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He woke gently, and thought for a moment it was morning, and that Dad was waking him to start their day.
But it only took a moment for him to realize it was still dark. He could hear the nocturnal lava rats scurrying around far off in the lava fields, through his open window.
He wondered for a moment what had woken him, and why he wasn’t frightened, and then he felt it. A warm, comforting presence that wrapped around him like a cozy blanket. He knew that presence, and hadn’t felt it in weeks.
He jumped out of his sleeping cot- Dad had long given up on safety rails, seeing as he could easily leap over any of them- and wandered out into the main room. There she stood, in the doorway of the cabin. She had no light to guide her or illuminate her, but his vision was good in the dark, and he didn’t need it to know who stood in front of him.
“Patu,” he said quietly, groggily, and she immediately flicked on the light on her helmet, tucked under arm. He saw her in the light, then, and she was smiling, though she felt sad. She always felt sad. The same kind of sadness he felt about his Jedi family. The way Ahsoka had felt sad, too. She felt sad, like she’d lost her family. But this time her sadness seemed newer.
She knelt, setting her helmet on the floor to illuminate the room. “Did you sense me coming?” she asked as he came closer, lifting his arms to her. “Ahsoka can feel me coming from ten clicks away, I swear.”
She picked him up, and he tucked himself close to her skin, still groggy from waking up in the middle of the night. Her hand went to his back, rubbing gentle circles. “I missed you, too, kiddo.”
She was warm, her skin against the top of his head soothing and soft. He scrabbled at the collar of her flight suit, pulling himself further into the crook of her neck, and sighed. She sighed, too, contentment washing up against her new sad. “Go to sleep. I’m here.”
He thought that was an excellent idea, and drifted off to sleep, safe in the arms of his other favorite person.
Din wasn’t sure what woke him, but it woke him with a start, and instantly realized a new shadow loomed in the corner of his room. His instincts were sharp, and he pulled a blaster from under his pillow as he reached for his helmet.
“I don’t care if you put it on. I won’t tell if you don’t. It’s not like I haven’t seen your face before.”
He knew that voice. He would know it anywhere, even without the filters of his helmet. His trigger hand fell to the mattress. “Bo-Katan?” His hand hesitated over his helmet before he changed course with a grunt and flicked on his lamp instead.
She sat on the stool in the corner of his room, her feet propped up on his bed, Grogu dead asleep in her arms, his little head tucked tightly against her chin. “You’re lucky he’s asleep,” she growled. “I was going to yell at you.”
He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of his bed, adrenalin draining rapidly from his body. Then he realized he was dressed to sleep, wearing nothing but his shorts. He yanked his sheet over himself, covering his lower half, at the very least.
She snorted a little laugh, rolling her eyes in that way she did with him, when their cultures and upbringing bumped up against each other.
“Why are you here, Bo? How did you find us?” he asked, running a hand roughly through his hair, willing himself awake.
She pointed to Grogu. “I sewed a tracker into his little hauberk after I rescued your ass from the mines. Felt it might be prudent to keep a close eye on you two.”
Din grunted. She was probably right. He thought maybe he should be mad, but she’d saved his ass more than a few times at this point, and Grogu’s. If someone was going to watch their backs, he wanted it to be her.
He faced her more fully, and took her in in the dim light of his bedside lamp. She looked exhausted, her eyes red, heavy dark circles under them. Her muscles seemed too heavy for her bones, like the gravity of Nevarro tugged at her. “Bo, when was the last time you slept?”
She shrugged. “When did we go to Plazir-15? I slept on the way there.”
Din shook his head. That had been three months ago, at least. He stood and went to her, holding out his hands for Grogu. “Give him to me. Get in bed.” He gestured at the bed behind him. She hesitated, the fingers of her right hand slowly gripping Grogu’s tunic, like they didn’t work quite as designed.
“Why did you leave me without a goodbye?” she blurted out, her voice sounding wet and hoarse.
“What?”
She stood, wobbly, and faced him, only centimeters from him. She smelt like flowers and sweat and recycled air. He realized he’d never been this close to her without his helmet filtering and scrubbing every breath he took. “You left me. And didn’t say goodbye,” she growled.
He reached for her, squeezing her arm just below her pauldron. “Now is not the time for this conversation,” he whispered, pulling Grogu gently from her grasp. She reached out, stroking one of ears, watching him sleep. “You need to rest, Bo-Katan. Lay down.”
Din didn’t wait for her to argue. He walked out of the room, back to Grogu’s small room, and laid him back down in his cot, among the many stuffies Karga and the other townsfolk continued to gift him. He stood over him for a moment, his hand on his back, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his breath. This he could do. It had taken time, but he felt like a mostly competent parent these days.
The mess back in his bedroom?
That was far outside the range of his skills, he thought. For a moment, he considered laying down on Grogu’s floor and letting Bo deal with herself. But then he thought of how her eyes looked empty. Her body broken with exhaustion. He sighed, whispered a little prayer of safety over Grogu, and went back to her.
She had hardly moved. She stood motionless, staring blankly into space. He was struck again at the sheer exhaustion that emanated from her. When he had left Mandalore, she had been energized as she oversaw the work of rebuilding the Great Forge, and the rest of Mandalore with it.
What had gone wrong?
“Bo,” he said softly. She still startled, then relaxed a fraction when she realized it was him, as if she had been somewhere else entirely, and forgotten she was here, in his cabin. “Bo,” he said again, as her glassy eyes focused on his face. He felt exposed under her scrutiny of his bare face. “You need to rest. Please. Take off your armor. We’re safe out here.”
She shook her head. “My hand, it’s not right.” She raised the hand that had been mangled by Gideon, crushing both the darksaber and the delicate bones of her hand. He knew she’d spend a substantial amount of time receiving bacta infusions, but he could see now it cramped and twitched, as if the nerves were misfiring.
He swallowed, then sighed, and moved toward her. “I’m going to help you, alright?” She didn’t respond at first. “Bo?” She nodded finally and he reached for a pauldron, unfastening it. He worked his way around her, trying not to think of how this intimate act could look to someone else. Her armor was different than his, ancient yet full of tech he had never seen. Full of battle scars beyond his comprehension. It made him fumble with clasps and buttons more than he cared to admit. But finally, each piece of beskar was removed, stacked neatly on the stool she had occupied when he had first found her in his room.
“Your boots.”
She didn’t respond, so he gently pushed her back until her knees hit the bed and she sat. He knelt, pulling her boots and then her socks from her feet. To his amusement, her toes were painted a brilliant purple. He huffed a laugh, admiring the shocking bit of prettiness.
“That’s my sister’s favorite color.”
It was his turn to startle. He looked up at her, feeling sheepish. Caught red handed. And also baffled by the comment. He set her foot down on the floor. “What?”
“Purple, especially that purple, was my sister’s favorite color.”
He didn’t even realize Bo had a sister.
“She left me, too,” she said, her voice thick with grief. But she seemed to have sparked to life again, and stood, unfastening the front of her flight suit, and stripping it off, folding it haphazardly and placing it on her beskar. Din swallowed, his face hot with embarrassment, trying to avert his eyes from the image of Bo in nothing but her shorts and a compression top.
“Everyone leaves me,” she said, adding her headband to the pile before moving to the bed, climbing in under the covers. Din heaved a sigh of relief and found her eyes again. “Bo, I-”
“And now you, too.”
“Bo-Katan!”
He said it harsher than he meant; then how he would ever dare speak to her. Her jaw clamped shut so hard he could hear her teeth knock together.
He sat on the edge of the bed, next to her. “Listen to me,” he said, much gentler. “I don’t know why you chased me down out here. I don’t know why you are so upset, but I think you need to sleep before we talk anymore.” She stared at him, her fire red hair spilled around her head on his pillow. “You are in no state for whatever kind of conversation you seem to be bent on having with me. Sleep, Bo. Please.”
She blinked at him, clearly surprised at his forcefulness. “Fine,” she finally relented, and scooted over, making herself more comfortable. She rolled to her side and stared at him.
He stared back at her.
“Are you going to get in?” she asked.
“What?” he asked, his voice going up a surprising two octaves.
“Din, just get in the bed. It’s your bed.”
He hesitated. This was beyond any level of awkwardness he had ever encountered, even when he had shared the Razor Crest with Cara and Kuiil and two blurrgs.
But he was tired. And he’d grown very used to the comfort of a proper bed after sleeping on cots and racks his entire life.
He relented, and crawled in beside her, laying on his back, staring at the ceiling.
“The light?”
“Oh,” he grunted, and reached, flicking it off. He stared into the darkness over his head.
She didn’t say anything else, and, to his surprise, within seconds, her breathing evened out into the steady rhythm of sleep.
He sighed with relief. Whatever was so upsetting, sleep would go a long way to clear her head. He’d learned that when Grogu would get uncharacteristically grumpy and willful.
He settled down, shifting to get more comfortable, turning to his side to face Bo. He watched her sleep, wondering again what had brought her to him, so distraught, despite her finally having Mandalore back.
She shifted in her sleep, her hand, curled close to her face, spasming again, clamping into a tight fist. In the shadows of the darkened room, he could see her grimace in pain. He took her hand, gently massaging it, rubbing soft circles over the surgical scars where Mandalorian medics had worked to knit the bones back together. The hand relaxed, and with it, her face.
Din continued to hold it, rubbing his thumb into the palm, her skin warm against his, and drifted off to sleep beside her.
Bo woke to bright sunshine and the sound of the pleasing sound of a babbling conversation. She sat up with a start, her brain rapidly running through the last few events she could remember.
She had left Mandalore.
She had tracked Grogu to Nevarro.
She’d broken into Din’s cabin.
She’d fallen asleep in Din’s bed. With Din?
She flopped back down on the mattress and stared at the ceiling. This had been stupid. One of the stupidest things she’d ever done, perhaps.
Then she smelled something savory, cooking nearby, and her stomach rumbled a deafening protest to its emptiness.
She was starving.
She dragged herself out of bed, shaking out her aching hand, and wandered out into the main room of the little cabin.
Grogu greeted her with a squeal of delight, running to her in his toddling, awkward way, arms raised. She immediately obliged, scooping him up and letting him snuggle close under chin. She remembered snuggling him til he fell asleep in her arms the night before. She remembered the brief moment of reprieve from her unending grief and anxiety.
Din, she was shocked to see, was not in his armor, but in a pair of soft, loose fitting trousers, hanging low on his hips, and a simple t-shirt. He stood at a cooktop, and turned at the sound of Grogu, his eyes going wide at the sight of her, before turning around, leaning heavily on the counter.
“Dank ferrik, Bo-Katan. Warn a man before you march in, ass out.”
She looked down at herself. She wasn’t naked. Why was he being so prudish? This was pretty standard attire in the barracks and bunks in her younger days.
Then she snorted. The fact that he was still showing her his face was scandalous enough. She had to assume casual states of undress were probably not something to which he was accustomed.
“Right, right,” she said, and swiveled on her heel, back into the room. Her flight suit and socks were gone, her beskar stacked neatly on a stool. A pair of pants, similar to his, were folded neatly on top of the armor, along with a linen shirt. She set Grogu on the bed, and quickly pulled the clothes on.
Once more modestly attired, she gestured to Grogu with a tilt of her head to follow her back out, which he obliged with delight, toddling along behind her. Din, dishing out something rich and hearty into in bowls, didn’t turn back around. “Sit down. I assume since you hadn’t slept in ages when you showed up here last night, you probably haven’t eaten much, either.”
Bo sat, grimacing at the accuracy. Truth be told, eating and sleeping were always the first to go when Bo was stressed or busy. And she had been extraordinarily busy. And stressed.
Din set a bowl down in front of her and poured her a glass of water. He reached to pick up Grogu and set him in his own spot, but Grogu evaded him, climbing into Bo’s lap instead. She shrugged, unbothered, so Din shrugged and placed Grogu’s bowl next to hers.
“I didn’t realize you cooked,” Bo said, studying the contents of her meal as she picked up a spoon. “Bounty hunting on a ship doesn’t seem like an ideal setting for expanding one’s culinary skills.”
Din sat down beside her with a shrug. “When I was a kid, first found by my tribe, I wasn’t really strong enough to keep up with the other kids at first, so I hung out in the kitchen, learning to cook. It’s not great, but I can make a decent tiingilar,” he explained, gesturing at her bowl.
She tasted it, and was pleasantly surprised. And reminded again that she was starving. They ate in silence for a few minutes, but Bo slowed as she began to feel satiated, and set her spoon down. “How long did I sleep?”
Din glanced at a chrono hanging near the front door. “Fifteen hours, give or take. You were practically delirious.”
She grunted a reply. She remembered very little of the night before.
She studied him insead, pushing her bowl over for Grogu to help himself to her leftovers. Din shifted uncomfortably under her gaze but continued to eat. “Why aren't you in your armor? Your helmet?”
He set his spoon down and sat back in his chair with a sigh. “Should I be? Would you prefer that? This is my home. My son. And, like you said last night, it’s not like you haven’t seen me.”
Had she said that? Probably. “So, the rule doesn’t apply in your own home?”
He growled a little in frustration but locked eyes with her. Stars, he was handsome. “I have decided the rule doesn’t apply in my home with my family.”
The look he gave her was pointed, and the force of which he said it made it clear he would not discuss it any further. She respected that.
Instead, she snatched up one last bite of the stew before Grogu got to it, and then sat back in her own chair, running a hand over and over Grogu’s ear. Now she felt the weight of Din’s gaze on her.
“Why are you here, Bo?”
The grief and anger came back with the force of a tidal wave, pulling her under before she could snatch a breath.
She remembered now.
“You left me,” she whispered, tears suddenly pricking at the corner of her eyes, her face feeling hot and itchy. Her deep, long sleep had only temporarily hidden her from the memory of looking out at the Forge lighting and looking for his shiny helmet and Grogu’s wide ears and not finding them assaulting her. She should have heard Din’s voice lead the rallying cry- it was him who had sworn himself to her, afterall- but it had been Axe instead.
Din pursed his lips, casting his eyes down at the empty bowl in front of him. “I was told I had to leave. To take him out on his journeys.”
Bo swiped a stray tear from her cheek. “What journeys? You’ve parked yourself out here in the middle of a lava field in some pretty cozy digs.”
“I’m waiting for some jobs to come through. This was a gift from Nevarro for helping with the pirates.”
She scowled at him. “But you didn’t even say goodbye.” She stood with a jolt, picking her and Grogu’s bowls up off the table. But her right hand spasmed hard and she dropped the heavy bowl, pottery shattering against the hard tile floor. “Osik!” she hissed, clamping her hand to her chest, trying to breathe through the pain, before starting to bend down to clean up the mess.
Din stopped her with a hand on her arm, pulling her upright and taking her cramping hand in his, rubbing firm but gentle circles along the scars and against her palm. She went very still, watching his hands work, unsure what to do with him so close, no beskar between them, skin touching skin.
Her fingers began to relax, the electric hot pain receding. Din’s eyes were on her hand, watching himself gently work each finger open and close a few times. “I think there are some good doctors in town. We could go in and see-”
Whatever he was going to say died in his throat as Bo grabbed him by the face, feeling the scratchy hairs of his short beard against her hands, and kissed him.
As quickly as she had grabbed him, she pushed him away, once again feeling like she couldn’t catch her breath. “Osik!” she hissed again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I-”
He shook his head, and bent down, picking up pieces of pottery. “Go suit up. I washed your flight suit. It should be in the tumbler.” He gestured toward a closet near the backdoor of the cabin. We’ll go see about your hand.”
“Din-”
“We’ll leave in fifteen.”
She stared down at him, but he kept working.
“No. I don’t want to go to town.”
He paused his work but didn’t look up. Then sighed. “Fine. Grogu, why don’t you show Bo your frogs.”
Grogu, either oblivious or ignoring the growing tension and weirdness between them, bounced out the front door, pausing to see if she was following. She took one last look at Din as he gathered the last of the pottery shards and followed.
She stepped out into the bright sunlight of Nevarro, her emotions reeling. She felt like she had whiplash. Angry and grief stricken, then stupidly lovesick, to deeply, profoundly embarrassed.
Bo had never been quite so embarrassed. As a child, she was prone to doing some very dumb, embarrassing things, and Pre had had a way of embarrassing her horribly, especially in her early years in Death Watch.
But kissing Din like that, especially in a way that, had it happened to her, the assaulter would have been on the floor, made everything else in her life pale in comparison.
She followed Grogu across the craggy, rocky yard, angry at herself for her stupidity. Angry at Din for not truly addressing her reason for stampeding into his and Grogu’s quiet life. By the time she and Grogu reached a marshy little spring, surprisingly full of plant and animal life, her embarrassment had been burned up by the renewed anger at Din. Maybe she wouldn’t have behaved so ridiculously if he’d given her a better answer. A real answer.
So, she sat behind him as he stopped at the edge of the stream. He looked over his shoulder to see if she was watching and then slowly raised his hand. Being with him made some of her anger ebb away. She found it impossible to stay in too dark a space around Grogu. It had been him who had first begun to lift her out of her deepest, darkest, hopeless spot when he came to her Kalevala for help.
Grogu, focused and serious, concentrated on the babbling water, and a frog slowly emerged from the water, still swimming in the air with confusion. She laughed with surprised delight, feeling a bit of pity for the poor animal, but delighted, nonetheless.
“Well, that’s certainly a fun trick!” she exclaimed with excitement. He turned, his face glowing with her praise. “You know, in all my years of knowing Jedi, they never showed me anything fun like that, ad’ika. It’s always fighting and protecting, and….” she trailed off. He had turned back to the stream bed, raising a second frog. She sighed. How much of her life had been about fighting?
All of it.
Fighting….or surrender.
You knew more than one Jedi?” Din’s voice startled Bo, once again hearing it from a vocoder. She turned to see him striding toward them, now fully attired in armor. He sat down beside her, though she did not fail to notice the amount of space he left between them.
She did not comment on the armor, as silly as she found it, this far away from civilization. “I knew several,” she said, turning back to watch Grogu, now in the stream, his little tunic soaked. “Ahsoka, obviously, and two more, Kanan and Ezra, helped liberate Sundari a few months prior to the battle of Yavin.”
“Jedi helped Mandalore?” Din asked, incredulous. “What happened to them being our sworn enemies?”
Bo snorted a derisive laugh. “Did the Armorer tell you that?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “Sure, we have some history with the Jedi, and as recently as my childhood.
“But my sister was protected by Jedi during the last civil war, before she took the throne. Ahsoka helped Satine not only uncover a corruption plot as a Padawan, but also helped me capture and reclaim Sundari at the end of the Clone Wars. And my sister maintained a lifelong friendship with Master Obi-Wan, who tried to save her when she was murdered.” She sighed. “He also killed her murderer, almost twenty years later, if Ezra’s account was right.”
Grogu spun around in the stream at the mention of Obi-Wan, eyes big and bright. “Did you know Obi-Wan, Grogu?” she asked. He nodded, toddling toward her, placing his little hands on her knees. “You want stories of him, hmm?” He nodded again. She shrugged. “I don’t have a lot, ad’ika, but I promise I will tell you what I know, later. Go play with your frogs.” His ears sagged with disappointment for a moment, but he went back to the stream, laughing in delight as an intrepid frog hopped near the edge of the stream.
“Until last night, I didn’t know you had a sister,” Din said, quietly, carefully.
“What did I say last night?”
He pointed at her bare feet, her painted toes, a self indulgent moment of self care she occasionally gave herself. “You said that was her favorite color.”
She felt the flush of embarrassment spread up into her cheeks. “Oh.”
“Why haven’t you ever mentioned her?” he asked, his voice soft and curious.
Bo shifted, feeling the sharp lava rocks through the thin pants. “I….she…” She sighed. Gathering her thoughts. “Her memory is very precious to me, and knowing who you were raised by, I did not want to hear some nonsense about how she was Mandalore’s downfall. Because she was the best thing to happen to Mandalore.”
“If she was anything like you, I can only imagine.”
“No. She was better than me. So much better than me. She brought us peace. True peace. Unlike anything we had ever known. And I was part of the reason she was murdered.” Tears sprang to her eyes, falling before she could even stop them. It never failed to amaze Bo how close to the surface her grief for Satine ran, even thirty years on.
He made some sort of grumbling noise. “It couldn’t be that bad, Bo.”
Bo turned to stare at him. “I was the right hand of Pre Vizsla, leader of Death Watch. I followed his every godforsaken whim, and followed him into a coup that overthrew Satine’s legitimate government. I rallied Mandalorians to call for her removal, to put Pre in her place, with the help of fucking Sith Lords, and then they murdered him, and then Satine.”
She hadn’t realized that she had climbed to her feet. She was breathing hard, tears streaming down her face. She hadn’t really talked about this in years. Fenn had been the last one to really understand her whole history, and he, like everyone else she loved, was gone.
She turned to watch Grogu, wiping tears from her face. “The thing is,” she said quietly, “I tried to stop Pre. I put my neck on the line and told him he was being foolish. The writing was on the wall, the moment we pulled those two monsters from their derelict ship. But he didn’t listen. Then he was gone, and everything I had poured my heart into with him. And then I tried to save Satine….and I couldn’t. I couldn’t get her out.”
Din came up behind her, his touch gentle on her arm. “We make mistakes. Sometimes horrible ones. It’s what you do with those mistakes that matters in the end.” He turned her toward him, but she refused to look at him. He tipped her head up, gently, but firm, making her look into the shininess of his helmet. She saw her own tear stained face in its reflection. “Is that why you fought so hard to get Mandalore back? For her?”
A little hiccuping sob escaped her lips. Damn this irritatingly kind man and his stupid shiny armor. She hated the way he got her. It had been years since someone understood her like this. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Then why aren’t you there?”
Another quiet sob. Grogu must have sensed her mood, as he had turned toward and was making his way to them. “Because, Din. I am tired. I am exhausted. I have been fighting for that planet for thirty years. When can I be done?”
His helmet cocked just a little. A look she now knew meant he was thinking. Mulling something through. She was not expecting his reply.
“I know you don’t want to go into town-”
“Din-”
He held up a hand to stop her. “I know you don’t want to go into town, but I do need some provisions, especially with an extra mouth to feed. Why don’t you relax while Grogu and I go?”
Bo blinked at him. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Come on, Grogu.” He saw Grogu’s soaking wet tunic and grunted in annoyance. “Guess you’ll dry on the speeder.” Without another word, he scooped the kid up and walked to a speeder bike hidden in the shadows on the side of the house.
“Once again, leaving without a goodbye!” she called after him, feeling off balance. And tired. She really was just tired.
“Goodbye, Bo,” he called over his shoulder. Grogu waved. They sped off, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake and Bo feeling rudderless.
She wandered her way back to the cabin, and after debating what to do with herself, decided that, for the first time since she was a child, a nap seemed like a really great idea.
And, after a moment’s hesitation, she climbed back into Din’s bed, and drifted off to sleep.
Din and Grogu returned to the cabin two hours later, Din’s arms loaded with food, another bottle of expensive booze Greef Karga gave him. Grogu carried yet another toy.
Din had also visited with a doctor Greef had recommended, explaining Bo’s injuries and the aftermath of them. They had given him a so-called miraculous salve, an ancient remedy from some forgotten dot in the Outer Rim. He wasn’t sure if Bo would even consider trying it, but he assumed it wouldn’t hurt.
“Bo,” he called as he entered the cabin. A wave of panic hit him when she didn’t answer. The quiet was alarming. “Bo,” he tried again, setting the parcels down on the counter. His gut twisted.
“Patu,” Grogu said, standing in the doorway of Din’s bedroom.
Din stepped over and looked in. There was Bo, asleep in his bed. The late afternoon sun lit her fire red hair aflame, catching the highlights in it. She looked peaceful in her sleep, and he was relieved that she had taken advantage of the quiet and rested more. He was no healer, but he was sure she had not rested once since their battle with Gideon, which may have an effect on why her hand was still not fully healed. If it ever would be.
He pulled his helmet off and knelt by the bed. He wanted to touch her hair. He would have put his hands in her hair had she given him the chance earlier. But he thought better of it just now. Bo’s reflexes would probably lay him out cold on the floor if he spooked her.
“Hey, Bo,” he said quietly. Her eyes fluttered beneath her pale eyelids. “I know you’re tired, but you should probably get up and eat again.” This close to her, in the warm sunlight, he could study the constellation of freckles across her cheeks and nose. They were hard to really pick out through the visor of his helmet, and he marveled at them as she slowly floated to the surface of consciousness.
She mumbled something, shifting a little, her eyes still closed. “What was that?” he asked.
“Did you bring anything sweet?” she said more clearly, her eyes still closed.
He grunted a little laugh. Did Bo have a sweet tooth? “There’s some fruit, and Grogu talked me into getting him some of the cookies he likes.”
Her eyes opened, and the green of them dazzled him. “Perfect,” she said, smiling. “Just what I need.”
He smiled back. “Then I suggest you get up before the womp rat eats them all.”
She stretched, and Din averted his eyes as her shirt crept up her midriff, and then she sat up, swinging her legs over the bed. He shuffled away, giving them some distance, but she caught his hand. “Thank you.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “For what?”
She pursed her lips. “I don’t know where to start, but for now, let’s go with thank you for letting me crash your little domesticated dream.”
He nodded. “You're welcome to crash it whenever you want. Now go get a cookie while I take this off,” he said, gesturing to his armor. “I’ll make us some dinner.”
She stood and moved to the door, but he called to her before she left. “And, Bo?”
She turned to face him. “We’re talking about why you crashed our little domesticated dream tonight.”
She stared at him for a second, a multitude of thoughts and emotions flicking over her fair features. This is why he liked Bo, why he liked seeing her face, clearly and fully- she was so raw and real and tangible. She could hide nothing while hiding everything. She was complicated and simple.
She finally settled on an emotion- resolve, he would call it- and nodded. “Right.” Then she walked out the door, letting it close behind her. “Hey! Save some of those for me, you little womp rat!”
He undressed quickly, taking a few extra moments to be sure he didn’t smell, as he so often did after a few hours in the hot Nevarro sun. He slid into clean soft clothes, reveling in the comfortable novelty of them.
There had been a time, before the Razor Crest had been blasted into dust, before Grogu, that he would live his solitary life aboard his ship more comfortably, at least while in the privacy of hyperspace. But, holding the Creed he had believed so powerfully in, he had stopped when Grogu came into his life.
But with the events of the last few months; working alongside Bo, sheltering her after she lost her home on Kalevala, the Armorer’s seemingly arbitrary enforcement of the Creed, getting to know Bo and her people and seeing how dynamically and faithfully they, themselves, believed; he had decided that he would not hide his face from his child in their private life.
He would not hide his face from the people who lived in his heart.
He looked toward the door, and swallowed the lump that had formed.
Then he stepped out, and smiled.
Bo was leaning on the counter in the kitchen area, laughing as she snatched cookies out of the air as Grogu floated them to her with his magic. The kid himself was laughing with delight as Bo would take a nibble then hold it out for him to pull back toward him, with that strange wizard power of his. He would take a nibble (Din had never seen him take such delicate bites), and the whole cycle would start again.
“You need to teach me what you know about this stuff,” Din said, coming over and rummaging through the parcels. “It’s hard to find any information on it.”
Bo frowned hard, scooping Grogu up from where he sat on the counter, snuggling him close. He reciprocated, tucking his head under her chin. “The Jedi and all their knowledge were eradicated from the galaxy. I am shocked someone as small as him survived. Ahsoka barely did. There isn’t any information because so few were left to pass it on. From what Ahsoka has told me, Skywalker is more or less winging it at his academy.”
Din grunted. “Well, it’s still more than I know.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” she said, carrying Grogu away to sit at the table. “You have done a good job with him. He’s a happy, brave, kind kid.”
Din swallowed, the sudden wave of emotion hitting him hard. He hid it behind his focus on chopping vegetables. “I wish I hadn’t sent him away,” he finally admitted. “I feel like I betrayed him.”
She laughed derisively. “He doesn’t seem to hold a grudge. Perhaps you needed that time to reflect on your life. You’re different than you were when I first met you, Din Djarin.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. Grogu sat in her lap, watching, listening to their exchange with bright curiosity in his eyes. “Because I’m showing you my face?”
She shrugged. He returned to the vegetables. “Your handsome face is a part of it, sure.” He felt himself flush at the compliment. No one had ever called him handsome. Why would they? “I think your time apart made you question yourself. Your values. Your purpose. And I think you only really began to find those answers in the last few months.”
Had she read his mind? Did her Jedi friends teach her to use their magic?
She didn’t say anything, and he realized she was waiting for a response. He was glad his back was to her. He could not handle the weight of her gaze at this moment. “Perhaps,” was all he could come up with.
Bo appeared beside him, and he tensed, not ready for her to see him. Not ready to dig deeper. But she slid past him, focused on the remains of the parcels he’d carried in. “What can I do to help? I can’t cook, but I can follow directions.”
He relaxed, taking a settling breath, then set her to work with the vegetables while he worked on the more complicated bits of their dinner.
Dinner came together quickly, and soon they were seated around the table, eating mostly in silence.
Din and Bo were silent, that was. Bo and Grogu kept up a steady stream of communication while they ate. Din watched, admiring Bo’s easy way with Grogu. He was an easy kid to love, but Bo had a gentle, understanding way with him, talking with him more than at him, as so many tended to do.
The evening moved on, and before long, the craggy hills around the cabin were shrouded in dark, a blanket stars above. Grogu slept in his room as Din sat with Bo on the small porch, a glass of the brandy Greef had given him earlier in the day in each of their hands.
“You’re outside without your helmet,” Bo said with a hint of bemusement, sipping the brandy.
Din sighed. “It’s as dark as a strill’s ass out here. Who’s going to see me?” He sipped his own brandy, enjoying for the first time in his life the comradery of sharing a drink with someone.
Bo nodded her head, smiling. “Fair point,” then clinked her glass to his.
They sat quietly for a few minutes, watching a short burst of meteors ping across the sky. But Din’s patience grew short. “Why did you come, Bo?”
She stiffened beside him, and took a long drink. She didn’t reply. He turned to look at her and saw her jaw was set hard, her lips pressed to a thin line. “Bo? Do you think I abandoned you? That I wasn’t going to keep my word?”
Her right hand twitched and spasmed, and he got up and went back inside, coming out a moment later with the balm he’d been given. He reached for her hand, and began to rub slow circles into her hand, working the so-called miracle into her soft skin, and waited for her to speak.
“You left without a word,” she said, all but whispering. “You said all of those things to me on the sail barge, and then you just….left. Why?”
He swallowed hard, staring at her hand. If he told her the reasons, if he told her what he’d wanted to do versus what he’d been encouraged to do, he couldn’t imagine the ramifications that would come from it. But he felt her eyes on him, watching him work, waiting for him.
He owed her the truth.
“I didn’t want to,” he started. “I didn’t want to leave.”
“But the Armorer told you you were obligated to take him on some unknown quest.” Her voice was low, edged with something not quite anger and thick with grief. “So, you followed her every word, just like always.”
He finished with the balm but held her hand. “That’s only a part of it.”
“What’s the rest of it?”
He took a short, frustrated breath. His stomach was tying itself in knots. He had never confessed something like this before. He’d never felt something like this before. But he plunged in, like she had plunged into the Living Waters after him.
“She sensed my growing….affection for you. Beyond my loyalty to you as Mand’alor.” He could feel her tense. She had been relaxed, soft even, but now she went as hard as her beskar. But Din pushed on, determined. “She didn’t- doesn’t like it. We’re not that kind of people. That type of….care. That’s not what we do. We raise and protect and train the younglings. We don’t-”
He stopped. Unsure how to put his feelings for Bo-Katan into words. It wasn’t that he hadn’t felt physical desire. He’d even acted on it, with willing partners, in the awkward ways he could.
But this wasn’t about physical desire, though he’d be an idiot to not desire her.
This was different.
Deeper.
Foreign.
He was enthralled by it.
It terrified him.
“So,” Bo said, drawing it out. “You ran because you have feelings for me? You left because you’re not allowed to have feelings for me?”
He shrugged, knowing full well the action didn’t match the weight of the conversation. “I didn’t run because I have feelings for you, Bo. I left because my feelings for you are…are….”
“Problematic?” Bo snorted. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s feelings for a Kryze woman were problematic.”
Din wasn’t sure what she meant, but he nodded in agreement. “Something like that.”
“I can handle the Armorer,” she said, finally relaxing a little. “If you stay with me.”
He sighed. “It’s not just my people. It’s yours, too.”
She went rigid again. “My people?”
He nodded again, this time more slowly, the memory of the overheard conversation seering through his mission.
“ That tin can foundling trash thinks he’s worthy of royalty. Of a Kryze. The truest among us…”
He hadn’t been sure if he wasn’t supposed to hear it, and the riotous laugh from the table that followed, or if it had been said specifically for him to overhear. But it had cut him to the core.
“Who?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to say.”
“Din, who? What did they say?” She tugged on his hand, forcing him to look at her.
“That I’m not worthy of you. A foundling wouldn’t deserve a Kryze.”
“Woves,” she hissed.
“Not just him.”
She waved it off. “It doesn’t matter who. It’s the same elitist shit we said in the days of Death Watch. It’s nonsense, Din. It’s not true. That shit is against the karking Creed.”
She grabbed him by the shoulders, her hands warm through his thin shirt, and turned him to face her. “I choose who is worthy of me. No one else. Not Axe. Not the Armorer. Not you. Me.” She shook him a little. “Don’t run from me, Din. Don’t run from whatever it is you’re feeling. Please.”
He stared at her, marveling at the emotions he could see so plainly on her beautiful face. It was dim there on the porch, but he knew the location of her freckles, could picture the constellations they formed on her high cheekbones and fine nose. Her green eyes were shiny with unshed tears, the starlight glittered in her hair, hair the color of a flaming sunset.
His hand let go of hers and came tentatively to her cheek. He brushed his thumb across it, surprised at the softness. His fingers found their way to the scar across her temple, and traced it, memorizing its path, before they tangled through her hair. Her hair was like silk, slipping through his fingertips like the finest textiles in the galaxy. His fingers slipped around to the back of her head, holding her gently, then, slowly, trying and failing to not show his anxiety, he pulled her lips to his, and kissed her.
This time, she did not push him away. Instead, she melted into him, her arms twining around his neck and shoulders, pulling him toward her. He felt wholly out of his element, unpracticed and fumbling, but he followed her lead, his arms going around her wiry frame, pulling her half into his lap, her torso pressed hard to his.
One hand of Bo’s found its way to his hair, and held onto it, tight, like she was afraid to let go. Her other hand crept down and then up beneath the hem of his shirt, splaying warm, long fingers across the muscles of his back, deepening their embrace. He followed suit, tentatively tracing fingers over the soft skin of waist. She laughed against his lips. “That tickles.” He smiled against her lips. Bo was ticklish.
He grew bold and moved his lips from hers, along her jaw, and down her neck. She was hot everywhere he touched. He was unskilled in this whole lips to skin thing, but he’d seen enough holos to assume this had to be something right. The way she shuddered and sighed against him, he decided he had assumed right.
“Din,” she whispered, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear, causing his own set of trembles.
“Tell me,” he whispered back into the skin of neck, his hand tugging gently at the neck of her shirt, exposing more skin.
“Tell you what?” she said, tilting his head back with the grasp she had in his hair.
“Tell me I am worthy of you,” he said, pressing kisses to her collarbone.
Her hands fell away and he started to sag in disappointment. But they found his face, framing it, forcing him to look right into her eyes. “Din Djarin, you are worthy of my love. Of my heart. My soul. You are worthy of so much more than I think you can ever dare to imagine.”
His breath caught in his throat.
“Now you tell me,” she said, her thumbs brushing against the stubble of his beard.
“Tell you what?” His brain was addled, no longer truly functioning. What could she possibly want to hear?
“Tell me you won’t leave me.”
Her eyes were wide and earnest, full of an old pain left by more bad memories than good. “I won’t leave you. I am yours til your song is sung. I meant that, Bo. In every way.”
She blinked at him as if she were surprised. And then threw herself at him, toppling him over onto his back.
Bo, Din, and Grogu fell into an easy domestic rhythm over the next four days.
During the days, they cooked and ate together. They played with Grogu as Bo tried to teach Din what she could remember Ahsoka telling her. Some bits and pieces from Kanan’s brief lessons in using the darksaber. Bits and pieces Sabine had gleaned from both Kanan and Ezra in her years with them. It wasn’t much, but it was more than Din ever knew.
At nights, when their bodies weren’t wrapped tight around each other, Din quickly losing his awkwardness, they talked.
She talked about Satine, often tears blurring her vision as she told him of her remarkable sister.
She talked of Pre and Death Watch and what it was like to have her worldview totally warped by a singular human, especially one she had loved as fiercely and as stupidly as Pre.
She talked of Fenn and his patience and gentleness and forthrightness.
She told stories of Korkie and how much they had adored each other while also making each other wildly insane with anger at times. She told Din of Korkie’s unwavering belief in both the Mandalorian rebellion and the Rebel Alliance, and how he had fought, in his own ways, more like his mother than Bo, for both with his full heart.
She spoke of her grief and anger and her many, many regrets.
On the fourth night, she told him she did not feel worthy of him.
He kissed the crown of her head, pulling her closer to him. She could feel the scruff of his beard scratch against her scalp. “I’m nobody, Bo.”
She laughed darkly. “I beg to differ.”
She felt him shrug. “I’m a bounty hunter who went against the guild’s mandates, stole a bounty, pissed off an Imp, and fell backwards into helping Lady Bo-Katan Kryze reclaim Mandalore. I just want a simple life with my kid and the woman I love.” She smiled sadly. She knew there was a but coming. He didn’t disappoint. “But the woman I love is Lady Bo-Katan Kryze, Mand’alor.”
His arms wrapped around her tightly, and she pressed a kiss to his chest. “Can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
“I just want a simple life with you and the kid, too.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, quick, before she could contain them. The thought had been rolling through her head for years. Hell, it was more or less what she’d been trying to do, in a much, much sadder, lonelier way on Kalevala. But she had never uttered the desire out loud.
But Bo was tired. She had not had a good, quiet thing, save for a few snatched days here and there in her few, short years with Fenn, ever. Not since she was a child.
Mandalore was back in the hands of Mandalorians.
It was growing life.
The Great Forge was lit.
Satine’s palace was being unearthed.
Could she rest?
“You should have a simple life, Bo,” Din whispered, his lips brushing her temple before he slid down a bit to better access the skin of neck. “You deserve rest.”
“Don’t I owe Satine my life?”
He stilled, his lips pressed to her pulse point. She could tell he was deep in thought. “You fought for her legacy for thirty years. And now you have it back. I didn’t know her, Bo, but from what you say, I think she would say you deserve your rest.”
“I don’t know if I do.”
He turned her chin to look at him. “You are worthy of rest, Bo-Katan Kryze. You are worthy of simple things. Of good things. Of me. Of Grogu.”
She wrapped her arms tight around him, letting him pepper her with kisses until she fell asleep in his arms, dreaming of Satine’s gentle voice telling her to rest.
The next morning came too early and too harshly, with a loud, cracking knock on the front door of the cabin. Din woke shockingly fast, slamming his helmet on while charging his blaster. Bo woke slower, groggy and unsure what was happening.
“Bo-Katan!” a familiar voice called out.
“Shit,” she hissed. “Axe.”
She hustled from the bed, stepping quickly into the pants and shirt that had become hers with an unspoken agreement. “Stand down, Din,” she said, sliding too easily back into commander mode. “I got him.”
Din grunted from under his helmet, dressing quickly, his flight suit already on. She left him to it and went to the door.
“Hello, Axe,” she said as the door slid open, being sure to let ever milligram of her fury with him weigh her voice down. The sky was still purple-pink, and the last of the brightest stars still twinkled in the early morning haze.
“Fraid your vacation needs to end, boss,” he said gruffly. She could see three other commandos a few meters behind in the yard, though it was too dark still to place who they were. “We need you back on Manda’yaim.”
Bo sighed, feeling Din come up behind her. She didn’t need to see his face, or even him, to know the kind of look he was giving Axe.
“Djarin,” Axe greeted, scowling.
Bo didn’t give the two of them time to square off. “What’s going on at home?”
Axe shrugged. “Nothing much, we just need you back to make some decisions. Hard to do when you kriff off and we can’t get a comm out.”
“I didn’t ‘kriff off.’ I told Koska where I was going and that I would be back.”
She’d known Axe a very long time, so it was easy for her to see the restraint he had in rolling his eyes. “Well, whatever it was, we need you.”
“You should go, Bo,” Din said quietly behind her.
“Patu,” came softly from her feet, Grogu’s little hand grasping the leg of her soft pants. She picked him up, fighting the urge to rage against Mandalore’s constant need for her.
“I’ll be ready in an hour,” she finally said. “Have someone prep my ship.”
“Lek, boss,” Axe said, giving her a casual salute before nodding to Din and turning on his heel.
Bo turned herself and pushed past Din, back into the cabin. She stopped in the middle of the room, clinging tightly to Grogu. She heard the soft hiss of Din’s helmet being unsealed and pulled off, and then felt his hand on her back. “You can do this.”
“Can I?”
He turned her around and pulled her into him. It wasn’t as pleasant, being held tight to a wall of beskar rather than his supple, warm body, but the kiss he placed on her head helped. “You have done remarkable things, and have many more left in you. Go home, get them where they can stand without you, and then?” He tipped her chin up to him and kissed her lips. “Then, we rest.”
“Will you come home some?” she asked, hating the pleading in her voice.
He smiled, kissing her again. “Yes. And we can come here, too. Go home, Bo-Katan. I will be yours, no matter where I am.”
She nodded, taking a deep, steadying breath. “I guess I should get ready.”
Din let her go, taking Grogu from her. “I’ll make you some breakfast.”
Within the hour, Bo was dressed in her beskar and fed, and walking the short distance to her ship, hand in hand with Din.
“Please come home soon,” she whispered to Din. “I will need you.”
His hand tightened around hers. “I have a job for the New Republic to do, but then we’ll come.”
She nodded, squeezing back. “Be safe?”
“Only if you will.”
They arrived at the foot of the ramp and stopped, turning toward each other. She pulled his helmeted head to hers, touching her forehead to his helmet. His gloved hand went to her hair. “I love you, Din Djarin,” she said quietly.
He made a soft little grunt, low in his chest, as if surprised at the admission, though she wasn’t sure why that would surprise him. “I….I love you, Bo-Katan Kryze.”
She ran her hand over Grogu’s ears, and he turned his big eyes to her. “You keep Dad safe, ok? He needs us to do that, right?”
“Patu!”
“Right. And you know where to find me if you can’t do it yourself, right?”
Grogu nodded, babbling happily.
Bo sighed, and smiled, sad, but strangely at peace. She squared her shoulders and started up the ramp, but Din caught her hand. “Hang on.”
He pulled something from his pocket, a little jar, and placed it in her hand. “Don’t forget this. It seems to be helping.”
She looked at it, and realized it was the balm he had worked into her decimated hand twice a day the last few days. The pain was only faint, now, and the spasms had all but stopped. She smiled at him. “Thank you.” Then let him go.
She made herself comfortable in the pilot seat, finishing the final phases of powering up the ship. She could see Din and Grogu, standing nearby. She smiled at them, though she knew they couldn’t see her.
She had a plan now. More of a plan than perhaps she’d ever had in her life.
She would help build Mandalore, working from the inside, like her sister had done so many years ago. They would establish a government, find people who could lead fairly and honestly. And once Bo was sure Mandalore could stand without needing her at the helm?
She would be truly worthy of her rest.