found. | Din Djarin

Eleven

I'm woken by soft whimpers and know something isn't right. I sit up and find the kid awake in his hammock with his eyes pressed shut and making sounds of distress.

"Hey, it's okay," I say taking him in my arms and he buries his face in my shoulder. "Did you have a nightmare?"

He whimpers a confirmation and I can feel the terror that's shaken his poor little body. Something far deeper than the normal nightmares that plague a child.

"You're safe," I tell him and hear Din come down the stairs as I scoot to the edge of the cot where he crouches down in front of us. "Your dad and I would never let anything happen to you. You're safe with us."

Din removes his glove and reaches over so the kid can wrap his hand around his tan finger. "It's okay kid. You're okay."

The sight stuns me for just a moment before I move onto the floor so there's room for Din to sit beside me and the kid, so he can reach for us both.

The child whimpers as he holds Dins finger tightly and I cup the back of his head, feeling darkness but none that comes from within him. But from a deep trauma inflicted upon him.

Something I know far too well.

And I manipulate the force around him, within him, driving out the darkness with the light. "Feel it, feel the light. Feel it surrounding you. Protecting you. Feel the force."

His breathing begins to calm and I sing to him softly, an old Mandalorian lullaby, as I soothe him. Din looks at me also stunned, having never heard me speak Mando'a before. With his father and I holding him, the drifts off back to sleep and his grip loosens around Din's finger.

"Thank you," Din says quietly but even now the child's asleep I can feel his concern and it matches mine.

"Has he had nightmares before?"

"Sometimes, but not often," he answers. "I don't know how to help him, I know I sound paranoid but I don't think they're just what a normal kid has nightmares about."

"He's not a normal kid, and you're right Din," I say rubbing the child's back. "I can feel trauma within him, I don't know what from but I can imagine. The Jedi... for so long we were hunted down and killed by inquisitors. Once they even came for me when I was ten, when they first began to suspect who my father was and wanted to draw him out of hiding. I know more than most about what they'd do to force sensitive children but I think this stems past that."

"What do you mean?"

"Order 66," I answer quietly. "The order to exterminate the Jedi. He is fifty years old, with the abilities he has he would've had to have been in the care of the Jedi. I can't say for certain what he's seen but I know it's dark."

He strokes the kids ear with his thumb and I can feel the sickness in him at the thought of anyone harming the child. "I'd do anything for him, but I just don't know how to help him. I don't understand all this Jedi stuff, the force."

I cover his bare hand with mine and hear the sharp intake of breath but he doesn't withdraw it or make any indication it's unwelcome.

"That's why I'm here Din. I've seen what this is like to someone who doesn't understand," I say thinking of Han with Ben. "For someone who has never had anything to do with the force to raise someone like him, it's hard, but don't doubt yourself."

He looks down at our hands and at the kid, then back to the sleeping compartment. "You should try to get back to sleep."

"It's alright, I don't want to disturb him," I say looking down at the sleeping child in my arms. "I'll stay here."