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The small fire they’d lit crackled softly as he approached it, embers floating indolently into the night air. Din’s footsteps were muffled against the mossy undergrowth as he returned from scouting the wooded area that surrounded the Gauntlet. Rolling hills and copses of trees filled the horizon, the homes of the native inhabitants nestled within them, overlooking rush-lined lakes. Fireflies drifted silently through the dusky light, occasionally brushing up against the trees, casting an ever-moving ethereal glow over the landscape. All in all, it was a rather pretty pastoral scene. Din knew there would be very little threat from the docile creatures that inhabited the planet, the lowing animals more interested in consuming the native flora than their three visitors. Bo had teased him about his insistence on a perimeter check, but it was always wise to perform one before nightfall, no matter how peaceful the surroundings.
Despite his misgivings, Ilos had proven itself to be as tranquil as it looked. The Ilosians had been gentle and welcoming to their visitors, offering such an abundant array of edible hospitality that it had been difficult to tear the kid away. Alas, they hadn’t seen Bo’s fleet, or at least hadn’t for some time. They did have new intel on where to look next, but the trail was beginning to run cold, and Din hoped that the next planet would yield results for Bo’s sake. She couldn’t take much more disappointment.
Moving silently towards the fire, Din rounded the boulder that hid their little camp from prying eyes. Against it, fast asleep and with the remains of their evening meals piled up in front of them, were Bo and the kid. He stopped immediately, amused that a warrior so fastidious about keeping watch as he’d found Bo-Katan Kryze to be could have been corrupted so easily into languor by the little green menace. Grogu was curled up against her chest; his little claw clutched at the edge of her beskar where it met her neck, like a babe cradled snugly within their mother’s arms. Inside his chest, a small but familiar ache began to take root.
It was a pain decades old. Witnessing the kid’s clear bond with Bo over their weeks of travel had stirred up memories he thought he’d dealt with, alongside familiar feelings of inadequacy. Taking a deep breath, Din fought back the sudden wave of grief that threatened to overtake him as he quietly took a seat beside their sleeping forms. Bo barely stirred as he did so. The only movement she made was to sleepily slide closer to him - somehow aware, even while slumbering, that he was a safe presence - and rested her head against his shoulder. It was domestic; like they were a little family out in the galaxy together. That thought only made the warring feelings between his duty as Grogu’s caretaker and the trauma of his past that had built over the weeks they’d travelled together surge stronger, on the cusp of engulfing him.
They wouldn’t, of course. Din had more control over the scar of festering sorrow than perhaps was healthy, but it was still there. A needling anguish that became a physical ache only when he was reminded of it too deeply. There was no starker reminder of that grief as he looked at the kid cradled in Bo’s arms in the safety he himself wanted to provide for Grogu. The safety that he’d had mercilessly torn from him so long ago.
The security and comfort only parents could provide to a child lost in the galaxy.
In Bo and himself, Grogu appeared to have found those things, and, as their journeys continued, Din found that it had begun to affect him more and more. A hole in his chest reopened every time he was reminded of it. A loss he would never regain. He didn’t resent the pair for the feelings stirred within him; they were his feelings and his alone, but he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with them either. Din supposed he could talk to Bo about it, but they weren’t quite close enough yet to where discussing something so personal wasn’t pervaded by its own awkwardness. He didn’t want to make her unnecessarily uncomfortable for something that was entirely his dilemma. How do I tell her that her care for the kid reminds me of my mother, anyway? he thought to himself with a sigh. The very idea of it seemed ridiculous.
Nevertheless, Bo’s gentle reassurance and calm demeanour around Grogu continued to do so, leaving him with a yearning ache. On the surface, her treatment of the kid was a breath of fresh air. Too many times on their travels, the boy had been treated either with thinly veiled contempt or simply as Din’s unusual pet; a living thing, but one to be ignored, or worse: scorned. On the other hand, Bo treated Grogu as if he were Din’s natural-born son, acknowledging his intelligence and understanding. More than once, Din had overheard her refer to him as the kid’s father when speaking softly to Grogu, and it constricted something in his chest every time. The way she considered the kid to be simply a child in need of loving care had endeared Bo to him in ways he hadn’t thought possible, and Din knew the way he had begun to feel about her was more than just respect.
Yet it was also those moments when Din was reminded of his mother the most. How she would gently deal with his childish whims and reassure him when he needed it. He missed her, missed both his parents, terribly. The ache pulled in his chest again, and Din knew he couldn’t hide from it any longer. Enduring the pain was the only way to truly remember the joy. That’s what grief was after all and keeping it inside wasn’t going to do him any good. Closing his eyes beneath the helmet, he took a deep breath and let himself get lost in the memories he so rarely let surface.
It didn’t matter how hazy the images were, he’d always remember the warmth of his childhood home first and foremost. The small kitchen had been the heart of that: sandy-coloured walls covered in trinkets, paintings, and interesting knick-knacks his parents had collected over the years, the smell of his mother’s cooking – usually a stew, warm and comforting – and her voice, singing songs that he no longer recalled the words to. Din remembered standing on a stool at the counter, either chopping vegetables or stirring the pot on the stove – that part of his memory tended to shift like sand. Fragmentary. Harder to pin down a clear image of it. But he could always hear his mother’s soft words encouraging him to keep going and her gentle hand guiding his movements with the ladle before she kissed him on the head. If he focused hard enough, he could still feel the imprint of her smile against his skin as she did so. Then his father was there, home from the market, ruffling Din’s hair affectionately. His mother smoothed it back into place as she murmured about their day, the words an out-of-focus version of true speech. Muffled. Lost to time.
Even now, through the flood of grief, the memory of his mother’s constant physical affection loosened something warm in his chest. It opened the small door to the space in his heart where she and his father were forever happy and alive. Just like he watched Bo do with the kid, his mother would run her hand through his hair whenever she spoke to him or even just when she passed him in their home. A soft caress. Unspoken adoration. That feeling of being safe, of being loved, was something he felt no one could provoke in him now - not after the last time his mother had ever done so. He could still feel the ghost of her touch on his scalp, her fingers sliding absent-mindedly through his hair as she was discussing with his father the supplies for an upcoming festival they needed from the market. Din’s attention had been on the small gyroball he’d got as a gift only days before, passing it between his hands on the tabletop as he absently listened to their conversation. Even then, he had never imagined that his mother’s caress - an until then immutable fixture of his life - could be torn from him so violently.
Din’s muscles tensed as the remembered explosions rang in his ears again, as clear as the day they had happened. A boom followed by ringing silence that knocked him off balance before the next shook the ground. He could hear the sickening clank and whirr of the battle droids; saw the flashes of their wrist blasters behind his closed eyes. Then came the screams – dank farrik, the screams. Desperate cries of those he knew as they called out incoherently, echoing as they fled behind him before blaster fire silenced them. Din felt his father’s arms around him, as well as the terror that exuded from both of his parents as they ran. Heard his mother desperately call out something about a safe space to hide. Dust and grit filled the air, choking him, his eyes watering as his father pulled the doors to that cellar open while his mother clutched him to her, stroking over his hair. That was the last time either of his parents embraced him; his mother’s arms wound tightly around him, just as his had been around her, then his father’s kiss on his forehead. Whispered words of reassurance he couldn’t hear above the destruction, but her final ‘I love you’ stuck with him. The sound of the words distant, desperate, and brokenhearted. An apology for something for which she was faultless. Then the heavy thunk as they closed the doors again, leaving Din utterly alone in the darkness, wrenched from the safety and protection of his childhood. Seconds later, one final explosion had sealed it. The rattle of the doors overhead was a sound that he wouldn’t forget for as long as he lived.
He’d emerged from that cellar bereaved of both his parents as well as the ability to accept emotional closeness. Within days of their death, he had taken the Creed, and his life had forever closed off to the kind of physical affection he had once taken for granted. His beskar and his helmet kept him cut off from true intimacy, though Din half wondered if he didn’t simply use them as an excuse to throw up his own walls out of the fear that hadn’t left him since the day those cellar doors had closed overhead. The prospect of letting someone get close to him, only to then risk losing them just the same…
He couldn’t go through that again. It would end him.
The light of the fire gently flickered back into focus as Din opened his eyes. Dancing embers continued to float away, joining the other pinpricks of light in the milky band of pinks and purples that shot across the night sky. It reminded Din of the vastness of the galaxy that he now inhabited compared to the warm pocket of his childhood home found in his memories. He took a sharp breath in; body jerking with the force of his emotions, his throat constricting at the rare feeling of hot tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Grogu deserved better than a caretaker who couldn’t even express his emotions properly. The kid was bright and cheerful and thrived on the praise and affection given by those he encountered, especially Bo. What would happen when she returned to her followers, and he was left alone to deal with the boy? Din knew he’d struggle. He wasn’t affectionate in the way Grogu needed him to be. He couldn’t praise him for progress in his training like Bo did because it required him to speak those soft words last said to him by his parents, and he couldn’t bear the ache of loss that would crop up whenever he tried. He wouldn’t stroke the boy’s fuzzy little head for fear it would remind him that such affection had been taken from, and was still denied to him. All because of a war he had had no part in.
Din knew it was ridiculous to be envious of a child and his ability to readily receive the affection he craved, but nevertheless, he was. Something about the way Bo would unhesitatingly reach for Grogu, taking him into her arms and cradling him, softly stroking over his peach fuzz as she did so, had Din’s insides twisting painfully. In truth, he wanted to feel the warmth of his mother’s embrace one last time, to feel the reassurance of her fingers through his hair even though it was impossible. Even if she were still alive, he would be unable to receive her attention in the way he wanted. With the Creed he now followed, such affection was forbidden no matter how much he yearned for it. How was he supposed to care for a child when these things were denied to him?
It's not just your mother’s embrace you long for, though, is it? the voice at the back of his head snidely interjected. You envy the affection the kid receives from her, don’t you?
Beneath his helmet, Din screwed his face up in annoyance at the sudden intrusion of his conscience. He wasn’t jealous of Grogu for receiving attention specifically from Bo. The idea was ridiculous! It was simply that to receive that sort of intimacy from someone meant that you had grown close to them and knew them on a deeper level. He and Bo were still getting to know one another. Sure, he spent long evenings talking to her about everything and anything as they prepared ration packs for the three of them. Bo did most of the talking, but he relished listening to her and asking questions. The long flights through hyperspace that he wanted to go on forever, where they’d snipe at one another, trading playful barbs that made her face light up in a way he’d come to secretly enjoy. Wanting had become a theme when he thought of her. The way he wanted to talk to her about anything that came to mind. The way he wanted Bo to run her fingers through his hair as he spoke about what troubled him. How he wanted her to cup his face and reassure him that he could care for the kid. How he wanted to feel her soft skin on his…
Din’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt, running over the last words that had entered his mind. Dank farrik, he was absolutely losing it. What did any of that have to do with missing his mother? It’s the affection you crave, you dolt, his conscience unhelpfully supplied. You see her being a mother figure to the kid and think the feelings it stirs are only about missing your own. It’s more than that.
Shifting against the boulder in annoyance, Din didn’t want to admit that his conscience might be right. Of late, his relationship with Bo had been changing to something he couldn’t name. Those desires for a deeper connection, though similar to those surrounding Grogu’s care, were a different issue entirely and one he’d need to think about at another time when he didn’t have such conflicting emotions.
“What’s bothering you?”
Fighting his body’s startled reaction, Din blinked several times and turned his head to see Bo looking up at him, her face still soft from sleep but inquisitive nonetheless. “Nothing, just thinking.”
There was a tightness to his voice that betrayed him. Although he tried to keep his emotions in check, it was impossible for them not to be heard even through the distortion of his modulator. Din knew he’d been caught the moment Bo’s eyebrow raised knowingly.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly, reaching out to place her gloved hand over his where it rested against his thigh. The gesture was a welcome balm to the chaotic feelings that swirled within him.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Din wasn’t ready to tell her. One day he might be, maybe even soon, but not tonight.
Bo hummed lightly and nodded, readjusting her grip on the sleeping kid in her arms. Grogu didn’t stir but simply buried himself further into her embrace, cooing contentedly in his slumber. Din could tell by the look on her face that Bo didn’t believe his lie, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to push him any further. He liked that about her. “I take it there were no dangerous beasties in the woods, just waiting to devour us.”
“None at all.”
“I hate to say ‘I told you so,’ but…”
He could see the satisfied smirk on her face that told him he’d fallen into another one of her traps, and despite Bo not being able to see it, Din smiled back. Conversation with her was so easy it made his heart light. “And yet you still did…”
Bo’s smirk bloomed into a full smile that made his stomach flip. “Well, let’s discuss our plans for Plazir-15, shall we?”
Despite the change in subject, Bo’s hand didn’t leave his, its warm weight a silent comfort to him as they continued to plan for the days ahead. Din appreciated that Bo knew what she was doing. She had a way about her, a method to everything that she did, that he’d learned not to question because somehow she was always right about what was needed. Right now, she knew he needed her, her steadfast nature and reassuring presence, but in a way that was comfortable for him. Just the touch of her hand on his.
As he watched the fire begin to burn down gently, glowing embers turning to ash before the smoke carried them away, fading into the night along with the intensity of his memories, Din’s thoughts drifted back to his mother and the quiet tenderness she’d known instinctively to give. If the tragedy of his life had taught him anything it was that the tentative yet ever-increasing affection he received from Bo wasn’t to be taken for granted. He had to learn to open himself up a little more and let down the walls he’d so carefully constructed around his heart. He had to allow someone other than the kid to get close enough to see him for who he truly was.
Spreading his fingers slightly, Din allowed Bo to slip hers between his, curling together slightly, deepening the contact. Bo didn’t react, but Din swore he saw the hint of a smile on her face through the corner of his visor as she leaned her body further into his. Gradually, the warmth of their contact spread through him, and Din felt his confidence renew. He could do this. He could learn to be better with affection for the kid and give Grogu the life of safety and security he’d had torn from him all those years ago.
Perhaps, Din thought as his hand instinctively tightened around hers, if Bo was willing to have him stick around after she’d found her fleet, then they could work on it together. Change was always easier when you had someone you trusted at your side to support you, and Bo had proven herself to be exactly the support he needed. Grogu had flourished in her care, and he had to admit that part of him had too. There was a strengthening of his convictions, of his belief in Mandalore and the Creed, that would have been impossible without her.
Privately smiling to himself, Din leaned forward, teasing the fire back to life before he added more kindling. Settling back against the boulder, Bo and Grogu tucked in comfortably at his side, he watched as the flames took hold again. The light danced softly between the timber, though they were gentler than before. A reflection of the new sense of calm that had come over the man who observed it. Though thinking of it pained him, Din hoped his mother, wherever she was now, would be proud of his progress after so long, even if this was never the life she’d dreamed of her son having. All he wanted was for both his mother and his father to be full of pride for the man he’d become. Maybe they knew and were watching over him even still. Din had long ago learned that there were things in this galaxy he would never fully comprehend. But tonight, he had become sure of one thing. Only through him would Grogu have the care and love that came from being a little family, just like Din had received as a child. He, Bo and the kid? They were already a trio; they just needed to find somewhere safe to settle down to make that family a reality. Thanks to the support he had, there were new prospects to explore, and with a galaxy of possibilities lying at his feet, Din would make his parents proud.
For now, though, he would keep them safe - living in his memory forever.
