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

Chapter Ten: Vulnerable

Din was gone.

Everything was gone.

All Thell could see was darkness, even when she lifted her hands and pressed them to her eyes. The only thing she could make out was the steady drop of water somewhere ahead of her. Feet moving like she was walking on glass, Thell prowled forward, one foot hesitantly in front of the other. The air was like ice on her skin, causing her back and arms to burst out in goosebumps.

The steady drops of water only continued, growing louder as she stepped closer. But there was a single light, an omniscient glow that illuminated the puddle at her feet. But it wasn't water at all, just a growing circle of crimson blood that was beginning to pool around her feet.

Thell stumbled back, landing on her backside with a terrified shriek. Blood splashed around her, clumping on her ankles, painting her hands in red. Breaths quaking in her chest, Thell raised her hand to her face, to the blaster that was suddenly gripped tight in her hand. The one that Din had given her a month ago.

And when she settled it next to her waist, one of the bandits from Pasaana, the strange humanoid creature, was looking back at her from several yards away. Standing like a ghost, blood dripping down his arm and trailing like small rivers off his fingers. Her hand rose like she was a droid, against her own mind, against her own instinct.

"No, no," Thell stuttered, trying to grab the blaster with her other hand, the one covered in thick blood.

But her hand wouldn't stop moving until she had positioned it directly at the creature, trembling in her hand like she was being electrocuted. Tears streamed from her ears, but they were thicker than water, and tasted like iron on her lips.

"Stop..." Thell begged. "Please."

But the blaster fired anyway, launching her head back and colliding with a wall. A crack, either from her head or the wall, resounded in her ears, and her vision blurred. The blaster was gone, and the blood had washed away, but the cold hadn't subsided.

A figure surrounded by a drab gray wall hovered above her, creaking like the hull of the Razor Crest and casting her in deep shadows.

It was Bleys Darand, her former master, frozen like a ghost in a carbonite shell.

. . . .

Thell woke up screaming, the effort burning her throat as she pushed herself to a sitting position. Her arms trembled as she gathered the blankets close to her chest, heaving out shaking breaths. She cried into the blanket, dry heaving into the material to try and block out the sounds of her sobbing.

Above her own loud breathing, she heard Grogu whimpering in his bed. He was crying softly, bending over the hammock he slept in to look down at her.

"Oh, gosh," Thell croaked, reaching towards him. "Sorry, buddy."

She took hold of him, groggily peering down at the kid while she curled him into her lap. He had calmed down quite a bit, murmuring in her blanket.

"Thell?"

She had barely heard the Mandalorian enter, standing with one hand braced against the wall and peering down at her from the entrance of the chamber. Thell trembled, the breath catching in her throat.

"What's wrong?" He asked, and he sounded like he had been to hell and back. "Why are you shaking?"

He bent forward before Thell could even think, and she flinched, holding the kid close.

"Hey, what happened?"

The tears came again before she even cared, pouring down her cheeks like rivers. She could sense Din moving closer, but all she could do was shake her head as Grogu even tried to comfort her, snuggling into her sleeping tunic.