twelve_not_fourteen | On the Light and the Dark ...

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On the Light and the Dark ...

“Ben --”

In a such a large structure with conditioners for the volume of systems and subsystems that run the Starkiller Base, it seems like there should have been more ambient noise then there was. Instead, the voice of his father cuts through the air like freshly sharpened vibroblade. It’s in the echo, however, that you can really hear the desperation.

“Han Solo, I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.” That voice, cold and mechanical with the face Han longed to see so badly hidden behind a helmet. The Millennium Falcon’s captain has to struggle to hold back the tears that seem to want to spill from his eyes.

How you could have been so close, as he stalked behind you and still you didn’t seem to feel him or acknowledge that he was there, the old pilot will always wonder. Han’s first footfall onto the durasteel catwalk not the usual confident step, but a shaky one. He has a bad feeling about what’s about to happen and yet, it’s a feeling he has to ignore for many reasons.

For, perhaps, the most important reasons that any man could ever hope to have.

Han sets his jaw and summons the same courage that allowed for him to skim a little too close to black holes and run hollering into crowded barracks full of Stormtroopers. It shouldn’t take that kind of bravery to face your own son, should it? He supposes not, and for a second or two while he approaches, he tries to pinpoint where it all went wrong. As if it was only one wrong choice that sent them through this hellish cascade and not a series of them made by multiple people.

“Take off that mask.” Han says, a bit of an edge in his voice again. “You don’t need it.”

“What do you think you’ll see if I do?” A pointed response, not quite as glib as the ones his father spouts off, but sort of philosophical. It reminds him of a Skywalker response.

“The face of my son.”

When Kylo Ren disengages the mechanisms that keep his helm in place, and he reveals himself, his father’s eyes seem to soften. The sad truth is that he can recognize you, but the light that he used to see in you - a brilliance that could have dwarfed any star that Han had ever seen, seems so far away.

“Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish like his father. So I destroyed him.”

“That’s what Snoke wants you to believe. When he gets what he wants, he’ll crush you.” Han pauses to look at his son, who seems to recoil at the words. “You know it’s true.”

“It’s too late.” Kylo protests, but he’s struggling with something and Han can see it in his eyes.

“No it’s not.” He says, doubling down on Leia’s insistence that their boy can still be saved, even though in the moment he’s not really sure. The Solo patriarch says it with all the hope in the galaxy though. “Leave here with me. Come home.”

Then, when it seemed like Han was so close to getting his son back, A blaster bolt flies past Han’s arm. It comes so close to hitting him that it singes the leather of his jacket and the smell of burning touches the air.

Han turns, snarling and withdraws his blaster. His hand speed still impressive for a non-force user and he fires three shots in the direction that the bolt seemed to come from. Then more blaster fire starts coming from all directions – from Chewie, Finn and Rey as well as the troopers of the first order who had filtered into the room.

At this point, the only sensible thing that Captain Solo can think to do is to sprint back toward his friends, snap off a few more shots and hope that his son had chosen to follow. He doesn’t hear the pounding of another set of feet behind him, though. The observation makes his heart sink.

Han turns to look back at his son, in the middle of the chaos, only to see the young man pulling the helmet on again.

What Han doesn’t see, in that moment, is the way a bolt threatening to hit him right in the back, changes mid trajectory and flies impotently into the emptiness below him. Did Ben Solo use the force to save his father? Did Kylo Ren only intervene because he still wanted to end his father’s life himself?

The Knight, clad all in black, ignites a scarlet saber that glows angrily amid the trickle of blaster fire in the air.

“Fall back.” He yells to Rey and Fin.

Chewie, doesn’t need orders from Han to know what he wants. The old partners know each other well enough that many things don’t need to be said. Get to the Falcon. Someone has to raise the ramp and ignite the engines.

Still, his Wookiee best friend will lay down some cover fire in the space between father and son, to give the senior member of this band of heroes some time to reconvene with Rey and Finn. Only then will Chewbacca hit the trigger for the detonators and sprint off to the ship. If Solo wants to be mad about that, his copilot thinks to himself, they can argue about it later.

Soon Finn, Rey and Han are scrambling though the snow and trying to lose their pursuers in the dark forest. Considering that he’s more than twice their age, Han thinks he’s doing a serviceable job of keeping up, but a look he’s catching in the female of their party’s eyes tells him someone is nearby.

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Well, as a Jedi Padawan and as a Knight of Ren, intoxicants were frowned upon. Dull the mind, dull one's connection to the Force. So, Ben Solo didn't have much in the way of preparation for chugging an unusually strong and hallucinogenic mixed drink on an empty stomach.

Scary thought, though, he kind of liked the sudden rush it gave. The nausea he could do without, though.

"Use the Force!" He slurred, as if that explained the existence of the non-existent sparkle.

Drinking is frowned upon by plenty of people, Force Sensitives and not. Although perhaps a little more concerning to the ones who can bend and shape the energy created by life itself. As it is, Han kinda figured Ben's life experience didn't particularly expose him to a lot of nights (or even days) spent in bars.

He just ... didn't think he'd come out of the gate the way he did.

"That's not how the force works." He says, making a face disconcerted expression at his kid. He can say that with a reasonable amount of certainty, even though he can't actually use the force at all.

Ben seemed to think about that for a moment. "You sure?"

He glanced at Han, and made an attempt to pull the glass out of his hand with his mind. Obviously, that didn't happen. But a couple of the bottles sitting on the bar shattered.

A couple people screamed, and Ben chuckled. "Awww, I was gonna get one of that next."

(There were good reasons, apparently, for Jedi to abstain from drinking too much.)

Han raises an eyebrow at his son. And there's no mistaking that it is the eyebrow of a dad who is being judgemental right now. That display was not only unnecessary, but kind of the opposite of keeping a low profile.

They're lucky that a lot of people still think The Force and people who can use it are modern day myths.

"Pretty sure." He says before taking a sip from his glass.

"What?" Ben just smiled. He was oblivious. "Come on. Let me have some of yours... mine's all gone."

Because mistakes one and two always led to mistake three.

The Wookie began to argue, but Ben just cut him off. "Shut up, fuzzball."

If looks could kill.

His son can say all the shit he wants to about what a terrible father he is or that he's a lousy person and frankly, he even deserves (a portion of) that criticism. Chewie hasn't earned any guff, though. He's spent almost forty years looking after Han and his family over one move that he made when the Captain's conscience had the better of him.

"Hey!" Han says, mood darkened. "Don't tell Chewie to shut up."

"I don't have to listen to this!" He slurred, standing up. Chewie had a hand on him, but Ben shoved it off. No, he couldn't walk in a straight line to save his life, but he damn sure wasn't going to stay here. And he was perfectly fine with pushing anyone who stepped in his way, or more accurately, anyone he stepped in the way of.

"Yeah, get out and stay out, kid." The bartender was already waving him off with a roll of the eyes.

A sure fire way to get Han Solo mad is to say something bad about Chewbacca in front of him.

The older Solo was less mad about the fact that the combative talking seemed to come from out of nowhere and far more annoyed that the kid would have gotten away with it. That Chewie would have simply let it go.

A young kid shooting his mouth off after having a little too much to drink. Not as if Han hadn't been that kid once. Years and years ago.

Han thumbs the rim of the glass for a moment considering what to do now. It's a shame that he doesn't feel like he can leave Ben alone to cool off, but the truth is that he doesn't trust his son to control himself. The fresh carbon scoring on the Millenium Falcon's cargo hold was proof enough that the kid had a temper.

Han pat's his best friend on the shoulder wordlessly and leaves the bar to look for Ben.

And Han probably shouldn't trust Ben to control himself. That would be foolish, given his volatile behavior.

It should come as little surprise, then, that Ben managed to get himself into a fight with someone in the back alley. It was impossible to know who said what, who looked at who wrong or who threw the first punch (probably Ben), but the two men were definitely going at it.

And unless someone put a stop to it, there was no telling when drunken Force use was going to come into play.

The sound of the scuffle draws his attention.

If Ben has any Solo in him, Han has to figure that his son is involved in a fight outside of a cantina. He's not at all surprised when he gets a little closer and sees a tall human dressed all in black involved. The youngest Solo's swings are loopy and wild, like you'd expect from a person who had drank a little too much.

Han, not in the mood for any of this, withdraws his blaster. He hits the trigger that sets the weapon to stun and drops Ben's opponent with a well-placed bolt.

"You haven't really spent a lot of time trying to keep a low profile, have you?"

And Ben, in turn, stumbled in confusion over the body as his next punch went absolutely nowhere. Landing flat on his ass, he looked up at Han with an expression that just screamed, 'Hey! I had this!'

But to the question, he just let out an odd laugh. "Nope."

If Luke had ever tried to teach that as a Jedi skill, it was long forgotten in the First Order. Kylo Ren's entire purpose was to be as visible a threat as possible. Sadly, that was something Ben still excelled at.

To be fair, you can't blame the kid for not connecting a punch when the opponent was dropped during the wind-up. Han, rarely interested in keeping the emotions off of his face unless he was sitting at a sabacc table, doesn't appear all that persuaded by his son's look.

Captain Solo takes a few steps toward his son and offers him a hand. He probably could stand on his own, but no sense in trying to find out that he might be wrong.

"That's something you probably should work on then, since most of the galaxy ain't all that fond of you."

"Yeah yeah..." He did take the hand, though he missed reaching for it the first time. He'd definitely had more than enough to drink. (Han was really going to have to help his son build up a tolerance for the stuff, or never let him touch it again. One of the two.)

He stumbled to his feet, and tried to at least put what could barely pass for a scarf around his face again. It kept falling just as much as he kept dropping it.

"So, you have that hook up, or whatever you were doing?"

"No."

Han says, a frown that he doesn't bother to hide spreads upon his face at the mention. It was optimistic to think that he'd be able to get a hold of Xaverri, truthfully. He hadn't heard from her in ... quite a long time. She could be dead for all he knows.

But sometimes you need to take those shots in the dark, because they were better than no shot at all.

"Listen, you should maybe lay down." He says knowing that his kid likely isn't going to want to take that advice. "In the morning we can figure out what kind of identity forging we can get done for you."

Unfortunately, Ben Solo had a lot of sobering up to do, in more ways than one. He reached for one of Han's outstretched hands (a non-existent one first), but eventually managed to grab it without swatting it away.

"Might as well..." he slurred about the second comment, definitely not the first. "Not like I ever figured out the first two."

Identities. Ben Solo? Kylo Ren? Was he either of them now, really and truly?

"Another round of that and I might not even remember the Force!"

It made sense for his son to change his name. Perhaps even his face depending upon how many people in the first order knew what he looked like. There were reconstructive surgeries, erasing scars, creating new ones, replacement parts ... all kinds of things that people can do in the name of trying to disappear in the underworld. The only limiting factor is money.

But it was going to hurt to know that his son probably wasn't going to be able to go by Solo anymore. There wasn't a lot of things he had given to his kid, but the name was ... perhaps the most valuable and significant thing that he ever could.

He reminds himself, though, that he hasn't really been Ben Solo for years.

"You'd be surprised how well you can get along without the Force." He says. "Was that your first drink ever?"

Only a few did, but the one he truly had to run from could sense him long before they'd ever see him. A new face and a new name couldn't fool the Supreme Leader, but at least it would give hm a fighting chance against the rest of the galaxy.

"Get along or get away?" He slurred, leaning into Han as they started to walk/ stumble back to the Falcon. On that last question, Ben just laughed, suddenly proud of himself for no discernible reason. "Yeah! I think I like it!!"

Which meant it should probably be his last.

Han himself had no idea what Snoke was actually capable of. Only heard Leia mention the name to him once, before he headed off to Starkiller base, but he just had the feeling that no ... changing a few of his son's more distinguishing features wasn't going to keep him safe from that man. Sentient. Being. Whatever he was ...

"Sometimes one. Sometimes the other." He says with an almost flippant shrug. "Depends on the day and how bad it's going."

There's an eyeroll at the kid's response to drinking that he probably won't see while walking seems like a huge challenge. "I don't think I fared too much better when I had my first drink, either."

Somewhere, in the back of a drunken mind, Ben wondered if the Supreme Leader could read his thoughts through the fog he was currently experiencing. Maybe there was a sliver of truth to what Han wasn't actually talking about.

Fortunately, he was a little too tipsy to properly put that thought into words, or even focus on it for too long.

"I'm doin' better?" he laughed. "Hey, thanks!"

The privacy of their own ship couldn't come fast enough.

Oh, he can't help but be annoyed by that response. He's not even all that sure why. It doesn't really matter that Han's first experience with alcohol had him acting even sloppier than Ben is right now, but there's a competitiveness in him that makes him want to defend himself ...

"Yeah, well, I was also half your age when I had my first."

Not as if Ben's father isn't known for trying to get the last word in. Though, when he married Leia ... he sort of knew that his days of getting in the last word were mostly over. Certainly at home, anyway.

The footfalls of both Solo's are still heading toward the Millenium Falcon. Since the bar they were lounging around in wasn't all that far from the ship ... it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to get there.

Fortunately, it also doesn't take a lot of convincing to get Ben aboard and into one of the bunks to sleep it off. The quiet may or may not do Han a lot of good, but at least there would be time to think, to plan, to weigh the various options.

When morning came, or rather, when the hangover finally abated, they had an appointment with some undesirable folk who specialized in forging new identities.

Ben had one thing going for him - the galaxy knew the mask of Kylo Ren. Even within the First Order, there were fewer than a handful of men who knew what he looked like and even fewer who knew his actual name. The more pressing matter was hiding Force sensitivity or at least masking his Force signature. Surely, there was someone in the underbelly who specialized in that kind of hiding, perhaps someone old enough to have lived through the Empire's purge and the perils of Order 66.

If they could achieve that, perhaps Ben Solo truly would be free.

There had to be people out there. People that had dealt with this particular problem before that could offer their advice on how to stay hidden from those who would seek them out. Certainly, Han would do anything and everything within reason to help his son be free from the darkness that seems drawn to him. They just aren't the kind of people he would associate with. Or perhaps they were right there all along, letting him believe that the force wasn't real. Either way, how would Han know if any of his contacts were hidden Jedi ...

Alternatively, and the only advice that the elder Solo could think to offer is ... don't use the force. Don't use it ever again. Surely the more you wielded it, the more clearly your enemies would see you. But that was the only answer that could make sense to someone like Han. And it may not even work, besides.

The third option and it's one that would never occur to Ben's father, would be to find a Holocron or even several of them. Han wouldn't know what they were, where to begin searching for them or even if he was looking right at one.

Such advice would be scoffed at. It was like asking someone with eyes to willingly close them and walk around in the dark. The Force was everything that Ben was, a sense with which he navigated the world. He couldn't just turn it off. He didn't want to turn it off.

Have it turned off, however... He couldn't bear to admit it out loud, but that might be necessary.

First things first - a new set of clothes and Ben didn't even recognize himself anymore. They carved variety of identities out, each with a different past on a different planet. Han was an expert at this. Ben just kept his head down, buried in the scarf he insisted upon getting.

Then, the more pressing matter. Together they framed the story in smuggling a Force-sensitive client through First Order space without attracting the attention of Kylo Ren. At first, they were laughed off, saying that no amount of credits were worth those kind of odds. Others haggled with Han for more protective measures for himself, such as a force suppression collar and poisons designed to incapacitate even a Jedi. It took every single ounce of restraint for Ben to hold his tongue. A purchase was made, mostly to avoid suspicion.

Aside from that it was dead end after dead end until an old friend of Han's stepped out of the shadows. A survivor from the assault on Takodana - Maz Kanata.

The scarf. The kid seems very attached to the idea of covering his face. What had happened in his son's life that had made him feel that he had to hide, he wondered. And then, he actually considered the question for a while and suddenly it seemed almost as if 'what hadn't happened to Ben Solo that made him want to hide his face' was the better question.

Some of this work that they were doing for the sake of his son he had to wonder if he ought to do for himself. After all, you can be a former rebel general, former starship racer and infamous smuggler and keep a low profile. But. For as many doors that closed for him, because of who he was, a number of them also opened.

And if he'd gone through the trouble of changing his face, well then ... he might have completely missed this little lady entirely.

"Huh." Han says simply upon seeing the alien again. "Good to see you made it off Takodana okay."

The female alien's expression is unreadable to Han. He can't tell if the woman is mad, frustrated or simply troubled, but perhaps it's all three. Then again, you don't get to live a life as long as Maz Kanata does without being resourceful.

Han adds, "I'm sorry about the castle."

There's a long silence while she looks at Han and then, over at his son. She seems to be lost in her thoughts for a while before she spit's out a few words in a language Captain Solo can't translate.

"No building is meant to stand forever." She then says in basic. "Trouble always seems to be in your wake, Han Solo."

Ben glanced down at the strange alien woman. The assault on Takodana was somewhat fresh on his mind. While he couldn't understand exactly what she said, it seemed to resonate with him and he could sense something about her that his father couldn't. Immediately, there were the seeds of distrust. He couldn't help that.

He also couldn't help that he was also a big part of that 'trouble.'

On the Light and the Dark ...

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