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Omera watches him leave. She does not believe he will return to her, not really. Not with things as they are. Not when his staying puts both the child and the village in danger.
She does not expect him to return.
Except he does.
Omera does not mean to keep count of the seasons that pass in the Mandalorian’s absence. She knows by now that hoping won’t hurt her, but Winta is another story.
Winta dreams of the child frequently, even as she grows and begins taking on responsibilities: harvesting, assisting in building repairs, venturing into town, tinkering with a droid’s control panel so she knows the basics. Her hair grows long enough for her mother to braid it back from her face. She mimics strangers who have long gone, mime-patrolling from sunset until the moons are high in the sky.
Winta pretends she doesn’t keep her eye on the horizon every morning, scanning for a sign—any sign—of an arrival. Of a return.
Only once does Omera try to speak to her. At dusk, tucked away in the back room of the house, Omera sits on Winta’s cot, leaning her back against the wall; her daughter moves so her head is resting against her mother’s waist. Omera begins undoing Winta’s braid.
“Don’t you miss them, Mommy?”
Omera briefly closes her eyes. “Yes,” she answers honestly. “I do.” A pause. Then: “you can’t wait for them forever, Winta.”
Winta pulls away to meet her mother’s gaze. She juts her chin out stubbornly. Omera would smile at her daughter’s unkempt appearance, but she can’t. She only feels the soft creep of sadness approaching, the kind that’s tinged blue and hits the worst at twilight. It’s the kind that’s been haunting them the most.
She knows Winta has been hurting since the day the child left them.
“Yes, I can,” Winta says, her dark eyes glittering in the lamplight. “And I will.”
“There were people coming after them,” Omera says as gently as possible. “People who wanted to hurt the child. Hurt him. You know he couldn’t stay.” She swallows, forcing the words out of her mouth: “and we can’t expect them to return.”
Winta crosses her arms tightly over her chest. “Why not?”
“They can’t come back just because we want them to.”
Tears spring to Winta’s eyes; the sight cleaves Omera’s heart cleanly in two. “But he promised,” she insists, wiping at her eyes. “He promised to come back.”
Omera shakes her head. “He didn’t—” And then she realizes that Winta isn’t talking about the Mandalorian; she’s talking about the child. “Winta…”
Winta stands up. “He told me.”
“He’s just a baby, Winta. He can’t even speak.”
Winta turns, says one last time, “he promised,” before stalking out of the room.
Omera stares after her for a moment, eyes lingering on the empty doorway, and sighs. The idea of the baby talking to Winta while only ever cooing in the adults’ presence does not seem plausible; surely they would have heard the child speak his first words. Surely he would, at the very least, speak Mando’a first and Galactic Basic second. But Winta has never lied to her before, and what’s more is that Winta is convinced of it. There was no trace of doubt on her face, nothing to indicate that what she said might possibly be untrue.
Omera glances out the window, only to find the sun has gone down.
She stays awake until she hears Winta come back inside.
Winta immediately runs to her mother and presses her face into her side, and begins to cry. Omera wraps her arms around her and presses her lips to the crown of Winta’s head. She does not know what else to say, so she begins to hum.
Winta falls asleep in her arms.
Omera wakes up to shouting outside. She can hear excitement, urgency in their voices; as carefully and quickly as she can, she untangles herself from her daughter and slips out of the house. It is just after sunrise; the ground is damp and soft under her worn, thin-soled boots.
“What is it?” she asks.
Caben answers, but she doesn’t hear him when she catches sight of a ship disappearing over the edge of the horizon.
Her breath catches in her throat.
“Is that the Razor Crest?” Caben asks her, eyes wide, but she shakes her head. All she knows is that it was a ship; it was too far away to discern any details.
Her heart is in her throat. She can feel the hope clawing its way up from the place she tried to hide it away; it sinks its teeth into her sternum, her jugular, until she allows herself to feel it. It steals her breath away.
“Mommy?”
Omera turns abruptly; she wordlessly pulls Winta to her as the clamor around them only grows louder.
“Mommy, what is it?”
But she can’t speak.
She can’t speak.
The waiting is the worst part. Since midday, Winta has been nothing but anxious. Omera suggests walking the length of the village since there are no more chores left to do. Winta ignores her in favor of going over to Caben and asking if he will use the dilapidated landspeeder to venture out and see who arrived. Caben glances over her head, sees Omera’s warning look, and then looks back at Winta, the regret plain on this face. “I can’t,” he says, shaking his head, but Winta is already stalking away, heading towards the barn.
“What are you doing?” Omera asks, trailing after her.
“We should get things ready,” Winta answers, even though the barn hasn’t been touched since the Mandalorian’s departure.
“Winta—”
Too late. Winta is already inside. Omera stops just short of the porch and looks over her shoulder.
She lets out a sigh.
Sunset is nearly upon them. Omera has kept her hands busy with the meticulous yet soothing task of basket-weaving. “Baby-shaped,” Winta accuses when she spies what her mother has in her lap, and Omera puts down her work next to her chair. The two sit silently on the porch of their home, still waiting.
Then they hear it: a shout. Just one, then two, then the clamor starts up again, the same as that morning, but louder this time.
Winta takes off so fast Omera doesn’t have time to register her leaving. She quickly follows suit, smoothing the front of her tunic down as she turns the corner and starts for the front of the village where everyone has gathered.
Omera sees the glint of armor in the sunlight. For a moment, she forgets how to breathe.
The Mandalorian is just as Omera remembers him. His armor is not so shiny as it was; his cape has only become more tattered and singed around the edges. But the slant of his shoulders, the way he shifts when he sees Winta darting toward him—
“You came back,” Winta says, reaching for the child, who babbles happily at her. The Mandalorian is one step ahead: he removes the child from the sling strapped across his chest and places him in Winta’s arms. Winta presses her face close to the child’s. “You came back,” she says again, softer this time.
The child blinks up at her; it reaches up and takes hold of her loose hair, tugging on it with his claws. She laughs and spins away from the crowd, cradling him to her chest.
Omera comes to the front of the crowd, holding her breath. The Mandalorian turns, sees her, and stills. She can feel his eyes on her, looking her up and down, checking her for—for what, she can’t say: changes, maybe—and the stillness hangs between them like a curtain.
Then:
Omera smiles, daring to hope. “Welcome back,” she says softly, and he’s suddenly in front of her, only a handspan’s width apart.
He tilts his head; she knows that, under his helmet, he is gazing at her.
Her heart hammers away in her chest.
“Thank you,” he says finally, in that quiet way of his, and Omera exhales.
The village celebrates the Mandalorian and child’s return well into the night. Fires are lit, lamps are hung, and, for the first time since the night the AT-ST walker fell, people begin to dance.
Winta has been holding the child all day. Now she crouches low to the ground as he waddles back and forth in the grass, cooing, touching his clawed fingertips to her soft ones.
Omera sits a ways away from a fire with her legs folded beneath her. She smiles, her cheeks blooming warmth as she watches her daughter smile and laugh in a way she hasn’t for seasons.
The Mandalorian comes up beside her, pausing to survey the scene before gingerly lowering himself onto the grass beside her. He must have just finished moving back into the barn.
He says, “you shouldn’t have waited for me.” His voice is low and quiet, and holds no judgement. Her eyes flutter shut; she had missed the sound of his voice.
“We didn’t,” she replies, not looking at him but hyperaware of the fact that, if she leaned far enough to the right, their shoulders would touch.
He says nothing.
“Winta hoped, though,” she says softly, her eyes darting from the firepit to Winta and the child.
Silence.
Finally, softly: “I did, too.”
The Mandalorian shifts slightly, tilting his head. “Well,” he says—and she wonders if she’s imagining the strain in his voice—“here we are.”
“Yes,” Omera agrees, feeling the tension begin to bleed out of her. “Here you are.”
“I don’t,” he stops, starts again: “I don’t want to impose.” He sounds—abashed. No: he sounds uncertain.
She swivels her head to look him in the face. She shakes her head quietly, bemused. “You’re not,” she says. “You can’t.” The corners of her mouth tremble, just for a moment. “You couldn’t.”
Sitting side by side, the observe the rest of the celebration in silence. Familiar, comfortable silence.
Predictably, Winta is asleep as soon as her head hits her pillow. Beside her, the child falls asleep just as quickly in the hastily constructed crib. Omera leaves them and goes outside, finding the Mandalorian leaning against the wall on the porch. She avoids the loudest of the creaking floorboards making her way to him, coming to a stop at his side, her back not quiet touching the wall.
The Mandalorian sighs. Omera unsuccessfully tries to hide her smile.
The silence stretches between them until he decides to break it. “That was…nice,” he offers, and this time she does grin, looking upon the remains of the firepit in the distance.
“Yes,” she agrees. “It’s been a nice night.”
He shifts, tilting his head back until it gently hits the wall.
“I didn’t think you’d come back,” she says eventually, wrapping her arms around herself as the night’s chill begins to seep through her clothes.
“I didn’t either.” He turns his head to look at her. “Are you cold?”
She simply shakes her head. “I’m fine,” she assures him. More than fine, she wants to say. Better than she has been in a while.
“Will you be staying long?” she ventures, turning to meet his gaze head-on. She’s still smiling, but she tenses in her waiting. She needs to know: she can’t bear the thought of Winta heartbroken so soon. Again.
He lifts a shoulder in response. “Maybe.” It’s the best he can give her. It’s better than no.
As if sensing her wariness, he pushes himself off the wall. He turns to her. “Will you walk with me?”
“Of course.”
Omera follows him off the porch and comes up beside him as they wind their way through the village, slowly, quietly. She wonders if he’s as aware of the distance between them she is, how easy it would be to lift her hand to brush against his.
They walk until they reach the edge, where the reeds begin and stretch on into the trees. The moons are out in full, now, illuminating them: the sheen of his armor is ghostlike.
She shivers. He leans toward her, somewhat apologetic, but she won’t complain. Not now, not after so much time has passed and he is finally here.
Omera takes the time to look at him, really look at him now that they have put a bit of distance between themselves and the village.
He seems…tired. Very, very tired.
“Omera.” Her name in his mouth, for the first time since—since—
She feels something in her belly flutter.
“I can’t promise you anything,” he says, “you, your daughter… or the kid.”
She nods. “I understand.”
Then, she remembers; she turns to face him fully beneath Sorgan’s twin moons. “Your boy did, though.”
“What?”
“Winta says he promised her you would return to us,” Omera says slowly.
He slowly shakes his head. “Not possible. He can’t speak yet.”
She felt a twinge of defensiveness at that. “Winta doesn’t lie.”
He falls silent, not contesting her.
His silence is telling; the way his body shifts uneasily is even moreso.
She narrows her eyes. “Have you heard him?”
He sighs. “Not physically,” he admits, “not out loud.”
Omera frowns. “Then how…” she lets her question hang in the air between them.
The Mandalorian shakes his head. “I can’t explain it,” he says gently, defeatedly, and she understands that it’s not because he won’t tell her.
The silence continues.
“He was right,” Omera says suddenly, speaking more to herself than to him. He tilts his head; she smiles up at him. “You did come back.”
He sighs again. “Don’t know how the kid managed it,” he says grudgingly, and she can’t help it: she starts to laugh. She quickly covers her mouth with her hand, trying to quiet herself, but she can’t.
What Winta says—what the Mandalorian’s silence is suggesting—is absurd. Absurd.
But she knows it’s true. Somewhere in her heart, she knows.
Omera bites her lip; she can feel him track the movement from behind his visor. She reaches up, slow, so slow her hand threatens to tremble; he doesn’t move, allowing her to inch closer, until her hand comes to rest on his bicep. His leaning into her touch is unmistakable. Her cheeks bloom warmly in response.
“Will you tell me?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Tell you what?” His voice is rough, uneven. There’s tension in his shoulders, but not the kind she’s seen before.
“Your name.”
He’s quiet for a while. She swears he’s smiling at her behind his visor. “Not yet.” His voice breaks on the final word, just like before.
A lump forms in Omera’s throat. She begins withdrawing her hand, but he’s quick to lean toward her, reach and pull her hand back to him. He covers her hand with his.
They both exhale unsteadily. Omera wonders if her cheeks will ever stop burning.
He’s slow to let remove his hand. When he does, he doesn’t shift away from her. She can tell he’s waiting—
She realizes he meant he did not want her to pull away.
“You must be tired,” she manages, peering up into his face.
Giving him an out. Just in case, just in case—
“I’m fine,” he says, “just fine.”
She can barely hear him over her racing heartbeat.
Seconds pass. Maybe minutes, maybe hours, Omera isn’t sure, but she fills her lungs with the fresh night air, moving her thumb back and forth across the beskar on his bicep.
She swears she hears him stop breathing. Or maybe it’s her. She can’t tell.
The stillness doesn’t last long enough, though. Eventually, she lets her hand fall back to her side, but doesn’t move. They still stand together, close but no longer touching.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she whispers, not trusting herself to speak any louder, and with every ounce of willpower she has, begins to turn from him.
His fingers wrap around her wrist; she hadn’t seen him move. His hold is gentle, so gentle, not feather-light but loose, solid, and grounding.
“Omera.”
Oh.
The way he says her name—
She squeezes her eyes shut, briefly, and says a silent prayer. To who or what, she can’t say. But she says it—feels like she has to.
She opens her eyes and turns her head to meet his gaze once again.
He gives her wrist a reassuring squeeze before letting go. “In the morning,” he says on the exhale, and he lets her leave this time.
She can feel his eyes on her as she returns to Winta. She crawls onto her own cot, pressing a cold hand to her still-warm cheek. The tension bleeds out of her like a wound. She is asleep within seconds.
Omera wakes to the sound of laughter and cooing. She cracks an eye open and turns onto her side just in time to see the child waddle into the other room with Winta following close behind. She sighs, rolling onto her back. She closes her eyes, allowing the warm dark to pull her back under.
For the first time in months, she does not dream.
“Mommy! Mommy, look!”
Omera looks up from the loom to see Winta charging towards her, her face split into a brilliant smile, her dark hair tumbling out of its braid as she skids to a stop directly in front of her mother. Omera stretches out her hand, beckoning her closer. Winta happily obliges. “What is this?” Omera asks, tentatively touching the rough, bulging fabric slanting across Winta’s chest—fabric, she finds, that is fastened into a harness-sling hybrid. She smiles, bemused.
“He made it for me,” Winta says so fast Omera barely has time to register that the Mandalorian is coming up behind her, “I asked him how he made his and he showed me.” She beams down into the mass of fabric; in response, a pair of pointy green ears emerge. Then the cooing reaches her ears. “Now I can carry him everywhere with me,” she whispers, eyes shining. She turns abruptly, looking up at the Mandalorian, beaming. “I’ll make sure to feed him, I promise,” she says, and darts off before either adult can blink.
The two stare after Winta and the child until they’re out of sight. The Mandalorian takes the empty seat beside her. Omera goes back to working the loom.
“That was very kind of you to make that for Winta,” Omera says, not looking at him.
He nods once, leaning back in the creaking chair. His knee brushes hers, and her heart skips a beat. She waits. One second, then two, then three. He doesn’t move. Neither does she. Her hands are still now.
“I’ve never seen a sling like that,” she says slowly, deciding to place her hands in her lap and lean back into her chair, exhaling quietly.
The quiet between then does not leave, even when he speaks; rather than break, it ripples. “It’s a birikad.”
Understanding dawns on her. She shifts in her seat, keeping her voice low. “Are there many children from your clan?”
“Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate, but she can hear what may be a smile in his voice.
“Who taught you how to make it?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, his chair creaks deliberately as he leans over to gently tap the loom with his index finger. “Who taught you to do that?” he returns, and she laughs. The movement causes their knees to part, then come back together.
He is fractionally closer to her than he was a moment ago. His helmet tilts toward her, expectant. She looks into his visor, searching for his eyes, but to no avail.
His gaze, hidden yet weighted, is all there is.
“Fair enough,” she says finally, and leans forward to resume her work.
Omera never once considers asking him to take off his helmet, not after the last time. But she doesn’t see anything wrong with wondering about it, about him.
What would his face be like without the beskar obscuring it? Did he have as many scars on his face as she suspected he did the rest of his body? Was his hair unruly or cropped short? And, without the beskar, would his gaze pierce her? Would it burn right through her?
What would his bare hand feel like on hers? On her arm?
She wonders. She wonders—
She squeezes her eyes shut.
The baby coos his first word under the roof of the barn. Or, rather, it’s his first word aloud.
“I knew you could speak,” the Mandalorian says, mock-accusatory, and the child repeats himself. Omera, in the middle of collecting his plates, pauses when she sees a tremor go through him. Winta’s hands are clasped together, her eyes damp. The child says it again, and again, until it shifts in Winta’s birikad and reaches for him with its claws. He obliges. Carefully, he takes the child into his arms and sighs.
The child babbles at him. Then speaks again.
“Mando,” the child says gleefully. “Mando.”
The Mandalorian is silent for a moment, then murmurs, “gar serim.”
The child coos, delighted.
The Mandalorian’s head tilts up, meeting Omera’s gaze. She doesn’t need to see his face to know the look on it. She wore that same expression of fierce pride when Winta fired a blaster pistol for the first time and hit her target dead-on.
In the evenings, the Mandalorian can be found sitting beside the firepit. Sometimes he holds the child, but mostly he allows Winta to. It does something funny—very peculiar—to her heart to see the three of them together with their backs to the sunset.
Omera always comes by at the end of the story. He seems to have an endless supply, no matter how many times Winta asks him to tell her another, and another, and another.
“I hope you’re sparing her some of the details,” Omera says, once.
“Some,” he concedes, but is distracted by Winta reaching over to tug on his arm.
“Then what happened?” Winta demands, eyes focused on his visor, “what did you do?”
Omera leaves them, biting back laughter.
When the harvest ends, it begins to rain. Lightly at first, but it quickly turns into a downpour. Omera ushers Winta inside their house, immediately moving to find dry clothes and blankets. Winta sets the child down in his crib to change, and comes back to his side, sitting on the floor. The child babbles; it sounds very much like he said Winta, but Omera keeps that to herself, just in case it isn’t so. But, judging by the joy on Winta’s face, she thinks she heard right.
It occurs to her, then, that the Mandalorian is somewhere out in the rain, most likely walking the perimeter of the village. “I’ll be back,” she tells Winta, “stay with him,” but Winta doesn’t need to be told twice.
Wrapping herself in a shawl, Omera steps outside and into the downpour.
Her boots squelch into the damp earth as she crosses the length of the village and heads towards the tree line. There are no footprints, no indications of his presence. Perhaps he’s already indoors. She doubts it, though.
She wades into the sea of reeds, careful to watch for uneven ground and puddles.
But the reeds are thick, and wet; they hide much.
Omera stumbles. Her foot catches on something, her ankle twists unnaturally to the side, and she goes down. Then she’s on the ground, in the mud on her back, drenched, cold, alone. She sighs, spits hair out of her mouth, and props herself up on her elbows.
She wiggles her toes, experimentally moves her leg, and though the pain causes her to wince, it is not nearly as bad as she feared. With some effort, she tugs her foot free from the mud. She lightly applies pressure to her ankle with her index and middle finger until she hisses. Not broken—just sprained, if that.
Omera struggles to her feet. Tugging the muddy shawl off, she tucks it under her arm and turns back toward the village—
A hand grabs the back of her tunic, making a fist, and tugs. There is not time to respond; she stumbles back and falls, but doesn’t hit the ground again. This time, she’s upright when her back connects with something solid.
Beskar steel.
It takes her a moment to realize she’s standing beneath the tree canopy, breathing hard, her back pressed to the Mandalorian’s chest. His arm is wrapped around her waist, keeping her from teetering.
“You okay?”
She nods, her cheeks aflame, and begins to extract herself from his hold.
“What are you doing out here?” he asks, unmoving, unwilling to participate in their disentanglement.
“Looking for you,” she answers breezily, taking a step back. Bad idea: her ankle protests before she can quickly shift her weight to her uninjured side.
“Well.” He tilts his head. “You found me.”
“You shouldn’t be out here in this weather,” she says, not knowing what else to say, blinking rainwater out of her eyes.
“Neither should you.”
“I knew you wouldn’t be inside,” she replies stubbornly, turning half-away from him to look back towards the village. She hisses in pain, remembering herself.
“Omera.” His voice brings her back; she faces him. “Are you hurt?”
It takes her a moment to register what he’s asking her. The longer it sits with her, the more absurd the idea becomes. So she offers him a smile and a shake of her head. “I’m fine,” she says, “it’s nothing.”
He says nothing, unconvinced.
“I’m fine,” she insists, and starts walking. When she doesn’t feel him behind her, she stops at the edge of the trees, turning around.
He hasn’t moved. He’s still staring at her.
Why? She looks down at herself, mystified. There’s no blood, no tears in her clothing, just mud. Just her damp hair clinging to her throat, across her face.
It takes her a moment to realize he isn’t just staring. He is looking at her. She can feel it behind the visor. The weight of it, despite the fact that she’s disheveled and soaked to the bone. She swallows.
“Are you coming?” she asks eventually. Again, he doesn’t move; she, hoping he takes the bait, starts off again.
In a moment he’s there, falling into step beside her. “You shouldn’t put weight on that,” he says as they re-entered the sea of reeds.
“Your concern is appreciated,” she replies, “but not necessary, Mandalorian.”
She feels him startle beside her, and tries to hide her smile.
“Omera—”
Enough. She reaches back with her hand blindly; once she finds his arm, she takes hold and leads him on until they finally reach the end of the reeds. She does not stop, and she does not let go; she simply keeps walking, heading straight for the closest shelter—the barn.
Omera only lets him go when they duck inside the barn. She stumbles in, catching herself on the support beam, and sags against it. The rain is loud enough to drown out the thundering of her heart. She rests for a moment, then faces the door.
He is unmoving, staring at her again.
Omera does not understand. “Is there something—”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he says quickly, and walks to the back where he unclips his pulse rifle to set it against the wall.
“Nothing?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at his back. “Nothing at all?”
“No.” But he barely manages to get the word out. He turns to face her.
They are only a few paces apart. It would take a few seconds to close the distance, she thinks.
Rainwater drips off his armor and her tunic onto the floor. The rise and fall of his chest is uneven, disturbed by a slight tremor.
The two stare at each other for what feels like forever and no time at all. He takes the first step forward, then the second, and she takes the last, until they’re standing only a half-step apart.
This position is familiar—her gazing up at him, her heart in her throat, her hands itching to reach—
“Do you want me to leave?” she asks quietly, breaking the spell.
“What? No. No,” he says, and then falls silent again.
Omera nods slowly. Looking around the room, she settles on the blankets stacked in the corner. “Sit with me?” she asks, and he nods once. She sits down first, closest to the wall, and he settles down next to her.
He tilts toward her, bit by bit, until his shoulder bumps against hers. His armor is cold through her damp clothes, but she doesn’t mind; she bumps back, allowing their knees to touch. She hears him shakily inhale, but only manages to smile and lean her weight against him. She knows exactly how he feels.
They share the quiet for a while.
“You’re cold,” he says at last, finally leaning back against the wall; she follows the motion, keeping her side pressed against his outer arm.
“I’ll live,” she says, and is suddenly very, very tired.
“Omera.” He straightens up, pulling away, and she immediately misses the contact. He turns to watch her, expectant and she catches on: she leans forward, resting her forearms in her knees to mirror his stance. “Omera.” Her eyes flutter shut. “I don’t belong here.”
She shakes her head, exhaling, letting her shoulders fall. Their shoulders bump together again. “Not true,” she says gently, and puts her head on his shoulder. He tilts to the left, allowing her to lean against him again. Lean into him.
“I don’t,” he repeats.
She sighs and opens her eyes. It takes a great deal of effort to lift her head so she can look him in the face.
“I thought that too, once,” she tells him, and something passes between them—she’s not sure what it is, but it’s a ripple and then it’s gone and suddenly she is reminded that they are damp, chilled, and very, very much alone together.
‘“You, too,’” he echoes. She rests her head on his shoulder again.
“I’ll tell you about it someday,” she promises, and her eyes flutter shut.
His hand shifts away from her; his find her hand, tracing the lines in her palm before interlacing their fingers together.
Her breath catches in her throat.
“Omera.” Her heart skips a beat. “My name.” He gives her hand a squeeze. He doesn’t continue. But he wants her to.
“Later,” she assures him, and he sighs. Relaxes. Then he pulls away, but only for a moment: his arm comes around her shoulders and tugs her closer, until her arm is directly against his side. “We have time.”
“Okay,” he says, nodding. “Okay.”
The movement finally stops.
They sit together, still and quiet, as the downpour continues.
It occurs to her, much later, that no one has held her like he did in a very, very long time.
The dark pulls her under as soon as her head finds her pillow.
She does not dream.