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nicad13 · 2 years ago

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Crossroads: Chapter 13

The Lessons of Nightmares

Summary: The clan of Rollins-Djarin process prior events. Cara joins the crew, gets to know Rayne, and clears the air with Din. They hatch their plan for Gideon.

Rayne can’t sleep again, and we know what that means…

Notes: Canon-compliant through Season 1, alt version of Season 2. Posting some old fic before the sequel, which will hopefully be complete by the end of Season 3. Start now so you're ready! AO3 link in the Source at the bottom.

Beautiful sketch (one of my favorites!) by @catstanbulite

Tags/Warnings: nightmares, sexual situations, revenge is a dish best served cold

Rating: Mature

And I feel like I'm being eaten By a thousand million shivering furry holes And I know that in the morning I will wake up In the shivering cold

The Cure, Lullaby

---

Yadier woke from one darkness only to find himself in another.

But this was a different type of darkness. A warm darkness. A kind darkness. A safe darkness.

His parents, not wanting him to wake alone after his ordeal, had brought him in with them before succumbing to sleep, and he found himself in-between them now, sandwiched between his father’s warm bare skin and his mother’s soft cotton shirt.

His memories of before were vague and foggy. His father motionless on the deck, mind muted and unreachable. His mother’s weak struggles against their captors, how he felt her pain as his own when the trooper hit her with the blaster. Once again being trapped in the scary table that held him down, once again being stared at by the strange man with the strange round things on his face whose mind raced between fear and awe and cold calculation. And then everything had faded away.

But now he was home. On the Razor Crest. He was safe. He knew his parents had come for him. His parents had saved him.

And even as they slept, he sensed that the bond between his parents had strengthened. The rift between them had narrowed.

He was hungry. He squirmed and yawned, stretching his arms and legs. He was too tired to do much of anything else besides try to say “frog,” “yogurt,” and “buir.” Either one of the foods in his belly given by either parent would be absolutely fantastic right now, and so the words spilled out of him, still unable to get them quite right, but he knew they would get the message soon enough.

Both of his parents woke.

Rayne felt her son’s hunger creep into her mind. “I’ll take him to eat something.”

Din brought a hand up to the back of her head and pressed his mouth to hers, and she couldn’t help but sigh into the kiss. He held her there for several moments before pulling away. “You sure?”

“Yeah. I need a snack, too. You want anything?”

“I’m good. Thank you.”

She gathered their son in her arms, picked Din’s cloak up from the corner, threw it over her shoulder, and ducked through the curtain separating their room from the galley. She didn’t bother with the lights even when past the curtain; what little of the blue and white ripple of hyperspace that could filter past the flight deck door set a nice mood, and neither mother nor son needed much in the way of illumination anyway.

Frog or yogurt, huh?

Rayne chose the latter, scooped some into a bowl that they could share, and holding the baby on a hip with one hand and carrying their snack in the other, padded barefoot onto the flight deck. She settled into the pilot’s chair, wrapping Din’s cloak around them both to ward off the chill, and let Yadi get to work levitating his own spoon from the bowl to his mouth as hyperspace flowed around them.

They ate in companionable silence, snuggling in the worn cloak that smelled like Din, like wool and leather and beskar and sweat. They eased back into the reunification of their minds, both realizing what they had come to share, understanding that they hadn’t been aware of it until their separation. Yadi pressed closer to his mother even as he continued to eat and gaze out the windscreen, and his mother wrapped her mind a little tighter around his, warm and welcoming.

Rayne felt the question from his mind, not so much in the specific word, but very much in tone. Why?

She sat with it for a while, rubbing her thumb along his back so that he knew she wasn’t ignoring him in her silence, but putting her answer together. The same reason you and Din-buir have been moving around for so long. Someone wants to steal your gift. We’re not sure what he wants to do with it, but we’re pretty sure it’s not good. He took us by surprise. I’m sorry it happened. We’re going to stop him soon. We’re going to make sure he won’t bother us again, and then we’ll be free.

Yadier’s mind brightened, even if his outward expression remained sleepy as he continued to float spoonfuls of yogurt into his mouth. How?

That, kiddo, was an excellent question. Not sure yet, ad’ika. But you’ll know when we figure it out.

Wanna help.

I know. She patted his back. You might just get your chance.

---

The sun beat down on him.

No armor. No helmet.

He had just run a wooden spear through a giant.

But it wasn’t enough.

Somehow, it wasn’t enough.

He stalked in circles around the giant, screaming. A language he didn’t understand. A rage borne of insufferable loss and injustice boiling through him. This giant was the cause of it, and the death he had just sentenced him to with a poisoned spear through the heart simply wasn’t enough.

He wanted more.

Oh, god, he wanted so much more.

And so he continued in circles, screaming out his rage for all to hear.

His circles drew too close and the giant caught him by the ankle and brought him to the ground. He got back up but it was too late. The giant had him by the neck with one hand and put the other fist through his face.

His teeth exploded out of his mouth in a spray of blood onto the stones.

The giant threw him back to the ground and pinned him down. Pinned his head to the stones and brought his thumbs to his eyes, pressing in and gouging them out-

Din sat up in the dark, screaming.

Rayne pushed herself out of the way, screaming.

Din brought his hands to his face, panicked in the dark, unable to see anything, making sure his eyeballs were still in their sockets, his teeth still in his jaws, his skull still intact.

Rayne sensed his motions, forced her breathing back to normal, hearing his panting breaths. “Hey…” she reached out, warning him of her approach. “Hey… you’re ok. It was just a nightmare.” She put a hand on his shoulder, gentle but firm.

He did not flinch away.

“Ffffffuck,” was all he could say.

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“Where’s Yadier?”

“He’s…” She reached out. “He went back out to his pod on the flight deck.”

Din fell back to the mattress with a grunt, bringing his hands to his face. “Sorry.”

“No worries.” Rayne lay back down with him, draped an arm over his chest, pressing a kiss to his shoulder, thinking it best to stay away from his face for the time being. “Wanna hear something crazy?”

“I dunno…”

“I had the same dream.”

“What?”

“Killing the giant with the spear. Getting pulled down. Teeth knocked out. The… eye… thing.”

“Fuck,” Din breathed out. “Is having other people’s nightmares a thing for you?”

“Not till just now.”

“Did you just… see it, or…”

“I felt as much as I saw.”

He let out a sharp exhale. His mind was spinning. His heart was pounding. He’d not quite gotten used to the idea that his emotions were no longer his own with Rayne in close quarters, especially in the dark, when the helmet was off. Now he couldn’t even keep his nightmares to himself.

Well, if his mind insisted on spilling itself into hers, he might as well go all in.

He rolled to his side, pulled Rayne’s knee over his hip, and pressed his forehead to hers. Waiting. Breathing. She slid her hand up to the back of his head, held him in, threaded her fingers through his hair, and then brought her lips to his.

Everyone was on-board.

Rayne focused on the man before her now, once again reminded of his violence. The hands that had immolated and decapitated a Stormtrooper were the same hands that had applied bacta patches to her skin later on, were the same hands that, at this moment, roamed her body, formed around what few curves she had with a gentle firmness. He was both violent and kind. Both deadly and tender. Even more… he was vulnerable, despite his impenetrable physical defenses. That these things were not mutually exclusive drove her mad with the desire to understand him, to pull him apart so she could best determine how his pieces were supposed to fit back together again, to recognize that some of his bits were damaged beyond repair, and his other parts would have to re-mold to salvage everything else, to make him whole again.

She was a Sentinel to her core. The instinct to fix broken things coursed along with the blood in her veins. Din Djarin, like the ship he owned, was broken in many ways, beaten and abused for decades, and would never return to full function. But, again, like the ship he owned, he was well-built, powerful, and had enough for her to work with. She had a good sense for what could be fixed and what couldn’t. A sense for what was within her abilities to keep them both running. They were both long-term projects, would both require constant care, and would both continue to run well enough if they got it.

For his part, Din’s mind wandered. Which, really, was the point of this moment, so long as it wandered away from what woke him up. His hands wandered over muscle and bone, and his mind wandered back to how fluid Rayne had been in the corridor full of Stormtroopers, in the face of a barrage of oncoming blaster fire. All of her clumsiness dropped away. Nothing but pure Force and strength and grace remained. Not a single shot had gotten by her precognition. The way she had allowed him to read her movements, the perfect screen for him to get his own shots through. The merciless, deadly team they made together. A melding of opposing fighting styles combined to form a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. With some work, they would complement each other perfectly.

Once again, the notion that the Jedi and the Mandalorians were meant to be united bloomed in his mind.

It could work. What had happened aboard Gideon’s ship proved it.

He focused once more on the Jedi before him. His Jedi. Proud to be her Mandalorian. Once again, they consummated the unification of their people. Oh, he wanted nothing more in this moment than to consummate it over and over, whatever it took to move forward, to leave the horror and pogroms and destruction behind, and to revive his people and hers, and he lost himself in the rush of it all.

---

She listened to him breathe in the dark when they finally pulled apart, draws lengthening as they both relaxed.

She would never get tired of the sound of him breathing without the helmet.

As had become her habit, she slid her hand up his throat to trace the planes and curves of his face. She caught herself at the line of stubble at his jaw when his breath paused, belatedly remembering the nightmare that had led to all this. “May I?” she asked, voice soft in the dark.

He swallowed and relaxed. “Yes.” He was on his back, but he turned his face towards her to give her better access.

She traced a different pattern every time, but he understood the point. You didn’t look at a familiar person to figure out what they looked like. You looked at them because you wanted to see them. He couldn’t let her look. But he would let her see as much as possible.

She ran the back of her knuckles along his jaw. “Getting shaggy.”

“Mm. I’ll shave before we land.”

“How’s your hand?”

“It’s fine.” He’d taken the bacta patch off of it before falling asleep and the burn had healed over completely.

“How much fuel did you empty into that guy’s helmet?”

Oh, here we go. “The whole thing.”

“Was that smart?”

“No.” He turned his face away, anger tingeing his voice.

She slid her hand down to his ribs, pulling in as she placed a kiss on his shoulder. “It’s ok to be angry about what he did. I understand that. Just… try not to get carried away with that kind of thing. You don’t know how many other people you’re gonna have to roast in one day.”

He huffed through a smile, admitting to himself that she was right about that one. He reached for her hand, pressed his lips to it, then placed it back against his jaw. “Duly noted.” He turned into her palm. “You’re ok with the severed head?”

This time she huffed a laugh against his shoulder. “I guess if we’re discussing efficient means of sending a message, sure. And I get that… I get that you were… communicating, there.”

“But…”

She took a breath. “One thing the Jedi got right was that if you’re going to kill someone, kill them in cold blood. Don’t let it get too hot. Rage kills are messy. They backfire. I think that’s what your nightmare is about.”

“It’s a warning.”

“Yes.”

He considered it for a moment. The argument was perfectly valid, but it sat oddly on his shoulders. “So when someone beats the shit out of me you’ll kill them with a cool head?”

Another deep breath. “Cool enough to not make a mess of it, yes.”

“And when they do it to Yadier?”

He took some satisfaction in the length of the pause that followed.

“I… may have less success with that. But I’ll try. Just enough to not fuck it up.”

---

The rest of the trip to Nevarro was spent mostly in the dark. Yadier alternated between his pod on the flight deck and with his parents, coming and going as he pleased. Din was surprised that the baby chose to spend as much time on his own as he did. Rayne had a hunch that the flight deck offered better access to the Force, particularly while at hyperspeed. It was no coincidence that the hyperspace lanes followed the veins of the Force, links between worlds used to hold and bind the galaxy together. The flight deck’s transparisteel canopy was less opaque to it than the rest of the ship’s hull, and Rayne suspected that Yadier used the opportunity to soak it all up. Having his parents spending more time up on the same deck made it easier for him to get back and forth, so returning to it after checking in with them became his habit. He was growing more secure. And in that security, was gaining the courage to explore.

Rayne mostly slept, still wiped out from the interrogation and bacta-phrine shot.

Din circulated, depending on what the other two were doing. Yadier usually seemed to crawl into bed with them just as Rayne was drifting off, so Din would take the opportunity to rest with them. On the occasions that his enemy sorcerer son was asleep on the flight deck and his Jedi was asleep in their room, he would drift down to the hold, sit at the table, and continue to read the Mandalorian history files that Reesha had given him.

The material within was… sobering.

The Siege was, of course, more complex than the slaughter of Mandalorians by the Republic that Gideon had implied. It was as much Mandalorian versus Mandalorian as it was Death Watch versus the last vestiges of the Republic as it mutated into the Empire. Hell, Death Watch itself was split through the middle, and Din hadn’t quite yet figured out which side he came down on.

If either.

It was all very confusing.

It was hard not knowing quite which group of people he wanted to kill.

He could only take it in small doses.

So when reading got to be too much, he blew off the steam with the drills that had kept him company for all the years of solitude he had spent on the Razor Crest. Hauling himself up on the pull-up bar. Crunches. Burpees. Whatever it took to wear himself out. Then he would stretch, shower it all off, and head back up the ladder.

If he found Rayne awake and on her own, he would go along with whatever she was up for. They both seemed unusually… handsy in these hours. He chalked it up to the recent Imperial entanglement and had no complaints. He allowed himself to appreciate her desire for close contact, mostly without any particular goal, mostly just necking in the dark. He supposed it made sense. They’d gotten straight down to business after knowing each other for only a few days, had been at it for a month and change, but had been unable to do any proper kissing until recently. Having the opportunity to take the time to just… take things easy… was nice.

It did, of course, sometimes lead to more, and that was nice too.

And so the clan of Rollins-Djarin recharged their batteries.

---

Din and Rayne strolled from the Razor Crest through the gate to Nevarro City.

Yadier let out a low groan and pushed himself all the way to the back of his pod, ears flat against his shoulders.

This was not his favorite place.

“I know, buddy,” Rayne dropped a hand into the pod to let him take her finger for a moment, recalling all that Din had told her about what happened here. “We won’t stay long.”

She looked over the pod to Din, noticing the same swagger he always took on for any walk longer than a few meters, feeling his eyes scan the crowd without turning his head. He seemed… tense, but ok, all things considered. No barely-contained rage. No endless repetitions of dar’manda pounding through his head.

They stepped through the entrance of the cantina to see Cara slam a man’s face into the bar. They paused to let her finish her business as she got down into the guy’s face for a conversation.

“Oh my god,” Rayne breathed. “She’s magnificent.”

Something about her tone made Din look at her askance. “Should I be jealous?”

“She could snap me in half if I wasn’t Force-sensitive.” She swallowed. “She might still be able to snap me in half.”

“Should I be jealous?” he repeated.

She smiled and winked. “Maybe.”

He smiled to himself as he led her down the rest of the steps.

It was the wise Mandalorian man who surrounded himself with women who could kick his ass.

Releasing the last of her troublemakers for the day, Cara turned to greet them with a smile. “Hey kiddo,” she ducked and waved into the pod. “Mando.” Rayne watched as they clasped hands soldier-style. “You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

Din tiled his head. “Rayne’s good at putting things back together.”

Rayne raised her hand for the same clasp and received it, returning Cara’s unsurprisingly firm grip. “I’ve heard good things.”

Cara lifted an eyebrow. “They’re all lies. I like your ink, though.”

Din had advised Rayne to wear a sleeveless shirt to show off the Rebel Starbird on her shoulder, and seeing a smaller version of it on Cara’s cheek, she understood why. She lifted her chin to indicate her acknowledgement of it. “X-wing mechanic on a carrier,” she said, answering the unasked question. “Mando said you were a shock trooper.”

“I was.”

“Karga’s not in today?” Din asked.

“He’s expanded his entrepreneurial activities since the Imps left,” Cara said. “He’ll be around this afternoon if you want to see him.”

“Not particularly. Hear anything from the covert?”

Cara shook her head.

Din dipped his chin. “I’ll go check in. I shouldn’t be long.”

The glance that he shared with Rayne was a short one, but Cara did not miss it.

The Mandalorian left, leaving the baby and two war veterans to settle into a booth in the back corner. Cara sat across from Rayne and fixed her with a look. “So. You and Mando, huh?”

“Yep.” Rayne kept her tone and expression mild, unsure of the lay of the land, remembering Cara’s attempt to aid Din as transmitted to her by Yadier, remembering Din’s keen sense of rejection when mentioning how Cara had said she would stay here. She nodded her thanks to the server as their drinks, straight whiskey for both, were placed on the table.

“See the goods yet?”

Rayne shrugged. “From the neck down.”

Cara let out an approving snort. “He’s out of his goddamn mind. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Cara’s eyes narrowed. This Rayne character sure didn’t look like much. She was easily a few inches shorter and a few years older than Cara. What she had seemed solid enough, but she only had a medium build, at best. Still, looks could be deceiving, and Mando had mentioned her abilities at both kicking ass and managing the baby. Mando’s judgment wasn’t always the best, though. “What makes you think you can handle what he dishes out?”

Rayne was half-way through a sip of her drink. “Oh…” she paused, considering, took a quick look around to make sure they had no one’s attention, then dropped her hand from the glass. The glass itself remained in the air, hovering, perfectly still, until Rayne lowered it back to the table. “Just a hunch.”

“Shit…” Cara whispered. “Oh, shit.” She took a slow pull from her own drink. “You’re just like the kid.”

Rayne laughed at that one. “No.” She dropped a hand down to the pod, sitting on the seat below the table, to run a finger along one of the baby’s ears. “He’s a lot more powerful than I am. But we are of the same kind.” She brought her hand back up to the table, considering the guarded anxiety radiating from the woman before her. “Look… a lot has changed for us over the last month and a half. Mando’s not always great about saying everything that needs to be said, and I’m not always great about picking up on social cues. If I’ve stepped on any toes here, I’m sorry…”

Now it was Cara’s turn to laugh. “No, it’s not like that. It’s…” She wasn’t quite sure how to say it without sounding like an asshole.

Rayne took a guess. “He has a tendency to get in over his head and you want to make sure I can handle myself when it happens.”

Cara let out a sigh of relief. “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly it.”

“That’s fair,” Rayne said. “And the answer is yes. I can.”

At that moment, a large silver bearing floated up from Yadier’s pod in Cara’s direction, and she snapped it out of the air before it cleared the top of the table and anyone could see it. “What’s this?”

Rayne smiled. “A peace offering.” She brought a hand to her own throat. “He’s sorry about what happened last time. He didn’t understand.”

Cara let out a sigh, taking her own turn to dip her hand down to the pod and give the baby a playful boop on the nose. “He saved my life. He saved all of our lives. We’re square.”

By the time Din returned twenty minutes later, the war vets were well into their third round, debating the merits of ground assault vs. blowing shit up from the air with an X-wing. They stopped mid-conversation as he stood at the head of the table, a meter-and-a-half length of steel rod in his hand.

“Time to go?” Rayne asked.

“Yes.”

The women downed their drinks, Rayne paid up, Cara ducked into the back office to retrieve and enormous gun and a small bag, and they left.

Rayne noticed that Din’s swagger was not nearly so pronounced on the way out as it was on the way in. She waited until they were through the gate and the crowd had thinned out significantly before voicing her question. “What was up at the covert?”

“Nothing,” Din said. “Everything is cleared out. No one was there. All I found was this.” He hefted the rod in his left hand.

“Is that made out of what I think it is?” Rayne asked.

“Yes.”

“Then we can use it to spar with my lightsaber. You need the practice.”

He gave a brief nod.

---

Back into hyperspace again. Their course set to a blank space on the map until they could figure things out.

Cara took a look around the Razor Crest. Not a whole lot had changed, aside from the lack of blurrgs in the hold and the fact that what used to be Mando’s bunk was now full of gear. Either Rayne’s sense of gunship decorum matched Mando’s, or if it was different, she didn’t see fit to force change on him.

For some reason, that made Cara happy. It shouldn’t have been surprising, really. Rayne was as much retired military as Cara was, even if in the more official “honorable discharge” capacity, as opposed to “AWOL.” The Crest was originally a military ship, and Mando had mostly kept it as such. Cargo nets along the interior of the hull, gear stowed so it was out of the way but easily at-hand, everything in its place, personal effects out of sight, if they existed at all.

It didn’t look like a home to a family, but this was no ordinary family.

This was a family on the run. Holding its breath. Not quite sure about what was holding it together.

But a family nonetheless.

Cara watched as Mando and Rayne moved about the ship, able to keep out of each other’s way even in the cramped spaces, or at the very least, being more than comfortable in each other’s space. Not in an outwardly affectionate way, but with an easy tolerance afforded to each other that would not be afforded to others.

Once all the gear was stowed and Din dropped the ship out of hyperspace to drift, he joined Rayne and Cara at the table. Yadier reached for him upon arrival with a plaintive “buir,” so he held his arms out as Rayne handed the baby over. Snuggled to his satisfaction, Cara watched as Yadi slid the Mythosaur pendant into his mouth.

The pendant Mando had pressed into her hands with his dying breaths. The pendant she had tied around the child herself.

“So. We need a plan,” Din said.

“Back up,” Cara said. “I want to know how Gideon caught up to you over Takodana. Does he have fobs on you? Is he tracking the Razor Crest?”

Rayne shook her head. “I built scramblers for Din, Yadi, and the ship, and-”

“Wait,” Cara interrupted. “You can do that? Jam a fob?”

“I can do that, yeah.” Rayne brushed it off like it wasn’t important. “I checked the Crest over when we landed on Nevarro. It’s clean. I think Gideon just put the pieces together. I abandoned a profitable business at the same time Din was sighted on the planet. I erased my shop records of Din and the Crest before we left, but every place else he’s taken it to would’ve had it on their books. I have a recorded history of wins at Methuselah. He probably took a guess about what I was when he figured out I got something the size of the Crest through the asteroid belt there. He seemed hung up about that. God… if the Jawas were still there when he showed up and he managed to get anything out of them…” She paused for a moment, horrified at the thought, then pressed forward. “He probably guessed I’d go to ground after that, which meant Coruscant and Takodana.” She paused again, thinking back to her interrogation, wishing she’d done more to probe Gideon while she’d had the chance. She’d just been so wrecked from getting gassed, bashed in the face, and tortured that it hadn’t occurred to her. Still… “I didn’t get the sense that he knew exactly where we’d be. He seemed really smug with himself that he’d managed to find us.”

“What kind of state did you leave his ship in?”

“We blew up the lab,” Din said. “Disabled the guns and tractor beam long enough to get away, but they’ve probably fixed that by now. Hid charges on the reactor but didn’t detonate them. Rayne wanted to wait for a more opportune time.”

Cara smiled. “You might just get the chance, assuming they didn’t find the charges.”

Din tilted his head. “What’ve you got?”

“I might have caught a former Stormtrooper who tried passing himself off as a Guild hunter.” Din snorted. It was the closest Cara had ever heard him come to a laugh. “I know, right? Anyway, I might have almost crushed his skull before he spilled a few beans. Turns out Gideon is based on Ilum.”

“What?” Rayne burst out. Din twitched, knowing he recognized the name, but not quite remembering why.

“You’re familiar with it?” Cara asked.

“It’s where we… where the Jedi would go as Younglings to find our kyber crystals. It was a holy place for us. Then the Empire mined the shit out of it to create the Death Stars. You can see the trench they dug out of it from orbit. Like, distant orbit. They desecrated it.”

Din slid his foot next to Rayne’s. For him to hear her use words like holy and desecrated, when she had otherwise largely tossed the spiritual aspects of the religion she was raised with out the window decades ago, was nothing sort of surreal.

Cara, whose home world had been desecrated to the point of destruction by the very weapon built out of Ilum, took Rayne’s reaction more in stride. “Yeah. Gideon’s there for the kyber. The Vibre ship he picked you guys up with is just his daily driver. He has a Star Destroyer for when he needs to move a lot of resources around.”

Din felt his gut tie itself into a knot. Gideon’s knowledge of Mandalorian records, possession of the Darksaber, obsession with Yadier’s Force abilities, collection of Force-sensitive DNA, Force resistance training, and now this business with Jedi holy ground… Din knew he was on to something with the unification of the Mandalorian and Jedi people. Gideon, though… Gideon was on to something with the unification of Mandalorian and Jedi weaponry.

This was bad.

This was really bad.

“Cara, did you notice the shape Gideon’s troopers were in, compared to other Imperial remnants?” he asked.

“Yeah. Armor was kept up well. Tight formations. Sheer volume. To say nothing of the E-web and the TIE fighter, and now this whole Star Destroyer. He has a lot of resources.”

“That Vibre was in good shape, too,” Rayne said. “Gideon is more than just a remnant. He’s a resurgence.”

Din hated to say what he said next. “Is this big enough to bring in the New Republic?”

“Prrrobably,” Cara said.

“Will your chain code hold up with them now?”

“Prrrobably.”

Rayne frowned. “Gideon would run. He doesn’t want a fair fight. He only shows up when he thinks he can crush his opponent outright. He’ll duck out if we show up with a carrier full of X-wings. And then he’ll just come after us again when we’re alone.”

Din slumped back with a sigh that acknowledged the truth to her words. “We can’t just bait him, then. We have to look compromised.”

Cara cracked a smile that nearly split her face in half. “That’s the best kind of bait. Here’s an idea…”

---

They shared. They plotted. They revealed themselves. They revised accordingly.

It was risky.

God, it was so risky.

They could all die horrible deaths.

Or they could finally be free.

---

When the plan was fully hatched, Din said, “If something happens to me, the armor belongs to Yadier. Helmet. Everything.”

Rayne gave a slow nod, coming to the realization that if she was to see his face in the near future, he would have to die first. It hurt too much to think about, so she set it aside for the time being. “If we manage to get the Darksaber?”

“Yadier’s.”

“Zavin has access to my account,” Rayne continued in the same vein. “He already has instructions to give you whatever you need for Yadier. Just let him know.”

“And if you both manage to bite it?” Cara asked.

Rayne and Din looked at each other, coming to a silent agreement.

“I’ll show you were we hid the coordinates Maz gave us,” Rayne said. “Take Yadier there first. If that doesn’t work out, take him back to Coruscant. Zavin and Reesha will take him and have the resources to keep looking for his people. They would welcome your help as well, if you’d be interested.”

“Good plan,” Cara said.

“And if you bite it?” Din asked.

Cara shrugged. “Tell Karga he’ll need a new enforcer.”

That settled, Din faced Rayne, catching her attention. “A moment on the flight deck, please?”

“Sure.”

He nodded in Cara’s direction to excuse their absence, and she raised her glass in dismissal.

Rayne leaned back on the console as Din slid the door closed behind him, then placed a snoozing Yadier in his pod on the starboard jump seat. “What’s up?” she asked.

He took a deep breath, crossing his arms and leaning back against the bulkhead, attempting to keep as much distance between them as possible. “We’re making end-of-life arrangements, here.”

“Seems that way, yeah.”

“Then you should know that you don’t know me like you think you do.” His tone was blunt. Hard.

Ah, here he was. She was wondering if he would show up again. The little boy who rejected the six families who tried to take him in. He’d popped up briefly as the man who had drawn his blaster against her as she lay cornered in the bunk. He’d popped up again as the man who led her along the lakeshore to protest his sudden acquiescence to friendship. Now here he was again, once more backing her into a corner in an effort to push her away, menacing and surly, brought about by a threat to some definition of himself flipping that switch in his brain that turned him from an almost-reasonable person into an asshole. She lifted an eyebrow. “What else do I need to know?”

“If it comes between me and Yadier, choose him.”

“Of course.” Any parent would.

“If it comes between me and you, choose you.”

“This feels like a confession,” Rayne said.

“Because it is.”

“Let’s hear it, then.”

Another sigh, a dip of the chin, but no words.

“Anything worse than selling a baby to Imps?” Might as well set the bar high to start with.

“I… don’t know actually. There’s… days were I don’t remember how I got from Point A to Point B, but there’d be a lot of bodies between them. Not all of them deserved it. Collateral damage. I can’t tell you if I put them there or not.”

Blackouts apparently were a thing for him, then. Another thing she’d asked him about point-blank that he’d evaded. Between this and the head injury, she actually had the beginnings of a list. “But chances are pretty good that you did.”

“Yes. And I didn’t care.”

“Are you asking for my forgiveness?”

“No. But you should know who I really am.”

“Are you still that person?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you want to be a better person?”

“Sometimes.”

“Does collateral damage bother you now?”

He thought of the covert. It had never exactly thrived, but it had once been full of life. Then it was full of empty armor. Today it was just… empty. Because of what he had done. “Yes.”

Rayne shrugged. “In a civilized world, I’d be in prison a few times over. We don’t live in a civilized world. We could stand here all night and drag truth out of each other. We both have our dark places. The only thing we can really do is learn from them and move forward. That work for you?”

It sounded lame, but what else was there? “It’ll have to.”

Unable to pick a fight with Rayne, he went back down to the hold to try his hand with Cara.

She had disassembled the repeater gun and was cleaning it when he walked through to the weapons locker. The gun she had used against their previous encounter with the Imps. The gun that was Mando’s to begin with. He hadn’t asked for it back, had left it with her on purpose, a meager payment for all she had done for him and his son. “Everything good up there?” she asked.

“Yes.” He opened the locker and stared inside for a moment, looking for something to polish, looking for something to take the edge off of the anxiety running through him.

Cara seemed to sense it, seemed to understand that the pressure valve needed to be released. She was more than happy to poke around at it. “You two seem close. What’s it been? A couple of months?”

“Almost, yeah.”

“Your son likes her.” She had not forgotten the Armorer’s clan designations.

“He does.” He picked up a small blaster, turning it over in his hands. “Our son,” he corrected. “She adopted him.”

“Wow. That was fast.”

He put the blaster back in its place and turned to face her. “He wanted her to be his mother.”

“You agree with his choice?”

“Yes.”

“So you keep the helmet on when you bone her, or what?”

Instead of answering, he stepped into her space. “You had your chance. You knew I was going to ask you to come with me and you cut me off before I could do it.” And he realized that was it. What had really been bothering him since they picked her up. “Why did you stay on Nevarro?”

She rounded on him, eyes blazing. “You really haven’t figured it out?”

“Apparently not.”

She pointed a finger and drilled it into the center of his chestplate, pushing him back a step. “I saw you when you were almost dead. I still have nightmares of your blood all over my hands. You wanna know what I saw?”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me.”

Her frown deepened as she sunk her fingers into the cowl at his throat and twisted the material into her fist. “I saw a man who thought having a warrior’s death was more important than that little boy having a father.” Her voice shook with rage. “I saw a man choose his religion over that little boy for the second time. You did it when you sold him for the beskar, and you did it again when you abandoned him for your Creed. I have a lot of fights in me, Mando, but I can’t fight that kind of insanity. You are out of your damned mind, and I will not watch you let yourself die ever again.”

Din stood before her, helpless against the truth of her words. “I was wrong.”

Her grip on him loosened in surprise, then tightened again. That was too easy. “What?”

“You’re right. My priorities were wrong.”

Her grip and expression loosened once more, but just a little. “What happened?”

“Turns out the Mandalorians who rescued me were the same ones who staged the attack on my village in the first place. Droids killed my parents. But they were programmed by the Mandalorians to do it.”

She let go of him entirely, her face a mix of shock and sorrow, instantly recognizing the implications. “I’m… god… I’m sorry.” He had nearly thrown his life away for a Creed that had destroyed it in the first place. “You’re still serious about the helmet?”

“I’ve been… re-evaluating.” It was only half of a lie. The full truth was that, after a lifetime of hiding, after discovering what he really was, he was too much of a coward to take it off.

“Does this mean I get to take it off if necessary?”

“If it’s necessary to save my life, yes. Try it otherwise, and I’ll kill you.”

“You suddenly sound so reasonable.”

He shrugged, turning back to the locker, waiting a beat before responding. “Helmet comes off in the dark. When I bone her.”

Cara snorted a laugh. “That was too much information.”

“You asked.”

She shook her head, returning to the gun spread out on the table. “You need to learn about rhetorical questions, Mando.”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.” His tone was light. He allowed himself another few moments before he continued. “You can call me by my real name. When we’re not… out.”

That gave her pause. She had found herself startled when Rayne spoke it earlier. The word had come out of Mando’s companion so easily that it was obvious that she was used to saying it. That it came naturally to her. “Is that what you want?”

His back was still turned to her, but that was ok. “Gideon calls me by name every chance he gets. I’d rather hear it more often from my friends than from my enemies.”

“Ok. Then you need to learn about rhetorical questions, Din.” God, that felt weird.

“Just showing you how reasonable I’ve gotten.”

“Oh yeah? And what happens when you get Yadier settled with his people? If I’m reading this right, I’m guessing Rayne will stay with him. You gonna leave her like you left Omera?”

Goddammit, she was worse than Zavin. It wasn’t the same, and she knew it. She was baiting him. Still, he took a measured breath, and when the answer came out of him, he was almost as surprised by it as she was. “I’ll stay if I can.”

---

They ducked back to Nevarro for a quick stop at one of the cities closer to the southern polar region to pick up some cold-weather gear. Then they set course for Ilum.

They set Cara up with a bunk in the corner of the hold, and once again, she made herself at home on Din’s ship.

It was a lot quieter this time around, with three blurrgs, an Ugnaught, and a droid swapped out for a Force-sensitive war veteran. Quiet enough that as the veterans started in on the bottle of whiskey stashed in the galley, they could hear Din as he read to Yadier up on the flight deck until the baby fell asleep, then in the fresher as he showered and brushed his teeth. Cara put her whiskey down the wrong pipe when Din wandered back out wearing nothing but his helmet, shorts, and a T-shirt, towel thrown over his shoulder.

His arms and legs were bare.

She had seen his blood before, had it all over her hands, but until now, had never seen so much as a sliver of his skin. His tan from Methuselah was fading, but everything not covered was still a light shade of golden brown.

Finally, full confirmation that he really was just a man under all the armor.

He was leaner than she thought he would be, until she remembered how he was lighter than she expected when she’d dragged him from the battlefield at Nevarro. Without the rest of his armor, the helmet made him look almost bobble-headed; too big for the rest of him. Looking at him now, she couldn’t believe how he’d managed to fight her to a draw back on Sorgan. She should’ve laid him out flat, given his size.

Cara’s eyes caught the beskar casing that hung at his throat, replacing the Mythosaur skull that now belonged to Yadier, the leather string it hung on still wet from the shower. Rayne wore a similar one. Cara didn’t know quite what it meant, but it was obvious that things had moved with a fair amount of speed since she and Din had parted ways.

The way Rayne looked at him like nothing was amiss, like it was normal to see him without being covered in beskar, without a weapon strapped to his hip, without ammunition draped across his chest or wrapped around his leg, once again drove it home; he had opened the door and let the Jedi in.

And Cara realized she had done the exact same thing. She had told Rayne all about where she’d been and how she’d taken it when Alderaan had been destroyed. About how she had joined and then left the Resistance. It had all come so easily. And Rayne had just… listened. Had measured out just enough booze for the both of them to strike the right balance between loosening up just enough but not too much. She’d shared enough about herself to keep it going, about her escape from the Jedi temple, about her late husband and subsequent discharge from the Resistance forces. These were not the kinds of conversations Cara had with people she’d known for less than a day. That’s not how she worked.

And yet, here she was.

Din and Rayne turned in for the night.

The Razor Crest was indeed quiet, but the hyperdrive engine had its own ambient hum. Situated as a solid-state slab, it was sandwiched between the upper and lower decks of the ship, and it dissipated any noise that would otherwise conduct between the space behind the galley above and the hold below.

There was, however, the matter of the hole in the floor just behind the flight deck.

And so it was that two small sounds, a short gasp followed by a low groan, sounds that would have meant nothing in isolation but were incriminated by their proximity, gave it all away to Cara’s ear late in the night.

The stab of jealousy she expected did not come.

She had to admit that her feelings for Din were highly… ambivalent. There was a lot to like about an honorable warrior, but Din’s brand of honor had more twists and turns than she felt safe with navigating. She’d watched him fall for Omera. He’d fallen hard. She understood his logic for leaving and she would’ve felt bad about her jab against him earlier had it not been for the fact that he’d not even asked about Omera when he’d come back to Sorgan. Even when Cara had brought her up earlier today, he evaded the issue all together, like she was no longer on his radar. Even if he was reconsidering now, his prioritization of the Creed over his son still left a gaping wound in her heart. And the way he had spoken of him to the Armorer… you wish me to train this thing? You expect me to search the galaxy for the home of this creature… His tone had held more ice than she ever could have imagined. This thing… this creature… His absolute detachment in that moment from the little boy he had fought so long and so hard to protect made her skin crawl.

She remembered the pain in his tone when she headed him off, telling him she’d stay on Nevarro. The broken sound of his reply. You’re staying here? She knew she’d hurt him, but he’d left her no choice. She could not bear the weight of whatever kind of baggage it was that made him pull the kind of shit he pulled with Omera and Yadier on her own heart.

She would stand by his side. She would fight for his causes. In those actions, she knew she could trust him.

But she would not live with him. She would not love him. Not in that way. Not when he was so obviously prone to abandoning the ones he loved.

She really, really hoped Rayne knew what she was doing.

If Din abandoned Rayne, Cara might just kill him herself.

---

Once again, Rayne was unable to sleep.

She reached for Din’s cloak folded in the corner, padded out to the galley, pulled the whiskey back out from its hiding spot along with a glass, and continued on to the flight deck, bathed in the blue and white ripple of hyperspace. Yadier was sound asleep in his pod on the starboard jump seat, so she wrapped the cloak around herself, settled into the port seat, poured out a shot, sat back, and tried to dull her senses.

Din woke up alone, understanding what it meant.

He slipped the helmet on, and went to the galley. Finding the whiskey missing from its place, he grabbed a glass instead, and was unsurprised to find Rayne on the flight deck. She looked up at his arrival but made no sound, a mutual head-tilt enough of a greeting for both of them. He swiveled the pilot seat around so it faced the exit, moved Yadier’s pod to it with the practiced gentleness of a father not wishing to wake his child, poured himself a shot from the bottle placed on the console, and set it by the now-vacated starboard jump seat. He stood there for a moment, naked but for his helmet and shorts, feeling the chill against his skin, and ducked out. He returned a few seconds later with the blanket from their bed and slid the door shut.

Rayne watched as he dimmed the lights on the console and adjusted the transparency of the canopy. When he thought he had it right, he turned back to the outline of her form. “How’s that?”

“Shadows only.”

He lifted the helmet off, placed it on the console, reached out for her hand, and let her guide him to her. He sank to his knees, pulled her knees around his ribs, slid a hand around the back of her head, let her pull him in, and pressed his mouth to hers.

Things could go very, very wrong tomorrow.

Part of him wondered if this would be their last night, wondered if what he had given her earlier was enough, wondered if there was anything he was supposed to say. Her hands came up to once again trace the lines of his face and he had the sudden urge to turn the lights on, show her what he really was, give her the chance to back out and leave him, leave them, go back to her previous life as if the last month and a half hadn’t happened.

Run, his mind screamed at her. Run away. Before I get you killed, too.

“Stop that shit,” she whispered against his cheek. “Am I a part of this family or not?”

“You know you are,” he whispered back, his voice broken.

“Then let me fight for it.”

Something in his chest tightened, threatened to crush him. He was so tired of the swings his brain put him through, one moment wanting nothing more than to shove her away for her own good, the next wanting nothing more than to fall into her for his own selfishness. The things he wanted to feel… the things he wanted to say… too horrifying in their unattainableness, things he did not deserve and dared not to ask for. She had already volunteered her life for him. Wasn’t that enough? Couldn’t he just accept that as being enough?

The first time he’d gone up against Gideon, he’d almost lost his life. The second time, she’d almost lost hers.

What would the third time bring?

He wanted so much to make her promise not to push it too hard tomorrow. To promise that his son would still have a mother tomorrow. He knew he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t promise the same in return; that her son would still have a father. She, as a Jedi, could not make that promise to him. He, as a Mandalorian, could not make that promise to her.

“Do you have any idea…” he whispered. Any idea what this is doing to me?

“I do,” she said, and she brought his hands to her face. His thumbs brushed against the tears that streamed from her eyes. She did, because she felt the same.

They both lost it, inasmuch as warriors allow themselves to do so, silent, shuddering sobs, fingers threaded through hair, fearing not of their own deaths, but for the loss of the other, for the possibility of once again orphaning the small, green baby who had become their son.

The tide ebbed, and Din once more became aware of the chill against his skin, the deck hard against his knees. He stood with a grunt, pressed his lips against Rayne’s for one more moment, then stepped to the waiting glass of whiskey and downed it in one go. He poured himself another, then wrapped himself up in the blanket he’d brought out and settled into the starboard jump seat. He watched hyperspace ripple over the canopy of his ship, listened to the hyperdrive hum along, pushing them all through the split between space and time. He thought about what Rayne had said about the hyperspace lanes following the paths of the Force. “What do you see,” he asked her in the dim light, “when you can’t sleep?”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “Depends. Usually nothing informative. Lately nothing but Stormtroopers. Waves and waves of Stormtroopers.”

He considered the glass in his hand. Considered the last time he’d gotten himself absolutely shitfaced, just a handful of days ago. Considered how much he’d seen Rayne put away without it seeming to affect her as much as it should have. He realized he had no idea if that ability stemmed from enemy sorcery-enabled liver function, years of alcohol abuse, or both. He recalled Zavin’s comment about her previous poor habits following Hayes’s death. He wondered if the Force buffered her from it, drove her to it, or both. “Does drinking help?”

“A little.”

About as self-aware of an answer as he could expect, at the moment.

They sat in companionable silence for a while longer, the weight of exhaustion pulling the lids down over his eyes. When he could no longer ignore the call of the bed behind him, he hauled himself out of his seat, collected the bottle and classes, took them to the galley, then came back out to the flight deck. “I have an idea,” he said as he picked his helmet up off of the console, voice quiet. Instead of putting it on, he leaned back against the console, facing Rayne, and she watched his silhouette as he flipped through the configurations of the latches on its side. “Visor’s blacked out,” he said, handing it to her.

“What?” She reached out to accept the helmet, unsure of what she was supposed to do with it.

“Beskar is Force-opaque at long-range. Might help you sleep.”

She held the helmet in her hands, the object of her discomfort since they had met, helmets of similar purpose being the object of her nightmares since the age of ten. “You want me to put your helmet on.”

“Only if you want to try it. Just to sleep in. See if it keeps the Stormtroopers out of your head.”

She took a breath, closed her eyes, and slipped it over her head.

Complete darkness, as he had warned with the blacked out visor.

Complete blindness, as would be expected of the beskar.

She could not sense Din or Yadier, despite the fact that they were right there in front of her.

For the first time in her life, she was cut off from the Force. Isolated. Alone in her own head. The ambient hum of the galaxy’s chatter suddenly absent from her mind. Blind. Deaf. Numb. Caught in the free-fall zero G of space.

“Hey.” Din’s voice brought her back. “You ok?”

She turned to where she thought he was, and he was half-amused at, for the first time ever, how far off she was. “It’s terrible in here.”

The sound of her voice through the modulator shocked both of them, drawing a huff of a laugh from Din. “It takes some getting used to.”

She took a moment to try to settle into it, reminding herself that he’d spent the vast majority of his life locked in this thing, reminding herself that her face was, at this very moment, where his had been for so long. “Has anyone else worn this thing?”

“No.”

This space had been his and his alone for more than thirty years, and now he was sharing it with her.

Trying to help her.

“Ok.”

“Come back to bed?” he asked.

“Ok.”

He returned the console lights and canopy transparency to their previous settings, turned the pilot chair so Yadier was facing forward, gathered the blanket, and guided Rayne back to their room. Guided her through her darkness as she had guided him through his first night without the helmet on Coruscant. He helped her get settled, showed her how to adjust the pillow so it worked with the helmet instead of against it, and then pressed his forehead against hers, appreciating the cold steel against his skin, appreciating the role reversal, appreciating her willingness to try.

She lay still for ten minutes, alone in her own head, cut off from the rest of the galaxy, her head trapped in a can, until she could stand it no longer. She pulled it off. “I can’t,” she said, gasping for air. “I can’t…”

“Okay…” he said, relieving her of it and placing it back next to his side of the bed. “Too much?”

“Too much of nothing,” she said as she allowed him to pull her back against him, as she pressed into him as he spooned around her. “I don’t know if that makes sense…”

“It does,” he whispered, holding her as her trembling subsided. “I’m sorry it didn’t work.”

“It was worth a shot,” she said, taking his hand and pressing his knuckles to her lips. “Thank you for trying.”

Sleep eventually claimed them.

Din was right about one thing, though.

It would be their last night in this bed for the foreseeable future.

#the mandalorian #din djarin #grogu

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