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She is working beneath the open panel of a damaged ship when Din returns to the planet, his N1 landing smoothly in the bay two over from hers, and she pulls herself out from underneath her ship slowly. It hasn't been too long since the last time she saw him, but his most recent holo had implied he wouldn't be visiting for again for awhile yet, and she wonders if something's wrong.
Grogu sees her first, a delighted chirp echoing across the landing field, the rapid hover of his pod speeding directly toward her following quickly. She barely has time to straighten before Grogu launches himself into her arms with surprising force.
"Well," she says dryly, settling him against her hip. "Nice to know somebody's happy to see me."
Grogu presses both tiny hands against her cheek, studying her, before making that happy sound again. She almost smiles.
Din approaches more slowly than Grogu did, one gloved hand resting near his belt and his beskar catching the late afternoon sunlight in silver flashes. She has probably seen him walk towards her a hundred times by now and still her pulse shifts traitorously every single time.
"You're late," she says, like she'd known he was coming.
"There was trouble near the Hydian Way."
"There's always trouble near the Hydian Way."
"That's why the jobs out there pay better."
She snorts softly despite herself.
Around them, the surface camp continues moving in steady rhythm -- welders sparking against hull plating, distant engines roaring. The ordinary sounds of maintenance. Of surviving.
Din's visor tilts slightly toward her ship. "How bad is the damage?"
"The stabiliser array's fried." She jerks her chin toward the Gauntlet behind her. "I can fix it."
"I know."
The words settle warm beneath her ribs because he says them with such absolute certainty.
He takes a step closer. "Need a hand?"
She doesn't, but for a moment she's tempted to say she does. To keep him next to her.
Shaking her head, she passes Grogu back to him, the way his tiny fingers cling briefly to her vambrace before Din has him almost making her smile again. "I'll see you for the evening meal," she promises instead.
He says nothing for the longest moment, before nodding. "Tonight," he says.
She wouldn't miss it for the world. "Tonight."
But she does miss it, unfortunately, when one of their supply convoys fails to arrive on time, and a trinitaur roams too close to the boundaries they've erected on the surface, and a disagreement erupts between three Tribe members. By the time she manages to return underground, the evening meal has long been finished and most have started to settle in for the night.
She looks for Din and Grogu and finds them already at rest on the far side, and it's a disappointment but Din hadn't mentioned any urgency in his visit earlier, so there'll be time tomorrow for them to talk.
Backing away reluctantly, she leaves them be.
While there are no private quarters yet, her role usually grants her some measure of distance from the others, and the awareness that someone is near enough to touch has her bolting upright and readying for a fight. Even before she's opened her eyes, her blasters are in hand and her body is tensing for a roll that will clear her field.
"Hey." A hand, palm out, is still reaching towards her. "It's just me."
Din.
She relaxes her trigger fingers but doesn't reholster, watching him watch her from where he's crouched a few feet away.
"You shouted," he says quietly.
Fragments of her nightmare flicker across her thoughts like the fire that consumed Sundari's domes, Gideon's laughing crackling over comms and the sound of TIE bombers screaming overhead while everything burned.
Wincing, she slides one blaster away, dragging a hand across her mouth. "Sorry."
"You don't need to apologise."
Easy for him to say when he's not reminded of his failures like she is every day she breathes on this planet. When he doesn't shoulder a leadership that demands, every hour, something from her that she cannot refuse to give -- whether it's mediating territory rights between clans or coordinating the location of new settlements; protecting supply routes from pirates or welcoming out of hiding survivors carrying generations of grief and anger -- because every one of their people expects her to fix what she broke.
"Bad dream?"
If there's any other kind, it's been too long since she's experienced one. For her there is only ever fire and death and while the faces change, sometimes, it is always her standing alone in the ashes at the end.
Din remains where he is, patient and silent in the darkness. Waiting her out.
Eventually she shrugs, muttering, "you can stop hovering."
His helmet tilts. "I'm not hovering."
"You are absolutely hovering."
"You were reaching for your blasters in your sleep."
"And?"
"And I like my odds better when you know who you're aiming at."
Despite herself, a laugh escapes her -- rough and brief. Din shifts slightly at the sound, something easing in his posture too.
The silence stretches a little softer.
She studies the dim outline of him. The broad shape of beskar shoulders. Hands resting loosely atop his knees. She wonders suddenly, desperately, what his face looks like right now. Whether his expression mirrors the warmth spreading low beneath her ribs.
"We should sleep," Din says eventually.
"You staying?"
The question slips out before she can stop it, but she doesn't take it back.
Din says, carefully, "if you want."
Her chest tightens because she does want. And she hates that his Creed makes everything she feels for him impossible. That she wants him in part because of his honour and loyalty and faithfulness, and that those are the very qualities that will ensure she can never have him.
No bare faces. No easy touches. Just a thread of uncertainty that she'll never be able to see for sure if he wants the same as she does.
Like he can hear her thoughts, he inclines his head. "I want to," he says lowly.
Her pulse hammers in her veins at the admittance. Not trusting herself to speak, she nods and lies back down, watching as he narrows the space between them slightly before lying down too.
Across the settlement, somethings rustle and someones whisper, and the low crackle of the Forge's fire hums under it all, but near her all she can focus on is Din's breathing, slow and steady.
Rolling onto her side, she fractions their distance again, and closes her eyes.
The End
