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1
“Here we are, this is all yours for the winter,” Cara says and gestures at the room behind the door she just opened.
Luke follows her inside, dropping his suitcase on the floor. It’s more spacious than he expected, a twin bed in one corner, a closet on the opposite wall and a desk at the window with ample space between the furniture.
“If you need anything, let me know,” Cara continues. “We take care of each other here, don’t hesitate to ask. Unless it’s fancy stuff that you fancy pro skiers require, in which case please do hesitate.”
Luke huffs a laugh. “Don’t worry. I won’t need any special treatment.”
“Hm.” Cara musters him. When she greeted him in the lobby of the skiing instructor’s accommodations, she looked tough with her tattoos and her scowl, but now there’s a wry smile on her face and it almost makes her look approachable.
“In any case, you got Din’s old room, that’s got to count for some special treatment.” She must sense Luke’s confusion, because she continues, “he moved out to rent his own hut a few winters ago. But he was bored a lot when he was here, so he made heaps of improvements to the room. Like, for example,” – she bends down to pull up an unsuspecting looking floorboard and reveals – “a secret compartment.”
From the little hole in the floor, she pulls a bottle of spotchka. “I’ll be taking that, thank you.”
Luke hesitates, then decides to ask, “is drinking not allowed?”
Cara guffaws. “Shit, kid, of course it is, there’s not much else to do round here. Just don’t drink before teaching.” She inspects the half-empty bottle of spotchka in her hand. “I’m just taking this because I drank most of this bottle before we stashed it here and forgot about it. Seeing as Din isn’t returning this year, it’s mine now.”
Luke decides not to ask more questions so he doesn't get laughed at again.
Cara leaves him to unpack with a grin and a clap on his shoulder that stings for the next hour. Once his suitcase is empty, he decides to have another look at the secret compartment. It’s empty now, so Luke decides to place a bottle of high-end spirit – a farewell gift from Leia – and a bottle of cheap spotchka – a farewell gift from Han – inside.
(Later that evening, he stands at his open window and stares up at the millions of stars above. He inhales.)
2
Biggs picks up his commlink on the second ring.
“Luke! Hi, buddy,” his voice comes breathless through the phone
“Hi, Biggs,” Luke laughs. He’s settled on the window sill, his feet in fuzzy socks, his head resting on his knees as he looks outside into the snowy landscape.
“How’s it going? Settled in yet?”
“Mostly. Everyone’s really nice.”
“I told you, they’re all really cool. Aren’t you thankful I got you the gig?”
Luke laughs, again. “I am, truly. I miss you, though.”
“Aww,” Biggs coos. “Sorry, but I’ve got a fancy job and can’t ski around with a bunch of kids anymore.”
“Hey, kriff you!”
After Luke spent a year moping around at Han and Leia’s apartment between appointments at the hospital and his physical therapist and his other therapist, the two of them had staged an intervention. “Kid,” Han had said, “we know you’re sad about losing your hand and your ski jumping career –” Leia had winced at the wording – “but this has to stop. Why don’t you call up your old buddy from ski training? Didn’t he work as a skiing instructor for a while? Maybe that’s something you could do.”
The old buddy from ski training was his childhood friend from endless ski camps, Biggs, and when Luke had called him up, Biggs'd been elated to hear from him and had immediately given him Greef Karga’s contact.
“Anyway,” Biggs says, a smile audible in his voice, “have you met Djarin yet?”
“Djarin?”
“Din Djarin. You know, ski patrol, broad shoulders, moustache, just your type?” Luke can practically hear Biggs waggle his eyebrows. “He still works there, right?”
“Not sure,” Luke replies. “I think Cara mentioned that I got his old room at the accommodations. Haven’t met him yet, though.”
“Ah, shit. I’d hoped he still worked there and could… distract you a bit.”
Luke feels his cheeks redden. “Oh, come on! Not every man with a moustache is my type!”
“You keep telling yourself that, Luke.”
(So what if he had a crush on Biggs when they were younger. It does not mean he’ll fall head over heels with every man with a moustache.)
3
“Hey, Luke, come here!”
Luke follows the voice through the crowded bar and joins Wedge at a table filled with other people around their age that he vaguely recognises, all of them dressed down in comfortable clothes after a day of herding kids in the snow.
They’re all looking at him expectantly in a way that Luke knows all too well after spending years of his youth in the limelight. Only Wedge is looking at him in a different, still expectant way.
“So?” he asks. “How was your first day all on your own with no supervision?”
The past two weeks, Luke had been shadowing Wedge. Today, he was in charge of whole ski class all on his own. At Wedge’s question, he cringes.
Wedge chuckles at his face. “Come on, it can’t have been that bad.”
Luke drops his head on the table. “A kid just… drove straight into a tree. Not even a moment of hesitation. Nothing I could do.”
“Damn,” a woman with a blonde braid next to Wedge says. “Was he hurt?”
Luke shakes his head. “No, but his mother was mad at me when she picked him up.”
The table breaks out in laughter, but Luke can tell that it’s mostly in good-willed humour.
Wedge grins and bumps his shoulder against the blonde woman’s. “At least he didn’t need a paramedic. Jay here once had a kid that drove into a pole on the side of the piste. Broke his leg and completely freaked out, hyperventilating and everything. Djarin saved your ass, didn’t he? Came and calmed the kid down, got him to come with him to get his leg dealt with without a single complaint.”
Jay huffs. “Yeah, but remember that time you got lost with a bunch of older kids in the fog because you didn’t believe the weather forecast?”
Wedge groans. “Oh, yeah, kriff, that was a mess.”
“Djarin saved you, too. Calmly brought you all back to base like a sheepherder herding his little lambs.”
At this point, Luke’s brain kicks in and tells him that they’re probably talking about the Din Djarin Biggs mentioned. Calmly taking care of kids and a moustache? Luke hates to think it, but Biggs was probably right. He sounds exactly like Luke’s type.
A man on Biggs’ right waves his hand in the air dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, saved by Djarin. We’ve all been there. Shame he’s not here this year.”
“Yeah, does anyone know why he’s gone?” Jay asks.
“No clue. Cara mentioned something about a kid.”
Another man with long hair up in a bun leans forward. “He’s not married, is he?”
Wedge shrugs. “Not as far as I know. But who knows what kind of secrets he has.”
“Anyway,” the long-haired man says, “enough about Djarin. What about you, Luke Skywalker? What is skiing royalty doing among us common schlubs?”
All eyes zone in on him again and Luke’s media grin comes naturally. “Dunno, felt like hanging out with a bunch of kids?”
Jay leans forward. “How’s the hand?”
“Jay!” Wedge whisper-shouts, elbowing her.
Luke just shrugs. “Prosthetic.”
“Damn, sorry.” Despite her nonchalant words, Jay’s voice is genuine. She quirks a smile at Luke, and Luke smiles back.
(As the conversation continues and people stop staring at him all the time, Luke allows himself to relax, to fit in, to talk shop about the best skis and the worst snow conditions. He allows himself to belong.)
4
Luke is out on a random weeknight with Wedge in the unofficial team bar when the mysterious Din Djarin comes up again.
Wedge, already tipsy, leaves their table in the corner of the bar to greet some friends that Luke doesn’t know. There’s an old episode of Krey’s Anatomies playing on a TV in the corner and Luke wonders absentmindedly who chose that specific program for a ski bar. His musings are interrupted by a chair screeching.
Fennec Shand settles down across from him, straddling her chair with her forearms leaning on its back rest.
“Skywalker,” she says. “I’m Fennec, this is Boba.” She nods at the other person who is sitting down at the table. Boba Fett sits on the chair the right way round, his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“Hi guys,” Luke says, hiding his nerves about meeting what are essentially the ski resort’s highest employees right under Greef Karga behind a big grin.
“Saw you compete in the Alderaan ski jumping two seasons ago,” Boba says. “Not bad.”
Luke feels his cheeks flush. He’d never quite gotten the hang of accepting compliments for his skiing, but it’s gotten even harder since his accident. “Thanks.”
“Sorry about the hand,” Boba says.
Luke pulls a face. “Thanks,” he repeats.
“So, now you’re a skiing instructor,” Fennec observes.
“I am.”
“You settling in okay? Antilles showing you the ropes?”
“Yeah. I’m staying here in the accommodations, lucked out on the room, apparently. Wedge says it’s the best one, what with all the improvements and stuff.” Luke cuts himself off before he can go on rambling and bore them to death.
“You’re in Djarin’s old room?” Fennec’s eyes zone in on him.
Luke is only slightly terrified. He nods.
“Check out the back of the headboard some time, will you? I carved my initials there a while back, wanna know if it’s still the same bed.”
Boba leans across the table curiously. “What were you doing in Djarin’s bed?”
Fennec raises her eyebrows with a wolfish smirk. “What do you think I was doing?”
Boba frowns, and for a moment, Luke is scared that he’ll get angry. He’s not sure what’s going on between the two of them but from what he has picked up through gossip, there’s definitely something more than friendship. If there’s some jealousy involving the mystery man that is Din Djarin, Luke doesn’t want to get involved.
Except, Boba doesn’t get angry. On the contrary, his lips spread into a broad grin.
“Nice! Get it, Shand!” He exclaims, and raises his hand for Fennec to high-five.
(Luke has never felt more confused.)
5
“He’s too good for his own good.”
“I kriffing hate him so much sometimes.”
The voices come from the staircase. He frowns, freezing in the doorway of his room. He was just on his way to the communal showers, but he doesn’t want to interrupt a private conversation.
“Did he say he needed help?”
That’s Cobb’s voice, Luke’s head supplies.
“You know how he is. He never does.”
That must be Cara. They seem to be sitting on the window sill of the big staircase’s landing.
“At least you get to check in on him in a few weeks. I want an update immediately after you see him.”
Cara sighs. “He’s fine, I think. He just stresses too much about making sure everything’s perfect for the kid, and the adoption stuff takes up so much of his time…”
She trails off. Luke should really stop listening.
“That’s why I want updates. You have to tell me if he’s overworked or, you know, overworked.”
“Yeah.”
There’s silence, then, Cobb again. “I kriffing hate him. Why does he have to have such a big heart.”
Cara chuckles. “I know, right? Leave some goodness for the rest of us.”
Cobb laughs, quietly. “Shithead,” he says, but his tone is affectionate.
Luke doesn’t know who they’re talking about, but he has listened in on them long enough. He shuts the door to his room as quietly as possible.
(The season ends a few weeks later. Luke promises Greef he’ll return next winter and goes to Alderaan to visit Leia and Han. He forgets all about Din Djarin for a while.)
+1
On his first day back on the job the next winter, Luke is up bright and early with a checklist of pupils for his first beginner class. As children toddle in with their parents, he ticks them off, greeting each of them with a grin and a few reassuring words.
Everyone on his list except for one kid is checked off, and when he looks towards the station, he spots a little green figure next to a man clad in black ski gear.
As he moves in closer, he realises that the man’s figure in the ski gear is lean and tall and that his shoulders are broad, and even though his face is hidden behind his ski goggles and a scarf, the way he is confidently leaning into his ski boots makes Luke feel all sorts of ways.
Well.
Shit.
He pushes the thought deep into the back of his brain and puts on his usual chirpy voice. “Hi there! I’m Luke, I’m your instructor for the next week. And who might you be?”
The little green kid is staring up at him, so Luke takes off his helmet and gives him his best, unintimidating grin.
“This is Grogu,” the man says, and, well. His voice is deep, and rich, and kind of hoarse, and Luke cannot fall in love with a stranger within seconds of meeting him. Leia would make fun of him endlessly. He refuses to do so.
He crouches down to come face to face with Grogu. “Hi, Grogu,” he says. “I love your ski suit! It makes you look like a little frog.”
Grogu giggles and wiggles around to show off the green ski suit that matches his green helmet and green gloves. It might just possibly be the cutest thing Luke has ever seen.
A glance at the clock by the station tells him it’s time to start his first class of the season, so he stands up again and says, “alright, then.” He looks upwards at the man’s helmet, unable to make up even the faintest shape of his eyes through the tinted glasses. “Pickup time is at three. Grogu, can you carry your own skis from here onwards?”
Grogu nods and turns to his father, who lays his tiny skis across his son’s tiny extended arms and then hesitates for a moment, takes a visible, shuddering breath.
“Be good,” he says, and it’s such an intimate sight that Luke almost wants to avert his eyes. Grogu nods earnestly. The father takes another breath, his shoulders reverbing with it. “I’ll see you later.”
Grogu nods again. “See you later,” he chirps and toddles over to Luke, leaving behind his father crouching on the floor. Luke watches as the father rises, the way his legs stretch out, all lean and strong, the way his shoulders straighten, all broad and wide, and Luke refuses, refuses to be in love this early already.
Instead, he raises a hand in a wave. “Bye, then,” he says and leads Grogu over to a group of kids already waiting, walkin as quickly as he can to get the man out of his mind.
(Later, he will find out that the man is the Din Djarin that everyone kept gushing about last year. It doesn’t make things easier.)