Chapter Text
Jakku is probably one of the worst places Din can stop for ship parts.
Niima Outpost is notorious for its bad prices and black market trading, and on top of that he’s going to be dusting sand out of his beskar for weeks. But with a damaged motivator and a hyperdrive that functions half the time at best, he’d need a kind of luck he doesn’t have for the Crest to make it to the next spaceport in one piece.
He steps off the ship and waves over the first trader he sees. The price for the motivator isn’t worth it-it’s not even worth half of it, but he’s not interested in straying too far from the ship, not with the group of scavengers he can see eyeing him from the corner of the outpost. It would have been an easy fight back in the day, it might have even been a fun one. But now it’s harder to tell who’s working for the Empire and who’s just a regular mercenary. He doesn’t want to put the kid in any more danger than necessary.
As he pockets the motivator, the trader giving him a guileful smile before stalking off, he hears a barely perceptible flutter of footsteps against metal behind him. He turns instinctively, his blaster already in the air, only to find a little girl slipping quietly off the Crest’s boarding ramp. He lowers his weapon. “Hey kid,” he calls out to her, as she jumps off the ramp and into the sand. “What are you doing on my ship?”
She freezes and her hands move furtively into her pockets. “Nothing,” she says, her eyes wide and her voice a little too innocent. “I was just looking.”
Din takes a second to look at the girl, her tunic sandy and worn like it’s the only clothing she owns, her brown hair pulled back practically into three buns, and a battered wooden staff strapped over her shoulder. He sighs and sets his blaster back in the holster. “Where are your parents?”
“They’ll be back soon.”
“I didn’t ask when they’ll be back, I asked where they are.”
She scrunches up her nose at him. “That’s none of your business and if you keep asking me questions I’ll hit you with this,” she yells, pulling the staff off her shoulder and pointing it at him. She scurries off before Din can reply.
Fair enough.
He adjusts Grogu’s carrying bag and the kid looks up at him with questioning eyes. “Think she took anything important?” Din asks him. Grogu’s ears perk up in what Din chooses to interpret as a shrug.
He climbs aboard the Razor Crest and does a quick inventory in his head. It doesn’t look like anything was taken from the main hold. He reaches over and presses the switch to open his weapons locker. There’s not a blaster out of place.
Maybe the girl was telling the truth after all.
He moves his hand to close the locker and notices a screw missing on the metal doors. That’s not out of the ordinary, the Crest is always a few screws and wires away from falling apart. But as his eyes move along the walls of the ship, he notices other tiny missing pieces. Small scraps of metal from the floor, a broken power modulator that Din had thrown aside while doing ship repairs, an old tracking fob.
He glances back to the weapons, back to the expensive weapons, before climbing up into the cockpit. The whole engine is intact too, not a wire out of place. He looks around mystified, why would the kid take useless scraps and broken parts, but leave everything else untouched?
She probably didn’t know what she was doing, he decides. She’s young after all, she couldn’t be much older than he was when he was adopted into the tribe. He hopes she has someone to teach her how to be more stealthy and resourceful the next time she ransacks a ship.
Wait no, he hopes she doesn’t actually make a habit of stealing from other people’s ships.
He shakes his head and pulls Grogu out of the carrying bag, setting him down in the passenger seat. “Kids are strange, aren’t they pal,” he murmurs, slinging the bag off him and settling down in his own chair. Grogu coos at him in response.
He shakes sand out of his vambrace as he starts up the ship. He can’t wait to be off this planet, he’ll install the motivator in the air if he has to. He reaches a hand up to switch on the engines when he realizes something important is missing after all. The little metal ball on the control panel is gone, unscrewed from the handle. Din slowly turns around to look at Grogu who, as expected, is looking at the missing ball with sullen eyes and his mouth turned down in the corners, an expression that’s dangerously close to a pout. His distressed gaze moves from the control panel up to Din, and he lets out a very quiet, very pleading cry.
Din sighs.
He finds the girl where he left her back at Niima Outpost. She’s sitting on the ground dusting off various pieces of junk with a frayed cloth and fiddling with the metal parts. She doesn’t look up at him as he approaches.
“Hey,” he says, bending down in front of her, “look kid, you can keep the scrap metal. I just need the ball from the control panel.”
“Your ship will fly without it,” she replies lightly, and continues to polish the pieces in front of her.
He’s surprised she’s not even trying to deny stealing it. Bold Kid.
“I don’t need it to fly, but it’s my kid’s favorite toy.”
She does look up at him then, her eyes moving from his helmet down to the child, half concealed in the bag on Din’s side. Grogu makes a little noise of want and stretches his hand out towards the metal pieces on the ground. She stares at him, her lips turned down.
“Okay,” she says finally, plucking the ball from a little woven sack in her pocket and dropping it into Din’s hand.
“Thanks,” he says, not sure why he’s thanking her for something she stole from him. He hands the ball to Grogu who takes it with a gleeful coo and stretches out his other arm towards the girl.
She recoils at the gesture and stumbles backwards onto her heels. Din’s about to tell his kid to keep his hands to himself when the girl suddenly leans forward, stretching out her own hand to give Grogu’s a little shake. “He’s funny looking,” she says with delight, “but I like him. People always look at me and think they know who I am. It must be hard for you little one, with those big ears. But it must be nice for you,” she looks up at Din, her face genuine in a way that only a child’s can be, “with that big helmet hiding your face. Or maybe not. Maybe people think you’re scary with all that armor. But I think sometimes the people who are hardest on the outside are the softest on the inside.”
Din has no idea what to say to that.
“I’m Rey,” she goes on, dropping her hands to her knees, but continuing to stare at Grogu. “What’s your name?”
“His name is Grogu.”
“I like you Grogu,” she declares, and then sits back down to continue dusting off her loot without another word.
Din slowly stands up and stares at the girl for a minute, completely bewildered, before turning around to head back to his ship. He stops after a moment, his feet sinking into the sand as he stands still. He should keep going, it’s none of his business, it’s really none of his-
“What are you doing with that metal anyway?” he asks, turning back around to face the girl.
“Fixing it. Your ship is old and Plutt gives more portions for newer materials.”
“You’re scavenging in exchange for food?”
Her hands freeze over the metal for a second before she starts scrubbing again, more forcefully this time. “So what?” she asks, her voice defensive.
“You’re in the service of Unkar Plutt.” It’s the kindest way he can phrase it. Slavery, it existed before the Empire, and despite the New Republic’s halfhearted efforts, it hasn’t disappeared now.
She drops the scraps into the sand as her hands ball into fists. “I work for myself and I work by choice,” she says, looking up at him with what he knows is all the hostility she can muster.
He holds his hands up in surrender, “I understand. And your family?”
“They’re coming back.”
“When did they leave?”
She makes a face and Din somehow knows the answer isn’t ‘yesterday’. He can’t help but feel sorry for the kid. Out of all the planets for a child to be stranded on, Jakku is probably one of the bleakest. He pulls the hyperdrive motivator out of his pocket and stares at it for a minute, wondering if the Crest will make it to the Mos Eisley spaceport before falling apart. At least Motto will give him a fair price for the repairs.
Din bends down in front of the girl, holding the motivator out to her. “Take this.”
Her eyes grow wide with surprise as she looks at the part in his hand. After a moment, she shakes her head and goes back to fiddling with the metal scraps in her lap. “I don’t need your help.” Her words are self-assured in a way that can’t be feigned, only earned.
“I know you don’t.”
Her expression softens fractionally and she looks at the broken parts in front of her, something wry on her face that Din thinks looks much older than a kid should look. After a minute, she slowly reaches her hand out and takes the motivator from him.
“Thank you.”
“Take care of yourself kid.”
He forces himself to turn away, and begins the walk back to the Razor Crest. Grogu makes an unhappy noise as he does, his hands outstretched behind Din toward where the girl is still sitting.
“Jakku isn’t a good place to make friends, buddy,” Din murmurs to him, and he thinks maybe he’s trying to convince himself of that too.
He doesn’t leave right away, just sits on the edge of the boarding ramp, without really knowing why, watching as the girl-Rey-lines up at Plutt’s stand to receive her portions.
She passes Plutt the fixed up broken parts from Din’s ship, before carefully placing the hyperdrive motivator on the counter. Plutt stares from the motivator to Rey with a dumbfounded expression before shrugging and shoving a pile of rations at her. She scoops them up in her arms with a grin on her face as the other scavengers look on grudgingly.
She sets off, a happy bounce in her step, but stops after a few feet as a scrawny and bedraggled tooka crosses her path, collapsing under one of the canopies surrounding the outpost. He watches her bend down in front of the tooka and carefully open one of the ration packs, tossing the veg-meat inside to the creature. The tooka takes it in it’s mouth and runs off.
She stops again when she sees a very old, very frail looking woman scavenger sitting at one of the outpost tables, barely any salvage in her hands to show for a whole day’s work. He watches Rey put half her ration packs on the table and pat the woman lightly on the back.
When she finally does head off, she has the same amount of portions in her arms that she would have earned with her own scrap metal. Moreso than Din thought actually, in the end she had fixed up the broken parts from his ship better than even he was capable of.
He thought the little thief just didn’t know what she was doing but she’s clearly capable and knowledgeable about starships. Yet some of the working parts from his ship that she left untouched could have bought her a year’s worth of portions.
“Your ship will fly without it.”
She didn’t want to take anything he needed.
Din never expects or asks those fighting to survive to have compassion or decency. He knows what it’s like to struggle to make it to the next day alive. And he knows that empathy is a trait that is often a privilege of those who don’t have to fight each day just for the right to live.
Some might credit Rey’s compassion to the naivety and ignorance of a child.
Din knows better.
His gaze moves down to Grogu at his side, whose eyes are wide and bright as he looks up at Din. He can’t help but see those same eyes in Rey as he thinks about Grogu, alone and lost for thirty years before Din came along. He wonders how long Rey will be alone for. Maybe it’s not just Grogu’s eyes he sees in the girl, there’s something kindred about her. Some grit and spine in her spirit he recognizes in himself.
The three of them are survivors of some sort.
He’s not sure what he can even do, what help he can offer to the girl. He doesn’t have the space or the resources. And his life is no life for a little kid. He looks back down to Grogu and it almost feels like the look he’s giving Din is reproachful. “I know,” Din says quietly to him, “didn’t stop me before.”
Rey’s current life is no life for a kid anyway.
But he can’t help her. He can’t help every lonely child in the Galaxy that he finds. He knows as well as anyone that sometimes bad things just happen, and you can’t save everyone who needs saving. He gets to his feet and starts walking up the ramp, but finds he can’t make it the last few steps into the ship. He just stands there, torn between running back to the outpost, and flying off and leaving the whole planet behind him.
In the end, he thinks of a little boy sitting alone and afraid under a hatch, his parents dead and gone. And a Mandalorian who reached an arm out to him, and gave him a second chance.
He finds Unkar Plutt back at the Concession Stand, sorting the scavenged ship parts into piles. He steps up to the counter and pushes the parts aside. “Tell me about the girl-Rey,” he says, as Plutt gives him an affronted look, picking up the parts he knocked over.
“She’s not for sale.”
“I wasn’t asking,” he grits his teeth and forces himself to keep his tone civil, though there’s an unexpected ire inside him at Plutt’s words. “She said she works for you by choice.”
Plutt laughs, the flaps under his chin jostling up and down, “The choice to eat or to die of starvation!”
Din leans in, and makes his voice as dangerously quiet as he’s capable of, “Where are her parents?”
“Look I don’t ask questions.” He sees Plutt eye a blaster hanging on the wall behind him, sees him calculating the feeble odds that he can reach it before Din dispatches him, “The people dropped the girl off and gave me a handsome sum of credits for letting her live here and not telling anyone about it.”
“Did they say if they were coming back?”
The fear in Plutt’s eyes melts away as he roars with laughter. “Is that what she told you? The kid’s delusional, I keep telling her her parents are probably dead by now, or worse.”
“Answer the question.”
The unease returns to his face just as quickly as it disappeared. “Let’s just say they made permanent arrangements for her to stay here.” Plutt slowly starts moving the parts away from the counter, as if he’s afraid Din’s going to shoot him and take his spoils. “You’re a bounty hunter aren’t you? Well what do you know, someone’s looking for the girl after all.”
Din doesn’t answer, just turns away from the stand and looks off into the distance at the barren desert sands, at the dry winds that blow coarse dust into everything on this desolate, backwater planet. It’s no place for a child to grow up.
Defeated, he turns back to Plutt, “Tell me where she lives.”
He finds Rey where Plutt said she’d be, in a downed AT-AT walker in the Goazon Badlands, a place far out into the desert away from the outpost and the rest of the scavengers and mercenaries. Calling it a wasteland would be generous, there’s nothing for miles in sight except dry sand and Imperial wreckage.
He approaches the AT-AT and gives it a little knock. After a few seconds, Rey pokes her head out of the auxiliary hatch, a blaster in her hand pointed at Din’s head. He raises his hands in what he hopes is a non-threatening way, “It’s me, I just want to talk to you.”
She lowers the blaster slowly, her eyes on the kid at his side in his bag who raises his outstretched hands at Rey and makes a happy noise. “How did you find me?” she asks suspiciously.
“Plutt told me you’d be here.”
She gives him a once over, looking from his helmet down to his boots, and a grin slowly stretches over her face. “I’ll bet you really scared him. He never gives information to strangers freely.” She steps back and beckons him in with her hand.
He ducks into the hatch and into the body of the ship. It’s roomier on the inside than he’d expected. He looks around at the hammock slung in the corner, the small mismatched collection of bowls and bottles that make up a tiny makeshift kitchen. There’s a fuel cell he thinks she must have salvaged from the AT-AT wired to a solar panel that looks like it was scavenged from a tie fighter.
“What’s this?” he asks, pointing to the fuel cell.
“I was trying to make a generator. The desert gets kind of cold at night.” She gives it a little kick, “But I haven’t gotten it to give me enough power yet. I was going to see if I could use the metal ball as a conductor,” she says with an apologetic look in his direction.
Din raises his eyebrows under the helmet as he looks from the makeshift generator to the welded hatches on the opposite side of the ship’s body. Smart kid, he thinks.
He plucks Grogu out of the bag and sets him on the floor where he immediately and gleefully becomes fixated on a pile of odds and ends scraps. Din lets his gaze move over the rest of the little home, the handmade doll resting in the hammock, the satchel of tools by the door, the netting hanging above them, and he wonders how long she’s been here to build all this. Then, as his eyes move to the back of the AT-AT he realizes, with a slightly wrenching feeling in his chest, that his question is answered. There’s a series of tally marks etched onto the far wall. Din doesn’t have to count them all to know those individual strokes add up to something that’s at least two years, maybe more.
“They’re coming back,” Rey says in a small voice behind him. He turns around to see her watching him look at the tally marks. “My family.”
Din lets out a quiet breath. He doesn’t even know where to begin. He doesn’t even really know what he’s doing or how he can help her. But there’s a hurt little girl standing in front of him, and though she’s as tough and as capable as any kid he’s ever met, Rey said it best herself. Sometimes the ones who are hardest on the outside are the softest on the inside.
He settles himself down onto the ground so that he’s more at her level, even if it means his knees are cramped uncomfortably in front of him. “What do you remember about your family?”
She’s very quiet for a minute before whispering, “I don’t think I remember anything.”
She rests her chin in her hands, her forehead creased thoughtfully, and there’s a sharp grief in her eyes that Din is all too well acquainted with. It’s not much to go on. It’s nothing to go on. But he’d been able to track down targets for the Guild before with nearly nothing. And he didn’t have Cara’s access to the New Republic databases before.
“You don’t happen to know your family name do you?”
“No,” she says in an even smaller voice, “it’s just Rey.”
Right. Okay. Well, he’s already searching the Galaxy for Grogu’s Jedi without anything to go on. What’s one more wild bantha chase. And yet, Din can’t help but wonder if this whole thing is even a good idea. The kid doesn’t remember anything about her family, and if he’s to take Plutt’s word as the truth, then her parents really did intend to leave her here.
“Rey,” he begins carefully, “I have a friend in the New Republic. We might be able to search through the birth records for the last few years and try to track down your family. But you need to be prepared to-” He cuts himself off. What’s he going to say to her? That there’s only a slim chance that a family from a backwater planet in the outer rim would even be on record? That even if they are, her best hope is that her parents are dead, not that they meant to leave her?
But he doesn’t have to finish his sentence because Rey stands up and looks at the tally marks on the wall behind him, resolve in her expression and all the tenacity in the Galaxy in her eyes. “I just-” she looks back at Din, her voice wavering slightly, “I just need to know.”
Din had spent a lifetime trying to outrun his past, and at least he’d known that his parents had died loving him. He understands then, that the kid’s not going to find closure, that she’s not going to be able to leave this barren planet behind until she knows the truth, or at least does everything in her power to find it, whether the truth is merciful or not.
“I’ll do my best to find them,” he promises.
She stares at him and he can’t make out the expression on her face. “Why are you helping me?” she asks, and there’s no suspicion in her voice, only a bewildered sort of wonder. “I stole from your ship. You don’t even know me.”
This is the way, Din thinks automatically, but he knows the response will mean nothing to the girl. And there’s a small part of him, growing louder the more that he talks to the kid, that wonders how much is really observance to the creed, and how much is because of something else, the same something else that had led him to return for Grogu.
He’s about to reply when Grogu, who’d found his way across the room to the kitchen, suddenly knocks over the pile of neatly stacked metal dishware. There’s a clanging racket as the bowls hit the floor of the AT-AT one by one. Grogu makes a little noise and gives the two of them a very caught, very guilty look, as his ears flatten ruefully.
Din picks him up, making sure none of the metal hit the kid on the head. “Hey, what did I tell you about behaving in other people’s homes?” he chastises.
“That’s okay,” Rey says, her lips twisting up into a little smile, “I never had people in here before. I don’t mind.”
Din’s eyes move back to the tally marks on the wall. He thought his life had been lonely before Grogu came along, but he’d never been as completely alone as Rey. He hadn’t always gotten along with the tribe but he’d had them.
For a time, he’d had them. Gone now, like everyone else.
He moves to stand up. “I have to get going. I’ll return to let you know, either way, about your family.”
A heartbroken look crosses her face as he stands, and for a second he instinctively almost moves to sit back down. Instead he stays standing and asks, “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Din doesn’t reply. He’s found that if given enough time, people tend to provide more information.
Rey puts her chin back in her hands, and looks away from Din. After a minute she mutters, “There was nothing for a long time. And then you came and there was something. But now there’s going to be nothing again.”
A year ago Din might not have had a clue of what the kid was trying to say. But he looks down to Grogu in his arms, who perks up under Din’s gaze. Din knows what it was like to have nothing, and then for someone to come into his life and make it something.
He crouches down in front of Rey, trying to avoid knocking anything over in the tiny space. She lifts her head from her hands and looks at him, and her eyes are almost pleading. “You could always come with me to look into your family’s records if you wanted,” he says lightly, “get off this rock. ”
Her eyes widen and for a moment she looks like she’s ready to burst with joy, but it dims in a second, her face turning solemn again as she bows her head and looks away from Din. “I can’t. I need to stay here.”
Din looks at her unhappy expression, perplexed. She doesn’t want to stay, but she doesn’t want to leave either? “Do you like being a scavenger, Rey?” he asks, as gingerly as he’s capable of.
She frowns at him, her brows creased at the seeming change in subject. “As opposed to what?”
Good question. He eyes the pilot helmet with the Rebel Alliance insignia on it sitting on the table, remembers the little doll resting in her hammock that’s wearing a flight suit. “You could be my copilot.”
“Isn’t he your copilot?” She gives a little nod to Grogu in Din’s arms.
“He’s too young to be a copilot.”
“How old is he?”
“He’s fifty, look,” Din continues, as she makes a face at him, “I just wanted to give you the option, if you did want to leave Jakku, even for a while. I could bring you back whenever you wanted.”
Rey bites her lip, her leg bouncing restlessly in her chair. She opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again. Finally she gives Din a distressed look and says, “I do, more than anything. But what if my family comes back for me when I’m gone? I need to stay here just in case.”
Din almost laughs, it was an easier problem than he thought. “I can take care of that.”
“Hey,” he says, stepping up to Plutt’s counter, who gives a little jump as he turns around and sees Din, “Rey is coming with me. If her family comes back, or if they send word, you contact the New Republic immediately and tell them to relay the message to Cara Dune, Marshal of Nevarro. She’ll know where to find me.”
Plutt sputters indignantly for a minute before slamming his hands down on the counter and bellowing, “Why would I do that, you’re taking away my best scavenger! I should have you killed where you stand.”
Din glances over across the outpost where the two hooded humanoid figures are standing watching the altercation, their hands twitching slightly towards the blaster pistols in their waist belt. He leans very slowly towards Plutt, who recoils reflexively away from him before seeming to get a hold on himself and straightening up, giving Din a very perturbed look.
“If I find out you heard from her family and didn’t make any attempts to contact me, your body will be the only thing being scavenged.”
He sees Plutt shudder before giving a small dismissive wave to the hooded figures who lower their hands away from their blasters in response. “Mandalorians,” he mutters. “Fine, fine take her. The girl’s more trouble than she’s worth anyway, always getting into fights with the teedos-”
Din can still hear Plutt muttering to himself as he walks off.
He meets Rey back at the Razor Crest. She’s holding a small satchel and has her stick slung over her arm. She seems to really like that thing, maybe he’ll show her how to use the Beskar staff, she’d probably like that.
Or maybe he shouldn’t be teaching kids how to use weapons. He’s really not sure.
“You ready to go?” he asks her, and she nods at him, bouncing excitedly on her feet.
They make their way up the boarding ramp and Rey takes a moment to look back out to the Outpost in the distance. “How did you get Plutt to do what you wanted?” she asks, a small frown on her face.
“I threatened to kill him. Or worse.”
Her face lights up with glee and Din shakes his head, “You’re a strange kid. You’re lucky I’m already used to those.” Grogu coos at him.
When they enter the main hold, Rey immediately runs over to the weapons locker. She stands in front of it for a second, then pulls something out of her bag and holds her hand up to the locker door. Din’s about to warn her to be careful, when he suddenly realizes she’s screwed the missing bolt back into place. He watches as she steps back to admire her work and then looks around the ship, beaming. “This is one of the biggest pieces of junk I’ve ever seen and I love it more than I’ve ever loved anything.”
He’s not sure whether that warrants a thanks or not so he doesn’t reply as he helps her up the ladder into the cockpit. When he climbs up himself, he sees Rey looking at the control panel with wide, excited eyes. “Where are we going?” she asks, spinning around to face him. “Did you know I’ve never been farther than the Carbon Ridge to the north of the Outpost?”
“Neverro.” Din sets Grogu down in one of the passenger seats and gestures for Rey to take the other one. She sits down, swinging her legs excitedly as Din takes his own seat. “If there’s information on your family, Cara Dune will be able to find it.” He starts up the engine and takes a look back at the two passenger seats. Rey is grinning from ear to ear as the Crest jolts upwards and Grogu, seeming to catch onto her excitement, begins babbling happily.
Din sighs and shakes his head, and if he’s hiding a smile under the helmet, well, no one needs to know.
When they’re far enough away from the planet that it’s a small speck against the dark sky, Rey jumps up and presses her face against the window.
“Hey,” Din says, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, “in your seat, the outer rim can get a little rough, and I don’t know what the jump to hyperspace is going to be like without a new motivator.”
She ignores him, and continues staring out the window. “It’s just like I imagined,” she whispers, her quiet voice full of awe.
He turns sideways in his chair and looks out the window she’s pressed up against, trying to see what she’s looking at. “What is?”
“The stars.” She grabs her bag from where it’s stowed under the passenger seat and pulls out the little pilot doll, holding it up to the window next to her.
In that moment Din knows he’s made the right choice. He watches the way she points out the different stars and planets to the doll, watches her set the doll down and reach over to pick up Grogu, rambling excitedly to him about everything she’s seeing as he makes cheerful, uncomprehending noises in response. He knows he never really stood a chance, that he was lost from the moment he learned her parents left her on this scrapheap of a planet.
He was only a Mandalorian after all.
She sets Grogu back down in his seat, making sure he’s all strapped in, before hopping back into her own, her eyes bright. Din laughs quietly to himself before turning back around and preparing to make the jump into hyperspace. He really hopes the Crest pulls through for him this time.
Suddenly the little metal ball flies out of the carrying bag on the floor and across Din’s face, before Grogu catches it in his hand with a satisfied babble. Din quickly turns around to look at Rey, who’s staring at Grogu with wide eyes, eyes that are getting wider by the second. Her mouth drops open a fraction of an inch and Din quickly says, “Don’t worry, that’s just a thing he does sometimes.” He reaches over and takes the ball from Grogu, he doesn’t want to frighten the girl when she’s just come to trust him. Grogu gives him a reproachful look, his face sinking in disappointment.
He moves to screw the ball back onto the handle when suddenly it flies out of his hand again. He turns around, about to chastise the kid, when he suddenly realizes the ball’s not in Grogu’s hand.
It’s in Rey’s.
He gapes at her and she giggles, passing the metal ball back over to Grogu who takes it with a gleeful coo. “Me too,” she says with a wide smile.
Oh no, Din thinks with an internal groan, Oh no-