SEE ME, SEE YOU: Series Two

C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N

THIRD PERSON POV

"So this is where you've been." Mando stepped in through the sliding panel and into the home of Tilly and her husband. Reina, sitting at the table with the frog people, turned her head and smiled. "Here I am." She then bowed her head to Tilly and her husband, bidding them a fond farewell. "Thank you for allowing us to wait for him here." With the baby in her arms, she joined Mando's side and the three of them headed back to the Razor Crest.

Back at the docks, the Mandalorian and the bounty hunter gazed at the supposedly-repaired ship...It was a sloppy mess, patched together with a mixture of welded metal, ropes, hose clamps, and half-ass effort. Mando looked over at the Mon Calamari dockworker. "I gave you a thousand credits, and this was the best you could do?"

"He said he could make it fly," Reina defended the worker, who had shrugged at the comment. "Not make her pretty..."

Mando was handed the receipt, in which he approved it with no other argument. He, Reina, and the child then boarded the poor Crest. Inside, nets and more ropes dangled from the walls, where they had been used for various types of makeshift repairs. Reina could sense the stress building up inside the Mandalorian as he heavily sighed with frustration and took hold of the controls, activating the main thrusters. They all felt the thrusters tremble as the ship miraculously rose from the port.

"Mon Calamari...Unbelievable..." he muttered, in which Reina scoffed in amusement. The child was giggling in delight in her arms. Mando's entire body bounced around with the ship as he glanced over his shoulder to them. "I finally know where I'm taking you," he said directly to the baby. "but it's going to be a bumpy ride."

"That's putting it lightly..." Reina mumbled to herself. Mando hit a button and the Crest lurched forward violently, leaving Trask behind as he prepared to jump to hyperspace. Almost instantly, the Crest was sputtering through space, engines stalling at the cut-rate Mon Calamari repair job began to disintegrate around them in real time. Reina followed Mando down to the cargo hold, where he pulled back a dented metal panel, revealing a dark narrow shaft that neither of them could reach very far in. However...

"No, that's a terrible idea." Mando stared at his partner, who shrugged helplessly.

"Do you have a better one?" she asked in a monotoned voice.

Mando let out a long sigh and stuck the baby inside the shaft and guided him with the best of his ability, Reina giving moral support. The child poised himself over a partially dismantled circuit board of exposed wiring.

"Alright..." Mando said. "let's try this again. Do you, have the wire?" Reina had to fight the urge to laugh as her partner spoke in slow, articulated words. On the other side, the child, visibly confused, glanced the wires he managed to disconnect in both his tiny hands, his brow wrinkled. The problem was, he now had to put them back in reverse... "Now," the Mandalorian continued. "you're going to plug the red wire, where the blue wire goes on the board. Put, put the red wire—yes—the red wire where the blue goes. But don't let them touch."

Reina peered in the shaft behind Mando's shoulder and her bottom lip stuck out in pity at the confused, hesitant baby. "Poor thing...Try again, Din. Maybe a little slower?" She had to hand it to her partner, for he was being very patient with the child.

"You see where you took the blue wire out? Yes. Now, put the red one—no, don't put the blue one back...Put the red one where the blue one was, and the blue one where the red one was." He and Reina watched as the child began fiddling with the wires. "Be, be careful. Those wires are oppositely charged, so keep them apart. Make sure you hold them apart—no, hold them—"

"Oh, oh, wait—" Reina reached out.

Too late.

There was an audible pop of electrical current and a puff of smoke that floated from the scorched hairs on top of the baby's tiny head. Both Reina and Mando sighed in defeat. "Are you okay?" The Mandalorian calmly asked. The child looked at them and blinked.