pairing: din djarin x fem!O/C
word count: 8.8 K
chapter summary: Din races to save Marathel, Grogu loses his temper, and Din remembers a time he accidentally got high as f*ck
warnings: angst for days, head injury, severe bodily injury, mention of blood, mention and aftermath of rape, mention and aftermath of object rape, mention of past drug use, bodily fluids and illness, vomit, sexual abuse, physical abuse, violence towards women, torture, enmeshed misogyny, Mando'a and English cursing
Din managed to get the Crest into the air and out of orbit, but it was a struggle. His concussion was giving him double vision, and it was already hard enough to see through the darkened visor without power to the vision capabilities. The Crest also had to pressurize upon leaving the atmosphere, and Din believed that his eardrums were perforating, if the pain was any indication. His helmet seemed to be compressing his skull, which was in agony. With a terrible groan, Din pulled the helmet off, dropping it to the cockpit floor, and he lost consciousness for a few seconds. When he came to, Grogu was already in his lap, reaching up to his face, and a confused Din had a flashback to when he turned over the boy to the Jedi — the second worst day of his life — and Din panicked, thinking it was happening again. Din clutched Grogu to his chest, whispering, "No, kid, you're staying with me; I'm not giving you up again!" Grogu's hands went to Din's cheeks, and Din began to feel a warmth and calm flow through his head. Din quickly pulled back and took hold of the boy's little hands. "Enough, Grogu, that's enough, don't waste your power on me."
Grogu looked dubious and his ears drooped. "Mahr?"
Din swallowed. What about Mahr, indeed? He needed to get her somewhere fast and close. Canto Bight was close and had great medical facilities. However, he felt reasonably sure that New Republic authorities would see her looking like an Imperial torture victim, as well as not having an ID chip, and confiscate her as well as arrest him. That was unacceptable, so he decided to head to Nevarro, hoping that Karga would be able to hook him up with a medic who could be trusted. Tatooine was also an option, in fact it might be the better option — Boba and Fennec would keep their mouths shut, and there was a bacta tank at their disposal — but it was half a day's further in hyperspace, and he didn't think he had that kind of time.
As he tried to concentrate on the task of plotting the course as well as figuring out just how hard he could push his antique ship, Din remembered some half-baked story about a Rebel general who had a Corellian freighter that went .5 past lightspeed, but he'd also heard that same asshole did the Kessel run in twelve parsecs instead of fourteen, so Din set little store in that kind of bantha shit. On the other hand, the same jackwagon was allegedly banging a princess half his age, so what did he know?
Concentrate, you osi'kovid, keep it together.
Din fired up the hyperdrive and sent the ship on its course. He took a breath and looked down to Grogu, still sitting on his lap, and took the little boy's hands. "Grogu … we gotta talk, kid." The boy looked at him expectantly. "Mahr is very badly hurt. We must hurry to get her help." Grogu stood on Din's lap, reaching for his face. "I know you want to help her. But right now, I need you to stay here while I try to help her. I can't let you see her … not how she is right now. Okay?" Grogu climbed up Din's chest and hugged him as hard as his little arms would allow. Din hugged him back, pressing his cheek against the boy's, and it occurred to him that he'd removed his helmet again before a living being, compounding his guilt as a failed Mandalorian even more. "I'm sorry, Grogu," whispered Din as he stood and placed the boy in the rear seat.
Din exited the cockpit and quickly closed it off before Grogu could try to follow him. He dropped to the floor, jarring his skull painfully. He looked at the pile of blood-soaked cloth just outside his quarters, and then at the rag-wrapped object. He took a breath, steeling himself against the sight of Marathel, and how useless he'd been in protecting her.
Din picked up the bin with the bacta supplies, and carefully entered his quarters. There was barely room for him to turn around in here when alone; how the four women were able to cram in here along with Marathel was beyond him. Marathel still lay prone, face-down, her face turned to the opposite wall. Her hands were placed up near her head. Each hand was wrapped around some sort of splint. She was covered from her waist to her knees with a ragged-edge square of light fabric, and the rest of her exposed back and legs had large, brown leaves plastered to her skin. He knelt and sat against the wall beside her. He carefully lifted the edge of a leaf on her upper back, and the plant fibers disintegrated under his fingers. Din counted his bacta sheets again and found that there were not enough to cover her whole back. He grabbed one of the bacta shots and carefully turned her head to face him so he could administer the shot directly into her neck, which bled more than he'd like, but, considering her blood clotting disorder, was unsurprising.
Marathel's face was also covered in the same leaves, and Din found the best clean rag there was left and started to wash off the crumbling leaves. Her face was badly bruised, both eyes nearly swollen shut. As Din tried to gently wash the blood away, more kept coming and it was hard to see from where. Finally, he laid down next to her in the tiny room to get to her level, to see her full face, where he found that she had a deep gash down the center of her face, starting at her hairline, going between her eyebrows and down the bridge of her nose to its tip. They cut her. They cut her face. Right where everyone would see it. The edges were clean, surgical, so the cut was done very deliberately with a very sharp knife. Din shut his eyes tightly for a moment to suppress his emotions. He gently pressed the cloth to the gaping wound to staunch the blood, but blood continued to seep slowly and drip down her cheek. He found a smaller, partial bacta patch that he fitted to the deep cut as best he could, hoping that the patch would adhere to the bleeding wound.
Marathel's lips were dry and cracked, so he sprayed those with bacta, gently opening her lips to look at her teeth. He could see at least three teeth missing and two broken. Din felt a blind rage bubble up inside him at the damage done to her lovely face, her beautiful smile. He placed his hand on her head above her blood-soaked braid. "Marathel? Mesh'la?" Din whispered. Marathel did not respond. "I failed you, Marathel. I'm so, so sorry." The words rang hollow and insignificant against what she'd suffered, and Marathel remained silent and unmoving.
Din sat back up, his head throbbing with his change in position. He needed to wash the crumbling leaves from her back, but he needed more clean water. He'd have to hook up the recycler again — another damn thing he'd been meaning to do. He'd always hated the notion of drinking or using recycled water and preferred to spend the extra coin to have tanks of fresh onboard, but his cash flow had been low lately, so he'd been conserving as much as possible.
Din stood up, and staggered to the water storage, nearly emptying the last tank for a fresh bowl of clean water. He'd figure it out later. He went back to Marathel's side and clumsily got back down to the floor. He gently washed the leaves from her back, opting to use the bacta patches on the worst lash marks and bacta spray on the less severe wounds. The spray didn't seem to do much for the bleeding, but Din hoped it would keep infection away. He moved down to her waist, knowing he had to remove the cloth that was covering her, but he was loath to expose her after all she'd suffered. Telling himself he had to do this to help her, he lifted the covering and pulled it away.
There was a large concentration of whip marks on her buttocks, along with a lot of deep bruising that fed the blood flow. Din cut another bacta patch and applied pieces to each buttock, quietly apologizing to Marathel for having to touch her that way as he did so, but she remained still. It was then that Din noticed that Marathel had a large tightly rolled wad of fabric tucked between her thighs. He didn't want to find out the reason why — he had a pretty good guess — but he needed to know how bad off she was. Din carefully moved her leg to the side, and he was now able to see the deep bruising that went between her buttocks and thighs, and he could see whip marks there as well. He took hold of the wadded cloth and gently pulled it back to find that Marathel had bled profusely from her vagina and her rectum, now knowing he was correct, she had been brutally, probably repeatedly raped. The wadding was mostly soaked through. Din shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, unable to catch his breath, damning himself for not getting her out, for just standing there like the worst kind of coward while she suffered these indignities, disregarding the fact he had been incapacitated for most of it. Din banged his head against the wall a couple of times, relishing the fresh pain as punishment while he carefully replaced the wadding where it had been, unsure of what to do for her.
He banged his head one more time for good measure, and he suddenly felt nauseated. Din quickly slid out of his quarters — leaving a smear of blood along the floor from where it was puddled underneath Marathel — and made it to the vac tube before he vomited. Sitting on the floor, he let despair wash over him for a minute before he ordered himself to get it the shab together; Marathel needed his help. He opened his eyes, which fell once again on the rag-wrapped bundle.
Din slid over to it on his knees, picking it up, knowing that there was … something inside. Something heavy, metal, and of a … particular shape. Uneasily certain of what he might find, Din unwrapped it with shaking hands. Inside was a heavy metal cylinder, with sharp points studding the outside, slicked with blood and gobbets of flesh. This must be the Dilimgau, thought Din, and all at once he knew exactly how it had been used on Marathel, when Olba told the other women to hold her leg higher and hold her down, Marathel's horrific screaming, and the blood-soaked wadding between her thighs. With an anguished howl, Din dropped the torture device, where it hit the metal floor with a heavy clunk. Din backpedaled away from the horrible piece of metal, unable to tear his eyes away from it, unable to reconcile the fact that a lovely, sweet woman like Marathel allowed herself to endure something like that for a pile of coins, fucking coins, and he stood there frozen and let her willingly take this kind of torture, all because he had fucked her when she had no control over herself.
I'm no better than the Elders, thought Din, as his skull continued to pound. He went delirious for a moment, and somehow his addled mind believed that the Dilimgau was also made of beskar, and he pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, shuffling to his weapons locker and pulling out the beskar hammer. Din dropped to his knees and with inarticulate cries of rage, let loose on the horrific metal cylinder with the beskar hammer, and the Dilimgau was nothing more than base metal, not beskar, not forged at all, and Din flattened it to a metal scrap — as well as hammering a deep divot in the flooring — before tossing the hammer and the remains of the foul instrument of torture down the corridor, away from him. Exhausted, Din fell to a sitting position, drew his knees up, and dropped his head, hugging his knees with his elbows, trying and failing to not weep.
It took quite a while before Din could bring himself to return to Marathel's side. He stood at the door, looking down at her, paler than he had ever seen her. He had to do right by her. Part of him kept wondering why he didn't just bring Grogu down here and let him work on healing her, but he just couldn't do that. Grogu was just a child, and Din kept hearing Marathel protesting that a child shouldn't have to bear the burden of her hurts. And the kind of injuries Marathel had, where her injuries were … how could he, in good conscience, have Grogu heal those? Grogu had already suffered so much in his life, been through enough torture, without having to take on the suffering of the woman the boy obviously had adopted as his mother.
Din knelt back down at Marathel's side, cursing himself for leaving her both unattended and uncovered as he had. The bacta patches seemed to be doing some good on some wounds, but blood continued to seep from the worst whip marks. Din sprayed bacta down her legs for the whip marks there.
He took a closer look at her hands, which he discovered were placed on wooden splints that seemed to be specially carved for such injuries. Her hands and wrists were in a neutral position, and there were channels carved in the blocks for each finger to lay statically and in line. Each of her fingers was black with deep bruising, and several fingernails were missing. Din was deeply disturbed that the Hold had created such things, so specifically for this purpose, and these splints seemed to have received a lot of use. After injecting another partial bacta shot in each arm for the healing of her hands, Din finally took a another look at Marathel's face, realizing that her lips had turned blue.
Realizing that Marathel was cyanotic, probably due to blood loss, Din jumped up to find the emergency oxygen feed. There should be one in this room, he thought. They should be everywhere on this ship! Finding the correct panel, he pulled it open to find that the tubing had been disconnected and dismantled.
"Haar'chak!" Din snapped. He grabbed the tubing and climbed back into the cockpit, where he knew the emergency oxygen feed was actually working. He pulled the tubing as far as it would reach, jerry-rigged a connection with splice tape, and turned up the condenser as high as it would go. Finding a spare cannula in the medkit, Din fed the tube into his quarters and gently placed the cannula over Marathel's head and under her nose. "Breathe, mesh'la, please breathe," Din whispered. Satisfied that Marathel was getting some oxygen, Din sat back against the wall to take a breath himself when he heard a whimper outside the door.
Din immediately slid out of the room on his knees again, adding to the blood smear on the floor, to find Grogu standing at the bottom of the cockpit ladder, staring at the bloody streaks and boot prints on the floor. "No, no, buddy, not right now. She's … I can't let you." Din scooped up Grogu, who was now screaming for his Mahr. "I'm sorry, pal, not right now, I promise I'll let you see her soon. Just … not right now." The tiny child beat Din's chest with his little fists, howling. Din wondered if the boy could feel Marathel's pain, and he carried him back up to the cockpit, and sat down in the pilot's chair to let Grogu cry out his frustration while Din rubbed his back. "Careful, kid, don't hurt yourself punching my beskar, okay?" Din sighed. "I know, buddy, I know." Din leaned down and pressed his lips to the boy's fuzzy hair, just as he'd seen Marathel do so many times in the few days he'd known her, and realized it was the first time he'd ever done so himself. The boy's hair was fine and soft, he knew, but this flyaway texture was so different against his nose than against his fingertips. The tickle of the fine hairs was strange to him, having been cut off from all touch for decades. Din put one foot up against the console and rocked the captain's chair gently, each sway making his head hurt, wishing he could cry and yell along with Grogu, until the boy cried himself to sleep.
Before Din put the child in his pram, Din decided that Grogu did have a couple blankets he could spare if needed. He went through the little pile, wondering if the kid was stealing blankets from every damn place they went. Din tucked the favorite blankie as well as the one that Winta — Omera's daughter — had made around the child, and shut the pram, hoping that Grogu would be out for a little while.
Din climbed down from the cockpit again, the throb in his head synching with each step he made. He was so tired. His armor was too heavy for him to bear any longer, so he removed each piece as he wobbled unsteadily, forgetting most of the words for each incantation. The cloth bag of coins that had been behind his cuirass fell to the floor at his feet. After staring down at it for a few moments, he kicked the bag down the corridor in the same direction he'd thrown the beskar hammer. He tried to bend over to properly stack the armor, but he had no sense of balance, and he dropped to one knee as his vision greyed out for a few moments.
If you won't let the kid help Marathel, at least let him fix your busted head.
No … no, I need to suffer, pay some penance for what I've done, thought Din. I'm an apostate, I'm not worthy to wear this beskar, I'm not worthy to carry those weapons. I'm not worthy to follow the Way. I am a coward.
Din felt woozy again, and he fell forward on his hands. Groaning, he crawled towards his quarters, dragging a blanket with him through the blood trail. Marathel still lay motionless and naked on the floor. Din pulled the blanket over her, covering her, whispering apologies to her again and again for not protecting her, for taking advantage of her, for not treating her with honor.
Leaning over her still form, Din decided that he could not stand another moment seeing her hair in braids. Carefully untying the ribbons — once blue, now a dull deep brown-purple — at the bottom of the plaits, Din gently untwisted the locks of hair, using the remaining clean water to wash out the dried blood clotting the hair together. He combed the unbound hair with his fingers, much like he did when he volunteered to stay with her on the second night of the Dahls' mating.
How quickly you volunteered, too, he thought. Did you do it for her sake, or just to get your dick into a willing body you didn't have to pay for?
He didn't know.
The only thing he knew at that moment was that he was blacking out again, and he collapsed on the floor against Marathel's hip.
Din awoke to a continuous, piercing shriek. His eyes opened, but he was quite unsure of where he was. He tried to raise his head but was hit with severe pain. He'd forgotten — he'd been bashed in the head with a fucking huge hammer. Din squinted his eyes against the light, and realized he was wedged in the small space between Marathel and the wall, using her thigh as a pillow as he hugged her legs. On some ordinary day, this would have been quite a pleasant way to wake up, but this was the furthest thing from an ordinary day, and Marathel had been beaten and tortured nearly to death and she still lay unmoving, unconscious. He quickly let go and pushed himself up to a sitting position, his head in agony. Din leaned over to look at Marathel's face, and he could see the bacta was doing very little good: her face was less swollen, but blood was seeping out from under the bacta patch. She was still getting oxygen from the ship's condenser, but her exhalation was thin and shallow. Her eyes were not fully closed but were heavy-lidded and glassy looking.
Is she not responding to the bacta injections? And what the ever-loving shab is making that noise?
Din slid back out the door and pulled himself to his feet. The piercing sound was an alarm coming from the cockpit. He wearily pulled himself up the ladder and began checking gauges. It turned out coolant was leaking from the port engine and the whole damn thing was in danger of overheating. It was something he'd been keeping an eye on, but he'd forgotten to check it before leaving. What he really needed to do was drop out of hyperspace and fix it properly, but he couldn't risk the loss of time. Din was worrying about how he was going to slap a quick fix on it when he discovered a holotext message from Karga:
GK: No can do, Mando, only have a part-time medic and a couple of outdated droids. Good luck.
"Dank ferrik!" Din shouted, which he instantly regretted as he felt the throb go through his brain, blurring his vision. He got the alarm to stop blaring, at least, but he needed to check on that coolant situation, lay out a course to Tatooine, get a message to Boba, turn on the water recycler … what was he forgetting? He was forgetting something. One thing at a time, he told himself, and he reconfigured the course of the Crest towards Tatooine, which took much longer than he thought it should, as the numbers kept looking wrong, not like proper numbers. He coded out a holotext to Boba, which he was sure was a garbled mess, but Din had pretty much hit fuck it.
Grogu had taken up residence in the aft chair, hugging his green blanket, watching Din with wary eyes. Din blinked at the boy a few times, and finally remembered that regardless, the boy needed to eat. Din opened the panel under the console with the secret stash of ration bars, which wasn't exactly a secret so much as pure laziness on Din's part: he just preferred to be in his captain's chair rather than go up and down the damn ladder. Dropping a packet in front of Grogu, Din mumbled, "Have at it, kid," as he exited the cockpit to check on Marathel.
Din squeezed back into the tiny room. Marathel had not moved. The bacta patches seemed to no longer have any effect as the slow seep of blood continued from each of her wounds, which baffled Din. He had never heard of bacta not working. Were the patches bad? Old? How much longer could she continue to bleed like this until she had nothing left?
There was one bacta injection left. If he were being a sensible man, he'd take the injection himself so he could be in a better frame of mind to help Marathel and fly this ship. Instead, he jabbed Marathel in her fleshy hip, hoping that the bacta would help her most severe injuries, the ones covered by the blanket. He threw the empty canister out of the room and began placing the remaining leaves the women had left on Marathel, despite knowing they would not work. Nothing was working. He thought about getting the cauterizing gun before deciding it would do more harm to her fragile skin than good. He considered freezing her in carbonite but figured that she would perish in either the freezing process or the thawing process.
Din sunk down next to her, lying beside her as he had done multiple times on her bed tick on a wooden platform on a beautiful planet with wide seas, grassy meadows, rocky paths. He touched her cheek, marked with bruises, cuts, and that horrible slice down the middle of her face, remembering how she looked in her sleep as he held her on that fragrant, crackly bed tick of hers, so soft, so warm, so gentle. Now she looked … mostly dead.
Tell me what to do, mesh'la, I got nothing.
Din held his breath, listening to her breathing, only hearing thin, reedy sounds. He watched the gash on her face bleed, the blood cresting with her fading heartbeat in each wound.
You should have taken her somewhere beautiful, instead of this fool's errand, thinking that you could get her help. You should have let her die in peace, on her own terms.
But he couldn't, he couldn't, not even with a blaster to his head.
Because he was a coward.
Din must have fallen asleep — or passed out again — because he opened his eyes to the sensation that the ship was vibrating. With a grunt, he sat up, ignoring the throbbing pain in his head that seemed to be getting worse instead of better. Din slid out of his quarters and into the main corridor, listening. Aside from the dull scream of the twin engines being pushed to their limits, Din could not detect anything untoward happening with the ship — for once. Then where was the vibration coming from?
Din looked back into his quarters and saw that the vibration was not the ship, but Marathel. She was shaking all over. Haar'chak, a man needs three hands at a time like this. Going back to Marathel's side, he touched her face and realized that she was shivering because she was burning up with fever. Her face was a ghostly white, except for two high patches on her cheeks that were more blue than pink. Din leaned in to check her breathing, and he could smell the infection on her, sure that she was going septic, probably because of the damage done to her by the Dilimgau. At the same time, her breath was not thin and reedy anymore, but raspy, gurgling. Her lungs are filling with fluid, he thought. Din immediately took her arms to roll Marathel on her side, facing him, trying to get the fluid moving out of her lungs. He shouldn't have been surprised, really; she hadn't taken a full breath in however many days. When he rolled her, he realized that he had only been concerned about her back and had not given a thought to what damage may have been done to her front.
Marathel's midsection was a patchwork of dark bruises, and Din believed he felt several broken ribs as he rolled her. There were whip marks on her belly and thighs, and deep bite marks on her breasts. Din felt his rage flare up again. The blood from between her legs had saturated the wadding there and soaked into his sleeping pad like a sponge, creating a bizarre ink blot of red over her entire front. Marathel's head lolled to the side, but the shift in position did not help her breathing. In fact, Marathel did not seem to be getting any air at all, as her inhalation only made a thick sucking sound.
Din swept his fingers in her mouth, clearing out a handful of viscous foul-smelling mucus. He tipped her head back to try to get an airway open, but no sounds came out. Desperate, he closed her nose and pressed his lips over her mouth, trying to suck out anything he could from her mouth and throat. He spit out a mouthful of the vile stuff, and tried twice more, with only a small amount of success. Marathel lay limply in his arms, still unable to draw breath.
"Dank ferrik, Marathel, breathe, breathe, damn it!" Din snapped, pulling her over so she was partially face-down as he held her over his leg. I'm so sorry, he thought, and he pounded her as hard as he could between her shoulder blades with the heel of his hand. He hit her three more times, wincing as he watched the whip marks that had barely closed open once more. He swept her mouth with his fingers again, but nothing had come loose. Din put his ear to her back, listening, and could only hear crackles and wet sounds, and those were faint from lack of breath.
Din laid Marathel down on her back, pulling the blanket up to cover her. He knew he had to cut her trachea, create an airway, suck out as much mucus and fluid as possible if she was going to breathe again. However, a tracheotomy was something he'd never actually done, had only seen his buir do once, on another Mandalorian who was drowning in his own blood after a bad neck and chest wound. But Din could not second-guess, could not waver, he had to do this if she had any chance of survival. Silently apologizing to Marathel, Din took a moment to kiss her mouth, tears pricking his eyes, almost certain this would be his only chance to ever do so, before carefully laying her head back down and rushing out to his weapons locker.
He nearly ripped the door off in his haste to find his best vibroblade, the thin stiletto with the highest oscillation. Finding it, Din slapped the blade into motion and began heading back to Marathel when his eyes locked with Grogu's eyes as the boy stood at the top of the cockpit ladder.
Grogu saw Din stepping towards his Mahr with the long knife, and with a howl, extended his tiny hand out to Din, who suddenly felt his entire body flung back to the far end of the corridor, crashing into the hanging carbonite shells. Din's head received a fresh beating, and he felt something wrench in his shoulder as he fought against Grogu's Force power. Din managed to move forward a couple of feet before Grogu leapt down to the floor and Force-pushed Din as far back as he could.
"Grogu," grunted Din. "Stop it! I'm trying to help Mahr…" His words were cut off as Grogu twisted Din's wrist painfully, making him drop the vibroblade, pushing him up against the far wall, holding him there. Feeling as if there was an invisible stone wall pressing against him, Din cried out, "Mahr can't breathe, boy! Her lungs are full of fluid!" Din groaned as he tried to break free of Grogu's capture. "If you won't let me help her, you have to do it, quickly, before she drowns!" Grogu growled at Din. "Please, Grogu! Please, you must help her! Mahr needs you!" Grogu released Din, who crumpled to the floor. Grogu had thrown him hard, and without his armor and helmet, Din was as vulnerable as a loth kitten. He now had a couple broken ribs, ringing in his ears, and he was sporting a new gash on the back of his head. "Help Mahr, Grogu, please help her."
Grogu took a long look at Din, who hoped that the child would understand. Din pulled himself up to his hands and knees, vision going in and out with the additional concussive injuries. When he raised his head again, Grogu was toddling into Din's quarters, whimpering. Din struggled to stand, weaving like a drunkard towards the open doorway, lurching forward to catch himself on the wall and then sliding back down to sit on the floor. Din poked his head into the tiny room and saw Grogu gently touching Marathel on her mid-section with his little clawed hands. "It's her lungs, kid, understand? She can't breathe; can you do anything?"
Grogu tilted his head, moving his hands up to Marathel's upper chest, his little face full of concentration. Din watched as the blanket moved to wrap itself tightly around Marathel, and her heels came up off the floor. Slowly, slowly, Marathel's body turned over as if she were on a spit, her hair defying all gravity, floating about her head, and she continued to raise slowly into the air, her feet going higher as her head tilted down towards the floor, again, looking so much like she had in Din's nightmare just a couple nights previously that Din felt transported back into the dream. Grogu's eyes were closed tightly, his little arms above his head, hands held out to Marathel, whose head hung down limply. Her midsection seemed to quake, her shoulders rolling, her chest heaving, and her mouth opened, and a glut of revolting fluid, mucus, and blood emptied from her mouth with a guttural choking sound. "That's it, buddy, that's it, clear out her lungs," Din said as he pulled himself into the room, doing his best to clear up the horrible mess from under her head. "It's better out than in, please keep trying." Marathel's body roiled in mid-air, releasing another large clot of mucus from her mouth. Grogu moved his hands, and Marathel's body seized with a sharp gasp of air, and then she hung limply, her breath moving in and out mechanically as Grogu slowly set her back down, her arms and hands returning to their previous position on either side of her head, her hair gently twisting into contained bundle against her head, her face turned to the side. Grogu moved up to her face, and he stroked her cheek, and Din watched as Marathel's eyes fluttered open to focus ever so briefly on Grogu before sliding back to their half-closed, glassy state. Din couldn't say if Marathel was breathing on her own or if Grogu was forcing air in and out of her lungs, but at least she didn't sound like she was trying to breathe through mud.
Grogu sat down wearily against Marathel's arm, and he rested his head on her, his back to Din. "You did it, Grogu, you saved her," whispered Din, and he reached out to the boy, and Grogu jerked away from Din's touch with an angry squawk. Din sat back against the wall, and Grogu stroked Marathel's cheek, both listening to her measured breathing. After a few moments, Marathel also stopped shivering, and she broke out into a heavy sweat. Realizing that her fever was broken — probably by Grogu as well — Din found the other blankets he had pulled from Grogu's pram and spread them over Marathel. Lying back down on the floor, Din watched Grogu use the Force to pull a lock of Marathel's hair into his outstretched hand, probably the one thing the boy could touch of her that wouldn't cause her more pain. Grogu looked over Marathel's arm with glimmering eyes at Din, who reached out and took hold of Grogu's hand, hair and all. Grogu continued to concentrate on Marathel, willing her lungs to breathe, her heart to beat. Din, with a new ringing in his ears and eyes unable to focus, began to fall back into oblivion. Grogu looked over to Din, who muttered, "Not me, kid, just take care of her. I'll be …" as he passed out again. Grogu chirped with worry but went back to watching Marathel breathe as he moved air and out of her lungs.
Sometime later, the comm. link was whistling shrilly. Din's eyes slowly opened to see Grogu still reclining against Marathel's arm, his eyes closed. Marathel's back continued to rise and fall with her breathing. Din pushed himself upright, only to almost fall again. He crawled to the cockpit ladder and groaned before grabbing the rungs and struggling up into the cockpit. Din grabbed his chair and pulled himself into it, hitting the switch.
"Din?" Din grunted a response. "Finally. Boba. Sit rep."
"She's dying … my fault."
"Then take her to a medic. They'll be discreet about a bounty."
"Can't do …" Din slumped down in the chair, slipping towards insensibility again.
Boba called out to Din twice, only getting a grunt in return. It was worrying enough that it took nearly an hour for Din to answer the , but he also sounded blackout drunk. Switching to Mando'a, Boba barked out, "{Din Djarin! Wake up!}"
Din's head bobbed up, confused."{I am awake and ready.}"
"{What can you see?}"
Din took a deep breath. "{I see the console. It's telling me that I'm on course to reach the Tatooine system in 11 basic hours.}"
"{What do you hear?}"
"{The engines are overloaded and may fail.}"
"{What do you feel?}"
"{I … I have a concussion. I can't concentrate. I keep passing out. I am a coward. I failed her. I must set it right.}"
"{Then you know what you must do. Check the engines. Keep her alive. Get her here. Be a Mandalorian. This is the way.}"
"{This is the way.}" Boba clicked off the comm., and Din took a moment to breathe in and out to clear his head. Boba was right. He had to keep the Crest flying and Marathel alive until he landed on Tatooine. That was all. Din stood and by sheer force of will, climbed down the ladder from the cockpit and headed straight to the hold to access the cooling system of the overheating engine. Luck was on his side for once; the coolant leak was not too terrible — the worst issue was a badly cracked gasket right above a sensor. He slapped some sealant on the gasket and called it good.
The water recycler was a different problem altogether. He'd forgotten that he'd dismantled a whole section of it but had been distracted by some damn thing at the time and never went back to it. Getting sloppy, old man. It hardly mattered now; they were close enough to Tatooine, and it was so far down on his list that he'd even let one of Peli's droids take a crack at it.
Din's ears were ringing terribly, and as he left the hold, he put his hand to one ear to find it was bleeding. His whole back felt wet and sticky. Din assumed it was blood; whether it was his or Marathel's blood was immaterial. He stepped back into the corridor by the carbonite shells. Three of them were off the track completely, and another hung by only one point instead of two. He could see a big clot of blood on one corner of a shell, and a puddle of blood on the floor along with a blood drop trail, and it took him a while to register that it was his blood he was seeing. Din staggered closer to his quarters, counting bloody boot prints as he did so. This did not affect him so much as the tiny, clawed footprints did. Seeing Grogu's footprints in Marathel's blood hurt his heart in ways he didn't think possible. What am I doing, dragging a child around the galaxy with the likes of me? Din finally made it to the doorway and looked in. Marathel had not moved. Grogu was curled up under her chin, his hand on her throat. Din could see that she was still breathing, and he also believed that the boy was somehow pumping her heart.
Cyar'e, I need you to keep breathing, at least long enough for you to tell us the story of the Great Godynferth … you can't die without telling us that, ne'kar'ta.
Din's legs could no longer support him, and he slid down the doorway again to the floor. The blood puddle under Marathel now took up the entire remaining visible floor of the tiny room she lay in, and the pad she was laying on resembled a raft in a pond of blood.
Just a few more hours, cyar'e. Please, please hang on.
He thought he'd just closed his eyes for a moment, but the next thing Din knew, all he could hear was a howling. Din lifted his head to see Grogu, holding Marathel's face. Din panicked: he assumed it was Grogu howling, and he quickly moved to Marathel's side, fearing the worst. But Grogu was not the one making the howling noise, and Marathel was still breathing … and bleeding.
Din slid out of the room, looking for the source of the noise. It was mechanical, but somehow hollow, but then he finally remembered that both his eardrums were ruptured, and he was hearing the alarm that they were about to drop out of hyperspace.
Almost there, mesh'la.
Din pulled himself up the ladder and into the captain's chair. Leaning forward toward the console, and mostly using muscle memory, he brought the ship out of hyperspace. The shock of the speed change caused a bout of vertigo and Din dry-heaved; he hadn't eaten since some toast soldiers after puking up clams several days ago. Just the act of dry heaving made his head pound painfully, and he could see stars, but he pulled himself to face the controls again. The Crest entered the atmosphere of Tatooine at a bad angle, bouncing the ship like giant ball for a few moments, and Din hoped Grogu had a hold on Marathel. As Din flew the ship at breakneck speed towards Boba's palace, his addled brain suddenly reminded him of a situation from decades back.
He had been a young man — and therefore, an idiot — and he recalled it was shortly after his buir had died. He had been running with another ne'er-do-well — what the shab was his name? Zek, that was it. Frith, that guy was an asshole.
They'd picked up a spice addict masquerading as a spice runner, and there'd been a lot of spice sent airborne during the capture, leading all of them to get high as ever-loving shab in the process. Zek had decided that it was perfectly appropriate to bring the mark in on his own ship. Din had had no previous spice experience, so he was useless at the controls — and anyway, he was enjoying the sensation of being a weighted blanket far too much to do anything but sit in the co-pilot's seat with his feet on the console as Zek flew the ship like … well, a dipshit high on spice.
As they approached the landing site on the space station that was their drop-off point, Din briefly stopped contemplating the pretty colored lights to remark: "Man, I think … you're coming in kinda high."
Zek replied, "Look, man, if there's one thing I know, it's how to fly while I'm stoned. You know your perception is completely fucked so you just let your hands work the controls as if you were straight."
They clipped the top edge of the landing tunnel and bounced the ship all the way to the far end, taking out a comm. tower before sliding to a rest inches from the window behind which half-a-dozen landing pad controllers looked on in fear.
Din, still lolling in the co-pilot's seat, had said, "Whoa. Nice flying, man."
Back in the present, Din recalled that not only did they have to forfeit their bounty, but they also both landed in jail while the Guild smoothed things over. Well, right now, his perception was completely fucked, so he hoped his hands would be able to work the controls as if he weren't a concussed, barely conscious osi'kovid who hadn't eaten or properly slept in four days.
In the landing tunnel at Boba's palace, Fennec, Boba, and two medical droids waited for Din to approach. Fennec sighed and said, "Din could take an injured bounty anywhere. Why was he so insistent on coming here?"
"He didn't say."
"What did he say?"
"That she's dying. Definitive – and quite insistent - on she." Fennec rolled her eyes and Boba grunted. "We owe him." Fennec scoffed, then went silent. He squinted at the approaching ship, noting its relative speed. Boba raised his and shouted into it, "Slow down, Din! You're coming in far too fast!" To Fennec, he shouted, "Get back … get back!"
The Crest barely missed the edge of the tunnel and nosed down into the sand. The landing thrusters screamed as Din worked to stop the ship, sliding through the sand and spinning halfway around before finally coming to a stop, steam escaping from all ports. Din leapt down from the cockpit, stumbling as he landed, falling to one knee as he rushed to get to Marathel.
In the sleeping quarters, Marathel, who had not been tied down, had been tossed several times against the walls and was now in a crumpled heap on the floor. The cannula had been pulled off her head, and her arms now bore new injuries from the metal walls. Grogu was tightly holding on to one of the blankets wrapped around her, babbling angrily at Din. "Get in the cockpit, Grogu! Go now, boy!" Din pulled Grogu off Marathel and roughly shoved him out of the room. Din lifted Marathel and struggled to stand up as she lay limply in his arms, her head and arms hanging. Osik, she weighs nothing now. He rushed to the ramp door, hitting the control to open it with his foot, hardly waiting for the ramp to set down before running down it.
Boba and Fennec ran forward with the floating gurney, both realizing at the same time that Din was not wearing his helmet. Fennec started, "Is he not …?"
Boba snapped, "Look away, Fennec, look away!" Fennec turned away as Boba kept moving with the gurney. "Boy, what the hell …"
"{Help her! She is dying!}"
Boba helped lift her limp body on to the gurney, noticing several things at once: Din was covered in blood, he had bad wounds on the back of his head, he was bleeding from both ears, and his pupils were two different sizes, indicative of a bad concussion indeed. Of the woman wrapped in bloody blankets, Boba mostly noticed that she wasn't just pale, she was grey, covered in wounds, and was probably already dead. Grabbing two bacta injections and some bacta patches off the gurney, Boba shoved the gurney back towards Fennec. Dropping back into Mando'a, Boba snapped, "{Back in the ship, Din!}"
Din clutched Boba's jacket. "{Help her, please!}"
Boba grabbed Din and began pushing him back towards the ramp. "{They have her, Din. Let them help her now, we must move the ship."
Din blinked uncomprehendingly at Boba, then turned, and began lurching back into the ship. Boba followed him up into the Crest and came up short: there was blood everywhere. The corridor was practically an abattoir; bloody footprints of both Din's boots and the tiny footprints of Grogu led back and forth all over the floor of the ship. Boba glanced through the open door next to the vac tube, seeing the pile of rags and the sleeping pad lying on top of a veritable pond of blood. There is no way that woman lives. Not with this much blood loss.
Din had been mumbling about moving the ship in Mando'a, but now he began to rave, his words slurring. "{Gonna move the ship … fly back to that fucking planet … blow that Hold to dust … kill that Bishop … if Frith lets me, I'll kill him twice!}" He staggered to the cockpit ladder, put his hands on the rungs, and looked up to see Grogu standing there in bloodstained clothing that was made with Marathel's now destroyed hands. "GANGWAY, Grogu!" shouted Din in a tone he'd never taken with the child before, and Grogu, with rage in his eyes, held out his little bloodstained hand to Din, and Din crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
Boba stood still for a few moments, watching Grogu's face drop into despair as the child sat down, looking down sadly at Din. With a sigh, Boba said, "Good job, kid." Boba knelt next to Din, checking his vitals. His heartbeat was strong, and his breathing was even. Boba injected bacta into both sides of Din's neck before gently asking the child, "Where is his helmet?" Grogu disappeared briefly into the cockpit and Force-lifted the deeply dented helmet out to Boba. He whistled softly at the damage done to the beskar. "What the hell did this?" Grogu silently pointed down the corridor.
Boba went in that direction, noticing the off-track carbonite shells as well as the chunk of Din's scalp plastered to the corner of one shell. Nearby lay the beskar hammer. Boba picked it up along with a flattened, bloodied hunk of metal, placing both in the weapons cabinet, locking it. He then noticed a cloth bag, which made a jingling noise as he picked it up. Opening the bag, Boba's eyes went wide: inside were at least 150 Aurodium coins, practically ancient Aurodium coins, if the date was to be believed. He tucked the bag of coins under his cuirass and went back to Din's prone form. Boba knelt and carefully adhered a large bacta patch on Din's head wounds before replacing Din's helmet, giving back his anonymity. Boba then closed the ramp door, climbed up into the cockpit, and picked up Grogu. The boy clung to Boba's neck. Boba set the controls, managed to get the badly abused engines to start, and flew the ship to Peli's yard.
Peli, confused but delighted at seeing the Crest land in her yard, came out to greet the Mandalorian and the little green boy she loved so much. As the ramp door opened, she was already yelling out, "Mando! What have you been doing to this poor old ship? And where's my niblet?" Peli came up short when she saw it was Boba Fett at the top of the ramp. "Daimyo? My apologies, sir!"
"No worries, Peli, do not stand on ceremony with me."
Peli saw Grogu in his arms. "Niblet, by the hairy balls of a Jawa, what happened? Is he injured? Stars, he's covered in blood!"
Boba came down the ramp and handed the boy and a handful of clean clothes to Peli. "No, he is not injured. But he has had a very hard time these past few days. He needs a bath, a good meal. And lots of hugs."
"All life's problems should be so easy. Where's Mando?"
"Inside, unconscious." Peli opened her mouth in shock. "He'll be fine, he's full of bacta. He has a bad concussion, but what he needs now is rest. Let him sleep himself out." Boba physically turned Peli around and started walking her back to her workshop. "Leave him be, but don't you go in there. Send the pit droids. Do not go in there. No one should see that."
"What about Mando?"
"If you have a mech that can check on him every couple of hours, do that. Check his vitals. Otherwise, just have the droids clean the ship, fix what needs fixing. I'll cover the charges."
"Done. Take that speeder back to the palace, if you like."
Boba shook his head and moved his cape out of the way of his jet pack. "I'm good, Peli. Thank you for your kindness."
Peli stroked Grogu's ear. "What happened in there?"
Boba shrugged. "Bounty gone bad. Very bad. Ask Mando when he wakes up." Boba took a step back and blasted off with his jet pack.
Peli watched him go, then returned her attention to Grogu. "Hey, little guy, it's gonna be okay. Auntie Peli's got you. Mando's gonna be okay, we're all gonna be okay."
Grogu looked up at Peli with huge tears in his eyes. "Sad Mahr?"
Peli frowned in confusion, but said, "You betcha, little bug, Sad Mahr too, baby." Mahr must be the bounty, she thought. Peli yelled at the droids to get a move-on as she carried the exhausted child into her workshop.