Chapter Text
“Are you sure we can even trust her?”
They’ve been in the small cantina for over an hour, Mando sitting stiffly with his head on a swivel, on alert for any sign of danger. Cara Dune, on the other hand, is the image of nonchalance, elbows propped on the rickety wooden table as she pours herself yet another glass of spotchka. “Relax,” she sighed, rolling her eyes at his question. “She’s a friend, we were in the war together.”
“Yeah, the spy, you told me.” He shakes his head, shooting another glance towards the door. He’s probably being hypervigilant, but with the amount of people that have tried killing him in the past few weeks, that probably wasn’t a bad thing. “She’s late.”
“Well can you blame her? The place is crawling with troopers. Of all the planets that Jedi had to send you to, it had to be Kijimi.”
The door opens, but it’s only a Gamorrean that heads for the bar, grunting to get the bartender’s attention. As it swings shut, Mando catcches a glimpse of the snow falling outside. He wasn’t the biggest fan of cold weather, not since the Razor Crest’s breakdown on Maldo Kreis. The kid- Grogu, had seemed to enjoy it though. When they first arrived, he had run down the hatch of the Razor Crest, his hands grabbing at the sky to try to grab some of the falling snowflakes until he had fallen face first in the snow. With a tired sigh, Mando had picked him up and continued walking.
He wasn’t too sure about this. Sure, this informant was a friend of Cara’s, but according to her, they hadn’t met since the war ended. And with Grogu’s future on the line, he wasn’t sure how much he could trust a stranger. An ex-spy. But Ahsoka Tano had been certain that there was a Jedi on Kijimi, and if Cara trusted this woman to know who it was, it was worth a try.
“Look alive,” Cara coughed and nudged him with her elbow, nodding towards the door. A woman in a heavy coat walked into the cantina, her face partially obscured by a hood and her eyes flitting around until they landed on the table where Mando and Cara sat. Two hands lifted and pulled the hood down, and Mando saw you for the first time. You were…pretty, smiling softly, one of those nostalgic little ones that people give when they’re remembering something from the past, though it was completely directed at Cara as you crossed the room. “And here I thought you were dead,” The ex-shock trooper jokes, standing up and shaking your hand.
“Here I thought you were still a merc,” you shoot back, gesturing at the New Republic insignia on Cara’s lapel. “Marshal Dune. Nice ring to it.”
“Who would’ve thought?” The bittersweet moment is cut off by Cara coughing, drawing out a chair for you to sit. “This is Mando. Mando, this is who I was telling you about.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mando,” you greet, offering nothing more than a small smile as you take your seat, muttering a small thank you to Cara as she slides a glass of spotchka towards you. In that moment, he sees that the two of you have something in common. You’d rather cut the bullshit and get straight to the point. “So how can I help the two of you this fine evening?”
“We’re looking for someone.” He finds himself trailing off, eyes searching your face as if looking for something, anything, in a last ditch effort of looking for a reason not to trust you. In the moment of silence that passes, the kid lets out a babble, drawing your attention to him.
There’s a beat where something in your eyes changes and Mando’s ready to pull his blaster out, but you smile softly at the kid, looking back up at Mando. “He’s cute. Yours?”
“Foundling,” Cara steps forward to fill in the gaps in the conversation. “He’s…he can use the Force. We need to bring him to the Jedi, we were told that there’s one on Kijimi.”
You shrug, looking down, and just like when you had seen the kid, Mando sees a flicker of something in your eyes. But this time it’s different. This time, that momentary shift in your eyes is almost sad. “I’m sorry,” you sigh, your finger trailing the rim of your glass of spotchka. “I don’t know what to tell you, I haven’t heard anything about a Jedi here. I can’t help you.” The kid lets out a whine, and you look straight ahead at Cara. “If there’s a Jedi here, they must be some kind of hermit-”
“How do we know you’re not lying?”
The question earns him a glare from Cara and a raised eyebrow from you. But he doesn’t back down, rephrase or elaborate. Ahsoka had said there was a Jedi here, and so it was just a bit off that you, an ex-Rebel intelligence officer that had lived on Kijimi for years, was saying otherwise.
You take a deep sigh, finishing your spotchka and turning to look at him. “Bounty hunter, right?” You don’t get much of a response, he just continues to stare at you through his visor. Taking his silence as a ‘yes’, you roll up your sleeve, revealing a tattoo. The insignia of the Rebellion. “Check your registry. There’s an Imperial bounty on my head big enough to buy you a second set of armor. And yet here I am, talking to you. You find a Jedi here, you’re welcome to come back and arrest me. But if I was planning on fucking you over, you’d be sharing spotchka with some troopers instead of me.”
Turning back to Cara, you smile. “It was nice seeing you, really, but for our mutual benefit I think you both should leave. The assholes here don’t take kindly to anyone talking to hunters. Or the New Republic for that matter. I hope you find who you’re looking for, really.”
Cara smiles sympathetically and stands, tossing a few credits onto the table. Mando hesitated, wanting to press further, but she nudges him with her hip and he sighs, following her movements. “Take care of yourself, I mean that.”
They don’t get too far before Mando hears a sigh, the soft screech of a chair being pushed out. “Wait,” you stand up, walking over to them and biting your lip, a nervous expression etched on your face. “I can poke around, be discreet, see what i can find out. Do your own investigating, I’ll be here tomorrow night if I find something.”
A beat of silence passes between the three of you, and your eyes cross from Cara to Mando, as if waiting for him to say something. All he can muster is a stiff “thank you”, and you nod, turning to go. However, Grogu- who somehow managed to get out of his sling- has other plans, and he babbles up at you, tugging on the hem of your pants.
You smile, picking him up and returning him to Mando’s arms. “Cute. I hope things work out for you guys.”
Your parting words are delivered with a short smile at Cara and a nod at Mando before you turn around, heading back to the small table that the two of them had previously occupied. Cara gives Mando a subtle look, shifting her head towards the door, silently urging him to leave. He complies and they leave the cantina, the snow crunching under their feet as they walk back towards the Crest.
“So?” Mando asks, shooting a glance back at the door of the cantina. “Still think we can trust her?”
Cara nods. “She’s saved my life too many times for me to not trust her.” Her eyes glaze over momentarily, as if remembering something. They do the same thing when anyone mentions Alderaan. Mando wonders if the same look is mirrored in his own eyes when he thinks of the day he was rescued by the Mandalorians. Though, he doesn’t feel like taking his helmet off in the fresher mirror and finding out. “It feels like she’s hiding something,” Cara sighs, then she lets out a dry laugh, shrugging. “Then again, she was a spy, I guess she was always hiding something.”
Mando looks down at the kid, who’s been cooing up at him this whole time, as if trying to tell him something, and his thoughts wander as he thinks about you. Cara was right, it did feel like you were hiding something, but why would you lie about the Jedi’s location? He couldn’t put his finger on it.
Maybe tomorrow night would bring some answers.
——————————————————————————
A pit settles in the bottom of your stomach as the two leave, swallowing the lump in your throat and turning back to your drink. God, that meeting went worse than you could have ever expected. The transmission you had received from Cara had been a surprise- after so many years of not talking- but a pleasant one, and you had thought she just wanted to meet up, get some spotchka, maybe she needed help with something, but you didn’t think she’d bring a fucking bounty hunter or that she’d ask you where to find a Jedi.
You felt bad for lying to them, really. Maybe that’s why you backtracked after giving that whole shpiel on trust- which was a total asshole move, you could acknowledge that- and the cherry on top of that asshole pie was what the kid had said to you when you just blatantly lied to his guardian’s- dad’s?- face.
Now you had time, about 24 hours to figure out if you were ready to come clean. After years…
But that was a problem for tomorrow. Now, you really need a drink. You sit back down at the table, take the half-empty bottle of spotchka, and pour yourself another glass. But apparently your thoughts were much more heavy on your mind than your need for a drink, and you ended up staring at your reflection in the blue liquid, unable to bring it to your lips.
You hadn’t seen anyone like him, anyone like you, for years. Not since before the war…
And that Mandalorian- Mando- was apparently better at telling when people were lying than you would have thought. He didn’t look like he completely believed you, so if tomorrow night you chose NOT to come clean, you were really going to have to sell it.
With a shaky sigh, you find your mind racing, away from the Mandalorian and the child and the events of the night to the evening that everything changed. When you were whisked away from your life, thrust onto a random planet, a weapon placed in your hands…Reaching into your pocket, you close your hand around that same weapon. So much had changed since then-
“Good afternoon.” You snap out of your thoughts, and instantly, you can feel it. Something’s wrong. Looking up at the person who addressed you, your blood turns to ice. An Imp. And…several stormtroopers.
“Evening, officer,” you nod your head at him, flashing your best ‘nothing to see here, move along’ smile. One you’ve perfected over many years of hiding from the Empire in plain sight. You make a mental note to consider a career in acting if your current plan goes south. “Can I interest you in a glass of spotchka?”
The man smiles coldly, shaking his head and sitting down next to you. You run the numbers. Four troopers, each with their own blasters, and you don’t doubt that this guy’s carrying. Close quarters, you couldn’t risk the others in the bar getting hurt. Would you even have time to draw your weapon before they put one between your eyes? Odds say no. So you stay seated, and keep smiling. “There is something else you can interest me in, however.”
“And what would that be, sir?”
“The location of the last Jedi on Kijimi.” Your smile must slip, just for a second, because he smirks. “I take it that is what the Mandalorian and Carasynthia Dune came to discuss with you, wasn’t it? I hope, for your sake that you haven’t told him where the Jedi is.”
“You’re mistaken,” you scoff, rolling your eyes as if he’s incompetent and tossing back the rest of your spotchka. It’s impressive you can act this nonchalant when your heart is threatening to beat right out of your chest. Standing up, you throw enough credits to cover your drink on the table, flashing the Imp a short smile. “I told that Mando the same thing I’m telling you. Whoever told you that there’s a Jedi on Kijimi must have been out of their fucking minds. Honestly if you were a Jedi- scratch that, if you were just sane in general, would you come here?” One of the stormtroopers actually snorts, before stumbling back into attention when the Imp’s head turns toward him. The man chuckles dangerously, smiling at you coldly. “If that’s all, gentlemen.”
You can feel it the second that you turn away from them, heading to the door. That strange, warning sensation that sends pinpricks to your palms, your feet, the base of your skull, something screaming WRONG WRONG SOMETHING’S WRONG into your ear. You make another mental note that the acting career probaby won’t work out.
You figured out exactly what was wrong when you heard the sound of blaster fire. For a second, it felt as if you were frozen in place, every hair on your body standing at attention.
The next second, you whirl around, your hand flying out in front of your face, and the red plasma stops. Hovering, centimeters from your face, still sizzling and fighting against the force stopping it from hitting its target. You.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The Imp raises an eyebrow, as if your reaction, this revelation, amuses him. “Well,” he chuckles, walking over to you, eyes raking over your body, and you step away from him, away from the plasma, right into two Stormtroopers that grab your arms just as you go for your bag. “It seems as though Gideon was right,” he muses, and the troopers’ grip on your arms tighten as you struggle, vision going red as the Imp’s hand digs through your bag and triumphantly produces it, your lightsaber. “There is a Jedi on Kijimi. Now, the Moff would be happy with you, but if you gave us the location of the child, I could arrange for your release.”
The image of the kid, so small and helpless, looking up at you with his big black eyes as your minds connected, sharing your stories of loss, his story of finding his new family, is enough for you to reject his offer almost immediately, and mustering as much saliva as you can, you spit in his face.
The last thing you see before one of the troopers knocks you out cold with the butt of its blaster is the cold sneer that curls the Imp’s lips, and his voice, a distant noise.
“Take her.”
——————————————————————————
You woke up in a cold room.
Granted, on Kijimi, everything was cold unless you were wearing more than five layers or sitting by a fire, but this cold was something different. It was more than a chill to your bones, or the chattering of your teeth, it was a sort of cold that seeped into your soul and muddled your mind, made you feel lethargic.
Your head throbbed with pain and you groaned softly, opening your eyes and being met with a stone ceiling, with one measly light fixture that swung on a string. Back and forth, forth and back, looking as if it might fall any second. Your wrists and ankles were cold, and as you took in your surroundings, you understood that the sensation was from dark metal restraints. Lying flat on a table, restrained and aching and without your saber, completely vulnerable to whatever this Moff had planned for you.
You hated it.
On the other side of the room was some sort of science lab, the walls covered in all sorts of lights and switches, counters with beakers and strange machines running tests, giving readings. You watched one of the screens, small, that had a red line running across it, giving off small blips, and realized it was your heartbeat. The room you were in was old, rundown and cold, but everything on that side of the room was new. White and shiny machinery fresh from an Imperial lab.
You felt like you were in an evil doctor’s appointment. The room only felt colder.
The doors open with a soft hiss and you startle, heart racing as a small man in a gray lab coat walks in. He blinks at you through dark-tinted glasses, before sighing in relief. “Good, you’re awake.” That doesn’t really feel like a good thing, considering where you are, but you just watch as he presses a button on the wall, speaking into it- some sort of intercom- before walking towards you. “I’m Doctor Pershing.”
“I don’t care. Where am I?” He seemed to have some sense of manners, but honestly? You weren’t nice enough to give him points for manners when he was working with the people that had chained you to a metal table. Despite the restraints, you tried to sit up, but a sharp pain makes you cry out, flopping back and looking at your arm, where the pain originated. “What are you doing to me?” Your heartbeat picks up as you register the IV, filled with a clear liquid.
“It’s nothing harmful,” the doctor shook his head, stammering out some sort of explanation before stopping. “I can’t really explain it to you.”
“I recommend you do, Pershing, because I will get out of here, and the first person I’m gonna come for is the one closest to me, and right now that’s you.” He visibly blanches, but neither of you have time to say anything else before the doors are opening again and the same Imp from before is walking in.
“It’s good to see you awake,” he smirks, bending down to your height, and you recoil as he runs a hand through your hair. “Doctor, how are her vitals?”
“Normal, sir,” Pershing stutters, coming to stand on the opposite side of the table. “Heartbeat and blood cell count are normal, we should be safe to progress with the medication.”
Okay, that last word brings some alarm. Medication? Granted, you didn’t even know why the Moff wanted a Jedi, so this was all pretty confusing. But the one thought that runs through your head is that they were going to do this to a kid. A fucking kid. And that makes you clench your jaw, makes your hands tighten into fists until your knuckles turn white.
“Start her on the pills and watch her vitals,” The Imp orders, stepping back as Pershing brings out some pills, oblong and a dark rust red in color, and shakes two into his hand.
You clench your jaw tight, refusing to take them. The Imp nods his head and one trooper grabs your face, squishing your cheeks together to force your mouth open, but you keep your jaw clenched tight, and when one of the pills passes your lips, you spit it out. It hits the forehead of the trooper’s helmet and falls to the ground with a clatter. Then he pinches your nose shut, and the lack of air makes tears prick your eyes, but no- no, you can’t do it, you won’t-
The need to breathe becomes too much and you open your mouth, just long enough to breathe, but it’s enough for the trooper to shove two more pills into your throat, and you spit them right out.
Two more pills hit his helmet. Crack! Your cheek stings from the sheer force as he backhands you across the face.
“Enough,” The Imp’s tone is clipped, as if bored by the show of brutality, and he walks forward. The trooper falls back and you stare up at the Imp with anger in your eyes, a burning blaze behind each iris.
When this man dies, you will be the one standing over him. You’re certain of it.
He sighs, eyes looking over your face, drifting over you until he straightens. “Bring the serum.”
“Sir!” Pershing’s jaw drops, and his alarm is enough to make you worry. “The serum is still- still untested. We-we-we haven’t even checked if it’s safe!”
“Well, we can use her for a test,” The Imp laughs cruelly as a trooper brings a small case, and opening it, he pulls out a syringe with a long, metal needle, one that almost looks cruel, filled with an icy blue liquid. “If it works, then you have what you need for your research, Doctor Pershing. And if it doesn’t, well- she gets what’s coming to her, and you get some valuable data on how to improve the serum. Either way doctor,” He sneers, offering the syringe to the nervous man. “Science wins. The Empire wins.”
His threat is thinly veiled. Do it or you’re a traitor. And the Empire did not take kindly to traitors.
Pershing swallows, and takes the syringe with shaking hands, wrapping a torniquet around your arm and inserting it. His eyes meet yours for a split second before he injects you with it.
For a moment, it just feels like an injection.
And then, you start screaming louder than you imagine you’ve ever screamed before. It feels like your veins are on fire, like someone’s injected you with gasoline and lit a match over your body, and now fire courses through your body. The pain is so intense that your headache fades away, being replaced with something new, something so potent it feels as though the Imp grabbed your head and tore your skull open, tore you right down the half, into two pieces. The tears that pricked at your eyes fall freely, and your entire body just shakes.
Over all the pain, you miss how Pershing removes the syringe, rubbing your vein gently and looking up at you with sorry eyes as he takes another clean syringe out and draws your blood until it’s full.
What you don’t miss is the cold smirk on the Imp’s face.
The pain fades, leaving you feeling like nothing but a hollow shell of a person, and a shaky sob leaves your lips. A mix of relief that it’s over, and fear that you went through it. “Is the sample enough, doctor?” Around you, the room continues with business as usual, as if you’re not quivering with the aftershocks of a pain worse than anything you’ve ever experienced just five feet away.
Pershing swalows, wiping at his brow. “I- I imagine so, but we might need to keep her for longer. We’ll get a more accurate reading when we allow the serum to fully enter her blood stream.”
Turns out, their neglect is a good thing. It gives you time to collect yourself, enough time to think, enough time to muster up the energy you need.
And you reach out, for the Force.
Hoping that somewhere, there’s a tiny green baby that will hear you.
——————————————————————————
They’re in the middle of dinner when Grogu begins crying, giving off nervous little wails as if he’s trying to alert Mando and Cara, who sit just five feet away, that something’s wrong. “Hey kid, what’s wrong?” Mando puts down the blaster he’d been cleaning, reaching over to pick the kid out of his crib. But the kid just keeps making grabby hands at him- well, more specifically, at his helmet.
“Maybe he wants to hold your tin can,” Cara scoffs, but she still sets her broth bowl down, able to tell that something’s wrong.
Mando’s out of ideas on how to comfort the kid, so he awkwardly lifts him up, letting him rest his hands on the cool beskar of his helmet.
And then, so suddenly that it feels as though the air is sucked from his lungs, he’s not in the hull of the Crest, he’s strapped down to a table in some sort of lab, and Maker, it’s cold.
Everything hurts, his whole body hurts, but it’s the kind of dull pain like the soreness you feel after you get punched. He doesn’t know who the kid is showing him, but he winces just thinking about how much pain they must have been put through.
“Why are you doing this?” He croaks, but it’s not his voice, it’s a woman’s, and though he only heard it briefly earlier this night, he recognizes it.
There’s a man on the other side of the room, and Mando feels how the woman- feels how you bristle as he walks closer. Mando recognizes him as that doctor, Pershing. “The Moff wants to learn more about your kind.”
“Jedi,” you and Mando say at the same time, your tone one of spite, and his one of realization.
Then the vision fades away and he’s back in the Crest, standing up so quickly that Cara has to help him keep his balance, looking scared, and the kid in his arms is already passing out. “Mando, what-”
Mando puts Grogu back in his crib, grabbing his blaster. “I know who the Jedi on Kijimi is. Your friend’s in trouble.”
Two sentences that are enough to make Cara stand up, almost jostling the kid’s crib as she grabs her blaster and follows Mando out the Crest.
——————————————————————————
You feel weak. Whatever was in that serum made you groggy, and you drift in and out of consciousness, your body still shuddering time to time as if it’s the ground after an earthquake, suffering the aftershocks. The effort it took to reach out to the child with the Force didn’t aid your conviction to remain conscious.
Pershing flits across the room, reminding you of a bird, flying between different trees, never staying in one spot too long. He keeps muttering things under his breath. While the total silence is unnerving, you think you’d prefer it over the sound of his voice. The reminder of his presence just grates your nerves. “Why are you doing this?” You ask, repeating your question from earlier.
He raises an eyebrow at you. “I- The Moff wants to-”
“I know,” you interrupt, swallowing. Your mouth feels so dry, like you’ve swallowed a pint of sand. The mental image that the thought illustrates makes you cringe. “What I meant was, why are you doing this? You specifically, Pershing.”
Your question obviously takes him off guard. But he doesn’t look like the type to throw himself into the Empire’s hold without a personal reason. Something that he’ll get out of this. “I’ve always been interested by your kind. Those that are force sensitive. I wanted to know what made you different-”
“-And do- do you think that justifies torturing innocent people, Pershing?” He hangs his head, turning back to his machines. No more questions, your honor. Time passes, with you observing Pershing and Pershing keeping himself busy to avoid your stare. The silence persists. It overwhelms you.
Until it’s destroyed.
You hear it. More like feel it. A boom that rattles the ground, rattles the table that you’re on, almost toppling it sideways. “What’s going on?” You shout at Pershing, the air thick with tension as you hear the noises of blaster fire, faint, as if someone’s broken into the compound.
He stutters for a response, looking between you and the closed doors before shaking his head. “I- I don’t know, I’ll- I have to go.” Your protests fell on deaf ears as he picks up a datapad and a set of vials, almost tripping over his feet as he leaves through the back door.
The noises are only getting closer, and you begin to panic. You’re so vulnerable, strapped down and barely conscious without your saber and now you’re alone. Even though Pershing was Empire and you felt like killing him, there was a sort of comfort of having someone with you when there was danger.
If you were stronger right now, you might attempt to use the Force to break out of these restraints, but would that even be enough? Years of not using it, and you could barely hold off a plasma blast today.
The blaster fire, the voices, the screaming, come to a halt. Right outside the door. And then, for the third time that night, the doors open. Your heart is jumping in your throat, looking for anything to defend yourself with.
Then Cara Dune storms in, eyes wide as her head whips around, and you slump against the bed, relieved. “Cara,” you croak, half disbelieved that she’s even here. You were partially of the belief that your message to the kid hadn’t worked.
“Hey trouble,” she smiles, sighing in relief as she walks up to your side, brushing the hair out of your face and fumbling with your restraints. “You have a lot of explaining to do, but we’ll save that for when you’re safe.”
“They- injected me with something, I don’t think I can walk,” you shake your head.
“It’s okay. Mando!”
The Mandalorian- somewhat to your surprise, though you should have expected him being here- enters, firing one last shot over his shoulder before joining Cara at your side. “This is the part where you can say ‘I told you so’,” You joke weakly, and he huffs, firing two shots at the keypad on the table. Whatever was controlling the cuffs dies in a flurry of sparks and they spring open, blood rushing to your head as Cara helps you sit up.
“We need to get her out of here, more are coming.”
“Wait,” you shake your head as Mando helps you to your feet, draping one of your arms around his neck. “No, I need- need my saber.”
“We don’t have time to look for it,” Cara tries to urge you to leave it behind, and Mando looks like he’s growing frustrated by the minute.
“Cara, I-” It’s the last thing you have from your master, but you don’t know how to explain that to her, how much it means to you, so you just lean against Mando and hobble out of the room, ignoring how your heart squeezes.
“Mandalorian!” You all freeze, turning to spot him. That Imp, with two troopers that have guns aimed at him and Cara. “I’m afraid that I can’t allow you to leave with my merchandise.”
The sound is quiet, and you probably only hear it because your head is resting against his chest, but the Mandalorian growls. A low sound of rage, carefully handing you off to Cara as he unclips his rifle. “She’s not merchandise, she’s a person. And she’s coming with us.”
The first trooper aims, but his finger doesn’t even meet the trigger before Mando aims his rifle at him, and the trooper disintegrates. The second one meets the same fate. Wow, definitely a sharpshooter.
The Imp’s eyes widen as Mando slides another charge into his rifle, ducking around a corner just in time as he lifts the weapon. “Exit’s that way,” Mando sighs, nodding towards the direction the Imp disappeared down. “We should be prepared to meet some resistance.”
Feeling is slowly coming back to your feet and you tentatively step out of Cara’s grip. You can walk, but you still keep your arm draped around her neck. Reaching your other arm out, you search through the Force, letting it flow over you as you scour the compund, looking, calling-
There you are.
With a loud woosh, your saber flies into your hand, taking both of your companions off guard. You rub your thumb over the familiar cool metal of the handle, and press the button.
Bright blue light illuminates your face, and when you look at the Mandalorian, you can see it reflected in the dark material of his visor. “Let’s go.”
————————————————————
Few words are exchanged until the three of you are back on board the Razor Crest. The kid looks happy to see you, but the grabby hands he makes in your direction are brushed aside by the Mandalorian, who helps Cara lead you to a small bunk- Dank ferrik, does he sleep here? He’s bigger than you and you just barely fit in this thing.
“You lied to us.” There’s no anger or well, any emotion, in his tone, and yet you feel the same as you would have felt if you were back on Yavin, being chewed out by General Draven for disobeying orders. You felt like you were a kid again, getting berated by your master for some un-Jedilike behavior. Maker, is he always like this?
“I’m sorry,” you shake your head, lying down and letting Cara rub your bruised wrists. “I wanted to help, but… I hadn’t used the Force in years. Not before tonight. And if you’ve probably noticed, with the- with Grogu, it’s dangerous to be a Jedi right now. I needed to think about it.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Cara asks, her voice much softer than his. A byproduct of years of friendship, years of trust. Years of seeing you at your worst.
“It’s not really something that comes up over a glass of spotchka at the base cantina,” you laugh weakly, trying to sit up and ignoring Cara’s deadpan stare at your feeble attempt at humor. “I wouldn’t call myself a Jedi, I never finished my training, but I am… force sensitive. I had been trained at the Jedi temple, but my training was interrupted when the Empire rose to power. My master took me from the temple and dumped me on Tatooine with nothing but my saber.” You gulp, stubbornly holding back tears at the memory of that night, at the memory of your master, fair but firm, one who upheld the rules that he laughed about behind his superior’s backs.
The ship is silent for a few minutes, during which Grogu climbs into your lap. You smile at him, scratching his ears. In the corner of your eye, you can see the Mandalorian tense a bit. He doesn’t trust many with the child, you can see, but after a moment, he settles back into his seat, allowing you to continue rubbing the kid’s ears. “I connected with Grogu when we met in the cantina. I can feel it, the Force is strong in him. With me, it used to be. But I’ve been pushing it down for years. Even what I managed to do today drained me.” The optimistic part of you wants to blame that on the serum they shot you up with.
The Mandalorian sighs. “We took care of the Imps there, so you don’t have to worry about them adding “Jedi” to that bounty, but it’s still unsafe for you to go back to Kijimi.”
You shrug. “I’ve been moving around for years, it had to happen at some point. You can drop me off at Naboo, an old contact of mine lives there now.”
“Do you trust him enough to not turn you in?” You made a living on being a spy, but right now, you can’t convincingly lie to save your life, and the half-hearted shrug that you offer makes Cara sigh, shaking her head. “Stay here.”
“What?” You scoff, casting an unamused look between her and Mando. “With your grumpy metal friend? No offense, by the way.”
He sighs, looking at Cara, but she gives him a pointed glare. “That’s…actually a good idea. You and the kid have the same powers, and I’ve been looking for a Jedi to train him. You could stay on with us, help look after him. I’d still be travelling for work, but you’d have food and a place to stay.”
The two of you just look at each other for a moment, him waiting for your response and you sizing up his offer. With a sigh, and another glance at the little boy down in your lap, you nod. “I’ll do it.”
Mando nods, privately filled with silent relief. You were one of the child’s people, after all. And though he was wary of you- nothing to take personally, he was wary of most people- if this was what was best for the kid, he was ready to have you along.
Cara smiles, squeezing your hand. “Well then, that’s that, isn’t it? You can drop me off back at Nevarro, but for now, you…” She gives you a soft glare with no real malice behind it, giving your hand one last pat and standing up. “You need to rest, you went through a lot tonight.”
Your protests fall on deaf ears as Cara pushes you back gently down onto the mattress and even the Mandalorian helps, offering her a blanket that she tosses haphazardly over your body, letting you adjust it to your comfort. “Sleep,” he tells you, lifting the kid from your arms and placing him back in his crib. Grogu’s little arms reach out of the crib, his soft whines placated as Mando rubs his forehead with one gloved finger, his eyes drifting back to you. “We’ll be in Nevarro in the morning.”
Morning seems like such a foreign concept; an idea on the edge of the horizon, light years away, but you sigh and let your head rest against the mattress, and despite your insistence on staying awake, the events of the day take their toll on you. Your eyes flutter closed and the last thing you see before drifting off to sleep is the Mandalorian standing at the foot of the bed, watching you as you fade off, stomach turning with the prospect of what morning brings for you.
Things are certainly going to be different from now.