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Mando gingerly dropped the metal ball into the child's hand and swivelled around in his chair, Hebe was nowhere in sight. He thought she would accompany the child up into the cockpit. He quickly slid through the doors and travelled down the ladder to the main floor. He couldn't see her at first but somehow he could feel her presence in the room. He peeked over some boxes and he found her figure leaning against the wall, her knee was bleeding profusely and her clothes were covered in dirt, her hands were by her knee and we're stained red from where she had tried to stop the bleeding, she barely looked conscious. Mando didn't waste any time gathering his medical equipment and a big bowl of water. He nudged her and a weak noise rolled out of her mouth.
He tended and stitched up her wound, she'd become more awake by then. He turned his attention to her ruined clothes. "Don't move. I'll be back," he pointed to her as he paced out of the room and into his more than small sleeping cot. Soon, he came back in and bent down in front of her, she was dazed and was trying to keep her eyes open. "Come on," he pulled her up to stand, her knees were weak, he could tell by the way her injured one was shaking under her weight. He opted for carrying her with one arm under her back one under her knees and carefully leaned down and flicked the door open. Hebe felt like a child at that moment, embarrassed that she was having to be picked up and carried. She hadn't said a word since being treated.
When he had sat her down he crouched down in front of her and grabbed the clothes from beside her, placing them in her hands. "There's a shower in there," he pointed to a sliding door to the right of them. Hebe's cheeks heated up as she opened her mouth to speak. "Thank you," whispered. She didn't say that very often sincerely and he could tell by the way she practically squeezed it out of herself. He didn't say anything else as he patted her shoulder and left the room to go find the child.
She weakly guided herself along the walls of the hangar and closed the shower room door behind her, slowly stripping down her clothing and kicking them to the corner of the room, the room was pretty small, tiled white walls on the inside of the shower, a blurred out window that she slid aside and entered. The lukewarm water let the dirt and chunks of mud flow down her back and into the grid on the floor. She scraped the mud out of her hair and scraped the blood off of her hands.
When she stepped out of the shower she felt the cleanest she had ever been, her hair felt soft and her skin didn't hold a speck of dirt. She dried herself off with a towel that was on the side and groaned as she realised that she had stupidly left the clothes in the cot, she peeked out and grabbed them, retreating to the shower room. She looked at herself in the full-body mirror on the wall next to the shower and took herself in. Slight bags under her eyes that she always had from the lack of sleep, her hair was starting to bunch up in her natural curls, the clothes Mando had given her were extremely soft. The long-sleeved cotton shirt fell loosely on her, the trousers were baggy around her small waist so she grabbed some of the bandages out of her skirt pocket, bunched up the material at the back and tired it together. They still fell loosely around her legs, lastly, she found some socks that he had put of the pile and pulled them on.
She left the room, messing with her hoop earring in her cartilage and picked up her mud-coated shoes, opening the door and she limped over to the bucket of water from earlier that had been used to clean her wound. She filled it up with clean water and started getting the mud off her boots. When she was satisfied with them she left them to do dry, and carefully pulled herself up the ladders to the cockpit. She leaned against the wall and watched as the child pulled on bits of the Mandalorians armour out of curiosity that all children seem to have. It was silent for a while until Mando finally noticed her staring out at the stars ahead.
He'd felt her presence draw closer, but this time it was stronger than the last time. He so many questions running through his head so eventually he picked to ask the first one that came to mind. "How...did you do the fire thing? How is it possible?" He didn't bother turning around, he just gestured his hand out in frustration of not knowing anything. She was silent for a little while before she spoke. "It was just something I've always been able to do. I don't understand it as much as you think I do, I've just learned to adapt to it. Hide it." She cautiously leaned on his shoulder and held her hand out in front of him and steadily exhaled. A small yellow flame grew in her hands, yet it didn't burn her, she didn't even flinch. Mando and the child watched in fascination as the flame danced and flickered in her palm, it slowly turned blue, it reflected dreamily off of his visor and helmet, it was scarily captivating. When the flame died down Hebe's handle lightly trembled. "And for the other thing," she gently pulled the metal ball from the child's hand and let go of it in front of the two. Instead of falling to the floor, it swayed side to side in the line of Hebe's hand, who was guiding it. She let it drop back into the child's grasp.
"All I know is that whatever this is, the child possesses it too. I'm not too sure about the fire though," she leaned back into the copilot's chair tiredly as she nervously picked at the skin on her palm, then her hands moved to fiddle with her earring. She wasn't too sure of where all that trust had suddenly come from but concluded that she owed him some kind of explanation for basically ripping her and the child out of the hands of evil.
"It's..."
"Weird?" She guessed all heard before.
"Incredible," he breathed out and she smiled lazily at him.
"Never heard that one before," she sighed as she fought against the drowsiness that pushed her eyes shut. "Who wouldn't think that?" Mando slowly turned to her.
"A lot of people," he shook his head at her as her eyelids fluttered shut and her hand gently dropped from her ear to her lap to pick at the other hand out of habit. "Sleep. You need it." He ordered.
"And you don't?" He didn't answer straight away.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not. I can tell."
"How?" She thought for a moment before a smug smile took over her lips. Mando dreaded her answer just by her facial expression as she glanced over at him. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," her smile faltered and Mando stared to her with disbelief.
"Your hands can catch fire and you can make things float. I think it wouldn't be that much of a stretch." After a moment of silence, she sighed and gave in to his hard stare. Even though she couldn't see it she could feel it. "I read your mind." Mando shook his head and turned back to the window, staring out to the stars to process all that just happened in the span of ten minutes, he was starting to get a headache from how fast his brain was working. "See he doesn't believe me does he?" She spoke to the child as she picked him up and pulled him onto her lap. "Dad of the year, huh?" She teased, smirking mischievously.
