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"You're late."
He startles, his mouth open to say something, but of course she can't see that. He settles for a bow. "I was unaware that we had an appointment."
Bo-Katan's mouth quirks as she sits comfortably on her new throne. She has the most interesting smiles. He's spent a lot of time thinking about each one. When he first saw her face, he'd considered the curve of her lips a blasphemy, the grinning smirk of a thief in stolen beskar. Every time since, he has startled over and over at how easily she removes her helmet, how carelessly she offers her face to anyone who would look. He's seen her scowl, and laugh, and crinkle her eyes in gentle teasing. Thinking about another Mandolorian's face should be shameful. Din hasn't managed to feel bad about doing so in more cycles than he can count.
"When you left Mandalore, I'd assumed you'd be back within a few rotations."
"My apologies. I had tasks to complete."
"You took on a new job and you found a new place to live." She's not accusing him. She's stating facts that someone, somewhere has acquired for her.
The obvious source springs to mind. "R5 told you."
She doesn't bother to confirm or deny this, which means his guess is correct. Bo's been keeping tabs on him, which means she is probably furious with him for not keeping in touch himself. He sees nothing of this in her expression, only the faint smile. Either she isn't angry or she's enough of a politician not to show it.
Din has never felt the need to fill silences. The covert valued quiet. Politician or not, he can see the impatience racing under her skin. Bo-Katan stands, taking two steps down to join him at the floor. Without her in it, he can see the throne is a rough thing, put together by hands more used to repairing landskiffs than creating finery.
Her face is close now, and he forgets about the throne. "Why did you come?" she asks.
That's an impossible question to answer. This is Mandalore. This is their birthright. He helped her retake the planet from its conquerors. He has every right to come and go as he pleases. And his first action was to go.
"My tribe is here," he says, and behind him he hears Grogu making a blurting noise that sounds like mild disbelief but that could also be the three beetles he ate on their way inside.
The sound is enough to catch her attention. Bo-Katan turns to Grogu and her smile is wide now, and genuine. "You should tell your dad to return to Mandalore more often." She's rewarded with another blurt. Din isn't sure if Grogu's species can speak Basic. That hasn't stopped his son from making his meaning clear when he chooses.
Bo walks, and Din falls into step beside her. They built a rapport together and that's easy to fall back into. She may be the ruler of Mandalore again but she treats him like a friend. "Did they tell you what we've rebuilt?"
He examines his own silence for a moment, testing his words. "I haven't been to see them yet."
"Oh?" Now she's wearing an expression he can't read. Someone who needed to fill a pause would say that Grogu insisted on seeing her first which would only yield up another blurt.
Politicians don't like silence. She says, "As you can see, we've made a lot of progress in your absence." She indicates the rebuilt structure that's serving as palace and public gathering area. Alcoves line the halls as sleeping quarters for the newer Mandalorian refugees returning to their home world before they start work constructing their own homes out in the recovering lands. "The domes are gone," she tells him, although he's never seen one save in ruins. "We're going to live under the sky again. As our crops flourish, the air gets cleaner every day."
She's showing off the planet like she'd be showing off a secondhand landspeeder to an interested buyer, pointing to structural improvements and the fresh paint on the walls.
"You've done amazing work here."
She takes the compliment easily. "We all have. Your friends have been invaluable. They're hard workers." Other words settle under the phrase. He can imagine the difficulties managing his strict friends with the looser morals of the rest of the Mandalorians she's governing. He sees bare faces walk by, and covered helmets whose styles he recognizes as part of his own adopted family, and still others he does not.
She follows his gaze. "Some of the newcomers are following along in your Way. They've been separated from their own identity as Mandalorians, and your friend in the Forge is more than happy to give them something to cling to as their own."
"You don't agree."
"I don't give my opinion. She and I have our common goals, and we don't interfere with each other's decisions."
Ah. Din has never been much for politics but this sounds like something important. "Which of you is in charge?"
Bo-Katan doesn't answer for a moment. "When we first started rebuilding, I suggested she and I marry. That would make the hierarchy clear to everyone. Both voices would speak for all."
He digests this. He's never known the Armorer to take a lover. He doesn't know Bo-Katan well enough to ask how many she's had, and any speculations have remained hidden behind his own eyelids. "She didn't accept."
"I didn't think she would."
"But you would have." He shouldn't ask. Of course she would.
"I'd do anything for Mandalore. As political marriages go, I could ask for a worse one. Some of my ancestors married very badly. My parents loved each other. My oldest sister married for love but died when her son was a baby. My other sister would have chosen Mandalore over what her heart wanted, but she died in his arms before she had to make that decision." The words are spoken quietly, like a confession in a dark room. Grogu is floating nearby, too busy gazing in wonder at the sights around them to heed to this odd intimacy. "Back when you possessed the Darksaber, I thought I might have to marry you to secure my position."
She drops the topic lightly behind them like a scarf abandoned on the floor. "Look at the stonework here."
He tries to pay attention to the rocks, fitting together with duracrete in a pattern pleasing to the eye, the back of his mind buzzing with the words 'I might have to marry you.'
Grogu stays silent, ruminating on his own infant thoughts.
They are shown more rooms, including a burgeoning kitchen filled with smells that draw his son in until Din manually pulls the floating bassinet away. "It's not dinner time, kid."
Bo-Katan laughs gently. "We'll make sure you get plenty to eat." Grogu burbles, appeased for the moment.
"I wanted to show you something."
'I thought I might have to marry you.' "What?"
She leads him to the courtyard outside. This is a children's area, filled with yells and laughter, some sparring, others playing with balls or drones. Grogu gives Din a look, and he nods. His son jumps out of his bassinet and lands on the ground, then toddles towards the other children to play. Bo-Katan gestures with her eyes, and he sees.
"Ragnar?"
He's known the boy since he was an infant, and knows his face well. He shouldn't ever see it again. "He accepted the Creed."
"He changed his mind."
Din observes the other children. Some go bare-faced, and some with helmets, and he doesn't know all the helmet markings.
Bo says, "We're all washing up against each other. Some have joined the Children of the Watch. Some have walked away. And there are others."
Some don't wear armor at all, only ordinary clothing such as travelers or merchants might. Most are human, but not all. She reads the line in his body if not his hidden face. "We're all Mandalorians. Some of us are learning for the first time what that means to us."
Had this happened a few years ago, Din would have been horrified. He couldn't accept Bo-Katan and her allies as Mandalorians, much less these unmasked, unarmored folk. He's still sorting out what being a Mandalorian means for himself and this child he is raising, and is open enough to accept that they are who they say they are. The Armorer accepted Bo-Katan among them, even accepted her without her helmet on. She will not be as forgiving of those who followed The Way and chose to walk away.
"That's going to be trouble."
"It hasn't made things easy." She puts on her politician's smile again. "But that's my knot to untie, not yours. I only wanted you to see what you began. Our people are coming together, and they're discovering who they are. That would never have happened without you."
The undercurrent to her words are obvious even to him: this is going to be his trouble if he stays. People are grateful to him, but gratitude doesn't build walls or plant farms. It doesn't stop some of the other helmeted children shoving Ragnar roughly until Grogu takes their attention from him with one of his levitating tricks. The old stories he's tracked down say the Jedi were old enemies of the Mandalorians, but this Jedi has come among them as a tiny green peacemaker, changing Din's life and thus the lives of them all. Who knows what other ripples his presence will have before they reach the edge of the galaxy?
"Thank you for the knowledge."
After he takes his leave of her, and allows Grogu to stay with the other children, he makes his way to the Great Forge. He's not alone. Others in armor and not, helmeted and not, weave a line towards the Forge while the Armorer works. Some of the recognize Din and greet him. Most are strangers to him, and he watches them as they go one by one or in pairs to the woman who led their covert when they were in exile. He watches her accept their obeisance, and their learned piety, and he listens to the rulings she makes and the wisdom she dispenses. Bo-Katan is the temporal leader of their people, but their souls come here for solace and judgment.
When it's his turn, he bows his head. "I did as you commanded. I took Grogu into the galaxy and taught him as I learned."
She doesn't speak. When she's listening, she offers up silences that taught them all the meaning of depth. This one cannot hope but to be filled. He offers up stories of their work, helping the New Republic in their cause, righting wrongs too distant for Coruscant to see or care about.
"Have you returned to stay, Din Djarin?"
He's been asking himself the same question. Part of him hoped she would give the answer, but her silence places no thumb on either end of that scale.
"I haven't decided."
"Your path will become clear in time. This is the Way."
He murmurs the words in return, and allows the next supplicant a turn.
He collects Grogu from the courtyard, and pauses by one of the 'fresher stations to clean up the mud and dirt he's collected during his games. Grogu babbles at him about his day, one aching centimeter outside the realm of words. Din nods along anyway to encourage him. He'll figure things out in his own time even if that time is decades after Din passes along into the Force.
That's another thought he's had from time to time, one that concerns him more these days. When he first took Grogu into his care, they were inseparable, and Din knew as they flew from danger into danger that both of their lives could end at any moment together. He hadn't any time to plan for the possibility of his own death and Grogu's continued survival. Times have changed. So has he.
Dinner is a large event, stew offered in huge tureens and great hunks of fresh breads thick with herbs from the gardens. Grogu's entire face lights up when he's presented with his dinner. Din declines his own for the moment even as his stomach rumbles. Grogu needs attention if they don't want to repeat the Flying Soup Incident. Around them, helmeted Mandalorians take their meals and head off into private alcoves or out into the evening air. Mandalorians without helmets sit around the largest table, or gather in small groups together, laughing and talking as they eat.
Bo-Katan has a chair at the head of the table. For reasons Din doesn't know, he and Grogu have been offered chairs close to her while her own loyal people are spread along and around the room. She watches Grogu eat as she enjoys her own stew.
"Not having any?"
"I'll take mine after he's done."
"You could tip up your helmet." She's seen him eat before, hidden as he was. She doesn't understand the level of trust he placed on her then. She can't, even having lived among them.
"I can wait."
She pulls off a bite of her bread, passing it from hand to hand like a conjurer planning her next trick, finally palming the bite into her mouth. He tries not to watch. He's traveled among outsiders for most of his life. He's used to seeing others eat, but he's blushing as her lips close around the bite of bread.
Bo tears off another hunk and hands it to Grogu, who grabs it and shoves it into his mouth. "Where does he put it all?"
"I don't know. I'm just glad he's not in diapers."
That pulls a laugh that's almost a snort. "Go get your dinner. I'll watch him."
"You're the leader of our planet. I couldn't ask you."
"I'm the leader of our planet, and that sounded like an order." Another smile cuts through the words. She's teasing him, and offering him his meal. He nods, pats Grogu once as a quiet warning, and goes for his own tureen and a quiet room to eat in.
By the time he returns, his son is entrancing the entire table. Din sighs to himself. The kid is incredibly lovable. He felt the same thing the moment they met, and every new face they meet quickly turns to smiles around Grogu. Even the Imperials who'd first paid Din to take him were delighted and fascinated by him. The doctor, Pershing, had been protective despite his fear Din would kill him for it.
Grogu toddles along the table and reaches up to Bo, who brings him onto her lap. From here he can see the whole table while Din watches. He's already come to a decision. He's glad it's going to be the right one.
There's no time to rest after the meal. One of the construction teams has been finishing up more domiciles. They construct communal homes for five or six, and tonight they need help with the final steps of moving in beds and tables before the new residents can leave the palace and begin their new lives. Extra arms are welcome for the task, and even the Mand'alore is there to carry in her half of someone's narrow bed. It's easy work with all the help, and among the faces he can see, he sees shared pride. Among those who wear the helmet, he can read the firm line of satisfaction in their stances and nods to one another. When they fled from world to world, moving was a defeat. On Mandalore, it's a triumph against all the ills of the past.
As they leave the last home, Bo-Katan walks next to him. She's wearing that half-smirk again. "We could probably get you and Grogu at the front of the list for a place here. Everyone knows what you did. They'd be glad to see you living here with us."
It's not a question but he can hear what she's asking. He has no more answer for her than he did when the Armorer asked. "I'm not sure if we're staying."
"Of course," she says, and her attention is taken by another who needs her. She's spent the entire days much as the Armorer has: juggling conflicting necessities among their conflicted people, scraping together time to reestablish what they'll need for a functioning government. It's beyond him in every way. When he first took the Darksaber, he had no idea what he was picking up at the same time. Rotations and cycles later, he's learned enough to know he could never lead their people, not the way the Armorer does without effort, not the way Bo-Katan does as easily as breathing. The Darksaber is gone but the work remains. He's glad they're the ones who've chosen that duty.
There are more empty alcoves tonight. Din finds one to share with Grogu. He's long used to the sounds the little child makes in his sleep, the burbles and mumbles. On the bad nights, he shudders and squeaks in nightmares until Din lifts him from where he sleeps and tucks him into one arm protectively. Tonight he's tired out from playing, babbling to Din quietly until he falls sound asleep.
At daybreak, there are pirates.
He's had to wake up fast plenty of times, but before he can even see why the walls are shaking, the roar of hundreds of jetpacks fills the air, followed by blaster fire.
"Stay here." He doesn't look to see if Grogu listens before he blasts into the air to join them.
It's not a ship he recognizes firing on them, but that means nothing. Pirates steal whatever they can and turn it to their use. The ragtag fighters swarming around it like flitterfish surrounding a happoshark are enough of a tell. Din puts his sights on a ship chasing a Mandalorian he doesn't recognize, shooting missiles to get its attention. Other Mandalorians join the battle, some familiar in their armor, others strangers, all allies now defending their planet.
Another Mandalorian zooms past him, and he knows it's her even before his senses kick in to identify her armor. On some worlds, the leader would stay behind and send warriors in her name to fight threats like this. On Mandalore, she leads the charge. What other choice does he have but to follow?
They've worked together long enough that the pattern is easy to recall: Bo-Katan goes left, Din goes right, they strafe the ships between them before breaking away to do it again and again. The pirates seem to get the message. The small ships zoom off, leaving the main starship to take the brunt of the defenders' attacks. Bo-Katan takes a phalanx of warriors with her, their flight graceful in the heavy morning air. Din keeps position, firing his blasters at the flagship to divide their attention. He can hear the chatter over his helmet, listens as Bo-Katan plans their final strike and orders her warriors to engage.
There's a sharp blast from the far side of the ship, cannonfire roaring into the swarm. Din's helmet goes silent.
A long, terrible moment passes that's confined to the inside of his mind, behind his eyes where no one can see. Palms sweat, stomach clenches, and he's willing her to speak again, to break the awful silence even as he moves in and fires everything he has at the pirates.
There's a light, blinding in intensity, splitting the ship in half, but not from his blasters. The pirate ship tears apart, explosions rocking the remaining pieces as they fall away. Already the other Mandalorians swoop down, firing all their weapons to vaporize the pieces before they strike inhabited ground, but Din's gaze is halted, watching as Bo flies through the wreck, her own blasters picking up the work from above.
She was gone less than ten seconds. The only time he's been more terrified was when he lost sight of Grogu in a crowd on Nar Shaddaa.
Maybe she notices. She looks at him, gives him a curt nod, then keeps firing. He flies beside her, joining her in the cleanup. Not a single scrap larger than Grogu's pram lands on the ground.
Back at the palace, there's no particular celebration. "They've been harassing us for weeks." Bo looks tired but happy. "The little dartsucks will be back but not for a while." She takes a deep breath. "Breakfast?"
Food hasn't entered his mind, but Grogu will need to eat before he eats something he shouldn't. "Good idea."
"I'm having food brought to my quarters. Bring the kid. You can go hide in the 'fresher to eat if you want." She turns and leaves before he can reply.
Grogu did not stay where he was. Din finds him playing with someone else's toys in another alcove. "Put those back." Grogu makes the burble he always does when he pretends not to understand his father so he can continue doing as he pleases. Din takes the toys from his little hands. "You know better." Grogu makes an upset noise. "Anyway it's time to eat." This instantly calms him and he raises his arms to be picked up.
Bo-Katan is the Mand'alor now. Her quarters ought to be sumptuous. Instead her room is hardly bigger than the alcove he's borrowing. Hers has a better door and a 'fresher attached rather than a common one to share, but she has little to fill it. Her home was destroyed twice over, he remembers. First on Mandalore, then on Kalevala. Din had no mementos left of his first life. Bo has none left of any of hers save the armor she's wearing. She is another refugee leading a planet's worth of refugees who are finally coming home.
The last word startles him inside his head.
She takes her breakfast at a small table. He can see the piles of datapads she's stacked on the floor off to the side which no doubt covered it a few minutes ago. Grogu is too small for the other chair, and he's too squirmy for Din's lap this morning, crawling onto the table and grabbing the bite-sized fruits from the common plate with a quick dip of his ears towards Bo-Katan asking for permission he won't wait on before shoving one into his mouth.
She gives Grogu one of her smirks. "I asked for these today so you could join me. I didn't want you to choke." Grogu makes a happy noise and continues to munch.
"Thank you," Din says. It seems rude to turn away from her to eat a few bites himself. He sits and watches Grogu eat, and watches Bo spend more time watching the same rather than eating her own meal. "I wanted to ask you something."
Her eyes dart from Grogu's face to his hidden one. The smirk hasn't changed but it's frozen now on her face, like a wild tharma gone still, waiting with racing heart for a danger to pass by or to get closer that it may dart away to safety. She's always had something of a wild creature about her, one that could bite, or flee, or press him to the ground with one heavy paw while she pants above him.
That image twists and he's very glad she can't see his face as he pushes the thought away.
"You were there when I took Grogu as my son."
"I was." Her face melts into a more neutral expression, her eyes alight as they rest on the small green boy between them, wary as they return to Din. "Truth be told, I assumed he was yours as soon as we met. You two bonded before I knew you."
That isn't untrue. His choice to accept Grogu as his own was not an unanticipated surprise, but a fulfillment of something he's known since the moment he saw the nameless child.
"He likes you."
Grogu tilts his head and looks up to her with a wide smile around his own breakfast, agreeing.
"And you seem to like him," Din adds. "My life is dangerous. I spent every minute with him on the verge of being killed, and him with me. That's changed. But there still could come a time that I'm injured or killed, and he will need a caretaker. I can think of no one I trust more than you."
The words aren't easy. He's thought about this little speech for some time. He can't read her face at all now as she watches him silently. From outside, he can hear children playing in the distant courtyard, can hear the dull murmur of hundreds of voices moving through the stones of this new palace. In here the only sound is Grogu chewing another small fruit.
At last something in her expression breaks. She sits back in her chair, hands in her lap. "I don't know that I deserve that level of trust from you. Your tribe is here. All the people you grew up with. I couldn't raise him in their ways."
"He's on his own path. I'll guide him as much as I can in my beliefs but I know he will find his own. You walk in two worlds. Grogu walks on moons you and I will never see."
Her smile breaks over her face now and he tries to remember when he didn't want to see that, see her. It occurs to him that he spends more time watching the storms and shadows and sunlights moving across this woman's face than he's spent in his life seeing another Mandalorian's face at all.
"It would be an honor." Her voice is caught on something, a rough place inside her throat, or a terrible place inside her past. She looks away and back, and her expression is settled again, caught up in the cage she places around herself when she thinks she's giving nothing away. "I suppose I have a related question. It's why I asked you here today."
Possibilities race through his mind: dreams he won't admit to in the morning, idle thoughts that move through him at night, the moments in between when he's wondered what she was doing wherever she was, what she was thinking right then, and the squirming hope she might be thinking about him.
"You said you weren't sure if you were staying on Mandalore. I am asking you to stay. You are the bridge between your people and the rest of us."
"That was meant to be you."
"It should be both of us. What you understand, and what I understand. We can find the place in the center together." Her words are as practiced as his were, and they sketch an empty space between them, outlining a life she doesn't dare suggest, not yet. She told him yesterday that she expected she might need to take a political match for a mate, that she was ready if that was the need. She also told him her family has a bad habit of falling in love when perhaps they shouldn't. Bo has said plenty of words around what she means, as politicians seem to do.
The other thing he's learned from watching her face is that no matter how carefully she thinks she's stilling her expressions, her eyes always give her away.
"Serve our people with me. Let Grogu learn about his home by growing up here. Stay." He hears what she isn't asking, what she can't ask today. She thought she might have to marry him. She never said she didn't want to.
Din nods silently. The smile Bo gives in reply lights the room like a sun.