s racing, deafening thoughts, a voice he both loved and loathed. The Jedi would keep his kid safe, though he was the very thing to take him in the first place. “He wasn’t taken from you. He’s not yours to recover. He left you.”

Din buried his hands in his damp hair.

Wait. His hair? Where had his helmet gone?

“You took it off, remember? You broke your creed. Twice. I’ve seen your face.”

Din recognized this voice as well, one of only three life forms to gaze upon his face, naked, unprotected. A man of many inconsistencies and hypocrisies, hardened by war yet soft where it counted. Not unlike Din, although he’d never voice the thought out loud.  

“Was it worth it, Djarin?” This third voice was deep yet feminine, masked by the mechanic filter of her helmet. Din knew that voice, had known it since he was a foundling. It was a voice accompanied by warmth and viscous fire, by immense strength and violent power, the clanging of a hammer on molten beskar. 

His armor turned to dead weight. He was trapped here, on the floor of this shack where his kid wasn’t, despite the overwhelming sense that he should be here, that something was wrong .

“Where is he,” he choked out. “I need him.”

The heat of fire brushed against his painfully bare cheeks. The shack disappeared and he found himself surrounded by stone walls, shadows dancing in the warm glow of the forge. A heap of empty helmets stared back at him, ghosts of the tribe he’d once considered family, all sacrificing their lives for a little green alien with big eyes and floppy ears. 

Who wasn’t even here anymore.

His fault.

“A Mandalorian needs no one but himself and his pride,” the Armorer said. “But then again, you have lost your pride. And you are no longer a Mandalorian.”

Din awoke with a start, sitting up much too fast and nearly puking up his impromptu drink fest from the previous night. He was rewarded for his return to consciousness with an ear splitting headache and a mouth dryer than the deserts of Tatooine. The Insurgent had dropped out of hyper-space, which he assumed had woken him up. He let his eyes slip shut for a few moments longer, hoping the headache would fade.

It didn’t.

He stood stiffly, hands against the wall and tried to shove the disturbing dream into a drawer in the back of his mind. It wasn’t his first nightmare about losing Grogu, but it was the first that had such a strong undercurrent of something being so wrong. 

But it didn’t matter. Grogu was safe with the Jedi learning magic tricks, and besides, it was just a stupid dream. He stretched, popping his back, (sleeping sat against the wall on the floor of his cockpit wasn’t the best decision he’d made) and slipped his helmet back over his head. He was still a Mandalorian, at least he thought so. Bo-Katan and the others removed their helmets, and besides, he currently was the wielder of the Darksaber. That had to count for something.

Then why do you still cover your face? a nagging voice taunted in the back of his mind. He shoved it in the deep drawer with the stupid dream. He didn’t need distractions right now. 

He sat down at the controls and began the descent to Carajam, a desert planet with a center the guild operated through. He preferred Nevarro, with its craggy rocks and lava filled craters that he called a quasi-home, but he couldn’t go back there. Seeing Cara and Greef reminded him too much of...everything. He didn’t want to think about that. He couldn’t handle their pitiful glances in his direction when they thought he wouldn’t notice. 

The Insurgent shuddered into the atmosphere and settled softly in the docking bay as orange dust billowed up around the windows. He lowered the ramp and was leaving the cockpit when a hazy memory tugged at the back of his mind: the sound of a metal ball rolling around the floor. He felt his pocket.

It was empty.

A ridiculous panic swept over him and he dropped to his knees, searching for the ball. It was stupid to get this upset over something that could be easily replaced, at least physically, but Din could just about cry. His viscous hangover and panic had quickly overcome any rational thought he could possibly conjure. The ball was all he had left of Grogu and if he couldn’t find it, he didn’t know what he would do. He’d promised to see the kid again.

He wondered what the Armorer would think of him now, crawling around on his hands and knees for a child’s toy. He told himself it didn’t matter what she thought, he’d abandoned that tribe the moment he slipped that storm trooper’s helmet from his head on Morak, but he couldn’t help but feel shame. He certainly didn’t feel like a Mandalorian. 

After searching for a solid twenty minutes he gave it up as a lost cause. Maybe a sharp turn would knock it loose, but for now it was gone. He trudged down the ramp with a pathetic ache in his chest and a weight on his shoulders. 

Danan Karr was a collection of haphazard apartments, restaurants, and a space sport cobbled together by the fiery red rocks of Carajam and the sheer stubbornness of those who lived there. The ports were almost always empty, with the exception of a fossil of a ship that hadn’t moved in months, the odd transport ship bearing passengers just passing through, and the Insurgent. The apartments were relatively lacking in inhabitants, and the restaurants and bars were poorly lit and looked after. It wasn’t a surprise the ports were always empty. 

As miserable as the small town was, it was Din’s home base. Well, as close a planet could be to his home base. Nix was undoubtedly sitting at the booth in the corner of the bar, pockets full of Din’s next payment for the retrieval of the Morseerian.

Din crossed the threshold into the dark building. He scanned the room briefly before his eyes fell on the figure in the corner, as predicted. Nix glanced up as he sat down across the table.

“I expect you captured the target alive?”

Din nodded and gathered the small pile of credits Nix placed on the table. It wouldn’t last long. Out of the corner of his visor he spotted Nix’s two guards rise and leave the bar, presumably to empty the bounties from his ship. The Insurgent wasn’t as big as the Razor Crest, but could still carry a decent amount of targets.

“What have you got for me?” He asked.

Nix placed two tracking fobs on the table. “Bail jumper and a smuggler.”

Din held back a sigh. He hadn’t had a real bounty in months. All Nix managed to get a hold of were low profile targets. Greef always had a plentiful supply of options, the most dangerous of the criminals, but Din couldn’t go back there. For now it was nice to be under the radar, especially with Bo-Katan after him, but he was starting to get bored.

He picked up both tracking fobs, anxious to get off the planet. It may be his home base, but it carried an odd feeling that always put him on edge. 

Din headed back to the ship and didn’t spare a second glance to the deserts stretching out on all sides of the town. He tried not to think of the fact there were no tunnels winding beneath the buildings, full of warm bodies shielded by painted beskar. He tried not to think of the fact Nix did nothing more than slide him the fobs. He didn’t share his success, didn’t throw him the occasional smirk tinted with mischief, hadn’t helped save his life. He didn’t think of the fact there was no marshal there, with turquoise armor and a rebellion tattoo under her left eye that reflected her fierce personality. 

He didn’t think of how utterly alone he was.

Because he always had been alone and he always would be. That was how it was always meant to be.

Din spent another half hour searching high and low for the metal ball to no avail. He fell into the pilot seat and set the course to Ithor, a smaller planet in the Mid Rim, and was considering a shot or two when he realized he forgot to buy more tsiraki in Danan Karr. 

Great. How was he supposed to get through the night sober? That was his last bottle. He briefly entertained the notion that it probably wasn’t good to need a bottle of something or other every night to make it through, but swept the idea aside. He was just tired, that’s all. It was just a rough patch he’d get over soon enough.

The Insurgent shuddered as it passed through some turbulence in hyper-space, and Din wondered how bad it would really be if the ramp swung open, if the hull tore away from the cockpit, if he was tossed out from his seat into the inky abyss surrounding him. 

He told himself to stop being so dramatic. 

He slumped lower in his chair and crossed his legs over the control panel, and did not think about the fact that there was not a set of fuzzy green ears nestled into the crook of his arm, where they fit together so perfectly it was like the universe had hand crafted them for each other. 

Ithor was settled in the Ottega system of the Mid Rim, near Mandalore and Arthon. The main cities were beautifully built and sat on massive cliffs that floated over the planet’s surface. Only a select few individuals were permitted to travel beneath the floating cities. The planet had been attacked multiple times over the course of the Empire’s rule, but had been rebuilt back to its original glory. 

The fob for the bail jumper in Din’s gloved hand beeped steadily as he made his way through the city. He stood out like a sore thumb among the Ithorians with his shiny armor and slanted visor. The Ithorians were not a naturally violent species, only when driven to it. He doubted any of them had even heard of his kind, much less seen a Mandalorian in full armor. A father stepped in front of his child as Din passed. Two more children hurried behind a building. 

An Ithorian dressed in cream colored robes stepped out into Din’s path. “Greetings, traveler,” he said, his voice nasally and thick with an accent. “What brings you here?”

“I’ve been traveling for many days,” Din said. “I need a place to restock on supplies and fuel my ship.” Maybe he could even snatch some tsiraki while he was at it. 

The Ithorian nodded. “Very well. I am Arku Zellu, the priest and leader of this herd. If you need anything, I will be in the temple at the end of this street. Enjoy your stay.”

Din dipped his chin as a sign of thanks and carried on towards wherever the fob was leading him, towards what looked like a hotel of some sorts. The Ithorian priest had trusted him very easily. He wondered if he knew why exactly Din was here, or if he was truly that naive. 

The hotel was tall and narrow, sculpted with smooth silvery stones and lined with vines as thick around as Din’s wrist. Inside was just as beautiful. A fountain of the bluest water he had ever seen sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by chairs made of deep, red wood. This main lobby was about half full, mainly Ithorians with the occasional human or Mon Calamari sprinkled in. 

The bounty, Ghol Engar, was a Cerean, a tall, humanoid species with a pointed head. He wasn't hard to spot, sitting just about in the center of the room, deep in conversation with two Ithorians. He hadn’t noticed Din yet, so he slid into a booth and waited. He preferred not to get into a fight and endanger innocent citizens in the middle of this lobby. He’d follow Engar after he left. He adjusted the settings on his helmet, tuning into their conversation to hear better.

“Look, all I’m saying is it’s a different world out there. Weird shit is going down,” Engar was saying.

“The New Republic is on top of it. I mean, look at Coruscant. They cleaned it up pretty well. The underworld’s always been a shithole, the Empire didn’t do that.”

Engal leaned back in his chair. “The New Republic isn’t as on top of it as you’d think.’

“What do you mean by that?” 

“Yavin 4. Weird stuff going on there. There’ve been reports of explosions, unknown ships going in and out in the dead of night, you name it. Even some stupid shit about a Luke Skywlker recreating an ancient race of sorcerers.”

Din’s heart stopped. Yavin 4. Luke Skywalker. Explosions. 

“Now that you mention it, Arku Zellu did mention something about Yavin 4 at the last herd meeting. Something about how he was worried, how something went wrong there recently.”
“And how would your priest know that?”

“The Ithorian priests are Force-sensitive. They receive visions of the future.” 

Din's blood turned ice cold.

“The Force is a myth made up for children.”

“You said yourself something happened on Yavin 4, and so did Arku Zellu.”

“Yeah, and I find it convenient you bring that little tidbit of information up after I mentioned it first.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Maybe not. But you’re certainly uninformed.”

“Say what you want about me, but the priest does not lie.”

“Look, I didn’t mean to insult your culture. How about I buy you another drink, yeah?”

When it became clear the conversation wasn’t going back to the topic of Luke Skywalker, Din flicked off the switch on his helmet and the sound of his own labored breaths filled his ears. His hands were clenched into fists on the table.

Something went wrong. Something had happened.

The Ithorian priest was Force-sensitive. Like Grogu. And he knew something was wrong.

Din lurched up from the table and damn near sprinted out of the lobby, bounty forgotten. He ran down the street, shoving his way through shocked Ithorians with only one destination in mind: the temple. He was halfway there when something hard slammed into his helmet and he was sent sprawling to his hands and knees. He jumped to his feet and spun around, blaster in his right hand, his left hand hovering protectively around the Darksaber hilt hanging from his belt. 

Three Mandalorians in blue armor descended from the sky and landed on the street before him. 

Of course. Ithor was right near Mandalore. He never should have taken this bounty.

“Mandalorian,” Bo-Katan spit out. “You hid from me for six months. Cowardice is not the Mandalorian Way. For a zealot as religious as yourself, I’d have expected you to know this. And now, it's time for me to take back what’s mine.” She unsheathed the knife on her vambrace with a flick of her wrist. “You will duel me for the saber.”

Din flexed his left hand. He could stay and fight. Bo-Katan was a more experienced fighter than himself, but he was the one with the laser sword. 

But he also couldn’t risk getting hurt or killed, not now, not after what he’d just heard. 

“Can’t right now,” he said, and began slowly walking backwards towards his ship. He wouldn't be able to talk with the priest, not with the Mandalorian trio here. He had to leave.

Bo-Katan scowled. “What do you mean, you can’t? Are you telling me this simple bail jumper is too important? You are the ruler of Mandalore whether you like it or not, and you’d forsake your people for a bounty?”

Din tilted his head. “What makes you think you’d be a better ruler? From what you’ve said, I gather you’ve been in possession of this sword before. And lost it.”

Bo-Katan lunged.

Din stepped back and threw his arms up to block her attack. Her first strike bounced off his vambraces, the second and third coming in rapid succession with just as much force. A punch to his gut, blocked by his vambrace. A kick to his knee, which he sidestepped. An elbow to his neck, which landed. 

Ow , he thought. This lady can pack a punch . 

The fight drew on, Din carefully staying on the defensive as he slowly allowed himself to be inched towards the docking bay. She feinted to the right and he took the bait as she swung back around and slashed his right arm with her knife. He blocked out the sharp pain, couldn’t allow himself to get caught up in it.

“Use the saber, coward,” she spat. “Surely if you won it fairly, you can wield it.”

Din wasn’t about to fall for that. If he used the fancy laser stick and she disarmed him, the fight would be over and Din would have one less weapon to protect Grogu with.

He blocked two more punches and finally kicked out offensively. Bo-Katan leapt over his attack with the grace of the seasoned warrior she was and swung her leg around with a head-level kick. Din leaned back and grabbed her foot as it passed by, twisting it and flipping her onto her back. She landed with a thud but wasted no time wrapping her arms around his neck and yanking him down with her. He flopped unceremoniously onto her chest plate and she began to roll backwards, flipping him onto his back as she stood over him, victorious. 

She slipped off her helmet and stared down at him with a smile not all that unkind, not now that she’d won. “You were a worthy opponent, Mandalorian,” she said. “But now the Darksaber is mine.” She reached for the hilt and, desperate, Din activated his jet back and flew out from underneath her. His trail of smoke, flames and dust left her temporarily blinded as he shot towards the ship. Luckily, he hadn’t planned on being on Ithor long anyway, so the Insurgent was just about ready to go. The ramp slid shut behind him and he started the engines, pulling out of the docking bay with three pissed Mandalorians hot on his tail. 

He punched in the first coordinates that came to mind, the first that always came to mind.

An ashen planet spiderwebbed with lava, rebuilt by the smirking magistrate and the marshal in turquoise.

His friends. 

The ship was silent, all the occupants sleeping off the exhaustion of the day. All except for Din. He had no idea what to do, where to go next. For months his mission had been protecting the child, and then finding the child’s people. Now Grogu was gone and Din was left with nothing. He sighed and stared up at the ceiling of the ship. He’d been laying there trying to sleep for hours now and figured he wouldn’t be getting any. Cara was off to his right, Fennec on his left, and Fett had opted to stay in the cockpit. 

Din slipped the metal ball from his pocket and held it in front of him. It was just a metal ball, slightly shiny, with a hole to screw it onto the lever. There was nothing special about it, no reason to be particularly drawn to it. He didn’t know why the kid loved it so much. It was just a ball. He let his hand drop back down to his side.

It was just a ball.

Din must’ve drifted off at some point, because he found himself opening his eyes to Cara standing over him.

“Rise and shine,” she said. “We just landed on Nevarro.”

Din sat up slowly. His head still ached, although not as much as it had the previous day. A quick glance out the window showed the bustling town that Cara and Greef had put together. He sighed. Now he actually had to figure out what to do with himself.

Fennec and Fett stayed on the Slave I while Cara, Greef and Din made their way into town.

“We could lease you a ship, there are quite a few in the port. If you’ll be needing one?” Greef offered.

Din nodded. A ship would be necessary for him to carry out bounties. He didn’t particularly want to go back to that profession. Truthfully, all he wanted was to lie down and take a year long nap, but he needed to support himself somehow. 

He let Greef take care of finding him a ship, simply telling him to get a model similar to the Razor Crest before heading into the office building with Cara. He wasn’t in the mood for shopping. They sat by her desk in silence for a few moments before she spoke up.

“What are you gonna do?”

Din shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess go back to what I did before.”

“I meant more about your helmet. And the Darksaber.”

Din sighed. He didn’t know. He’d broken his creed, so by the Mandalorian code he did not have a claim to this armor. He should return it to what was left of the tribe, let them burn it down and resculpt it, and become… Well, he didn’t know what he was supposed to become. A citizen? A person with a true identity? And the Darksaber was a whole other question entirely.

The thought of giving up the armor he’d worn for over two decades made his throat tight and his eyes damp. Could he really do that? Would he be able to stand naked before the Armorer and watch her melt his identity away? The way his stomach dropped told him no, he wouldn’t.

Why should the other Mandalorians be allowed to expose themselves to the world with no cares, still bearing their beskar, while he sat here tearing himself apart as his life collapsed around him? 

“Bo-Katan and the others don’t cover their faces,” he said finally. “She told me.... I was basically raised in a religious cult. My Way is not the only one.”
Cara raised an eyebrow in surprise. “A religious cult?”

Din nodded. “Yes. My tribe was an offshoot of the Mandalorians determined to restore the ancient way. It’s…. Well, it’s a pretty outdated notion.”

“And you had no idea?”

Din shook his head. It seemed silly to say it out loud. How had he never known about the other Mandalorians? Why hadn’t his tribe told him? How many of them even knew about the others?

“I don’t think I can just…. Take it off, not like they do. It doesn’t feel right. I’ve lived this way for so long. But I’m not parting with my armor. I don’t even know if the Armorer is still here to receive it.”

“Okay,” Cara said. “And the Darksaber? Bo-Katan isn’t just going to let you have it.”

“I know. If she finds me I’ll just let her beat me. She doesn’t need to know. It’s not worth all this.”

Cara threw him a half-hearted smile. “She is one crazy lady. My mom always did warn me to stay away from gingers. Guess she was right.” 

Din’s lips twitched despite himself. “What if I was ginger? Would you have dumped me on that cruiser?”

“Being a ginger isn’t just a hair color, Mando. It’s a personality. A lifestyle, one might say. And, thankfully, you are not.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nah. I’d have dragged you along anyway. I’m always out here saving your ass, you know that, right?”

Din was glad she couldn't see his smile. “I know.”

The silence that followed was comfortable, friendly. Din tried to ignore the turmoil over his Creed and instead listened to the voices drifting in from the streets. Children laughing, the bustle of the market, the mechanical voice of the teaching droid that Grogu had sat in front of six months prior. 

His introduction to education , Din thought fondly. Then he realized how foolish it was to have promised Grogu he’d see him again when he didn’t even know the Jedi’s name. 

“One more question before I go,” he said.

“Sure.”

“The Jedi who took him… do you know his name?”

Cara gave him a funny look he couldn’t decipher.

“That was Luke Skywalker.”

Chapter Text

Din weaved the needle through the skin on his arm one final time before cutting the thread and tying it off. The skin around the wound was slightly red and puffy, but the cut itself hadn’t been too deep. It only required ten (sloppy) stitches. He’d been taught how to stitch in the fighting corps, but he wasn’t left handed. 

He leaned back in the pilot seat and his mind wandered to memories of the kid despite himself, on that first night in the deserts of Arvala-7 when he wouldn’t stay put in his pram, instead trying to heal Din, the cold man who was supposed to deliver him to his tormentors. He thought of Nevarro and the winged beasts, and how Grogu had healed what should have been a fatal wound on Greef’s arm in a matter of seconds.

 Since Din had known him, he’d always been so selfless, handing out help in his strange little way left and right no matter the person. He’d known Din was dangerous, could undoubtedly sense he could’ve allowed IG-11 to kill him right off the bat, but he was never afraid or intimidated. He treated Din like one of his own the instant they met, as if he’d always known this man cloaked in metal would find him and become his home, if only for a couple of months.

Din thought back to the tales of the jetiise and their powers he’d learned over his journeys with the kid, and realized that might not be as much of a far fetched theory as he initially thought. 

Time ticked onwards and the bright blue lights of hyper-space flashed around the cockpit as Din tried to busy himself, a sudden nervous energy seizing him at the thought of returning to Nevarro. He’d been away for six months, and the last time he’d been there he was an emotional wreck. He figured he still was, but at least he had a bit more of a handle on containing himself. He’d shared more about himself with Cara in one conversation than he had in the entirety he knew her, and then he had basically fucked off into the galaxy with no comment besides he ‘needed some time to think.’ He had no doubt they’d be pissed at him. He deserved it, too. 

He took off his helmet and glared into the visor. It was smudged in some places, dull, and the visor was littered with tiny scratches. They probably wouldn’t notice, he himself could only notice if he looked for the flaws, but the urge to clean it up was too strong. This helmet was his face. It was more his true identity than what was underneath. When Cara thought of him, this helmet was what she saw in her mind. It needed to be perfect. It couldn’t reflect what he was feeling or how he’d been living these past months. He was a Mandalorian, ( was he? ) he was strong, ( wrong ) and his armor needed to reflect that instead.

He sat in the belly of the ship for hours, scrubbing down each piece of beskar for the first time in… he couldn't remember. Since he got it? He’d cleaned his old set of armor once every few months. Cleaning Mandalorian armor was a sacred ritual and was supposed to be done relatively frequently. Beskar was part of a Mandalorian’s body, as crucial to survival as the heart. Din hadn’t found the time ever since he got the new set. Everything happened so quickly and he had more important concerns than clean armor, and then he didn’t have any concerns but he was too miserable to even consider taking part in a sacred Mandalorian ritual. Not after he’d broken his Creed.

But now, he had time on his hands and wanted to look presentable. He knew he probably smelled, too. He finished cleaning his chest plate and picked up his right pauldron, his chest tightening. The mudhorn was beautifully sculpted into the beskar, and he’d expect nothing less from the Armorer. He traced his fingers over the ridges. He’d recognize this shape with his eyes closed. 

“ By Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father, ” she had said. “ You are a clan of two .”

“Clan of one,” he whispered, which wasn’t even a clan, really. Just a defeated man playing make believe. 

The pile of clean armor grew as the pile of dirty armor shrunk, and soon he had finished. The air was full of the sharp scent of the cleaning alcohol he’d used. He stood from his spot on the floor and stretched, sighing in relief as his neck and back popped. The fresher was small and dark, which meant the shower was even smaller and darker, but at least it had running water. Cold running water, but he’d long since stopped being picky about that sort of thing. 

Din stripped out of his clothes, stiff with sweat and blood, and stepped into the shower. He stood there completely still for a few minutes, letting the water soak his tangled hair and clear away the blood crusted on his arm. Massaging the soap into his hair felt even better. The tension drained out of him and swirled down the drain, along with the soap and water which no longer ran brown from dirt and blood.

Slipping into fresh clothes and donning his polished armor made him feel infinitely better, but only until he remembered where he was going, and why. The stress returned full force, and he once again found himself aching for an alcoholic drink to stop him from trembling.

Din set himself to work cleaning up the Insurgent , scooping up weapons strewn across the floor and empty glass bottles that had rolled into any cracks or crevices the ship had to offer. If Cara and Greef agreed to come help him, they’d never let him hear the end of it if they found a loaded blaster lying haphazardly on the floor. 

A beep rang out from the cockpit, signaling the ship was getting ready to drop out of hyper-space. Din hurried up the ladder and sat at the controls, energy coursing through his fingers until they shook hard enough he hit the wrong button. As soon as the Insurgent stopped shuddering like she was about to blow, he dropped out of hyper-space and there it was, Nevarro, right in front of him. He passed through the atmosphere and realized he’d never sent out a transmission ahead of time. They had no idea he was coming. They might not even be on-world. 

“ Osik ,” Din muttered. They had to be there. He had no other options. 

He landed in his usual spot and sighed in relief as the ramp lowered and he saw his two friends waiting for him, hands on their hips.

Great. 

“It’s been awhile,” Greef said as Din approached, but held his hand out to shake all the same. Din took it gratefully with a nod.

“Greef. Cara.”

Cara gave him a half-hearted smile but said nothing.

“What brings you back, Mando?” Greef asked. 

Din glanced around warily. No one was within earshot, so he supposed it was fine to explain his situation.

“Something’s wrong,” he said. “I was on a job on Ithor and I overheard… a lot. The kid’s in trouble.”

Cara frowned and finally spoke. “The kid is with a Jedi, probably the most capable person to protect him next to you. You don’t even know where he is.”

“I do. Yavin 4. That’s where he’s supposed to be, anyway.”

Greef frowned. “How do you know this? What exactly did you overhear?”

Din clenched his fists, paranoia creeping up on him. “Let’s talk on the ship,” he said. They nodded in agreement and followed him up the ramp. 

With the doors closed, Din explained everything. The bounty he overheard, the Ithorians, the priest who could use the Force the same way Grogu could. “I can’t know for sure,” he said, “but I have a feeling. Something’s wrong. And I’ll need backup.”

He was met with silence as Cara and Greef mulled over all he’d told them. It must have been a lot, he figured, for him to suddenly show up and drop this on them. 

“I’m with you,” Cara finally said. “Your gut’s never been wrong before.” Din relaxed slightly.

“I’m afraid I have to stay behind,” Greef sighed. “I can’t leave Nevarro, especially with Marshal Dune here gone.” Din nodded in understanding. Greef stood and headed down the ramp, turning back half way down. “Good luck, Mando,” he said. “Send me a gram as soon as you’ve got something.”

“We will,” Cara assured him. She turned to Din. “Let me just get my stuff and I’ll be back.” Din nodded again.

He sat on the edge of his cot as he waited for her to return. He wondered if she even would return, or if she was letting him down easy. He wouldn’t be surprised. He must sound out of his damn mind, no contact in half a year and suddenly he’s back, blabbing about the kid being in trouble on Yavin 4 of all places. 

The minutes ticked by, each passing second ebbing more and more hope away. He was beginning to contemplate if he should just leave himself when he saw her heading towards the ship with a bag slung over her shoulder.

“Sorry I took so long,” she said as he headed up the ramp. “Had to let them know that I’d be away for awhile.”

Right. Cara was an actual person with an actual job now. He should ask her how that was going. A real friend would probably do that. He climbed the ladder to the cockpit instead. She sat next to him in front of the controls as he punched in the coordinates. 

Yavin 4 was a major symbol of the Republic, given it housed a rebel base during the reign of the Empire as well as being part of the system where the first Death Star was blown up. It did sort of make sense Luke Skywalker would take Grogu there to train.

He and Cara sat in comfortable silence as the Insurgent hurdled through hyper-space. He appreciated that about Cara. She understood that silence was okay, the air didn’t always need to be full.

Despite the easy silence, he felt the pressing urge to say something, anything. He should apologize for being gone for so long, for not contacting her even just to tell her he was alive. 

He said nothing.

About an hour into the flight she finally spoke.

“You said you were going off for a bit to think.”

He waited for her to continue.

“Did you come to any grand conclusions?”

Din sighed. No grand conclusions other than his affinity towards tsiraki. 

“No,” he said after a pause long enough that the silence became awkward.

Cara leaned back in her chair, eyes pointedly not looking at him. “Well, I did. And it’s that a certain tin can needs to check in with his friends once in a while so they don’t worry.”

Din closed his eyes. He knew she’d be mad. “I’m sorry,” he said, although he knew that didn’t make up for six months of radio silence. 

Cara finally turned to look at him. “I know it’s been hard. I do. I know what it’s like to lose everything. But you still have us, and we need to know you’re okay, got it? You can’t just disappear.”

“I know.” 

“Well. Now that that's out of the way. What have you been up to?”

Din shrugged. “Not much. Jobs. Found a good client on Carajam.”

Cara wrinkled her nose. “Carajam?”

“I know, I know. It’s a bit of a shit hole.”

“A bit? Mando, it’s a heap of orange rocks. There’s more going on at Tatooine .” 

“Tatooine gets sand in my armor.”

Cara snorted. “That’s your only gripe about Tatooine?” 

“I have many gripes. Can’t list them all.”

“Oh, I know you have many gripes, old man. Speaking of gripes, have you had any run-ins with our favorite ginger?”

Din said nothing. He hadn’t planned on talking about this.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” She glanced at his belt. “You still have it.” 

He nodded. 

“So, you’re still technically, what? King of Mandalore? Duke of Mandalore?”

“ Mand’alor ,” he said.

“That means you’re royalty though, right? What does that make me?”

Din tilted his helmet. “My entourage.”

Cara scoffed. “ Please. How does your head fit in your helmet with that banthashit? I’m gonna go with ‘advisor to the Mand’alor .’ Maker knows you need it.”

“I resent that,” Din said, fighting the smile tugging at his lips even though she couldn’t see. He knew what she was doing, that she was trying to take his mind off the kid, and it was working a little bit. He was glad they could fall back into their old banter this easily.

“Truth hurts, old man. What’s your first decision as Mand’alor , your highness? I need to get started on my advising.”

“First off, don’t call me that. Second, I’ve technically been… Mand’alor … for six months. I’ve made plenty of decisions since then, on my own. And third, why do you keep calling me ‘old man?’ I’m thirty eight.”

“Could have fooled me with all your griping.”

Din rolled his eyes in fond exasperation. “What have you been up to?”

“Changing the subject, I see,” Cara said with a smirk. “Pretty much the same old every day. There are no more imperial remnants on Nevarro after we took out that lab. But turns out, it’s hard to maintain a town growing at that speed. We’re getting off-worlders as permanent residents now.”

Din hummed softly. That was good. If he’d been told a year ago that Nevarro would become a place families willingly immigrated to, he’d have laughed.

“Anyways, it’s nice to have a routine. To have a normal life after… well, you know.”

Din nodded. He did know. 

“You know you can come back,” Cara said softly, the mood in the cockpit suddenly somber. “You’re still Greef’s top hunter. And you’ll always have a place to stay with me. You can come back.”

Din didn’t say anything, didn’t know if he could, but he hoped she understood he was thankful. She had always been able to read him like an open book, unlike anyone else. 

An hour lapsed in silence, and then another hour, and then Din was dozing off in that fuzzy half-way world between consciousness and sleep. He was distantly aware of Cara getting up and leaving the cockpit. He wasn’t sure how long she was away for, but when she returned she had two ration bars. 

“You should eat something,” she said, tossing him a bar and startling him out of his doze. “This is my first act of advisory. I recommend you follow it.”

Din hoped she could see his slightly disgruntled expression in the tilt of his helmet.

“Hmm,” he grunted. 

“Good,” she said. “A wise decision.”

She left the cockpit again so he could take off his helmet and eat. The ration bar was dry and flavorless, but she was right. They needed their energy up to face what was to come. Just like that, the anxiety pooled in the bottom of his stomach, hot and sticky and dark. He had no idea what to expect. Would Skywalker be there? What if Grogu was there and in one piece, and Din had to leave him again ? A sick, selfish part of him wanted Grogu to be missing, if only to get back to the way it was before. To have something to work towards, to be with his kid again. If Grogu was safe with Skywalker, Din didn’t know if he could leave again. His heart rate began to pick up speed. What if he’d made a terrible mistake?

“All clear?” Cara asked from below. He hastily shoved his helmet back on.

“All clear.”

She flopped back down in the chair beside him. “This ship is a real piece of work. I can try to get you a better one when we get back.”

When he didn’t so much as nod, she turned to look at him. “Everything okay?”

“What if I’m wrong?” he blurted, and cursed his stupid brain for being so jumbled that he let that slip out. And then it just kept going . “What if it’s a mistake? What if we get there and he’s fine and this is all for nothing?”

“Take a deep breath,” Cara said, and Din realized he was heaving in air like he’d just fought off ten mercenaries. “You know what you heard, and there's nothing against the rules about going to Yavin 4. He’s your kid, and you’re just checking up on him.”

“What if I can’t leave?” Din whispered. He hated the look she gave him, the pitying shine her eyes held. 

He hated it.

“You’re the strongest man I know,” Cara told him. “You would do anything for that kid. And if that means leaving him behind for his own happiness? I know you can do it. You’re too selfless for your own good, you know? You remind me a lot of my dad.”

For the first time on the whole trip, Din turned and met her gaze. She had an uncanny way of making direct eye contact with him through the visor that always made it feel like she could really see him. 

“He was a teacher back in my hometown. He was selfless too, always giving. And he had a way with kids--you scoff, but we’ve all seen the way the little tyke looks at you. Anyway, he taught the younger kids and was always staying late to help them when they needed it. He’d even make house calls. He got fucked over a lot. The job didn’t pay well, and he ended up getting laid off, but that didn’t stop him. He still had tutoring hours for the kids. He gave a shit, you know? It’s important. To give a shit.”

She paused, looking out the window into the mesmerizing streaks of light hurtling past them. “The last time I talked to him, he was helping set up a shelter for our village. He didn’t get paid for it or anything. He just wanted to help. He wasn’t a battle hardened warrior or the most qualified bounty hunter in the parsec,” she said with a smirk. “And I don’t think he ever killed anyone. But he gave a shit. You remind me of him.” 

Din kept his gaze on her as she kept looking out the window, his breathing coming easier. That was incredibly high praise coming from her. Her family and her planet meant everything to her. Being compared to her father was no small compliment. 

“I don’t really remember my parents,” he said. 

She turned to look at him, her face bright with curiosity. “How old were you? When the Mandalorians found you.”

“Eight.” 

“And they fully integrated you into the warrior lifestyle? At eight years old?”

“Yes.”

Cara raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. That sounds like cult behavior to me.”

Din shrugged. “I didn’t mind. It helped me take my mind off losing my parents. And they were very welcoming to me. Foundlings are an important part of Mandalorian culture.”

“Yeah,” she said with a soft smile. “I can see that.” 

“Anyway, I had a buir, an adoptive father. He was responsible for me and helped with my training.”

“Was he a big old softie too?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Din said. “But no. He didn’t take any of my shit.”

“You? Giving shit? No way.”

“I had a few very rebellious years.”

“Mandalorians have teen angst?”

“So much teen angst.”

Cara snorted. “Please tell me, what was your angst about?”

Din shrugged, his cheeks heating up. “Normal stuff.”

“Normal stuff? You were raised in a cult. How did you have normal person drama?”

“You know. Girls. And guys. And stuff.”

She let out a full laugh this time. “I’d kill to see preteen Mando trying to woo another poor Mando preteen.”

“We don’t need to talk about this anymore.”

“I think we do. What’s the worst thing your buir caught you doing?”

“Why is this relevant?”

“Mando, you’re stuck on this ship with me for the next five hours. I’m getting this out of you somehow.”

Din groaned. “Fine. Fine . He walked in on me and my friend doing spice. In the armory. Off of a pure beskar breast plate.” 

Cara doubled over wheezing. “No he did not. Oh my gods, that is too good.”

“You can’t tell anyone.”

She laughed even harder. “Stop whining like a little boy. Who would I even tell?” 

Din looked up briefly at the ceiling of the cockpit. “Are you satisfied?”

“For now. I will need more later. For… advising purposes.” 

“As Mand’alor , I could just fire you.”

Cara gasped and brought her hand to her chest in mock horror. “You would never!” 

“Thin ice, Dune. You’re on thin ice.” 

They fell into the comfortable silence shared between friends. It felt good to just banter back and forth for a while after being alone for so long. Maybe he should go back to Nevarro. After all this, of course. 

“ Kad Ha’rangir ,” Din said after the long stretch of silence.

Cara glanced at him, confused. “Bless you?”

Din was surprised to find himself actually laughing. “No, Kad Ha’rangir , the Mandalorian god of destruction and change. I’ve been thinking a lot about him recently.”

“Why’s that?”

“War was seen as sacred to the ancient Mandalorians, seen as a divine tribute to him. It’s said that he represents the opportunity for change and growth out of mass destruction, which has turned out to be true for me, in a lot of cases. My town was reduced to ash, my parents killed, but I gained my whole life with the tribe. Then my tribe was destroyed, driven out by the Imps, but I got… I got Grogu. But this…” Din sighed. “This is what he was meant to do. Being a Jedi, I mean. If this is destroyed… I don’t know if the growth is worth it.”

Cara placed a warm hand on his right pauldron, over the mudhorn. “This won’t be destroyed,” she said. “If he was always meant to be a Jedi, then he will be. It will work out.”

Din nodded. “I hope so.”

She removed her hand and leaned back in her chair.
“And Mando?”

“Din.”

“What?”

“It’s fine if you call me Din.”

She seemed surprised at that. He wondered if she thought knowing his name was also breaking the Creed.

“Alright. Din?”

“Yeah?”

“You should laugh more. It suits you.”

“Din! Catch!”

Din jumped up to catch the ball, but he was about three inches too short and it sailed over his head and into the pond behind him. A disappointed chorus of kids moaning his name floated after him as he chased down the ball. He waded into the pond. It was cold and mucky, and soaked through his maroon robes and weighed him down. 

He picked up the ball, now soggy and wet, and threw it back to his friends.

“Ewwww,” they yelled as they were sprayed with the pond water. Din ran over to them, his muddy robes sticking to him uncomfortably. 

“You had to miss it, Djarin,” said a taller boy, reaching down to ruffle his hair. Din couldn’t remember his face.

“Hey,” he yelped as he swatted the boy’s hand away. “I’ll be taller than you someday. My dad is six foot three!”

“Whatever you say, pipsqueak,” the boy said as he turned around and headed back to the street.

“I’m not a pipsqueak!” Din protested, following them.

“Sorry, what was that? Couldn’t hear you up here.”

Din rolled his eyes. “Very funny. Toss me the ball!”

“After what just happened? Guys, let’s play Djarin in the middle.” The ball flew over Din’s head and into the grasp of the kid behind him. Din whirled around.

“Hey! Give it!” It went over his head again, and again, and again. By the time the sun began to set, Din was wiped out and his stomach hurt from laughing. It had been a good day. 

“Din!” A woman’s voice called from down the street. “Dinner!”

“Crap,” Din cursed, looking down at his filthy robes. His mother was going to kill him.

“Better get going, Djarin,” the tall boy said. “We wish you the best of luck, soldier.”

Din groaned. “I’ll need it.”

He hurried home, hoping being prompt would take away some of the heat from his ruined clothes. He nearly ran into his mother in the hallway, her face a vaguely familiar blur. 

“Din!” she scolded. “What have you done to your robes!”

Din stared at his feet as guilt churned in his stomach. “I fell in the pond... “

His mother sighed. “Just wait until your father gets home…”

When Din’s father returned and saw the state of his clothes he laughed and laughed and laughed.

“The boy’s got to have some fun every now and then, right Lyra? There’s no harm. This can be washed out.”

“You boys are all the same,” his mother said with a fond roll of her eyes. 

Din smiled and thanked the Maker that he had the best parents in the whole galaxy.

The next morning, Din woke to deafening blasts and his whole room shaking. He heard his mother screaming, saw his father cry for the first time in his life. They hurried down the street, everything red and gray and bright and sharp and too loud for his small ears. He remembers being so alone in the cellar, a feeling he would grow all too familiar with, and he remembers the exact moment the bomb hit and his perfect life shattered into a million irreparable pieces. 

Chapter Text

As much as Din did not want to be there, he had to admit that Yavin 4 was beautiful. The planet’s surface was made up of vast jungles and oceans spread out in an array of shades of deep blue and green. Jagged, rocky mountains reached to the sky as the Insurgent descended. They passed over a large clearing, containing what looked like the framework for a massive temple. A few huts dotted the perimeter of the clearing by the jungle. The grass was bright and green and Din could see a few children running around in the open space.

The kid must’ve loved it here. 

The ship landed and he stood and headed to the ramp, Cara right behind him. His heart thudded heavily in his chest in anticipation. Everything had looked fine from above. Maybe Grogu really was here. He knew logically that this was the best outcome for the kid, but his chest still ached. He was about to either learn that something terrible had happened to the kid, or he’d see him only to say goodbye again. 

Din stepped off the ramp and onto the long grass. They had landed about a mile beyond the clearing, so they’d have a bit of a walk. 

“Tell me about Luke Skywalker,” he asked Cara. He probably should have asked this a long time ago, but he hadn’t wanted to even think about the man, much less learn all about him. 

Cara frowned. “You don’t…? Right. Cult. He was a huge part of the Rebellion, a brilliant pilot. He was the one to blow up the first Death Star, and rumor has it he defeated the Emperor. There were always rumors of him being… more powerful than the average person. Maybe even a Jedi, who we all thought were wiped out at the time. It wasn’t until he actually showed up on the light cruiser that I knew for sure.” She paused, looking at him carefully. “He’s also known for being a really sweet guy. I can’t imagine he’d wish any harm on the kid.”

“Hmm,” Din grunted. He’d met a lot of seemingly ‘sweet’ people, and they almost always let him down without fail. He wasn’t about to let his guard down. Especially not when it was about the kid. 

There was a thin trail leading to the clearing through the thick trees and underbrush. Din was hit with minor deja vu of dragging a sniveling Morseerian behind him for hours on end. 

“I wonder how many kids he’s got here,” Cara said, trying to spark a conversation. 

“Don’t know. Saw a couple running around as we flew over.” 

“You think that they’re all like him? That they can use the Force, I mean.”

Din shrugged. “Probably.” He hadn’t wanted to talk about Grogu. He wasn’t sure he could handle it, but somehow it was fine coming from Cara. Maybe because he knew she was just as wrapped around Grogu’s little green claw as he was. “It’s good for him to be with kids like him. That’s how he grew up.”

Cara glanced at him. “You found out where he’s from?”

“Not his species, but I met another Jedi. She didn’t want to take him at first, but she ended up telling me to take him to Tython to choose what he wanted for himself. She could communicate with him through the Force, and he told her he was raised in the Jedi temple on Coruscant. That’s how I learned his name.”

“You met another Jedi? And she wouldn’t take him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Din paused, wondering if he should tell the truth or if that would just make this even harder. Ahsoka had said he was a father to Grogu, but then he’d given him up. In the end it had been Grogu’s choice, but it still felt wrong. 

“She said his attachment to me was dangerous,” he finally settled on.

“The hell does that mean?”

Din sighed and tilted his head towards the sky. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

Sensing the discussion was over, Cara gave it up and they continued in silence. 

The jungle opened up into the vast clearing, which looked even larger now that they weren’t flying over it. A huge stone outline of a building took up about three quarters of the open space, about six feet tall with wooden beams as the frame. It was going to be huge. A brief image of a slightly taller Grogu scampering down a gaping stone hallway flashed across his mind. He shook his head and pushed the image away. 

Near the walls of the future building were what looked like training rings, fenced off circles of soft dirt. Silvery fountains emptied into clear pools of water, which were circled by bright green flora. It was beautiful.

A man walked out to greet them as they crossed the clearing. A familiar man, Din noted. A dark brown cloak hung over his shoulders and he was dressed in a pale brown tunic as opposed to the dark clothes he wore aboard the light cruiser. A small human girl dressed similarly trailed behind him, looking up at Din and Cara with wide eyes. 

“Hello,” Skywalker greeted. “What brings you here?” 

“I wanted to check on the kid,” Din said. Relatively blunt, but he needed to know. Now.

An emotion he couldn’t quite identify flashed across Skywalker’s face, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. “Aeden, why don’t you go to the training pit and run through your katas, alright?” The girl nodded enthusiastically and hurried away. Din watched her go, and the cylinder bouncing against her leg as she ran did not go unnoticed.. 

He became hyper aware of the weight on his own belt.

Did Grogu have one?

“Follow me,” Skywalker said, breaking Din out of his thoughts. He led them across the clearing and into one of the huts at the edge of the jungle, and Din’s heart immediately leapt to his throat. The dim lighting, the drawers, the small hut, even the pale robes Skywalker was wearing. 

All reminiscent of his nightmares. 

Two beds were pushed against the walls of the hut. One was a reasonable size for a human child. The other couldn’t have been more than three feet long. 

He clenched his fists and looked at Skywalker. “Where is he?”

The same expression flitted across the man’s unusually calm and calculated face, and this time, Din recognized it.

It was fear. 

“This… isn’t going to be easy to hear.” A pause. “He was taken two nights ago.”

Din leaned forward, trying to keep his breathing calm. “What do you mean, taken ?”

“We don’t yet have the resources for proper security,” Skywalker began. “We hope to soon, but there wasn’t much we could do when a Force wielder appeared in the dead of night and took him.”

“You said you’d lay down your life for him,” Din spat, trying to keep himself under control and failing, desperately. His chest tightened and his jaw was clenched so hard he felt a pop in his temple. Cara put a hand on his shoulder and he was vaguely aware he was trembling. 

“I know,” Skywalker said, holding his gaze. Din wished he would drop it. “And I’m sorry.”

“Why aren’t you looking for him?”

“I am. Aeden, Maro and myself have been meditating daily for any signs of where they are, but we have no idea who took him or why.”

“The child?” Din asked, shocked, remembering the little girl who hadn't even risen above his own hip. “You’re telling me the life of my kid is in the hands of a child ?”

“A child extremely gifted in the ways of the Living Force, I assure you. Just as Grogu is. You know what he can do. I wish him no harm. We are doing everything we can to find him.”

“Not enough, hut’uun ,” Din said, before he stood and stormed out of the hut. This was what he wanted, wasn’t it, he thought bitterly. He’d been selfishly hoping the whispers from Ithor were true, and now he found out that they were but he still felt furious, his blood boiling and coursing through him until the feeling was nearly unbearable. He was gone. Stolen . From the one place in the galaxy he was supposed to be safe. Din should’ve known better than to give him up. Even with Gideon taken down, ( Was he? He didn’t know what Bo-Katan had decided to do with the Imp. This could be his work, for all they knew ) anyone could be out for Grogu. He should never have let the kid go. He’d proved over and over again that he was the only one capable of keeping him safe.

You lost him , the voice in his mind whispered. You lost him to the dark troopers on Tython.

“But I got him back,” Din muttered. “I fucking got him back .”

But now he was gone, again, and there were no leads. Din found himself in the jungle, leaning against a tree with his arms crossed. He could still see the clearing, so he hadn’t wandered too far. 

Deep from the fury and anxiety churning in his stomach, a spark of relief rose above. He hadn’t been wrong. He wasn’t losing it. 

The crunch of branches caught his attention and he glanced up to see Cara approaching. 

“Hey,” she said. When he didn’t respond, she kept going. “We’re gonna find him, Din. Skywalker said there are many ways to locate him through the Force, and they’re just making their way down the list. They’ll get him.”

“Not fast enough.” 

“He can hold his own, you know. He saved all our asses on Nevarro, back when we were fighting Gideon’s troops. Think of how powerful he could’ve become after six months of training with the legend Luke Skywalker himself.”

“If he can hold his own so well, how did he get taken in the first place?” 

She sighed and leaned against the tree next to him. “I don’t know.” 

He waited for her to continue, to come up with a logical reason like she always did, but she remained silent. Din finally spoke when the sky was turning a hazy pink and the sun began to dip lower on the horizon. 

“He was supposed to be safe here.” His voice came out choked and pathetic. 

“I know,” Cara murmured after a beat. “Why don’t we go back? Skywalker offered us food and shelter for the night.”

“I’m sleeping on the ship,” Din said. He couldn’t spend the night in one of those huts. He just couldn’t. 

“Okay. Those huts smell funny anyway.” 

Din followed her through the jungle and back into the clearing, barely able to focus enough to keep from tripping over roots and rocks. Skywalker offered them food, which they accepted, and invited Din back into the hut for a private conversation, just the two of them.

“I have...concerns about Grogu,” Skywalker began.

Other than the fact you let him get kidnapped right from underneath your nose, Din thought.

“He hasn’t been thriving here the way I’d expect him to. After I found him with you all on the light cruiser and brought him here, he made it quite clear that he wanted to be a Jedi more than anything. His life on Coruscant… he loved it.”

“But…?” Din prodded. 

Skywalker sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I know you’re not particularly fond of me,” he said with a soft smile.

“Why would you think that?”

“I separated you from your child.”

“It was his decision.”

“And perhaps that made it even harder.” He paused. “Something changed between his life at the Jedi temple and now, and I think I have an idea of what it is. His priorities… have shifted. He’s been offered a life other than the standard for children like him.”

“The standard?”

“Becoming a Jedi. In the Old Republic, Jedi often took Force sensitive infants and brought them to the temple to be trained. This was the accepted procedure. But now, things are different. I wasn’t raised as a traditional Jedi, which has served me well. I don’t think it’s right to split up families.”

“What are you trying to say?” Din asked, violently squashing down the flicker of hope in his chest.

“I’m saying that when we get Grogu back, because we will, I think it’s time he reconsidered his choice.”

 Din ignored the eyes of the girl, Aeden, and another Togruta child, which burned into his back as they made their way back to the ship. The walk was silent. Din couldn’t bring himself to speak, and Cara seemed to understand he wasn’t exactly in the mood.

Din ate in the cockpit while Cara ate below. He couldn’t taste anything, the meat sitting like a rock in his stomach. He knew he needed to keep his energy up, but he could only bring himself to eat about half of the meal. How could he possibly eat when his son was out there, could be anywhere in the entire galaxy, without a protector? Without Din.

He couldn’t sleep that night. He sat up from his bunk after hours of laying still, needing to do something with his restless energy. He slipped out of the ship, careful not to disturb Cara, and began the trek down the long path to the clearing. His headlamp lit the ground in front of him in the dark of the jungle. He wasn’t sure why exactly he was heading to the clearing, or if that was even where his feet were taking him at all. He just needed to get up, to do something. 

The jungle thinned around him and he stepped into open land, the framework of the temple stretching up above him. He unconsciously began to walk towards one of the training rings. He hopped over the fence easily and landed on the dirt. It was soft and puffed up slightly around him. It needed a watering, badly. 

He ran a gloved hand over the metal bar of the fence. This was familiar.

“Arms up, ad’ika. You must be prepared for any attack, and you will never have enough reaction time with your hands low.”

Din raised his arms.

“Higher. By your face.”

He raised them higher. “But they’ll get tired,” he protested. 

“They will not.”

Din knelt, saw the chip in the wooden stake, perhaps from a misplaced knife.

“What good is this? It’s so small.”

A small laugh escaped his buir . “So are you, no? How would you like to be underestimated like that? Here, hold it like this.”

Large hands adjusted his smaller ones until he was tightly gripping the hilt of the knife.

“Relax a bit, ad’ika. You must be one with your weapon. We are graceful warriors. This knife is merely an extension of your arm. But,” he said with the hint of a smile in his voice. “You do not literally want to be one with the knife. Relax, or your fingers will be stuck to the hilt forever.”

Din dragged his foot across the ground, dust billowing up around him. 

Din slammed into the ground for the seventh time since the morning started, his face pressed into the dirt of the pit. He coughed and sat up, spitting the dirt from his mouth. It stuck to his sweat, coating his face and getting in all the folds of his clothes. His training armor hung on him heavily, weighing him down.

“You’re dead,” his buir stated. “Get up. Do better.”

“I-I can’t,” Din said, every inch of his body aching. 

“Then you have failed, and doomed your allies as well. Nibral . You remember the meaning of this?”

Din felt tears pricking his eyes. Failure . He willed himself not to cry. “Yes.”

“This is unacceptable. You will get up. You will succeed.”

A hot tear slipped down his cheek, cutting a path through the film of dust on his face. He forced himself to his feet, swaying slightly. 

“Arms up. Try again.”

Din crouched into a fighting stance, his feet slightly apart and diagonal from one another, his knees bent and his arms up yet relaxed by his face. 

“Block like this, with your vambrace. Your vambrace is like a shield. It contains firepower but will also protect you. Remember this.”

Din nodded. The vambrace weighed his arm down, but he refused to let it drop.

Din stepped forward, swinging his left arm forward in a slow imitation of a punch, followed by a block, followed by a twist… step forward, step back, crouch, repeat… the rhythm of the kata came naturally, as graceful as an elaborate dance.

“Fighting is like a dance. Done correctly, it is a beautiful thing to witness. The katas are sacred, for fighting is part of our religion. You understand?”

Din nodded. He’d never been any good at dancing, too clumsy for his own good.

“Footwork is essential. Follow my lead. Forward, back, crouch, back, to the right. Good. Do this yourself.”

Forward, back, crouch… what was next?

“Back,” his buir said.

Back. To the right. Repeat.

Forward, back, crouch, back, to the right. Drop to a knee, roll. Sweep their legs out. Pin them down. Roll to your feet. Repeat. 

Dust clouded the air, blocking Din’s vision, but it didn’t matter. He could do the katas in his sleep.

Forward, back, crouch, back, to the right. Drop. 

Forward, back, crouch, back, to the right. Drop to a knee, roll. Sweep their legs out. Pin them down. Roll to your feet. Repeat.

“Very good, ad’ika, ” his buir praised as he finished the kata. “Very good.”

Din stopped, letting the dust clear around him. The brown mist sank to the ground, revealing Cara standing against the building. 

“You could’ve left a note,” she said.

“Sorry,” Din sighed as he climbed over the fence. “Wasn’t thinking.” 

She nodded to the ring. “That was beautiful.”

“It was a kata,” he said. “I learned it in the fighting corps.” 

“You’re covered in dirt.”

“I know.” 

“Come on back to the ship,” she said with a sad smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Hopefully this tired you out enough to finally get some sleep.”

He fell into step behind her, gazing up at the stars until they were cut off by the thick leaves of the trees. Grogu was out there, somewhere. 

And Din would find him.

The intense nervous energy was gone, replaced by a dull ache in his chest. Ever since he learned his first kata, he’d turned to it as a method to calm himself. Whether he had been nervous about swearing his Creed, or going on his first solo mission for the tribe, he’d always head to the training rings in the dead of night to run them through over and over and over.

He lay down in his cot feeling significantly less jittery, and slipped into sleep in a matter of minutes. 

The entire world was red. A sharp, frigid wind cut through his armor and layers of clothing and cut straight into his skin. A vast mountain stood in front of him, stretching impossibly high to the clouds. A dry river bed ran around the base of the mountain, smooth red and orange pebbles littering the path where a viscous river had once flowed. 

Din turned. Behind him, a vast canyon cut through the ground, seeming to reach all the way to the core of the planet itself. 

A bad feeling embedded itself in Din’s chest. Something was wrong about this place, something evil and cruel.

Where was he?

The wind picked up speed, whipping around him in a frigid vortex. The wind carried a sound to his ears, a sound from far, far away. The sound of a child crying. He staggered but quickly righted himself.

“Kid?” he called out. “Grogu? Where are you?”

A feeling like nothing he’d ever experienced gripped him. Something warm and soft wrapped around him, though he saw nothing. It held him close and tight and safe, as it was holding the hand of his very soul. It was familiar and reassuring. It was home. This entity did not belong on this planet.

Moraband, a voice resonated in his head, and he woke with a start.

Din shot up, whacking his helmet against the ceiling of his bunk room.

“ Osik ,” he muttered, stumbling out of the cot and into the hall. Cara was still asleep on her makeshift mattress of blankets strewn across the floor.

“Cara,” he said, “get up. Now.’

“What is it?” she mumbled, voice hoarse from sleep.

“Moraband. Grogu is on Moraband.”

Chapter Text

Skywalker hadn’t exactly been fond of the plan. He’d insisted on staying behind on Yavin 4, unsure of how accurate Din’s dream could possibly be, which was a valid concern. Din wasn’t Force sensitive, how should he be able to receive what Skywalker deemed a vision? He decided that he and the padawans would remain at the temple until the Force told them otherwise, whatever the hell that meant. Din would have appreciated his help, but he and Cara had gotten out of more desperate situations before. At least, he thought they had. He had no idea how desperate this situation was just yet. Besides, he understood the Jedi’s desire to keep the padawans from unnecessary danger. 

“So,” Cara said as she sat down next to him at the controls. “You got a plan yet?”

Din guided the ship out of the atmosphere and into space, Yavin 4 becoming a distant blue and green marble until they entered hyper-space and it disappeared. “Not really. Skywalker said a Force wielder took him, so we’re up against a formidable fighter. You saw what the kid could do with limited training.”

“You think this thing is gonna be able to strangle you out of thin air like he can?”

Din shrugged, not exactly fond of remembering Grogu’s violent outburst. “Maybe.”

“Will it have one of those laser swords?”

“Probably. I do too, at least.” A laser sword that he’d never been trained to use. 

“Very promising. Well, if that’s what we’re up against, we need at least the makings of a plan. What do you know about Moraband?”

“Cold. Mountains, canyons, a little bit of everything. It’s been abandoned for thousands of years,” Din said, holding up the datapad. “Apparently it used to be somewhat inhabited, although there’s no real data about that on this thing. I have no idea why a Force user would bring Grogu there. It’s a ghost planet.”

Cara frowned. “How sure are you that he’s there?”

“Entirely sure.”

“Okay. So, the plan.”

Turns out, it’s hard to formulate a plan if you know virtually nothing about what you're up against. 

The Insurgent passed through the atmosphere of Moraband and landed on the seemingly deserted surface about eight hours after setting out from Yavin 4. The craggy wastelands stretched out around them, wind howling through the canyon to his left and a vast mountain scraping the sky to his right.

The scene was identical to his dream. 

“This familiar?” Cara asked. 

Din nodded. He half expected to feel the all encompassing warmth surround him again, but instead he shivered from the fierce cold. An eerie sense of dread anchored itself in his stomach. This was no place for a child.

He flicked on his thermal scan and slowly turned in a circle only to find no marks or footsteps, not even from a non sentient being or plant. There was nothing here.

“I’m not picking up anything,” he said. “I’m gonna have a look around.”

Cara squatted behind a boulder, peeking out from over the top. “I’ll cover you if things go south.”

Din headed off towards the mountains with a nod. He traveled on foot, unwilling to miss anything at the base of the mountain from the height and speed of a ship or jetpack. He couldn’t remember where exactly the childlike cries had come from in his dream, but it had to have been nearby. Moraband was a pretty big planet, but it was no coincidence that this area was identical to his dream. 

The ground was solid beneath his feet, a contrast from the soft dirt of Carajam and the rolling dunes of Tatooine. Even the volcanic rock on Nevarro had some give to it. He kept his thermal scanner on with no luck. According to his tech, there was no life within five miles of him besides Cara. If he had to walk five miles, ten miles, one hundred miles, so be it. He would do anything for his kid.

As he hiked across the unforgiving terrain and wind battered his beskar, he wondered how he could ever have denied the bond between the two of them. From the start, Grogu had trusted him entirely, while Din kept him locked up in his pram and handed him off to literal mad scientists and constantly kept him at an arm’s length away. Slowly but surely, Grogu pressed, and pressed, and pressed, until Din’s arm gave up and pulled the little womp rat in tight. 

It had taken him so long, and the thought of so much wasted time fucking hurt.

At this very moment, Grogu could be dead. Din might never see him again.

Another promise broken. 

Whoever took Grogu would pay. He’d make sure of it. 

About an hour into his trek, Din had traveled about a third of the way around the mountain and Cara was blocked from his view by the base of the rocks. The pale sky took on a hazy pink glow as the sun dipped, and he figured it was time to get back to her. The temperature would begin to plummet soon. 

His jetpack ignited with a hiss, the first sound to break the thick silence since he left Cara. What took him an hour to hike, he covered in about ten minutes with the jetpack, landing beside Cara as the final flicker of light disappeared under the horizon. 

“Nothing,” he said in response to her expectant look. “I’ll head out the other way around tomorrow, and I’ll try higher up the mountain too. It’s not smart to be out in this cold.”

“I agree. Let’s get back on the ship.”

The wind had picked up dramatically and the temperature was down to about fifteen degrees, cutting through Din’s thick layers like they were nothing. Cara was shivering despite the cloak she had pulled over her bare shoulders while he was gone.

The night dragged on, every minute becoming longer and longer until it was nearly unbearable. All he could think of was all the time trickling away, how Grogu could be killed at any point, maybe he already had been, while Din just sat here holed up in his ship; how Grogu was most certainly undergoing something no one ever, ever should, while Din munched on a ration bar and sheltered himself from the wind. 

“We’ll get him,” Cara said, perched in a corner of the ship. “He’s here, and he called out to you. He’s here.”

Din sighed and leaned his head against the wall. “Yeah.”

“You always get him back.”

“And then I always give him up.”

Cara scooted across the floor to sit next to him. “Maybe it’s just a cycle of him leaving and you getting him back, and him leaving and you getting him back, and him leaving and you getting him back. I don’t think it’s supposed to end with him leaving.”

“He belongs with the Jedi.”

“How do you know that for sure?”

“He chose. It was his decision.”

“Then why are you here and not him?”

Din let his eyes slide shut and took a shallow breath. Why was he here? Grogu was no longer his responsibility, and hadn’t been for months. The Jedi was probably more capable of getting him back safely than Din was, with his fancy laser sword and magic tricks and all. But then, back to Cara’s point, why hadn’t he come?

“Why do you keep coming back for him, Din?”

“I’ll always come back for him.” His voice was rough and raspy and pathetic, but his words were true. He’d always come back for the kid, even if his hair became frosty with age and his joints crackled and his limbs grew weak. Nothing could stop him from coming for his kid, not age nor time nor distance.

He’d always come back. 

“Exactly,” Cara said with a slight smile. “You two belong together.”

Did they? Just about everything pointed towards them not belonging together, from how they had met, to the Armorer’s guidance, to the kid choosing the Jedi, even right down to how Grogu’s species aged. The kid would probably still be just that, a kid, by the time Din died, even if he lived a full, long life. How could they possibly belong together?

“I’m saying that when we get Grogu back, because we will, I think it’s time he reconsidered his choice.”

No. No, Din couldn’t get his hopes up, not to be crushed again when Grogu inevitably left, like he always did. Not that it was the kid’s fault for leaving. Of course he’d leave. Din had nothing to offer.

Cara stood and stretched. “You should try to get some rest,” she suggested. “Long day tomorrow.”

Din nodded and stood as well. His beskar seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. 

He tried to sleep, but every time he shut his eyes his mind flooded with images of dark figures with yellow eyes crowding around him until he was suffocating, of stone walls collapsing in on him, of a small voice screaming out in terror. 

At the first sign of light, Din strapped on his jetpack and stepped out of the ship, Cara dropping into her position behind the boulder. He’d have plenty of time before nightfall to hopefully search the entire mountain. It was a bitter cold akin to the iciest planets Din had visited, a bone deep chill sweeping through him that violently clattered his teeth together. After only a half hour of walking, his fingers were numb and he had to force his legs to bend at the knees. 

This was not ideal.

Thankfully the temperature rose with the sun, and by the time the barren planet was lit up, he could feel his fingers again. He was halfway around the mountain when he saw the doorway.

It wasn’t a traditional doorway, more of a hole than anything else. It was small, with about a two foot radius and situated at an angle where it seemed to only be a dip in the ground. Din had only picked it up himself because his scanner indicated a sharp drop and a large empty cavern underneath it. He knelt beside it and gazed down into the dark pit. 

“Found something,” he said into his comm to Cara. “You can bring the ship about halfway around the mountain. There’s plenty of space to land.”

“ Will do ,” Cara responded. Moments later, he heard the distant sound of the Insurgent’s engine sputtering to life. He hoped that whatever was in this whole, if there even was anything, wasn’t alerted by the sound. It was unlikely, but backup was more important than stealth. Whatever had taken Grogu had taken him from a Jedi. They had to know someone would come looking for the kid. They’d likely been tipped off as soon as Din and Cara entered the atmosphere, anyway. 

“A hole,” Cara stated, crouched beside Din. “Can you tell how deep it goes?”

“It’s about a seven foot drop to the floor of… whatever it is. There’s a huge open space under this mountain. I have no idea how far it goes, or if this is the only entrance.”

“A mystery. Great! What do you say we go in together? I’m not a fan of letting you get lost in some stupid hole.”

“I won’t get lost. But yes, you should probably come. My scanner isn’t picking up any life forms, but there’s something… off about this place. I’ll go first.”

Din had to take his jetpack off to fit down the hole. He dropped to the ground with his headlight on, quickly scanning the surrounding area. He was alone. 

“It’s safe,” he called up to Cara. She slid him his jetpack and hopped down beside him, looking around warily. “This isn’t just some cave,” she pointed out. “It’s a room. It’s been carved out.”

Sure enough, at the end of the room was a tall arch which led to another hallway, carefully carved with intricate designs around the edges. Along the walls were etchings in a strange language Din had never seen before, tall and sharp. 

Evil. Dark. Wrong.

Cara frowned, tracing the letters with a finger. 

“I’ve never seen these markings before.”

“Me neither,” Din said, voice low. The eerie feeling of being stalked washed over him in waves. “We should keep moving.”

Cara nodded and they headed through the underground chamber, passing under the arch and heading down the long hallway. Smaller hallways with the naturally rough walls of a true cave branched off, but Din had a feeling they needed to stick to the main path. The strange script continued through the whole hallway, almost seeming to follow them. Din remained silent, afraid that the deafening thumping of his heart would give them away. 

A soft whisper lilted through the air and Din stopped so suddenly that Cara bumped into him from behind. 

“What is it?” she asked in a hushed tone. This was not the place for careless noise. 

“Did you hear that?” Din asked.

“Hear what?”

“The whisper.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“Hold on. Listen.”

The whisper did not come again. 

Great, now he was hearing things. He started forward again with a quiet sigh. 

The hallway eventually opened up into a huge pyramid shaped room, all four walls condensing to a single point on the ceiling nearly fifty feet above them. In the center of the room sat a rectangular box, or table. Din couldn’t quite tell what it was, but the lingering sense of wrongness increased exponentially until it was almost overwhelming. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have brought Cara here. There was something so extremely unnatural about this place, he was sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep for weeks.

If he even made it out. 

He stepped towards the box in the center of the room and looked down upon it. Inscribed on the top were more of the indecipherable letters, and the sides were lined with golden patterns. Din belatedly noticed the hinge along the top of the side.

It wasn’t a table, he realized with a jolt. 

“It’s a coffin,” he said. “We’re in a tomb.” 

“Quite right,” a voice from behind him said, and it certainly wasn’t Cara.

Chapter Text

Din would never admit to the panic that shot through his veins at that voice that wasn’t Cara, but it was there and it was nearly paralyzing. He spun around and whipped out his blaster in one move. The figure behind them was clad in dark robes and her face was pale green with burning yellow eyes. She smiled, twisting her features and revealing her sharp fangs.

“Who are you?” Din demanded. 

“I am the Third Sister, a student of the Sith,” she said. “You may put your blaster down if you wish, Din Djarin.”

Din’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of his name. Only a select few people in the galaxy knew that name, only the people he’d trust with his life. How did she know? He caught sight of the cylinder on her belt, and it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. She was the Force wielder.

Din tightened his grip on the blaster. “Where’s the kid?”

The Third Sister tilted her head. “Cutting right to the chase? Boring. I’m disappointed.”

“Tell me where he is, and I won’t kill you.” He turned his head to look at Cara to make sure she was okay. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet, but he froze.

Cara wasn’t there.

“Uh oh,” The Third Sister laughed. “Your move, Djarin.”

She had been there a moment ago. She’d been standing right next to him. He’d heard her footsteps and listened to her breathing and… and… she’d been right there!

“I’m getting bored, Mandalorian.”

“Where’d she go?” he asked, wincing at how pathetic his voice sounded. 

“Your friend is now on her own mission. Don’t worry, her death won’t be nearly as painful as yours.” 

Din pocketed the blaster and drew the beskar spear from his back. He’d seen what Skywalker had done to the Dark Troopers. A blaster wouldn’t be much help. He held the spear in front of him, adrenaline racing through his veins. This was the first time he’d used it since Gideon’s ship. It felt perfectly in place in his hands, as if it was built for him. He could feel the soul of the beskar thrumming beneath his fingertips, and felt the staff ready to respond to his every move.

The Third Sister’s smirk widened. “Finally, an interesting move.” She detached the cylinder from her belt, which Din now realized was inscribed within a circle. The blade extended from the cylinder just as the Darksaber did, although it was a deep red as opposed to the shimmering black and white he was familiar with. The Sister lunged, and the fight began.

Din reached up to block her attack and the sheer force exerted upon the spear caused him to stumble back a few steps. The next strike came, followed by the third and fourth, all relentless strikes with no mercy. She was strong . And fast, faster than any opponent Din had faced. Gideon had been all wild swings and pure strength, but the Sister was smart and infinitely more skilled. She twirled the blade around as if it was merely an extension of her arm and Din realized that it was, in the same way his blaster was an extension of him, the same way his spear was. She had been training with this weapon for her entire life. 

The Third Sister rained down attack after attack upon him, giving him no chance to even attempt to get on the offensive. He was sweating already despite the cold air of the tomb. His arms ached from blocking her strikes, and he regretted settling for the simple bounties he’d been tasked with over the past six months. He was out of shape, and it would be both his and the kid’s downfall. 

The saber came down hard, forcing the spear wide, and came down again on his pauldron. He knocked it aside, the beskar spear glowing orange with the prolonged contact, and he could see her maniacal grin in the dim light. She was toying with him. His kid’s life was at stake, and she was toying with him. Rage rushed through his limbs, giving him renewed sense of energy. Forward, back, crouch, back, to the right. Drop to a knee, roll. (Try to) sweep their legs out. (Try to) pin them down. Roll to your feet. Repeat. He wasn’t fighting with his fists, but the footwork remained constant as he slashed and parried and blocked. Maybe the Sister had underestimated his skill or maybe he just got a lucky hit in; either way, the tip of the spear jabbed at her shoulder and met flesh. Din took a step back in shock. She looked at the wound, now slowly oozing a dark liquid, and smiled at him.

“Most impressive, Din Djarin,” she said. “The Mandalorians have taught you well, especially for an outsider.”

Din snapped out of his shock and lunged . He brought the spear down on her hard. She blocked it with ease, but he came again, and again, and again, nearly shaking with rage. How dare she.

“Feel your anger,” she encouraged, “it gives you power. Let it flow through you and power your actions.”

“You know nothing about the Mandalorians,” Din hissed, kicking the spear backwards into an arch around his head and slamming it down on her hilt. “Do not speak of them.”

“Oh, but I do,” she laughed with a sick kind of glee coating her words. “I was tasked with hunting your kind down after the Purge. I know all too well the feeling of slicing through your soft spots, gutting your kind and leaving the beskar shells behind.”

Fury burning hot and spreading through him like wildfire, Din reached in for a jab, retreated, feinted left and tried to ram the dull end of the spear into her chest, but she blocked it with ease. With a practiced twist of the wrist, his beskar spear was wrenched from his hand and clattered onto the ground twenty feet away.

  He stood, panting, sweat streaming down his face and back as he stood, unarmed. 

“A good opening act,” the Sister remarked. “Now we will see what you are truly capable of.”

Din knew what she spoke of, the weight on his belt growing heavier as she spoke. He had not used the Darksaber and had never intended to. 

But this was for Grogu.

He drew the weapon slowly and activated the blade. It cast a silvery light that clashed against the red haze of the Sister’s saber. It felt too light in his hand, unbalanced, as if the blade itself had no mass. 

This was for his kid.

“I’ll ask you this one more time,” Din said, his words far more confident than he felt. “Where’s the kid?”

“If you prove yourself worthy, perhaps you shall see.” As if one laser sword wasn’t enough, the Sister held her odd circular hilt in front of her and a second blade ignited from the other side. 

And then they started spinning, faster and faster until she was holding a propeller of death and Din knew he had no shot. This would be his tomb as well. 

But he would not go down as a coward. He raised the Darksaber and charged. 

Immediately, he knew he would need to change his style of fighting. Her blade spun too fast to get any solid hits in, unless he wanted to lose the Darksaber the same way he’d lost the spear. In the back of his mind, Din wondered how Bo-Katan would feel about the title of Mand’alor being granted to a Mandalorian hunter. Or Sith. Whatever.

They circled each other, knees bent and weapons at the ready. She was clearly waiting for him to make the first move, and he knew he’d have to. He vaguely realized he was no longer in the room with the coffin, but in the hallway. She was herding him like an animal. He briefly considered the implications of that before just deciding to let it happen. With any luck, she’d be leading him to the kid. As much as he hated Grogu using his powers and wiping himself out, now would be the time for some assistance. He hoped the training with Skywalker paid off. 

Din finally stuck out the Darksaber, hoping for the best. The Sister blocked it, as he expected her to, but now he was really just wasting time. He needed to allow her to herd him wherever she wanted to, and quickly. If it was to Grogu, the sooner he saw the little womp rat safe and alive, the better.

He reached in again, stumbling back a few more steps when she violently cut him off. 

“Do better, Djarin, or I will cut you down where you stand and bring a much worse fate upon your son .” She sneered the last word, as if Grogu didn’t mean the entire galaxy to him. As if he was something to be ashamed of.

“Show me he is alive, and maybe I will have some incentive to fight.”

“Don’t insult my intelligence like that,” she said. “We both know you are at the disadvantage. You cannot risk dying until you know he is dead. So please, do better. I will not ask again.”

Din clenched his teeth and shifted his grip on the saber. So she called his bluff. He’d been expecting that. He took a breath. Exhaled. Took another. 

Fighting is like a dance. Done correctly, it is a beautiful thing to witness. The katas are sacred, for fighting is part of our religion. You understand?

He could almost hear the voice of his buir echoing through this cavern, buried under a mountain on a strange planet far from home. 

Where’s home? You have no home.

“ Ner yaim cuyir ner ad ,” Din murmured under his breath. “ Ni linibar naas or'atu. ” He didn’t need a planet to call home. His home was a small green child with floppy ears and big brown eyes. He leaned his back, then rocked forward, then back again. “ Ni Kelir ash'amur sa a Mando .”

The next few minutes blurred together in a haze of the buzzing of the sabers and the flashes of color against the stone walls. Din fought like a whirlwind, but the Sister was faster. He was lighter on his feet and quicker with his wrists than he could ever remember being, but she was always one step ahead. How was he supposed to beat her? The only reason he was even still alive was for her amusement. 

He retreated, step after step, until the hallway opened into a huge cavern. If he’d thought the room with the coffin was large, this one was ten times the size. Pipes lined the walls, leading to who knew where, and various menacing contraptions were spread throughout the room.

“You appreciate it?” The Third Sister asked, ceasing her attack. “It took many years to craft, and still stands, millenia later.”

Din wasn’t listening. His entire world had shrunk around him at once, focusing solely on the small green figure sitting on a platform in the center of the room. 

His eyes were closed. Was he breathing? Was he alive? 

Din’s heart was about to beat out of his damn chest, it was thumping so hard. He was suddenly dizzy and his hands were cold. It had been six months, but he was here. He’d kept his promise.

Grogu .

“Focus, Mandalorian. I want you to be paying attention when you meet your end.”

“What did you do to him?” Din demanded in a flat voice.

“Only what the Force suggested.”

Din snarled under his helmet. “Why would the Force demand such cruelty?”

“Young Mandalorian, all you know of the Force is what Skywalker has told you, hardly a reliable source.”

“What do you mean?”

“His father was a Sith Lord, the very Sith Lord responsible for the downfall of the Republic and the slaughter your people thereafter endured. The same Sith Lord that Gideon was employed under. How can you possibly trust him?”

“Skywalker is not his father,” Din argued. “What did you do to the child?”

“Do not trust a Jedi,” the Sister warned. “They are full of hypocrisies and riddled with corruption. That is what this place is for.” 

“What?”

“It is where we sacrifice Jedi, Din Djarin. And unfortunately, your child now qualifies as a Jedi. And as it has served its purpose to the Empire… I’m afraid it no longer is of any use to us.”

Din recognized the contraptions now. He spotted a guillotine, a stake, a noose, sharp tools strewn about the floor. 

And Grogu was in the middle of it all.

“The Empire is dead,” Din said, a final burst of fear spurring him on once more. “And soon, you will be too.”

An invisible fist closed around his throat as he lunged forward, lifting him off the ground and yanking him past the Sister and into the hallway. It dumped him onto the floor and he rolled a few times before coming to a halt. He coughed, desperately wheezing air back into his lungs. Well, now he knew what Cara had gone through, so long ago on the Razor Crest.

Right. Cara was still missing. 

Thankfully, he had held on tight to the Darksaber as he was thrown around like a ragdoll. He rose to his feet, a sinking feeling in his gut that the Sister wouldn’t be playing nice this time.

She had something in her hand. A ball, with a flashing light on it.

“Listen to me carefully,” she said. “I stand between you and this child. And you will watch as he dies.” As she let go of the ball and pushed it through the air, just as Ahsoka had done all those months ago, he recognized the flashing light. It was a bomb. He wondered why this was happening. Was the Empire targeting Din because of the trouble he’d caused them? Was the Sister simply completing her mission of wiping out the remaining Mandalorians? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she stood between him and his son, and Din was Grogu’s only chance.

It was time to dance.

He leapt forward, facing off with all he had. He was controlled, calculated, careful not to jump in blind with rage. He was quick and precise, the last burst of adrenaline his body had to offer surging through him. He was smart, reading her moves and adjusting accordingly. She may have trained all her life with a lightsaber, but he was a Mandalorian. Weapons were part of his religion.

Din didn’t know how much time he had until the bomb went off, but it couldn’t be much. The Third Sister’s smirk had been replaced with a mask of focus. Din didn’t get his hopes up; she still had the advantage. 

Slash, perry, thrust, step back, to the side, block, slash, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. 

Repeat.

Repeat.

Din’s final reserve of energy was waning, fast. He couldn’t hold out much longer, didn’t even stand a chance-

With a jab and a thrust and a blast of an invisible wall to his face, the Sister shoved him into the cave wall and took off running. So, not much time before the bomb went off.

Then, she was frozen, trying to move forward but stuck helplessly by an invisible force. Din felt the same warmth from his dream pour over him. He turned his head sharply, looking into the sacrificial room to see Grogu with his eyes squinted with focus, arm stretched out in concentration. Din wasted no time raising the Darksaber and slashing the Sister’s head clean off like butter.

Then, an urgent beeping filled his ears,

The bomb.

The bomb .

Din sprinted into the cavern, numb, his only goal to protect the kid. He jumped, tackled the kid off the platform, shielded him the best he could. An ear shattering blast ripped open the world and everything went dark.

Everything hurt.That was the only thought that crossed Din’s mind as he laid there in the darkness. It was the only thought his battered, exhausted brain could conjure. Everything fucking hurt .

His eyes wouldn’t open. They felt glued shut. Was he in danger? He felt like he was in danger, like he needed to get up and run. An explosion. Had there been an explosion? Had his ship crashed? He didn’t know. 

“Ni kar'tayl gai sa'ad.”

“ What does that mean? ” 

“It means I am now your buir, your father.”

“My father is dead.”

“I know, ad’ika . I know.

“How can I have two fathers?”

“Perhaps you will find out, in time.”

“I don’t want to forget him.”

“You won’t, child. Aliit cuyir ratiin . Family is forever. Remember this.”

There was something squirming in his arms. Something small. He tried to open his eyes again. They opened for a moment, at least he thought they did. He caught a brief glimpse of fallen rocks and dancing flames before they fell shut again. Everything felt odd and distant. Was he dreaming? Was this a nightmare?

He woke with a scream, terror coursing through his veins as he cried and cried and cried. Someone was with him, kneeling beside him, asking what was wrong. They didn’t have a face. If they didn’t have a face, how did he know they were real, living and breathing, not a faceless droid that was programmed to kill, destroy, murder-

“Shhh, ad’ika ,” the voice murmured. “You’re safe.”

But how could Din ever be safe again?

The height of the pain was in his shoulder. It burned like fire, and a small groan squeezed its way from his chest despite himself. His mouth was so dry it stung. His tongue felt too big, his jaw pounding. The ground spun beneath him. Why was the world moving? Why wouldn’t it be still?

He groaned again, and the bundle in his arms made itself known once more. It pressed against his chestplate and jostled his shoulder.

“Stop,” he tried to say, but his mouth wouldn’t even open. The bundle continued to shuffle.

Din stared into the visor of the face he would carry for the rest of his life. It was emotionless, cold, but he knew the Mandalorians stood for everything but that. The Mandalorians revolved around family, around foundlings, around taking others in and adopting them into their beautiful way of life. Din had lived with the tribe long enough to know how beautiful Mandalorians could be, the way they moved with their weapons as one, the way they survived as both individuals and a family, the way they protected and nourished the foundlings. The way they protected and nourished Din . 

He glanced around at the warriors surrounding him, and was sure of his choice. 

He put on the helmet.

Din forced his eyes open again. 

Grogu .

The kid.

He had to get to the kid.

Was he okay?

Din tried to pull back to look for him, but the slightest shift sent knives through his shoulder, whiting out his vision. He laid still until it was bearable again. He couldn’t get up. He couldn’t move. But he couldn’t leave the kid, not after he’d come all this way. 

He couldn’t leave him.

He’d promised to see him again.

He felt something warm and wet against his cheek inside the helmet, slipping down his cheek. Was he crying? Or bleeding out? 

He could only see out of the corner of his visor. Something was blocking his view. His helmet had shifted on his head, and he couldn’t fix it. 

He couldn’t move . 

Cara. 

Where was Cara? She’d probably be upset with him, he thought absently. 

He hoped she was okay. 

Where was he?

What happened?

The fire around him blurred in and out of focus. It spun around him, around and around and around. Din felt sick. He couldn’t throw up in his helmet. He tried to move again.

Nope. No moving. 

But he had to get up. He couldn’t give up now. His kid needed him.

“ Buir , listen to me, you need to get up. Please.”

“Go on… without me. I won’t make it.”

“No, no, you can make it, we can get help-”

“ Ad’ika . Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid, you’re just being dramatic , you’re fine! ”

“Din. It’s time to let me go.”

“I can’t, I can’t do this again, please, please , buir , please!”

The large hand clasped his own in a weak grip. The first time Din had held this hand it had been strong, stable, the sturdiest thing he had in his life, hauling him up from the cellar he’d thought to be his grave. Now, his grip was no more than the wisp of a feather against his glove.

“Please,” he whispered. 

“Be strong,” his buir said. “ Verd ori'shya beskar'gam. Remember that. Remember your aliit.”

“I will, buir, ” Din sobbed, tears streaming down his cheeks until his buir’s helmet became a blurry mess in front of him. “I will.”

The hand went limp in his own, and Din felt as alone as he had in that cellar all those years ago.

Someone was calling his name. They sounded far away, as if their voice had traveled hundreds of clicks to meet his ears. The sound was staticky, warbled, and he couldn’t comprehend much of what they meant besides his name.

“Din. Din. Oh shit, shit, shit!” 

The voice was familiar but he couldn’t place it. He felt like he was floating, trapped in a dark room and the voice was coming from behind the locked door, but along with the voice came an immeasurable amount of pain. He decided he’d float in the dark room for a while more. 

Then something jolted his shoulder, and the dark room crumbled to pieces around him. 

“Wake up. Wake up!” 

Din groaned and clumsily tried to bat away whatever was causing the agony to shoot through his shoulder and down his arm and weave around his neck in a nearly suffocating grasp. 

“Stop moving. Din, stop. It’s me, it’s Cara, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

Cara. The voice belonged to Cara. He blinked once, twice, and she came into a hazy focus above him. Her eyebrows were knit together in a look he hadn’t seen since they faced Gideon’s troops on Nevarro. It must be bad then, he realized. 

“What the hell did you do to yourself,” she murmured, eyes drifting towards his shoulder. That was a good question, which he could not answer. He didn’t recognize the dark stone walls around them or the impossibly tall ceiling that seemed to stretch up forever or the sharp boulders of rock that surrounded him. What had happened? His mind came up frustratingly empty. He wasn’t used to being so dazed and out of it, but his mind wandered in confusing circles and his brain pulsed and heat surged through his entire body and he had no idea what was going on,

His throat ached as he spoke. “What happened?” His voice was weak and raspy and his words stumbled into each other. His tongue was dry and felt too swollen for his mouth. 

Cara raised an eyebrow at him. At least, he thought she did. Dots were swirling around his vision and everything was just so damn blurry. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Where… where are we?”

“We’re on Moraband. For the kid. You don’t remember?”

The memories flooded back and Din tried to sit up with a jolt, only to collapse back down with a strangled moan. He remembered the coffin, the strange letters, losing Cara, the Sister, seeing Grogu, Grogu was here, he’d found him, and then the bomb, there'd been a bomb… he was so dizzy.

“You can’t move. You’re hurt. Badly,” Cara told him, a hand resting on his good shoulder. She kept the pressure light, but the message was clear: Don’t get up.

“Is he okay?” Din grunted out. Trying to sit up had doubled the pain, and he found it increasingly more difficult to focus on stringing together thoughts and forcing out words. 

“He’s right here,” Cara said, holding up a little green and brown bundle in her arms. She and the kid wavered in front of him, sliding in and out of focus like a holo with a shitty connection.“I think he’s alright. He just seems exhausted. And worried.”

Din breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed. Well, he relaxed as much as he could with the fire raging across his shoulder. “There was a sith,” he rasped, but couldn’t catch his breath enough to continue explaining what had happened. It would have to wait.

“We can talk about what happened later,” Cara said, turning her attention back towards his shoulder. “We’ve got a problem here.”

Din turned his head as much as he could, and caught a glimpse of something long and shiny to his left. 

“How bad?” 

“There’s a pole through your shoulder. Just missed your pauldron.”

Din turned his head away from the gruesome sight, slightly nauseous, and let his eyes slide shut. “All the way through?”

“Yeah. I can’t take it out. You can’t afford to lose even more blood.”

She was right. Din could feel his remaining strength seeping away, draining from him along with his blood that now wetted the thick layers of clothing around his shoulder. He was cold, but didn’t have the energy to shiver. His fingers and toes had started to tingle.

“I think…. I’m going into shock,” he said weakly. His words slurred worse with each passing moment. 

Cara pressed a finger to his wrist and waited for a moment, feeling his pulse. Her frown increased at what she felt. 

“It’s too weak and uneven. You need bacta and bandages. We need to move. Can you walk?”

The dizziness swirling through his head and the fact that he could no longer feel his feet told him no, he could not walk. 

“I can try,” he said. 

Cara adjusted herself on his right side, slinging his uninjured right arm around her shoulders. “Stand up slowly,” she said, and began to rise.

White hot pain swept over every inch of him immediately, blanking out his vision and punching an involuntary moan from his lungs. The pole shifted sickeningly in his shoulder. Saliva flooded his mouth and his stomach lurched,

“Stop,” he gasped, his voice coming out in a high pitched whimper. As soon as Cara set him down he was fumbling for the underneath of the helmet, breaking the seal and shoving it off his head. His cheeks were met by the warm and smoky air, but he barely had time to process it before he was heaving up the contents of his stomach, which wasn’t much. It hurt. Cara kept a firm hand on his back as he puked, and he wondered vaguely if she had seen his face or had looked away. He supposed it didn’t really matter. 

He dry heaved a few times, a choked off retching noise echoing through the large room, before his body went limp and he leaned back heavily against what he assumed was Cara. He panted harshly, unable to catch his breath. Each inhale sent sharp sparks of pain through his shoulder and down his arm to his fingertips. A film of sweat had settled itself on his face and neck, matting his bangs onto his forehead. 

“Do you have your helmet on?” Cara asked from behind him. She must’ve kept her eyes shut. Gratitude and fondness flickered in his chest before being smashed down by the all-consuming pain. 

“No,” he croaked out. Maker, he sounded terrible. “‘S fine.”

A pause from behind. “Are you sure?” 

Din thought of Bo-Katan and her Mandalorians, of Fett, of all he’d learned over the last year. He’d broken his Creed, his Way.

But it was not the only Way.

“Yes.”

He couldn’t feel the moment her eyes fell upon his face. He couldn’t even see it, because his own eyes were closed. When had they closed? He wasn’t sure. He also wasn’t sure if he could open them again.

“You look like shit,” she said. 

“Mmmm,” he mumbled incoherently, relieved deep down that she wasn't making a big deal about it. His consciousness was beginning to slip away, fast. They needed to do something.

Cara seemed to agree. “You wanna try walking again?” she asked.

“Can’t,” Din said. The nausea continued to wash over him in thick waves, and any movement felt like enough to send him over the brink into unconsciousness. 

Cara shifted behind him, swore, shifted some more, swore some more. 

“The kid,” she finally said, a note of hope in her voice. “He can heal. Remember what he did for Karga? He could help.”

“No. He’s… already too tired. Not good for him.” 

Din opened his eyes a crack to see Cara pacing in front of him. Grogu sat next to him on the right, staring up at him with those big brown eyes. Din couldn’t just sit here. He couldn’t leave the kid, not after he’d come all this way. 

The idea struck him, and a pit settled in his stomach.

“Take it out,” he said, his voice as strong and sure as he could make it as he steeled himself for what was to come.

“Are you crazy? You’re minutes away from bleeding out as it is, why the fuck would you want to speed up the process?”

“I won’t bleed out. You-you can cauterize it.”

“What?” she asked. “We have nothing to cauterize it with.” He looked up at her without the barrier of his visor for the first time, and willed her to understand. She stared at him blankly, palms turned upwards in a gesture of confusion. Realization dawned on her after a few moments of tense silence, and her face dropped. 

“I don’t-you’re sure?”

“It’s… the only option.”

“It’s not. I could carry you, I dragged you back on Nevarro, I can do it again-”

“Cara,” he cut her off softly. “You can’t drag me the whole way back.” He took a moment to catch his breath. “I can take it. Just….just do it.”

She looked away, looked towards the ceiling, looked everywhere besides his face. Time ticked on, and she seemed to realize this. She finally knelt beside him and handed him a wadded up piece of cloth from her pocket.

“Bite down,” she ordered, her voice heavy. Guilt tugged at his gut as he bit down on the cloth. It was unfair of him to ask this of her, but it was the only way he’d make it out alive. And he needed to make it out alive, for the kid.

Her fingers wrapped around the pole, shifting it ever so slightly and his stomach rolled, but he clenched his jaw shut. It would be over soon. He hoped.

“On three,” Cara whispered. “One, two-”

Then she yanked it, and white bursts of stars filled his vision as a red hot poker seemed to stab into his shoulder again, and again, and again. Distantly, he heard desperate screaming. Maybe it was him. 

The screaming was accompanied by a chorus of soft 'sorry's,' tight with pain and regret.

The torture went on for what felt like hours, days, years, wrenching his consciousness farther away from reality until he was drifting between worlds, hanging on by a mere thread. The pain faded, but he continued to drift. 

He vaguely felt Cara unclip the Darksaber from his belt. “Okay,” she said. She was far, far away again. He was back in the dark room. “It’s okay if you pass out. Don’t try to hang on.”

Hang on to what?

A fuzzy humming filled his ears, deep and menacing and wrong. Where was he? Was he still on Moraband? Was the kid okay?

Grogu. The Jetii had taken him, back on Gideon's ship.

Din was alone, floating in this strange reality, this painful world between worlds.

Something hot touched it’s tip to Din’ shoulder, and his dark room filled with an inferno, igniting into a flaming chasm of pure agony. 

Chapter Text

Consciousness wavered just beyond Din’s fingertips for what felt like hours. He was aware of the burning in his shoulder, of the way the skin surrounding the wound felt too tight and too hot, but he felt disconnected from his body. Distant, as if he was experiencing these events as an outsider, a mere observer. 

What had happened? How did he end up so out of it? The memories, just like consciousness, remained frustratingly out of reach. He was pretty sure he’d been with Cara. The hazy image of her concerned face floated across his foggy mind briefly. 

He could count on one hand the amount of times she’d looked at him like that, and he preferred to keep it that way. He could handle himself, obviously, and the last thing he needed was his friends to think less of him, to see him as weak. Especially now that they thought he was some sort of emotional wreck with the kid.

Wait.

The kid. 

The kid, exhausted, perched all alone in the center of a vast room designed to torture his kind.

The kid, digging into the deepest reserves of his energy to stop the Sith to hold her in place as Din sliced her head clean off.

Grogu.

Din clawed his way back to consciousness, bit by bit. The pain intensified and nearly dragged him back under. The first thing he became aware of besides the all-encompassing pain was that a hand was repeatedly tapping his face.

His face.

He wasn’t wearing his helmet.

Right, he’d taken it off.

Cara had seen his face. He was slightly surprised at the reassurance that memory brought instead of the gut wrenching guilt and an overwhelming sense of betrayal that he’d felt on Morak. It made sense for her to see him. He’d broken the Creed months ago, and sticking to the rules he’d already disregarded seemed much more like being stuck in denial than attempting to remain loyal to his culture. There were many Ways, and by breaking one to save Grogu, he’d found his own Way. The kid’s safety was the top priority. It always had been and always would be, even if he had to give him back up to Skywalker. 

The hand tapping his face, presumably Cara’s, moved to press something against the side of his head and a new pain caught his attention. He vaguely remembered something wet seeping down his cheek, but hadn’t paid it much mind. 

Din opened his eyes a sliver, picking up a blur of orange and black, before they fell shut against his will. He was exhausted. Every inch of his body felt completely drained, every muscle screamed for him to shut down and sleep for days.

“Din….awake?.... -isten to-.... Din?” Cara’s voice was cutting in and out, only half of her words reaching his ears. Her tone was urgent. He needed to get up. He’d been hurt, they had to move, and they needed to get Grogu to safety. 

He tried to open his mouth, tried to speak, but his jaw wouldn’t move and all that came out was a hoarse groan. 

She said something else, he thought, but he lost some time. When he became aware of the hard ground beneath him and the constant agony in his shoulder once more, she was no longer tapping his face and there was a new weight in his lap, although not an unfamiliar one. Din’s eyes finally fluttered open for more than a few seconds, and his head rolled forward to look down at the child sitting on his thigh.

It was the first good look he’d really gotten of Grogu in six months. The kid’s ears drooped, a telltale sign that he was upset about something. It wasn’t hard to guess what. He looked tired, a bit paler than Din remembered, but his eyes were as bright as ever. 

“Hey,” Din rasped out, his voice a mess. He’d been screaming a lot, he remembered. Right. The pole through his shoulder, Cara cauterizing the wound with the Darksaber. The Sith temple, or whatever it was.

“Hey yourself,” Cara said from his right. He turned his head as much as he could and her blurry form came into view. Her hands were coated with his blood that matched the stains all over her shirt. Her eyebrows were pulled together and she wore a small frown, looking at him carefully as if he’d pass out at any moment. If he looked as bad as he felt, he couldn’t blame her.

“How long-” he tried to ask, but his voice cracked harshly and his question stuttered to a halt. 

“Not too long,” Cara answered, getting the gist of his question. “An hour or so. You feel up to walking anytime soon?”

Din flexed his fingers, wiggled his toes. His body responded to his demands sluggishly and with no coordination. He didn’t feel up to walking in the next day or so, let alone the next few minutes.

“Give me a few,” he said, letting his eyes slide shut and leaning his head against the boulder he was propped up against.

“Please try not to go under again,” Cara said. The uncharacteristic shake in her voice was enough for him to force his heavy eyes back open. 

“I won’t,” he assured her. He must’ve been pretty bad off for her to be this shaken. He sat there, breathing as deeply as he could and trying to muster strength into his limbs for five minutes, ten, fifteen, until they couldn’t put it off any longer. The explosion was bound to have made the underground maze unstable, and although he was no longer currently bleeding out, Din knew he needed a lot more medical attention. 

“Okay,” he finally said. “Help me up.” 

He grasped Cara’s outstretched hand as she wrapped her free arm around him and under his left arm, and she hauled him to his feet. The world spun violently and he immediately began to tilt forward on weak knees, but Cara’s grip remained steady and held him upright. His eyes were shut and he dragged in sharp breaths of air that sent spears of pain through his shoulder. 

“Okay?” Cara asked.

Din tried to nod, but his head felt so light and stuffy that he couldn’t be sure what it actually did. He felt Cara bend down and straighten up again, and when he was able to open his eyes he saw that she had scooped up the kid, who continued to gaze at him with those big eyes and floppy ears. Din wondered if Grogu had missed him as much as he’d missed the kid. It seemed unlikely. Grogu had been the one to summon the Jedi in the first place, and had chosen to go with him. Besides, the kid was fifty years old, as much as he didn’t seem it. He’d go on to live for many centuries. Din was just a blip in the span of his life. He hoped this kid hadn’t wasted time missing him. 

Cara took a step forward and Din tried to replicate her movements. His feet dragged against the ground, but he couldn’t force them any higher. 

“Where did you go?” he asked, needing her to fill the empty air with words, anything to distract him from the gradually growing ache in his shoulder. 

“What?”

“We were in the room with the coffin. You were….next to me. Where….where did you go?” His words slurred together messily and he was pathetically out of breath for the short distance they’d covered. 

“I don’t-I can’t really explain it. One minute I was there, next to you, and the next I was in a pitch black room and you were gone. I was completely lost.”
Din stumbled heavily but she held on tight and pulled him back upright.

“I wandered around for a while, but it was a completely different part of whatever this place is. The comms wouldn’t work either. I still have no idea how I got there.”

“I might….have an idea,” Din panted, thinking of the Sister and all the strange ways he’d seen the Force utilized.

“You can tell me later. Save your breath.” She paused for a moment, and the corridor was filled only with his harsh breathing. “Anyway, I must’ve been wandering around for nearly an hour before I heard a huge explosion. I headed in the direction it came from until I found you.”

Had Din really fought the Sister for a full hour? It hadn’t felt like that long, while simultaneously feeling like the longest task he’d ever carried out. Actually, making it down the corridor was the longest task he’d ever been given. Gray dots swirled at the edges of his vision and he couldn’t feel his legs anymore. They must’ve still been putting one foot in front of the other because he and Cara were still moving forward. 

The corridor opened back into the large room with a coffin, and the dark, evil feeling was back, clogging Din’s chest. He didn’t want to linger here any longer than necessary. He tried to pick up the pace. Cara sensed his urgency to leave, adjusting her grip on him and walking faster as well. 

After getting enough paces between them and the coffin room, the dark feeling ebbed enough that Din slowed and began to slump towards the ground. 

“Can we….take a break,” he wheezed out. His face felt hot with shame at the weakness that asking for a break displayed. He was risking all their lives by slowing them down, making them stop when the ceiling could collapse at any minute, but if he wasn’t careful, he’d be the one collapsing. 

Cara lowered him to the ground as gently as she could. Her forehead had a thin coating of sweat on it, and he immediately felt guilty. He’d been leaning most of his weight on her, and he was heavy enough without his full suit of beskar armor.

“Drink this,” she said, sitting down beside him and placing Grogu back on his lap. She held out her small canteen of water, and he took it gratefully. The cool water washed away the lingering taste of blood in his mouth and soothed his raw throat. 

“There was a Sith,” he began softly. “A Force wielder that didn’t like the Jedi. This place….it’s a Sith temple designed for sacrificing Jedi.” He paused to catch his breath. Cara only looked mildly horrified, which he took as his cue to continue. “She said she was tasked with hunting down Mandalorians, during the Empire. She had a lightsaber. She said….she said a lot of things.” Din shoved away the memory of her telling him that Skywalker’s father had been a Sith Lord. It didn’t matter, not if Grogu had chosen him. 

Cara hummed in thought. “I’ve never heard of the Sith before. The only Force wielders I know of are the Jedi. I wonder if Skywalker knows?”

“He does.”

“What makes you say that?”

“His father was one.” 

Cara turned to look at him, both eyebrows raised in disbelief. “What?”

“The Sith told me. I didn’t want to believe her but….I don’t think she was lying.”

“Are you still gonna take him back to Yavin 4 then?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“You weren’t exactly thrilled about him before you knew his father was an evil Force wielder. What if it’s genetic?”

Din rolled his eyes, making his head pound. “It’s not genetic.”

“And what makes you so in tune with the Force all of a sudden?”

“You’ve met the guy. He’s basically a saint.”

“He’s short. I don’t trust short men.”
“Kuill?”

“I don’t trust short human men.”

“First gingers and now short men. Very prejudiced, Dune,” Din said, his voice gradually getting weaker throughout the conversation. He leaned his head back against the wall. His eyes were closed. When had that happened?

“It’s not naptime yet, Djarin, come on, let’s get up.”

He opened his eyes and let her pull him up with a groan. 

“You,” she began as she slung his good arm over her shoulder, “need to stop getting blown up.”

“Not doing it on purpose,” he managed as they set off down the corridor again.

The brief break had helped Din catch his breath, but he was even more exhausted and weighed down. Their progress was much slower despite Cara basically dragging him along. He started to feel detached again, as if the pain he experienced was happening to someone else and he was simply an observer to their trek down the corridor. He was vaguely aware he was no longer completely conscious, simply plodding along with Cara’s support while his brain drifted elsewhere. Cara may have said something, but he wouldn’t have known. He just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other, just keep walking until they made it to the surface, to the Insurgent.

There was a light in front of them, stabbing into his eyes from the ceiling.

“We made it,” Cara said to him through a long, long tunnel.

It was the hole where they’d come in. They made it.

Cara helped him to climb up out of the temple, which was not an easy or comfortable process, and onto the rocky terrain of Moraband. He lay on his stomach, panting, eyes half open and fighting to stay tethered to reality. Cara must’ve climbed out, too, because she was shaking his shoulders and calling his name.

Suddenly he was back on his feet, knees buckled and sagging against her.

“Come on,” she was saying, “just a little farther. We made it all this way, Djarin, don’t give up on me now.”

He couldn’t lift his legs to walk. His head lolled so that his cheek was pressed against her shoulder and his half-lidded gaze was pointed towards her boots. Burst of gray fizzled in and out of his vision, and his head spun, and spun, and spun.

Through the buzzing that swarmed against his ears and filled his head, he heard the cock of a blaster. 

“I see the Mand’alor is having no problems fulfilling his role.” The familiar voice sent a spark of anxiety and anger through Din, but more than anything else, annoyance. Couldn’t she just leave him alone?

“Bo-Katan,” Cara said. “Good to see you again.”

Cara’s boots faded from Din’s vision, smothered by a sheet of dull gray. He didn’t feel himself hit the ground. 

His armor was gone.

The beskar was an essential aspect of Din’s being, arguably the most important part above all else. It had been on him or with him in some part since he was eight, and had only fully left when he showered. He slept with at least some parts, if not all, in order to be ready to face a threat at all times. The armor was as much a part of him as his Creed, as his honor, as the organ that beat with a strong purpose in his chest. 

The beskar was his very soul, so why was it gone?

He was laying down on his back, something thick and soft wrapped around his shoulder. His head felt fuzzy and heavy, slowing his thoughts into a muddy wreck of half assembled thoughts. His shoulder prickled and itched as if it was supposed to hurt, but he felt no pain. 

Something was pressed against his side.

Din forced his eyes open and the world sluggishly focused around him. A roof held together by planks of wood swum dizzyingly above him, and a quick glance to the side brought a familiar sight.

He was in one of the huts back on Yavin 4. 

Relief crashed over him in a thick wave, much stronger than he would've expected. He hadn’t been particularly pleased at the notion of returning to this beautiful planet, but it meant safety. It meant they’d succeeded. He looked down, and sure enough, Grogu was curled up tightly, wedged between his arm and his side. The kid was fast asleep. His short arms were wrapped protectively around something small and shiny. The ball from the Razor Crest. His ball. He must’ve found it. Din’s chest throbbed with some complicated emotion he didn’t have the energy to unravel. Grogu’s face was squished against the soft fabric of the shirt someone must have changed Din into. He tried not to dwell on that for too long. 

He wanted to get up and find someone to catch him up on everything he’d inevitably missed, but his body was already shutting down again. He blinked heavily once, twice, and found it difficult to open them again after each blink. The needle stuck in his arm must have had something with a pretty strong kick to it, he thought, eyes fluttering shut with a sense of finality. Din tightened his hold around the little green kid in his arms and let himself drift back to sleep.

The next thing Din became aware of was that he and Grogu were not alone. There was someone else in the hut with them. He could hear their breathing, felt the weight of their gaze on him. He reminded himself that they were safe, they were on Yavin 4, but the wariness refused to depart. He opened his eyes and tried to blink away the haziness, prepared to jump up and fight if he needed to, but it was just Cara. He felt like an idiot, then. He was safe on Yavin 4, and also badly hurt. Obviously Cara was here. Who else would it have been? He decided to blame it on the drugs.

“Rise and shine,” Cara said softly with a slight smile on her face. “About time you joined the land of the living.”

“Hmm,” Din grunted. He’d meant to say something more articulate, along the lines of ‘fuck off,’ but his mouth didn’t want to listen to his brain.

“A worthy response of the Mand’alor. ”

Just like that, the calming haze of the drugs vanished and anxiety surged through him. He had a distant memory of stumbling out of the ground, hearing that voice, and promptly passing out. Had that been real? Or had it been a dream concocted by his drug-addled brain?

“Bo-Katan,” he managed to croak out, a pathetic little thing that viciously scraped and tore at his throat on the way out. “She was there.”

“Yeah, calm down before I have to call someone in here to make you. Everything’s fine. Obviously, Bo-Katan wasn’t going to try to take the Darksaber from your cold, bloodless corpse, so she actually helped me to save your sorry ass and is willing to wait for you to not be on the verge of death so she can challenge you. Maybe gingers aren’t so bad.”

Din relaxed back down into the soft cushion of the bed. “Okay,” he breathed out, barely above a whisper. 

“How do you feel?” Cara asked, voice softening. 

“Mmm. Fine. What am I on?”

She snorted. “A lovely cocktail that's probably strong enough to knock out a bantha.”

“And the kid’s okay?”

“Yep. Skywalker checked him out and everything. He wants to talk to you when you’re up for it, by the way.”

“Send ‘im in now,” Din said, even though his eyes had annoyingly closed of their own accord again and his words overlapped lazily.

“Yeah. Sure. That would be a thrilling conversation.” 

Din tried to open his mouth to insult her, but even if his mouth would listen, his drugged brain couldn’t come up with a single word to fling at her. How annoying.

He distantly felt her pat his hand before he was pulled under once again.

“Get some rest, Din.”

Skywalker was there, sitting beside his bed and looking just as uncomfortable as Din felt.

“So,” he began awkwardly. “I wanted to talk to you. About him.”

Grogu sat on Din’s lap, ears perked and looking intently at Skywalker. Din tried to comfort himself with the fact that the kid had refused to leave his own side since he first woke up.

“You remember what I said before?” Skywalker asked, and Din nodded. How could he forget the words the jetii had spoken that had invoked such hope in his chest? “Well, Grogu and I have spoken while you were unconscious. We spoke a lot, actually.”

“You spoke to him?”

“We can communicate with each other through the Force, although he is not particularly fond of cooperating at all times.”

Din recognized the small smile on Skywalker’s face. It was one that he himself had worn many times. “He’s stubborn,” he said.

The smile widened. “I can see where he gets it from.” 

There was a brief pause in which the two men gazed with fondness at the source of the discussion. The kid stared up at Din, confused by the direct attention. “Eh?” he said.

“I have a question,” Din asked, breaking the silence.

“Go ahead,” Skywalker said kindly.

“I had a….vision, about him being on Moraband. But I’m not even Force-sensitive. Why would he reach out to me?”

Skywalker frowned. “Isn’t it obvious? You’re his dad.”

Din blinked, rendered temporarily speechless by that piece of information.

“Anyway, we cleared some things up with our little talk,” Skywalker continued, as if he hadn’t just shifted Din’s entire worldview. His voice had taken on a much more serious tone, though, and Din tensed, waiting for the answer that he knew would crush him for good, the answer that would destroy any last reserves of happiness he’d managed to salvage in the past six months. He waited for the ball to drop. “He still wants to train to learn the ways of the Force,” Skywalker said.

And the ball dropped so, so much harder than Din had expected it to. A pain sharper than the agony in his shoulder lanced through his chest and tore at everything in its path. His fingers went numb and his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ground against each other. Grogu looked up at him in concern, no doubt able to read his emotions as clear as day.

Skywalker tilted his head. “But his desire to stay with you far outweighs his desire to become a Jedi.”

Wait. What?

“What?” Din asked.

“He was content here, but never truly happy. He’s shown me a lot about your travels together. There is a joy he finds in you that he never could on Yavin 4.”

“What are you saying?”

“He is still very young, too young to make such a polarizing choice. He should not be separated from his father. I apologize. I should have recognized this sooner.”

“He’s happy with me?” Din asked, not quite comprehending all the words spilling from Skywalker’s mouth.

“Can’t you see it?”

Din looked down at the kid. Grogu had a tight grasp on a fistfull of Din’s shirt and was looking up at him with those big, brown eyes. His ears were perked and he wore a tiny smile. He was wearing the same brown sack of cloth he had six months ago, and Din wondered if he had ever donned the traditional Jedi robes or if he’d insisted on that ratty, worn out outfit.

Din would have to get him something else to wear.

The very idea that the kid would be sticking around long enough for him to be able to buy him clothes was enough to make his eyes damp. He looked up and realized that Skywalker had left.

Din reached out his finger, and Grogu took a hold of it with his little clawed fingers. He couldn’t stop staring into the kid’s eyes, his kid’s eyes, Grogu’s eyes, in wonder. 

They were together again. It had been six months, the longest, hardest, darkest six months of his life, but they were together again, and it felt so right. Grogu, sitting there in his arms, felt more natural than anything, more natural than the weight of the beskar on his shoulders, more natural than viewing the world through his visor, more natural than his weapons that were an extension of his very body.

Din and Grogu belonged together.

The kid might be a little green alien that would vastly outlive him, but Din’s buir had been right. Aliit cuyir ratiin. Family is forever.

Someone else entered the hut as Grogu reached his free hand up, towards Din’s face.

“Buh,” he said, and then again, more forcefully, “buh!”  The kid’s message had never been more clear.

“What’s he trying to say?” Cara asked, off to his right.

Din’s lips curved into a smile, his eyes squinting and a laugh building in his chest, and for the first time in six months, he felt pure, unhindered joy explode through every vessel, every hair, every fiber of his being.

“Buir,” he said, and even he could hear the giddy bliss in his voice. “He’s calling me dad.”