Chapter Text
It happened in the kind of moment nobody remembers later—because nothing about it feels important until it suddenly is.
The backyard at Grandpa Greef’s place was full again.
Sunlight.
Laughter.
Music too loud to mean anything.
Someone arguing over grill space.
Someone else insisting Grogu had already had enough juice boxes.
And Grogu—
Grogu was supposed to be safe.
That was the assumption everyone made without ever saying it out loud.
Because Din Djarin was here.
Because that meant safe.
Din had stepped inside for less than five minutes.
Just long enough to answer a comm.
Just long enough to miss the shift in the world.
No one saw Grogu wander.
No one saw the small shape at the edge of the pool.
No one saw the slip.
No one saw him go under.
Not at first.
Underwater, everything went quiet too fast.
Too final.
Tiny hands reached instinctively upward.
No sound escaped.
Only bubbles.
Inside the house, Din finished the call.
Something about logistics.
Something unimportant.
He felt it before he understood it.
That wrongness.
That sudden, sharp absence in the rhythm of things.
When he stepped back outside—
He stopped.
The pool was still.
Too still.
And then he saw it.
A small shape beneath the surface.
Not moving.
Not floating.
Just there.
“Grogu.”
His voice didn’t rise.
It snapped.
He ran.
Everything after that stopped being conscious thought. Armor hit water.
The impact barely registered.
Din was already underwater before his mind caught up.
He reached him.
Wrapped him up immediately.
Pulled him free of the water with a force that was almost violent in its desperation. “Grogu—no, no, no—”
On the deck, everything erupted at once.
“Call a medic!”
“Get him out!”
“Oh my stars—”
Greef Karga froze in place for half a second before lunging for his comm.
“Someone call—CALL 911!”
Din didn’t hear any of it clearly.
The world had narrowed to one thing in his arms.
Cold.
Still.
Too still.
“Hey—hey—hey, look at me,” Din said, voice breaking in a way that didn’t belong in him. Nothing.
“Grogu. Come on. Come on, kid—”
The helmet came off so fast it was almost invisible.
No hesitation.
No Mandalorian doctrine.
Just panic.
Just father.
“Breathe,” he said, like it was something he could will into existence. “Breathe—come on—” He started CPR immediately.
Hands steady only because terror made them so.
The kind of focus that comes when there is nothing else in the universe left to lose. Someone was screaming behind him.
Din breathed out shakily as he worked.
“Come, on. Come on, baby. Breathe. Breathe for me.”
Someone else was crying.
Bo-Katan Kryze was already moving people back, voice sharp, controlled, breaking through chaos like a blade.
“Give him space! MOVE!”
Din didn’t look up.
Didn’t stop.
Didn’t think.
Just—
“Grogu,” he whispered again and again like a prayer he didn’t believe in but refused to stop saying.
Then—
A sound.
Small.
Wrong.
And then—
A cough.
Grogu’s body jerked.
Water came up.
Another cough—stronger.
Then a choking gasp.
Then air.
Real air.
Din froze.
Just for a second.
Like his brain couldn’t accept the correction.
“Grogu—?”
Another cough.
Then a weak, shaking breath.
Din pulled him in immediately.
Immediately.
Like gravity finally remembered how to work.
“Oh—stars—okay—okay, okay, okay—”
Grogu was shaking violently in his arms, coughing, crying, gasping for air like he couldn’t decide if it was safe to keep doing it.
Din held him so tightly it was almost painful.
“I’ve got you,” he said, over and over. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Bo-Katan was already on her comm.
“Emergency services, we need transport NOW.”
Greef Karga’s voice was shaking.
“He—he went under—I didn’t—nobody saw—”
“Focus,” Bo snapped, but not cruelly. “He’s breathing. Focus on that.”
Grogu clung to Din’s armor with shaking hands.
“Dad...” he choked out.
Din flinched like the word hit bone.
“Yeah,” he said immediately. “Yeah, I’m here.”
Grogu tried again, smaller:
“...Daddy...”
Din closed his eyes hard.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Daddy’s here. It’s okay, baby. You’re okay, now.”
The ambulance arrived too fast and not fast enough at the same time.
Everything blurred into motion again.
Blankets.
Questions.
Machines.
Someone checking vitals.
Someone else asking questions Din couldn’t process.
Din refused to let go.
Even when they tried to take Grogu.
Even when they needed space.
Even when they insisted.
“I’m not—” Din’s voice cracked, and he stopped, inhaled, tried again. “I’m not leaving him.”
No one argued after that.
In the back of the transport, Grogu was bundled against his chest, still coughing, still trembling, but alive.
Alive.
Din kept one hand on his back the entire time like he was afraid the world might try again.
“I wasn’t there,” Din said suddenly.
No one responded.
He wasn’t talking to them anyway.
“I wasn’t there.”
Bo-Katan Kryze sat across from him, helmet off, watching him carefully.
“Din—”
“I wasn’t there,” he repeated.
His voice was shaking now.
Grogu made a small sound against his chest.
Din immediately softened his grip.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to him instantly. “I’m sorry, I’ve got you, I’ve got you—”
Bo leaned forward slightly.
“You saved him.”
Din shook his head.
“No. I left him.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“I left him.”
His voice broke harder.
“And he almost—”
He couldn’t finish it.
Grogu whimpered softly.
Din immediately pressed his forehead to the top of his head.
“It’s okay,” he whispered rapidly. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay—”
At the hospital, everything became too bright again.
Too clean.
Too loud.
Too controlled for something that felt like it should have ended in chaos.
They took Grogu briefly for scans.
Din fought it instinctively.
Then stopped himself.
Barely.
Bo-Katan stayed with him.
So did Greef Karga.
So did Cara Dune.
No one spoke much.
Because there wasn’t anything useful to say.
“He’s stable,” a doctor finally said.
Din didn’t react at first.
Like he didn’t understand language anymore.
“...Stable,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
A pause.
“He’s awake now. Resting.”
Din stood so fast the chair behind him nearly fell.
He didn’t even notice.
When they let him in—
Grogu was small in the bed.
Too small.
Wrapped in blankets.
Wet hair still slightly stuck to his forehead.
Eyes blinking slowly like the world was too bright and too new and too much.
The second he saw Din—
Everything in him changed.
“Daddy!”
The word came out broken.
Relief and fear tangled together.
Din crossed the room in one stride.
And this time, when he reached him—
he didn’t hesitate at all.
He just gathered him up carefully, like something sacred and fragile and irreplaceable. “I’m here,” he said immediately. “I’m here. I’m here.”
Grogu clung to him instantly.
“I fell,” he whispered, shaking.
“I know.”
“I didn’t see.”
“I know.”
“I couldn’t breathe.”
Din closed his eyes.
“I know.”
Grogu pulled back just enough to look at him.
Eyes still wide.
Still scared.
“...You came.”
Din nodded once.
“Always.”
That was when it hit him fully.
Not the fear.
Not the adrenaline.
Not even the relief.
But the thing underneath all of it.
The truth he couldn’t outrun anymore.
That one moment of absence had nearly ended everything.
And it had only taken seconds.
Din held Grogu tighter.
So carefully it bordered on trembling.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Grogu frowned slightly.
“For what?”
Din swallowed hard.
“For not being there sooner.”
Grogu stared at him for a long moment.
Then, small and simple:
“...You came.”
Din closed his eyes again.
“Yeah.”
A pause.
“...I came.”
Outside the room, Bo-Katan watched through the glass for a long time. Then exhaled slowly.
“Yeah,” she muttered to herself. “That’s going to stick.”
Greef Karga nodded grimly.
“It already has.”
Inside, Din didn’t move.
Didn’t let go.
Didn’t look away.
Because for the first time since everything started—
he understood something with absolute clarity:
There were battles you couldn’t win with armor or skill or training.
Only presence.
Only time.
Only luck.
And sometimes—
not even that.
So he held his son a little closer.
Just in case the universe tried again.