#whoa angst

[solqrays]

obsessed with the idea that due to the flower valley wall being burnt down by joel, and the events that followed it, jimmy is afraid of fire, or more specifically he believes fire to be a root cause of their destruction, the dare to flare game with lava, the flower valley wall being burnt down, the fact that in empires and xornoth and everything- jimmy believes that fire is a bad omen to destruction and death, the prelude to the canary curse. (thats why in lim life, he knew he would be the first out, because of the fact that the bread bridge was destroyed). flash forward to double life, and jimmy is paired up with tango, a blazeborn with fire for hair. he's the reason they lost their first life and even if jimmy doesnt blame him for it he knows he wouldnt last long in this season. but when he meets tango and he feels like his world has been shifted upside down, because before fire reminded him of death and destruction, of unhappiness and eternal doom. now it reminds him of home, a sanctuary in the death game, he thinks he's finally safe from the eyes of the watchers and that perhaps, just perhaps fire could mean something more than a curse. but alas nothing ever seems to go his way as fire comes back again, messing with his life when scar comes back and burns the ranch- a physical reminder that fire will destroy everything that comes in the watcher's way of torturing jimmy. but little do they know how much the ranch and tango has affected him, when he walks up to tango who is in his rage, flaming hair and hands and everything, he knows rationally that he will get hurt, thanks to his avian heritage and his curse, but at that moment he finds himself not caring, he holds tango's hands, and even if the fire burns his own hands he finds himself not caring. because he was sick and tired of fire getting in the way of things he loved (with scott distancing him after the walls burnt down and then leaving him after he died and joel who used to be his loving and caring brother-in-law betraying him and after the grimlands explosion- forgetting him and turning into a cruel shadow of his former self)- but jimmy couldnt let that happen to him and tango's relationship. he wanted to break the phoenix's cycle, burning up and then reincarnating to lose a small part of himself. he couldnt let that happen and so when jimmy took tango's hands into his own, he wanted to change the watcher's plans, and to pay for that he died again, sooner than expected- but to him it didnt matter anymore, because he finally had someone who would be there for him. his relationship with fire was still shaky, not trusting it completely, but he knew he could trust tango, and he knew that he wouldnt hurt him or leave him be- and even when they returned to empires and jimmy was faced with the cruel remarks of the other emperors and their meaningless insults, he longed to be with tango, to be with his fire. sure he may not be doing the best on empires, but he had someone to live for, someone who would help him break free from the cold clasps of the watchers, and thats what mattered. no amount of fire would break this bond, for it was forged in the brightest flames of love and understanding.

[samtheacesheep]

Work Description:

Melissa can’t allow herself to recover, her guilt is too strong. But she decides that she has to try- just not for her own sake.

[scalytunster]

random Stobotnik doodles (for the people :D)

[childlikegoblinqueen]

Happy one month chapter-versary to this nightmare sequence!

And thank you to @imperfection-you-will-find for depicting it soooooooo perfectly for the commission !

“Give her to me…”

[fairy-verse]

I've been curious about this for a while since I read you mentioned none of the firstborns are 'siblings' and left it up to our headcanons, essentially?

What would a relationship between the firstborn of Summer and the firstborn of Autumn look like? How would they have become mates? How would their personalities go together in a relationship?

There are such differences yet similarities, and I'm curious how a relationship between Dream (who is shown to usually stay in his Valley) would go with Nightlight (who i remember almost never leaves Nightmare's area)?

Please do feel free to disregard this ask if you see fit, thank you for making such a truly lovely au, it's always fun to backread again whenever I have the time. Thank you for sharing your au with us :D<3

Before Nightmare’s corruption, a relationship with Dream would have been pleasant and filled with gentle touches and soft poems made of song and dance. They would frolic on the Meadow of the Firstborn as they were free from worry and grief, flying either naked or with flowing silks that made them giggle sweetly. They are different, that is true, but their earliest days were slow-moving and filled with nothing but time and patience, so they slowly drifted closer and closer, until eventually they interlaced and became inseparable… Up till the fateful day of Nightmare’s corruption and the demise of his innocence.

Their relationship would have become gloomy and distant. Nightmare would appreciate the support and love Dream gave him, but his broken soul would no longer be able to fully take it in, at least not yet. He’s split apart, changed, covered in corruption as thick and sticky as tar that he’s not yet mastered full control over. He shoves Dream’s love away, and Dream is left in the growing dark of autumn’s new visage.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Now, you specifically ask for Nightlight, so I will show you how him and Dream end up together and how this development will affect Nightmare.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Dream might rarely leave his valley of summer, but at the arrival of Nightlight, he will quickly begin to make frequent visits to Nightmare’s underground nest. He’s beside himself with delight at the sight of the fragile fairy and he cannot help himself but to weep from joy, grief, and relief. He cannot help the fact that he reacts this way, nor can he truly be blamed for not thinking it all through properly. Nightlight holds the memories of Nightmare’s early days, so his love for Dream is as present and strong as back then, too.

Their embrace completes a puzzle left undone for centuries.

Nightmare is happy at their love for one another. He’s happy that Nightlight is loved in more ways than one, and he’s happy that Dream is smiling like that again. He’s happy with this outcome.

He is happy.

… Then why does his happiness sting in his sockets and hurt so badly in his throat?

Nightlight looks and acts the way Nightmare did before his corruption, so of course, Dream would be drawn to him. He is what Nightmare lost, the pleasant sight of colours of early autumn and the gentle breeze of a cooling wind not yet biting cold. Nightlight is sweet and lovely and pure, and he and Dream are so wonderful together. They’re beautiful.

And that is what hurts so badly.

Nightlight is Nightmare in a way, but he’s a past version of him, the second half of Nightmare’s soul that broke apart and died. Nightmare is what was left, what survived the cruelty done by the Big Folk, the harsher and darker part of autumn that could withstand the defilement brought upon him. Nightlight is the part of him that fit so well with Dream, the part of his autumn that still held onto summer and cherished it as much as summer valued its gentleness.

Nightmare isn’t that. He’s not someone who can be careless and free together with Dream anymore, he’s the wrong kind of autumn for Dream, and he’s as deceptive as half of the season he represents, the one giving false promises of a prolonged pause before the bitter winter cold’s arrival. As such, it’s easy to lie right to Dream’s face as the firstborn fairy of summer cradles his cheeks in remorse and pleading mercy for his sudden reaction at the sight of Nightlight.

Dream realises that he’s gone past Nightmare and straight for his lighter counterpart, and he’s remorseful and sorrowful as he begs for Nightmare’s forgiveness and gives away terrible promises that he’ll stay away if he’s hurt him too badly.

Nightmare loves Dream and it breaks him to see Dream so willing to cast himself down just because he was overcome with joy and love for the rebirth of someone that he’d lost so very long ago. Nightmare doesn’t ever want Dream to feel guilty for expressing his raw and wondrous emotions, so he lies. He lies and tells him that it’s okay. That he wants Dream and Nightlight to be together and that he’s moved on. And he doesn’t even stop to think about offering himself to Dream, too, because he doesn’t think Dream wants him like that anymore.

After all, Nightlight is made of the best parts of him, he’s everything that used to be good about him. Why would Dream want him as he is now… melancholic, sarcastic, stubborn, sullen, withdrawn…

If only he’d asked Dream he would have known that he’s not below Nightlight. He would have known that Dream wanted him, too. But now Dream believes that Nightmare isn’t interested, that he has indeed moved on; Nightmare is too good at lying so Dream doesn’t see the grief in his soul, and with how Nightmare’s grown to endure the pain from centuries of being without half of his soul, he’ll be able to endure the heartache from seeing Dream and Nightlight together.

He will endure it, no matter how much it stings and numbs him.

[smeg-and-the-red]

Smegtober Day 11: Jealousy

(prompts by @strange-and-off-putting)

word count: 544

A/N: set during series 8, sometime after the gang are sent to the brig.

Rimmer was no stranger to envy. His entire childhood and adolescence had been spent in the shadows of his three older brothers. All of them were more clever, more handsome, and more accomplished than he was, and Rimmer envied them bitterly for the things that seemed to come to them with ease while he struggled endlessly.

As a young man he had envied his fellow technicians in the JMC. He’d seethed as, one by one, they'd received their pips and ascended the ranks, leaving him behind.

When Lister joined him on Z-Shift, Rimmer envied his ability to make friends with everyone he met, and the ease with which he spoke to the girls on board. Because, even after more than a decade on Red Dwarf, Rimmer still felt like an outsider.

But none of that comes close to the envy - the sickening, burning jealousy - that Rimmer feels towards himself. Or rather, the version of himself that Lister talks about.

Most of the time it’s fine. Apparently, spending so much time with this other Rimmer has made Lister and the others far more friendly and tolerable towards Rimmer than he’s used to. For the first time in his life, he knows what it’s like to feel included. But it’s not quite right. Sometimes Lister will do something, or say something, or sometimes just look at him, and Rimmer can tell it’s not him he’s thinking of, but rather his Rimmer.

Lister had told him about his Rimmer late one night, a few days after they got arrested. He lay in the top bunk in their cell, staring up at the ceiling and speaking in a hushed, almost awed voice about his Rimmer, who was different. Who left them to become a space hero. Rimmer sat across the cell in one of the rigid metal chairs, staring tight-lipped down at his clasped hands as Lister spoke.

It’s almost impossible to believe that any version of him could do some of the things Lister was telling him. But Lister’s voice is quiet and sincere, and Rimmer knows he’s not lying.

It’s an agonisingly difficult pill to swallow. On one hand, he actually did it. He became the hero he’d always wanted to be as a child. Not only once, it would seem, but hundreds of thousands of times across multiple universes. But it wasn’t him, even if Lister insisted that he and his Rimmer were the same person.

Then there was the way Lister spoke about him. Whenever he recalled some adventure or another, he got this glassy look in his eyes, his voice softening the slightest bit. Once Rimmer had sneered, tartly suggesting that perhaps Lister and this other Rimmer were rather more than just chums. Lister had just smiled, saying that his Rimmer said the same thing when they met the original Ace Rimmer.

Rimmer lies in his bunk, staring up at the bottom of Lister’s. The way Lister snores has changed. He breathes more deeply and slowly now. Rimmer realises it’s a ludicrous thing to take notice of, but he can’t help it. He tries not to think about everything else that’s changed. About the fact that Lister and his Rimmer changed each other.

[dukeofthomas]

What if... they were gems

[itsjuststardust]

Heaven in Hiding - Chapter 12: Angel On Fire

Heaven in Hiding Masterlist

Chapter Summary: And I’m fading away, you know, I used to be on fire. I’m standing in the ashes of who I used to be. -Halsey

Word Count: 13,734

Author's Note/Chapter Warnings: The chapter title comes from the Halsey song ‘Angel On Fire’. This chapter is dark. Tags are updated. Chapter warnings are: attempted SA, angst like whoa, mental breakdown, disassociative disorder, PTSD. Please proceed with caution. MINORS - DO NOT INTERACT - 18+ ONLY (for reals)

Chapter 12: Angel On Fire

Mando’s words resonated inside of her—Stay. Here. Those two words echoed through the hollow shell that housed what was left of her as she replayed their last interaction on an eternal loop.

Nothing made sense anymore. Everything that she knew, everything that she believed for the last five years, had been based on a lie. With those two words—Stay. Here. Mando had left and decimated her in the wake of the bomb he dropped.

Stay. Here.

There was nothing left.

There was nothing left, and it was all her fault.

Her mind spun as it tried to process this new information. Evidently, it was ill-equipped to make sense of this revelation, leaving Alaina unmoored and floating through her memories of the past.

Yes, there was sand and grit under her hands from the ground of the hangar. Yes, her cheeks were wet with tears. Yes, Peli was nearby having a discussion with her pit droids. Yes, there was Grogu, who had wedged his tiny body under hers so he could try to see her face. Yes, her Mandalorian hallucination had returned, trying to provide, albeit awkward, comfort, but he was trying in his own way.

Alaina was aware of all of this, but she wasn’t there. She had left hangar three-five.

She was on the Razor Crest. 

“Look,” she whispered, pointing to the white blanket, “it’s the first fall of snow on the Crest this season.”

No, that wasn’t right. Besides, those words were pointless now. Mando never needed that clean slate in the first place.

She needs to find that memory. Stay. Here. She needs to replay it, analyze it, and live in it. 

Her mind rewinds past Sorgan, painfully skipping over the memory of creamy white skin tangling with tanned skin and broad muscles, pleasure, and the moon.

Her memories come to a jarring stop, and Alaina is back on the upper deck of the Crest with her dislocated shoulder, wearing a white hospital gown, snarling at the Mandalorian, “Just know that I’ll never forgive you.”

“I never said I did it for your forgiveness. I said I did it because it was the right thing to do.”

Her mind keeps going, searching for that one particular memory.

Unfortunately, there are five years of memories between the last time she stepped off the Razor Crest and when she returned to the gunship. Some memories from the last five years are too painful and all-consuming to skip over, forcing her to relive them.

Her memories glitch, and she is thrust back into the lab on Nevarro. 

Penn is frantically trying to save her from General Graven. She can see his panicked face as he attempts to pry the General’s hands from her throat. With a snarl, General Graven finally let her go, allowing the burn of oxygen to return to her lungs.

Penn instantly fell to his knees, trying to assess the damage. “Lainey,” his concerned voice floated in her ears as she struggled to stand up.

“I don’t know why Gideon is still bothering with her,” Graven huffed, absently wiping his hands on his pressed uniform.

Penn is oblivious to her Mandalorian hallucination, holding her against his armored chest as if the figment of her imagination could protect her from the other two men in the room.

“Because—” Penn attempted to start, but Graven wouldn’t let him finish.

“Because you’re nothing,” Graven snarled at her, not bothering to let Penn finish whatever feeble explanation he was about to give.

And she believed it. 

Her imaginary Mandalorian was having none of it. He silently spun her to face him and held his balled-up hands in front of his helmet, looking like a boxer preparing to strike. He was telling her to fight.

“Look at her,” Graven laughed. “Her brain is already gone. She doesn’t even know where she is.”

Mando shook his head at the man’s words, brought his gloved hand up to his neck, and drew a line across his throat with his index finger. Kill him.

Alaina turned back to the General, and Mando marched by her side as she approached him.

Graven smirked at her, “What are you going to do to me, little girl?”

Mando raised his fists again—Fight.

Alaina acted on instinct—She raised her hand to rest it on the General’s cheek, earning her a snarl.

Everything stilled inside of her. There was nothing but her and General Graven in that lab on Nevarro—

The orders flow through her lips, and for the first time in years, she feels the snake of her former powers rattle against the confines they had been trapped in. They surge through her, winding and twisting into her words, “You’re going to turn around and walk in a straight line. You are going to keep walking. You will keep walking, and you won't stop for anything.”

Graven’s ice-blue eyes glazed over, and his snarled face relaxed as he listened to her speak.

Alaina nodded at him and removed her hand from his cheek, severing their connection.

Graven nodded, and like the good soldier he was, he made an about-face and began his final march.

“You did it,” Penn whispered, watching in wonderment as Graven continued doing as she instructed. “No,” he continued when he realized Graven was heading to the open hangar bay carved into the mountain overlooking the lava flats. “Alaina, stop this,” he pleaded, grabbing her arm.

Alaina watched as the silver-haired General kept walking. The first drop of blood fell from her nose onto the floor. The bright red liquid stuck out vividly in her memory, dulling the other colors.

“Alaina!” Pershing yelled, jumping in front of her. “You can’t do this. You can’t kill him. Stop this before it’s too late!”

“This is your fault,” she told Pershing quietly as she stoically watched the man take another step closer to his death. 

Her memory is now black and white except for her blood. The blood from her nose turns into a steady trickle. The bright red of it was stark against the colorless memory. Her own blood painted her memories in a striking vermilion hue.

“Alaina, please…”

But it was too late. 

It was too late for General Graven, Penn Pershing's consciousness, or Alaina’s soul as Graven took his last step and toppled over the edge of the building.

Alaina turned to look at her hallucination. The Mandalorian nodded at her and held his fists up to his helmet one final time.

Fight.

Watching her life in reverse was odd—the things that stood out and those that didn’t.

Other flashes of her time on Nevarro flicker as she searches, but nothing stands out quite as poignant as the first time she took a life.

Here, she thought, when her mind returned to the Razor Crest.

Five years ago.

On Nevarro.

Stay. Here.

She watched the scene unfold as if watching it for the first time.

Mando’s gloved hand caressed her calf as he spoke. His words were soft, soothing, and confident.

Stay. Here.

How different would her life have been if she’d stayed put? Would she be settled on some planet? Would she have a family? A purpose? 

“Snap out of it, Blondie!”

Alaina was rudely returned to the present in the blink of an eye.

The heel of her hand and her knees ached where she hit the ground. Her eyes burned. It felt like someone had cracked open her chest and ripped her heart from the hollow cavity.

Peli had pulled her up to kneel on the ground, and the shorter woman held her up by her shoulders.

Grogu grabbed her hand and tugged on her fingers.

Alaina could feel them there but could only see her favorite hallucination, which had finally returned to her.

The Mandalorian from five years ago stood behind Peli in his brown armor and beyond tattered cloak. There was something menacing about this former version of the Mandalorian. He wasn’t shiny and new. He was battle-tested, worn, and damaged. 

Like her.

He looked at her over the mechanic’s shoulders and raised his fists to his helmet. He was trying to tell her to fight.

Alaina slowly shook her head, causing Peli to look behind her. Then, when the mechanic didn’t see what she saw, she looked back at Alaina with a frown.

Mando kept his fists raised, not accepting her answer.

Alaina felt a tear leak from her eye.

The invisible string she’d felt that had connected her to Mando for the last five years pulled taught and snapped.

A warm, late afternoon breeze came through the hangar, gently caressing her cheek as it whispered in her ear, “He’s coming.”

Her hallucination raised his fists at her again, but she directed her head to the sky, watching the suns race past the hangar's walls to the horizon.

Let him come.

There was nothing to fight for anymore.

If he was being truly honest with himself, the first time he felt the tiniest hint of that cord in his chest was five years ago.

Alaina had challenged him to a fight and won. She brazenly straddled his chest and pinned his arms at his helmet because he was too stunned to do anything after she’d used her magic powers on him. Then, with her emerald eyes sparkling in amusement, he felt the first inkling of a tickle in his chest. He shouldn’t have allowed her to tell her story; he should have excused himself from the hold, but he didn’t. Instead, he sat there and listened to the ballerina, Alaina Corra, tell her story.

He’d been professional, more or less since he’d brought the woman on board. He’d ensured her wounds were treated, he got her out of her wet clothes and warmed her up before she could add hypothermia into the mix, and he had remained professional the entire time. But now, he was listening to her talk, and there was this unknown feeling in his chest, and for the first time, he allowed himself to really look at the quarry and realized how beautiful she was.

Maybe it was her beauty, her wit—maybe it was the woman’s story, but the seed of doubt had been planted.

And then she went and called him a karking Imp, and he tried to douse the tiny flicker of doubt that had taken up residence inside him. It wasn’t his job to meddle. It wasn’t up to him to play the judge and jury. His job was to collect a quarry and then return it for a profit. It shouldn’t matter what happened to said quarry once he returned it and collected his payment…

The Mandalorian watched Greef Karga get up from the table and head to the bar to order himself a drink.

Unfortunately, that seed of doubt never left, and against his best judgment, he put in motion his plan to save the ballerina.

The dingy Nevarro cantina was packed, and there was a queue at the bar, giving Mando precious minutes to make arrangements before his boss returned.

He looked to the table next to him and nodded to the teal and white Twi’lek cargo ship owner sitting by herself, nursing a drink over an empty plate of food.

The Twi caught his eye and nodded back at him.

“You got room for some more cargo?” he asked, nervously tapping his fingers on the table.

The woman narrowed her gaze as she studied him. “What kind of cargo?” She was undoubtedly wondering what kind of cargo a bounty hunter would be looking to use her services for.

“Small, keeps to itself,” he said and paused. “Mostly,” he added on, and the Twi smirked. “Dangerous, though. Will put a target on your back.”

The Twi studied him, and Mando held his breath. The cargo ship owner was known around the guild. She had a puck out on her. It was a low reward (intentional by Karga). It was so low that it was not worth turning the Twi’lek in. Besides, there wasn’t a single member of their guild who was going to turn in the woman who frequently smuggled slaves out from their owners and delivered them to freedom. She knew how and where to take them to start their lives over, which is just what Mando needed.

“Not worried about the target on my back,” she replied, and the Twi’s eyes slid to Karga. The guild leader’s back was to them while he waited for his drink at the bar. “But I am worried about upsetting the status quo.”

“I’ll handle Karga,” Mando said.

“There’s a price tag to my services—”

“I’ll pay your price. Do you have room for more cargo,” Mando interrupted, pressing the woman for an answer before it was too late.

The Twi nodded, and Mando let himself relax. “Have your cargo to me by sundown,” she instructed. “If you’re not there by the time the sun fully sets, I’m gone.”

Karga turned from the bar to head back to rejoin Mando at the table.

The Twi’lek cargo ship Captain took another sip of her drink, going back to ignoring the guild leader and bounty hunter sitting next to her.

“One of these days, Mando,” Karga began as he retook his seat. “One of these days, I’m going to get you to join me in a celebratory drink!”

Mando sighed and tossed three of the four pucks he had across the table to the guild leader. The fourth he hung onto.

Karga smiled as he began shuffling his bag of jobs to let Mando take his pick of the next round.

“We need to talk about the last puck,” Mando finally started, holding Alaina’s puck for Karga to see.

“What’s there to talk about?” Karga questioned with a smile. “You got the girl, and now a big fat reward is coming your way!”

This was it. With a steadying breath, he said, “She’s dead.”

The smile dropped from Karga’s face, and the man stared at him dumbfounded. “What do you mean she’s dead?” he asked, irritation creeping into his voice.

Mando sighed. “I mean, she’s dead. It was storming. She put up a fight. We were on a rocky cliff, and she slipped and fell while trying to run from me. Slammed her head into a mountain.”

“Shit,” his boss growled, slamming his drink back. 

Mando pulled the velvet green cloak out of his bag to show Karga the blood-stained hood. “If she wasn’t dead by the time she hit the ground, the river she slid into took care of the rest of her. I tried to save her, but she slipped out of her cloak and bag when I grabbed for her, and the river swept her away.”

Karga ground his teeth, “There’s no reward for proof of death.”

“Then there’s no reward,” Mando shrugged.

Karga sighed and leaned back in his chair, “I was looking forward to that commission.”

Mando cocked his head, irritated by Karga’s admission. 

The Twi at the table next to them got up and gave the guild leader a nod as she left the cantina.

Karga put on a fake smile and raised his drink to the striking teal Twi, “You be sure you stay out of trouble, Taal!” he yelled after her.

The cargo ship captain, Taal, turned back to give the guild leader a wink before she sauntered the rest of the way out of the bar.

Karga’s fake smile dropped and was replaced with a deep frown from learning that his portion of the cut from Alaina’s reward had just washed away in a river on some backwater skughole.

“Can I just pick my next jobs?” Mando asked, eager to return to the Crest to prepare Alaina for what would come next.

“Oh, you can pick them,” Karga answered, pushing the options at him. “But you’re staying until you explain to the husband that you killed his wife.”

Mando sighed, “Not my fault she crashed head-first into a mountain. Besides, you’re the guild leader. Don’t we give you a sizable cut of our payouts for you to deal with the bureaucracy?”

“Mando, when we’re talking about a reward in this price range, and you killed some poor doctor’s wife, you have to deal with the fallout.”

“I don’t have time for this,” he grumbled, standing up from the booth and grabbing a handful of pucks at random without looking.

Unfortunately, Karga also stood up while Mando was strapping his Ambam rifle to his back. “Oh, no, Mando,” Karga called after him. “You’re not getting out of this that easily.”

Mando continued to ignore the man as he started to leave, barely giving his boss a second glance. “You’re not the only one relying on that hefty commission,” he grumbled, hoping to get Karga to drop it. “The faster I get back out there, the faster I can make up for the lost income,” he finished, heading out of the cantina.

Karga’s heavy footsteps could be heard stomping behind him. “I don’t think you realize the possible repercussions of this, Mando,” the man barked as he followed him through the decrepit town.

Mando clenched his fists. “What repercussions? You, of all people, know it’s not possible to bring every bounty in warm—”

“That’s why I came to you for this one,” Karga argued angrily.

“Accidents happen,” he countered. “There was a storm, and we were on a cliff. She slipped, hit her head, and slid off the cliff.” Mando stopped in the middle of the road, forcing Karga to slam into his back at his abrupt stop. He spun on the guild leader, taking the man by surprise. “You’ve never been this upset about a mishap with a quarry before,” Mando pointed out, carefully eyeing the man before him. “What’s so important about this girl?”

Karga squirmed in front of him, obviously struggling with whether or not to tell the truth. “It’s not about the girl,” he finally admitted through clenched teeth. “It’s about whose footing the reward,” he sighed.

Mando’s heart rate picked up at the man’s words. Green eyes swam in front of him. “I’m sorry to say that you’ve been lied to by your Imp friends,” Alaina had taunted him. He hadn’t lied to her when he replied, “I’m not friends with Imps.” But now, Karga was shuffling in front of him, and Mando realized that Alaina hadn’t been lying.“I just assumed they were your friends since you were taking credits from them.”

“Who. Is. Footing. The. Reward?” he seethed, needing to hear the truth from his boss with his own ears.

Karga sighed, “There may be a slight connection with the Empire.” Mando’s fists clenched tightly at the man’s words. “Look, I’m sorry, Mando!” he tried apologizing. “I didn’t realize it at first. I met with the doctor, and he wasn’t wearing any uniform. Nothing seemed suspicious. He just truly seemed concerned about his wife!” Mando scoffed and shook his head. “He did! The man came here distraught, and I knew just the man for the job. Someone who would handle the job discreetly and quickly and probably one of my only hunters who wouldn’t do anything unsavory to the woman. It wasn’t until I got the downpayment that I realized it was all in Imperial credits, wired from an Imperial account.”

“Karga,” he growled.

He needed to get back to Alaina—now. Too much time had passed, and he still needed time to tell her what would come next and get her to the smuggler’s cargo ship.

“I know,” the man tossed his hands up. “I know, and I’m sorry. The contract was already signed, and the payout was going to be worth it. But he’s going to be here any minute, and I’m not going down for killing some Imp’s wife.”

Mando cocked his head and took a menacing step forward, “But you have no problem putting that on your best hunter?”

Karga shook his head, “I didn’t say that! I just… I’m sorry, alright. I just think it would be best if we told the man together. I just wish you had more than some of her personal belongings. Not sure that will be enough to prove her death.”

Mando searched his mind for anything of Alaina’s he could use. Usually, in cases where he had to bring the quarry in cold for various reasons, he at least had a head, or an appendage, or something—

“I have a chunk of her hair,” he grumbled, not looking forward to telling Alaina that she was about to lose a hefty portion of her honey-blonde hair. 

“Hair?” Karga asked skeptically.

“She had a lot of yellow hair. It was in a braid that got snagged on some rocks,” Mando fibbed, hoping Karga wouldn’t try and poke too many holes into his explanation. “I left it on my ship.”

“Well, let’s go get it!” the man bellowed.

“I’ll return it to you, but then I’m leaving. You made a deal with the Imps; now you have to deal with it.”

Mando spun to stalk back to the Crest, and his teeth clenched when he heard Karga stomp his feet in the dirt behind him.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight, Mando,” Karga said from behind him. “No offense, but I think you’re just angry enough to take off and leave me hanging.”

“Maybe that would teach you not to make deals with Imps,” he shot back.

Mando looked at the entrance to the town as he approached it. There was no way he could hide Alaina or keep her quiet if Karga made it to the ship. He racked his mind for ideas or possibilities as he crossed the threshold to the lava flats. His best option would be to get Karga to wait for him outside and hope that he could get Alaina to stay quiet—

Panic swelled inside him at the sight of the Crest’s ramp open. Those mudscuffers had forgotten to close up his ship again.

He was about to reprimand Karga for the shoddy help he used when a shock of yellow peered out from inside his ship, forcing his feet to a screeching halt.

No, his mind screamed at the girl, and Mando clenched his teeth. He’d told her to stay on the fucking ship, and now she was about to blow her cover. His feet began moving on their own accord, taking large steps as he headed toward the ship, ignoring Karga trying to match his pace.

Someone he didn’t recognize stepped out from behind the ship, wearing a stark white uniform, and his heart stopped as he watched from a distance as the stranger grabbed Alaina and slapped a pair of cuffs on her. When the two stormtroopers appeared from their hiding spot, his heart restarted.

“You son of a bitch,” Karga muttered. “Please tell me I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing,” Karga’s stunned voice said from beside him. The man turned to glare at him, “I thought you said she was dead!”

He didn’t have time for this. Mando broke out into a sprint, “Hey!” 

“All right, suns are down. Time to ride, Mando,” the annoying voice of the wannabe hunter ordered, pulling him from his daydreams from years gone by.

Mando had yet to be able to calm his twisted, angry soul.

He had never intended to reveal to Alaina that, at the zero hour, the ballerina had convinced him not to turn her in. She had convinced him that if there was even a sliver of a chance that she was right, and this had all been a setup so the Imps could get their hands on her magical powers, then he had an obligation to make sure the Empire never got their hands on her.

Unfortunately, Alaina’s rash behavior had ended her chance at freedom before it began.

That wound had cut him deep.

Every time he revisited that day, he found a different way he could have approached the situation that would have likely ended with the ballerina escaping.

But hindsight was twenty-twenty. Now, five years later, he had to deal with the fallout of both of their actions from that day.

But he had meant it when he said he couldn’t watch Alaina continue to repeat her mistakes. Especially now after they’d…

Needless to say, he snapped.

Even now—well into the Tatooine night, he could still feel the panic he felt when he returned to the hangar to find the ship empty without a sign of Alaina or the Child, and every terrible thought that his brain could conceive flooded his thoughts, making him become irrational. He could still clearly see Alaina’s bright green eyes from across the busy Mos Eisley town square, making his anger swell. All he wanted was to keep her safe. He just wanted to keep her locked away from the galaxy so that nothing bad would ever happen to her again. 

“Come on, wake up,” Toro Calican said again, kicking his boot.

Mando rolled his eyes. He hated this kid. The wannabe, Calican, had an elitist attitude and genuinely thought he was tough shit. It was only a matter of time before the kid got himself killed. There is a high probability that that will happen tonight since he thought he could take on Fennec Shand.

The kid kicked his boot again.

That was if Mando didn’t kill him first.

“Look at you,” the kid commented. The mock pitying voice he spoke with made Mando want to shove his face in the sand. “Asleep on the job, old man.”

“Kick me again, and I’ll snap your ankle,” Mando growled as he got up to head to the speeder.

“Geeze, I was just trying to wake you up,” Calican bemoaned. “You’ve been crabby since you grabbed that chick back in town.”

Mando stayed low and readied his speeder.

“Thought you would have worked all your anger out on that blonde,” the annoying wannabe hunter continued speaking, and Mando did his best to ignore him, but the wolf whistle the man let out made it difficult to tune him out. “She was hot. Did you know her? Cause if you didn’t, I’m gonna have to find her when we get back and,” Calican stopped to thrust his hips suggestively while he grunted obscenely.

The world faded, and when it returned, Mando had Calican pinned to the sand with his hand wrapped around the younger man’s throat. Calican thrashed under Mando’s larger, heavier body, and his head turned bright red as Mando continued to close his airway off.

Mando’s mind caught back up with him and let the younger man go before standing up.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Calican rasped, clutching at his throat.

Mando straightened his shoulders and gave him a menacing point, “If I ever see you within a parsec of her after this, you’ll wish I killed you here.” Calican’s eyes widened at the threat, and Mando offered the man a hand to get up off the ground and get this over with. The boy studied the offered hand, clearly expecting the Mandalorian standing over him to change his mind, but eventually gave in.

This was why Mando didn’t travel with others. This was why the others he had before Alaina were flings. He didn’t do friends. He didn’t do feelings—For this exact reason. Friends—feelings all complicated things. Those things made it difficult to see what the right thing to do was under all of it.

The cord tugged in his chest, and he growled at the feeling. Calican abruptly let go of his hand, obviously thinking that the growl was directed at him.

Mando wanted to open his chest and rip the damn cord out so he never felt it again.

He would finish this mission, take the girl wherever she wanted, and figure out what to do with the kid.

He would finish this mission and, for once and all, be done with Alaina Corra.

The day faded to night, and the night was now giving way to the twin suns as they slowly climbed back over the horizon, signaling a new day.

The world kept turning, but Alaina hadn’t moved from her knees in the middle of the hangar.

The wind had gone quiet long ago, no longer whispering warnings in her ear, and Alaina welcomed the silence.

Whoever was coming could come.

She deserved whatever was going to happen—

Strong hands gripped her shoulders and shook her.

Alaina blinked at the Mandalorian figment of her imagination kneeling before her. Peli had taken the kid in for the night when it was evident that Alaina wasn’t going anywhere. Not her hallucination, though. Her hallucination had stayed by her side all night. 

“You’ll leave me too,” she whispered. Her throat hurt, and her voice rasped, sounding as if she had spent the whole night crying or screaming. She might have done both. 

Her hallucination shook his helmet, silently telling her he wasn’t going anywhere. When Alaina didn’t respond, he got up and walked away, proving her point.

It was for the best. Even though her hallucination was nothing more than something her own mind had conjured at her lowest, it was right for him to see her fall apart and shatter into a million pieces that could never be put back together again.

Smack.

Alaina gasped and brought a hand up to her cheek at the sharp pain that blossomed across the right side of her face. She blinked, ready to rip into her hallucination, but he still wasn’t there.

But Peli Motto was.

“Alright,” the mechanic began, crossing her arms across her chest. “Get up,” she ordered.

Alaina could only blink at the stinging sensation left over from the smaller woman’s slap.

“Do you want me to slap you again? Because there’s more where that came from,” she threatened.

“You—You slapped me!” Alaina huffed, staring up at the mechanic.

“And?”

Alaina blinked and finally saw her hallucination come back into view, standing next to the shorter woman who had just slapped her. She glared at her imaginary friend, expecting him to look more perturbed than he did. Her look only made the Mandalorian put his hands expectantly on his hips.

“You’re taking her side?” Alaina seethed, pointing at Peli.

The mechanic’s eyes shifted to her right, but apparently didn’t see the pretend version of the pain in her ass for the last few years—Her hallucination cocked his head at her thoughts, and Alaina rolled her eyes.

“She slapped me!” Alaina told the apparition, but he just shrugged his shoulders.

“Yeah, I did,” Peli agreed. “And I’ll do it again if you don’t get up.”

Alaina glared at the mechanic but made no move to get up off the ground.

“Look, I gave you the night. Clearly, you’re going through some things,” Peli grimaced, vaguely motioning at her with her hand. “But at some point, you’re just gonna have to accept what’s happened has happened, and now you’ve gotta deal with it.”

Alaina kept her glare in place while she stared down Peli. “I have been dealing with it,” she seethed. “I’ve been dealing with it for the last five years! And now I’ve learned that the only person I have to blame for that is me!” she yelled. Her voice cracked, and Alaina struggled to keep from breaking down again.

“Well, at least you have someone to blame,” Peli shrugged, forcing a growl from Alaina. “Look, kid, it’s not my business. Do I have questions about why someone like you and your adorable baby are traveling with a Mandalorian bounty hunter? Sure,” she shrugged again. “But here’s the thing,” the woman began and paused to move her hands to her hips. “You and your kid look cared for. Neither of you have bruises or broken limbs. You both smile. And that tin can genuinely seems to care about you both. It’s a big galaxy out there. I’m the last person who should be judging anyone, but the three of you seem alright.”

The woman’s words cut through her chest, and Alaina couldn’t stop the tears from returning. Mando had done nothing but care for her, and what had she done to repay him?

Anger flared inside her—anger at the situation, anger at Mando for not telling her sooner, anger at herself for being the responsible party.

Her eyes flicked to her Mando, standing next to Peli, back in his defensive position, silently telling her to fight.

“Come on, get up,” Peli grumbled, and Alaina let the other woman help her stand up, ignoring the fake Mandalorian, hoping he would take the hint and leave her alone.

Alaina looked around the hangar as she brushed the sand off her knees. The pit droids were all lingering. Some were moving around pieces of equipment, and one was watching Grogu. When the kid saw that she looked his way, he smiled brightly and held his hands out for her.

“I’m sorry I—” Alaina began apologizing but stopped when she couldn’t find the words. “Was he okay for you?” she asked Peli as she made her way to Grogu.

“‘Ole Bright Eyes, there was a perfect angel!” Peli informed her with a smile. “I think he’d eat me out of house and home, but once he was down for the night, he slept straight through.”

Alaina smiled down at Grogu, “Thanks, buddy,” she whispered as she picked him up and squeezed him to his chest. “I’m sorry I disappeared. I just needed time to think.” Grogu blinked at her, and she shrugged her shoulders. “I still don’t know what to think,” Alaina whispered, pushing her head into Grogu’s forehead. “But I have a feeling that this might be the last time you and I get to see each other,” she told him sadly.

Grogu’s smile dropped from his face at her words, and Alaina closed her eyes to block out the kid’s disappointment. A small, clawed hand reached up to touch her cheek, and before Alaina could pull herself away, she was thrown into a sea of images.

Sorgan.

The sight brought her heartache. Grogu showed her their lazy afternoon before… before she took that next step with Mando.

The three of them were sitting on a blanket next to the creek. The afternoon, from Grogu’s perspective, was interesting. Where Alaina just remembered the queasy feeling of uncertainty that laced her veins the entire day, he saw something else.

He saw two friends talking and laughing. He saw Mando relaxed as he lay on the blanket. He saw Mando’s helmet keeping tabs on them when Alaina pretended to chase Grogu up and down the creek bed. He showed her fragments of their walk through the field back home and how Mando’s hand stayed glued to her lower back. He showed her a brief clip of Mando holding him, and his vision was filled with the silver beskar helmet before he turned to see Alaina sitting on the cot, smiling at him and Mando.

Alaina pulled away from the kid and tried to swipe the tears she didn’t realize were leaking from her eyes.

“I know—” she started and stopped, trying to get her emotions under control. “I know that’s how things were, but I don’t think things will be like that anymore.”

Grogu cried and rested a hand on her chest. Alaina kissed his forehead. “I know,” she whispered. “But I messed up, buddy," she tried to explain to the kid but had to stop when her voice choked up. “I just think it would be in everyone’s best interests if I weren’t here when Mando gets back.

Her hallucination reappeared beside her, and Alaina closed her eyes to block him.

She saw signs for public transport ships on the outskirts during her ill-fated journey to the market yesterday. She had hardly spent any of the credits that Peli had given her. She could use whatever she had left to have one of those ships take her as far away as her money would allow. She could find someplace where she could fall into the crowd and slip away, someplace where she could try and start over—alone.

Grogu cooed and patted her chest with his tiny three-fingered hand, making Alaina smile at him.

Her smile slipped when she felt something warm blossom in her chest. The tiny, tattered shreds of the string connecting her to Mando trembled, and her imaginary friend moved in her line of sight to lift his fists back to his helmet again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to Grogu, pulling him tightly against her chest. “Stay with Mando. He’ll keep you safe,” she told him, kissing him on the top of his head before she placed the kid back on the ground.

She ignored the kid’s cries and her baffled hallucination as she turned to head back to the Crest to gather her belongings.

Alaina ignored Peli as she stomped up the ramp and immediately headed to her cot. She dropped to the floor to pull her black bag from under her bed and began to gather her meager accumulation of belongings. She grabbed some of her clothes and tossed them into the bag, followed by her pointe shoes. Her hands fell to her hips as she looked around Mando’s ship for the last time. She frowned when her hands brushed against the metal that rested there.

Mando’s blaster and her mother’s dagger. 

She pulled the blaster from its holster and studied it. A sigh escaped her as she looked at the silver and black blaster. Gloved hands appeared, and his larger fingers enclosed her smaller fingers around the weapon before they slowly pushed it into her stomach. Alaina blinked and looked up at her hallucination, sadly shaking her head.

“It’s not mine to take,” she whispered, shaking her head as she placed the blaster on her cot. 

Her Mando looked at the blaster and then back at her, lifting his fists back into the defensive position in front of his helmet.

“I’m tired of fighting,” she said, keeping her voice in low, hushed tones. “I just want to go—”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Peli barked as she walked up the Crest’s ramp, pointing to the packed bag. The mechanic held an upset Grogu to her chest, but the kid’s cries seemed quiet when he saw her.

“I’m leaving,” she muttered, moving to step around her pretend Mandalorian.

Peli came and stepped in front of her, blocking her exit. “And what, you’re just gonna leave me with your kid?” Alaina rolled her eyes and tried to step around the short mechanic, but Peli refused to let her pass. “You’re gonna leave me with your kid and leave me to deal with an angry Mandalorian when he comes back to find that you took off? I don’t think so.”

“Peli,” Alaina sighed, but the woman interrupted her.

“Besides, where are you gonna go?” she asked, lifting a challenging eyebrow. “He’ll find you if you stay in town, and if you were even thinking about hopping a ride on one of those transport ships, then you should probably know that there’s only one that comes today, and it doesn’t arrive for hours.” Alaina frowned at the information. “And when it does finally arrive, there is at least a two-hour turnaround time before it takes off. And that doesn’t account for any maintenance if it needs to happen. I’m guessing your tin can will still beat you back before you leave the atmosphere.”

“That’s a risk I’ll just have to take,” Alaina told her. “Besides, you heard him yesterday. He’s done with me,” she reminded the woman, doing her best to keep the waver out of her voice at the memory of his words. “I’m just saving him the trouble. I can handle myself.” She tried to move around the woman, but Peli blocked her exit again.

“What about your broken heating coil?” Peli asked, nodding to the fresher behind them.

“What about the broken heating coil?” Alaina asked, not seeing the woman’s point.

“Well, you wanted it fixed, didn’t cha?”

“I’m not going to be around to enjoy it, and Mando went for years without bothering to fix it, so something tells me he won’t care that it’s still broken,” she retorted.

“Alright, yeah, I hear ya, but what if we fixed it anyway?” Peli asked with a shrug. “A little something for that tin can to remember you by?”

Alaina glared at the suggestion, but something about the fact that every time Mando got to take a warm shower, it would be because of her—

“No,” she finally answered, shaking her head.

“Okay, okay,” Peli started again, getting frustrated. “Just—Just hear me out, alright?” Alaina looked at the mechanic impatiently and crossed her hands over her chest while she waited for the woman to get it over with so she could be on her way. “I’m not saying I’m not gonna let you go,” she continued, and Alaina narrowed her eyes at the frizzy-haired woman. “I just think you need to take a few hours to think about it,” she suggested. “I don’t know your story, but I think what your Mandalorian told you yesterday rattled you to your core, and now you’re being rash by running away from your problems.

“You’re rash,” Mando’s words from… gosh, was that only yesterday? “You’re rash, and you rush into situations when you don’t know all the facts.” He’d used Sorgan as an example, but now Alaina knew the truth. He wasn’t referring to Sorgan. He was referring to her leaving the safety of the Razor Crest and getting herself captured by Penn Pershing.

“And I may be out of line by saying this,” Peli continued, giving her an apologetic smile, “but I don’t think you’re quite all there.” Alaina frowned at the woman’s admission. “I’m just saying that you’ve been seeing and talking to things that aren’t there, and I’m worried that a woman such as yourself in your state would be putting herself in harm’s way by leaving.”

Alaina’s eyes slid to the left to see her hallucination casually leaning against the carbonite machine with his arms crossed over his chest and his right foot propped up against the empty machine. Peli’s head turned to follow her eyes, and when the mechanic didn’t see her imaginary friend, she turned back to give Alaina a pointed look. “I thought you said you weren’t going to stop me from leaving?”

“Two hours,” Peli offered. “You give it two hours; if you still feel the same way after you fix that broken heating coil, I’ll let you go.”

Alaina scrunched her forehead in confusion at the woman’s words. “What do you mean after I fix the broken heating coil? I don’t know how to change a heating coil.”

“You won’t be able to say that in a couple of hours,” Peli told her, in an annoying peppy, can-do attitude. Alaina scoffed as the mechanic grabbed her bag and pushed her toward the fresher with one hand while still holding onto Grogu in her other.

Alaina frowned and looked behind her for help from her Mandalorian, but the man stayed propped up against the carbonite machine. When Alaina glared at him, he lifted his fists to his helmet—fight.

Mando returned to the cliffs on dewback just as the Tatooine dual suns breached the horizon, painting the desert in a bright, vivid orange.

He had approached from a higher vantage point to allow him time to observe how Calican handled being left alone with Shand for the few hours he was gone tracking the large dewback to bring their quarry back.

He was not surprised to find a dead body when he returned.

He was surprised that the dead body was Fennec Shand’s and not Calican’s.

Mando had fully anticipated having found that Shand had managed to escape, killing the wannabe before taking off with the kid’s speeder to take her to freedom.

He frowned at the turn of events, looking from Shand’s dead body to where Calican’s speeder had been. 

Why would the kid kill the quarry and take off? He needed Shand to get into the Guild…

The feeling in his chest that he had done his best to ignore for hours flared and caused him physical pain, and he was startled by the sensation. It vaguely reminded him of finding those AT-ST tracks in Sorgan's woods when he initially felt something inside his chest slide into place—instead of something slow and dormant, the cord that had been embedded inside him had snaked itself around every major organ inside of his chest and constricted painfully.

Mando clutched at his chestpiece, trying to figure out what was wrong, but the feeling didn’t go away.

“I don’t know… Do you not feel that?” she asked quietly, bringing his focus back to her again.

“Feel what?” he whispered back, not at all sure where this was going.

Alaina’s mouth flattened, and her forehead crinkled as she looked down at his prone form.

“Here,” she finally said, bringing a hand out from the blanket to point to the center of her chest. “That something here that… It’s like I have something in my chest that keeps wanting to pull me to you. I don’t know if it’s just our history or getting closer to you the last few weeks, but I don’t know… It’s probably stupid.”

Mando felt as if the world around him had just come to a screeching halt. Not because he was confused by what she was saying but because he had felt what she was describing and just brushed it off as him being too close to the situation.

Alaina looked down to fiddle with the hem of her blanket, “I don’t know how else to describe it… but looking back on it now? To have you, of all people, come to me whenever I felt like I was about to break…” she sighed. “It’s like something in here,” she paused to point at her chest again, “was trying to tell me to trust you. It’s like something was pulling me to you. It doesn’t make any sense, I know. I wish I could describe it better. I don’t know, it’s like there has been this… this chain? Cord maybe—”

Mando blanched at her word and moved to prop himself up on elbows so his helmet was level with her head.

“It’s like there has been some kind of invisible string tying us together,” she finished, speaking the words as if they pained her to admit it.

Mando’s helmet whipped to look in the direction of Mos Eisley, and that cord in his chest pulled him to head back. Calican had left his quarry, his ticket into the Guild behind… which meant he was after something with an even higher price tag than Fennec Shand.

Emerald green eyes and green, wrinkly skin flashed in his mind.

With a sharp kick to the dewback’s sides, Mando tugged on its reigns and urged it back toward Mos Eisley.

I’m coming.

Two hours later, the only thing she wanted to fight was Peli Motto.

Two hours later, they hadn’t even started replacing the broken heating coil.

The mechanic refused to start without breakfast and a cup of caf. After procrastinating for as long as she could and eating as slowly as possible, she decided that Alaina needed a detailed explanation of electrical work.

When they finally made it to the part where they replaced the broken coil, Peli described the process in as much detail as possible. She even went so far as to explain how the water system worked on an older ship like the Razor Crest, and the mechanic was surprised it even functioned at all. There was another lecture wasting precious minutes while Peli went on to ramble about why Mando hadn’t just converted to a sonic system and be done with the outdated technology. Alaina tried to zone out, but anytime the mechanic felt like she didn’t have Alaina’s complete attention, she would stop and patiently wait until Alaina rolled her eyes and waited for her to continue.

Two hours turned into four, and Alaina finally left the Crest once the job was done.

She wiped the sweat from her brow and grimaced at the bright sun beating down over the hangar.

Her eyes searched the hangar until they landed on the shaded area in the back where Grogu was napping… and her hallucination sat next to him.

“Doesn’t it feel good to fix something?” Peli asked as she came up behind her. The woman pulled a rag from her back pocket to wipe the grease and grime away. “How about some lunch?” she offered, pocketing the rag. “Wouldn’t be right for me to send you off without a meal.”

Alaina didn’t respond. Her focus was on her hallucination: sitting on the ground, looking protectively over Grogu while the Child slept.

The scene unsettled her. It wouldn’t be out of place for the real Mando to do something like that—sit with his back propped up against the wall while he looked over Grogu… but for the figment of her imagination that she conjured… for her hallucination to act protectively toward someone or something that wasn’t her made her take pause.

Her hallucination turned to look at her as if hearing her thoughts, giving her a fixed look with his helmet.

The sounds faded from the hangar until Alaina could only hear her heart pounding in her head. She was missing something—something important that her Mandalorian was trying to tell her. Her hallucination never spoke or made noise of any kind. Instead, the man relied on actions and gestures to communicate his thoughts.

His gloved hand moved to point at her, holding the point for several seconds before he took that index finger and dug it into the ground.

Stay. Here.

Alaina clutched at her chest.

Next, her hallucination turned to look at Grogu sleeping next to him, blissfully unaware of the invisible Mandalorian sitting next to him. Alaina held her breath when his helmet turned to look back at her. 

A gust of wind carried the hot Tatooine desert air through the hangar, ruffling her curly hair as the wind whispered to her once more, “He’s coming.”

Her Mandalorian lifted his fists back to his helmet. He still wanted her to fight, but he wasn’t telling her to fight for her.

He was telling her to fight for Grogu.

He was telling her to stay here for Grogu.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind about leaving?” Peli asked after the minutes of silence ticked by without a response from Alaina.

Her hand came to rest on the hilt of her mother’s dagger, and her Mando nodded.

In the blink of an eye, Alaina startled as hangar three-five came back into focus. The suns had somehow moved from directly above the ship to almost disappear from Tatooine altogether.

“Hey, Blondie!” Peli yelled, snapping her fingers in front of Alaina’s face.

Alaina blinked and looked around, confused by the mysterious time lapse. Not only was it much later than anticipated, but her hallucination was nowhere to be found. “What happened?” she asked as she continued to search the hangar for the familiar dented brown armor.

“You tell me,” Peli countered, resting Grogu on her hip. “You’ve been in some kind of trance for hours. Just been standing there… staring.” Alaina frowned, and her gaze finally settled on the mechanic standing before her. “It was creepy,” Peli finished, looking her up and down with a wary eye.

“Mando?” Alaina asked, already knowing the answer.

“Haven’t seen him,” she informed her flatly. “But you missed your transport ship because of… whatever you want to call what you just did.”

Alaina looked to Grogu, who was looking up at her with wide, curious eyes. The wind blew in warning, forcing Alaina into action.

“Do you trust me?” she asked Grogu, ignoring the confused mechanic for the time being. Grogu smiled at her, and Alaina grabbed him from the mechanic. She marched down the ramp and searched for the perfect place—an empty barrel that had been tipped over was left where she last saw her hallucination. “I need you to be really brave for me, little one,” she whispered, kissing the crown of his green, wrinkly head.

“Hey, what are you doing with the kid?” Peli called after her, following Alaina as she crossed the hangar.

Alaina continued to ignore her, choosing to give Grogu another kiss. “I need you to be really brave and stay as quiet as you can, okay?” she asked Grogu, putting her hands under his armpits to hold him in front of her. “No matter what you hear, stay quiet until Mando finds you.”

Grogu’s mouth quivered, and he reached for her as Alaina placed him inside the empty barrel.

Alaina placed her index finger over her lips and shushed the scared toddler. “Everything is going to be okay, little one,” she whispered, leaning into the barrel to rub one of the kid’s ears. “Stay here, Grogu,” she said, giving the kid one last smile before placing the lid over the barrel to hide him from the hangar.

“Hey!” Peli yelled, angrily spinning Alaina to face her. “What is going on?”

“Someone is coming for us,” Alaina explained, moving out of the small alcove and back into the hangar.

“What do you mean someone is coming for you?” Peli asked frantically as she followed her through the hangar.

“I don’t have time to explain, but you were right earlier when you said something is wrong with me,” Alaina admitted, tapping her head. “Mando has been trying to hide us—” she stopped, closing her eyes, unable to think about Mando right now. “I’m broken,” she confessed, opening her eyes to see a very confused Peli looking back at her. “I’m broken, I’ve lived, but he,” she stopped to point at the barrel where Grogu was hiding. “He is an innocent. He has his entire life ahead of him. I will fight for him to get to live that life. I will fight so they don’t get their hands on him and make him broken like me until my last breath.”

Peli studied her momentarily before saying, “What can I do?”

Alaina smiled thankfully at the woman. “Make sure he doesn’t find Grogu,” she told the mechanic. “And tell Mando… Tell Mando this isn’t his fault,” she nodded. “Tell Mando that I forgive him.”

Peli opened her mouth to say something, but another voice called out across the hold before the woman could speak.

“Word has it,” the voice began and paused until he stepped around the corner of the entrance into the hold. Alaina frowned at the man, recognizing him as the one Mando shoved against the alley wall yesterday. “Word has it, a Mandalorian is traveling with a blonde girl and a kid,” he said as he sauntered into the hangar.

Alaina moved to position herself in front of Peli. “Where is Mando?” she demanded, squaring her shoulders.

The stranger shrugged, “In the desert somewhere.”

Alaina studied the man, taking in his short, black hair, the leathers he wore, and the vileness that radiated from his eyes as he raked them up and down her body. She lifted her chin in defiance, hoping her confidence would squelch the unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“You and your kid are gonna be my ticket into the Guild and make me rich,” he told her, taking a step closer to her.

“Sorry, buddy, you’ve got the wrong hangar,” Peli told him, moving around her to look at the younger man with a look of disgust. “There’s no babies here, so I suggest you move on.”

The man’s wandering eyes stared at Alaina before they finally settled on her chest, and he gave an empty grin before saying, “But there is a blonde girl.”

Everything happened in the blink of an eye—Peli lunged for the stranger, taking the man by surprise. She was small and quick, but he recovered from his shock quickly. He dodged her punch and responded with a fist of his own, crashing into the woman’s cheek and sending the mechanic flying.

“Peli!” Alaina cried.

She ripped her mother’s dagger from its place on her hip and went after their attacker. The blade scraped across the man’s neck, drawing blood. The stranger’s eyes flared in anger and came after her. He attempted to disarm her with a kick, but she dodged it and swiped at him with the dagger again but the man blocked her easily and knocked the dagger from her hand, leaving her defenseless.

Alaina blinked at her empty hands.

She wasn’t defenseless. These hands used to be able to move things. Just her words and these hands killed an Imperial General.

Alaina growled and flung her hands at the man, calling on her powers to return to her. To just let her feel them one more time and throw her attacker into the wall or across the planet, but nothing came.

The harsh bark of laughter taunted her, and her eyes flicked up just in time to see the man’s foot hurtle toward her. Alaina tried to step back but wasn’t fast enough, and the man’s boot sent her reeling. Her back hit the ground, and the air rushed from her lungs on impact. Alaina tried to pull the air back into her chest but could only flounder and gasp.

The man jumped on top of her, straddling her hips, and tears pricked her eyes when he ground his pelvis into hers while he laughed. “Oh, I’m gonna enjoy you,” he sneered, sticking his tongue out of his mouth while he smiled down at her.

Alaina tried to grab for any scrap of skin she could find, but the man kept evading her.

The man snatched her wrists, pinned them to the ground, and leaned over her until their noses were touching. “What do you say we teach the Mandalorian a lesson?” he asked her before his lips came crashing down into hers.

Alaina’s breath returned to her, and her eyes went wide as she struggled to get away, but when the man wouldn’t budge, she found the man’s lower lip and bit down until his blood poured from his lip into her mouth.

The man ripped his mouth from hers, staring at her with wild eyes. “You bitch!” he screamed, backhanding her as punishment for her defensive attack.

Alaina gasped at the force of the strike. Her head had turned painfully to the side, and the hangar blurred while nausea rose in her stomach.

Concussion, she thought as she looked around the hangar, confused when she no longer felt the man’s crushing weight on top of her. The world tilted on its axis, making bile rise in her throat.

The stranger was back to Peli, tying her up.

Her eyes briefly flicked to the black barrel where Grogu was hiding, and she said a silent prayer that Mando would find him quickly.

A shadow fell over her, and her unfocused eyes looked up at the man towering over her.

The man swiped more of his blood off his lower lip as he looked down at her. “How mad do you think the Mandalorian will be if I take off with his girl and his ship?” he asked her with an evil smirk. “At least I’ll have you to entertain me on the way.”

Alaina’s eyes closed, and she let the tears come as she felt herself being lifted from the ground.

When she opened them again, her hallucination stood there, watching as this strange man carried her up the Crest’s ramp. She lifted a hand toward him, and he raised his hands to his helmet.

Her limbs felt heavy as she lifted her hands to the stranger's face, and she screamed.

Mando stormed into hangar three-five, chest heaving from sprinting the rest of the way to Alaina and Grogu.

Alaina’s blood-curdling scream could be heard from over two streets away. Too late. He was too late to save them. Panic gripped him as he frantically looked around for any sign of them but found none. He blinked at the surprisingly quiet hangar, but the hair on the back of his neck raised in alarm, warning him that everything was not okay.

His helmet swiveled quickly as he took in the hangar. The mechanic, Peli, he thought her name was, was bound, gagged, and propped up against the wall. She looked at him with wide, panicked eyes before exaggeratingly throwing her head toward the Razor Crest.

Mando’s helmet stalled when he saw Alaina’s mother’s dagger left forgotten on the ground between the mechanic and his ship. The serpent’s emerald eyes glinted in the moonlight, but the sight of red blood coating the blade made his chest clench in fear.

“No!” 

Mando’s helmet snapped to look at the ship after hearing Alaina’s strangled cry come from inside. His fists clenched at his sides after hearing Alaina, and he silently marched toward his ship, stopping to grab Alaina’s dagger on the way. 

He was on high alert, every muscle poised to attack as he silently walked up the ramp, stalking his prey in the dark.

“This why he keeps you around, huh? A little something soft and sweet to come back home to?” Toro Calican was speaking. The man’s back was to him, and he had Alaina pinned against the floor near the back of the ship. Her hands were on his face, keeping him away from her while the rest of her body thrashed fruitlessly under him. Calican was kneeling between her spread legs and had her dress pushed up around her hips. “Maybe I should take a page from his book. Keep you around instead of sending you back to the Empire.”

Her voice wavered as she spoke, and Mando could tell she was crying. “You’re going to let me go,” she told him, trying to sound brave through her tears. “You’re going to let me go, and you’re going to walk out into the middle of the desert—” her words cut off as her voice cracked as she struggled to speak through her tears.

Mando watched as Calican actually let her go. His body became rigid, and the upper half of it sat up straight.

Mando had seen enough. He had been right when he thought that he would be the one to kill the wannabe bounty hunter. If only he had done it a day ago, he could have saved Alaina from this. He sheathed the beskar dagger and strode across the ship in five silent steps.

Mando grabbed Calican by the back of his neck and ripped him away from Alaina. The man had a distant, far-off look on his face once he had been pulled to his feet, and Mando blinked in confusion and then looked down at Alaina on the floor, his confusion growing when he saw her glaring intently at the man with blood trickling down her nose. “Alaina?” he whispered, confused by the situation.

Alaina blinked and snapped out of whatever trance she was in. Her emerald eyes widened when she saw him standing over her with her attacker in his grip. Her face crumpled, and she sagged back to the floor, turning her head to look away. He turned to look back at Calican, who was blinking as if he were confused about how he got here, and then when the man saw the Mandalorian, the wannabe hunter gave him a smug, taunting smile—taunting the older hunter that he had made it onto the Mandalorian’s ship and had forced himself on his crew.

The man opened his mouth to say something, but Mando moved his hand to the front of Toro’s neck, squeezing tightly before slamming him back into the wall, forcing a satisfying choke out of Calican’s lips.

Mando observed the man, noting that those lips were bloodied and bruised. His heart stopped when he realized that the man hadn’t received those injuries from being punched. The indentions, the punctures… no, he wasn’t punched, he was bitten.

“Alaina,” Mando started darkly, turning his helmet to look at the crying girl curled in on herself on the floor. Alaina refused to look at him, but from his angle, he could see a glimpse of blood that coated her chin. More blood than what just came from a nosebleed. “Did he go any further?”

“I didn’t!” Toro wheezed from under his choke hold.

“I didn’t ask you,” Mando reminded him, tightening his grip around the man’s neck. “Alaina?”

Alaina sniffled but finally shook her head.

Mando felt relieved to see that—Relieved to see her responding at all. He had told her to stay here… and then he left her defenseless and was almost too late to save her.

He couldn’t think about those thoughts right now. After. After he handled the situation, he would let the thoughts consume him. But now… now he needed to ensure that Toro Calican never put his hands on another soul ever again.

“And the kid’s okay?” he whispered, hoping that Calican hadn’t somehow passed Grogu off to a waiting friend.

Alaina nodded again, and he closed his eyes in relief.

“I told you,” Toro wheezed.

Mando turned his helmet to look back at the man he currently held in a chokehold. He welcomed the anger as it washed over him. He embraced the calm that it brought as he cocked his head at the man.

He gave the man a nod, acknowledging him. “Which means you’re lucky,” Mando said, making Toro relax as much as one could in his situation. “That means I kill you quickly,” he finished darkly. 

Toro opened his mouth to argue, but Mando snapped, bringing his other hand up and stabbing Alaina's dagger into the side of the man’s head.

Once the light left the man’s eyes, Mando let him unceremoniously fall to the floor, knife still sticking out of his head.

Mando ran to Alaina, dropping to his knees by her side, and rested a concerned hand on her shoulder. She cracked the moment the leather of his glove touched the ripped fabric of her shirt. Alaina scrambled to get up off the ground, and once she made it to her knees, she flung her arms around his neck and clung tightly as she pressed her face into his neck. Mando wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her tightly to him while she sobbed into his neck.

Her gasps for air were muffled by her lips being against his cowl, but she did not attempt to move her position. “I made sure—I made sure Grogu was hidden,” she told him between cries. “I could feel he was here for us. He didn’t see the kid. I hid him in one of the barrels out there.”

“Shhh,” Mando soothed her, rubbing his hands along her back. “You did good,” he told her, nuzzling his helmet to the side of her head. “I’m glad you’re both okay. Are you sure you’re okay? He didn’t…”

“N-No,” she stuttered.

“Good,” he rushed out, relieved to hear that. “I need to free the mechanic and tidy up. Are you going to be okay?”

Alaina squeezed his neck tightly, and Mando responded by squeezing his arms tighter around her waist.

“The sooner I get this done, the sooner we can leave,” he murmured, clutching her as tightly as possible. 

Gods, he’d almost been too late. He’d told her to stay, wanting her safe, and his order almost let her be… he couldn’t even think the word.

“Alaina,” he murmured again when he hadn’t gotten a response from her.

Alaina finally nodded, and Mando rose to his feet, keeping her in his arms as he stood, bringing her body up with him. Once her feet were on the ground, he slowly released her and moved his hands to rub her arms. She refused to look at him. Her head hung low, defeated, her face blocked from his view with her curtain of blonde curls.

Mando hated the way his insides twisted painfully. He hated the way she looked defeated—broken. He raised a cautious hand to cup her cheek. Alaina lifted her watery green eyes to stare at his helmet. “Come sit,” he ushered her to the sleeping alcove and encouraged her to sit on the mattress. She went with him compliantly; her green eyes started to lose focus, and he could see her shutting down. He rested his helmet on her forehead. “I’ll be right back, okay? And then we can go wherever you want.”

Alaina stared blankly back at him.

“Wherever you want, Tranyc,” he tried again, but his only response was a hollow, vacant stare.

He gently pressed his helmet into her forehead before turning to take care of the mess.

Mando grabbed the dagger by the fanned rawl's hilt and yanked it out of Calican's head. He used his cloak to wipe the blood from the beskar blade before he tucked it away in his belt for safekeeping. He grabbed the body and quickly tossed the worthless carcass out of the ship before heading down the ramp to find the kid. 

Peli looked relieved when she saw the dead body hit the ground, and Mando went to her first to free her of her confinements and cut the rag that was used to keep her quiet.

“Thank the Maker!” she sighed in relief, scrambling to stand up. “Blondie is okay, isn’t she?”

Mando hesitated and looked back at his ship. “She will be,” he replied, not entirely confident in his words. He looked back to the mechanic and asked, “Where is the kid?”

The mechanic whistled, and the assembly of pit droids came out of hiding in the shadows. “Get in there and get the place cleaned up for them,” she ordered, pointing at the open hold of his ship. Mando didn’t even have it in him to argue about the droids being on his ship, not if they would save some time by cleaning up the pool and streaks of blood left from Calican.

He followed the woman as she walked to a nearby alcove to a black barrel and pried the top open. The kid looked up at him and gave him a lecture using a series of sounds. Mando clearly understood that Grogu was less than impressed with his confinement.

“Come on, kid,” he said, reaching into the barrel to pick him up. The kid continued spitting and babbling nonsense to him, and all Mando could do was nod at the toddler as he accepted the kid’s tongue-lashing.

He walked to the dead wannabe hunter and yanked the purse of credits off of him before tossing them at the mechanic.

Peli opened the bag and raised her eyebrows, impressed by its contents, so Mando assumed that was enough to settle their remaining debt.

“Hey,” Peli called out after him, and Mando stopped at the ramp to look back at the short, frizzy-haired woman. The woman frowned and rocked back and forth as if she were debating on whether or not to vocalize her thoughts. “Before—” she began and sighed. “Blondie put up a heck of a fight,” she told him, nodding at the ship. “I don’t think she thought she was gonna make it.” Mando’s eyes closed at her words. “She told me to tell you that this wasn’t your fault.”

The words cut through his beskar armor straight to his heart.

“She said somethin’ else too, but I think it’s best that come from her,” she said, giving him a nod.

Mando’s eyes opened, and he stared at her, wondering what in the galaxy Alaina could have said that the mechanic didn’t feel comfortable repeating.

The two stared at each other, and the short mechanic gave him a quick, dismissive nod. Mando nodded back, turning to enter his ship. The mechanic’s pit droids came stumbling out, carrying bloodied rags and disinfectants as they passed him, tripping over each other in a race not to be the last one on board.

Alaina was still in shock in the alcove, unaware that the ramp had closed behind him. Mando walked to her and set the kid down at her feet. He put her head between his hands and forced her to look at him. Even though her head was looking up, her green eyes were glassy and unfocused with tears, and Mando wasn’t sure what, if anything, she was actually seeing.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered, wiping a stray tear away with his thumb as it rolled down her cheek.

Alaina didn’t respond.

“Keep an eye on her,” he instructed Grogu, who seemed to understand what he was saying and latched onto the bottom hem of Alaina’s dress.

Mando took the rungs of the ladder two at a time and launched himself into the cockpit to get them off the desert hellhole they had landed on.

Soon, they were up in the air, and Mando put the Crest in hyperdrive with no real destination in mind. It was just for the safety of the hyperdrive channel.

Mando removed his helmet and let it fall to the floor, then raised his gloves to rub his weary face.

He’d made an absolute karking mess of everything.

He’d promised Alaina that he would protect her, and she’d almost been…

He slammed his hands down on top of the console with an angry growl.

He couldn’t keep failing her. She’d been through too much, and he couldn’t let any more be his fault. He’d take them somewhere quiet to regroup, and then… 

Then, they would make serious plans to get Alaina situated somewhere safe. Once Alaina was safe, he could focus on finding the kid’s people, or maybe even the Jedi, if they still existed, to take him in.

Then, they could all just move on with their lives.

He ignored the painful tug in his chest at the thought of his companions leaving and plugged in coordinates for their next destination—a small, quiet moon just on the other side of the border in wild space. He’d encountered the uninhabited moon a few years back and found solace in its beauty once. Hopefully, he could share that with Alaina and the kid, giving the two of them one last pleasant memory of him.

Once the ship was headed toward their destination, and the alarm was programmed to alert them when they were approaching, Mando grabbed his helmet from the floor. He stared at the heavy beskar piece, buffing a scuff out of the side with his sleeve before putting it back on and heading back down to the hold.

Alaina remained motionless, sitting stoically on the edge of his mattress with her feet dangling above the ground. Grogu’s hand still clutched the bottom hem of her dress, and he looked at Mando with large, pleading eyes. When Mando made it to his two companions, he took a moment to study Alaina, trying to quell his anger with a detached view as he looked over her injuries.

There were traces of a bruise blossoming across her right temple. The tiny stream of blood that had come from her nose had long since dried and caked to her face, ending at her upper lip. Her bottom lip and chin were covered with that piece of shit’s blood from when she must have bitten his lip when he forced himself on her.

His fists clenched at his sides as he tried to reign in his anger.

“Alaina?” he whispered, searching for any sign that she had heard him. Her face remained vacant, and her normally expressive eyes were empty and bloodshot. He sighed and forced himself to relax. “Alaina, let’s get you cleaned up, okay?” he suggested, keeping his voice low and calm, even though he wanted to do nothing more than go back to Tatooine and punch the corpse of Toro Calican until there was nothing left of him.

Alaina made no indication that she had heard him.

He shuffled around the hold, keeping one eye on Alaina as he started to gather his old tunic, which Alaina had taken to sleep in, and a canteen of water from next to her cot. Grogu looked nervously between him as Mando returned to their struggling friend.

Silently, he went to work cleaning her face. Unable to find a rag nearby, he grabbed his cloak, poured water over a small portion of the edge, and began to gently dab at the blood on Alaina’s chin and nose. She didn’t so much as blink as he cleaned her face. The dull green eyes physically pained him, and he wished she would snap out of her dissociative state and cry, fight, or something just so he could see the spark return to her emerald eyes. Once he cleaned her face, he examined the bruise on her temple a little closer, but it didn’t appear as if she suffered any fractures.

“I think we could use some rest,” he said, hoping for a response, but not surprised when he didn’t receive one. He held up the tunic in front of her eyes, but still nothing. “I don’t think you’d want to stay in those clothes,” he said, pausing to look over the ripped, tattered green shirt and dress. He knelt before her, untying her laces to work her boots off first. Grogu rested a tiny hand on his glove and then pointed up to Alaina. “I know, kid. She’s gonna be okay. She just needs some time.” Grogu’s ears flattened, and Mando felt as dejected as the kid looked.

Once her boots and socks were removed from her feet, he stood back up and bent over so his helmet aligned with her head. “I’m going to take your dress off. Stop me if this makes you uncomfortable.” When Alaina remained frozen, he sighed and eased her off the alcove's edge.

Alaina was pliant in his arms. Nothing more than a doll to be positioned as he untied and removed her dress and slid the green tunic he’d gotten for her back on Sorgan up over her head. Now she stood before him wearing only her breastband and underwear, and his helmet flicked over her body, looking for any signs of external injuries that needed to be addressed. A shock of black and blue was already cracking in the middle of her abdomen, and if he looked hard enough, he thought he could make out Calican’s footprint in the middle of her stomach.

“Kriff,” he muttered when he realized that she must have taken a kick to the gut. 

Quickly, he grabbed the kid and placed him in his hammock above them. He gently pushed Alaina back to his mattress and helped her lean back. Once she was on her back, he began palpating her abdomen, checking for any indication of internal bleeding or organ damage. Alaina’s unfocused gaze didn’t move from staring at the ceiling. Her abdomen briefly tensed when his fingers began prodding her, and he relaxed his examination, not wanting to cause her any additional pain. Thankfully, he didn’t find anything to indicate that she had any internal bleeding, but he would check again later.

He tried to move her, but even though her eyes were open, she was nothing more than a limp shell of herself. Mando continued to murmur words of comfort and praise as he dressed her in his old tunic. He didn’t know what he was even saying; he just hoped that something would make its way into her mind. Once he successfully got the tunic on her, he eased her back to the mattress.

Mando undid the magnetic clamps holding his armor in place, leaving it in a messy pile at the foot of his sleeping alcove. He toed his boots off until he was dressed in only his helmet, flight suit, and gloves.

He cautiously climbed into the alcove and, after a brief shuffle, had Alaina situated with his sole pillow and flimsy blanket on one side, leaving him with just enough room to have the other half if he turned on his side.

“Alaina?” he whispered, caressing her arm with his gloved hand, but received no response from her.

Alaina stared blankly at the ceiling, completely unaware of her surroundings.

“My mind would always conjure you up whenever I needed a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean on.” Her words from Sorgan echoed through his troubled mind. “Can I hold your hand? At least until I fall asleep?”

Mando ripped his gloves off and shucked them out of the alcove. His fingers tentatively grazed down her arm until they found her hand. Slowly, cautiously, he entwined his fingers between her smaller ones, hoping his actions comforted her.

A sad coo from above pulled Mando’s attention from Alaina. He found the kid looking down at his friend with large, sad eyes. With a sigh, Mando moved to grab the kid, bringing him down to join them.

“Come on, kid,” he whispered and twisted his free arm so he could reach above him to grab the small toddler by his shirt, placing him between them. Grogu immediately crawled away from him and onto Alaina’s chest. He watched with a sad smile as the kid stroked her cheek, knowing he needed to be gentle with her.

Mando brought their joined hands under his helmet and brushed his lips across her knuckles, but not even the shock of feeling his lips or the overgrown scruff on his cheek could pull her from her mind.

With a sigh, he laid back down on his side, resting his helmet on his arm as he watched Grogu drift to sleep, sprawled across Alaina’s chest.

“We’re here for you,” he whispered in the alcove, gently squeezing her hand. “We’re here. Just let me know if you need anything,” he said before going quiet, hoping that the woman next to him would find sleep at some point.

He wasn’t expecting a response, but his heart fluttered, and the cord in his chest jumped when she squeezed his hand back.

🐍 End Act 1 🐍

Author's Note #2: Ooof. I'm okay. Everything is fine 😢 Let's move on to our healing era, shall we?

Peace and love, XOXO

-Stardust

Heaven in Hiding Masterlist

Next chapter in series - Chapter 13: Elysium

[spoopdeedoop]

Loved the cat fic from the starlight strings au! Very enjoyable to see Ten's resolve to dislike the poor thing crumble down XD

Also I just really love the concept of this au in general. The second shot at life for each regeneration but as a human, the messy coexistence, it's delightful.

I was wondering how the friendships with the companions work in this au? Do they track down the newly human Doctors and become friends with them again?

thank you so much!! :) struggled immensely with that fic and i still have some grievances with the pacing but i'm glad it's out. thank you for enjoying my silly stuff <3

since starlight strings is set in a separate universe (when a doctor regenarates, they reappear as human in an alternate universe rather than in the same one. i'm thinking a pete's world type situation), the companions are alternate versions of the characters we know -- ones that have never met the original alien doctor. they're essentially the same characters, just in different situations i think -- more settled within their lives. Or they previously weren't, and befriending the human doctors helped them become settled.

i dunno pshdkfn i'm sort of making this up as i go. i wrote the companions into the au because i love them and then never remember to fill in the plotholes that come with putting them in lmao

[m4morine]

Im not your doll.

[skillzissue]

In my angst era,,,

fortunately that means that I will need to draw a bunch of fluff to recover from my own doings

[bawnjourno]

Sparks’s 1980-1984 run, scanned by me

Terminal Jive / Whomp That Sucker / Angst In My Pants / In Outer Space / Pulling Rabbits Out Of A Hat

[rainydaysandcloudyskies]

This is so good!

is it ok to be a little selfish

[fanvoidkeith]

guess who just started binge reading the handplates comics (and was too frightened to do so until now, since now it's officially "over"/at its endpoint)

[animadartista]

Timbriche

Growing up as a child of a mom who grew up in the 80's I probably should be as sick of them as I am of JLO but as soon as I hear any of the opening notes on their songs i switch into blorbo mode.

[itsjuststardust]

Heaven in Hiding - Chapter 11: Deceptive Cadence

Heaven in Hiding Masterlist

Chapter Summary: Deceptive Cadence is a musical cadence in which the dominant resolves to a harmony other than the tonic. It is also called false cadence, interrupted cadence, or suspended cadence.

Word Count: 13,221

Author's Note/Chapter Warnings: MINORS - DO NOT INTERACT - 18+ ONLY

Chapter 11: Deceptive Cadence

“That’s what I am doing,” Alaina snarled.

“No,” Mando argued, not even bothering even to attempt to hide his frustration with her at this point. “You have to keep an eye on the—”

“I am! We’re going straight!”

Mando’s finger began impatiently tapping one of the gauges in front of her. “We’re moving forward, but we’re not going in a straight line,” he finished, emphasizing his statement with a point to the gauge moving up and down.

“Ugh!” 

To say that their first week traveling on the Razor Crest had been tense would be the understatement of the century.

Alaina wasn’t sure what she thought would happen when she told Mando that she wanted to be a member of his crew, but her daily flying lessons, which usually turned into screaming matches between the two of them, were not it.

She had woken up excited that first day. She and Mando had come to a truce the night before—They were wiping the slate clean and starting over as crewmates. She had gotten a full night’s sleep on her cot tucked away next to the weapons locker. Her headache, left over from her episode back on Sorgan, had finally faded into a dull, almost nonexistent ache, and she was off traveling to parts unknown, looking for the next adventure.

That excitement didn’t last long.

“How much flying experience do you have?” Mando had asked her when she joined him and Grogu up in the cockpit that first morning.

Alaina’s eyes went wide at the question. “Like flying a ship?” she asked, pointing at the center console for clarification.

“What else would you be flying?” he snarked.

Alaina blew out a breath from her lips. “Well, once, my mom tried to teach me how to drive a speeder,” she offered, shrugging her shoulders.

“Just the once?”

Alaina nodded, “The lesson lasted ten minutes before my mother declared me a public safety hazard and ended our lesson.”

He snorted, “Ten minutes?”

”Well…” she cringed, not wanting to admit the rest… “ten minutes into it, I wrecked the speeder, so it was kinda hard to continue with the lesson after that.”

That got his attention. 

Mando spun in his chair to look back at her, cocking his helmet, “You wrecked the speeder?” Alaina had no other response for him other than to smile. “Your first go?” Alaina nodded. “So how did you get around?”

“What do you mean, how did I get around? Mando, it’s called public transportation,” Alaina answered, slowly elongating the last two words to make sure he understood her under his helmet. “I only went to four or five places on my homeworld, and when I went off-world, it was for performances, so transportation was arranged for us.”

“Well, if you’re going to be a member of my crew, you need to learn the basics at least,” he said, spinning back to the controls and dropping the Crest out of hyperdrive. “If I get injured or incapacitated, I need to know you can handle yourself.”

Alaina felt her mouth open and close like a fish as she tried to comprehend that she would learn how to fly a spaceship.

Much like that speeder lesson with her mother, her initial excitement lasted approximately ten minutes.

At least this time, she didn’t crash Mando’s ship.

Mando, it turned out, was not a great flying instructor, and he did not hesitate to point out that Alaina was not a great student.

Their lessons lasted until they were both screaming at each other before Alaina excused herself from the lesson to scream into her pillow. Eventually, once they both had time to cool down, Mando would climb down the ladder with Grogu and toss her a ration pack, which she learned signaled lunchtime on the Crest.

In the ‘afternoon,’ Mando would clean his weapons. 

With an angry bite out of her protein bar and nothing better to do, Alaina stood in front of Mando as he began disassembling his blaster, staring at him until he sighed and motioned for her to join him.

He started teaching her with her blaster.

“Where’s your blaster?” he asked, looking at her empty hip.

“My blaster?” she teased. When Mando just stared at her, Alaina realized he was serious. The man had actually given her his old blaster. “It’s under the cot,” she finished, pointing to her setup nearby.

“It should be on you,” came his flat reply.

Alaina sighed, “Mando, it’s just us—”

“Razor Crest rule number one,” he started sharply, cutting her off, “is that your blaster and dagger are to be either on your person or within arms' reach of you at all times.” Alaina rolled her eyes, but he pointed to her cot until she went to retrieve her blaster.

Thankfully, Mando was better at teaching basic weapons maintenance than he was at flying. He walked her through the different parts, how to take it apart, how to oil it, how to check for grime that could cause it to jam, and other problems that could arise.

Alaina found it slightly annoying when he kept putting her blaster back together, only to make her take it apart again. It was the same in reverse when teaching her how to reassemble it. After an hour of the two of them going back and forth, Mando ended their lesson with an impressed nod when she managed to take her blaster apart and put it back together again in just over a minute.

“Not bad,” he nodded to her, giving her a pat on her shoulder as he walked past her to return to the cockpit.

Alaina smiled after him. She tried to ignore how her shoulder burned where his glove touched her. Instead, she tried to tell herself that their first flying lesson was just a fluke and that things would get better from there.

That night, Alaina wasn’t sure why it happened—their heated argument during their flying lesson, how his hand squeezed her shoulder after she reassembled her blaster, or perhaps it was just their close proximity, but it definitely took her by surprise.

She’d never experienced anything quite like what happened that night. Premonitions, nightmares, regular old dreams she’d had in droves, but nothing could have prepared her for what happened when she finally drifted off into a fitful sleep that night.

The moon was the only light coming into the tiny shed that had become their home. The moon’s glowing luminescence bathed the inside of the wooden shed in silver, highlighting Mando’s helmet and her pale skin.

His hands were on her waist. Her arms clutched his biceps.

“You wanna perform for me, mesh’la?” he asked, voice straddling between a growl and a purr. 

She bit her bottom lip and nodded.

“Redalur,” he commanded, voice dropping an octave. He used his hands on her hips to force her core even harder onto his thigh, and Alaina’s eyes rolled into the back of her head when she rubbed against him just right. “Dance for me, Mesh’la,” he rasped.

His fingers dug into her hips, helping move her over him, and she dug her fingers into the well-defined muscles of his arms when she lost the ability to speak. Everything faded away until it was just the two of them and the moon. Alaina couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to stop—ever. She wanted this. The two of them were stripped down literally, emotionally, figuratively, and in any other way that two people could be stripped down until it was just them and the moon. This is what she wanted.

The broad hands gripping her waist tugged at her hips, sliding her higher up his thigh, forcing a gasp from her lips when her bud scaped across the skin of his thigh. 

“Dance for me, Alaina,” he repeated, his hands pushing her back down his thigh.

Her hips surged forward at his order, and she hissed in pleasure as her clit swept over his thigh again.

“That’s it,” he whispered, giving her hips an encouraging squeeze.

Maker, that voice. That deep baritone voice… the way he said her name.

“Alaina.”

She moaned, feeling herself being brought to the brink.

“Alaina.”

If he kept saying her name like that, she was sure that she would have no problem toppling right over the edge—

Something shook her, and Alaina’s eyes flew open. Gone were the shed's familiar wooden planks, replaced with durasteel. The comforting silver moonlight was replaced by bright, artificial lighting that made her squint in pain at the abrupt change. At least one thing from her dream was still there. She thought with a sleepy smile as she stared up into the silver helmet, looking down at her—

Her eyes widened in realization. Oh, Maker.

“You were having a nightmare,” Mando explained, and Alaina’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

She was most definitely not having a nightmare, but she’d sooner throw herself out the airlock than tell Mando that he’d just woken her from a sex dream—a sex dream where he played her partner in their little pas de deux.

“You okay?” he asked, cocking his helmet slightly as he stood over her.

“Yes!” Alaina answered quickly. Too quickly, judging by how Mando’s helmet tilted just a little more. “Yes, sorry, nightmare,” she tried to correct. She squinted against the artificial lighting and felt the dull headache left over from her vision on Sorgan that she hadn’t been able to shake entirely, slowly creeping back.

Mando dropped a protein bar on her blanket-covered body and nodded toward the ladder. “Come up top once you get situated,” he instructed. “You sure you’re okay? You look a little flushed.”

Nope, she definitely would be throwing herself out of the airlock the second Mando went up to the cockpit.

“I’m fine, Mando,” she told him with a strained smile. “Just still have a headache from the other day.” Not exactly a lie, but most definitely not the reason why she apparently looked so flushed.

The silver helmet studied her momentarily before he finally turned away from her. Once he was gone, Alaina’s eyes fluttered closed, and she pulled her blanket up to cover her head.

Mortified.

There was no other word to describe it. She’d never had that kind of dream before. And, of course, Mando had to wake her up before it was over, and she was left with an unresolved tingling between her legs.

“Ugh,” she growled under the covers, pressing her hands to her temples.

“If you can’t keep the ship straight, you can’t make the jump to hyperdrive,” Mando’s irritated voice brought her from her daydreams.

Alaina closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. Now, of all of the times, was not to think back on her kriffing sex dream she’d had about the armored man currently lurking behind her.

Alaina hadn’t put much thought into what traveling with the Mandalorian on his ship would actually look like in the long run. They’d lived together in a tiny shed for weeks on Sorgan, so it hadn’t crossed her mind that the Razor Crest would be any different. It turns out it was different.

A lot different.

Within the first hour they set off, Alaina learned just how different life on the Razor Crest would be. At least on Sorgan, if they annoyed each other, there was an entire village to explore, and even then, if the village seemed too small, there were the fields or the creek. On the Razor Crest, there was the cockpit or the hold.

The three of them shuffled around each other while they moved things around in his ship to make room for her cot. Because now that they were back on the Crest, Mando had his own sleeping… closet, or whatever you wanted to call it, and Alaina had her own cot. So they could sleep separately. As friends. As crewmates.

Alaina let out a sad huff. 

She was an idiot. 

She was an idiot to think she could ignore what had happened between them on Sorgan.

They’d been at their flying lessons for a week at this point, and even though Mando seemed just as irritated with her by the end of them, he refused to let her quit. 

On the third day, Alaina stayed tucked away in her little nook she’d made in the hold, hoping that Mando wouldn’t notice that she hadn’t joined him up top. He had, in fact, noticed, and when his heavy boots landed on the hold, the man had the gall to threaten to throw her over his shoulder and carry her up to the cockpit if she didn’t get her ass up there by the time he counted to three—As if she could be treated like a child. When Mando started with a threatening “One,” Alaina decided she didn’t want to find out if he would carry out his threat and sprinted up to the cockpit for her flying lesson.

And to make matters worse, the man being an ass did nothing to diminish the irritating tingling sensation between her legs. It hadn’t gone away since that dream, and the longer her symptoms were prolonged, the more irritated with Mando she became.

Tensions between them slowly rose as the days went on. Their fuse for one another became shorter and shorter. Anytime Mando even looked in her direction, she felt her body light on fire.

Which only made her angrier. With herself. With Mando. With the universe.

She’d done things with Mando that she’d never done with anyone else. She’d let him—she pleaded for him to take her. It was supposed to be goodbye. They would have one night together, and then Mando would be gone. Instead, they had their one night together, and Alaina got her hopes up at his words, “But I don’t think I can leave you behind.”

She was naïve. 

Naïve to think that she could not let sex with the Mandalorian cloud her feelings. It was evident to her now that their night hadn’t affected the Mandalorian the way it had affected her. He may not regret her, but he sure didn’t want her. Not like that anyway. He treated her professionally and only spoke to her when needed. He spoke to her during flying lessons. He spoke to her when he did his daily weapons lessons. They spoke about Grogu. But they never spoke of their shared night together.

She missed their late-night conversations. She missed falling asleep, knowing the Mandalorian was nearby because he wanted to be. 

Most of all, she missed her friend.

Alaina had looked at herself last night in the dingy mirror in the fresher as she got ready for bed, but she almost didn’t recognize the person staring back at her.

She was alone. Adrift in the galaxy. The person she was for the first twenty-two years of her life had slowly been bled from her over the last five years until all that was left was…

She blinked at herself in the mirror while she tried to see what was left of her. With a frown, she took in her long, unruly curls, the scar over her temple where she crashed into the mountain, and the cold green eyes that stared back at her… Alaina realized that the heart of her problem was that she no longer recognized herself. 

She no longer knew who she was.

Her green eyes hardened in the mirror when she remembered that the person responsible for her problems was on the other side of the door.

After days of bickering, she was ready for a fight.

Alaina left the fresher to look for her target but immediately stopped when she saw the man in question fiddling with something at the end of the hold.

“What are you doing?” she asked, pulling a face at the pieces of wood he was hanging on the wall.

Mando spun around, appearing startled that she’d caught him. “Um,” he started, looking back at the random assortment of wooden squares on the wall behind him. Mando nervously rubbed the back of his neck before he turned back to her. “You’ve been off since we left Sorgan,” he started quietly. “Distant,” he added and shuffled his boots. “I know it’s been a change adjusting to the Crest, and I know that I’ve maybe not been the most patient teacher with you—” Alaina snorted. “I thought this might help,” he shrugged, ignoring her interruption.

Alaina stared at the wall of boards—squares of wooden crates that the village had given them to carry their gifts, which he had taken apart and hung at random. She blinked and shrugged, “And just what exactly is this?” she asked, pointing to Mando’s arts and crafts project.

She watched as his gloved hand reached behind his back and produced her mother’s dagger. “When you got angry on Sorgan, this is what you did to work through your anger,” he explained. “It’s not the same as being able to go outside, but…” he shrugged.

Alaina stood there, dressed for bed, barefoot, wearing Mando’s tunic, with her mouth agape.

“You’ve made a couple of comments…” he began but stopped and sighed. “Maybe this was the wrong thing to do. Would you rather try to dance instead? We can move some things around in the hold to make room for that if you want.” Mando offered. “I just… You’ve made comments about not being a ballerina anymore and not knowing who you are… I thought if you could do this,” he paused to flip the serpentine beskar dagger in the air. “I thought if you could do this, it would give you an outlet for your anger and help you feel closer to your mother.”

Her heart thundered in her chest, and her footsteps matched the pounding under her breast as she crossed the hold. When she made it to Mando, Alaina flung her arms around his neck, straining on her tiptoes to bridge the height difference between them so she could hug him. Mando seemed surprised for the briefest second, but eventually, his shoulders relaxed, his arms cautiously wrapped around her waist, and he returned her hug.

“Thank you,” she murmured, burying her face into Mando’s neck.

“That’s what friends are for,” he whispered, squeezing her tighter.

Alaina smiled. Friends.

She let go of his neck while Mando’s arms slowly released her waist until her feet planted on the floor. The two stared at each other, and Alaina couldn’t tell what he was thinking with the helmet, but she couldn’t stop smiling at Mando.

“So does this mean you’ll finally stop being an ass to me during our flying lessons?” she asked with a broad, hopeful smile.

Mando tilted his head at her, “I’ll stop being an ass during our flying lessons when you stop trying to kill us or break my ship.”

Alaina rolled her eyes, “I’m not that—”

“You know how good you are at throwing knives?” he asked, offering her the dagger. Alaina narrowed her eyes at the question, knowing she’d only landed one throw in the weeks she’d been practicing. “Well, you’re worse at flying the Razor Crest.”

Alaina snatched the dagger from his hand and pointed the blade loosely in Mando’s direction. “I am not!” she cried, unable to hide the smile or the laugh from her voice.

Mando crossed his arms over his chest. “The kid agrees with me,” he said, nodding at Grogu sitting on top of one of the crates, playing with the stuffed frog that Omera and Winta had made for him. Grogu’s wide eyes blinked at the adults in confusion when his name was mentioned.

“He does not!” she chuckled. “He likes it. He squeals—”

“In terror.”

“In delight,” Alaina rebutted with a smirk. Mando gave her a dramatic tilt of his helmet, causing her to giggle. 

“Let’s be honest, Mando,” she started up again. “It just wouldn’t be fair to you if I was talented at everything,” she smiled as she exaggerated her words, and when Mando shook his head at her, she was positive she heard his eyes roll from behind his helmet. “Let’s face it, if the Maker made me so I was talented at dancing, cooking, weapons, and flying a ship, I’d just be too powerful,” she laughed. “You wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

Silence stretched between them, but Alaina wasn’t bothered by it. Mando’s thoughtful gesture of setting up a space to practice throwing her mom’s dagger—the two of them finally finding the playful rhythm she’d grown accustomed to on Sorgan—was enough to soothe her anger.

“Maybe not,” he eventually agreed, and Alaina smirked at the slight playful tease in his voice.

Mando stalked toward her and started working to get her in the proper position to make her first throw. However, when his hands moved to her waist so he could correct her upper body, Alaina felt a familiar tingling sensation return when she felt the cold metal of his helmet touch her temple.

“But I like a good challenge,” he whispered in her ear, causing Alaina to shudder at the sound of his voice—like the smooth burn of whiskey.

Even now, the memory of his baritone voice whispering in her ear could bring a flush to her face. 

Alaina tried to hold onto that feeling from last night as she struggled through her flying lesson this morning.

She could feel her headache begin to return, making it a regular occurrence, usually coming when Mando stressed her out too much. 

She just didn’t understand why everything had to be so complicated. There were so many buttons, lights, and controls to learn and read. 

Alaina tried to tell Mando the second day that she would learn better if he wasn’t breathing down her neck… The suggestion probably would have gone over better if she hadn’t also turned the wheel when she turned to talk to him. Even the slight tilt of the wheel pushed the Crest into a spin, sending the three occupants of the cockpit flying. "Public safety hazard,” Mando had growled under his breath as he pushed Alaina from his seat and abruptly ended their lesson.

She took another breath, willing her stress headache away. She tried to picture herself on a beach staring at the ocean or relaxing in the hot springs on Sorgan to keep herself from snapping at Mando. However, her moment of serenity was short-lived when Mando’s gloves directed her face back at the controls before moving to grip hers over the control column.

“Flying the ship usually works better with your eyes open.”

Her eyes flew open at the sarcastic quip, and if his hands weren’t holding hers to the wheel, she would have slapped him right across his stupid beskar helmet.

Alaina scrunched her face, mocking him. “Flying the ship usually works better with your eyes open,” she parroted back in a slightly high-pitched, distorted voice, then stuck her tongue out at him.

“Very mature, Alaina.”

Alaina blew a raspberry at him for good measure and smiled when Grogu laughed at their antics from the copilot's chair.

“At least someone finds it funny that our lives are currently in mortal peril with you behind the controls,” Mando deadpanned.

Alaina rolled her eyes. “I can keep the ship straight, Mando. Besides, what’s the rush about hyperdrive? Haven’t you heard the expression that you have to learn to walk before you can learn how to run?”

“You’re gonna have to jump at some point.”

“Yeah, but—” Alaina’s response was cut off when the ship rocked, and the previously calm, white lights on the console lit up in a sea of red blinks, and an annoying blinking alarm sounded from somewhere. “That wasn’t me!” she yelped.

“No, we took a hit,” Mando said, turning serious. He pulled her out of the seat, and the two slid past each other so Mando could retake his seat.

Alaina grabbed Grogu and put him in her lap before strapping them both into the chair just in time for another hit to rock the ship.

Mando’s hands danced across the controls as he quickly put them on the offense.

“Hand over the girl and the child, Mando,” a mysterious voice ordered from the comm.

Alaina gripped Grogu tighter. Someone had found them already? It had barely been a week from the bounty hunter on Sorgan. Not to mention that they’d been in hyperdrive for most of that week, which, according to Mando, meant they were safe.

“Hold on,” Mando ordered, pulling up on the control column.

The kid cried, and Alaina’s stomach went sour from Mando’s flying as he tried to flip them. The ship groaned at the peak of its climb, and she had to close her eyes when they took another volley.

“Come on,” Mando muttered, struggling with the controls to aim at the other ship.

“I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold,” the unknown hunter taunted them.

“That’s my line,” Mando grumbled, his hands flying over the console.

Alaina’s stomach bottomed out when Mando dropped the ship behind their attacker and fired the blasters, decimating the hunter’s ship. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she clung tightly to Grogu as they flew through the debris from the other ship.

Her eyes were on Mando’s hands, studying what he was doing, but she didn’t understand why Mando still seemed tense. The ship rattled around them while Mando fought with the controls, and Alaina finally pieced together that the Crest perhaps did not come out completely unscathed on the other side of its brief fight with the attacking ship.

She looked down to check on Grogu and stroked his ears when she saw that the kid looked a little pale. “What’s wrong?” she asked, trying to get her heart rate to a more acceptable rate.

Mando didn’t answer her at first, focusing solely on the control panel, trying to get the alarms under control, but the longer the silence stretched on, the more the ominous pit in her stomach grew.

“Mando?”

“We have a fuel leak,” he growled, focusing on the ship's controls.

Fuel leak. That didn’t sound good. “What does that mean? Are we just stuck out here?”

Mando ignored her. His attention was now directed at the map screen. His finger kept punching a button, quickly flipping through options so quickly Alaina couldn’t even read the screen. After a minute of searching, he stopped frantically pressing the button, and she heard an irritated sigh escape from under his helmet when he found what he was looking for.

“Mando,” Alaina said again, getting the feeling that Mando was intentionally not answering her.

“What?” he snapped.

“You said we have a fuel leak,” she prodded him again. “What are we going to do?”

Mando’s hands started moving over the controls again, and he flipped a switch that plunged the ship into mostly dark. Only the controls and some small emergency lights lit the cockpit, giving it an eerie feeling. “I cut power to nonessential systems to help reserve what fuel we have left. We should have enough to limp us to the closet planet.”

“Should?” she asked, but her stomach sank when she didn’t get an answer from the Mandalorian. “What’s the closest planet?” she asked, changing the subject.

The way Mando growled the answer, she wished she would have stayed quiet.

“Tatooine.”

Limping to Tatooine took another two hours. Two hours of traveling in a darkened cockpit filled with tense silence. Grogu dozed in her lap, but Alaina focused on the back of Mando’s helmet. 

In the last hour of their trip, Alaina started running through a mental list of supplies to look for while they were stopped planet-side. 

Their little village in Sorgan had stocked them with some things, but if Alaina could find some real food to break up the ration pack meals and protein bars, that would significantly improve her quality of life on board the Razor Crest. Maybe she could also find more toys for Grogu to help distract him. Maybe she could find a cheap datapad for herself while they were there. It would be nice to have something to read and catch up on some of the news from the galaxy that she’d missed out on during her five years with the Empire. Besides, flying lessons only took up an hour or two every morning… there were a lot of hours to fill a day.

Maybe she should take Mando up on his offer of trying to find a space in the hold where she could try and pick up dancing again.

A small orange dot slowly came into view, and Alaina couldn’t stop the spark of excitement from catching at the opportunity to explore another world.

Before she’d fled her homeworld, she’d only been off planet three other times, to travel to another planet in their system to perform once every few years. Even after Mando turned her over to the Empire, she never left Nevarro. But now… now she could add Sorgan and Tatooine to her list.

The larger the planet got, the more bright it became.

“It looks hot,” she commented, observing the large orange blob with not even one blip of green or blue.

“It is,” he answered flatly.

Curiosity peaked, she asked, “You’ve been here before?”

“Unfortunately. It is a popular spot for quarries to hide.”

Alaina frowned at that information and continued absently rubbing Grogu’s ears. “Well, as fun as the last week has been, it will be nice to stop somewhere for a bit. Do we have enough credits to stay at an inn or someplace? A hot shower—”

Mando replied quickly, “You’re not leaving the ship.”

Alaina’s frown deepened, “Why?”

“Because I said so.”

Alaina rolled her eyes, “That’s not an answer.” Mando’s helmet stayed directed at the planet, apparently deeming a response unnecessary, but Alaina wouldn’t let him drop it. “If there’s a market, it would be nice to go check it out,” she suggested. “Maybe some better food, toys for Grogu—”

“No,” Mando cut in.

Alaina pressed her lips into a thin line. “Why?” she pushed, hoping the man would give her an answer that wouldn’t make her angry.

She thought she’d been relatively clear about the whole crewmember speech, but she should have known that Mando would be stubborn their first go.

“We are only going to be there long enough for some repairs,” he answered, making her feel slightly better. At least until he continued, “I’m already going to have to leave to find work to pay for those repairs, but you and the kid aren’t leaving.”

Like hell was she going to let him leave her behind. “We could go with you! We could help!” she offered, kicking his chair with her foot.

“No.”

“Why can’t we come with you?” she challenged. “Remember when I said I wouldn’t follow your every whim blindly?”

Mando’s shoulders stiffened, and she heard the leather of his gloves creak, but he refused to turn and look at her. “Because it’s Tatooine,” he finally answered.

Alaina rolled her eyes at the weak explanation and rubbed Grogu’s ears as the giant, orange planet appeared. “Because it’s Tatooine,” Alaina grumbled, attempting to mock his deeper voice. “That’s not an answer.”

“If you knew Tatooine, you’d understand,” came the annoying rebuttal.

“Mando, crewmember, remember? You can’t just expect us to stay locked away on the ship!”

He finally turned to stare at her, “That’s exactly what I expect you to do.”

“But—”

“There’s no—”

“Okay, I’ll drop staying at an inn for a night, but we need things from the market to stock the ship. I promise to just go to the market and come straight back,” she countered. “Omera got us started, but we could still use some things. I don’t understand why I can’t go to the market while you find work.”

“There are eyes everywhere, Alaina,” Mando argued. “You and Grogu aren’t exactly unrecognizable.”

Alaina frowned and looked down at Grogu. “I’ll wear my hood.”

Sigh.

“Mando—”

“You want me to be blunt? Fine,” he growled. Irritation oozed from his voice, making Alaina concerned about what would come from the man’s mouth. “You’re rash,” he began, and Alaina’s teeth clenched at the bounty hunter’s assessment. “You’re rash and rush into situations when you don’t know all the facts. Just like Sorgan when you left the safety of the hut.”

“Okay, for starters, I saved your life shooting that guy. Also, nothing happened to me—”

“That time,” he stopped her. “It would be one thing if you had the training or the experience—”

“How will I get that if you won’t let me experience anything?” she argued.

“This is Mos Eisley Tower,” a new voice interrupted their argument from the comm. “We are tracking you. Head for bay three-five. Over.”

Mando turned back to the console to focus his attention on the directions. “Copy. Locked in for three-five,” he confirmed.

“Mando—”

“Are you ready for your first lesson in landing?” Mando stopped her, obviously considering their conversation over.

Alaina’s lips pressed into a thin line as she felt her fuse for Mando grow a little shorter.

Mando walked across the hold to the weapons locker. “You have your blaster and dagger?” he asked without looking at her.

Alaina followed behind him with Grogu in her arms. The two watched him strap his rifle to his back first before adding a few other weapons she didn’t recognize to his bandolier. When Mando tucked a knife into his boot, he turned around, giving her an expectant look.

Alaina shifted her hips so he could see the utility belt she’d added over her dress. Her blaster rested over her right hip, and her mother's dagger was over her left. “How could I forget rule number one?” she asked sadly.

She fussed with the skirt of her dress to smooth a crease out. She was wearing a tan, linen, sleeveless dress that was part of the pile of clothes she’d received from the shrimping village. She wore the linen dress over the green longsleeved shirt Mando had gotten for her to protect her pale skin from the desert sun (or suns, she had learned because Tatooine apparently had two suns) in hopes that she would get to experience some of the new planet at some point.

Mando’s boot nudged hers, which was poking out from under her dress. “I know this isn’t what you expected,” he said lowly, sounding almost apologetic. “I just know this place.”

Alaina kept her gaze diverted to the floor, tired of having this argument.

“Hey,” he whispered, nudging her foot with his again. “I promise it won’t be like this every time.” Alaina’s head shot up at his helmet at his admission. “I’m—I’m trying to get used to this, too,” he pointed out. “Give me some time to assess the situation. If things aren’t bad by Tatooine standards, and I get a job quickly, I’ll take you and the kid out to get a few things.” Alaina smiled at the suggestion, and Mando sighed, making her smile brighter. “But the both of you,” he paused to look at Grogu, “need to behave.”

“We’ll try,” she grumbled, trying to hide her smile. Mando gave her a less-than-impressed tilt of his helmet. “Promise,” she added on.

Mando hummed and put his hands on her waist, directing her to his sleeping nook.

“Wait,” Alaina tried to stop him, but Mando picked her up and set her inside. “You’re already locking us away on the ship, and now you’re locking us away in the closet?”

“Alaina, I don’t know what’s on the other side of those doors,” he argued, pointing to the closed hatch. “We don’t know whatever mechanic we got stuck with. I don’t want them anywhere near either of you.”

“But—”

Mando’s hand came and squeezed her calf, and Alaina slammed her eyes closed, feeling herself being transported back five years when Mando had last locked her away in his sleeping nook before he turned her over to the Empire. He squeezed her calf again, but she couldn’t look at him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “This is just the way it has to be this time. The kid’s got a couple of things in here to keep him occupied. I’ll do my best to return as quickly as possible.” Alaina nodded and flinched when she felt his hand cup her cheek. “Look at me, Alaina,” he instructed, and with a sigh, Alaina opened her eyes to see his helmet directly in front of her face. “You shoot anything that opens this door, do you understand? I don’t care who or what they are. Shoot first and ask questions later.” Alaina let her cheek sink into his gloved palm. “Just please stay here.”

“But—”

“Alaina,” he stopped her, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “Stay. Here.”

Her eyes closed, but she nodded, her silent agreement earning her another gentle caress of this thumb before he let her head go. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know what would come next—the slam of the button, followed by darkness.

And then Mando was gone.

A tiny, clawed hand gently scratched her cheek, and she tried to smile. She'd been alone the last time she’d been locked away in here. At least this time, she had company.

“Hey there, little one,” she whispered, finally opening her eyes and finding Grogu’s wide, concerned eyes in the dark. Grogu cooed and pointed to the closed door, but Alaina grabbed his hand. “Sorry,” she said, giving him a sad shake of her head. “You and I are gonna be in close quarters for a bit, but it’s gonna be okay. Mando will be back before you know it.”

The kid made a spitting noise but started playing with his stuffed frog.

Light spilled under the door as the ramp opened, and Alaina pulled her blaster from her holster when she heard voices from the other side.

She listened intently to Mando haggle with the mechanic. She couldn’t hear everything because it sounded like the woman he spoke with was moving around as they inspected the ship. Their discussion didn’t last long. She heard Mando give orders that there weren’t to be any droids allowed on his ship, and there was a brief discussion about money before everything went quiet.

Alaina listened as the mechanic began working on repairing their damaged fuel line. She kept a loose grip on her blaster, taking Mando’s warning to heart. This was their first real mission together; she didn’t want to mess it up. She was going to prove to Mando that she wasn’t rash and could be trusted to follow orders—

Something struck the door to their hiding spot, and Alaina’s eyes went wide. Grogu’s cheerful squeal echoed around her, and she shot him a look. One of the things Mando left for Grogu here was a couple of wooden toys that the kid had taken to fly around the nook with his powers to keep him occupied.

“Grogu, no!” Alaina whispered. She grabbed the wooden block that had struck the door and tried to find the other one. “Mando said we needed to be quiet, remember?”

The second block hit the door, and Alaina had to close her eyes to reign her temper in.

“Grogu,” she seethed when the kid wouldn’t stop giggling.

“Shhhh,” a voice from somewhere outside hissed loud enough for Alaina to hear. “Quick, grab my blaster rifle.”

Alaina’s breath caught in her throat, and she snatched Grogu and tucked him into the corner behind her, doing her best to press him back into the corner behind her. Boots stomped through the hold, and she gripped her blaster tighter, aiming at the door.

“I’d stay in that ship if I were you,” the voice threatened, and Alaina shut her eyes, bracing herself for the attack that was to come.

Mando had warned her—he had told her no one here was to be trusted. 

Shoot first. Ask questions later.

Only Alaina had never shot anyone before… Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She shot that raider in the calf when she saw him creeping up behind Mando during the fight on Sorgan. Even then, it wasn’t a killing blow.

Now, though, she would have no other choice.

She could hear hands on the other side of the door—someone searching for the release to get inside.

Alaina squeezed her eyes closed as tight as possible, saying a silent prayer to the Maker—

The door rolled open, and she froze.

“Ya know,” the voice she’d heard speaking to Mando earlier said, “it’s easier to shoot one of those if your eyes are open.”

Alaina cracked an eye open to evaluate the threat. A short woman, possibly even shorter than her, which was an impressive feat, was staring at her as if she’d stumbled upon a mad woman. Alaina blinked and relaxed at the non-threatening mechanic staring her down. She had short, frizzy, curly hair and a slightly stocky build.

Metal clanged from somewhere behind the woman, and Alaina gasped and tightened her grip on the blaster.

The woman blinked and looked behind her only to roll her eyes. “Hey, you heard what he said, no droids. Get outta here!”

Grogu cooed from behind her and poked his head around her, struggling through the curtain of unruly hair.

The woman frowned at the unfamiliar sound and scrunched her face as she tried to evaluate the two stow-a-ways she’d stumbled upon. Alaina shoved Grogu back behind her and waved the blaster in front of the stranger’s face. Grogu spit and squirmed until he freed himself from the corner behind Alaina and waddled to grab his stuffed frog.

The mechanic blinked at Grogu, looked up at her, and then back to Grogu. “I don’t even want to know what that tin can father of yours looks like. Did that bounty hunter leave you alone with only Blondie here to protect you?”

“Hey!” Alaina protested and moved to put herself between Grogu and the mystery mechanic.

The mechanic just stared at her. “If you were gonna shoot me, you woulda done it already,” she challenged, and Alaina tried not to deflate at the jab. “Come on, I’m not gonna have the two of you roast in here 'cause that tin can tried to hide you away.”

The mechanic walked away from the alcove, and Alaina looked at Grogu, who was smiling at her with wide, excited eyes.

“Come on, the two of you have been in there an hour already. It’s hot, and I’m not gonna let your kid starve,” the woman grumbled, motioning for Alaina to follow her out of the ship. “Hey, you,” she yelled at one of the passing droids. “Fetch us something to eat and some water. Quick!”

The droid jumped, and Alaina blinked at the beeps and squeaks it spit out.

“I don’t know, something with bones in it!” the woman yelled, obviously exasperated with the small droid, and threw her hands up in the air. The curly-haired mechanic spun back around and seemed surprised to see Alaina and Grogu still lingering in the closet where they’d been discovered. “Well, come on, Blondie, ain’t got all day.”

Alaina quirked an eyebrow at the woman. This was not the kind of terrible place she was expecting. She looked back down at Grogu, and he held a tiny hand out for her.

Sorry, Mando, she thought, grabbing Grogu into her arms.

“Coming.”

The mechanic, Peli, was an interesting creature.

After she ushered her and Grogu out of the Razor Crest, she directed them to a shaded area filled with broken pieces of equipment and forced her to sit on the bench. One of the droids walked to her on unsteady legs and offered her a canteen of water.

“Thank you,” she told the droid, who chirped excitedly at her.

“Careful, you’ll give ‘em a complex if you’re too nice to them,” Peli warned her. “Now, let me take a look at this little guy,” she said, turning her attention to Grogu.

Alaina clung a little tighter to Grogu, and the two of them shared a look, silently communicating that she appeared trustworthy before Alaina slowly relinquished him to the mechanic.

Peli held Grogu under his armpits and inspected him, occasionally sliding an eye to Alaina. “So the green and the ears come from the tin can, then?”

Alaina scrunched her nose. “He’s not ours,” she corrected Peli. “I mean, I guess he’s ours now, but by choice.” Grogu smiled at her words and turned his head in the woman’s arms to give her a toothy grin.

Peli shrugged, “Well, I can see why you chose him. Look at him!” Grogu smiled at the woman’s voice, and Alaina couldn’t help but smile at the two of them, either. The mechanic tucked Grogu into her side, “Now, here’s the plan,” she started, bopping the kid’s nose with her index finger. “I’m going to look after you since Blondie here did such a bang-up job—”

“Hey!”

“—until the Mandalorian gets back, and then I’m gonna charge him extra for having to watch the both of you.”

“Hey!” Alaina said again. She got up from the bench to glare at the woman. It wasn’t often that she was taller than someone, and even if, at five feet three inches, she was only an inch taller than the mechanic, she used that to make herself look as intimidating as possible. “That’s not fair!”

“Oh, come on, Blondie,” Peli ribbed. “That’s just the way the world works. Besides, with the extra credits, I’ll repair something else on that death trap on the house.”

Alaina just glared at the woman.

“Come on, you can’t tell me that everything inside that ship is working correctly. There isn’t something you want repaired?” Alaina’s glare softened. “There is, isn’t there?” Peli pushed, wagging her eyebrows.

“Um, would it be too difficult to repair the heating coil in the shower?” she asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

“A broken heating coil?” Peli asked with a bark of laughter. “You see how that works?” the mechanic asked, turning her attention to Grogu again. “Yeah, bright eyes?”

“His name is Grogu,” Alaina told her, giving Grogu a warm smile. “I’m Alaina,” she introduced the two of them.

“Yeah, whatever you say, Blondie,” Peli said, shaking her head at Grogu. “Broken heating coil,” she scoffed. “Who does your mom think I am, bright eyes?” she asked as she carried Grogu away from her and headed toward the Razor Crest.

Alaina looked down at the small, wobbly droid that had brought her the water canteen. The droid hadn’t left and looked up at Alaina when it realized she was looking at him. “She’s okay, right?” she asked the droid, which just stared at her. “She’s not like a serial killer or something? Or she’s not gonna kill us and eat us for dinner?”

The droid chirped a couple of high-pitched sounds before it sputtered.

“I’m just going to take that as a no then.”

Alaina’s left hand fiddled with the hilt of her dagger, and she kept a close eye on the mechanic. Peli appeared to be giving Grogu a tour of the hangar.

Hopefully, she wouldn't mess this up. 

Alaina wasn’t sure how long it would take Mando to find or complete a job, but after an hour of watching the mechanic, she finally decided the woman was all bark and no bite.

She carried the kid around while she inspected the fresher inside of the Razor Crest and then walked him through the remaining steps to finish repairing their broken fuel line. The woman even kept her promise of not using any droids to repair Mando’s ship (although Alaina couldn’t figure out why he would care).

Alaina stepped out of the Crest, having gone inside to grab her cloak after Peli had warned her that the desert got cold once the suns went down. She stopped at the foot of the ramp and smiled at the mechanic snoozing with Grogu while the pit droids played a round of Sabacc. All in all, it had been a decent afternoon.

She nervously fiddled with her cloak as she walked around the Crest to do her own explorations of the hangar.

Mando would be upset with her for leaving the ship, but at least she didn’t leave the hangar. No matter how tempted she was when the mechanic started talking about the market that was apparently nearby. He’d be upset for a bit, and then he would see that Alaina had handled herself and hopefully realize that she wasn’t as helpless as he originally thought.

Because she couldn’t do this at every stop they made for… Alaina frowned. She didn’t know how long Mando would let her stay around, but she wouldn’t be chained to his ship for the entire duration of their travels.

She wouldn’t be treated like a prisoner. No matter how good Mando’s intentions were.

She’d been a prisoner for the last five years because of him. Alaina wouldn’t trade that just to be his prisoner this time.

Alaina needed to explore what was out there. She needed to see the galaxy—needed to see that there was still good out there.

And just maybe… she’d be able to find herself again—piece by tiny piece.

But that would only happen if—

“Hey!”

Alaina blinked at the sound of Mando’s angry voice echoing through the hangar.

Uh oh.

She trotted from the far side of the hangar just in time to see Mando storm off the ramp and head straight for the sleeping mechanic.

“I’m awake!” Peli startled, blinking quickly to clear the sleep from her eyes as she looked around for the reason she was woken up.

“Where are they?!” Mando growled, and the droids playing cards jumped and folded in on themselves to try and hide from the terrifying Mandalorian.

“Mando!” Alaina yelled, jogging up behind him. Mando spun and clenched his fists when he saw her come from around the ship. “It’s okay—”

“It’s okay?” he asked, voice clipped. “It’s okay?!” he repeated darkly.

“Mando,” Alaina sighed, but Peli interrupted their argument from her perch.

“Quiet!” she yelled, shuffling her blanket around to reveal Grogu crying in her arms. “Oh, it’s okay,” she tried to soothe him, rocking the kid in her arms. “You woke it up,” she complained, giving Mando an annoyed look.

Mando turned his head to look at Grogu and then back to her before turning away from Alaina to head toward Peli. “Give him to me,” he ordered.

“Not so fast,” Peli challenged, holding Grogu a little tighter to her chest as she narrowed her annoyed eyes toward the Mandalorian. “You can’t just leave these two inside of your ship. In a closet, no less!” she scolded. “Do you know how hot it gets here? They could have cooked to death inside there!”

Mando shuffled on his feet and looked back at her, and Alaina assumed he looked back to check to make sure that she was okay. Alaina kept her face blank to give nothing away, content to watch the tiny mechanic reprimand him.

“Now,” Peli continued, “tell them you’re sorry.”

Grogu cooed at them from the mechanic’s arms, and Alaina could see Mando’s shoulders sag ever so slightly. He turned back, and Alaina lifted a single eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest while waiting for her apology.

“In my defense, she found us first,” Alaina defended quietly.

Mando sighed, “You’re okay?”

“Is she okay?” Peli scoffed. “What about me? Here I was thinking I was gonna have to clean womp rats out of your air ducts when I found Blondie here ready to mow me down!”

Mando tilted his head at her, and Alaina smirked when she saw Peli give her an exaggerated wink from behind the Mandalorian. He sighed again and walked to her to rub her upper arm. “Sorry,” he apologized quietly. “You and the kid are okay?”

Alaina nodded and smiled when she saw the rest of the tension leave Mando’s shoulders.

“Anyways,” Peli continued, walking over to them, handing Grogu off to Mando so he could inspect the toddler with his own eyes. “I had a couple setbacks I want to talk to you about. You know, I didn't use any droids, as requested, so it took me a lot longer than I expected. But I figured you were good for the money since you have a coupla extra mouths to feed.” 

Mando looked to Alaina, silently asking her if the mechanic was telling him the truth, and Alaina gave him a subtle nod. “Thank you,” he told the mechanic, pulling a small purse of credits from his side to pass off to her.

Peli gasped, “Oh, I guess I was right. You got a job, didn’t you?” she asked, looking through the pouch. “You know… it’s costing me a lot of money to keep these droids even powered up.”

Mando cocked his head at the statement, and Peli walked away from them with a grumble.

“She’s okay,” Alaina told him with a smirk. Mando’s skeptical helmet turned back to look at her. “I get the impression she’ll take you for all your worth, but her intentions are good.” Mando sighed when Grogu cooed to agree with her. “So you finished your job already?” she asked hopefully, eager to explore outside the hangar.

“I found a job. That was the downpayment,” he told her. “I’ve got to head out. I might be gone a day or two.”

Her shoulders sagged, “Oh.” Mando’s hand came to rub her arm again as if to say sorry. “Since you’re gonna be gone for a while, I’m gonna go check out the market—” she stopped when his hand gripped her bicep painfully. “Mando, please. I can handle myself.”

“We’ve already had this talk,” he replied, dropping her arm.

“Yeah, but—”

“Alaina, this isn’t up for discussion. Besides, I just gave that mechanic every credit we have.” Alaina’s shoulders sagged. “I’ll be back in a day or two. The payout from this job will be worth it. We can go see the market when I get back,” he tried to compromise with her. “Or, I can take you to some other place with a market bigger than the town square here,” he suggested, but Alaina just shrugged.

Alaina chewed on her bottom lip. “I just want to see what’s out there,” she started quietly, and when she heard Mando sigh, she continued before he had a chance to say anything. “I’ll wear my cloak,” she told him, grabbing the dark green velvet cloak from her arms and draping it over her shoulders before bringing the hood up to cover her head. “No one will see me. I’ll have my weapons,” she pointed to the blaster and dagger on her hip. “I’ll be quick. Just see what’s there and right back—”

“Alaina,” Mando stopped her, bringing up a hand to pull the hood back down. Once the hood was removed, Alaina could see Peli in her peripheral doing a poor job acting like she wasn’t listening to their conversation. “Please trust me when I say Tatooine isn’t safe. I’d tell you the same thing even if you weren’t…” a fugitive Alaina finished silently. “You’re already off the ship,” he tried to point out, but Alaina glared at him.

Mando passed Grogu to her and turned away before she could argue with him. “Stay here,” he instructed, flipping from soft to strict with his words.

“I’ll be back in a couple of days,” he told Peli on his way out.

Alaina’s eyes narrowed as she watched his cloak whip around the hangar's exit, and he disappeared again, leaving her behind.

Her insides felt like they were churning violently like a dingy boat in the middle of an ocean storm.

Mando’s overprotectiveness was going to drive her crazy. She knew he didn’t intend for his actions to be malicious, but Alaina felt like a caged bird thrashing in the confines of her enclosure.

Grogu cooed, and Alaina sighed before giving the kid a strained smile to show him she was okay. It would only be for a day or two, she told herself. She was a prisoner for five years—what was two more days?

Peli came up beside her, startling her when she pried Grogu from her arms. 

“Don’t give me the sad eyes, Blondie,” Peli warned her, and Alaina blinked, not realizing she apparently was just as outwardly upset as she was on the inside. The mechanic smiled at Grogu, and then her eyes slid to give Alaina an unfamiliar look. “I’m not your keeper. I don’t think the tin can is wrong not to want you roaming around Mos Eisley on your own, but I ain’t gonna stop ya.” Alaina felt her jaw drop when the mechanic even slid a few of the credits Mando had just paid her and offered them to her instead.

“Wha—”

“Just be back in an hour and in one piece, and it will be our little secret,” she winked.

Alaina smirked and tossed her hood over her hair before accepting the credits on her way out to explore Mos Eisley.

The rest of the town looked like the hangar they had parked at.

Honestly, it kind of reminded her of home—well, minus all the sand. It would be annoying to get that out of her clothes and hair by the end of their stay.

Still, she wasn’t going to let that deter her from explorations.

The market was easily found in the town center and was bustling with people. The square was lined with vendors and had an assortment of species, and families roamed around shopping.

Alaina took it all in. The town square was nothing impressive by any stretch of the imagination.

Vendors were yelling at anyone who would listen to try to entice potential customers to their store. Food, clothes, jewelry, and trinkets were available for her to peruse. One of the carts had a spit with some unidentifiable animal roasting over a fire, which made her stomach growl.

No, the market on Mos Eisley was nothing impressive, but it was new, and she was getting to experience it firsthand.

Omera and the other villagers had stocked them with as many non-perishable food items that they could part with—mostly spices, spotchka, and some dried meats and vegetables. Alaina focused on adding more to their pantry, hoping to make Mando’s supply of ration packs a thing of the past. She found a jar of something disgusting looking that she just knew Grogu would love, and the next stall over had kabobs of dehydrated meat that all you had to do was boil in water, and it was allegedly just as fresh as it was when it was first cooked. 

All in all, it had been a good scouting mission. She’d only been gone an hour, and nothing had happened to her.

And to think that Mando didn’t think she could handle this. Alaina rolled her eyes at the thought. She’d grown up in an even larger world and lived in one of the poorer neighborhoods. She knew what to look out for.

Despite what Mando thought, she wasn’t the damsel in distress. Every minute she spent out, she grew more confident. She could take care of herself. She—

The hair on the back of her neck raised as if to warn her about an unseen threat.

Alaina froze and pulled her hood further over her head while she tried to examine her surroundings as stealthily as possible. And then, the worst thing that could have possibly happened—happened.

Alaina’s eyes widened when she felt her bones begin to vibrate.

“No, no, no,” she muttered, frantically hoping that her internal Mandalorian alarm system was malfunctioning.

Something silver grabbed her attention, and she turned just in time to see Mando turn a corner. He was speaking with a younger man who also looked like he could be a hunter, and both men were pushing speeders out of the town and toward the desert.

Alaina felt her heart plummet out of her body. Kriff.

As if Mando had heard her silent curse, his helmet turned in her direction, and he did a double-take.

Oh, Maker, this would not end well, Alaina thought with a cringe.

She quickly darted into a group of people, hoping to blend in with them as they moved in the opposite direction of Mando. She followed the group for as long as she could before she ducked into an alley to head back to the hangar.

She risked a quick look behind her but relaxed when she saw an empty alley behind her.

Maybe Mando hadn’t seen her after all. Maybe—

Strong, gloved hands grabbed her by her biceps just as she ran into something solid.

Alaina’s head spun, and her heart sank at the sight of the Mandalorian towering over her.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” he barked, gripping her arms tighter.

Alaina opened her mouth but couldn’t get any words to come out.

“Let’s go,” he ordered, yanking her back in the direction of the hangar.

Alaina stumbled over her boots and cringed when Mando’s fingers dug harder into her arms to prevent her from falling over.

“Hey, go easy on her,” an unfamiliar voice said, and Alaina saw the younger man Mando had been walking with before he spotted her. “What’s your problem?”

“I said I would meet you on the outskirts!” Mando snapped at the other man.

The other man recoiled and threw his hands up at the harsh words. “Sorry, I thought I was missing out on some valuable bounty-hunting tips and tricks. Didn’t know you were just chasing tail—”

One of Mando’s arms let her go, and Alaina cringed when he violently slammed the younger man into the nearest wall.

“And if you still want my help, you’ll return to our speeders. Now,” he threatened lowly.

“Alright, alright. I’m going. Geesh,” the younger man flipped Mando a rude hand gesture before he turned and exited the alley, presumably to go back to their meeting point.

“Who was that? Are you working with him?” Alaina asked while Mando continued to march her back toward Peli’s hangar.

Instead of answering her question, Mando asked one of his own, “Where’s Grogu?” His voice was flat and low, without an ounce of emotion.

“I left him back at the hangar with the mechanic. She seemed rather smitten by him.”

Silence.

Yup, he was angry alright, Alaina cringed. 

The rest of the short trip was made in silence. 

Alaina drew similarities between this and the embarrassing trudge home she made with her mother after a rather raucous party had been broken up at one of her friend's homes. The authorities had called all of the parents of the teenagers caught at the party in the middle of the night. Nothing—nothing—made her stomach twist like the memory of that silent, disappointed walk home in the middle of the night.

That same silent, angry disappointment radiated off the Mandalorian as he marched them back to the hangar.

When the hangar was in sight, Alaina tried to pull her arm from his grasp, but Mando’s hand only cinched tighter.

“I’m not a child—”

“Could have fooled me,” Mando growled as he led her through the doors.

The mechanic was in the middle of yelling at a couple of droids with Grogu in her arms, but she stopped when she saw the Mandalorian enter with Alaina. Peli gave her a little raise of her eyebrow, silently telling her I told you so. Grogu’s bright eyes and alert ears drooped when he saw his caretakers, and Alaina wondered how much of their emotions he could pick up.

“What were you thinking, Alaina?!” Mando yelled at her once they were inside the hangar.

Alaina opened her mouth, but Mando didn’t allow her to defend herself as he began to berate her.

“I told you to stay here!” he growled. “What part of that didn’t you understand?”

“I—”

“When we got here, I explicitly ordered you not to leave the ship, and you immediately disobeyed me!”

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault!” Alaina defended.

“Now, Mando, you can’t blame Blondie for that,” Peli chimed in. “It's not her fault I went snooping when ya told me not to.”

Clearly, Mando wasn’t hearing anyone as he continued to rage in the middle of the hangar.

“And when, against my best judgment, I allowed you off the ship with the one rule: to stay fucking here, you immediately ran into a town that you know nothing about!”

Peli came up to stand next to her. “Hey, go easy on the girl—” she attempted to defend Alaina, but her words only infuriated Mando further.

“No!” Mando roared, turning his anger to the mechanic now. Peli slammed her mouth closed, and several droids folded in on themselves when his roar echoed around the hangar. “I can’t go easy on her! She needs to understand that her actions have consequences! Something could have happened in that market!”

“But nothing did!” Alaina yelled at him, taking a challenging step closer to him. “I even left Grogu here just in case something did!”

“Right, you left him here with strangers. We don’t know her, Alaina! What if she’s working for the Empire, huh? Did you stop to think about that? Did you stop to think that maybe she was a spy and just waiting for the right opportunity to pass Grogu off?”

“Hey!” Peli jumped in, the smaller woman getting angry herself. “You can call me a lot of things, but you can’t call me an Imp!”

“What if someone spotted you in that market, Alaina?” Mando continued, ignoring the disgruntled mechanic. “What if I hadn’t been there and someone else grabbed you?”

Angry tears pricked at her eyes. “I’m not going to be chained to your ship for the rest of my life, Mando! I’m not going to be some doll that you keep locked away and only bring out whenever you want. I’m not going to hide or have you treat me like a child for the rest of my life!” she spat, wiping an angry tear from her cheek. “Now, I made sure Grogu was safe—”

Mando pointed at her. “But what about you?” he asked, sounding completely exasperated with her.

Alaina rolled her eyes, “I don’t care about me—”

He scoffed, “You’ve made that fucking obvious from the beginning!”

The fuse of her anger that she’d been trying to cling to for the last week finally ignited, and Alaina saw red.

“Excuse me?” Alaina growled, taking an angry step closer to the Mandalorian. “And whose fault is that, Mandalorian? Whose fault is it that I spent the last five years being tortured? Huh?”

Dead silence stretched through the open hangar, and Alaina could see Peli out of the corner of her eye, looking nervously between them like she was putting the pieces of their puzzle together.

Mando’s hands clenched at his sides, and she was close enough to hear him take a deep inhale from under his helmet. “You or the kid could have been taken, injured, or killed—”

“But nothing happened!” she seethed between clenched teeth.

“This time,” he answered lowly. “You told me back on Sorgan that you trusted me, but at some point, you are going to have to start actually trusting me.”

“Hmmmmm, I wonder who is responsible for why I have trust issues?” Alaina paused dramatically to tap a finger to her chin. “Could it possibly be the asshole who sold me to the fucking Empire?!”

“Stop!” Mando yelled back. “I’m not having this argument again. I told you that you and the kid are under my protection—”

“Maybe I don’t want to be!” Alaina cried. “You’ve made every decision since you took us from them! You keep telling me I have a choice, but every time I do something, I get scolded like a child! If this is what it’s going to be like, then maybe I don’t want to be under your protection!”

“You don’t want to travel with me anymore? Fine,” he growled, and Alaina’s heart nervously skipped a beat. “But you are stuck with me until I find a spot safe enough to leave you. You don’t have to be my friend, you don’t have to trust me, but you do have to start listening to me, Alaina.”

“I do!” she pleaded, taking a tentative step closer to him. When she reached out to place a hand on his chest, Mando stepped back, putting more space between them.

He shook his helmet at her, “You don’t! You never have!”

Alaina rolled her eyes, “For Maker’s sake, you say you don’t want to have the same argument again, but here we are, right back to today.”

“This goes back before today!” he said as if the answer was obvious.

Alaina rolled her eyes, “What are you even talking about? Sorgan? You’re right. I’m sorry for saving your life,” she snarked, reminding him of the raider she’d shot for him.

Mando let out a frustrated growl, and his hands gripped his helmet like he wanted to pull his hair out. “I told you to stay! Alaina, I looked you in the eyes and told you to stay on the karking ship!”

“Ugh!” Alaina growled, stomping her foot. “What are you talking about?!”

“Five years ago!” he shouted. “Five years ago, we landed on Nevarro, and I told you to stay!”

Alaina’s body froze at his words. Her face went slack, and her mind went numb, and it took her back to that moment five years ago.

They had just landed on Nevarro, and Mando had yanked her from the fresher. He had collected his bounty, and now he had returned her for his paycheck. 

The Mandalorian pulled her back to the sleeping alcove and pushed her to sit.

“What—” Alaina started, but she was cut off when the man grabbed her feet and pushed her inside the alcove.

“Stay. Here,” he ordered, pointing at her.

Alaina scrunched her face at the command. “What are you doing? Just get it over with!” she growled, frustrated.

“Alaina,” he spoke again. This time, his voice was softer, soothing even, but still just as commanding. The Mandalorian’s hand fell back to her leg, giving her calf a quick squeeze, the gentle gesture taking her by surprise. “Stay. Here,” he repeated, slower and quieter this time.

Alaina opened her mouth to argue, but the Mandalorian’s fist punched a button, and that was how she learned that the alcove had a roll-away metal door that slammed closed in her face. Her mouth hung open in shock as she stared dumbfounded at the door in the darkened sleeping quarters.

With a blink, Alaina was back in the mechanic’s hangar in Tatooine. Tears welled in her eyes at her memories. She studied the man before he. He didn’t mean… 

“Mando, what are you trying to say?” Alaina whispered.

Mando stared at her. His chest heaved under his armor, and his hands balled into fists at his side. She absently remembered his fists doing the same on Nevarro after Penn had cuffed her.

Alaina shook her head, “Mando—”

“I told you to stay, Alaina.” Mando’s voice started low and gravely as if this was the first time he’d spoken in weeks. “I put a damper on the alcove before we left hyperdrive, so the only life sign that would have been detected was mine.”

Alaina shook her head, not believing what she was hearing. 

No… He couldn’t mean…

“I went with Karga, and while he went to the bar to order a drink, I arranged passage for you with one of the cargo ships,” he continued slowly. His words were soft and pained as he continued to tell her his version of events.

Because there was his version of events.

The world started closing in around her. Her knees went weak, and Alaina shook her head, unable to believe the words coming from his mouth.

“I had your bloodied cloak, your bag with your karking dancing slippers and dagger. I was going to cut your braid after I got back to the Crest and filled you in on the plan and then give everything to your husband as proof of death.”

“Stop,” Alaina cried. “You’re lying,” she accused, shaking her head, not wanting to believe—not able even to comprehend what he was saying.

Mando gave her a slow, solemn shake of his helmet. “I was on the way back to the ship after telling Karga that you’d died, just in time to see you get cuffed after I told you to stay!” he screamed, making Alaina flinch. “I didn’t even take the credits from your capture. I—I couldn’t. I couldn’t—I couldn’t even give them to the tribe.”

“Right, I suppose you’ll be wanting your payment then,” he told the bounty hunter with a nervous smile. Penn grabbed a rather large leather purse from the opposite hip from his blaster and offered it to the Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian continued to stare down the man, and Alaina cocked her head as she watched the interaction unfold before her.

“I think you’ll find there is a rather generous tip for completing the job on time,” Penn said awkwardly, wiggling the leather pouch of credits for the Mandalorian to take. “I’m sure the damage to her head was her fault. She clearly has all of her faculties, so we won’t fault you for that.”

The stranger next to the Mandalorian was also scrutinizing the scene before him. When his eyes landed on hers, he frowned and then turned his attention back to Penn, giving the man a bright smile.

“You’ll have to excuse, Mando here, Doctor Pershing,” the dark man said by way of apology, taking the purse from the man. “He’s not used to dealing directly with the business side of things.”

Alaina replayed the scene in her mind. How the other man, his boss—this, Karga—took the purse of credits from Pershing, but Alaina had always just assumed that Mando had taken them later.

“And then I had to watch you,” he stopped and shook his head. “I had to watch you put that blaster to your head, and I couldn’t sleep for days. Even now, my nightmares still end with you bringing the muzzle of that blaster under your chin.”

Once Penn was within reach, Alaina lunged forward, shoving Penn to the ground while grabbing the blaster from her former friend’s hip.

“Lainey!” Penn yelled from the ground.

She gave the Mandalorian one last sad look before bringing the muzzle of the blaster up under her chin and closing her eyes.

“No!” the familiar modulated voice of the Mandalorian roared and crackled from under his helmet.

Alaina was too stunned to speak.

Mando sighed, “You were my biggest regret for the last five years. I carried your mother’s dagger on me as a constant reminder of how I failed you. Every bounty I took after you, I questioned—I researched. Because every puck I took, I saw your green eyes in every fucking quarry.”

Alaina sobbed, “Mando—”

“I took puck after puck to bury your memory. I didn’t stop,” Mando paused to shake his head. “And then there weren’t any pucks worth taking. I was getting ready to tell the tribe it was time to move on from Nevarro and that there wasn’t enough work here… And then Karga tempted me with a job under the table he’d heard rumors about. I took it because he said the Client had deep pockets. He just forgot to mention that it was a job for the Imps. I was ready to walk out of the karking Imp snakepit the moment I realized who was footing my commission… and then you ran into me.”

Tin Man.

“You ran into me, and I looked into your eyes and thought I’d been given a chance to make it right. So, I took the bounty to give myself time to come up with a plan to free you. Only the bounty turned out to be the kid… and I couldn’t just hand him over. So I went back for you both.”

“Mando—”

He shook his head, “I’ve taken every accusation, every tongue-lashing you’ve had for me for weeks. Because I deserve it,” he rasped. “I could have done more then, but I can’t watch you repeating yourself over and over again, Alaina. I—I can’t. You have to start fucking listening to me and know that I would do everything to protect you and the kid.”

Silence stretched across the hangar. Alaina had almost forgotten there were others with them until she saw Peli looking at her as if Alaina were a porcelain doll that was about to shatter.

“Mando,” Alaina shook her head and scrunched her face in confusion. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded through her tears.

Mando shrugged—shrugged. “Because it wasn’t going to change the last five years of your life,” he answered, shaking his helmet. “And you needed someone to be mad at,” he finished, defeated.

Her broken heart shattered into pieces at his words. “Mando—”

“I’m done talking about it, Alaina,” Mando rasped. He threw his hands up in the air to stop her from continuing. “I’m—I’m done,” he whispered. “I have to go do a job so I can pay the mechanic to fix the ship. After that, I’ll take you wherever you want, and then… we can just… be done.”

“Mando, wait—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mando cut her off angrily. “It’s in the past. Just—Just stay here.”

Alaina watched him leave the hangar. With every step he took away from her, the crack in her mind grew as she tried to process this new information.

Mando had never planned on handing her over to the Empire.

Mando saved her from the Empire.

Mando let her use him as a punching bag for weeks—because she needed someone to be angry with.

Mando had spent more or less years attempting to protect her…

Alaina had done this to herself. 

Her knees finally gave out, and she crumpled to the ground.

Gloved hands grabbed her shoulders. Hope filled her chest when she saw Mando’s familiar silver helmet stare back at her. Only when her eyes slid down did she realize that the Mando before her wasn’t wearing a full set of silver armor… this one had the brown dented chest piece and the deteriorated armor of her hallucination.

Is this what you were trying to tell me? Her hallucination just stared at her.

Alaina turned her head just in time to see the real Mandalorian’s cloak whip around the door as he exited the hangar. She turned back to her imaginary Mandalorian, who’d kept her company for all those years, and collapsed into him as wave after wave of sobs crashed over her.

Then, the crack in her mind became a deep chasm that she didn’t think she would ever be able to climb out of.

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