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Some days are easier than others. And she knows that. That’s just how grief is.
She could rebuild him. She could program him to do all the little things that he did, put in every little broken action that made him unique, but he still wouldn’t be her BD. It wouldn’t be the same for her to carefully dent him in the right places — the scuff on his head, where he barely missed being crushed by a falling wing. The scratch by his arm, where the little snotty neighbor kids got too excited about a slingshot. The dent in his side when Din had kicked him out of the path of a rogue bantha.
And humans and their memories only go so far. There had been nothing left of him. She wouldn’t be able to give enough detail for a new droid to be able to relay, not in any convincing way, that it had been them on those adventures together.
If the soul was a collection of memories, she would only be able to give her friend half of one.
Her mother would probably laugh at her if she saw her this way, years later. Still crying over things, she would say. What does she know of loss? It’s hard to compare it to anything when you haven’t been given a lot to lose. And to everyone else, that droid was a what, not a who.
It’s just hard today. When Din has been gone just a few hours longer than he said he would be. When she was fixing one of the compression panels and dropped a stupid torque, down between the wires and hoses, and it was just out of reach, and she knows he could’ve easily dropped down and stretched it back up to her.
She tenses when the bunk door slides open.
Even from behind her, Din’s presence changes the entire air of the room. Of the entire ship, even. She feels him before she sees him.
How long has she been laying here? How did she miss the ramp lowering, or Din’s approach?
She tries to be convincing, pretending to be curled up on the bunk, taking a quiet nap. She tries so hard to still her muscles, she thinks she might be trembling with the strain.
The door slides closed again and she sinks into the tear-stained pillow. Was that what she had wanted of him? To leave her be? Is that feeling relief?
Before she has a chance to decide, the door slides back open. The Mandalorian is lighter on his feet, she can hear it. She can’t figure out why, until he slides into the small cot behind her. She gasps as he shuffles in close, no metal between them. Just soft, threadbare sweaters and the warmth of their bodies.
“This okay?” he grunts.
Is it okay? She would scoff, if her breath weren’t caught in her throat. And if she knew any sound out of her mouth wouldn’t sound like a soft sob.
She nods against the pillow, and he pulls even closer. Tucks his knees up behind hers. Pulls her back into his chest. Swings his arm around her shoulders and wraps her small hand in his, interlacing their fingers tightly.
The comfort is too much. She breaks what little composure she had weaved together. He squeezes more tears right out of her, even as he shushes her softly. The soft sounds tumble out of the vocoder and it reminds her of the melodies crooning through Peli’s decrepit radio, or the waves crashing against the shore. She can feel his heart beat against her back.
There it is. Relief.
He holds her for too long a time. She fights the sleep, exhausted by grief, finally in Din’s arms where she always dreamed she would be. If she wakes up alone, it could have all been a dream.
“I’m sorry,” she exhales shakily, and he squeezes her hand assuredly, “This must be so stupid in comparison.”
BD loved Din. Or, at least, craved his approval more than hers. He would preen and stamp his feet when the Mandalorian thanked him, or when he heard him chuckle.
Maybe that’s something they both had in common.
“In comparison?” he asks.
“You lost your son, Din,” she says simply.
A living being, she means. A child. It’s a thing she tries to remind herself of, and then feels guilty when she does actually start to think that way. She thinks of the little droid, cowering behind crates and beeping happily upon Din’s return to the ship, and wonders how much of his short life he felt.
“One loss isn’t bigger or smaller than another,” Din says softly, “It’s just loss.”
Her eyebrows knit together as your eyes sting anew. As if he can feel the change in her, Din’s thumb starts to rub soothing circles against the back of her hand.
“Grogu is still out there in the universe,” he says, “And maybe we’ll see him when the time is right. I’d like you to meet him. I think he would really like you.”
She huffs, the sound embarrassingly nasally. “I would like to meet him, too.”
Din makes people cower anywhere he goes. A hulking warrior in metal so shiny you can see your face before you die. But that isn’t the only side to Din that she is familiar with. And, he has said before, she owes that to his foundling. For opening him up to more. For making him the kind of man that is holding her right now.
Of course she would like to meet him.
“I’m sorry you lost your friend,” Din says, “But you still have…” he falters, like he wants to take it back, but the words are already heavy in the air. “You still have me,” he finishes quietly.
She closes her eyes at that. Lets it ring in the air, the ghost of his words echoing.
BD had looked at her accusingly more than once when it came to Din. When she’d smile a little too long after he made a joke. When she watched the direction he had walked in long after he had disappeared from sight.
The little guy had a point.
She takes a deep breath, and squeezes her fingers even tighter around his.
“You know you are more to me than a friend,” she whispers, “don’t you, Din?”
More silence hangs between them. She doesn’t have a helmet like him. She can’t even see his body language at this point, let alone see any shifts in his temperature, hear any lilt in his breath.
“I,” he pauses and then quietly breathes, “I had hoped.”
A smile breaks across her face, her grief joined by something lighter. She backs up even closer to Din and he adjusts for her, a leg tangling between hers, his arms opening even wider. She lays her other hand over his now, both of them resting around her waist.
She turns, and presses her temple against the cool beskar of his helmet.
He presses back.
And finally, just like this, she sleeps.