Author's Note:

Hi! So this story is just a little idea I had and since it's towards the end of break and I have nothing better to do I decided to write it. After this one there will probably be a couple more chapters, I don't intend for this to be really long. I don't think I'm a very good writer but I try. This chapter doesn't really have any action, I wanted it be a quiet chapter with a bit of personal conversation between Din and Cara and setting up the action that will occur next chapter. Hopefully I'll wrap this up before I go back to school. Thanks for reading! P.S. I know nothing of medical procedures so if I get something horribly wrong then blame my lack of knowledge.

Cara awoke to a distant howling somewhere beyond the nearby mountains. Blinking her groggy eyes, she could see from her position on her back that Tranon's moon was high in the starry sky, indicating that it was the middle of the night. The howling continued in the distance, sounding almost like loth wolves. The symphonic sounds seemed to be coming closer.

Alarmed and suddenly very awake, Cara quickly sat up and glanced around her makeshift campsite for any threat. The old lantern she'd found in a dusty cabinet of the ship was by some miracle still burning, casting a warm and comforting glow over the grass. The golden light reflected off of Din's silvery armor, who appeared to still be sleeping soundly.

Cara wiped off blades of grass sticking to her black pants before getting up and kneeling beside her injured friend. His breathing was steady but shallow, the rises and falls of his chest barely visible. She knew from experience that broken ribs made breathing a painful task. Carefully, she turned him enough to see his shoulder, which looked much the same except now the blood had dried and caked over the burn. She mentally cursed herself for not cleaning the wound before she had allowed herself to doze off, knowing that he could get sick from infection.

Resolving to take care of that momentarily, she glanced down to his right leg that she'd managed to shift into a more natural position when she'd laid him down. She wanted to feel it to find out if there was more than one break, or worse, if part of it was shattered. The procedure would more than likely wake him, but if she could do it while he was asleep, it would save him from a painful process.

Sucking in a breath, she carefully laid her hand on his leg and looked towards his helmet to see if he would wake. His breathing hitched for a moment, but he didn't stir. As gently as possible, Cara ran her hand down his lower leg to try and feel for a break on the surface, but with his thick pants it was difficult to feel his bone without applying pressure. With a sigh of resignation, she began pressing her hand down his leg, knowing that he would more than likely awaken. It wasn't long until she felt a gap between the bone on his lower leg. As gingerly as she could, she felt around the break to determine whether or not it was clean. The action elicited a groan from Din's helmet, so she stopped for a moment, but he made so sign of fully waking. Having gathered what knowledge she could, she deduced that it was a fully clean break and not a simple crack as she had hoped. Fortunately, she couldn't feel any shards of bone under his skin, but she knew there could nevertheless be some.

Finishing her examination, Cara finally reached his lower leg near his ankle and felt a small crack in his bone there. She pressed around the area to confirm that it was only a crack and not a second break, and sighed in relief when she didn't feel anything fully separated. One break, one crack. It was honestly better than she had feared it would be.

She was surprised that he hadn't woken, but she recalled how he'd been shaking from exhaustion at the end of their trek and decided it wasn't that shocking. Sleep was what he needed, especially since she knew he hated to be helpless and would likely try to move around when he shouldn't. It was probably an old habit from always fending for himself as a bounty hunter.

Cara briefly considered going back to sleep, as the night was still not near ending, but quickly dismissed the idea when another long howl that sounded even closer than the previous ones echoed through the hills. If these supposed canines were hostile, she needed to be ready to defend herself and Din, who as of now was close to helpless. Plus, she still needed to attend to his burned shoulder and find a way to put together a makeshift cast for his leg.

A cool breeze swept over their camp as Cara moved to her small stash of supplies in search of bandages and water. Grabbing the necessary items, she frowned when she remembered how dirty they were. The dusty bandages she'd just have to clean off the best she could, but the water had flecks of brown dirt floating in it and she was reluctant to use it to clean Din's shoulder. She determined that using her canteen of drinking water she'd brought along would be better suited for cleaning his wound. As for drinking water, she was pretty sure she could handle drinking from the soiled jug.

She was in the middle of wiping dust and dirt off the roll of bandage gauze when a soft groan sounded behind her. She whirled around to see Din shifting himself with his good arm while holding his ribs protectively with the other.

"You awake in there?" Cara asked his armored figure as she approached him with her medical supplies.

"Yes," was his clipped response, his voice rough from sleep and pain.

"It's the middle of the night. You've been asleep for around six hours," Cara informed him. "The ship lost of all of its fuel and power, so I set us up out here and looked at your leg. It's broken, for sure, and cracked in another spot. I was about to take care of your shoulder."

Din nodded and attempted to sit up, but the fruitless effort caused him to grunt in frustration at his weakness.

"Hey, you don't need to move right now, what you need is to stay still so those ribs can heal," Cara quickly told him as she knelt in the grass beside his armored frame. He didn't respond, simply stayed prone on his back with his arm wrapped across his middle and focused on breathing through his discomfort.

"How's the pain?" Cara asked, concern laced into her voice as she tried to determine which of his three significant injuries was currently the most uncomfortable for him.

"Fine," he answered dismissively, then asked "Is...Greef coming?" Cara could practically feel him wincing under his helmet.

"I hope so," Cara muttered as she laid out her equipment. After a thought of their difficult trip from the mountain side to the ship a few hours prior, she grabbed his canteen off of his belt. "Thirsty?" she asked, and offered the metal bottle to him. He nodded and took it after she helped him to a sitting position. She looked down respectfully once he was up so he could drink privately. He only lifted the bottom of his helmet to get the water to his mouth, but she still felt like she would be intruding despite the fact that only just over a week ago she'd seen his face, seen his brown eyes welled up with tears and seen his messy brown hair. It was an image she wouldn't soon forget.

She heard the pressure of his helmet return with a hiss, and looked back up to see him set the canteen down on the grass beside him.

"You don't have to look away," Din suddenly said, surprising her.

"I know. I just feel like I'm invading your privacy."

Din didn't respond, so she lifted up the bandages she'd manage to somewhat sanitize so he could see them. "I need to clean up that burn on your shoulder so it doesn't get infected." Cara knew it was probably the last thing he felt like doing, but it had to be done; she had nothing to treat an infection if he developed one and she didn't want to know how awful it would be to have a high fever in full Beskar armor.

"Okay," he accepted resignedly, so Cara promptly moved to his backside and brought the lantern with her so she could see. Carefully, she began peeling the torn dark fabric of his flight suit away so she could better access the burn. Before she began pouring water on it, however, she decided that making conversation would be a good way to distract him from the uncomfortable process.

"What's your home planet?" Cara suddenly asked as she began pouring water over his shoulder, the contact causing him to visibly flinch.

"What?" he asked, sounding confused.

"Well you said you weren't born on Mandalore, so where were you born?" she quizzed curiously as she attempted to gently scrub dirt off of his burn.

Din remained silent for a beat. Cara knew it was probably a question he'd never been asked, and she doubted he'd ever told anyone the answer. She mostly had asked just to make conversation, but a part of her was curious to know.

"Aq Vetina," Din finally said softly, his voice barely audible through his modulator. When Cara didn't respond, he continued. "It's a small planet not that far from Nevarro." He paused when his breathing hitched as she began scrubbing at his shoulder a bit harder. "Lots of rocky terrain, but some trees too."

Cara simply hummed in response as she continued to work, honestly surprised that he had opened up to her. She'd never heard of the planet, but it sounded nice. Nowadays, it was a pretty good perk if you lived somewhere that someone as well-traveled as she was didn't even know about.

"Have you been back?" she asked as she grabbed a roll of gauze and cut the right length to wrap around his shoulder. She knew she was asking him a bit of a personal question, but then again, she was probably the closest person to him.

"No," he answered after a moment and flinched as Cara wrapped a bandage around his smarting burn. Cara had already figured this, knowing of the traumatic incident he'd been through there when he was a child. He'd told her and Greef of his childhood rescue by the Mandalorians right after his parents were killed by droids. He'd given them the story after Gideon had revealed his true name to everyone present and threatened to kill them if they didn't surrender to him. She'd been a bit rocked by his story and his willingness to share it, but it had certainly put some puzzle pieces such as his wariness of the IG droid into place.

Finishing the wrap around his shoulder, Cara cut the bandage with her knife and tied it securely before wiping her hands off. Without bacta, the bandage wouldn't heal the burn at all, but it would at least protect it from dirt and infection. "I'm done. Do you want me to wrap your ribs up or do you want to sleep? It won't be morning until a few more hours."

Din sighed. Cara knew he wanted nothing more than to sleep, but wrapping up his ribs with something might help them heal a little faster.

"Sleep," he said after a moment, his exhaustion evident in his tone. Cara nodded in understanding and allowed him to lay completely flat on his back now that his shoulder was protected. She was about to get ready to doze off herself when a howl that sounded as though it was less than a mile away reached her ears, the sound so loud and foreboding in the chilly night that she shivered slightly.

"I'm going to keep watch. You sleep, you need it," Cara decided as she stood up and grabbed her gun, her dark brown eyes scanning the surrounding area for any sign of the howling creatures.

Din nodded, and Cara let out a breath as she prepared to defend them from anything that jumped out of the darkness before dawn came.