Chapter Text
And this is the map of my heart, the landscape
after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is
a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me
tight, it’s getting cold.
— Richard Siken
***
Din didn't even know why he was surprised when he arrived at the cantina and found his wife surrounded by a roaring crowd as she kicked a giant man's ass with a big, happy smile on her face.
“Here we go again,” he sighed to the kid, who was sitting in the crook of his elbow with an interested expression directed toward Cara. He loved watching her fight.
“Your mother is incorrigible.”
Cara's adversary was huge: twice her size, with shoulders so broad he must have struggled to get through the tiny entrance door. And despite this he was pathetically succumbing to Cara's flawless attacks.
Din watched for a couple of minutes, rolling his eyes every time one of Cara's punches and kicks landed on the poor guy's weak spots and the audience cheered. Something in the way the guy was countering Cara's blows gave him a weird ticklish feeling in the nape of his neck; it looked oddly familiar, but it was probably because he knew Cara's fighting style so well, by now, and there were only so many ways one could dodge or block her.
Sighing to himself, Din leant against the counter and, fishing a handful of credits from the leather pouch on his belt, tossed them to the bartender:
“Fifty on the girl.”
“Son,” scoffed the lady. “Don't let her hear you call her girl if you don't want that little neck of yours snapped like a twig. She's already knocked out two of the best fighters around here.”
“I'm sure she has,” said Din proudly, just as Cara slammed a merciless hook across the guy's face, sending him collapsing to the floor with a pitiful grunt.
“There goes another one,” the bartender sniggered. She gave Din his fifty credits back and added another fifty.
The crowd was hollering ecstatically, awed by Cara's performance.
Din glanced down at the kid, met his curious gaze and shook his head helplessly.
“She's going to be insufferable about this.”
Slowly, the people scattered away, leaving Cara standing in the middle of the makeshift ring, sweaty and very self-satisfied. She had a split lip and a surfacing bruise under one eye; at her feet the other guy wasn't as lucky: his nose was bleeding and the black eye Cara had given him was swollen and quickly growing purple.
Din was about to look back up at Cara to meet her jubilant expression when something on the guy's arm caught his attention.
“What the-”
On the bare left bicep, next to a quite unmistakable sun-shaped scar, was a black tattoo representing a stylised flowered branch, a symbol Din happened to know very well: the emblem of Clan Vizla. And there was only one Vizla who wore the emblem on that spot, Din knew better than anybody else.
Paz?
Could this really be? Could that man on the ground – without an armour, without a helmet – be the honourable tribe companion Din used to know?
He scrambled through the cantina until he reached the hollow space at the centre of the room where Cara was collecting credits and compliments. She beamed at him as soon as she spotted him, but Din walked straight to the guy to observe him better.
It could be him. Easily. The size, the heavy build... Din had never seen Paz's face but he had seen his body, and even though it had been years since he had last seen Paz so exposed, he would have recognised that tattoo and that scar among thousands – millions, even.
He tentatively poked a foot into the man's ribs.
“Paz?”
Cara appeared beside him. The kid instantly threw himself at her and she barely caught him in time.
“Did you just call him-” she asked, trying to juggle the giggling kid into a decent position.
“It's him,” said Din, slightly disconcerted. What were the odds of finding one of his own here, in this hell hole of a town?
The guy rolled on his back with a pained groan and struggled to open his eyes. It took him a few seconds and several attempts to blink Din into focus, but when he finally did, his face opened into an expression of shock mixed with mirth.
“Din? Din karking Djarin? Is that you?”
So, Paz Vizla was handsome, though definitely on the scruffy side.
Devilishly handsome, if Din really wanted to be accurate. Not that it mattered. He had never cared about whatever face lay beneath the blue helmet that was as familiar to him as his own.
He held out his hand and waited for Paz to clasp it, then pulled him up to is feet. The bastard was damn heavy.
“It's a small galaxy, isn't it?” joked Cara, taking in Paz's sorry figure with a hand on a hip and an intrigued grin curling her lips.
Paz was slowly coming back from his haze. He smelled like alcohol – a lot of it – but the beating must have knocked some lucidity into him. However, he still appeared a bit hazy as his eyes settled on Cara, scrutinising her as though they were seeing her for the first time.
“You're... beautiful,” he frowned, his balance swaying a little.
Cara arched her eyebrows, utterly unimpressed. The child was observing Paz's impressive size with eyes as big as saucers.
"Paz.” Din seized him by his arms and shook him. “Paz. Are you alright?"
"Do you think he has a concussion?" Cara wondered, but Din, who knew how the cogs in Paz's brain worked, reassured her: that wasn't the case. Paz was just slightly... distracted.
"He doesn't have a concussion. Do you, Paz?" he said, waving a hand in front of the man's eyes.
Paz blinked slowly, eyes still dreamily trained on Cara.
"Yeah,” he replied absently. “I mean, no.” He grinned, quite stupidly, and Din realised the drunken haze had been replaced by an entirely different sort of haze.
“She kicked my ass,” Paz breathed in amazement.
Cara wasn't even trying to hide the self-complacent chuckle tugging at the corner of her lips.
"She did,” smirked Din. “If it makes you feel better, she kicks everyone's ass."
"Gorgeous and invincible? Am I dreaming?"
"Paz."
But Paz wasn't even listening. He took Cara's hand between his own and went down on one knee, looking up at her through hooded eyes.
"Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife, mesh'la buruk?”
Cara burst out laughing. Din rolled his eyes.
"Paz."
"He's very straightforward,” said Cara, still laughing. “Did he just call me beautiful danger?"
"Yeah,” confirmed Din, amused. “Sorry, man,” he said to Paz, offering him a pat on his shoulder. “She's taken. Very jealous husband.”
It took a few seconds more than necessary for Paz to let the news sink in.
"You? Husband?” He gaped at Din, then at Cara, then at Din again, eyes wide in astonishment. “You son of a bantha! Where did you find this gem?"
Cara arched an eyebrow at him.
"Gem's name is Cara,” she informed him, adjusting the kid on her hip. “Nice to meet you, Paz."
Paz took the hand she was holding out for him but, instead of shaking it, he took it to his lips and kisses the top of Cara's gauntlet.
"Enchanted, my warrior goddess."
Cara grinned.
"You never call me warrior goddess,” she pouted at Din, who sighed patiently and wisely decided to avert the conversation to safer and more pending topics.
“Let's get out of here. You two have put on enough of a show, for tonight.”
They headed toward the exit. Paz's step wasn't very firm: he kept swaying and tripping in his own feet.
"Copaani gaan, vod?"
"K'atini!” Paz snapped when Din tried to help him walk.
"Careful, Din,” Cara meddled, catching Paz on his other side right before he lost his balance. “He's got an injured leg."
The kid was having the time of his life, held tight under her arm like a bag of flour.
Arms flung over Din's and Cara's shoulders to keep him standing, Paz turned to Cara, squinting in puzzlement.
"How-"
Cara scoffed.
"Your dominant side is the left, but you kept attacking from the right, and never threw me a single kick, even though I gave you plenty of chances."
Paz looked like he might pass out any moment, and somehow still managed to flash Cara a smitten simper.
"Unmarry him. Please?"
Cara laughed. "We should take a look at you leg, buddy. You got a place in this shithole?"
"Yeah."
“Is it far?”
In a tone that didn't sound completely sure, Paz replied: “No.”
Din and Cara exchanged a doubtful look, but what other choice did they have?
“Lead the way.”
Din was still trying to decipher his old pal's behaviour. He had been a proud Mandalorian, maybe the proudest, and seeing him in this lowly condition was sad, as if the last vestige of the pride of Mandalore was dying before his own eyes and there was nothing Din could do about it.
Damar Nuur was one of Corellia's shabbiest towns and certainly the least likely to stumble into a Mandalorian. Din kept wondering what had brought Paz to giving up his armour – his identity – to settle down into this anonymous place and just drink his days away.
What had he been doing this past year? Had he dragged himself from one seedy cantina to another trading his fighting skills for booze? Was this all that was left of the valorous soldier Paz had once been?
Din and Cara dragged him through the dirty streets following his drowsy directions – and taking the wrong turn several times. Tucked in the crook of Cara's neck, the kid had fallen asleep not long after they left the cantina; he was still snoring soundly when Paz, after three failed attempts, finally recognised his door among an impressively long row of concrete blocks that were, apparently, homes.
Din was waiting for Paz to produce a key or something like that, but all Paz did was barge forward and the door slammed open. They entered and closed the door. Inside, there was much that could identify the place as a proper home: a table in a corner hosted a camp cooker and a couple of burnt pans, along with several empty bottles; in another corner, an ancient armchair stood by a small fireplace with a lopsided stool posing as a side table. There were two doors on the opposite side of the room, presumably leading to the bedroom and the fresher.
"Welcome to my humble abode,” said Paz, flipping the lights on. A couple of wobbly yellowish neons flickered and seemed to struggle to stay on.
"Humble is a generous term,” argued Cara, looking around with a frown. “Did something die in here?"
Din kicked an empty can out of the way and sighed at the general desolation of the place.
"His dignity, I'm afraid."
"Copaani mirshmure'cye, ner vod?" Paz growled, trying to grab Din by his shoulders, but tumbled into the filthy carpet and nearly fell face down.
"Keudesiir, ner vod,” Din soothed. “You have to admit you've let yourself go."
Grunting, Paz grabbed a half empty bottle from the floor, took a quick smell and, with a shrug, down the remnant of its content in one go.
“Forgive me for my unhealthy coping mechanisms,” he grumbled with a grimace. “I lost what you lost, but I didn't gain what you gained.” He tossed the bottle into a bin (and missed it) and gave a sharp nod toward Cara, who was still holding the sleeping baby. “If I'd had a riduur and a child, you really think I'd be rotting in this stinky hole?”
Din froze, taken aback by the blunt honesty Paz's voice had been laced with. He could see his point, now: without the kid to give him a purpose and Cara to look after him, Din would have probably ended up not much differently from this, after his reckless stunt with the Guild and the Code.
“Okay, you two, udesii.” Cara came forward, placed the child in Din's arms and gave him a warning look, then turned to Paz. “Sit down, big man,” she ordered, pointing a finger at the armchair behind him. “Let me check out that leg.”
Paz obeyed, docile as a puppy, but didn't spare Cara a sultry smirk.
“There's so much more of me worth checking out, you know?”
“Yeah,” she agreed suavely. “Look at those eyes.”
Din could hardly contain his smug amusement. If Paz thought it would be easy to win Cara over with his lame antics, he was going to face a big, big disappointment: nobody could beat Cara at her own game.
Paz sat back and let Cara roll the left leg of his pants up to his knee to uncover the wound in his calf. Cara's hands stilled on the fabric as soon as she saw it; Din nearly gasped: it was along, thick slash, likely a blaster shot, that cut deep in Paz's flesh, the skin around it an angry red and kept together by strips of common tape soaked in dried blood and purulent secretions.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Cara whispered under her breath, a deep, concerned scowl furrowing her brow.
"This is not good,” she said, gazing up at Paz. “How long have you been neglecting this wound?"
Paz gave a light, grumpy shrug.
"Couple of days?"
A stern glare from Cara made him groan and sink depper into the armchair.
"Maybe a week?"
Cara's glare intensified.
"Okay, more like two weeks."
Cara took another thorough look at the wound, then reached up to touch a hand over Paz's forehead. A slight pang of jealousy stung in din's chest: that was a gesture Cara had always reserved for himself and the kid; seeing her do it to somebody else, even if that somebody was Paz, felt odd, to say the least.
"You're not drunk," she assessed with a sigh. "You're feverish."
"I'm not just drunk, then,” Paz quipped, but Cara wasn't amused.
"If you were trying to give yourself a mortal infection, you've been doing a remarkable job."
"No need to bring out sarcasm, cyar'ika. I'm already head over heels for you."
"I'm gonna need to cut off the necrotic tissue,” said Cara, deliberately ignoring his comment. “Disinfect, and patch up. It's gonna hurt."
She met Paz's eyes with a stern expression, to which he responded with a shameless wink.
"A reasonable price to pay in exchange of your hands on me."
Cara liked him. Despite her composed demeanour, Din could see the light shade of pink dusting her cheeks, the ghost of a smile fighting to surface on her lips. So far, he'd seen an expression like that on her face only for himself.
"Do you have a med-pack in here?" Cara asked, checking around for any sign of civilisation around the room, with no luck. The only thing Din could spot vaguely resembling a medical tool was the pair of rusty scissors stuck into what looked like a chunk of dried meat.
"Med-packs are for the weak," Paz groaned, flinching when Cara purposely dug a finger into his wound.
"Or for the dead."
Din snickered, and Cara turned back to chuckle at him. He loved her when she switched to medical mode and got all serious and professional. If she hadn't been such an awesome fighter, she would have made an excellent doctor. To be honest, she would have made an excellent anything. Sometimes he could barely conceive how in awe he was of this woman – his woman.
As if she could read his thoughts, Cara smiled at him, making his heart jump in his chest. He would never get used to the heart-shattering beauty of this smile.
The child stirred with a light gurgle; Din gently rocked him back to sleep.
“How did you get yourself injured?” he inquired, sending Paz a curious look. The angle of the wound was strange, it looked like the sho had been fired from very up close.
Paz didn't disappoint: his answer was as extravagant as Din had expected.
“Hit on the wrong girl's boyfriend.”
It made Din shake his head in disbelieving fondness. He remembered this Paz, the young heart-breaker who liked to fool around with every hot boy or girl in the tribe. It had been foolish of him to even ask.
Cara got her own med-pack and proceeded to clean and suture Paz's wound. He watched her work with open fascination, his eyes flickering all over her as though there was something about her he was trying to figure out.
By the time Cara was done, he had dozed off. Din had to wake him to move him to his bed, which was more like a very basic berth with a blanket and a flat pillow.
"Vor'e, ner vod,” Paz mumbled sleepily against Din's shoulder as Din eased him down onto the thin mattress. He tucked him in, then gave him a pat on his arm.
“You're welcome.”
He felt exhausted when he walked back into the main room.
“He's out,” he announced with a sigh. Everything was starting to rain down on him: stumbling into Paz, of all people, and finding him so broken and miserable had been a surprise, and not a pleasant one. Din was glad Cara was being so supportive, because he wasn't sure he would have been able to live with himself if she'd asked him to turn his back to one of his own. Then again, Cara would have never asked any such thing of him.
Cara looked up at him from the floor. She had found a basin to use as a cot for the baby and had also somehow managed to improvise a sleeping arrangement for herself and Din with some blankets and the cushions from the armchair.
“Let's hope he sleeps off some of the fever.”
“You should get some sleep, too,” he said, giving an eloquent once-over to the bruises on her face and her scraped knuckles. “You've done enough, for today.”
She was exhausted, too, he could see it, but in a completely different way than he was.
“You, too, smartass,” she argued pointedly. “Come here,” she added, holding out her arms for him.
Din happily obliged. He sank down to the floor at her side, let her pull his helmet off and set it aside, then laid down with her, his arms around her waist, her hands on his face as she pulled him down into a kiss.
“Turn off that overactive brain of yours for a few hours and just rest, will you?” she whispered upon his lips. “We'll figure out what to do with the big guy in due time.”
Din pushed her down on her back as he moved upon her to claim another kiss. Cara folded her arms around his neck and opened her mouth for him, welcoming the caress of his tongue around hers with a soft moan that elicited a throaty groan of pleasure in response. He clutched her hips, bracing his weight on his elbows, the wet sound of their kisses echoing distantly in his ears. There was no way he could ever properly express how much he loved this woman, how insanely grateful he was to have her.
He slowly pulled back, panting, and pressing his forehead upon hers to catch his breath.
“What would I do without you, Dune?”
Cara gave one last peck to his lips, then laid down, drawing him with herself to let him rest his head on her chest.
“Same thing I'd do without you,” she muttered against his hair. “You'd be lost and lonely.”