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usermoreid · 3 years

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Darkened Nights (Violent Things)

Fic Week Day Two: Alternate ending to an episode

“I choose Aaron Hotchner. He's a classic narcissist. He thinks he's better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4. ‘Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense’.”

The silence in the room was palpable. In almost perfect synchronicity, every head turned to face the man in question only moments before he stormed out of the room, footsteps echoing throughout the house.

"I'm not a narcissist," he said, pacing back and forth as the others entered the room, slowly as if approaching a wild animal that could attack at any second.

"Come on. Look, you can't think anything from that. He's not in his right mind, Hotch," Gideon tried to reassure him, quickly stopping when he was interrupted.

"No, stop. Stop." The room fell quiet once again. "Alright, everybody right now - what's my worst quality?" His head turned frantically around the room, taking in everyone's hesitancy to answer. "Okay, I'll start. I have no sense of humour."

"You're a bully," JJ said hardly a second after he'd finished.

"I'm a bully," he repeated.

"You can be a drill sergeant sometimes."

"Right."

"You don't trust women as much as men."

"Okay, good. I'm all these things, but none of you said that I ever put myself above the team, because I don't, ever. So why did Reid say that I do?"

"Don't jump to any conclusions just yet. Reid is smart. For all we know, he could have been leaving clues this entire time. We just need to find what they are."

"Clues? We don't even know if Reid's aware that we saw that!" His voice raised at Gideon as an exasperated arm was thrown in the air. "What sort of clue is 'narcissist'? That doesn't lead us anywhere. Like you said, Reid is smart. His clues would be more obvious than that."

He turned on his foot, heading back in the direction he came from. The others all shared a look of trepidation before following after him. They'd never seen their boss so unsettled, and in turn it was fraying their nerves in an already precarious situation. Gideon was the only one to look unperturbed but even Emily, who had spent such little time around the man, could see the tightness around his mouth and the stiff way in which he stood. He may have been acting as though he wasn't bothered but they could see right through him. Despite this, they walked on without mentioning it, knowing how private of a man Gideon was.

Back in the computer room, the tension was so thick it was almost suffocating, squeezing their hearts like a clenched fist prepared to strike at any moment. They were all on edge, staring intently at each blank screen as if they would come to life, the answer to the question that was plaguing them all displayed clearly on the screen. But there were no bold letters written out in front of them. There was no easy solution. Their youngest team member was still at the mercy of an unsub that had seemingly no plan to let him leave alive and they had no way of finding him.

Hotch cursed softly under his breath and stalked out of the room once more after several minutes had passed without so much as a mumble from anyone. The team knew better than to feel any shock at Hotch's out of character expletive; none of them could blame the man for not acting like himself. Instead, they looked to Gideon for guidance. The older man held a single hand up, preventing them from joining him in going after Hotch. He searched through the rooms, not finding his colleague in any of them, and then the grounds outside. It was a few feet in front of the house that he finally spotted him. If it wasn't for the gentle rise and fall of his chest, he could've been mistaken for a statue.

"He's still alive."

Hotch showed no sign of having heard Gideon approaching or settling a few steps behind him, and yet he didn't startle at the words, his stare remaining off into the darkness.

"You can't prove that."

"It's Reid. He always survives."

A small sound filled the air. It would have passed for a chuckle if the bitterness had not been so clear, as if it had rotted within him before being set free.

"You know, sometimes I feel like God sent Reid to me for a reason; as if there was something I could do for him. I couldn't even teach him how to deal with the emotional side of this job before I sent him into what's probably going to be the most traumatising thing he's ever going to experience."

"Then you help him through the aftermath. You still have time, Hotch. Your work isn't done."

Hotch shook his head. "I can't save him."

"All by yourself? Probably not, but I wouldn't be surprised if you did. You've got an entire team in there, Hotch, ready to risk everything. You helped him become the agent he is. If there's anybody that can help him again now, it's you. You understand him. I'm sure there's something Reid mentioned that tells us where he is, but we need you to not treat this like he's already gone."

Neither of them spoke. The only noise between them was the delicate wind, soft whispers floating throughout the air as if sending a message that he couldn’t quite decipher. Hotch’s head dropped down to face the dirt below him, a queue for Gideon to leave that he thankfully took, making his way back to the house that he was beyond tired of seeing. A small breath left Hotch’s lips, almost a sigh but not quite. He knew that Gideon was right. Standing outside staring at the ground wasn’t helping anybody but Hankel, and yet he couldn’t quite find it in himself to turn around. Spencer’s words were playing on repeat in his mind.

“He's a classic narcissist. He thinks he's better than everyone else on the team.”

Was he right? Of course he was, Hotch thought to himself. Spencer was never wrong, and he wouldn’t use the word ‘narcissist’ so lightly. But if he truly did put himself above the rest of his team, could he really trust himself to do what was best for one of its members? After all, everybody else was in that god-forsaken house, working tirelessly to bring Spencer home, and here he was: standing alone outside, focusing on his own problems instead of helping them.

With a shuddering breath, he turned around, pausing for only a moment before heading back to his team. Reid may have been right about the narcissism, but he would do everything in his power to get him back regardless. Reid was still alive, and he intended to find him that way as soon as he possibly could.

They all worked until the sun came up, the bright gold rays almost taunting them as they shone in through the windows. It was as the morning light hit that Hotch finally managed to force some of them to sleep. Morgan, JJ and Garcia were the firsts to go, though Morgan was only out for barely two hours before he returned, letting Gideon rest instead. Hotch felt the need to ask if he’d managed to get any sleep at all but based on the drooping of his eyes and the anxious clenching of his fists, he felt it wasn’t necessary.

They continued the search, finding dead end after dead end, and all the while both Hotch and Morgan refused to sleep. Prentiss eventually conceded, taking JJ’s space once she’d woken up. Hotch was rather impressed by how well she functioned on such little rest but he didn’t spare much thought on the matter, knowing that there were more important things at hand. It was only after the third time that they’d nearly fallen asleep on each other that the two men finally accepted that it was time to rest. They needed their entire focus on getting Reid home and they wouldn’t be able to do that if they were incapable of thinking. With heavy hearts and much hesitation, they left the room.

Neither of them had wanted to sleep in the house, the knowledge that they were currently residing in the home of the man that had their friend was hanging over their heads, making it almost impossible to even stand in. Instead, they chose the comfort (or lack thereof) of the FBI SUVs. Hotch climbed into one as Morgan climbed into the other, both immediately sitting in the driver’s seat and laying it back as far as they could go.

Being mid January, there was a strong chill in the air despite the persistent shining of the sun above them. Hotch wrapped his suit jacket tighter around himself, trying to maintain any sense of warmth that the thin clothing gave him. His eyes fell shut and he attempted to fight back every thought that was swarming around in his mind, loud and obnoxious and refusing to leave. It felt like hours of trying to quieten his mind, though in reality it mustn’t have been more than thirty minutes, when the passenger side door opened. His head instantly turned, eyes flying open as the lack of sleep made him more paranoid but less alert.

“I’m guessing I’m not the only one who can’t sleep,” Morgan said as he dropped into the seat next to him, door slamming shut behind him.

Hotch grunted, eyes closing again. “I knew I should’ve just stayed there and continued working.”

“No, you still did the right thing coming out here. I want to be in there just as much as you do but we’re no help if we can’t even stand upright.”

He hummed non-committedly. “Maybe so. Doesn’t make me okay with being out here while my team is in there working.” Typically, Hotch would never speak to a subordinate in such a way. The lack of sleep, however, was really beginning to affect him, taking away his filter.

It was silent for a few beats, no sound to be heard in or out of the car, until Morgan finally spoke again.

“You know Reid doesn’t actually think you’re a narcissist, right?”

“I hardly think it matters. I’m his boss, he’s allowed to view me in whatever way he does and I have no say in that.”

“But you’re not just his boss, you’re his friend. He had to name someone so that Hankel would stop the roulette. He did it as a means of survival and that’s it. There’s nothing more to it.”

Hotch swallowed hard, still refusing to open his eyes. If he didn’t see Morgan there, he could almost pretend he was talking to himself.

“I just… he’s so young, Morgan, and he’s been through so much already.”

“I know,” Morgan replied quietly. “It’s awful just watching him go through it, I can’t imagine what it actually feels like to be trapped there.”

“We haven’t even seen a video of him in hours and I don’t- It’s not like I actually want to see him being hurt but I’m going out of my mind wondering why it’s been so long.”

Morgan sighed. “I wish I had an answer for you, man. I get it, though. Seeing him is awful but at least we know he’s alive. Right now we’re stuck in this weird limbo where Spencer Reid is both alive and not alive and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Schrödinger's Spencer.”

Morgan didn’t reply for a moment but when he did, it was with a snort. “That’s such a Reid joke to make.”

Hotch let out a light chuckle. “I suppose it is,” he said, his head gently falling back to rest against the seat behind him, “and I suppose that’s a sign for me to go to sleep.”

“Aaron Hotchner cracking jokes? Absolutely a sign to sleep. Good night.”

A small smile made its way to Hotch’s face for hardly a second but the weight that had been taken off his chest felt more permanent. “Good night, Morgan.”

It only took a few minutes after that for the two of them to drift off into a less than restful slumber, the anxiety still flowing through their veins making it difficult to stay asleep. It was enough, though, and by time they walked back into the house, they were ready to start the search again. “What have we got?” Hotch asked as they entered the room.

“Nothing new,” Prentiss informed them, a restrained disappointment seeping into her words. “We haven’t got any more videos, we’ve searched everywhere that’s connected to him, and there have been no new murders.”

“So another dead end." Morgan's fists clenched by his side but he managed to hold himself back from hitting anything.

“I know it’s difficult,” Gideon said, “but we just have to wait it out. I’m aware that the last thing any of us wants is to sit around doing nothing but until we have something to go off, there’s nothing we can do but be patient.”

“Patient,” Morgan murmured with a small scoff. “Right. I’ll just be patient while my best friend is off being tortured.” His eyes drifted around the room, lending on the stack of books sitting on the table. “I guess I’ll go through Hankel’s writing again, see if we missed anything.”

Hotch watched as he reached for one of the books. “I’ll help.”

---------

“We’ll have to watch the videos again.”

Every head turned to face Gideon. They’d spent the past few hours reading the books, over and over and over, looking for any little thing they could’ve missed. Garcia had conducted the most in-depth cyber search possible, trying to find anybody and anything that could be connected to either of the Hankel men. Everything had come up empty. The only thing they had yet to do was rewatch the tapes. They knew it was the next logical step but the thought of watching Reid go through that pain all over again made them feel sick to their stomachs.

“JJ, Garcia, neither of you need to stay for this. Go see if you can get some food together for us, it’s been a while since any of us have eaten a real meal. I know it’s already dark but take a car and see if you can find something. Prentiss, Morgan, you’re free to join them if you’d rather but your eyes would be of use here.”

Once Garcia had loaded the videos ready to be played, her and JJ followed Hotch’s orders, though not without some hesitation from the latter. Morgan and Prentiss immediately sat down without a word, prepared to watch them regardless of how much they wished it wasn’t necessary. It was an unspoken agreement to not acknowledge the way everybody froze momentarily as the first video started, an image of Reid coming onto the screen, clear signs of physical trauma evident.

“The other heathens are watching. Choose a sinner to die, and I’ll say the name and address of the person to be saved.”

“I won't choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher.”

“Did you see that?” Morgan asked. “The way he looked into the camera before he spoke. What did he say - ‘leave their remains behind like a poacher’? I think that’s a clue.”

Gideon considered him for a moment. “I think you might be right. Here,” he handed him his notebook and pen, “write it down.” He played the next video.

“Tobias, help me.”

“He can’t help you, he’s weak!”

All four of the viewers flinched as skin hit against skin; as whimpers and cries fell from Reid’s lips. Morgan’s fist hitting the table was ignored as the agent on screen fell back in his chair, head hitting the floor with great force.

“You came back to life.”

“Raphael.”

Their focus didn’t leave the screen, watching intently as Reid stared God’s Will directly in the eye and didn’t flinch, God’s angel holding the trigger.

“Choose.”

“I choose Aaron Hotchner. He’s a classic narcissist.”

Hotch exhaled deeply but didn’t stop watching, listening to the words that had been playing on repeat in his mind since he’d first heard them. Morgan’s mouth opened as if to speak when Prentiss suddenly raised a hand in front of her, stopping whatever he was going to say. The men looked up at her and she put a finger to her lips, her other hand pointing in the direction of the room next door. They remained silent, ears straining to hear what Prentiss was referring to. It was a few moments later that they realised what it was - a small thump.

Immediately alert, they all reached for their weapons, drawing them up and preparing to defend each other. Hotch crept forward, signaling for the others to get behind him. He moved soundlessly, slowly approaching the door frame that led to the front room. Once at the edge, he glanced into the room, immediately spotting the man standing on the other side.

Morgan moved to stand next to his boss. Gideon and Prentiss would’ve taken the only other door in the room, leaving him with no exit, but there was no path to get there without passing him. Instead, they pressed close, ready to charge in behind Hotch and Morgan. As they were about to move, the man turned around.

“Aaron Hotchner,” Hankel said, voice low but strong, back straight as he stared down his target. “You’re a sinner. Job 15:31. ‘Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense.’ You must repent.”

His arm hadn’t raised more than a few inches before four different guns went off, bullets lodging into several different parts of his body. He dropped.

Gideon immediately pushed forward, crouching down to check the man’s pulse. “Dead,” he told them.

“Did you hear what he said?” Hotch’s voice was subdued, his gaze fixed on the body on the floor.

“What about it?” Prentiss asked.

“Job 15:31. He said it was Job 15:31. Reid said it was Genesis 23:4. Why would he get it wrong?”

“He’s under a lot of stress. It’s understandable if he misremembered something,” Morgan answered, though he sounded sceptical.

“But he didn’t misremember it. He misquoted it. So what does Genesis 23:4 actually say?” They all hurried to the bookcase that contained bibles, Hotch getting there first and instantly grabbing the closest copy to flick through the pages, sparing hardly a glance at each. “Here,” he said, passing his book to Morgan, “Genesis, chapter twenty-three, verse four. Read it.”

Morgan took the offered bible, finding where Hotch gestured before reading it out loud. “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me property, forbear a place among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”

“He wouldn’t get it wrong unless it was on purpose.” Shock and relief stretched his lips into a smile.

“He’s in a cemetery.” Prentiss realised.

At that moment, the door opened and in walked the two that had left earlier, each with a bag on their arm. “Oh my God,” Garcia gasped as she saw the man on the floor, bag falling next to her feet with a thud. “Who is that?!”

“Is that Hankel?” JJ placed her bag down next to Garcia’s but paid no more attention to the food it contained, her focus entirely on the face that was currently surrounded by a pool of its own blood.

“It is,” Hotch answered quickly. “Garcia, check to see if there have been any reports of poaching in the last couple of days.”

“Okay, okay, uh…” She trailed off as she rushed to the computer with the others following, taking care to not step in the blood. It took less than a minute for her to set up the system and conduct her search. “A farmer reported two sheep being slaughtered on his property.”

“Where are we talking?”

Garcia zoomed in on the map in response to Morgan’s question.

“What’s that patch of green there?”

“Marshall Parish,” Hotch replied to JJ. “I think it’s an old plantation.”

Emily leaned forward, catching everyone’s attention. “Wait. Tobias wrote in his journals about staying clean and keeping away from Marshall.”

“Does that say that there’s a cemetery on the ground?” Gideon pointed at the screen.

“We’ve found him,” Hotch breathed. “We’re going to save him.”

-------

“FBI!”

As soon as Hotch’s foot hit the floor after kicking the door open, he was moving. Along with some of the local police, the team entered the cabin, guns drawn and eyes on alert as they searched for any sign of their missing agent.

“Clear!”

“Oh! What’s that smell?” Prentiss scrunched her face up against the overwhelming scent in the air, casting her glance around the room to find the source. She spotted it on the floor: a pile of burnt fish. The smell threatened to take over their senses as they coughed against it, fighting the urge to leave immediately.

“Let’s spread out. He has to be here somewhere. Let’s go!” Hotch stormed ahead, looking as though the stench hadn’t had the slightest effect on him.

Gideon watched as everybody fanned out to search the grounds as his eyes took one last look over the room, being drawn to the pair of handcuffs laying haphazardly on a chair that he clearly recognised from the videos. Spencer had been sitting in that chair. He’d had those handcuffs on him. He’d been surrounded by that smell. So where was he now? He couldn’t have let himself out of those cuffs, but Hankel wouldn’t have just let him roam free.

With that thought in mind, he left into the darkness of the winter night, the chill immediately seeping into his bones despite the thick clothing he had on to protect himself. An image of Spencer, as frozen as the real Charles Hankel, pushed its way to the front of his mind completely unbidden. He did his best to shove it back, knowing it wouldn’t help. It didn’t leave.

They scoured the cemetery, searching over every inch looking for anything that might tell them where Spencer was before it was too late. Hankel must’ve left him hours ago without a fire or any other means of warmth, it was no wonder that he’d finally become desperate enough to leave the cabin on his own accord despite the great risks it presented him, Hotch thought.

He was aware that Spencer could’ve made it to a road by now but judging by the presumed lack of shoes and warmth, as well as his recently sustained injuries, he felt that it was reasonable to assume that he hadn’t gotten far. Just to cover all bases, he sent some local officers further up, closer to where they’d arrived from.

They’d been searching for over twenty minutes when they finally found something. A patch of soil, packed more freshly than that around it. It had been recently planted within the last few days.

“Morgan!” Hotch yelled at the top of his lungs, above the noise of everybody else calling out a different name. He instantly dropped to his knees and began clawing at the dirt, scraping it out and throwing it in random directions, not paying any mind to anybody around him. A body dropped down next to him and hands joined his own but neither looked at the other, concentrating only on the cold ground below them.

They dug and they dug until they hit something - something colder than the dirt it was surrounded with, something much paler. They continued tearing at the floor even more savagely than before, desperation leaking through at the sight of the foreign object. Fear gripped them tighter than the cold did, making them work harder and faster until suddenly a white cloth was visible, soon followed by a familiar dark red.

“No, no, no, no,” Morgan muttered, each word faster and louder than the last. “Come on, man!”

Hotch pulled away dirt from higher up, more gently this time, though he refused to acknowledge what could be under it until he finally saw it. A face, skin soft and almost glistening in the moonlight, marred by dirt and blood. Spencer.

He wedged an arm underneath his back as soon as the opportunity presented itself, Morgan having pulled enough of the ground off of his arms for it to not cause any harm, and he pulled. Once the top half of his body was fully out of the dirt, his hand raised on its own accord in search of a pulse as Morgan set to work on the CPR.

No pulse.

His breath caught in his throat but his fingers didn’t move. He was vaguely aware of the ringing in his ears but he ignored it.

“Please, Spencer. Please,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “Wake up. Come on. Wake up!”

“Not like this, pretty boy. Not like this.”

Morgan hadn’t stopped the CPR, going harder than what was necessary. It didn’t escape Hotch’s notice that any CPR at all may be unnecessary as he took a closer look at the boy in front of him. His eyes were closed and his skin was freezing to the touch. At first Hotch assumed that he must have been buried only hours before, likely just before Hankel left on his final self-righteous mission. Now, though, as he stared at the blue-tinted pallor of the agent in front of him, he doubted it.

Spencer Reid had been dead for at least a day now.

“Morgan, stop,” he muttered half-heartedly, his line of sight not moving from eyes that wouldn’t open. He’d never forced Spencer to make eye contact with him before but he was wishing with everything he had that just this once, he would; that just this once, Spencer would open his eyes and stare right back at him.

The aggressive panting by his ear hadn’t stopped, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. What if Spencer opened his eyes for only a second as he looked away? What if he missed Spencer’s final breath? What if-

“Morgan. You have to stop.” His voice was weak but it was all he could muster, still not looking away but being able to see the hands still pumping down on Reid’s chest as he periodically reached up to perform mouth-to-mouth. “Morgan.” He didn’t stop. “Morgan!”

He finally snatched his eyes away from those in front of him, becoming frozen in place as he watched Morgan lose control of the tears rolling down his face. Small sobs fell from his lips but he was clearly holding them back, trying so hard to save a dead man. It didn’t look as though he’d even heard Hotch’s words.

With a shaking breath, Hotch put his hand on Morgan’s arm, not surprised when it was instantly thrown off in a rather violent manner. He put his hand back, holding tighter but still getting thrown off. He forced himself to sit back, body threatening to collapse under the stress of it. Harsher than before, he gripped Morgan’s arm and pulled. Nothing. He pulled again. Nothing.

“Morgan, he's dead. You have to stop.”

Morgan furiously shook his head but otherwise didn’t acknowledge him, leaving Hotch with only one other option. He wrapped both of his arms around the man’s torso and pulled as hard as he could, refusing to let go no matter how much the struggling man tried to get away. Morgan’s arms flailed wildly but Hotch didn’t budge.

“You did all you could, Morgan. You did all you could. There’s nothing more to do. I’m sorry,” he murmured into his ear, the low volume not entirely on purpose.

“No!” Morgan shouted, fighting harder against the restraints of Hotch’s arms. “We can’t just give up on him!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeated, finding himself unable to stop apologising despite the fact that the words were unable to reach the ears of the person they were meant for.

“Hotch, we can’t- we can’t just give up. We can’t just give up.” At this point Morgan had stopped struggling, both against Hotch and the sobs that were now ripping their way out of his throat. His head buried itself into Hotch’s shoulder as his hands came up to grip onto the arms around him, his legs slightly curling up as wails of agony tore through him.

Around them stood the rest of the team, watching the scene in front of them unfold whilst knowing that there was nothing they could do to help. JJ and Penelope were wrapped around each other, tears falling freely from their eyes as they listened to the slowly quieting cries of the usually hard-to-break agent. Emily was completely frozen, her breath slowing to almost a complete stop. Gideon’s face remained unchanged, though the tears blurring his vision were hard to miss. He took one more look at the man he considered his son, and he turned around, walking away back into the darkness.

Hotch’s arms loosened but didn’t let go of the man inside of them. His apologies hadn’t stopped even as his eyes became less focused, his mind trying to take him somewhere far away but failing to take him further than that cabin. It was ironic, he thought, that a house belonging to someone so dedicated to his worship could be so void of God. No, there was no God here, but there had been an angel, and he’d taken Spencer Reid away from them.

“I’m sorry,” Hotch whispered. “I should’ve understood.”

#hiii<3 #i wish i spent more time on this i might rewrite it a little before i post it on archive but idk yet #i know that there are mistakes in this pls forgive them i havent edited this yet #cmficweek

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littlemisspascal · 3 years

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Death and an Angel part 9

Helmetless + Death!Din x Cupid F!Reader

Summary: You make a promise to Din before you leave to meet with your superiors, but will you be able to keep it?

Rating: T

Word Count: 2,976

Warnings: fluff, the angst is back people, protective and possessive Din, your superiors are assholes, overuse of italics, swearing, plot plot plot

Author Note: All the love to every single supporter out there! Don’t hate me too much for this segment please.

Links to Part 1 and Part 8 and Part 10

Cross-posted on AO3.

Photo Inspiration:

“I’m going with you, angel.”

In exactly one hour, you’re due to report back to headquarters. You’ve been loathing this meeting from the get-go, but now, after being matched with Din, the mere thought of leaving him is as painful as a physical blow. You wish you had more time to revel in his heated kisses, the touch of his hands against your skin, the low growls he elicits when you run your nails through his curls.

Deep down, you know as immortal beings you will have an eternity to experience all of these thrills together. But right now the bond you two share as soulmates doesn’t care about the future, only the present. In your mind, it resembles a sapling soaking up every ounce of affection it can from you and Din, craving more and more intimacy in order to become stronger. Just thinking about being separated from him, even for only a short while, makes your chest hurt something fierce, as if a bundle of thorns has become wrapped around your heart.

Din is not immune to the effects of the soulmate bond either. Since his return to Arvala-7 he has not let you out of his sight for longer than thirty seconds. Anyone else, you would have been annoyed by the incessant staring, but with Din you only feel desired and, as sappy as it sounds, cherished in a way you’ve never felt before.

Which makes it all the harder to meet his gaze right now, frowning as you shake your head at him.

“Din, you can’t,” you say quietly, praying your voice doesn’t break because you know it will trigger his overprotectiveness and then you’ll helplessly melt into a puddle of warm emotions. “Only Cupids are allowed at headquarters. No outsiders allowed, not even Death.”

His jaw clenches, displeased by your rebuttal, but his fingers are gentle as they trail across your cheeks. That’s another thing you’ve noticed since he’s reunited with you: his gloves have yet to make a reappearance. It’s like now that you and the universe have assured him of your requited feelings, his iron walls of self-control have crumbled to dust, revealing a lonely, touch-starved soul who has long been told he could never physically connect with someone without the risk of killing them and is now desperate to make up for the lost time.

With this in mind, each time he initiates contact, you always make sure to return the gesture with as much affection as you can muster, whether that be by deepening his kisses or by intertwining your fingers tightly with his when he reaches for your hand. Or, such as in this instance where the two of you are lying together and cuddling on Kuiil’s bed, you take advantage of him having removed his full suit of armor to curl closer against his chest, nuzzling your head beneath his chin.

The Ugnaught had taken Din’s return in stride when he and IG-11 had paused their farmwork outside to check up on you about twenty minutes ago. Upon seeing them, Din had started to untangle himself from you so he could stand to greet them. His lack of urgency to conceal his face surprised you initially, but then you recalled Kuiil already knew Din resembled a human male, meaning at some point during their friendship Din had become comfortable enough to not wear his helmet around him. Petty jealousy swirls inside of you, upset you’re not the only one who knows Death’s true face, but you squash the ridiculous emotion not even a second later. If anyone is worthy enough of seeing Din’s true self, it’s Kuiil.

Before Din could get to his feet, Kuiil had merely shaken his head, saying he didn’t want to interrupt your time together when he knew you had to leave soon. Which is what prompted Din to insist upon himself accompanying you to headquarters.

“I don’t want you anywhere near those bastards,” he mutters darkly, lines of frustration forming ridges along his forehead. He still hasn't forgiven Hess for causing you to have a panic attack.

You wrap your fingers around his wrist, not with the intention of stopping his soothing ministrations, but instead grounding yourself in the moment using the skin-on-skin contact. Perhaps, you acknowledge privately to yourself, he’s not the only touch-starved soul in the room. I don’t want to be near them either, you want to tell him. Let’s fly away together on the Crest, somewhere far, far away...

Instead, you force yourself to say with the same carefully even tone, “The meeting should just be an hour or two, then they’ll make me take a reassessment test about Cupid regulations which I’ll pass easily.” You lift your head to peck the bridge of his prominent nose before holding up your pinky finger. “And by later this evening, I’ll be right back here in your arms. Pinky promise.”

Din stares at you for several heartbeats, stubbornness lingering in his gaze before at last he exhales a quiet sigh of surrender. He wraps his pinky around yours, squeezing tightly.

“I thought leaving you behind here was the hardest thing I’d ever have to do, but this—letting you go face them alone and knowing I can’t intervene—it’s a pain I’d only wish upon my worst enemies.”

You want to say something lighthearted, a teasing remark to ease the heavy tension in the room and make that stunning smile of his light up the space instead. Maybe, if you’re funny enough, you can make his precious and lone dimple appear in his cheek so you can press your lips to it. But your words get trapped in your throat, forming a lump that won’t go down no matter how hard you swallow.

You are equally as surprised as you are grateful when Din continues to speak.

“You’re my soulmate, angel, so when I swear these next words to you, I want you to have no doubt I mean them with absolute sincerity,” he says, a possessive and darkly seductive note creeping into his voice that has you instinctively biting your lip to keep yourself from moaning embarrassingly. “If anyone dares to keep you from me even a second longer than what is strictly necessary, I will stain the ground with their blood and reap their soul from their body so slowly they’ll weep for damnation.”

~~~

Headquarters is kriffing freezing.

That’s the first thing you notice when you step inside, goosebumps immediately rising along your arms and a shiver racks your spine as you navigate the maze of hallways towards the center of the building where the conference room is located. Every footstep reverberates off the black marble floors, but the sound isn’t loud enough to prevent you from overhearing the whispering voices of other Cupids watching you pass by, gossiping about your impending interrogation. You’d be angry at them, except that would make you a hypocrite since you’ve also spread a rumor or two about your coworkers in the past. You can feel an increase of anxiety rush through your bloodstream, making you stuff your hands into your pockets lest anyone sees them trembling and laughs.

Your three superiors are already seated and waiting in the conference room when you arrive. You make eye contact with each one, bowing your head as both a greeting and sign of respect. Lang, a dark-haired man who is known for shooting first and asking questions later, offers you a jaunty salute before lacing his hands behind his head as he balances his chair on its rear legs, the image of relaxation. Morgan Elsbeth, the only female of the trio, elects to ignore you in favor of boredly drumming her fingers on the glass tabletop, looking as if she’d rather be anywhere else in the galaxy than here. Hess returns the nod with a leering grin, further convincing you he was half-womp rat in his mortal life.

You reach for the chair closest to you, planning to pull it out to sit, when Hess’ low, gravelly voice has you freezing mid-motion. “Cupid 1-1-7, you are to remain standing for the duration of this meeting.”

“Yes, sir,” you say, clasping your hands behind your back.

Hess turns in his seat towards the holoprojector that is set up on the table. He presses several buttons and a holographic figure flickers into view, dressed in dark armor with a long black cape. You recognize the seraph immediately, never able to forget the first face you saw when you woke up as a Cupid. Moff Gideon is the supreme leader of all Cupids, imposing and sharp-witted with violent powers you’ve often heard described as barbarically ruthless. Everything about him terrifies you and you’ve done all you can to avoid being in his presence.

Only now there is no escaping him. You can’t even teleport to save yourself. When headquarters was initially built, Gideon infused his powers into its structure with the intent of protecting the building from being discovered or, worse, attacked. (Though who would want to battle a bunch of Cupids, you have no idea). However, to the detriment of all Cupids currently inside headquarters, Gideon’s enchantment also blocks any of you from using your abilities. According to him, it’s to prevent any power-sensitive beings from detecting your aura signatures and you’ve never wanted to risk being murdered to try and find a flaw with that logic.

To put it bluntly, you’re a regular human in every sense except you get to keep your immortal youthfulness. Which is literally the least helpful perk you could ask for right now.

“Cupid 1-1-7,” Gideon says, dark eyes peering at you with such focused intensity you feel sweat begin to form along your hairline. “You were granted forty-eight hours to determine your client’s soulmate. Tell us, were you successful in finding his match?”

“I—” you cut yourself off, noticing his use of a gender specific term.

He chuckles at your dumbfounded expression, a quiet huff of air that you quickly deem the scariest sound you’ve ever heard. “You may have been able to conceal Death’s identity as your client from my associates, but few incidents occur in the galaxy without my knowing about them.”

Your three superiors each display unique reactions to the reveal. Morgan’s drumming stops, attention now hooked by the present conversation and she gives you a once-over, clearly reconsidering her overall impression of you. Lang nearly falls backwards onto the floor, barely managing to correct the chair at the last second to balance himself. Hess props his chin on top of his interlocked fingers, observing you in a similar fashion as Morgan, but there is an eerie glint in his gaze you don’t like the look of.

You swallow thickly, feeling sick to your stomach. “What do you want from me, sir?”

“The full and honest truth.” There is a brief pause, increasing the tension in the room. “Were you successful in finding Death’s soulmate?”

You don’t understand why he’s asking you the same question twice when he’s admitted he’s practically omniscient. And the way he’d paused just now, makes you start to worry he’s baiting you into a trap, but you have no viable means of escaping to avoid giving him an answer.

Your voice comes out meeker sounding than you’ve ever heard it. “Yes, sir, I was successful.”

When it becomes apparent after a long beat of silence you are not going to admit any further information, Gideon levels you with a stern look. “I strongly urge you to reveal their identity to us, Cupid 1-1-7, so we may make note of them in our archives as is customary for all matched pairs.”

Well now that makes you definitely feel cornered. Your thoughts are a jumbled mess inside your head; half of you is convinced he already knows you are Din’s soulmate and is toying with you, while the other half believes he actually has no idea at all and is trying to scare you into revealing the truth.

Kriff. What do you do?

You stare over their heads at the far wall, uncomfortably aware of how the silence stretches on as they wait for a name. Your name. Maker, why do you keep ending up in these horrible scenarios? Who did you piss off in your mortal life?

“If your tongue has failed you,” Gideon says, tone deceptively light and airy. “Might I suggest that an alternative way of answering would be to show us your hands.”

He knows.

Kriff. Kriff. Kriff.

You continue your staring contest with the wall, refusing to let them see any indication your blood has turned to ice or that your lungs are on the verge of collapsing. Think, you rack your brain frantically. For Maker’s sake, think of something .

“You’re already in hot water, Cupid 1-1-7,” Lang says. His southern accent softens the words, but you still manage to detect the warning laced within them. “Don’t make it worse for yourself by being stubborn.”

As much as you loathe to admit it, Lang has a point. By continuing to resist, you’re only hurting yourself by increasing the time spent separated from Din. You don’t want to break your promise to him. Or, that little voice in the back of your mind chips in, cause Din to destroy Kuiil’s farm out of a panic-induced rage when you don’t show up tonight like you promised you would.

Inhaling a deep breath to steady your nerves, you hold out your marked hand, palm facing up to clearly display the soulmate marking. The little black heart almost seems to glow at being the center of attention.

“That is impossible,” Morgan murmurs, looking from your hand to her colleagues and back again. “No one can have two soulmates.”

“And yet here we have living proof contradicting that belief,” Gideon answers, gesturing towards you grandly with both arms. There is something in his voice—awe, you identify a second later—that has your body instinctively stiffening.

“That belief is the natural order of the universe.” Morgan’s voice is snappish, but outwardly she is her calm and collected self, not a single strand of hair out of place. “She is a deviation of the norm. A glitch.”

“If other Cupids find out about her,” Hess begins, pointing a finger at you like the others have no idea who he’s talking about. Like you’re not able to hear every word. “They’ll start thinking maybe there’s a second soulmate out there somewhere for them too, someone to replace the one who rejected them in their mortal life. They’ll start questioning the natural order, the foundation of our galactic society, and all those questions will only lead to one thing: unrestrained chaos.”

“In order to prevent that unfavorable outcome, I would like to encourage a moment of observation.” Gideon looks to someone out of range of the holoprojector, nodding his head once in confirmation. “Take one last long look for Cupid 1-1-7 is a unique anomaly you may never have the chance of seeing again.”

You blink, heart going still as the implication registers. “What?”

Before anyone can answer or scold you, a purple-skinned twi'lek Cupid you don’t recognize casually enters the conference room, like she isn’t guilty of intruding on a private meeting. Almost as if...someone had summoned her. Your gaze darts briefly to Gideon, suspicions confirmed when you see his smirking face, before looking back at the twi’lek drawing closer.

“It’s time for your reassessment test. I’m here to take you there,” she tells you, baring her fanged teeth in what you think is supposed to be a smile, but it lacks any warmth or friendliness. You can only stare back at her, every cell in your body screaming this isn’t right. You shouldn’t need an escort to the testing room.

“I can go by myself,” you protest, holding your ground.

She lunges forward with lightning-quick reflexes, seizing your elbow and leaning disturbingly close into your personal space. “Pity,” she says, feigning a pout. “I thought we could become friends.”

Something sharp pricks your arm. You first notice the mischievous gleam in her dark eyes, and then when you look down, you discover a needle being pulled out of you arm. The room starts to spin, fuzzy black spots appearing in the corners of your vision, and you sag against the wall, balance failing you.

Closing your eyes, you try to focus on your soulmate bond, calling out to Din as the numbing sensation spreads to your feet and you collapse onto the floor without an ounce of grace.

Then, distant and distorted, as if it is coming from somewhere underwater hundreds of miles away, you hear a responding cry, “Angel!”

Din. Oh, thank the Maker, you think hysterically. The delicate line between reality and imagination shifts and blurs, as if it also is succumbing to the drug’s influence. You feel his hands clutch at your face, then move to your shoulders, shaking you in an effort to force your eyes open. You want to see his beautiful face, even if it is merely an illusion, but your eyelids feel as if they suddenly weigh a hundred pounds each.

“Tell me where you are,” he demands, tightly gripping your arms to the point of pain. “I’ll come save you, just tell me where I can find you.”

The answer is on the tip of your tongue, only your mind starts to drift again, pulling you away from him towards unconsciousness. Your bond's strength wavers, unable to keep the connection stable across the lengthy distance separating you and him, and it begins to curl in on itself.

Din must notice this, too, screaming so loudly it verges on roaring, “Stay with me, angel! Please, just stay with—”

The last thing you think of before everything goes black is how much you hate breaking your pinky promise to him.

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#din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #din x you #din x reader #death and an angel #my fic #Din Djarin #the mandalorian #pedro pascal #pedro pascal character fanfiction #my writing #soulmate au #mandalorian x reader

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amiedala · 3 years

Text

SOMETHING MORE (the mandalorian x reader)

CHAPTER 28: You Wanted Proof

RATING: Explicit (18+ ONLY!!!)

WARNINGS: sexual content & descriptions of violence

SUMMARY: “Where the hell did you go, you scared the life out of me—”

And then you’re done talking, because Din pulls out a ring. You gasp, choke back a sob, and stare at it. It’s a simple silver band, but the structure and strength of it looks exactly like the beskar his armor is made out of. You inhale again, staring at it, and when you get close enough, you see that there’s something carved on the inside. It’s a star, the same one you embossed into your necklace, and around it, the words “ni kar’tayl su”, light but intentional. You try to breathe, but all you’re doing is sobbing, looking frantically from the ring in Din’s palm to his open face, and when you cross the divide between the two of you, seizing his glorious cheeks between your hands, he meets you in the middle.

“You wanted proof,” he says, again, and everything feels dizzying and starry and huge. You feel your heart rush with the feeling of belonging, that something more that started right here, in this same spot, on this barren planet, months and months again. “Last time, I didn’t have a ring. But I do now, and I’m never leaving your side again.”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HELLO MY LOVES AND HAPPY SOMETHING MORE SATURDAY!!!! i had such an emotional time writing this chapter, and i hope y'all love it!!! this chapter is dedicated to Brittany Broski (yes THE kombucha girl) because she recommended SM to all of her followers?!?!?! i am still in shock!!! Brittany if you're somehow seeing this, i love you <3

more notes at the end angels!!! enjoy!!

When your consciousness fades back in, everything is starry and dreamy. Kicker’s design has a lot more open windows than the Crest did, so you open your eyes to the blurred galaxy slowly traipsing by, an ache deep in your skull, the feeling of prolonged sleep heavy on your bones. You rub at your eyes with your fingers, shifting to find Din, because even though there’s light in here, he’s still good at avoiding it. When you turn your head to where he’s sitting, faced away from you in the pilot’s seat, you see the Darksaber hanging out of his hands, his head low, his vision intense.

You skip by it at first, cataloguing the way he looks—haunted, exhausted, hungry—and then your eyes find the wicked beacon again and something clicks into place. You shoot upwards with a gasp, rocketing your aching body up by the heels of your hands, wild and shocked.

“You’re awake,” Din remarks, quietly, and you point at the saber held in the palms of his gloved hands.

“I just had the craziest dream,” you say in response, heart still hammering. “We—we were in a city, getting shot at, and after you patched me up, you told me you were the ruler of a whole entire planet and then just…let me go to sleep.”

That gets a smile. Just a little one, his pink mouth quirked up at the edges, his eyebrows still hesitant. You’re not used to seeing Din’s full face, watching his bare skin shift and change in real time, even though you’ve catalogued every inch of it, it still feels off. “I hate to break it to you,” he starts, lowly, “but none of that was a dream. And the bacta knocked you out, so you needed the rest.”

You laugh. It’s not full, it comes out disjointed and too loud, but it’s enough to coax you to sit up straighter and stare at it. “What…does being the ruler of Mandalore entail, exactly?”

Din stares at you, down at the Darksaber, and back at you. “Bo-Katan didn’t tell me,” he sighs, finally, and you can tell he’s reluctant, but you also know he’s been keeping this in for two weeks, maybe more, and so you scoot closer to where he’s sitting on the floor, trying to show him you’re attentive, that you’re listening. “I—she told me about the saber, when I went on that mission with her and her…Mandalorians.” He grimaces at the word, like it tastes rancid in his mouth. “You were there on Nevarro when I told her I didn’t want it. I have no interest in it. What do I need a weapon like that for, anyway? I just wanted to get it out of Gideon’s hands.”

You nod. “I remember.”

“Well,” Din sighs, looking back at the weapon in his hands, “she didn’t tell me why she wanted it. She gave that whole speech about wanting to—to have it returned to the rightful leader of Mandalore. I didn’t care, honestly, at that point. All I wanted to do was protect you and the kid and kill Gideon. But when we…we asked for her help, when Cara and I were going to attack Gideon and save Grogu, Bo-Katan told me again that the Darksaber was hers. I agreed. But she didn’t tell me that the weapon has to be won in battle for it to…belong to someone. Gideon had the Darksaber. I fought Gideon. I defeated him, so I took it out of his hands. I tried to give it back to her,” Din exhales, low and long, dragging a hand over his face and stubble, “but she wouldn’t take it. I told her she could fight me for it, even, that I’d roll over for her and let her have whatever ceremony she wanted, but she just stared at me like she wanted to kill me. Eventually, I just let her take Gideon back to Mandalore, because I didn’t…know what else to do.”

You nod again, slowly. “So…so you can’t challenge her to a duel or something?”

Din looks at you, incredulous. “I tried—”

“What about a thumb war?” you ask, and you’re not trying to make light of the situation, but a laugh starts bubbling up in your throat and you press your lips together. “Like, a real one, with a ring, Cara as the referee. You just…let Bo-Katan win, and that’s it. No harm. No foul. Just sore thumbs.”

The look on Din’s face is totally unreadable. Just as quickly as it started, your laugh evaporates back down your throat, and you lean in closer to him, immediately wanting to apologize. You’re not sure why, you just know that there’s something deeper to all of this, something more. “Apparently, I’m a zealot,” Din says, finally. “My…my clan, who raised me—they’re descendants of purist, extremist group from back on Mandalore. Before it was sieged, before—” he cuts off, abruptly, and you know he’s frustrated. “I wasn’t born there. I don’t even know the history of the planet,” Din continues, tiredly. “And it seems that I don’t know what it means to be a true Mandalorian. How am I supposed to be anyone’s ruler?”

You bite your lip. You lean in closer, and when you lift your hand to touch his face, you feel him relax under your fingertips. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough. “For what it’s worth,” you whisper, cocking your head to the side, stroking your thumb across his cheekbone, “I think you’d make an excellent one.”

“I don’t know the first thing about being in charge—”

“You’re a father,” you interrupt him, quietly. “To the strangest, strongest, alien baby in the galaxy. You’ve protected us—and countless others—from certain death. I’d say that’s more than enough credentials to be deemed a fit leader.”

Din stares at you. “Except,” he says, hollowly, “I don’t have my kid anymore, I’ve shown my face, and with the way Bo-Katan and her group hate me, I can’t imagine Mandalore would ever accept me as their ruler.”

You swallow. Your breath hitches in your throat, caught on words that aren’t there yet. “Din—”

“I just—” he starts, then cuts himself off, eyes drifting from yours down to the Darksaber in his grasp. “I don’t want to,” he admits, his voice low. “I—I miss being a bounty hunter. I miss not having the fate of the galaxy in my hands. People relying on me—you, the baby—having to do this all—I want to go back. I want it to stop.”

It’s your turn to stare. “Wow,” you say, quietly, dropping both of your hands away. “So taking care of your family is a burden to you.” And you don’t mean it, because you know that’s not what he meant, but your fiancé begging and hoping to go back to a time before you were in his life, before his child was either, cuts deep. And it stings, the more you look at him.

“Nova,” he starts, “cyar’ika—” and then Din cuts himself off, hands dropping the saber to the floor, leaning earnestly towards you. “I don’t want to go back to that. I never—I never want to be without you again. I’d be the ruler of ten planets if it meant I go to keep you by my side. I just—”

“It’s a lot,” you finish, quietly, hands fumbling at your collarbone for the necklace that isn’t there. Immediately, you feel horrible. “I know.”

Din looks back at you, hooks his finger under your shin, gently forcing your gaze to return to his. “For what it’s worth, I’m going to help you save the world,” he whispers, and you know he’s exaggerating, but his promise, free and so gentle, makes everything in your body quiet. “I’ll follow you anywhere.”

“For what it’s worth,” you repeat, the words so quiet that they’re barely air, “Mandalore would follow you anywhere, too.”

Din’s gaze is complicated, complex. You don’t know what he’s going to say, and when he does, you have to strain your ears to listen. “I didn’t mean it, when I said I miss being a bounty hunter. I don’t miss anything from before I met you. I—I just want my life back. The one with you, and our kid, and the ship we called home.”

You lick your lips, looking slowly out the window at the crush of space. Even without looking, you feel Din’s eyes follow yours, tracking the luminescence, and just for a second, you hold the two of you there. “I’m here,” you remind him, finally, “and this is a new ship, but I think we can make it into a home. And…” you trail off, grabbing both sides of Din’s face gently, gravitating his eyes back to yours, “Grogu might not be here, right now, but he’s always ours. And I think we both know that between the three of us, there’s nothing in this entire damned galaxy that can keep us apart. What was it that you called us back on Dagobah? A clan of three?”

That small smile works its way back onto Din’s face. He nods, just once, resolute.

“Clan Djarin,” you whisper, leaning in to kiss the man you love, “is pretty resilient, you know.”

“Oh,” Din mouths back, and you let him come the rest of the way to you, meeting you in the middle, “are we now?”

“You’re a Mandalorian bounty hunter, I’m the Force sensitive punching bag of the new Empire, and Grogu, our child, is older than the both of us and off with the greatest Jedi Master we know of,” you murmur, feeling the weight of your foreheads bumping together, “I kind of think we have to be.”

When you kiss Din, you let everything run out of you backward, trying to clear your mind. And when he pulls you onto his lap, guiding you as close to him as physically possible, you feel your knee crash up against the saber before it skitters away, back under the dashboard, into the darkness. You kiss him, letting the thing roll away from the both of you, too preoccupied with the security you feel to care about where it lands.

Hours pass. The two of you doze, on and off, and when you wake up for good, you check the nav system built into the dashboard to just see where you are. You’re not in much of a hurry to dock anywhere, truthfully, because you’re enjoying the uninterrupted coast through space, and the last time you were on a planet, the both of you nearly died, but there’s something pulsing under your skin. It’s alive in the same way your worry has been, the anxiety of knowing something big and scary is coming. It’s restlessness, you realize, everything about your fight or flight activated in both directions at once. When you get up for good, you slip away to the fresher, letting the hot water roll over your face, your aching shoulders, your tired muscles in your legs from always running. When you’re clean, you step out of the shower, studying your reflection in the tiny little mirror. You press your fingertips lightly to your face, puffy from sleep, trying to decide if you still look like you used to, or if the past year of love and fighting and loss and everything in between has settled permanently in the ridges of your face.

When you dry off, slipping back into fresh clothes, you take extra time to catalogue all the pockmarks of scars drawn into your skin. As always, you spend extra attention on the jagged, lightning bolt shaped thing running across your stomach. No matter how many years pass, none of it fades away. The skin is still raised slightly, a memory of the ache, and every time you press on it, you can feel it, residual. The other battle scars you’ve accumulated since are smaller, each one trackable, quantifiable. This one—and the way it catalyzed the rest of your life—stands triumphant, eternal. You let your shirt drop back down over it before you spend too much time staring at it.

The second that you climb back up the ladder, you realize something is off. Din is half-clothed, and you’re ready to lay back down on the floor with him and let him undo all the cleaning you just did, but he stands and turns around at your reappearance.

“What’s wrong,” you say, immediately, voice catching on its way out of your mouth.

“Someone called,” Din says, and his voice sounds off. “Tried to reach you through the comm system. I couldn’t tell who it was, or what they wanted.”

You stare at him. “Did you pick it up?”

Din looks from you to your commlink, his gaze skipping back over to you, his full eyebrows furrowed in concern. “I…tried to,” he answers, finally, “but it seemed corrupted. Listen for yourself,” he continues, pressing the microphone into your hand. You fold yourself down into the pilot’s chair, squinting out at the space slowly streaking past the window, knowing neither of you are currently under attack, but no one’s told the anxiety bubbling back up into your chest.

Slowly, you press the playback button. Din’s right—the voice is scrambled, tinny, off-putting. It sounds like random, grotesque grunting. The rhythm of it doesn’t sound much like a language. Even though you can’t understand it, you’ve heard the natural cadence of dozens of different languages, and the sounds playing back to you are warbled and disjointed, and you can’t get anything viable out of it.

“Weird,” you mutter, under your breath, sliding your fingernail between your teeth. You press the button again and again, let the voice spin down to nothing until you’re sure you’ve listened to it enough to gain any kind of insight, and you give up, letting the noises warble and stomp their way to their incongruous end, seconds of loud screeching building up until it cuts off. The feedback makes both of you cover your ears.

“Did you get anything?” Din asks, lowly, and you shake your head. “I—I thought you had the contact system disabled.”

“I do,” you whisper back, bringing up a knee to your chest, resting your cheek against it, gaze flipping from Din to the comm to back to Din. “I can only make outgoing calls right now. My tracking’s off, too, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of traffic out here in this part of the galaxy.” You hesitate, scanning the space around you frantically, making sure that your guess is accurate. It is. There’s no one out here except the two of you and the small asteroid fields that flux and flow, and the silence that was once comforting is now unsettling. You stare again at the commlink before you attach it back to the dashboard, pulling up your exact coordinates, trying to locate the two of you. You’re coasting through the bridge between the Mid Rim and the Outer Rim, a vast no-man’s-land. The planets are scattered haphazardly, and you check the fuel gauge, trying to see how much longer you and Din can stay out here, floating, unnoticed.

“Nova.”

You barely recognize your name’s been spoken until Din asks it again. You spin back towards him, biting down on your lower lip. “Yeah?”

He hesitates before moving a step closer to you. Maker, he’s so tall. The two of you have been in this exact position countless times, you sitting, him standing over you. It doesn’t intimidate you anymore, how large he is, how present his body is, but it’s still exhilarating to have him eclipse you. “How are we doing on fuel?” he asks, and something deep buried inside of you tells you that wasn’t the question he was initially going to ask.

“We need more soon,” you answer, softly, trying to figure out what his original point was going to be. But Kicker starts beeping, and you turn your attention back to the dashboard, trying to figure out what she needs. And, right on time, the little lever built into the fuel gauge has shifted to empty, and you sigh, setting the course to the next planet in the nav system. “Have you ever been to—” you squint, trying to sound out the name in your head before speaking it aloud, but you’re not in much luck, “—Khubeaie?”

Din stares at you blankly.

“Yeah, me neither,” you say softly, letting Kicker navigate her way down into the planet’s atmosphere. It’s night, so everything is cast over in deep blue shadow, but the city seems to glitter even in the silence. You park in a nearly empty landing bay, and when you stand up, Din’s already almost completely dressed. He stares at his helmet, and you pick it up off the ground and press it into his hesitant hands, nodding at him. “I know,” you whisper, “but remember the last time we were on the ground without you armored up?”

He looks at you to the visor on the helmet, his deep brown eyes intent and wary. “It still feels wrong,” Din manages, and his voice is still so unsure that you feel your heart ache in your chest.

“I know,” you repeat, reaching your hand up to graze against his face, thumb tracing the pattern over his groomed mustache, letting him settle into your touch. “It’s safer this way.”

Din nods as if he’s steeling himself, and then he inhales, pulling the helmet over his head. You offer him a small smile, the corners of your mouth upturned and reflected against his armor. You pull on your jacket over your nondescript clothes, adjusting the shawl you got back on Cantonica over your shoulders to pull up over your hair if you’ll need it. The atmosphere here is sultry and shifting, the darkness cast over the tall buildings amorphous. You’ve never heard of this place, but with its proximity to Tatooine, you’re not surprised that the people here a mix of the same locale—mostly humans, some Twi’leks, a Rodian or two. It’s easy enough to blend in, and when Din falls into step with you, you slide your palm into his, squeezing, to reassure him that everything’s okay, but when you go to drop it, he just laces his fingers through yours even tighter, the two of you silent, walking hand in hand.

“Here,” Din says, quietly, and you look up at a glowing sign that indicates a fuel source in the back. You follow him into the market, looking around for the exits. The second you step into the light of the store, you pull your shawl up over your head, trying to disappear between the aisles as you restock some of the nonperishable food and the bacta the two of you have burned through since the last refuel, and you pull out your small bag of credits to pay.

Din doesn’t come back. It takes a minute, and then another one, and you’re starting to get nervous. The clerk and the other customers don’t seem to be paying you much mind, but after the events on Cantonica, and Takodana, and Ryloth, and Tatooine, you don’t take passivity as innocence anymore. After a few more minutes, you exist the store, shoving what you can into your pockets, peering down the alley that Din disappeared in.

Something about it is off. It give you that same uneasy feeling that kept running cold through your veins back on Kicker, the same anxiety rush that the Darksaber comes with—powerful and intense and not entirely yours.

“Mando?” you call out, quietly. You step gingerly down the cobblestones, trying to keep your footsteps as light and intentional as you can. It’s dark down here, darker than the shifting streets, and it’s a longer path than you would have imagined, but when you turn around to check that you’re not being followed, the street is open and clear in the dim moonlight. “Hey,” you call again, not daring to use Din’s real name, “where’s the fuel?”

Still nothing. The toe of your shoe catches on a cobblestone, and you go down to the ground, hard and fast. You groan, cursing under your breath, pressing your scraped hand to the street, trying to regain your balance before you haul yourself up, but the alley disappears. You gasp out in the darkness, and at first, you think it’s just because the moon is hidden, but the way that the blackness pulses and swallows you doesn’t feel like it’s from natural causes. You’re plunged into another vision, so quickly you get motion sickness. You’re on the ground. When you look up, there’s that violent clash of red and blue again, and that version of yourself that’s running to get in the middle, to blast apart the energy sources—or the lightsabers, you can’t make them out from this distant—is heavy and laden with desperation. You can feel it, wet and hot, muscle memory from something that hasn’t happened yet, and then you hear a noise behind you, so you turn. Suddenly, everything is raining, the ground soaked, your clothes pooling in rivulets all over the ground. You can’t even see two feet in front of you, and when you get plunged underwater, you struggle against the sinking tide, trying to find the right way up. Your name is called, once, then twice, and you scream against the current—and then you’re on solid ground again. It’s like this vision, this type of premonition, doesn’t have anything specific. Everything feels huge and thematic rather than predicting glimpses of what it’s about to happen, like you’re in a dream state and everything is vivid and garish and loud and will slip away immediately when you get pulled out of it.

And then you see him. The baby. He’s sitting on a rock, maybe, or a cliff, you can’t tell, and his little fuzzy head is tousled in the wind, his big bug eyes closed shut, his tiny green palm raised into the open air. You yell out Grogu’s name, and you start running. He doesn’t look like he’s in any danger, it looks peaceful, but that same exact dark feeling bubbling up in your chest says otherwise. You’re running and running as the ground falls away, and you scream out, trying to get to the baby, trying to get there before you fall through the cracks again, and the second you make it there, within an arm’s reach of his glorious little body, something dark and dangerous spits through the air, slicing into you. You yell, thrown backwards, as the shadow completely engulfs you, and, horribly, you get thrown back into the present. You can feel the cobblestones under your hands, the ground hard and weighted underneath your touch, and when you feel yourself come into reality again, Din’s there, standing over you.

“Nova,” he says, his voice low and concerned, “what just happened?”

“Vision,” you manage, gasping, eyes fluttering as your face gets dragged upwards so Din can inspect you. You shake your head back and forth, trying to clear your mind. “I—it was a weird one. Where the hell did you go?”

Din shakes his left hand, the one not on your face, and you register the sloshing of the fuel can before your eyes adjust to the point of recognition. “I was getting us fuel,” he says, gloved hand grabbing at your chin.

“You were gone for a long time,” you manage, finally sitting up fully, your breath catching in your chest. “How far does this alley go on for?”

Din cocks his head at you, visor looking out at where you are. Right in front of you, not even a full foot from your touch, is the end of the alley. Frantically, your head flails from side to side, and then you realize the fuel is a few feet away, a market stand in the dark. You swallow, embarrassed, when you see the owner and his patrons stare over at you.

“Weird,” you mutter, rubbing at your eye, the one still starry and disjointed from your premonition. You get the same unsettled feeling that you did when the feedback from Kicker blared out. “I could have sworn this went on for miles—it doesn’t matter. Did you see me come out here? Did you see me fall?”

Slowly, Din shakes his head back and forth. “No,” he answers, finally, and the gentle, bracing way he’s talking makes your heart accelerate again. You nod, slowly, trying to keep yourself under control, but you’re panicking. Between the odd, screeching message back on Kicker and completely misinterpreting the alleyway, you’re shaken up. Not much, because you don’t scare easy, but enough to feel like you might slightly be going crazy. Eventually, Din pulls you to your feet, and you follow, keeping a close eye on the shifting city around you, intentional about where you plant your strides.

The refueling process is easy. It’s the one procedure on Kicker that she doesn’t fight, and she takes far less gas than the Crest ever did, so it’s much easier to spend your credits on more fuel. Din offers to do it while you start programming in where you’re going next, and you climb the gangplank and scale the ladder, biting your nail as you ponder where to go next. You miss Hoth. You miss Nevarro. Honestly, you miss Kashyyyk most of all, and that’s where you want to go, but you don’t think that the isolation of being there would give you any favors. You have to call Wedge and tell him about what happened on Cantonica, and some part of you really wants to call Cara. She’s not as cut and dry as the Alliance is, but she’s big and strong and every time you’re in her presence, you’re not on high alert. You know Din’s probably not in any hurry to get back to Nevarro now that he’s the one being hunted, but, selfishly, you want to go there.

“Hey, cyar’ika,” Din says, startling you out of your reverie. “Are you okay?”

You nod. Hesitantly, at first, and then stronger. “I’m just trying to decide where we go next.”

Din sighs, long and heavy, and then his fingers are hooking under the rim of his helmet and pulling it off. “Do you have any idea what to do from here?”

You shake your head slowly. “No,” you admit. “I don’t like being aimless, but I also don’t think running wildly around the planets in our closest proximity is the safest thing to do, especially after Cantonica. I know that was our initial plan, but with how much we’ve been attacked, I think it’s safer to let the rest of the New Rogue Squadron poke around for evidence because they’re less likely to be detected. I hate it. I…” you trail off, looking out the window, and your eyes catch on something. You think it’s just the strange, shifting darkness around the both of you, but something feels off. Din calls your name, and you snap out of it, back into your conversation. “I think we need to find out what the Order is,” you continue, even though it makes your heart hammer in fear. “I…I don’t know how. I wish I did. I’m sorry. I feel a little out of my depth.” Admitting it feels like climbing a mountain, but the second the words are out of your mouth, you feel like you can exhale a little better.

Din looks at you, and then he pulls you, gently, to your feet. “I’m not scared of them,” he says, cradling your face between his two big hands. “I don’t know what they want with us, and I don’t know how to stop them. But I also know,” he says, sighing, “that between the two of us and the people standing in the sidelines, we can take them on.”

You give him a small smile. Your heart aches in the same way it did way back on Yavin, back when Din took you home, when he proposed. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it’s so vivid and so clear. That same tug is pulling on your heartstrings, and you can’t place it until your hand goes to close around your necklace that isn’t there. You swallow.

This is how it felt. When you were a teenager, when the Alliance was on the brink of collapsing the Empire. Your parents held each other like this, a warm and steady constant through such turmoil. You close your eyes, just for a second, and imagine them here with the two of you, ready to fight back.

But when your eyes flutter open again, Din’s gaze isn’t on you anymore. It’s locked on the window, behind you, and as you spin around to see what he’s staring at, you see it. You weren’t imagining a figure earlier, and it wasn’t the smoke and mirrors of the darkness. Someone’s out there. You gasp as Din’s eyes narrow, and before you can stabilize yourself, his helmet is up and over his head and he’s descending the ladder, lowering the gangplank.

“Hey!” you call, racing after him. “Din! What are you—”

A blaster shot rings out over your head, and you scream. It isn’t your finest moment, you have to admit, but you’re shell-shocked and you have no idea why Din is racing towards the figure, into the dark of the night, on an unfamiliar planet, running away from you again even though he promised you the rest of your battles would be fought together. You stare as he runs, and then you’re getting shot at again, and you duck and cover, rolling back up into the ship and accelerating the lift of the gangplank. You swear, catapulting yourself up to the cockpit, maneuvering Kicker around, because you have no idea who’s shooting at you. It’s not stormtroopers. It’s not the smaller force of Gideon’s troops, either. Whoever’s sending you the blasts, you’ve never seen them before. You punch in the sequence needed for liftoff, praying to the Maker and the ship gods above that Kicker listens to you. She does, and you breathe sighs of relief as you navigate into the air.

Again, you’re being blasted at, and anger sets in. You’ve lost sight of Din and the figure, and you don’t want to abandon him here, but you’re getting shot at from somewhere in the darkness, and you don’t know what the hell else to do.

And then your comm buzzes again. You’re expecting the weird bleeping, so you roar a very uncharacteristic “what?” into the mouthpiece, forcing Kicker straight upward.

“Whoa,” Wedge’s voice comes through the line, and immediately, you buckle.

“Don’t get me wrong, Wedge, because I am so thankful to hear your voice, but how the hell,” you pant, dropping out of the artillery range of whatever—or whoever—is shooting at you, “did you get through to me?”

“Your callsign was reinstated,” Wedge says, confused, and as you get shot at again, you scream out of sheer frustration. “Nova, what’s going on?”

“If I knew,” you pant, scanning the shadowy grounds for where Din disappeared, “I’d tell you. Have you gotten any—weird calls, or anything? Scrambled radio waves? Anything like that? Strange things keep happening to me,” you admit, voice slightly lowered.

“No,” Wedge answers, but there’s an edge to his voice. If you weren’t so preoccupied with trying not to die, you would interrogate him, but whatever’s volleying blasts at you is so persistent that you can’t even ponder why he sounds so strange. “Listen, Nova—”

“Do you know anything about the Order?” you yell, punching in the code for the thermal tracking sensor. The ground is covered with life forms in the shadows, so it’s hard to identify where Din ran off to, but you squint and scan it, looking for a heat signature that matches his.

“The…the Jedi Order?” Wedge asks, his voice crackling.

“No,” you interrupt, immediately, “definitely not. We ran into some…unsavory people on Cantonica that mentioned it to me. Apparently,” you say, swinging around to inspect your creaky artillery, “they want me for something. The man, the one who—it doesn’t matter. He told me ‘What died didn’t stay dead’.”

On the other end of the line, Wedge is quiet. “What did he mean?”

You sigh, frustrated, exhausted. “I don’t know,” you manage, and you hate the way the words taste in your mouth, heavy and stonewalled. “And now I’m getting shot at. Again. Every time I think we know what we’re up against,” you say, firing a round of blasts off into the general direction of the other ship, “something new unfolds.”

“Nova—”

“What were you going to say earlier?” you say, and when you realize you’ve cut Wedge off again, you wince. “I’m so sorry,” you apologize, genuine, “I’m—I’m not on my game.”

“I heard from Luke,” Wedge says, and then you catch glimpse out of the corner of your eye. It looks like a green lightsaber flash, even though it’s not, even though it can’t be. You squint, and then the full weight of what Wedge just said hits you, and your attention is immediately snapped back to the comm.

“What?” you ask, voice wobbling with something you don’t entirely understand.

“I heard from Luke—” Wedge repeats, and then whatever’s screeching in your commlink cuts him off entirely, and you scream out into the noise before you realize the connection’s lost. The ship in the darkness is shooting at you again, and this time you’ve had it. You yank up on the controls, hard, and Kicker groans as you accelerate her into the sky.

“I know,” you whisper, voice too jittery to be placating, “but you need to work with me, Kicker.” Reluctantly, she does, and when you roll over into your signature move to shoot back with all the artillery you can muster, something shiny flies up in front of you, obstructing your vision. You yell out, slapping your own hands away from the controls before you can shoot Din and his jet pack out of the sky. “What the fuck!” you call, and you know he can’t hear you over the ships’ engines, but with how loud it is, you think he might be listening anyway. Din flaps his hand at you, and you move backward, away from the city, landing just on the outskirts on a pile of gravel. You pull your blaster back into the holster, hand outstretched to the Darksaber, which flies back into your hand as if it’s being called. You stare at it for a second, still so conflicted about the sheer power it radiates, and then your grip tightens around it, storming down the ladder and lowering the gangplank. You don’t have your shawl draped over your head, you’re not being nearly as safe as you should be, especially since you don’t know who was trying to ground you, but you’re rattled and on edge and scared, and you hold both weapons in your hands, preparing.

The other ship blasts out of the darkness and shrouding of the city, and you stare. It’s such a strange shape—a flat back on the rear end, the cockpit round but menacing—and you glare at it, eyes following it all the way to the ground. You start to storm forward, and then Din lands in front of you, stopping you in your tracks.

“Din Djarin,” you say, so low that anyone outside of a one-foot radius can’t hear you, “you better have a good excuse as to why you’re stopping me from fighting back against the ship trying to shoot me out of the sky—”

“I do,” he says, and his voice is low and urgent. “I know them.”

You stare at him as two figures emerge from the ship, and Din steps in front of you as they break into a run, shielding your body with his own.

“Stop,” he says, and both of them do. It’s dark, and you can’t see very well, but you see the long, multifaceted black braid hanging off one of the silhouette’s shoulder and you realize with a jolt that it’s Fennec Shand. Your eyes refocus on the stockier, set figure next to her, and as he steps into the light, you see his face and your heart jumps. He’s older, and he’s marred and scarred from the time he spent in the Sarlacc pit back on Tatooine years ago, but it’s Boba Fett. Your heart jumps in your chest. “It’s us.”

“Why,” Boba Fett starts, his voice low and dangerous, “are you in that ship?”

You stare at him. “Because the Razor Crest was blown up and we needed another vehicle? Also, if you know him,” you continue, voice shaking slightly, pointing to Din, “why are you shooting at us?”

“Where is the Jedi?” he asks, staring at you.

“No Jedi here,” you say, voice still unstable, “unless you mean the untrained one with the weapon of ruling Mandalore in her hands, and then here I am.”

“He must be here,” Fett continues, and you look back and forth between everyone, trying to understand what the hell he’s talking about. “I saw his lightsaber. I saw the ship.”

You look back at Kicker. “Who?” you ask. Your heart is beating so fast, feeding on your adrenaline. You inhale, the breath rattling in your chest. “What are you talking about?”

“Luke Skywalker,” Boba Fett seethes, and your heart drops. You step forward.

“You saw him too?” you ask, voice small.

“No,” Fennec Shand starts, and then Din steps forward at the same time.

“I did too,” he admits, and you look up at him.

You swallow, looking between the three of them, brain working furiously to try and keep up. “I just talked to Wedge,” you say, voice small, “and he said he heard from Luke again.”

Din whips around to face you. “Where’s Grogu?”

Your eyes widen as you shrug. “That’s all I got from him. Then my commlink went haywire again, and the connection dropped. What the hell,” you say, inhaling sharply, “is going on?”

Fett stares back at you. “You know Skywalker?”

“I—I know him in passing,” you say, and you drop down to the ground, exhausted. “I’m in the Rebel Alliance, and he’s training our kid! What do you want with Luke Skywalker?”

“To pay him back for sending me to certain death,” Boba Fett says, his voice measured and angry. Your eyes try to track the differences between him and Din, because in the dark, the similarities are startling. They stand at about the same height, Boba Fett’s armor is older and greener, but right now, it’s nearly impossible to tell. You shiver. This planet is weird.

“Looks like you escaped certain death,” you say, and a small smile curves across Fennec Shand’s face. You look at her, and for the ruthlessness her reputation carries, she has a warmth to her you didn’t expect. “Why were you shooting at me?”

Fett’s face changes. “I thought I saw Skywalker,” he admits, and his voice is less confrontational. I could have sworn it was his X-wing.”

You want to retaliate, and then the shifting shadows of the city in front of you catch your eye, and you understand. Something about the atmosphere seems to be playing tricks on the both of you, so you just exhale and nod. “And you,” you say, turning to Din, “what happened back there? Why did you just leave like that?”

Something in him shrinks.

“You’re in trouble, Mando,” Fennec smirks.

“I thought I saw Luke Skywalker,” Din says, and his voice is just as honest and tired as yours is, and you let him pull you back to your feet. “Something about this place…it isn’t right. We need to get out of here.”

You nod, fervently. Boba Fett and Fennec Shand follow suit.

“That weapon,” Fett says, guarded, eyes locked on the Darksaber hanging from your closed hand, “doesn’t look like it belongs to you.”

“It doesn’t,” you say. Fennec looks at Din, and back at you.

“Belongs to him,” she smiles, and Din sighs, low and heavy, through the modulator.

“It,” Din says tiredly, “does not. You know how hard I tried to get rid of this thing back there. I’m still working on it,” he says, and you feel his gaze on you underneath the visor, “but right now, I think we need to regroup on Nevarro.”

Your heart flips over, half in excitement, half in dread. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

Fennec grins again, equal parts venom and warmth. “Not as dangerous as us,” she posits, and both Din and Boba nod in agreement. You shake your head, but the smile on your own face is furious and determined. You split up, Boba and Fennec heading back to his strange, deadly ship, and you and Din return to Kicker, punching in the coordinates for Nevarro. You’re exhausted, and when your eye catches sight of the Darksaber again, it’s in Din’s palm. That colossal, colliding feeling of belonging to each other and belonging to something more sparks up in your chest like a supernova. As you jump into hyperspace, you watch him turn it over and over again, and a small, tiny, sparking part of you imagines him ruling Mandalore with it in one hand and your own in the other.

You missed Nevarro. It’s a wasteland, a strange volcanic desert that spits up lava whenever it desires, and there’s always a weird edge to it, but landing in the same spot as Fett and Shand, knowing Karga and Cara are close by, it gives you a small, strange fortification. Safety, you realize, as the four of you are walking into town, that’s what you’re feeling. You feel safe here, in the presence of people who you know are on your side, even if half of them were just trying to shoot you out of the sky.

Din makes friends so strangely. As the four of you walk into town, over the ashen dried magma, you learn a little bit about how they joined together at the last moment to try and defeat Gideon. Fennec, you realize, is another enemy-turned-ally. She met Din on Tatooine weeks before you did, and she crossed paths with Toro Calican. She says it so freely that you don’t understand at first, and when you remember who they were dealing with, your stomach flips over. They reunited back on Tython, right as Grogu got whisked away by Gideon’s dark troopers, and formed a wary alliance. But the way the three of them are talking now, it seems like every moment of dissonance has been smoothed over, now that everyone’s on the same side. Cara and Din became friends like that, too—guns to each other’s skulls before realizing they were on the same team. It makes you smile as Boba and Fennec talk about Din on your way into Nevarro City. He doesn’t say much, but you can tell he’s at ease, which is a very hard thing for either of you to come by these days. And this is how you know he’s going to be a good ruler. Every single person you’ve met through Din recognized his goodness under all of that bounty hunting and beskar. He’s strategic, and he’s levelheaded, and he can speak more languages than you can. He’s great at both descalation and escalation, at rushing into battles and playing mediator. It doesn’t matter if Mandalore doesn’t accept him straight out, because they’ll see the man he is and the ruler he can be, and every single one of them will fall in love with him, too.

“What’s your plan after this?” Din asks, and you fade back into the conversation, still wearing a small smile in the shape of a badge of pride across your face.

Fennec and Boba exchange looks. “We have business on Tatooine,” Boba says, lowly. “But if there’s still something to be defeated out there, if our job wasn’t finished, then we’ll help you again.”

Din nods. “And after?”

“You know I’d rather have you on the throne than the Kryze girl,” Boba continues, his voice quiet but intense. A small smile snakes its way across Fennec’s face. You think maybe you’ve read her wrong. She doesn’t seem outright malicious. She’s dangerous, and she could easily cut you down if you tried her, but she doesn’t seem to relish double-crossing or killing like you’d heard in the rumors. She just seems to crave chaos, and if that’s what she wants, you’re glad she’s here.

Din sighs. “I don’t want it,” he says, but there’s a reluctance in his voice that you haven’t heard before.

When you look up again, you’re at Nevarro City. You breathe a small sigh of relief, the outcroppings of the familiar buildings stand tall over the horizon. As you cross over into the gateway, you see more stormtrooper helmets on the pike than you thought you saw last time, and your tummy flips over at the knowledge that you might be bringing danger here. You swallow as the four of you make your way to the cantina, and the second the door closes, something shifts. You lift your chin higher, scanning the room for familiar faces. And while you’re preoccupied, Cara comes out of nowhere and punches Din on the arm, in an unarmored spot beneath his pauldrons.

“You know,” he says, “a simple hello could suffice—”

“I’m mad at you,” Cara retaliates, her eyes glinting when she looks over at you. “I put it to rest while we were trying to get the kid, but don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

You quirk your head, trying to get her to explain, and she folds you into a gentle hug for a second before appraising you at arm’s length.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she says, genuinely, and then her hand snaps back out to jab Din on the same spot on his arm. “When he told me he just left you somewhere, I could have killed him with my own two hands.”

You smile at her. “I’m honored.”

“I had a plan,” Din mutters.

“Not a good one,” Cara responds, but then she smiles at him. You watch how it lights up her rough face, how pretty she is, especially when her eyes sparkle. “If Nova’s forgiven you, so have I.”

“Well,” you say, looking up at the man you love with a little fire of your own, “about that—”

“Mando!” Greef Karga’s booming voice cuts through the static, and you drop it for now. He walks over to you, cutting around customers and Guild members, weaving a clear path to the five of you. “Welcome back to Nevarro City. I’m sorry about the kid,” he continues, genuinely, slapping a large palm down on Din’s pauldron. “But if I know anything, I know you can get him back.”

You feel Din shrink, just a little, and then he stands up straighter. “We’re here because we have a problem,” he says, lowly, “and we need your help.”

Everybody starts drinking except you and Din. You refuse the spotchka, because it’s daytime on Nevarro, and mostly because you’re too on edge to drink anything, especially if the usual pattern follows suit and you get into some sort of altercation today, but while the rest of them are drinking, you hatch a plan. You and Din will tell Wedge everything you know about the Order, the Alliance will search for information across the galaxy. Karga will stay here on Nevarro City and hold down the fort in case anyone unsavory comes by. Cara will split her time between being the Marshal, traveling with you and Din, and joining forces with Boba and Fennec to keep the six of you connected and up to date. Boba and Fennec, while not with Cara, will use their skills and abilities to act like they’re still in league with the Empire’s leftovers, try and scour of any information they can. As the conversation comes to a close, you realize that you and Din don’t have anything to do immediately other than notifying Wedge.

“What’s our plan?” you ask, lowly, looking over at Din in the low light. “What do we do in the meantime?”

Din looks over at you, then to the other members of your recently forged alliance as they talk and drink. “Did you really think you saw Luke Skywalker back on Khubeaie?”

You stare at him. You blink once, twice, and then nod. “I thought it was just my vision playing tricks on me,” you murmur, fingers flapping around where your necklace used to live. Din, under the visor, tracks the movement, but you don’t pay it that much attention. “And I don’t think—well, the planet was weird. It was playing tricks on all of us. But if you saw him, I saw him, and Boba Fett saw him, then…”

“He was there,” Din finished, lowly, the second half of the sentence raised up as if he meant to ask a question but didn’t go all the way.

“I don’t think he was physically there,” you manage, brushing a way a loose piece of hair, “but I think we all saw him for a reason. Either Khubeaie’s haunted,” you breathe, “or something there is connected with the Force.”

Din stares at you. You can just tell, especially here and now in the cantina. “For you, maybe. But if I saw him, and Fett saw him—”

“Then maybe the planet’s haunted,” you interrupt, and you don’t entirely mean it, but the memory of the comm system warbling and screeching twice makes your blood seep cold through your veins. “Or, at the very least, something weird is going on. But when I talked to Wedge—” you breathe, sharply, “he said he heard from Luke again. And I don’t know about you, but I—”

“Don’t believe in coincidences,” Din finishes, his knee knocking up against yours under the table, “I know. These days, neither do I.”

When you part ways for the night, it’s temporary. Tomorrow, you and Din will hail Wedge and fill him and the New Rogue Squadron in on everything, and Boba and Fennec will head to the places in the galaxy where there’s still affiliates of the Empire to dig for more information. Cara will go interrogate some of the prisoners she’s brought in, offer them reduced sentences if they can fill the rest of the team in on anything related to the mysterious, dark Order. Karga will stay on Nevarro, speaking to the Guild members to try and fish for information about what the Empire leftovers are planning, and how they’re communicating with one another.

You and Din walk back to Kicker, hand in hand, in silence. You can feel sleep calling at you, edging in from the corners of your eyes. It feels like forever since you’ve gotten a full night’s sleep without being knocked out from the bacta, and as much as you love its anasthetic properties when you’ve lost a lot of blood, you want to fall into sleep on your own tonight. Neither of you shower, just undress and strip down into whatever you’re wearing to bed, and crawl into the nest of blankets you’ve made on Kicker’s floor. For hours, it seems, you lay there, together, in the dark, before Din speaks.

“Nova?”

You sigh, halfway into a dream. “Mmm. Yeah?”

He’s quiet, again, and you think you’ve imagined it, so you just burrow down into his warmth, feeling your skin brush up against his. His hands tighten around your waist, just for a second, and you feel so secure that fighting sleep doesn’t really seem like a favorable option. “I love you,” you hear, and then as you drift off into sleep, you hear him whisper, “I meant it. I’m never leaving—” and then you’re gone.

You wake up, and Din isn’t there. Panic floods into your chest, wet and heavy, and you flail around in the blankets, even though you know he’s not cuddled up in there with you. You get up, redress frantically into your only pair of clean clothes, swinging your jacket around your shoulders. The fresher’s empty, and he’s not in the cockpit, and when you slide down to inspect the gangplank, you see it’s been lowered in the last hour.

“Fuck!” you yell, slapping at the thing, which doesn’t do anything except lowering it again. You grab your blaster and shove it into the holster, holding your arm out for the snap of the Force to let the Darksaber fly into your grip. Your heart still hammering, you race down the gangplank, comm on your wrist, yelling the whole way into the city. “Where are you?” you ask, and you realize you sound angry, and you are, because Din keeps promising he’ll never leave your side and then whisks himself away to fight a battle that would be so much easier to win with the two of you in it together, but you’re also terrified. Nevarro isn’t the safest place, especially since Gideon and all of his troopers found Din, Grogu, Cara, and Karga here before, and even though Din’s wearing his armor, you’re scared.

And most of all, you’re upset. You want him here. You promised, a year ago, that you wouldn’t run from him again, and even when you’ve wanted to bolt for your life, you stayed. You don’t go back on your promises. And for Din assuring you he’s a man of his word, he hasn’t kept the most important thing he’s ever sworn to you, and it hurts. Grief and anxiety are two burning pyres in your chest, and as you haul yourself over Nevarro’s rocky, barren surface, heading towards town, you can feel the tears threatening at the corners of your eyes.

You’re tired. You’re so tired. You just want to be back on the ship you call home with the man you love and your child, and you’re so sick of fighting against the people who are trying to either steal you for themselves or make sure you die and stay dead. You know that this wasn’t Ahsoka’s fault, that she didn’t intend to send you on such a draining mission, but some small part of you is angry at her for letting you leave, for spearheading the chain of events that amounted to one huge loss after another. You flutter your hands around your neck, tears streaking down your face once you realize that it too is gone.

You step forward, trying to not let the big, raggedy sobs out into the open air. You duck behind one of the buildings so you can cry in peace, exhausted and strung out, worried for Din and heart still aching with him leaving. You know you should pull it together, go all the way into town and tell Cara, but right now, you can’t move. You cry, quietly and completely, letting the tears build and fall until you’ve run dry.

“Hey,” a voice from behind you says, “I’m looking for a pilot.”

You whip around, hand on your blaster in its holster, ready to fire if needed, but when you spin all the way, it’s not a stranger. It’s Din. He’s down on one knee, helmet off, in the exact place that you met here a year ago.

Your heart flies into your chest. “What are you doing—” you hiss, but no one’s here. And you seem to be frozen to the spot in the same way you were back on Yavin when he proposed the first time, everything rushing through you, exhilarating and confused.

“Preferably a Force sensitive one. Used to be in the Rebel Alliance, and recently reinstated to her previous rank. Can fly anything. You wanted proof,” Din shrugs, and your eyes roam hungrily over his bare face. He doesn’t look hesitant. There’s no trace of him rushing to put it back on, so you step forward, heart in your throat, thrumming and beating like an erratic butterfly. “That I’ll follow you anywhere. I have proof.”

“Proof of what?” you breathe, still walking towards him. Even on his knees, his head comes up to your chest. “Where the hell did you go, you scared the life out of me—”

“You wanted proof,” he says, again, and everything feels dizzying and starry and huge. You feel your heart rush with the feeling of belonging, that something more that tarted right here, in this same spot, on this barren planet, months and months again. “Last time, I didn’t have a ring. But I do now, and I’m never leaving your side again.”

“Din—”

“I tired to make it back before you woke up,” he whispers, earnestly. “I left a note on the dashboard. I just had to make it down to my—to where I used to live, to forge this.”

You swallow. “That’s where you went?”

“I’ve been kicking myself ever since I didn’t give you a ring in the first place,” Din continues, “and I know promising to never leave you again and then waking up must have been—I’m sorry. It was going to be in and out. But I ran into someone down there.”

Your heart flips over. “Did they hurt you—”

“No,” Din shakes his head, the ghost of a smile dancing across his face. “No, it was the Armorer. I thought she was gone, but she’s still alive—it’s a story for another time. But I told her about you,” Din says, lifting his hand to stroke a line down your face, “and she made you something, too.”

Your eyebrows furrow down the middle, and then he pulls out something else made out of the same metal as the ring was—a simple, secured chain, with two charms hanging from it. The symbol of the Alliance, and Din’s signet of the mudhorn. You cry as he loops it around your neck, tears intense and filled with disbelief and magic. “You did this for me?”

Din stares at you. “I’d do anything for you,” he says, finally, voice so soft. “You wanted proof I’d follow you anywhere, right? This is me trying to prove it.” He takes in a shuddering breath, and you smile at him. “You don’t have to forgive me, yet. I know I need to earn it. But, cyar’ika, I’d really love it if you’d agree to marry me.”

“You,” you start, taking a huge, shuddering breath, “always surprise me. I love you.”

Din smiles. “Is that—”

“Yes,” you scream, nodding frantically, “yes, of course, I’ll marry you, I love you, I love—”

And then you’re cut off, the ring slid on your finger, and Din’s on his feet, picking you up and dragging you backwards, down the alley towards a wall, and when he lifts you against the concrete, you sigh out into his mouth. “Ni kar’tayl su,” he starts, and then you pull him in closer, his mouth latched onto yours.

“Darasuum,” you agree, between kisses, “forever.”

He’s pulling at your clothes, and the part of you who knows this is a bad idea is silenced by the way his teeth sink into your shoulder, leaving marks all up and down your upper chest. You kick down your pants, not even bothering to take them off, and when Din rests your feet back down on the ground, immediately, he dives in between your legs, tongue wet and warm and full for you. You moan out, loud, too loud, but you don’t care who hears, not now. His tongue slides up and down, finally locking on your clit, licking swift little circles. You moan, hands seizing into his dark, messy hair, running your thumb over the metal of the ring. He licks into you like he’s been hungry for years and you’re the only thing standing between him and starvation. When he pushes a single finger inside, still eating you like his life depends on it, it’s enough for you to see stars. It feels like forever since you’ve been touched like this without interruption, and you lean into it, breath running ragged, moaning out his name.

“I want to touch you—” you manage, voice high and breathy, “please, Din, let me—”

“Not here,” he says, roughly, pushing another finger inside you. It buckles you over, right on the edge, and you moan into his shoulder, “I’m taking care of you. Don’t argue with me.”

You close your mouth, nodding. His tongue finds you again, his hands on your hips, digging slightly into the flesh there, voracious and insatiable. When he makes you cum, it’s three orgasms in a row, and your legs shake. “Din—Din, I can’t stand up—”

He’s on his feet quicker than you can imagine, like a lightning lash. “Then I’ll hold you here,” he says, and both of your legs are being hiked up. Your bare back scrapes against the concrete, but you barely even hear it sting as you’re being hoisted into the air. “I’m going to fuck you now,” he breathes, something low and lustful in his eyes, “and you need to try to keep quiet, or everyone in Nevarro City will know my name. You can do that for me, can’t you, cyar’ika?”

Your eyes widen, wet heat seeping between your legs. You feel like you’re buzzing. “Yes,” you manage, syllable broken down the middle, and when you feel the head of his cock start to push its way inside of you, wet and ready, you have to clap your own hand over your mouth to keep the very unsavory noises from leaking out into the open air of the town.

“Good girl,” Din manages, and then his mouth is on yours, his hips fucking into you hard and fast, a staccato rhythm punctuated by both of your muffled moans, burying himself into you. You let yourself be held there, hands tangled up ferociously in his hair, using as much gravity as you can to get him to pound you like you’ve never been pounded before, writhing with your hips, everything starry and alive, wanting him to get to whatever universe you’re in. His breath hitches, and you know he’s close, already, he’s close, and it feels like you’ve barely started, but you grab at his bare face with your hands and nod, giving him permission. Your comm warbles, but Din’s muttering sweet nothings in your ear, telling you you’re so fucking wet, sweet, pretty girland I can’t wait to have your pussy forever, and right before he climaxes, he moans out your name, and then a breathy I love you, and whatever your comm is yelling out, you don’t hear it, because you’re too preoccupied with letting the man you love mark you as his, over and over and over.

When you finish, you feel how puffy and wet you still are, and if it wasn’t for the incessant bleeping and blinking on your wrist, you’d beg him to fuck you again. And then your head registers it’s Cara, hailing the both of you, and you and Din make eye contact in a panic, both frantically redressing.

“It’s me,” you manage, voice still fucked from going to heaven and back, “are you okay?”

“You both need to get here, to the cantina,” Cara says, and her voice is clipped and short. You exchange looks with Din before he slips the helmet back on, and you run your hand over your messy hair, hoping the braid isn’t beyond repair, and both of you bolt towards the cantina. You toss Din the blaster, he tosses back the Darksaber, steps matched up, hurrying toward the center of town.

“I want you to know,” Din says, lowly, right before the door opens, “ regardless of what’s waiting for us in there, I’m not done fucking you.”

Despite everything, you grin back at him, brazen, chest still heaving. “Better not be.”

When you break through the vestibule, it takes your eyes a minute to adjust. When they do, you realize who’s standing there, Cara’s eyebrow lifted, staring over at you and Din intently. The other woman turns around, and your feel the smallest bit of panic flood into you as you take in her chiseled jaw, her short red hair, the way her eyes lock onto you holding the Darksaber.

“Bo-Katan,” you start, and she steps forward, not aggressive, but intentionally.

She looks both you and Din up at down, gaze landing on the Darksaber, and then back on your face. “I’m not here for that.” You watch her face, looking for a bluff. It isn’t there. “We need to talk.”

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!!!! it's so bittersweet, because so much of this chapter feels like the prelude to the end none of us wants to come, but i want you all to know that even though SM is coming to a close, there is so much more going to be in the sequel. if it doesn't feel like everything is resolved, please remember MORE IS COMING!!! i needed to leave some loose ends to make sure i had enough content for the second one ;)

with that being said, i anticipate SM will be ending with one or two more chapters. likely two more, because there's so much content planned, but as soon as i start writing, i will update you all on tumblr (amiedala) and tiktok (padmeamydala) to give you a definitive answer. if it is just one more chapter, it will be LONG!!! i don't want any of this to end, but this part of the story is coming to a close, and i cannot wait to share the sequel with you all <3 i love you all so much!!!!! thank you for taking this journey with me!!!!!

CHAPTER 29 WILL BE UP AT 7:30 PM EST SATURDAY, JULY 10TH!!!

xoxo, amelie

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comfortwriting · 3 years

Text

A Summer Secret Part 4 - F.W

Masterlist, Requesting Rules, Writing Prompt Masterlist

Fred Weasley x Fem Reader

Part 4 of my mini-series 'a summer secret', please read parts 1, 2, and 3 - want to be tagged? Let me know!

Warnings: 18+, swearing, eating, mention of food.

Gideon and Fabian lifted your body into their arms, the loose bedsheet covering your breasts and sex, taking you to your room, they set you down on the bed and pulled the covers over you, waiting eagerly for you to wake up and tell them everything.

George stared at his older brother glaring at him, his patience wearing thin for him to wake up, he felt pissed off, embarrassed, concerned, how could he do this to you?

Fred's eye fluttered open, he yawned and rubbed his eyes, still expecting you to be there despite the bed being much cooler on your side.

"What the fuck were you thinking, Freddie?" George growled lowly.

Fred jumped up and pulled the covers over his bare chest, "George I-"

"Are you out of your bloody mind! She's eighteen! My sons best friend, you surely cannot think that pursuing a girl this young to be a good idea!"

"I-I, George we never meant to - it's nothing serious." Fred stuttered, finding it hard to pull himself together.

"Well, it's a good job she's off back home tomorrow! It will do her good to be away from you!"

Fred's heart jolted at the thought of you going back home to your parents who wanted nothing more than to send you off to Scorpius to get married - Fred didn't know why, but the thought of you with someone else made him slightly jealous, but why? You aren't exactly his...

"Home?!" Fred freaked "She can't go home!"

"Yes! She isn't staying under this roof with you! And until your plumber gets his shit together, you won't be going anywhere!"

You too were scared, holding the bed covers over you, Gideon and Fabian staring at you with grins on their faces.

"Go on," Fabian started "tell us everything."

You sighed, trying to swallow down the nerves with some water "we just, it just, it just happened out of nowhere, I didn't realise until after..."

You couldn't deny how painful it was to go through the memories, each intimate one of you dancing with him in little to no clothing, flour all over the kitchen floor, taking showers together, the nights you shared cuddling up on the sofa...

"But it's nothing serious," you reminded them, and yourself "just a summer fling."

Gideon smirked "I can't believe you were sleeping with our uncle! Ha!"

"And to think you were going to marry a Malfoy!" laughed Fabian.

Leaving George's and Angelina's manor left you in two minds, one: I'm going to miss Freddie, and two: I'm finally able to get my life together, and my head on straight.

Luckily enough, your impressive job application and CV landed you an apprenticeship at the ministry and you were earning enough to rent an apartment above one of the new pubs in Diagon Alley. The only downside, you found yourself passing Weasley's Wizard Wheezes every day, quickly peeking in the shop window to try and catch a glimpse of the man you fell head over heels for.

After a stressful day at work, you flunked yourself down on your bed, staring up at the plain magnolia ceiling, listening to the loud chatter and cheers from the drunks downstairs enjoying a pint or two. Your owl glided through the window, landing on the foot of your bed, dropping an orange envelope before flying over to your wardrobe, perching on top, watching you.

"Thank you," you sighed, sitting up and reaching for the envelope, slowly opening it.

You froze but continued to read on.

Dear Y/N,

I see you every morning and evening peeking in my window, I still can't figure out why you haven't popped in to say hello - next time, come on in.

Percy mentioned you are working alongside him at the ministry now, I apologise on his behalf because he's annoying and incredibly obnoxious.

I miss you, it's strange cooking without you, my house is silent and dancing to music alone gets lonely - so I thought I'd shoot my shot.

My place, tomorrow night, 9 pm?

Let me know,

see you soon.

- F.W

'I miss you' your fingers traced the words, you felt a smile creep up on your face, your heart pumping enthusiastically, but your head screaming at you, after all, summer is over.

Your heart sunk.

This isn't just a summer fling. Not anymore, and without a care in the world, you took him up on the offer, going against your minds desire.

Meeting Fred felt like the first time all over again, it was as if you never left - you spent most nights with him, and when you had to work overtime and miss out on his company, he would send you letters, your fingers tracing more words of passion and need.

Fred couldn't hide his feelings for you anymore, he couldn't lie to himself, he tossed and turned night after night, feeling lost, not knowing what to do, George's stern lecture replaying in his head.

"Are you out of your bloody mind! She's eighteen! My sons best friend, you surely cannot think that pursuing a girl this young to be a good idea!"

You stared at yourself in the mirror, putting on the burnt amber lipstick you knew Fred loved, hearing him apparate outside, you bid goodnight to your owl and hurried down the stairs, breaking out into the cold night.

George and Angelina were hosting this years Christmas dinner, they invited everyone - including you, and this was the perfect opportunity for you to come clean to Fred, to put all your cards on the table and finally take the next step in your relationship, after all, you were both on the same page, right?

"You look beautiful," Fred smiled, his eyes taking in your skirt, your turtleneck, makeup and hair.

You blushed "Thanks Freddie, shall we get going?"

Out of breath and feeling slightly travel sick, you hunched over in the front garden down the path, trying to catch your breath before a long evening of eating, drinking, and conversation.

Fred waited with you, stroking your back gently, the cold air nibbling at his cheeks, turning them pink and numb.

Standing up, Fred decided to walk down the path but you grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back slowly.

"Wait - Freddie," you breathed out.

"What is it?" he asked, staring into your eyes.

"Well," you sighed "we're turning up here together, and..." you paused "obviously this isn't just a fling, we agreed just for the summer and it's Christmas day, surely we ought to-"

Fred's face dropped "Y/N, I understand what you're trying to say but no - we can't."

'I miss you'

but I don't want you.

'Stay the night, I don't want to be alone'

but you aren't good enough to be with me all the time.

"What?!" you choked out, "Fred, you told me-"

"I know what I told you," he snapped "but this isn't right."

Tears filled your eyes, your voice wobbly, your throat tight "Why? I don't understand-"

Fred became impatient, rolling his eyes at you "You're too young for me, Y/N, it's wrong for us to be seeing each other like this -"

You clenched your fists "So what the fuck are we doing then?" you snapped back "You told me you missed me, that you had feelings for me, you wanted me to stay the night after we had sex, and now you don't want to be with me?"

"I'm allowed to express what I want, Y/N."

You scoffed "I know that Fred, but you're leading me on..." the lump in your throat expanded in size, realising what you had just said, "How dare you, Fred Weasley!"

You stormed away from Fred, inching closer and closer to the house.

"I'm not leading you on, Y/N!" Fred muttered, following behind.

You stopped in your tracks, turning to face him "So what is it, then?"

Fred didn't answer.

Molly eager to meet you and see her son became impatient, walking over to the window she spotted the two of you, anger and hurt spread across your faces, the two of you arguing, pointing fingers and shaking your heads.

George noticed his mother withdrawing from the conversation, he slowly approached her and before he could ask what was wrong, he too noticed you and Fred arguing, you crying and Fred standing there, breaking your heart piece by piece.

"I warned him," George grumbled, starting to sweat in his Christmas jumper.

Molly turned around to face him, "what are you talking about, George?"

"Nothing," he sighed "Let's set the table..."

Your cold cheeks felt warm stripes of tears roll down, stripping away your mascara and powder, "Do you want to be with me or what?" you demanded.

Fred swallowed the lump of his own, his palms itching, he knew what he wanted - you - but he also remembered what his brother told him, and the guilt was eating him alive.

"Y/N, we can't-"

"Then never talk to me again," you hissed "I refuse to be used for a shag!"

taglist: @alwaysnforeverfangirl @horrorxweasley @xmalfoyweasleyx @onlyfreds @lucymfer @holyheadharpies99 @uniquebelievercrown @becks7401 @opalsheart @amwitherspoon @whatsup-200 @avatarkanemi @manuosorioh @lina1945 @freddiemylovelg @reeophidian @inglourious-imagines

#Harry Potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter fanfic #fred weasley #fred weasley fanfiction #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley fanfic #george weasley #george weasley one shot #george weasley fanfiction #Fred and George Weasley #Draco Malfoy #the golden trio #the marauders

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uponrightful · 3 years

Text

Second Chance Ch.1

Author’s Note: This is my first attempt at writing for The Mandalorian. I’m an English Major in college, and love to write but I don’t get to share what a write often. I hope you enjoy it. ♡

TW’s: Violence, Blaster Violence. (If I've missed anything let me know.)

Word Count: 9,951

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The child was gone.

The Mandalorian was left with no ship, no child and no true plan as to what was next. It was the first time in his life that there was nowhere he needed to be or someone he needed to hunt. A different man would take the opportunity and run; disappear somewhere and live the rest of his life without the smell of blaster charges and stale blood. Someplace that no one would recognize the steely image of a Mandalorian streaking across an otherwise picturesque landscape.

The Mandalorian wasn’t that man.

He knew that there was nowhere in the galaxy that would offer him a true safe place. He only knew one thing and that was the ability to hunt. He knew that hunting was the one thing that could save him again. Once he was away from Grogu, his life would be back to normal. There wasn’t an end in sight where he would once again have the child… his foundling, back where he thought he belonged. It felt like a new world had opened with its hungry mouth swallowing any sense of direction that the Mandalorian thought he once had.

He had made up his mind, before he had even set foot off of Moff Gideon’s ship where he would go first.

Nevarro.

He knew that Guild contracts were no longer an option, but despite the loss of steady quarry Nevarro was notorious for contracts. The Mandalorian knew his name carried weight, and now that Grogu was gone, it would be somewhat easier to return to his bounties. The Guild was not only steady work, but it had only been so because of his hard work. Four pucks weren’t normal, if not exceptional in most cases; but for him there was no questioning. He always returned with the bounties within a thin time constraint. He was meticulous and that level of professionalism gave him advantages.

Advantages that he no longer had.

Boba Fett was quick to offer the ride to Nevarro with the promise of not-so-stale food and a little but more comfortable stay than he assumed The Mandalorian was used to. Fett talked much more than Mando had expected however it didn’t bother him much. Fett talked briefly about some of the more exotic women he had met -some from Nevarro- and recounted the nights that he had spent under the sheets with an unfamiliar woman getting his satisfaction.

Mando listened not for interest in Fett’s bedroom habits but for information. He hoped that Fett might just slip something that would be useful. Maybe somewhere he could get resupplied, or even find a ship… but nothing of the sort happened.

Hyperspace was endless and the pure torture of watching is pass by was worse than leaving his child with the Jedi. His entire being ached from constant action and the even worse pain of a heart that had to heal. It wasn’t right that he should be forced to suffer so badly after only doing what was right. This was The Way. No matter how many times he tried to think it over, and find some sort of solace it only deepened the hole that kept growing in his chest.

“Mandalorian.” Fett barked, pointing towards the planet registering on his monitor.

Mando stepped up to check the readings and they were nearing Tatooine. Mando turned to see Fett preparing to push into airspace.

“I brought you here for a reason.” Fett continued, “You’ve been in my service and therefore I owe you repayment. I thought the child would be enough, but after everything that happened on that cruiser I can’t leave our interaction heavy on your end.”

“I don’t understand, what is it that you believe you owe me?” he asked, sitting down in the co-pilots chair and waiting for the ship to make its descent.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

The hellish landscape of Tatooine greeted Mando and Fett with a blast of sand the cut across their helmets making it almost impossible to see until the engines on the Slave 1 finally shut off completely. Fett had landed miles away from any town, and seemed quite confident was he strode off onto the barren sand flat below them. Mando wasn’t someone who liked the idea of blindly following anyone, especially when there was no real reason for him to be there anyways.

But after Fett didn’t turn around and disappeared over the dune, Mando begrudgingly followed. The sand fell around the gaps in his pants, letting the fine particles fall into his boots. The suns were blazing and by Mando’s guess it was at its highest point of the day. Heatstroke wasn’t impossible, even if he had just been in a ship moments ago.

He caught sight of Fett’s helmet glinting a bright white light toward Mando. He watched as the man knelt down and began shoving sand away from beneath his shadow that splayed downward. He shook his head, and caught up to further inspect what Fett could possibly be doing digging around in the sand.

The two men stood at the bottom of what looked like a the beginnings of a sand dune in the middle of the flat. But after watching Fett struggle to dig deeper into what seemed like endless sand Mando grew impatient.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Dig with me. And you’ll see.” Fett’s voice was labored, proving how easy a possibility it was for the both of them to drop dead in this heat.

Mando started digging away. It took a good 15 minutes before Mando pulled out a handful of sand revealing what looked like an old piece of tan fabric. He was about to groan at how ridiculous this little job had been, but Fett began chuckling and walked away toward his ship.

“Stay there, I’ll be back.”

Fett was going insane. There was no way any of this was going anywhere good, but at this point Mando had two options. See why this piece of fabric was such a happy sight… or kill him. Fett brought the ship closer and closer towards Mando, kicking up sand and creating a small sandstorm that virtually blinded Mando to what Fett was able to see from above. Mando could barely see the shine of metal through the cloud that thickly surrounded him, choking out most of the clean air he could breathe.

After a few more seconds of fighting to get out of the Fett-made sandstorm Mando finally got a glimpse of what Fett had been so damn happy about. Under what had been a giant hill of sand, appeared an expanse of heavy canvas that took the shape of a ship’s outline. An ion turret jutted out into the blinding sun like it was proudly showing itself off for the first time in years. Mando was even able to recognize the tip of a Proton-Torpedo launcher sneaking out from underneath of the fluttering canvas shield.

Fett circled the newly unearthed ship, section by section revealing more and more of what looked like a transporter ship. Mando stood daunted, at the sight before him watching as the last corner of the cover slipped off the back entry hatch.

The Slave 1 landed right next to Mando its engines thrumming with the slight struggle of the burning temperate. He could even see the heat haze lifting up off the metal body distorting the edges of the ship like he was in a mirage. The last hour felt like it was all a dream, but the hard slap on Mando’s shoulder confirmed that he wasn’t imagining any of it.

“This is the Slave Two … it just so happened that it was my backup for quite some time.” Fett explained, walking towards the ships hatch.

“With updated blaster cannons and some damn good Deflector-Shields it wasn’t quite on par with Slave One… but still one of the best ships a man could own.” Fett nodded approvingly of his own assessment, lowering the hatch.

Mando walked up the ramp, and followed Fett through the hall and towards the cockpit. There were at least seven doors that he could count without the help of any lights on, and a streamlined floorplan that allowed Mando to navigate the ship even without Fett’s guidance. The inside of the ship looked like it hadn’t been touched for many years, with a weapons closet filled with an array of blasters and other devices that harbored a thick coating of dust and sand.

“This is yours?” Mando asked, glancing to see Fett climbing up through the floor into the cockpit above him.

“Yes, she’s mine. Come give me a hand Mandalorian.”

Mando climbed the ladder, and pulled himself to his feet to see Fett sitting calmly in the co-pilots chair looking out onto the desert that stretched ahead for miles. Fett seemed as if he was trying to find something out there, like if he looked hard enough it would just suddenly appear out of thin air.

Somehow Mando knew that he was feeling the same way.

“I’ve spent many years creating a life that has come back to punish me in ways that I’m sure you are beginning to understand Mandalorian. But when I heard that you gave that kid away… your kid. I knew that losing your Crest wasn’t the biggest thing weighing down that beskar.” Fett turned the chair for face Mando, mirroring their appearance in a way that Mando hadn’t experience in quite a while.

“You’ll take her, Slave 2.” Fett said with a satisfied tone. “If you treat her right, she’ll repay the favor just the same as I do.”

“I can’t.” Mando was willing to accept anything from Fett, well deserved or from pity. There was nothing inside himself that could allow any type of transaction like this to happen.

“You’ll do it because I said so.” Fett growled standing from his seat and closing the extra space in between them. “I didn’t bring you hear because I feel bad for you. I know what you’re after. You’re after your life before that kid.” He chuckled, turning back towards the windshield. “The only way you get do that again, is if you take her.”

Fett didn’t stay long enough to hear a response from Mando. He simply dropped back down through the floor into the hull and made his way into the hallway where the row of doors was. The ships control panel wasn’t anything unusual to Mando, but it felt strange to sit down in the chair, and begin turning on the ships controls to hopefully get the Ion engines running without any hiccups. After a few switches were set, and the efficacy level checked out, the Slave Two was hot and humming smoothly with the smallest beeps from the cockpit sounding all around him.

Mando watched as Fett came into view from the windshield, walking out away from the ship. He didn’t check to see if Mando was still sitting there until he was in the cockpit. He watched as Fett reached to press a couple buttons.

The Slave Two’s speakers crackled to life projecting Fett’s voice in the cockpit;

“I know some Hutt’s about 180 kilometers from here, they might be able to find you some… work.” He said pointing his finger towards the direction.

“Everything on this ship is-”

“Yours.” Fett snarled already knowing that Mando’s independence was going to make this difficult enough. “You’ll need it.”

“I owe you.” Mando replied.

Fett’s low chuckle sounded through the speakers “This is Your Way.”

Both men left without saying another word with destinations in mind. Mando however, was still unsure of whether or not doing business with Hutt’s would be worth it. They’re reliability was almost nonexistent, but if Fett was able to do business it might mean that so could he.

Slave Two was larger than the Razor Crest and from Mando’s judgment it was quite a well-handling ship. Not a single error button flashed, nor did the Deflector Generators need repaired. It wasn’t like Mando to pay much attention to the way a ship looked, but he knew that this ship was better suited to his work. He liked the controls, how well the ship responded to his ministrations. He even noticed the modifications that Fett had made during his flight toward the Hutt’s encampment.

Fett had wiped any memory on the ship, and there was a mock Hyperspace Tracker that could bounce signals around in hyperspace so the ships couldn’t be located easily. It was quite sneaky, and something Mando didn’t have the luxury of on the Razor Crest. Often times the worst part of the Crest was the recognition that it drew to plants like Nevarro-7 or even Tatooine. Before he could even land there were questions from ground securities wanting some type of registration information. None of that would be a problem any longer.

The Hutt’s base sat underground, buried underneath of a outcropping of rock mountains in the sand dunes outside of Mos Eisley. Mando could see the sandstone buildings, wavering from the baking heat. The door was guarded by a man, carrying a blaster with a smug look on his face. Hutt’s didn’t normally keep humans as guards, but Mando assumed he was a slave of some sort.

The guard didn’t ask for much, simply opening the door and mumbling something about ‘good business’ before pointing him in the direction of the cut-stone stairs that led down further into the ground. The stairs became damper as he descended with the smell of Hutt sneaking through his helmet. It was almost unbearable by the time he made it to the hall below.

His eyes first caught the women two women chained to the Hutt’s throne of sorts, the heavy links weighing down their wrists. They were skimpily clad, but had to have been the cleanest beings there. Four guards approached Mando, patting down his body finding his single blaster that was holstered to his hip. They made no comments but took the blaster and sat it down in front of the Hutt who laughed deeply at his first sight of Mando.

“A Mandalorian!” he boomed, using Basic language for Mando’s convenience. “What brings a fearsome man like you here, to me?” his chuckles still echoing through his question.

“I was told that I could find work here.” He replied, again darting his gaze back toward the two women who were no cowering behind the throne as far as their chains would allow. Their faces were covered with fear, but not of the Hutt… of him.

“Who told you this?” He boomed louder, rattling the sound equipment in Mando’s helmet. It made him wince at how terrible the enhanced sound felt against his ears.

“Boba Fett.”

The Hutt stopped his incessant chucking to look towards Mando was a harder stare, more serious this time. “I haven’t seen him in years… Do you have alike professions?”

“Yes.” Mando tried to keep his information limited for his own benefit. The less this Hutt knew about him the better off he would be.

“Bounty Hunting…” the Hutt said quieting his tone. “I have heard stories of your kind… yet only to this day met two.” His chuckles returned. “I have quite a few… interests that could use your level of expertise.”

He called out to one of the guards that had search him upon arrival and ordered him in Hutt nodding toward a hallway leading toward Mando’s right. The guard hastened away, trying to keep a professional tone. Mando kept quiet as his listened to the Hutt began talking again;

“I have three contracts… outer rim quarry that are needing some attention. You would be given their pucks… no tracking fobs or anything but their names and last locations.” He paused taking a labored breath, “The fourth is an exceptional job.”

“Exceptional how?” Mando pushed.

“It is a… cold job. But you would be given a fob.” The Hutt boomed with laughter.

Mando only nodded, familiar with the certainty that contractors wanted when dealing with quarry. A dead quarry wouldn’t cause problems, and Mando knew just how convenient that could be for the hunter as well.

“The other three are desired alive, and if they are not the payment would be reduced.” Hutt continued, “However, I do not pay out. I am only a middle man.”

“Where would I receive payment?”

“From a man in Mos Eisley, you would have different random contacts every time to secure… anonymity.”

The guard returned with the four pucks and one fob in hand. Sweat beading on his brow, he brought them to Mando and handed them gingerly to him before returning to his place against the wall surrounding the Hutt. Mando looked at the pucks, before returning focus to the Hutt.

“You would bring the assets to Mos Eisley, and they would be unloaded from your ship while you received payment.” He huffed, again out breath. “You would have three weeks to perform your duties… Do you accept?”

“I accept.”

***

2 Weeks Later.

“Hey man! Whatever they’re paying, I’ll double it!” the quarry yelled, struggling against the restraints Mando had put on him.

Mando stayed quiet, letting the bargaining spew out of his quarry’s mouth. It was so habitual that they tried bargaining, running or anything of their other useless attempts at escape. He never bargained… and he only let one quarry change his mind.

Grogu.

He did his best to push the child out of his mind while he shoved the quarry into the carbonite machine, quickly disposing the ship of the sounds of pleading. It became deathly quiet on the Slave Two after the carbonite had frozen his quarry into a thick slab. Only the sound Mando’s heavy footfalls signaled any life aboard as he walked back toward the cockpit.

The ship was too quiet for Mando’s true liking hyperspace was deathly silent and freezing cold. He couldn’t imagine it was any better than dying and that hyperspace was really where he would go after he was finally killed. His only solace became the beeping sounds of his ship, creating a pattern that was as close to a song as he could remember.

He only had job left, and it was the Cold Quarry. They were supposedly heading to Hoth to wait out any bounty hunters that were sent for him. Mando knew the quarry was hoping to dissuade anyone from coming to find him but Hoth’s snow and freezing weather wasn’t a problem. He had been on frozen planets before and it never distracted him from the job.

He would be on Hoth in a few days at most, and it gave him the opportunity to take a check of his low supply on food, and even lower supply of fuel and water. The Hutt had supplied him enough of both for about twelve days, not the full twenty-one. If it would have been the Guild he would have been well taken care of, and what wasn’t supplied for him was allotted in his job payments. A small part of him wished that he was able to return, simply for the respect that he had gained but he knew in his heart that he could never do so because of Grogu.

He hadn’t noticed how quickly his allegiance had changed for the support of the foundling, but after letting him go the full force of his protective nature had come crashing down on his shoulders with the weight of the galaxy. In those last few moments not only had he broken his creed, but he had felt true heartbreak for the first time. Of course, he had a moral compass, and anything that the Empire had planned wasn’t good for anyone, but it was a relationship that he was completely unprepared for. It was hard to let go, harder than any bounty he would ever have to catch.

He picked up a small can of soup turning it in his hand and inspecting his memories of eating with the child. It was one of his favorite things. He was cautious to not let Grogu to see his face, but after the first few times it was quite usual for him to sit facing the kid and eat without any issues of the kid trying to pull at his helmet.

Mando wasn’t hungry despite the churning in his stomach. He needed to get this job done.

Maybe he had forgotten just how cold Hoth could be. The wind cut through his clothes, and whipped his cape wildly in the gusts behind him. He could hear a small whistling from the gap in between his pauldron and the bottom edge of his helmet causing a ringing in his right ear. Mando didn’t spend much time hiding his ship, with the security of snow covering the visible planes from airspace. Not to mention how Hoth was almost deserted… except for the occasional bounty with a death wish.

He could easily see from airspace the most easily accessible to a man wanting somewhere to hide. And after landing down it was even easier to see the tracks made by a single set of shoes. They were undoubtedly a man’s, and from the information the Hutt gave him, these prints seemed like a dead ringer for shoe size and weight.

They were leading back into a separating in between to tall rock outcroppings that mostly likely afforded protection from the wind cutting through Mando’s layered shirts. He looked down to activate the ground security system with his vambrace, but after taking a second look, he could see a thin layer of frost covering even inch of the control section and even on the beskar surrounding it.

A cold bounty… he thought, finding no real humor in the situation.

Mando walked until daylight grew scarce. The weather had picked up, and if it hadn’t been for the two mountains he walked in between there would be no way for him to continue any further. The whistling in his ears were not helping his cause either. There would be no way for him to hear his bounty without being right on top of him. He’d had to turn off his audio enhancement so long ago due to the whistling becoming so loud.

The rock walls that surrounded Mando soared high up with ice and snow covering the jagged edges. Mando could see caves high up but the walls were too steep for anyone to climb up. He was looking for heat signatures, anything warmer than the frost covering everything, including him. There was nothing low to the ground, not even the footprints held any residual heat or memory, so his helmets enhancements were almost useless for tracking from the ground. But when he looked back up, he could finally see a little bit of heat. It was quickly disappearing, and the tell-tale red signature was barely visible, but it was still there.

A smoke trace.

It was too cold to not have some source of heat but burning a fire wasn’t smart for anyone hiding from a bounty hunter. After turning off his infrared display, the smoke was more visible in contrast with the bright white snow.

He was happy that the quarry wasn’t far, grateful his landing was well-founded in his good presumption of where the bounty could be hiding. His bounties were often well-hidden away, but this time he was truly struggling to keep a straight focus. Mando felt out of practice and it was only adding onto the feeling that this hunt was hard.

After what felt like an hour of trudging through the snow he could see the reflection of a fire licking up the side of the mountain. The flames burned high, and Mando couldn’t help but think how great it would feel to sit down at defrost his cold body. No shadow could be seen huddling around the fire or any real movement that Mando could see from his position.

His own footfalls were silent sinking into the snow as he drew upon a small cave lit up brightly by a roaring fire fueled by a small metal box that blew blue flames out into a controlled ball. A large man, laid close to the ball covered by a thick emergency blanket covering his entire body.

Mando drew his blaster, careful not to disturb the man before he was in position to wake him up.

“Wake up.” He demanded, expecting the man to shoot up out of bed.

The sleeping man stayed still. For a minute Mando debated whether or not to complete his job with the man unaware of his impending death. Killing him now would not only remove the chance of a fight, but also save Mando the risk of getting injured. He decided against it.

He leaned down, and shoved the man in the shoulder with his blaster. He watched as the mans’ body rolled over onto his back, covered in frost. The quarry’s skin was blue and the veins underneath were just as frozen as his skin. Mando’s eye widened, at the man’s brittle body, frozen in time right before his heart has finally frozen solid.

He hadn’t had to kill the bounty after all. But in the back of his mind, he knew that taking the dead man back tonight was not worth the risk. It was too cold to go back with extra weight after he experienced the cold without any slowed pace. He needed to get back quickly before the temperature dropped to low.

He employed the use of his jetpack, now that he was not at risk of spooking his quarry and cut through the blistering gales back to his ship. Before the door could shut he was stripping away the beskar covering his body. He sat it close to a small vent, watching for a second as the thick layer of frost slowly began dissipating around the edges. It was a magnet for cold, and it only accentuated how badly his core temperature had dropped outside. It wasn’t low enough for him to worry about any long-term effects however a hot shower was sounding better than even before. He even removed his helmet so the padding on the inside would vent and dry itself while he showered.

The steam rising out of the fresher welcomed Mando’s cold skin as he pulled away at the crunchy undershirt and pants he still wore. They had been soaked with sweat and frozen, leaving what was a normally comfortable shirt into a crystallized model of his body. The clothes landed with a heavy thud by his feet.

Mando sighed at the feeling of hot water soaking his hair and melting away the frigid feeling he carried in his muscles. He rested his forehead and elbows against the wall perfectly happy to let his ships remaining water supply to funnel down the drain. He stayed there for a long while, reminding himself that in the morning he would need to stop into a port and stock back up before leaving Hoth. There was an outpost not too far away that would supply everything he needed, but the price was what he occupied himself with.

His credits were uncomfortably low for his liking and if he showed any desperate need for fuel or water it would be easy enough for the normal price to become doubled. Hoth wasn’t known for crooked people, but you never knew what you were going to get when someone met a Mandalorian. Some didn’t give any protest, happy to supply Mando without any qualms… mostly driven by avoidance of conflict. But others were quite happy to make Mando’s life just a little more difficult, always staring at his beskar with a wicked look in their eyes.

He dried off, and retrieved another set of clothes from underneath his cot hastily pulling them on and retrieving his helmet from the floor to avoid losing any of the precious heat he had just regained. He eyed the cot and the heavy blanket that sat folded neatly at the foot, calling for him to actually lay down for once. He denied its pleas, and instead retreated up the ladder to the cockpit.

The pilots chair lightly groaned at his weight as he collapsed down into it. He lolled his head back, letting his helmet clink against the metal trim surrounding the headrest. He wouldn’t sleep, only sit in the darkness of Hoth’s night and listen to the howls of an ongoing snow storm rage against the sides of his ship. It rocked the Slave Two gently, back and forth creating a cradle for its inhabitants.

No sleep would come. Only the bright white reflection of sunlight casting off the continuously falling snow.

The bounty was easy enough in the height of Hoth’s sun. Giving him a small advantage in dragging the unbending weight of his bounty back to the carbonite machine. Mando almost thought the weather was comfortable until he stepped foot into a small cantina that hung on the edge of a small outpost.

The room was small, with enough seats for twenty at maximum with only five people filling those seats. It was decorated heavily with furs, and a roaring fireplace that licked high into the chimney space, like the quarry’s small metal box had. Only this one was filled with some sort of natural material. Mando had never seen anything like it before, and upon further inspection it looked like glassy black stones that gave off a sweet and smoky smell that permeated through his helmet.

It was only a light tap on his ribcage that brought his attention away from the fire. An elderly woman with deep age lines in her face, stood meekly in front of him with a small, crooked smile on her face.

“You look like you could use some heat.” Her smile grew wider as she ran a withered finger across his paulron. She inspected the gathering of frost on her finger, and watched it melt away before looking back up to him.

Underneath his helmet, the smallest smile graced Mando’s face at the woman in front of him. She looked old enough to be his ba’buir… his grandmother. Her fine white hair was pulled tightly back into a bun with small little strands staying out of the slicked back style. He couldn’t help but feel a small bit warmer with her gaze on him.

“I came for supplies, and fuel.” He said quietly, afraid of startling her with the crackling sound of his modulator.

Her wise eyes softened at his voice, and it only surprised him into silence as he waited for her response.

“Fuel is on the other end of the outpost.” She paused turning slowly to gaze toward the opposite end of town. “However, if you want supplies, I might be able to help you… Mandalorian.”

Her emphasis came with a charming glitter in her eyes, as she motioned for him to follow her. He did so silently, watching to make sure her shuffling feet didn’t catch on any of the chair legs that sat in her path. She opened a door, and let him walk through into what looked like a pantry. Shelves lined the walls, and were stocked with almost everything Mando could think of needing. Jars of unlabeled food -most likely hand filled- emergency medical supplies, and even random ship parts sat in metal crates stacked in a cobweb and dust covered corner.

He was quite speechless at the sight, but hesitated as she cleared her throat from hoarseness.

“You take whatever you need… if you can help me with my problem.” Her eyes focused right in on his, despite the black visor shading his eyes from view.

“Problem?” he asked.

The woman’s eyes that had glittered with pride, suddenly grew serious as she shuffled closer to him.

“There’s a man out at the bar who desperately wants something I have.” She whispered, glancing every so often like the door behind her would bust open at any second. “I need you to get rid of him… and if you do, I’ll give you something that’s worth more than anything you’ve ever had before.”

Mando stood before a woman who he’d never met before, not fully understanding what it was that she was so serious about protecting or what she was willing to give him. Not that he wasn’t willing to help her, but her entire demeanor was surely enticing him.

“I’ll help.” He replied shifting his gaze back up to the door.

“He’s the only man at the bar,” she repeated reverently “He carries a blaster in his waistband… behind his back.” She whispered as she walked back out into the cantina’s dining space.

Mando focused back on the fireplace on the opposite side of the room, where he could sit and watch this man without gaining any more attention than he already was. A wooden chair sat close to the flames, and Mando found himself leaning back into it with the intent of looking as inconspicuous as he could.

The man at the bar was taller than average, but a full head shorter than Mando. He had broad shoulders and a bulge at his lower back. She was right. He thought, making a mental note of how observant the old woman truly was. He also sported a shaved head with many scars littering his skin with marred sections where the hair hadn’t grown back.

Mando couldn’t see him face, for the angle that he sat at. But he could tell from the wavering of his torso in his chair that he’s had one too many of whatever the elderly woman was serving. There was no way that Mando could get the man to leave without there being a scene, but something in the back of his mind told him that the woman was more than prepare for that to happen.

He even caught her out of the corner of his display, carefully taking glasses and other breakable items and stowing them underneath of the bar. Mando let her work quietly for a few more minutes, giving her enough time to save as many of her dishes as possible before he stood up.

“Another!” the man demanded loudly, slurring as he raised his glass in attempt to gain the old woman’s attention.

Mando reached the man’s side before she could, and reached his hand out to keep her from getting any closer. “I think you’ve had enough.” He stated, keeping his gaze straightforward.

He could hear the drunk man’s stunned choke as he whipped his head around to face Mando. He chuckled loudly, and dropped his half-full glass onto the bar-top spilling its contents all over the place. “And what would you know about it, tin can?”

“Enough to know you’ve had enough.” Mando repeated, this time turning just enough that half of his visor faced the drunk.

“How about you leave shiny. Before I make a mess out of you and this wenches bar.” His threat warbled with plastered slurs as he reached into his belt and pulled out his blaster, waving it all around before finally resting it on Mando’s chest.

Even if the man had been sober, he wouldn’t have noticed that Mando had already pulled out his own blaster and statuesquely trained it on the man’s head. It was quite the standoff, and Mando was quite certain in his ideas of why the old woman wanted him gone.

“Drop it, and you can leave Hoth alive. Or… I can drop you on the floor with a blaster hole through your chest.” Mando threatened, not letting his blaster waver an inch.

“I own this bar…” the man bluffed getting redder in the face by the second. “I own her-“ he jerked pointing to the old woman, “And her prize possession.” He spat turning back to Mando.

“You can live or you can die…. Your choice.” Mando growled, his finger resting on the trigger.

His ultimatum seemed to work well enough that the man dropped his blaster to the bar with a metallic thud, before stumbling off of his stool. He mumbled incoherently, even Mando’s helmet was unable to enhance what he said as he walked through the door, rattling the hinges as he slammed it shut.

Mando turned to the elderly woman, a sparkle in her eyes as she spoke to Mando again, “I’ll send word that you need refueled, and after you rest tonight, you’ll be leaving tomorrow.” Her satisfied tone rang through Mando’s speakers.

“I can’t stay.” He protested.

“You’ll stay here, for free.” She smiled, “Please, humor an old woman for a night.”

Mando could only sigh, and allow the woman to show him to a small room upstairs where he could place his belongings and lay awake, wondering what prize possession everyone but him seemed to know about.

As he listened, he could hear music playing below and a few bursts of laughter floating through the floor boards. He wasn’t comfortable laying there, but with the happy vibrations of celebration it did soothe his overly tense body enough that he could relax his helmet against pillow and cross his ankles to listen better.

He could hear the old woman’s hoarse voice sometimes making itself stand out from the other conversations, but nothing loud enough he could make out. He could hear a man’s voice speaking to others about the almost-blaster fight in the cantina earlier, embellishing the encounter with help from some liquid encouragement.

Under his helmet, he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling listening to the man talk about the ‘grand Mandalorian’ who kicked out Yir Fearbe. So that’s his name… he thought. They talked about the Corellian, and how he had left for Hoth years ago with the idea of taking over a port and making enough credits to further control the planet. Apparently, from the loud laughter his dream of becoming Hoth’s unofficial governor was hilariously outlandish.

Mando wasn’t surprised. Corellian’s were always reckless with a huge lack of reverence for anyone else’s existence. Mando knew of bounty hunters from Corellia, but they were all untrustworthy to say the least. Personal gain was the main currency for a Corellian. They had no creed, something that Mando was half-jealous and half-detesting of.

But as the man below continued with his stories and accountings of Yir, they grew much more serious in tone. He spoke of how brutal he was toward the elderly woman, but no one was able to win a fight against him… let alone win. The man barked out a laugh after saying that Mando was lucky he was too drunk to realize what was happening… and that “he would be back after the metal man left.”

The conversations droned on through the night, and early into the morning before silence fell over the downstairs. But it wasn’t two hours later that he heard the clinking of glasses and dishes being put away. He needed to get his ship re-fueled before mid-day, and be in hyperspace before that. The sooner he was gone the better.

He picked up his belts, and slung them over his chest also placing his blasters in their holsters before ducking through the short door frame. He was met with the tired eyes of the old woman, already watching him with a close gaze. Mando sat down at the same chair he had last night, letting the fire warm his back and neck, careful not to let his cloak get too close.

“Something to eat?” she asked absentmindedly, like a mother would.

“No, thank you.” He nodded his head, watching her slowly wipe down the bar top.

“Something to drink?” she queried again. Dank Farrik she was persistent.

He only shook his head this time, waving his hand dismissively at the offer. She only gave him a smile that creased the deep lines near her eyes and created heavy contours around the corners of her mouth.

“I expect as much… from a man like you.” She murmured.

“How do you know what I am?” he asked, leaning to rest his arms on his thigh plates.

“I have only heard stories of your kind,” she said looking fondly somewhere off in her memories. “But I expect that before you leave, you’ll show me just how good you are.” She pointed at him, her wrinkly fingers shaking.

Good.

Mando knew that wasn’t true. Even if she heard real stories she would know better than to think of him with any high regards to his goodness. Loyalty... sure. Maybe even a small sense of what justice was, but goodness wasn’t anywhere close to something he deserved. He was not only a warrior, but a contract killer. He made his living at the cost of others lives. Mandalorian’s were taught with weapons, not prayers to any gods. Children were trained not taught.

He thought of himself as a weapon.

They sat in silence, him watching her work and her consistently asking him for something to eat or drink. If she had been watching closely enough, the old woman might have seen his shoulders rise in the slightest when he huffed an amused chuckle at her progressively worrying tone.

“You do eat, don’t you?” she blustered, seemingly upset at his continuous declinations.

“Yes.” He tilted his head, trying to figure out just what it was she was upset about. “This isn’t about me eating is it?” he questioned back.

Her eyes drifted down towards her feet, suddenly looking more tired than she had after he came downstairs. She tottered across the room, and sat in down in a chair across from Mando, looking him up and down slowly before settling back on his visor.

“That was my husband’s chair,” she murmured. Mando made an attempt to get up, wanting to appease her, but she quickly stopped him. “No, no. You don’t have to do that. Hardly anybody likes sitting in that old thing, but if you like it… then you sit.”

He adjusted her hips in the wooden seat, and winced before continuing on, “That man you made leave last night killed my husband, years ago when he first landed on Hoth. My husband only owned this building, but Yir wanted it for himself. And instead of doing the honorable thing, he killed my husband thinking that I wouldn’t have the wherewithal to do it myself.” She shook her head, a small bit of arrogance flashing across her features.

“I have done everything in my power -which isn’t much- to let you know the truth. Giving every last ounce of my strength into keeping everything that needed protected, protected.”

Mando shifted foreword again, narrowing his eyes in focus and trying to understand her real meaning behind all of this.

“But when I saw you walk through that door, I knew that you were my last opportunity.” She smiled, making real eye-contact through his visor.

“Who are you? And why do you trust me?” he blurted, desperate for a straight, uncryptic answer.

“Mandalorian, I’m just an old woman. Nothing more. That doesn’t mean I don’t know when I see a second chance sitting right in front of me.”

Mando was about to speak again, when the loud ring of a familiar voce began thrumming through the air, followed by incessant blaster fire. The old woman gasped, grabbing at her chest and hurriedly standing up with her gaze locked on the door.

“Maker…” she whispered. “He’s coming.”

Mando thought quickly, and rushed her over to the storage room she had brought him into yesterday, carefully trying to get her there before Yir could catch him with his back turned. But before he could close the door, he frail hand reached out and touched his chest, stopping him dead in his tracks.

“You are much more than a warrior… but at this moment, that is exactly what you need to be.” She stated reverently, before shutting the door herself.

He heard the sound of a lock click on her side of the door right before the one behind him smashed open with a bright read beam of blaster fire. Mando couldn’t remember what happened, or how he found himself being thrown around the room and being smashed into tables but that’s exactly what happened.

His beskar absorbed the brunt of most of the blows he took, but the man was so belligerent that he took too punching Mando in the helmet despite the ugly angle that balled-up fingers were at. Mando tried to fight back, but without a chance to reach for his blaster there was not much he could do but grapple with the man, and find an opportunity to reach down to his hip.

Vir growled ferally screaming about taking what was rightfully his, and other nonsense that Mando could barely catch before he was thrown once again this time, his back making solid contact with the hard, stone edge of the bar. Vir lifted him up, and angrily smashed him against the wall, trapping his throat and squeezing hard, trying to push past Mando’s thick cloak wrapped tightly around his throat.

“I’ll make more money off that beskar than I would on this planet in a lifetime.” Vir growled, smiling happing at his reflection in Mando’s helmet. “I can’t wait to see what’s under all that metal.” He barked happily, not noticing Mando’s free hand struggling for purchase on his blaster.

“I told you to leave.” Mando choked out, pulling the trigger and hearing a loud scream resonate from Vir. They both dropped to their knees, but Vir kept screaming at the giant wound in his thigh, or what was left of it.

“You…. You will pay for this.” Vir threatened with a tremble, gripping at his leg with a fierce grimace on his face. “They sent me here, for her.” He smiled, delirious anger taking over. “They’ll come for you once they find out what happened he-“

Mando silence Vir’s threats with another blaster shot.

“I told you to leave.” Mando repeated, struggling to his feet. His head buzzed with the rush of oxygen flooding back.

“Mandalorian!” the old woman hissed, rushing out the door and across to him.

He pushed away her attempts to check him for injuries, knowing well enough for himself that any blaster shots that had went off ricocheted off his beskar.

“I’m fine.” He said pushing away from her. “But I need to leave. Now.” He stated, giving her a hard look.

“Take what you need. Your ship is ready, I checked this morning.” She said pointing towards the storage room she had just came from.

He nodded silently, and quickly began grabbing what he needed, throwing all of it into a canvas bag that was hanging from one of the shelves. Canned food, and two medical supply kits were only a couple of the things he shoved into the bag before exiting to see the old woman standing with a huge coat and a change of boots.

“I’ll walk you there.” She stated, not giving him much of a choice.

“My pace.”

She only nodded, and lead him out into the street where at the end of the street he could see his ship had been moved.

“Who moved my ship?” he asked impatiently.

“Someone trustworthy.” Was her answer.

“Listen, I don’t know you. And I understand we had a deal, but that’s over with now.” he retorted, glancing over at her.

“Not yet, I gave you one last thing…”

He looked to see tears spilling over her sagging cheeks, and he shoulders slumped low like she was carrying a huge weight.

“You owe me a promise Mandalorian. And I entrust you’ll keep it.”

“What is this promise?” he asked, finally reaching his ships back hatch.

The hatch hissed as it began opening, and Mando reflexively drew his blaster pointing in at the figure who stood in the hull of his ship.

“Everything looks fantastic I fixed a few loose connections on the hyperdr-” A honeyed voice filled Mando’s ears as the figure came to a sudden halt, open hands raised in submission at the blaster trained on them.

“Who are you?” he demanded, feeling quite whiplashed by his last day and a half. He was ready to start shooting without asking questions.

“She’s mine.” The old woman cut in, rising her mittened hand to push away at Mando’s blaster.

“I refueled your ship, and check to make sure that you were ready to go.” The silky voice added.

He watched, carefully as a young woman walked slowly down the ramp of his ship, hands still raised up, with wide eyes trained on his. What is with these women… he thought, feeling quite uncomfortable with how easy it was for them to find his eye behind the visor.

The old woman pushed harder at his blaster and he finally dropped it down to his side, finally getting him to release his steady aim on the girl. “You have a promise to keep.” She murmured, looking at the girl, who was staring just as puzzled at the old woman as Mando felt.

“She is yours to protect.”

The girl immediately began denying the idea, and Mando himself finally cut off that annoyingly sweet voice to put up his own protest,

“I have no reason to take her anywhere.”

The old woman’s wise eyes fell back onto Mando, and consequently silenced the surprised interjections from his ship.

“You need a second chance…” she spoke almost prophetically piercing through Mando’s resolve. “And I might be an old woman… but I have seen what you can do. And that assures me that you’re the one man that can keep her safe…” she hesitated. “Promise me you’ll take care of her.”

Mando was about to question her again when the sound of a blaster echoed up through the snow-covered pathway. He shouted a warning, and reached to cover the old woman’s back when she was already falling down into the snow, still as the quarry from the cave.

She was dead.

He heard more blaster shots, and a scream from the girl, as she attempted to run off the sloping hatch of the ship, carrying her own blaster and retuning fire. It wasn’t a good situation when Mando turned back toward the street again. A group of men masked, and carrying a lot firepower began making their way toward his ship, all pointing toward the girl who was squatting next to his ship, blaster trained down sight.

“Give us the girl!” one of them shouted, pointing a gloved hand past Mando.

He flashed back to the bounty droid, pointing its blaster at Grogu… the feeling he had now identical to that day. He tried to suppress it, but after a few more seconds hundreds of ‘what-if’s’ and what the old woman had said, he turned toward the girl;

“Get on the ship. Now!”

Blaster fire erupted, bouncing off the back hatch as it pulled up off the ground and Mando stepped back towards the hull space. He fired, eliminating the closest people in the group when he felt the ship lurch upwards into the sky.

She was flying his ship.

But, surprisingly he wasn’t as mad as he thought when the imminent threat of the men boarding became slimmer and slimmer as the distance between Hoth’s frozen ground and the Slave Two grew wider. Only after leaving air space in a hurry, did Mando make his way to the cockpit to see just who it was that was now on his ship.

She sat in the pilot’s chair focused on the dash of buttons in front of her, eyes flashing occasionally up to the interfaces showing their positioning. If it wasn’t for the red display flashing on her face he wouldn’t have noticed the tear streaks on her cheeks. Her breaths were uneven causing her chest to jerk, but she didn’t make a single sound.

Mando watched from behind her, quietly watching as the ship veered around small debris that floated in Hoth’s gravity, expertly guiding the ship out of the dangerous field. Her hand hovered over the switch that would send them into hyperspace. Her silence was a question, not just of if he was ready… but if he trusted her.

“Go.” he finally answered.

He pushed his shoulders against the wall behind her, preparing himself to feel the force press him back even tighter against the wall. Her ministrations over the controls were precise, even though the weight of force was pinning him back, she was able to smoothly operate until the streaking blue and purple lights of hyperspace lit up the cockpit.

Her chair spun around to face him, her small frame being swallowed by the chairs harness that she had pulled over her shoulders. Wisps of damp hair and sweat covered her forehead, and her eyes locked onto his with a mix of emotions that Mando couldn’t quite read.

“You’re the man my grandmother has talked about…” She searched up and down his body, carefully taking stock of his frame, lingering on the blasters that were strapped to his thigh and hip.

“I hadn’t met her before last night.” He answered, feeling like his response was inadequate.

“She told me you needed your ship refueled… but I had to move it.” She explained, pulling the harness off of her shoulders. “I didn’t expect for any of this to happen.” Her voice dropping a little. He knew what she was talking about, despite her lack of real conversation. “I wasn’t busy so I tried to clean up some of your wiring boxes…” she kept explaining herself, trying to bargain her value to him.

He let her continue, finding a similarity in her tone with the bounties that were sitting in carbonite slabs in the back of his ship. He saw her nervousness in the way she began chewing on her lip after she had run out of things to say.

“Where am I supposed to take you?” he asked, seeing a flinch of uncertainty cross over her face. He mentally chided himself for sounding so harsh. It wasn’t like intimidating her was going to benefit him at this point.

“I- I don’t know.” She frowned, still chewing on her bottom lip.

He shook his head, letting his frustration and lack of understanding in the situation show for the first time towards her. “Then why are you here, and why were those men after you?”

She huffed out a breath and ran a hand through her sweaty hair, pulling it off her forehead. “There’s a man named Vir… he came to Hoth and when he met me he tried to date me, I guess. But when I turned him down, it only made things worse.” She stood up, and leaned her back against the controls, “He killed my grandfather as a sick kind of punishment. And since then he’s been obsessed, following me around and threatening me constantly.”

Mando listened, taking in everything that the old woman -her grandmother- had said and finally put all of the pieces together. That old woman had been protecting the girl, and he was becoming more and more in awe of how fierce the old woman’s loyalty was. Even her last sentence was spent holding the him to a promise of security.

“But now everyone is dead because of me…” she admitted quietly, before looking up to Mando with more tears in welling in her eyes. “You have to get away from me, whoever you are. You don’t know me and none of this is your problem.” She nodded at her own decision, seemingly satisfied at her plan.

They stood in silence again, her waiting on him to say something and Mando just looking at her under the cover of his helmet. She wore layered shirts, with a coat -too large for her- cloaking any real idea of what her shape really looked like. Her boots were tiny, and snow still clung to them. In the back of his mind, he weighed his options but kept thinking about the old woman’s voice: “I’m giving you something special…”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by giving her to him, but what he didn’t want to admit was that he was going to keep that promise.

“I can see you fly well, and I could use a co-pilot. I’ll show you where you can put any of your things.” He said turning away toward the ladder, with a small motion for her follow him.

He passed his own room, and pushed open the next door and let her walk in. She glanced around, and sat down on the corner of the small cot. She shrugged off her huge coat, and looked to Mando with a very innocent look.

“I can’t stay here for long.” She said with a sigh, “But I appreciate you helping me.”

He nodded and left without another word.

Mando retreated back to the cockpit, only to review everything the woman had said, and the story that the girl had told him. All of it raced around, especially the girls sweet voice that gave him a dizzying head rush. It sounded so pretty. He thought rubbing the forehead of his helmet like it would help subside the feeling of drinking too much spotchka. She looked so young, but the way she carried herself added to his confusion about her true age.

The old woman was her grandmother, but that didn’t help him get a better idea either. The dead man on Hoth had been after the girl for a at least a couple years so she was most likely in her early twenties. But one thing stuck in Mando’s head above all the images of her and her sugary voice in his head.

Seeing her silhouette framed by hyperspace, and the silky sound of her voice contrasted to his own was exceptionally difficult to ignore. She hadn’t been on his ship two hours and the idea of getting another glimpse at her was already pushing itself into the forefront of his mind. Mando always thought about anything ten different ways before proceeding. But for the second time in his life his gut had overridden his judgement. The second time.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t know when I see a second chance sitting right in front of me.” The old woman had said.

A second chance.

His second chance.

If anything it only made his head spin more. What was it about himself that had given the old woman a sense of him needing a ‘second chance’? Not only that, but why did he need one? His only thought was Grogu, and how difficult it was to let his foundling go despite his knowledge that there was somewhere better for the child. He had fought desperately to return the child to his own people, but when the time came, he could barely let go.

Was he really supposed to take care of her?

If he was a different man, he would let her off on a safe planet before heading back to drop off his bounties. Leave her with a enough supplies and credits to settle herself somewhere far enough away from those men… and himself. But as he sat down in the pilots chair, and looked out at space flying past him, he acknowledged that he wasn’t that man. The idea of an old woman with wise eyes telling him that the girl on his ship was his second chance, was not only wildly dangerous, but something that he was already preparing himself for.

#the mandalorian #mando #mando x reader #the mandalorian x reader #secondchance

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dr-spencer-reids-queen · 3 years

Text

Extreme Aggressor: Final Part

Pairing: Eventual Spencer Reid x Reader

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill, and angst

Summary: Jason Gideon is called back from a six-month leave from the Behavioral Analysis Unit to profile a killer. Meanwhile, the team flies across the country to Seattle when another young woman goes missing at the hands of "The Seattle Strangler," another serial killer.

Author’s Note: Here is it finally! After hard work, it is finally ready for your viewing pleasure! Please, feedback is always appreciated so let me know what you like about it and what you didn’t!

I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there is any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated.

So without further ado, please enjoy!

After the shocking news that Gideon presented, you were able to get a list and pictures of the people the police have interviewed. Gideon wanted you to look at them since you might be able to tell who the suspect in question was. The only name that stood out to you was Richard Slessman, and you couldn’t tell them how you knew this, but there was something about those eyes that just told you what you needed to know.

“You sure about this?” Gideon asked.

No matter how long he knew you, he always had doubts about the things you could do—even if those doubts were small.

“Are you really asking me that question?” you whispered, holding your gun close to your body as you hid while another agent went to lure Richard into this house. “The minute I passed his house, I could tell he was the one. His house reeks of spiritual energy.”

The woman known as Elle Greenaway, a woman who wants the other opening in the BAU, was bringing Richard to the abandoned house across the street from his own in order for the FBI to take him down. As soon as she entered the house, she began leading him into the room where everyone was. As soon as she gave the green light, the swat team in head-to-toe uniforms appeared and trained their guns on him. Elle took him down and began to read him his rights.

“Richard Slessman, FBI,” Elle said as she began to handcuff him. “You are under arrest for the murder of…”

Her voice trailed off as you and Gideon stepped into the light. Richard stared at you two for such a long time as if he knew something you two didn’t. As soon as they got him in handcuffs, you headed over to his house where the rest of the team was waiting. As soon as you entered the house, you could feel the energies of spirits that they left behind. While none of the victims died here, they did want you to know what something happened here.

“There's no sign of the girl here,” Spencer noted when Gideon walked in behind you. “We can arrest him with probable cause, but we won't be able to hold him.”

“Slessman's been at the top of the suspect list. Is that the mother?” Gideon asked when he saw an older woman sitting at the table with a distressed look on her face.

“Grandmother. The mother died in a fire when he was 13,” Elle informed.

“I’m going to check upstairs,” you told Gideon before going off on your own.

There was something calling you upstairs, but you didn’t exactly know what. The more steps you walked, the stronger the energy got. Derek was stationed inside of Richard’s room, but that’s not where you wanted to be. There was a door right next to his bed, and when you opened it, there was a staircase behind it. Climbing it, you saw Elle, Spencer, Gideon, and Hotch standing inside the attack.

“Oh, my God,” you whispered once you had both feet on the floor.

“What is it?” Hotch asked.

“Richard’s standing right next to you,” you muttered.

Hotch looked around him, but Richard was nowhere to be found.

“He’s downstairs.”

“Let her finish,” Gideon defended you.

Richard was on the phone, and although you couldn’t hear what he was saying, you could guess due to the stressed look on his face. He wasn’t getting anywhere with the person on the phone, so he hung up and turned on his TV. Gasping, your eyes widened at what you saw on the TV.

“He just got off the phone with someone, and he turned on the TV. There’s a woman on the TV, but she’s tied and gagged. Oh no, there’s a man with her, and he’s—oh God. Richard is sitting by the game that Spencer is looking at and starts to play himself. I can’t,” you whispered, looking away in pain.

“What kind of game is it?” Elle asked.

Richard misted away so that you were brought back to reality.

“In China, it's called wei-chi. Here we call it ‘go’. It's considered to be the most difficult board game ever conceived,” Spencer answered.

“Chairman Mao required his generals to learn it,” Gideon added.

“This might provide an advantage, actually. Go is considered to be a particularly psychologically revealing game. There are profiles for every player—the conservative point counter, the aggressor, the finesser, and more.”

“What kind of player is Slessman?” Hotch asked, looking at you to make sure you were okay.

“Extreme aggressor.”

“Well, we’re not going to find answers up here. We need to talk to Richard,” you said, crossing your arms.

Spencer, Elle, and Gideon nodded in agreement and left the attic. Hotch walked past you, but instead of leaving, he stopped by your side.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I don’t get to choose what I see. Sometimes, I don’t prepare for it. I mean, I see things like murder and rape, but I can’t ever prepare myself for it. I promise, I’ll be better at it.”

“You’re doing fine,” he said calmly.

He let you go down the stairs first, and you watched as Elle and Derek tried to figure out how to get into the computer that was apparently locked.

“Do you think you can break in? In 6 tries?” Elle asked.

“Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” Gideon said.

“Samuel Beckett,” you and Spencer said at the exact same time.

He looked at you, but you blushed and quickly looked away.

“Try not. Do or do not,” Derek argued.

“Yoda,” Spencer whispered to Gideon.

The fearless leader took one look at Richard’s shelf and noticed something familiar. He grabbed a book, but it wasn’t that he was interested in. Inside contained something far more personal to Gideon.

“I wanna talk to him. Y/N, will you come with? I want you to get a read on him.”

“Sure,” you nodded, walking past Spencer to follow Gideon to the kitchen where Richard was silently stewing.

The criminal looked at you two as you took a seat, and you crossed your arms as you just stared at him. Gideon was doing all the talking here, you were just here to see if you could get anything on him.

“You read my paper. Learn anything?”

“Heirens said a man living inside of his head was the one who committed the murders. You said he was lying, that there'd never been an actual case of multiple personalities.”

“You have an academic interest in dissociative identity disorder, or you just planning your defense?” Gideon asked. Since Richard didn’t say anything else, he opened the book he grabbed and pulled out the article that was stored inside. “You a fan of Adrian Baal's work?”

“No. I'm a fan of yours,” Richard smiled.

He leaned in to try and get under Gideon’s skin, and as soon as you got a whiff of his cologne, your vision got blurry. Richard, Gideon, the table, the article, and even the policeman who was standing behind Richard were getting darker, only for a new picture to replace them. It was Heather inside of a cage, but Richard wasn’t with her. It was a much larger man who approached the cage. His back was turned to you so you couldn’t see his face.

The only name you could see around the room was Timothy.

“Why don't you tell us where Heather Woodland is?” Gideon asked, bringing you back to reality.

“Woodland… Isn't she the girl that went missing a couple days ago?” Richard smile. Gideon had enough of him and motioned to the officer.

“Get him out of here,” Gideon said, getting up.

Staying where you are, you watched Richard get taken away, but his gaze was on you’re the entire time. Ever since entering this house, you’ve gotten two visions. Putting those together—Richard talking on the phone, his stressed look, the woman on the TV, the woman in the cage, the large man, and the name Timothy—there was another unsub.

There was another killer.

Getting up, you rushed out of the house to try and find where Gideon might have gone to. Once outside, you heard two men talking to one another and noticed it was the two superior men.

“Gideon! Hotch!” you exclaimed, rushing over to him. “There’s two unsubs. Richard didn’t kill those girls, someone else did. All I’m getting is the name Timothy. Does that help?”

“It does. Stay here with Morgan and Reid. Call me if you get anything else.”

“Okay,” you said, walking back into the house only to find Spencer inside Richard’s room sitting crossed-leg on the bed with every single CD this guy owned—opened and laying everywhere.

“What is all this?”

“Morgan thinks that the CDs might help us with the password.”

“Will it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Can I help?”

“Be my guest,” he offered.

Looking at all of the CDs in the room, you tried to get a feel for the energies surrounding them—the more energy a CD has, the more that Richard used it. Looking at the CD shelf, you froze when you saw Richard standing there, looking through the different kinds of CDs.

“What is it?” Spencer asked, seeing as there was nothing by the CD shelf. “Is he here?”

“Yeah.”

“What is he doing?”

“Looking for a CD. There’s hundreds of them, but there is only one that he wants,” you noticed, walking closer to him.

He picked out a Metallica with a smile before heading up to the attic. As soon as Richard disappeared, you looked through each and every one of the CD cases until you found the one you wanted.

“What are you doing? Did you find something?”

“He chose this one,” you held up the Metallica CD.

“It’s empty.”

“Doesn’t the laptop have a CD port?”

“You’re right,” he whispered, grabbing something off the bedside table.

He walked upstairs with you trailing behind to find Derek almost on edge.

“We’ve been thinking about the CD's,” Spencer began.

“Oh, Reid, come on. We tried the CD's. We searched, sifted, and sorted through every one of this guy's head-banging heavy metal collection. We gotta find something, or this girl is dead.”

“Think you may have missed the obvious,” you said.

Spencer used the tiny pin in his hand to forcefully open the CD port on the side of the laptop. Inside was the missing CD case.

“What are you doing? Reid, what made you think of this?”

“It was the only empty case,” you shrugged, tossing the case to Derek.

“Alright. I'm an insomniac who listens to Metallica to go to sleep at night. What song could possibly speak to me?” Derek thought out loud.

Spencer eyed the back of the case before looking at his friend.

“Enter Sandman.”

“You sure?” Derek asked.

Once Spencer nodded, he typed the password into the computer, and low and behold, it unlocked. The only thing on the home screen was a video file, but it wasn’t just any kind of video…

It was a live one.

“Call Gideon,” you gasped once the video file was opened.

It was the same thing you have been seeing—Heather tired and gagged inside of a cage. Derek grabbed his phone and dialed the superior agent.

“Gideon, Heather's alive… 'Cause we're watching her right now.”

“I feel her pain and fear,” you whispered with wide eyes.

The swat team was called up to examine the video, and then they began searching the attic to see if they could find evidence of where this girl might be.

“Morgan, can you show me the last 12 images lined up next to each other?” Spencer asked.

“Yeah,” Derek muttered, doing as he was told.

“You see that? The light bulb hanging from the wire?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“It's shifting positions like it's swaying, like the earth is tilting.”

“Not the earth, doc,” you commented, “the ocean. That girl is on a boat.”

“Hotch, Heather is on a boat,” Derek said once he called Hotch. “It’s a pier or a dock. He wouldn't be able to transmit the webcam image from the middle of the ocean… It's the best we got, Hotch. Even if we're right, getting the exact location's on you, my friend… To work me a little magic.”

Just to be updated on Heather’s situation, you kept watching the video to see what might happen or if the second unsub, which was Timothy Vogel, went to get her. Apparently, when Richard was in jail, Timothy was the guard who befriended him and looked out for him. That was the man you’d been seeing in your visions when you saw Heather in the cage. The video was transmitting shot by shot, and in one shot, she was alone.

The second shot, Timothy was approaching her.

“Guys, he’s inside,” you panicked.

The panic you were feeling was mostly coming from her since her energy was strong enough to come through the camera.

“Get Elle on the phone,” Derek ordered as Spencer did what he asked.

Once the female agent was on the phone, Derek took the phone from her and started speaking, but you weren’t paying attention to them. Heather started fighting back and kicked Timothy in the face. She escaped the room, and once he did as well, you couldn’t get anything else.

“He’s gone. They’re gone. I can’t see them anymore,” you panicked.

“Elle and Gideon can handle this. Come on, we have to go,” Spencer urged.

This woman’s life was in danger, and you couldn’t be responsible for another dead body.

You wouldn’t allow that to happen.

“You thinking about doing this full time?” Gideon asked after Heather was rescued and Timothy was taken away.

Hugging yourself tightly, you looked at the other agents on the other side of the dock. Spencer, Derek, and Hotch were talking to one another, and Elle was talking with one of the officers.

“I am. I was trained to help people. It’s what my dad taught me to do.”

“I’ll put in a good word for you then,” he said, leaving your side.

“Thank you, Jason.”

The plane was silent since most of the agents were sleeping. Derek and Elle were comfortable on the couches, Gideon and Hotch were talking quietly in the middle of the plane, and you were sitting all by yourself in the corner, giving everyone their spaces since you have yet to feel like one of them.

“Nice job you did back there,” Spencer complimented you, taking a seat next to you with a coffee in his hands.

“Thanks, you too.”

“I’m having trouble understanding the things you can do.”

“What do you want to know?” you asked, closing the file in your hands.

“How long have you been able to do this?”

“All my life, I guess. I was born with it. I just have incredible sensitivity to people’s emotions. You know how some people know when they’re being watched? That feeling of eyes on you? Or when your gut is telling you something is bad or wrong? Well, this is my sixth sense.”

“Can you hear things?”

“No. Back at Richard’s house when I saw him talking on the phone, I couldn’t hear what he was saying. However, based on his looks and his emotional state, I had a clue. I’m kind of lucky I don’t hear what I see because if I did, I don’t think I could ever leave my house. I can close my eyes if it gets too much, but I can’t turn off my hearing.”

“So, you can get a read on me?”

“Yes, I can. Do you want me to try?” you chuckled.

Spending time with Spencer the whole ride home was something you can get on board with. You just met him, but there was something about him that just drew you in.

"When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

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@averyhotchner

#extreme aggressor #series rewrite #criminal minds series rewrite #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fic #spencer reid angst #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds angst #cm #cm fic #cm fanfiction #cm angst #season 1 episode 1 #s1e1

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i-am-infinite · 4 years

Text

Guilt (Part 1): The Rescue

(Din Djarin x ForceSensitive!Fem!Reader)

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Slight Chpt 12 and 13 spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Description: Moff Gideon has found someone else to run his experiments on and word gets back to Din. Will he take his son far away and try and find somewhere safe? Or will the guilt of an innocent being put in his son’s place eat away at him? (No Y/N or ___ used)

Word Count: Slightly over 4K

Warnings: Mentions of blood and needles. Broken glass. Fainting. Blood loss. Canon type violence. Possible bad writing (first fic pls go easy on me). If I’m missing anything please let me know, I’ve never done one of these before.

A/N: This is my first fanfic I’ve written so it might be really bad but I couldn’t get the idea out of my head so here it is. I also made up a planet/system and don’t know if star wars has alarm clocks but i wrote it in anyway. I also wrote this in Word first and then realized I couldn’t copy it over so I tried my best to type it over in here.

Normal. That is what was used to describe your life. Nothing out of the ordinary. Life wasn’t boring per se, but it definitely wasn’t compelling enough for your tastes. Studying to be a healer help keep it somewhat interesting but not enough.

Bzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzz. Crust littered eyes creak open as your face unsticks from the textbook scattered across the desk. Bzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzz. Your stiff neck cracks as you finally sit up. Fell asleep studying again. You loved learning about healing, you really did. But the long nights and barely sleeping was enough to make your head explode. Looking over at the clock with bright red numbers blinking at you. 8:15.

8:15! I’m late! You think as you force yourself awake. No not again! Being a student means you need to do hands on hours down at the nearest medcenter. All the late night studying also means that you oversleep most days. Grabbing your work bag filled with a change of clothes, in preparation of these events, you run out the door.

Your feet hit the wet cobble stones as it echos through your little part of the city. Vendors lining up the street ready to start their days. Passing the shop you went to yesterday, your mind too preoccupied to notice that it’s empty today. You know that theres is a faster route to the medcenter, but is it a path you really want to take today? Dark and windy path that you can barely see five feet in front of you on mornings like this. Too foggy and muggy for your liking. You’d rather stick to the main road where there’s people, where if anything were to happen, people would see, they would know. Regardless, it shaves fifteen minutes off your commute. You loathe having to be late for another shift. Making the sharp turn in between tow booths, you pace quickens to get through as quickly as you can. While not having much visibility, you swear you can see a pair of eyes in the dark. Has to just be my imagination, you convince yourself, I just need to keep going. It’ll be fine.

Footsteps echo behind you. Hands grab your shoulders. A scream rises in your throat, but no sound comes out. Everything goes dark when you feel something hit the side of your head.

Sigh. “Grogu get back in your seat.” The little baby waddles down off the controls and into his father’s lap. “Not what I meant,” Din grumbles with a smile hidden under his helmet. He grabs Grogu by his little robe and places him in the seat to his right and tells him to buckle up as a holo comes through from Greef Karga.

“Mando, we’ve just got word that Moff Gideon might have been seen in the Braic system. It looks like they found a substitute for the baby for the time being. I would use this time to go find a hide-out and lay low. He could still come back for the little one. Be well,”

Din goes to start the ship and find coordinates to stay out of trouble for a while when he hears the baby whine. Looking back at his adoptive child, all Din can see is Grogu, then a nameless kid, lying unconscious on a metal table, trapped underneath a contraption. Din starts breathing heavy and feeling sick that he ever gave his son up to those Imps. All he can hear is the beeping of the machine he’s hooked up to. Anger boiling back to the surface as he hears himself yell at the doctor all over again in his memories. No, he tells himself, He’s here with me. He’s fine. He’s safe. He shakes himself out of it and goes to fly the Razor Crest off planet.

Before he even gets off the planet, all Din can think about is that innocent person in his son’s place. They were going to kill Grogu, just for his blood for their experiments. Din can’t bring the kid anywhere near those people, he can’t risk losing his family, not when both of them have formed such attachments to each other. But he can’t stop thinking of this person who is in the that position now. He should’ve made sure Gideon was dead. Because of that now more people are going to get hurt.

Without thinking he turns on his holo already asking, “Where is he taking them?”

Feeling groggy with heavy eyes, you are able to open them just a bit to a blinding light. Reluctantly closing them again, you lift your arm to rub your eyes, but only they don’t move. What? The rest of your senses start coming back and you can feel the cool metal against your back, the same metal wrapped around your wrists and your ankles attached to the table. Finally bracing the light and opening your eyes, lifting your head slightly off the table and oh no the room is spinning now. There is an IV in your arm drawing your blood out into some odd machine, explaining the dizziness. Second time in two days you’ve had to deal with your own blood.

Walking through the shops on your one day off, you pick up a flower hair pin. The glasswork is so intricate and entrancing, you can’t help but turn it over and over in your hands. A pearl bead sitting in the center of iridescent gray and white petals. Placing it back in its place, your had scrapes against another glass design that is not yet finished, slashing open your palm. “Oh, dear let me help you with that,” the lady running the stand says. She looks you with her white hair barely covering her forehead. Tattoos liter her arms. A design peaks your interest as you swear you know but can’t quite place.

“It’s fine, I can take care of it myself,” you state already inspecting your hand. No shards in it so thats good.

“Oh no I insist. It happened at my booth, let me help clean it,” she declares taking your hand in her own. It feels like she squeezes the wound causing you to wince in pain slightly. Knowing she should just be cleaning it and wrapping it, you’re a little confused. Maybe she just doesn’t know how to tend to these sort of things, not wanted to embarrass her at her stand, you keep quiet. She finally gets a clean rag to help blot away at the blood on your hand. You didn’t think anything of it at the time, but it appears she has put it in a bag to the side.

“I don’t have any gauze to help wrap it up,” the stand lady says.

“Oh, don’t worry, I have plenty of my own,” you mention, “It will be fine until I make it back to my place.” Smiling you walk away. Without looking, you can feel her move the piece you cut your hand on into the bag. Must just be because it’s a dangerous piece, you think, not knowing there’s still some of your blood on it too.

Closing your eyes again, you try to wonder why that is so significant to you right now. It was a harmless thing in passing, so why is it at the forefront of your mind? You are strapped to a table and all you can think about is that little cut you got the day prior. If your head didn’t feel like it was a spinner top right now, you would have laughed. Opening your eyes again you see men all in white armor and helmets guarding the door to your room, while a man in a white coat is working on the machine where your IV is attached. I thought the empire was dead. The same symbol that keeps going through your mind is the same one sewn into the man’s white coat. Your breathing gets shallower as you feel the panic rise in your chest. I’m never getting out of here, you realize as your vision becomes black once again.

You’re losing a lot of blood. You know that. You can feel it when noise wakes you up and your eyelids feel like lead. All the noise is muffled, as if you’re underwater. Frankly it feels like you are. It would be so easy to let the waves of darkness just wash over you right now, to let the water take you under. No, you can’t give up the fight and drown into unconsciousness just yet. You force yourself to stay awake.

Barely getting your eyes open, bright red lights flood your vision. You imagine you’re still in bed, or at least asleep at your desk, with the alarm clock blaring, not here with blaster fire. Wait, blaster fire? You attempt to turn your head to the side to look, or to dodge, you aren’t to sure in your current state. The fast action causes you to feel like you’re spinning, or it might be the room, either way your eyes can’t focus on what is going on. Closing your eyes again to make it stop, you hear voices surrounding you. They sound so far away at the moment but finally, after what feels like ages, one voice sounds clearer.

“Please help us. Help us get out of here. Her m-counts aren’t nearly as high as the child’s. They’re demanding more blood. She’s already lost 2 liters, I don’t know how much longer she can last.”

Child? They wanted to do this to a child? You’d choke down a sob if you could just thinking of that poor baby. What did he even say about what-counts? What the hell are those? All these questions are making your head spin more and more. Taking most of your energy to open your eyes, you’re met with a chrome stormtrooper trying to unbind you. Wait no, not a stormtrooper. You’ve heard stories about him and his people. What were they called? For the life of you, you can’t remember right now.

“You’re going to need help getting her out of here,” you realize that the man in the whit coat was the one who spoke before and is now pleading with the metal man, “Please Mandalorian take me with you and I’ll help you get her out of here.”

That’s it. He’s a Mandalorian. He gets your wrists free as the doctor takes the IV out. Pushing off the table to sit up, the world starts spinning again. You don’t even realize you’re about to hit the table again until the Mandalorian grabs your shoulders to keep you semi-upright. You hear some sort of static come from his helmet. “Fine.” he grumbles, “help me get her out of this thing.”

With a flip of a switch, the rest of your body is free from restraints. Eager to get out of there, you swing your legs over the edge of the table, hands finding the arms of the Mandalorian with his hands still on your shoulders. Nauseous and woozy, you try to use the cold metal of his pauldron to ground yourself, to get the room to stop spinning. He can see you start to sway and wraps his arms around your waist as he lowers you from the table. Your feet hit the floor and black dots start to cloud your vision. Blood pounding in your ears trying to tell you to stop and lie back down. Muffled voices come from beside you again as you feel another arm wrap around you from the other side. Your feet dragging against the floor as both men on either side of you go towards the door.

You feel the heavily armored man to your left let go. Eyes that are still fuzzy and unfocused sort of see him peak out the door with his blaster drawn. He leaves the room and all that can be heard is the pew pew pew of blaster fire. Vision start to come back the tiniest bit, you can see him standing in the door way waving his hand as to say Come on.

The three of you hurry as fast as you can down the corridor to get to an exit. Lots of twists and turns, just for you all to come up at a dead end. So much for rescuing, you think to yourself as the doctor still holding you up, leans you up against a pillar as the two of them survey the situation. More of the Mandalorian assessing the situation and the doctor just frantically pacing back and forth.

Sitting down now that the adrenaline of being kidnapped and “rescued” die down, you feel your breathing getting shallower and harder to breath. Eyelids getting heavy again. You just want to lay down and go to sleep, hoping that will fix things. Starting your descent from your upright position to close your eyes, two hands grab your shoulders and jerk you up. It takes a second to realize this modulated voice was talking you you. “Hey, you got to stay with me now,” he pleads, one hand going to the side of your face. Pain spreads across your features due to being struck there earlier, a bruise starting to form in its place. Pulling his hand away like seeing the your face contorted burned him, he continues, “I’m going to get you out of here, you just have to stay awake.” You open your mouth to speak, but your throat feels like it’s filled with sand from Tattooine, so you just weakly nod your head yes. “Okay good,” the shiny man says after letting out a deep breath.

Still holding your shoulders, he helps you stand up and tells the doctor to take you and go further down the hall. Taking something small and circular out of his belt and placing it on the far wall, he speed walks back toward you two. It starts blinking red as his arms come and cage both of you in. Peeking over his shoulder, you see the wall disappear. Well explode, but one second ago it was there and now it’s not. When the explosion first rings in your ears, you reflexively reach out for the Mandalorian’s arm and feel him tense under your touch.

When he deems it safe to move again, letting go of his arm, he hops over the rubble to the outside world, blaster drawn. Looking out you think it looks like a desert, but one you’ve never seen before. You have no idea where you are, even what planet you are on. You eyes go to where the chrome man is stalking towards. It seems he found two speeder bikes that the troopers use, sans the troopers. Your feet hit the gravel and you realize you aren’t wearing shoes anymore. How long was I out? You begin to question when you see a stormtrooper take aim at your rescuer. Right when he pulls the trigger, you reach your hand out and scream, “NO!”

You could’ve sworn it was going to hit him. It should’ve hit him. But at the last second it bent and went in another direction. You knew stormtroopers were bad shots, but nothing like that has ever happened. The Mandalorian whips around at your scream and shoots the trooper down. He goes back to what he originally planned to do, but not without turning to you. You see his chest plate heave up and down a few times before turning back around. After a beat, the only sound you can hear is the Mandalorian starting up the speeders and your heartbeat pounding in your ears. The doctor helps guide you to the bikes and as you’re about to get on behind him, the Mandalorian picks you up bridal style and sits on his own respective bike. You make a noise of discontent at the sudden action and are then seated in front of him, yet again caged in by his arms with your legs draped over one of his. You can hear him breathing through the modulator as he states, “Just in case you pass out again. Can’t have you falling off the back of the bike.” You go to adjust how you are sitting when he takes off.

Gasping in shock, you hug your arms around his neck with you head in his cowl as you take panicked breaths. His hand touches your back as you hear him shout over the noise of the engines, “Put your legs around me, you’re slipping off.” He holds your waist as you sling your right leg around and hook it with your left one behind his back. Not the position you thought you’d end up in as a blush creeps up on your face, but neither the less here you are. His hand lets go of your waist and back to the handlebars as he steers.

Suddenly getting the feeling like you’re being followed, you say into his neck cowl, “Go left!” You don’t know why, but you just get a gut feeling to go that way. He follows your lead, not without a brief hesitation. The doctor follows on his speeder in the same direction. Finally looking up you see two stormtroopers in the distance. I wish their speeders would just stop or something, you plead with yourself and you think back to what happened with the blaster. Testing the waters, you unhook one of your hands from Mando’s neck and hold it out and... nothing. Okay focus, you close your eyes and picture their speeders stopping, or malfunctioning, or anything at this point.

The sound of a crash comes ringing into your ears. Opening your eyes, you can see the troopers flip over their handlebars as if their engines just died. You slightly chuckle to yourself as your eyelids feel heavy again. You try to get them to stay open, but sleep just feels so much better at the moment. And with that, you’re out like a light.

Din feels you go limp against him. His arm once again going to grab you by your waist to keep you in place. He wills his speeder to go faster, to get back to the Razor Crest sooner as he’s panicking thinking he somehow made the situation worse. He exposed you on the bike by having you sit like this. Your arms, legs, and head were all exposed to possible blaster fire. Have you been hit? He heard a crash but couldn’t look back without moving you more, risking leaving you more unprotected. His blame for himself spirals as his grip on you grows tighter. He can’t explain why he’s so distraught over a stranger, but still every time he blinks, he swears he sees back on that table. The next time he swears he sees his son on that very table again. First he gave the kid up to those people, now he didn’t finish Gideon off and let you, an innocent stranger who he is now clutching onto for dear life, get in the crossfire. Too many people have gotten hurt because of this. Because of him. He needs to make it right.

Finally Din and Dr. Pershing arrive at the Razor Crest where Din is already lowering the hatch and carrying you in. Kicking some crates together, he gently lowers you down onto this makeshift bed. He uses his thermal setting to see your body temperature, to see how you are recovering from the blood loss. He isn’t thrilled to see it still low, you were getting your energy back slowly before, along with more body heat, bit not enough to Din’s liking. Turning his helmet to Pershing, the doctor says, “She’s going to need more blood.” Din, already standing ready to run out and get some, not even knowing where or how to do that, is stopped by Pershing telling him that he’ll go get it, that it would look less suspicious. Agreeing, Din sits by your side while using his comm-link to tell Greef that he could bring Grogu back to the ship. How Din always finds someone to babysit still surprises him.

You wake up with a start. Eyes not yet adjusted to the lights overhead. Looking down you can see an IV in your arm again. Now towards the side, you can see the same doctor from before asleep up against a wall. Please tell me it wasn’t a dream, tears well up in your eyes as you think you’ve made the whole thing up to cope. It wasn’t until you felt your hand come to wipe away your watery eyes that you realized it just might not be a dream. The IV isn’t taking blood this time, it’s giving it.

Finally looking around, you realize you’re on a ship that feels like it’s moving. Confused by this, you try and sit up. Not nearly as dizzy as before, you slowly swing your legs off the wooden crates you’re lying on. Noticing your still barefoot as a chill gets sent up to your spine by the cold metal floor, you grab your IV bag off what appears to be just a hook poorly attached to the ceiling. You venture around the small area of the ship, noticing there isn’t a lot besides these boxes and what appears to be two storage type of units. You don’t even tempt to look in, too intrusive. You do however see a ladder going higher up on the ship. Taking the IV out and ripping a piece of your shirt off to wrap around your arm for pressure, so you can use both hands to climb, you start your ascent up.

Once you finally reach the top, you hear cooing? Didn’t that doctor say something about a child earlier? Looking forward into the cockpit, you see your savior flying while looking to his right at one of the co-pilot chairs. Clearing your throat to get his attention, two little eyes peer at you from the seat. A bright smile appears on this little green things face and you can’t help but stifle a laugh because its ears are the size of his body.

Distracted by this cute baby, you don’t notice the way the Mandalorian swivels his chair to face you. Finally looking at the man who saved you today, your breath hitches. You don’t know how to thank him for what he did, so you sort of just stand and stare for a second. He stands up and lightly grabs your arm with your homemade bandage on it. Tilting his helmet to the side you hear static coming from it. Did he just sigh at you? “You were supposed to keep it in your arm,” he finally states, with a tinge of annoyance.

Eyes not wanting to meet the T of his visor, you direct your gaze to the ground. “ I jus- I-,” you stammer, not able to find the right words. “Thank you.” It comes out more hushed than you’d like, but he still hears you. He just gives you a slight nod before releasing his arm and heading back to his seat. All your muscles turn to stone as you stand there not knowing if you should leave or not, until he cocks his head towards the seat to his left. On shaky legs you find your way to the seat. Before even sitting down fully, the little green child is already trying to get into your lap. Giggling to yourself you let him up onto your lap.

Once you do the strangest thing happens. You can feel what he’s thinking, his emotions, his past. How he was trained with the special abilities, much like the ones you just displayed before. How he was scared and in hiding until the man sitting in front of you found him. How he thinks of him as a father, his dad. Your chest tightens at that one. Still confused as to why the same people who wanted this child, Grogu, for his powers, also wanted you, you pull him to your chest to comfort you both. You finally speak up again and ask, “Did they want me because I might have the same abilities as this one?” You meant it to sound strong, but it just came out sounding weak.

Without looking at you, the Mandalorian replies shortly after a pause, “Yes.” You swore you can see his grip tighten on the ships steering as he says that. Turning to the two of you finally, he says in the sincerest voice you’ve heard out of him, “They wont get to either of you again. I can promise you that.” Your chest swells at this statement and Grogu looks up at you with a smile as if he felt the way your heart fluttered. You wish you were the one wearing the helmet right now because you can feel your cheeks heat up. To ease the situation in the best way you can, awkwardly, you clear your throat before asking, “So where are we headed now?”

Swiveling back in his chair to hit a few buttons, you’re confused not knowing what they are supposed to do until he pulls up a map and points a place out. He tells you that he’s going to drop off Dr. Pershing at one of the squiggles you see and then try and figure it out from there. “So, I guess thats where I get off too?” You meant it to come out more as a statement than a question, but after what you just went through, you’d rather not be left to fend for youself.

“If that’s what you want,” he finally utters after a while. “ But they’re not going to stop coming after you. Either of you. It might be safer for you to stay here with me, us.” The last part comes out so quiet, it’s almost as if he didn’t want you to hear, out of fear of your response.

Trying to not answer too quickly, you take a deep breath and finally say, “Yes. I’d like that a lot.” With a curt nod, he turns back around. Warmth fills your chest yet again at this stranger’s kindness. It’s just because I have the same abilities as his child, you try to convince yourself. But deep down you’re hoping it’s more than that. The child in your lap grips your fingers tightly and coos, as if he’s trying to tell you your hopes might not be too far off.

Oh, it’s going to be an interesting adventure with these two, you smile to yourself.

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