Chapter Text
Not for the first time, Sabine shifted in her seat.
Since settling in hyperspace, she had tried putting her feet up on the dash, tried folding her legs, tried leaning back, tried everything, but every position reminded her that Imperial design hinged on efficiency, not comfort.
(The vague chorus of aches accompanying the fatigue and irritation also reminded her it had been a long day and she wasn’t an eighteen-year-old who could curl up with a toolbox for a pillow, sleep ten minutes dead and spring awake with enough energy to take down a galactic government.)
(Not anymore, anyway…)
This time, she tried hiking one boot up on the dash and folding the other leg on the seat. If the previous attempts had taught her anything, she knew this position wouldn’t remain agreeable for long. Too tired for pessimism, however, she closed her eyes and leaned back.
The seat complied that much and reclined a few notches, allowing a touch of comfort. On the last notch, however, the shoddy mechanisms creaked—a short but shrill noise the steady thrumming of the shuttle’s engines couldn’t hope to cover.
Sabine tensed.
Turning just her head, she glanced over her shoulder, to the seat diagonally behind her.
Eying the bundle of bag, blankets and baby, she held a breath, waiting for a sign that she hadn’t woken the little guy up.
Her hope took a hit when a fuzzy, leaf-shaped ear twitched but, thankfully, that was all: no fluttering eyelids, no shuffling, no noises.
With a very, very silent sigh of relief, Sabine resettled.
The kid had been fighting to stay awake for hours. Valiantly, he had held the line through the farewells on the bridge, but defeat crept up on him when they reached the hangar and boarded the shuttle. Din swaddled him up, held him close, and he finally surrendered when they took to the stars.
He didn’t stir when his father stood and arranged him in a makeshift bed on the seat, but he awoke in a snap when Din drew away.
Sabine’s heart had cracked at the fretful cries. Automatically, she pulled closer but Din wasn’t new to this—he doubled back and hushed his little one with low, meaningless utterances, brushing gloved fingers along a wrinkled forehead and placing his other hand over the small body, pressing just enough for him to feel the weight, to feel secure.
Once the burst of fear had ebbed to peace, Din straightened, a grimace pulling out his soft smile. In a voice Sabine nearly missed, he asked her to keep an eye on the kid. She gave her word and then he left, heading for the privacy of the main cabin.
That had been a half hour ago.
Grogu hadn’t cried or woken fully again in that time but he wasn’t sleeping properly either, tossing and turning nearly as often as Sabine readjusted in her own seat.
He was exhausted but too uneasy to rest. She understood; she faced the same dilemma.
She could blame the shuttle seat’s rigidity as much as she pleased but her mind, her spirit, was far more agitated than her body.
So much had happened in the day now behind her: meeting another Mandalorian for the first time in years (and not just one but two), seeing the Empire spring back to life, traipzing from planet to planet to round up a crew for a rescue, finding Moff Gideon not only alive but wielding the Darksaber as some kind of sick trophy…
It was a lot.
And, yes, Sabine acknowledged, the day was won in the end, but there was something… bittersweet left trailing in the wake.
When she closed her eyes, she found herself slipping through the hours behind her, back to the cruiser, back to the moonlit forests of Morak, back to Boba’s ship, to a whole crew surrounding her… nothing like the one she used to have, but still…
Snapping her eyes open, she tied her focus to the never-ending whirl of hyperspace before her—one thing she could trust never to change.
It was all too raw, too precarious to unpack just then; she had to let it lie. Perhaps later, after a hard-earned rest, she could boil it down to its essence and understand it, but not now with everything blurring and bleeding together.
The soft rush of the doors opening behind her helped close up her thoughts for the moment.
Mindful now of the seat’s traitorous inner mechanisms, she took care, turning in place to watch Din emerge from the cabin.
Chopper, dutifully stationed at the scomp port, flipped an arm out in a lazy greeting. “You look like you slept in a bin,” he remarked, with a low, garbled snicker.
Din paused, turned his head to glance to Chopper then to Sabine, dark brows knitting together. “Do I want to know?” he questioned, his voice hoarse and hushed.
She tilted her shoulders in a shrug. “You can probably guess.”
He blinked and his brow unfurled in the next beat, his curiosity abandoned.
Honestly, Sabine was impressed. Yesterday, the guy was ready to brutally dismantle the astromech at the slightest provocation; now, he seemed accustomed (even immune) to Chopper’s insults.
While she didn’t exactly agree with her friend’s crude appraisal, she had to admit Din did look worse for wear.
Somewhere along the way, they had lost the Mandalorian she met in the marketplace; the man who stood here now bore almost no resemblance to that shining figure.
He wore no gear and no armour, not even the miscellaneous pieces of padding or the cloak; he wore only boots and the flightsuit, top half undone and hanging off his waist, the simple shirt beneath rumpled, one sleeve haphazardly bunched up by his elbow, revealing bandages and bacta patches and bruises aplenty.
He had lost his easy, marching stride as well, she noted as he all but trudged to his seat now, fighting a limp and barely keeping his head and his gaze up, eyes squinting as if the cockpit were much brighter than it was.
After two rounds with those Dark Troopers and a duel with the Moff, Sabine wasn’t surprised to see him sore and concussed. The cleaned cuts on his face said he had addressed his injuries, but she wasn’t sure how far to trust he had it all in hand…
He came to a stop rather dramatically, hands clamping on the backs of the seats for support as his shoulders hunched forward. He stayed like that for a moment drawn too long, stuck catching his breath after that short trek.
“You good?” Sabine inquired, carefully.
When she received no answer, she returned her foot to the floor and spun round to face him. “Din?” she tried again, fortifying her voice without raising her volume too high. “Are you okay?”
He looked up at her and jerked, as if surprised she were so close. “Sorry, I didn’t—” He aborted the explanation with a gruff, exhausted sigh. “What did you say?”
“Just asked if you’re okay,” she said, throwing no veils over her concern. “You’re not looking too good.”
His face pulled and he shook his head as if sick of the entire topic. “I just need sleep.”
Anchored with a vice grip on the back of the seat, he bent forward and scooped the kid up. Cradling the dozing bundle in the crook of his arm, he sat down, every movement calculated and arthritic.
By now, Grogu had dragged himself awake—with all the talking and shuffling about, it was inevitable.
Groggily, determinedly, he propped himself up to sitting in his nest of blankets, fierce yawns breaking through squeaks of effort. Rubbing at his eyes, he twisted round, ears perking lopsidedly when he saw whose arms held him.
“Baba!” he exclaimed before launching forward and full on head-butting his father in the stomach.
The action couldn’t have had much force to it (the kid hardly weighed anything—Sabine knew; she had held him in her own arms), but Din jackknifed at the contact, just barely catching himself from doubling right over. What had been the beginnings of a soft, fond smile screwed up into a hard grimace as a sharp, jagged gasp cut through clenched teeth.
Automatically, Sabine lurched forward, hands out to help, as Grogu squeaked in alarm and recoiled in the rigid arm still holding him, pulling back as if he’d been burned.
Or, rather, as if he had done the burning…
Ears flattened against the back of his head, he cast big, glossy eyes up at his father and let out a string of coos rife with concern and apology.
“Just bruises, pal,” Din assured, gently but tightly. “Not… it’s not your fault.”
Grogu held a tri-fingered claw out, ticking it back and forth in a meaningful gesture.
Din shook his head. “You’re too tired for that.”
Grogu bleated, crossly. He absolutely did not agree. He stretched his claw out, reaching for the hurt…
“No, ad’ika,” Din insisted, catching the little hand and lowering it. He commanded his voice and, belatedly, his expression as well, smoothing out the taut lines of pain from both as he forced himself to straighten up again. “No. You don’t have the strength for it now. I’ll heal. Don’t worry.”
The kid looked sceptical, like he didn’t trust him. He also looked like he wanted to cry over it a bit.
But his father was right, and the dark rings around his eyes and the weighted droop of his ears betrayed him—he had the will but not the energy to help. He didn’t seem inclined to make peace with that fact, however…
Before tears could spill, Din switched the arm holding the boy, guiding him to settle against his other side.
Grogu relented and let himself be moved but was very hesitant about touch this time, stiffening up and trying to curl away from contact.
“You’re fine, don’t worry, that doesn’t hurt,” Din assured, repeatedly, the words carrying a low, lulling hum as he soothed the little one.
Tentatively, Grogu snuggled closer, all the while flicking worried glances up at his father. They soon lost their impetus as the space between blinks stretched longer and longer. Finally, a yawn split his tiny mouth wide open, scrunching his eyes tight shut. When it ended, he heaved a sigh and at last lapsed back to sleep.
After a moment, Din sighed as well, relaxing into the seat. As some delayed instinct, he cast a cursory glance around the cockpit, snagging on Sabine and blinking rapidly, like he’d forgotten she was ever there.
“Thank you. For watching him,” he said.
Sabine lifted a smile. “He was no trouble.”
Din huffed out the echo of a chuckle as he closed his eyes and tipped his head to rest back against the seat. Clearly, his kid could be trouble, but it wasn’t trouble enough that he minded.
(And, all preceding events considered, Sabine had to marvel at the extent of the man’s patience…)
“He’s a good kid,” was all he said, in a way so simple on the surface yet deeply fond.
“Can he really heal?” she inquired.
“Yes,” came the simple answer. Din was a strange man, she’d come to realize: guarded and hidden, yet plain and honest, all at once. A beat passed and the tug of a frown opened his eyes to slits. “Could your Ezra heal?”
She shook her head. “Not that I ever saw. But… Jedi don’t always have the same abilities. Kanan and Ezra and others I’ve met all had different talents.”
“Such as?”
“Ezra could talk to animals.”
For a man who hadn’t shown his face to the world until a few hours ago, Din expressed the clearest rendition of “Are you kidding me?” Sabine had ever seen.
“Never heard of healing, though,” she commented instead of laughing or elucidating. “Must be pretty special.”
“It is, but it takes a lot out of him,” Din admitted, like it was a failing of his own. “I don’t… I don’t like to turn him down, but he’s…” he trailed off into a small, rueful laugh, “he’s stubborn.”
“Huh. Takes after his dad,” she remarked, eying his crooked posture and his shallow breathing. Not all his injuries were from today, she noted: yellowed bruises, flaking scabs and what looked like acid burns littered his hands.
Din, for his part, missed her snipe, his smile warming at the sentiment, though there was still a faint shade of guilt hiding in the crinkles beside his eyes.
“You know a few Jedi then,” he observed.
“There’s only a few to know,” she replied and frowned to herself—something in his tone had triggered her guard.
He didn’t miss that. He stayed still and silent as he watched her, just watched—gauging, reading, waiting her out. She had seen his Guild rates; now she saw what had earned them.
Whatever threads he had picked up, however, he didn’t have the energy to unravel them—not now, anyway.
Breath rushing out, the critical glint to his half-lidded eyes faded as he cast his gaze down to the boy he cradled. With the gentlest ease, he readjusted his hold, settling him more on his stomach so his arm could go slack without risk of the little one tumbling to the floor.
The repositioning didn’t wake Grogu this time; he just snuffled and nuzzled in, the action unconscious and innate.
Sabine leaned back in her seat, fatigue crashing over her as well.
She turned just enough to glance at the navi-computer.
Two hours to Lothal.
Plenty of time for a decent kip.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she pressed, just one last time, doubt pinching her expression and tone.
“Yes.” And, with that, he closed his eyes and the conversation.
She let him be. After all, arguing with a Mandalorian about anything was just an exercise in futility.
Propping her boots up on the vacant seat beside him, she gave in to all the comfort the shuttle had to offer, absently wondering if there might be a toolbox pillow going spare somewhere…
. . . . .
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