ash'ad | the mandalorian

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"How could you do that? You almost got yourself killed! Do you have any idea how reckless that was?" she protested. She was the definition of fuming as she yelled at him for his behavior during the fight.

"You can't say that you did any different! I told you not to fire on them and you did!" he argued. He remembered how his stomach dropped as she flew away into the sky without him, making him chase after her as more enemies had started to climb up the side of the mountain.

"You were injured! And last I checked, they fired on us first!" she retorted, hoping he would see her side.

He fell quiet, not liking the sound of his voice when he was angry. She didn't deserve his anger. She may have acted impulsively, but he had done the same.

"I'm sorry I took a risk-" he started but she cut him off again.

"You could have died so easily, Din," she reaffirmed, the tremble in her voice becoming more present against her will.

He took a deep breath out and stepped forward, hoping she would take his apology without the words. He grabbed her waist and held her close to his uninjured side, carefully pressing on her healing blaster wound

"But I didn't,"

After a long pause of both sorting through a million emotions at once, Beth looked into his visor and melted at the way he was holding her. Her anger wasn't all gone, but she knew he was in pain and wanted to get back to treat his shoulder.

"I'll get the bounty," she said, walking away from him at last. The cold seemed more intense as their shared body heat left her system, making her shiver. She stepped into the cave and carefully lifted the burly man from the ground, throwing him over her shoulder. The deadweight was a lot to handle, but not enough to make her injured partner carry him all the way down the mountain.

She met Mando outside once again and ignited her jetpack to get used to flying with the added weight. He gave her a nod and pressed a button on his wrist to take off in front of her. It was a much easier trip back as gravity worked in their favor. They coasted for a few minutes until the Defender was underneath them, slowly descending back onto the icy field.

"We don't have much time to be out here. The cold is setting in fast," Din explained, still groaning in pain at the shot in his shoulder. He was lucky the bone was thin and it didn't penetrate any main arteries, but it still hurt like hell.

He pressed the button on his wrist to lower the ramp and let Beth go up first with the bounty still tossed over her back. She dropped him on the floor once they were inside and went into the storage room to grab a medpac. When she came back, Din was sitting on the bench with his head back, trying to breathe the pain that was shooting through his arm.

"What do we do with him?" She asked, gesturing to the bounty.

"I'll freeze him tomorrow. His body will stay preserved for tonight," he muttered, standing once again.

Without another word, Beth followed him back outside and across the open ice into town.

They entered the inn and breathed in the warm, fresh air. Relieved to have made it back, they walked calmly across the wooden floor and started climbing the narrow staircase to their room.

"I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get some heat back into my fingers," Beth said, trying hard to ignore a yawn she had building up. She waited until they were up the stairs and inside the room to let it out, making Mando smile in amusement.

He sat on the bed with another groan of pain and started taking off the shoulder plate on his injured arm.

"Stop, I'll do it," Beth insisted, walking over to him once she had shut and locked the door.