This time, Lyrian's vision was not defined by violence and destruction.

It was warm at first, and even as she became slowly aware that her head felt as if it were being crushed between two jagged rocks, the pain and the pressure there was receding, being swallowed up by an almost itchy, warm tugging at the edges of her brain. She did not open her eyes, content to wallow in the strange buzz, which seemed not only to surround her entire body, but to originate from within it.

She could not hear anything, which was odd, she thought. But the sensations that inevitably accompanied her most vivid visions of the future were pleasant this time—comfortable, even—and she wasn't going to ruin it by trying to break the vision.

Except…

There was no vision—only the cool darkness of the backs of her own eyelids and her five senses, slowly leaking information back into her brain.

With some effort, Lyrian cracked her eyes open. Her first glimpse of the prism of colors convulsing above her head—and then the silver helmet bent over her face—brought what had transpired over the last few minutes rushing back into her consciousness…along with her hearing and the immediate cessation of the warm feeling she had just been basking in.

Confusion and anxiety over what had taken place spiked inside of Lyrian, and though she tried to sit up instantly, to struggle off the hard, uneven surface pressing into her back, she felt a gentle hand on her chest pushing her back into the unsteady cradle of someone's arm.

"Stay down for a second, Lyrian," a voice said, and Lyrian squinted against the too-bright environment around her, at Cara, whom she now saw was the source of the voice and the pressure at her sternum.

Who was holding her, then, and why?

What happened?

Is the Child safe?

Lyrian's gaze flickered up and to her left, and even though she had known since she first saw the helmet, she was somehow still surprised to see that it was the Mandalorian holding her. His helmet was tilted down at her, and though she could see no feature of his face, the tension in his arm and one of his hands—which she now realized was clasped too tightly over her own—was enough to inform her that he was worried.

That she had been unconscious, and her "vision" earlier was nothing more than her coming back to the world of the living—

That maybe the Mandalorian hadn't been sure she was going to wake up at all—

That maybe that had even concerned him to the point of cradling her like he would the Child—

"Can you stand?"

Lyrian was surprised again when the Mandalorian spoke. His voice was husky and came in between pants of breath that did not escape her notice, but the girl shivered and nodded weakly anyway. She was still stunned and felt oddly weightless in a way that made standing up seem less than appealing at the moment, but it appeared that perhaps her state of suffering was not entirely an isolated occurrence.

The Mandalorian released her hand, leaving it feeling cold and empty, and then pushed gently on her back with the arm she was reclined against, encouraging her to rock forward into a sitting position.

The Chiss girl obliged, breathing heavily through a nose that burned with the remnants of smoke around her. When she miraculously made it to her feet and stumbled with the force of the wind and a wave of vertigo, Cara was at her side, steadying her. Lyrian closed her eyes long enough for her rippling vision to calm again, and then she opened them again.

She looked down at where she had been laying, a ruffled canvas of black glass fragments and puffs of hesitant smoke, and shuddered. A jolt went through her not half a second later, when her eyes landed on the Child, lying still in the glass mere inches away from where she had fallen after the blast.

"No!"

She started lunging forward to grab him, something horrible raging in her chest at the thought that maybe he had died after all, that she had failed to save him (but how?), but the Mandalorian beat her to it, jerking toward the Child with an urgency that made it seem as if he had just noticed the Child's plight for the first time as well.

Despite his sudden movement, the Mandalorian gingerly picked the Child up, grunting as he did so and using one arm with notably less mobility than the other. Cara pulled Lyrian back and held onto her arm, gently enough that it didn't hurt but hard enough that Lyrian knew she was supposed to be still, to avoid jostling her own fragile balance any more than she already had.

"He's not hurt," the Mandalorian said, voice strained as he tucked the Child, whose tiny mouth opened and closed again and whose ear twitched when it met the cold Beskar of his protector. "He healed you. He's…he's tired."

Lyrian looked down at him again, shivering, fear still running wide-open in her blood.

But it made sense. Of course it did. That was what the warmth had been—that's why she had been pulled out of unconsciousness. She had saved him, and apparently he had done the same on her behalf.

How close had she really been to dying for him?

"We need to go, Mando. There might be more of them," Cara said loudly over the wind.

Lyrian sighed softly at how the woman's voice shattered the moment, finally tearing her eyes and thoughts away from the sleeping Child and all the confusion he had come to represent. She looked at the Mandalorian, and it seemed to her that she was truly looking at him for the first time.

He was still on his knees, having barely moved since he had helped Lyrian up, and even in the dark, she could see blood on his armor, splashed across the edge of his cuirass. He was tilted to one side, too, and breathing unevenly. His helmet did not move in reaction to Cara's words, and now the heaviness dropped again inside Lyrian's belly.

He was injured—severely injured, perhaps. Had he been wounded in defense of her or for some other reason, perhaps a threat he had encountered in the tunnels? How had he known to pursue her after the blast if he was inside the tunnels? And had all of the attackers she had seen in her vision come after him and Cara while she was unconscious?

"I'll help you," Lyrian said suddenly, pulling out of Cara's grip and reaching down without hesitation to grasp the Mandalorian's uninjured arm, on the side where the Child was not. She was not entirely certain as to how much assistance she could provide given her small stature and her own unsteadiness at the moment, but the warrior had once again saved her life in one way or another, and he was wounded. She needed to repay her debt to him.

The Mandalorian did react to her upward grip, weak as it was, and after a moment, he shook his head at Lyrian. He twisted around and, with a sharp inhalation of breath she could hear despite the interfering wind, extended the sleeping Child in her arms in her direction.

"Cara can help me stand. You…take the Child."

Lyrian stared at the T-visor of his helmet.

Her eyes fell unbidden to the blood on the Mandalorian's side, the way he was swaying now as the wind attacked and then retreated in taunting gusts.

And then she took the Child, though she wasn't sure she should be the one entrusted with his safety after what happened earlier. Those attackers—or at least some of them—had been after her. But maybe they had been after the Child, too…

As soon as Lyrian took the Child, hugging his tiny, trembling form close to her chest, Cara moved forward and took the Mandalorian's arm, hoisted rather than helped him to his feet, and then slung his good arm over her own shoulders. The Mandalorian grunted, and Lyrian watched Cara's instinctively move one of her hands—already soaked in blood, she saw—and press it against the wound in the Mandalorian's side. The pair rotated in the direction that led to the stone steps they had descended earlier.

"It almost seems like we've been in a situation like this before, doesn't it?" Cara grunted as she took an experimental step forward.

The Mandalorian might have responded, but Lyrian didn't hear it, and he was silent as he shuffled forward alongside his friend. The Chiss youngling swallowed, fighting tears she vainly tried to attribute to the stinging, ever-intensifying wind, and followed behind them no more than a few paces.

She couldn't look directly at the sleeping Child in her arms because to do so made her chest constrict painfully and took her eyes off the ground that still seemed to rock in her dizziness.

She couldn't look straight ahead because then her eyes were automatically drawn to the blood spreading from two gashes in the Mandalorian's calves, bright in this place where everything was thick and dark with gray, flat tones.

And she couldn't look above her because the colors in the sky were mesmerizing enough to shift her attention from stay upright—and they, too, did nothing to abate her vertigo.

So, she tried to look everywhere and nowhere at once, dulling the growing bulk of her thoughts, which were pregnant with theories and questions and so many emotions—so many things Lyrian didn't understand or know how to deal with. She tried to sort through them as best as she knew how, equipping the common sense and logic that had served her well up until her meeting with the Mandalorian and his companions.

She was concerned for the Child, she knew. Concerned that he might not wake up and it would be her fault—in more than one way.

She was afraid of the assailants who had attacked them, and she was afraid of being returned to her parents even now. They had no doubt sent the bounty hunters after her, so what would they do if she was returned alive? What kind of punishments had her actions merited in their minds?

But above all of that—clamoring above everything even though she could discern no ready reason as to why—was an anxiety for the injured warrior who walked ahead of her.

Why would he allow the Child—the Child he obviously cared for and treated as his responsibility—to heal her, at the expense of much of his energy, if he planned on returning her to her parents? The bounty indicated that she could be returned dead or alive, and would it not be much more sensible from a practical standpoint for the Mandalorian to let her die when he had discovered her earlier?

More relevantly to the tangible present, would they be able to assist the Mandalorian to the top of the steps in his condition?

The Mandalorian seemed to be moving well, all things considered. Despite the difficulty he had experienced in rising up from the ground, once he was walking, he seemed to be more mobile and in less pain. Even now she could see that he was relying less on Cara's support than he had been earlier.

But when they reached the base of the stairs and were staring up at the sloping rim of the Crater, both he and Cara hesitated. Lyrian came up on the side of his injured arm.

"Do you think you can make it?"

The Mandalorian let out a dry sigh.

"Do I have a choice?"

Lyrian watched as Cara smirked—though no part of the expression reached her eyes—and then the woman readjusted the Mandalorian's arm.

"Just tell me when you need a break, OK?"

The Mandalorian shook his head.

"Don't worry," he said, but his voice was quieter than before, and standing this close to him, Lyrian could see how he trembled—most likely from blood loss, if she was to hazard a medically-uninformed guess. She swallowed, an idea growing in mind as she noted the way that the fist of the Mandalorian's injured arm had curled tightly into itself against the pain.

She thought about how she had felt when she had first been brought back from unconsciousness by the Child's power. She considered how anxious the Mandalorian had seemed when she woke up.

And she thought that maybe she had something to lose after all, even if she was misjudging this entire situation she found herself in.

As Cara and the Mandalorian tackled the first step, Lyrian ignored the racing of her heart, shoved down the running analysis in her head that was helpfully informing her of how sentimental and disgraceful this action would be—

And then she took the Mandalorian's hand with one of her own, uncurling his fingers as best she could from their tense position, holding onto it in the same way he had held onto hers earlier. She made sure to make her grip on the Child more secure in the other arm at the same time, and she was relieved to find that neither his soft movements nor the wind seemed to take much interest in dislodging the sleeping infant.

She would hold his hand to support him, she thought. To remind him to keep going and to inform him that his earlier act of kindness had not gone unnoticed—to demonstrate that she intended to return the favor. Perhaps it would also assist her in retaining her balance if the dizziness should return, she reasoned finally.

And maybe, a smaller part of her argued, it was because it made the fear feel less like it was choking her, stalking her, ready at any time to pounce upon them once more. The ground seemed more solid—their goal more attainable—when the warmth of his hand slipped over hers.

The Mandalorian's step seemed to falter just barely at Lyrian's sudden contact, however—enough for Lyrian's breath freeze in her throat. She knew in that moment that she had made a mistake, and the urge to withdraw her hand crashed against her.

But the Mandalorian didn't say anything, and his steps became as regular as they had been before she took his hand. He continued moving up the steps, and, after a moment, she could have sworn that his fingers uncurled enough to give the impression he was squeezing her hand back. Or maybe the pain was returning, and he couldn't restrain himself from clenching his fists.

Either way, Lyrian resumed breathing again at the motion, willing strength into her fingers even as she felt some of her own blossom inside her. She tried not to think about the future or the vast unknown that stretched around her, and for the first time since she had made such mental activities a priority, she actually was able to clear her mind sufficiently enough to focus on the immediate goal of reaching the Razor Crest without further mishaps.

United by this goal, the three companions struggled up the edges of the Crater, fighting against the wind—and the weight of what all might lay ahead—with every step.

The Mandalorian's shoulder joint slid back into its socket with a crackling pop.

Lyrian winced at the sound and hesitantly cracked open her eyes to look over at the Mandalorian, who had braced himself against the wall of the Razor Crest—and the necessary force of Cara's calculated shove—and was now leaned down over his knees, breathing out what sounded like a sigh of relief. Cara stood in front of him, looking decidedly less relieved than he sounded.

"Right. That's injury one. Now where do you keep the medpac on this ship?"

The Mandalorian looked up and nodded toward a battered cabinet adjacent to them.

"I'm not sure I have any Bacta left," he admitted, straightening up slowly and rolling his newly readjusted shoulder experimentally. Lyrian drew pulled her legs into a cross-legged position, grateful for the rest after the strenuous climb back up the Crater. She adjusted the snoozing Child, who had barely moved this entire time, and then looked back at the Mandalorian.

He had just looked over at her.

"How's the kid?"

Lyrian opened her mouth to answer, but Cara's timely banging of the door to the cabinet the Mandalorian had indicated mercifully halted anything the girl might have been inclined to say.

The woman aggressively slammed the dingy medpac she had found onto the nook Lyrian had been sleeping on the past few nights. She pried it open and peered skeptically inside. Lyrian couldn't see everything that it contained, but it didn't appear to be very promising.

"This is it?!" Cara exclaimed. She picked up a slim roll of bandages—the same one the Mandalorian had used earlier—and then what looked like a meager two Bacta patches. The Mandalorian didn't say anything, but he did ease himself onto the bench set into the wall.

"Haven't had much time to shop lately," the Mandalorian said drily. Cara gave him a look that was intimidating enough to make Lyrian want to grin, if only because the promises the expression contained made her want to run and hide somewhere.

"Alright. Strip down. We're going for the stab-wound first."

Lyrian looked quickly at the floor. The Mandalorian had been stabbed? She had inferred that he had at least been slashed, maybe taken a few hard blows, but the idea that he might have actually been stabbed with all that armor on had never really seemed a viable possibility.

"No, wait. Bring the kid over here."

The Mandalorian paused when the girl looked up at him in surprise.

"Please," he said.

Lyrian blinked, glanced at Cara, who was gazing at the Mandalorian with a more intense version of the look she had donned earlier—where her eyebrows were drawn low over her eyes and her jaw was set in determination—and then stood up. She brought the Child over to the seated man, let him take the kid, and then stepped back a little bit.

The Mandalorian gently laid the Child on his back, stabilized him against his elbow, and then carefully lifted the hem of his brown robes, as if he were inspecting his tiny clawed feet. Lyrian cocked her head, and the Child didn't so much as sigh in response to the disturbance.

"He needs Bacta," the Mandalorian said after a moment. His helmet tipped up, toward Cara's face, and the woman raised her eyebrows.

"What?"

"His feet…they're burned. The glass was poisoned—and hot. He needs one of the patches."

The moment of silence that followed this statement was some of the most intense Lyrian had experienced with the Mandalorian and Cara yet, and she looked between the two adults with unashamedly wide eyes. Finally, Cara took a deep breath, blinked a few times, and then sat down beside the Mandalorian.

"Mando," she said, with an intentional sharpness that stung even Lyrian. "You need them more than he does right now. You're bleeding out, probably about ten seconds away from passing out, and you've been stabbed. Prioritize."

The Mandalorian, who had gone somewhat rigid at the beginning of the outburst, hesitated and then shook his head. Ironically, however, Lyrian could see the way he was trembling now, suffering from the blood loss and who knew what other injuries. Perhaps his wounds were affecting his mental capacities more dramatically than they had thought before, too.

"I can do with one."

"Compromise: we swipe his feet before we apply the Bacta to you, and then Lyrian takes the Child back to the cockpit while we clean you up. That's probably all he'll need anyway."

The Mandalorian didn't respond at first, and Lyrian could tell he was looking down at the Child. Only then did she begin to feel as if she was intruding, as if she was witnessing a moment of weakness in the Mandalorian that few people ever received the right to witness. But she wasn't sure what that weakness was, exactly, or why it should matter if she saw it given all the vulnerability he had seen in her.

Cara once again broke the silence, and her voice was notably softer.

"You didn't let him down, Mando. Everyone is safe and alive. We made it out of that cursed hole, but now you've got to take care of yourself—or the next time something like this happens, some of us may not be so lucky."

Now, Lyrian really did feel out of place, and she stepped farther away from the pair, looking hopefully toward the cockpit's ladder. Cara's voice called her back, though.

"Lyrian, take the kid. I'm going to wipe his feet some, and then you go back up to the cockpit, alright?"

Cara's tone was final, and Lyrian nodded without meeting her eyes. She stepped toward the Mandalorian and reluctantly held her hands out to receive the Child—and, after a few seconds of breathing and watching and waiting, the Mandalorian gave him to her.

Cara quickly performed her self-assigned task—which actually did earn a little murmuring coo and a curling of the Child's three-pronged hands—and then Lyrian climbed slowly back up to the cockpit, leaving the wounded Mandalorian and his friend to a moment of necessary privacy.

Cara emerged from below Lyrian's feet with a sigh.

The woman wiped wet hands—freshly washed, it seemed—on her pants and then settled into the pilot's chair. When she had scanned all the controls and seemed satisfied that everything was it should be and that they were still firmly within Toong'L's orbit, she turned to Lyrian.

"You good?" she asked brusquely.

Lyrian, finding that eye contact with the woman was still hindered by an aggregate of vague factors, just peered down into the Child's peaceful slumbering face and nodded. She couldn't maintain her silence for long, however, because all the burning questions inside her refused to be quenched.

"Is he going to heal?"

Cara sighed again, and this time there was a fond smile playing along her lips. She looked at Lyrian, but the distance looming in her gaze told Lyrian that she wasn't entirely concerned with the Chiss youngling anymore.

"Yeah. I managed to convince him to try and sleep. The Bacta will work on the stab-wound and one of his legs, at least."

Lyrian nodded, and as had happened before on Toong'L's surface, an idea began taking nebulous shape in her mind. She fidgeted with the hem of the Child's robe and tried not to seem too readable as she measured her words out.

"Would you want me to stay down there for a little bit? Just to make sure he's alright…that he won't need any further ministrations while you pilot the ship?"

In reality, Lyrian mused within the private confines of her own thoughts, she was not overly keen on remaining up here with Cara, whose attitude toward Lyrian had oddly enough seemed closer to that of her parents than the Mandalorian's had in the brief time she had known him. And the Mandalorian might want to see the Child as soon as he woke up, if his earlier concern for the little one's wellbeing persisted even while his own wounds healed.

Even though it was the Child who had healed her—with a fierce and mysterious power Lyrian knew she didn't quite possess—it had been the Mandalorian who had allowed him to do so. She was in his debt, and maybe repaying that debt would cement what she hoped she had correctly interpreted as a prominent hesitancy to return her to her parents' custody.

And maybe some unpredictable, inexplicably stubborn part of her just wanted to ensure that the Mandalorian really was going to be alright, to see it for herself rather than trust Cara's evaluation.

Regardless, the woman responded to her with all the confusion Lyrian could reasonably expect from such an odd request.

"You want to…go down there and stay with him?"

"Yes. If you do not think my presence would hinder his progress."

Cara blinked at the blue-skinned child in front of her—the one holding the small green baby, another charge of her friend, for better or for worse. Despite her better judgment, she smiled. Albeit, barely.

"No, I don't think he'll even know you're there. Just…tell me if he seems like he's not doing too well, OK?"

Lyrian nodded, being careful not to display an excessive amount of enthusiasm at the granting of her request, and then she was very gingerly making her way down the ladder, cradling her small charge with all the care her relief didn't crowd out.

Cara watched her go, and her smile was altogether gone by the time Lyrian had fully disappeared from view.

A/N: Hey! Coupla things to get through. One: I hope you liked the chapter and all that comes with it (this one seems a bit weird at times but eh). Thanks SO much anyway, everyone, for your kind words, your support, and everything else you've graciously bestowed upon me in regards to this fic. Much appreciated. :)

NOTE: I will be taking a fanfiction hiatus AT LEAST through February (maybe March, too) because Life Is Busy, Y'all. I might post the already-written next chapter for this story mid-February if I think of it, but no real new content for either this or "The Way Forward" will be forthcoming for a bit. Thanks for understanding - hopefully it won't be too long and I can work on wrapping these things up. xD

Thanks again, lovely people! God bless. :D

~Roanoke

"The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it a wall too high to scale. Before a downfall the heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor."

Proverbs 18:10 - 12