Summary: Sequel to When The Heart Outruns The Body, The Suns Clear The Fog. Cobb Vanth has retired from his position as Marshal of Mos Pelgo and embraced the life he had given the people of his town. But after spending near all his years working himself to the bone, it's hard to drop the habit.
A/N: Happy two years, TBOBF finale! Now, where's my guy? Is he safe? Is he alright?
When The Suns Begin To Set, Life Finally Begins
When she's not busy raising her only son, Ann knits shawls and head coverings for the townsfolk- those in the town itself, and those that have chosen to live a little further out into the Dune Sea. She's been doing this for years, mastering the arts of knitting and sewing. It's always been a comfort, creating things that others can use. While growing up a slave had taught many people violence, had taught them destruction and anger and fear, she had learned how to mend those sorts of things. Or, perhaps, that had been falling into motherhood without a partner to help her raise her child.
It was both, actually, and then some more. It's how she's coped with the Marshal rushing off into danger thrice a week for all these years.
It's also how the Marshal has been able to wear the same, shaggy red shirt he always has. It's hazardous work, what he does, and he has come hesitantly to her doorstep no small number of times with tears in his sleeves or splitting seams. Getting the blood out of it has always been the hardest part; because it's usually his own, of course.
Cobb Vanth's body is nothing if not a hardy map of scars.
But, day by day, month by month, year by year, he's always come out on top.
Ann doesn't expect the news that he's finally lost a fight. Anyone who knows anything about Freetown knows that their Marshal has never been outdrawn before. But even before she reaches the town after today's excursion, she can feel that something has gone wrong.
She finds Miyo, one of the most respected elders, at her doorstep when she finally arrives.
Miyo looks like she has been waiting for her for some time now. Her age shows in her face, drawn out by her creased brows of concern. She looks tired, worried, sad. Rarely has Ann even seen such an expression upon the old woman's face.
"Are you alright, Miyo?" She gently inquires upon approach, setting down the basket of goods she'd collected from the townspeople she'd bartered to. "You look like someone's died."
"Dearest Ann," Miyo rasps as if even speaking the words hurts her, "There was a shootout while you were away. Scott is dead."
Scott had come to Freetown not long after Cobb and the Mandalorian had slain the krayt dragon that had plagued them for so many years. The man hadn't been that old, despite youth's arrogance having followed him into his thirties. He had been eager for work, eager for someone to impress, and had imprinted himself upon the town's Marshal, thus earning the position of deputy underneath Cobb's authority. He'd been a good shot, too. And he's…
Scott had been a good shot, and he's dead. But, does that mean…? Is Cobb…?
Ann doesn't mean to ask the question aloud.
"He's laid up at Taanti's," Miyo tells her. "Your sister got him out of the sun, but has declared that he shouldn't be moved. As strong as he is…Our Cobb is on death's door, little Ann."
Miyo follows her indoors while she begins to sort out her goods, and tells her all that had happened while she was away. That the Mandalorian had returned to ask for help on behalf of another man. That, after he had left, a Duros in a long coat and a hat had strolled up to try to convince him to stay out of Mos Espa's ordeal. That Cobb hadn't been very receptive to this stranger, and had somehow been outdrawn for the first time in town history. Scott, she's told, had been collateral damage that had lost his life by disobeying his Marshal's explicit orders to stay out of the way.
She tells Ann how the witnesses had realized that targeting the Marshal's shoulder rather than his chest had been deliberate, as had the fact that the deputy had taken not one, but four shots to his chest. The shooter hadn't been aiming to kill Cobb, not upon impact. He left him alive as a message to the people, and…
"Taanti's been gathering a war party," Miyo huffs disapprovingly. "Weequays…such a violent species."
Ann shakes her head. "No, not violent. Strong-willed. As are all people of the desert. Here," she murmurs, taking a bone cane from her basket and offering it to her, "A gift from Sharla. She's noticed how you've been struggling recently."
The old woman's eyes soften then, and she takes the cane fondly. "Bless that girl. Give her my thanks next time she stops by, would you?"
"Of course." Ann smiles, and tries not to think about Cobb Vanth.
.
It's another hour before Ann's finally on the way to see him. Miyo had insisted upon cooking up a meal for her at the diner, and there hadn't been any refusing her. And, after that, she'd had to make arrangements for another mother to watch Tenn after school was released. Luckily for her, the town is one big family, and most of the women love the other children as if they were her own.
Now, as she crosses the street toward the cantina, she can see the tank-transport that's been pulled up alongside it, donated to Taanti's war party by one of the men he had recruited. There's quite the gathering inside, a motley crew of armed men and women prepared to avenge their Marshal and deputy. They're rowdy, and angry. Very angry.
It's not difficult to slip around them to the stairs.
Ann ascends them quietly, the sounds on the ground floor fading until they can barely be heard through the sandstone-duracrete. Quiet is what she needs, she thinks. If they'd been keeping him down there with the war party, she would have been of mind to throw them out herself, Taanti's own saloon or not.
The door of the barkeep's personal quarters is already open, and she stops in the doorway at the shape of her sister's back, bent over the figure on the bed. The afternoon sunlight, streaking through the window coverings, lights the room up golden. She can't see Cobb's face from where she stands, but the golden hue highlights all of the worst scars she's memorized upon his chest and belly.
Jo pulls the bandage in her hand taut across the Marshal's torso before she straightens up to speak. "I've patched him up the best I could, but our supplies are limited. It's a nasty wound that he's got, sister."
"Will he make it?" She asks, softly.
"I hope so."
Ann doesn't miss the concern in her sister's voice. Jo has always looked up to Cobb, the older brother she never had. They never had any brothers, truthfully, had been the only children of a miner and a seamstress. But whilst Cobb's been a brother to Jo, he's always been so much more than that to Ann. Seeing him like this, unconscious, the town angry…
This is a day that even she hadn't thought would come.
"You should have seen him," Jo says with the hint of a smile in her voice. "The bounty hunter was tryin' to pay him to stay put, but Cobb...well, our Marshal would never say no to doin' the right thing, not even if it meant gettin' hit for once in his life.
"He's the bravest man I know." She pauses before adding, "And the strongest. If anyone can survive this, it'll be him."
Ann finds herself smiling a little, if only for a brief moment. Cobb has always put others before himself, even those that aren't part of Freetown. She steps forward to lay a hand upon Jo's shoulder. "I'll stay with him." She isn't even offended by the pitying look flashed her way; their thoughts aren't that different, after all. "Taanti is gathering a war party, Jo. And I know you well enough to understand that you wish to go with them."
"We're takin' him with us, you know," Jo warns. "If we're really gonna help those city rats, the least they could do is heal him up for us."
She had expected that. "I know. But, until you leave…"
Her gaze finally falls upon the defeated Marshal. At the way the sand from the fall clings to his face and hair; at the layer of sweat upon his brow; at the charred argyle-like shape peeking from beneath the bandages wrapped around his right shoulder, where he'd been shot. It's a far cry from how healthy he had appeared that morning, before she had set off to barter with the people in the outskirts. This could be the last time she does lay eyes upon him alive. There's no guarantee that Mos Espa's leaders may be willing or able to save him.
He could come back to them as a wrapped body in need of being prepared for cremation.
Ann doesn't say any of this. Jo hears it anyway, offering a sad, sympathetic smile as she rises from the chair she'd been occupying. She pats her once on the shoulder, says, "I understand. Take as long as you need, sister. We're not leaving 'til sunset," and exits the room to begin her own preparations for the battle ahead.
With her sister's departure, Ann closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She settles herself in the chair Jo had occupied, the worn leather hard even through the many layers she'd worn out today. Delicately, she reaches out to run a hand through Cobb's mussed-up hair, gently carding the sand out of it. His clammy skin is warm, too warm. It must've only been two hours ago at most that he'd been injured, and fever's already settled in.
Even the expression upon his face, unconscious as he is, is one of pain. It makes her wonder, a little, if he had felt the blaster bolt when it had hit, if he had remained conscious for a few moments afterward before the darkness had claimed him. A glance at his misshapen shoulder, charred even beyond the bandages' width, suggests that if he had, it would have been agonizing, and she finds herself hoping that he'd been knocked out upon impact. It makes it easier, thinking of it that way. That maybe he'd never felt the agony of what may have been his final moments awake.
It's a small mercy, but it's the only thought that makes it bearable. Because while she's seen Cobb bruised and bloodied head-to-toe before, she's never seen him taken down like this, so brutally and unexpectedly. There's only but a single fresh mark upon his skin, and, this time, there's no guarantee of survival.
The room is silent, save for the muffled sounds of the bustling cantina downstairs. Ann doesn't listen to any of it. Time seems to stretch endlessly during her vigil, the afternoon slowly drawing by and nothing changing. And all the while, Cobb's chest rises and falls with labored breaths, the rest of his body not so much as twitching even when she takes his hand and presses it to her lips. Even now, he's giving it his all, trying to ward even Death away.
The golden light has long since peaked and has begun to grow soft again. Shadows leap across the room, grasping for the wall behind her. She leans forward to check and tighten his bandages.
For a long time, there's not a sound from the cantina, the fighters going to eat supper with their families for what may be the final time. No one knows what is going to happen in Mos Espa tomorrow- whether the battle is to be immediate or not. But Freetown will not be unrepresented, even with her Marshal out for the count, and certainly that means that not all who go along will return.
Jo is going, Ann remembers with a frown. She doesn't know if she could take losing both her and Cobb in such short a time. But her little sister has long-since become a capable woman, and if anyone is to get their Marshal treatment amidst a war with a syndicate and return with him alive, it would be her.
She just has to have faith. She has faith. Certainly, both of them will be alright. She can't afford to think otherwise, not now.
.
Ann is caught reminiscing on memories far past when someone knocks on the open door frame several hours later. She starts quietly, casting tired eyes to the room's entrance.
Miyo smiles softly at her and sidles in, balancing a tray on one hand. One of her duties in the past had been waitressing, Ann recalls. The older townsfolk have much fewer qualms about talking of their enslaved pasts, as opposed to the current working generations. If she remembers correctly, Miyo had enjoyed it, being able to interact with people outside of the Quarter and aid them. There's not an ounce of resentment in the old woman.
She puts the tray down on the bedside table and gently instructs Ann to feed the Marshal while she's away, exiting the room as silently as she'd approached it.
Ann bends over the tray to examine its contents- a glass of water and some soup- before she begins to do as asked. Despite his stillness, she finds that his body still remembers how to swallow- and she doesn't dare try to imagine how hungry he must be, after what had happened today. She can almost hear him mumbling about it as is.
By the time Miyo returns, carrying a basin of water that Ann scolds her for bringing up without assistance, she's gotten almost half of it into him, and nearly all of the drinking water that had been in the glass. Between caring for him in the past and raising her son, this is far from the first time she's helped an unconscious being carry out such basic necessities. And still, it's a relief to sit back as Miyo reaches into the basin and wrings out a cloth that she places on Cobb's forehead, uttering a prayer of healing in Bocce.
"I tended to him many times when he was a young man," Miyo says as she dabs at the sweat on his face. "I was the first face he saw after his parents died, and after his branding. Our Cobb can take a good beating and come out of it just fine. I have faith that he will survive this, too.
"If he was fated to die violently, he would have a long time ago," she offers almost wryly. "Do not worry, dear one. He will come back to us."
.
They come for him just minutes after the first sun has set. The sound of their footsteps on the stairs, she'd been almost dreading it.
But Ann merely bows over him, presses her lips to his forehead, and helps the fighters carry him back down to the main floor and out into the cool evening breeze. The light chill is already a stark contrast to his fever, and she hopes that the change in temperature will bring some relief to his suffering, if nothing else will.
Jo stands beside her as they place his body onto a makeshift stretcher, the second sun casting him in an orange halo, wrapping him in one final embrace itself. And still, no one speaks as he's heaved up into the waiting transport, as he disappears down inside it to rest on the floor. There's not much more to be said. The only words in these sands are those of the townsfolk watching from their doorways, quietly wishing the party well. Their prayers will follow them to Mos Espa and back, until they've all returned safe and sound.
Taanti steps out from the cantina with the last of the war party's preparations, handing them off to one of the other fighters so he can climb up into the transport itself. He settles in near the front, and the engine rumbles to life, loud and angry, almost as sentient as its passengers.
"You should go," Ann murmurs, her voice audible only to her sister beside her.
And suddenly, Jo's moved closer, and they're hugging. It's a tight embrace, but a grounding one, grounding enough to bring tears to her eyes.
"We'll bring him back," Jo whispers, promises.
"Bring yourself back, too."
She pulls back and meets Ann's gaze, then nods with a hard resolution. Her eyes are dark with that hard Tatooine stubbornness, and Ann knows she isn't lying when she says, "I will."
Neither of them say anymore, and Ann watches with the bravest smile she can muster as her sister swings herself up into the transport, one of the last fighters to embark. Taanti turns, does a headcount, and seems satisfied enough to begin the journey. With one last rev of the engine, the transport turns and rides off into the desert.
Cobb Vanth will come back.
Ann can't afford to think otherwise.