Bounty hunting is a complicated profession

Creed

"I can't do it, okay? We have to abort. I'm sorry." Mayfeld was saying and he could see the terror in his eyes but leaving wasn't an option, not when he was so close to finding out where they were keeping her.

"No. I can't. If we don't get those coordinates, I'll lose her forever." Din said, stopping Mayfeld from leaving. "Give me the data stick."

"It's not gonna work. In order to access the network, the terminal has to scan your face. Let's go."

"Give it to me." He said, taking the stick from him.

What in the blazes was he doing? He was in a room – worse, a whole base – full of Imps that would kill him without a second thought, not wearing his armour, and about to try and get intel from a machine that required a facial scan. 

He hadn't thought things through, clearly. But how could have he thought straight about this when all that was in his head was her? Where was she? Would she be fine? Was she lonely? Were they hurting her? Dank farrik! He needed to think and to do it fast because he was already in front of the machine. Maybe it didn't require a facial scan for everything.

"Error, error. Facial scan incomplete. Ten seconds to system shutdown."

'Good job, now what Din?' He thought.

Time seemed to slow down as he tried to figure out what to do. 10 seconds and the system would shut down and he would have blown the only chance he had at finding her. What was he going to do given that he managed to get out of there alive? Sweep the galaxy searching for her? Yes, he would, but what were the chances of success?

9 seconds

He couldn't take his helmet off, it was against his Creed, he couldn't do it. Yet, he had already done it, hadn't he? That wasn't his helmet. As Mayfeld had pointed out when he had changed his armour for a trooper's suit, his rules started to change when he got desperate and now, he was extremely desperate.

But to be fair, he was well aware his rules had been changing for a while now and he couldn't even use being desperate as an excuse.

8 seconds

It had been a stretch to let IG-11 remove his helmet in Nevarro, he had easily accepted the droid's logic that the Creed stated he couldn't remove his helmet in front of another living being and, since the droid was not living, it wasn't against his Way.

Or so he had convinced himself.

He had too easily convinced himself that he had remained true to his creed and felt no remorse about it. One droid did not qualify as breaking the rules, only bending them slightly.

7 seconds

Honestly, who could have blamed him after seeing her like that, crying her eyes out at the idea of him dying. The way the tears had fallen from her eyes, leaving a clean trail on her dirty face, or how her brows had furrowed in sadness and pain when he told her to go on without him, or how she had leaned into his touch when he had tried to wipe those tears away.

She had even forced herself to speak just to let him know that she didn't want to leave him, to make him promise he would catch up to them… He couldn't have done nothing knowing that she would be broken by his death.

That's why he had yielded and it had been worth it.

6 seconds

Now, if that had been stretching his rules, taking off his helmet in front of her had been bending them completely to make them fit the way he wanted.

He had told himself that she was blindfolded so she couldn't see anything, that there was no other option since they were locked in the cockpit, and that it had been way too long since he had last eaten anything. A part of him knew it was wrong, the Way of the Mandalore stated "not to remove the helmet" and reducing that to "not letting anyone see your face" was only deluding himself.

5 seconds

Still, even though he knew it was wrong and that he shouldn't have done it, he had repeated it only a few hours later. And more than willingly.

It had been easy to shut the voice in his head telling him that he shouldn't have been able to kiss her nor run his lips through her body because he ought to be wearing his helmet. The same voice that warned him that it wasn't ok for her to be touching his face while trying to make out his features, because he must've been wearing his helmet.

It had been easy – too easy – because her touch made his heart flutter. Because that had been the best night of his entire life. 

4 seconds

And now, if he didn't do this, that would be the only night of his whole life with her.

Still, going against his Creed wasn't an easy thing to do. After all, his Creed was the Way, it was all he knew and everything he had always believed in, it was what had made him the man he was today… 

And it was also the sole reason she was being held captive. His damn Creed was the reason why he was there at this moment. 

'Release him unharmed, helmet unremoved, and I'm yours.' Her voice echoed in his head. She understood how important his Creed was for him, so much so that she had sacrificed herself for it.

But she had misjudged him. His Creed had always been everything, yes, the most important thing in his life, until she had appeared. She couldn't know about the internal conflict he had suffered trying to decide which was more important nor that that conflict had been resolved the moment she had given herself up to prevent them from taking off his helmet.

She was undoubtedly the most important thing in the universe.

The Creed was his Way yet, she was his life.

3 seconds

He lifted his helmet.

"... two… Facial scan complete."