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“The kid’s sick,” Din tells the holographic figure. “What do I do?”
“Aw, poor little guy.” Cara’s image wavers for a second, but then she’s back. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. Just do what you do when you get sick.”
Din stares at the image.
“That doesn’t help me,” he says, voice rising. Grogu stirs in his arms, whining at the noise. “Sorry, kid,” Din tells him gently. He strokes his fingers through the soft fuzz between the kids ears until he settles back down.
When he looks back up at the hologram, Cara is watching him with an unreadable expression.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says with a shrug. A grin break out over her face. “It’s just, this is a good look for you.”
“Are you going to help me or not?” Din demands, his voice a low hiss.
“Kids get sick all the time,” Cara says. “Make sure he eats, drinks, sleeps and he’ll probably be over it in a day or so. If not, take him to a doctor.”
Din rolls his eyes at the obvious. “Thanks Cara.”
“Hey, you asked.” She winks and cuts the transmission.
Looking down at the sleeping kid, Din tamps down on the worry that threatens to rise up his throat. He doesn’t know how to take care of a kid, let alone a sick kid. This whole time he’s been making it up as he goes.
“Okay, eating, sleeping and drinking,” Din tells the sleeping child. “I can manage that.”
*
Din paces with the kid, around and around the cargo hold—rocking, soothing, begging the kid to calm down. Nothing seems to work.
He’s stripped the top half of his flightsuit, tying the sleeves around his waist after Grogu had vomited on him. Again. The kid clutches at his sweatshirt, his breaths between sobs are wet and wheezy and Din doesn’t know what to do.
The kid is overtired and cranky, but every time Din tries to put Grogu down, the kid sinks in his claws and clings like a stone mite.
“Nuhoy jii ad'ika.” Din times the words with his rocking of the kid. “Gedet'ye.”
The kid goes quiet between one breath and the next, staring up at Din with his large, wet eyes.
“K’uur. K’uur ad’ika.” With the edges of his cloak, Din wipes Grogu’s face clean. “Cuyir gar kai'tomyc?” He repeats the question in Basic. “Hungry?”
The kid shakes his head then buries his face in Din’s shirt.
“You gotta eat,” Din tells him softly. “Come on.”
He makes tea, deciding that will be the easiest thing for Grogu to swallow and check off both the eating and drinking requirements.
Usually, Grogu would be happy to sit on the bench and watch, nibbling on whatever Din hands him to keep him occupied. Today he refuses to be put down so Din half tucks him under one arm to keep both hands free while he throws something together.
They sit on a crate to eat.
Grogu sits on Din’s knee, staring down into the cup he’s clutching. At the soft click of Din’s helmet releasing, Grogu twists to look up at him.
“One sip kid,” Din prompts, putting his hand under the cup to bring it to the kid’s mouth. The kid is still staring at him, but he opens his mouth to drink the tea and manages to get through most of it. “Jate.”
He’s never used Mando’a with anyone outside of the covert, but it feels right to use it with the kid, just like it had felt right the first time he had revealed his face and spoken the words that made them family. Besides, it’s the first thing that has stopped the tears in hours and Din will take that win.
“Right,” Din throws back his soup and puts down his cup. The kid has gone limp against him, blinking up at Din, his eyes heavy-lidded with exhaustion. He’s still warmer than Din would prefer, but it’s nothing like the raging fever he’d had earlier.
Putting the kid to bed is an ordeal.
He fusses and cries when Din tries to put him down, so they resume their slow trek around the cargo hold. Din discovers the Mando’a only goes so far with a cranky kid, but still he continues to murmur the words as they walk.
Din ends up sitting on the edge of the bunk, pulling off his boots and armour one-handed so that he can crawl in and lie down with the kid. With Grogu draped across his chest, sobs softened to the occasional hiccup, Din let’s his eyes fall closed.
He doesn’t sleep for long.
Sleeping beside Grogu is like sleeping next to a heating unit, a heating unit that shifts and kicks in it’s sleep. There was a reason Din had enforced the separate sleeping areas.
Laying a palm across the kid’s forehead, Din can feel the heat radiating off him. It’s too hot, surely, for such a small body.
Heart pounding, Din picks up the child and carries him into the cooler air of the cargo hold.
“Grogu?” Wetting a rag in the refresher, Din wipes down the kid’s sweaty face. “Come on, ad’ika. You’re okay. Ni ganar gar.”
Scrunching up his face against the cold cloth, Grogu turns his face toward Din’s chest.
“Ni ganar gar, ad’ika.”
*
Din sets the ship down on Nevarro, landing a little rougher than his usual standard. After two of the worst days of his life, Din’s running on fumes, but the kid at least has finally turned a corner. His fever had broken twelve hours earlier and after a long nap, he’d started to perk up.
Din on the other hand, was exhausted from two sleepless nights and, desperate for a break, had programmed in the coordinates for the volcanic planet.
Cara and Greef are both waiting for him when he steps off the ramp. At the sight of two of his favourite people, Grogu squeals in delight and starts squirming to be put down.
“Hey Mando, what brings you to-”
Din presses the kid into Greef Karga’s arms. “Watch him for me?” He doesn’t wait for a response, just simply turns and walks back onto the ship.
As soon as the door shuts behind him, he tugs off his helmet and falls face first onto the bed with a groan. Eat, drink, sleep—that’s all he needs. The kid will be fine with the others for a few hours.