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Bink never would have made a good Jedi. The other kids in the temple used to tell him that the masters had made a mistake in ever picking him up, he was so useless. Sometimes they told him he wasn’t force sensitive at all.
Apparently, the other kids were wrong. It was unnaturally quiet in this part of the temple, and he and Tag were completely alone. He didn’t see it, and he didn’t hear it, but he felt those younglings die. His connection to the force had never been particularly strong, but he felt it now, like ice dripping down his back.
He didn’t particularly want to join them.
“So,” he said, running through the dark halls of the temple alongside Tag. “Tatooine?”
“Yeah,” Tag panted. “Yeah, it’s a real dirtball. Nobody’s ever going to find us there.”
“Fine. Even though we just got home five whole minutes ago.”
Tag stopped in his tracks and gestured at the absolute mess they’d come back to. For three years, ever since Anakin Skywalker had left them stranded on Naboo, they struggled to find a way back to the temple they’d been raised in. They succeeded, just in time to watch it burn.
“You think we should stick around?” Tag asked. “Wait for Master Skywalker to come back?”
If Anakin saw them again, they were going to die. He made that perfectly clear. Bink pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well. No, but-”
He was interrupted by a dull thud from down the hallway, just out of sight. Apparently, they weren’t alone. That could be a problem. Bink froze.
“I’m going to go check that out,” Tag said.
Sometimes Bink wondered about the guy. “Ugh. Fine. I’ll come.”
The cause of the noise became clear fairly soon. Hiding inside a tipped-over waste bin was the smallest, greenest, oldest baby in the entire Jedi temple, Grogu. Tag crouched down on his knees and held out a hand to the baby.
“Hey, Grogu, buddy,” Tag whispered, beckoning him. “You want to get out of here?”
Apparently not. The baby ran as fast as his little legs would carry him. Even though he was something like twenty years old, Grogu wasn’t very good at walking yet, so he wasn’t very fast. Tag took two steps forward and pounced. He scooped the baby off the ground and into the air. Naturally, Grogu shrieked.
Grogu didn’t know them all that well. They had been gone for years, thanks to one newly minted Sith Lord, and they hadn’t been his age in even longer. Grogu had just as terrible a day as either of them. Then some strangers found his secret hiding place, which was just the icing on the cake. Tag held the baby against his chest, somewhat awkwardly.
“Like it or not, you’re coming with us,” Tag informed Grogu.
Together, they crept through the graveyard that was the temple. By some will of the Force, they made it out, onto the streets of Coruscant without being caught by any Clone Troopers or Sith. They were safe, for now, but they couldn’t stay long.
“You want to tell me how we’re getting off planet?”
Tag bit the inside of his cheek. “I was kind of hoping you’d know?”
“What? This was your idea!”
Tag adjusted his hold on the baby. “Whatever. We need a ship, and we need to take it to Tatooine,” he said. “Nothing you can’t figure out.”
Bink slapped his forehead, a little too hard. “How are we going to pay fare?” He reached into his pocket and counted out what little money they had. “We have a whole three credits and a spoon left.”
“Yeah,” Tag said, as they approached a hangar. “But we could just not pay fare at all.”
He had that look in his eye that communicated that familiar idea of, let’s do something that’s kind of bad, but only if you get caught. Better not get caught, then. That was a major theme of their lives lately.
“Why the hell not?”
So that’s how he found himself sneaking onto a transport ship. It was perfect for a few reasons. It was enormous, so it would have plenty of good nooks and crannies to hide in. The crew was loading up a new shipment, so the hatch was wide open, and they were all too busy to notice three kids sneaking on while their backs were turned. And it was slated to leave within the hour. By the time Anakin changed his mind about sparing their lives, they’d be in hyperspace.
Tag had his heart set on Tatooine, but he could figure that out later. At least this would get them off world.
The ship took off and they still hadn’t been caught. Bink sat tucked into the narrow space between two shipping crates. He and Tag were practically on top of each other, it was uncomfortably hot, and it was all making him a little claustrophobic.
Grogu, at least, had finally decided he liked him. Or at least, he liked trying to put Bink’s fingers in his mouth. The child was relentless. Nothing he did could get him to stop.
“At least it keeps him quiet,” Tag whispered.
“Why don’t you let him chew on you, then?” Bink asked.
“Because it’s your turn to like, hang out with him,” Tag explained. “I carried him out of the temple and everything. It’s only fair.”
Defeated, Bink shrugged and leaned back against a crate. He tried to stretch his legs out, but he didn’t really have room. The baby in his lap fussed. Grogu made a whining noise in the back of his throat, tugging on Bink’s robes to get his attention. Bink cleared his throat.
“Do you, uh, want something?” he asked him. “Oh, no, you’re probably hungry, aren’t you?”
If Grogu was hungry, they needed to get food in him, fast, or he was going to get really, really loud. If he got really, really loud, someone was going to hear him. Then they’d get caught. Then they’d be dumped into space, or stranded on a desolate planet, or something.
“He’s going to start yelling,” Tag said, nervous. “Don’t you have anything you can feed him on you?”
Bink took his pack off his shoulder and sat it in his lap. He shoved a hand inside and rifled through the contents, squinting in the darkness. “Uh, I got some of those little cookie things- oh, wait. Dang, it’s empty. Someone ate them all.”
“Wasn’t me.” He didn’t need the force to tell that was a lie.
“Never said it was. Let’s go find something edible.”
That meant leaving behind the relative safety of their hiding spot in the cargo hold, which was sort of terrifying. Every noise he heard put him on edge, from the rumbling of the engine to a low conversation in another language on another deck of the ship. He, Tag, and the baby walked in circles for what felt like ages before finally reaching the kitchens.
“Okay,” Bink whispered, balancing Grogu on his hip. He stared up at rows and rows of canned food and dry goods. “What does he actually eat, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Tag said, looking up from where he’d bent down to read the labels. “Probably some weird stuff.”
“Like what? He’s just a little guy.”
“Well, yeah, but Master Yoda eats weird stuff.” There had been all sorts of rumors, when they were growing up, about what Yoda’s cooking did to a person. He had never confirmed or denied a single one. “So does Master Yaddle. And Grogu’s the same kind of thing.”
Wait a minute. Oh, no, that was a terrible thought. It was at least as gross as it was heretical. Yoda in love. Naturally, he decided to inflict it on his best friend. “Hold on. Do you think maybe they had a thing? And Grogu’s secretly their-”
Tag threw his hands over his ears. “Shut up. Shut up. Don’t you put that image in my brain.”
“Search your feelings,” Bink taunted. “You know it to be true.”
“I do not!” Tag held up a box of cereal and abruptly changed the subject. “This could work. Kids like stuff like this, I think.”
“And we won’t have to cook it.”
Tag took two boxes. Just when they were about to leave, a pair of footsteps approached the door to the kitchen. They were caught.
Bink didn’t have time to give it any thought. He threw open a closet door and the two of them squeezed inside. He held the door shut with one hand. With the other, he held Grogu to his chest. Heart pounding, he watched through a tiny sliver of a crack as someone who actually belonged on the ship made themselves dinner. It was unbearable.
Grogu started to squirm. Kicking his feet and wriggling his arms, he reached for the cereal boxes like he would die if he didn’t have some. If this went on any longer, he’d start complaining. Then they’d really be in trouble.
Give him some, Bink mouthed.
Tag sighed and carefully, slowly opened one of the boxes. There was a shuffling crunch, quiet as a bird’s wing, but it felt louder than a bomb going off. Bink’s breath caught in his throat. Either the crewmate didn’t notice, or he didn’t think it was worth investigating. Tag reached into the box and held out a small handful to the baby. Grogu stuffed them into his mouth with a tiny, chubby hand and smiled, ears perking up.
It took about fifty-seven years for the crewmate to finally leave. Bink waited half a second before bursting out of the closet.
“That was way too close.”
Tag gave him a dismissive wave. “We just have to hide for a little longer. How long could it possibly take, a couple days? We’ll be fine.”
They weren’t fine for long. In the middle of the night, after he had fallen asleep back in the cargo hold, Bink woke up to a flashlight in his face and an angry Rodian looming over him. Ah, well. Life had been fun while it lasted. He was definitely going to die.
“Kid, explain yourself,” he growled. “I don’t like stowaways much, you know.”
Bink scrambled to his feet and bolted. Tag quickly caught up to him.
“What are you doing?”
“A ship this big has to have some kind of a hangar. Some escape pods. Maybe even an actual ship,” Bink explained. “We’re going to borrow one.”
“Okay, cool, great. We can’t stay here,” Tag agreed, “But that would’ve been really nice to know!”
“I thought it was obvious!”
“Not to me!”
As it turned out, Bink was right. The transport ship did have its own hangar. Setting his eyes on the closest ship, a shuttle, he darted across the metal floor. Bink scrambled up the gangplank and into the cockpit. Tag followed him, plopping into the copilot’s seat. Over the past three years, he’d spent time inside a lot of ships. He could fly. Bink flicked a switch above his head. The dashboard lit up, the engine roared to life, and he took the ship into the air. Tag punched in the coordinates for that dirtball he had in mind, and they were off.
Neither of them noticed until they were already on Tatooine.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Tag said as he stepped out into the desert. “Don’t forget the kid.”
“Grogu?” Bink raised an eyebrow. “I thought you had him.”
“Well, I thought you had him!” Tag said. Something shifted in his expression. “We messed up.”
“Did we..?”
“Yep.”
“And he’s...?”
“He has to be.”
“That’s so messed up,” Bink said. Groaning, he threw his head in his hands. “That’s it. I’m officially the worst person, ever! I should be in jail!”
“Hey, buddy, we both abandoned him,” Tag said, like that made it better. He put a hand on Bink’s shoulder. “He’ll be fine. Probably.”