Chapter Text
Approximately four years later
“What do you think you’re doing?” Din demanded amusedly from somewhere far away and Sari blinked awake, staring at the white ceiling above their bed as her half-asleep brain struggled to catch up to what she was hearing. “Raya Djarin, did you steal your mother’s helmet?”
“No, buir,” Raya giggled, her voice sounding strangely muffled and modulated.
“No?” The three-year-old let out a high-pitched squeal of laughter suddenly and Sari suspected Din had dug his fingers into her sides just underneath her ribcage; she had inherited Sari’s ticklish spots, much to their mutual dismay and Din’s absolute delight. “How did it get on your head, then?”
“It fell?” Raya tried innocently once she had managed to get her laughter under control.
“You know you’re not supposed to wear either of our helmets, kid, they’re too big for you,” Din sighed, but Sari could hear the fond smile in his voice even from the other room; their daughter must have looked very adorable in Sari’s helmet if Din couldn’t even keep a straight face while scolding her. “You’ll get your own when you’re of age.”
“But my ori’vod doesn’t have a helmet,” Raya pointed out worriedly. “What if I don’t get one, either?”
“Grogu doesn’t have a helmet because he’s training to be a Jedi, not a Mandalorian,” Din reminded her. “But if he changes his mind someday, he can get a helmet, too, just like you will when you’re old enough to swear to the Creed.”
“We’d have to make his helmet big enough to fit his ears,” Raya mused and Sari had to bite the inside of her cheek to stifle a snort of laughter at the thought.
“Don’t make fun of your brother, he can’t help the ears he was born with,” Din chastised before thinking better of it. “But yes, we would. Now come on, let’s get this off your head before your mom wakes up.”
“I’m already awake, Din,” Sari called out, pushing herself upright and pressing a hand instinctively to brace the four-month-old swell of her stomach as she leaned against the headboard of the bed. “Bring our girl over.”
“Hi, Mama!” Raya greeted her cheerfully from the cradle of Din’s arms as he carried her into their bedroom from the adjacent room she slept in. She wore Sari’s beskar helmet - mostly silver like Din’s, but with additional stripes of solid indigo paint to match the color of the lightsaber currently sitting on the nightstand beside the bed - on her little head, which wobbled dangerously with how oversized it was.
“I have to admit, kiddo, it’s a good look on you,” Sari teased.
“Yeah?” Raya perked up delightedly as Din deposited her on the bed beside Sari. “Do I look pretty like you?” She signed the word for “pretty” as she spoke - a circular motion of her hand around the darkened T-shaped visor.
“You always look pretty,” Sari dismissed, pulling her helmet off her daughter’s head to reveal the little girl’s bright smile - identical to her father’s, right down to the dimple in her right cheek - and vivid hazel eyes crinkled with laughter. “You don’t need my helmet for that.”
“Your mother’s right. You’re already mesh’la, just like her.” Din pressed a kiss to Raya’s forehead once it was exposed.
“What’s ‘mesh’la’ mean?” she asked curiously.
“Don’t ask your buir that, he’ll tell you it means ‘loth-cat,’” Sari deadpanned as she set her helmet next to her lightsaber on the nightstand and Din narrowed his eyes at her.
“That was one time.”
“Sure, but then you let me go on believing it for months,” she reminded him dryly, taking a little vindictive pleasure in watching a flush rise on his cheeks with embarrassment. “It means ‘beautiful,’” she added to Raya, who was watching her parents’ exchange with wide eyes. “Which is exactly what you are, with or without my helmet.” She ruffled Raya’s dark brown curls, earning a shy, pleased smile from the toddler even as she squirmed out of reach.
“I wanna feel my vod’ika kick,” she demanded, just as she had every morning since Sari had first felt the baby begin moving around a few weeks earlier.
“Give him time to wake up. We can’t all be awake with the sun like you,” she joked, poking Raya’s side to make her giggle again.
“Still convinced it’s a boy?” Din raised an eyebrow at Sari, catching her use of the specific pronoun. “You know the scans will only be able to tell what the baby will be sometime next week, don’t you?”
“I was right from the start about Raya being a girl,” she pointed out.
“Is it a Force thing?” he sighed.
“If that’ll convince you I’m right, then sure.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Though I could always ask Luke or Grogu to confirm it when they arrive today.”
“Grogu and Uncle Luke are visiting today?” Raya bounced eagerly on the mattress beside Sari. “Are they gonna play with me?”
“Only if you behave, you little womp-rat.” Din hauled her back into his arms and Sari cracked a grin as she settled back against the headboard again to watch him tickle their daughter, earning another peal of laughter from her as she squirmed in his arms.
Immediately following the heartbreak of letting Grogu go with Luke to train at the Jedi temple a little less than four years earlier, Sari had worried that neither she nor Din would be able to open their hearts up to the idea of any other children in their lives, even though they had talked about it before. The idea of settling down on Mandalore to begin the arduous task of rebuilding the planet together with the help of the admittedly strained alliance they had made with Bo-Katan Kryze and her crew before they had left Moff Gideon’s light-cruiser behind hadn’t eased Sari’s fears, especially with what little she knew of the planet’s harsh, desolate climate and the Imperial remnants scattered around its surface.
Shortly after they had arrived on Sorgan after stopping by Yavin-4 to make sure Grogu was settling into his new home comfortably, though, the sudden, intense, and frequent bouts of nausea that had plagued Sari throughout their final mission to rescue Grogu from Moff Gideon’s clutches and in the aftermath had made themselves too obvious for her to ignore for long.
“This is the third day in a row you’ve turned down an orange,” Omera mused worriedly as Sari waved away the orange she had offered, grimacing at the thought of the fruit she normally adored. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”
“I’m her evil clone engineered by the Empire,” Sari deadpanned and Omera rolled her eyes, unimpressed by her arid humor. “I’m fine, really,” Sari added more sincerely. “I just don’t feel up to eating much these days.”
Omera squinted at her suspiciously. “Is this like when you conveniently waited to tell me you’d gotten married until after it had happened?”
“I already apologized for that, cut me some slack,” Sari sighed long-sufferingly.
Omera pursed her lips. “I know you can be impulsive sometimes, and I know a lot was going on at the time with Grogu getting taken by the Empire and all, but getting married on the spot like that is a lot for me to take in.”
“I know. Believe me, I know how it sounds.” Sari scrubbed a hand over her face wearily, swallowing back the rising bile in her throat for the fourth time that morning. “But Mando and I were talking about marriage months before we actually went ahead with it. We’ve known we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together for a while now. All we did now was just make it official.”
Omera’s expression softened slightly. “As long as you’re sure he’ll be good to you, then I’m happy for you, Sari. Truly.”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything. But thank you.” Sari nudged her shoulder affectionately against Omera’s.
“You haven’t seen a doctor anytime recently, have you?” Omera asked thoughtfully after a moment and Sari raised an eyebrow, bewildered.
“Why would I need to see a doctor?”
Omera bit the inside of her cheek, seemingly incredibly amused by something Sari couldn’t quite pinpoint. “Maybe you should consider it. You could use a routine check-up once in a while.”
The conversation had been enough to spur Sari to go to the neighboring town’s medcenter - one of the few on the planet - and get a few scans done shortly before they had finally taken off for Mandalore, which had been such a heated discussion in and of itself between her and Din that she had been glad she hadn’t mentioned her trip to the medcenter for fear of worrying him even further.
“We don’t have to go, Sari.”
“We agreed that we would meet Kryze and her crew there.”
“You didn’t agree to anything - you didn’t even say a word that day. I won’t force you into-”
“You’re not forcing me into anything if I’m the one offering.”
“Say the word and I’ll throw the Darksaber into a krill pond right now.”
“You know, very few things in life would give me greater joy than seeing the look on Kryze’s face the moment she finds out we threw the Darksaber into a krill pond on Sorgan and left it there, but I’d rather it not end up in the wrong hands somehow.”
“You didn’t sign up for being in charge of a whole planet when you married me.”
“No, but I did sign up for you. Whatever it entails, I’m all in with you. We should at least hold up our end of the deal and meet Kryze on Mandalore, as much as I don’t want to see her again. Whatever happens after that, we’ll take it one day at a time. Okay?”
“...okay.”
“Love you.”
In hindsight, once Sari had gotten her medical scan results back, it had all made sense. The constant nausea, the bone-deep exhaustion, and the overwhelming emotional turmoil she had been experiencing over the weeks since Grogu’s abduction by the Empire had been such obvious symptoms that she had been furious at herself for not piecing it together sooner.
She had begged Omera not to say anything to Din until she could think of the right time to tell him herself - she had already had a date in the near future in mind on which to break the news to him - and Omera had thankfully agreed before insisting that Sari keep her posted on her condition through regular comms. By the time the date Sari had decided on had rolled around, she and Din had been settled in a house in the capital city of Mandalore for approximately a week.
“What time is it?” Din mumbled, stirring out of the deep sleep he had been in when Sari rolled on top of him and began peppering kisses along the underside of his jaw gently.
“Past sunrise, so you’re not allowed to complain,” she informed him, brushing her lips against the junction between his jaw and his neck.
She didn’t add that she had been awake for the better part of two hours already, watching the dim navy night sky turn into crimson-gold daybreak through the window beside their bed anxiously while working up the courage to tell him what she had found out the previous week.
“Happy birthday, kar’ta’ner,” she added with a kiss to his pulse point, feeling it jump briefly beneath her lips.
“It’s my birthday?” His fingers began to trace circles absently into her back through the oversized shirt that she had stolen from him and worn to bed the previous night.
“Yep. It’s exactly four months after mine, you said so,” she reminded him and he paused thoughtfully.
“Oh.” He ducked his head against her shoulder abruptly and she felt him smile faintly into her skin. “You remembered.”
“‘Course I did.” She tilted her head in return and pressed a kiss to his collarbone. “So there are two parts to my present for you and the first is that I’ve been thinking lately.”
“Living dangerously these days, I see,” he deadpanned and she pinched his hip in retaliation, making him jolt slightly. “Hey, be nice to me, it’s my birthday,” he protested even as she felt his mouth curve into a smile against her shoulder.
“I was trying to, but then you decided to develop a sense of humor at my expense as usual,” she grumbled, but there was no heat behind it even as she kissed the crook of his neck. “I was thinking I want some armor of my own.”
Din paused again, his fingers stopping their ministrations against her spine. “Sari, you don’t have to,” he said carefully at last. “You’re not obligated to become a Mandalorian just because you married me.”
“The armor’s the only thing I’m missing from the Resol’nare,” she reminded him. “I figure there’s no reason for me not to if we’re staying on Mandalore for the foreseeable future. I probably might not wear a helmet as often as you do, but I still want this, Din. The fact that it means a lot to you is just more incentive for me.”
“I - okay.” He relaxed marginally beneath her. “As long as you’re sure, then we can visit the Armorer and get you fitted for your armor.”
So far, the Armorer had been the only Mandalorian from Din’s old covert on Nevarro to arrive and settle on Mandalore, and while Sari knew he still held out hope that more of them had survived, he had still been visibly relieved to see at least one familiar figure from his tribe.
“Well, we might have to wait to get my armor until next year on account of the second part of your present,” she added dryly even as her heart lodged itself firmly in her throat and began pounding a little faster in anticipation.
“Why the delay?” Din’s fingers began to draw lazy patterns against the small of Sari’s back again, his mouth trailing soft kisses along her bare shoulder where his shirt had slipped down.
“I mean, the baby is probably going to make wearing armor difficult for another seven months or so,” she blurted out before she could change her mind about telling him.
He froze beneath her, remaining that way for so agonizingly long that she began to wonder if she shouldn’t have said anything at all, before pulling back at last and pressing their foreheads together in a firm mirshmure’cya. His dark eyes were wide and stunned as they roamed over her face in search of proof that she had meant it, the raw hope in them enough to finally ease some of her nerves.
“You’re kidding,” he breathed. “This is another one of your terrible jokes, right?”
“Nope.” Sari shook her head, cracking a tentative smile. “I wouldn’t joke about this, Din, I promise.”
“You’re - really?” Instinctively, his gaze dipped down to her stomach warily, as if he could see if there was really a baby in there by squinting hard enough at it.
“Yeah. I found out just before we left Sorgan.” She shifted slightly to take hold of one of his hands, pulling it to her stomach and pressing it there even though there was nothing to feel just yet, and marveled at how delicately he brushed his fingers over her abdomen, as if he was already imagining how swollen it would be in a few months. “I’m almost two months along now - if I’m right, I probably conceived that day we went to Naboo.”
“Wait, does that mean you were pregnant when we stormed Moff Gideon’s light-cruiser?” he accused, his eyebrows knitting deeply together in concern. “Sari, you could’ve - the baby could’ve been-” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it, but she knew what he meant all the same, a sudden rush of guilt and fear over something she couldn’t have known to prevent flooding through her for a split moment.
“I know. If I’d suspected at the time, I would’ve stayed behind,” she promised, pressing several tender kisses to the furrow between his eyebrows until it smoothed out again. “But I already made sure the baby was okay when I went to the medcenter and all the scans came back clear. She’s a pretty tough kid - takes after you already.”
“‘She?’” To Sari’s immense relief, Din had begun to smile slowly at last. “Isn’t it too early to tell?”
“It’s just a feeling,” she defended herself, but couldn’t help but grin back. “Congratulations, sweetheart. You’re going to be a dad.”
“Happy birthday to me, indeed,” he deadpanned, but the sudden dampness at the corners of his eyes ruined his sarcasm as he hauled her into an eager kiss, his smile widening against her lips.
“Where did you go just now, riduur?” Sari was startled back to the present by Din’s lips pressing gently against her forehead as he set Raya down beside her again, settling on her other side before leaning down to kiss her stomach softly.
“Nowhere. Just thinking, that’s all.” She brushed her fingers through his hair absently before wincing slightly as their youngest child twisted abruptly within her womb, kicking out as hard as his little feet could muster and making contact with one of her internal organs. “Ow.”
“You okay?” Din looked up, alarmed.
“Yeah, but this kid is a hundred percent yours,” Sari informed him dryly. “He seems to like rearranging my insides.”
“Yeah?” Din relaxed again as he nudged his nose against her swollen belly affectionately. “Settle down in there, ad’ika. Don’t give your mom a hard time,” he murmured soothingly and Sari’s heart twisted in her chest when she felt the kicking lessen in intensity to the softest of flutters instead.
“He likes when you talk to him,” she told her husband. “Here.” She guided his hand to her stomach and watched his lips curve into a faint smile when he felt their son’s foot connect with his palm.
“I wanna feel, too,” Raya whined, bumping her forehead against Sari’s elbow to get her attention.
“Ask nicely,” Sari reminded her.
“Can I feel, please?” she amended obediently and Sari guided her hand over to where the baby’s foot was, marveling at the stark contrast between Din’s broad palm and Raya’s tiny one side by side.
“Be gentle,” he cautioned, but he didn’t need to; Raya’s fingers were light and careful as she slowly rubbed circles into Sari’s stomach.
“Hi, vod’ika,” she breathed reverently and Din’s free hand settled on her back as he smiled down at her, his dark eyes warm and fond.
Sari’s eyes stung sharply at the sight and she blinked quickly to try and dismiss the sensation before either of them could notice, but Raya’s sense of observation was as sharp and keen as her father’s, even as young as she was.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” She scrambled onto her knees hurriedly, patting at the stray tears on Sari’s cheeks in an attempt to wipe them away with her small hands, and Sari cracked a smile even as she tilted her head to kiss one of Raya’s palms tenderly. “Why are you sad?”
“I’m not,” she reassured her daughter quickly even as Din sat upright, his smile vanishing instantly as his hand stilled on her stomach.
“What is it, mesh’la?”
“It’s just hormones,” she insisted. “I’m fine, Din, really. You remember what I was like when I was carrying this one.” She ruffled Raya’s hair affectionately. “I cried at everything.”
“You also cried over an orange once even when you weren’t pregnant, so that’s not very convincing,” he mused and she extended one foot out to dig her toes into his hip in retaliation, making him jolt even as a smirk tugged at his lips at the memory.
“See if I ever let you do anything romantic for me again,” she grumbled goodnaturedly, wiping at her eyes before kissing Raya’s forehead when she noticed the child’s small eyebrows still knitted together with concern. “I’m okay, sunshine, really. I just love you and your dad a whole lot.”
“What about Grogu and my baby brother?” Raya asked shrewdly.
“Them, too,” Sari promised, reaching out with her free hand to catch Din’s fingers in her own and tugging him closer so that he could slide his arms around both of them properly. “We’re a clan of five now, and I love you all just the same.”
Mollified, Raya relaxed at last and nestled her head underneath Sari’s chin even as she curled up comfortably between her parents, her fingers fiddling absently with Din’s Mythosaur pendant that still hung around Sari’s neck.
Din huffed a wry chuckle against the top of Sari’s head suddenly. “A clan of five. Sometimes it feels like we became a clan of three just yesterday.”
“I think that just means you’re getting old, kar’ta’ner,” Sari teased back with a kiss to the hollow of his throat even as Raya wiggled back enough to narrow her eyes up at her mother.
“That’s not very nice, Mama. Buir can’t help being old,” she said heatedly and Sari snorted with laughter before she could quite suppress it in time.
“Thanks, kid,” Din said dryly. “I can always count on you for a rescue.”
“You’re welcome.” Raya beamed up at him sweetly, the sarcasm flying straight over her head, and Din’s smile softened as he leaned down to press a mirshmure’cya to her forehead tenderly. Raya’s eyes crinkled with delight as she leaned back up into the Keldabe kiss, her tiny hands clutching her father’s cheeks to hold him close, and Sari pressed a proper kiss into Raya’s hair before doing the same to the top of Din’s head.
In a few minutes, they would have to part so that the three of them could get ready for the day. Din would don his armor and helmet while Sari forwent her helmet for the day - it was just Luke and Grogu coming over, after all, not Bo-Katan and her Nite Owls - and Raya would find one of the long dresses she preferred wearing whenever Grogu came to visit because she loved how the fabric swished around her ankles when she and her adopted older brother ended up chasing each other on wobbly legs around the living room of their house.
In a few hours, Luke and Grogu would arrive, and Grogu would be thrilled to show Sari and Din everything he had been learning at the Jedi temple since the last time they had seen him only a few months earlier. Raya and Grogu would keep each other occupied with playing while Luke caught Sari and Din up on Grogu’s training progress and updated them on any ongoings with the new Jedi Order he was building. He had promised that the Jedi Order would be great allies during Mandalore’s reconstruction, something Sari knew the few Mandalorians who had returned to Mandalore still took issue with, but had grudgingly taken in stride when Bo-Katan had - just as grudgingly - reminded them that the adopted son of their Mand’alor was training to become a Jedi.
In a few months, Din and Sari’s youngest child would enter the universe and all four of them would likely take the Starsweeper to the Jedi temple on Yavin-4 for Grogu to meet his baby brother and then go to Sorgan so that Sari could visit her adoptive family and introduce them to the newest member of her clan. They would perhaps even stop by Nevarro on the way to meet with Cara Dune, Kal Soren, and Greef Karga, just for old times’ sake; Karga had been wrapped around Raya’s tiny finger from the moment he had met her as an infant and Sari knew her youngest son would be no different in winning the usually gruff magistrate over.
Over the next few years, they would continue to rebuild Mandalore back up to what it used to be with the reluctant help of Bo-Katan and the other Nite Owls along with the assistance of other planets such as Nevarro and Tatooine, the latter of which was now firmly under Boba Fett’s rule. He and Fennec Shand had been vital partners in their initial takeover of Mandalore, despite Boba’s lingering distaste for Bo-Katan.
Sari didn’t blame him; she and Bo-Katan had settled for a frosty alliance with each other over the years and Sari doubted it would get any better than that no matter how often Din tried to pacify her temper whenever Bo-Katan inevitably set it off with a snippy comment. To entertain herself, she had even sketched a charcoal rendition of the sour look on Bo-Katan’s face when she had first seen Din holding the Darksaber just to look at it once in a while and get a good laugh out of it, much to Din’s consternation when he had first discovered the looseleaf drawing tucked into the front cover of her sketchbook.
“Mesh’la, don’t you think you’re being a little petty?”
“I dare you to tell me that if I take off your helmet right now, I won’t see you smiling under there.”
“You won’t.”
“I can literally hear you smiling. Come on, it’s at least a little funny.”
“Sarika Djarin.”
“Pulling out the full names, are we, Din Djarin?”
“...”
“Okay, yeah, you accidentally winning the Darksaber in battle wasn’t exactly ideal for us, but you have to admit that the look on Kryze’s face that day was priceless.”
“...you should send a copy to Fett sometime.”
“Way ahead of you, honey. It’s framed on a wall in his palace already. I’m surprised you didn’t see it the last time we visited Tatooine.”
“You two are ridiculous.”
Someday, the last of the Imperial remnants would be wiped off Mandalore’s surface and more Mandalorians from across the galaxy - perhaps even some from Din’s old covert - would return to their home planet to settle down with their clans. Someday, Din would eventually have to take up the official title of Mand’alor that his ownership of the Darksaber granted him, as much as neither he nor Sari wanted to think about the implications of that just yet.
For now, though, their daughter was curled up happily between them. For now, their youngest child had settled down at last within the safety of Sari’s womb, likely sensing the unconditional love and warmth surrounding him. For now, Din was tilting his head back up towards Sari, his smile soft and tender and tempting her to kiss him so badly that she ended up leaning in to slot her mouth over his, her hand finding his cheek as her thumb swept delicately over the stubbled curve of his jaw.
The future could wait just a little longer.