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Din had left the comm channel open between the N1 and Bo-Katan’s Kom’rk, the silence on the other end deafening as they made it out of Kalevala’s atmosphere. He’d been expecting a fight, the Tie’s had to have come from somewhere, and they certainly hadn’t seen it when they entered the atmosphere earlier, but the empty space around them was the antithesis of what he’d been preparing himself for.
Behind him, the Kom’rk followed his fighter out of the system. “I’m sending you some co-ordinates,” he said at last, “somewhere we can check the ships over, make sure they’re good for a longer hyperspace jump.” It was an excuse, he knew it and he suspected Bo-Katan did as well, but it was his son on her ship and he’d quite like to get him back before she went hunting for the Imperials who’d destroyed her home.
Her reply was short, her affirmation crackling through his comms and into the N1. It was the hollowness of her voice that worried him the most. He’d expected anger, fury at the destruction of her home, the fire that burned in her to be at full force. The calmness left him nervous. Din just hoped Grogu being by her side would stop her doing anything particularly foolish.
The sun was bright on Vanquo when the two ships dropped out of their brief hyperdrive jump and landed in its hills. For a moment Din watched as the wings of Bo’s Kom’rk folded up towards the sky, the ship hissing as the canopy on his fighter opened and her ship shut down. The air around him smelt of trees and fresh earth, and it only intensified as he jumped from his ship and approached the Kom’rk, the smell filtering through his unsealed helmet.
Grogu was waiting at the top of the ramp, his boy hopping up and down in his pod when Din came over to retrieve him, his tiny fingers stretching up in a gesture Din knew far too well. “Alright buddy.” With care he picked his son up, holding him against his chest plate, as close to his heart as he could. It was something that Grogu had always wanted, the sound soothing him in a way Din didn’t understand but had grown accustomed too. He’d woken up far too many times to Grogu on his chest, big ears pressed over his heart listening to it beat.
He looked down to the child against his chest, his big eyes sad as he looked up at his father before he turned his focus back towards the ship he had arrived on. “She okay buddy?” Bo-Katan had yet to make an appearance. In response Grogu cooed, his ears dropping, and Din sighed. He remembered how painful it had been to lose the Razor Crest, he could just about understand some of what Bo-Katan was feeling right now. Din set Grogu back in his pod and pushed it in the direction of the N1. “Wait here, I’ll be back soon.”
The inside of the Kom’rk was scuffed from years of use, the rungs of the ladder to the cockpit rubbed smooth. Bo-Katan was still in the pilot’s seat, her helmeted head resting back against the seat. “Bo-Katan,” he called softly. Her head turned towards him, the angled glass of her visor not offering much in the way of greeting. “Are you alright?”
There was snort that filtered through her modulator, wry and hollow. “Of course I am. How could I not be?”
Din tensed under her scrutiny, his shoulders tightening as his face heated in embarrassment. “The kid was worried about you. We both are.” Her focus shifted towards the holo-map opened in the projector, Kalevala glowing in the centre, a single Imperial light cruiser hanging in orbit and he realised that she wouldn’t give him anything more. His gaze shifted from her helmeted head to the holo-map, nodding towards the ship, “do you know who that belongs to?”
Bo pulled herself to her feet and came to stand by his side. “No. They were hiding behind the curvature of Kalevala when we broke atmosphere. I suspect it was purposeful so we couldn’t identify them. That cruiser could have come from anywhere, they’re designed with long range hyperdrive for pinpoint assaults and today it was aimed at me.” There was sadness in her voice made Din suddenly worried, his heartrate picking up as he sensed something in her he didn’t quite understand.
Behind them there was a soft grumble, the sound as sad as Bo-Katan had sounded a moment before, the pair of them turning to see Grogu hovering close behind them, his little arms outstretched to Bo-Katan, the droop in his ears saying he’d sensed the same thing Din had. “I thought I told you to wait outside?”
Grogu’s big brown eyes bounced quickly to Din before he looked back to Bo-Katan, his arms reaching out a little farther as he chirped insistently. “It’s alright,” Bo reached down for the child, his clawed fingers gripping onto her vambrace as she lifted him to her chest. “I don’t mind.” Her stance softened instantly, Grogu cooing gently against her chest, his son working the same magic on her as he did on everyone else. As far as Din was aware there wasn’t a person alive who had withstood his charms.
He dragged his eyes away from the child nestled against Bo’s chest to her helmeted face, suddenly missing seeing the mischief in her eyes, the warmth they held when she looked at someone she cared for. “Where will you go?”
Her fingers smoothed over one of Grogu’s ears as she thought for a moment before she sighed, the sadness returning. “I have a nephew somewhere in the galaxy. I don’t think he’d be overly happy to see me, but he owes me a favour. He might let me cash it in while I hunt down whomever this cruiser belongs too.” Her relationship with Korkie hadn’t always been great but it was something they had both worked on over the years.
Beside her Din tensed, drawing Grogu’s eyes. “And then what? You storm this cruiser on your own. That’s suicide,” his voice suddenly harsh and angry, unhappy to see her so reckless with her life.
The blue paint of her helmet was tinted by the glass of his visor when she turned to look at him, but even with them both in place he could see the fury in her face, long before he heard it in her voice. “What do you want from me Din? You sent your son to me for help, and I came, I showed you to the mines, I pulled your shebs out of the water so what do you want from me now?” The snarl in her voice made him cautious, the anger he’d expected at the destruction of her home suddenly directed at him. “I could have been there when those Tie’s attacked,” her finger jabbed towards the holo, “when they dropped out of hyperspace. I should have been there to-”
“And you’d be dead,” his voice was loud, loud enough to bounce of the bulkheads around him and stun her into silence while he braced for her anger to be turned back on him.
Instead, her arms stretched out, Grogu being held in them for him to take back from her, the child looking between them with wide eyes. He took him carefully, her arms dropping back to her sides and her voice just a whisper when she spoke. “Would that be so bad?” She didn’t wait for him to reply, turning and dropping to the deck below before he even had chance to process her words.
The apathy in her wasn’t something he had expected; fire and grief, yes; what she had just shown him, no. He thought back to his first visit to Kalevala, to her slouched on her throne armoured and alone and wondered how he’d missed it, how he’d missed her supposed anger when it was really some form of despair he’d never considered. How long had she been sat there alone before he turned up? How long had she been thinking of herself as a failure to her people and to Mandalore? From what he understood of her life it hadn’t been easy, fighting on the wrong side and then the right, losing her people seemingly again and again, to crime syndicates, to the Empire and to each other.
It was no wonder she had initially hated him and the covert of Mandalorian’s he was a part of, those who had stood by and abandoned Mandalore and by extension her, when they’d been most needed. Guilt clawed up his spine as he looked at the world where her home had once stood. How many homes had she lost over the years of her life?
Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement outside the ship, the blue and white of Bo’s beskar dipping underneath the cockpit windows. Din placed Grogu back in his pod, “this time you stay right here buddy. Do not move.” His son grumbled at him, the sound irritated and annoyed. He’d never been good at following instructions he didn’t like.
It didn’t take long for Din to reach where Bo-Katan was sat, her legs hanging off the edge of the cliff where they had landed. He made sure his footsteps were loud enough that she heard him, unwilling to startle her. She didn’t look at him as he sat himself down beside her, eyeing the drop below them and quietly checking his jetpack was secure on his back at the same time. Her eyes never shifted from the horizon, even when he edged a little closer to her side.
For a long time he watch the sun with her, Bo-Katan offering no hint that she was even aware of him by her side. When the silence eventually grew too much Din sighed, pulling his legs back from the cliff edge and to fold underneath him. “It would have,” he said at last, “if you’d been killed, it would have been bad, the galaxy and Mandalore would have lost a true warrior, a leader.” He turned his gaze from the sun to the back of her head. “I would have lost a friend.”
Her shoulders hitched in what he suspected might have been a sob, “you don’t know me, Din. You wouldn’t call me a friend if you did.”
“You’re right.” In front of him her head dipped as it shook and he pushed on, “you did come for me. I sent Grogu to you because I knew you’d come, I trusted you to take him, to care for him and to help, and I’d trust you with him again right now.” Again, her shoulder shook and this time he was certain she was crying. “I know that when I asked you answered, you risked yourself for me more than once. That makes you my friend.”
Slowly he reached out, one hand catching on her pauldron and pulling. She came to him easily, his arms wrapping around her and her helmeted head tucking into his shoulder for a few minutes, and it occurred to him then that this would have been another thing she’d been missing; human contact. Mandalorian’s were a tactile people. They liked to be close to each other even if they couldn’t see each others faces. “It would have been a bad thing to lose you,” he repeated.
He gave her the time she needed to re-gather herself, sitting shoulder to shoulder as they watched the sun blaze across the sky, legs dangling over the edge again. “I’ve always liked heights,” Bo said suddenly, her head tipped forward to see the valley bellow. “When I was little I’d jump of the cliffs outside the castle on Kalevala and into the ocean. Satine hated it, was terrified of the drop, but I loved it. The trick to not drowning was jumping in the lightest clothes you could, that way you could swim.” It was something she had perfected in her early years, climbing back up the rocks and jumping again and again until her parents found out.
Her hands gripped the rocks at the edge as she leaned forward a little more to look past her feet. “When I went back to Kalevala after the fleet left, I thought about jumping in my beskar so I couldn’t swim.” Bo shrugged her shoulders and leaned back on her hands. “No one would have cared, no one would have noticed.”
“What stopped you?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly, settling back into the silence of before leaving Din stunned and saddened, the urge to keep her safe and in his sight suddenly all consuming.
His eyes traced the helmet she was still wearing. “When was the last time you removed your helmet?”
Her hands came up instantly, thumbs grazing the underside of the metal before she dropped them again. “Since I pulled you out of the Living Waters.”
Din grinned inside his helmet. “Then you are redeemed. You bathed in the living waters and are redeemed.”
Bo-Katan shook her head. “I didn’t say the words.” Her face turned to him and again he missed being able to see her face, to read the emotions she sometimes let slip, “I don’t think it works that way, Din.”
“You are Mandalorian. You bathed in the waters when you saved my life. If I am no longer an apostate then the same can be said about you. You could come with us, join us.” Hope grew in his chest. “We know now Mandalore is not cursed, we could reclaim it for our people. Besides, the kid really likes you.” He turned his head to where Grogu was hovering nearby, having disregarded his father’s instructions on staying put. At his nod, his son jumped down from the pod and toddled over, clambering up on to Bo-Katan’s lap again and snuggling close to her belly. The sight warmed Din’s heart, Grogu hadn’t taken to someone the way he had to Bo since Cara Dune had been fighting by his side, and perhaps not even then.
Bo-Katan shook her head. “I don’t think your Covert would welcome me. Some of them would have been Death Watch, and they feel I betrayed them a long time ago. With everything I’ve done, I’m pretty sure most of your Covert would kill me on sight.”
“Mandalorian’s are stronger together.” Her head turned sharply to him, tension flaring across her shoulders as she heard her words parroted back to her. “It’s true. You know and I know it. With proof that Mandalore is safe they would be fools to cast you out.”
For a long moment he thought she would refuse him, her focus not shifting from the sky above. “Alright,” she said at last. “I’ll join the Children of the Watch, at least for now.”
Underneath his helmet, Din couldn’t wipe the grin from his face.