Chapter Text
You wake up to tiny hands gently patting your eyes.
“Oh, good morning,” you mumble, smiling when the child huffs, as if he’s concentrating on something, laying his little hands more insistently against your eyelids. A laugh escapes you, and you take one of his hands and kiss it, blinking up at where he sits beside you on the bed. This is not the first time he’s woken you up, and it’s not the first time you’ve found him escaping his cradle.
He stretches out his tiny hand once more towards your face, his features crinkling up with concentration, and you take a deep breath. “You must be hungry, aren’t you? Let’s get you something to eat.”
Your pain is gone, you realize, after you dress, and you dispose of the healing sheath and sterile heating cloths carefully. With a clear and rested mind, you wonder at a human physician having helped you rather than a droid. As you finish pulling on your boots, you decide to ask the Mandalorian later if he had stayed long enough to overhear anything about it after they’d admitted you.
There is a lone pitcher of bantha milk in the small cooling compartment, which you take out to fill a clay cup with. The baby happily kicks his tiny feet as he gulps, and you nibble a piece of herb crusted bread, listening to the sounds of tinkering and welding coming from outside the ship. You pick the child up when you’ve both finished your humble meal, burping him against your shoulder with a few pats and rubs to his back, and your mind drifts once more to the bounty hunter. Had he been gone all night? He’d never stayed away that long before now, you think, walking down the exit ramp of the Razor Crest and into the daylight.
The hangar is dusty and dry as you remember, and you find the three pit droids sitting around a low table poking at spare bolts and tools. You set the child down on one of the stools before looking around.
“Peli?” you call, rubbing your arms and trying to make out your surroundings in the morning sun. It is almost too bright to distinguish anything, and you almost trip over a cord as you make your way towards the metallic sounds of tools coming from the other side of the Razor Crest.
“Morning!” The tinkering stops, and you can hear her sure foot falls approaching. You give her a smile, nodding hesitantly. In the bright of the morning, the previous day’s events slowly come back to you, and with them, a sense of unease. “Sleep well? Haven’t seen sight of that Mandalorian. Did he come back last night?”
Your face falls at this, and you grip your arms together across your chest.
“Uh-I mean, I’m sure he’s fine. No rush, ‘cept for I’m charging him to hold this relic,” Peli says quickly, wiping her hands off on a rag from her pocket and gesturing to the ship over her shoulder. “You hungry?”
Clearing your throat, you shake your head quickly. “No, thank you.”
Peli steps around you, huffing. “Well, everything’s just about finished up here. Like I said, I repaired the fuel leak yesterday, and last night I got most of the carbon scoring off top. Did he tell you that the landing gear needs replacing?” She turns back to you at this point, and you shake your head helplessly, feeling uncomfortably out of your depth. She scoffs and stomps around the ship, and you follow meekly behind her, picking your way around cords, tubes, and tools. “Figures! Men don’t like fixing things until they’re already broken.”
“We’ve been a little busy,” you say gently, looking down as the child toddles up to your ankle and holds onto your dress’s hem sweetly. He stares up at you with large, inky dark eyes.
“Why he’d even choose this hunk-a-junk, I can’t even begin to guess,” Peli declares, sitting on one of the stools surrounding a low table. Her pit droids chitter and join her, but she waves a hand at one. “Let the lady sit, don’t be rude.”
The pit droid jumps up as if it’s nervous, quickly pulling the stool out for you so you can sit. You lift the child up into your lap, petting his head and noticing he’s suckling on the silver pendant he wears about his neck. You tilt your head towards the mechanic. “Is his ship very old?”
Peli’s laugh is loud, barking, and as direct as her personality. It makes you smile. “Old! Well, in terms of ships, wear and tear ages ‘em pretty quick, so yeah. I’d call it old. Surprised it still flies.”
“He’s a good pilot.”
“He’d have to be, to be able to get this rusted bucket off the ground,” Peli mutters, drinking deeply from a canteen. “The Empire used to use these gunships, if that tells you anything.” She pauses here as you take this information in, your eyes drifting back to the large shadow of the Razor Crest. “Wonder how he got it.”
You briefly imagine the Mandalorian, shadowed and gleaming at the same time, stalking the halls of the imperial estate you had served in. The thought of him cutting down stormtroopers brings a shiver through your shoulders, and you swallow hard, shifting and trying to ignore the sudden warmth and tightness in your belly.
“H-He taught me to fly,” you say, breathless and turning back to the mechanic. If Peli notices the flush that reddens your cheeks, she says nothing about it. “Or...well, he taught me to take off and how to land.”
“Ha!” Peli slaps her knee. “Good for you, little lady. He should teach you more of that. I’ve always said it’s good to know how to plan an exit strategy, if you get my meaning, and knowing how to fly is the best one. He teach you basic maintenance, too?”
“Well, no-”
“Of course he didn’t,” Peli rolls her eyes, delighted to find something to nag the Mandalorian about further. “Well come on. I can show you, and I bet I’ll teach you more than he can!”
Your heart quickens in excitement, and you carry the child with you as you follow Peli to the engines. She shows you different tools required to patch and fuse leaks and tears, soldering irons that are best for finer tuning machinery, and the differences between the wires that connect the landing gear to the controls.
“This way, if he’s not around and something goes wrong, you’ll know what to do. Know where he keeps his tools?” she asks, her voice stern. You nod quickly, telling her of the small compartment in the cockpit you’d seen him open so many times before. She’s satisfied with this, and lets you explore her own toolbox. She answers your questions, not with all the attuned patience of the Mandalorian, but when the child crawls into her lap for her attention, she’s sufficiently buttered up for a while longer.
The sun begins to sink in the sky when you close the toolbox, patting it respectfully. “Thank you. For this. For helping us,” you say, pausing with a thoughtful frown. “I mean-I know we’re going to pay you, but-”
“It’s alright,” she says, standing and bouncing the child in her arms. You can’t make out her face, but you notice her shoulders release, dropping an inch. “Better you than some of the other womp rats that come through here.”
You grin, following her as best you can in the fading light. “Speaking of womp rats,” you say, tickling behind the child’s ear. He squeaks in joy, blinking up at you with a toothy grin. “I should feed this one and lay him down. May I fix you something?” you ask, taking the child when she passes him to you.
“Think I might go to the cantina for a drink,” Peli says, watching you both as the little one grabs up a lock of your hair to hold in his tiny fist. She almost sounds nervous in the face of your gratitude, and you do her the courtesy of looking at the child instead. “Maybe that Mandalorian will be here with my money by the time I get back.”
The whole afternoon spent learning from Peli was a successful distraction from your current situation, but now as you listen to her fading footsteps, you begin to feel an uncommon amount of anxiety squeezing your stomach. Biting your lip, you make your way up the ramp of the Razor Crest, taking your time finding a small amount of cured meat from the cooling compartment for the child’s dinner. You sit with him on the floor of the hull, only realizing after a few minutes your lips begin to burn from biting them so much out of nerves.
You never worry over your employer’s quarries. In the few times you were part of his comings and goings, they happen so fast you hardly notice his absence. Maybe a few hours at most is what it takes for him to hunt. The majority of the time that’s usually spent is flying to whatever planet they’re hiding on. He is ruthlessly efficient that way, and a not insignificant part of you feels admiration for that quality. There was pride in having a skill, a talent, and being the best for it.
Soft footsteps perk you up, and you walk towards the ramp only to stop when an unfamiliar voice says, “Oh, now this is one way to hunt.” Unable to see in the dim light, you draw yourself up as tall as you can, folding your hands together at the approaching saunter that rings against the metallic ramp. “If I were a betting kind of guy,” the newcomer says, voice dripping with self-assurance. “I’d say this ship isn’t yours.”
“N-No, but-”
“Pretty good set-up, though,” the younger man says, bypassing you completely to walk into the hull. A flush runs through your whole body, and you turn, following the sound of his voice and footsteps. He’s laughing, “Not one, but two carbonite freezers? Ah, Mando.”
“I’m sorry but-but who are you?” You hate how your voice shakes with indignation, and you hate how you can’t see the child. His little plate is empty and abandoned on the ground, and you swallow hard. “I don’t...I don’t think you’re allowed to be here,” you add, uncertainty making you falter when he turns towards you.
“Oh, I’m a friend of Mando’s. Name’s Toro Calican. I’m with the Guild.” You hear a shift in fabric, and you blink curiously, tilting your head. You suppose it should mean something to you, his name and status, but when you remain unfazed, he sighs. “And who are you? You’re not in binders, so I’m assuming you aren’t a quarry. Mando doesn’t strike me as the type to, uh, mix business and pleasure.”
Your cheeks warm an impossible amount, and you tilt your chin downward. “N-No, I’m not...I…”
“So that’s what you’re here for?” He takes one, two steps closer, and you take one back. “Pleasure?” He’s smiling at you-you can hear it-and it isn’t a nice smile. Your heart begins to pick up in pace, and you wish Peli was here. More so, you wish the Mandalorian was here. It hurts that such attention and treatment is made towards you and not others, and the bitterness you taste is like dirty money in your mouth.
“I think you need to leave,” you say, curling your fingers at your sides and breathing deep from your belly, trying with all of your might to muster your confidence. “I-”
“Oh, I’m leaving. I’m taking the ship with me, too. How do you feel about joining me?”
Your ears begin to ring, and you desperately wish you knew what to do. In the darkness of the hull, without knowing where the child was, you were afraid. Your instincts tell you this is no friend, no matter how much he tries to smile and laugh, and something deeper tells you he means harm, no matter what he says. The last bounty hunter that tried to board the Razor Crest had ended up dead, but now, you’re not so sure who will win out.
So, you play the only card you are left holding.
“The Mandalorian will be back soon, and I-I don’t think he’ll like it if he finds you here.” Your voice only barely shakes this time, but his answering laugh makes panic curdle your stomach.
“Fine,” he sighs once his laughter dies away. “Don’t say I didn’t try to reason with you.”
You feel his lunge before he grabs you, and his underestimation is in your favor. You slide beneath his arm along the corrugated metal floor and run towards the ladder, hitting the back corner of the wall in your haste. If you can get to the cockpit, you can lock yourself inside. You remember how to open the communications link, and perhaps you can send a message to the Mandalorian.
That’s what you hope for.
What actually happens is halfway up the ladder, a hand grabs the ends of your hair and rips you backward, and you shriek from the surprise, your balance wavering. You hit the floor of the hull hard. With a hand still in your hair, Toro Calican drags you up onto your knees, and you can feel him jerk this way and that, muttering under his breath. “Where is it? Where’s the kid?” he asks, shaking you by the tight hold he has on you.
“Some hunter you are,” you snap, eyes watering and teeth knocking together when he shakes you once more. Your hands instinctively fly up to grab at his wrist, sinking your nails hard enough into his skin to draw blood, and you relish his grunt of pain when he drops you. You scrabble forward on hands and knees, throwing your arms out in wide arcs to orient yourself, and when his boot hits you in the back, you fall flat with your cheek pressed to the cold metal.
And come nearly face to face with two large shadowy eyes blinking at you worriedly from behind a crate mere inches away.
The baby stares at you, tears forming like ink pools and his lip trembling, and it’s all you can do not to reach out for him. With your heart in your throat, you shake your head, blinking sweat from your eyes and trying to convey the importance to the little one to remain hidden. Toro Calican knocks your concentration away when he grabs your shoulder and flips you around, sprawling you on your back. You push yourself backward, hitting the crate and effectively putting yourself between the child and the bounty hunter. However, you freeze when the cold muzzle from his blaster pushes up beneath your chin.
“Look, try to be reasonable,” Calican speaks conversationally, kneeling over you like he might speak to some kind of pet. “I can see you’re not firing on all cylinders-” He taps your forehead twice with a finger. “-but if you just consider helping me, I might even give you some of the reward money.”
You say nothing, glaring up at the half shadowed shape of him. Tilting your chin, silently defiant, it digs the muzzle of the gun firmer against your skin, and he sighs in disappointment.
Briefly, you think of how many guns you have faced down the barrel of in your life, and there is a fine line between peace and pandemonium that suspends you. Only two options remain, and it burns you that it is left up to a man too small in character to understand the consequences of his actions. You want to tell him he will fail, that he will never succeed, but the world has taught you otherwise, and you would spit if your mouth wasn’t so dry.
You hear the slight click of the gears when his finger puts pressure on the trigger, and for a small moment, you think of your father, whose face you can’t remember, hiding you under the bed when stormtroopers broke down the door and snuffed him out so quickly.
A harsh slicing sound cuts the air, and you blink your eyes open just as Calican’s hand is ripped upward, the gun firing into the air. The Mandalorian’s whipchord launcher arrests the younger bounty hunter’s aim, and he throws his entire armored body into jerking him backward.
The sound of your name, a bark mangled by the modulator, throws you back into motion. You roll to the side, slipping your hands behind the crate and finding the child eagerly reaching for you, whimpering as you struggle to your feet and stumble towards the bunk.
Calican throws his free fist toward the Mandalorian, and it lands hard in his unprotected side, bringing him to his knees. Pressing yourself up against the wall, you realize you stand near the weapon’s locker, remembering the feeling of the warmed steel in your hands. It only takes a moment for you to put the baby in the bunk and slam the door shut, your heart cracking when he whimpers in fear, and you hit the console button that opens the locker.
Maker only knows if any of these are loaded, and you certainly don’t know how to work the weapons themselves. That doesn’t stop you from grabbing the familiar shape of the handgun and holding it between shaking hands, eye level, just as Calican slams his knee into the Mandalorian’s back, throwing him onto the floor of the hull.
“Stop!” Your voice echoes off the metal walls, and it’s as rigid as the grooves of metal of the ship’s floor. You can see him turn towards you, and you feel more the hunted than the hunter, even with the weapon you’re holding.
He laughs at your shaking hands, your trembling lip, and disheveled hair. You look every inch a no-name forgotten girl from the outer rim, and you know it. This is his first mistake, to take you at face value. Because even though you are those things, you’ve made your life by the decisions of men who underestimate you.
So, you pull the trigger.
The sound of the body hitting the hull is softer than you expected, and the adrenaline surging through your veins makes it that much harder to hear. Your arms shake from holding the gun which sizzles at the muzzle, and you don’t even realize the Mandalorian has risen to his feet. He’s saying your name, saying it like he never has before, and you blink the pearls of salt from your eyes, turning your face toward him.
“...it’s alright. Give me the gun.”
The gentle, deep baritone knocks your knees together, and you mean to drop the weapon. Instead, you buckle, and he only needs to take a step to catch you, shouldering you up with ease. His arms are secure and firm, circling around your middle and cradling you against the beskar chest plate. You can feel the blaster in his right hand that he’s taken from you, pressed flat against your back, and his other hand cups the back of your head. You don’t realize how violently you’re shaking, and he holds you against his armor so you don’t accidentally hurt yourself.
You’re not sure how long you’re there, floating in the shock of not just discharging a weapon, but also hitting the target. The pained groan that comes from behind the Mandalorian brings you back to the present. A deep breath squeezes from your lungs, and your fingers curl into the shadowy fabric beneath his pauldrons. You can feel his muscles tense, angling you away.
Slowly, with all the care of someone handling an injured bird, the Mandalorian eases you down onto the floor to lean against the wall. You’re only vaguely aware of his gloves pressing your tangled hair back from your face, the soft leather smearing your briny tears against your cheeks. He holds himself there, knelt beside you like a statue, and then his warmth is gone. You hear the snap of his cape as he turns and strides to the wounded man groaning on the floor.
Bringing your hands to your face, you breathe into your palms. It doesn’t feel real. You don’t feel real, and you don’t know if the soft vibration that fills the air is real either, until you hear the muffled sound of a puncture. All the blood drains from your face at the unmistakable noise of a blade being pushed through skin. The choked, wet sputtering only lasts a moment, but you still turn your face away, shutting your eyes. You listen as the Mandalorian drags the dead man off the Razor Crest.
The exit ramp closes behind him when he returns, and you feel like you can breathe again. He kneels down in front of you once more, not as close this time, but the gleaming tilt of his helmet makes it easy to decipher him in the shadows of the hull. His shoulders are tense, back straight, a hunter still primed to strike if necessary, and it feels such a relief to see him again.
“I didn’t know what to do,” you whisper, loose tears falling from your eyes, drawing your arms up around yourself. All the panic and uncertainty from before seems to fill you completely, and your chest rises and falls faster with the guilt that this is all your fault. “I didn’t-he wouldn’t leave, and the baby hid. I didn’t know, I didn’t-”
It’s all you can do not to break down, but when two leather gloved hands gather both of yours between them, it holds you together. “Cyare,” the Mandalorian murmurs, now too quiet for the modulator to distinguish. It’s a breath that slips from beneath the lip of his helmet, and you drink it in like a breath of air. “You did well.” You take another breath, shaking your head slowly as more tears fall. “You did,” the Mandalorian insists, resting both knees against the hull’s floor to be closer. “You did well.”
Your head bows forward, unable to look at him even as he continues to keep your hands between his own. You want to tell him the child could have been hurt, that he could have been killed, and you would have been alone again. It would have been all your fault, all of it, but you don’t have the strength. So instead, you close your eyes, and you only remember to breathe again when you feel the crown of his helmet rest against your brow.