Chapter Text
Five years later:
“You’ve been to Tatooine many times, but Grogu and I have never seen your homeworld.” Luke was stroking Din’s tail idly, as they lay in a lousy heap, Grogu on top of Din’s back that rose and fell with his breathing and vibrated with purrs, Luke glued to Din’s side, top leg thrown over Din’s.
“There’s nothing left of it.” Din’s purring died off, and his voice sounded defeated.
“How do you know? It’s been what, thirty years or more? There could be all sorts of new things. That would be a nice way to show Grogu the galaxy, right?”
“Ba!” Grogu agreed. Din and Luke had already started to believe that he might never speak, but during the past few years, after Din and Luke got married and adopted him, he had started to make all sorts of very promising, one-syllable sounds.
Din manoeuvred his head so that he could see the shine in Luke’s blue eyes. Grogu was delighted by the movement and reached forward to scratch Din’s ears. The pleasant sensation fused with beauty as he met Luke’s eyes.
“But only if you want to, of course, sweetheart”, Luke said, but Din only smiled.
“I do want to. Let’s go.”
They did not go immediately, though. Not before a multitude of lousy kisses, an evening spent making preparations and a night slept in their typical, entangled disorder in their bed.
Next morning, Grogu was up first and practically crawled over Din’s face while babbling: “A-weh! A-weh!”
Din pushed his small, pyjama-clad body gently away enough to give himself a channel to breathe. “It’s Aq Vetina. And yes, we’re going today, very soon. Buir and Dad just need some time to wake up.”
“Da!” Grogu did not seem pleased with their speed of waking up, so he performed the same kind of crawling over Luke’s face, too. That only made Luke mumble something sleepy, push the kid away and turn to his other side. Disappointed, Grogu closed his eyes and reached his hands towards his parents without touching. Soon, neither of them could resist the Force that lifted them up to sitting.
“Grogu, what have I said about inappropriate use of the Force?” Luke strove for a stern tone despite the dishevelled state of his hair and the trace of drool in the corner of his mouth. Grogu looked down, seeming to only very mildly regret what he just did.
“The Force is to be used in defence of peace and justice, to protect those who need protection. Not when you just want your parents to wake up faster. Besides…” Luke held a dramatic pause. “…you are unwise to lower your defences!”
With a booming sound effect, Luke threw his body back down on the mattress and glued it into the softness, nuzzled his face theatrically into the pillow. Din took quick advantage of Grogu’s distraction and followed his Jedi husband’s example.
“Bu!” Grogu giggled when watching both his parents bury themselves under the covers again while making noises about how comfortable and warm it was to still snooze a little longer. Very soon, Grogu gave in and dove back down himself, straight into the soft space between the two bodies that were the most beloved and safest in the galaxy.
It was only a few of hours later that they were on their way through hyperspace towards Aq Vetina.
Din had prepared himself to face the memories of that day from eye to eye. He had imagined the ruins in great detail, how each familiar building would look like when blasted to the ground. Who knows, maybe the battle droids had never left. Maybe the chaos, the fire and death would still be there, roaming around the streets.
So he was blown away when things looked – normal. Or not normal exactly in the way he remembered them, but peaceful, in order. His hometown looked like rebuilt – not exactly as it had been, but in the same style. The houses even had the carvings on their door frames that Aq Vetinian carpenters specialised on.
The streets were far quieter than they used to be, but here and there were people going about their days, even a small group of children playing. And when Din switched his helmet to infrared vision, he could see approximate shapes of more people inside the houses. Somehow, even from that destruction, there must have been survivors who had been busy rebuilding their lives.
All eyes turned to Din and his family as they passed, but that must be only because they were far from used to seeing somebody in Mandalorian armour, accompanied by two figures in Jedi robes, one of them tiny and green. There was nobody Din recognised, and even if anyone familiar to him had survived, they for sure would not recognise him now.
So Din concentrated on showing Luke and Grogu the important places in the center of the town, the playground he used to spend time at (which Grogu enjoyed to his heart's content, too), and towards the outskirts, the river where they used to go for a swim. Grogu and Luke did even take a brief swim there, though the latter kept complaining that the water was too cold.
“So where did you live?” Luke asked when they were dressed up again and all sitting on the river bank.
“I…” Din could feel his voice break with emotion. “I think I need to go there by myself. Would you stay at the playground for a while?”
“Ayyy!” Grogu got immediately excited, and Luke easily agreed. So Din left them at the playground close to the town square and took the alley he had been avoiding all the time they strolled around – the little street that lead to what used to be his home.
The houses along it were largely new. He only recognised a few features that had been left as they used to be or reconstructed. But finally, his heart stirred when he arrived at one house that was almost like it used to be – his home. There were patches in the wall with newer bricks, possibly where bombs or blasts had hit. But the general look of the house was recognisable. Even the red curtains in the windows looked familiar. Little bushes of blooming flowers were planted on either side of the door. Somebody must be living here. But who?
To his horror, Din realised that he had been standing in place and staring at the house for too long. A face flashed in the window, and soon the door cracked open. He had been noticed.
“Can I help you, Sir?” An old woman’s head peeked out from the doorway. Her long hair was mostly grey, with only flecks of dark left. And out of it, two tooka ears stuck out to the sides. But most importantly, her brown eyes Din would have recognised anywhere – the eyes that people used to say were the same as his own.
“Our door is always open for Mandalorians”, the woman went on. “We decided that on the day when your people saved our town. Just let me know, stranger, is there anything I can do for you?”
“Mama?” was all Din could say.
“Now that I haven’t heard in a long time.” His mother looked down, her features now shadowed by sorrow, wrinkles more visible on her face.
Din took one look to each direction, and after noticing that the alley was empty apart from the two of them, he grabbed the sides of his helmet and lifted it off. “Mama, it’s me.”
“Din?” She left the doorway and walked up to him now. Last time, she had knelt down to hug him. This time, she had to reach her hand up to touch his cheek, run her fingers through his hair and along his ear. “My Din, my kit, so grown up, so handsome. I’ve missed you. Oh Gods how I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” Din let his helmet fall so that he could wrap his arms around her and pull her into a hug, gently and carefully. She seemed so fragile and old now, even her tail had turned grey and hovered just a little above the ground, and Din was very conscious of the hardness of his armour, but she squeezed him back nonetheless and relaxed her head on his chestplate. They purred in sync and found a resonance that was different from before, now that Din’s body was larger and amplified by beskar, and his mother’s had shrunk with age. Still, it felt pleasant, comforting, safe, like home.
“Where’s Papa?” Din asked.
“Gone.” Her answer made Din tense up, and she stepped back to look into his eyes. “But not that day. After we hid you, we ran and ran and tried to find cover. He got hit, and we were almost sure we had no chance to make it, but then the Mandalorians came. They drove the droid army away, and then they were gone as fast as they had appeared. All was quiet again, just the town in ruins, dead and wounded people and broken droids everywhere.”
She squeezed his hands and looked down. “We went back to look for you but couldn’t find you. Couldn’t find any trace of you anywhere. So the only hope we clang to was that maybe the Mandalorians had rescued you.”
“They did.”
“I can see that now. They saved us all that day. Papa had got part of his lungs blasted and never fully healed. But it was okay, we found good medication for him that kept all the pain away. And we managed to repair the house and live a normal, happy life until the end. He died five years ago.”
Din was torn between grief, the guilt of being too afraid to come here earlier, when he still would have had the chance to see his father for the last time, and the completely unexpected joy of finding out that his parents had still lived long, happy lives. Besides, he had just been blessed with the chance of seeing his mother again, and only because Luke encouraged him to come here exactly now, before it was too late.
“We still celebrated your birthdays, and sometimes we’d make guesses about where in the galaxy you’d be, what you’d be doing and if you’d be happy. What’s happened to you, little womp rat?”
Just hearing that brought tears into Din’s eyes. The last time his mother called him that, he’d got angry, said that he wasn’t little anymore and that she should stop calling him that and hugging and kissing and all the embarrassing things. But then, all too soon, she was hugging him for the last time, and later on, he tried his best to apologise to all the Gods and promise that he’d do anything if he could just have his parents back to call him little womp rat again. Because the Mandalorians were frugal with any endearments and caresses.
Now he cleared his throat and did his best to find somewhere to start without choking on his words. “Well, Mandalorian life is… Let's say it’s not the easiest. But I’m happy now. I have a family. Husband and a 55-year-old kid.”
“55 years?”
“It’s a bit complicated. But he’s wonderful. They both are. I’d like you to meet them. Actually, they’re here, at the playground.”
“I can believe that. I remember the time when we could barely get you out of that playground.” She smiled and looked younger again, almost like Din remembered her, even though he had forgotten many of her exact features over the years.
Din put his helmet back on, and they followed the alley back to the centre of the town. They found Luke lounging on a playground bench, using the Force to push Grogu in a swing. Din wanted to point out that if Luke continued to behave like this, there was no way he could make Grogu stop using his powers just as inappropriately. But since he had more important things in mind, he could only smile and introduce Luke to his mother.
They shook hands first, but after a moment of reconsideration, went for a hug instead. Thanks to all the time Luke had spent with Din, he quickly found the spot behind her ear where to give her a brief scratch that made her instantly feel at home with him. Then Din turned to the swing where Grogu’s speed was steadily dropping after Luke had stopped pushing him.
“Grogu, you wanna say hi to your Ba’buir… your, ummm, Granny?”
His mother's smile kept only widening as Grogu tumbled down from the swing and toddled up to her.
“Anny?”
She bent down to scoop him in her arms. “Hello, this is Granny, yes. Or maybe the word is still difficult. You can use the other one. Ba…?”
“Ba’buir”, Din said. “That’s what Mandalorians call a grandparent.”
“That’s ok, Grogu. You can call me whatever you like. I’m just very, very glad for the chance to meet you.” When Grogu reached a hand up, she tilted her head so that he could reach her ear and run his fingers over the short, silky hair on its back.
"Ba-buuu", Grogu agreed and patted her ear.
“Mama, we’re about to go back home at Luke’s Jedi Academy today.” Din glanced at Luke who nodded in agreement. “You’re welcome to move there, too, if you wish. The climate is nice, and you’d have a chance to get off world for once.”
She looked down at Grogu and considered, then shook her head. “Thank you, but I belong here. This is where I’m happy, and the neighbours help when I need something, and things are - good. If you three would just come to visit once in a while, and comm in between, I’d really love that.”
“Of course”, Luke said, which Din was thankful for, as he felt his own voice choked by new tears. “And today we’ll stay as long as Grogu has energy for, of course.”
From then on, Grogu went on exploiting the whole playground with his father and grandmother. As the only human, Luke did not quite have a child’s or a tooka hybrid’s thirst for playing, but he joined them every once in a while and helped them when they needed a hand and a lightsaber for a laser spot game.
Din’s mother was the first one of them to tire off and settle on the bench next to Luke, then Din, and finally Grogu. In the end, they spent their final moments together in a pleasant heap, comforted by the purrs of two tookas. Though the best thing about it was that it was not final. Before leaving home, they already agreed to come back to visit soon.
