Chapter Text
Of course it would be the first job that Bo-Katan had joined Din and Grogu on that would go so haphazardly. Din’s other assignments had passed mainly without incident, and incidents that had gotten in the way had been quickly stamped out. But of course, when Bo decided to join them for one after hearing Din’s stories, that would be the one that rebounded and resulted in a large-scale attack that would result in Bo having to save Din, again.
Like she needs the ego boost, he thought.
“You know, I’m really having to make a habit of saving your ass,” she’d told him, as the three of them managed to escape their attackers. He was glad of his helmet, as he didn’t have to resist the urge to roll his eyes.
“Yeah, you can brag when we get to safety.” He retorted back, shooting his blaster over his shoulder at a following attacker. He managed to stun them for long enough that he could pull Bo and Grogu around a corner, altering their course but also meaning they would not be tracked further. Bo let out a gasp as he grabbed her, and he assumed he must’ve pulled her a little too harshly. He murmured a quick apology before checking over his shoulder to see if they were still being pursused.
It was a while more of running before it seemed that they’d lost their enemies entirely. They reached a secluded clearing that Din thought they’d have to have the worst luck in the galaxy to be found in. “Alright. I think we’re in the clear.”
“You’re sure?” Din thought that something sounded off in Bo-Katan’s voice. Then again, with her helmet on as it was, maybe there was just interference. He turned to his friend and nodded. “Alright.”
Bo raised her arms to remove her helmet. Din noticed her moves were slower than he was used to. He frowned. His confused concern only grew as her helmet was lifted, and he saw how pale her face was, devoid of any colour, and pained with an agony that even reached her eyes.
“Bo, are you—”
He didn’t even get to finish before Bo’s helmet clattered to the ground as she dropped it - causing Grogu to let out a cry - and her entire body dropped. Din rushed forward in a fraction of a second to catch his friend before she could hit the ground. “Easy. Are you hurt?” He tried to help her back up into a standing position, but the moment he took his support away, she crumpled again. Even when he kept hold of her, it was obvious she couldn’t remain standing. A fear that was wholly unfamiliar to him clenched at his chest. He knelt slowly to the ground, keeping hold of her to help her down as gently as he could. Her entire body weight collapsed against him. He kept his arms around her, worried that the slightest movement might see her fall further. “Alright. Alright, there you go. Are you okay? Bo?”
Her breaths, he realised, were shallow and shaky. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Din, I’m so tired.”
That was when he saw the red.
It was on her hands. On the floor behind her like a trail. Pooling around her now, bleeding onto him. His heart dropped in a way that would have surprised him, had he had time to notice anything but the glaring obvious truth in front of him.
Paleness. Weakness. Tiredness. Breathlessness. Blood.
His friend was dying.
She must’ve taken a hit while protecting Din from the attack he didn’t see coming. She must’ve been bleeding the entire time they were running.
How had he not noticed?
Her eyelids fluttered again, closing, her head falling against him. He took one arm from around her to put a hand to her cheek in attempt to rouse her.
“Bo. Bo, you need to stay awake for me, okay?” He knew it was futile, really. Nothing could be done. Perhaps telling her to stay awake was cruel. But he did it, for reasons he couldn’t articulate even to himself. She groaned, her eyes forcing back open. He scanned over her, looking for even the smallest hint as to how and where the blood was coming from. He couldn’t see anything. Nothing made sense. Perhaps he was looking too desperately, blind to the obvious due to a panic he wasn’t used to feeling. “Where are you hurt?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she slurred, “too late.”
This wasn’t what was supposed to happen, he thought. She wasn’t supposed to be the one who died for him. It was never meant to be that way round.
“What were you thinking, letting yourself get hurt like this?” There was a lump forming in this throat. It was rare he felt that. He tried to swallow it down. It didn’t work.
“They were going to hurt you.” She said it as if it were so simple. No. It wasn’t right. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. She’d saved him enough times. It wasn’t supposed to kill her. He was the one serving her. This shouldn’t be her sacrifice.
“But now you’re hurt.”
“I can live with that.” What if I can’t? “Or die with it, I guess.”
She laughed. Din didn’t.
He looked at his friend, and knew in truth he could do nothing to save her, as much as it was all he wanted to do. The most he could do now was comfort her. She deserved that, to die comforted. She deserved it more than anyone he’d met in his lifetime.
Removing his helmet was the one thing he’d sworn never to do again. The last time had been an exception. He had thought it might be the last time he’d ever see his son, and he wanted his son’s last memory of him to be of his face. Perhaps this time would be an exception, too - perhaps it was only kind to let his face, and not a helmet, be the last thing that Bo saw. No one would know. No one but the three of them.
Carefully, he unfolded his arms from around her, at first worried she might fall. When she only slumped against him further, he brought his hands to his helmet, and removed it, placing it down beside him. A guilt rose up inside him, though it was swiftly pushed back down. This is for her. You owe her this, at least.
He wrapped one arm back around her, supporting her head and her shoulders. “Lie down. There you go.” He used his other arm to gently coax her down until she lay in his arms, still pressed up against him. She seemed to relax, just slightly, the agonied tension in her body easing just a little. “Is that better?”
She nodded.
“Hurts less.” She looked up at him with pain-filled eyes, a faint smile haunting her lips as her eyes met his. “You know, I think I preferred you with the helmet on.”
“Well, I preferred you with all the blood in your body, personally.” He quipped back, though his voice shook a little. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
“You would’ve wanted to stop. Then all three of us would be dead.” A deep, shaky breath, and a wince. “Not the kid, I guess. You would’ve told him to go to safety.” She smiled weakly. “But where would he have been without you?”
“Where will Mandalore be without you?” Bo only shook her head, as if still doubting her importance after everything they’d been through, after all her time ruling. Mandalore needed her. Din needed her. Why couldn’t she understand that, even now? Did she really think she was so expendable that her death wouldn’t impact anyone? Din took a breath. “Where will we be without you?”
To that, she laughed weakly.
“You don’t need me.” Wrong. “You got by without me before. You’ll get by without me again.”
Before you and after you are two different things, Din wanted to say. I don’t remember before you. I don’t want to know after you. But he didn’t. Instead:
“You need to fight, Bo. For your people.” For us. Don’t leave us.
“I’m tired of fighting, Din. I’ve been fighting my whole life. I want to rest now. I’m so tired.” Another shaky inhale. With every one, Din wondered whether it would be her last. “The people… they’ll be fine. Mandalore always survives. It’ll be okay.” She put a hand on his arm, letting out a small gasp of pain. “Can you… can you do something for me?”
I want to save you. He blinked the burning damp sensation from his eyes and cleared his throat.
“Anything, my Lady.”
“If you see Ahsoka again…” her voice softened, her ghostly smile widening a little, “tell her I love her.”
Din wasn’t sure whether or not he was surprised by this revelation. He didn’t have time to decide. “Tell her I wasn’t alone. And that I was ready. Don’t tell her I was in pain.” She winced, inhaling sharply. “Tell her to keep looking at the stars. Tell her that’s where I’ll be. In the colours in the sky. And with her, always. My little Stargazer.”
She looked as though she were about to cry. Din squeezed her softly with the arm that supported her.
“I promise.” He silently cursed himself for the way his voice cracked. Don’t upset her.
Beside them, Grogu whimpered. Bo turned her head to face him, and reached out weakly to him.
“Hey, kid, it’s okay.” She whispered. “It’s going to be okay. I need you to be brave for your Dad now though, alright? Can you do that for me?”
Din couldn’t bring himself to watch his son’s response. Instead he watched his friend smile again, before her head fell back against his arm as she turned her attention back to him, her eyes starting to unfocus. “I’ll be with you too. Both of you. Can’t stop saving your ass just because I’m dead, can I?” She laughed weakly, though this only resulted in a wince of pain. Din fought back a sob. “Do you… do you think it’s true?” Her voice was growing raspier, and Din could tell it was hurting her to talk. “That there’s something there after death?”
The lump in Din’s throat wouldn’t budge. The burning was back in his eyes.
“I— I don’t know.” He answered, truthfully, wanting to give her as much reassurance as he could, but wanting to lie to her even less. “But I’ve always hoped I would see my parents again.”
And you. If there’s something after, it means I’ll see you again. It means you really might be around.
“I want to see my sister.” Her eyelids fluttered again, clearly growing heavier. A breath caught in Din’s throat. “I miss her.”
Bo had only talked about her sister a few times, but Din knew how much the loss pained her even now. It was the reason she rarely spoke of her. Din could only hope they’d be reunited again.
“I’m sure she can’t wait to see you, Bo.”
“I hope so.” Her voice was fading. Din swallowed. “I’d better not see you there for a while, okay?” Breath. “Your kid needs you. Look after him.”
“I will.” Help me to. Stay. Please.
“I know.” Bo coughed. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth. She could barely catch breath. “Din— thank you. For everything but… mostly… for being my friend.”
“It has been my honour, Lady Kryze.” There was more truth in Din’s words than there ever had been before. Bo-Katan had changed him, for the better too. Losing her felt like losing a piece of himself; something he found incredibly difficult to reconcile, unable to pinpoint anyone else, aside from his own son, that he felt that strongly about.
Something new and unfamiliar flickered in Bo’s fading eyes. Once more, it looked as though she might cry.
“I’m scared,” she whispered, and Din didn’t know how to describe the tightness in his chest as he heard the words, “I know I said I was ready, and I am but I… I’m so scared, Din.”
“It’s okay.” Din didn’t even try to hide the shake in his voice anymore. With his spare hand, he took hold of one of hers, feeling her cling to it with all the strength she had left. “I’m here. You’re safe. I won’t go anywhere.”
A tear slipped from his eye before he could even care enough to stop it. He blinked, so that he could clear his vision, and properly look at his friend for the last time.
“I guess my song is over, huh?”
He could barely hear her now, her voice was so faint. He pulled her a little closer.
“I will sing it for as long as I live.”
Bo’s final moments of awareness were focused onto him, the two of them holding each other’s tear-filled gazes. Then, she seemed to go somewhere else. Her eyes flitted away from him, her gaze focusing on something he couldn’t see, a smile of serenity crossing her lips.
“Satine?”
Her sister. That was her sister’s name. That’s what she saw, or thought she could see. Her sister, finally.
Din felt his friend’s body slacken, along with her hand in his. An exhale of breath was met with no inhale, and the last shred of the soul he knew so well left the eyes they had once belonged to. He looked at her in a moment of stunned silence.
“Bo?”
A hurt settled into his heart that he had the strangest of feelings might be with him forever now - like the hurt had replaced the part of him she took with her.
Once he could trust himself to move, he placed her hand across her stomach, raising his own to close her eyes. He looked at her for a moment longer, then brought her to him, pressing a kiss against her forehead.
“Rest easy, Lady Kryze.” He whispered. “Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum.”
Words they hadn’t shared while she was alive. But words he felt, right in the depths of his soul.
He lay her onto the ground, gently, as if he risked hurting her otherwise. His arms had never felt so empty. Grogu whimpered, and nudged her. Of course, there was no response. The kid didn’t stop, though, trying again, and looking up to Din with a sad, desperate confusion in his eyes. Din sighed softly. “She’s not gonna wake up, kid.”
He picked up his helmet, and slipped it back onto his head, before his son could see the tears that were about to leak from his eyes. Grogu lay down, burrowing into Bo-Katan’s side. Din’s next shuddering breath finally broke off into a sob as he took hold of his friend’s hand, using his other to close her fingers around his.
They’d have to leave soon. They’d have to take her home. But for now, they’d sit with her in silent vigil and grief.
If you’re really there, Your Grace, please take care of her.