Chapter Text
The Jedi swings his saber in a clean, smooth arc. The blade burns so hot it’s cold. An inch closer and it would sever his windpipe; half a step and his head would roll in the sand. As it is, it tears a deep gash across his throat. Jango clutches at the wound, grasping with both hands. He stumbles backwards, falling to the ground like a heavy sack. The impact kicks a cloud of dust into the air. It floats around his knees. The pain consumes him, narrowing the world down to a single point of focus.
Breathing is a struggle, and movement is impossible. The slightest twitch sends fresh waves of pain across the muscles of his neck. It’s his turn, now, to die like his people on Galidraan, though this Jedi is many years too late. Darkness creeps into his vision. Something numbing and almost like sleep tries to drag him away. Jango refuses to die. Not like this, and not to a Jedi, but some things in life are almost inevitable.
Waking is a slow thing, like swimming up a river of honey. The wound throbs, a burning fire under his skin. The area around it is hot to the touch and raw. It itches almost as much as it hurts. Jango swallows. Pain clamps down on his throat like a vice. The fog around his mind disperses. It occurs to him that he should probably open his eyes.
He is lying on a cot in a makeshift hospital, surrounded by soldiers with survivable injuries. Oh, he remembers this now, though the circumstances are different. He was a soldier himself a lifetime ago. On the battlefield, he had made so many youthful mistakes that should have cost him his life but left him with only scars and bad memories. Jango is a grown man. His second father has been dead for more than twenty years. Even so, he knows exactly what Jaster would have to say. He can practically hear his admonishment.
Jango doesn’t belong here. The sooner he can grab his son and get off world, the better. With an effort, he props himself up on his elbows. He rolls off the stiff bed, pulling himself to unsteady feet. He feels something like a newborn calf. Distantly, he wonders if it’s shock, exhaustion, or whatever cocktail of drugs let him survive a lightsaber to the neck. He stumbles down the central aisle of the temporary building, pressing his right hand against cots and carts as he passes them by. A glassy-eyed nurse droid rolls up to him.
“You have not yet been discharged, please remain in bed. Rank and designation?”
He doesn’t have either rank or designation. Jango is not a soldier anymore, he has not taken orders in a long, long time, and he’s not about to take them from a nurse droid. He has other, more important things to do. He shoulder-checks the droid and pushes forward until he lifts the flap of the tent. The bright desert sunlight cuts into his eyes.
Finding his son isn’t difficult at all. Boba paces in the patchy, dried out grass just outside the door flap of the tent, shoulders hunched over, fists held stiffly at his side. With every step, he kicks up a small cloud of the dust that coats the planet. For balance, Jango leans against a crate.
“Hey,” he manages to wheeze. The sound of his voice is mangled and wrong, and he can barely speak above a whisper. Boba grins at the sound of it anyway. He jumps to throw his arms around him. Jango grunts at the impact, but he runs his hand through Boba’s curls.
“You’re awake! That’s good. That’s really good.” Boba pulls away, a sudden look of concern on his face. “Are you okay?”
Jango shrugs. “Been better, been worse.” Speaking is going to be difficult for a while. He’s always been a quiet man, but right now every word feels like twisting a buried knife.
“I was really worried. For a while. But you’re fine, right?” Boba asks. “Do you remember what happened?”
Jango knows what happened in the arena; he has no idea what happened after. “Tell me.”
“The Jedi tried to kill you. They almost did, but they didn’t, obviously. There was a whole battle happening- not just a shootout, I mean an actual battle- I don’t know. Anyway, we ended up here.”
It’s very little new information, and something about it strikes him as a dodge. Fine. He won’t pry. “We’ve got to go. Come on.”
Together, they travel down a gravelly road to their temporary lodgings. Whatever weakness had come over him slowly wears off, and by the time they reach their destination he has his strength back. The Slave 1 sits on a landing pad just outside the sandy, two-story building where he’d rented a room for the last few days.
“Are we going home?”
“No.” They can’t go back to Kamino. Despite his best efforts, the Jedi know of his involvement in the Amidala job. They’re not going to let something like that slide. If Jango were hunting himself- now there’s an interesting thought- the first place he would think to check would be his home. They can’t stay here on Geonosis, either. “You have everything?”
“Well, yeah, but not on the ship. I wasn’t sure what to do with your stuff, and, I don’t know, I never got around to packing.”
“Go get it. Be quick.”
Boba nods, walking up the stairs to their room. The first thing Jango does is peel the blinking tracking beacon off the side of the hull. Just in case, he crushes it under the heel of his boot. It splinters into a thousand broken pieces. The shadow of a man looms behind him.
“Found you.” The Jedi’s voice sends a shiver down his spine. Instinctually, he reaches for his blaster, hand twitching at his side until he remembers he’s unarmed. His weapons and armor are probably sitting in a sack somewhere in their room. Injured and unprotected, he is as close to defenseless as a man like him can be. “Hands where I can see them.”
“Back for another round?” Jango rasps as he lifts his hands in the air. “I won’t die easily this time either.”
“Sir, you are under arrest. You’re to be brought back to Coruscant for questioning.” The saber hums as Mace Windu ignites it, inches from his pounding heart. “This will be easier for all of us if you cooperate.”
He glances towards the hotel and sees exactly what he fears. Boba, scrambling down the steps and racing towards him. This is one thing he can’t be involved in. Subtly as he can, Jango shakes his head. Boba stills, and Jango shifts the set of his jaw, angling it towards the staircase with a jerk. He seems to get the point, ducking behind the staircase, and Jango closes his eyes in relief. He cannot let the Jedi near his son. That is a wild card that he never wants to see in play.
Jango is in no position to fight back. He knows when he’s been beat. He raises his hands just above his head. Another Jedi slaps a pair of cuffs over his wrists. It touches a nerve. He hates that he remembers this, and he hates himself for letting it happen twice. With a saber humming at his back and his wrists bound, he has no choice but to march up the gangplank and into the prison transport ship.
He is placed in a holding cell with no explanation, though of course he does not need one. The Amidala job had been a disaster. It’s time to face the music. The metal plates beneath his feet vibrate, and he braces himself against a wall for the ship to take off.
Sometime later, on Coruscant, Jango sits on a folding chair with one wrist shackled to a table. It bothers him. He knows why they’ve done it, and it’s a smart decision on their part, but it bothers him. The room is windowless, the stark, pale light casting strange shadows on the walls.
The door creaks open. A Jedi walks in, and not just any Jedi. He’s getting a little too familiar with this one, lately.
“I take it you’re ready for questioning,” Mace Windu says. “You were seen in a set of Mandalorian armor. Does it belong to you?”
He wears his armor whenever he’s working and a good deal of the time when he’s not. He must have been seen in it on the Amidala job, the armor had been just laying out when Kenobi had first arrived, and he’d been wearing it when this Jedi nearly killed him. Jango decides he doesn’t need to make it any easier.
“Why bother with this, eh, Jedi?” Jango rasps. His voice is weak, but the bacta’s doing its job. After three days, the pain is bearable. “Just cut me down already, get it over with. I know you want to.”
“I’m not here to kill you, but the crimes you’re suspected of are serious. It would be in your best interest to answer my questions.” The silence drags on, uncomfortably, until the Jedi finally breaks it. “I can stay here all day, you know. But how are you?” Mace’s voice is calm, suspiciously pleasant, and it grates him.
“How do you think?” From the man in front of him, who who would have killed him if things were different by a matter of inches, the question is insulting.
“I’d imagine, not great, which is why you should cooperate with me today. I just want the answers to a few questions, and then it’ll all be over.”
What’s going to happen is this: the Jedi is going to grill him for hours, and when it’s over, he’ll have signed his life away. Nothing he says matters. They both know how this is going to end.
“I’ll repeat myself. Does the armor belong to you?”
There’s hardly a point in lying to his face when the man saw him wearing it. “What kind of question is that? I didn’t steal it.”
“So, it is yours?”
“It’s an heirloom,” he says. “Yes. It’s mine.”
“Alright, and where were you on the night of the second attempt on Senator Amidala’s life?” On to the big questions. He doesn’t even have to lie to that one, technically.
“Returning home from a business trip.” Technically, every word of it is true. He went straight home after the job went to hell and he had to kill Zam. Her death feels so pointless now.
“A business trip- and what is your business, exactly?”
“Depends on the contract.” The Jedi looks like he knows something Jango doesn’t. They usually do. They use that secret knowledge to destroy his life whenever he has the bad luck to cross their path.
“Just to clarify, you could not have been seen in your armor on Coruscant that day?”
“No. I don’t know anything about that. But if they were in full armor, it could have been anyone.” Most people in the galaxy can barely tell apart two fully armored Mandalorians. Maybe that’s enough to cast a little doubt. The corner of the Jedi’s mouth twitches.
“Mr. Fett, I think we both know it wasn’t just anyone.”
There’s no universe where this ends well. He stares up at the tiled ceiling. In many ways, Boba can take care of himself. He knows; he made sure of it himself. But in so many others, his son is still a child. Silently, uselessly, from the other end of the galaxy, he begs him to know what he’s doing. To stay hidden, to let his father handle this, to not get any terrible ideas.