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"No!" Din barked as he woke with a start, his chest heaving and his heart trying to pound its way out of its imprisonment beneath his ribs as he gasped for air. Drenched with sweat, he sat up and began focusing on getting his heart rate and his breathing under control. He pulled his helmet off in an attempt to stave off the sensation of suffocating, still finding it difficult to not feel claustrophobic in times like this.
It was just a nightmare that's all. Your subconscious is showing you what it would've felt like if Ahsoka had agreed to her end of the deal and agreed to keep the kid.
The kid. Grogu. He seriously needed to practice saying his name so he could start using it. He owed it to him to do so, and stop calling him by a generic term. He was a sentient being and an individual, just like Din was. I don't want him to feel like Kuill did, and be insulted because I don't call him by name. The realization of silence coming from the tiny hammock surprised Din. Normally Grogu was so in tune with Din he woke with the slightest twitch from the Mandalorian. But he hadn't stirred when Din woke. He'd seemed so upset when he thought I was leaving him behind, he must've worn himself out with worry. Din decided not to disturb the little womp rat and inched his way to the foot of his bunk before he stood. He pressed the button to open the door, deciding to go to the vac and then retreat to the cockpit until the adrenaline wore off and he could go back to sleep. He turned to check on his tiny roommate and found the hammock empty. No!
"Kid? Kid, where are you?" He called frantically as he searched the common area, checking all the little nooks and crannies the kid loved to hide in when he was being cheeky. The longer he looked, the more frantic he became. Maybe he's not answering because he wants me to start calling him by name. "Grogu? Dammit answer me!" He demanded.
He heard Ahsoka's voice in his head. Try and connect with him. Din considered the tone of voice he was using. I sound like I'm mad at him for something he did wrong. I need to reassure him that's not what's going on here. "Grogu, c'mon buddy you gotta come out now. I'm not mad at you I promise, I just got worried when I woke up and you weren't in bed," he explained in what he hoped was an encouraging voice. "I need to know you're okay so can you come out now?"
He was met with silence. He'd carried the little guy onto the Crest, and he was still on when he shut the loading bay door wasn't he? The nightmare continued to creep into his conscious thoughts, and he wasn't sure he hadn't dreamed about his departure from Corvus. The longer the silence persisted the worse his fears became. His eyes and ears strained to see or hear something, anything, to give lie to what he was beginning to believe was a horrifying truth. He remembered back to how he felt when he boarded the Crest after collecting payment for the kid's capture, and that had only been after being with him for a couple of days.
They'd been together for almost a year at this point. He couldn't begin to think about life on the Crest without him now. Sure, he seemed to get himself into trouble every time Din's back was turned, and he tested the bounty hunter's patience on a daily basis, but didn't all kids do that to their guardians? Din used to enjoy the silence being on the Crest afforded him, how he sometimes went weeks without uttering a single word. Now, that same thought was maddening. He'd come to love the somewhat one-sided conversations he had with Grogu. While the little guy wasn't yet capable of giving him an actual response, Din treated the gurgles and coos as though they were words.
He was discovering that Grogu loved spacecraft of all kinds and would quickly point out one he hadn't seen before, eagerly soaking up any information Din could tell him on it. Din had playfully made a list of every type of craft he could think of, and taped it up next to the co-pilot chair where Grogu sat, the kid checking them off with a grease pencil whenever they saw one. The little gremlin was also an apparent adrenaline junkie, something Din loved to indulge him in whenever he got the chance, though he'd recently learned to monitor the little guy's food intake before any intentional jaunts.
Once he had exhausted all efforts to locate the kid on the lower level of the ship, he turned and headed for the cockpit. He hadn't worried about him being up there because he'd started locking it whenever he left after the eventful moment with Cara where the little guy had sabotaged their flight path. His mission now was simple. He'd go back to Corvus and either collect Grogu from Ahsoka, or find out where she had taken him and follow them there. If the kid still wanted her to train him, he'd ask the Togruta to go with them. He would gladly help her with whatever quest she may be on, just as long as Grogu was back in his life. Din was just about to climb the cockpit ladder when a sound came from the one place he hadn't thought to look due to the kid's dislike for it. The vac unit.
Din hadn't initially understood why Grogu had such disdain for it until he considered how small the little guy was in relation to the bowl. He'd been trying to convince him nothing would happen to him, and that he was panicking for no reason, but after the positive interaction on Corvus he was certain he'd just been using the wrong approach. He heard the unit discharge, and the kid's cry of terror at the loud noise. The loud noise. Kriffing hell, no wonder it scares him. It's loud to me, so it's gotta be deafening to him with those ears. The door opened and Grogu stood in the doorway, tiny outline barely visible in the dim light.
The dam burst, and Din quickly padded over and scooped him up, crushing him against his chest. He began to openly weep as he sank to the floor, doing nothing to stop the tears that served as both catharses, and provided him an incredible teaching moment. Mandalorians were typically known for their stoic nature, but he wanted the kid to know that crying wasn't exactly a bad thing, and didn't make him look weak.
Grogu could sense Din's fear, and returned the embrace, snuffling in Din's neck. Din could sense a change in the foundling’s mood and wondered who was comforting who. The nightmare had opened his eyes to things about the kid that he hadn't given much thought before now. He wondered if the kid had ever woken from a bad dream where he thought Din was gone. Were the odd moments of desperate clinginess due to needing the physical reassurance that Din was indeed still there? "Hey," he burred softly. He could see two large ears pivot towards the sound of his voice as Grogu pulled back to look up at him. "If you ever wake up, and you're scared that I'm gone just like in your dream, you can climb down to my bunk and sit next to me, or sleep next to me, or even sleep on me if it makes you feel better, okay?"
The soft sounds of content gurgles and trills answered him, telling him he'd been understood and the little one agreed with what he said. Din smiled, realizing he'd gotten pretty good at translating the kid's various sounds and babbles. A tiny hand reached towards his bare face. Din wasn't worried about being seen, the floor lighting wasn't bright enough for Grogu to make out his features, even with his large eyes, and he wanted the kid to know that the shiny face he saw everyday was just a helmet. There was a gentle tug on his mustache and Din chuckled. "It's attached," he said.
Grogu giggled as Din's lips moved against his hand, telling Din that the kid probably thought it tickled. The tiny hands moved up, plotting out his cheeks and nose, his eyes and eyebrows, and into the hair that was plastered to his forehead. When the same little hands patted his cheeks, Din took one of them and gently put it over his lips so the kid could feel him smile. "Hey, I know I know your name now, and I'm gonna try to make myself use it, but don't get upset with me if I still call you kid sometimes, okay?" He asked softly.
Another pat to his cheek.
"So, Grogu huh? Not gonna lie, it's better than anything I would've come up with," Din said. The response he got this time was a giggle. "I'm gonna make you a promise okay?"
Grogu made a noise that was an awful lot like "huh". Din grinned. "I promise to try and not sound so grumpy all the time okay? And we'll work on the rules I made for you, some of them do sound kinda mean," he said. He'd thought a lot about what Ahsoka had said about connecting with him. At first he didn't want to, because he wanted to keep from getting attached to the little guy, but it appeared that it was happening anyway despite his best efforts. Now he thought that it would help him do what was best for the kid. He cared about him so much, it would fuel his desire to do the right thing.
The kid clapped his hands. Din smiled and put a playful edge to his voice. "So, do you...wanna go back to bed," He asked.
Grogu grunted, a sound Din had quickly learned meant no. "Do you.... wanna go get in the fresher?" He teased.
Another grunt. Din was having fun with this. "How bout we organize the gun safe?" Was his next offer.
The kid responded with a sigh and proceeded to try and climb off Din's lap, making him laugh. "Okay whomp rat, I'm kidding. Been thinking. This place really isn't Grogu friendly, so how bout I get my helmet, and we work off the adrenaline by changing that?"
Grogu plopped down again and clapped his hands with a happy trill. Din laughed and gathered him up as he got to his feet. "I think we should start in the cockpit."
A couple of hours later Din climbed down the ladder with Grogu snoozing against his shoulder. He'd lasted longer than Din had expected, stubbornly fighting off sleep until all of the modifications in the cockpit were finished. Din had adjusted the height of the co-pilot's chair so that Grogu could see out of the windows, and had tac welded several metal containers together to create a set of steps so he could get in and out of his seat more easily. He had recut and adjusted the seat's five-point harness so that it fit the kid comfortably now but could handle any potential growth spurts.
To make up for the unpleasantness of requiring him to be in his seat, Din had rewired a panel of switches and changed out the bulbs, so they were different colors. He had then spent a short while teaching him to press them in a specific order, the kid nearly vibrating with happiness when he learned that he was now controlling part of the takeoff and landing sequence. He had also amended his rule that Grogu had to be in his seat so much. Takeoff and landing were still mandatory, but now the floor and Din's lap were also acceptable locations for emergencies.
He put the toolbox down on the table and carried the kid to their shared bunk room, putting him in his hammock and lightly tucking the blanket around him. Din thought about what he wanted to do next. He was suddenly hit with a surge of ideas and loved the thought of the kid having all these surprises to discover when he woke up. He opened the toolbox and took out a small piece of scrap metal that had two grease pencil marks on it. One was for Grogu's height, the other marked how far over his head he could reach, which wasn't far. Din was okay with that, he thought it would give the kid an excuse to use his powers or wield the force as Ahsoka had called it.
He used the scrap to determine which of the storage cupboards or drawers would be the easiest for him to use, and then cleared it out. He tucked the bin that currently housed Grogu's snacks into it, to give him the ability to grab something whenever he wanted. He also added several empty containers so that the kid could store anything he wanted to keep. Next came another rewiring job, this one a bit trickier than the one in the cockpit. By the time he was done there was a separate set of buttons that were Grogu's height just outside the vac unit, so he could dispose of his waste without being subjected to the loud noise. Din stood looking at the unit for a moment, and then quickly hurried to the cargo area and retrieved a bucket that had a hole in the side of it that he'd held onto for an emergency. A quick bit of cutting and welding later and there was a Grogu sized seat that folded down over the main one, so he could use the vac without being afraid of it.
Din held off on his last major wiring project, a set of toggles for the door to their bunks, not wanting to wake the little guy again. He put his toolbox back in its normal spot and settled at the table with several feet of heavy-duty rope. With the piece of scrap as his guide, he began tying knots in it every few inches. He quickly fell into a rhythm, and his mind began to wander again. He realized he could potentially be doing all this for nothing.
Okay let's say a Jedi does hear him and come looking, they aren't gonna show up the next day. Is he just supposed to feel like he's just being tolerated in the meantime? That the quicker he's gone the better?
I've been doing that to make it easier for him to not be conflicted in case he does want to go.
And yet he's managed to get attached to you anyway, and you to him. This stopped being about duty of care to a foundling when you saw that Cara had put your pendant on him and you know it.
At the thought of Cara his brain switched gears to something Ahsoka had told him that night after the kid had fallen asleep.
When you see her again, he says to tell her he's sorry. That he didn't know it was a game. He actually really likes her. A lot. And he's afraid she won't ever like him the way he wants because of what he did.
He knew she'd meant Cara, and that the game was their arm-wrestling bet. But it was only now that he'd realized what Ahsoka had meant the following morning about his anger. Grogu had choked Cara because he was angry that Din was losing, and in his little mind, he was helping like he'd done before. The reason he hadn't done anything to her on Sorgan was because they had reached a stalemate.
Ahsoka hadn't elaborated on what Grogu had meant about wanting Cara to like him the way he wanted, and Din found himself wondering if that way was maternal. While he wasn't sure his best friend even wanted kids, he had to admit that seeing her as not just the kid's adoptive mother, but as his life partner had crossed his mind quite a few times since they'd left Nevarro.
He finished tying the last knot, and then stood, using his knife to slice it into two different lengths. The longer of the two he tied a loop at one end and climbed the cockpit ladder, attaching it to a secure beam on the upper deck, and then letting it drop to the lower floor. He returned to the common area and tied the smaller length to one of the supports that the kid's hammock was tied to. Now the little womp rat could come and go as he pleased.
Sleep at last came calling, and as he settled back on his bunk his mind again returned to Grogu and the decision that still lay at hand. There was every chance that the path he would choose would be the one that allowed him to stay with Din. What would he do then? Thankfully for the Mandalorian that one had an easy answer.
If he chooses to stay with me then our next stop is a quick trip to Nevarro to hopefully pick up our favorite travelling companion, and then after that we find the Armorer to make something official with the little womp rat. With any luck, the first word he learns, is buir.