Chapter Text
You came to consciousness with a jolt, hands shaking and head pounding as you tried to orient yourself. You were in the cockpit of the Crest - you knew that much. It was cold - freezing - and much too quiet; electricity sparked and alarms warbled with blinking lights all over the instrument panels.
“Din,” you said weakly. You closed your eyes for a moment as a wave of dizziness overcame you.
You heard the turn of the pilot’s chair, felt Din’s gloved hands on your face. “Cyar’ika. I'm here.”
You opened your eyes and his helm came into focus; you leaned forward and rested your head against his for a moment.
“What happened?” you asked.
He shook his head. “We fell through the ice. I think I passed out when I hit the dash - I don’t know how long it’s been since - ”
A feeble groan came from the opposite side of the cockpit, and both you and Din looked over.
“Oh, Din,” you said, needlessly urging him to help. The frog lady had fallen; Din helped her back into her chair, nodding at her urgent croaking.
“I’ll find your eggs, don’t worry,” he assured her, knowing despite the language barrier what she was worried about. You felt a sudden wave of panic and guilt - where was your baby?
You stood, a little too quickly - you had to brace yourself on the instrument panel for a second as the dizziness passed.
“Easy, cyare,” Din said, reaching a hand out to steady you. “I think you hit your head when we fell.”
That would explain the dull pounding, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care what had happened to you.
“Din, the baby,” you said, looking up at him.
“I know,” he said, assuring you that he was just as aware and just as worried. He opened the cockpit door and jumped down to the second level. You followed down the ladder a little more carefully, and you felt his hands on your waist as he helped you down.
At the bottom of the ladder, both of you stood stunned, in utter disbelief at the wreckage of your home. Snow and icy wind were streaming in through the hole punched clean through the side of the ship; everything that had been stowed neatly was strewn across the floor, broken, covered in snow. Cut wires sparked and hung menacingly over it all.
“Damn it,” he said quietly.
Grief seemed to settle heavy on your shoulders, and you took your husband’s hand. He gave your hand a gentle squeeze, trying to comfort you, to say all the things that neither of you could bear to voice. He turned to press the access button for your bunk; as the door slid open, you scanned the entirety of the small space looking for the baby.
“Where is he, Din?” you asked, icy fear gripping you when you couldn’t find him. You had worried he might have fallen from his hammock, but for him to be gone -
“Stay here,” Din said, briefly touching his hand to your torso to make you stay put. The frog lady’s worried pleas echoed from the cockpit, and Din looked upwards.
“Hang on, I’m looking for your eggs,” he called. He carefully made his way through the wreckage, looking this way and that for any sign of the eggs or the baby.
He lifted a tarp, and you saw the tension bleed out of him and heard a little coo of protest. You put a hand to your chest reflexively, willing your pulse to slow now that you knew where your foundling was.
“No!” Din said, in his scolding voice. You watched as he picked up the frog lady’s eggs and looked back down at the baby. “I told you not to do that.”
You gave him a questioning look, but before he could answer, the frog lady called again.
“Found them!” Din said. He looked back at the baby. “How many did you eat?”
Oh, not again, you thought. Din scooped the baby up and brought him over to you, and you held him tight and kissed his ears despite Din’s recent scolding.
“You’re ok, ad’ika,” you said soothingly, more for yourself than for him. He cuddled close to you for warmth and looked up at his father with a cautious gaze.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Din said. He pointed to the eggs in the chamber. “I told you no. No more.”
The baby gave a disappointed coo. Satisfied he’d made his point for now, Din sighed and patted the baby’s head.
“Stay here with mom, and be good.” He looked at you. “I’m going to take these up to her, and then try to patch up down here. You should stay in the bunk to keep warm.”
You fished one of the blankets out and handed it to him. “Bring that up to her.”
He nodded and tossed it over his arm, his free hand hovering protectively as you climbed into the bunk with the baby. You wrapped both of you in a blanket, holding him close to your chest; you leaned your head against the side of the bunk to try and ease some of the ache on the cool metal.
The baby babbled in greeting when Din came back down, and Din offered a small wave hello as he went searching through the mess for his toolbox. You could tell he was getting increasingly more frustrated with every upturned box and sparking cable; his body language said as much, and a clipped, quiet curse would come through the modulator every so often.
Eventually he found what he was looking for, and he tacked up a tarp over the hole in the siding. That at least stopped the wind from blowing snow in with every gust, but it was still cold; your breaths came in little clouds as you watched Din try to set the ship to rights again, at least on the inside. You asked if he needed help, feeling guilty for staying in the bunk while he was doing all the work, but he assured you he would rather you rest and stay with the baby.
For his part, the baby fell asleep, too cold for his usual wandering. You started to feel restless as your headache subsided and the full magnitude of your situation weighed on you. You carefully laid the baby on the bunk, wrapping him up in the blanket that still held your warmth, and closed the hatch.
Din looked up from his tinkering. “You should be resting, cyare.”
You shook your head and minded the low-hanging cables as you came over to him, resting your hands on his shoulders. He’d been kneeling on the unforgiving metal floor for half an hour, hunched over a panel on the carbonite system. You kneaded your hands into his tense muscles; you knew it wouldn’t do much, through the fabric of his cloak and the straps of his breastplate, but he sighed and relaxed a little nonetheless.
“It’s leaking fluid,” he said, gesturing to the carbonite system. “Which isn’t that pressing, all things considered, but it’s the only thing I know how to fix right now.”
You leaned to press a kiss to his helm. “I know, honey,” you said. You knew he was frustrated and overwhelmed with all the work to be done, and you also knew he was doing his very best to fix things.
He leaned back on his heels. “I can’t do anything on the outside yet,” he continued, the words tumbling out of him like he’d been trying to come up with an explanation or justification for why things weren’t fixed yet. “I don’t think the ice has settled, and I don’t want to make us sink further. The generator and acceleration chamber are probably the worst hit, but I can’t even find the right tools in all this mess.”
“Hey,” you said, draping your arms over his shoulders. “You’re doing the best you can, Din. Nobody could ask more of you.”
He stood, a little abruptly, and you stepped back to give him space. He turned but didn’t say anything for a moment.
“We’re stranded on a frozen planet,” he said finally, his voice flat. “I have none of the tools I need to make a proper repair of the Crest. I have you and the baby to think of, not to mention another passenger and her babies, which can probably survive less of the cold than we can. It’s only going to get colder when night falls, and there’s nothing I can do to generate heat with the main power drive out.”
You felt more discouraged with each of the problems he listed, but you didn’t like his tone. You’d known him to tend towards pessimism, but this defeatist attitude certainly wasn’t going to help anything.
“I know all that,” you said, looking up at his visor with what little defiance you could muster. “You don’t have to lecture me, Din. I’m an adult, and I can see for myself that we’re in a tight spot.”
“I’m not lecturing you,” he said, irritated. “I’m trying to make you understand that we’re not getting out of this with a little luck and elbow grease. I can’t even start looking at what needs to be repaired until morning.”
You crossed your arms over your chest, cold and defensive. “Fine,” you said, painfully aware of how quickly your nerves and tempers were fraying with each other. “You’ve made me understand. Check that off your list.”
“That’s not - ” He gave a frustrated huff. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I didn’t come over here to fight, Din. I was trying to be nice, and you - ”
“I don’t need nice right now, cyare,” he shot back.
You flinched a little at the way he’d flung the name back at you. “Don’t call me that when you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry,” he insisted, though it wasn’t very convincing. “I just wish you’d - ”
“What?” you demanded. “Wish I would what? Help? Fine.”
You felt your own guilt at not helping earlier resurface, and you started in on the pile of disorganized storage and little pieces of wreckage that he’d pushed to the side earlier to clear space. It was a mess, and much of it was broken; you reached your hand into a smaller pile of debris and felt a sharp pain in your ring finger.
“Dank farrik,” you bit out, quickly snatching your hand back and seeing a bright rivulet of blood down the length of your finger. You stuck it in your mouth and avoided looking at your husband.
“Let me see,” he said, sticking his hand out. You reluctantly placed your hand in his, wincing a little when he turned your hand to see better, even as gentle as his touch was.
“Sorry,” he said. He studied the cut for a moment. “It doesn’t look too bad. Let me get a bandage.”
He rifled around until he found a med-kit; he took off his gloves and let you rest your hand on his open palm while he dabbed antiseptic on the cut and wrapped a small bandage around it.
“There,” he said. He ran his thumb over your palm in a gesture of tenderness, and you felt the sting of tears.
“I’m sorry for how I spoke to you,” he said gently. “I was frustrated, and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. Please forgive me.”
You bit the inside of your cheek, but you couldn’t stop a few tears from falling. You tried to brush them away before he noticed, but Din was nothing if not observant.
“Hey, cyar’ika,” he said, worried. “Does it hurt that bad?”
“No,” you said honestly, quickly brushing the tears from your face. “I’m just...”
You were embarrassed by your outburst and the stupid way you’d hurt yourself; you were tired and achy and worried, and fighting with Din had been the worst part of it all.
“Of course I forgive you,” you said, your voice a little wobbly. “I’m sorry too.”
He sighed and rested his helm against your head for a moment, a brief kiss. “The only way we’re going to get out of here is if we work together.”
You nodded. “What do you need me to do? How can I help?”
He released your hands to put his gloves back on. “I need you to watch the baby and make sure our friend has everything she needs, for her and her eggs. Food, too - it probably got thrown all over storage, but we’ll need something to eat.”
“Okay,” you agreed. “I can do that. What are you going to do?”
He sighed. “I’m going to try and patch up the holes in the hull, just so we don’t freeze to death before we even get started on the major repairs. Then maybe take a look at the cockpit and see if anything still turns on.”
As if to punctuate his point about freezing to death, a sudden shiver went through you; he reached out to rub his hands up and down your arms to create a little heat.
“Get my spare cloak for yourself, cyare,” he said. “And try and find some extra blankets, if you can.”
You lightly kissed his visor, then rubbed it with your sleeve so it wasn’t blurry. His laugh came through the modulator and made you smile.
“Did I just hear Din Djarin laugh?” you teased. “Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem.”
He gave a hum of agreement and brushed his thumb over your cheek. “Only because you’re here.”
He touched a hand to the bottom of his visor, a shorthand he’d come up with when you first started courting, like blowing you a kiss. He went up the second level to check the hull; you unearthed the chest of your clothes from underneath the debris, careful of any more broken objects, and found his spare cloak to wrap around your shoulders.
After you’d found the extra blankets and given one to the frog lady, for which she croaked her thanks, you set yourself to the task of organizing the wrecked storage room. It was on the second level, past the carbonite storage area, and you were glad you didn’t have to walk past any grisly frozen figures to get to it. You’d endured plenty during Din’s bounty hunter days, and you often found yourself grateful that those were over.
You found enough food for a meal or two, more if you stretched. You had been intending to resupply when you reached Trask, and you didn’t know now how long it would take to get there. You prepared something simple for dinner - with no power, you couldn’t make much use of your little kitchenette on the wall of the storage room - and took it back downstairs, asking the frog lady to join you.
You could hear the baby talking to himself when you came back down, and after handing your guest her food, you opened the door to the bunk and were greeted by a toothy smile.
“Hello, my love,” you cooed. He gave you uppy arms and you scooped him up, holding him close; he gently tugged on a clawful of your hair and babbled happily at you.
“Yes, I know,” you said. “You’re so happy after your nap, aren’t you? Are you hungry?”
He cast a longing look at the glass chamber holding the eggs, and you frowned.
“No,” you said. “You remember daddy said no. Besides, I made you some dinner you’ll like very much.”
You set him down on a storage box and handed him his little plate of food; he gave a happy coo and contentedly had his dinner. Satisfied he would stay put, you went back up to look for Din.
It didn’t take long to find him; a steady stream of Mandalorian curses were coming from behind the cockpit doors. You felt sympathetic for his frustration and amused at his language, which he usually rarely indulged in, and opened the doors to find your husband flipping every switch on the panels trying to get something to work.
“Osik’la skanah,” he growled, jamming a button with a little more force than necessary.
“I’m guessing that’s not a phrase I should use talking to any other Mandalorians,” you said.
He turned in the pilot’s chair, cocking his head at you. He sighed.
“No, probably not,” he admitted.
“Tell me what it means, though.” You leaned in conspiratorially. “I like to learn new ways to curse.”
He gave a dry laugh. “It’s not really a curse. More like - junk. Useless, messed up junk.”
You grimaced. “That good, huh?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what I expected. We took damage when we hit the ice shelf, and then we took even worse damage when we fell through the ice. I can’t get anything but the filtration system and emergency lights to come on.”
You sighed. “Well, those are both things we need, and they would be very hard to go without. We can be thankful we have those.”
He shook his head. “I know you’re right, but I can’t see past all the other damage. I have no idea how I’m going to fix the Crest with what I have.”
You put a hand on his arm, trying to comfort him. “You know more about this ship than anyone, Din. And you know more about spaceship mechanics than most technicians. You’ll figure something out. I have complete confidence in you.”
His shoulders fell. “Thank you, cyare,” he said sincerely. “That... means a lot. Really.”
You smiled, pleased you had encouraged him, at least a little bit.
“Come on,” you said, taking his hand and pulling him out of the cockpit before he got fed up with any more switches or buttons. “There’s dinner, and your son’s probably trying to use his powers to get into the tank of eggs for dessert.”