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Sure as I’m sad
I’ll keep this wisdom in my flesh
I leave here believing more than I had
And there’s a reason I’ll be
A reason I’ll be back
Eddie Vedder, No Ceiling
Grogu is so, so tired.
He sits in the brig, propped on the bench, tiny wrists restrained by tiny binders.
Tiny binders designed for Force-sensitives. Tiny binders designed for tiny prisoners.
So tired.
So much of his life Force siphoned away.
He’s helpless. Powerless to do anything against the embodiment of evil that stands over him at this very moment. Powerless to smash the monster who holds so much evil in his heart, who carries the memory of bringing so much destruction to so many souls. Grogu had dared to look into Gideon’s mind and had discovered the fuel of nightmares for centuries to come.
One vision was the destruction of his father’s people.
Another was the planned destruction of his father himself.
So Grogu struggles to keep his eyes open. Struggles against the fatigue. Because he knows his father is on his way.
His father always came back for him.
Always.
“It won’t be long now, little one,” Gideon says. “What do you think Djarin will have to say about our glorious weapon?” Grogu feels the warmth radiating from the blade as Gideon passes it over his head. “He won’t take kindly to me having the most sacred artifact of his people. I wonder…” The words pause as he draws the weapon through the air, and Grogu’s stomach turns as he feels Gideon’s enchantment with it. “I wonder if he will choose it over you. What do you think?”
I think you’re a moron. The words, as such, do not form in Grogu’s mind, but if what he feels has a direct translation, those are the words he would speak. Gideon has no idea what drives his father.
Gideon thinks he’s clever.
His father is far, far more cunning.
His father does lose his way every now and then. An occasional error in judgment or slip of character. But on this matter, Grogu is certain. Weapons may be part of his father’s religion, but his father will choose him over the weapon.
This time.
He senses the lives of the two guards on the other side of the door snuff out. One death is short and simple. The other… maybe his father enjoys that one a little too much. A slow strangulation, a body held up in the air as it writhes, savored by the vengeance harbored in his father’s heart before finally cutting it short with the snap of a neck.
Grogu has never been under any illusions about his father’s propensity toward violence. But unlike Gideon, it comes from a place of love.
Murder born of rage born of love.
His father has always been a mix of light and dark.
Gideon is nothing but dark.
The door opens and his father steps in, all gleaming and hard surfaces. Grogu lifts his bound hands. I tried, Father. I tried. I’m so tired… be careful… be careful be careful be careful… But all that comes out is a pitiful whine.
Gideon starts to prattle on about power and thrones and Grogu can feel his father roll his eyes behind the visor as he watches the gloved hands tighten into fists. It’s not until Gideon says something about restoring order that his father really bristles. Grogu senses something has happened recently to make him so sensitive about it, but loses the thought as Gideon deactivates the Darksaber and lays his trap. Once more, Grogu raises his bound hands. He’s lying he’s lying he’s lying be careful… But his father pays no heed and approaches, and the inevitable happens.
He hears a grunt from his father as Gideon brings the Darksaber across his back, but the flash of emotion is not one of surprise. Instead, it’s one of begrudging confirmation. I knew it. He watches as his father backs the fight out through the doorway, leading Gideon away from him, sparing him from accidental injury. Grogu closes his eyes and watches the duel in his mind, never having any doubt about the outcome despite the injuries his father has already suffered.
Indeed, a few minutes later, his father returns, only a slight limp to his step. “Hey, kiddo.” The voice issuing from the helmet is weary, and Grogu has trouble telling his own weariness apart from his father’s. All he can do is hold up his hands. His father shakes his head, pulls a credential stick from a pocket, and releases him from the binders.
Relief floods the baby as his father scoops him up and holds him close for just a moment. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.” A tidal wave of loss crashes over them both as his father fails to suppress the memories of the price he has paid to bring them to this point. The ship, their home and everything on it is destroyed. And something else… something less tangible and less material… has slipped away as well, but it dances just out of Grogu’s grasp as he succumbs to sleep for just a little while, safe once more in his father’s arms.
He slips in and out of consciousness, sharp words are exchanged, an alarm sounds, and tensions rise.
But he is still so tired. It all flows over him, just out of reach. He feels his father’s terror, knows it burns hot and bright, but his exhaustion has pulled him so far away it is nothing but a flickering pinprick in the distance.
And then…
I’m here, little one.
Grogu doesn’t recognize it at first. Does not recognize the voice that has answered his call. The rapture of the Seeing Stone is a distant memory through the fog of the last few days. But he does recognize the volume. The power that carries it. The memory of such things is even more distant, but unforgettable in its potency.
A Jedi has come.
A Jedi has come for him.
A Jedi has come to take him home.
The realization is enough to drag him from the fog and pull him awake. He gains sustenance from it, returns from the ephemera, and he again watches through the Force.
The Jedi makes short work of the monsters that had stolen him before. Slices through them with cool, calm discipline. Proceeds through the ship in an effortless stroll, knowing exactly where to go, following the beacon of light who has called, pulsing bright and warm.
Grogu senses a shift in the balance of terror on the bridge, mounting in Gideon until more shots are fired. Once again, his father dives to his rescue.
The Jedi is still on the move, and Grogu pulls himself to a monitor that he knows will show him what he needs to see. The Jedi proceeds to dismantle the monsters just outside the door with smooth, effortless strokes. Monsters that would’ve slaughtered the band of warriors on the bridge in a matter of seconds are brought down with ease and grace.
His father watches over his shoulder.
The Jedi makes it look easy.
Because for this Jedi, it is easy.
Unruffled. Unflappable.
When the Jedi reaches the last droid, the method of deactivation is less forgiving. A crushing implosion. Not out of rage or annoyance, but as a display to whoever may be watching, both allies and enemies. These droids? These droids are little more than toys. Cutting through a platoon of them required only a small fraction of what I’m capable of.
His father sighs a wave of appreciation at the sight of it.
And then Grogu suddenly understands the choice he must make.
He has found comfort and warmth in the man covered in cold, hard armor. The man who has returned for him, time and again, to save him. Grogu had seen the lengths his protector had gone for him, had seen the battles fought, had learned that his protector would tear the galaxy apart for him. Even so, it wasn’t until Grogu’s life had been threatened that the man slowly began to harbor something deeper, even if he hadn’t realized it. Each threat peeled the layers of separation away, and Grogu knew the love the man felt for him before he realized it himself. Had come to think of him as his father before the man realized the true extent of what they were to each other.
Grogu realizes that even though something has slipped away from his father since the Seeing Stone, his father has gained something else – the full realization of what they are to each other. The full realization that he is Grogu’s father and Grogu is his son.
It sure took him long enough.
And on the heels of that realization is another – the call of the Force touches something deep within him. He knows what he can be if he answers it. He knows his potential. He knows what the Jedi on the other side of that door can bring out in him, knows that he will no longer have to hide what he is, knows that he can be his true self without fear, knows that the Jedi can protect him in ways that even his father cannot.
He turns to his father and looks upon the cold steel face he has come to love, and he doesn’t want to leave. He wants to grow strong, but he doesn’t want to leave his father behind. All he can do is reach for his father as a pitiful whine escapes him. His father picks him up, holds him close, and says, “Open the doors.” When no one complies, he does it himself, placing his son in a chair to conceal him for a moment.
And the Jedi enters, emerging from the billowing smoke of decimated droids, lightsaber humming in his hand.
Grogu senses the good in him as he peeks around the chair. The warmth. The honesty.
He also senses the shattering of his father’s heart. Senses that his father has made the same realizations. That the Jedi is better equipped to protect him. His father turns and picks him up, speaks to reassure himself as well as his son.
Grogu knows that his father has reached the end of his limits. Has done all he can. Can no longer sustain any further sacrifices. Has nothing left to give. Grogu wants so much to give back, to grow strong so he can protect his father in the challenges he is sure to face later, in a future that lays shrouded in darkness.
“I’ll see you again. I promise.”
There is one more thing he wants from his father. One last request.
He reaches for the helmet. I have something to tell you. His father has never heard his thoughts. He doesn’t know if the helmet has blocked them or if he’ll be able to hear even without it. But he has to try. And he needs to see his father’s eyes if he has any chance of it working.
His father reaches for his helmet and grants Grogu his wish.
Din watches the Jedi slice through the droids with the laser sword.
He is in awe.
He still aches from the beating that just the one had bestowed upon him. But even if he’d had a laser sword that carved through droids like a hot blade through warm butter, he knows he still wouldn’t have had an easy time of it. The Jedi dominates the droids in an easy, understated way, letting power speak for itself. The contrast against Bo-Katan’s constant need to assert it over others is stark. To her credit, Bo-Katan’s explicit dominance is representative of the Mandalorian Way, always big on talk, always big on swagger, and Din finds the all-business methods of this Jedi… refreshing.
Din has not forgotten Boba’s words regarding the Jedi and their injustices against him. He has also not forgotten the way Bo-Katan spoke to him regarding his father. Din suspects there’s a larger story to be heard there. He suspects that, just as there is, apparently, variation in how Mandalorians live, there is variation in the Jedi. Ahsoka had treated him and Grogu with kindness. She had been unwilling to separate Grogu from him. Instead, she’d called him out on what he’d been hiding from himself for far too long.
She’d called him out on his fatherhood to Grogu.
But his son needs more than a father, now.
Din watches his son’s rapt attention to the monitors as the Jedi proceeds through the ship, cutting down droids with casual ease, Grogu’s tiny hand pressed to the glass, eyes wide and wonderous. Not fearful, but enraptured.
Grogu needs a teacher.
“I’ll see you again. I promise.”
Din lifts the helmet for his son.
Once again, he feels cool air on his face while he’s in a room with other people.
God, he hates it. Even though his back is turned to most of them, he hates it. Hates how he feels like a snail pulled out of its shell, soft and vulnerable, out and exposed where he can be slurped up and eaten by the fist predator that swoops by.
But the sight of his son looking upon him for the first time is worth all of it. For the first time, he sees the reflection of his own face in the wide, dark pools of his son’s eyes. The odd mix of infantile features overlaying a mystical wisdom looks right back at him, right through him and into his soul. His son looks at him as if he knows all there is to know about him, every memory, every secret, every dream, and every fear, laid bare and exposed without the beskar between them.
Grogu reaches for him and he closes his eyes, unable to bear the combined weight of his son’s gaze and his son’s touch. For the first time since swearing the creed, another living thing touches his face in the light of day.
He expects it to hurt.
When it doesn’t, when all he feels is three tiny claws pressed gently to his jaw, he’s able to open his eyes once more.
His son gazes upon his bare face, and he feels a small, nervous smile twitch at the corner of his mouth before it flees away, balanced on the precarious edge between overwhelming joy and overwhelming sorrow.
His back is turned to the others, and only the Jedi and his son bear full witness to this declaration of fatherhood, this public declaration before all of them that they are, in truth, a family. The little hand presses into his skin, and he thinks he almost hears a word flutter through his mind.
Listen.
It’s there and gone before he really grasps it, and he realizes he can’t stand here like this for much longer before he explodes. He had already said his long goodbye when he thought they would part ways on Corvus. Sifted through all the memories, relived all the triumphs and regrets. Reminded himself of his duty to get the child to someone who could properly care for him. He can’t go through it all over again. All he can do now is reconcile his duty as a Mandalorian with his love as a father and his understanding as a Foundling. His understanding that, if it had ever been possible for him to go back, if he’d ever had any family to go back to, he would have. The Jedi standing by the door is the closest thing to a natural family that Grogu has. Din witnessed the Jedi’s capabilities firsthand. He knows the Jedi can protect Grogu better than he can. He knows what the responsible move is.
“Alright, pal. It’s time to go.”
His throat tightens and his son whines, out of the boy’s fear or his own, he can’t tell. Ahsoka’s warning of their attachment making Grogu vulnerable to his fears strike like a hammer at the back of his mind. “Don’t be afraid,” he says to his son as much to himself. He holds his son’s gaze for a moment and, unable to stand it any longer, stoops to set him on the floor so that he may choose his own path.
For an agonizing several seconds, Grogu clings to his boot. The left one this time, and he’s reminded of when the child had clung to his right boot back on Nevarro, shortly after being declared a clan of two by the Armorer. The same side as the signet, and he can almost feel it searing through the pauldron on his shoulder. The moment finally ends when a droid rolls through the entrance. The child turns and then approaches it, and they seem to recognize each other.
The Jedi waits tolerantly. His calm and patience help to ease Din’s fears. This is not a man who wants Grogu for his own purposes. This is not a man driven by selfishness or greed or power or glory, and Din has trouble wrapping his mind around it because he has met so few others like him. He waits until Grogu lifts his arms in the universal sign of pick me up.
Din’s vision blurs with unshed tears.
He’s losing his son.
He knows it’s for the best. Knows the Jedi can do for Grogu what he himself cannot. He had seen it with his own eyes. Had seen the effortless wielding of power. Grogu will be far safer with the Jedi than with him. Will learn far more. Will be far better prepared to face the galaxy in choosing this path.
It’s for the best, he tells himself as he watches the Jedi carry his son away.
Listen.
He hears it again, and he knows it’s real this time. Knows it’s his son telling him he’ll know how to find him again when the time is right. He lifts his chin in acknowledgement. I hear you, buddy.
It’s for the best, he tells himself as the Jedi and his son disappear behind the closing door.
Din closes his eyes and bows his head, silent and motionless. He stays that way for several moments, at least until he knows he can trust his feet. He stoops down once more, picks up the helmet, and puts it back on.
I’ll see you again. I promise.
He always keeps his promises.