Disclaimer: I don't own Boba Fett, or any other star wars terminology, or anything else like that. They all belong to Lucas Films.
"I'm going to get you back to my town somehow. You're a mess!" Seris was right. Fett's right arm hung at a strange angle, blood was trickling from a deep gash beneath his shoulder protector. Seris tried to think about how he was going to get Fett back to town.
"No…"
"What? What did you say?" Seris leaned down, what had he said?
"Don't…take me…there."
"Why not? Like I said, you're a mess! You're on Home; we don't even have bacta here! No one is going to be able to take care of you in the woods!"
"They'll…find me."
"Who?"
"Pirates."
"Ohhhhh, I don't think they'll be able to find you on Home, but ok." Seris still hadn't forgotten the look the Fett had given him; the man was dangerous, it was probably best just to agree with him. "I've got to get medical supplies, I'll be back."
"In ship…supply locker." Seris turned back to the ship. The smoke had lessened now. Seris climbed up the ramp, still in awe of the fact that he was actually touching a starship. It didn't take him long to find the supply locker and the med-kit. He took it back out to Fett.
"Do you have any other injuries, besides the obvious?" Fett shook his head and took the med kit from Seris, pushing himself up against a tree. "I could help you."
"No." Seris watched the man awkwardly bandaging his arm.
"You aren't going to be able to splint that by yourself." Seris pointed at the man's arm. Fett ignored Seris and continued what he was doing slowly. Seris lapsed into silence and continued to watch Fett. Eventually he leaned back breathing hard. "Do you want my help?" Fett nodded and Seris took the med kit from him. He was tempted to say I told you so, but the one look at the man whose arm he was bandaging stopped it.
When he finished Seris stood up. "I need to get some supplies. Will you be all right by yourself?"
"I'll be fine." Fett seemed to be repairing one of the devices that was part of his armor and didn't look up. Seris sighed. For someone who had crashed his ship and couldn't walk the man seemed to think he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Not that that stopped Seris. This was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to him. He wasn't about to leave now. Anyway, whatever Fett thought Seris couldn't leave him out here by himself.
Fett set down the electronics he was trying to repair and closed his eyes. He hated having to rely on a boy like this. He hated being helpless too, not that he had a lot of choice. He might have been able to get himself out of that pirate fleet without so much damage if its leader hadn't been gunning for him.
Sumark had been nursing a grudge against Fett since the hunter had brought in Sumark's brother last year. Their meeting had been chance, but Sumark hadn't been about to waste it. He hadn't cared what kind of injuries Fett inflicted on his men and fear of Sumark had apparently outweighed their fear of Fett. Now he would just have to wait until he could repair the Slave 1 and get out of here before Sumark found, hopefully it wouldn't take too long. Fett looked up at the stars that were slowly appearing in the sky, watching for any lights that seemed to be approaching.
"Mom! Mom! Can I camp out in the woods tonight?" Seris yelled as he banged through the front door of their farmhouse.
"Seris! It's dark out! You can't go back out any more tonight!"
"But I found this really cool… thing… in the woods and if I don't keep an eye on it an animal might wreck it! It's only for tonight, please?"
"Well, I suppose if you're back for chores tomorrow and you father doesn't mind it's alright." His mother looked at him sharply. She could always tell when something was up. Seris put on his most innocent face. She waved him on and turned back to the part she had been repairing.
"Thanks Mom!" Seris pounded up the stairs, grabbing two coarse camping blankets and some food. He raced back down, calling out to his father his intentions and banging back out the door.
"Children!" his mother muttered as she watched him jog back into the woods out of the lights of the farm.
Fett appeared to be asleep when Seris arrived. Seris put down the supplies he had brought and began building a fire, by the time he had it going well Fett stirred. Seris looked over, "I have water, but you'll need to take off you're helmet." Fett lifted his good arm, and pushed his helmet up to his nose. "You might as well take it off; no one will know you here. I don't think we would even recognize a Jedi here." Fett shook his head. Seris shrugged and handed Fett a cup.
When Seris looked back at the other man again he was staring at the sky, apparently watching the stars. "I've never been off home." Seris told him looking up at the stars for a moment. "What do you do, out there, in the galaxy?"
"I am a bounty hunter." Seris eyes grew even larger, but Fett didn't seem to want to continue the conversation. They sat in silence for some time. Eventually he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. Seris tossed a blanket to Fett and curled up on the ground. It was a long time before he fell asleep though.
Seris couldn't help but wonder if maybe this was his chance to get away from Home. Even if Fett was a hunter, maybe he had enough of a sense of honor that he would repay Seris, hopeful with a ride to another planet. Not that Seris knew what he would do. Maybe a job in law enforcement…
Fett could see that the boy had finally fallen asleep. The woods around them were silent for sometime. Fett had nearly fallen asleep when he heard a noise behind him. He pulled his blaster out, carefully holding it in his good hand. A shadow moved across the other side of the clearing. Fett waited. Whoever it was would get to make their move first, he wasn't going to fire at shadows. He managed to get to his feet leaning heavily on the tree, just as the shadow launched itself from the trees.
The heavy Trandoshan knocked Fett down, pinning him to the ground. He gasped as it pushed down on his injured arm. He swung his good arm at the side of its head, knocking it off him. Fett pushed himself backward and reached for his blaster.
The Trandoshan grinned revealing all of his teeth, "Good thing for you I don't like blasters, or you'd be dead already." He punched Fett, knocking the hunter back before launching himself at Fett.
The sounds of fighting woke Seris. He sat up and saw Fett struggling with a lizard like alien. "Fett!" The lizard looked up at Seris and barred its teeth, hissing. A blaster went off, the lizard's eyes widened in surprise as he collapsed to one side of Fett.
"Fett? Are you alright?" Fett didn't stir, he seemed to be unconscious, his blaster still in his hand. Seris cursed under his breath and crawled over, he wasn't sure what blood was Fett's and what was the lizard's either way he couldn't do anything for the hunter on his own, and anyway things were getting dangerous. "You and your secrecy. I'm going to have to get you back to town, but what if someone else comes? Sithspawn!"
Then Seris remembered he still had his sister's comlink. He flipped it open, "Mikka! Mikka! Come on! This is important!" It took a moment but she responded.
"Seris! Why are you calling this early and what do you have with my comlink?"
"Mikka, I need your help! I found an injured man in the woods. His ship crashed and he was attacked by a lizard alien!" he kept talking over her squawk of surprise, "He's hurt bad! I need Mom's help." Seris hated the fact that his voice shook slightly. There was silence on Mikka's end. Seris could imagine her shocked expression. "Hurry Mikka. I'm worried about him."
"I'll get Mom, maybe Dad can bring us out in the landspeeder." The comlink clicked off. Seris spent the next hour nervously varying between trying to wake up Fett and cursing him with every phrase he had ever heard in the local cantina. At the end of the hour he heard the coughing roar of their ancient land speeder.
"Mom! Can you help him?" His mother glared at him as she clambered out of the speeder. She didn't even look at the lizard alien, though she told Mikka to stay in the speeder.
"He's badly hurt Seris; we need to get him home immediately." She stalked over to where Fett lay on the ground. "Terrible, terrible, terrible. I've never seen anything like this, but then I've never seen a crashed starship either. Give me the other blanket and have your father help me lift him into the speeder." Together they lifted the unconscious bounty hunter into the speeder.
As everyone climbed back in, Seris tapped his mother on the shoulder, "Mom, he's a bounty hunter."
She looked at Seris directly, her eyes showed how serious she was, "Yes Seris, but he needs our help. The galaxy is a big place; we don't know anything about him or about him." She nodded at the lizard alien. "We can't help him anymore, but we can help your friend. I can't judge which of them is in the right, probably not even if I knew more, the universe is mostly gray with little black and white." She smiled at him then and motioned him into the speeder. All the way back she kept a worried eye on him.
Seris thought about what his mother had said as the speeder carried them homeward. He knew his mother had always cared a lot about what was right and what was wrong, something she had passed on to him, but he would never have thought it would be this hard to understand. Bounty hunters were frightening, but that didn't mean he should judge Fett… Eventually he gave up, either way, he hoped Fett was alright.
Seris' father carried Fett inside while the farm hands surrounded them slack jawed. Later there would be avid debates about exactly what was under that helmet. They put Fett in a guest bed. Seris' mother wrapped clean bandages around him. "Seris, I'll take care of your friend, go help your father with the chores. You'll probably have to help explain all this to the hired help too," she said with a wiry smile.
"Will he be alright?" Seris asked, afraid that he would have caused the hunter's death. Seris had never really seen anyone die. When he was very small they had buried Old man Fith, but all he had seen was the fire, and Fith had never even left his house as long as Seris could remember, and the lizard alien in the forest had seemed too unreal, more like a nightmare than anything else.
"I hope so. I think so. Don't worry, go help you father, I'll take care of our guest."
*~*~*~*~*
Hey the beginning is my favorite part too. Glad someone else likes it!
Ok, for Rainy, this is the second time I've posted this on the Internet, but not on this site. The other was on a different website, but it is mine. I'm not plagiarizing. My other copy was under the name Luana, if you've seen it under some other name than that, it's been stolen and if you see it again tell me where! As for this version it's new and improved (I'm rewriting the whole thing), so I would recommend you read it anyway.
Thanks for letting me know someone's reading!