Author's Note: Trigger warnings remain due to descriptions of abuse. But here also be fluff and other things.
Disclaimer per usual – I do not own Star Wars, The Mandalorian, or any aspect of the SW universe; just a fan with an idea. No profit here, just fun for me.
TW: Assault; abusive relationship; stalking.
Din can feel it when Lena falls asleep against him. He is wide awake, something she said sticking with him. She'd said that she understands the old traditions. He is desperately curious to know what that means, and he can't help but wonder if it has anything to do with her initial reaction to him.
He's honestly not sure if dousing the lights and taking off his helmet, not to mention telling her his real name, is strictly allowed, but he's starting to truly understand what Mayfeld was saying to him on Morak. One thing he is sure of is that no woman has ever gotten under his skin the way Lena has. He's not sure he even realized that was the case until Ilcet attacked her. In that moment, the idea of losing the connection he feels with her had made him ready to rip Ilcet's head off with his bare hands.
Their hikes together over the last few weeks built an ease between them, something he's never really had with anyone – a person who didn't demand conversation or personal information. And he was the same with her, respecting her privacy and reticence. In small moments, like the moment when she mentioned her mother, moments when they told stories of themselves through the lens of past jobs or travel, they slowly and carefully (and maybe unintentionally) let each other in. He'd gotten to the point that he missed her on the days she didn't appear at the bottom of the ramp.
And now, here he is, in a dark room, wrapped around her and completely content save for the facts that she's injured and being pursued by a violent lunatic. Her gentle exploration of his face earlier had made him want to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless. He's never kissed anyone before, at least not that he remembers (his early years are a blur to him now) – not even the chaste kiss he pressed to her forehead earlier. That was an act borne of instinct, not experience, but he now understands the urge.
She shifts slightly in his arms, and he can't help but gently pull her in closer to him, a wave of protectiveness sweeping over him. He nuzzles his face into her hair, careful not to wake her, and he admits to himself that he wants to see her in the light, no helmet distorting color and detail. He wants to see just how blue her eyes are, if her hair is really more brown or more red.
That thought scares him more than he can fathom. He wonders if opening himself up to caring about the kid, then subsequently about Kuill and even Cara made him more open to other relationships. He smirks in the darkness as he thinks that he still isn't entirely sure about Karga. The moment of mirth fades, though. In his tribe, emotional attachments, whether friendships or more, while not forbidden, were certainly not encouraged.
He sighs. His mind goes back to the fact that he can no longer claim that he has never violated the Creed. That's a reality he will have to decide how to face sooner rather than later, if only because it weighs on him so heavily. If he's honest with himself, though, it's also because of how much he wants to take it off in front of Lena, and not in the dark.
After a while, he takes a few deep breaths, trying to clear his mind. Soon, the subtle vibration of the ship and the warm weight of her pressed against him finally allows him to relax, and he drifts off to sleep.
He's not sure how much time has passed when he wakes again. She's stirring against him, obviously waking up. He quickly realizes that it's not the first time she's moved, because one of her legs has found its way between his, her foot wound around his ankle. She still clings to him, and she's using the arm under her as a pillow, her head tucked under his chin. It's certainly a new experience, waking up with someone like this.
A moment later, she shifts again, and her bruised face must bump against his chest, because she says, "Ow."
He suppresses a chuckle. "You all right?"
"No," she grumbles and shifts again, "I need the fresher, I'm hungry, my head hurts, and now that I bumped into you, I remembered that my face hurts, too." She pauses, and she must realize how entangled they are, because she says, "Sorry. I get clingy when I'm cold."
He finds her forehead in the dark, and he presses a kiss there again. "It's fine."
"Thank you for staying with me," she says softly.
"You do not have to thank me," he replies. "It wasn't exactly a hardship. Thank you for trusting me this much." At that, she snuggles closer to him again.
After a moment, though, she mumbles, "As much as I really do like this, I wasn't kidding when I said I need the fresher."
He laughs. "Move away so I can get up and get a light on. I need to get my helmet back on."
"Thank you." She pulls back from him, and he slides out of the bed, careful not to jostle her. He finds his helmet in the dark and puts it on before turning one of the lights on. He wants it bright enough for her to see, but not so bright that it makes her head hurt more.
She blinks up at him, and he holds out his hands to her, helping her to her feet. A moment later, she closes the fresher door behind her, and he leans against the wall outside, waiting to help her back to her room. He can honestly admit that this is the first time he's grateful to have this new ship instead of the Crest. On the Crest, he'd have given her his tiny sleeping space; here, there is ample room for her and her things, and it's a lot more comfortable.
She emerges a while later, and she looks up at him. Her right eye is still very swollen, and the bruises are a livid purple. She frowns. "I look like death."
He snorts. "You do not."
Shrugging and giving him a pained smile, she says, "All right, but I feel like death."
"Your head?" He asks, remembering what it feels like.
She nods slightly and winces. "Yes. And my eyes. I can feel my right one trying to track with the left one, and it's not a great feeling."
"Come on," he motions back to her bunk. "The doc left some supplies. I can see what there is."
She goes, and in the room, she sits on the end of the bed, the part that's open, the rest blocked by the rail to keep an occupant from falling out during flight. He digs into the supplies, and he finds some painkillers. There are a few hypo sprays, but he's not sure if it's all right to give her those after a head injury. Breaking the silence, she asks, "Have you ever had a bad head injury?"
He nods and cringes involuntarily. "Yes. It would have killed me if a nurse droid hadn't given me a bacta infusion, a lot like the one the doc did for you."
"How did it happen?" She is speaking quietly, and he guesses that she might be trying to focus on something other than how much her head hurts.
He finds a note in the bag, and he pulls it out. He expels a relieved breath when he sees that it's instructions from the doctor. The hypo spray is fine for her, per the note, so he picks one up and goes over to her. He holds up the hypo, and she motions with her hand to do it. As he puts it to her neck and administers the meds, he says, "I got blown up when a large weapon exploded. Threw me up in the air, and I landed hard. Between the landing and the explosion itself, I was in a bad way."
She grabs his wrist when he pulls back after administering the medication. "You got blown up? Are you serious?"
He huffs out a wry laugh. "Yes. A former Imperial Moff, Moff Gideon, was trying to get to someone I was protecting. If a reprogrammed IG-11 droid hadn't been there, I'd be dead."
She releases his wrist and swallows hard. "I'm glad it was there, then."
"Me too." He goes and puts the hypo spray back into the med bag. "Now tell me what's going on with your eyes. The doc left me some notes that might help."
She nods gingerly, but she doesn't wince this time. "Those are some decent drugs right there." At his snort, she goes on, "It's what I said. My left eye is fine, but when it moves, the right one is trying to go with it. That's less fine. It was better in the dark when I wasn't trying to see anything."
Din looks down at the note from the doc, and after a moment, he says, "There's something here, but you may not like it."
"What?" She sounds scared, and he goes back to her, crouching in front of her.
"Lena, you're going to be fine. The doc just said that your eye might need some rest. He said to cover both eyes for several hours, a day if you can stand it." He puts his hands on her knees. "The good news is, if we do that, we can actually eat together, since you won't be able to see me."
She gives him a weak smile, leaning forward to put her hands on his shoulders and rest her forehead against the top of his helmet. "Having my eyes bandaged aside, that sounds nice."
"Let's do it, then." He stands and holds his hands out to her. After he helps her back to her feet, he notices that she's shivering. "Wait here," he says. He goes out to his own bunk and digs a wool tunic and some heavy socks out of a drawer. He comes back with them. She looks a little confused, so he says, "You looked cold, and I didn't want you to have to dig through your things," and offers her the clothes.
"Thank you." She looks surprised, but she gives him a small smile before putting the tunic on over her clothes and the socks on over the other ones she's already wearing. He has to smile under his helmet, because his shirt looks like a dress on her.
He quickly gathers the bandages and eye pads he needs, putting them in one of the pockets on his pants. "Let's get down the ladder and then do your eyes. I can follow right behind you going back up, and it's not a tall ladder. Going down is harder, though."
She nods. "Good idea."
He beckons to her, and she follows him out to the ladder. He gets part way down, and then he motions to her. "Now you. If you slip, at least you'll land on me and not the floor."
She does as he asks, though she has no trouble on the ladder. When she gets to the kitchen area, she sits on the same stool she used the first time she came to his ship. "I have to put these pads over your eyes, then wrap your head to keep them in place."
"All right," she says, turning to face him.
He makes quick work of the task. As he secures it, he asks, "Is that too tight?"
"No, it's good. Disconcerting," she gently pokes at the pads, "But good. And already a weird kind of relief."
He nods, though he knows she can't see it. After a moment's hesitation, he pulls his helmet off again. He stares at her for a moment; her hair is dark but more red than he'd expected, and it makes the white streak stand out even more. "Din? Are you still there?" He blinks, going quickly to put the helmet down on the table. She jumps, the noise clearly startling her.
"I'm sorry." She shakes her head and smiles at the sound of his unmodulated voice again, and he adds, "That was the helmet."
"I guessed once I heard your voice." She holds her hand out, and he takes it. "And it's fine."
He squeezes her hand. "I want to go up and check the cockpit, see how long we were sleeping and where we are on the route I put us on. Are you all right staying here?"
"Yes. I won't move." She laughs in a self-deprecating way. "Because I'd run into things and fall down."
He chuckles. "I'll be right back." He is surprised by how much he laughs with her – he's never been given to having much of a sense of humor before, but she seems to pull it from him. He heads to the front of the ship quickly, not wanting to leave her alone too long. When he gets there, he sees that they slept over five hours. They're still over twenty hours from the first place he plans to drop out of lightspeed. There aren't any messages, but at lightspeed, he didn't expect any.
He stands up, heading back over to her. He can see that she's fidgeting a little and appears to be trying to listen for him, so he steps as heavily as he can without boots on. As he gets close, he can see her relax, so he guesses that she heard him. "I have leftovers from Maz yesterday or a stew I made, both just need to be reheated."
She smiles again. "You cook?"
"Sometimes. This ship has a better galley than my old one. But taste it before you get too impressed, Goodfield." He shakes his head.
Her smile widens. "Well, bring it on, Djarin."
He shakes his head again. "Stew it is. Caf? Water?"
"Both, if that's all right."
"Of course." He goes and starts the caf after he gets the food heating. While they wait, he gets them each some water.
Once he puts the cup of water in front of her and gently guides her hand to it, he settles on the stool next to her. After a moment, he says, "Lena, can I ask you something?"
She turns towards him slightly. "Anything. Given the last ten standard hours or so, I feel pretty certain that I can trust you."
"Earlier, after you'd woken up the first time, you said something about understanding the old traditions. What did you mean by that?" He swallows hard. "You talked about your mother in the past tense and reacted badly to me at first. Did another Mandalorian hurt your mother?"
She's silent for a moment, and then she takes a deep breath and blows it out. After that, she pulls her necklace from under her clothes and over her head, holding it out to him. He takes it, and he can't help but inhale sharply. The pendant at the end of her necklace is a Mythosaur, the Mandalorian symbol. Before he can say anything, she speaks. "In a manner of speaking, Mandalorians did hurt my mother."
"In a manner of speaking?" He's still staring at the necklace as he asks.
"Yes." She tilts her head down. "My mother was a Mandalorian, Din. The tribe refused to let her keep me out of training after my father, who was not Mandalorian, died. She and my father always wanted the choice to be mine alone. Not theirs and not the tribe's but mine. His family was originally from Naboo, so not exactly the same culturally."
"Do you know her house? Her clan?" He can't help but be curious.
"No, though I occasionally heard her reference the 'Old Mandalorians,' so I think they were part of the group that split off from Mandalore decades ago, long before the Clone Wars. Fundamentalists, but they were more given to being mercenaries and bounty hunters than going to war."
"That sounds a little familiar, but they took their helmets off regularly, didn't they?" He's realizing just how uncommon his tribe is, or mostly was.
"Yes. She did say that some chose the old way, highly traditional, secretive." When he doesn't reply, she takes the necklace back and rubs her fingers over it before putting it back on. "Mother took me, this necklace, some weapons, all our money, and our clothes, and we left. She didn't bring her armor; she felt that would have been disrespectful."
He's impressed by that. "How old were you?"
"Barely five. The Clone Wars had just ended, the Empire was spreading like wildfire. We weren't particularly noticeable, though. We traveled a lot the first few years, living off the money my father left us and my mother taking odd jobs here and there. We finally ended up on Takodana for over a year. Mother worked for Maz, training some of her security staff. I watched." She huffs out a sardonic laugh. "When I'm not caught completely off guard, I'm halfway decent at hand-to-hand." Her shoulders drop. "I miss her so much, even though she's been gone half my life now."
After that, Lena turns her head down, as if she's looking at the table. Her hands are flexing and un-flexing, and he can tell that she's emotional. "Lena, you don't have to tell me anything else if you don't want to. You do not owe me anything."
"I'm fine, I just needed a moment." She lifts her head, and some of her hair falls into her face.
He reaches up and softly says, "You're about to feel my hand."
She nods slightly, and he brushes the hair back from her face, running his hand through it. It's softer than he expected. Finer than his, but just as given to disarray. She sighs, and he ends up with his hand cupping the uninjured side of her face. She leans into the touch, and after a beat, she turns her head slightly, dropping a soft kiss to the inside of his palm. That makes him draw in a quick breath, and that urge from hours earlier, the urge to kiss her for real, returns with a vengeance.
He swallows against the feeling, trying to remind himself that she's probably feeling very vulnerable right now, and that he would be taking advantage of that. She puts her hand up, wrapping it around his, and he weaves their fingers together. She goes on, "After the year on Takodana, Mother wanted to get me to a planet with a good school I could attend. We ended up on Hosnian Prime. Mother got a job as a security guard, I went to school. I was ten."
She grips his hand harder. "That lasted seven years. I was nearly finished with my schooling, had an offer – unsolicited, mind you – to go to the Imperial Academy on Carida. We were trying to think of a way for me to decline that wouldn't get us killed." She huffs. "Which ended up being a little ironic. Mother died, killed in a robbery gone wrong at the place where she worked, six weeks before I turned eighteen. We'd planned to run, to escape to the Outer Rim."
She shakes her head. "If she'd had her armor, she would have survived. I know she was right to leave it behind, but I remember being so angry then, so angry at her clan, her family for not allowing her a choice."
"I understand that, Lena. I might have been, too. And it helps me understand your negative reaction to me." He slides his free hand up to the back of her neck. "You also have a tattoo – I've seen it at the top of your shirt. What is that?"
She frees her hand from his and pulls her top and his tunic down in the back. He leans back and looks, seeing a flower-like symbol that is vaguely familiar. He traces it with his fingertips. "What is it? It's beautiful work."
She releases her top. "It's the emblem of Naboo. I had the necklace for my mother. The tattoo was for my father."
"Maz said that Naboo was the first place he followed you to." He refers to Ilcet. "What happened with him, Lena? Maz said you met him on Lothal?"
She moves her hand until she finds his again. "Sort of. I met him while working. I floated around for several years after Mother died. I learned to bartend, and I found work for a long time on long-haul transports, making drinks, waiting tables. I was able to support myself and didn't have to settle down. He was a customer, a regular traveler I met for the first time when he came on board at Lothal. I'd see him every few weeks or so. He seemed nice enough, started bringing me gifts and things."
"How old were you?" He asks.
"Twenty-seven. I'd been on my own ten years, and I was lonely as hell. He made me feel special, less lonely." She shakes her head. "I was an easy mark. We started a relationship, and after a year or so, he asked me to come to Lothal, to live with him."
"Lothal? Imperial, right?" He frowns.
"Yes. I didn't know that he did work for the Imps until after I went with him." She squeezes his hand tight. "I moved in with him at twenty-nine. He wasn't nice from the very start, but he didn't hit me for the first year – it was just emotional and verbal at first. And before you ask why I didn't leave, it's not that simple. I was so emotionally empty. Beaten down, feeling like less than nothing because that's what he told me I was. Later, add to that being terrified."
"What made you run?"
She motions to the scar with her free hand. "This. Maz told you about it, right?"
"She did, that he hit you so hard you crashed into a mirror," he confirms. "I hope that's all right."
"It's fine." She chews on her lip for a moment. "Up until he slammed me into that mirror, it had been slaps, arm grabs, minor bumps and bruises. But when that broken mirror sliced the side of my face open – Force, there was so much blood – and he didn't help me, by the way, my neighbor did – it was like I woke up from a fog. He left on a trip three days later. On the fourth day, I got out of the med clinic, and I was on my way to Naboo hours later, my face still healing. Cashed all my credits out of the bank, packed up what little I had, and left. That's when I was thirty-one."
"But he found you there." He prompts her to continue.
"Yes," she whispers, "He did. So I went to Chandrila. Three months. Coruscant, three months. A month on Batuu. Bespin, four months. He never actually caught me – I'd see him and disappear again. With Bespin, I realized how close I was to Takodana. So I got on a transport using falsified docs. That took me to Cerea, where I found a public comms port I could use. I called Maz. She had someone on the way to pick me up within hours. There's no record of me being on Cerea or of me traveling to Takodana. That was three years ago."
"And you were there with Maz from then til now?" He asks.
"Yes. She gave me a room in the castle, right near her quarters. She did everything for me off-book. He only knew me by Kaia Trask, my father's name. I changed it to Goodfield, Mother's name, and started going by my middle name, Mealena, when I went to Takodana. Maz did a lot to get me wiped out of existence – chain code alteration, name change, id photo changes, the works." She shakes her head. "I really don't know how he found me. Maybe it was my hair. I'd colored it dark brown for two years. I got complacent – felt safe. Let the natural come back, and the white is distinctive."
"So is the red." He runs his hand through her hair again. "It looks different without my helmet. The red is deeper. I'd wondered about the true shade – it's hard to tell."
"Kind of like me wanting to hear your real voice, then?" She bumps him slightly with her shoulder.
"Yes, actually. It's a lot like that." He pulls her in close to him. "Thank you for telling me all of this, Lena. One thing, he may know the name 'Lena' now – I said it when he hit you in the bar. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry – you didn't know. And it felt oddly good to tell you, to be honest." She goes quiet, and then she says, "You referenced your old ship. Was that a while ago? How long have you had this one?"
He hesitates, and then thinks that she told him everything; maybe it's time to tell her about him. "That's a very long story. Let me get the food and the caf first."
X
It's well over an hour later when he finishes the story. He'd started with his life as a foundling, growing up in his tribe, then went on about his bounty hunter days, wanting her to know exactly who he was, maybe still is. The truth is that before the kid, her first assessment of him wouldn't really have been completely off. After they finished dinner, before he got to the part about the kid, he cleaned up and insisted that they go back upstairs for the rest of the story.
After they both used the fresher, he asked if she wanted to sit on his bed. He realized that it's a slightly larger bed, and he also has extra blankets. He offered her more pain medication, but she declined, saying that the darkness provided by the eye covers actually has helped considerably. He gets the meds anyway, putting the hypo and his helmet on the shelf. After settling her on his bed, he goes and gets his armor from her bunk along with the blanket from her bed, giving it to her to wrap around her shoulders.
When he's done, he climbs up on the bunk, sitting next to her against the head end of the bed. She immediately curls into his right side, resting the uninjured side of her face against his shoulder. He laughs and tucks another blanket around her. "Still cold?"
"Only always. You'll probably start to find it annoying." She gets as close as she can and adds, "At least Takodana is temperate. It's rarely cold there."
"I won't start to find it annoying, especially if it means I get to keep seeing you wearing my clothes." He says the words without any kind of double entendre intended.
So, it surprises him when she says, "Din Djarin, was that flirting? Did you just flirt with me?"
He blinks. "No!" Then, realizing that she was probably teasing him, he says, "I mean, not on purpose?" She giggles at that, and he drops his forehead into his free hand. "I'll stop talking now."
"Don't you dare." She reaches up, finding his face and pressing a kiss to his cheek. "Intentional or not, it was very sweet. And I am pretty flattered that I'm apparently the first woman you've flirted with?"
That just makes him groan. "I'm nearly forty years old, Lena. That sounds really pitiful."
She sits up a little straighter. "Dank ferrik, I want to be able to look at you right now. Din, there is nothing pitiful about it. Stop that right now." She curls back into his side. "I mean, hells, you never flirting kind of pales in comparison to my record, one serious relationship with someone who turned out to be a violent sociopath."
"Lena, that wasn't your fault." She starts to protest, but he isn't having it. "He is to blame. Not you. He took advantage of you, preyed on your weaknesses. You said it yourself – he's a sociopath."
"Enough about him for the moment. Down below, you left me with a rather cryptic cliffhanger, that the next bounty was the bounty that changed everything," she prompts him.
He nods. "It was. Let me tell you about this one. The bounty was said to be fifty years old, but imagine, with how slowly she seems to age, how Maz might've been at 50."
"She would have been really young. Maybe even," she begins.
He finishes for her. "A child."
"Are you saying that the bounty was a child? What kind of monster would put a bounty on a child?" She's outraged, and he appreciates that – he just hopes she'll see him the same after he tells her that he turned the kid over at first.
"The same monster who almost killed me." That seems to bring her up short, and he begins to tell her everything.
By the time he finishes with Grogu disappearing into the lift with the Jedi, Lena is shaking. "You had to give him away? After all of that?"
"It was the right thing for him, Mealena, at least for now." He hugs her to his side. "I'll get to see him again. When we uncover your eyes, I'll show you a holo message that the Jedi, Luke Skywalker, recorded for me."
"Wait, the kid is with Luke Skywalker? The hero of the Rebellion, blew up the first Death Star and killed Vader? That Luke Skywalker?" She sounds impressed, and that reassures him more than the positive words from Cara and Maz.
"One and the same." He pauses. "Maz doesn't think he'll become a Jedi. She said she doesn't think it's the path for him."
"What do you think?" she asks.
He has to stop and consider her question. "No one has ever asked me that. I think he can be anything he wants to. He's incredible, Lena. So powerful and innocent and so resilient. I think he should get to decide his own path, not be forced onto one."
"You sounded like my father just then." He looks down at her, and she's smiling. "And by that, Din, I mean you sound like a father who loves his child very much."
He then tells her the one detail he'd left out of the story. "I do, Lena. It nearly killed me to let him go with Skywalker. I broke my Creed for him. Twice. Once to get the location of Gideon's cruiser, and again when I said goodbye to Grogu. Mayfeld saw my face, all the Imps at that location did, Skywalker did, and so did the kid." He lets his head fall back against the wall and closes his eyes. "I don't even know what it means anymore, Lena. But I don't know who I am without it. It's all I've known since the Mandalorians saved me after my parents were killed." He swallows hard. "Who am I if I'm not a Child of the Watch?"
It goes silent except for the soft hum of the ship. Then, Lena starts to speak. "You are a protector. You are a bounty hunter, a good one by your own account. You are a friend. You are respectful and direct. You are braver than anyone I've ever met except maybe my mother. You are far more gentle and caring than you give yourself credit for. You are a father who places the safety and care of his son above all else. And you are fast becoming someone I am not sure I'll be all right without."
He's stunned by her words. As her hands find his shoulders and she swings her leg over his so that she's perched in his lap, facing him with a knee on either side of hips, he realizes that she isn't done surprising him. His hands land on her hips, gripping her tight and keeping her steady.
His eyes are wide when she brings her hands up to his face and presses her forehead to his. Her voice is a whisper when she says, "I may be blind for the moment, but I see you, Din. Thank you for letting me see you."
Her breath is ghosting over his face, and she's close enough to him that he can hear her heartbeat, elevated just like his. He flexes his hands on her hips, and then he breathes out, "Lena, please, I don't want to take advantage of you."
"You're not. I'd say we're on pretty even ground, to be honest. I may be injured, but you are too." She moves her hand and pokes at his chest. "For you it's just in here. We're both a little fractured, Din, but we're still whole. If you don't want this –"
He cuts her off. "I do. I want this, Lena."
"Oh, thank the Force," she gasps the words out, and taking his face back between her hands, she leans in carefully, making them both smile when she finds him, gently bumping his nose with hers.
He's worried that he's going to be terrible at this. His voice is soft and husky when he says, "I've never done this before. Other things, yes, but never this, never something so –"
She cuts him off this time. "I'm pretty sure you'll be a quick study." With that, she bumps his nose with hers one more time, and then she's kissing him, her soft lips pressing and moving tentatively against his rougher ones.
He freezes for a moment - it's like time stands still. Then, just when he can tell that she is starting to pull back, he snaps out of it. He releases her hips, one arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her almost impossibly close to him, the other hand going into her hair. Instinctively, he tilts his head for a better angle, and she makes a soft, happy sound as they deepen the kiss.
Her tongue traces the seam of his lips, and he can't stop the near growl he emits when he opens his mouth and her tongue finds his. His hand tightens in her hair, and her arms go around his neck, eliminating any of the space left between them. As he learns the feel of her, the feel of this, he has a fleeting thought that he now understands why some people make such a thing out of this kind of contact.
Her hands are playing with his hair, and she begins to rock against him a little, the friction and the little noises she's making lead him to want to flip their positions so that he can hover over her and begin to explore more of her. He knows that neither of them is ready for that, so he fights that instinct, easing their pace until they both pull back, her eventually moving enough to press her forehead against his again.
He keeps his eyes closed for now, because he knows he wants to open them and see her eyes looking back at him instead of the bandages or the darkness. As they get themselves back under control, she eventually asks breathily, "What are you thinking? Talk to me, Din."
After a beat, he says, "I'm thinking that it's a good thing you're not very tall, because the roof is low here and you don't need another head injury." She huffs out a laugh at that and he adds, his hands sliding back to her hips and squeezing, "And I'm thinking that I want to do that a lot more."
She grinds down on him, making him groan a little. "Among other things." She leans in and kisses him again, but it's much less heated this time. It's languid, slow, and he thinks that he is looking forward to figuring out how many different ways he can kiss her.
When she pulls away to breathe, he slides his lips down her neck, determined to explore a little more of her. She makes a soft, happy sound, and then she says, "Can I stay in here with you? When we sleep again, I mean."
He lifts his head and finally looks at her, and he has to fight to control himself. Her cheeks are flushed, her skin pink all the way down to where it disappears under her clothes. Her hair, messy before, is now in complete disarray. He imagines that his isn't much better. "Of course you can, but Lena, I'm not sure we're ready for more than this yet."
She nods. "We're not. I'm not. But I like this. I like how you make me feel both protected and powerful at the same time. Like you want to hold me but not own me."
He closes his eyes again, pressing his face into her neck for a moment, and he recognizes a scent on her skin, the smell of one of the flowers that grows on Takodana. "I'm still struggling, Lena. I don't know what my place is anymore." Even as he says the words, though, her lithe but strong frame makes him realize that he suddenly has an anchor in the world.
"And I've never really had a place at all," she responds. "I've been floating between my parents' pasts and my own past, never really able to find where I fit in the present." He looks at her again, and that determination that endeared her to him back in the beginning has returned to her face. "So maybe we figure it out together?"
He leans in, him kissing her this time. When they pull apart again, he helps her move to sit sideways in his lap, curled up on him. He pulls the blankets, long since fallen from her shoulders, back up over her body, tucking them around her. Finally, once she's settled, he softly says, "I think figuring it out together sounds very good, especially since trying to figure it out on my own hasn't gotten me anywhere."
"I don't know about that," she teases, "It got you here. Here seems nice."
He chuckles. "Very nice." He turns serious for a moment. "Thank you, Lena."
"For what?" She furrows her brow in a way he finds adorable.
"I'm not much use with this communication thing, and I know it's a strange thing to say, but thank you for helping me find my laugh. I never really laughed much before I met you." He's sure she'll find that weird and awkward, but she beams at it.
"That may be the single best thing anyone has ever said to me." Despite her smile, her voice is a little wobbly, and he knows that she meant it. She swallows hard, and then she says, "What are we going to do about Ilcet? I don't want something happening to you or Maz because of me."
He shakes his head. "We'll figure that out, Lena, but Maz and I are both pretty tough. We'll be fine." She starts to protest, but he stops her. "And you're worth the risk. Maz and I both think so."
She drops her head to his shoulder. "You know, you're a lot better at this communication thing than you think you are, Din."
As he holds her, he thinks of something. "Maz recorded a holo message for you. I think it's still in the other room. Do you want me to go get it?"
"Later. She's probably going to tell me not to be mad at you and to do what you ask, that I can trust you." She leans even closer into him. "But I'm not mad, and I do trust you. And I don't want to move right now."
"Me neither." He's never been so happy to be idle.
They sit there quietly for a while, him running one hand gently through her hair, weaving through the soft strands. He's fascinated by the difference in texture between the white strands and the red, how one is softer and less coarse.
He's surprised when she huffs out a small laugh after a while. "What? What's funny?"
She tries to frown, but it keeps turning into an amused smile. "How many of that frog lady's eggs do you think he ate?"
He snorts, then drops his head into his hand. "I have no idea. Every time I turned around, he had another one."
She giggles. "I know it's horrible, but I can't stop laughing about it. I'm picturing you trying to keep him away from them."
"That part was better than the giant spiders, I hate to say." He shudders. "I can handle a lot, but those spider things? No thank you. Never again."
"Can't blame you for that." She presses a kiss to his neck, right below his scruff, but then she giggles again. "My brave Mandalorian."
He tries to be gruff and indignant at her tone, but he can't quite manage it. After a moment, he laughs along with her and grumbles, "I really hate spiders."
AN: So, I love to read slow burns, but I generally don't *write* slow burns. You're welcome. :) Next chapter, they'll start figuring out how to handle our bad guy…