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I hope you are all staying well :]
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Chapter 9: Pragmatism and optimism
The port the Mandalorian chooses on Gandle Ott is nothing grandiose, but it is crowded and bustling.
So much so that it takes Hanna aback at first, for it had been quite a while since she'd been in such a populated place. It strikes her as overwhelming enough that she doesn't to argue when the Mandalorian tells her the kid can stay with him. He's planning to stick closer to the ship and that seems like a good place for the kid to be.
Once she is actually out in the melee, the fast pace of busy crowds comes back to her as natural. She moves with it and shoulders her way past strangers as needed.
The spread of shops has everything she needed, so she's able to quickly fill the rucksack the Mandalorian had gifted her.
.
Now she's even considering shoes for the kid. Not that he ever seems to mind going without. Plus his feet are oddly shaped ...
She abandons that idea.
But she does grab a couple small tunics and a new blanket for him from a small selection of children's items she'd found. He's too disproportioned for the short trousers offered and, anyway, he is perfectly content in his current form of attire.
So, over all, she's happy with the clothes and hygiene necessities she's found. Even more pleased that she has plenty leftover in the small bag of credits the Mandalorian had given when she departed.
He hadn't even given her an audience to gripe about being unable to help with money.
"Are you sure I can't-"
"No. Be quick. Come straight back."
So, fine. He's bankrolling the excursion.
They're going to need to have a chat, though, she thinks. It's his ship and his rules: awesome. But she can finish a sentence at the very least.
.
Despite the conflicted feelings with which she had taken the money, she is currently considering whether she is going to give all of the unspent credits back to him. She has a compulsion to ferret it away. Save it. Start her own "just in case" fund.
But she knows she can't. She's too grateful he'd leant her the wallet in the first place.
Admittedly, she has a very uncomfortable relationship with money.
She'd been paid in indentured work, sure. But once you pay a share to your proprietor toward paying-off your contract you still have to fork over rent and necessities payments to them, too. You're generally lucky to have anything left for even small conveniences or to save up. In practice, it's not actually a system you work your way out of. That's just on-paper nonsense.
She sighs.
Yes it will all have to go back to him no matter how tantalizing it feels to hold a wallet with a little weight to it. She'll feel guilty otherwise.
.
"Move faster," a voice hisses in her ear.
Hanna starts even though she knows the voice and the shine of metal at her shoulder.
"What?"
"Walk. Faster," he repeats himself and slips the bag smoothly from her shoulder to drape over his own.
"What happened?" she begins to turn.
"Act normal"
She normally asks questions, but she doesn't say so.
Instead:
"Where's the kid?"
He had been left in the Mandalorian's custody, but he is suspiciously alone right now.
"Locked on the ship."
She'll leave the 'why' for later, then.
They bump up the pace as much as they can without absolutely bowling people over.
.
"You were saying?" Hanna's eyes go wide when they near the dock and the kid is shuffling around the outside of the ship, his head roving from side to side as he looks for company.
"How the-" the Mandalorian curses lightly and gives her a nudge. "Get him."
She does and jogs up the ramp in time to see the man toss her bag aside and dart for the ladder. Once she slams the button for the ramp hoist she joins him.
All the while the kid is welcoming her back with little pats on the arm like he hadn't just jail-broke the place.
.
Their exit from the planet is swift and methodical.
"What happened?" she turns to the Mandalorian as soon as stealth and casual disguise are things of the past.
"Active hunters"
A cold feeling prickles up Hannah's spine and she flexes her fingers subconsciously around the kid.
He squeaks and she lets him go.
Immediately, he wiggles down and scampers to the Mandalorian and tugs on his pants leg in hopes of getting a left up. He likely wants to play with on the dash.
"Looking for us?"
"I don't think so. They didn't get too close..."
"Then how did you know they're hunters?"
He cuts her a look. Then returns focus to the controls.
"I just do."
Mysterious.
"So ...just better safe than sorry, right?"
"I don't exactly blend in," he sighs and finally relents to bend and scoop up the kid, who 'squees' in delight. "They'll hear about me soon enough. I don't want to leave a trail."
"Okay ...yeah. Okay. But it's not like we're being chased," she relaxes gratefully. "Nice..."
"Can't bank on that yet," the Mandalorian sounds perfectly matter-of-fact about that.
Killjoy.
Irregardless of his negativity, Hanna appreciates his pragmatism. He'd seen the threat and acted to keep them safe. He also hadn't ditched her, which is comforting.
She decides that chat she'd been half-choreographing in her head about how it would be much more respectful of him to let her talk ...that can wait. He's getting used to the whole having company business; so what if he's not amazing at it yet?
He's doing more important things perfectly well.
.
Once it becomes pretty clear that, no, they hadn't been followed, Hanna heads back to the hull to putz around organizing her new belongings.
If she purchased them herself but used his credits ...are they hers or his?
...definitely hers.
.
The kid had opted to stay up in the cockpit because he is a traitor, so when Hanna finishes tidying up she helps herself to a shower in the fresher and changes into gloriously clean, new pants and a top. She even pulls a sweater on against the chill of the cabin.
Then she is only left with the quiet. There are worse things, of course. And its not like there is much to do to get into trouble.
.
.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Hanna should have had a better ear out.
Because getting caught with the side of the food prep machine pulled apart had not been her plan. She'd hoped to be finished more quickly than this.
"I know what I'm doing," she holds both hands up innocently despite her promise.
The Mandalorian shifts the kid from one arm to the other. She feels sure he wants to reach over to the counter where she's squatting and yank her off with the free hand.
"It probably doesn't look that way," she concedes. "Just ...sometimes you have to make more of a mess before you get it all back together."
He tucks his chin in like he isn't buying what she's selling.
Which...fair.
"A few days ago you couldn't even use it," he growls.
But that's a little far.
"I told you I've just never used this model," she defends herself. "But they're more or less the same when you get inside 'em," she taps a knuckle on the machine. "I've seen plenty..."
He slants his head at her for further explanation.
"I was on a mechanical crew at a repair bay back on Castilion. Inside. Outside. You name it. If you were paying, we'd figure it out ...or pretend to," she grins a little shyly for that.
She can't help it. Sometimes creativity and wishes worked themselves out into engineering miracles...or sometimes it just got you in trouble.
"You..." he falters uncharacteristically.
Hanna can't help but find a little bit of glee in that.
"You were there when he said I bolted from a refueling station," she twists around to sit on the counter since this is a thing now and the crouching had been wearing on her ankles. "Turning wrenches is, like ...the most common job in a place like that. What did you think I did?"
The Mandalorian straightens his spine a little defensively, but he ultimately opts not to say.
Ah.
Distasteful of his own assumption, maybe?
But his non-answer is answer enough as to what he thought had been implied at the time. What plenty of people might assume an indentured woman got dropped into.
It makes sense, then. His refusal of any effort on her part to get spare credits.
"Yeah," she drawls a little to show him she's not offended and he can relax that rod in his spine. "I was lucky. I have small hands and I'm a quick learner ...I worked really hard to prove I was useful on the docks."
He gives a firm nod.
"I understand."
Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't.
At least he doesn't sound pissed anymore.
"How long ...did you work there?"
A smile slowly splits over Hanna's face as she relishes him asking his first real question of her. Or at least about her. Probably just to assess her credibility with laying hands on his source of warm food. Even so.
"...pretty much all of my twenties," she shrugs, though truthfully she knows the exact date at nineteen. "My mom was an indent ...after my dad passed and the economy was teetering everywhere. Well, a lot of people turned to that," he's nodding because that's not news to anyone who's gotten around the galaxy as much as he clearly has. "When she got sick I bought out her contract ..."
"...with your own?" he makes the connection without her
"I was old enough; she couldn't stop me," she grins sardonically.
"Younger, fitter worker. Sounds like a no-brainer," he's factual about it rather than scandalized.
Tale as old as time, or whatever they say. Maybe he's never been to Castilion, maybe he has. That doesn't really matter. Poverty isn't region-specific; it festers anywhere it can.
"Basically. My contract got sold off to an asshole on Catilion a few months in, so I'd been there ever since. It wasn't easy," for it was a thankless job and a rough hub, but she'd at least had friends. "... it could've been worse, though."
"...so where's the kid come in?" said kid's green ears perk up when he senses himself become topic front and center.
The Mandalorian pointedly does not backtrack in the story to ask about her mom. It could be more lack of concern than actual tact, but she appreciates it either way.
"Hell if I know," that's an answer Hanna doesn't have for him. "Snuck off some transport, I guess. He found me after that. I practically tripped over him on my way back to my dormitory..."
Okay. Truth? She had tripped over him that night. It had been ungainly and undignified, and it didn't need to be relived for someone who managed to make a cape look bad in all the good ways.
Plus, she'd felt really awful about it.
He'd mewl-ed at her. She'd been sure his parents were going to show up and dress her down for it.
Only, of course, no one ever had.
And so here they are.
.
The Mandalorian twists the kid in his hold and gazes down at him.
"...well the sneaking off a transport part I believe."
Hanna snorts.
"Look, I'm sorry I helped myself to your tools. And I should have asked before working on your equipment," she supposes she should be honest about her true sense of manners. "But I can't just do nothing. I owe you too much."
"No you-"
"I do," she talks over him for once. "If it was the other way around, how would you feel?"
He doesn't devolve into a spiel about how he would never get his ass caught and stuck in such a situation in the first place. For that, she's thankful.
"Point taken"
She nods.
"So I can finish? You're not going to get angry and use your flame thrower on me?"
He scoffs at this under his helmet.
It feels sort of like permission. So she twists back around to study the connections to the heating elements. He's still standing watch, but he's not the first overly-particular customer she's come in contact with.
She treats him like one by pretending he's not there.
Until he pipes up.
"So, tell me. Why exactly was I teaching you how to use a solderer?"
Oh. That.
Was he teaching her, though?
Hanna shrugs.
"Sorry. But I wasn't going to help you move along any faster, was I?"
She turns her chin enough to get a look at him even though she knows she won't be able to get a good read on his reaction to that.
"...no," he decides levelly and without any apparent annoyance. "I guess you wouldn't."
The kid starts to get fussy and the Mandalorian drops onto the stool nearby so that he can set the little guy down on the table. There, he darts for the protein bar wrapper Hanna had discarded earlier and sniffs around it for crumbs.
"Hungry?" the Mandalorian checks.
When Hanna looks over the kid is nibbling at whatever taste is left on the foil wrapper. That's probably answer enough.
"Stay right there..."
Given his recent antics it is brave to trust the kid will do as he's told, but the Mandalorian does. He peeks in the freezer and then starts rustling around a cabinet to find something he can bank on the kid enjoying. Only when the noise stops but the Mandalorian doesn't stomp back across the room does Hanna turn to see what the hold up is.
And finds him staring at her.
"What?"
"...that night. When I found you in the cockpit," he clarifies. "Could you have flown it?"
"No. Or..not well. Definitely not safely..."
"How well, then?"
"I could've changed our course," she admits the extent of things, for she knows how to read gauges and what all the parts do but has never once put it all together and flown a single ship in her life. "I definitely could have broken something nonessential..."
That is met by silence for a few moments.
"I underestimated you," he admits, and he sounds annoyed with himself for letting an enemy sneak around under his nose. "I almost left you alone up there to wallow."
She laughs a little.
"So you do think I'm an idiot," she remembers accusing him of that before but doesn't feel as pained afterward by it now.
He only stares at her some more, head tilted just so.
"...you have very skewed assumptions of the way I think of you."
Well...
Well.
Just what does that mean? How is she supposed to know what he's thinking? And so what if she hasn't completely cast-off the idea of him as some sort of superior yet. Who could? Anyway; look at him. She's getting used to the armor and helmet, but it's not like his is an inherently endearing look.
"Okay. Then what do you think?"
He appraises her with a new incline of his head.
"...fishing for compliments again?"
She rolls her eyes and gets back to her work. The Mandalorian does, too, and is soon ripping open a plastic package.
"This will tide you over," he tips out some sort of dried jerky onto the tabletop.
While the kid tests out his first one, the Mandalorian sits the rest of the pieces out at regular intervals. Soon the kid is surrounded in a semi-circle of snacks so he won't have to move to get more food. Certainly won't have to go near the table's ledge.
Hanna smiles at the pair and pulls up a relay board to study.
.
Once she wraps-up and assures the Mandalorian that, yes, he can make up a meal, she retreats to go wash her hands and to put things away where she had found them.
He has moved the kid to the counter and is inspecting the food prep machine when she returns. There's something freeze-dried on the bar that the kid is poking and trying to get a good whiff of.
"Uh-huh...you're going eat that; I'm not going to make anything else," he couples this declaration with a glance at the kid. "You don't charm me with your little sounds like you do her. You're a menace."
"So I'm a pushover, now, am I?"
"At times," he doesn't at all seem surprised that she's there, nor does he pause his checking the oven.
She can't exactly argue his point so she doesn't bother.
"The work up so snuff?"
"Mm. Yes," he is unafraid to concede.
"I did take longer than I thought. It tripped me up a bit...being an older model."
"She's fine"
Hanna chuckles at his possessiveness.
"But thank you."
She isn't laughing, then. She's nearly positive that he's never thanked her for anything.
True she hasn't tried to give him many reasons to yet.
But still.
It's nice.
"I've plotted a course for Sorgan," he moves right past the moment like it's nothing and cuts open the package of food.
"Sorgan...where's that?"
It's no specific surprise to her she hasn't heard of the place; she's not the big traveler.
"Middle of nowhere. No large ports or notable population density. Just some backwater skughole no one would look twice at."
"I get it..." she understands the appeal immediately.
"It'll take a few days to get there ...but we'll be able to lay low. Stretch our legs a while..."
"How long?"
"Couple months, maybe..." he guesses.
Months.
Wow.
Hanna isn't sure why that surprises her. Maybe it's his optimism that this place will be safe for that long. Or she just hasn't stopped and given deep thought to how permanently stuck together they are ...or hadn't let herself believe he is really staying at all.
That could be it.
Maybe she is surprised to hear him confirm that he's not preparing to dip out on the situation.
"Is that a problem?"
He's staring at her now, head cocked curiously since she's failed to partake further in the conversation. That's usually his gig.
"Hmmm, no? No. Why would it be?"
Her surveys her a little longer and then turns fully.
"...you weren't planning on a trip home, were you?"
Surely he can't mean Castilion; she's sure she hadn't sounded homesick for the place. Does he remember the Old Man reporting that she grew up on Coruscant? She suspects he remembers everything. But there's most definitely nothing for her there these days.
So she scoffs.
"No"
"Because any place connected to you is the first place they'll look, and-"
"Stop. I'm not," she promises. "I'm not harboring a fantasy that there's any going backwards now ...I don't want to anyway. I guess I was just surprised you're so confident this place will be safe."
Mostly. No reason to mention she's subconsciously looking for signs that he's ready to bail.
Fairly good chance that's offensive.
"Won't know for sure 'til we get there," he concedes, seeming satisfied with her answer and turning to watch and judge closely as the new-and-improved prep machine works its way up to heat. "But no obvious red flags ...odds are we'll be pretty bored there."
Odds are, hmm?
Luck has't exactly always been on Hanna's side. But that could be turning. He doesn't seem like the fanciful sort, so if he's willing to be optimistic then so is she.
"...it's not going to blow up," she assures him, though she's not offended by the way he's standing there with arms crosses to assess how the machine is doing.
"We'll see"
"Guess so," she plops down on the stool he'd abandoned and waits, too.
For victory.
"...is your name Gordo?"
He had given her apathetic permission to guess and has so far humored the few guesses she's lobbed his way. Not too many to bother him, but she hasn't forgotten her curiosity.
"No"
"...what about Cassian?"
"No"
"Hmmm..." she plucks up one of the pieces of jerky left on the table to try and is pleased to find it's spicy.
The kid, having seen this, chirps in indignation from the counter.
"It'll only be a few minutes," the Mandalorian shushes him and scoops him up so he can see inside the food prep.
Yeah, yeah. Who's the pushover now?
