Chapter Text
“Come with me,” says the Jedi, offering out his hand. “Both of you.”
Din has been preparing to let the child go for so long that he can barely recognise what he is hearing. “Both of us? Not just the child?”
“I would never separate a child from his father.” The Jedi folds his hands together again. He is so handsome that it’s hard for Din to look at him. His hair shines like spun gold, a face carved from marble. Too good to be true. I cannot trust him , Din thinks, logical brain assessing the threat, but his gut instinct says that the Jedi is a good man. Good men do not take children away from their fathers.
Respectful silence has fallen over the room, an awe that is almost physical. Din has never met a person who can tongue-tie several Mandalorians, an Imperial moff and two seasoned gunners. But he has never met a living myth before.
The baby warbles, reaching out his little hands. The Jedi’s eyes flutter shut and the baby floats - with direction and intent! - right into the Jedi’s arms. They look into each other’s eyes, silent, the child’s tiny three-fingered hands patting the Jedi’s cheeks. The Jedi smiles, a slight quirk of his mouth. For no apparent reason, Din’s ribs ache.
Din’s voice sounds like rust. “My ship was destroyed. You came in on an X-Wing.”
“You can take a ride with us, sir, if you want to come along with us,” Cara jumps in. Din turns around to look at her; she’s standing straight-backed, eyes shining, fixated on the Jedi like if she blinks, he will disappear as a mirage.
“That won’t be necessary,” the Jedi dismisses, not taking his gaze from the child. Din stills, heartbeat rising. He has the distinct impression that if he lets the Jedi take the child separately, he will never see the child again, regardless of what niceties the man says. “The New Republic has a permanent address on Coruscant, you know. If you want to find me, you just need to knock. I have an office there.”
“Let’s just say we all have a complicated relationship with the New Republic.” Bo-Katan doesn’t sound as awed as Cara - her tone is a sarcastic hiss, hands just an inch away from her blaster. “Is it true that you’re wedded with the NewRu elite, Jedi?”
Wedded. Is he married?
“I was a pilot for the Rebellion,” the Jedi shoots back, and bounces the child into the air. The child sails, gentle and slow, right into Din’s waiting hands. “And yes, I did blow up the first Death Star.”
Cara whistles. She shares a glance with Fennec, who is keeping impressively blank-faced.
“You can take another ship and meet me on Coruscant. I’ll give you the correct NewRu codes to get in. What’s your comlink?” The Jedi’s accent is slipping, from a poised unidentifiable Core accent to hints of a rougher Rim accent.
Din shifts Grogu’s weight into the crook of one arm, stabbing with his thumb at his comlink to get the number to appear. He shows it to the Jedi, who types it in. Din’s comlink buzzes with the alert of an incoming message.
“There you go.” The Jedi nods, lowers his shoulders in a slight bow to the room. “I will leave you now, but I’ll see you soon on Coruscant. It’s been a pleasure. I trust you’ll take care of this Imp?”
“Of course, sir.”
After he’s gone, with a sweep of his velvet black cloak, everyone stares at each other in the silence. That’s what a Jedi is. A mythical creature that comes like a lightning bolt from a blue sky. Unbelievable. Gone as soon as he appears. It’s hard to believe that all actually happened.
Hard, until they retrace the steps back to the hanger, and find chopped-up robots remains scattered like a bloody trail. Din couldn’t even take on one of them. And this Jedi just destroyed them all.
Din checks his comlink. This is the Last Jedi. It is followed by coordinates and a string of codes. The cold professionalism of it should be respected by Din, but there’s an empty feeling instead. He stares at the comlink as if the message could reveal its secrets, could somehow become more personal.
Grogu presses his little hands against the comlink and ends up sending an unintelligible string of letters and numbers to the Jedi.
“No, you little cursed womp rat,” hisses Din, and then immediately takes it back, “Wait, wait, no, you are a good baby.”
Din types in, agonised, sorry that was the baby
There is no response.
Din dies a little.
The motley crew take the ship into hyperspace towards Coruscant. Cara watches over the Imperial moff. Bo-Katan and Koska clean up the bodies, both human and robot. Din sits in the pilot’s seat, Grogu sleeping in his arms. It’s hard to believe that his baby is back with him.
“Did you know who that was?” Cara asks him, her feet resting on the moff’s back.
“A Jedi.”
Cara laughs. “ The Jedi. Kark. That man single-handedly brought down the Empire.”
“Wasn’t it a joint effort?” Din says, a little sarcastic. He pays no attention to politics, but even he saw enough of the Rebellion war effort propaganda.
“Until he showed up.” Cara leans forward to gently bop Grogu’s sleeping nose. “He’s a one-man weapon of mass destruction. The New Republic can’t afford to lose him. Did you ever hear the stories about the terrifying Jedi generals during the Clone Wars? Appeared out of nowhere and destroyed whole troops, just like that. Well of course you didn’t hear, you grew up in a cult. Maybe he’ll train this little one to be just like that.”
Din holds Grogu a little tighter.
When they come out of hyperspace, he gives the correct codes to the New Republic and lands on Coruscant.
They are faced with two troops of New Republic soldiers. Cara barges forward and hands over her prisoner, speaking intently with the leader. Din and her have been friends for a long time. He knows that she can let her handle this. They will see each other again.
Din nods at Bo-Katan and Koska. “What will you do now?”
Her mouth is a thin line. She’s looking at his waist, where the Darksaber hangs. “Regroup with the rest of my Mandalorians. Strategize. Plan for where to go from here.” Her smile is bitter. “Let’s stay in touch. You will have to make some decisions yourself about what you want to from now. Mand’alor.”
The title sounds like a curse.
They exchange comlinks and part ways.
Din is relieved to be on his own again, but overwhelmed and on his guard. “I’ve never been to Coruscant before,” he says to the baby, who is reaching out his little hands towards the constant high-speed traffic in the sky, “Don’t know if I like it or not. You’ll have to show me around.”
He finds a virtual map on a street corner and types in the coordinates the Jedi gave him. The result is at the top of one of the highest towers in the very centre of the city.
Din stares at the coordinates.
Then he turns and walks down the busy street, weaving in and out of the crowd until he is standing underneath a neon brightly lit sign saying “Flangth-2-Go”. The baby makes an eager noise and beats his little hands against Din’s helmet.
“Knew you would like flangth.” Din covers Grogu’s little hands with one of his own. Both of them can be covered by just his palm. It’s a marvel how tiny this baby is.
He presses the options on the screen for a kid’s meal, toy included. He inserts the credits. It’s still strange to him to carry cash, to not immediately bring back every piece of credit he has to the covert. Din is still working out how he feels about the covert being gone. How he feels about taking off his helmet. The shame is there, on his tongue, thick, but there is an aftertaste of relief.
The baby gobbles down the burger when it arrives. It’s bigger than his head and Grogu still eats it with ease. From watching him eat so many times, Din has realised that his species has the ability to dislocate his jaw in order to swallow prey whole. It was only terrifying the first time.
The never-ending traffic creates a consistent background noise: horns and engines and insults.
“No ship. No covert,” Din says to the baby, feeding him fries one by one. “Only one direction left to go.”
What he doesn’t say: is this the end of the road? Do our paths diverge here? Even if the Jedi lets him stay, how can he possibly do so? The Darksaber hangs at his waist. All these different responsibilities tear him in different directions: what is best for Grogu, what is best for the covert, what is best for Mandalore. All this time he has blindly trusted that reuniting the child with his own kind is what is best for him. This Jedi - with unfathomable sorcery - how can Din trust that Grogu will be trained to use his powers and not lose his heart? Is that what the Jedi do? Exchange their soul for power?
“Hey there,” the Jedi says as he drops into the seat beside Din.
Din doesn’t even flinch as he - on instinct - raises a blaster to the Jedi’s head.
“Hey, hey there, it’s alright,” the Jedi soothes, close, his thigh touching Din’s leg. “It’s me. The Jedi? Fellow on the X-wing?”
Faced with the Jedi again, Din is distracted, his logical musings disappearing. He took what Cara said to heart, but. How could he possibly consider the Jedi a danger when his eyes are sky-blue? When his hair is gold like a precious treasure?
Concentrate. “How did you find us?”
“Jedi magic.” He grins, with perfect white teeth. This Jedi is the dictionary definition of too good to be true.
Grogu burbles, waving his little hands. Fries elevate themselves into the air, forming the structure of an X-wing, does a loop before disassembling and feeding themselves one by one into the baby’s hungry mouth.
Din lowers his blaster, snaps it back into the holster. “Parlour tricks.”
“Perhaps a misuse of the ancient and unending power of the Force, yes,” agrees the Jedi. He leans back, folding his hands together on the edge of the table. He’s only wearing one black glove, which is a strange stylistic choice. “This is how I fed Ben when he was a baby. He’s Force-sensitive, just like you, Grogu! You’ll have a playmate, Ben is only four.”
He has a child. They both have children.
The Jedi reaches out and slowly ruffles the delicate fuzzy hair on Grogu’s head. He’s not looking at Din when he says, “If you join us, that is.”
A server arrives, balancing a tray of a vegetarian burger, two portions of fries, two cokes and three straws. The Jedi thanks the server. He slides one portion of fries in front of Grogu, who clutches at the air with his too-short hands. Din takes the responsibility of feeding him fries. The Jedi is concentrating, sticking out his pink tongue as he sticks two straws together to create a twice-as-long straw. With a smile, he inserts the straw into one of the cokes and slides it over to Din.
Understanding, Din stares down.
“I think that can fit under your mask, Mando sir…?”
Din takes a sip. It fits. He’s so disconcerted by the respect this stranger has for the code of his covert - his cult - the Mandalorians - that all he manages to say is: “Yes. Thank you.”
“Great!” The Jedi bites into his burger and then says, mouth full, “No no, little one, this is fake meat. Not meat.” Swallowing, he adds to Din, “Don’t worry, I’m personally a vegetarian but that doesn’t mean I can’t cater to others. I know his species are carnivores. Apex predator of their home world, I think.”
Din’s heart hurts in his chest. “You know others of his kind?”
“Just one. My old master. He taught me the ways of the Force.”
Maybe this is how Din can reunite Grogu with his own kind. “Can I take Grogu to him? Where is he?”
The Jedi licks sauce from the corner of his mouth. He drums the fingers of his right hand against the table, and they produce an oddly metallic sound. He takes a while before responding, as if thinking though exactly what he will say. Din is a man used to silence. “When I say that I’m the last of my kind, I really do mean it. There’s no one else. Sure, there’s people who are force-sensitive, like Grogu and Ben, people who are trained, like Ahsoka, but people of my religious order? That’s me. I’m the only one.”
At least Din has the Armorer left. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Don’t be. You’ve brought me hope.” The Jedi scrunches up the papers, and with a wave of his hand floats them over to the trash bin. “Will you come with me, up to my offices? Maybe that can give you more insight, help you to decide if Grogu should be trained by me.”
“Isn’t it up to you to decide that?”
“Isn’t it always the parent’s choice?”
Din doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s used to following orders, whether that be the explicit instruction of the Guild or the implicit execution of the Mandalorian code. He’s not used to having options. Not at all used to options being freely offered to him, rather than ones he has to fight for. Options he has to create for himself out of impossible scenarios.
“We’ll go look.”
The Jedi stands up. Sunlight filtering through the frosted window plays in his golden hair, his sunbeaten skin. He’s an image of a saint, a man stepped out of manuscripts. A one-man weapon of mass destruction, Cara had said. “Then let’s go,” the Jedi says, and even his Rim accent sounds like music. They live in an era where history never stops turning the galaxy upside down, where at every moment everything that you hold dear hangs by a thread.
Just what trouble is Din getting himself into?