The dress shop was smaller than she remembered it being a day ago. 

Or maybe it was just that Mando took up more of it this time, standing at the rack, turning hangers with the focused attention he normally reserved for weapons checks. The shopkeeper had materialised at Grogu's side within thirty seconds of their arrival, emitting soft sounds of delight while he batted at the fringe of her sleeve with both hands and communicated his approval of it. She had scooped him up without being asked and was now carrying him along the displays while he pointed at things with evident authority. 

Mando turned a few more hangers and stopped. 

"This one," he said. 

She looked at what he was holding out. A slip dress in gunmetal grey, just short of black, the fabric sitting heavy and smooth, catching the shop's light with the quiet sheen of silk. Simple. Clean. Not demanding anything of the room. 

"It's not exactly a statement," she said. 

"That's the point. You don't need to announce yourself twice." 

She took it into the fitting room without further protest.

In the mirror it sat on her the way all well-made things sat, without effort, without insisting. The grey went darker against her skin than it had looked on the hanger, richer, and the cut was better than she'd expected, sitting at exactly the right place on her hips. The tied closure at the chest she left loose, the ribbons hanging open, because she was just going to say it was fine and they were going to leave and she did not need to stand here thinking about it any more, simply because he had been the one to pick it out for her.

"It's fine," she started to call out from inside, "It's simple, but it-" 

Mando drew the fitting room curtain back and stepped inside before she could complete the thought. 

The stall was small. Even smaller with both of them in it She registered this immediately and completely, aware of the mirror behind her and the light and him close enough that she could have taken half a step and been they would be touching. 

She thought about the service passage, what he had said before they left, thwn of him now choosing to step into an enclosed space with her voluntarily when he didn't have to. Whether that was him initiating something or whether she was, again, constructing meaning from proximity because she had spent weeks doing exactly that and could not reliably stop. She didn't say any of it. She held it where it was and kept her face still and waited to see what he would do. 

"Turn," he said. 

She gave him a look. "Really?"

He said nothing. She turned to give him the full view of how his choice of dress looked on her. 

She felt him move before she saw it. Then his hands were at her chest, not touching her skin, just the ribbons, and he was tying the closure the way it was designed to be tied, neat and even, the fabric gathering at the neckline into the shape it had been made for. He stepped back. 

She looked at herself in the mirror. The dress was different tied. He had been right, which was irritating. 

"Good," he said. 

She did not argue. She stood in the small fitting room and thought about how she had wanted to stay for significantly longer than ten seconds, but then changed back into her clothes and brought the dress to the counter. 

Mando paid before she had the chance to offer. The shopkeeper handed over the bag with the warmth of someone who had made certain assumptions when she first saw them and felt comprehensively confirmed in them.

They left, Grogu, now restored to Mando's arm, still had a few strands of the shopkeeper's fringe in his fist and seemed to consider this a fair trade for his company. 

Coruscant moved around them the way it always did, indifferent to any three people in particular. 

She thought about taking his other arm as they turned onto the walkway. She didn't. She walked beside him instead and watched Grogu twist in his grip to look at everything. 

"We need to figure out how we plan to handle Rax." she said, when they had walked a block. 

"We go in together. Simple." He stated, matter of factly.

"What about Grogu?" She asked, looking towards the squirming kid in his arms.

Grogu made a sound, drew himself up to his full seated height in Mando's arm and was regarding them both with the expression of someone whose capabilities were being systematically underestimated. 

"No," she said. "We don't know enough about Rax yet to know what he'd make of a Force-sensitive child and I don't want to find out in the middle of a conversation." She looked at Grogu more gently now, "You watch the ship. Deal?" 

Grogu considered this with appropriate gravity. Then he nodded. 

"He was fine last night," Mando said. "Didn't get into any trouble." 

Grogu nodded more vigorously at this. 

"I suppose he is older than me." she said. 

"He's older than both of us." 

She stopped walking. 

Mando took one more step before he noticed and turned back. She was looking at him. 

"What's wrong?" he asked. 

She shook her head and started walking again. She had asked him about his age early on, within the first few days of them meeting, when she had been trying to get any foothold of information about who he was. He had said nothing, in the way that meant the subject was closed. She had left it there and assumed she would never know. 

"How old are you?" she finally caved. 

He looked at her as they walked. She could feel him considering, the quality of attention that meant he was deciding something, and then he responded.

"Forty-three." 

Matter of fact. Kept walking. 

She turned the number over. Forty-three. She was not sure what she had expected. Older than her, she had always known that, sensed it in the way he moved and spoke and made decisions. But knowing something by feel and having a number for it were different things. She counted and landed at seventeen years between them. She thought about what those years had built in him, the patience and the steadiness, the way he had taken care of her without being asked and without making anything of it, the complete absence of uncertainty about who he was. She had always known he was older. Having the number just made it make more sense.

She kept walking. 

They moved into a more crowded sector and she felt him shift, his attention spreading outward the way it did when a space required more care. 

"Hood up," he said. 

She pulled it up without question. A moment later his hand settled at the small of her back, guiding her through a tighter section of crowd. 

"This cloak has been remarkably useful on Coruscant," she said. 

"Armour's better," he said. "Nobody recognises me." 

She looked at him. At the beskar, polished and unmistakable, catching the city light on every surface like something that had been designed to be seen.

"Really?" She deadpanned, "you don't think if someone had laid eyes on all of this once they wouldn't spot you from a mile away?" 

He considered this for a moment. "Maybe," he said. "But then they'd run in the opposite direction." 

She laughed and looked up at him. The visor was already angled toward her. She held it for a moment, aware of his hand at her back, thinking about how normal this had started to feel and how she had stopped noticing it and then started noticing it again in a different way. 

That evening they stood in the sleeping alcove with Grogu between them, looking up at both of them with his ears at their fullest extension and his goggles pushed up on his forehead like someone already halfway into a mission briefing. 

"He'll be okay," Mando said. 

"I know he'll be okay, I just-" She looked down at Grogu. "You'll be okay right?" 

Grogu squared his small shoulders. Nodded once. Very serious about it. 

Mando crouched to his level. "We'll be back soon," he said, quietly, the way he talked to Grogu when there was no one else to perform anything for. "You watch the ship. Okay?" Grogu nodded again, more firmly this time. Mando stood. 

"Okay," she said. 

She took one more glance at the lightsaber on the shelf.

She had left it behind last night and it had been the right call. A lightsaber walking into a negotiation said the wrong things. And tonight was still a conversation before it was anything else, and she didn't want to draw the kind of attention that came with it.

They turned to go, climbed down the ladder into the cargo hold. She heard a small sound behind them and looked back. Grogu was standing at the top of the ladder with one hand raised, waving at their backs. 

She waved back. She was smiling before she'd decided to be. 

At the base of the ramp, Mando held the step for her and then, when she turned, offered his hand. She took it without hesitating. They fell into step together. 

"How do you track a target?" she asked eventually. "I've never actually seen you work. Not from the beginning." 

He was quiet for a beat before deciding how to respond.

"The helmet has different view modes. Thermal, low-light, standard. They overlay. Changes what I can see." 

"What does thermal look like? Outlines or more detailed?" 

"More detailed than most people expect. Heat signatures vary. You can read size, movement, whether someone's been running." 

"And tracking beacons? Do you usually plant one before a pursuit?" She continued.

"When I can. In this case we have nothing." 

"We start at the Syrax Lounge then? Since that was our last confirmed location?" 

He nodded.

"Work outward from there. Known contacts, known patterns." He paused. "Having met him already helps. A file gives you a face. Meeting someone gives you the way they move. How they occupy a space. That doesn't come from a photograph." 

She thought about how she had read Rax in the lounge, the careful intelligence of him, the way he had been assessing each of them from the moment they walked in. 

"He's smart enough to know if he's being tracked," she said. 

"Good. Smart targets are predictable in their own way. They vary their routes, take precautions. The variance becomes a pattern if you watch long enough." 

She considered this, wondering if she could be considered a smart target.

"Different from what you expected?" he said, when they had walked another block. 

"I didn't know what to expect," she said. "You've never explained it before." 

She appreciated it though, this willingness to explain what he knew. To treat her understanding of the work as something worth having. 

They reached the Lounge from the previous night. 

He stepped behind her at the entrance and lifted the cloak from her shoulders, the way he had learned to do without being asked, folded it over his arm. She smoothed the front of the dress and looked at the door. 

They went in together. 

The Wookiee bartender registered them before they had fully crossed the threshold. Mando moved slightly ahead of her and put both hands on the bar. 

"You're going to tell us how to contact your boss, or I'm going to describe to you exactly what happens to bartenders who spike paying customers." His voice was menacing.

"No need to threaten my staff." 

The voice came from the back of the lounge. 

She turned. Rax was standing near the rear wall with the easy posture of a man who had been expecting this and had decided in advance how he felt about it. He looked at them both with something that might have been amusement or could have been relief. 

"I was sure you'd start here," he said. He inclined his head slightly in her direction. "I appreciate you dropping the pretences." He gestured toward the back door.

"I'm ready to talk. Shall we?" 

She looked at Mando. Her instinct was to move immediately, to follow Rax through that door before he changed his mind. She held it still. This was his read to make, the operational one, whether Rax was leading them somewhere safe or somewhere where they would be at a disadvantage. She waited. 

He nodded once. 

She moved to follow Rax out. 

The transport was waiting outside where there had been nothing only minutes ago when they arrived. Long, low, interior seats facing each other, the quiet hum of something built for conversation rather than speed. They got in behind him, sat together opposite the Devaronian. 

"I've thought about your offer," Rax said. 

They waited. 

"I'm not interested in being part of the problem when I have the means to be something else. This network exists because the galaxy needs people who can move through spaces the official structures can't reach." He paused. "For a long time that was enough for me. A purpose of a kind, but I've watched these districts since the Empire fell and they are not improving."

She listened to him and thought that he really means this. It was not a negotiating position. It was the actual thought underneath the careful exterior. 

"My brother was a bad seed. I've known it for years." He looked at neither of them, just forward. "The New Republic found his resentment useful. Cultivated it. Funded it. Used him as a lever against me without him knowing it." Another pause,"When he finally understood what he was, he turned on them first so I can't really fault them for what they had to do." 

"They eliminated him," she said. 

"Yes." He said it without grief and without anger, with something more considered than either. "Whatever he did, he was still family. And family means that even when someone is beyond saving, you don't forget them." 

He looked at them both. 

"This is not a simple decision but it is bigger than me and him. But my terms will have to be met. I will only share intelligence through channels that leave no trace back to me. My network continues to operate without New Republic interference or oversight. In exchange I want assurances about how my information is used and protections for people within my network who might be exposed." 

She had been thinking about what the Director had authority to offer when the world went sideways. 

The impact came from the left with enough force to lift the transport entirely and roll it. She had no warning, just the sudden lurch of the floor becoming a wall and then the ceiling, the hard crack of something structural giving way somewhere underneath them.

Her ears were ringing. She was on the ceiling, which had become the floor, and her shoulder had met something unforgiving on the way down and was making its feelings about that very clear. She lay still for one breath, running a check. Head clear enough. Nothing broken. The shoulder would bruise spectacularly but she could move. 

Mando was already beside her, hand on her arm, steadying. "Are you hurt?" 

"No," she said. "Go." 

He checked her face once more, reading whatever he needed to read, then put his shoulder to the ruined door and shoved it open and was gone. 

She turned. Rax was against the far wall, coming around slowly, blood running from a cut above his eye. She pulled her blaster and trained it on the door and listened. Blaster fire in controlled bursts outside. Mando's movement in the pauses between. 

Rax pushed himself upright and focused on her with the sharp clarity of a man who had been in bad situations before. 

"If this is the New Republic-" 

"It's not us," she said. Flat. Certain. "I swear to you." 

He looked at her for a long moment, blood tracking down his cheekbone, and then nodded. She stayed where she was and kept the blaster on the door and let the fear and the focus exist side by side and did not let either of them run things. 

Mando filled the doorway. "Move." 

She went first. 

The street was chaos. Three bodies down already, more figures moving in the shadows at both ends of the block. Rival footmen, she understood immediately. Rax had made himself locatable tonight for their benefit and whoever else had been tracking him had taken the same window. 

She raised the blaster. Mando was already on his vambrace, calling in extraction, coordinates, primary status. She heard the words and kept her eyes on the street. 

Rax appeared beside her. "I know them," he said, low. "Brakkar syndicate. They must have known I would surface tonight." 

"Which direction puts them behind us?" Mando asked, attention entirely on the escape. 

Rax pointed. 

"Let's go" Mando said. 

They moved together. 

She had fought alongside him before, or near him, which was different. Usually she was already moving, already committed to a line, her lightsaber doing its own thinking before the rest of her had fully caught up. She had never waited for him because she had never needed to. The saber was enough. She was enough on her own.

This was different. Without the saber she had nothing to commit to immediately, no instinct pulling her forward, and in that gap she found herself actually watching him, actually reading where he was going and where he needed her to be. And he was doing the same. She learned the shape of it in the first twenty seconds, he always knew where she was, she could feel it in how he positioned himself, the half-step that put him between her and the heaviest incoming angle before she had consciously identified the threat.

She covered what he couldn't reach and trusted him to cover what she couldn't even though her shots were going wide because the blaster felt wrong in her hands, the sighting built for a different style of fighting than the one she had trained in. 

She felt the absence of her lightsaber acutely. She had told herself before they left the Crest that she would be fine without it. She was discovering the distance between fine in theory and fine under fire in an unwelcome way. 

She cursed under her breath at a miss. 

"You're holding your breath when you fire," Mando said, close to her right shoulder. 

"I know." 

"Stop. Breathe out on the shot. And feel it." He shifted her sideways without touching her, just his presence directing, the way water directed. "You have the Force. Use it the way you use the saber. Feel where they intend to move before they move." 

She breathed out. She reached for the awareness she used with the lightsaber, the layer that lived below thought, and the noise and the chaos were wrong and unfamiliar but it was there under all of it, it was always there. She found it and let it spread. 

Movement at her right. Not visible yet but directed and imminent. She turned and fired before the figure had fully cleared cover. 

Mando, immediately to her right, very quietly said, "Good girl." 

She short-circuited. 

Two words in the middle of a firefight with rounds going past her ears and she lost a full second to absolute white noise, standing in a Coruscant street with her blaster raised and her face burning and every thought she had accumulated about those two words arriving in a single wave. 

She fired twice more on instinct. Covered the angle. Moved when she needed to move. 

She held it. Turned it over. Let herself look at it properly. 

Good girl. Said to her specifically, in his voice, and not as a diminishment, nothing about it was a diminishment, it was the opposite of that. It was the sound of someone who had been watching closely enough to know when she had done something right, who cared enough to say so, whose approval had apparently taken up permanent residence somewhere in her chest and had no intention of leaving. 

She moved differently after that. More settled in her own body, more certain of her feet and the Force under them. She felt intentions sharpening around them and let herself be moved by the information rather than waiting for her eyes to confirm it, and a shot went past where she had been standing a half-second before she had consciously decided to move, and from somewhere to her right she heard Mando exhale, short and sharp, the sound he made when something had gone right. 

They pushed back steadily, covering each other, until the pressure in the street dropped enough that Rax said, "I have a club, two sectors over. My people will already be moving there." 

"Lead the way" Mando said. 

They moved to a recessed loading entrance off the main passage and stopped to regroup. Rax pressed his back to the wall, hand over the cut above his eye, and looked at each of them in turn. 

"Brakkar syndicate," he said. "I recognise the insignia. They've been wanting a piece of what I've built for two years." He paused. "My bodyguard was driving. He's dead." He said it without flinching, but she heard the cost of it in the pause that followed. 

"Word will spread that you surfaced tonight," Mando said. "Anyone else with a reason to come after you will hear it. We need to get you off the streets." 

Rax nodded. "Get me to my club." 

"NRI has agents stationed near each of your establishments," Mando said. "They'll be inside when we arrive." He looked at Rax. "We'll cover you the rest of the way." 

Rax looked between them with the expression of a man who had arrived at this situation by a series of reasonable decisions and was now fully committed to it. "I don't appear to have better options." He put his comms unit away. "Let's move." 

She stood at the entrance to the passage and kept her eyes on the street and tried not to hyperventilate. 

Mando appeared at her side. 

His voice came low, for her rather than for Rax, "Stay close. I've got you." 

She looked at his visor and thought about how many times in the last several weeks she had watched him handle something that should have been unmanageable and how he had never once looked like he didn't know exactly what he was doing. 

"I know you do," she said. 

His body language didn't change. Around Rax he was all focus and authority, the bounty hunter, the Mandalorian, nothing personal and nothing uncertain. But the register of his voice when he spoke to her was something she had learned to hear as distinct from all of that. 

"Ready?" he asked. 

"Ready." she nodded. 

They moved fast through the back streets, Rax directing, Mando covering their rear, her on point. Two sectors felt much longer when you were navigating them in the dark with your heart beating in your ears and no lightsaber. She tracked intentions the way he had told her to and twice felt something sharpen at the edges of the street before it resolved into movement, and both times she was already shifting before Mando said anything. 

They were a block out from the club when the fire picked up again, heavier this time, coming from two directions. She ducked behind a support column and fired back and thought to herself we are not going to make it to that door. 

Then fire opened up behind their attackers from a direction she hadn't tracked. She turned expecting NRI agents and found Rax's people instead, organised and moving, the pressure shifting immediately as the Brakkar caught fire from both sides. 

"Move," Mando said. 

They moved. She ran the last block with her blaster up and her lungs burning and went through the club's entrance into darkness. 

The club was dark. Lights off, music gone. And inside, in the careful stillness of people who had been waiting, the NRI agents. 

She stopped in the middle of the empty dancefloor and felt the adrenaline begin its long slow withdrawal. Her hands had stopped shaking by the time she registered they had been. She looked at Mando. He was looking at her with the focused attention of someone running a check. 

"You're not hurt." he said, more to himself. 

"No," she said. "You?" 

He shook his head once. 

She looked at the empty club around them, the absent crowd, the lights off over a bar that had probably been full of ordinary people having an ordinary evening before they arrived.

Before the NRI agents took him through the back, Rax stopped. 

He turned and looked at them both. At her specifically, long enough that she felt it. 

"This wasn't your part of brief" he said. "Staying when it went bad. Getting me out." He was quiet for a moment. "I've been doing this long enough to know when someone is running a secondary angle and when they're not." He looked at Mando briefly and back at her. "I appreciate it. Both of you." 

She nodded. Mando said nothing, which from him was the same thing. 

One of the NRI agents stepped toward them both. "The Director is waiting at your ship. You're to report back." 

She looked at Mando. He looked at her. The same thought, she could tell, arriving at the same moment. 

Grogu was on the ship. The Director, who she did not know well enough yet to feel easy about, was on the ship with Grogu. 

"Grogu," Mando said. 

That was all. They were moving. 

She linked her arm through his at the first thick crowd because the streets were dense and he was moving fast and she was not willing to lose him in the mess. He felt it and slowed, starting to apologise for the pace. 

"No, keep going," she said, and picked up her own pace to match his. 

The Director was standing at the base of the Crest's closed ramp with the patience of a man who had nowhere else to be, hands clasped behind him, looking out across the landing bay with the expression of someone who found it mildly interesting. 

The ramp was closed,no Grogu in sight. 

She watched Mando's hand move to his vambrace and then still as his sensor confirmed what she had already felt through the ship's familiar quiet. Grogu was fine. She let out a slow breath that she had been holding since the word Director. 

She had not expected to feel this way about a fifty-year-old toddler she had known for less than few months.

"Wonderful," the Director said, as they approached. "I'm glad to see you both intact. I understand matters proceeded in an unplanned direction." 

"Rax was cooperative, before the ambush at least." Mando reported.

"Quite." The Director looked at them both with the measuring attention she had come to expect, taking in their state with the professional discretion of someone who noted everything and commented on very little.

"Before we discuss next steps, there's a practical matter I'd like to address." He turned toward the Crest. "I understand that this is your current accommodation." 

She looked at the ship. Its hull plates, the scorch marks she had long since stopped seeing. The lines of it that she could have navigated in the dark. 

"And while it looks entirely adequate," the Director continued, with the diplomatic precision of a man who had chosen words like this many times before, "I do have quarters I can offer you in a residential sector nearby. More room. Better suited for people who are going to be working in this city for the foreseeable future." A pause. "I would feel better knowing my contractors were properly rested and stable." 

She had a response forming. She opened her mouth. 

Mando turned to her. 

She closed it. 

He was looking at her with the quiet attention and she understood what it meant. He was asking. Consulting. For the first time in as long as she could remember, someone was asking her what she wanted before a decision was made, and that person was him, and she understood that it meant something that she was not going to examine standing in a landing bay at whatever hour this was after a firefight. 

She thought about it properly. The Crest meant mobility. She had needed mobility for months, the ability to be gone in under an hour, to change direction, to remain unfindable. She had built a version of safety around that capacity. But they were staying. They had agreed to stay, and had been living in a space that was not quite large enough for three people, one of whom was still growing and bouncing off the same walls and deserved more room than a cargo hold. 

She thought about what a month in one place might feel like. What it might feel like to know where things were. 

"What do you think?" he asked out loud. 

"I think it might be nice" she said. 

They turned back to the Director together. 

"We'll take it," Mando said. 

The Director nodded as though this had been the expected outcome. Mando reached up and opened the ramp. 

She turned to the Director. "Sorry. He has terrible manners, but thank you for the offer, just give us a minute." 

She followed Mando in. 

He was already in the cargo hold, Grogu in his arms, the kid babbling at full speed with his goggles pushed up on his forehead and both hands gripping Mando's collar. She went to up her bunk and started pulling things out, packing without a system, prioritising by what she reached first. 

"I've got him," Mando said, meaning Grogu. 

"And we're going to need things," she said. She kept going. "Clothes. Soap. His food. His-" She looked up. "Oh." 

Mando was already at the storage shelf where Grogu's things lived, gathering them with the efficiency of someone who had done this before. 

She picked up her lightsaber and finished her bag. They looked at each other for a moment across the galley hold before heading back down.

The apartment was on a residential level with a view she had not expected. 

Not the NRI building's altitude, not that abstracted geometry of the city seen from too far above, but high enough that the lights of the lower levels spread below them warm and dense and alive, a city that had been building downward for centuries. She stood at the window for a moment after the Director showed them in and just looked at it. She had lived in those lower levels. She had moved through them for months trying not to be found, and from here they looked like something else entirely, like something that had been built for the purpose of being beautiful at night. 

She thought about what it meant to have somewhere to stand above them for a while. 

The Director showed them around efficiently. The apartment was modern and simply furnished, nothing excessive, nothing that required explanation. Bedroom, fresher, kitchen. Functional. Clean. More space than she had occupied in a single room in a long time. 

Grogu had wriggled free of Mando's arms the moment the front door opened and was now moving through the apartment at speed, beginning with the structural soundness of the couch, which he tested from several angles before finding it satisfactory, then investigating the kitchen with the focused interest of someone evaluating its long-term potential, then doubling back to the couch to verify his earlier findings. 

The Director, reading the room with the professional ease of a man who had arranged a number of things for a number of people, let himself out quietly. 

The door closed. 

She and Mando stood in the entryway. 

The apartment was quiet. Not the ship's quiet, not the engine hum and the recycled air and the sounds of the hull that had become so familiar she only noticed them in their absence. This was different, a residential quiet, the city muffled behind transparisteel and walls, Grogu's small movements the only sounds. 

She looked at Mando. He was looking at the apartment. 

She thought about the Crest and all the cargo hold and the too-small galley and the sleeping alcove that had needed to expand to hold everything they had become to each other. She thought about how little she had owned when she came aboard and how much more she felt she owned now, none of it objects. 

Grogu yelped. 

She turned to find him mid-air, having misjudged the height of the couch arm with characteristic optimism, and caught him before he landed, lowering him carefully to the floor. He looked up at her with the expression of someone who had not been surprised by this at all. 

"Bedtime," she said. "Come on." 

She walked to the bedroom. Grogu followed, pausing at every threshold to register the new surface, the new smell, the new quality of light. The room was simple. A cot by the window, compact and well-made with a good pillow. A large bed against the far wall. 

Grogu made a beeline for the large bed, hauled himself up onto it with considerable effort, and settled himself in the middle of it with the expression of someone who had found exactly what they were looking for. 

"Hey," she said. "You have your own." 

He looked at the cot. Looked back at the bed. Looked at her. 

"That one." She pointed. "That one is yours. It's very nice." 

He considered this for a long moment, then climbed down from the large bed with the dignity of someone making a concession rather than being redirected, and allowed himself to be deposited in the cot. She lifted the goggles from his head. He found the pillow within seconds, turned his face against it, and went still with the speed of a creature prepared to accept sleep on whatever terms it came. She pulled the thin blanket over him and stood for a moment looking at him. 

She straightened up. 

Mando was in the doorway watching them. Not the apartment. Them. 

"Tired?" he asked. 

She combusted slightly. 

She knew what he meant. She was standing in a bedroom in a Coruscant apartment after a firefight and a long day and he was asking whether she needed sleep because it had been a long day. She knew that. She also knew that he had said those two words to her and had spent the subsequent hour carrying approximately eight hundred thoughts about it, none of which were making themselves useful right now. 

"Maybe a little," she said. 

"Go freshen up. Get some sleep." 

Her eyes moved to the single bed, then back to him. Tonight it was a real choice. No fever, no spice, no emergency and no necessity. If he stayed it was because they had both decided, standing fully in themselves and knowing it. 

She went to the fresher. 

It was larger than the one on the Crest and she stood in it for a moment and registered that, the room of it, the fixtures chosen for comfort rather than efficiency. She washed her face, changed into the softer things she had packed and stood at the sink and looked at herself. 

She looked tired but like herself. Her face was her own again in the way it had not entirely been for days. She thought about that for a moment and then put it down. 

She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment longer and thought about all the small pieces she had been collecting without meaning to, without knowing that was what she was doing, and she thought about what they added up to. 

She dried her hands and went out. 

She came out of the fresher and nearly walked into him in the doorway. He was heading in. They stepped around each other without speaking and she went to the living room and lay down on the couch, pulled her knees up, stared at the ceiling.

She thought about the two words again. The way it had landed mid-fight. How she had short-circuited and then caught herself and held it somewhere it could settle. Not embarrassment. Something claimed. She thought about his voice dropping register in the passage, firm for everyone else and different for her, specifically for her, and she thought about that distinction and what it might mean. 

She thought about him sharing his age. About the way he had said it, matter of fact, like it was information she was simply entitled to. She had not expected him to tell her. She had assumed she would never know and had been living with that assumption for as long as she'd known him but now she was thinking about the seventeen years between them and finding that it made him feel more real rather than more distant. 

She heard the fresher run and go quiet. Heard him move through the apartment before he came into the living room. 

Flight pants. Undershirt. Helmet still on. She was looking at him before she had decided to look at him, at the width of his shoulders without the armour framing them, the exposed forearms, tan and muscular. She couldnt help but stare at the lines of his xcest under the thin shirt, clinging so perfectly to him.  

"You done?" he said. Dry. Low. 

She turned her face toward the front of the room. "Sorry," she said. "Goodnight." 

She heard him cross the room. Then the couch dipped slightly behind her head, his hands on the back of it, leaning over. 

"There's a perfectly good bed in there," he said. Close. "And you're going to sleep out here?" 

She turned back. 

He was leaning over the couch watching her, the helmet tilted at the angle she had learned to read as him paying careful attention to something. 

"Are you sure?" she asked, not really wanting to give him the option to take it back. 

He stood. 

Walked toward the bedroom. 

She followed him because that was the only thing she had needed, the indication that it was allowed. 

She got into the bed and faced the door. She kept to her side, left a deliberate gap between them the way they had in the bunk last night, the same careful distance that said I'm here and I know you're there and I'm not assuming anything. 

She lay still and thought about the night and the way his voice had gone soft in that passage when he talked to her. She thought about how her life had looked a year ago and how it looked now and how very different those two things were. 

She was still thinking when his arm came around her middle and pulled her back against him in one unhurried dragging motion. 

Every muscle went completely still at once. 

She felt him go still too, both of them suspended in the same held breath, the movement hanging between them. 

"Is this okay?" his voice directly in her ear. 

"Yes," she whispered. 

She felt him relax. Felt herself relax into him by the same measure, the solid warmth of his chest at her back, the arm settling around her properly now that they had both said it. She lay there in the dark and let herself stop managing everything and just absorbed how it felt to be held by someone who had chosen, deliberately and with full information, to hold her. 

She thought about all the careful distance, all the discipline of wanting something without saying so, and she let herself stop. 

A while passed in comfortable silence before he spoke.

"You did well today."

"I should have brought the saber," she mumbled. 

"I don't think you've ever actually listened to me before," he continued, and the dry edge of it came through the modulator clearly. 

"Mando.." she said in protest. 

A pause. 

"Din." he said. 

She turned to look at him, brows pulling together slightly in confusion. 

"My name, is Din" he said. 

She lit up. She could feel it happening, the smile arriving before she had decided on it, warmth moving through her chest at the deliberateness of it, at the fact that he had chosen now, this dark, this quiet, to hand her this. 

"Din," she said. Quietly. Like she was trying the weight of it. 

She felt him watching her. 

She said it again, and this time it settled somewhere it was going to stay. 

She reached down and drew his arm tighter around her and tucked herself back into him until she could feel him fully behind her, real and present in the way that all the armour and all the silence had held carefully at a distance for so long. 

His arm tightened in return. 

He leaned down, slow, and rested the front of the helmet against her hair, and she felt the weight of it and held still and thought about what he was doing. Not the physical gesture. What it meant. What he was choosing to give her, with three letters and the willingness to be known by her specifically, after all this time of being known by no one. 

Her throat tightened. 

She had become a crier lately, she was aware of this. But this was different from all the other times, this was not pain or fear or shame but something that had no opposite, something that filled her up from the inside without leaving room for anything else. 

"Thank you," she said. 

"Shh," he soothed. "Goodnight." 

She closed her eyes. 

"Goodnight," then she added, "Din." 

It happens at lunch. You are eating with the crew when Usopp laughs and nudges your arm.

“Hey, aren’t you gonna get your boyfriend?”

You blink. “What?”

Sanji, cleaning his hands with a towel, nods toward the deck “That moss-brained idiot. You always bring him to meals. It’s like a little routine between you two now. Like a couple…”

“We’re not—” You nearly choke on your drink “We’re not a couple!”

Usopp grins “Then why do you always take so much care of him?”

“Because he’s stupid and forgets to eat!” you say, standing up “I’ll go get him, but not because of whatever weird ideas you guys have.”

You walk away while they laugh behind you.

You find Zoro exactly where you expect, napping against the ship’s railing, his swords next to him.

You roll your eyes and shake his shoulder “Oi, wake up. Lunch is ready.”

Nothing.

You shake him harder “Zoro. If you don’t get up, I’ll eat your food.”

He grumbles and waves his hand, like he’s trying to swat away a fly.

Sighing, you do what you always do. You grab his wrist and pull him up with both hands. He lets you. He always does, like it’s natural.

Zoro blinks at you, still half-asleep “Huh. You again.”

“Yeah, me again,” you say “Come eat before Sanji ‘forgets’ to save you anything.”

You’re still holding his wrist, making sure he doesn’t fall back asleep. That’s when you notice Nami and Robin watching from across the deck, smiling.

“What?” you ask, feeling awkward.

Nami smirks “You two are cute.”

Your face heats up “We’re not—he’s not—we’re not together!”

Robin chuckles “You do take care of him a lot.”

Zoro frowns, confused “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” you mutterl “Come eat.”

You let go of his wrist too fast and walk away, ignoring the warm feeling in your chest.

You think it’s over, but now you notice things.

Zoro always sits next to you at meals, even when there are other seats. You always save food for him without realizing. And during fights, he always protects you first, like it’s a habit.

And, worst of all, people keep pointing it out.

“y/n,” Chopper asks one day, tilting his head “Are you and Zoro dating?”

You almost trip “What?! No!”

“Oh...” He looks confused “But you act like it”

You groan “Not you too”

After that, you can’t stop thinking about it.

The next time you wake Zoro up, your fingers stay on his wrist a second too long. The next time he pulls you behind him in a fight, your heart beats faster.

And then one evening, when you catch him watching you with a thoughtful look, you realize you might be in trouble.

That night, Zoro speaks first.

“Oi”

You look up from your seat on the deck “What?”

He leans against the railing, arms crossed “Does it bother you?”

You frown “Does what bother me?”

“What people are saying” His eyes stay on you “About us.”

You swallow “Why? Does it bother you?”

He doesn’t answer right away “No” his voice is quieter than usual.

Your stomach flips and you look at the ocean “I mean… it’s just dumb teasing, right?”

Zoro doesn’t reply. Instead, he watches you for a long time. Then, finally, he smirks.

“Doesn’t really matter what they say” he says, voice calm but sure “I’d still stick with you either way.”

Your breath catches and suddenly, your heart won’t let you ignore this anymore.

For the next days you try to brush off what the crew said.

You really do, but it’s impossible to ignore when Zoro keeps acting the same way.

Like when you’re on lookout duty together, and he hands you his jacket without a word.

Or when you spar with him, and he pulls his hits just enough so you don’t get hurt.

Or when you fall asleep on the Sunny’s deck, and you wake up covered with a blanket, one you know you didn’t grab.

And every time it happens, you catch the crew watching. Smirking.

It’s driving you insane.

One afternoon, you finally decide to do something about it.

You find Zoro by the training room, lifting weights. His shirt is half undone, sweat glistening on his skin, but you shove that thought aside.

You cross your arms “Hey, Zoro.”

He grunts in acknowledgment, not stopping his reps.

You hesitate “…Why do you treat me differently?”

He finally sets the weight down, wiping his face with a towel “What?”

“You heard me...” You shift uncomfortably “You do things for me that you don’t do for anyone else.”

Zoro leans back against the wall, looking at you like you just asked a stupid question “So?”

“So?” You huff “That means something, doesn’t it?”

He shrugs “I guess.”

You blink “That’s it? You guess?”

Zoro sighs, scratching his head “Look, I don’t really think about it. I just—” He pauses, then shrugs again “I want to.”

Your heart skips a beat “…What?”

“I want to do those things for you,” he says simply “it’s not a big deal”

You stare at him “Not a... Zoro, are you serious?”

He frowns “What, you don’t like it?”

“That’s not the point!” Your face feels hot “You don’t do this for Nami or Robin or anyone else!”

Zoro looks at you, unimpressed “Yeah. Because it’s you.”

You freeze.

The way he says it, so blunt, so obvious, it makes your stomach flip.

He isn’t flustered. He isn’t overthinking it. He’s just stating a fact.

“…Oh.”

Zoro crosses his arms, watching you carefully “Is that a problem?”

You swallow “No. It’s just…”

It’s everything. It’s him always being there, always looking out for you, always treating you like someone important.

It’s a realization you should have had ages ago.

You let out a breathless laugh “I’m an idiot.”

Zoro raises an eyebrow “Well, yeah.”

You smack his arm. He smirks.

But when your hand lingers just a little too long, he doesn’t pull away.

And suddenly, you both understand... this isn’t just a habit.

It never was.

Ever since that conversation in the training room, things between you and Zoro have… shifted, but not in a bad way.

He still trains for hours. Still naps in random spots. Still bickers with Sanji.

But now, when you sit beside him, his arm naturally rests along the back of your chair.

Now, when you fight, he doesn’t just watch your back, he makes sure you’re never out of reach.

Now, when you look at him for a second too long, he looks right back.

Like he’s waiting.

Like he’s giving you the choice.

One evening, you find him on the Sunny’s deck, looking out at the ocean.

“…Can’t sleep?” he asks.

You shake your head, stepping closer “Thinking too much.”

Zoro smirks “Dangerous habit...”

You huff a laugh but don’t argue.

Instead, you stand beside him, silent for a moment before you finally ask...

“Do you regret telling me?”

Zoro frowns “Telling you what?”

“That you… actually treat me differently. That you want to.”

His jaw tightens slightly “No.”

Your heart does something strange “Good.”

You don’t give yourself time to hesitate.

Before doubt can creep in, you grab him and pull him down.

Zoro freezes.

For half a second, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t even breathe.

Then a quiet growl rumbles from his chest, and his hand cups the back of your neck as he kisses you back.

It’s firm. Solid. Like he’s been holding back for too long and refuses to anymore.

When you finally break apart, Zoro leans his forehead against yours, exhaling through his nose.

“…Finally” he mutters.

You grin “You were waiting for me?”

“Wasn’t gonna rush you” His fingers brush your jaw “You get there when you get there.”

You hum, leaning into him “And now?”

Zoro smirks “Now, you’re stuck with me.”

You kiss him again, just to make sure he knows you wouldn’t want it any other way.

── .✦ Sanji:

Sanji has always been a flirt. That’s just how he is.

He calls Nami and Robin “my love” and “my dear”. He spins around the kitchen whenever they compliment him. He offers to carry their bags when the crew goes shopping.

But when it comes to you, it’s different.

It starts when the crew is eating dinner together.

“Sanji, can you pass the salt?” you ask.

Instead of handing you the salt shaker, Sanji grabs it, twists off the lid, and sprinkles just the right amount onto your plate.

You blink “Uh. Thanks?”

“Of course, my dear” he says smoothly. Then, as if nothing happened, he turns back to his own plate.

You think nothing of it... until you notice the way the others are watching.

Usopp raises an eyebrow “Did he just season your food for you?”

“Yeah?” You shrug “What's new about it? He's a chef and he’s just being nice.”

Luffy grins “He doesn’t do that for anyone else.”

“That’s not true,” you argue “Sanji treats everyone like this.”

Nami hums “Not exactly like this. If we wanted more salt he would start a lecture about how it would ruin his masterpiece.”

Before you can ask what she means, Sanji stands up to grab dessert. He places a plate in front of you first. It’s your favorite.

The crew stares.

You stare too “Sanji…”

He smiles “What? I made extra for you.”

Usopp coughs “Yeah. Okay. Totally normal.”

Robin chuckles behind her hand.

You shake your head and go back to eating. It’s nothing. Sanji is just being Sanji.

…Right?

But then, you start noticing other things.

When you’re cold, Sanji drapes his jacket over your shoulders without you asking.

When you need something from a high shelf, Sanji wordlessly reaches up and hands it to you.

When you’re about to trip, his hand is always there to steady you.

And every time, every single time, he does it so naturally that you don’t even think about it.

Until one day, Franky whistles and says, “You two sure act like a couple.”

You nearly drop the drink in your hands “What?!”

Sanji, who was stirring a pot at the stove, pauses.

Franky leans against the counter, grinning “You two do all that coupley stuff. He gives you the best food, takes care of you, treats you differently from everyone else—”

“That’s not true,” you say quickly “Sanji’s like this with everyone.”

Franky snorts “Nah. He does flirt with everyone. But this?” He gestures between you and Sanji “This is different.”

You glance at Sanji. He’s staring into the pot, silent.

Your face feels hot now “You guys are reading too much into things.”

“Sure we are...” Franky says, smirking. Then he leaves.

The kitchen is quiet now. You swallow and turn to Sanji.

“…Is it true?”

He looks at you. His usual confident smile is gone. Instead, there’s something softer in his eyes.

“I don’t know” he says “is it?”

Your heartbeat quickens.

Suddenly, every touch, every sweet gesture, it all feels different.

Maybe it wasn’t just a habit.

Maybe it was something else all along.

After all this the teasing has only gotten worse.

Ever since Nami and Usopp pointed out how Sanji treats you, they will not let it go.

“Here comes Sanji’s beloveeeed~” Usopp sings when you walk into the kitchen.

“I should start charging you for all the extra food Sanji makes only for you” Nami smirks.

Even Luffy, who usually doesn’t care about these things, grins at Sanji one afternoon and says “Oi, cook, when are you gonna marry y/n?”

Sanji chokes on his cigarette so hard he has to brace himself on the counter.

You groan and drag a hand down your face.

But what really drives you insane?

Sanji never denies it.

He stutters, blushes, waves his hands, but he never says “That’s not true.”

Because it is true.

And it’s starting to drive you crazy.

You try to ignore it. But then you start noticing things, even the smallest ones.

Sanji never lets you carry anything heavy.

He always pours you tea first, even before Nami and Robin.

He adjusts your chair at dinner like it’s second nature.

And the worst part? He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

But you do.

And now, every time he gives you that look—the one that’s soft, full of admiration, like you hung the damn sun in the sky—your heart stumbles over itself.

This has to stop.

Or something has to change.

It happens one evening after dinner.

You’re in the kitchen, helping Sanji clean up. He hums as he washes the dishes, sleeves rolled up, golden hair falling over his forehead.

You watch him for a second, then take a deep breath.

“Sanji.”

He glances at you, smiling “Yes, my love?”

You grip the counter “Why do you act like we’re together?”

Sanji freezes.

The faucet keeps running. The kitchen is warm with the smell of spices. But Sanji is frozen.

Slowly, he turns his head toward you “…P-Pardon?”

You cross your arms “You treat me differently. Even the crew notices. You never do this stuff for anyone else.”

Sanji swallows hard “I—”

“You never deny it,” you press “and honestly? I’m tired of waiting for you to finally say something.”

Sanji stares at you like you’ve just flipped his entire world upside down.

His hands shake. His lips part like he wants to speak, but nothing comes out.

“…Sanji.” Your voice softens “Do you want this to be real?”

A shuddering breath leaves him. He looks at you, eyes wide, vulnerable.

“More than anything...” he whispers.

Your heartbeat stutters.

That’s it. That’s all you need to hear.

You step forward, grab the front of his shirt, and kiss him.

Sanji malfunctions.

His entire body locks up, like his brain has completely short-circuited.

For a solid two seconds, he does not move.

Then a noise escapes him, something between a whimper and a desperate sigh, and his hands come up to cup your face, pulling you closer.

The kiss is warm, overwhelming, but soft, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he holds on too tight.

When you finally pull away, he’s redder than his own suit.

“…M-Mon amour,” he breathes, voice shaking “You...you actually...”

You smirk “Took us long enough, cook.”

Sanji makes a strangled sound and immediately buries his face in your shoulder, arms wrapped tight around you.

Outside, the crew is losing their minds.

“TOLD YOU!” Usopp shouts.

“I WON THE BET!” Nami cheers.

“Oi, Sanji, you alive in there?” Zoro snickers.

Sanji doesn’t answer. He’s too busy melting against you, whispering sweet nothings into your skin.

And honestly?

You think you’ll let him.

── .✦ Law:

Law is not the kind of person who likes physical contact. He doesn’t let most people touch him. He keeps his distance, always standing at the edge of conversations with his arms crossed. If someone bumps into him, they get a glare.

But for some reason, you are different.

It starts when Bepo hands you a coat one evening.

“Here,” he says, tail flicking “you left this in the lounge.”

You blink at it. It’s black, long, and definitely not yours.

“This isn’t mine” you say, confused.

Bepo tilts his head “Oh. But you always wear the captain’s coat, so I thought it was yours now...”

You freeze.

“Wait. What?”

Shachi walks by and hears the conversation. He grins “Yeah, you totally do. Every time you’re cold, you steal his coat.”

Penguin nods “And Law never complains.”

You open your mouth. Close it. Try to remember.

…Okay, maybe you have borrowed Law’s coat a few times. But that’s just because it’s warm! And because it’s there! And because...

Oh no.

Your stomach twists “I... I do not...”

“Sure you don’t...” Shachi teases “What’s next? Calling him ‘dear’?”

You groan and shove the coat at Bepo before walking away.

But now, you can’t stop thinking about it.

After this, you start noticing other things. Like how Law always lets you into his personal space.

How you can tug his hat down over his eyes without him pushing you away.

How he casually rests his hand on your shoulder when he stands next to you.

One day, you trip over a loose crate. Before you even hit the ground, a familiar blue glow surrounds you... Law’s Room.

In an instant, you’re back on your feet, completely unharmed.

The Heart Pirates snicker.

“Captain didn’t even think” Penguin whispers.

“He never uses Room for anyone else’s clumsiness” Shachi adds.

You glare at them “I heard that.”

They just smirk.

Law doesn’t say anything. He just sighs and keeps walking, like saving you without thinking is the most natural thing in the world.

Your heart does something weird. You ignore it.

Later, you sit on a crate, arms crossed. Law stands next to you, reading a medical book.

You glance at him “Your crew keeps calling me ‘Captain’s partner.’”

He doesn’t look up “So?”

“So, why?”

He flips a page “Probably because you act like one.”

Your brain short-circuits.

You stare “Excuse me?”

Law finally looks at you, raising an eyebrow “You’re always in my quarters, you steal my coat, and you act like you belong next to me. They’re not wrong.”

Your face burns “I... You let me do all that!”

He smirks “I know.”

You open your mouth, but no words come out.

Because suddenly, you realize... he has let you. And he still is.

Ever since Bepo and the others pointed out how Law treats you differently, it’s been impossible to ignore.

The extra care during missions. The way he always stands just a little closer than necessary. The way he lets you touch him, his arm, his shoulder, even his hand, when no one else would dare.

But what really gives him away?

The way his ears burn red every time you get too close.

And yet he never says anything.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was running an experiment to see how long he could keep this up before you lost your mind.

So tonight you’re calling him out.

You find him in his quarters, buried in medical books.

“Hey, Law.” You lean against the desk, arms crossed “Can I ask you something?”

His eyes flick up “What?”

You tilt your head “Do you like me?”

Law chokes.

Not just a little cough... he full-on chokes on air, slamming his book shut as if that’ll somehow save him.

“What—?!” He coughs into his fist “Where the hell did that come from?”

You raise an eyebrow “You tell me.”

Law scowls, shifting uncomfortably “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Oh? Am I?” You step closer.

He stiffens “What are you...?”

You place your hands on the arms of his chair and lean in, caging him in.

His breath hitches.

Oh. Oh.

He is not prepared for this.

“Law,” you murmur, watching his face closely “you never let anyone touch you, but you let me.”

His jaw clenches “That doesn’t—”

“You always make sure I rest. You check my injuries before anyone else’s.”

“Because you’re reckless—”

“And...” you lean even closer “your ears are red right now.”

Law swallows.

You smirk “So, wanna try again?”

For a long moment, he just stares at you, lips parted, golden eyes darting between yours.

Then, in a last-ditch effort, he growls... “You’re annoying.”

You hum “Maybe.”

And then you kiss him.

Law goes still.

For the first time since you’ve known him, he is completely speechless.

But then a quiet sound escapes him, and his hand suddenly grips your wrist, holding you there.

You almost pull back, unsure, until his other hand slides around the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair, and he kisses you back.

It’s hesitant at first, but when you don’t pull away, something shifts.

The kiss deepens, his grip tightens, and the heat radiating off of him is enough to make you dizzy.

When you finally part, Law exhales sharply, pressing his forehead against yours.

“…You’re gonna be a problem” he mutters, voice rough.

You grin “Yeah?”

His fingers tighten in your hair “Yeah.”

And then, despite everything, he kisses you again.

Because for once in his life he’s done running.

── .✦ Ace:

Ace is naturally affectionate.

He throws an arm around people’s shoulders, laughs loudly, and grins like the world is a joke he’s in on. He’s warm but also because he makes people feel welcome.

So it’s not weird that he touches you a lot.

Right?

It starts when Marco sits down next to you, smirking.

“You and Ace finally together, yoi?”

You look at him confused “what do you mean?”

“A couple… are you two a couple?”

You almost drop your drink “What? No!”

Marco raises an eyebrow “You sure? He always saves you a seat at meals. Always gives you his food if you ask. Always keeps an eye on you during fights.”

You roll your eyes “That doesn’t mean anything. He’s just like that.”

“Not with everyone” Marco takes a sip of his drink “Just you.”

You open your mouth to argue, but then you don’t know what to say, because now, you’re thinking about it.

The next time Ace sits beside you at dinner, you notice how he slides his plate a little closer to yours, letting you steal his food.

The next time the crew docks at an island, you notice how he instinctively waits for you before walking off together.

The next time you’re about to trip, you don’t even get the chance to fall, Ace grabs your wrist and steadies you like it’s second nature.

And maybe it is second nature.

“Careful, Ace,” one of the division commanders teases “If you keep acting like that, y/n might actually think you’re in love.”

Ace laughs, scratching the back of his head “Yeah, yeah.”

You laugh too. Because it’s just a joke… Right?

One night, you sit together on the deck, watching the ocean.

You fidget for a second before saying “The crew keeps calling us a couple”

Ace hums “Yeah?”

You glance at him “Why do you think that is?”

He leans back, arms behind his head, and grins “Probably because we act like one.”

You choke on your own breath “Excuse me?!”

Ace tilts his head “I mean, we do everything together. You always take my food, and I always let you. You always pull me out of trouble, and I always let you. Feels natural, doesn’t it?”

Your brain short-circuits.

Because now that you think about it... yeah, it does feel natural.

“…Ace,” you say slowly “Are we...?”

He looks at you, amusement flickering in his eyes “What do you think?”

Your stomach flips.

Because suddenly, you’re not sure where the habit ends and the feelings begin.

After this, Ace keeps flirting with you all the time.

It’s just who he is.

Winks across the deck. Throwing an arm around your shoulders. Calling you hot stuff like it’s your actual name.

You’re used to it.

But after the teasing from Marco and Thatch, after realizing that Ace treats you differently, you start to wonder.

Is he just playing around? Or is there something real underneath?

There’s only one way to find out.

The perfect opportunity comes one afternoon, when Ace flops down next to you on the Moby Dick’s deck, grinning.

“Hey,” he drawls, resting an arm behind his head “Miss me?”

You smirk “I saw you literally two hours ago.”

“That’s two hours too long.” He winks “Bet you were thinking about me the whole time.”

You hum, tilting your head “You really think that, huh?”

Ace chuckles “C’mon, you love me.”

You raise an eyebrow “Prove it.”

He blinks “Huh?”

You shift, leaning closer with a sly smile “You say all this stuff, Ace. You flirt, you tease... but are you actually serious?”

For the first time, he hesitates.

Just for a second, but it’s enough.

“…Of course I am,” he says, but his usual confidence isn’t all there.

You smirk “Then show me.”

Before he can react, you grab his hat, his precious hat, and plop it onto your own head.

Ace short-circuits.

“Oi! That’s...!” He reaches for it instinctively but stops mid-motion, staring at you.

You tilt the brim with a smirk “What? You said you liked me, right?”

Ace swallows “Y-Yeah?”

“Then just take it back.”

You expect him to snatch it back playfully.

What you don’t expect is for Ace to grin, eyes flickering with mischief, and suddenly tackle you onto the deck.

You yelp as he hovers over you, forearms braced on either side of your head.

The crew whoops in the background, but neither of you pay them any attention.

Ace smirks down at you “You think you’re funny, huh?”

You grin “A little.”

Ace shakes his head, chuckling, but then his expression softens.

He reaches up, tilts the hat back just enough to see your face properly.

And then without thinking he leans down and kisses you.

It’s grinning into the kiss kind of playful. It’s warm and teasing but full of something deeper.

And when he pulls back, face way too close, he murmurs “Now you gotta prove it.”

Your heart races.

You don’t back down. Instead, you tug him down by his necklace and kiss him again.

This time, Ace melts.

When you finally break apart, Ace huffs out a breathless laugh.

“Well,” he grins “Guess you do love me.”

You roll your eyes “Shut up.”

But you don’t stop him when he kisses you one more time.

Because, honestly?

He’s right.

── .✦ Sabo:

Sabo is easy to be around.

He’s kind, smart, and always ready to listen. He laughs at your jokes, never forgets your favorite things, and somehow always knows when you need him.

So it’s no surprise that you spend a lot of time together.

But apparently, the way you act around him is a little… suspicious.

It starts when you’re walking through the Revolutionary Army base with Koala.

“So,” she says casually “when are you and Sabo going to make it official?”

You nearly trip over your own feet “What?!”

Koala grins “Come on, don’t play dumb. You two already act like a couple.”

You scoff “No, we don’t.”

She raises an eyebrow “Oh really? Who’s the first person Sabo looks for when he gets back from a mission?”

“…Me.”

“Who’s the only person he lets borrow his gloves?”

“…Me.”

“And who’s the only one he lets fall asleep on his shoulder without complaining?”

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out.

Because—oh.

Oh.

Koala smirks “See what I mean?”

You shake your head “That doesn’t mean anything. We’re just close.”

She shrugs “If you say so.”

But now, you can’t stop thinking about it. You start noticing things, like how Sabo always finds a reason to sit next to you during meals, or how he reaches out to fix your collar or tuck your hair behind your ear like it’s normal, or how he always makes sure you have a blanket when you fall asleep at your desk, even though no one else gets that treatment.

And the worst part?

Now that you’re paying attention, everyone else is too.

“I swear, it’s like they’re married” one soldier mutters.

“They finish each other’s sentences” another whispers.

“Bet they don’t even realize” someone else chuckles.

You groan and drop your head onto the table.

Sabo, sitting beside you, blinks “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing” you mumble.

He frowns, then wordlessly slides his drink toward you.

You stare at it “…Did you just give me your drink?”

He shrugs “You like it more than I do.”

You glance around. Several soldiers are watching now, smirking.

Slowly, you push the drink back to him.

Sabo looks confused “You don’t want it?”

Your face burns “Nope. I’m fine.”

He tilts his head, then shrugs and takes a sip.

The others snicker.

You sigh.

Later that night, you sit beside him on the rooftop, watching the stars.

“Sabo,” you say carefully “do we… act like a couple?”

He hums “Why?”

“People keep saying we do.”

Sabo leans back on his hands, thinking. Then he smiles “I guess I can see why.”

Your heart skips a beat “You can?”

“Well, we’re always together,” he says easily “I trust you more than anyone. You take care of me, I take care of you. Feels normal.”

You stare at him “That’s… kind of a couple thing, don’t you think?”

Sabo looks at you for a long moment. Then he smirks.

“Well,” he says, voice teasing but gentle “do you want it to be?”

Your breath catches.

And suddenly, the answer seems obvious.

Sabo has always been easy to be around.

You never have to force a conversation. Never have to second-guess his presence.

He’s just there, a steady warmth beside you, the hand that always steadies your back when you walk through the Revolutionary camp, the person you find yourself naturally leaning against when you’re tired.

And the thing is?

He never pulls away.

Even now, sitting beside you near the fire after a long day, his arm rests lightly along the back of your seat. Close enough to feel, but not demanding.

It’s natural.

But tonight, something’s different.

There’s a quiet between you, not uncomfortable, but charged with something unsaid.

You don’t know who moves first, but suddenly your head is resting against his shoulder, and instead of shifting away, Sabo just exhales softly, tilting his head against yours.

You close your eyes, feeling the warmth of him, the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

“…I like this” you murmur, barely thinking.

Sabo hums “Me too” A pause. Then... “I always have.”

Your heart stutters.

Slowly, you lift your head, turning just enough to meet his gaze.

His expression is calm, too calm, like he’s waiting for you to understand something he’s known for a long time.

And you do.

Because of course it was always him.

You don’t say anything. You don’t need to.

Instead, you reach up, gently tracing your fingers along his jaw.

Sabo closes his eyes briefly at the touch before opening them again, watching you with something unreadable, something deep.

Then, without hesitation, he leans in.

The kiss is slow, certain.

It’s not rushed, not desperate because this was never a question.

It was always going to be this.

When you part, Sabo lingers, his forehead resting against yours.

His hand finds yours, fingers lacing together easily.

“…Feels like we should’ve done that a long time ago” he murmurs, lips brushing against yours.

You smile “Maybe. But I think we got here at the right time.”

Sabo chuckles softly, squeezing your hand “Yeah. I think so too.”

She didn't know how long she had been standing under the shower. 

It had gone cold a long time ago. She hadn't moved, just stood there and let it run over her and thought about nothing, or tried to. The cold felt good against the heat under her skin. She didn't know what to blame for it. Exhaustion? The alcohol? The spice she hadn't known she was drinking? Or the thing she kept circling back to, which was the memory of Mando in the service passage and the way his voice had dropped below the modulator so she felt it more than heard it, then the way everything had gone wrong immediately after and she'd ended up feeling small and cold and stupid on a Coruscant street while being led back to the ship by the hand. 

He'd held her hand all the way up the ramp. She'd felt his grip shift as they came through the cargo hold, like he was about to say something, and she had moved before he could, before she had to see his face and decide what to do about it. She'd come straight here. 

She reached out and turned the water off. 

The fresher was quiet. She stood there dripping wet as she thought about what she was doing and arrived at the conclusion that she was wallowing, which was not productive but felt deeply necessary. She had not even thought to bring her clothes in. She had simply needed to be as far from him as possible on a very small ship, and the fresher was the only room with a door that closed. 

She reached for a towel and wrapped it around herself. Then she reached for the door handle and stopped. 

She felt him before she touched it. 

His presence on the other side of the door was as familiar to her as her own hands by now. She had spent months learning the grammar of him, the way he occupied space, the weight he put on silence. She had assumed he would have gone to the cockpit to avoid her the way they'd been doing for days, the careful choreography of two people who had decided the other side of the ship was safer. 

But things had changed in that alley. She had felt it settle into place the same way his words had settled, and the problem was she didn't know what to do with it. She had spent so long wanting something she had convinced herself she wasn't allowed to want that actually having it approach was almost worse. Almost.

His words kept echoing through her mind. If not there then where? If not like this then how? The questions sat in her chest and she had no answers for them and she had been standing in cold water for twenty minutes and there was a man outside her door who was still there. 

She slid down the glass panel until she was sitting on the floor, back against the wall, legs crossed, towel wrapped tight. She looked at nothing and let time pass. 

She thought about asking him to leave but couldn't bring herself to say the words. Asking him to leave required admitting she couldn't face him, which required acknowledging why, which was the whole problem.

She could hear Varen's voice from years ago, cold and clear in the back of her mind.

You make yourself small and you call it caution.

She didn't want to be that person. She also couldn't stand up and open the door. 

So she sat.

He stayed. 

After a long time she heard him try the handle. 

He found it unlocked and stopped. She could feel the quality of his pause, him registering that the door wasn't locked and deciding what that meant. He did not push it open. 

The gold dress hung on the back of the door where she'd hung it when she'd stepped out of it. It caught the light the same way it had in the shop, the shimmer moving through the fabric, and she looked at it and thought about this morning, the too-small mirror, the confidence it had given her. That felt like it had happened to a different version of her. The dress had been about being seen. About looking like herself again after weeks of not. Now it just looked like evidence. 

She heard the long exhale through the modulator. 

The handle released. 

She heard his weight shift. The small sound of him beginning to turn away. 

She was on her feet and opening the door before she'd decided to stand. The movement was too fast and the room tilted sharply. She grabbed the door handle and held on for a moment, waiting for it to settle. The cold water hadn't fixed anything,  just delayed it. She breathed through her nose until the floor stopped moving and then opened the door the rest of the way. 

Not because she was ready. Because she couldn't face another silence. She had spent ten days in the silence and she knew exactly what it cost her. 

She opened the door and said, "Wait." 

He stopped. Turned back toward her, came to stand a few feet away and looked at her. She was aware, suddenly, that she was standing in the corridor in nothing but a towel with her hair stringy and half dry, she felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with the towel. He didn't seem to register it. His attention was on her face, focused and concerned, the same way he focused on a situation he was trying to assess. 

She looked at his chest. 

"I'm sorry," she said. 

Her throat did something she hadn't given it permission to do. She swallowed and held it back and kept her eyes down. 

"What for," he said dragged out, clearly confused.

She looked up. "For earlier." 

He tilted his head very slightly to the side.

"Are you apologising," he said slowly, "for almost leaving with the target?"

"Outside the lounge," she said. "In the passage." She watched his face, or the visor, for recognition. It didn't come. He was looking at her with the same expression of someone who genuinely didn't understand.

"I threw myself at you," she said, flat, because apparently they were doing this.

"I'm sorry. You were very decent about it and I'm sorry it happened." 

He looked at her for a long moment. 

She stared at him. 

He tilted the helmet to the other side. Looked at her. She looked back. The ship was uncomfortably quiet around them and she had the distinct impression that they were having two completely different conversations that neither of them knew how to fix.

"I thought you meant the mission," he said finally. 

She pressed her lips together. "I didn't mean the mission." 

"Right," he said. 

A silence. 

"Right," she said, for no other reason besides filling the quiet.

Neither of them said anything else for a long moment. 

"You don't need to apologise," he said. "You didn't know what was in the drink." 

"I know I didn't know. That's not-" She stopped herself short. "It's not about that." 

"Then what is it about?"

She looked at the floor. She thought about saying it and couldn't find the shape of the words, the way to say I pressed my mouth against your neck and asked you to give me something and you said no and I felt like a fool without sounding exactly as foolish as she had felt.

"It doesn't matter," she said. 

"It clearly does." 

She looked up at him. He was still looking at her with the focused attention of someone who intended to stay in this corridor until he understood what was happening, she thought about telling him that his patience was the most infuriating thing about him but decided to save that for another time. 

"I was embarrassed," she said. "That's all." 

He said nothing for a moment. Then he looked at her, properly, the way he sometimes looked at things when he was running some internal calculation, she saw something shift in his expression, in the angle of his head, and he looked down. 

"You need to get dressed," he said. "And into bed." 

She was grateful for the change of subject even though part of her wanted to shake him. "I feel really hot." 

"I know." He tapped the side of the visor once. "Thermal imaging." 

She stared at him. "You can see that?" 

"Since the door opened." 

She thought about asking how long he had been able to measure that. She decided not to. 

She looked back into the fresher at the gold dress hanging on the door. The shimmer. The ties across the back. The way it had felt putting it on this morning, like something being reclaimed. She thought about putting it back on and her stomach turned over. 

"I don't want to wear that again," she said. 

He looked at the dress. Looked at her. Didn't ask why. 

"Your bag isn't here," he said. "I'll find something." 

He turned and walked down the corridor. She heard the sleeping alcove curtain. Heard him going through things, carefully, and then a pause, and then drawers again. He came back with a folded stack that was clearly not entirely hers. Soft shorts that she recognised, but the shirt on top was larger than anything she owned, worn thin at the collar, smelling of him when she took it. 

He held the pile out without looking at her directly, then turned and faced the corridor wall. 

She stood there a moment and looked at his back. Then she went back into the fresher and closed the door. 

Dressing took longer than it should have. Her hands were unreliable. Halfway through pulling the shirt over her head she had to sit on the closed lid and wait for the room to settle, and she sat there and breathed and heard nothing from outside except him being there, and was grateful for it. 

"Okay," she said. 

He turned back. 

She watched the way his body organised itself when he looked at her, the slight change she had learned to read as concern, she thought about saying she was fine then dismissed it, it just wasn't true.

"Come here," he said. 

She followed him out to the sleeping alcove. Grogu was asleep in his hammock, ears drooping, making small sounds in his sleep. She sat on the edge of his bunk. He sat beside her, then moved behind her, his hands finding her hair. She understood what he was doing and said nothing. He worked it back without knowing quite what he was doing, until it held. 

She pulled it over her shoulder to look at it when he finished. 

"It looks awful," she said. 

"It's functional." 

She huffed, ran one finger along the edge of the braid, feeling where it held and where it was loose. She committed the feeling to memory anyway, the sensation of his hands, the focused quiet of him concentrating on something this small. 

She thought about Nevarro. About lying in his bed there after the dark troopers, about the way he had checked the wound on her side with such careful attention, and she remembered thinking, somewhere between pain and exhaustion, something she shouldn't have thought. She had seriously considered getting hurt more often so he would take care of her like this. She was aware that this was a deeply unhinged thing to consider but the feeling lingered.

"Are you only going to be like this when I'm on the verge of death?" She asked.

He stopped. 

She felt him look at her. 

He said nothing. 

She turned to look at him. He looked back at her with the stillness that meant the question had landed and he had decided not to answer it, which was its own kind of answer, and she thought about pushing and decided against it. 

"Can you eat something?" he said. 

She looked at him pointedly for a moment. He didn't give her the answer she was waiting for. She dropped her shoulders and gave in. "No. I don't think I could keep much down." 

He reached into the medkit he'd set on the shelf and took out an injector. Bacta, she realised, as he pressed it to her arm.

"The stims," he said, as he worked. "They function by flooding your system with cortisol. Your body reads it as a crisis and responds accordingly, redirecting every resource into basal function. Keeping you moving. The immune system, the digestive system, anything non-essential gets paused while the rest runs at capacity."

He set the empty injector down, let his other hand linger over her arm. "The cortisol debt accumulates the whole time. Your body has to pay it back eventually, and the recovery takes far longer than the stims themselves buy you." 

She said nothing. 

"Add spice to that," he continued, "and you're spiking everything at once. Heart rate. Temperature. Neural activity. A system that's already been running on artificial stress for over a week doesn't have the reserves to handle that kind of load." He looked at her. "Your heart could have given out." 

"I know," she said quietly. 

"Why were you taking them?" 

She looked at her hands. She thought about how to say it in a way that was accurate without being more than she was ready to give him.

"When I was shot that night, the pain opened something I'd been keeping closed without realising." she said.

"There's a Force bond between me and Varen. I didn't know it was still there. I thought when I left and the connection cracked it had broken on both sides." She paused. "It hadn't. When I was hurt it opened and I felt him come through. Which meant he could feel me. Where we were. What was around us." She looked up. "When I sleep my defences drop. I don't know what he can see when that happens. I don't know if he can find us from it." She stopped. "I was scared. It's that simple. I was scared and I didn't know how to fix it and the stims kept me functional enough to keep working on it." 

He was quiet for a moment. 

"You should have told me," he said. 

"We weren't speaking," she said. 

He had nothing to say to that. She watched him not have anything to say to that and felt something in her chest ease slightly. 

She thought about the other part, the part she couldn't say yet. That she had been afraid of what Varen might see if he looked through the bond while she was sleeping. Not just the location. What she thought about. Who she thought about. She had spent weeks keeping herself awake partly because of the crack in the wall and partly because she was terrified he would look through it and find her thinking about Mando and decide that was a reason to stop hunting her and hunt someone else in her place. 

She did not say this. 

"You don't have to carry everything yourself," he said. "And you don't have to decide things for me." 

She looked at the floor, unable to bring her eyes to meet the visor.

"There's a lot we need to talk about," he said. 

She looked up. "Yeah. Let's do that." 

"Not now." 

"You just said that-" 

"I know." He cut her off.

"Then why not?" 

"Because I need you alive for long enough to argue with me." 

She laughed. A short and exhausted laugh, but a laugh all the same.

"Sleep," he said, "you need a couple of weeks of taking it easy. No single-handedly fighting off armies." 

"Then back to business as usual." she said. 

He walked over to the cockpit and she thought, as he went, about the pilot's chair. About how she had kept herself upright through sheer refusal for nine days and then sat down in his chair and her body had simply given up. She had woken in her own bunk and known it was him who had moved her. 

She thought about that now. She had been fine, or her version of fine, until she was close to him in some form or another. Until his presence was close enough to feel. And then something in her had simply released, like a fist unclenching, like a breath let out after too long held. She didn't know what to call that. She turned it over and sat with the question of whether it made her weak, or whether there was another word for it that she hadn't found yet. 

He returned and stood infront of her, offering his gloved hand. She took it but didn't move to stand.

"I don't want to sleep in my bunk." she said. 

He looked at her. She watched something move through him, some conflict working itself out behind the visor. She could see it in the set of his shoulders, the slight change in his posture. He was worried about something. She thought about what it might be. Thought about the alley and what he'd said and what she'd done and understood. 

"I know what it sounds like," she paused, "I just don't want to be alone now." 

He was quiet for long enough that she started to take it back internally. Then, "Alright." 

He hesitated for just a moment before he sat back down on the edge of his bunk and reached for the first pauldron. She watched him from where she stood and then, when his hand moved toward the second one, she leaned forward and put her hand over his. 

He went still. 

She looked at the visor, checking. He didn't stop her. She unclipped the second pauldron and held the weight of it a moment before setting it on the shelf beside the first. Then she knelt in front of him and worked through the rest of it, the chestplate, the vambraces, each piece in the order she had absorbed from weeks of watching him suit up. 

The position was the problem. She was aware of it. She had imagined being on her knees in front of him before, in the disordered delirious week of not sleeping, but the context had been entirely different. This was nothing like that, and it was somehow more. This was him sitting still and letting her, with the most deliberate form of trust from a man who did not trust easily. She had spent weeks doubting whether he trusted her at all, not with the missions, but with himself. 

She set the last piece down and looked up at him from where she was. 

He reached down and put his hands under her arms and pulled her up, taking her weight, easy. 

She sat beside him on the edge of his bunk and heard Grogu make a small sound in his hammock beside them, resettling in his sleep. 

He pulled the blanket back. She got in and faced the inside wall. He lowered himself in after her. They lay with a deliberate gap between them, hands to themselves. The alcove was dark. She could feel his warmth at her back and thought to herself that this is enough. Whatever came next, this was more than she had allowed herself in a very long time. 

She was asleep before she finished the thought. 

She woke to something warm tucked under her chin. 

She came back to herself slowly, the way she hadn't managed in weeks. No jolt. No wall to press at. Just warmth and the sound of the ship and the gradual return of her own body feeling like hers. 

She lay still and thought about last night before she opened her eyes. She thought about his hands in her hair, careful and unpracticed, the mess of it. She thought about his fingers after the bacta injector, the way they'd stayed a moment past necessary. She thought about the service passage, about the heat of his arms around her and the warmth of the beskar and all of it, and she smiled into the dark before she even knew what she was smiling at. 

She opened her eyes and looked down. 

Grogu had wedged himself between them sometime in the night, his back against her chest, one small hand fisted in her shirt. He had filled the narrow gap they'd maintained and somewhere in the night her bare leg had come to rest against Mando's. 

She thought about moving it. 

She didn't. 

She looked at Grogu instead. The round of his cheek. She ran one finger over the top of his ear, very gently, and felt him stir and press himself further into her chest. She pressed a small kiss to the top of his head. 

This felt right. She held that thought and found nothing to argue against it. 

She assumed Mando was asleep. If he were awake he would be doing something practical, in the cockpit or the hold. He would not just be lying here. 

She let her eyes drift up. Not far. Just to the edge of a sleeve. The fold of the blanket. 

She looked back down at Grogu. 

The alcove was very quiet. 

She was perfectly still and thought if she stayed here a little longer she wouldn't have to think about the alley and the service passage and everything she had said and done and was going to have to find a way to live with. 

"Morning," he said. 

She went completely still in a different way. 

He had been awake. She didn't know for how long and was not going to ask.

"Morning," she said. Toward Grogu, essentially. 

A pause. 

"How are you feeling?" 

She had forgotten about the fever. Her temperature felt normal. The elevated strange quality of last night had cleared. Her hands were steady. She was tired in the ordinary way of someone who had slept, which was so different from everything she'd felt recently that it took her a moment to recognise it as just fine. 

"Better," she said. "I think." 

"Good." 

Grogu chose this moment to wake, stretching both arms in opposite directions with the confidence of someone who had decided the sleeping arrangement was correct and expected everyone to agree. He looked up at her, his neck craned to look behind him, with the expression of someone whose most optimistic reading of events had been fully confirmed. 

He cooed. 

She laughed. Small and real and completely unguarded. She pressed her face into the top of his head and felt something loosen in her chest that had been tight for a very long time. 

Behind her, something in Mando relaxed. She could feel it even without looking. 

After a while she heard him move, the careful sounds of him getting up without disturbing Grogu, and then the familiar sequence of the armour going back on. Pauldrons first. Then the chestplate. She lay still and listened to it and thought about having taken it off piece by piece last night and felt something warm move through her chest. 

When the sounds stopped she got up carefully and straightened the blanket, tucking it back into something resembling order while Grogu watched with the air of someone supervising. 

"You look good," Mando said. 

She paused. Looked down at herself. His shirt, a little too large, hanging off one shoulder. 

"In that," he added, which did not help as much as he probably intended it to. 

She didn't know what to say to that. She thought, before she could stop herself, that she was sure he'd look good out of his. The thought arrived with such clarity and such complete inappropriateness that the heat climbed her face before she had a chance to do anything about it. She turned back to the blanket and smoothed it again, which it did not need. 

"You're heating up," he said. His voice had shifted, sharpened. "Is the fever-" 

"It's not the fever," she said. "I'm fine." 

She turned to face him. Gave him a slow, deliberate once-over, from the boots to the visor. Then she met his eye line and said, "I promise, it has nothing to do with the fever." 

He looked at her for a moment. Then he reached out and took hold of her wrist, and the contact was warm and certain, and she thought he was about to say something. 

The notification from the cockpit cut through the ship with the efficiency of something that did not care what it was interrupting. The Director's channel. She heard the words urgent debrief before she'd even fully registered what was happening. 

Mando let go of her wrist. 

They looked at each other. 

"We have to go," he said. 

"I know," she said. 

They didn't even get to have breakfast. 

The Director's office was the same. Transparisteel wrapping around, the city spread below, furniture chosen to communicate careful consideration. He was at his desk when they were shown in and looked at them both with the measured attention of a man who had been deciding what to say. 

There was a caf machine on the credenza along one wall. She glanced at it once, not quite a request. Mando crossed to it without a word and came back and set a cup in front of her before taking his position beside her. She looked at the cup before she picked it up. She looked at the side of his helmet and smiled into the cup. The Director observed all of this with the quiet attention of a man who was paid to notice things and had just noticed several. 

"I imagine," he said, "last night did not go entirely to plan." 

"We had a complication," Mando said. 

"We screwed up," she said at the same time. 

She looked at him. "A complication?" 

"The operation was-"

"You walked in early." 

"There were circumstances that we hadn't planned for." 

"We can work through the details at a later time." the Director said, efficiently. He folded his hands. "What I can tell is that contact was made before the situation deteriorated. He was receptive. That is more than we had yesterday." 

She looked up. 

"He didn't reach out," the Director continued. "But our agents on the ground confirmed he left the lounge in a considered frame of mind rather than an alarmed one. There is still a conversation to be had." He set his hands flat on the desk. "The question is how you intend to approach it." 

"We go back," she said. "Same approach. I go in first, re-establish the conversation. This time Mando comes in at an agreed point rather than early." 

Beside her, she felt Mando go still. 

"Together," he said. To her, not the Director. "Or we don't go at all." 

She looked at him. 

"I'm not waiting outside again." he said, decided. He wasn't going to budge on this one.

She held his gaze for a moment. There was something in the angle of the helmet that she recognised and chose not to argue with right now. She turned back to the Director. 

"Together," she said. "With a plan we both actually follow this time." 

The Director's attention moved briefly to the distance between them, which was smaller than it had been at their first meeting, and returned to his desk without comment. 

"That may serve you better than you expect," he said carefully. "Rax is a man who values knowing what he's dealing with. Knowing where the Mandalorian is may be more useful than having him hidden." He set a datapad on the desk. "I'll arrange for contact to be re-established on our end. In the meantime, two other items." 

They stayed another twenty minutes. By the time they left she had the outline of a cargo retrieval job and the beginning of what felt, cautiously, like a working arrangement. 

Mando's hand found the small of her back as they walked toward the lift. 

The Director, she noticed, was watching them go. 

They were in the lift when she said it. 

"I'm going to need a new outfit." 

He sighed. 

"Something I can actually move in this time." 

"Of course you do."

"Which means we should go back to that market." 

He looked at the lift doors. 

"I'm picking it this time," he announced. 

She looked at him. "Really?"

He said nothing, which she had learned to read. 

"What if I go back and get the first one I showed you?" she asked teasingly. "The leather one." 

"No," he said. Immediately. Without qualification. 

"Why not?" She rebuffed.

The lift reached the ground floor. He stepped out. She followed, and without thinking about it she reached out and took his hand to stop him. 

She looked up at the visor. 

"Tell me," she said. 

He looked at her hand in his. Then at her face. There was something in the angle of the helmet she had spent months misreading as professional attention and was only now beginning to understand as something else entirely. 

"You know why." he said eventually.

The city moved around them, indifferent and enormous. 

She didn't let go of his hand.