The first time he had noticed her, he had docked the Slave in Jabba's shipyard and saw her laboring in the shipyard, dismantling an old engine with her bare hands. The woman had nothing to work with, but she worked hard; her hands bled, but she kept at it.
That night, she had come up from her station to the audience chamber and settled into an obscure spot with a drink she had worked hard to bargain for at the bar. Fett happened to be standing nearby, but she hadn't noticed. She didn't even know who he was. He watched her, sipping the dark ale and watching the events unfold, looking away when the dancers were thrown to the Rancor. At one point, she noticed him watching her and offered him a chair. "Why don't you sit down," she said. He hesitated, but agreed. It was strange, he noted, that she didn't seem to fear him.
"I've seen you here often," she said. "You must be very good at what you do." He nodded and changed the subject. He flirted with the idea of seeing what it would be like to talk to this girl without her fear, his bounty hunter self between them. For a good while, they talked. Or at least, Greta did most of the talking. He merely asked questions. From that conversation, he learned she had lost her father as a child, made a slave and had spent most of her life in the palace. He, she learned, was in some sort of trade, though he wouldn't really say what. She had also asked about his planet of origin. He hedged around the subject, too, but eventually mentioned he was Mandalore. At the mentioned of this, she paused and grew white.
"I-I'm sorry," she said awkwardly.
"Why?"
"To have wasted your time – to have been so presumptuous. I didn't know."
"There is nothing to be sorry about," he said, smiling faintly beneath the visor.
Boba Fett thought of Greta those years ago, her curious eyes peering behind her long, brown hair. Now, on this small planet, he kept his watch while hidden in shadows, observing the woman who, over two years ago, could not then forgive him.
He had escaped the Deathstar, just as he was certain Greta had also escaped. But finding her after the explosion was another matter. It was chaos everywhere as the galaxy strove to re-order itself after the fall of the Empire. Greta had disappeared entirely. She left absolutely no tracks, and Boba Fett, for the first time, was confounded on a hunt.
Finally, after tireless searching, the little he had to go on brought him to a planet on the far reaches of the outer rim, to a small village on the eastern continent. And he watched her now, outside her small stone house, calling after someone down the street. She looked well with the sun's glow on her face. He noticed, too, that her cybernetic eye was gone, and in its place, a patch covering the socket. She stood in the street searching for the one she was calling with a smile on her lips.
A small giggle came from behind a pile of crates. Greta stalked around it, and lunged, causing an eruption of giggles from behind. She came out with a dusty little two-year-old, who had buried his face into her shirt as she tickled him ruthlessly.
Boba Fett leaned in closer, curious about the child and his relationship to Greta.
"No more!" cried the boy, laughing.
"Oh yes, little man," Greta replied, holding him close. "You are doomed!"
The child squirmed and squealed, as he fought his way out of her grasp. Finally, she let go and he toddled a few steps away, only to come running back with his arms in the air. "More!"
"A glutton for punishment, Joren," she laughed. "I'm afraid I've gotten you too riled up for bed."
The child tugged at her pant leg still. "Up?"
Greta scooped him up in his arms and kissed his ruddy cheeks, her hair falling over his little face. She whispered something inaudible to him, and sent him inside the house. Before joining him, she stood, staring up at the sky with a look of contentment on her face.
Greta was coming down the stairs from putting Joren to bed, feeling the weight of night blanketing across the planet. She often felt a kind of foreboding at sunset, as the oncoming darkness often brought on the awful memories of the lightless cell in the Deathstar. She felt night's oppression now, as she gazed out her window. All was silent: Joren's cheerful voice gone and the day's tasks on hold till the next. It was times like these that her heart admitted its deep loneliness and ached for the things she had lost.
She thought of Lethia, far away on Tatooine, running her own moisture farm as her father once did. It made her glad to think that she had found happiness at least, having married a local Bantha rancher, and living as a free person. As for Greta, she had her quiet life here and her own shop. But she was alone, save for Joren and his grandmother, Kass.
Dear, meddling Kass had tried to encourage her to marry, even going as far as setting her up with local bachelors. But Greta found no interest in any of them. It was probably best, she thought, to be alone considering the kind of baggage – the secrets – she carried.
The sky parted to reveal a cluster of winking stars. She gazed at them, wondering at the vastness of the galaxy and where in all of it he was. Though she had left him badly injured on a nearly-destroyed Deathstar, she knew Boba Fett would survive. He was out there somewhere.
It had been over two years, but his plea for her forgiveness still lived in her thoughts. She had had time, in this new life, to reconsider the last time they met. He had gone back on a job he had taken - from Darth Vader no less – to apologize, to ask for her forgiveness. She also remembered how he refused to fight back, even though she almost killed him. She remembered his voice, too, harsh as it ever was, but lined with remorse. It almost seemed like a dream, to think that Boba Fett, the most dangerous bounty hunter in the galaxy, would go through such lengths just to admit that he was wrong. But it had happened. She touched the glass-like holocube hanging from her neck, fingers drifting to the silver chain he had given her.
"Good to see you haven't lost it," a voice behind her said.
Greta recognized the voice instantly. She turned to see Boba Fett appear from the shadows of her night-darkened home, flecks of light glinting off his visor.
"So you found me," she said quietly.
"You weren't easy to find," he admitted. "It was only a matter of time."
Greta approached him slowly, wrapping her robe more tightly around herself. "You don't give up easy, do you?"
"I never give up."
She was close now, close enough to see all the dents and scratches on his infamous helmet. Close enough to look at her own reflection in his visor. Her eyes narrowed. "Why are you here, Fett? You know what happened the last time you paid me a visit."
"I want to talk. That's all."
"Talk? You've never been a man of many words, Boba."
"Only when necessary."
Greta's lips pressed into a hard, thin line. Slowly, she reached up and touched the t-shaped visor where his mouth would be, running her fingers down the hard edge. "Then let me see you," she said quietly.
Cautiously, he took both her hands and brought them to the sides of his helmet. "There isn't much to see," he warned, almost a whisper. In that moment, she heard trepidation in his voice and wondered if the Sarlacc had taken the whole of his face.
At first, she kept her gaze on the helmet in her hands. She looked at it, feeling like she was holding a decapitated head.
"Would you look at me, Greta?" he asked. His voice was different from how it sounded through the helmet mic. It was warmer and more full. Slowly, she looked up to face him.
It was like looking at a stranger. All these years, she had identified him by his signature helmet, the t-shaped visor that was his face. This man with burn scars across more than half his face, and piercing eyes that searched hers, was foreign.
As though he felt too heavily her eyes on him, he looked down, searching for words. "Greta," he began, "My face is a map of my weaknesses. These scars tell my moments of failure, which I refuse to show anyone – but you. I've tried to erase the stain of human frailty with this identity, but I've already shown you how weak I really am – to be manipulated by Vader through my damned ambition. To have let you suffer, when I should have protected you."
He then lifted his eyes to meet hers. Her face was impassive, grim. He continued. "You don't have to forgive me, Greta. I know how much I've hurt you."
"Then why bother coming all this way?"
He cupped her face in his hand, looking at her intently. "Because I love you, Greta. I have always loved you."
She kept her gaze fixed on him, uncertain of how to respond. Part of her was distrustful of him; another wanted to believe him desperately. She lifted her hand to touch him, like she needed to believe that he was really there. She touched the dark hair at his temple, ran her fingers down his scarred face and stopped at his lips.
And it was then that she surprised him. She met his lips with hers, first gently, then more urgently. Fett returned the kiss, pulling her closer to him. How they had both longed for this moment from the day they met, even after the Deathstar and all the months that followed. Slowly and reluctantly, Fett pulled away, a questioning look on his face.
"The child – upstairs – is he yours?"
Greta smiled wickedly. "What if he is?"
"I'd have to ask if you're still with his father," he replied somberly.
She touched his face again and smiled. "He's my neighbour's grandson. I look after him when his grandmother works late at the spice factory. Joren's parents are both dead."
"I saw you outside with him. You care for him very much."
"Yes. He's the closest thing I have to a family."
"You've always wanted that, a family."
"As much as you didn't want the liability of family ties," she answered, knowingly.
"That was before. Things have changed."
"Have they?" she tossed him his helmet.
Catching it in his gloved hands, Boba Fett looked at his own visor, thinking. Finally, he spoke. "Seeing you with the boy . . . I was jealous of the man who had given you the child. Who shared in your happiness."
Fett had his head bowed as he spoke, his eyes concealed by the shadows of his brow. Greta turned away, her arms crossing her chest as she walked to the window. She closed her eyes as she fought the mixed feelings in her heart, trying to make sense of the anger and love that confused her.
"Mandalorians are warriors, not family men," she said coldly.
"Not true. They were as loyal as husbands as they were soldiers."
"Perhaps. But not the ones named 'Fett'," she returned, a little acidly.
Fett closed the distance between them, turning her around to face him. His face was fierce, his eyes intense. His voice, however, was low and restrained. "My father was a good man. For me, I know I don't deserve you or to be forgiven – you've made that perfectly clear. But I boarded the dying Deathstar for you, brought you your holocube. I spent two years looking for you, just to make sure you were all right. If you still can't believe that I only want you to be happy, then I'm wasting my time."
The flood of his words struck her. Greta has not heard him say so much at one time before, nor the emotion on his face as he said it. She took a deep breath, running her hand in her hair. Finally, she braved his gaze and put a hand on his chest. "No. Stay," she whispered. "I'm sorry." She took his hands, and taking off his gloves, lay them on her hips. The anger in his face disappeared as he leaned in, tasting her lips as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Gently, she broke off the kiss and said, "I forgive you." He received it with a nod, and she buried her face into his neck, taking in his warm, earthy scent. They stayed like that for a while, feeling something like peace for the first time in years, and the contentment that they had both finally found in each other what they had lost years ago - home.