#swb writes

The child cooed at you and, once you were confident your legs would support you both, you automatically reached for him. Mando relinquished without complaint, and you approached the Razor Crest without a hint of the uncertainty that you were attempting to bury.

Silence had been a part of your life for so long, it felt natural to cradle the baby in silence as Mando passed you, set coordinates, guide the ship from Navarro’s scarred surface. The only sounds were the mechanical whirring of the engine and the little one’s exhausted chirps against your shoulder and you rested your lips against the top of his head. Silence suited you, you’d learned that long ago, when your Tatooine masters had stolen your voice and your sense of self, two things that had only started to return under the protection of a Mandalorian and his tiny, powerful foundling. But now, now that silence you had lived in for so long granted you nothing but the opportunity to allow too many thoughts to buzz through your head.

Because you could see it as clearly as if it were happening again before your eyes.

You could almost feel the solid, unyielding beskar against your knees as you knelt next to the Mandalorian. You could see, behind your exhausted eyelids, the way the flames had reflected in his helmet as you clung, pleading wordlessly, to the chest plate of his armor.

“You just had your bell rung a little,” you heard Cara reason somewhere beside you.

You’d nodded, trying to focus your eyes through the rapidly gathering tears, and reached back to cradle his head gently. You’d pulled your hand away in shock at the wetness you’d found there, gaped at the scarlet fluid that coated your fingers. Blood. His blood. Without thinking, you’d reached for his helmet, your slim fingertips curling under its edge before his hands gripped your wrists.

“No,” he’d gasped. You released the helmet immediately, instead gripping his fingers in yours, squeezing against them in an attempt to convey your confusion.

“No, cyar’ika. No. Take the child and go,” his voice sounded so weak, but so certain.

You’d shaken your head violently.

Cara had tried to reason with him too, but he’d not moved, not released your hands. And though you couldn’t see them, you somehow knew his eyes remained on you. When he spoke again, it was clearly directed at you as much as it was at Cara.

“Take this,” one hand freed yours to pull something from around his neck. He pressed the necklace into your hand.

“Take this and the child, and go. Go to the covert. Tell them you and the child were under my protection. They’ll take care of you.”

“No!”

Your own voice had startled you as much as anyone. You felt Cara shift next to you and dimly registered that she’d not heard you speak before. Stars, Mando had only heard your voice a handful of times. Your hand released his to cling to his armor again.

“Cyar’ika,” he’d murmured softly, smoothing your hair.

“No!” you’d repeated, giving his chest plate an emphatic shake.

“The child needs you,” his voice was so gentle. You could see your tears splash against the beskar that covered his chest.

“Us,” you’d gasped.

“No,”

“Us!” you were having to work to keep the hysterics out of your voice

He’d managed a weak sigh, then rested his hand against the back of your head and pulled you down to him, resting your forehead against the brow of his helmet.

“Cyar’ika, please. Let me have a warrior’s death. Take the baby. Keep him safe,” he’d begged.

All you could do was sob against him in response. You felt the helmet rest against the top of your head and, had his face been uncovered, you’d sworn he would have breathed the words into your hair.

“This is the Way.”

You hadn’t noticed the movement of the droid behind you, and it only came to your attention when it spoke, thrusting the baby into Cara’s arms.

“Protect the child. I will stay with the Mandalorian.”

You felt Mando lightly push at your chest, pushing you away from him, and barely heard him gasp once more.

“Go.”

You’d stumbled to your feet and held your arms out instinctively for the baby, which Cara handed you almost as naturally before heading to the opened grate, her eyes lingering on Mando as she went. You turned to the IG Unit, vision blurry.

“Please,” you whispered.

The droid provided no answer, and you turned to follow Cara. You glanced over your shoulder and let your gaze linger for a moment on him as you reached the open grate. You then glanced down at the bundle in your arms, the tiny green face and wide black eyes, and nodded to the child. The sensation of Cara’s hands on your waist, half guiding, half pulling your through the grate, caused your eyes to turn one more time to the Mandalorian before he disappeared from view.

Your Mandalorian.

Your Mandalorian.

“Here,” his voice was closer than you’d expected, right in front of you in fact.

You hadn’t realized you’d been swaying on the spot, eyes closed, the baby fast asleep in your arms. So, when you opened your eyes again, Mando was directly in front of you, his hands carefully enclosing around the child.

“I’ll take him,” he said gently, delicately pulling the baby from your grasp. You nodded, staring at him, trying to will yourself to believe he was alive. Just as you had been doing since he’d returned to you in the tunnels beneath Navarro.

You watched him pace across the cargo hold and nestle the child into a crate filled with blankets. A poor substitute for the pod Kuiil had fashioned, you thought sadly, but it would do. Mando turned back to you after a moment, his hand still lightly caressing the baby’s ear.

“You should get some sleep too,” he said.

You shook your head, your mind lingering on thoughts of Kuiil for a moment, feeling suddenly wide awake and rather bold. Making up your mind, you let out a small huff through your nose and gathered your courage before marching across the cargo bay and gripping the Mandalorian by the upper arm.

He obviously had no intention of resisting you or you would never have been able to manhandle him into the refresher like you had. Perhaps it was surprise; you’d certainly never made such a move, never touched him without invitation before. His footing was a little crooked as you forced him into the cramped space and shut the door, allowing the automatic light to snap on. He stood silently as you turned on the water in the sink and extracted the gentle yellow liquid baby soap from a small shelf just inside the door, nor did he protest when you began stripping one of his arms of his armor.

Which was for the best, because you were abruptly furious with him. Furious that he’d tried to die, tried to leave you alone with the child. Furious that he’d tried to take what security you had, and one of the few things in the galaxy you might just love.

You checked the temperature of the water against the inside of your wrist, as you did when bathing the child, then dipped a soft cloth in the warm liquid before squirting a small amount of soap onto it. Then you shoved the sleeve of his undershirt up and began scrubbing at his skin heatedly, wiping away the soot from the fire.

“Never again,” you declared coldly, working your cloth up his arm.

His helmet tipped to the side.

“Cyar’ika?”

You simply glared at him in response.

He allowed you to steadily undress him and bathe him, seemingly too stunned by your fervor to do anything else. He didn’t speak again until your fingers found the dried blood on the back of his neck.

“You don’t need to do this,” he said softly.

You’d positioned yourself between his knees as he’d sank down to sit on the toilet before you. At this height, his visor was roughly level with your collarbones, and you leaned back to meet what you knew were his eyes without seeing them.

“Never again,” you repeated.

Then, rather abruptly, you turned to the wall and shut the light off.

It took only seconds to adjust to the total darkness. You turned back to him and lightly tapped the side of his helmet with your fingernails. He seemed to get the message and, with the security of the darkness of the refresher, didn’t hesitate as you’d expected. You felt him shift, first up, then down, and the silence of the small room was broken only by the sound of metal on metal as he put his helmet on the floor next to you.

Your fingers trembled slightly as you explored his face gently before taking the washcloth and cautiously wiping across the skin you found there. You felt him close his eyes as his lashes brushed against the heel of your hand. You washed his face, then worked your way through his hair, carefully loosening the sweat, blood, and dried bacta that had made such a mess of his curls.

“You know I can’t promise that,” he said after a moment, the glory of his unmodulated voice ringing in your ears.

You were glad the darkness obscured the frown that crossed your features.

“No, Mando. Never again,” you said softly.

You wiped the soap from your fingers, placed the cloth back in the sink, then cupped his face between your hands. You felt him lean into your touch as you did this, his face turning upward toward yours.

“This,” you said firmly, “Too important.”

You heard his breath hitch slightly at your words as you stood frozen for a moment. You meant the words. He’d saved you from your tormentors. He’d taught you to be a person again. How could he think you could let him go so easily? How could he not know how you felt about him?

Carefully, slowly, you leaned toward him. He was already so close; you could feel his breath on your chest as you lightly pressed your forehead to his, nuzzling gently as you did so. His hands found your waist, then snaked up your body until his fingers were splayed across your ribcage, pulling you ever so slightly closer, into his lap fully. You felt his face surge forward, the movement so slight that your fingers barely moved as his lips ghosted against his.

Your throat, as it so often had, refused to provide the words you wanted to say.

So, you kiss him back.

And oh, oh. The fact that he was the center of your universe was hardly a surprise to you, but to feel the same need coming from him? It was like a brand-new world had cracked open in your heart as you clung to him and took as much of his breath as he could give you, trying just as hard to give him your own.

“Don’t leave me,” you pleaded in a gasp.

You heard what might have been a laugh. A soft, warm sound that you felt reverberate through his chest as he held you.

“I won’t promise you that, Cyar’ika,” he murmured, pressing his lips against your shoulder as you nuzzled against his temple, “I can’t. But I promise you that I’ll always return. To you. Here. Home.”

Squinting at the over-bright screen, you pressed unnecessarily hard on the little green circle, not really taking a good look at who was calling before holding the phone to your ear.

“Hello?” you muttered, your voice muted by drowsiness.

“There’s m’girl!” came a familiar voice on the other end of the line.

You paused. Your still mostly asleep brain was having trouble catching up.

“Jack? What’s wrong?” you managed to get out.

You heard him hum into the phone for a moment. Sitting up, you pressed the heal of your hand into your eyes and waited in trepidation. Jack wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency, would he? Not on a night this important

“S’nothin, sweetheart,” he said, his words slurring together enough to tell you he’d had one too many, “’M just out with Tequila and E-eh…Eggsy and Harry and…remembered how much I miss you.”

Okay, maybe a few too many.

“You miss me?” you asked, trying to keep the bemusement in your voice to a minimum.

Another lazy pause followed your question.

“Always do, sugar,” he drawled, “Always miss you when you ain’t on my arm.”

Before you could think of a good response to this, Jack’s voice floated back through the speaker, this time in a faintly wobbly tune:

“You may think that I'm talking foolish You've heard that I'm wild and I'm free You may wonder how I can promise you now This love that I feel for you Always will be But you're not just time that I'm killing I'm no longer one of those guys As sure as I live This love that I give Is gonna be yours until the day that I die Oh baby I'm gonna love you forever Forever and ever, amen As long as old men sit and talk about the weather As long as old women sit and talk about old men If you wonder how long I'll be faithful I'll be happy to tell you again I'm gonna love you Forever and ever Forever and ever, amen”

Somewhere in the middle of this, you’d set your phone on speaker phone and laid it on your pillow, snuggling back down into the satin pillowcase and listened to his rich, though vaguely out-of-tune serenade. Odd as this was, you found yourself smiling wide enough that your cheeks ached.

“Jack?” you cooed, interrupting as he took a breath to continue into the second verse.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice bright with curiosity as he seemingly forgot that he’d been singing.

You sighed dreamily.

“I love you so much,” you murmured.

“Love you too, baby,” he echoed fondly.

“But… it’s 3 o’clock in the morning” you continued mildly

“Mhm,” he hummed, obviously not following.

“And we’re getting married in seven hours.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, as if the exact proximity of your wedding had slipped his mind somehow.

“That we are, sugar. That we are,” he finally said.

“So please tell me you’ll be more sober by then?” you pleaded gently.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, sounding slightly less inebriated already.

You smiled tenderly at the phone.

“I love you,” you repeated, “Drink some water and get some sleep. I’ll see you in seven hours.”

“Can’t wait,” he purred.

“Goodnight, Jack.”

“Goodnight, [y/n],” he yawned in response, “I love you.”

“Forever and ever,” you quoted softly.

You swore you could hear him grinning as he answered.

And two days ago, she’d given him a baby girl.

It was a whirlwind of memories and emotions. He vividly remembered blatantly panicking when she’d started having contractions. He remembered getting stuck behind a tractor on the road to the hospital, an event that raised his own blood pressure far more than his unflappable wife’s contractions seemed to be raising hers. He vaguely remembered long hours of ice chips and people he didn’t know sticking their hands on and in parts of his wife that he didn’t like other people touching. And he remembered the words she’d chanted at him as her fingers tightened around his.

“I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay,” she’d breathed, as if he were the one that needed comforting in all of this.

Though when the doctor placed their daughter on his wife’s chest – a pink, squirming little person with his own dark hair and her mother’s composure – his vision had blurred with tears so badly that the nurse had to guide his hands to cut the umbilical cord. Funny that a man who could shoot a play card in half at a hundred yards couldn’t stop his hands from shaking long enough for this one moment, he thought afterward, but nobody seemed to hold it against him. His wife had wiped his tears away with her thumb as she cupped his cheek with one hand, cradling their newborn with the other.

The night at the hospital had been thankless as nurses popped in every two hours to check that mom and baby were still alive and breathing. The procedure that accompanied hospital discharge the next morning had taken much longer than Jack had considered necessary and provided the new parents with a small ream of printed handouts that Jack suspected he’d never see again. He’d spent almost twenty minutes hunting for the car in the oversized parking garage, and at least another thirty fiddling with the brand new, untouched car seat in the back seat of the car while his bemused wife and a slightly impatient nurse’s aid watched. Then, he’d taken his little family home.

They’d been greeted by his mother, his wife’s parents and oldest sister, and about half the senior staff of Statesmen. Tequila had slapped Jack on the back as if he’d had anything to do with the events of the last twenty-four hours. The entire group had taken turns cooing over the baby, who managed to make thoroughly puzzled expressions at every new face she met. There were pink balloons and teddy bears and a cake bearing a welcome message to the newest Daniels. His sister-in-law, a mother of four in her own right, had agreed to spend the first month in their guest bedroom while her brood hung out at their grandparents. The festivities had lasted a good two hours before Jack met [y/n]’s eyes and had seen the same exhaustion that had settled into his bones reflected there.

Once the house was again blissfully quiet, Jack had watched as she nestled their little one into her new bassinette, crawled into bed beside him, and promptly passed out in a dead sleep. Jack had followed nearly immediately.

It was going so well. Jack honestly couldn’t recall being happier.

Which was why, when he left his sister in law pacing the floor of the nursery with the baby, he was shocked to find her curled up in their bed, facing the wall away from him, clearly sobbing while simultaneously trying to stifle the fact that she was crying.

“Baby?” he asked from the door.

No answer. She didn’t react as if she’d heard him. He approached carefully, the jubilation he’d felt for days seeming to leak out of his shoulders.

“[Y/N]?” he said softly.

His knees bumped the edge of the bed before he sank down onto them, half shuffling on his knees, half crawling, toward her. He was bewildered, stunned. She never cried. Something must be terribly wrong.

She rolled over to look at him as his weight shifted the balance of the mattress. Her eyes were red rimmed and puffy, and her lips swollen from biting them. It still took his breath away at how beautiful she was.

“[Y/N],” he repeated weakly, “what…why…are you okay?”

She managed a halted, stuttering sort of humorless laugh.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice shaking.

“Tell me, sweetheart,” he urged, settling down onto his hip to lay next to her.

She winced, as if whatever flitted through her mind were something to be ashamed of.

“My boobs hurt,” she finally said slowly. Then, picking up steam, “My boobs hurt, and I’m fat and ugly. Our baby hates me. And I cry at those stupid abused animal commercials all the time now.”

Jack just gawked at her.

“You… baby, you’re not fat and ugly,” he said.

She scoffed.

“You just had a baby, [Y/N]. You aren’t fat, you’re healing. And you have no idea how beautiful you are.” He recognized that he sounded like he was pleading with her.

She sniffled a little, eyes widening as he scooted closer to her and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her close enough that he could bury his nose in her hair.

“I won’t argue with you about the commercials. And I can’t say whether your boobs hurt but if they do, I won’t say. They look good though,” he added, glancing down at her swollen breasts in appreciation.

That earned him a half smile as she rolled her eyes. He laughed softly, earning a slightly wider smile before her face fell again.

“But our baby doesn’t hate you,” he said seriously.

She averted her eyes from his again. Her bottom lip trembled.

“Why does she cry when I hold her then? She’s so good for my sister. She’s quiet for you,” she muttered, her voice cracking a little.

“Honey, look at me,” Jack said firmly.

She did. Her eyes were filling with tears again, wide, and – for the first time Jack could remember – begging for his assurance.

“She doesn’t hate you,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly, giving each word the gravity he felt it deserved, “she adores you. Three days ago, she was inside you. You’re all she’s ever known, sweetheart. She cries for you because she knows you’ll take care of her. You always have.”

He didn’t mean to make her cry again, but all the same her tears spilled over. Immediately, he pressed his lips to her cheeks, his tongue lightly darting out to catch the salty tears there. She giggled through her tears as he tightened his hold on her.

“Why does she settle right down when you hold her, then?” she asked, her voice wavering.

“She’s just like her mama,” he answered, pressing his lips to her forehead.

She laughed again, settling into his arms. They were both quiet for several minutes, listening to each other breath.

“I love you, Jack,” she finally said, her voice muffled as her face was pressed against his neck, “You’re such a good father.”

He smiled gently.

“I love you too, sweetheart. You’re doing so good with her. You’re a great mama and we’re gonna learn how to do this together, okay?”

He leaned back to see her eyes again. She nodded, smiling fully now.

“It’s all brand new,” he added, grinning at her.

And then she leaned in to kiss him.