AN: I hope you all had a great holiday! Thanks so much for all your support! I get so so excited over each follow, like, and review.

Fractured

"The Mando will have no choice but to give his beskar," the Gamorrean growled, but he took a step back, leaving me cowering against the shelves. I hated myself for it, but my first thought was would he even give it up for me? Didn't matter. I had to act like he wouldn't, so I let myself believe he wouldn't.

"I'm not…" my voice came out as a croak and I didn't like that. I didn't like cowering against the shelves. I cleared my throat and tried again, "I'm not important to him." Sounded a little more confident there. Not by much, but with a shaking breath, I straightened myself up.

"We'll see about that. I seen the way you look at him," he replied, and dammit, there's a way I look at him? Nonetheless, I could spin it. I could make it sound convincing that he's not in love with me back, because… it's still so hard to believe.

"But you couldn't see the way he looked at me," I countered, which caused his smirk to falter. "I mean nothing to him and surely not his armor."

He grunted, considering my words. "Let's just let him answer for himself," he grumbled, a little deflated that his little plan might not work. He turned around, and while he did that, I pulled out my blaster that was hiding against my ribcage and stood up. The Gamorrean opened the door and peeked his head out. "Huh. He's gone."

"Well, there's other things I can do with you," he said as he turned back around, to me bringing up the blaster and aiming directly for his face. "Bitch," he added at the sight.

He's gone. What if something happened to him? What if he did just leave me? I took a deep breath. No need to panic… yet. Focus at getting away, because Din's not here to save you. No, don't think of the because. He hasn't been giving me fighting lessons nearly every day for the past month for me to not get out of this situation. Plus, I had a gun in my hand. I learned that on my own.

Yeah. I had a gun in my hand. A Gamorrean was staring me dead in the eye, daring me to shoot him. I had literally one secon- oh, second's up. The pig-faced creature came charging at me and through instinct, not thought, my finger pulled the trigger. I flinched back, my eyes closing, expecting to be rammed against the shelf again, but instead, a warm substance flicked across my face.

Still braced against the shelf, I carefully opened one eye and with no Gamorrean running at me, I opened my other eye and straightened up. I looked down to the floor, where a green body with a blown off head laid sprawled and my hand went up to my face, pulling away sticky, red fingertips.

I killed him.

The thought froze me in place.

I mean, I killed that droid, but… but… that wasn't flesh and blood. I was protecting the kid. This time, I was protecting myself. I couldn't breathe.

I murdered him.

My hand shook so hard the blaster rattled in my hand. I wanted to throw, to get it away from me, but even in my state, I knew better. I slid it back in its holster. It was cold against my skin, a constant reminder of what I'd just done.

I killed someone.

I'm not sure how long I stood there, staring at the body, but as the shock wore off, more thoughts than the 'I killed him' crossed my mind.

Like Baby. Like Din.

I focused on those thoughts and pushed the other one away; down, down deep, to a place I'll hopefully never find.

I burst through the doors to find the arena, indeed, empty. I could feel my heart pounded in my chest. Where were they? I jogged up the stairs to the exit, gasping for breath the entire way. Between panic and exhaustion, getting up these stairs were going to take a moment.

Once I finally made it to the door, my heart stopped at the sound of voices. Then restarted again when I recognized them.

"I never saw a Mandalorian there," I heard Din's voice. He, on the other hand, sounds calm.

"My information is good I tell you-"

"Where the hell have you been?" I screamed, rounding the corner. The child in the prim startled, letting out a little yelp. Din jerked his head towards me, but I couldn't tell if he was surprised. All my anxiety suddenly turned into anger.

"Where have you been?" Din snapped back in response, like he felt my mood, but I heard the breath of relief coloring the tone.

It didn't matter. I was on a rampage. "Were you not worried?"

"I… it all happened so fast. He ran. I couldn't let him get away!" Din defended himself. "I was finishing up here, was going to find you…"

"If there was a me to find," I said abruptly, tears threatening to pool over despite the fact that I now wanted to stay angry. Damn me.

Seemingly content that Kor wasn't going anywhere, Din rushed over to me. "What happened?" he asked, concern finally clouding his voice, forgetting about his pride being questioned.

"It doesn't matter now," I answered, taking a slow breath through my nose. Ever so slightly, his helmet moved around to the injuries as he saw them. He was quiet as he seemed to try to decipher what blood, if any of it, was mine.

"I'm sorry. I…" he cut himself off, standing there motionless. There was no face to read to figure out what he was feeling. "I got caught up in getting information. I couldn't let him run." His tone wasn't calm now, there was a strain to it.

"You forget I'm not Cara Dune or something," I replied, accusingly.

"Uh oh, Mando, never let your girl compare herself to another woman," Kor suddenly cut in.

"Shut up," we both snapped at him, but suddenly, I really saw him there, dangling upside down from a lamppost. I'd been so focused on Din that he was all I saw.

"Okay, okay… better than be interrogated, I guess," the Abyssin mumbled. We should probably handle the task at hand, but I was still very pretty upset.

"But he's right," Din conceded with a sigh. "Don't ever compare yourself to Cara."

"But I'm weak. I was so scared-" I began, turning back to my boyfriend.

"You fought the Gamorrean, though, didn't ya?" Kor butt in again. I nodded once and he let out an impressed 'hmp'. "That's what made ya ready. You was scared and fought anyway."

I didn't know what to say to that, but he was true. I was scared. And I made it out alive.

"I didn't think about the fact you might not feel ready, but I thought that you were," Din admitted, reaching out to touch my shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"How dare you think I could handle one guy while you were over there fighting like five guys," I finally joked, weakly. Because Kor was right. I fought a Gamorrean and I made it out to tell the tale. Now, Din's fought way more- but I wasn't going to compare myself to him right then. Nope. I was going to revel in the fact that I was standing next to Din, breathing, and- Baby!

I darted over to him and scooped him up. He giggled at the suddenness of it, but didn't particularly want to be squeezed to death at this moment, and pushed away when I tried. I turned him around, still holding him, but now he could see what was going on. I felt a little miffed, but at least he was still in my arms.

I was single-mindedly going after Din that I nearly forgot to make sure Baby was okay. I guess I could understand where he was coming from. But I still didn't like what I just went through. I hoped I could push it down and never unpack it.

I took a deep breath and tried to focus the conversation back to the situation at hand. I just wanted this moment to end. I just wanted to get of this planet. "So, what did you get out of him?"

"Tatooine. There's a Mandalorian there," Din answered, turning back to Kor.

"Oh, great," Kor muttered, now that the attention was back on him.

"Tatooine? No way!" I exclaimed, shaking my head. "I would know if there was a Mandalorian there!"

"The city of Mos Pelgo," oh, that's interesting, "I swear it by the Gotra!" Kor said quickly, adding a groan. He brought his hand to his head. He must feel like his eyes were going to pop out.

Din looked at me, to weigh in on his words. "It's an abandoned town up north," I answered with a shrug. "Anything could be there now."

"Tatooine it is, then," Din announced. With that, he started walking away. I waited a second, thinking he was going to do something with Kor.

He continued to walk, and with the prim connected to him, Baby followed, too.

"Wait, Mando! You can't leave me like this!" Kor cried out, the ruckus causing Baby to look back. His eyes then slid to mine. I wasn't moving, but I knew I needed to be. I know Kor was a Bad Guy, but after killing someone earlier, I didn't want to be a cause for another's suffering.

"Cut me down!" the Abyssin continued, but Din didn't even turn to look back.

But he did call over his shoulder, "That was not part of the deal."

Deal? What deal?

"We can't just leave him!" I said, but not wanting to be here alone with just Kor, I began to fill in the gap between Din and I. He stopped then and I filled with relief.

"Just let him-" I began, but Din took out his blaster and quickly shot out the light in the lamppost Kor was dangling from. I shivered in the darkness and it was then I realized it wasn't just the three of us out here. Red eyes began moving, getting closer to the pig hung for slaughter. "Din, no!"

"Wait, what are you doing? Mando! I can pay! Mando! Mando!" Kor begged in the background.

"Why not?" he asked, pausing for a second. His helmet jerked down and I knew he was looking me dead in the eye. "He's a Mandalorian murderer, EJ."

"But… but what about the child? He shouldn't see this," I tried, trying quickly to form my thoughts into actual words. That was only a bit of my concern.

"He's seen worse," Din responded, his voice as taut as his body looked, I guess not liking be questioned.

"But he's still a child!" I grumbled, still in a mood from literally killing someone and not wanting to be (part of) the cause of another death. I didn't like the fact he wasn't agreeing with me… that he didn't seem to care that he was taking a life.

"He's fifty years old," he said, in almost a hard tone. I could tell he now wasn't happy with me either.

Unfortunately, I had no reply to that because it was true.

Suddenly, there was screaming in the background and I blurted, "Din, I killed someone."

What was he going to do with that knowledge? Would those three words explain what I'm currently feeling?

But instead of empathy, I kind of felt like he was going to pat me on the back now.