Bounty hunting is a complicated profession

Mando

How had it come to this? he wondered.

He had always known that he'd have a warrior's death and that's what he'd always wanted. Yet, he had figured he would die alone, on some backwater planet, after a bounty had gone wrong. He had never expected that there would be anyone with him or that they would be feeling so upset by his passing.

Albeit nothing had been going according to plan or to what he had expected since the moment she had joined him.

No. Since she had been with him everything had been strange, even he had become strange, doing things he would have never done before like buying gifts or cracking jokes just to see her smile. But that smile was just too precious.

"Stay with me, buddy. We're gonna get you out of here." Cara told him.

He didn't answer because he got distracted by two hands that were nervously feeling up his body. He looked up to see who was touching him only to meet the gaze of those eyes — the most expressive eyes he had ever seen. Now, those beautiful eyes were full of fear as she tried to assess the extent of the damage he had suffered. She reached to the back of his neck with her hand and then looked at it, panic painting her features when she saw it was covered in blood. Her chin started to tremble as her eyes became watery with the tears she was fighting hard to hold.

"I'm not gonna make it. Go." He told them. He knew this was it and that they had to get out of there before the troopers barged in. Yet, he couldn't help but feel awful when she started crying, knowing it had been his statement what had triggered it.

He had never seen her cry before. He had heard her though, a long time ago, when she had had those horrible nightmares that tortured her almost every night. At the time, just the quiet sound of her sobs had been hard enough for him to bear, having had to stop himself from getting to her and holding her. However, he knew she was not only strong but much too stubborn to cry in front of others. She would have felt humiliated if she had known he had heard her — that much he knew — so, in spite of himself and against all his instincts, he had done nothing.

Now though, he could clearly see the tears silently streaming down her face while she shook her head and tried to wipe them with her hands — as if she still didn't want anyone to see. She looked so pitiful that all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and tell her it was going to be alright. The pain in his head was nothing compared to the ache in his heart at seeing her breaking down because of him.

This had been a bad idea, he had known. He shouldn't have let her come, at least that way she wouldn't have to see him like that, she wouldn't be in pain nor in danger, she wouldn't be crying so much. However, it had caught him so off guard when she had called the Crest 'home' that he had completely misjudged the situation. Or rather, he had not judged it at all, since at that moment he had completely lost the ability to reason. Was being in that ship with him her idea of home?

"Shut up. You just got your bell rung. You'll be fine." Cara said to him. "I'm gonna need to take this thing off." He held her hand to stop her from removing his helmet. He couldn't take it off, not without breaking his Creed and he was not going to do it as much as he wished to.

For a part of him really wanted to do it — remove the helmet and get treated — yet not for him nor for fear of death… No, he wanted to do it just to make sure she stopped crying. Dank farrik! He had certainly not foreseen this. He thought he was well aware of what he felt, even if he knew how far-fetched it was what he longed for. What he hadn't realised was that it had gotten so intense, to the point where he would consider breaking his Creed for her. But he couldn't. Being a Mandalorian was all he had ever known.

"Here." He whispered as he grabbed his Mythosaur necklace and put it on her hand. Then, he turned to Cara. "When you get to the Mandalorian covert you show them that. You tell them it's from Din Djarin." He said, his voice strained with effort as he tried to organise his thoughts, which kept swirling around how he had wanted to be the one to tell her his name. "You tell them she was in my protection, and they'll help you." He finished, feeling dizzy and out of breath.