Archive of Our Own

With a blaster in one hand and the bounty's arm in another, Din steps into Boba Fett's throne room. The Weequay struggles in Din's grasp, hands zip-tied behind their back. He throws them down into the center of the room. Fett's sitting on the throne in front of them, and he watches the ordeal with interest. His blank visor doesn’t give anything away, but Din's nothing if not an expert in reading emotions through helmets.

"Only took you a day, beroya. That's a new record," Fett finally says. He gestures to someone out of Din's view, and two servants rush in and drag the bounty away. A third servant approaches Din and hands him a pouch of credits before scurrying off, out of sight once more.

"I want my next job," Din says once they're alone.

"Listen, Djarin," Fett sighs. "You should take a vacation. You've been going non-stop for a whole month."

"I'm fine," Din insists. He ignores the ache in his bones, the bruising along his ribs, the numerous burns and cuts barely healed up with bacta. He feels like he's coming apart at the seams. But Fett doesn't need to know that.

His visor doesn't show any emotion, but Din can just feel the unimpressed look he's giving him now. Something about the tilt of his helmet gives it away. "Sure," Fett replies, voice flat through his modulator. "Well, you leave me no choice. I have no more jobs for you. Either find one somewhere else, or take a fucking vacation, for the love of ka'ra."

"I can see the pucks on the desk!" Din grinds out, indignant. The desk behind the throne is, in fact, covered in various pucks and tracking fobs. "Just give me a damn job, Fett."

"Those aren't pucks," Fett says. He turns his head to the side and raises his hand to where his chin should be. "Those are... holoprojectors. I can see the confusion though." Din can just hear his shit-eating grin. Fett raises his hands apologetically. "I have no more jobs, as I said. Truly, I'm sorry."

"I can tell you're smiling," Din deadpans. He steps forward. "Just give me a puck-!"

"Uh oh, you know not to approach the throne," Fett tuts. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

"Don't you dare -"

"Guards!"

Din makes his way back to his new ship with dirt and sand crusted between the plates of his armor and new bruises on top of his old bruises. The nerve of that guy... You take over one crime syndicate and suddenly you think you're ruler of Tatooine...

He settles down in the cockpit and sighs.

After the battle on Gideon's light cruiser, Fett and Shand had let Din hunker down at their new place. He had spent those first few days in a fugue state, simultaneously processing all that he'd lost and also desperately ignoring it. He'd teetered on the edge until Shand eventually got sick of his wallowing and threw some pucks at his face, said that if they were going to have a bounty hunter under their roof then he might as well put himself to use.

So he threw himself back into the reliable grind of bounty hunting as if nothing had changed. Except everything had changed. He has no covert to provide for, no child to look after, and no bounties on his own head. He hunts without a purpose other than to keep himself busy, picks up jobs three at a time with barely a glance. The money accumulated fairly quickly, enough that he was able to afford a new gunship, the Flare Horizon - and after that, he still has excess funds. He doesn't even know what to do with it all. Months of scraping by, struggling to pay for food and fuel, and now he has actual pocket change. Unfathomable.

But he can't stop hunting, not now. He has to keep moving. If he stops, he doesn't know if he could pick himself back up again.

(At night, he jerks awake from nightmares that he's already forgotten but leave his heart pounding. He doesn't have to worry about keeping silent anymore, which somehow makes it worse.)

Din starts the ship's engines. It runs so much smoother than the Razor Crest. The floor doesn't rumble under his feet. The life support system is quiet as it boots up. The purr of the engines is muffled by professional attempts at sound-proofing. All his various knick-knacks collected over the years are gone. His weapons locker is woefully sparse, and that damned Darksaber mocks him from where he stashed it in the back.

It's all so new, detached. Not lived in. Not the Crest.

And the gear shift lever still has its durasteel knob attached to the top. His heart skips a beat at the sight.

It's difficult to ignore the gnawing absence the kid has left on the ship. No more pushing buttons he isn’t supposed to, no more gentle coos and giggles from the passenger seat, no more tiny fists pressing against Din’s boot. It's lonelier than he expected. He'd spent years upon years living alone, jumping from bounty to bounty, more familiar with the hard steel of a blaster under his palms than the small, soft hands of a child. It's harder than he thought, having to adjust back to this way of life.

He isn't used to living only for himself again.

Din swallows past the lump in his throat and pulls the ship away from the surface. If Fett won’t give him a job, then he’ll find one elsewhere.

The ship comes out of hyperspace with a soft jolt. Nevarro fills the viewscreen in front of him, the dull gray surface familiar in a way most other planets aren't. Din brings the ship down into the atmosphere and makes a steady landing in the city's shipyard. The descent is much smoother than the Crest ever accomplished, but he thinks he misses the old turbulence anyway.

Nevarro City is bustling in a way it never had before - colorful, lively, happy, where once there was only dull daylight and quiet misery. Removing the Imps and the Guild and funneling credits towards public works definitely did a wonder on the place. He wanders through the streets, watching the way people cheerfully go about their day.

He manages to find the Magistrate's building, only slightly fancier than the other buildings crammed next to it. He walks through the doors and into the entrance hall. The room goes quiet as all eyes land on him. It's eerily similar to whenever he'd walk through the Guild cantina, but the weight of these eyes is filled with caution, not envy and greed.

"Ah, Mando!" Magistrate Greef Karga steps out from behind his desk and holds his arms open. "What brings you back to this fine city?" The warmth in his voice is starkly different from the Guild days. It's a welcome difference.

Din dips his head in greeting. "I need work."

"Right to business, eh?" Greef sighs. "Well, what kind of work are you looking for?"

"Bounties, preferably."

He shoots Din a reproachful look. "You know the Guild doesn't operate here anymore."

"You don't have any local crime?"

Greef doesn't grace him with an answer. He leans against his desk and crosses his arms. "Mando, why don't you just, oh I don't know, get a job like a normal person?"

"Normal?" Din wonders. The idea had never occurred to him.

Greef sighs once more. "Or maybe you should take a break?" His voice is soft - sympathetic, yet resigned. “You know, like a normal person?”

"Goodbye," Din spits out, and leaves with a flourish of his cape.

Din knocks on the office door and clears his throat. Cara looks up from her datapad, and the frown on her face turns into a grin when she sees him in the doorway.

"Hey, Mando!" She leans back in her chair, crossing her hands behind her head. "Haven't seen you in ages. Whatcha up to?"

"I’m looking for work," he says. "Greef didn't have anything for me."

Cara looks at him dubiously. "Well, I'm not much better. All I've got are some New Republic bounties, and I know you don't mess with those."

Din sits down heavily in the guest chair across from her desk. If he had less dignity, maybe he'd let himself flop down. Perhaps he'd even groan out loud, while he was at it. Instead, he leans his arms on his knees and bows his head with a weary sigh.

"Listen, man," she says awkwardly. "I know this goes against your Mandalorian Work Ethic, but maybe you should just... take the week off, rest up for a bit, enjoy the new Nevarro?"

"That's what Greef said," Din replies. "And Fett." The misery is, unfortunately, evident in his voice.

Cara whistles. "Well, if even Boba Fett is telling you to take a break, then you know you've got it real bad."

"I- I can't take a break," he admits. The modulator in his helmet smoothes out the shakiness of his words. "I don't know how."

She pats his arm sympathetically. “Listen, I’ll see if I can get some time off, and then we can hang out and I can teach you the ways of relaxation. Deal?”

Din hesitates, thinks of drifting through the void of space in an empty ship. He nods curtly. She lets out a victory “whoop!" and punches him in the arm.

He's getting ready to sleep that night when his comlink rings with an incoming call from Cara.

"I managed to get a half-day tomorrow," she informs him. "I'll be off around noon, so you better sleep in. Get a head start on that relaxation, if you know what I mean."

No, Din does not know what she means. "Goodnight, Cara," he says instead.

"'Night, Din."

He startles awake sometime around mid-morning the next day. He can't tell if it's the noise of the shipyard outside or a dream or what, but he can't fall back to sleep again afterward. Relaxation is proving harder than he thought.

Din finds himself wandering the city for lack of anything better to do. The streets have changed so much since he last spent any substantial time here, when he brought the kid and got to see the new school (and he purposefully shoves that thought away, ignoring the way his chest tightens). It's enough that it's easy to get lost without any specific destination in mind. He doesn't need to meet up with Cara for several hours, though, so he lets himself drift along with the crowds.

He watches the comings and goings of the civilians with passing interest. There are fewer people hunched over in alleyways, more people milling about for pleasure. The air is full of happy chatter and laughter, not smoke and dust. Din lets his guard down ever so slightly, enough that his shoulders loosen and his gait slows as he continues to scan for any sign of danger. The city might have changed, but he still can’t forget its past.

So when a body suddenly collides with his, it sends him nearly jumping out of his armor.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, sir," the Twi'lek gasps. Her face is flushed with panic, yellow lekku in disarray, and in her arms is a toddler, who turns and stares at him with wide eyes. The sight tugs at his heartstrings, makes him think of —

"Sir, are you a Mandalorian?" She asks, twisting to stare directly into his visor even as his gaze is drawn downward, towards the child clinging to their mother's sleeve. "You are, aren't you? Well, you lot are good with kids, right? Please, something came up, I need someone to watch my child." And suddenly the child is passed to him and he takes them without thought.

"I'll be back by nightfall. Thank you so much, sir!"

"Wait -" he protests, snapping back to attention, but by the time he looks back up, there's nobody by his side. The woman is gone in the crowd. He stands in the middle of the street with a stranger's child in his arms and no idea what to do.

Small fingers toy with the edge of his breastplate. The kid holds onto him with one hand, and with their other they reach up towards his helmet, letting out a soft giggle of wonder. The weight of a child nestled against his chest, the small movements as they get comfortable, playing with his armor, is achingly familiar. He takes a shuddering breath, blinking back tears as if he were transported back to just a few weeks ago, collapsed on the floor of Slave I unable to move.

But this child is too heavy. The sounds they make are different, more intelligible, closer to Basic than the baby coos he was used to. And the sensation of people walking around him, the noisy commotion of the crowded street they were standing in, brings him back to reality. He shakes his head and gathers his resolve.

(Foundlings are the future, he hears the Armorer's voice ring in his head. This is the Way.)

Din makes his way to the side of the street to an alley where it's quieter. He sets the child down on the edge of the curb and stands between them and the rest of the foot traffic, keenly aware of how small and defenseless they are.

"Uhm," he says intelligently. He kneels down so that he's at their eye level. "Hello, little one. Can you tell me your name?" How old are they? Are they old enough to speak? His ad'ika couldn't speak, he'd only learned his name from that Jedi...

"I'm Na'vid." The child looks at him shyly. They play with the end of one of their lekku, similar in color to their mother's.

"Nice to meet you, Na'vid." Din shakes their hand, so small in his but larger than Grogu's had been. He wracks his brain for what to do with a child that isn't his - not that Grogu was his, he was with the Jedi now, his own people — He shakes his head, dispelling the thought. "Is there... a park, or someplace that we can go?"

"Libarry!" The kid giggles and claps their hands.

"Okay," he says. Breathe in, breathe out. He can do this. "Can you walk on your own?"

And that's how he finds himself walking hand in hand with somebody else's child down the sidewalk when he was supposed to be sleeping in and "relaxing."

Cara is going to have a fit.

He spends the whole time whispering “what the fuck, what the fuck” to himself, too softly to be picked up by his modulator. The child toddles on, unaware of his internal crisis, and before he knows it, they're standing in front of a building he doesn't recognize but looks new enough. A hand-painted sign above the doorway declares it the Nevarro City Public Library.

"Libarry!" Na'vid points and pulls him through the doors.

The room is wide and open, yet cozy and comfortably lived in. There are various people lounging about, watching holovids, reading from bookchips, or just relaxing.  The noise of the street fades away as the doors close behind them. A bell jingles near the ceiling right when the doors shut, and everybody looks over to see who entered.

(Whose bright idea was it to put a bell for a public building? He complains mentally.)

There he stands: a Mandalorian bounty hunter, wearing a full armor set of unpainted beskar with various weapons strapped across his body, hunched over to hold the hand of a toddler who seems none the wiser. The kid giggles and pulls him away from the entrance.

The other patrons gawk openly, and whether it's out of fear or awe, Din doesn't care. He scans the room, letting his glare rest on everyone he sees. Each person flinches when his visor meets their eyes, and they go back to what they were doing with uncanny enthusiasm.

The kid drags him over to a corner in the back of the room. The floor in this area is covered by a rug with a pattern of multicolored squares, and the walls are hidden behind rainbow beads and shelves of bookchips. One of the walls has a water tank lit up in neon colors, and strange aquatic creatures swim around inside. Na'vid runs up to the tank and gasps.

"Fishies!" They coo as they press their face up against the glass.

Grogu would've been having a feast, he can't help but think, and his heart clenches as he watches Na'vid fondly. He pushes the thought out of his mind.

Din moves to sit down in one of the bean bag chairs pressed against the wall. But he sinks down much further than he expected, causing him to lose his balance. There's a suspiciously loud metallic clang as he flops down. Well, there goes his chance at pretending it didn't happen.

The kid turns around at the sound and laughs at him when they see him on the floor. He can’t help but chuckle too.

"Like this!" Na'vid says and sits down in the other chair much more gracefully. They must have more practice in the art of bean bag chair sitting.

He manages to orient himself into a proper sitting position. "So what now, kid?" He asks, arranging his cape around himself and trying to appear as casual as possible, like he didn't just fall on his ass.

The kid shrugs. They sniffle, suddenly more subdued. "I miss mama."

Ah, shit. Din doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know this kid, doesn't want to overstep his bounds, but they need comfort. "Don't worry," he says awkwardly, trying to remember how he'd interacted with the foundlings from his covert. "Your mother will be back by nightfall. She hasn't left you."

The kid doesn't look convinced. Distraction always worked well with his own ad, so Din looks around near-frantically. His eyes land upon some archaic paper and coloring utensils shoved onto one of the lower shelves nearby.

"Would you like to draw?" He asks. "You like art, right? Chaos?"

Na'vid seems to consider for a moment before they nod hesitantly. He scrambles back to his feet from the bean bag chair. He reaches over to the shelf he saw and grabs some paper and crayons, before looking around for something for the kid to lean on. He finds a crate hidden next to the shelf. He brings it over to the kid, placing it in front of their chair, and puts the supplies on top.

They scoot forward to reach the crate and grab a black crayon. They stop to think for a moment, before looking at him as he sits back down in his own chair.

"I like your face," they say, and shoot him a blinding grin. "I'm gonna draw it!" It takes him a second to reconcile face with helmet, but the kid's already drawing the T-shape of his visor by the time he catches on.

His kid always brought out the conversational side of him. And, well, what else is he supposed to do? So he talks.

"This isn't my real face," he says. "It's my helmet. Ner buy'ce." His heart skips a beat when he realizes he let some Mando'a slip out. He had been trying to get Grogu to recognize certain words, and the reminder that the child wasn't here now —

"Nah booshee," Na'vid echoes, sticking their tongue out in concentration as they draw the outline of his head.

"... Pretty good, kid," Din praises, and hopes they don't notice how tight his voice is.

The kid gets down to his neck, takes one look at his armor, and seems to give up. His limbs take on the form of black sticks with gray blobs representing his armor pieces. Din doesn't mind. He doesn't think he could do much better. They pay special attention to his Kar'ta Beskar though, which he thinks gives them bonus points for detail.

When they're done, they wave the paper in his face, plastering it against his visor. "You!" They squeal and sit back on their legs, looking at him eagerly. He peels it away to get a better look.

"Good job!" Din says. "Thank you. You're quite an artist."

The kid giggles, and sets out another paper. This time, the distinctive shape of lekku takes form, but he can't tell if it's supposed to be Na'vid themself, or their mother. His question is answered as they continue drawing, this time adding a second figure who looks the same but taller. The kid draws the two figures holding hands.

"Me and mama," they announce, lifting the drawing up again for him to see once they're done.

"Very nice! You have an impressive grasp of color theory,” he commends. He doesn't know what color theory is. But the kid smiles anyway, so he counts it as a victory.

Na’vid continues drawing, moving onto their various friends from past playdates. Din watches on, and wonders if he should pick up some art supplies for Grogu. The little womp rat would go wild for this kind of thing. But — this isn't a job, and Grogu isn't back waiting on the Razor Crest. His chest suddenly feels tight. Din sighs.

A few hours of art later, Na'vid starts getting fussy, and he recognizes the tell-tale signs of hunger. He has no idea where to get food anymore - all he remembers are skeevy cantinas that are no place for children (unless they're his child, who goes wherever he goes).

He walks the kid over to the librarian's desk in the middle of the room, their small hand wrapped around two of his fingers. He clears his throat, and the librarian looks up from their datapad, eyes wide and wary at the sight of a Mandalorian. But the peaks of Na'vid's lekku are visible over the edge of the desk, which must soften the blow.

"Is there anywhere to get food around here?" Din asks.

The librarian pushes their glasses up their nose and stutters a bit, before finally collecting themself. "There's a café just down the street. Family-friendly, good for kids," they stammer. They stare at Din's hand where Na'vid is hanging on with curiosity, but fortunately, they don't say anything more.

"Thank you." He dips his head and walks away. He feels Na'vid trailing behind, looking over their shoulder, and they echo his "thank you" to the librarian in a high-pitched voice.

He finds the place easily enough. Din brings the kid onto the line with him so that they can pick what to eat, and he lets them get a snack for later in case they get hungry again. They point to a sandwich and a small container of rainbow cookies.

Browsing the confectioneries in the case, his eyes land on a package of blue cookies. And he's suddenly thrown back to Nevarro several months ago, the first time he had seen the place since Cara and Greef had kicked out the ravel. He had left Grogu at the new school, and the kid came back with blue cookies - and vomited them back up all over his robes at the end of the dogfight.

Din's frozen where he stands, remembering that night, cleaning his kid up after everything had calmed down, the knowledge that Gideon was still alive looming over his shoulder... But then the queue moves up, and Na'vid pulls him forward.

"A sandwich and those rainbow cookies for the kid, please," he orders once he reaches the counter.

"And anything for you, sir?" The cashier asks.

He considers for a second, and nods. "A package of those blue cookies as well, please." He won't be eating them here, but something compels him to buy them anyway.

The cashier gets the cookies for them, but the sandwich takes a few minutes to prepare. Na'vid paces around him, stepping over his boots as he leans against the wall and twirling his hand around. He can feel the other customers watching the two of them, but he ignores it, focusing on keeping the kid within his sights.

When the sandwich is ready, they sit down in a booth in the corner, where Din can sit with his back against the wall. It's not ideal in case a fight breaks out, but it allows him to survey the whole place so he won't get caught by surprise. Na'vid sits on the other side of the table, content with their sandwich. Din holds onto the cookie packages for later.

When the kid's done eating, they drag him back to the "libarry." The other patrons look up once more when the two of them enter, but it's harder to glare them away when he's carrying packages of sugar cookies in one hand and a toddler's hand in the other.

Na'vid takes out a holoprojector from one of the shelves along the wall. They flop down onto the bean bag chair again and they select some cartoon Din has never heard of. He hands them their rainbow cookies before sitting down in the other chair. There are still several hours until sunset, so with nothing better to do, Din watches along with the movie.

He feels an uncomfortable prickling sensation on the back of his neck that tells him he's being watched. An instinct honed by years of hunting and being hunted.

Na'vid is too engrossed in the movie to notice his sudden apprehension. Din discreetly places himself in front of them and looks over his shoulder. He adjusts his cape as he does so, trying not to scare the kid or alert the person watching them. But as he checks, all he sees is - that Twi'lek from before, the kid's mother, heading towards them. The tension leaves him. He hadn't realized it was nightfall already.

"Time's up, kiddo," he says, standing up to meet their mother. Na'vid looks up from the holoprojector and grins when they see her approaching.

"Mama!" They squeal, jumping out of the bean bag chair. Their mom reaches them and kneels down to hug them tightly. Na'vid giggles in her arms as she twirls them around in a circle. She pets their lekku before straightening up again, turning to where he's standing a few feet away.

"Thank you so much, sir," she says, keeping an arm around the kid's shoulders. "I'm so sorry to give you no warning like that earlier. My coworker called out sick and I had no choice but to cover for them if I wanted to keep my job. I didn't have any time to call the usual babysitter. But then I saw you, and well, children are important to Mandalorians, right?" - he nods curtly - "I just thought you of all people would probably be the best impromptu sitter. I hope it wasn't too much of a bother."

She grabs his hand and sticks thirty credits into his palm. "I know this isn't enough for the amount of time, but it's all I could spare for now. I- I can pay you back later, sir -"

"No need," Din speaks up. He hands her the credits back. "Here. You need it more than me."

"Oh, I can't possibly..."

Din shakes his head, and she deflates, pocketing the money with an air of unspoken relief. "Thank you," she breathes. "Have a nice night." She flashes him a small smile and takes hold of the kid's hand, guiding them to the door.

Na'vid turns around and waves to him. He waves back, and then the two are gone.

Din picks his way through the solidified lava field of the shipyard to where the Flare Horizon is. In the soft light of late dusk, he sees a dark figure leaning against the entrance, arms crossed. His body tenses, before he recognizes the familiar silhouette of Cara. 

Ah, shit. He was supposed to spend the day with her. He approaches sheepishly.

“Hey, Mando,” she greets, voice lilting with accusation but not angry. “Where were ya?”

“I... may have gotten a babysitting job,” he says, unlocking his ship and bringing the door down casually to lessen the blow of his words. It doesn’t distract Cara, though.

“You what?” She gasps, delighted, and he just knows she’s gonna be ribbing him for it all night. “How did you manage that?”

“Well...”

And so they spend the night in the cockpit of his ship, lounging in the seats and drinking spotchka while he recounts his day. Cara’s got a bottle in her hand and her feet propped up on the dashboard (don’t scuff anything, this is brand new, he had warned, and she’d simply scoffed), while Din’s leaning back in his chair, helmet firmly on his head but with the pressure valves unhatched so that he can still sip underneath it.

(It’s a show of trust that he never would’ve allowed mere months ago. But, well, things have changed since then.)

“I can’t believe that when some random person hands you a child, you just say ‘oh, okay’ and go along with it?” Cara throws her head back and cackles.

“What else was I supposed to do?” He bemoans. “She wasn’t wrong about Mandalorians, I mean, it was a child -” And maybe the spotchka’s gotten to his head, but he suddenly feels pressure behind his eyes, and he clams up.

Cara must sense the shift in mood. She straightens up and puts her feet on the floor, but doesn’t look at him, feigning cool as she keeps staring out the viewscreen. “You must miss the little guy a lot, huh?” She says, a soft smile in her voice, tentative like she’s handling a wild animal.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he replies, looking down into his bottle so he can’t see the concern in her eyes. He straightens up in his seat too, calm forgotten.

“Din,” she says, and the use of his name adds weight to her sudden seriousness. “You can’t keep running from this. It’s not healthy to keep it bottled up.”

“I’ve gotten through life just fine like this, haven’t I?” He spits out. It takes him a moment to realize what he’s just admitted. The vulnerability of it hits him, and he suddenly feels ill. He stands up, hands clenched at his sides, but still refuses to look at her. “Goodnight, Cara,” he says, and hopes she takes the dismissal for what it is.

“This is what I mean -”

Din turns his head and levels her with a blank stare.

She sighs and stands as well. “Fine. Goodnight.” Her voice is cold as she glares at him. He turns away again to stare out the viewscreen. He’s never been more grateful for the smooth metal of his visor masking his face.

He hears the sound of the hatch opening, and the ship shifts as she jumps out. The hatch closes once again with a final groan, leaving him in the silence of the empty ship.

The ship is quiet. Too quiet. Din’s laying on his cot, helmet off, but even in the dark he feels exposed. His skin crawls, like someone is watching him, can see him, his face.

He jerks upright, heaving for breath, hairline sticky with sweat. The sound of his panting is the only noise, no quiet snores in the hammock above him (no hammock above him at all), no concerned coos at his distress. 

All he can think of is that fateful day, a mere four weeks ago (feels like a lifetime, feels like no time at all), when he had exposed his face to everyone, but most importantly the kid, Grogu, his son, his ad’ika -

The soft three-fingered hand against his cheek, little claws digging in ever so gently -

The scrutiny of the Imperial officer, questioning him, suspecting him, and he’d needed the codes to save the child, his child, heart racing and ears ringing, frozen where he stood unable to speak and everyone was staring, everyone saw him-!

Nobody had seen his face that day on Gideon’s light cruiser. They only saw the back of his head, except for that jetii, the one who whisked Grogu away. He saw him, he took his son and he saw his face —

But then... his ad'ika’s big brown eyes, staring into his own, for the first time unblocked by an opaque visor.

Din takes the metal ball out of his pocket, where it’s been burning a hole for the past four weeks, and rolls it between his trembling fingers.

The enormity of his loss overwhelms him. He lurches forward, burying his face in his hands. The cool metal of the knob presses against his forehead, and he can no longer hold back his sobs. Alone on his ship, no one can hear him break.

Din jerks awake shortly after dawn.

He shoves his buy'ce on as soon as he’s done getting cleaned up, but takes his time putting on his armor, handling the beskar with reverence. Getting dressed is almost like meditation - with each piece, he puts himself back together, too.

Cara had not been able to get the next day off, so Din’s left on his own again. He contemplates Fett’s words, of moving on to find a job elsewhere, but then he thinks of the quiet loneliness of his ship, the way he still hasn't gotten used to the new layout, how off-kilter he feels, and he can't help but find the idea distasteful. It wouldn't hurt to stick around on Nevarro. A few more days, that's it, then he's gone again.

After all, he never did get that lesson on relaxation from Cara.

And - speaking of her, the events of last night rush back to him. He nearly groans.

Din knocks on the office door and clears his throat. Cara looks up from her paperwork and quirks an eyebrow at him.

"I'm sorry about last night," he says when she doesn't greet him.

Her gaze lingers on him before she looks back down at the datapad in front of her. "Happens to the best of us, Mando," she replies, painfully neutral.

Din knows she isn't truly mad - she's got demons of her own that they've yet to talk about, too. They both haven’t had a friend in a long time. They’re still navigating this new vulnerability. "Was still rude of me," he concedes, and hopes she understands.

“Yeah, you made me waste a day off.” When he doesn’t respond, she looks back up and offers him a devious smile more in line with her usual self. “How about this. You help me with these reports, and we’ll consider it even. Deal?”

Din pulls out the guest chair in front of her desk and sits down. "What, am I going to be your new intern?"

Cara snorts and dumps a stack of bookchips on his side of the desk. "We'll make a New Republic errand boy outta you yet."

The next few days pass by in a similar manner. He wakes up early, heads out to Cara's office, and helps her sort through New Republic intel. At night, Cara follows him back to the Horizon, where they sit around and drink, watching the night sky light up as lava tides rise over the distant fields.

It's the weekend, now. Cara had proclaimed it time to finally work on that good ol' relaxation. While Din is familiar with the concept of a weekend, he's never been able to actually abide by it. He still wakes up early again, the sky pink with the remnants of dawn, and he can't fall back to sleep no matter how hard he tries. A strange restlessness fills him. It's excruciating to just lay there on his hard cot and not actually do anything.

After years of jumping from job to job, and months of being on the run from the Guild and the Empire alike (and hell, even the New Republic for that one week), he figures it's probably normal to feel this way. He's simply not used to getting anything more than five hours of sleep, or laying in bed and not having some obligation looming over his head. He'll adjust, though. It's fine. He's fine.

(He carefully avoids thinking about what those obligations often were. Either Grogu was hungry, or lonely, or full of energy and looking for an outlet... He needed to be awake by a certain time for the kid, or else the kid would wake him.)

Din decides that, even if he can't sleep in, he can still honor the weekend in another way. He's been eating alone on his ship using whatever he has stocked on board, but to celebrate this completely normal, ordinary, relaxing Saturday morning, he'll go find a café and get a special breakfast to bring back to the ship.

He gets out of bed, dons his armor like a second skin, and heads out into the city.

The streets are different compared to how they were earlier in the week. Less crowded, quieter, calmer. People walk at a leisurely pace, meandering their way between buildings, enjoying the fresh air instead of hustling from destination to destination. Din takes the opportunity to meander as well, wandering around in search of a new food place.

He manages to find another café - and doesn't it speak volumes to Nevarro's recent development that it has not one, but at least two quaint cafés? - and steps on line inside. The place is pretty empty, but seems to be picking up more customers as the morning carries on.

Din's staring at the food on display as he's waiting, when there's a sudden commotion behind him, further down the line that's been steadily growing longer. He tilts his head, and out of the corner of his eyepiece, he sees a human stumbling off the line, a little boy of maybe six or seven standard years trailing after them. The adult - a parent, he assumes - collapses into one of the seats along the far wall while the boy becomes increasingly distressed, face red and looking ready to burst into tears. The parent reaches out and runs their hand through his hair, shushing him while they stare down at the comlink in their hand. Din can read fear in the hunch of their shoulders.

The sight of an upset child tugs at his heart, makes him think of rubbing a wrinkled green forehead and long ears and hearing quiet coos in response. His hands itch to reach out, pat the bag by his side and make sure the kid is okay, but the lack of weight against his leg is an unwelcome reminder that he is alone.

(So much for ‘wherever I go, he goes,’ Din thinks sardonically.)

He must have been watching for too long, reminiscing about his own ad, because the parent looks up and meets his gaze. Their eyes go wide and they jump to their feet, and as they approach him all he can think is not again. He steps off the queue to meet them, so he at least doesn't hold up anyone else waiting behind him.

"I'm so sorry to bother you, sir," the parent says and wrings their hands together pleadingly. "There's been a medical emergency in the family and I must go help. I've heard stories of how your people value children. Please, could you look after my son while I go?"

"Why can't you bring him along with you?" Din asks, trying to keep a strong front up. Cara's right, he shouldn’t just let people throw their children at him with no warning.

"My son, he's easily frightened," they reply, looking close to tears themself. "I don't want him coming with me and seeing something he shouldn't."

"... Alright," he acquiesces. He was a goner as soon as he'd made eye contact with them. Children in distress have apparently become his new weakness, ever since he opened that cradle all those months ago.

(Foundlings are the future, he remembers. This is the Way.)

The parent leads him over to the boy, who's been sitting at the table on the verge of a meltdown the entire time. He reaches up to the parent, but they grab his hands and gently place them back down on the table.

"I'm sorry, Luca," they shush. "But look, this is a Mandalorian. He'll keep you safe, I promise. Everything will be fine. You'll be okay." They lean their forehead against the child's in something that could almost be a mirshmure'cya, and something in his chest twists at the sight. The boy's blubbering calms down at their words, but he still can't speak beyond gasping breaths.

"I'm going to go now," they say, and nod to Din. "I'll be back in a few hours, I swear." They leave through the door, looking over their shoulder to wave goodbye. The kid reaches out to them once again, but then they're gone.

("I'll see you again. I promise," Din had told Grogu, and his ad'ika had pawed at his bare face while his heart shattered in his chest.)

The boy's face scrunches up, as though he's about to start bawling again. Din sits down in the chair next to him and grabs his hands, like the parent did earlier. He rubs circles on the backs of the boy's hands instinctively, similar to how he used to rub Grogu's back, and he alternates between soft shushes and humming. The noises take on a strange quality when filtered through his modulator, but the pattern seems to work, as the kid - Luca, his parent had said - calms down again.

Din can feel everyone in the establishment carefully eyeing him and the boy. He shoots a withering glare to a few people, making sure to swing his helmet around as ominously as possible. The onlookers go back to what they're doing, but with no sense of urgency, and quite a few have small smiles that they don't even try to hide. He scowls under his helmet.

Once the kid's down to the occasional sniffle, Din speaks up. "Would you like anything to eat?"

The boy seems to think, before nodding and rubbing the corner of his eye. "Can I get a biscuit?" Luca asks, voice small and shy after being through the emotional wringer.

Din nods and stands up, letting go of his hands. "I'll go up on line then. You wait here."

Luca's eyes widen, and the fear is back. He shakes his head, whimpering, and Din can tell another outburst is coming back. Luca reaches for his hand, and Din lets him take it. The small fingers cling to him like a lifeline.

"I- I don't wanna..."

"It's fine," Din says nonchalantly. "You can come with me if you want."

The boy nods eagerly and slides off the seat. Din steps onto the end of the line with the kid padding after him. Luca peers into the glass food cases and swings their interconnected hands as they wait. Din watches the kid's sudden change in behavior - he must have some sort of anxiety disorder, perhaps worsened by separation. If his parent truly couldn't take him, and he couldn't be left alone...

Din orders the flatcakes and within just a few minutes they're back at the table again, which the other patrons had so kindly left unoccupied in their absence. The kid digs into the food with relish while Din watches everyone else suspiciously. He can feel eyes on him, distant giggles pointed in his direction. Even when he glares, people only comply with an air of wary amusement, not caution and fear like normal. He doesn’t necessarily want people to be scared of him, but it’s familiar - what changed? It makes him feel nervous, like there's a plot going on, even if he knows most of these people are civilians.

He can tell the kid's getting antsy, too, as time goes on and more people crowd into the café. Once Luca's finished his food, Din takes him outside. They sit down on the curb outside the building.

"Is there anywhere in particular you'd like to go?" Din asks. He draws upon his limited childcare lessons from the foundlings in his tribe. It's important for children to know they have autonomy, especially when the kid has some sort of anxiety disorder. Not having control is scary. Din can sympathize.

Luca takes a shaky breath and rubs his eye with the hand that's not currently holding onto Din. "I wanna go home," he whines.

"I'm sorry, but I can't bring you home 'till your parent gets back," Din says softly. At the mention of his parent, the kid's face screws up again. Din backtracks. "But we can go anywhere else in the meantime. It's up to you."

The boy shakes his head and doesn't respond. He fidgets, picking at the fingertips of Din’s glove.

Din sighs and thinks back to Na'vid. "How about the library? There are fewer people there, and there are games, books, movies..."

Luca hides his face in Din's arm but nods his head in assent.

This time, when the doors jingle shut, the looks they receive aren't as scrutinizing as last time. Once you've seen a Mandalorian hand in hand with a small child, you've seen it all, he guesses. Makes more sense than whatever the café patrons were doing.

The children's corner is much the same as last time, except now there's a kiddie table set up in the far corner. Luca makes a beeline towards the small chair, and looks expectantly at Din once he's settled.

"Sit next to me," he says, not exactly a demand but not exactly a request, either. And Din can't find it in himself to refuse, not with the kid's signs of separation anxiety. The chair is intimidatingly small, though. Din hesitates, wondering if he can even fit in it, before resigning himself to his fate. If it'll make the kid happy, he'll do it.

He somehow manages to sit down in the chair. His legs are much too long to be doing this. He feels like a bird perching in a nest. But Luca looks satisfied and doesn't seem to notice his plight, so whatever. Whatever.

(When the kid isn't looking, Din slips out of the chair so that he's sitting cross-legged on the floor instead. He casually slides the chair away.)

Luca examines the shelves behind them and only turns back around once he has a holoprojector in his hand. He sets it up on the table, and Din watches as he selects the Games option with an ease that only comes from growing up with such technology. The boy selects a puzzle from the menu, and the projector changes to display the unsolved puzzle pieces in the air.

"That's a big puzzle," Din comments.

"Me and my parent always do 'em," Luca sniffles and grabs a bunch of the holo pieces.

Din considers how to go about the situation. "Do you want help?" He asks after a moment. Luca shuffles the pieces nervously, already fitting a few together, before he nods.

He must have done this puzzle before, because he assembles the pieces with ease. Din mostly just hands him pieces, feeling like if he actually tried to solve it he would only hinder the effort. The kid doesn't seem to mind or even notice. Maybe the puzzles are some sort of self-soothing activity for him, therapeutic in the repetition and problem-solving. Din doesn't want to interrupt.

They go about the process quietly, and soon enough the puzzle is done. It forms the image of some overgrown forest from another planet that Din isn't able to recognize. Luca stares up at it for a minute, before he clears the projector and sets up another puzzle.

Din reaches up to grab a few of the puzzle pieces, but something in his shoulder doesn't cooperate (at his age, and with as many injuries as he’s gotten over the years, it’s a miracle his shoulder even works at all). He winces at the sensation, jerking his hand back to not strain the muscle or whatever it is. He rubs at the area below his collarbone, between his breastplate and shoulder pauldron.

Luca notices Din draw back, and turns to look at him sharply. His eyes are wide and filled with horror as he stares at Din rubbing his chest. Din carefully removes his hand, confused.

“What’s wrong, kid?” He asks, voice quiet like he’s trying not to spook an animal.

"Don't go..." Luca's bottom lip trembles. The impending meltdown is inevitable, and Din's helpless but to watch. Luca shakes his head violently and whines, "Don't leave like auntie..."

"Hey." Din reaches out and holds Luca's hand, who squeezes back so he can't let go. "It'll be okay." He doesn't know what to say, still reeling from the sudden change in mood. With the kid's separation anxiety, the way he reacted to Din in pain, the medical emergency that drew his parent away, Din thinks the events are connected. But he still doesn't know how, doesn't want to presume, and so he doesn't have the right words.

“I’m here,” he says. “Your parent will be back soon for you. You’re not alone.” It feels painfully inadequate.

Luca falls forward and buries his face in Din’s arm, trembling. Din’s heart is racing, trying to calm this child who isn’t his, stuck between reality and memories of his own ad, and -

He wraps Luca up in a hug. Lets the kid press against him, get the fabric of his flight suit wet with tears. Din takes a steadying breath.

“You wanna go sit in the bean bag chairs?” He asks once he’s sure his voice won’t break. “They’re more comfortable than this, and much more fun.” The kid takes a while, but eventually gives a slight nod.

Din guides the boy over to the bean bag chairs. Luca clings to Din’s arm with a surprisingly strong grip, so Din sits on the floor next to him, that way he can't go too far.

He thinks back to the one time his own ad was upset after a bad dream. Grogu had woken him up in the middle of the night by climbing out of his hammock and crawling onto his chest. Luca shakes just like little Grogu had. And Din had calmed him down, gotten him back to sleep by rubbing circles into his back and humming a familiar nursery rhyme Din had heard from his buir.

And so, he rubs the back of Luca’s hand again, and hums, quiet enough that nobody else in the library can hear him.

Ba'jur bal beskar'gam,
Ara'nov, aliit,
Mando'a bal Mand'alor -
An vencuyan mhi.

Din cycles through the rhyme a few more times until he notices the kid’s grip has slackened. He looks over to see that Luca is asleep, curled up in the bean bag chair. Din can move now, go sit on a real chair, but it feels wrong to step away. So he stays where he is.

This time, the parent is back within a few hours. 

Din is practically half-asleep, there on the floor leaning against the bean bag chair, so he doesn't recognize the sense of someone’s approaching, watch out until they’re only a few feet away, rushing towards him. He tenses as he comes to, and the movement stirs Luca awake as well. The boy looks up, his whole face brightening with joy as he notices his parent. They collapse to their knees and hug the kid close.

The way their shoulders shake indicates it’s not a happy reunion. And soon Luca is clutching the back of their shirt and burying his face in their shoulder, trembling against them.

Din looks away to give them privacy, standing and stepping away to give them space. It’s a tender moment, and he doesn’t wish to intrude. And suddenly he can’t help but think of that day on the light cruiser, his own ad buried in his shoulder saying goodbye for what might’ve been the last time. He promised to see him again, but -

He clenches his fists and pushes the thought away. Someone has to stay emotionally stable here.

The parent straightens up and turns to face him, credits in their outstretched hand. “Here, sir,” they say, eyes red and face flat in a way that’s obviously forced.

He doesn’t even bother to count the credits. “No need,” he says. “Keep them for yourself.”

“But you -”

“It was no problem,” he says firmly, shaking his head.

They exhale and press their lips into a thin, grateful smile. “Thank you for looking after my son.”

Luca steps forward and hugs him, barely coming up to his waist. Din pats his head. “Take care, kiddo,” he says warmly, and for once, he hopes that they can tell he’s smiling under his visor.

Then Luca steps away and reaches back to clutch his parent’s hand. The parent nods to Din, and he thinks they understand.

Cara finds him there in the library, reclining in a rainbow bean bag chair and resting his aching body after sitting on the floor for hours.

“What are you doing here in the kids’ section?” She asks. She kicks his foot as though he’s roadkill and she’s checking to see if he’s still alive.

“Another babysitting job,” he replies, not lifting his head and giving no external indication that he is, in fact, alive.

“And you stuck around afterward?” She leans over him until his view of the ceiling is obstructed by her smirking face. The image of a Mandalorian napping in a rainbow bean bag chair must be pretty funny to her.

“Went a bit south there, in the end,” he says reluctantly. “Death in the family, or something.”

The humor seems to fade from Cara. She sighs, and sits down heavily in the other bean bag chair across from him. “Well, are you still down to hang out today?”

Din considers it, thinks of being alone right now all while child loss parent grief reunion are all swirling around in his mind, and decides against it. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

They head back to his ship so that Din can eat something. He learns that it’s significantly harder to eat with his helmet on than it is to drink. It’s a challenge to fit the ration bar under his helmet without it lifting up too high, but Cara makes a show of averting her eyes as she leans against the cabinet next to him, which he’s grateful for.

“So what’s your idea of relaxing?” He asks between bites.

Cara shoots him a sly grin. “How about we hit up a cantina?"

He stares at her. His flat look seems to translate just fine through his visor.

"I know you can't drink there," she continues. "But, get this - I can."

He stares.

"I won't get drunk!" She crosses her arms defensively. "But, y'know, decently buzzed. Besides, don't you miss the atmosphere? You don't need to be drunk to enjoy a cantina."

Cara gets drunk.

Din pulls her away from the Zabrak she had just won an arm wrestling match with. The brawl had drawn the attention of everyone in the cantina, and several bets were going around the table. Her fifth victory in a row was met with various groans of dismay and joyous smirks. Cara whoops and stumbles against Din. The Zabrak, however, is pissed, and Din can easily see a real fight breaking out if they’re not careful.

“Alright, time to go,” Din says, steering her away. “You’ve had your fun.”

“I’m the Marshal here!” Cara announces to everyone, even as she’s led towards the door. “Don’t you forget it!”

The sun had set long ago, leaving the city illuminated only by scant streetlights and open windows. Cara wraps her arm around Din’s shoulders and leans against him as she guides him to her apartment. 

“I totally had that guy,” she says, slurring her words. “I won fair and square. What a loser.”

“Of course,” Din replies.

That night, alone on the Horizon, Din takes out the blue cookies he had bought from the café he had gone to with Na’vid. He had never opened them, so the packaging is still fresh and unsealed.

He carefully removes his buy'ce and places it on the shelf next to him. He opens the cookie package, takes one out, and stares at it. Thinks of that dogfight, Grogu in the backseat having the time of his life, the way his giggles filled the air while Din shot down another Imperial gunship. The little womp rat got sick afterward, but even then it didn’t put too much of a damper on his mood.

Din misses his son’s giggles. He misses having someone in the passenger seat. He misses talking out loud, narrating everything he’s doing just for the sake of keeping his ad'ika company.

Would he remember Din? The months they had together seem so meager, now. He had wasted them, spent so long pushing the kid away, trying to be nothing more than a - a babysitter. The thought nearly makes Din let out a hysterical laugh. 

Despite his best efforts, at some point he still started to think of the kid as his own. Not just a child, not just The Child, but his child, son, ad’ika. But he never said the gai bal manda. And the laughter pressing in his throat quickly turns into a sob.

He doesn’t have a right to think of Grogu as his son. Not now, after handing him off to the second Jedi he encountered. Not after refusing to say the words. And - his life is no way for a child to live. Grogu’s better off now with others like him, who can protect him, where he doesn’t have to worry about abduction and gunfights and death around every corner.

Din tells himself this because it’s true. He needs it to be true, or else he gave up his son for no reason.

The weekend passes, but Din doesn’t pick back up on the paperwork with Cara. Instead, he wanders the streets, sits in cafés, lounges in the library. She calls his comlink around mid-morning, asking him if he’s coming, and he tells her that he simply wants to explore - he’s finally getting the hang of this relaxation thing.

She sends him a dubious look over the hologram. “Well, I guess you have made up for wasting my day off,” she says with a fond smile, a knowing glint in her eye. It makes his stomach feel weird in a way that he desperately pushes down and refuses to acknowledge.

“Thanks, Cara,” he says softly, and exits the call.

He is exploring the city, actually - he wants to get a better handle on the layout. So much has changed since he was last here, and he’s sick of getting lost and just rolling with it. He’d like to be able to walk with purpose again.

And maybe he also wants to find some more public spaces, just in case he’s stuck with another child... It’s not like he’s looking forward to it, or anything, but Din Djarin is nothing if not prepared. It’s only a matter of time until it happens again, so he might as well be ready for it, right?

Right.

Din stumbles upon a public garden tucked away between buildings that definitely hadn’t been there months ago. A few folks are tending to the plant beds, and they look up when he steps through the hedges. They send him those same affectionate smiles, the kind that Cara had just given him that he still isn’t sure he likes. He dips his head to them and quickly takes his leave.

The next day, Greef finds him sitting on a bench outside the library while he scrolls through his datapad, sorting through his maps.

“Ah, Mando!” Greef gives his signature greeting. “Word’s gotten around that you’re willingly spending time in the public eye - for free!”

Din shrugs, and finds that he has no excuses, not when he’s sitting here on a bench like, you know, a normal person.

“You’re starting to become our resident Mandalorian!” Greef sits down next to him and wraps his arm around Din’s shoulder conspiratorially. “You’re making quite a name for yourself, my friend. If you’re really so desperate for some work, maybe you should think of setting up a formal babysitting business.”

Din jerks his shoulder away and shoots him a glare through his visor. “It’s not - I’m not doing it for work. They just give me their kids out of nowhere -”

“Yeah, sure.” Greef looks him up and down where he’s sitting on a public bench. “Out of nowhere.”

Din stands abruptly. “Goodbye,” he chokes out, and leaves with a flourish of his cape.

It’s a few more days of wandering aimlessly, half-heartedly mapping out the city on his datapad, before Din realizes he can sit still and really relax. He takes to the gardens easily - they’re public, but off to the side enough that he can escape a majority of the public eye and all that noise. He finds himself letting his guard down completely for the first time since Sorgan.

Din sits at one of the picnic tables hidden away in a corner of the garden, cleaning one of his new rifles. There are a handful of other people scattered around the area, knees-deep in dirt and tending to the plants, which have just started to sprout strange fruit that Din doesn’t recognize.

He keeps a healthy awareness of the others, and they keep a healthy awareness of him as they all go about their business. Watering plants and cleaning weapons, you know, like normal people.

He looks up from his rifle when a group enters the garden. It's a small family - two adults, likely parents, and a young girl, about eight or nine in standard years. Din scans them for any sign of danger, and as his eyes move up to their faces, he meets the girl’s gaze. She stares back with wide eyes, occasionally glancing down to the rifle on the table in front of him. The gardeners are used to his antics, but he winces to think of what newcomers, especially a kid, would think of a Mandalorian handling weapons out in the open.

The kid tugs on her father's arm, whispers into his ear when he bends down, and seems to vibrate on the spot with - Nervousness? Excitement? Fear? The father looks up to meet his gaze as well, and grabs his partner's attention. And surely, if the kid isn't scared, then the parents must be.

Din slings his rifle onto his back as the family starts approaching him. Probably to tell him it was rude to clean his weapons in public, or something.

"Hi, Mr. Mandalorian, sir!" The girl greets, voice a bit too loud for the peaceful space but not ill-intentioned. Din dips his head in response, eyeing the parents behind her cautiously.

"Sorry to bother you, Mister..?" the father says. Din doesn't reply. The man brushes it off and carries on. "Well, we were wondering if you would be able to look after Mina here for a few hours -"

"You want me to babysit your kid?" Din interrupts. And sure, maybe he’s kind of excited at the idea, maybe he’s been kind of hoping for this to happen again, but confronted with it now, there’s no way. He has to put his foot down once and for all.

"I really like your gun!" Mina says, gripping the edge of the table with barely contained excitement. She pays no mind to the mounting tension between the adults.

"My partner and I haven't had time to ourselves in a while," the other parent says apologetically, placing their hand on the father’s arm. "And our daughter has always wanted to learn more about weapons, but we've never had the opportunity to get her classes. If you wouldn't mind, could you just show her around for a few hours? We'll pay, of course."

"You'd really trust a random stranger with your child?" Din can't help but ask. The others had been desperate, had no choice at the time, but these people?

"You're a Mandalorian, aren't you?" The parent smiles. Lost, Din can only nod in response.

"It's fine if you don't want to," the father says. But Mina looks so crestfallen at the idea, and haar’chak, if his weakness isn't kids in distress.

“No, it’s fine,” Din says, resigned. “I’ll watch your kid.”

(Greef was right, wasn’t he, Din laments internally.)

"Thank you so much, sir." The parent shakes his hand before turning to Mina. "Now, young lady, be respectful and mind your manners. We'll be back in a few hours." They lean forward to kiss the girl's forehead, before taking the father's hand. As the two parents walk away, all Din can think of was that time on Trask, when he had left Grogu with the frog couple. Now, this time he's the babysitter. He doesn't know how to feel about it.

(Foundlings are the future, a voice that sounds suspiciously like the Armorer mocks in his mind. This is the Way.)

The girl sits in front of him, clearly full of energy she can hardly hold back. She kicks her feet and twiddles her thumbs, and he can just tell she wants to ask him something.

"What is it?" He finally asks to put her out of her misery.

"You're a Mandalorian, right?" She bursts out. "I wanna be a Mandalorian!"

His heart skips a beat, and he finds himself shaking his head before he even consciously registers it. "No, you don't."

She pouts. "Why not?"

"You have to be found, to become a Mandalorian," he says. "You can't be found if you still have a home to go back to."

"Oh." And she has that look again, that disappointed downturn of her eyes and the slump of her shoulders. He doesn’t think she understands what he means, but all he can think of is the blast shelter and a flash of red, the kid’s cradle and a hand around his finger.

“Don’t look so down, that’s a good thing.” He sighs. "But I can still teach you a few things if you want."

Her face brightens, and she vibrates in her seat once more. “Really?!” 

"Let's go," he says, and stands from the table. "We'll find someplace to practice away from the town."

Din brings the girl to his ship and goes about arranging a meager target setup outside. He places some crates several feet away into the surrounding lava field. Inside the ship, he finds some empty spotchka bottles laying around and he brings them outside, putting them on the crates as targets. Mina sits on the steps of the ramp, watching him eagerly. Once he's done, he straightens up and wipes his hands of dust on his legs.

He stands in front of her and squares his shoulders, trying to evoke the same image of the Mandalorians in the fighting corps who had taught him when he was a foundling.

"You want to be a Mandalorian?" Din asks. She sits up from her slouch and nods solemnly. "The first step to being a true Mando'ad is the Resol'nare. The Six Actions: education and armor, self-defense, our tribe, our language and our leader. Because you haven’t actually sworn the Creed, we'll be focusing on self-defense.

“The first thing you need to know is how to stand.” Din shifts until he’s standing in a proper athletic stance. “Repeat after me,” he tells her, and she scrambles to her feet to comply. She stands awkwardly, arms held out at her sides like she doesn’t know what to do with them.

He chuckles, and she blushes before crossing her arms indignantly. “I want to learn how to use a blaster!” She protests. “What does standing have to do with it?”

“Sure, you can stand there and shoot a blaster. Anyone can do that,” Din replies. “But in a battle, people don’t just stay still. You have to be moving. You need to know how to shift your weight so you can keep up. A proper stance helps with that.” And, considering her blush, he adds, “It’s hard to do it first try, I get that. I was in your shoes once. How about you try again?”

Mina looks nervous for a second, before attempting it once more. He adjusts her arms and tells her to try again. As she’s practicing, Din heads back into the Horizon to get a practice blaster from the weapons locker. His collection is small and sad, still not fully restocked compared to his gear on the Crest, but he luckily had gotten this.

(He had been browsing the local weapons shop on Tatooine, generously funded by Fett who had told him he looked pathetic with only his two blasters. Din’s eyes had landed on the practice blaster, thought of one day being able to teach Grogu how to use it, and couldn’t resist spending the extra credits on it. Just in case, he had said to himself.)

Din resolutely ignores the hilt of the Darksaber in the back of the locker as he takes hold of the blaster.

He heads back outside and beckons Mina over to him. He holds out the blaster to her, and her eyes go wide, practically sparkling. But then she visibly reels herself in and looks at him faux-serenely.

“The first thing about shooting is to respect your weapon,” Din tells her. “A blaster is not a toy. It’s a powerful weapon that can and will take lives. You must respect that.”

She looks a bit nervous, then. He smiles under his helmet. “This, however, is a practice blaster. Its settings are less fatal than that of a normal combat one. At most, it’ll burn, but it won’t kill. And if you handle it right, it won’t even burn either. Not unless you want it to, of course.”

Din walks her through how to hold the blaster in her hand, how to reload it quickly yet carefully, and most importantly, how to take aim.  Her unbridled energy from before is gone - now, she has laser focus on the task before her. She makes quick progress, eager to learn and fast on the uptake.

After a few minutes, she seems to get the hang of how to hold and aim the blaster. "How about you try shooting it now?" Din suggests. Mina looks back at him in awe before scrambling into position. She lines up her shot, aiming for one of the bottles.

She misses. But she takes a deep breath, adjusts her aim, and tries again. She misses several more times until, on her fifth try, a bottle finally shatters. She jumps, pumping her fist in the air, her attempt at solemnity forgotten now in the face of success.

"Good job!" Din praises, voice warm. She may not be a Mando'ad, but he can't help but think she's got mandokar anyway. He sees himself in her when he was her age, eager to prove himself and follow in his buir's footsteps. If circumstances were worse, if Nevarro hadn’t cleaned up its act, if his covert hadn’t been forced to leave... In another world, it’s far too easy to imagine the kid as a foundling.

As he watches her continue shooting, he thinks of his own foundling. Something in his chest twists at the reminder that he'll never have this with Grogu. He'll never get to teach his son how to hold a blaster, how to aim and fire, how to use a vibroblade or spear. He'll never oversee his first armor casting. His son is gone, with the jetii now, no longer Mando. Never was, not without the gai bal manda.

And he can't even be mad at the Jedi, not for this. Even if Grogu stayed by his side, he aged too slowly. Din would be bedridden by the time the kid could even think of holding a blade - if he didn't die violently before then, at least. No, this was no one's fault, and it only makes it hurt even more.

Mina runs through the shooting drills until every bottle shatters. Then Din shows her how to grip a vibroblade, using a slender rock he had picked up off the ground. She can't practice as easily with it since he has no dummies to stab, but he shows her the proper forms and movements, where to slice on someone to put them out of commission without necessarily being lethal. 

"But I want to be lethal!" Mina complains.

"Maybe when you're older," Din chuckles.

Eventually, the girl starts showing signs of exhaustion. He doesn’t want to embarrass her, so he puts a stop to the training under the guise of a lunch break. He lets her onto his ship to pick something from his food stores.

"All you've got are ration bars?" She asks, peering into the cabinet with dissatisfaction.

"You want to be a Mandalorian, don't you?" He asks. "Real Mandalorians make do with whatever we have. Ration bars are a staple of Mando cuisine."

"You're lying," Mina says, looking at him dubiously. His helmet masks his smile, and when he doesn't externally respond, she sighs and reaches for one of the bars.

"Nah, I got some real food over here," he finally breaks and beckons her over to the other cabinet.

They sit on the steps of the ramp outside as Mina eats some soup. She looks at him curiously, and between spoonfuls, she asks, "Do you ever take your helmet off?”

“Of course. But only when I’m alone, or with my family.”

“So I can’t see what you look like?” Mina looks oddly disappointed.

Din shakes his head apologetically. “But, if you’re really curious to know, I’m human like you.” He thinks for a moment. “I’ve got a mustache, too.”

Mina giggles. “Is that a Mandalorian thing?”

“What, the mustache?”

“No, silly,” she giggles again. “Your helmet!”

Din considers how to respond. "In a way. It's part of the Resol'nare, our armor. But not all Mandalorians interpret it the same way, so others may take their helmets off in front of other people. I don't, though."

(He carefully ignores the fact that he has taken it off - twice now, ever since he’d sworn his Creed. Both times for his son. His heart stutters in his chest but he knows he’d do it again.)

Mina nods at the information, and goes back to eating. They sit in comfortable silence, watching the business of the shipyard. Din can see other people staring at them, as well. The sensation is familiar by now. He doesn’t even bother glaring anymore, not that he thinks even that would scare anyone off at this point. He’s resigned himself to dealing with the passing glances of wide eyes and soft smiles.

“What was it like, growing up Mandalorian?” Mina asks quietly, drawing his gaze back to her. “You said you struggled too?”

“I…” Din struggles for words. “I was adopted. A foundling. I was old enough to start training by then, so that’s all I did. I was behind the others who had started before me. So, yeah, I know what it feels like to be new and out of your depth.”

“Wow...” Mina breathes, voice tinged with awe. “And now you’re so cool!”

“You don’t have to be Mando to be cool. Years of hard work and practice will do that to anybody,” he chuckles. “Even you, one day, if you keep up with this.”

“And when you said I couldn’t be a Mandalorian earlier…” she says, trailing off as she mulls over his words.

“As I said. Adoption.” Din swallows past the sudden lump in his throat. “And you’ve already got nice parents, right? You don’t want to lose that.”

Mina nods, looking thoughtful. The conversation lulls again. When she finishes her soup, he takes the dish inside and leaves it in the sink. He comes back out and leans against the doorway.

“You up for more training?”

The parents come back while Din's showing Mina some basic hand-to-hand combat moves. He had figured that there wasn't much value in teaching her how to fight only with weapons when she likely had only her hands on most days. Still, he doesn’t show her anything too advanced, just enough that if someone were to grab her she would be able to escape.

She elbows him in his stomach and punches his throat, right underneath his helmet, and he doesn't even have to fake the "oof" that comes out of him as he staggers back.

"Impressive move, darling!" Mina's father yells, quiet with distance. Mina straightens up and looks around, and then spots her parents in the shipyard. She looks to Din eagerly and he nods to her. She goes running to her parents, who draw her into a hug when she reaches them.

"Mr. Mandalorian showed me so many cool things!" Mina gushes when she pulls away. "He taught me how to shoot a blaster and how to use a vibroblade and how to punch bad people!"

Her parents look a little overwhelmed. "All that in only a few hours?" Her father says. Mina nods, vibrating with excitement.

Din walks over to them. "Your daughter is a natural," he praises. "If you want some formal lessons, go to Marshal Dune in town and tell her Mando sent you." He considers, and then adds, "And I have some other contacts who could chip in too." Shand would kill him if he sent a child to learn how to snipe from her. But the thought makes him choke back laughter, and well, who wouldn't like to take a kid under their wing and train them? Surely she'd eventually thank him. Fett would appreciate it, at least. Maybe it’s just a Mandalorian thing.

Or maybe he shouldn’t be encouraging children to train with crime lords.

(He thinks of the company he surrounded his own ad with, and his mood sours.)

"We can't thank you enough, sir," Mina's father says, and shakes his hand. He grabs a pouch from his belt, and the tell-tale sound of credits clinking together tells him what it is. Din stops his hand.

"No need," he says. "You hold onto them.”

“Are you sure?” The parent asks, eyes wide. Din nods firmly.

The father shrugs at his partner before turning back to Din. “Have a wonderful day, sir.” The parents each shake his hand again gratefully.

“Bye, Mister!” Mina hugs him around his waist, right where she had just sucker-punched him. She skips over to her parents, and together the family walks away.

As Din turns to go into his ship, he spots the father wrapping his arm around his partner. At this distance, Din is out of natural hearing range, but his helmet is still able to pick up audio. He’s able to hear as the father leans in and says, “See, I told you the rumors were true!”

Din frowns under his helmet and retreats back into the ship.

That night, he calls Cara’s comlink. Her face appears in the holo, looking surprised.

“I need to not be sober,” Din announces.

She frowns, mouth twisting with concern. “Okay... I’ll be over in a few. Hold on.” He nods and ends the call.

While he waits, he digs through the conservator and pulls out a bottle of tihaar. He’s been holding onto it for a few weeks, waiting for the right time to bring it out. It’s been a long day, and he’s in the mood to stop thinking. Perfect occasion for it.

Almost absent-mindedly, he gets two small cups from his cabinet and a straw for himself. Tihaar is meant to be taken slowly, and so it’s traditionally served in a short glass, not straight from the bottle.

A knock rings against the door of the ship. He lets it down, and Cara climbs inside. She eyes him warily, before she spots the drink.

“What’s that?”

“Tihaar. Mandalorian stuff. It’s strong.”

He fills the two glasses, sticks the straw in one, and hands Cara the other. The Horizon is all on one level, unlike the Crest, so it’s easy to lead her to the cockpit while carrying uncapped drinks. He sits down in the pilot seat heavily, and she settles down in the passenger seat with an ease born from spending the night here nearly everyday for the past week.

“Take it slow,” he warns, before taking a sip from his straw. It burns his mouth and throat as it goes down, painful but refreshing.

“What, you think I’m new?” Cara asks with a smirk before she takes her own cautious sip. To her merit, she doesn’t cough, but she does make a face like she’s barely holding one back.

They sit quietly for a few minutes, nursing their drinks and overlooking the lava fields beyond the shipyard. The tides are slow tonight, leaving the sky dark. The stars glow brightly, scattered sparsely as is characteristic of Outer Rim planets. If this were the Core, the sky would be awash with the light of the entire galaxy.

When they finish their drinks, Din pours them another round. Cara swirls her glass around before she speaks. “So, you wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Din admits. “Nothing bad happened. I just…” Cara waits patiently as he gathers his words. “I had another babysitting job today. The kid was older than the others. I got to teach her how to use a blaster.” He can’t tell if the searing in his chest is caused by the tihaar or something else.

“Did you two have fun?” She asks, looking into her glass instead of at him to give him some semblance of privacy as he thinks.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “She said she wanted to be a Mandalorian.”

“Is that a good or bad thing?”

“I don’t know,” Din says. “All I could think about was that I couldn’t do this with Grogu.”

He feels it when she turns to look at him. “Is that why you’ve picked up babysitting?”

He plays with the glass in his hand, nearly empty again. He can already feel his head getting fuzzy. “It just kind of happens.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You know you can just say no when someone asks, right?” And isn’t that just the crux of it?

Din swallows and shakes his head. “No, I can’t. I just think of - of Grogu, and I miss him so badly, and -” He cuts himself off, takes the last sip of his drink, lets the burn sink in so he doesn’t have to think about the pain in his chest, constricting his lungs the longer he talks. He pours himself another glass. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Come on, man, not this again,” Cara groans with no heat. “It’s okay to let yourself feel.”

“It hurts,” Din whispers, and he doesn’t know if his modulator picks it up. His vision is swimming, with tears or with his quickly dwindling sobriety, he can’t tell. He takes a sip to burn it away.

“It always will.”

Din swallows and bows his head. “I don’t know what I’m doing with myself anymore. I thought I could go back to bounty hunting again, what I did before I found him, but - what’s the point? My kid’s gone, my tribe’s gone, even my damn ship is gone. What’s the fucking point of it all anymore?” His chest tightens even more, he can barely breathe.

“When Alderaan was destroyed...” Cara starts, and her voice catches. But as always, she pushes forward. “When Alderaan was destroyed, so was a part of me. I thought I’d never recover. All my friends, family, acquaintances... killed within an instant…” She shoots him a watery smile. Maybe they were both a bit tipsy.

“I joined the Rebellion because there was nothing else for me to do. But in the end, it wasn’t what was good for me at the time, so I left.” She takes a shaky breath and reaches a hand out to him. “If that was what bounty hunting was for you, I’m glad you found something else.”

Din stares at her hand, before slowly taking hold of it. She squeezes back, and the vice around his lungs loosens. The dam breaks. He chokes out a sob, bowing his head again, but then Cara’s tugging him towards her, wrapping her arms around him, and he thinks he feels her shaking too.

He lets her stay the night. It would be rude to kick her out when they’re both drunk and emotional messes. He sets up some blankets in the cargo hold, swears at himself for not picking up more bedding (he hadn’t thought he needed to, not when he no longer had a child with him), fights back even more tears at the reminder, reconciles with the fact he’s a weepy drunk, and finally heads to the fresher to clean up for the night.

When the door’s locked behind him, Din rips his buy’ce off. He hates crying with it on, the way the tears dry on his face and the inside of his visor. Makes crying feel even worse than it does normally.

He washes his face, scrubs the salty residue away. His head is pounding, probably from some sick combination of the alcohol and tears. Din normally avoids looking at his reflection in moments like these, but as he pats his face dry with a towel, he catches sight of himself.

He looks tired, worn out, eyes red and heavy, shadowed by dark circles. He thinks of the last time anybody saw him - Grogu, Skywalker, Mayfeld, the Imps - and finds himself blinking back tears yet again. He watches as though he’s separate from himself as the emotions play out on his face, unhidden by his helmet, the downturn of his mouth and his watery eyes.

He takes a fortifying breath, grips the edge of the sink, and grounds himself back in reality. He puts his helmet firmly on his head. The familiar T-shape of his visor further anchors him, comforting in its blank consistency when his bare face is always changing in ways he cannot control.

Din lays awake that night in his cot, listening to Cara’s soft breathing across the room. His helmet’s still on, can’t take it off around Cara, doesn’t think he even wants to. Not yet.

He can’t stop thinking about the Imperial remnant on Morak. The bridge of the light cruiser. The feel of his eyes on his bare face, on the back of his head. He had broken one tenet of his Creed, but he’d done so in service of another. He’d done it for his son. He’d do it again, if he had to.

"Foundlings are the future," the Armorer had told him.

“This is the Way,” the rest of the tribe had responded.

Din swore to follow the Resol'nare when he was ten years old. His buir made sure he knew the Six Actions by heart before the decision. They were burned into his memory, always on the tip of his tongue, thrumming through his veins. Education and armor, self-defense, our tribe, our language and our leader - all help us survive.

He had sworn to raise his child as a Mando’ad, but instead he left his son behind, to be raised as a jetii, not a Mandalorian. He gave up everything for his son, but he still failed in the end.

He shakes his head. The darkness, the quiet of his ship at night is getting to him. Din feels like someone cut a hole through his chest. He can almost sense the weight of the Kar'ta Beskar under his collarbone, even if his breastplate is currently on the shelf nearby.

Foundlings are the future, the Armorer’s voice echoes in the back of his mind. And he thinks of Mina, and Luca, and Na’vid. He thinks of Cara’s words - I’m glad you found something else. They may not be his children, they may not even be foundlings at all, but something inside him eases.

Cara leaves the next morning with a squeeze of his shoulder and complaints of a headache. Feeling worse for wear himself, Din heads to one of the gardens he’s gotten used to visiting. He longs for peace and quiet. He needs some time alone, away from all the reminders, so he can collect himself.

As Din walks through the street, he feels someone sidle up next to him, keeping pace.

“I talked to the head librarian,” Greef says in lieu of a greeting. “They said they’re glad the children’s corner is finally being used more.”

Din doesn’t respond. He continues walking, staring straight ahead.

“They said they don’t mind you bringing more kids around in the future...”

“They specifically mentioned me?” Din breaks, and glances over at Greef walking next to him.

He hums smugly. “Have you reconsidered my suggestion yet? The parents seem to love you -”

“Goodbye.” Din turns on his heels and leaves with a flourish of his cape.

The next incident happens two days later. 

“Please, a pipe burst in our apartment. Can you look after our child, Mandalorian?”

Din almost thinks they’re making excuses, now.

With Greef’s words ringing in his ears, he takes the kid to the library. At this point, the children’s corner feels as familiar to him as the cockpit of the Horizon, or the guest chair in Cara’s office. The regular patrons don’t even bother looking up when he enters anymore. As he sits with the kid, another parent comes up with their kid, and by noon he has a third child tagging along.

Pretty soon it’s a daily endeavor. Each day he goes to the library without thought, rounds up the day’s group of kids. The parents eventually stop giving excuses, even the thinly veiled ones. They simply give him a soft, trusting smile before taking their leave. It almost reminds him of his covert, the shared responsibilities of communal caretaking, the times he was charged with watching the younger foundlings.

It at least keeps his mind off Grogu. After all, it had only ever been the two of them.

Cara finds him there, one day during her lunch break. He’s helping one of the younger kids read from a bookchip when he feels eyes on him. He looks up to see her leaning against a shelf a few feet away, arms crossed and smirking at him. 

“So you found work in the end, huh?” She teases, but he can see the fondness in her eyes. “Whatever happened to relaxing?”

He shrugs helplessly. “I told you I don’t know how.”

It’s the weekend. Din’s watching over four kids and a baby. The librarian Greef had mentioned, the one he had met with Na’vid, had thankfully set up some extra tables in the kids’ corner, sending Din a smile while doing so. The older kids are sitting there now, doing their schoolwork while the little ones are sitting on the floor playing holographic board games.

Din’s a bit overwhelmed, but - it feels good. It requires a lot of strategy, he’s realized, to figure out how to occupy the children, keep them happy and safe, and not disturb the other library patrons too badly (though, with the way he feels them occasionally looking over, he thinks they probably don’t mind). He’s got a timeline set out, for when he’ll call Cara to pick up some lunch during her break so that the kids don’t get cranky. The baby requires the most of his attention, but with his mind in mission mode, carefully compartmentalized, he can ignore the way his heart clenches, remembering the way Grogu —

Right. As he said, mission mode.

He keeps the baby in his arms, rocking them to sleep, while sitting in a bean bag chair and watching the other kids. Occasionally, one of the older kids will call him over for help with their homework - and thankfully it’s nothing too out of his depth so far, he’s no academic - or the younger ones will get fussy over the board games. But it’s good. It’s fulfilling.

In a rare moment of rest, he’s able to think.

The kids are napping, leaving Din free to his own devices. He’s sitting at the kiddie table hunched over his cape, sewing up a hole he had just discovered that morning. The thread isn’t neat or especially skilled, but it gets the job done. It keeps his hands occupied while his mind wanders.

He had thrown himself back into bounty hunting to recover any semblance of normalcy after Grogu had gone. He had just wanted to stay busy, to keep his mind occupied, to chase that sense of danger and adrenaline so that the silence didn't get to him. So that he didn't have to think about what he had, and what he let go.

Din has always been a provider. For his tribe, for his son. Bounty hunting had been his way of doing so. It was tough, but it was rewarding in its own way, so that he could bring back credits and supplies to his covert, so he could keep his son safe.

Without either, he had no purpose. Bounty hunting became meaningless, empty work. No wonder he was unhappy. But here?

He mulls over what Cara had said the other night, and he thinks he understands. Watching over these kids, he finally feels like what he's doing has meaning again.

“Fatherhood suits you,” one of the parents says when picking their son up that evening. “Maybe one day you’ll have kids of your own.”

Din dips his head. “Thank you,” he replies, and if his voice comes out raspier than normal, nobody but him can tell through the modulator.

He lays in the cot that night and thinks of children son foundlings fatherhood.

He already is a father. He may not have said the gai bal manda, but Din doesn't think he can ever forget the sound of Grogu’s coos, the failed lessons in ship maintenance, holding the kid’s small hand between his gloved fingers, the slight weight on his lap as his son sat on his knee, the way his ad’ika clung to the edges of his armor looking over his shoulder all too much like the day Din himself was adopted into his tribe. 

No. He already has a foundling. He has a son. He had opened the cradle all those months ago, and as soon as he held out his finger he knew he was gone.

Grogu had spent stars know how long in that cradle, ignored and forgotten. And then, with a sinking feeling in his gut, Din realizes he left him, too. 

Is the kid okay? Are the Jedi taking care of him? Do they know he liked to eat amphibians? Do they pick him up and hold him against their chest like Din always had? Do they know how to calm him down after a nightmare? 

Does Grogu know how much Din loves him?

He feels sick to his stomach. He lies awake, unable to fall asleep for the rest of the night.

It's a busy day today. Din’s got six kids - among them, three toddlers - and the baby again. Din decided to bring them outside to a small playground he had found while wandering around last week. It’ll let the kids get some fresh air and give the library patrons a break. There are a few other people there already, parents with their own children enjoying the nice day, and thankfully they don’t seem to mind the arrival of his large group.

The older kids head over to the playground and immediately start climbing all over the equipment. The younger ones are too small, but are content to run around the lawn and play tag. Din sits on the short grass with the baby curled up against his breastplate, drinking from a bottle their mother had given him earlier in the day. The air is full of laughter and the fresh scent of flowers.

One of the toddlers stops running and reaches down to grab something from the ground. Din watches as they pick up a - a worm, and their hand is getting way too close to their mouth.

“Hey, put that down!” He calls, and the kid startles. They drop the worm, and it’s lost in the grass once more. The kid giggles and goes back to running with the others. Din lets out a sigh of relief.

(Grogu would've fit right in with these ones, he thinks fondly, and his heart aches.)

Din adjusts his hold on the baby. Their coos sound just like his ad’ika's, and their chubby fingers grip the edge of his vambrace like Grogu had, too. He lets the memories wash over him, and though they hurt, he doesn’t push them away. Ka'ra, he misses his son.

Something below him vibrates, and it takes him a moment to realize it's the ground. His stomach drops and the back of his neck prickles as he realizes something's wrong.

(He had let his guard down, why did he let his guard down, Nevarro may have been safer but it still wasn't safe -)

Din gets to his feet, cradling the baby closer to him subconsciously. The weight is familiar, tucked up against his arm like this, and he can almost forget this baby isn’t green and wrinkly and being hunted at every turn, like —

He can't think about that right now. Time to compartmentalize.

There's smoke rising in the distance, high enough now to be visible over the tops of the buildings surrounding the park. The crowds from the street beyond the gate grow louder, more chaotic and panicked until there are screams. It's enough to grab the kids' attention, the toddlers stopping their game of tag and the older kids looking up from the slide. The other parents look to him anxiously from where they’re sitting on a bench.

"Keep the children away from the entrance," he directs them. The parents stand and start ushering the kids away to a far corner nestled between two buildings. One approaches him and takes the baby from his arms, and he nearly resists by muscle memory - but then he remembers this isn't his child, this child doesn't go where he goes, and he loosens his hold for the person to take them.

All at once, it feels like preparing for battle on Sorgan, it feels like Nevarro during Gideon’s siege, it feels like Trask and Corvus and Tython and he’s losing his son over and over again.

His scalp crawls. Somebody is watching him, from behind. He pushes down the frantic memories of past mistakes. Discreetly, he tilts his head to the side to look over his shoulder, and —

Pain explodes in his head.

He stumbles back. Falls to his knees. His head pounds. The hard beskar shell of his helmet rattles around him. His ears are ringing. He can barely see, barely think, except for the reverberation in his skull.

He hears screams, far away, but his heart is pounding and he's breathing heavily and his hands are shaking and all he can hear is metal and tinny explosions.

Din forces himself to feel the ground below him, regain his bearings. He's alive. Disoriented, but alive, and there - he can see boots pass by him, in the corner of his vision. Three pairs of boots walk past, and through the shrill ringing in his ears he can hear distant crying and casual conversation.

"-ese the kids?" Someone asks.

"Yeah," another responds. "Round 'em up! We ain’t got all day."

The first voice chuckles. And then, "That's a Mandalorian, right?"

"Surprisingly easy to take out," a third one pipes up. "Who knew one sniper would do the job? Look at 'im. Pathetic."

(The Armorer's voice comes back to him. There's a foundling in your care, she had told him, mere months ago here on Nevarro. By Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its kind, you are as its father. The weight of his mudhorn signet is heavy against his shoulder.)

There are children in his care. Foundlings are the future. This is the Way.

Din brings his awareness back to the situation. Digs his knees into the ground, flexes his fingers, catches his breath. The attackers must be behind him now, from what he can tell by the sound of their voices. That means they’re between him and the kids. He needs to bring the battle away from the civilians, into the street or something. He can take a beating - they can’t.

He staggers to his feet when their backs are turned. He engages his whipcord launcher and shoots it towards one of the attackers' feet. It snaps around their boots and drags them to their ass. They hit the ground and the other two whirl around, blasters ready.

Din drags the hunter through the garden. They struggle against him and his arms strain with the effort. His heart’s racing. Blaster bolts hit across his armor, bruising his skin underneath, but he’s almost to the gate -

But then the sniper takes aim again, and the shot hits him in the chest, right below his Kar'ta Beskar.

The impact throws Din backward, breath escaping his body. He falls through the garden gate and out into the empty street. He loses his grasp on the whipcord, and the hunter must escape, because now he sees two silhouettes advancing on him while one stays behind, near the children.

He wants to yell and beg to leave the children alone - he feels like he's watching the Dark Troopers advance on Grogu, taking him away all over again - but he doesn't know these people, doesn't know what they want, the lengths they'll go to. Begging for somebody else may get them hurt. He needs to keep his cool, keep them focused on him alone and not the kids.

Din doesn't have enough time or strength to get to his feet before the hunters are upon him. He kicks out and topples the one closest to him to the ground. They land next to him, kicking up a cloud of dust as they go down.

He rolls over to straddle their chest and whips out his vibroblade from his belt. The person's not wearing a helmet, their neck is exposed. They buckle underneath him, trying to throw him off, but he just needs one clean cut -

Hands grab his shoulders and yank him away. Din staggers to his feet, pulled in the direction of the other hunter. The sudden movement makes his head spin, still not recovered entirely from the sniper shot. The blade drops from his hand and goes scattering across the pavement. He grabs the person’s arm and uses the momentum to pivot around so that he faces them. In one smooth motion, he continues the swing bringing them together, and throws his head forward as hard as he can.

The hard beskar connects with the person’s nose. They crumple to the ground. Din pulls out the blaster from his belt, ready to shoot them in the chest through their flimsy armor, but a boot collides with his hand and the blaster slips from his grasp.

The other hunter, the one he’d nearly knifed, takes the blaster, and before Din can react, they send multiple rounds towards him. The shots go wide, ricocheting off his shoulder pauldron. They knock him back, each impact resonating through his whole body. His muscles ache and his bones are jarred by each shot, but Din advances towards them anyway, fighting through the dull pain.

They scramble to their feet before Din can get to them. They pull out a blade, lunge towards him, swipe at his neck. Din has to lean back, and the blade's edge barely misses skin, slicing through the fabric of his flight suit. He snarls and dives to the right, where the person is undefended. He jabs a fist out and punches them in the stomach. They stumble back with an audible "off" and fall against the front wall of a building.

A line of sharp pain spikes along his bicep, making him wince and loosen his grip. The hunter manages to squeeze out from between him and the wall, and they corner Din instead. In their hand, they still hold the blade, the edge red with Din's blood.

They step forward, arm raised to stab him again, but he ducks down and grabs them around the stomach, tackling them to the pavement. He tries to grab the blade from their loose hand, but they grip it tighter. They surge forward, using their weight to flip him over so he’s on his back.

In the corner of his eye, Din spots the discarded blaster. He reaches out, fumbling for it at the edge of his fingertips. He’s shaky with adrenaline. The person grins, sitting tall above him and holding the blade to his neck, victory clear in their wide eyes.

“I’ll slit your throat,” they purr. “I’ll peel that shiny beskar off your dead body, sell it for a pretty penny.”

Din manages to take hold of the handle, fingers slipping into place instinctively, and he pulls the blaster toward him. He shoots them in the stomach before he can even think about it.

Their eyes go wide and their smirk falls. They let out a choked sound before they slump forward, falling on top of him. They’re limp when Din throws them off, motionless but not necessarily dead. He finds that his gloves are covered in red and blood is smeared all over his breastplate.

He stumbles to his feet, and as he straightens up, he sees the last remaining hunter in the entrance to the garden. Din aims his blaster, ready to shoot them down immediately -

Pain rings out in his head as a blaster bolt clips the side of his helmet. Not a direct shot like before - the sniper is either panicky, or just got lucky the first time. Right. Still disorienting as hell, though.

Din shakes his head, blinking away the dark spots in his vision, when suddenly the last hunter is on top of him. Hands wrap around his throat, right under the beskar of his helmet. The pressure squeezes his windpipe, and he can’t breathe. The edges of his vision fade away. His heartbeat pounds in his ears.

The person leans into his face, giving him a toothy grin. "Ya put up a good fight, Mando," they growl. "But even Mandalorians got their limits."

Din kicks up, between their legs, and they collapse to the ground. He picks up his blaster and shoots them in the thigh.

(He's never prided himself on fighting cleanly. He fights to survive.)

Another stray sniper shot reflects off his shoulder pauldron. It leaves his ears ringing and his shoulder aching, but they missed the headshot again. He looks up at the rooftop where they're stationed.

Din has limited options. He can't throw any explosives. There's too many civilians around in the surrounding buildings and in the park below. He can't exactly climb up to meet them, either, since he isn't an expert in parkour and is too bruised to even think of climbing a building at the moment. He sees them readying for another shot, braces himself for the impact -

A shot rings out through the street. He doesn't feel a thing. The sniper falls against the rooftop.

Footsteps on the pavement behind him put him on edge. He raises his blaster, but as the smoke clears all he sees is Cara running toward him, rifle in her hands. She lowers it when she notices him.

“Din!” She cries out and starts sprinting. She barrels into him and wraps him up in a tight hug.

It's almost too much, right off the tail-end of a battle, especially when their friendship is mostly limited to shoulder touches and grabbing hands. But then she draws back after a moment, and he thinks he misses it.

"Are the kids safe?" She asks, looking into his visor. He nods sharply, still jittery after the unexpected attack and threat against the children. Reminds him too much of Grogu, the Imps -

"Are you okay?" She peers closer into his face. He takes a deep breath, and nods more slowly. Instead of replying, he leans back into her and wraps her up in a hug of his own. She stiffens at first, before softening and returning it.

Din’s leaning against a building as Cara rounds up the criminals. He would offer to help, but it’s New Republic business, and she seems to find a certain calm in hefting unconscious bodies and zip tying hands. He can read something like justice vengeance satisfaction in the line of her shoulders.

He feels someone approaching him in his blind spot just beyond the edge of his visor, and he jerks to attention, hand on the blaster at his hip. He turns, tense and ready to defend, but all he sees is one of the parents. She stares at him with wide eyes, regarding his blaster with caution but thankfully not fear, while her kid clings to her leg, burying their face in her pants.

“Thank you for keeping our children safe,” she says quietly, and her gaze drifts behind him to where Cara’s loading the last of the hunters into a vehicle. He looks over his shoulder to watch as well, before her voice draws him back to in front of him.

“We always heard stories about you Mandalorians,” she says, running her hands through her kid’s hair. “So many stories about battles and bounty hunting and killing. But also about adoption and family and protecting.” She looks at him with a knowing gaze. “I see the stories weren’t wrong.”

Din doesn’t know what to say, so he dips his head. “This is the Way.”

He thinks that’s the end of it, but then, “You were that Mando from last year, weren’t you? The one who betrayed the Guild and fought the Moff. We always were curious as to why you did that.” She sends him a tight smile - not warm, but not cold, either. “I guess this answers that question.”

Din doesn’t respond. She nods back, like it’s a confirmation. She takes her kid by the hand and walks away.

Din and Cara sit in the Horizon's cockpit later that evening. They’re sprawled out in the seats, nursing various burns and bruises from the fight earlier in the day, spotchka in hand as they’ve done all too often these past few weeks.

Cara takes the opportunity to debrief him on what exactly happened. A small group of bounty hunters - former regulars of the Guild that had once existed on Nevarro - were involved in a trafficking ring, looking for kids to bring to some skeevy child labor company. They had heard about the improvement Nevarro was going through, figured the city would have its guard down, would be weak and soft over time. The explosion had been a diversion to get her and Greef away from the actual kidnapping. They hadn’t expected a Mandalorian to be with the kids.

“Everything hurts," Cara complains. “I can’t believe I have to go write up another report for the New Republic...”

Din shrugs. “You signed up for it,” he replies with a wry smile. 

He takes a swig of the spotchka and feels his helmet lift up just a tad too far. In a way, he’s too tired to care right now, but his heart still races anyway. He feels Cara eyeing him curiously from the passenger seat, but she doesn’t say anything and looks away after a moment. 

“I guess I see why you avoid all this Republic business,” she chuckles. “If only you were still my intern.” Din hums in response, and then they’re sitting there quietly, the silence around them comfortable as they look out over the dark lava fields beyond the shipyard.

Din’s body aches as he lays on his cot that night. As exposed as he feels without his armor, the open air feels better on his bruises. He doesn’t know why they hurt so much - he’s had much worse in the past. He supposes his few weeks of vacation have made him soft.

It’s a sobering reminder of who he is. That this was just a brief reprieve and nothing more. 

He is a Mandalorian. The quaint, domestic life is not one for him, for better or worse. He swore the Creed, promised to follow the Resol'nare,, to walk the way of the Mandalore. It’s not so easily given up. But maybe he doesn’t need to choose one way over the other. Maybe he can be both a warrior and a caretaker. A protector.

His gaze falls on his shoulder pauldron, where the mudhorn signet was pressed there by the Armorer nearly a year ago. He leans over, grabs the smooth beskar off the shelf, and runs his thumb over the outline.

“You are a clan of two,” she had told him. “By Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father.”

A Mandalorian without their clan, without their aliit, is no Mandalorian at all.

And he can’t help but think back to earlier that day, the kidnapping scheme, the bounty on Grogu’s head. Is his ad’ika happy with the Jedi? Is he safe? That sick feeling comes back, tying his stomach into knots. He is a father without his son, but his son is still out there, and he suddenly feels unmoored, purposeless once again.

He- he needs to do something. He can’t keep sitting around on Nevarro and babysitting other people’s children, reminiscing about his own. He’s more than a caretaker. He’s a father.

(“I’ll see you again,” he had said, that day on Gideon’s light cruiser. The words haunt him now.)

But he has no way of finding his son. All he has is that Jedi’s name - Luke Skywalker - but the galaxy is vast and the jetiise have mastered the art of hiding. And then, is Din even allowed to visit? Would it interrupt Grogu’s training? Skywalker never forbade it, but he never gave permission, either.

There is one other thing. The covert. The Armorer likely survived Gideon’s attack, and she had said some others may have escaped. He could try to find them again.

Mind made up, he relaxes his tense muscles and lets out a sigh. Din drops his head down, presses the metal of the pauldron against his bare forehead, and gets lost in the way his heart hurts.

Din talks to Cara and Greef about moving on from Nevarro the next morning. His vacation is reaching its end - but he won’t be returning to bounty hunting, not for a while, at least. Not until his funds start drying up again. For now, he’ll be hunting information about his covert.

He needs to restock his ship, though. A task that should only take a day, maybe two. But Cara and Greef seem hesitant to see him go. They take their time with the resupply, finding things to fix up on the Horizon despite it being relatively new. Normally Din would press the issue, but he’d be lying if he said he wouldn’t also miss his time here. So he lets it slide.

In the meantime, if any more parents need babysitting jobs, well who is he to deny them?

He spends the subsequent days helping Cara out with paperwork in the morning, before he goes to the library where a few parents approach him. The days are slower, now, as the attack scared most people off from letting their kids gather in large groups. But the regulars remain, trusting him to be able to protect their children.

Today, he’s got four kids with him in the children’s corner. The kids have been more subdued lately, content to sit in the library and color instead of running around outdoors. It puts a damper on his mood, reminds him of how Grogu would go quiet sometimes after particularly stressful jobs. He wishes he could ensure all kids were happy and unworried, but. Well. The galaxy isn’t a kind place, nowadays. All Din can do is make sure they feel safe.

One of the little ones, Tali, pulls on the sleeve of his flight suit and holds their drawing up for him to see.

“Very nice!” He compliments. They give him a bright grin before settling back down again.

Din knows moving on to find his covert is what’s best for now, but he can’t help but admit that he’ll miss this. He swallows past the lump in his throat.

A clink of armor behind him snaps him back to attention. His body tenses, ready to jump to action, the events of the past few days flashing to the forefront of his mind. Hand on his blaster, he looks over his shoulder.

“Hey, Mando!” Cara calls quietly from across the library as she walks towards him. “You’ve got a visitor.” And there, behind her, is a familiar T-shaped visor surrounded by green and red.

“Fett?” Din asks incredulously.

“It’s been a while, beroya. I see you’ve been busy,” Fett responds, and the fucker - Din can hear the teasing in his voice. But something in his stance, the undercurrent of fondness as he stares down at the kids around the table, makes it hard for Din to hold a grudge.

“Yeah, yeah,” he huffs with no heat. Din stands up and extracts himself from the kiddie table, stepping around the kids sprawled out in chairs and across the floor. He walks over to the last shelf where Fett and Cara are waiting.

“Vacation’s been good for you,” Fett observes.

“Guess you were right,” Din replies. “Not that I’m not glad to see you again, but why’re you here? You want your favorite beroya back?”

“Please, you know that honor goes to Fennec,” Fett scoffs, but the way he tilts his helmet is like a smile. “But no. I’m here because I managed to get information about Skywalker’s location.” Fett’s visor straightens to look at him directly, as if he knows exactly where to look to meet Din’s eyes.

“I know where your son is.”

The common way to say “goodbye” in Mando’a is with the phrase ret’urcye mhi. On a literal level, it means “maybe we’ll meet again.”

That day on Gideon’s light cruiser, Din had held his son for what seemed like the last time, had brought the kid up to see his bare face for the first time. He never said the gai bal manda, but in taking his helmet off, he made the kid part of his aliit. More than the Armorer declaring them a clan of two - this time, of his own volition. His own public declaration.

Din did not say “Ret’urcye mhi,” that day on the light cruiser.

He had told Grogu “I’ll see you again,” and he had promised.