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Cobb’s not a good man. He knows that, deep in his heart, with the people he’s killed and the innocents among them.
Witnesses maybe, people he put down, people he hated that needed to go. Maybe they’re all innocent, really.
There’s no time for moral dilemmas now, though. Or maybe there is, in hushed silence between his chores and taking care of the little one.
Maybe he lets himself doubt.
Because even after everything with the Mandalorian, Din, he still hates what he is. What he has been. What he always will be.
Being an outlaw is in Cobb Vanth’s blood as sure as it’s red when it hits the dirt. And he’ll always be like that.
He’ll always be a little stringy, a little skittish, a little like a loth-cat as jumpy as can be. His gun will never leave his hip, his knife will never leave his boot, and the rifle stays barely an arm’s length from the side of his bed.
For Cobb Vanth is a twisted old thing like the desert trees, crooked and grown up all wrong.
He’s scarred, from lashes, from the sun, from gun and knife and brand. From cauterizing, stitching, from backwater Tatooine medicine that leaves wounds only a bit better than they should be.
Cobb sometimes thinks he’s more scar than man.
In those nights where he can’t help but be awake, twitching, eyes flashing back and forth in the dark, straining to see would-be attackers.
He’s not alone.
There’s the Mandalorian at his side, helmetless and free, calm as he watches the storm pass.
Cobb would never hurt him.
He’d hurt many in his past, like the poor dealer’s boy he stabbed in the gut when they were both just fifteen.
Like the man he left behind scurrying from the collapsing mine when he was only seventeen.
Like the man that owned him, that took one between the eyes when Cobb got free.
He’d left a trail of destruction through his life, until he got to Freetown.
It’s so hard to be optimistic, though. To be anything other than a straight up defeatist.
But when he sees that kid…
There’s something in him that aches. A part of him that never got to be free. A part that aches and moans and cries to be free.
A part that buys soft blankets and toys, plastic figurines, and colorful tiny clothes when he goes into town.
A part that loads the speeder with his love and care and every cent he has in stuffed banthas, toy blasters, and small blankets fit for the little ones that run around Freetown.
They always gathered at the edge of town when he got back, excited, like he was some sort of saint bringing them whatever they wanted for life day.
And he did.
He always did.
They’d get toys and blankets and real pillows, and colorful scarves with little tassels. They’d get hats and coats and tiny shoes when their other ones wore out.
Cobb is a man possessed with a purpose. determined.
If he couldn’t have a childhood, he’d give one to as many little ones as he could.
It’s the one thing that makes him feel like he still has some good left.