One Endless Night - A Mandalorian Fanfic

Chapter 22

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Yara stood just out of sight as Mando sent the transmission to Haid. The Aristo's response was cordial but brief. Yara had expected to see something in his cold eyes, some kind of excitement or relief to hear his son was alive, but there was nothing. He sent the coordinates for the drop and then signed off.

Yara chewed on her lip as Mando turned to face her.

"What do you think?" Mando asked.

Yara wrinkled her nose. "He didn't even mention Pyke."

"No he didn't," Mando agreed. It was obvious the incident was still bothering Yara, but he wasn't sure how to help her.

"It's impossible for him to not have heard. Which means either he's so happy to have his son back he doesn't care what I did, and he didn't look super happy, or he's intentionally playing dumb..."

Mando shrugged. "Either way, we'll deal with it," he assured her.

Yara nodded but continued to chew on her lip as she gazed out into the stars. It was bad enough that the imperials and the bounty hunter's guild were hunting them. At least they had been able to find a degree of safety deeper in the criminal underworld. Now, through her actions, they didn't even have that.

"Hey," Mando's voice rasped through the modulator, pulling her from her thoughts. "Stop blaming yourself," he said gruffly. "You didn't screw up."

Yara shot him a doubtful look. Mando would never flat out tell her she had screwed up. They both knew she had however. The Pyke's would hunt them to the ends of the galaxy. All because of her one moment of panic. She hated that she had been so weak and her eyes dropped to the floor.

Mando made an impatient noise in the back of his throat. "What did you see?" He asked.

Yara's chin jerked up and she stared into the inky blackness of his visor. Of course there was no emotion, no hint at what he was thinking. She had become quite adept at reading the subtle shifts of his body and the sighs, but he was holding himself incredibly still. Like there was a wall stretched between them.

"You knew he was going to shoot me, right?" Mando pressed. "You saw it?"

Yara swallowed thickly and nodded. She hated talking about her gift, hated that it was the reason they were being hunted and hated that it made her feel so different. Other.

"What did you see?" Mando pushed again, taking a step closer to her. His helmet tilted as he stared down at her and Yara's heart started to pound in her chest at his proximity.

Yara swallowed back a thickness in her throat. "I saw you die," she said, her voice hoarse. She looked away as a fine tremble started in her muscles all over again. She didn't want him to see how much it had shaken her. She already felt weak enough, she didn't need to add insult to injury.

"Hey," Mando said, stepping into her space. He reached up and lifted her chin, forcing her to look into his visor so he could watch her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm pretty hard to kill," he promised her.

Yara nodded, but she could feel tears swimming in her eyes. She quickly pinched them shut. She hated that she was so vulnerable when he was literally covered in armor. She cared about him more than she thought possible, and that single image of him dying kept replaying over and over in her mind's eye. A single tear slid out the corner of her eye and Mando's gloved fingers gently brushed it away.