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There was a Jedi on Kamino.
Jango kept himself from growling, which was annoyingly easy now that he didn’t actually have the vocal cords to do so.
There was a Jedi, of all things, on Kamino and he only had half an hour to prepare.
There were so many moving parts, players playing players, so many games he was watching and stacking. He didn’t want to upset any of his own carefully laid plans because of an unexpected hitch.
Fucking Sith made everything so complicated.
He spent twenty minutes running through the different things needed to be done, how much he’d need to do at minimum to not trip up and make any “employer” of his too suspicious, and then ten minutes setting everything up just so. It was with a quiet, disguised assurance that he walked out of the storage room when he heard Boba and the Kaminoan looking for him, armor just barely visible behind him to tip off the Jedi so they would follow.
And then he looked up at the Jedi.
Cassus.
He recognized the man in front of him immediately, the knowledge settling into his bones like a gravity field. The person in front of him, the soul, was Cassus Fett once again.
It took him a split second to get over seeing his best advisor and lover again. By the time the euphoria was broken, Cassus was already talking to him. Clearly alluding to the assassination and assassination attempts.
Kriff, Cassus was a Jedi.
A Jedi whose name he had missed.
Master Jedi it was, then.
"When in doubt, when in unexpected circumstances, stick to the plan like nothing’s wrong to buy time until you can start a new plan," was what Cassus had drilled into his head.
He’d been a good Mand’alor. A good fighter and good at war. But there’d been Sith around and he had never had the natural patience to deal with their particular type of nonsense. Cassus had had to teach him that.
He always found it laughably ironic that in this time with so many fewer Sith, he had to use those strategies so much more than when he’d been technically allied with a whole slew of them.
It became apparent, even as they circled each other like they had done in their first lives so naturally, that Cassus didn’t recognize him.
No.
Cassus Fett, the man who’d nearly kept up with him, who’d helped take the strong core he was building and added a ruthlessness that made everything that much more efficiently potent, the proof of how right he’d been to take in those who weren’t Taung, didn’t remember.
Cassus Fett wouldn’t have been able to stand following the orders of a pointless, incoherently corrupt senate if he remembered following his Mand’alor. Cassus had thrived best with actual goals, with the purpose he had given the man. The snake clothed in politeness out of rote instead of a particular scheme in front of him could only ignore and bear the clear chafing because he couldn’t remember anything better.
Jango sent Cassus off with his own clothed smile, needing time to prepare.
And he needed time to vent, he had to admit.
He told his son to pack and stepped into the small training room in the apartment, setting the two robots to their highest difficulty.
He remembered growing up for the second time. He remembered when he was finally cognizant enough to realize he’d been reborn as a descendent of his ultimate partner. He remembered the pride that came with that, the bittersweet consolation as he realized no one around him was the same, that he no longer had Cassus, just Clan Fett.
He remembered resolving himself to take advantage of the peacetimes, the steady, purposeful life of a farmer growing the food needed to live, safe in all the ways that had been denied to him and his Fett their entire lives. And then war had come to him anyways. And he’d responded to the call, refusing to be burnt when he could pick up a torch himself.
And now, after trial and tribulation, mistake after mistake that he had no Cassus to partner through with him, as he was on the cusp of finally righting things, reclaiming the position of a proper Mand’alor, finally here was Cassus again.
A Cassus that couldn’t remember them. Who counted himself a Jedi.
Jango let out a human version of a growl.
He’d doubted, for a moment, a logical but bitter moment, in their conversation that perhaps he’d been mistaken but no. No, that was Cassus.
Their connection had been… special. Not from the moment they met, a rising vassal greeting their Mand’alor - just one in a whole line of similar beings - but developed over the years, until they needed as many words as the Taung-pairs of old tales allegedly had. Until they could feel about where each other was a quarter planet away. The Jedi and Sith had been confused by it, not liked it, often. It was apparently both of the Force and not, apparently.
And then he’d been reborn as Jango and could feel a bit of what they had all nattered on about. Star-rock Sense, his first grandmother – leader of the clan and the one who’d prepared him to let go of his name to take on the mantle of Mand’alor – would have called it. Not full Star Sense or Star Sickness, but something.
So between their old bond and what had happened to bring him into this new life, he was certain the Jedi was Cassus, even if he had hair the color of polished copper instead of oxidized now.
He was going to get Cassus back by his side, he decided, calm as he tore the main computer out of the remaining training robot. He’d have to plan like a Sith and keep his options open like he and Cassus had always done. It would be easiest to get his lover back by his side by Cassus remembering. But it would probably be easiest to get the man to remember by keeping him by his side at the same time.
Well, Cassus had always liked how he could overcome such contradictions anyways.
Jango brought his son with him out to the landing pad (one of the few things he thought was done better nowadays, how precious children were. They’d been important in the days of his first life, sure, but they weren’t cherished as actively, as communally as Mandalorians did nowadays) and set him into the ship to turn it on.
Cassus showed up, because of course he did. He should have been too distracted by the army, but Cassus’s instincts were always good and he was trying to chase down his Mand’alor. Of course Cassus could still feel him about to leave.
Jango made sure to give him a good scuffle, to show off that he could still fight with the best of them (even if he did get tripped up a few times by the inhuman acrobatics added to a relatively familiar fighting style. Cassus hadn’t been a Force user last time they’d sparred). And he made sure to take the emergency rocket launcher out of the secret compartment at the bow of his ship, under the cockpit.
Throwing Cassus “off” the deck, he ran around to the stern and got in his ship, not bothering to hide his smile when it was just him and his son as he sensed Cassus stow away in the purposefully revealed space, in the cockpit’s blindspot.
Cassus had always been clever, and a bit reckless. It was a good thing that spot had been too good an opportunity to smuggle people before and had long been renovated to be space habitable, if cramped.
He ruffled Boba’s hair as the autopilots engaged seamlessly and launched them into hyperspace.
He had his son, whole and healthy and growing well. He had an army, even if others thought it was theirs and they would have to act for a while. He had supporters, slowly and quietly working among those too ignorant to listen. And now he had Cassus back, even if he’d have to call him "Obi-Wan" for the foreseeable future and hold back.
At least, after he pulled this act with Dooku, played unfortunate cut-off mercenary to make a logical alliance with his partner, it would be very easy to arrange things to get close quickly.
Jango did make sure to hide the more zealous smile now on his face from his son. Boba could learn more about the things that led to this sort of excitement when he and Cassus had a proper Mandalore running again.