I'll Do The Same { Din Djarin x OC}

Chapter Twenty Six: Heal

author's note: wow oh wow. the amount of reception i've been receiving from this story is just amazing... i could never thank you all enough!!

cw//: this chapter deals with an array of emotions and themes of guilt/death/abuse/etc

. . . . 

Thell didn't even remember falling asleep.

But suddenly, before she came to fully, she could feel the cold press of armor on her cheek and a form breathing beside her. Blinking groggily, she raised her head, nearly jerking away in surprise as she realized the Mandalorian was sleeping beside her. She knew they had moved at some point down into the cargo hold, and Thell had been extremely tired. It had been weeks since things had been quiet with everything going on, where just the two of them had been able to sleep soundly.

She hadn't dreamed of the man who had pretended to be her father... She dreamed of Grogu, of the way he would sit on her shoulders and play with her hair or coo softly in his sleep. Thell knew Din had a mission to complete: to return Grogu to the Jedi or have him choose his own path... Whatever the case, Thell dreaded when that day would come.

She was sitting between Din's legs, her own legs swung over his thigh while she leaned against him. Din was sleeping, his head leaned back against the wall, and she could hear the soft breaths coming from inside his helmet. She had been lying against his chest, her arms curled into her own chest while one of Din's hands lay across her knees. The other had been wrapped around her back, but was now draped to the side. She hadn't seen him sleep in full light before like this; she wondered if his face was relaxed, if his brows were tensed like they sometimes were when they talked in bed. She let her fingertips linger against his pauldron, tracing the small details of the Mudhorn insignia on the armor. That's when she felt him shift against her, his helmet popping up.

"Hi, runi," Thell murmured, drawing her hand back and not able to keep the wide smile on her face away as she used his new nickname. Din had to lean back, looking at her through the helmet. She smiled at him regardless, even though she couldn't see his expressions. She raised a hand slowly, letting her fingertips draw down the curves of his helmet, following the indents where his cheeks would be.

"Are you okay?" He asked, and Thell knew he was meaning deeper than just the question itself. They had rarely talked about her confrontation with the stranger on those cliffs, besides the parts Din had heard through the commlink.

Pulling her legs back to sit criss cross between his open legs, Thell gently took his hand in both of her's, holding it in her lap. She started softly, telling Din every detail of what had happened between her and that man, everything that he haunted her with. She didn't cry until she mentioned how he had her find him in the crowd of Kijimi, and forced her to try and kill him. She didn't even cry over the fact that she had shot the man who had poised himself as her father, and it terrified her.

"I... I wasn't going to, I didn't want to," she whimpered, rubbing her palm into her eyes. "But he tried to make me. I couldn't do it, Din, even if he had tried to kill me. I... I care too much about you for that. I couldn't live with myself knowing I had done that."

She hadn't spoken this openly about her feelings towards him in weeks, not since the day she had told him she loved him over the commlink. When he hadn't responded, and all those feelings of dread had come creeping in. She had rarely had time to talk to him about it, having been equally fed up with him and her supposed father's reappearance.

Instead of responding, he gathered her close, hugging her to his chest with one hand cradling the back of her head. Thell nuzzled into his neck, just where his helmet dipped inwards, and dug her fingers into the back of his cape.