That night near the fire had haunted Din. The way she'd looked up at him with her coveralls unbuttoned had forced itself to the front of his mind time and time again. No other event like that had happened between them since. At least not until he'd held her hand against his shoulder with his bare palm and asked her not to leave him. A part of him resented himself for being so affected by her; for letting her rule him in such a way that nearly made him a loyal dog. But the vast majority of him had come to terms with the fact that she (along with Grogu) was at the top of the very short list of things that he cared about.
Unfortunately, also on that list was The Way. The dichotomy of what both Aviina and his religion represented, and how they were at constant war with each other in his soul, caused many sleepless nights for Din. And while he was not at all keen to let her go, he assumed that in the weeks that followed her departure from Nevarro, he'd get rid of the war in his soul and that he could once again enthrall himself in The Way. He could not have been more wrong.
Which is why he found himself on Tattooine. He trudged into Peli's Hangar with curses under his breath. Grogu tottled after a few droids carrying shipment crates to and from different areas of the bay, and Din followed him with a parental eye while he waited for the owner of the hangar to greet him. Peli finally emerged from behind a cruiser with a sizeable dent in its hull, when she saw Din she pressed her lips into a fine line and ran a hand through her frizzy locks.
"She did that," Peli said as she gestured to the dent on the cruiser. Din smiled behind his helmet. "She's got a temper."
"She does," Din agreed.
There was a moment of silence between them before Grogu appeared upon hearing Peli's voice. Peli scooped him up in her arms and peppered his wrinkled head with kisses as she praised him for 'growing so big' even though he hadn't gained more than two pounds in two years. Din fought the urge to fidget as he impatiently waited for Peli to stop doting on the child and begin the awkward conversation before them. Peli finally settled Grogu on her hip and looked at him in the visor.
"Are you hungry? Thirsty?" she asked him. Peli was not a hospitable host, not unless you had coin to offer her. This was of course an attempt at avoiding the topic of Aviina. Din shook his head, crossed his arms over his chest, and kept his head straight even though he wanted to scan the hangar for other signs that Aviina had been there and how much time had passed since then.
"Thank you for answering my transmission," Din said in a not-so-subtle attempt to prod Peli in the direction of his partner.
"Don't thank me just yet," Peli started as she shifted Grogu from one hip to the other. "She's not here."
Din figured as much, in fact, all Peli's transmission response to his asking if Aviina had contacted her was 'She was on Tattooine this morning.' That had been two days ago. Din knew that Aviina didn't want him coming after her, but Aviina was a hunter and knew how to disappear if she wanted to. Din hung on to the string of possibility that maybe she was leaving a door open purposefully.
"You know where she's headed?" Din asked. Although it was more of a statement.
Pelli mulled over her answer for a few moments. She put the kid down and leaned back against the heavy cruiser as he started away after the droids again. She sighed and looked back up at Din with hesitant eyes.
"I do know. But she wouldn't want me to tell you," Peli said. "Whatever happened between you two is your business, and I don't want anything to do with it." This was a lie of course. Din knew just as well as anyone that Peli had a particular adoration for gossip.
"Nothing happened," Din said. The look Peli gave him in response was so animated Din thought she may have been having a stroke.
"Sure, Mando. 'Nothing happened'. That's why half the ships in my lot have dents the size of Sarlacc pits and one of the foremen over at Tosche Station might lose his hand!"
"What happened to his hand?"
"Aviina happened."
Din shook his head. He probably deserved it, Din thought. Surprisingly, her temper was one of the things that he missed most about her. Sure, having a partner who's lack of patience and self-control came with its challenges. But he could never accuse their time together of being boring. She was so different from the people he grew up with. So different from the ways he'd walked his whole life. He was taught to be quiet, to be calm, to be a calculated killer. Void of any emotion. From the surface, he lacked any humanity at all. He was a stoic, mechanical hunk of Beskar who feared nothing while everything feared him. While Aviina was a fiery explosion of emotion. She was a tempestuous torrent of color that swept up all things around her. He was cold, hard, unforgiving metal. To Din, Aviina was a bold, red-hot flame.
"Peli," he started. "Where is she?" His voice was stern and strong, and he hoped it would be enough to convince the mechanic to give up Aviina's location. Not finding Aviina wasn't a possibility that he was willing to entertain.
"I think you should go home, Mando."
Peli had never looked so unsure of anything. Din had always admired that about Peli. She was normally so sure. So confident. Now she looked like she'd been caught like a doll being tugged at by two displeased children. Din was beginning to lose his temper. In his line of work, if someone refused to divulge information, he had methods for getting what he wanted. But none of those methods were fit to use on someone he called an ally.
"I can't," Mando said and he felt a vein in his neck pop. "I tried, alright? I tried to... but without Vii... I tried to move on but I was empty. I'm...," his voice trailed off and left his throat completely as he tried to think of how to describe the drab, solemn thing that had taken up residence in his body. He was unable to give it a name. So he settled for the plainest form he could muster. "I'm not myself."
The mechanic looked at him like his admission was the most shocking thing she'd ever heard. Din had never seen Peli speechless before. She was ordinarily so loud and witty, now she looked at him with no words on her tongue like she was watching footage of the end of the Empire all over again.
"Well, I just..." she too struggled to find the words. "Are you in love with her or something?"
No of course not. The words were on the tip of Din's tongue but for some reason the words refused to dislodge themselves from his mouth. So as a result, he just stood there silently and forced himself not to fidget. He stood so still that he looked as though he may have been carved from marble, he even refused to breathe.
Something washed over Peli's face that Din registered as understanding. His face grew hot. That seemed so impossible to Din. How could Peli possibly understand anything about his feelings towards Aviina? He shook his head and wished he could turn on his heel and leave. He thought for a moment that maybe he should leave. He didn't even know what he would say to Aviina when he found her. If he found her. All he knew was he couldn't bear the thought of going back to Nevarro— back to that small, empty hut without her. All he knew was he was miserable.
"Carajam," Peli said just when Din thought he should turn around and go home. "She went to Carajam on a moisture freight. She's tracking a bounty, someone wanted for gambling debts. I think. Before she left she said she was going to arrange a meeting with him under a pseudonym and catch him off guard."
"What part of Carajam?" Din asked. He was practically itching to set off in Carajam's direction.
"That small mining town outside Tuella? Or maybe the town was Tuella and the bounty was a miner? Shit, Mando I can't remember." Peli ran a hand through her hair and shrugged. "I'm sorry."
Din shook his head. "Don't be." His bounty hunter brain was already scrawling maps on the walls of his skull. He'd been to Carajam before, dozens of times. There was a cantina in Tuella. And more importantly, there were Sebacc tables in the cantina. Din couldn't think of a better way to lure a gambler into a trap than by the possibility of easy money in a low-profile setting. There was also a guild hub on Carajam, so theoretically, when Aviina captured the bounty she wouldn't have to transport him off-world to collect her payout. This, of course, all hinged on the hope that Peli wasn't confusing the details. With the wheels turning in his head he threw one more nod in Peli's direction and asked one more favor of her.
"Can you watch the kid for a couple of days?"
