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Once when he was a young man, sometime in another life, Din was badly wounded. One moment, he was strong, fierce, cocky -- and then his opponent struck, so quickly that he wasn’t even certain he’d been hit.
For a frozen instant, he thought maybe, maybe he was safe. It took a handful of stuttering heartbeats, and a cresting agony, for him to realize how much trouble he was in. He won the battle, but instead of standing victorious over his slain target, he took a step, staggered, and collapsed with his hand pressed desperately against his side.
The blood pooled beneath him, sticky in the sand.
He was lucky. Another Mandalorian of his tribe found him, and he dimly remembered the slick of blood on both of their hands, the armor over his chest and belly being swiftly removed and reverently set aside, the way pain tore at him with every motion.
He drifted in and out of consciousness, recognizing that his soul teetered on a knife’s edge between here and elsewhere. He remembered the start of funeral rites spoken through the other Mandalorian’s helmet: remembered, too, the sudden interruption when they realized he still breathed.
Recovery was slow and brutal. He could not hunt, could not fight, could scarcely take care of himself for weeks. His armor, save his helmet, rested at his bedside; how he yearned for it, though he knew he was still too weak to bear its comforting weight. He could not risk it, not when simply speaking could cause the sudden sensation of heat and damp beneath his clothing. He’d drag himself away to privacy and check the bandages, heart sinking, stomach clenching at the familiar sight of strikethrough.
By necessity, all Mandalorians were taught battlefield medicine. He knew enough to know that bleeding through the bandage necessitated changing the entire dressing. It was hard, though, not to see every sodden bandage as yet another reminder of his own frailty. He changed them resolutely every time, and promised himself he would never be made so vulnerable again.
A promise he has broken, more than once.
The days are gauzy and meaningless, the nights endless eternity. He does the things he has always done. He does them well and mechanically.
He finds a new ship. He is nothing if not resourceful. The passenger seats stay empty, though often he turns and looks over his right shoulder, as if expecting to find somebody there.
He finds new supplies. New weapons. The Darksaber sits heavy and foreign at his hip, but when he is able to set down the new ship in unpopulated lands, he practices with it far from prying eyes. A Mandalorian treats all weapons with reverence, and seeks mastery with all weapons they bear. He grows to understand the sword, though he cannot bring himself to trust it. Faint burn scars from heated beskar still mark his forearms.
He stays away from other Mandalorians. He does not know if they will kill him or welcome him, and he does not know which he prefers. At times his helmet seems to suffocate, as if sensing it no longer belongs to its wearer; when he is alone he removes it, leaving it turned to face the wall.
He takes on jobs. His reputation has only grown more fearsome throughout the Guild, though he does not care. He avoids Nevarro and Tatooine. It is a small galaxy, but familiar faces can be avoided if one is careful.
Sometimes people tell him they heard he traveled with a pet. A companion. A child. He doesn’t answer. He only asks after the details for the job, and they are forced to give them to him.
Any Imp he runs across is destroyed with extreme prejudice.
He doesn’t sleep well.
It isn’t that he doesn’t try. His armor will not fully protect a body weakened by exhaustion or starvation, thirst or injury, a lesson taught to him at an early age. He knows what he should do to keep his body in its best condition, especially now that he does not recover as quickly as he used to. Age is a rare enemy of Mandalorians these days, but it is one he finds he must respect more every year. He does what he can to protect against it.
Each night ends in ritual. Careful doffing and cleaning of his armor. Words of Mando’a spoken low in the throat, something between a song and a prayer. Providing care for his body, whether it is cleaning, feeding, stretching, or healing. It is a dance he has known since the end of his childhood, one he can complete with closed eyes, practiced automaticity.
Yet sleep eludes him.
He turns restlessly on the bunk, so much softer and roomier than the narrow little strip he used on the Crest. The engine hum is tinnier, its rhythms more staccato. He stares up at the ceiling, a sterile silvery space with no netting or extra supplies.
There is no hammock here.
No gentle snores.
No murmurs, coos, or quiet cries. No private giggles. No curious, happy babbles.
Din’s breath catches in his throat. It’s hard to swallow past a sudden lump, a painful choking.
Some nights, he paces rather than lie awake, tracing a practiced route through the ship, past the carbonite freezer, through the cramped galley, up into the cockpit, round through cargo. The entire route takes nineteen paces, dwarfing the Razor Crest, and some nights he wonders he does not wear the metal smooth as he walks.
Some nights he exercises, pushing his body further than he should. His own body weight can be used in dozens of ways to train, and he cycles through them until he’s panting, heart pounding, muscles trembling and sore. He knows they aren’t intended for this, knows soreness tonight can lead to delayed reflexes tomorrow, but he continues anyway, preferring this to the alternative.
Some nights he researches scraps of forbidden information, holos he finds in dust-draped shops or smugglers’ dens, volumes about the Force and the Jedi, Mandalorian history. He sifts through them until his head aches, the information patchy and incomplete, painting a picture that only grows more confusing, not less. If nothing else, he tells himself, it is a way to pass the time.
Some nights, here in the quiet, he does not fight. Some nights he is tired of avoidance, tired of hollowness, tired of moving, moving, moving. Some nights he permits himself to be still, and it is then that the smallest things undo him.
Like removing his belt, his fingers brushing against the small side pouch that holds no ammunition, no bacta, no supplies. Usually he ignores it, refuses to look at it, pretends it isn’t there.
Other nights, like tonight, Din takes the silver ball out and holds it in his bare hand. And it’s then his body betrays him in tears and ragged breaths, shaking shoulders and a shivering, broken silence.
He closes his eyes. If the wound was different, he could survive it. He could change the bandages, do what needs to be done. The strikethrough seeps around the edges of everything he does and everything he is, staining each day, each action, each breath.
But Grogu’s a galaxy away, and his chest heaves with the pain of a wound he cannot see, cannot blot, cannot heal. He bows his head over the silver ball, missing the shape of his child curled within his arms, and the wound bleeds, bleeds, bleeds.