rating: g (word count 762)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/40832574
When the Mandalorian shows up in front of Cara's glossy new officer's desk, asking her to help him spring one Migs Mayfeld, traitor to democracy and accessory to murder, the first thing she thinks is: this man is not the same person who fought by my side on Sorgan. There’s something wrong with the rigid way he moves, with the tightness in his voice when he speaks.
“These stripes mean something,” she says, indicating the badge on her chest.
It’s a no, but not a hard one. More of a please don’t ask me that. She doesn’t want to choose between Mando and her last chance of going straight. (She doesn’t know if she has the strength to choose going straight.)
“They have the kid.”
Cara’s eyes narrow. Oh no, they don’t.
The whole way to Morak, Cara watches the Mandalorian out of the corner of her eye.
There used to be a tenderness to him, an awkward softness that poked out between the cracks of his armor. She saw it first on Sorgan, in the way he watched his son play with the children in the krill ponds. Heard it in the thank you's he clumsily handed the young widow like he wasn’t sure what to do with them.
It's gone now.
There’s an aura of deadliness concentrated around him that wasn’t there before. It’s like he’s a blaster aimed to kill and he’s only waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger. His voice is a gaping void. Sure, Mando has always been quiet, but now… it’s like he’s catatonic. Like he only exists when he needs to for the mission.
Cara has never feared him. Not even on that fateful day on Sorgan when she looked up from her spotchka, saw a real live Mandalorian hunter, and thought for the first time in her life, I might be meeting my match. She tends to be more practical than terrified in those kinds of situations, but—
Not gonna lie, the rigid figure sitting across from her makes her a little uneasy. It’s a good thing they’re on the same side.
The old Mando called a truce and offered her soup. She’s not so sure this one would do the same.
Cara can’t believe he agreed to replace his beskar with stormtrooper armor. She can’t believe he suggested replacing his beskar with stormtrooper armor.
It’s kind of dumb, but all she can think is where did your face go? She knows, rationally, that the black T-visor and beskar zygomatic curves aren’t his real face, that helmets are removable and there’s got to be a head somewhere in there. But still. Where is his face.
“I’d say it looks good on you, but I’d be lying,” she says.
The Mandalorian looks at her.
Cara’s always been able to read the crease of a brow and the twitching of lips through a helmet’s tilt. She knows this man as well as she knows her own blaster. Knows the way he fights and the way he stands still, knows what he’s saying when he doesn’t say anything at all. They’ve had entire conversations without speaking a single word. But now—
Now, for the the first time since the day they met, she locks eyes with the Mandalorian and has no idea what’s going on inside his head.
(It’s the lack of doubt. It’s the way he faces her, head-on, like a challenge.)
It shouldn’t feel so jarring. It’s not like he’s done anything yet that Cara wouldn’t do if their places were swapped; the kid is everything to him, so there’s no justification for the strange, premonitory loneliness she feels welling up in her bones. It’s just a helmet.
(It has never been just a helmet.)
Cara will go to the other end of the galaxy and farther if her Mandalorian needs her to. It’s a silent promise she made a long time ago, sometime after a bag of credits and a second chance plunked onto the dirt by her feet. She owes everything she is now to this man, who met an outlaw and saw a former Rebel shocktrooper, who without saying a single word reminded her what it was to have a heart and a code and a people to protect. She’ll hold herself to her vow as long as she’s able, but something tells her the Mandalorian is headed somewhere she can’t follow.
These stripes on my chest mean something, she thinks. That beskar meant something. You were the one who taught me that.
I wonder if you remember.
rating: g (word count 598)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/32755144
The Mandalorian watches her do the dishes sometimes. Omera isn’t sure why; she wonders for a while if he’s just lonely, but he never speaks or announces his presence. She figures it out when he joins her at the washbasin one day and picks up a bowl.
“Have you been trying to learn how to wash dishes this whole time?” she asks with a smile, handing him a soapy rag.
He tenses.
“I’m not making fun of you,” she clarifies. “It’s—” Sweet. “Appreciated.”
“I don’t have dishes on the Razor Crest,” the Mandalorian says after a moment. “Mostly I eat ration bars.”
“You must be sick of them by now.” Ration bars have all of the nutrients and none of the taste of real food; Omera can’t imagine eating them on a regular basis.
“They suit my purposes.”
He really doesn’t like empathy, does he. She hands him a wet plate and starts scrubbing at the next one. They work in silence for a while, scrubbing the dishes with soap and then setting them aside to rinse later. Eventually, the stack of dirty dishes she’s already run water over dries up, so they rinse off the soapy dishes and set them aside to dry in the sun before getting the dirty ones wet again. Omera picks up her scrub brush and starts on a cup.
“You’ve been very kind to me,” the Mandalorian says, breaking the silence.
She inclines her head. It’s hard to keep a smile from her face, hearing the way this hardened warrior shyly shapes politeness. “You’re my guest.”
“I know my presence is—hard for you. I take up space. And I frighten the children.”
“You don’t,” Omera says, though she’s not sure which part she’s responding to, taking up space or frightening the children. He doesn’t really do either. Only Winta was ever afraid of him, and that faded quickly. The Mandalorian is stiff around children, like he’s afraid he’ll break them if he makes the slightest move, but he is always gentle. No one in the village fears him anymore. And he takes up little space, so little that sometimes she wishes he’d take up more.
“I owe you.”
Is that why you learned how to wash dishes? “You don’t,” she repeats. “Besides, this is your payment for helping us with the raiders, remember? You asked for lodging.”
The Mandalorian’s head tilts toward her before turning back to the washbasin. “You’ve given me more than lodging.”
Not much, she thinks. Just extra bedding and warm food and an ear to listen on occasion. She wonders what his life has been like, that such basic kindness is a luxury. “Hasn’t anyone ever done something for you just to be nice? Without expecting anything in return?”
The Mandalorian’s head scythes towards her, his chest rising and falling sharply. Omera meets his gaze. The question hangs between them: too forward, probably, but she can’t take it back now. She doesn’t bother disguising the mingled nervousness and curiosity on her face, though she does hide the sympathy. She knows he wouldn’t appreciate it.
“Once,” he says.
She hesitates, wondering if he wants her to ask further questions. He doesn’t seem like the sort of person who likes to talk about his past, but sometimes—
“It’s why I swore the Creed,” he says before she can work out a response. His head slants away from her, staring at the last plate in his hands. “I will never be able to repay that debt.”
The Mandalorian sets the plate out to dry and ducks out of the hut.