One - Poison Dart

It was late. The moons of this planet had just begun rising, and the Child had dropped off a while ago. You had tried to stay up to wait for The Mandalorian to come back, but your eyes were heavy with sleep.

The sound of the hatch grinding open stirred you, and you blinked the sleep out of your eyes as Mando's heavy bootfalls came up the ramp. His strides sounded... odd, slower than normal. And then there was a loud crash as he stumbled and sent a whole lot of beskar into the floor.

"Mando?!" You cried, throwing the blankets the rest of the way off you and stumbling through the hold. There was a modulated groan, and a scrape, and then the ship's lights powered on when Mando presumably hit the right button on his vambrace.

"Good. You're here." Mando said. His voice was thick, his words slurred.

"Where else would I be?" You asked.

"Fuck, I don't know..." The Mandalorian's chest rose and fell as he panted.

"Are you hurt?" You asked, falling to your knees beside him. "What's wrong with you?"

"Poison dart on my thigh." He answered. Something clattered to the floor, presumably the dart, and The Mandalorian let his head fall to the floor with a metallic clunk.

"W-w-what?" You squeaked. "Do you have the antidote?"

"I have something." Mando replied. "Med kit, blue vial."

"Oh god." Your stomach felt like it was going to drop out your ass as you stumbled for the med kit. This had to be a nightmare. You had to be dreaming. He was not going to have you inject him with Force-knows-what to see if it would work or not.

"I have the vial, is it for an injector or is it something you drink?" You returned to his side with the whole med kit, just in case you needed it for whatever aftermath this blue vial caused.

The Mandalorian didn't answer. In the two minutes it had taken for you to find the medkit, he'd either swooned or died.

You examined the vial, hoping to find some sort of clue about where it was supposed to go.

"Stars help me."

You felt under The Mandalorian's jawline for the helmet's closures, and shut your eyes tightly once you heard the hiss of pressure releasing. You slid the helmet upward and off, then felt around for Mando's mouth. You felt the bristles of short hair on his cheeks and a mustache, then succeeded in pushing his lips apart. You uncapped the vial and dumped it in, pushing his mouth back closed and praying he didn't choke. You were not prepared to try and breathe life into him, that would be a last resort only.

"Come on, you big idiot." You growled, feeling his neck for a pulse. The ship was completely silent except for the sound of your own heart thudding in your ears as you waited for some sign you hadn't killed your boss.

Something smashed the side of your face, sending you to the floor. Oh yeah, there was your sign.

"Fuck!" The Mandalorian's unmodulated voice cried out.

Stars were dancing behind your eyelids and you could swear your ears were ringing. It was all you could do to keep your eyes closed, curl up, and try not give in to the nausea threatening to send your dinner back up.

Mando called your name, helmet back in place now.

"Just give me a minute," You gasped, "you caught me by surprise. I had my eyes closed."

"I'm sorry..." Mando said, his voice sounding uncharacteristically emotional. "It was reflex, I didn't know you would have your eyes closed."

"I'm not mad, it just hurts." You whimpered.

You heard the scrape of beskar as Mando dragged himself closer to you, then a hand tried to uncurl you from your protective position. You relaxed, allowing him to turn you over and toward him. You blinked up at The Mandalorian, your blurry eyesight turning him into a hovering silver shape.

One side of your face was on fire, he'd missed your nose but landed mostly cheekbone and eye socket. Judging by the red smeared across your hands either the plate on his glove had cut you or the sheer force of the hit had split your cheek open.

"I don't know what to say." Mando admitted.

"'Here, have some bacta' would be a great start." You replied.

Mando wordlessly crawled his way to the discarded med kit and dug around in the mess of supplies.

"Here." A bacta patch soared over and smacked your nose. You blinked in surprise at the Mandalorian, and then in spite of yourself you began to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Two - Concussion

"You sit right here and hide until it's safe. If you move, I will shoot you myself." The Mandalorian said, shoving you into the ventilation shaft and letting the grate fall closed. Then he was gone. You'd just finished pushing The Child's crib down the shaft and around the corner to avoid detection when an explosion rattled the vent. You crawled back to the vent cover, peeking out just in time for another, bigger explosion to knock you back on your butt.

Nothing in the hangar stirred. You waited, watching for any signs of the enemy, while your heart hammered the inside of your ribcage.

There was no possible way that The Mandalorian had survived that explosion. You'd seen his body thrown impossibly far away, and heard the metallic thud as his head struck the solid plating of the building. You just knew that you were going to crawl out of the vent and find a charred corpse locked inside a beskar suit, and it was probably going to give you nightmares for the rest of your life.

You reached the end of your count without seeing any motion, so you began to crawl out. You picked your way among the rubble, trying not to gag at the cooked pieces of the enemy decorating the floor.

Mando was slumped against the far wall, his head at a funny angle. He had a few small burns, but at lease he wasn't crispy. Now you just had to figure out if he was dead.

You gently felt for a pulse, keeping your face far away from his hands this time. You'd learned to keep your distance while triaging him after he'd nearly broken your cheekbone and eye socket reacting to your medical treatment.

A groan from the man beneath you had you scrabbling backwards, hands in front of your face.

"I told you to stay put." Mando growled.

"I had to see if I had become the single parent because you were turned into a charred corpse in beskar." You squeaked.

"What?" Mando asked. He rolled over, leaning against the wall, and groaned in pain.

"Nothing. Are you all right?" You asked.

"Fine." He grunted.

You watched Mando try to get to your feet, and decided he was definitely far from fine. He swayed on his feet, and when he tried to walk he stumbled and had to catch himself.

"I think you might be concussed..." You said.

"Didn't ask your opinion." He replied. You knew he was just processing his injuries, but it stung a little.

"I'll go get the kid." You said, turning on your heel and leaving him to orient himself.

The Child was more than happy to stick his head out and survey the wreckage once the pod was out of the vent. He seemed none the worse for wear after the incident. You both watched as The Mandalorian stumbled and weaved his way across the hangar.

"Close your eyes." Mando clipped as he stumbled to you.

"What?"

"Just do it."

You obeyed, snapping your eyes shut, and a second later you heard (and smelled) him throw up on the ground between you.

Mando coughed and retched for a few more minutes, and then you heard his unmodulated voice for the second time since you'd started working for him.

"Yeah, might have a concussion."

You swallowed a laugh and waited for him to put the helmet back on.

"You can lean on me on the way back to the Crest. I'm not letting you fly us in your condition."

Mando didn't deign to reply, but after his legs failed to carry him in a straight line, he accepted your offer and leaned into you, letting you steer the both of you back to the ship.

You had to stop twice for Mando to throw up again on the way back, and you patiently closed your eyes until he was done and the helmet was back on. By the time you arrived at the concealed Razor Crest, The Mandalorian was in rough shape.

"What? No. Where do you think you're going?" You asked as you noticed Mando wobbling his way to the cockpit. He turned slowly to face you, silent as ever.

"You can't walk in a straight line, how can you possibly fly us out of here without crashing the ship?"

More silent staring, though you suspected it was less Mando's natural affect and more that his head was spinning.

"Go to your bunk and rest. When you feel less concussed, we'll fly." You continued.

Surprisingly, Mando gave a slow nod, and staggered in the direction of his room.

"I'm going to check on you in a little while to make sure you don't slip into a coma and die." You called after him. He didn't reply, but you heard the telltale clank of his armored body collapsing into bed.

An hour later, you approached Mando's room to check on him. You closed your eyes as you entered the doorway, just in case he'd taken his helmet off.

"Mando?" You asked.

You tried again. No answer. Kriffing Hell.

You cracked an eye open for just a second to get your bearings, and then reopened your eyes as you saw that the helmet was still on.

"Mando?" You asked. You carefully approached, then shook his shoulder as gently as you could to avoid jostling his head and neck.

"Fuck me." You groaned. "Please be alive, I vastly prefer being punched to touching a corpse."

You went through the now-familiar action of releasing the helmet's fastenings, and gently pulled the helmet off, cushioning Mando's neck with your hand as you did. He stirred, groaning in protest.

"Hey, hey, easy there. My eyes are closed. I just had to make sure you weren't dead." You soothed, holding your face away from him (in case of violent reflexes) and gently stroking his hair. It felt curly, and you guessed her was a brunette, or maybe a redhead.

"How do you feel?" You asked.

"That... feels nice." Mando replied, his words slurred slightly from the concussion and from sleep.

"I'll pet your hair as long as you want me to, just please don't die on me."

"You seem... uh, focused on my death." The Mandalorian said. His voice without the modulator was rich and, well, lovely.

"Maybe because you keep almost dying on me, Mando." You replied.

You almost thought he was asleep again, but then he spoke.

"Din."

"Huh?"

"My name is Din. Not Mando."

"Oh."

The silence stretched, and you realized that after his admission he'd actually fallen back to sleep. You rolled this new piece of information over in your mind. He must really be concussed if he was offering up a nugget of information about himself like that.

Three: Blaster Holes

Stars, beskar was really, really heavy. Sweat dripped down every plane of your body as you dragged Din's completely inert form across what felt like half the Dune Sea to Boba Fett's palace. In reality, it was only a couple hundred feet, merely the distance between where you'd parked The Crest and the main gate. But Din was either mostly dead or all dead after fighting his way back to the ship, and you were reaching the limits of your strength by pulling him along.

But, any port in a storm. You knew that Boba had a bacta tank, and you knew that Din's likelihood of survival after being shot to hell and back would improve if you dumped him in it.

"Daimyo Fett is not here." Boba's security announced. You ground your teeth in frustration.

"I just need to put The Mandalorian in Daimyo Fett's bacta tank. Fett owes Mando a favor." You panted.

"I'm afraid that without confirming this 'favor' with the Daimyo, that will be impossible."

"Please..." You begged.

The line was silent for a moment. Then the voice of Fett's security chimed again.

"Master Assassin Shand has granted you entry."

You practically sobbed in relief as the gate began to lift and some Gamorreans appeared to help you carry Din upstairs. With some of Din's weight off you, the going was faster. Plus, you didn't have to drag him up the stairs by his cape, which probably would have finished off whatever the bullets didn't.

Finally, you landed in Boba's private quarters, where the bacta tank table lay open and waiting. Now you had a whole different problem to face, which was undressing The Mandalorian so he didn't drown in the tank that was supposed to save him.

"Fuck me." You cursed. The Gamorreans snorted in confusion, and you belatedly remembered to dismiss them after they helped you heave Din onto the table.

You bit your lip, knowing that you were about to sail right into uncharted waters. There was no way you could take all the armor off without using your eyes, and there was definitely zero chance you were going to attach the rebreather correctly with your eyes closed. Which meant you were going to see Din's face along with parts of his body. Knowing what you knew about Mandalorian culture, Din would rather die than take this route, but fuck it, you weren't letting him die on you. Not like this.

"Please, please forgive me." You muttered into Din's ear before unlatching the first piece of his armor.

You worked as quickly as you could, only looking when you absolutely had to. As soon as you caught your first glimpse of tan skin around the edges of the flight suit, and what you could see was covered in a whole lot of red, you forced your eyes away and focused on the task at hand. Soon the beskar was piled on the floor around your feet and all that remained was the helmet.

You grabbed the rebreather, positioning it on his chest so you would only have to look for a moment to make sure it was in place. Din lay perfectly still, his chest still rising and falling, but barely.

"Forgive me." You repeated. Then you pressed the helmet latches, closing your eyes and pulling the helmet off. You fumbled for the rebreather, hands shaking, and pressed it to Din's lips. There was a moment of panic as his mouth stubbornly refused to open for the mouthpiece and you thought you were going to have to look, but his mouth eventually flopped open and you got it in.

You steeled yourself, and took one quick peek to make sure that the rebreather was working correctly, focusing your vision on the apparatus and ignoring the features of the man beneath you that were definitely not breathtakingly gorgeous. As soon as the rebreather came online, you stumbled to the control pad and started the bacta cycle.

You took one moment to make sure that everything was working properly and you weren't drowning The Mandalorian in pursuit of healing him; once everything checked out you took watch outside the door, hoping you hadn't made a huge mistake by saving Din's stubborn, curly-headed, brunette life.

One: Waterlogged

In your adventures with Din and Grogu, you'd been through a lot of bizarre situations. However, very few of these situations involved the deep jungle. You and Din had been running from a pack of scalpers through the dense undergrowth when the path led you right to a dropoff into a very deep and very fast running river.

"Uh, Mando?" You asked. He was looking around for a means of escape, planning how to get out of this one.

"Din?" You tried.

"Not now," He growled.

"Din, I can't swim." You cried. Your heart was doing double time, because you had a sinking feeling that you were going to end up in the water one way or another.

Din didn't answer, and voices exploded from the jungle behind you.

"We're going in the water." Din said.

"Din!" You shouted. "I can't-"

A blaster fired, cutting you off. Pain exploded in your back, and you toppled forward off the cliff. The last thing you knew, the silvery water below was speeding toward you, and then blackness overtook your vision.

Din saw you topple into the river, and his mind went blank. He turned on his heel and fired his mini blaster into the trees. He heard a scream from the scalper who had shot you and now satisfied, he dove off the edge.

When he landed, the current pulled him along. It was strong. He bobbed to the surface and looked around for you. Nothing. He adjusted his helmet settings and searched for your heat signature. Again, nothing. A pang of fear spiraled in his gut. What had you been saying before you'd been shot?

"Din, I can't swim..."

"Fuck!" Din said aloud. He dove under and frantically began to search, letting the strongest part of the current take him as he did.

It felt like an eternity before he spied your heat signature up ahead. You were under the water, and it looked like your boot had caught between two rocks, holding you under. With powerful swimming strokes, Din cut his way across to you, diving down and grabbing you under the shoulders to get your head above the surface. You were completely limp in his arms, lips blue and eyes closed.

Din struggled his way to shore, muscles screaming as he hauled you along with his own sodden beskar. He felt for your pulse; nothing. He gently rolled you over and began clapping your back, trying to force the water out of your lungs. Silty water streamed out of your mouth, but other than that nothing happened. He rolled you back to face him and cupped your chin in his hand.

Din's mind raced, trying to think of what he could do. This wouldn't be how your story ended, not while he could do something about it. You had shown him time and time again that you weren't willing to give up on him, saving his life countless times and still respecting The Way.

He knew that you'd taken off his armor and helmet before dumping him in Fett's bacta tank, but he didn't have the right words to talk about it and you hadn't brought it up. You had to have seen his face and body in the process, unless you had grown Jedi mind powers and used the Force to do the work for you. But seeing his face hadn't changed anything between you, life had gone on. And if he noticed you staring at him a little longer than usual every so often, he just ignored it, because he didn't really know what to do.

Before he knew what he was doing, Din had ripped off the helmet and thrown it aside. He began pounding on your chest, then pressed his lips to yours, attempting to breathe the life back into you.

Another time, another place, another circumstance, Din could have kissed you for hours. Even wholly focused on saving your life, aware that you were very much unconscious for this, a far off part of Din's mind recognized that your lips felt like home.

Din pounded on your chest, wincing as he felt your ribs creak underneath his hands.

"Come on, Sweetheart. Don't do this to me. Not like this." He grunted between compressions. He got two more breaths in before you coughed and vomited water all over the both of you. He helped you roll onto your side and purge what felt like half the river and then some onto the muddy bank.

"Din?" You whimpered between coughs.

"I'm here." You felt him curl around you protectively, and you realized you were shaking, from fear and cold. Your mind felt like sludge as it tried to decipher what was going on. Someone was making a hysterical keening noise, and you realized belatedly that it was probably not Din. It was you, you were now sobbing like a lunatic as your teeth chattered.

"You're in shock, you're fine." Din said, tightening his hold on you. You cried out as your ribs protested. Your chest felt like it was on fire.

"I-i-it hurts..." You sobbed. Din rolled you onto your back, and suddenly you were staring into a pair of impossibly deep brown eyes. The galaxy ground to a halt.

"Din..." You whispered, teeth chattering.

"Yes." He said back. His brow furrowed as he looked you over.

"You saved me." You said.

"You've done the same for me, many times." Din replied.

All you could do was nod and close your eyes.

"You can look." Din said. "It's okay."

"I'd love to look at your beautiful face, but I'm s-so tired..." You stammered. Din snorted.

"W-what?" You asked.

"Nothing."

You cracked your eyes open and saw Din's face still hovering above yours, brown eyes poring over your features like he was committing them to memory. Which was fair, everything probably looked different with the helmet on.

"What happens now?" You asked him tentatively.

"I'm going to hold you for another moment and thank the stars I got you back. Then the helmet's going back on." Din replied. You heard the wet leather of his gloves creak as he tightened his fists, either in anxiety or resolve.

"Thank you for saving my life." You said, locking eyes with him. Din swallowed hard, eyes searching yours.

"Thank you for saving mine." He said. He pressed your foreheads together briefly, then rolled off of you to retrieve the helmet.