On the Light and the Dark ...

[twelve_not_fourteen]

“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. 

Comments

[forcefullyunstable]

Kylo clenched his fists, breathing through the pain.

"Darth Vader was ruined by sentimentality. Skywalker destroyed a great man with his mind tricks. I will... I will not be seduced by the light..."

It sounded too close to an empty promise for his own comfort. He was here, on board his father's ship, wasn't he? With the old man and the Resistance supporters still alive? Unforgivable. The Supreme Leader was more of a father figure than Han Solo ever was. And like a child, Kylo Ren could expect to be punished for his weakness.

"Take your hands off of me! That's enough!!" He stumbled back, actively scraping bacta from his skin. "Don't... Don't make me do something I... you'd regret!"

Even his threat seemed hollow.

It was pretty plain to see, Han Solo - your son was being torn apart.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

When he thinks about what Kylo Ren has done - the villages he smashed through looking for god knows what, the role he played in the activation and use of yet another superweapon that turned a whole system into dust, the lives he snuffed out like they meant nothing ...

He just can't fathom it.

How could that be his Ben? The kid that fit so well into his arms that he never wanted to let him go. There were days like that, Ben Solo, they were just so long ago you probably can't remember them. Your father never has. It just makes these days that much more heart wrenching for him.

"This isn't what you want." He says quietly. At first, it seems so typical of him. A knee-jerk response coming from the old scoundrel. He's always been the guy that, when you hear him arguing with you, you wonder if he took the other side just to be a contrarian. Like he's arguing with you just for the sake of it.

And maybe, he did feel that way when he said it at first, but the more he thinks about it, the more it seems so painfully obvious ...

"You don't need to do this. You don't have to struggle to fight for them, it ain't your cause." Han says that with faith because he believes it to be true. And then he adds, "Maybe your Uncle's isn't either."

[forcefullyunstable]

"What I want is far less important than what I have. And what I have is power!"

That, in and of itself, was his lot in life. The Supreme Leader coveted the energy that flowed through his veins. He was a means to an end. But the doctrine of stability and progress that the First Order preached actually meant something to Ben. It still meant something to Kylo. It was a place to belong.

"My loyalty is to the First Order. To the Supreme Leader... I... I won't go back to..." He began to argue, but his voice trailed off when Han said something he truly didn't expect.

Light side or dark side. Skywalker or Snoke. There were only two options! To live one was to be seduced by the other!

"...wh..what?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Responsibility, duty, honor - those traits were always so very ingrained in Leia, but did they have to be in Ben? Especially if it means seeing him suffer and then use that same suffering to lash out at other people. He'd sooner see him become a moisture farmer on some desert planet or grinding out his days in a manufacturing plant on an industrial mecca. Fishing on an ocean world. Anything. It was all better than this.

It never occurred to him that in trying to point him the right way, he and Leia had robbed him of his free will. No doubt the elder Solo would have been furious and bitter himself if, into his thirties, he still felt like everyone else was the master of his destiny. If someday he should want to run back into the fray, no doubt there would still be battles to fight in their war-torn home, then let it be his choice to do that too.

The way this old man had ultimately choose it for himself.

"Be the man you want to be, Ben." He says. "Forget about what anyone thinks you should do. Your mom and I included."

[forcefullyunstable]

Kylo Ren would never admit it, but there were times when, deep in solitary meditation when his mind (as far as he could tell) was entirely his own, he dreamed about what life might have been like if he were born without the Force. If he could have been part of the agricorps, a merchant, a trader. After encountering Rey, he even wondered what it might have been like to be a scavenger.

But those simply weren't options.

Snoke was courting his mind since he was old enough to cry about the monsters under his bed. They were never the bed, though. They were inside his head. Traveling with Luke would make it all go away, they told him. They never wanted you anyway, Snoke replied. In a way, slaughtering the other Jedi was comforting. They had a way out that he never did. They didn't have to live with being torn apart.

"The Supreme Leader says that killing you will stop the pain I feel..." He admitted softly. The fact that he was saying it instead of doing it meant he had his doubts.

Had Han tried to take him prisoner, to make him return to the Resistance or to Luke Skywalker, it would have been so easy to focus on his rage and strike the man down. But instead, he just... he treated him like a person instead of a tool to be wielded, clay to be sculpted or a prize to be won.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"I ..." had a bad feeling. When he stepped on that bridge, he felt it in bones something was going to go sideways. The fact that Ben might try to kill him had crossed his mind as an outcome. It didn't keep him away. You can say what you want about Captain Solo, but you gotta admit the man has guts.

Han backtracks and says, "I'm not surprised he would say something like that." That's what the dark side does, right? "If I thought it would actually help, I'd hand you the saber myself."

It shouldn't be a complete surprise that Han treats his son just like he would any other person he would meet in a hanger or a backwater dive somewhere. He doesn't know exactly how one is supposed to be fatherly, after all. In some moments, it's the perfect approach, and in other's ... it would be sorely lacking.

"I understand if you want to be alone." No doubt the kid has plenty to think about. He looked all but stunned when Han suggested there could be a life for him outside of being either Snoke or Skywalker's apprentice. "I'll do anything I can to help you, though. I want you to know that."

[forcefullyunstable]

Kylo was stunned enough to reveal his mission to the enemy. And at the moment, he didn't actually want to carry it out. Should the Supreme Leader learn of this, he'd be reprimanded severely. In the eyes of the First Order, he was dancing the fine line between treason and making a pathetic excuse of espionage.

Could he really do it? Have a life where he served no master? Could he run from the First Order, the Resistance and what was left of the Republic? Was there anywhere he could possibly go?

"And if I wanted to take this ship... and never come back? To... to anyone?" He dared ask aloud.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han cocks his head to the side and regards his son in a way that he hasn't ever before - then again, as fractured as things between father and son have been, it's not as if Ben had ever suggested he could take The Millenium Falcon away from Han Solo. It's easy to picture him in a dingy hive of crooks somewhere with the look on his face and the words 'over my dead body' seem to be right on the tip of his tongue.

But ... he's not in his twenties anymore and truth be told, there's nothing that Captain Solo could really do to stop him, if that was his son's intention.

"I'm not letting anyone take this ship from me again." He murmurs, in his own time. Funny how so much of his stuff was still exactly in the same place despite the ship having changed hands twice at least. It's like they hadn't found at least half of the compartments that Han knew about.

"Besides, you couldn't handle this ship. That ain't a knock on you though, kid, there aren't many people who could."

[forcefullyunstable]

Kylo Ren considered those words for an uncomfortable amount of time. Han could clearly see the wheels turning in his son's mind, but not the direction they'd roll.

"The others will leave peacefully, sworn to silence. or die by my hand. You... You will stay."

He wasn't taking the ship away from Han. Nor was he going to kill him. It was almost as if he was... No, he really was... Kylo Ren was defecting from the First Order. Han succeeded in exactly what Leia had asked him to do.

Then, Kylo added a final condition.

"...if you contact General Organa, tell her that I died in the explosion."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

The flash of bravado or confidence, whatever it was, that Han felt burning in him like the plasma of a star was gone the moment Kylo Ren brought up General Organa. From their son's point of view that seems like a win for the Resistance. It does take one of the First Order's most powerful figures out of their equation - so in that respect, perhaps it is - but that wasn't what Leia asked him to do. She had said "bring him home."

Home was not flying off to who knew where. Bringing him back was not telling his wife their son was dead when he wasn't. It feels like a hollow victory, at best, to the elder Solo.

If he even could even do such a thing convincingly. His ability to pull off a con, once there wasn't someone around to hold him hold him accountable for his failures, was always hit and miss. And lying to Leia he was never especially good at. He has no idea how to even begin to approach that.

"What about Chewie?"

[forcefullyunstable]

Of course, Leia would have felt the death of her son, even that many star systems away. So lying would be difficult, if not impossible. At best, he might be presumed dead or otherwise still missing, but Kylo clearly wanted something far more finite.

At least he wasn't asking for the real thing.

When Han spoke about the Wookie, Kylo Ren lowered his gaze to the floor. He despised the General and all that she stood for. His father was a disappointment that he needed to eliminate. But his memories of Chewie weren't nearly as tainted. Perhaps the Supreme Leader left those untouched as a point of comparison to all the actual people in his life.

"...I think Chewie held me more than you ever did."

He didn't outright say he could stay, but the sentiment was somehow there.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

The General will go on.

In spite of whatever heartbreak she feels in seeing through her scoundrel's lies, she will fight for what she thinks is right and live up to the duties she feels are her's to bear. Sometimes Han loves that about Leia. Sometimes Han can't stand that about Leia. At this point, though, he's known her long enough to know that's just who she is.

"He's the best person I've never known." Han says flatly. It's the only answer that comes to mind that isn't argumentative. He knows his impulse to argue is not likely to earn him any favors with his son, though in this instance, he very much wants to stand up for himself a bit more ...

"Do you want to let me finish this?" He says, gesturing to the medkit still open and in fact, Han still has gauze in his hand. "Or I can leave it and you can clean up how you like."

[forcefullyunstable]

He looked at Han, and then back down at the gauze. He clenched his fists and then let his hands fall at his side. It had been so long since he'd been asked to decide his own fate (if ever), he didn't know what to do. His expression said that loud and clear.

Eventually, Kylo nodded, raising his arms again so Han could bandage his wounds.

"...will you show me what it's like..." He asked hesitantly. "to be your own master?"

To smuggle contraband, to swindle and profit, to escape by the skin of your teeth. To fly fast, live large and be good enough to not die young. It seemed a fitting place to start - a son wanting to be like his father, but not knowing how to ask.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

It was admittedly very short-sighted of them - Han, Leia and to a lesser degree, Luke - to have spent so much energy trying to prepare him for his destiny that they forgot to prepare him for life. The elder Solo didn't grasp that before, but it seemed pretty clear now.

"I'll teach you whatever you want to learn, kid."

Hell, he's always wanted to do that anyway, except Han's not all that sure what he's asking for. Logically he's aware there's plenty of things he's picked up over the years that he could show the young man, but emotionally, the value of the lessons that an old spacer could impart upon a force sensitive still don't seem that important to him.

What a glorious indoctrination of his son into how a scoundrel lives, though - with cold, smelly bacta rubbed into his wounds. He tries not to smirk too much at the thought of it.

[forcefullyunstable]

Kylo Ren wasn't sure what he was asking for either. But there had to be something there - something beyond what Luke or Snoke had been grooming him for. And if there wasn't, he at least had free passage to pretty much any backwater star system where he could hide away and slowly be forgotten by both sides of this damn war.

"Do you have a... a job lined up?" he wasn't sure what terminology to use. "Somewhere to go after we've rid ourselves of the scavenger and the traitor? Somewhere that is not a Resistance stronghold."

Icon props.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han makes a face at his son's mention of a job.

Of course, Captain Solo and his partner had a good thing going with their shipping operation up until the time that they had decided to take up that dangerous job for King Prana. As much as he'd like to have blamed Rey and Finn for their unscheduled appearance on the Eravana, hauling those Rathtars had gone to hell long before they had showed up. Most of the crew on the ship had died just trying to wrangle them.

That was going to make lining up the next job that much more difficult. Besides that, he owed a few next of kin some messages about the fate of their family members.

"The last one went bad." Understatement of the decade, probably. "There's a few loose ends I'm going to have to tie up, besides wanting to see if the Eravana is still where we left it. It's in the Jakku system."

Ty

[forcefullyunstable]

"Describe loose ends." He huffed, hissing as his father tightened the bandages. The bacta, or at least what he'd let Han apply, was working. He hardly felt the pain from at least half of the gashes.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Bacta is a wonderful thing. A shame the Captain that Han had grown up serving was so stingy with it. It's expensive to buy, after all.

At any rate, one thing Han's son may or may not have noticed is the sureness of his hands. They have no right to be so nimble at his age and yet, they are. They are also rough as all get out. Even with gauze and bandages between any direct touching, it is very clear that Solo's hands were hardened by his life.

"We missed the drop. The cargo is likely dead. Lost five crew members." He pauses, was that it or was he forgetting something ... "And by now there's probably a bounty on me again."

Hell of a time to decide to throw in with Captain Solo, kid.

[forcefullyunstable]

Still a better time than facing the Supreme Leader after the destruction of Starkiller Base and what is, for all intents and purposes, a willful defection.

Kylo was hardened, but in an entirely different way. It was his mind that was roughest around the edges. He was a dark side adept, after all. Should bounty hunters come, he didn't even have to touch them to make them wish they'd never been born.

"I'm all for leaving the scavenger and the trigger-happy wayward stormtrooper to rot in the deserts of Jakku, but I'm guessing you have other plans." If it wasn't a neutral location, he would protest. The less time he had to spend anywhere near Resistance-controlled outposts, the better.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"I want to leave them with the Resistance." Not even necessarily the base on D'Qar, but one of their known substations at least. In his mind, perhaps, he pictures Rey and Finn ultimately leaving in a small vessel of some kind to find Luke. Whatever the case, father and son are of the same mind that the two of them don't belong on The Falcon right now.

"And I'm sure your mother is going to expect me to check in somehow. I suppose that could be in the form of a message."

As big as the galaxy is, it's unrealistic to expect that Han Solo and Leia Organa are not going to cross paths again. In spite of all the ways they make a something of a dysfunctional couple, the two of them are now and always, drawn to each other.

[forcefullyunstable]

He glared daggers at Han. If there was a hidden compartment on the Falcon he could squeeze himself in while they were departing and his father was going about his business he would.

"It this turns out to be a trick, I will show you why you should fear the power of the dark side." He growled. "If they speak..."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Try to stop yourself from being angry long enough to think this through." He says with a tired look in his eyes. "Leia sent myself, Chewbacca and Finn to the Starkiller base. Without someone she trusts telling her we didn't make it, if not a single one of us checked in afterward ... she'd know something was up."

Chances are, even if someone she trusts did tell them they didn't make it and she didn't feel it, that wouldn't fool her either ...

"We can drop you off on Kashyyyk for a few days if you don't want to be around for that. Chewie's family would put you up. I'm sure he'd even stay with you if that's what you wanted."

[forcefullyunstable]

Asking Kylo Ren not to be angry was like asking the twin suns of Tatooine not to shine. He wasn't happy with any of the situations, really. He's trying to trust Han, but he's nearly at his limits of that.

"How do I know you're not just trying to get rid of me all over again?!"

Kylo was on edge. If there were stormtroopers nearby, they'd be turning around to go the other way. He was unpredictable when he was angry, save for being predictably violent.

"I'll stay in the cargo hold. If you stay too long, pull anything funny, this ship is mine and I'm the one leaving YOU behind!"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

You can't be mad at the kid for feeling that way. He has to stop and tell himself. It's an oversimplification and it borders on being a little unfair, but the accusation stings because there's just enough truth in it to be hurtful. His son is so angry ...

It's probably going to be like this for a while too, so, might as well get used to weathering the storm. The hope is for an eventual change, of course, but nothing like that ever happens quickly.

"Sure, you stay in the hold. It's a good plan."

It's a terrible plan - if the plan is to go back to the main base on D'Qar, but it's what Kylo Ren wants so that tips the scales back toward 'good', Solo figures. It isn't as if Han has control here. He's just playing the cards that he's been dealt.

"I don't think we should drop them at D'qar." He says after a moment of thought. "What if we left them on Kaal? I think there's an outpost there and it puts us about a day or so out from Jakku."

[forcefullyunstable]

Whether Han realized it or not, his son was bred to be angry, groomed toward the darkness from the very beginning. And he was bitter about a great many things.

"Fine!"

He was also downright terrible at planning.

Intimidation, he was better at, and proceeded to march up to the cockpit to tell the others their fate. If they made no mention of his existence, he would let them live. Otherwise, they could rest assured that he would come back and hunt them all down.

It was a strange deal, one Rey and Finn assumed was a bargain made with Han. Kylo Ren insisted they take it.